Santa Fe/ NM Land Office Lease Sale Brings in $4.89 Million
By Danielle Flores
Associated Press
KOB-TV, Channel 4
September 24, 2012
The New Mexico State Land Office says this month's sale of oil and natural gas leases brought in nearly $5 million.
The September sales included 29 tracts of land that covered more than 8,000 acres in three counties in southeastern New Mexico.
Officials say the September 2011 sale had brought in more than $9.9 million for 8,140 acres.
Revenues from the sales go toward public schools, universities and hospitals.
The State Land Office says the highest bid this month of $1.9 million was made by Energen Resources Corp. for 640 acres in Lea County.
The next lease sale will be Oct. 16.
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Santa Fe/ SFPS: Change State Funding Formula
By T.S. Last
ABQ Journal Staff Writer
September 25, 2012
Santa Fe Public Schools' new superintendent Joel Boyd says the capital city should harbor the flagship school district in the state. With that in mind, Boyd, who has been on board with the district less than two months, is hoping to make waves by leading the effort to change the state's funding formula for public schools.
Last Tuesday, the Santa Fe school board approved a resolution calling for adjustments to the formula's at-risk index and components that address bilingual funding and local economic factors - such as Santa Fe's relatively high cost of living.
The resolution was one of two introduced by staff and accepted by the board that were then presented at the New Mexico School Board Association's Regional II meeting in Pojoaque two days later.
The other expressed opposition to any increase in the contributions both the school district and its employees contribute to the cash-strapped Educational Retirement Fund.
If endorsed by the school board association at its annual meeting in December, the resolutions would be forwarded to the Legislative Finance Committee and considered for adoption during the 2013 legislative session.
Funding formula
Boyd said discussions between school officials statewide and the Legislative Finance Committee about increasing the weight of the at-risk factor in the school funding formula has been gaining momentum. The at-risk factor takes into account the number of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, as well English language learners.
- "If the risk factor is increased, given Santa Fe's population, we stand to benefit," Boyd told the school board. "But beyond the local benefit, we believe thoroughly as educators that money should follow kids, and if money follows kids then greater weight should be given to kids most in need."
The resolution states that the funding formula is designed to provide equitable education funding but some aspects of the formula do not effectively reflect the incremental cost difference for serving at-risk students, resulting in unfair allocations.
- It contends that at-risk students require additional resources to meet their needs.
- The resolution further states that the formula doesn't account for the differences in local economic factors across urban, suburban and rural communities.
Board Vice President Linda Trujillo said changing the equalization component of the funding formula for public schools was one of the most important issues the Legislature has to address. Not only does the formula affect how much can be spent on students, she said, it affects the school district's ability to hire teachers.
- "It's very challenging for Santa Fe to hire and retain quality, valuable teachers in our classrooms when they cannot afford to live in Santa Fe," she said, adding that teachers instead choose to live and work in places like Albuquerque and Rio Rancho.
Trujillo said just as Santa Fe experiences economic "leakage" from people going out of town to buy commodities, the school district has leakage of staff.
- "We need to have a higher pay scale for them, and that risk factor needs to accommodate for that," she said.
There was some discussion about the city being ranked second in the state behind Los Alamos for cost of living, which factors in property taxes.
- "There's more to the bucket of goods that's used to measure cost of living than just property taxes, so I would go so far to argue that our cost of living - when you take into account groceries, fuel, housing - that we are actually at the highest level," Boyd said.
Board member Steven Carrillo said it may be difficult to garner support for the resolution because some smaller school districts could be adversely affected by such a change to the formula.
- "I'm really hoping the NMSBA has the courage to get behind something like this, because there are going to be a lot of other districts - very, very small homogenous districts - that would stand to lose some of these dollars," he said. "They need to look inside and do what's right for the state as a whole."
Retirement contributions
The second resolution proposed by the staff called for the Legislature to oppose any further increase in the statutory contribution from employers and employees to the Educational Retirement Fund.
Again, Boyd alluded to the effect on Santa Fe schoolteachers, who haven't received a raise in five years.
- "If we increase (contributions) any further, the net take home for our teachers is going to be even less than it is right now," he said, adding that it would also mean less money going to classrooms.
