Global Strategies

Protesting "dumbing down" in West Linn - Wilsonville

About thirty West Linn – Wilsonville School District parents protested before the June 29^th school board meeting at West Linn High School over the suspension of the one year old Spanish immersion program. A few also spoke briefly to the school board. I was there briefly.

These parents are making the good fight for quality education programs for their children, and for immersion foreign language programs to prepare more of our next generations for the global economy and national security environment of the 21^st century. I’ve previously posted my thoughts on the shameful action of the school board in my post “Dumbing down the curriculum in West Linn – Wilsonville’ (here).  I can’t add much to that post as to the narrow visioned stupidity of the school board action. From talking to these parents, I now have a much strong sense of just how much they believe they were lied to by their school district staff and others. They believe the decision to suspend the Spanish immersion program was based on faulty and misleading data.

In an opinion column “Spanish immersion not presented fairly” by Amy Murphy published in the West Linn Tidings, some of the faulty and misleading data is specifically explained (here):

The board will tell you it was due to costs and the $3.1 million loss of revenue from the Option Levy shortfall.  They stated that the district is going to have to cut 30 staff positions and implied that the Spanish classes were they primary reason this was so. At the meeting on June 7, deputy Superintendent Jane Stickney claimed that SI classes cost over $300,000 in their first year.  After SI parents cried foul and asked for proof of the costs, Stickney and Superintendent Roger Woehl backpedaled and claimed Stickney’s figures may have been too high.  Woehl sent out e-mails to all primary school parents stating he would explain the budget process, detail why SI came to the board for consideration, and answer questions about the SI program. If you go to Woehl’s website page to find information on these items you will find the words “coming soon.”  The information was never posted.  Why did Woehl fail to provide answers to these questions before the board meeting on the 16th? Was he afraid to show how little SI costs? Was he afraid for the public to know how the budget process works?

 At the meeting on June 16, Woehl presented a slide with what he claimed to be the “true” costs of SI as $192,860.  What he didn’t explain was that $182,000 for an instructional coordinator, teacher, and staff development are costs accrued regardless of whether the class is taught in Spanish or English. This leaves $10,000 in program development costs, and $25,426 in materials costs – half of which were paid for in the 2009/10 budget.  Left is $22,713 in actual start-up costs.  This is .00035 percent of the district’s $64 million budget, and accounts for .007 percent of the Levy shortfall.  SI parents worked quickly to form a 503(c) organization and received pledges over $47,000 to cover the startup costs.  Additionally, administrators from local schools who provide SI classes supplied data indicating that SI classes are cost-neutral; SI costs the same as classes taught in English.  Did the board really vote to suspend the SI classes over such a small amount of money?

I hope the West Linn – Wilsonville School Board continues the Spanish immersion program. It’s the right action to take for all our futures.

Gov K's Reset K-12 Proposal: "that a statewide public virtual option be established"

Governor Kulongoski and his “Reset Cabinet” have made an educational proposal to expand online education. Here’s the wording from the portion of their report on “Virtual Education.”

The third recommendation involves the creation of and support for a statewide public virtual learning system. The use of online or virtual learning has come of age in recent years. Today's technology has made it possible to provide educational opportunities to even remote areas of the country. Florida has over ten years of experience with providing a statewide virtual system. Based on interviews (FLORIDA VIRTUAL SCHOOL 2010), the highest demand areas are in credit recovery and dual credit classes, where students earn both high school graduation and college credit. The average student is not enrolled full‐time in a virtual program, but takes one or two classes per semester. 

In 2008, the Association of Educational Service Agencies conducted a survey of online education needs. The survey indicated that the greatest needs are in the areas of secondary math and science. Small and rural districts, find it especially difficult to hire all the highly qualified teachers necessary for these academic areas. The survey also showed a strong demand for online courses that provide college credits that are transferable to all state institutions. Oregon could provide dual credit classes aligned with the Oregon Transfer Module (OTM) and the Associates of Arts Oregon Transfer (AAOT), as well as Career Technical Education classes in the community colleges.

The cost of providing these online options has been calculated to be 70‐80% of the cost in a traditional bricks‐and‐mortar setting (REPORT TO STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION, FALL 2009). If this analysis is correct, it indicates the potential to expand educational opportunity for the state's students and allow more resources to go back into the classroom.

The committee recommends that a statewide public virtual option be established to direct that all public dollars going to support students taking online classes go to a public online delivery system. State certified teachers, supervised by school officials, could provide the classes. The costs of providing the system are projected to be 80% or less of the state’s allocated Average Daily Attendance Weighted (ADMw). School districts might be more open to allowing students to participate if the local school district has the authority to determine where the student will attend and there is full budgetary transparency for the program, as there is in school district budgets. 

