Don’t worry, if the republicans get their way they’ll sign a bad deal with the Correction Corporation of America so all the kids who don’t get educated will still have a place to stay

What? Budget gimmicks from Rodney Tom's shining moment? Say it isn't so.
But hey, those rotten, overpaid teachers don't need to keep up with the cost of inflation. They should become legislators instead! With a couple of special sessions and the per diem, they can make just as much - if not more - as a lawmaker as they do teaching, with way more perks. Plus they'll be able to go to the bathroom when they need to, have lunch, even have adult conversations! (Though perhaps it would be wise to avoid Pam Roach if conversations with mature adults are desired.)
Screw the teachers - that's what legislators do best, don't they?

I'm out of touch, are there hockey leagues for grade-schoolers?

point of order: 600 million can be rounded up to 1 billion, like 400 million could be rounded down to 0.

Ed reform has nothing to do with denying teachers COLAs, and only a party hack who has his head firmly up the WEA's asshole would suggest it does.

$944 million, which under no math I'm familiar with is routinely rounded up to $1 billion

just what value would you consider round up-able to $1 billion, if not $900-something million? but yes, the level of math locally is, as Cliff Mass has excellently asserted, very sad indeed.

I figure that 949.000.000 rounds down, but 951.000.000 would round up to a clean billion.

You get what you pay for.

@6: Ed reform costs a lot. All the testing and more testing and more testing all takes money away from other things (like COLAs and class size reductions). We just signed on to the Common Core in Washington and are spending big bucks on re-doing all of the state tests. Don't try to claim that reform is free. It isn't. And it is at the expense of our students (and teachers).

The saddest part of this budget is that there is no fix to the huge class sizes in grades 3-12. There are also, as far as I've been able to see, no improvements for higher ed spending whatsoever. It may be better than last year, but this budget is nowhere near where it should be regarding education.

Looking at salaries for WA State teachers:

http://www.k12.wa.us/safs/pub/per/salall…

They start out ok at $33,000 as the average beginning salary for a 4 year liberal arts degree is $38,000 (techs get twice as much). However, there is little or no growth after that and hardly any extra money to put into a 401k.

Eight years later, a person would have to be married to another significant wage earner, certainly to live in Seattle (and who can live in Seattle these days...), or anywhere else for that matter, and to have a life outside of coming home and watching TV.

Now I won't argue about value, utility and who gets what as conservatives do.

I do argue (all the time) that we need to boost the spending power of people who make less than $100,000.

I want this out of my own self-interest, because I want them to buy technology and content and lots of services like plane trips that use technology.

Teachers are consumers of literate products. For myself, I don't care if they sleep in the lounge. As long as they buy applications and media with their enhanced salaries...funded by a LVT (Land Value Tax).

It's gonna be awesome when the State Supreme Court takes a look at this package and says it's not good enough.

@11: paulus22! Slog's very own WEA apologist! Great to see you! And great to see that you're still conflating ed reform with No Child Left Behind, and still touting the party line that the only way to apply money, and the only way to measure academic quality, is in reducing class size.

You know what ed reform is? A couple of years ago ed reform folks tried to get the state legislature to agree that when layoffs were necessary, it might be good to start with the 2% of teachers rated "unacceptable." No money, just accountability. But in your WEA socialist utopia, brothers in arms protect each other against managerial oppression (you know, like the police union does) so you and your buddies bum rushed the hearings and terrified the legislators into killing the bill. Classic.

@15: You're full of crap. Like all other ed deformers, you bleat that "it's all about the children!" and "principals can't get rid of lousy teachers!" when of course it isn't, and they can. It's about putting money in the pockets of testing and tutoring companies. It's about treating children as interchangeable widgets, because, really, they're all the same and should goddam well be MADE to be the same. And yes, it's about sticking it to the union, because public education is the last unplumbed frontier of money that corporate hacks can gobble up, but only if they demonize the no good very bad union. This seniority thing is a red herring, and you goddam well know it.

@16: lots of pretty adjectives. There was a reasonable bill. You people killed it, the exact same way police unions kill efforts to instill accountability and responsibility in *their* profession. It will be a difficult but great day when the WEA finally goes away and Dems begin to learn to live without your morally tainted money. And teachers get to be professionals again instead of dues-paying bodies.