- "What we're suggesting here is the state has a problem with the retirement fund, but they need to find another solution other than picking the pockets of employees."
Boyd said two solutions are being discussed.
- The popular suggestion, he said, was to dip into the state's land grant permanent fund.
- The not-so-popular idea is to increase the retirement horizon, which now stands at 25 years.
Trujillo said there's no doubt the retirement fund is in trouble.
- "But this state has a history, over the last five years, of using state employees, whether they're teachers or whether they're employees in agencies, to balance the budget on our backs, and it has to stop," she said. "
- The idea that we have to increase an employee's contribution, or the district's contribution, without coupling together an increase in funding to give raises is unconscionable."
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ABQ/ Flat ACT/SAT Test Scores Nationwide Reflects NM Results
By Hailey Heinz
ABQ Journal Staff Writer
September 25, 2012
- Results from the nation's two main college entrance exams show more than half the students who take the tests nationwide are falling short of benchmark scores that predict college success.
- Overall scores are flat over time and dropping in some subjects.
But at the same time, a more diverse pool of students is taking the tests. According to a report released Monday by the College Board, the class of 2012 was the most diverse class of SAT test-takers ever.
- 45 percent of students taking the test were minorities, and
- 28 percent reported English was not exclusively their first language.
New Mexico mirrors both trends.
New Mexico students predominantly take the ACT, which tests students on English, math, reading and science.
- The test is scored on a scale of 1 to 36, and college readiness benchmarks are set for each subject.
- The benchmarks range from an 18 in English to a 24 in science.
According to researchers at the nonprofit that administers the ACT, students who score at or above the benchmark have a 50 percent chance of earning a "B" or higher in first-year college courses in that subject.
- Nationwide, 25 percent of ACT takers scored at or above the benchmark in all four subjects.
- That number is 17 percent in New Mexico.
The picture is rosier for the English portion of the test.
- 67 percent nationwide scored at or above the benchmark, while
- 57 percent of New Mexico students did so.
- The state's numbers are lower than the national ones for each subject.
New Mexico's average composite scores have stayed flat or decreased slightly over the past five years, while participation numbers have steadily increased.
- There were 11,951 test-takers in 2008, compared to 13,792 in 2012.
During that same time, the state's average composite score dipped slightly, from 20.3 to 19.9, while the national average stayed stable at 21.1.
State education chief Hanna Skandera said participation is important, but New Mexico's scores must improve.
- "More students participating in college entrance exams is vital to making sure they are ready to make the next step. That's why we designed a school A-F grading system that gives credit to high schools for students who take those exams and additional credit for strong scores," she said in a written statement. "The next, more vital step, it to make sure student performance on those exams show marked improvements in college and career readiness."
For the class of 2012, 75 percent of New Mexico students took the ACT, compared to 13 percent who took the SAT.
- According to SAT numbers released Monday for the class of 2012, the national average reading score of 496 is the lowest on a list that stretches back to 1972.
- Math scores have remained stable or increased during that time, and the average math score this year was 514.
Nationally, 43 percent of students who took the SAT reached the benchmark score of 1550, which researchers say is associated with college readiness and success.
New Mexico significantly outperforms the national average on the SAT, which is fairly common in states where a small percentage of students take the test. Those who take the test tend to skew toward well-prepared students who are applying to schools outside New Mexico.
- New Mexico's average SAT scores for 2012 were 550 in reading and 546 in math.
- In Albuquerque Public Schools, data are not yet available for the class of 2012. But for the class of 2011, the state's largest district had an average ACT score of 20.8, outperforming the state average of 19.8. That year, APS fell short of the national average of 21.1.
For the classes of 2008 through 2010, APS had a higher average ACT score than the nation.
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Santa Fe/ Hope 4 Today: Education Nonprofit Considers Purchasing St. Catherine Property
By Robert Nott
The New Mexican
September 24, 2012
A Missouri-based youth literacy group wants to buy the vacant St. Catherine Indian School property and develop it into a educational center that would include a publishing house, a reading center, and even housing for transient veterans.
According to George Briscoe, board chairman for the nonprofit Hope 4 Today of Chesterfield, Mo., his organization has had a short-term purchase agreement in place with St. Catherine's owner, Max Tafoya, for several months.
