Now what happened to the Music Industry and the Print Industry over the last decade could happen to education and more specifically the Text Book industry. The Apple corporation is currently in the best position to lead the industry with their 3-part offering :

1. iBook authoring tools
2. iBook digital marketplace distribution
3. iPad reader and storage
4. iCloud virtual storage

Amazon likewise, have all the constituent parts but lack the mindshare Apple has already developed.

1. Amazon.com digital marketplace distribution
2. Kindle and Kindle Fire reader and storage
3. Amazon cloud storage.

To get a “glimpse” of what is on the horizon for schools, for teachers and for students click here.

Rosandick’s accomplishments over the past seven years at the helm of the Homedale School District are impressive.  Some examples:  Although State funding has been reduced in the past three years he has been able to maintain a positive general fund balance in excess of $1.4 million in a general fund budget of just over $7 million.  He secured passage of a supplemental levy to assist in construction of the Vocational Building for the COSSA program.  Recently, Rosandick was named administrator of the year by the Idaho Education Technology Association.  Staff turnover at the Homedale School District during his tenure has never been in excess of 5%.   For the year 2011 the Homedale School District and its schools achieved Adequate Yearly Progress under the No Child Left Behind Act, a first for the District.  During the last 3 years at Homedale High School the graduation rate exceeded 90%.  In the spring of 2010 Rosandick was named administrator of the year for students with limited English proficiency by the Idaho Department of Education.

The Caldwell School District has a long-standing tradition of good schools with unequaled community support.  The School Board’s selection of Rosandick is a positive sign that that tradition will continue.

SEE THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE!

H0534: This legislation eliminated the requirement of 3 years teaching experience before a teacher would be eligible for a bonus for assuming a leadership role.  Today we have many new teachers that are just entering the profession that have had years of experience in other professions and perhaps other leadership roles as well.  The State should not be determining the criteria for eligibility.  The local school board should make that determination.

HB 481: This legislation took care of the “cap” issue, which has penalized our State, our students and parents since our first charter school legislation was approved over a decade ago.   Our current charter school statute was viewed as an unfriendly law because of the “cap,” which has been harmful to our applications for grants and awards.
This legislation amends Idaho Code 33-5203(2)(a) to remove the growth cap of six new public charter schools per year, and to remove the cap of one new public charter school per district per year.  With this legislation our Idaho charter school law is now ranked 12th in the country, a big improvement.

SB 1217: This Legislation clarified that the requirement to include a parental input component in teacher evaluations beginning in the 2012-2013 school year be aligned with the same requirement for the evaluation of administrators.

HB 694: This bill easily passed the House and was not heard in the Senate Education Committee.  It provided that all employees of a school district shall be informed of all of their options in regards to professional liability insurance available through education employee associations. To that end school districts shall disclose a provider list to all employees of education employee associations.  The bill, if allowed to become law, leveled the “playing field” for education associations other than the Idaho Education Association.  Currently the teacher’s union (The IEA) has a monopoly on access to teachers and this bill would have given other associations the same access.  Perhaps in 2013 this legislation can be passed by both Houses and on to the Governor’s desk.

SB1237: This legislation amended the definition of an online course.  Current language prohibited the teacher from being in the same location or school where the course is being taken.  This legislation provided that the definition of online course is more appropriately defined in administrative rule.

SB (1327) (1328) and (1329): This legislation amends many provisions of Students Come First that were contained in SB 1110, approved in 2011 by the legislature and signed by the Governor.

HB 670: This bill would have provided a credit on state income taxes to individuals and corporations that make donations to scholarship granting organizations that provide scholarships to qualified k-12 students attending approved schools.  This legislation would have made school choice available to more students, especially to the less affluent.  Again, perhaps this legislation or something similar will find its way to the Governor’s office in 2013.

SB 1410: This bill appropriated for public schools $1,566,813.00, a slight increase over the prior year.  It again represented the legislatures commitment to k-12 education.

In summary, the 2012 legislature treated public schools very well.  They continued to receive the lion’s share of the State’s general fund revenue and while there were a couple of items left undone, the overall grade was a very good one.

