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Wisconsin group 'dissing' the efficacy of school choice ain't no shill for unions

Au contraire, mes amis.

Steve Linder identifies the group responsible for the Milwaukee, Wisconsin school choice study I wrote about a couple of days ago as a right-wing think tank, fully supportive of the free market ideology of parental choice as a means of improving education.

That contradicts the claim in the first comment on the post that the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute is a shill for teacher's unions.

When I wrote the post, I assumed the WPRI  was what it claimed to be --a non-profit and non-partisan research group dedicated to providing the citizens of Wisconsin the information necessary for making informed decisions on public policy issues.  Their pro-school choice bias wasn't apparent until I read this editorial comment from one of the authors of the study.  The commentary was quite upfront about its support of school choice:

"So that there is no misunderstanding, WPRI is unhesitant in supporting school choice.  School choice is working and should be improved and expanded.  School choice is good for Milwaukee’s children."

That the study said otherwise seems not to have dissuaded WPRI from its core belief that

"No parent should be forced to send their child to a school that they find deficient. The days of educational indentured servitude are over and should never return." 

As I wrote in my post, I find that puzzling.  Nevertheless, it's refreshing that even  ardent proponents of school choice can admit failure when it stares them in the face.  One has to appreciate their honesty.

Perhaps the Portland School Board can learn a lesson from the Wisconsin think tank, and state plainly its support for school choice.  If not, the board should take action to reign in the transfer policy that, while it may save parents from "indentured servitude", has clearly done much damage to poor neighborhood schools.

Overturn the "hobby farm/strip mall" law --vote YES on M49!

During the recent nightmarish wildfires in Southern California, an official at a press conference said something that all Oregon voters should remember while they fill out their ballots, especially when they get to the most important initiative on the docket --Ballot Measure 49.

"Land use planning is a crucial element in preventing catastrophic wildfires."

That's paraphrased, of course, but the point remains that wildfires would not be "catastrophic" without the sprawl of housing into fire-dependent ecosystems.  The $1.5 billion "lost" to the wildfires was due primarily to the loss of 1500 hundred homes built in close proximity to native chapparal.   

Oregon's land use laws were designed to prevent the unplanned sprawl we associate with Southern California.  Measure 37 effectively gutted the regulations that prevent development from spilling over into Oregon's farm and forest lands.  Measure 49, while not a perfect remedy, restores some sanity to the planning process. 

Check out the list of donors to the Stop 49 campaign.  You won't find any family farmers or little old ladies among the big givers.  What you'll find, mainly, is Big Timber, looking to cash in on the chance to plop down huge developments throughout rural Oregon.  That's not what M37 promised the 61% of voters who favored the measure in 2004.

If you're still waffling on your vote, look at these maps of Measure 37 claims larger than 100 acres.  I don't think that's the future that most Oregonians envision for their state. 

Vote YES on Measure 49.

Activists! Don't forget to weigh in on new charters

While the conversations on school choice and the transfer policy continue here and over on Steve Rawley's blog, don't forget that you can make your presence felt and your opinions heard on four new charter school applications at the Portland School Board committee meetings and hearings coming up soon:

Committee meetings to review applications: (Willamette Room, BESC)

Nov. 2 10:30 -12:30am
Nov. 7  8:30 - 10:30 am

Hearings:  (Board auditorium, BESC)
Nov. 13 9:30-2:30 (break for lunch midway)
Nov. 16 9:30-2:30

Be there!  Or... (well, you know.)

Another nail in the coffin of school choice

No city in the country has embraced school choice as enthusiastically as Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Designed as a program to help low-income students, Milwaukee parents are not only allowed to choose among the district's public schools, they can even send their children to private schools with public vouchers to pay the tuition.   

So how's it all working out?  Not well at all, based on a study of student outcomes  measured by reading, math, and science tests.*  According to the study just published by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, Milwaukee Public Schools "continues to suffer from poor student performance."  Just like other large urban districts throughout the country. 

So what difference has parental school choice made for those struggling low income students?

None whatsoever.  Zip.  Nada.

More significantly, the study reports that two-thirds of Milwaukee parents do not participate in the school choice program at all, and of those that do, only 10% seek out schools for academic performance.  Given those numbers, the study concludes:

"Under the circumstances—with roughly 90 percent of parents either not choosing at all, or choosing but not applying particularly rigorous criteria—it seems unlikely that MPS schools are feeling the pressure of a genuine educational marketplace as a result of public school choice."

In other words, school choice does not foster the competition free market proponents have long touted as the only way to improve the American educational system. 