But that agreement runs out within a week, and given the news reports of all the problems surrounding the property, Briscoe isn't sure whether Hope 4 Today will renew the deal.
- "I don't understand the headaches, the fighting," he said by phone Monday. "We know the property is in turmoil. The lawsuits do not concern us. ... Our goal is to establish a campus there."
Briscoe was referring to recent news reports that the city of Santa Fe has petitioned the Municipal Court to order St. Catherine's owner to make repairs to decaying buildings on the campus.
Also, Tafoya's lawyer, John Polk, filed a complaint in District Court against Placitas-based real estate agent Patricia Barey charging her with slander and claiming her two recent liens against the property are fraudulent.
Still, Briscoe said he was more concerned by a recent New Mexican report that the proposed state charter school Starshine Lisa Law Peace School was planning to move onto the St. Catherine campus if it received approval from the state's Public Education Commission. The commission voted 6-3 against Starshine during a public hearing last week, however.
Though Briscoe declined to reveal the specifics of his contract, he did say the deal makes it clear that St Catherine's owners and representatives cannot market the campus for sale under the purchase agreement.
- "We have a contract that gives us exclusive rights that states that the property should not be marketed to anyone at this time," he said.
"All of a sudden things start going on, the city starts attacking, and our board and donors are asking what is going on. If there is some impropriety against our foundations, I want to know about it."
Briscoe said his company first inquired about the St. Catherine property last spring. He said he was aware of attempts by the New Mexico School for the Arts to acquire the property through the city of Santa Fe, which took about 10 months and ended in July when the school announced it no longer wants the property.
He said he has been in communication with one of Santa Fe's city councilors regarding his company's plans, but declined to say which councilor.
Hope 4 Today, founded in 2004, offers an array of programs to ensure that children and teens can access books and develop strong reading skills. The group's Coming Home Project focuses on helping returning veterans gain job skills.
Briscoe, who said he is of Comanche heritage, said he thinks it is improper to use the St. Catherine campus as any sort of boarding school for any type of educational organization, given the nation's history of forcibly sending Native American students to such schools. But, he said, the campus could be developed into a self-sustaining business that benefits various sectors of the Santa Fe community, from displaced veterans to students in need.
He said he does not want to get into a fight with either Tafoya or the city of Santa Fe. But speaking of the existing structures on the St. Catherine campus, Briscoe noted, "I don't care how much money you throw at them, you will not be able to repair them."
He said his estimates show the cost of acquiring and renovating the campus at somewhere between $10.5 million and $13 million. He figures it will take his company about 18 months to fully prepare the Santa Fe campus for Hope 4 Today.
Briscoe said that if Hope 4 Today does extend its contract for the property, it would reach out to the city for permission to remove at least four buildings on the campus.
Though Hope 4 Today's annual budget is quite small - about $100,000, according to Briscoe - he said it is partnering with various national organizations and donors to raise money to perhaps move his company's headquarters to Santa Fe.
- "We have the economic engine to do what we plan to do," he said. "We are not going to come out there and ask the state of New Mexico to support us as a charter school or ask the city to help with public funding. We want to create a self-sustaining environment over time. It's an amazing property with tremendous potential."
Polk did not immediately respond to an email request for comment. Trish McCarty, president and founder of Starshine Academy, headquartered in Phoenix, did not immediately respond to an email or phone request for comment.
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Acoma/ Educator Joe A. Aragon, Jr. Receives Prestigious Award
By Bob Tenequer
Cibola Beacon Staff Writer
September 25, 2012
Joe A. Aragon, Jr., an Acoma tribal member, will be inducted into the Hall of Honors at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, N.M., on Sept. 29.
Aragon, who retired in 2011, as a science teacher at Laguna-Acoma High School, is among seven former alumni of the university who will be honored.
Aragon began his professional career at ENMU as coordinator of Native American Affairs and went on to teach science at the high school and collegiate levels. He has also coached. Aragon has received numerous awards including New Mexico Distinguished High School Physics Teacher and outstanding teacher by Tandy Technology Scholars.
The educator said his interest in teaching grew out of his experience working with Native American students.
He worked with student retention and recruitment.
Aragon said, "I spoke with students about staying in school and what opportunities would be available to them if the continued in pursuing their education."
