Vol. 4, No. 40
October 1, 2002

* ELECTION WATCH '02: Education is heating up in state and local elections, so this week CER will start bringing you highlights of education reform debates and issues that are making campaign season interesting. If you want to play a role in assessing the reform pedigree of those running for office near you, check out CER's Candidate Survey, a service provided to you to help separate the spin from the substance.

* New York: Incumbent Governor George Pataki and candidate Carl McCall have their dukes up over education, with McCall pledging to spend $8 billion on education if elected and Pataki questioning McCall's record when he served as New York City Board of Education president in the early '90s. The New York Times has been assessing the veracity of various campaign ads. The paper had this to say about a recent McCall attack on Pataki:

"The McCall campaign uses the test scores of middle-school students to justify its claim that 'half our kids' are not meeting basic standards. That is true, though that group showed improvement in math over the previous year, with scores rising eight percentage points. English scores were about the same as the previous year but showed a drop of four percentage points from four years ago. But other grades are doing better. Statewide, 61.5 percent of fourth graders, a grade educators consider a key barometer of literacy, met English-language standards, an increase of about 13 percentage points from four years ago."

* Florida: Incumbent Governor Jeb Bush is working hard to defend his record as candidate Bill McBride attempts to paint the A+ Accountability program and Bush's education record as bad for schools. Bush counters that his program has raised achievement. McBride, in contrast, defends the establishment. A nationally televised debate last week had McBride calling for widespread class size reduction and more money for teachers, while Bush stressed the important role of parents and touted the increasing standards he argues will help raise the bar for schools to improve. Update in CER Newswire October 8, 2002.

* Local California Battle: School board races usually get the least attention, but maybe that should change given what you are about to read. News of some serious foul play out in Vista, CA reached CER's ears, and it's enough to make the gubernatorial races look like a game of hopscotch. It seems that two of Vista's school board members that have been supportive of the Vista Literacy Academy Charter School (see CER Newswire September 3, 2002) have become a target of the local school employees (i.e. teachers) union. One of them is up for reelection, and the union aims to defeat him with one of their own. But rather than use honest campaign tactics, the school district, in concert with the union, has GIVEN TO CHILDREN IN EACH VISTA UNIFIED SCHOOL the union's propaganda to take home, violating commonly recognized campaign laws and taking advantage of children for the union's gain. CER has also obtained a copy of the "picketing" and phone call schedule where the union directs its members to call and picket the homes of their target board members at specified times. You can reach the Vista Teachers Association at vistata@aol.com or (760) 758-2690 if you'd like to offer your own views. For more on Vista's embattled history, check out CER Newswire March 6, 2001.

* CLASS SIZE: In California, the straightforward conclusion is that class size reduction is a failure. The fourth and final report from the CSR Research Consortium, commissioned by the state of California to analyze the effectiveness of its K-3 class size reduction program, states, simply, that:

...the most straightforward conclusion is K-3 CSR in California had, at best, a small positive effect on student achievement."

        Pretty sad considering that taxpayers have spent nearly $8 billion on the program.

        Despite this conclusion, for some reason the rest of the report seems to be dedicated to talking about how great class size reduction is. Given the growing evidence that class size reduction provides almost no academic gains at an astronomical cost, it's curious why many education groups are backing a ballot initiative in Florida that would mandate smaller classes. It is, though, an idea that makes some intuitive sense -- fewer kids per teacher would suggest each child would get more attention. This sounds good to parents who have little access to all the studies showing empty promise of class size reduction. Moreover, powerful teacher unions gain more power as they get more members. Class size reduction would require millions of new teachers, so unions have an interest is quashing the truth about it. Only overcoming these obstacles and getting the truth out will put an end to the class size reduction craze. For more check out CER's "Sizing Up What Matters: The Importance of Small Schools".

* CONTENT: The new battle in the curriculum wars will and should be fought on the content, or "substance," of the various language arts programs that guide their comprehension lessons. This is the latest conclusion of Dr. E.D. Hirsch, founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation and framer of its widely acclaimed programs now in use in over 1,000 schools. Hirsch, speaking at the annual conference of the Education Leaders Council in Denver on Saturday, argued that while the nation has improved its reading approaches by focusing on phonics, the learning gap is still wide, and will remain so until the considerable time spent on language arts includes comprehension exercises of substance and interesting content. With the considerable lack of interesting literature and classics in most textbooks, which favor lighter, less complicated and often benign reading materials, the language and learning gaps will not shrink. Hirsch offers compelling data analysis to support his findings. For more information on Core Knowledge, at http://www.coreknowledge.org.

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The CER Newswire may be redistributed in its entirety with proper attribution. The CER Newswire is published by The Center for Education Reform, the nation's leading authority on school reform. CER is dedicated to making schools better for America's children by improving educational access and excellence for all. CER works with parents, teachers and policymakers to advance meaningful education improvement initiatives.

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