@16: ps- a red herring for what?!? I am a lifelong suburban Democrat, active in PTA, who thinks his kids have great teachers, and who has no stock or financial stake in any of the testing companies. Ask yourself why people like me can't stomach the WEA, and understand that there are more and more of us every day.

@15 Ed reform is more correctly labeled Ed Deform.
It is market-based principles applied to education, conveniently forgetting that there are children behind those data points and educational "experiments" where schools are "transformed" by replacing staff/principals or closing schools and reopening them as charters, to hell with the chaos it creates in children's lives. Ed deform is run by those who want to get public education dollars solely into private hands and rid themselves of teacher unions. It gets support from clueless groups such as LEV and DFER, whose members on the lower end think they are truly supporting public education, while those in the upper echelons are more interested in the power, the publicity, and the perks (rubbing elbows with Bill Gates! Woo hoo!), and the kickbacks. Red herring terms such as choice and college ready and achievement gap are tossed around, and the billionaire boys club swoops in and acts like it is truly interested in those poor kids in public schools by handing over money to those willing to do their bidding. Groups like TFA (Teach For Awhile) act like they are the saving grace of American public education, and are treated as such by Broad-trained "superintendents" such as the one Seattle ousted, and the one in Bridgeport, CT, who was just declared unqualified for his job by a judge (BS credentials). These Broadies have created chaos in school districts around the country, using conservative think tank bullshit as their "research", which the media obligingly publicizes without a single bit of fact checking (see the recent NCTQ report as a prime example - so full of errors and falsehoods it isn't even funny, but their press release was dutifully reprinted by all the major outlets, so now it is fact, even though it really is fiction). After they come into a school district and make a mess - while loudly proclaiming how they are going to fix things- they quickly move onto the next higher paying district before the previous district catches onto the chaos bullshit. Google Paul Vallas (CT) and John White (LA) just for kicks and see what kind of fun they've been having in their destruction of public ed. Then there's the poster child for lying and cheating - Michelle Rhee, who succeeded in making DC Schools even WORSE!
NCLB was among the first bit of Ed Deform put into policy, but it's been ongoing since the "a Nation At Risk" report was fabricated and publicized to create alarm in Americans who are always worried that the Russians/Chinese/Japanese/flavor of the month is doing "better" than them. Since then, it's been a favorite target of legislators on both sides to use as a bargaining chip, a means to alarm parents and get them "motivated", etc. After all, no one wants to be seen as leaving a child behind, right? And if its "for the children", well then those rich people can pat themselves on their backs as doing a good deed for those poor little lower class kids who can't afford a Lakeside education.
Speaking of Lakeside @15 - have you seen their class sizes? Quite low. In fact they tout their low class size as a means to get a stellar education. So why is low class size good for rich kids, but when it's put out there as a means for success for the poor kids, it's turned into greedy evil teachers and unions and money being wasted?

Always nice to see the Stranger inadvertently let the cat out of the bag: The "new funding" was always about teachers union wanting a raise. Maybe the Stranger's unpaid interns should chip in.

@16 - please get out of my brain. :)
(I started my comment well before you posted yours. I promise!)

@16: you don't get to define words to mean what you want them to mean: "education reform" is not simply allowing layoffs without regard for seniority (although of course senior teachers are paid more, and are more likely to be uppity and resist the effort to widgetize our kids). That is one tiny, tiny piece of education reform, and what it has in common with the rest of it is an effort to reduce costs on the teacher side with an eye toward siphoning that money off to outside private companies and their owners. You're attempting to call a whisker a cat. It just ain't so.

And I don't know what you mean when you talk about "you people" - I'm a fifty-ish white guy with kids in the Seattle Public Schools. Is that the "you people" you're talking about: parents? I am not now, nor have I ever been, associated with the WEA or SEA. So blow that red-baiting bullshit out your ass.

Oh goddamit, I can't count: I meant that comment to refer to @17. Wasn't yelling at myself. Mea culpa.

@18

Ask yourself why people like me can't stomach the WEA ...?

Um... because you have Stockholm syndrome? Because you have come to identify with the interests that have taken you economically hostage?