While he was at the university he was approached to teach a class in humanities and a physics lab. He said the experience was the beginning of his career in teaching.
"I found that when it came to teaching I was a natural," recalled Aragon.
What he found was that teachers have a great deal of influence, "and as a teacher you want to teach a student to be a productive person," said Aragon.
Beyond helping a person becoming more productive, Aragon said, "My hope is that I gave my students the right math skills - because at some point - what they do as a profession may impact me and my family."
"For example," Aragon emphasized, "If my family and I are flying in a plane, if a student of mine who I taught worked on that plane, my hope is that they knew exactly what they were doing and that I taught them well, because it ultimately impacts the health and safety of my family."
"As parents, all of us are teachers," said Aragon. "We all have the responsibility to influence the education of our children; whether negative or good."
Aragon is among seven other alumni who will receive the honors. Among them are: Ronald Bass, BSE, 1965, and MED, 1968; Howard Conley, BA, 1961, and MA, 1968; Scott Childress, who worked in Thoreau for a number of year, MS, 1970, and Education Specialist, 1976; Allen Cloud, BA, 1959, and MED, 1963, Gracella (Pena) Sosa, BA, 1971, and MA, 1977; and Darlene J. Klassan, BS, 1974.
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ABQ/ COLUMN: Charters Promise High Quality
By Bruce Hegwer [Bruce Hegwer, the executive director of the New Mexico Coalition for Charter Schools, writes a monthly column for the ABQ Journal]
ABQ Journal
September 25, 2012
A major difference between charter schools and traditional schools is the promise of a higher quality of education for students. Charter schools are held to a higher standard in student achievement, financial accountability and governing board performance than their traditional counterparts. That is the promise of charter schools: increased results for increased autonomy on how the schools are organized and operated.
In 2011, Gov. Susana Martinez signed a law requiring that contracts between charter schools and authorizers - either a local school district or the Public Education Commission - call for annual evaluations for accountability. This new law outlines a way to revoke a charter from any school not meeting requirements in student achievement, organizational stability and financial accountability.
The higher standard for charter schools begins with a performance contract that is agreed upon when the school is authorized to open. The "charter" is a performance contract between the school and the authorizer, which oversees the school and determines whether it is meeting elements of the contract. The contract is a legally binding agreement and can be changed only by an agreement between both parties.
New Mexico law requires that the final, approved contract defines the academic, financial and operational performance expectations by which the school will be judged. These expectations are based on three frameworks for educational, financial and organization performance (including compliance with laws and regulations) that are essential for high student achievement, effective management and responsible governance.
The educational performance framework of the contract addresses how well the students are doing. It is aligned with the state's new A-F grading system for schools and considers factors that include student academic performance, student academic growth, achievement gaps in proficiency, growth among student subgroups, attendance, recurrent enrollment from year to year; and, if the charter school is a high school, post-secondary readiness and graduation rate.
The financial performance and sustainability element of the contract is to ensure that charter schools are held accountable for their financial management practices and achieving improved performance in management of their financial resources. The system is designed to encourage charter schools to manage their resources better in order to provide the maximum allocation possible for direct instructional purposes. The primary data to be used is the annual independent audit.
The third framework examines the school's organizational performance in managing and directing the school, including compliance with all applicable rules and laws. This element includes reviewing how effective the governing board is overseeing the operation of the school. The school's organizational assessment includes examining the policies and procedures of the school, the training the governing board has received, compliance with the Open Meetings Act and other school management operations.
The charter school performance contract sets annual goals in each of the above three frameworks. Annually, the performance of the school is monitored and evaluated to determine progress in student achievement. If the school is not meeting the performance targets, then the school and authorizer address those deficiencies and make corrections. What happens if the charter school continually does not meet the contract or has a material violation? Very simply, and unlike a traditional school, the charter school will be closed.
The performance contracts for charter schools ensure that they deliver on the promise of improved student performance. Although the charter schools operate under a contract with their authorizer, they are ultimately accountable to the parents and students who choose them and the public that funds them.