The legislature should continue its support for the Oregon Virtual School District (OVSD) and work with the State Board of Education to establish clear statutes and administrative rules governing virtual education options. The Quality Education Commission should be asked to include a public virtual component to the QEM.

Currently, rules regarding virtual options are mixed into the state charter school law. This has led to confusion, and concerns with oversight, authority and quality. The committee supports separating the rules for the two issues and the development of a robust public virtual delivery system.

Comments:

First, this is the first public mentioning, that I’m aware of, by any Oregon Governor or his/her staff of the potential educational costs saving from shifting to more online education in K-12. That’s good. That’s progress. That’s significant.

Second, where were advocates of this proposal last week during the Board of Education meeting. The Board decided to limit the online ed proposal they are developing to the approximately 1% of Oregon students in full time online ed rather than create a more comprehensive statewide online ed system to include the other 99% who may want to take just a course of two. (For more on this see my blog post “Board of Education: Forgetting 99% of Oregon Students” (here).

Third, providing courses at 80% of the “state’s allocated Average Daily Attendance Weighted may not be cost competitive. The “state’s allocated Average Daily Attendance Weighted” is about $6,200 per student. Calculating roughly, using 6-7 classes per day in high school, a year long, two semester costs about $1,000 per student. The Salem-Keizer School District, through its S-K Online, offers a wide variety of high school courses to students outside its district for $265 per 0.5 credit, or $530 per full year class. That’s only 53% of the “state’s allocated Average Daily Attendance Weighted,” or $270 per student per full year course less than the 80% proposed.

Fourth, what is proposed sounds a lot like the proposal developed by James Sager (a Reset Cabinet member) several months ago. I still agree with my initial assessment when this proposal surfaced before the Board of Education (here).

Most online educational programs are quite fine and appropriate without the presence or use of any Oregon certified teacher. I have trouble visualizing what an Oregon teacher might add to an online Rosetta Stone Mandarin course. Insisting on using Oregon certified teachers is a form of “make-work” or “featherbedding.” It’s a waste of scare resources. Paying Oregon teachers to make online education materials, programs or courses is a waste of money. Using public moneys to train them is also a waste. Some of this is already happening and should stop. Making online educational programs is becoming a specialized, sophisticated business. It’s not just putting a teacher in front of a video camera. Let private investors put their funds at risk. I’m all for developing such businesses in Oregon (and by how we shape our statewide online ed policies we could encourage them) but the public sector, IMHO, cannot do it well or efficiently.

 

Attracting "globally competitive telecommuters"

John Robb of the blog Global Guerrillas has economic development advice for Detroit (here). It’s also useful in thinking about economic development in Portland, and Oregon more generally.

A good place to start is with the urbanist Jane Jacobs.  Her analysis showed that the wealth engine of a city is a bootstrap called import replacement. Essentially, a city become economically vibrant by finding ways to locally produce the things it is currently importing. Within a global environment where physical distance is becoming increasingly expensive (fuel and overhead) and virtual distance is becoming increasingly free (bandwidth and scale factor), the imports to replace will increasingly be food, energy, and manufactured products.  Produce these locally.  The most valuable exports will be virtual. Simply, make this easier to do.  This is exactly what a resilient community does.

So, the best way to restart Detroit's wealth engine is to foster the development of resilient, economically vibrant, communities -- that produce most of the food, energy, and products that they consume and export virtual products/services -- in the blighted area that surrounds the shrinking urban core.  This turns the city core into the hub for the services that require a large population base to support (from entertainment to medicine).

How to build them?  These communities should be specifically designed to attract two types:

• The globally competitive telecommuter that will draw in wealth from global sources and 
• the food, energy, and micro-manufacturing entrepreneurs/workers that will build the innovative economic ecosystem required for local production.

Both are types that want to live within a resilient community.

Oregon already has a fairly robust community of entrepreneurs/businesses working on local, alternative energy and local food production. (I don’t know much about our local micro-manufacturing community.) This community tends to dominate much of our public policy and public investment discussion.

Oregon's international exporting community gets less public attention. This is wrong. Most of Oregon future economic opportunities are abroad because that’s where the most rapidly growing markets are. Robb's export suggestion, which seems sensible to me, is to give more emphasis to virtual products and services.

Robb’s suggestion has implications for public investments in Oregon infrastructure and education.