@24: Goldy, the sad part to me is that I don't think you buy this populist bullshit that the WEA gets some people to swallow. I think you understand that most professions- Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers- do just fine without collective bargaining. And that just like cops, the people who we entrust with extraordinary authority require commensurate professional review. I just think you do what you have to because the WEA is the only big Democratic wallet in down, and you think you need the money to combat the R's corporate pockets. But the WEAs total unwillingness to brook any kind of reform will be its undoing, and I fear what that means for our party in the long run.

@6,15,17,18,25--Sven, are you still alive? After you faked your death to avoid paying child support, we figured you'd have the sense to stay out of sight, but we see you're still around. Too bad about your cock.

@25 - have you paid attention to any of the crap happening in public education around the country? Veteran teachers being replaced by Teach For Awhiles - and the districts pay extra money for the "privilege" of having a 5 week trainee in their classroom. Churn and inexperience - great for kids, right? Pay cuts, additional duties/hours added on with no increase in pay, tests/tests scores being used as guillotines rather than informational tools, horrible legislation punishing teachers for the ills of society being implemented. Washington has escaped some of this due to the mostly Democratic and pseudo-Democratic legislators and because WEA has been pretty strong, but there are enough Dem fools like DFER and LEV out there following the ALEC agenda that more and more of that shit is showing up now (with you being example A).
Look at the states with the best education systems - like MA. Strong union, well-paid teachers, support for public schools. Look at Utah - weak union, poorly paid teachers, shitty schools (and don't even start in with their test score, because Utah falls prey to a delightful statistical anomaly that makes their scores initially appear good, but when parsed out it is clear they suck - Simpson's Paradox.) I could tell you horror stories about charter school teachers with no union and how they were treated - forced to spend their lunch on lunch duty, no breaks (Wendy Davis has nothing on teachers), covering for other teachers at the same time they're supposed to be teaching their own class because the school is too cheap to call in a sub (profit!), working weekends (unpaid) because the charter operator has demanded they do so or they'll lose their job, forced to hand out their personal cell phone number so that parents and students can call them all hours of the night for "help", with threats that they'll be fired if they don't answer, paychecks bouncing, not being paid, money withheld from paychecks for perceived "disobedience", salaries agreed to are different from what is actually being paid, verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual harassment by the boss - and no place to go for help without getting fired. These same things used to happen in the public system pre-union, and still do to some extent in places with weak/no unions.
But then Sven, it appears you're male - claiming to be A Democrat, though it sounds like you're more of a Rodney Tom Dem - and since the civil war, teaching has been more of a "women's profession", which means it is one to tromp on and pay poorly, and keep the status of teachers on a lower scale than other professions, so it's only natural for you as a cretin to see the presence of a union as offensive and unnecessary. If you'd like to enlighten yourself a bit, I'd recommend City Teachers by Kate Rousmaniere for some historical perspective, and also Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine to understand the economic theory behind the wave of Ed Deform. Follow that up with The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch.
Until then, fuck off.

It's strange to talk about the "under funding" of U.S. education, when the U.S. spends more per pupil than all but one or two countries.

Teachers are under valued, but not because of their pay. Average starting teacher pay in the most developed countries is $31,000, and the average pay is $45,000, compared to $53,000 in the U.S.

Teachers are undervalued because they're not given the chance to treat their kids like individuals with unique needs.

You can argue about charters, unions, vouchers, and funding all you want. But as long as there are standardized tests, as long as kids are forced to go to schools they hate and temporarily memorize subjects they'll never use, nothing will ever change. Until the entire paradigm changes, none of these things will sufficiently improve education.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL…

#30

I like some of the experiments going on where classrooms are treated as open learning centers...no lectures...just resources with teachers acting as tutors, personal instructors and moderators. So schools become more like the public library and less like a factory.

