Dynamic Range

Referendum 1 Results in House District 27

Here's the results from Referendum 1 in legislative district 27:

Alpine: passed with 52.1% (2,340 total votes cast)
Highland: passed with 52.7% (3,265 total votes cast)
American Fork (3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12): failed with 59.2% (3,184 total votes cast)
Draper (Utah County): failed with 51.6% (186 total votes cast)
Lehi (18): passed with 64.6% (243 total votes cast)

Referendum 1 passed overwhelmingly in some precincts, failed overwhelmingly in others, and was a coin toss in still other precincts within district 27 (AF12 passed with 53.5% despite failing in the other AF precincts).  Definitely interesting results.  What does it all mean?  Perhaps it means that Republicans were more likely to support Referendum 1 than Democrats.  It might mean that parents with students in public schools supported Referendum 1 more than voters without daily interaction with the schools (and rosy recollections of a bygone era).  At first glance, family income didn't appear to be much of a factor.  Were those that have experienced some form of school choice more likely to support another form of school choice?  Sometimes it's too bad that we can't allow comments with the ballots.   Surveys just don't generate as much response.  (About 4 years ago I sent out a survey and only received 4 or 5 back.)

What should we do as a result? Should we allow each city to option of implementing their own program?  Should those in SLC tell those in Alpine that they cannot have a voucher program.  Of course, I consider vouchers a single piece of a much larger educational puzzle.

Here's the Utah County precinct data: Referendum1_by_Precinct.pdf
(Note: absentee and provisional ballots have not been counted yet ).

Happy number crunching!

Winds of Change

The winds of change are blowing.  Kim Burningham announced that he will give up the chairmanship of the State Board of Education.  Perhaps we will now have someone heading the state board that is willing to talk with the "gathering" called the legislature.  It's always hard to collaborate when one party won't come to the table, especially when that party has the constitutional duty over the general control and supervision of the public education system .  Hopefully this will bring a less partisan, more civil lawmaking process to Utah.  I can only hope the new chair will have a focus on achieving educational excellence, rather than preserving the status quo that rewards educational mediocrity, leaving too many students behind within an increasing competitive, globally integrated world.

See also:

DNews: Burningham will give up school board chairmanship
SL Trib:  Utah State Board of Education boss stepping down

Payback? Only Those Resistant To Improvement.

The SL Trib, in their attempts to continue to stir controversy wrote: After decisive victory, voucher foes now fear retaliation from legislators.  Of course, any proposed change by voucher supporters will be viewed retribution by voucher opponents.  But change is necessary, and if that is retaliation, then so be it.

The message I received over and over, from parent and teacher alike, was that public education was in need of significant reform.  Not a single one of my constituents told me to preserve the status quo.  The common themes were concerns about unqualified teachers in the classroom, the inability of our schools to meet the learning needs of all students, and the need to meet the competitive challenges of the changing economy.

Vik Arnold, who handles government relations for the UEA, said educators are ready to see meaningful reform. ... Arnold said. "We hope this can be a year we all focus on reforms we know work - reforms such as lowering class size and increasing teacher quality."  (SL Trib)

Of course reform to Vik is more teachers and more money for teachers.  He avoids discussions about academic achievement, pay for performance, and market-based compensation.  He ignores the situation where reducing class size results in either no change or lower student performance.  What is the point of more teachers and smaller classes if academic achievement isn't significantly raised for each and every child in this state?

If vouchers aren't the answer to public school reform, what do you propose?  Here's a few of my thoughts:

1. If you are an excellent teacher, help champion merit pay initiatives so we can reward you for your excellence.  Send recommendations for structuring a fair and beneficial approach.  If you are an ineffective teacher, get competent or get out of the classroom.  Stop harming our students and wasting taxpayer money, leaving your co-workers and the parents to pick up the slack by doing your work.  Parents and teachers have told me they are tired of ineffective teacher just being protected by the system and the union.  I keep hearing from teachers and administrators that 10-15% of teachers should not be in the classroom.  That is a truly frightening statistic about the state of teacher quality within public education.
   