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Santa Fe/ LETTER: True Financial Burden of Salary Hikes Hidden
By Brian T. Shelton
New Mexican
September 22, 2012
Regarding the Sept. 16 article, "Board approved hikes last spring": The public could benefit from a little math lesson. I don't think the public has all the facts in this case, and, for that, I am outraged at the poor job the school district has done communicating to the public on this issue. As it stands, the raises appear to be kingdom building, and what the board voted to do in terms of salary increases seems divisive (management vs. union), seems to demonstrate favoritism and appears to be unfair.
- As for the math lesson, as based on the salary figures reported, the top six existing positions garnered $111,868 in salary increases, for a combined 21 percent increase over the base salaries.
- Plus, the two new positions held by Latifah Phillips and Almudena Abeyta are a pure $219,500 additional burden.
- That equals a grand total increase of $331,368 in salaries alone.
What the financial professionals at the district (who also received increases) may have forgotten to mention was the additional 30 percent to 40 percent benefit cost increase factored on these salary levels that include, but are not limited to, medical and dental insurance premiums, payroll taxes, annual and sick leave accruals, plus matching retirement benefit contributions.
This appears to be kingdom building because the spoils have not been shared equitably with the teachers, the custodians, and the principals who do extraordinarily hard work every single day. This appears to be favoritism because a lobbyist position was added for $98,500 plus benefits.
A key question regarding the justification for these executive salary increases is this: What work is being done now that wasn't being done before? To me, it seems duties were shuffled and new titles created.
As a taxpayer, I expect a 21 percent return on my investment. Since salaries increased a combined 21 percent for the top six positions, I expect a 21 percent improvement in the graduation rate across the district next year.
Does that seem unfair or unrealistic of me to expect? I don't think so.
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Washington DC/ SAT Scores Show Slight Decline
By Caralee Adams
Education Week [Edweek.org]
September 24, 2012
It was another disappointing year for student performance on the SAT.
The College Board released scores today for the class of 2012 and reported that 43 percent of test-takers achieved the SAT College & Career Readiness Benchmark - the same percentage as last year.
- This means that 57 percent of students were below 1550, which the organization determined last year gave students a 65 percent chance of receiving a B minus average or higher as a freshman at a four-year college.
- On average, students scored 1498 on the college-entrance exam, down from 1500 in the class of 2011. (A perfect SAT score is 2,400.)
- From 2011 to 2012, writing performance fell from 489 to 488 and critical reading dipped from 497 to 496.
- Math scores held steady at 514.
As in years past, students who took challenging courses continue to do significantly better on the SAT, reinforcing support for rigorous curriculum requirements in high school.
- "One of the calls to action is to ensure that greater numbers of students across all ethnic groups complete a core curriculum, which we know leads to stronger SAT scores," said Jim Montoya, senior vice president of the College Board
- To be better prepared for college, Stan Jones, president of Washington-based Complete College America, urged educators to not let high school students slack off during the senior year. The consequence of avoiding rigorous classes in high school is too often landing in remedial education as a college freshman, he said. Jones and others are holding out hope for the eventual impact of the Common Core State Standards to ramp up the focus on career- and college-readiness.
The results of the ACT released last month were similar.
- 60 percent of test-takers failed to meet the ACT College Readiness Benchmark in two of the four subject areas.
- This year, the number of students taking the ACT surpassed the SAT.
- There were 1.66 million students in the graduating class of 2012 who took the SAT, compared to 1.67 who took the ACT.
Other interesting findings in the 2012 SAT Report on College and Career Readiness:
- 75 percent of SAT test-takers planned to apply for financial aid.
- As for their intended degree path: 51 percent planned to pursue a master's degree or higher.
- Students indicated the most interest in health-related fields (19 percent, up from 15 percent in 2002).
- Business/commerce sparked the interest of 11 percent of this year's SAT test takers, compared to 14 percent 10 years ago.
- Engineering came in next at 9 percent, followed by
- biological sciences (7 percent),
- visual and performing arts (7 percent) and
- education (5 percent.)
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New York NY/ Educare: City to Add Pre-K Efforts in Poor Areas Next Year
By Al Baker
New York Times
September 24, 2012
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Monday that the city would open a new type of preschool in Brooklyn next year, introducing a cradle-to-kindergarten approach to education for very young children in poor neighborhoods.
The school, known as Educare, will open in Brownsville and serve children between 6 weeks and 5 years old, mimicking schools that have been created in 17 other cities. The one envisioned for New York will include a "leadership institute" to carry out research in early childhood education, city officials said.