@30 That's because other developed countries have better social services, meaning the kids attending school aren't coming from 3rd world conditions at home. Test scores are primarily a product of the socioeconomic status of students. If all kids had access to good nutrition and medical care, safe places to sleep and play, high-quality childcare and preschool, and parents supportive of education, the US wouldn't need to spend as much on education.
Instead we have kids coming to school from homeless shelters and cars, kids who stayed awake all night because no parent was home, kids who have been in 5 different schools since Kindergarten and they're only first graders, kids whose only exposure to adult conversation is screaming or the television, kids who haven't eaten the entire weekend, etc. Schools and teachers are expected to combat society's ills, especially as the gov't cuts even more aid to the poor, particularly in red states. So schools are being tasked with more and more, while receiving less and less. Then they become failing schools, and the smokescreen bullshit over transforming schools and the churn that disrupts already vulnerable students' lives sets in. Public schools are then set up to fail, the child is set up to fail, and the anti-public education people celebrate.
I came from an open public education setting - in AZ no less - that was shut down because of the increasing reliance on standardized tests as policy rather than an instructional measurement, pushed by clueless legislators who equate learning to good test scores. There were some good things happening in the 80s and early 90s in regards to changes in public Ed, but NCLB was the catalyst that shut those things down. The right wing legislature in AZ pretty much finished off the remainder of the good stuff, and I'm glad I graduated and escaped when I did.

@30: "But as long as there are standardized tests, as long as kids are forced to go to schools they hate and temporarily memorize subjects they'll never use, nothing will ever change."

Why on earth do you think these three things are equivilent? Standardized tests have been around since at least the 60s, and also have helped level the playing field for non-rich kids to get into premier colleges! My kids spend two days a year doing standardized tests, which helps evaluate both their strengths and weaknesses and, when taken with other students, the effectivity of their school district.

"Until the entire paradigm changes, none of these things will sufficiently improve education."

What paradigm shifts does the WEA support? Other than gutting accountability?

@33 Standardized tests have been around since the 60s, but their use is now as a policy tool (aka a hammer) rather than an instructional tool.
2 days a year taking standardized tests? You must not be a public school parent, or you have no clue what is going on in your public school. Standardized testing now occupies anywhere from 6-8 days depending on the grade level and the tests. Test prep occupies even more time, thus teachers can conceivably lose up to 20 days of instruction to testing and test prep.
Standardized tests do NOT level the playing field for non-rich kids to get into premier colleges. Rich kids can pay for Kaplan and all that other test prep so they do better on the SAT and ACT than the poor kids. Poor kids have a hard time paying for any tests, including AP tests, not to mention college. And have you seen the tuition costs for colleges thise days? You're full of shit, DINO.

Not only is the $1 Billion in new money not really $1 Billion, it's also not 'new' money!

The Operating Budget was balanced by 'sweeping' (Olympia-speak for 'raiding,' 'stealing,' 'transferring with no intention of replacing') money from the Capital Budget; money that would otherwise be stimulating state and local economies with un-sexy but necessary infrastructure projects (other than highways, which are covered in a separate Transportation budget).

In other words, they robbed Peter to pay Paul - and Paul's pockets are going to be empty in 2015 when the Legislature has to write the next budget and make the next installment on Supreme Court-mandated education investments. But that's after the next set of statewide Legislative elections, where the Republicans will be running on a platform of 'balancing' budgets and putting 'more,' 'new' money into education, so what the hell!

Kaplan, etc., doesn't do squat except collect money from the gullible. The only impact gained from studying for those standardized tests is that the kids a) wind up memorizing the instructions and thereby get more time for the questions, and b) become focused on the importance of the test, which makes them take it more seriously.

Both of those goals are easily satisfied by buying a test prep manual at a bookstore and spending a few evenings going through it. As for all the rest, all you ever hear from teachers is whining and excuses. This "extra funding" that everyone wants turns out to be nothing more than a raise. Surprise, surprise.

@33 Big Sven, speaking as a former school teacher (different state, and non-union, both public and charter) I'm going to agree that you're somewhat clueless if you believe that standardized testing only occupies 2 days a year. I will go even further and say that it takes much more than the 6-8 days that StuckInUtah asserts in @34.

Standardized testing has become a way of life. Every lesson (at least according to the math curricula I was given to teach) is focused explicitly on passing the State's standardized test. Lesson plans required chapter-and-verse citations of what it prepared for and how to address test questions on that matter.

When I taught (briefly) in a charter school, that schools explicit mandate was as a test prep mill for kids to pass the test and get a diploma. The company that ran the school contracted with a test preparation company for lessons and assignments that were modeled exactly on old exams.

While it is my opinion, I believe it is strongly borne out by anecdotal evidence as well as aggregated data: standardized testing is the bane of education and schooling. It has nothing to do with the interests of the child. It may have been different in the '60s. I was not teaching then.