   Last weekend a public school teacher recommended that all raises (compensation increases) should be merit based.  If your students didn't make sufficient gains then you shouldn't receive a raise (Note: it was a gain score-based structure, aka value-added approach, rather than a flat proficiency model).  I thought it sounded like a great proposal.
2. If you are a parent that thinks school is your free personal babysitter on which you can dump your problems day in and day out, it's time for change.  Education need to shift toward competency, rather than seattime.  You will need to be a part of that.  Also, we will need to assess your participation in your child's education.  I am open to recommendations from teachers and parents.
3. The system needs to adapt to the learning speed of the student, rather than the other way around.  Students should be allowed to move faster, as their interest and ability dictates, rather than be held back by a rigid bureaucracy.
4. Technology-assisted instruction is an important tool to help the teacher better assist with student learning.  This is not having students playing around with PowerPoint and GarageBand on fun, but meaningless projects.  This is instructional tools to guide and assist with math, reading, and other key curriculum.  We have to stop using the techniques of the past 50 years and adopt new and emerging tools that can customize and improve student learning.
5. We need to do a better job of benchmarking our processes and achievements against other states and countries.  Our goal should be the "best of the best."
6. Expand opportunities for students learning and teacher instruction with extended day and year-round school options.

Other thoughts?  Since there are always opportunities for improvement, how would you improve student achievement within existing budgets?  What would you do differently?

 

Were You Informed? Did You Read The Bill?

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
    -- Thomas Jefferson

There were many valid reason to support and oppose Referendum 1.  My question is:  Did you read the bill (HB148/HB174)?  If the answer is no, then note the quote above.  When the decision is placed on your hands, your duty is to be informed.  Listening to outrageous commercials (from either side) is insufficient and likely counterproductive. Attending debates and reading the voter pamphlet can be helpful.  But if you didn't read the bill (and voted), you shirked your duty.

I am grateful for the constituents (voucher supporters and opponents alike) who I saw with copies of the legislation, whether printed off of the Internet or published in the newspaper.  They were truly trying to make a difficult, but informed decision.  I was also shocked at how few citizens actually read the legislation (I would guess fewer than 10% actually read the bill).  Legislators are castigate (justifiably so) for voting for a bill that they hadn't read.

What was the cause of the impairment?  Any insights would be appreciated.  Some have told me it was lack of time, lack of interest, being unfamiliar with where to find the information, distracted by the media wars, etc.

Top 10 Reason to Oppose Referendum #1

10. Test scores for unaccountable private schools with uncertified teachers might stop outscoring government-run schools.

9. Parents might be able to pay for a worse education than they can get for free.

8. Less regulation would unfortunately improve teacher moral and job satisfaction.

7. More schools competing for teachers would increase the pay of the best, most coveted teachers.

6. Empowering parents would strengthen families and reduce the role of paternalistic government.

5. More money per student doesn't actually improve educational achievement.

4. Preserving the status quo reduces the need to expend energy making improvements, protecting the environment and avoiding global warming.

3. Raising academic standards might leave Utah with just a third world birth rate and not  the corresponding third world education.

2. 6 months didn't give enough time for HB148 to make Oprah's Book Club

1. It's just better to have legislators run the public education system, instead of parents.

Alternative #1: Referendums are fun!  Let's do it again next year!

Constituent Letter

Dear Neighbor,

This November you will have the opportunity to cast your vote to set the future course of education in Utah. In your hands will rest the power to determine whether parents or the government should determine what is best for Utah’s students. As your elected officials we urge you to support greater education freedom with the Parent Choice in Education scholarships.  These vouchers provide another tool for parents to secure the best education for each and every child in Utah.  We believe that is good education policy.

Strengthening families is good public policy. The Declaration of Independence states that there are self-evident truths. We believe one such truth is that the family is the fundamental unit of society.  Governments, community organizations, and private entities may come and go, but strengthening the family should to be at the core of all we do. Strong families result in a strong society.  Weakening families weakens society. Laws that strengthen families are good public policy.

Parents are responsible for their children’s education. Another second self-evident truth is that parents have the primary responsibility, and will ultimately be held accountable, for their children’s education. Taking that responsibility from parents weakens the family.

Schools should assist the parents, not replace them. It is entirely possible today for parents to be completely uninvolved with their children’s education. Our schools now feed, tend, and transport children, detracking from their educational mission.  This encourages greater parental irresponsibility.  Simultaneously, caring and involved parents are often rebuffed when attempting to participate in the education of their children. Consider what may happen when a parent raises concern about some aspect of the education system, such as the curriculum or a student’s academic achievement. Far too often parents raising legitimate concerns are dismissed or ignored. Out of frustration, many parents have simply stopped participating, yielding to the bureaucracy.

Parents must be empowered with genuine choice in their children’s education. The answer is simple: Empower parents with genuine decision making authority and the corresponding resources. Parents must have a real choice, and the final say, over who teaches their children and what their children are taught.