Haven't I been saying that since at least 2003?

The final conclusion of the study questions the assumptions underlying choice and parental involvement (which , the report says,  may be a distraction from the hard work of real school reform), particularly the assumption that there's a "sizeable core of good schools from which parents can choose."   There's not. 

Well no kidding!    Anyone who's watched the devolution of Portland's public schools over the past ten years into a two-tiered "haves vs. have nots" system would be able to tell you that.  You know how it works.  The well-heeled schools in the nicer parts of town get an influx of motivated students and the money for good programs (like music), while the remainder lose both good students and the funding that follows them.

The bottom line is that school choice neither makes schools better nor does it magically create more good schools.  Only "good" students can create "good" schools.

The astounding thing about the study is that the authors, despite evidence to the contrary, still feel compelled to praise choice as a wonderful innovation that just hasn't yet lived up to its promise of better education for all students.  The way I see it, choice may be wonderful for the Activistas of the world who are able to ensconce their children in what the neighborhood school activist Ruth Adkins was fond of calling "boutique schools",  but clearly not so wonderful for everyone else. 

Word comes from Michele Schultz that committees of the Portland School Board working on the district's transfer policy seem reluctant to alter it in any substantial manner.  Like the people in Milwaukee, they see "school choice... as a strength in PPS." Given that, I'd like to ask board members the question posed by Steve Rawley:

What problem is school choice and the transfer policy supposed to solve?

(* I know I've dismissed the use of test scores as inadequate measures of student learning and of school performance.  But it's the only measure we currently use, so we'll just have to go with it.)

Maybe Bush IS Hitler after all

It's a frightening thought, but the source of such speculation is the well-regarded journalist and author Naomi Wolf who makes a very convincing case that George W. Bush, like Hitler, like Stalin, like many despots in recent history, has taken the ten steps necessary to subvert our Constitutional democracy.

Alarm bells should have sounded long ago with the creation of the Department of "Homeland" Security, but two items in today's newspaper should make the threat to American democracy quite clear.

The first is the announcement of unprecedented "unilateral sanctions" against Iran planned by the Bush Administration.  Iran has become the latest external threat Bush has invoked to terrify citizens and politicians into accepting extreme measures like the Patriot Act, which was hastily passed into law after nine-eleven to protect the country against future attacks.      

The first step on the road to dictatorship, according to Wolf, is this:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

The second news item was the admission of Condoleezza Rice that "errors were made" in the case of Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen detained by the United States and then whisked off to Syria where he was held for a year and, by Arar's account, was tortured. 

The Canadian government subsequently apologized to Arar, declared he posed no threat, and paid him $10 million in compensation.  No such apology was offered to Arar by Rice, who is still barred from entering the United States.

The second phase of closing down a democracy is to

2. Create a gulag

which Wolf defines as a "prison system outside the rule of law... where torture takes place."  The secret prisons used in "extraordinary rendition" by the CIA are clearly the American equivalent of Siberia.

The other eight steps should be familiar to those who keep up with current events.  They include some of the more controversial and hotly debated initiatives of the Bush Administration, like  the creation of an "internal surveillance system" and "arbitrary detention and release."  And equating dissent with treason, or even espionage, the penalty for which is execution.

Unfortunately says Wolf, too many Americans are distracted by "internet shopping and American Idol" to appreciate the growing threat to our democratic institutions.   Rather  than Mussolini's march on Rome, the American path to fascism may be a slower process, more like a gradual erosion of "our experiment in democracy."

So here's a question:  Before our "President" leads us into another unprovoked, illegal and counter-productive war, before he succeeds in stripping American citizens of their civil liberties, and before he declares martial law, why doesn't the loyal opposition rise up and demand that he stop? 

Here's a suggestion:  Let's put impeachment back on the table before it's too late.
 

Time for local school activists to step up and say NO! to new charter schools

What with groups like the School Choice Working Group (a front for the libertarian and pro-charter school Cascade Policy Institute) banging the drums for unlimited school choice in Portland, here's your chance to let the Portland School Board know exactly how you feel about the proliferation of niche, quasi-private, union-busting charters in the district. 

The school board has scheduled two committee meetings and two hearings to consider the applications of four new charter  schools --Ivy Charter, New Harvest (sounds like a church, doesn't it?), Portland Web Academy, and Pioneer Technology. Mark these dates down:

Committee meetings to review applications: (Willamette Room, BESC)

Nov. 2 10:30 -12:30am
Nov. 7  8:30 - 10:30 am

Hearings:  (Board auditorium, BESC)
Nov. 13 9:30-2:30 (break for lunch midway)
Nov. 16 9:30-2:30

The public can only listen at the meetings (and gather good info), but you can spout off at the hearings. 