Big Sven, you have my pity and perhaps my thinly veiled contempt if you honestly believe testing is a good thing.

When I can command $85-$300 or more for billable hours, we'll talk about giving up solidarity. Until then, all you lovers of education but haters of educators will just have to deal with unions. I know you have fond places in your hearts for feudalism but please, don't try to sell it to me.

Capitalism is all about money - "capital" - and many of you need a refresher course in economics. Bargaining should be a win for both sides. But if it is all about accruing money, there is no room left for the majority because the minority ends up with it all. Resources: Monopoly - the game; the current status of our "capitalist" society.

Envy is no way to approach the difficult issue of teachers wages. BTW, "PTA dad and life-long democrat" above, you aren't and you aren't because no PTA member would ever disrespect the teachers at his children's school. It just doesn't happen. PTA members actually working in most schools see the hours and money and energy put back into the classrooms by teachers.

@25 Of course doctors, lawyers, and engineers participate in collective bargaining.

Anyone who is from around here should be well aware of Boeing's negotiations with union engineers, at least.

Doctors and lawyers in private practice don't tend to belong to unions since the benefits of negotiation apply only when there are large employers to negotiate with. However, doctors and lawyers who work for the government at any level may well belong to a public sector union.

The big difference between teachers and other professions is that most other professions have a large private market in addition to public sector employment. The government must pay doctors, lawyers, and engineers a prevailing wage or they will lose them to private employers. Comparatively there are precious few private schools for teachers to seek higher wages at so collective bargaining is substantially more important.

@31, those are awesome and fantastic and, I hope, the future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTmH1wS2N…

@37, all of that happened to begin with because the schools were failing. But of course, you don't want us to think about that, do you?

@32, homelessness and poverty is, indeed, a different kind of problem here. And I bet that you and I agree that no kid, no family should ever be homeless, or hungry.

But that simply doesn't explain the disparity in spending. European nations feed their kids at school as much as we do. They might even take better care of them then we do. It's possible that the fact that kids are much, much more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD here than in Europe might contribute to the disparity. But we spend three times as much per pupil as we did 40 years ago. Student population has increased around 15%, while school employment has increased by around 90% (mostly in administration).

The amount of money going into education is not so much the problem as how the bureaucrats in charge choose to spend that money.

@33 Why on earth do you think these three things are equivilent?

Why is it equivalent that kids hate school where they have to temporarily memorize useless facts take standardized tests? They're certainly related. Just ask the kids. I highly recommend watching the video link in my first post.

Standardized tests have been around since at least the 60s, and also have helped level the playing field for non-rich kids to get into premier colleges! My kids spend two days a year doing standardized tests, which helps evaluate both their strengths and weaknesses and, when taken with other students, the effectivity of their school district.

You're right that your kids are measured on how well they're able to memorize things and that the system that values memorization will tell them which things they need to work harder on memorizing so they can move along the pathway of memorization.

This is utterly unrelated to learning and real education.

His speechwriters had President George W. Bush proclaim, “Measurement is the cornerstone of learning.” What they should have written was, “Measurement is the cornerstone of the kind of learning that lends itself to being measured.”

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek…

The system told poor kids that if they wanted to get into college (whether their personalities were suited for college or not) they could memorize a lot of things and then get there and then get a better job. And that probably worked out well in most cases 20-40 years ago. Today, not so much.

What paradigm shifts does the WEA support? Other than gutting accountability?

I'm a very harsh critic of teachers' unions. I think they don't take enough responsibility for protecting bad teachers. But what they're right about is giving autonomy to the teacher and his or her students. "Accountability" pretends that standardized tests measure learning. And there is as much evidence to support that idea as there is to support the notion of the Great Flood and Noah's big boat of animals.

The only test a teacher needs to pass involves the student and his or her parents. If they're all happy with the teacher and what the teacher is doing and how that's reflected in the student, the teacher passes. If not, the teacher adjusts. If the the teacher won't adjust, the student should get a new teacher.

Presently, "accountability" is defined by people who've never set foot in a classroom. Presently, the education paradigm is dictated by politicians and bureaucrats. It should be dictated only by students, parents, and teachers, in that order.

@41 your suggestions that testing comes out of failing schools is similar to claiming high incarceration rates come from failing gov't prison systems.

