Sen. Bramble and the Utah PTA

It seems Sen. Bramble is taking on the PTA moms and dads in an effort to...

Actually, I am lost as to his motive.

His bill, SB 199, wants to grant equal access to all parent and parent/teacher groups. Evidently this is a problem in Provo, so he is using his legislative prerogative to mandate a change for the entire state. Equal access doesn't seem like a bad thing, but he wants to prohibit schools from working with a parent group that requires dues for its members to vote and elect their leaders. He added an amendment in committee yesterday that would allow a school to work with a dues-paying organization that waives the dues requirement upon request. So you could belong to the organization, use its name, benefit from its resources, elect its leaders and not pay to belong.

Huh? He wants to legislate how a private organization conducts its own affairs? Is this good public policy? Because I can think of many professional organizations that collect dues and elect their leaders, and I'm pretty sure they don't want the Legislature telling them whether or not they can continue.

Senator Stephenson and the Wizard of Oz

This is almost too funny. In defending a proposal to make the state school board elections partisan, Senator Howard Stephenson believes that by increasing the number of board members to 29 and aligning them with the district boundaries for the Utah Senate, constituents would actually know the state school board member who represents them:

"Ninety-five percent of the population could not name their state school board member if their life depended on it. That's a problem," he said. "Why even have an election? Why not just have them appointed by the Wizard of Oz?" (See The Deseret Morning News)

What's funny about this is that last year I saw a survey where constituents of Senator Stephenson (and other senators in northern Utah county) were asked to identify their state senator. Among the answers:

• Senator Hatch
• Senator Bennett
• Senator Scott Matheson (this was the most interesting)
• Senator Jim Matheson

along with a variety of other answers that I don't recall at the moment. There were a couple that correctly identified their state senator, but not many.

I would love to go to a busy street corner or store and conduct such a survey to see how many actually know their state senator and representative. My guess? Probably 95% would not be able to correctly identify their senator and representative.

I guess we should just let our senators be appointed by the Wizard of Oz also.

To the Parents of Math Investigations Students-- Wait until High School

I have news for all you parents with kids in elementary and middle school--just wait until your kids get to high school. Virtually unmentioned in all the uproar about Investigations is the use of "Connected Math" in the high schools. I don't know how many use it, but Lone Peak High School uses this curriculum for at least one of their Pre-Calculus math classes and at least one of their Calculus math classes. This curriculum seems very similar to the Investigations method. The kids are supposed to figure out fairly sophisticated higher math concepts by discovery and trial and error using ridiculous story problems (in my opinion).

To top it all off, some of the classes don't use a book, and those that do have a book use one that has zero explanation for any of the concepts. That's zip, nada, zilch, nothing. So if the teacher doesn't take time to explain, or doesn't explain the concepts adquequately, you are sunk. And they'll fall farther and farther behind. My son's class didn't use a book, so I went to Deseret Industries and found a few texts that we could use, that had explanations, practice problems, etc. Things got so bad that I couldn't even figure out what the concept was they were trying to teach (and the teacher wouldn't tell them), so there was no way I could even supplement at home.

I don't know if other high schools in the district use this curriculum, so I don't know how Lone Peak compares with other in that regard. But I do know that Lone Peak's passing rate for the AP Calculus A/B test was 55%, 10% lower than the next lower school in the district, and 21% lower than the district average, and the passing rate for the AP Calculus B/C test was 56%, 24% lower than the next lowest school and 21% lower than the district average. By comparison, Pleasant Grove's passing rate was 96% and 91% respectively. Anyone know what any of the other high schools use? If not, you probably want to find out!

Representative Dougall Sounds Mad!

Alpine School District Superintendent Vern Henshaw recently referred to Investigations opponents as extremists, setting off a firestorm of calls for his resignation.

He apparently also incited Representative John Dougall to vent his frustrations on his blog about the situation. Rep. Dougall lives in the Alpine School District and I know, from personal conversations with him, has great frustrations with the education situation here. I don't think Superintendent Henshaw's comments helped things any (read his posting at the link above and tell me what you think!)

I also am quite certain, from discussions with many parents, that the Superintendent and most of the ASD School Board really don't understand (or better yet, believe) what is going on. So many parents have personally, or through tutors, supplemented their children's math education to overcome the inadequacies of an Investigations-only curriculum of the last few years. Board member Andrea Forsyth gleefully claimed that math test scores went up because of Investigations. Could it be, Ms. Forsyth, that this improvement was due to the work of parents, and not the curriculum you chose?

I remember a conversation with Board Member Guy Fugal where I asked him, after he professed great support for the Investigations curriculum, if he had any children in elementary school, and therefore had any personal experience with Investigations as a parent. He of course, did not, but he supported the program 100%. Perhaps if he had to play the unbelievably silly, unchallenging games with his children, that I had to, maybe, maybe, his tune might have changed.

Is There No Tact?