As you may know, I've long opposed charter schools.  I've written that they're a really bad idea, and that they're the first step toward the privatization of public schools.  And lots of other stuff as well.  So I'll try to show up at a couple of the sessions (depending on how I feel), but the school board needs to know that many many people in the community are opposed to the further charterization of the once proud district renowned for its quality neighborhood schools.

While you're at it, pop on over to this site for an interesting discussion of charter schools in Portland.    And add your point of view to the ongoing dialogue.

An end run by PPS around the fire code? So it seems

Off topic commenters on this post are hot under the collar about a potential circumvention of fire safety regulations by Portland's educational leaders as a way to alleviate overcrowding in elementary schools.  It all started with this snippet from blueteeth:

"We attended an LSAC meeting tonight where a PPS facilities manager announced that a new plan is being hatched to deal with overcrowding in some elementaries. The Mayor and Superintendent have been secretly negotiating a deal to alleviate overcrowding in some elementary schools by waiving current fire code restrictions to allow K-2 kids to move into big buildings that do not meet current fire code for kids that age. Word is its almost a done deal."

The city's fire code, as I understand it, stipulates that K-2 students must be housed on the first floor of  school buildings and that such buildings must have sprinkler systems throughout. 

The impromptu discussion of a possible end run around safety regs raises several issues that rankle many school activists, among them the hasty closure of several neighborhood schools, the subsequent consolidation of students into much larger K-8 schools, and the apparent penchant of the district to ignore the community's wishes in making those decisions. 

The fire code dilution, if true, may well be the last straw for many of them.

(Please limit your comments to the issues raised by this post.  Or about the new Super, if you must.  That's OK by me.)

Taxes and Iris DeMent

I came of age in the 60's, so it's been difficult for me to muster much enthusiasm for popular music written after the golden age of rock and roll ended abruptly in 1970 with the break-up of the Beatles.

I mean, who compares with Lennon and McCartney, Dylan, Brian Wilson, the Everly Brothers?  Or the King? 

There have been exceptions.  I love Thomas Lauderdale and his incomparable "little orchestra", Pink Martini, based right here in Portland.  And just a few years ago, while listening to A Prairie Home Companion,  I stumbled across another marvel of singing and songwriting --Iris DeMent.

The song I heard, sung as only Iris DeMent would sing it, was a Tom T. Hall tune about injustice and the "rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer" and "bathing my soul in the sun" before moving on.  I was instantly hooked  --by the voice, by the performance, by the message.  Shortly after, I downloaded a bunch of Iris DeMent songs, most her own creations, and I've been a fan --a real fan-- ever since.

Friday night I saw Iris perform live at the Aladdin Theater.  It's difficult to come up with the words to describe the experience.  Suffice it to say that I sat enthralled for nearly two hours while Iris accompanied herself first on grand piano (who knew?) and then on guitar.  Iris DeMent is a singular talent in the much over-hyped over-commercialized world of music.  No one else sings like she sings, or writes songs quite like hers, songs that combine delightful melodies with heartfelt lyrics and intricate phrasing.  Iris DeMent is authentic.  She touches an audience like no other performer I've heard. 

The crowd at the Aladdin seemed to agree.  The sold out house gave her two standing ovations, the first bringing her back for  two more songs including "Our Town", the song she claimed was the first one she wrote that she felt was good enough to sing in public.  (Here's a YouTube version of it with Emmylou Harris.)

What does Iris DeMent have to do with taxes?  Well, although most of her songs are introspective, she does project "progressive" sensibilities (as in the Tom T. Hall song above and on her album The Way I Should.)  She seems to identify with the little people* rather than the movers and shakers.  Were she a politician, I doubt that she would look too kindly on sales taxes or sin taxes or state sponsored gambling to fund programs to benefit the poor and the overlooked in American society.

Put it this way:  If I were running for President, I'd prefer Iris DeMent to Jon Bon Jovi as  my musical entourage.

(*Wasteland of the Free --3rd verse

We got CEO's making two hundred times the workers' pay
but they'll fight like hell against raising the minimum wage
and If you don't like it, mister, they'll ship your job
to some third-world country 'cross the sea
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free)

Cigarette taxes

While I'm on the subject of taxes, isn't the excise tax on cigarettes, the funding source for Measure 50, a sales tax?