As @38 asserts, it's all to do with funneling money into private hands. If we want to delve into the pre-testing days, recall that those schools are the ones that put people on the moon (if you believe that kind of thing... and if not I believe Mr. Aldrin would like a word with you.) Schools did not fail because they were bad. Schools failed because of financial incentives to give money to private firms to take on public responsibilities.

As an abstract concept, I find the idea of unions revolting. Accepting the reality of a government that is so corrupted by money and ideologues (and ideals corrupted by money and vice versa), I accept that they are a necessary evil. If they can somehow create a world and system where you have teachers (not educators because fuck them) earn more than a subsistence income, I'm all for it.

Or, we can have people like Rodney Tom insist that people don't need busses or raises and fuck those kids, let them work a summer job like I did but not subsidize their education like mine was; gov't subsidies are only good when *I* am the one getting it and everyone else can burn.

McCleary isn't about ed reform, it's about the state meeting its paramount duty to fully fund public education.

At what point is public education "fully funded?" When will we know we've achieved this?

@38: "'PTA dad and life-long democrat' above, you aren't and you aren't because no PTA member would ever disrespect the teachers at his children's school. It just doesn't happen."

Ummm, the WSPTA voted two years ago to support the formation of non-profit charter schools. I'm not the one with a misunderstanding of what PTA parents believe.

@46 - when the state Supreme Court says so.

@41 your suggestions that testing comes out of failing schools is similar to claiming high incarceration rates come from failing gov't prison systems

Are you a teacher?

@48, and what is their metric? How do the highest authorities and the "experts" determine when public education is "fully funded?"

@41, responding to failing schools with standardized tests is like responding to cancer with crystals and prayers.

@50: do you realize that at present, the State of Washington only pays for 5 periods of instruction for high school students? Meaning that if your community can't or won't pay for supplemental operating revenue with local property tax levies, your high school students graduate unqualified to attend a state college or university?

Just because I'm not a fan of the WEA doesn't mean I think the state lege can starve public ed to avoid tough political choices.

@51, you and the other slacker teachers better face facts. As long as you keep failing and defending failure, we're going to freeze your fucking wages. You will eventually make less than a barista, and maybe then the message will sink in.

@53: I just want to take this opportunity to remind everyone about the Registered Comment Filter for Slog for Firefox/Greasemonkey. Install it, and you'll never have to see zero-content trolls like Noicons again!

@50 - your guess is as good as mine.

@51 - brilliant logic. Seriously. You think our current teachers suck. So the way to get better ones is to drastically cut their pay. And when wet pay them less, we'll magically attract better employees! What planet do you live on?

@53 Failing by whose measure? The NAEP, which is the only reliable longitudinal measurement tool the US really has shows the scores have made a steady uptick over the past 40 years. The bullshit state tests have arbitrary cut scores, meaning some jackass legislature arbitrarily decided what was a passing score and what was a failing score. When too many kids "pass", then the cut score is adjusted to make it higher. Really, the only failures and slackers are trolls like you.

Thanks, @54. Wish it was available for iPad.

@55: who on this thread suggesting drastically cutting teacher pay? All the early comments were about how ed reform supporters *don't* want to cut teacher pay.

@56: please cite an example of a standardized test where the pass criteria was tightened because too many kids were passing. We're doing the exact opposite in WA, looking to relax the requirements because too few kids are passing the current requirements.

@42 - My EU teacher friends explain the discrepancy as 1) the state takes much better care of kids and mothers from fetushood to school, including good prenatal care and paid maternity leave, and 2) nationalized curricula at set costs and from set vendors and 3) public services, which cost less than privitization. They also reference the huge diversity in the US (like ELL students), which they just don't see as much of, though that is slowly changing, and the size of the US and how schools and districts are structured (local vs national). I took one friend onto the Navajo reservation in AZ when she was visiting and she was appalled to see the third world conditions many of the tribal members were living in (no electricity, running water, homes dilapidated). It's not something they think of in regards to the US.

@58 WA set higher standards than most states to start with.

As for changing cut scores:
Michigan http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/inde…
NY State http://scotiaglenvilleschools.org/News/2…
Just to name a couple. Google is your friend if you want more.

Try reading Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us by Daniel Koretz.