House Bill 694 is pro-teacher legislation that will ensure an equitable, safe process of informing teachers about associations providing liability protection and legal representation that best align with their beliefs and budget.  It supports Idaho’s right to work principle and the freedom of association.  HB 694 establishes a free and fair marketplace of ideas in which educators can learn of and choose the professional associations that best help them advance as classroom professionals focused on students as their highest priority.  HB 694 supports equity and teacher choice.

HB 670, A GOOD BILL, DID NOT PASS
For many, many years I have been and advocate for school choice as I have determined from over 50 years as a traditional school educator that school choice is the only true path to school improvement.  We have studied and tweaked the system and funded it generously and what has been the result, a mediocre system at best.  Now we have an opportunity with HB 670 to inject some competition into the system that will help drive school improvement that students, parents and taxpayers deserve. This bill may not be the “silver-bullet” but it is a step in the right direction.

“Competition is not only the basis of protection to the consumer, but is the incentive to progress.”
Herbert Hoover

THANKS! I would like to take this opportunity to say thanks to our legislators who have supported efforts in many ways to make our schools better for kids, for their parents and of course for the taxpayer as well.  Change is hardly ever easy, but it is necessary if we are to continue on the route to school reform.

“You must have long-range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short-range failures.”
- Charles C. Noble

• A common misuse of taxpayer money in Idaho School Districts is to pay a teacher, not to teach, but to conduct union business.
• Using taxpayer money to pay the union dues for it’s teachers
• Provide teachers release time from their teaching duties to conduct union business, at the expense of the taxpayer
• Provide to teachers from taxpayer dollars funds the cost to acquire college credits so that the teacher can move to a higher “rung” on the salary ladder.
• Forcing school boards to hire the most expensive teacher, even if that teacher isn’t the most qualified.

• Forcing school boards to dismiss excellent teachers in exchange for the more experienced, but under-performing teachers.

While the above examples are representative of the costs to the taxpayer, there are also and perhaps more importantly education costs as well.   Who teaches the “kids” when their teacher is somewhere other than the classroom conducting union business?   What are the teacher’s priorities when they spend some of their time on union business?   Why should students settle for anything else than the best when it comes to their teacher?

The school reform measure that corrals collective bargaining is fair in that it provides for the continuation of bargaining for salary but places the emphasis for the teacher on their proper role of teaching kids, The reforms put a spotlight on student achievement.  Everything else is secondary.

DOING THE RIGHT THING! Our congratulations to the following Senators for righting a wrong that has been an inhibitor to the charter school movement since that “wrong” was agreed to at the onset of Idaho’s charter school legislation:      Senators Bair, Brackett, Davis, Fulcher, Goedde, Hammond, Heider, Hill, Johnson, Lodge, McKague, McKenzie, Mortimer, Nuxoll, Pearce, Rice, Siddoway, Smyser Tippents, TORYANSKI, Vick and Winder.

THANKS!

“Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.” Confucius

There are literally thousands of reasons to support the Legislature, the Governor and this legislation.  There has never been a more important “YES” vote in the history of Idaho education.

Schools are for kids, and parents have a right to expect that when they send their child off to school, their child will be safe and entrusted to a dedicated and competent professional educator.  Parents do NOT have that assurance today. Most of our teachers are doing a great job. But our schools do have a few teachers that should find another line of work, yet they are protected by an outdated unneeded law: the renewable contract, also known as tenure. Bad teachers remain on the job, at the expense of student achievement and, indeed, our children’s future. While the 2011 legislation will not end “tenure” for all—there is a grandfather provision for current “tenured faculty”—over time, no teacher will be afforded the sweeping and unreasonable protection of tenure. The education reforms protect kids. The reforms also benefit our best teachers, as they will no longer have to work side-by-side with colleagues who are a drain on the profession and the education system.

The education establishment including the labor union will counter the above paragraph with something like the following:  Current law provides for the removal of “bad” teachers; and those bad teachers are removed and more would be removed if only administrators would use that existing law.

