When afforded the opportunity to transfer their children from public schools to private schools, what factors are parents most likely to consider as they exercise school choice?  This, and other related questions are addressed in a recent Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice report titled, "More Than Scores: An Analysis of Why and How Parents Choose Private Schools."  The forty-page report, available in PDF format, here, draws upon a survey of 754 parents whose children received scholarships made possible through a Georgia tax credit program enabling students to transfer from public to private schools.

 

A chief finding of the survey was that scores on standardized achievement tests did not figure prominently among the factors considered by parents in search of the most appropriate school for their children.  In fact, the top five factors identified by survey respondents were all related to school climate and classroom management:

 

1. Better student discipline (50.9 percent)
2. Better learning environment (50.8 percent)
3. Smaller class sizes (48.9 percent)
4. Improved student safety (46.8 percent)
5. More individual attention for my child (39.3 percent)  

As for standardized test scores, the report notes:  

 

"Student performance on standardized test scores is one of the least important pieces of information upon which parents base their decision regarding the private school to which they send their children. Only 10.2 percent of the parents who completed the survey listed higher standardized test scores as one of their top five reasons why they chose a particular private school for their child."

 

The report also found that parents wish schools to make a broad array of information available, so as to facilitate their decision making.  Among the informational items most frequently identified by survey respondents were a school's student-teacher ratio, accreditation status, curriculum and course descriptions, college acceptance rate, and availability of religious instruction.  Interestingly, these factors were identified two, three, or even four times more frequently than "the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic makeup of the student population," as  informational items sought by prospective parents.

 

The survey was not administered to a random sample, and the report contains a clear and pronounced bias in favor of school choice.  (It is, after all, the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.)  All parents whose children received scholarships from the largest of Georgia's student scholarship organizations - entities established to receive donations for which state tax credits are granted and to disburse funds in the form of scholarships enabling enrollment in private schools - were invited to participate.  Of the 2,685 families with at least one scholarship-receiving child, a total of 754 provided complete data for all survey items.   

 

Respondents' median income fell into the $48,000 to $60,000 range.  Nearly 70 percent had achieved a college degree, or higher; 73 percent were married; 27 percent self identified as belonging to a race/ethnicity other than white or Asian.  Ten percent of respondents indicated that they resided in "urban" areas, 61 percent in "suburban" locales, and 29 percent indicated residence in "rural" areas.  

 

Georgia's Education Expense Credit Program, which became law in 2008, provides credits against the state tax obligation to individuals, married couples, limited liability companies, and various other types of corporate entity.  In 2013, the state increased the cap on the total amount of credits to be awarded to $58 million.  The law places no limits on the household income of scholarship recipients, and the maximum allowable scholarship amount is currently set at $9,046.  While the law requires scholarship-receiving schools to be accredited by a state-approved agency, there is no requirement governing the administration or reporting of standardized achievement tests.  In short, Georgia's education tax-credit arrangement is among the most generous and unencumbered of any such extant programs.

 

While the extent to which the findings reported by the Friedman Foundation are more broadly generalizable remains unknown, it comes as little surprise that parents look for considerably more than test score numbers when making a decision as important as the choice of schools for their children.    

The California Private School Advisory Committee, K-12 is pleased to announce several multi-day professional development workshops for private school educators.  Each of these high-quality-at-low-cost programs is funded in part by Title II, Part A of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and is provided in cooperation with the California Department of Education. 

Below, you will find basic information about each workshop. Please click on the relevant accompanying links for descriptions of each program's content, information about the presenters, and downloadable registration forms. 

Student Engagement and Higher Order 

Comprehension & Thinking Skills for the 21st Century 

 

A three-day workshop for private school teachers

and instructional staff of grades 4-12

  

  

Presenter:  Julie Adams, M.A.T., NBCT 

 

Dates:         January 15 & 16 and February 11, 2014

Times:        8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., each day 

 

Location:

 

                   Water of Life Christian School   

                   7625 East Ave.  

                   Fontana, CA  92336

 

Registration Fee:  $50.00 per person if postmarked or faxed on or before January 6, 2014.  Otherwise, $70.00 per person.  Fee covers all three days of the program and includes materials, continental breakfast, and lunch.  

About the Workshop:

This fast-paced and interactive three-day workshop for 4-12th grade math, science, English, and social science teachers, aides, literacy coaches, instructional leaders, and administrators, will provide training in research-based content area strategies that engage and motivate students to develop the 21st century critical thinking skills necessary for success across ALL content areas.

Learn more about this workshop by clicking here.