@58 Also, just a little education on cut scores and testing via the late Gerald Bracey
https://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdministrator…

@52, and yet Washington per-pupil spending is more than most of the most developed countries. Again, if they don't have the money for more periods, that's a management issue more than a funding issue. Whether or not most kids are benefiting from all those periods is highly questionable in the first place.

@53, you might as well say, "If these crystals and my fortune teller keep reporting to me that you're underperforming..." Standardized tests don't measure learning. Pretending that they measure teacher performance is an evidence-free argument.

@56, Right, by the standards of an organization that relies on a highly questionable metric to measure learning. Even though the kids themselves are smart enough to know that all they measure is short-term memorization. So, you can claim that the NAEP measures "what kids know" all you want, but it's as based in reality as the claim that the war on drugs is working or that our foreign policies make us safer. Like the organizations that work with the police and the military, the NAEP is a self-interested organization. We have to believe, despite the lace of evidence, that they can tell us what students know, and we have to pay for it.

@59, most EU countries are less homogeneous than the U.S. I'm sure there's extra costs in dealing with the small percentage of students who are homeless or suffering from malnutrition. Again, that doesn't explain the entire difference.

Of course, the EU is also using the same antiquated, authoritarian school model for the most part, that the U.S. is. Ditching that would save an incredible amount of money.

I should amend my comment @64 to say that tests don't ONLY test "short term memorization." Obviously they test for more than that. But not much more. And certainly not enough to justify their continued use with the millions of students who are uninterested in and/or not good at taking them.

@62: "Whether or not most kids are benefiting from all those periods is highly questionable in the first place."

In my kids' public high school, 90% of the students go on to college: 60% to 4-year, and 30% to 2-year. They need at least six periods a day, so that (a) they can get into said colleged, and (b) beyond four years of english, social sciences, science, and math, they can take a foreign language and a few arts classes (which is four years of band/orchestra/choir, if you want to get into a 4 year college.) And then there's health, which they have to take after school because the district doesn't provide enough class periods. And PE, which they have to take after school because the district doesn't provide enough class periods.

I come from MN, where they provide about 20% more funding per pupil, and seven periods of education, and we didn't have all these bullshit afterschool electives, and we could focus our energies on getting laid and smoking dope.

(ps- MN has had charter schools for 20 years, and only 5% of the state's students attend them. Hardly the public ed Ragnarok predicted by the anti-charter crowd.)

@34: "You must not be a public school parent, or you have no clue what is going on in your public school. Standardized testing now occupies anywhere from 6-8 days depending on the grade level and the tests."

Umm, my sixth grader had two days of standardized testing this year, and my ninth grader had ZERO. Just double checked it with them ten minutes ago.

In my kids' public high school, 90% of the students go on to college: 60% to 4-year, and 30% to 2-year. They need at least six periods a day, so that (a) they can get into said colleged, and (b) beyond four years of english, social sciences, science, and math, they can take a foreign language and a few arts classes (which is four years of band/orchestra/choir, if you want to get into a 4 year college.)

This pretends that all of those kids should go to college, or that all those kids graduate college, or that all those kids will consider the cost of college to have been worth the price, when we all know that's not true. It pretends that the best way to prepare kids for college is with the system as it exists. It pretends that all of those kids need four years of english, social sciences, science, and math in order to do well in college or even to lead a happy, productive life. But this is demonstrably not the case.

If it was, then there wouldn't be so many kids who hate being in high school, for whom curiosity is squashed for years afterwards, because they've been convinced that to learn is to be bored. There wouldn't be so many successful adults who look back at high school as a waste of time in a spiritually and intellectually oppressive environment.

There wouldn't be so many kids who think (correctly) that they are wasting their lives, memorizing useless facts to jump through the hoops of what is more a system of arbitrary bureaucracy, than a system of real education.

For the kids who want to go to and be in college, who enjoy the academics, it's great. But there are lots and lots of kids for whom college is not a good choice and who are never told that there are a variety of equally valuable paths a person can take in life.

So, the fact that 7 periods are required for college is not evidence that most kids are benefiting from those 7 periods.

@53: I just want to take this opportunity to remind everyone about the Registered Comment Filter for Slog for Firefox/Greasemonkey. Install it, and you'll never have to see zero-content trolls like Noicons again!

... parasite failure sticks fingers in ears and says, "blah blah blah blah ..."