First, the infrastructure for the internet/virtual economy may be more important for us than the traditional infrastructure of roads, bridges, etc. This would be an argument for public investment in upgrading broadband services.

Second, in terms of education, we need to develop virtual savvy workers, and virtual savvy workers who can communicate with foreign businesses. This is yet another argument to aggressively pursue online education, both K-12 and higher ed. Students who can learn online become workers who can work online. And, of course, we need to teach the languages of emerging markets.

 

Democratic Party Platform Convention Opens

The Democratic Party Platform Convention is being held this weekend at Portland Community College’s Willow Creek Center in Beaverton, which sits right at a MAX light rail stop. I was there briefly (6/25/10).

Oregon House Speaker Dave Hunt gave an opening pep talk to about 150 delegates. He spoke of the Democrats as the party of “hope,” of “optimism,” and of “seeing the glass as half full,” while acknowledging that times are hard.

Over the weekend, the convention delegates will consider, select and prioritize general planks for the party platform as well as more detailed “legislative action items.” They will be working from a draft document.

I scanned the draft for proposals relevant to the themes of this blog.

First, a draft platform plank titled “Our Responsibilities and Rights as Global Citizens” says:

As Oregon Democrats we recognize that our responsibilities extend beyond our borders to encompass the entire planet. Our national self-interest requires that we affirm the principle of global cooperation. We must work with other people to ensure the survival and well being of all humanity and the global commons: climate, air, water, land, and the life therein….

I agree.

Second, in the “legislative action items” on public education, business and economic development, and foreign policy and national security, I saw no mention of expanding Mandarin (and other strategic foreign languages) in Oregon public schools nor of creating a Go Global High School Study Abroad Program.

Big oversights.

Board of Education: Forgetting 99% of Oregon students

The Board of Education met today (6/24). I watched online. They considered their agenda item “online/distance learning.” In their discussions, they estimated that about 0.9% or 1% of Oregon students were enrolled in full time virtual schools. I had earlier argued (here) that the Board limiting its virtual school governance proposal to just full time, “comprehensive” schools was “a big mistake.” But that’s what they are going to do.  The following video clip gives the Board discussion of this issue. I find no compelling rationale for their decision. Complexity or the ESD online consortium being put together by James Sager are not, in my view, sufficient rationale. Oregon can both save money and broaden course offerings by aggressively pursuing online education. In particular, the Board has failed to put into the record any of the costs (and, therefore, of potential cost savings) of individual courses and to put into the record the current and planned online offerings of the largest school districts.

As I’ve previously stated (here), “I just do not see Oregon’s existing educational administrative structures as up to the challenges of aggressively implementing online education programs in ways that both expand student opportunities and reduce costs.”

So by focusing on the 1%, the Board had forgotten the needs and opportunities of the other 99%.

Why cannot Oregon have online high school Mandarin available to all students statewide? Why must it depend on which local school district a student lives in?

The speakers in the following video are Duncan Wyse, Chair of the Board of Education; Nikki Squire, Board member; Leslie Shepherd, Board member; Jan McComb, board staff; and James Sager, formerly the governor’s educational advisor, now with the NW ESD. The video feed is as I received it at home (mostly still photos).

As it begins, after Duncan Wyse speaks, Jan McComb speaks.

Wyden on trade: "We're talking about how to tap these opportunities."

This video clip is of the closing moments of the 6/23 Senate Finance Committee hearing on the “US – China Economic Relationship.” Chair Senator Baucus had to leave early so Senator Wyden is chairing and commenting. US Trade Representative Ronald Kirk and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke are testifying.

Speaking of trade opportunities Senator Wyden says “I want to make it clear that we’re talking about how to tap these opportunities.” He is particularly focused on exporting “green goods” and says “we continue to fall behind.” Some of the reasons are mentioned in the video clip. But Wyden pushes the testifiers saying, “both with respect to anybody around here withdrawing from the global trading economy, not on our watch, and certainly, with respect to coordination, and I want the record to show, I think you need to do a lot better. We can’t say it’s working well when we’re falling behind.”

Perhaps, part of the reason we are falling behind is our educational system. We are not teaching enough Mandarin and the other languages of emerging markets. Plus we are not sending our high school and university students to study abroad in important markets, like China. How can we sell in foreign markets when our sales people know neither the languages nor the markets? Wyden has not yet supported efforts (see my proposals on the sidebar) to develop such foreign language and study abroad programs in Oregon.

Wyden does chair the International Trade Subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee. He could have the subcommittee hold hearings on the connections between foreign language and study abroad programs and the US capacity to sell our goods and services abroad. There is much room for improvement. Perhaps, Wyden needs to give himself a push.