- "Our goal is to have every city kid arrive in kindergarten ready and prepared for a lifetime of success," Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference at the New York Public Library, the site of a two-day education summit meeting hosted by NBC News
- It is a model, he said, that "has proven very effective in preparing academically at-risk children for success in the school, helping to close the achievement gap and break cycles of poverty."
In a separate educational initiative, Schools Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott announced on Monday that the city would convert 4,000 half-day prekindergarten seats into full-day seats, mostly in poor neighborhoods next fall. While the city has roughly 60,000 seats for prekindergarteners, nearly half are half-day seats, which presents an obstacle for many working parents who cannot retrieve children at midday or afford hiring someone to do so. Full days are six and a half hours long.
Citywide, about 7,500 children who attended kindergarten this year were not enrolled in any public or private prekindergarten program last year, said Jocelyn Alter, an Education Department official who specializes in early childhood education.
- "To have 7,500 children out there, not in prekindergarten, is 7,500 children who start off, on the first day of school, at a deficit," the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, said. "We can change that." She said she hoped more Educare centers would eventually be created.
Most public school prekindergarten programs last only for the year before kindergarten, though other programs like Head Start exist for younger children.
At Educare, children are broken into classes by age group, Ms. Alter said. Staffing ratios are also set by age. Children will be exposed to linguistics to foster cognitive development, and their interaction will help build social development. For the youngest children, one of the first things teachers do is to hold them and talk to them while looking into their eyes, said Diana Mendley Rauner, the president of the Ounce of Prevention Fund, an early-learning advocacy organization.
- "The very first way that children learn is through contact with adults in supportive, strong relationships where children are being attended to when they think about something and when they look out the window somebody points out what they're looking at," Dr. Rauner said. "That's the foundation of literacy, but it's also the foundation of curiosity, self-confidence, self-control and the ability to persist in hard tasks in school."
Mr. Walcott said the city was proposing to house Educare at the current site of Public School 41. New facilities, including observation rooms, will be constructed there, he said. The center is preparing to enroll from 115 to 135 children.
To expand 4,000 prekindergarten seats to full-day seats, from half-day ones, will cost the city $20 million, officials said. The city will devote up to $10 million to setting up Educare, and private foundations will also contribute.
Educare centers around the country are financed by several family foundations, including the Buffett Early Childhood Fund and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, though those sources have not yet been identified as contributors for the city.
The operational costs of the school have not yet been determined, since the model is still being put into place. But those costs will be covered by existing federal and state grant programs, with another 20 percent streaming in from private donations, Education Department officials said.
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Yuma AZ/ Education Nation: In Arizona Desert, A Charter School Competes
By Nick Pandolfo
The Hechinger Report [Hechingerreport.org]
September 24, 2012
This story is one in a 10-part series on education solutions featured at the 2012 Education Nation summit in New York on Sept. 23-25. To learn more about these schools and how they made these solutions work, please visit EducationNation.com for a complete "digital toolkit." [EducationNation.com]
Carpe Diem Collegiate High School and Middle School looks more like an office or call center than a school.
Over 200 cubicles - not desks - fill this modern version of a one-room schoolhouse on a quiet side street here in Yuma, a desert city near the Mexican and California borders. All students wear uniforms and have a cubicle, with their own computer, which they decorate with sketches or band stickers instead of a typical office worker's family photos.
Carpe Diem is trying to upend the way students are taught. In just four days of instruction a week - there's no school on Fridays - Carpe Diem's five teachers and four teachers' aides supplement the concepts their 226 students have learned through a computer program. Teachers also monitor student progress through the program, which calculates grades in real time, zeroing in on the areas in which students are struggling.
- "We're going against hundreds of years of 'That's the way it's always been done,' " says Chet Crain, the school's dean of students.
And it seems to be working.
- Carpe Diem's math and reading scores on the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards for every level from sixth to 12th grade outpace the average for Arizona schools.
- And the school is achieving these results with a student population that closely mirrors the demographics of other schools in the state, even though 46 percent of Carpe Diem students received free or reduced-price lunch during the 2011-12 school year, according to Carpe Diem COO Ryan Hackman, compared to an average of 75 percent in other Yuma schools.