After an extremely difficult fight regarding vouchers during the 2006 campaign and the 2007 legislative session, I found it extremely ironic that Speaker Curtis scheduled a Time Certain vote for HB148 on Education Vouchers for private schools for the time immediately preceeding the recognition of public school teachers who had received their National Board Certification. Speaker, wouldn't there have been a better time to schedule that other than a time immediately following the vote on a bill that many in public education are so opposed to? It was a slap in the face of these public educators to honor them immediately after the vote on the vouchers bill, which many feel will be a detriment to public education.

Why Was the Voucher Bill Modified via HB 174?

In discussing a recent vote on HB174, which modifies the voucher bill from this session(the ink is hardly dry on the Governor's signature on that bill), Representative Urquart raises the question of why 5 Democrats voted against this bill, which contained additional items that the Democrats had used as arguments to vote against the orginal voucher bill. Why would they now vote against the things they had previously argued for? It's a valid question and probably deserves an answer, although I suppose that there are several reasons why a legislator might vote for or against a bill.

However, the question could also be asked of those that pushed the voucher bill through--why weren't the items in HB174 in the original voucher bill? They passed overwhelmingly now as part of HB174. The story of the camel who tries to get into the tent of his master by first trying to get his nose in the tent comes to mind. Once accomplishing that,the camel gradually gets further and further into the tent until there is no more room for his master, the camel is completely in the tent and the master is out in the cold. Senator Bramble admitted as much at a recent Republican Central Committee meeting. This is the first shot and now, having gotten their nose in the tent, the Legislature will attempt to add more and more to the voucher program every year.

Senator Stephenson Grills PTA

In Paul Rolly's column on February 14, 2007, he described a grilling that Senator Howard Stephenson administered to the Utah PTA representative (Debi Tabor) that was speaking on SB57. In that grilling, he accused the PTA of not polling all of the members to see their position on this bill (the implication being that they don't really adequately represent the PTA members in the state of Utah). Senator Stephenson said that despite being a PTA member for over 20 years, he had never been approached about his positions. Then Senator Bramble decided to go on record and pour more salt on the wound.

See the 36:30 mark for the Feburary 9, 2007 Senate Education Committee hearing.

Shame on both of you!!

Notes to Senator Stephenson:

1. You are my state senator. You have never polled me on my thoughts about any bill that you are voting on. I doubt that you have talked to more than a very small fraction of people in your district regarding any issue, let alone the issue represented by SB57. You, therefore, according, to your own criteria, do not represent me or your constituents.
2. I would be willing to bet that most people in your district don't even know who you are. A recent survey that I saw from your district, where people listed their state senator and representative, had very few right answers. Many were left blank, and many had incorrect answers. Some thought Senator Hatch and even Scott Matheson were their state senator. Very few people knew that you were their senator.
3. The PTA has a very specific process by which positions on bills are determined. The process is not perfect, and like any volunteer organization it depends on people being involved. Senator, if you have been a PTA member for 20 years, why do you not know anything about this process? Why do you wait for PTA people to come to you and ask your position? Why did you not seek out the opportunity to make your views known and find out how you could be involved in the legislative process? If you haven't tried, you have no reason to complain.
4. Every year, the PTA has a legislative convention where positions are debated and voted upon. EVERY PTA can send representatives to this convention and provide input to the PTA positions. You could have gone as a member of your PTA and provided input and actually voted at this convention. You apparently did not.
5. Last note---people that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
6. Next to last note---you'll do much better if you talk with people and not down to them.
7. Very last note---these same thoughts apply to Senator Bramble.

Rep. Sandstrom, sacrificial lamb

Stephen Sandstrom, freshman GOP representative from District 58 in Orem, ran as an education-friendly candidate. He was heavily pressured by his GOP colleagues to vote for the Parents for Choice in Education Act, and after voting for it, has been criticized by his constituents for caving under the pressure. Legislative watchers think he has been sacrificed by his colleagues to allow a less education-friendly candidate to be elected in the next cycle. Any guesses on who that might be? However, he was thrown a bone by the House when he was allowed to carry the bill getting funding for the K-3 reading program. It's tough to be a freshman in the rough and tumble world of Utah politics.

Senator Madsen Doesn't Understand ACT Scores

In the February 9 Senate Education Committee, Senator Madsen presented his bill (SB57), to receive a high school diploma if the student passes the basic skills competency test and receives certains scores on the ACT (scores that rank in the top 15% of Utah students). When questioned by Senator Howard Stephenson what those scores on the ACT would be for Utah, Senator Madsen didn't have that information with him and tried to figure out what it would be , saying that the top score on the ACT was 30 (the top score is actually 36). He was quickly corrected (start listening at the 8:20 mark of the Senate Education Committee hearing on SB57 on February 9, 2007).

Is anyone worried that the sponser for a bill using the ACT as one of the criteria for a diploma in his bill doesn't even know what the top score on the ACT is?