Vouchers empower parents. We believe that vouchers empower parents and strengthen Utah’s families.  As a society, we must recognize the right, and associated responsibility, of parents to direct their children’s education.  Vouchers will increase the educational opportunities for Utah’s families, allowing parents to select the educational opportunities that best meet the needs of each and every one of their children.

Sincerely,

Rep. Brad Daw
Rep. John Dougall

UEA Opposes Education Improvement

From my perspective, the UEA opposes improving academic achievement.  I know many wonder how this could be.  Remember, the top priority of the union is to preserve the union.  All else is secondary.  Most organizations and individuals will work with legislator, even when there is a disagreement.  They understand the importance of helping educate legislators on their particular issues and recognize that they will be working together on other issues in the future.  Unfortunately, the UEA takes the approach that if you are not with them 100% of the time, then you are against them.  A highly polarizing approach.

Also, it appears that the UEA goes out of its way to not educate legislators.  Trying to reach out to the newly elected UEA presidents, Kim Campbell, I sent the following email on September 9, 2006:

Kim,

I was wondering if you would share with me your top 5-10 recommendations for improving the effectiveness of public education (both short-term and long-term) as well as how those recommendations would ulitmately improve the learning experience.  I appreciate your insights.

Thanks,

-John D.

I received no response.  Over the following 6 months I followed up repeatedly with both Ms Campbell and others employed full-time with the UEA.  Still no response.  The non-verbal message received:  We are unwilling to talk about ways to improve public education.  To talk about improvement would require an openness to admit that some things can be done better.  It would require a discussion about change and the UEA opposes change.  The union's ralling cry has been "Students Deserve More," as in more of the same, rather that "Students Deserve A Better Learning Experience" or "Students Deserve The Best Qualified Teacher in the Classroom" or "Students Deserve High Academic Achievement."  The UEA opposes giving teachers greater choice in their compensation.  The UEA opposes giving parents greater choice in education.  The UEA opposes rewarding excellent teachers and dimissing the continually ineffective teachers (as well as giving the increased pay to those excellent teachers that ultimately have to make up for those lost learning opportunity).  It even opposes steps to ensure reading literacy by the 3rd grade.

I'm glad that most of my local Alpine Education Association (AEA) leaders aren't cut from the same cloth.  They are always prompt to return calls and emails, willing to dialogue while providing feedback and recommendations, even when we disagree on issues.

Averages Don't Matter

What is the average tuition for private school?  One report shows it at $8,000, another closer to $4,000, while others place it somewhere between those endpoints.  How do we know the actual average?  It doesn't matter!

The simple fact is the only number that matters to the parent and student is the actual tuition that the desired school charges.  If a parent decides to send her child to a private school that charges $3,200, the fact that another private school charges $14,000 has no bearing.

It's the same concept with tax reform.  Despite the fact that 90% of taxpayers receive a tax cut is meaningless if you happen to be a taxpayer who experiences a tax increase.

So don't worry about the average cost of private school tuition.  Leave motivated parents free to individually select those schools that will best help their students and also fit within their personal budget.

Who Works For Whom?

Neal McCluskey, of the Cato Institute, asks a great question that underlies the whole school choice debate:

Who really works for whom? Do public school teachers work for the public, or does the public really work—and pay taxes—for the teachers?  (Cato-at-Liberty: In Utah, You Work for the UEA)

Halloween Scare

'Twas the night of halloween when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even the cat, the turtle, the lizard, nor Mickey Mouse;

The campaign signs were staked in the lawn with care,

In hopes that the election soon would be here;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of educational choice danced in their heads;

And Sandy in her nightgown, and I in my cap,

Had just settled down for a fall evening nap,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I ran kinda fast,

Tore open the curtains and yanked up the blinds ('cause we don't have a sash).

The moon on the expanse of freshly cut grass

Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects that'd make one gasp,

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a hideous creature -- your absolute worst nightmare,

With a little old chairman, so lively and slick,

I knew in a moment I'd probably be sick

...And then the creature spoke:

Children of Utah, creatures of the state.  Do not trust your parents.  Choice, freedom, and agency are false human emotions.  We don't need no stinking choices!

Do not "Think Different."  Individuality is contrary to the collective.  It will be crushed.  Your education, or lack thereof, will be determined by  majority will.

Your future is controlled by the collective.  Resistance is futile.  You will be assimilated!

Then I heard him exclaim, ere he strode out of sight,

"All-hallows eve to all, and to all a good fright."

  -- Special thanks to Star Trek, Apple, Disney, Clement Clarke Moore for his classic poem "The Night Before Christmas and of course Chair Burningham.