I bring the issue up not because I oppose M50 --I don't-- or because I disapprove of taxing tobacco. Or booze, for that matter.  My concern is with how quickly Democrats seize on the convenience of sin taxes to fund laudable programs like health care while avoiding the more difficult issues of tax reform and tax fairness.  Cigarette taxes are, as the Oregonian wrote,

"...unfair and regressive, an easy mark for politicians unable to raise broad-based taxes."

Case in point: Governor Ted Kulongoski's  "cooling ardor" for tax reform.  The Guv points to "steadily growing revenue from income taxes and state gambling machines" as reason enough to back away from tax reform. 

Can he be serious?  Relying on state-sponsored gambling to fund state programs is more abhorrent to me than any of the other regressive proposals touted by cowardly Democratic legislators, like Kurt Schrader, who wants to stick the least able to pay with a 5% sales tax.

Make no mistake --the cigarette excise tax is not only a sales tax, it's clearly regressive.  Here's what founding father James Madison said when Congress first considered adopting a tax on tobacco:

"As to the subject before the House, it was proper to choose taxes the least unequal. Tobacco excise was a burden the most unequal. It fell upon the poor, upon the sailors, day-laborers, and other people of these classes, while the rich will often escape it... ."

Oregon's tax code is badly in need of reform.  The poorest Oregonians pay a greater percentage of their incomes in total taxes than do the wealthiest.  It's time that our so-called progressive leadership did something about that sorry state of affairs.

Back to Measure 50.  It should be passed.  I strongly urge a yes vote for children's health care.  And it's not entirely inappropriate for its funding come from a tax on a substance that poses such great health risks.  Nonetheless, I can't help but conclude that turning to tobacco smacks more of convenience and political cowardice than of strongly held progressive principals. 

Dems attack Novick --on taxes?

You expect Republicans to attack their Democratic opponents on the issue of taxes.  Lower taxes is what Republicans stand for.  It's part of the conservative credo --No New Taxes!  Ever.  Even to support a trillion dollar war. 

But Democrats attacking their primary opponents on taxes?  That's unheard of.  Or at least it was until  a Jeff Merkley for Senate blogsite --and that's what Beaver Boundary is-- suggested that Merkley's opponent, Steve Novick, was ill-suited to challenge Gordon Smith because he too openly advocated for fairer --and higher-- taxes.

It used to be that Democrats ran from the 'L' word.  Now they're running from the 'T' word --taxes. 

Novick supporter Colin Maloney hit back with a post entitled "In Defense of Taxes".  Loaded Orygun chimed in with a post asking if Merkley  was opposed to an increase in the capital gains tax.  But both posts were about tax fairness, not necessarily about increased revenue.

I'll go further, as I did in my first guest post for Blue Oregon challenging Ben Cannon (who was subsequently elected to the state legislature) for his reluctance to talk about raising adequate revenue for the programs --public schools, in this case-- he clearly supported as a "progressive Democrat":

It's high time a progressive candidate for political office talked openly about the need for higher taxes.  So I say, Bravo Steve Novick!

The truth is, we live in a relatively low tax country, lower (and more regressive) now than it was 60 years ago.   Look at the history of the federal income tax, the fairest and most progressive source of tax revenue.   Under Republican President Eisenhower, the top marginal rate was 91%.  Now, thanks to the supply side "voodoo" of Ronald Reagan and his ideological successor, George W. Bush, the top rate is 35%.  Moreover, with cuts to the capital gains tax and the demise of the "death tax", the tax code is heavily skewed to favor wealthy Americans.

I for one won't be bullied  by the anti-tax crowd when I know that other industrialized countries, by investing heavily in the public sector, are able to provide

• universal health care, 
• cheap --in some cases free-- access to higher education,
• and a higher standard of living than America's.
  

The way I see it, there is only one way to fund progressive social programs without raising taxes.  We can slice up the expenditure pie differently to allocate more money for, say, health care and education.  We can  reduce the amount we spend on defense, in other words.  The problem is that the only Democratic Presidential candidate to propose such a reallocation of existing resources is Dennis Kucinich (and maybe Mike Gravel, but he's even more marginalized than Kucinich.)

The reality is that even diverting defense money wouldn't be enough to fully fund the programs that progressives favor.  We need our elected representatives to step up and argue for both a fairer and a more bountiful tax code.  After all, America is the richest country on earth.  I argue that more of this country's enormous wealth should be invested in the place where it will do the the greatest good for the greatest number of people --the public sector. 

That's what real progressives believe.  And that's why I'll vote for Steve Novick for the U.S. Senate.