Carpe Diem's success has caught the attention of education reformers across the country, and this fall the first of what could ultimately be six new schools opened in Indianapolis.
Because Carpe Diem is a charter school - publicly funded but privately run - there is more freedom for educators to create their own curriculum, model and vision, which Crain says is critical to the success and development of the model.
- "We can turn on a dime. And not only on a dime, sometimes it's on less than a dime," Crain says.
Charter schools in Arizona receive about $1,700 less in per-pupil funding each year than district schools, according to a 2012 progress report from the Arizona Department of Education.
- But because Carpe Diem's model requires fewer teachers than traditional public schools, it's able to spend on operations only about $5,300 of the roughly $6,300 the school receives per student, according to Hackman.
- Most of the rest goes toward paying off the bond on the $2.6 million facility, which was built in 2006.
Carpe Diem is at the forefront of a movement called "blended learning," where students receive some of their instruction online and some of it face to face. The amount of time spent online versus with traditional classroom teachers varies depending on the model, of which there are many.
In Carpe Diem's case, students spend more than half of each school day in their cubicles, headphones plugged in, learning from an online curriculum provided by the company Education2020 (e2020), which delivers all of the core content in math, language arts, science and social studies. Four times a day, small groups of students participate in subject-specific workshops with teachers, who lead lessons that build on the e2020 curriculum and who get students to think critically about what they're learning and apply it to class projects.
Teachers at Carpe Diem instruct students in every grade, which they say allows them over time to get to know students' strengths and weaknesses intimately.
- "It's a lot of responsibility, but the key is that except for the new students, I know all of my students from grade six up to grade 12," says Douglas Erlemann, Carpe Diem's lone math teacher.
The school has its critics. Professor Michael Barbour, of Wayne State University in Detroit, says that Carpe Diem's online curriculum is specifically designed to get kids to do well on standardized tests and graduate from high school, which it does well, but that it falls short on fostering critical thinking skills.
"The nature of the curriculum and the way in which they try and provide support to the student, it's designed to get these students through the system," says Barbour. "It's designed to achieve that false belief that no child should be left behind."
Ryan Hackmann, Carpe Diem's chief operating officer, says that while teachers try to create more projects that promote critical thinking, it's an area they are still strengthening as teachers adjust to their new roles in the Carpe Diem model.
Interviews with teachers, administrators and dozens of students about the type of learner who thrives at Carpe Diem all contained variations of adjectives like "self-motivated" and "hard-working." Crain, Hackmann and teachers say that Carpe Diem isn't for every student - and that students who aren't dedicated and comfortable taking some control of their education might not do well and end up leaving the school. Perhaps for this reason, Carpe Diem tends to lose a higher percentage of its students each year than district schools do.
Most students say they like learning from computers and enjoy the opportunity to move at their own pace. The majority say they receive as much or more attention from their teachers at Carpe Diem as they did in their previous schools.
By design, the e2020 curriculum allows students at Carpe Diem to move ahead of their peers. And some, like 14-year-old Bineetha Aluri, are grade levels ahead. Aluri, who wants to be a neurologist, has already taken five college classes at Arizona Western College, a public community college in Yuma. In addition to studying calculus there, she receives elective credit at Carpe Diem for being a teacher's assistant in Mr. Erlemann's math class. She'll likely finish high school by the end of her junior year.
"My parents thought this would be better for me, and it is," says Aluri, "because I can actually work faster than other people and I don't have to stay at the same pace that everyone else is [at]."
But for all the success that Carpe Diem has enjoyed so far at its Yuma campus, its future remains uncertain. The bigger question of whether it can achieve success in other cities will be partly answered this year in Indianapolis, as students and teachers there try to seize the day.
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Chattanooga TN/ The Apprentice: Manufacturers and Community Colleges Team Up
By Dana Goldstein
Slate.com [Washington Post online magazine]
September 21, 2012
Unemployment among workers without a college degree is at a staggering 24 percent, but young college grads without an advanced degree are also suffering from the worst jobs crisis since World War II, with about 19 percent out of work or underemployed for their level of education. Is it fair to ask American schools to respond to the Great Recession? Great teachers and principals can help students maximize their potential, but they can't make firms hire workers.