However, in Idaho and in every state that has a tenure law, marginal or unsatisfactory teachers are rarely removed.  Those marginal teachers are either transferred to another school, assigned to a non-teaching position or their dismissal is tied up, sometimes for years in litigation.  Nearly every day you can find news reports about a teacher in some way abusing a student. We simply can’t continue to maintain a law that gives protection for such misbehavior. And invariably, that teacher remains on the job.

A recent study of public employees including teachers, by Mark Flatten from the Goldwater Institute of Arizona revealed that over a 15 month period in Arizona, none were ever fired.  Flatten stated, “Teachers are rarely fired, it is just simply easier to relocate the teacher, or ignore the misbehavior and all of the time the teacher is still in the classroom with kids.”

I am confident, having had the benefit of a half-century in Idaho schools, that a similar study here would reveal similar findings. On a positive note, I believe that the vast, vast majority of teachers come to school each day prepared, dedicated and ready to do their best to keep students safe and to help students learn.  These teachers do great work in their classrooms every day.  They “do the job” and are in demand – the renewable contract law provides no added benefit for them or for their profession!

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On June 28, 2010, New York City closed its “rubber rooms,” where approximately 600 tenured teachers “accused of incompetence and wrongdoing” received their full salaries to sit in a sparse room and do nothing.

Our compliments to the Idaho Farm Bureau on their statements regarding education in Idaho.  Following are some of their education policy statements for 2012.

• We believe education starts with the parent or guardian and is extended to the schools as a cooperative partnership in which parents and guardians have the right to review any and all methods and materials used in the education processes of school systems.
• We believe that parents have the right to choose how best to educate their children.
• We believe local school boards must be elected by the people to maintain control of public school systems and must have authority to establish policy for dress standards, personal conduct standards, testing standards, fiscal controls and curriculum.
• We recommend that the tenure system for school-teachers be eliminated and replaced with contracts based on evaluation and performance.
• We support the concept of incentive pay that will improve teacher excellence.
• We support the continuing freedom of Idaho parents to choose private school, parochial school, home school, public charter school or public school.
• We support optional kindergarten and Oppose public funding of pre-kindergarten.
• We support the voucher system for education.
• School teachers should have the option of being able to negotiate their own contact with the school district as a private contractor.

Congratulation to Senator Fulcher on his recent election as the majority caucus chairman!

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SCHOOL ROOM IN ONE GNERATION WILL BE THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOVERNMENT IN THE NEXT.  ( ABRAHAM LINCOLN)

HO426: This bill will further advance what many schools are doing today, providing opportunities for their students to accelerate their education.   Assistant principal of the Vallivue High School Julie Yamamoto said, “The school has worked with parents to develop a system that allows the most motivated and mature students the chance to move ahead.  We recognize that times have changed and we need to be a lot more versatile.”   This legislation will give schools, students and parents that versatility.   It is high time to realize that what we are doing in our schools today does not meet the needs of many of our students.  We must open up new avenues, more choices, more opportunities and this legislation will do that.  We will never make any headway if we continue to refuse to think outside of the proverbial “box” a bit.

H0534: This legislation eliminates the requirement of 3 years teaching experience before a teacher would be eligible for a bonus for assuming a leadership role.  Today we have many new teachers that are just entering the profession that have had years of experience in other professions and perhaps other leadership roles as well.  The State should not be determining the criteria for eligibility.  The local school board should make that determination.

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. “Anonymous”

Hard to believe but true! Why is it this surprising? Our world has changed so much.  Most jobs require some basic understanding of computers and technology. Aren’t our schools supposed to prepare students for college or the workforce? But the labor unions were so threatened by technology that they secured enough signatures to get that Legislature’s education reforms on the November ballot.

Everywhere around our country schools are getting on-board with the latest technology because it works. It helps students learn. But here in Idaho the labor union obviously has a different agenda.  And, it is not a good one for Idaho students, parents, taxpayers or for thousands of Idaho teachers that fully support the greater use of technology.

Consider the following excerpts from an article in the New York Times February 13, 2012.

MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Sixty educators from across the nation roamed the halls and ringed the rooms of East Mooresville Intermediate School, searching for the secret formula. They found it in Erin Holsinger’s fifth-grade math class.

There, a boy peering into his school-issued MacBook blitzed through fractions by himself, determined to reach sixth-grade work by winter. Three desks away, a girl was struggling with basic multiplication — only 29 percent right, her screen said — and Ms. Holsinger knelt beside her to assist. Curiosity was fed and embarrassment avoided, as teacher connected with student through emotion far more than Wi-Fi.

“This is not about the technology,” Mark Edwards, superintendent of Mooresville Graded School District, would tell the visitors later over lunch. “It’s not about the box. It’s about changing the culture of instruction — preparing students for their future, not our past.”

As debate continues over whether schools invest wisely in technology — and whether it measurably improves student achievement — Mooresville, a modest community about 20 miles north of Charlotte best known as home to several Nascar teams and drivers, has quietly emerged as the de facto national model of the digital school.

Mr. Edwards spoke on a White House panel in September, and federal Department of Education officials often cite Mooresville as a symbolic success. Overwhelmed by requests to view the programs in action, the district now herds visitors into groups of 60 for monthly demonstrations; the waiting list stretches to April. What they are looking for is an explanation for the steady gains Mooresville has made since issuing laptops three years ago to the 4,400 4th through 12th graders in five schools (three K-3 schools are not part of the program.

The district’s graduation rate was 91 percent in 2011, up from 80 percent in 2008. On state tests in reading, math and science, an average of 88 percent of students across grades and subjects met proficiency standards, compared with 73 percent three years ago. Attendance is up, dropouts are down. Mooresville ranks 100th out of 115 districts in North Carolina in terms of dollars spent per student — $7,415.89 a year — but it is now third in test scores and second in graduation rates.  “Other districts are doing things, but what we see in Mooresville is the whole package: using the budget, innovating, using data, involvement with the community and leadership,” said Karen Cator, a former Apple executive who is director of educational technology for the United States Department of Education. “There are lessons to be learned.”
Start with math lessons: each student’s MacBook Air is leased from Apple for $215 a year, including warranty, for a total of $1 million; an additional $100,000 a year goes for software. Terry Haas, the district’s chief financial officer, said the money was freed up through “incredibly tough decisions.”

Sixty-five jobs were eliminated, including 37 teachers, which resulted in larger class sizes — in middle schools, it is 30 instead of 18 — but district officials say they can be more efficiently managed because of the technology. Some costly items had become obsolete (like computer labs), though getting rid of others tested the willingness of teachers to embrace the new day: who needs globes in the age of Google Earth?

Families pay $50 a year to subsidize computer repairs, though the fee is waived for those who cannot afford it, about 18 percent of them. Similarly, the district has negotiated a deal so that those without broadband Internet access can buy it for $9.99 a month. Mr. Edwards said the technology had helped close racial performance gaps in a district where 27 percent of the students are minorities and 40 percent are poor enough to receive free or reduced-price lunches.
And now here are some comments that were posted on the New York Times website:

I am currently a Junior at Mooresville High School, one of the schools within Mooresville Graded, and I think that since we have had the laptops, my productivity has gone up ten-fold regarding school work…. while there are some distracting features to access on the laptop, I think most would agree with me that the laptops are beneficial to our learning. I have a lot more organization, and it is harder to make excuses to procrastinate, as I have all of what I need right in front of me most of the time.

A number of people commenting here seem to have completely missed this key observation about the Mooresville teaching staff:

“They value computers not for the newest content they can deliver, but for how they tap into the oldest of student emotions — curiosity, boredom, embarrassment, angst — and help educators deliver what only people can.”

The article is trying to say that when combined with the right kind of teachers, digital technology can make the classroom a much more exciting and participatory place. How I would have loved to attend a Mooresville school. I graduated from high school in 1977, and recall only a handful of classes that were ever worth attending.

Here in Idaho the electorate is actually being asked to vote whether or not  to move Idaho schools into the age of modern technology!  Unbelievable!

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
- John F. Kennedy