 

Online Ed: Check results, Don't regulate inputs

The Oregon Board of Education will again consider its development of a “proposed governance model for virtual public schools,” otherwise known as online learning or education, at its June 24^th meeting. Evidently a work group met May 27^th  and reached some tentative agreements. Their findings, along with board proposals and staff “straw” proposals are available online here. They are up for discussion at the Board meeting’s four hour session on online education.

First, all four expanded goals present by staff are good:

Increased efficiency through reduced costs;

Increased student success via greater individualized learning (pace and content);

Increased support for public education via greater choice; and

Increased equitable access to underserved student populations

Second, limiting the governance model only to “comprehensive” schools, which I take to be full time schools, is a big mistake.  While the staff proposal says “Acknowledge in the report that demand for supplemental courses likely to be higher than comprehensive schools,” there is no rationale given for such a limitation. Are Oregon students supposed to just wait for online courses while state government dithers? What good reason, for example, is there for not offering first year high school Mandarin online to every student in Oregon public schools? Why wait?

Third, the proposal is full of ridiculous regulations of educational inputs when the full potential and cost savings of online education requires a focus on educational results. Online education, like “credit by proficiency,” requires focusing on educational outcomes. Online education offers new ways to reach  those outcomes and should not be limited by old methods. Some examples of ridiculous input regulations are prohibiting commercial vendors, requiring local governing boards, requiring Oregon licensed teachers, and requiring student-teacher contact twice a week.

Consider, for example, the very popular Rosetta Stone company providing a statewide online Mandarin program. Are they to be prohibited because they are a “commercial vendor?” Or because they have no local governing board? Or because they do not have Oregon licensed teachers? How silly is all that?

Fourth, the Oregon Board of Education is failing to enter into the record, much less into their final report, cost figures of existing online education providers. We need these to see what cost savings are possible. The Board should collect and report lots. I’d like to see just two to start: (1) course by course and full-time costs to import the Florida Virtual School offerings (here) and (2) costs for Rosetta Stone’s online Mandarin classes (here).

 

Dumbing down the curriculum in West Linn - Wilsonville

The West Linn – Wilsonville School District Board dumbed down and returned its curriculum to second-rate status at its latest Board meeting. Upon reconsideration, the Board canceled the continuation of their existing Spanish immersion classes after one year – kindergarten. Whatever else it offers, the school district is not preparing students with the foreign language skills needed for the 21^st century global economy.

From the West Linn Tidings article “School Board reverses the vote on Spanish immersion” by Linda Hundhammer (here):

Last night in a West Linn-Wilsonville School Board emergency session, the board reconsidered and overturned their vote from the June 7 marathon meeting, and thereby suspended funding for the controversial Spanish immersion program…

…. Hallin, along with board member Keith Steele, changed his vote from supporting Spanish Immersion to cutting it.

“I was on the board when we originally passed Spanish Immersion, and I still think, and I think everyone agrees, that a foreign language program in the primary schools is a good idea,” Hallin said.

“But with revenues declining – and continuing to decline – every program is taking cuts. This one program has start-up costs and expenses, meaning we have to put money into it. It is just too disproportionate.

“As Jane [Stickney, deputy superintendent] said, ‘we underestimated the cost’ of the program. And that means the cost to other teachers, administrators and students.”

 …. Superintendent Roger Woehl presented the most recent figures for staff reductions at the primary schools at 13.5 full-time employees (FTE). He also presented the cost for the Spanish immersion program – including salaries for an additional teacher at Sunset Primary, an additional instructional coordinator, development and materials – for a total of $218,000…

First, school districts without foreign language immersion programs are offering their students a second rate curriculum. Immersion students learn everything non immersion students learn, score as well or better on all the standard tests, plus they become fluent in a foreign language. All students in all school districts should have a choice of foreign language immersion programs.

Second, I am suspicious of the costs presented (I wasn’t at the meeting and haven’t seen the documents). For a second year program, the costs quoted seem excessive. Plus, a parent group had raised $47,000 plus other cost cutting support. While this might seem like a decision made on budget grounds, I have my doubts.

Third, my hero is Lori Beight, the only school board member who voted against suspending funds for the program and who said, “We are not ahead of the game in offering this program – we are behind. Especially in economic times like this it is important to keep things that are great.”

Fourth, apparently “equity” was employed as an objection. Again from the West Linn Tidings article:

Kory Kimball of Wilsonville represented those against Spanish immersion. He argued, “It is a matter of equity … and cost. It is the responsibility of the board to put policy forth for all your constituents.”