But the education system is not powerless in the face of high unemployment-as long as employers are partners. What's clear is that there are a few, relatively small sectors of the economy in which there are real shortages of trained workers. Some of those sectors require an advanced degree or very high-level skills, such as in engineering or computer programming. But not all of them do.
One of these sectors is mid-skill manufacturing.
There is a shortage of machinists who can operate the new, computer-programmed, robotic assembly lines that build cars, turbines, generators, steel and iron plumbing products, armaments, and shipping and packing equipment. There may be as many as 600,000 unfilled manufacturing jobs of this type, but compared with their European counterparts, American companies have shown little willingness to invest in training workers to fill these positions.
At last a small group of employers are importing the Northern European apprenticeship model to the United States.
- These programs combine classroom learning, typically at community colleges, with paid worksite training, and guarantee successful graduates a job.
- This is the sort of meaningful, fairly compensated work experience that is almost impossible to come by in our loosely regulated American internship culture yet is built into the educational systems of nations like Germany and Switzerland, where youth unemployment is far lower than it is in the United States.
Volkswagen opened its first American plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., in 2010, and executives knew from the start they wanted to launch a German-style apprenticeship program alongside it.
- The plant employs 3,000 people building the Passat, Motor Trend's 2012 "car of the year."
- Volkswagen saw a shortage of mid-skill machinists, workers who perform maintenance on robotic welders and other state-of-the-art manufacturing tools.
The three-year apprenticeship program, Volkswagen Academy, is a partnership between VW and Chattanooga State Community College.
- Built to address that need for regular plant maintenance, it enrolls about 20 students per year.
- The college screens for students' math and reading skills, and VW administers a test in which applicants read diagrams, assemble car parts, and install a dashboard.
- They are also given a personality test, a background check, and a drug screening.
- There are three applicants for every available slot.
Apprentices spend five trimesters in the classroom and lab, and four trimesters working for Volkswagen, earning between $10 and $13 per hour.
- Of the program's first group of recruits, about 60 percent are expected to graduate in 2013 and will be guaranteed a job at Volkswagen.
- According to Chattanooga State, most of the student attrition was caused by family responsibilities and financial stress, which drive much of the dropout rate across the American community college system.
Indeed, a three-year program can be a tough sell to working-class students, who tend to be eager to earn a full-time salary.
In 1995, North Carolina's Central Piedmont Community College launched Apprenticeship 2000 to provide trainees for several German-based manufacturers with plants in the region, such as Siemens and Blum. But the four-year, European-style program, which begins in high school, was too long and rigid for some of the area's employers.
A new program, Apprenticeship Charlotte, will enroll both young adults and mid-career workers. Companies will be able to choose whether their apprentices earn a three-year associate degree or a more streamlined certification in a particular technical field. The apprentices will earn a wage for their on-the-job training, and their school fees will be paid for by the host companies.
In Maine, employers, community colleges, and philanthropists partnered to launch Future for ME, with the goal of training workers for 1,000 unfilled, mid-skill manufacturing jobs.
- Recruits will earn a two-year associate degree and then work as machinists for small companies such as Mountain Machine Works, which uses recycled materials to make caps for Poland Spring water bottles, and General Dynamics ATP, an aerospace and weapons contractor.
- A separate, one-year program is set to train workers in robotic textile manufacturing for companies like L.L. Bean and Atayne, which makes running clothes out of recycled plastic.
These programs aren't perfect.
- The vast majority of their recruits are male, a problem when so many working-class women are stuck in pink-collar jobs that pay below a living wage. And
- they tend to be clustered in right-to-work Southern states, where manufacturing jobs no longer provide the benefits and security they once did.
- There is also the challenge of convincing educators and parents that the slow-growth manufacturing sector is a smart bet for young people who've been told since birth that a four-year college degree is the safest path into the middle class.
Pam Howze, the hiring manager at Siemens' Charlotte hub, arranges plant visits for parents, students, and educators, with the goal of debunking those misconceptions. "Usually they have no idea a factory looks like this," she says. "They thought it was going to be dark and dirty and hot, and it's not. Our factory is clean, air-conditioned, light, and highly automated. They see that technology and they're pretty excited about it."