At the end of the meeting, there was not a feeling that there were any winners or losers in the outcome. The statistics show that Spanish immersion is an undeniable success, and a foreign language program in all schools for all children is something that most people in the district would love to see.

As if, if we can’t have Spanish (or some other language) immersion programs for everyone, then it’s not fair or equitable to have them for anyone. Well, West Linn – Wilsonville should and could have foreign language immersion programs for all its students. And the way it will get to them is starting small and expanding, not all at once district wide. This was that start.

Dumbing down the curriculum in the name of equity is just plain wrong.

Wal-Mart goes global

 Oregon’s educational system needs to take some insights from Wal-Mart and go global.

From the Washington Post article “As growth in U.S. slows, Wal-Mart puts more emphasis on foreign stores” by Ylan Q. Mui (here):

The company that began as a five-and-dime in rural northwest Arkansas opened its annual shareholder meeting last week with Bollywood-style dancers, Asian balancing acts and Brazilian martial artists representing some of the 14 foreign countries in which Wal-Mart operates. Last year, its international division topped $100 billion in sales for the first time and this year it is expected to surpass the United States in number of stores.

This is the next phase of Wal-Mart domination. It built its business in small towns and suburbs across the United States, but now international sales are growing at almost nine times the rate of domestic sales.

And:

Wal-Mart opened its first international store in Mexico in 1991 and has grown both through acquisitions and its own innovation. At first glance, it might be difficult to spot a Wal-Mart in another country. Though it is synonymous with the big-box stores it helped pioneer in the United States, Wal-Mart has nine international store formats ranging from relatively tiny Bodega Aurrera Express stores in Mexico to a cash-and-carry warehouse in India to the traditional box in Canada. It operates under 55 different banners -- Acuenta in Chile, Asda in the United Kingdom and Seiyu in Japan.

But all the stores strictly adhere to a core Wal-Mart principle: always low prices.

"The most important thing that they stress is pricing," said Francisco Chevez, an analyst with HSBC Securities. "That's what has made the difference."

Economists have long predicted that consumers in emerging economies would not only manufacture most of the world's goods but also buy them. China has surpassed the United States as the world's largest auto market in number of vehicles sold. Foreign sales account for roughly 30 percent of revenue of S&P 500 companies, up from 20 percent a decade ago. By 2014, the International Monetary Fund forecasts, emerging economies will contribute more to the world economy than developed nations.

Tom Barnett comments (here):

Have no doubt, Wal-Mart's arrival is even more of a socio-economic revolution in developing markets than it was/is in rural American markets: all of the local mom-and-pops either adapt to their newfound niche, somehow winning customer loyalty in ways that justify the higher prices, or they are gone.

And Wal-Mart's penchant for revolutionizing the local landscape extends far beyond the competition.  There's all the suppliers, shippers, the local ag industry--damn near everything is impacted even if only peripherally.  Just the experience of working for Wal-Mart will change the attitudes of local labor.  Even just working with Wal-Mart will alter how governments view their roles and responsibilities.

So yeah, this is a sign of globalization's next phase, and it likely to be just as tumultuous or more so than the recent decade.

In Oregon, we could teach our next generations to compete in those foreign markets, or not, but we should not pretend that our economy will stay the same.

Gates: “the Department of Defense is organized and structured to plan for war but not wage war….."

In this video, Secretary Gates make two significant comments before the Senate Appropriations Committee:

(1) “the Department of Defense is organized and structured to plan for war but not wage war….

“….But long term, it is a serious issue for the department, and frankly, one that I have not yet found the answer to, in terms of how to get urgent action in an area supporting men and women in combat today that ranges across the entirety of the department, both uniform and civilian, and all the different defense agencies.”

(2) “With respect to the balance between future threats from near peers and others as opposed to our focus on irregular warfare, I would just remind the committee that, if you took a broad look at out budget, about fifty percent or our procurement budget is for what I would call long term modernization programs to deal with near peer countries, about forty percent is dual purpose, like C-17’s and other thing we will use no matter what kind of conflict we are in, and about ten percent has actually been for irregular or the kind of asymmetric warfare we’ve been talking about.”

We need a Department of Defense that can wage war. I may be a critic of the strategies behind some of the current conflicts, but, if the US is going to fight abroad, we must have a Defense Department able to wage war.

China is one of those “near peers” that half the Defense procurement budget is spent on preparing to fight. But of those hundreds of billions of dollars, only a minute amount is spent on Mandarin language training and education in any form. It does not make sense.