About the Presenter:

Julie Adams, MAT, NBCT, is an energetic educator who has taught multiple content areas from kindergarten through graduate school. She is an internationally respected and highly sought after consultant providing 21st century critical thinking and content area literacy and writing trainings to public and private schools and universities worldwide.

Julie, founder of Adams Educational Consulting, is a Nationally Board Certified teacher and Educator of the Year, who equips teachers with engaging strategies that empower students with content area literacy comprehension, 21st Century skills and complex reasoning. In addition, she partners with the California League of Schools and the National High School Association to provide training in and implementation of Professional Learning Communities and Response to Intervention models for increased student achievement.

Her published books include the teaching series: Teaching Academic Vocabulary Effectively, Parts I-III and PDP Cornell Notes-A Systematic Strategy to Aid Comprehension.

 

Examining Student Work and  

Providing Precise Feedback  

 

A two-day workshop for private school teachers

and administrators of grades 5-12

  

Click here for additional information and registration form. 

 

Presenter:  Kay Psencik, Ed.D.  

 

Dates:         January 22 & 23, 2014 

Times:        8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., each day 

 

Location:

 

                   St. Justin School 

                   2655 Homestead Rd.  

                   Santa Clara, CA  95051  

 

Registration Fee:  $45.00 per person if postmarked or faxed on or before January 8, 2014.  Otherwise, $65.00 per person.  Fee covers all three days of the program and includes materials, continental breakfast, and lunch.  

About the Workshop:

Student work reflects the precise learning of students. Many questions are left unanswered when we only use tests.  What does the student really understand about the concepts I wanted them to know?  Why did the student select the answer she did?  What was his real thinking about that question when he answered it?  Student work reveals students' organizational skills, their elaboration of concepts and ideas, their voice and thinking.

 

As we examine student work, we learn not only more about our students, we also see their interpretations of what we wanted them to learn. Careful examination of their work through the use of rubrics, anchor work, and analytical scales, leads us to a deeper understanding of their learning and provides us the "language" for precise feedback.

 

Participants in this session will explore a variety of strategies for examining student work both individually and with their peers. They will establish systems or protocols for examining student work so that they maximize the use of time, provide effective vigilance and structure to their work, and determine the language of precise feedback, as well as how and when to give it.

 

Note:  The workshop will be more fun if participants bring samples of their student work to the session. 

BONUS - Webcast follow-up sessions!

 

In addition to the two-day face-to-face session, Kay will also provide three 20-minute video segments that can serve as a follow-up for workshop attendees and a discussion starter for those colleagues who were unable to attend the workshop. These three segments will encourage implementation of the workshop ideas and provide extended work in the areas of:

• Strategies for giving students precise feedback
• Using protocols to analyze student work
• Monitoring student progress and differentiating instruction to ensure the success of all!

 

About the Presenter:

 

Kay Psencik, Ed.D. has been an educator for over 45 years. She is a senior consultant with Learning Forward, the national organization committed to engaging every educator in effective professional learning so that every student achieves. She has served teachers across the country in developing assessments of and for learning and designing instruction based on the data from these strategies. She has facilitated teams to analyze standards, to target essential learning, to determine underlying concepts, to incorporate higher-order 21st Century thinking skills, and to develop common assessments of and for learning and standards driven instructional planning.

 

She has published articles in Educational Leadership, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Texas Association of School Administrators and The School Administrator. She co-authored Transforming Schools through Powerful Planning. She also published Accelerating Student and Staff Learning, Purposeful Curriculum Collaboration (Corwin Press, 2009). A new book, The Coach's Craft, was published by Learning Forward in December 2011.

 

Prior to her beginning her work as a consultant, she was a director of curriculum and assessment and deputy superintendent in school districts in Texas and a classroom teacher for 17 years.

 

Dr. Psencik earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, a Master of Educational Administration from Southwest Texas State University, and a Doctorate from Baylor University.

 

_____________

Great Performances:

Creating Classroom-Based Assessment Tasks 

 

A three-day workshop for private school teachers

and instructional staff of grades 4-12

  

 

Presenter:  Larry Lewin, M.S.

 

Dates:         February 4 & 5 and March 4, 2014 

 

Times:        8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., each day 

 

Location:

                   Sacred Heart Parish School 

                   12676 Foothill Blvd. 

                   Rancho Cucamonga, 91739 

 

Registration Fee:  $50.00 per person if postmarked or faxed on or before January 24, 2014.  Otherwise, $65.00 per person.  Fee covers all three days of the program and includes materials, continental breakfast, and lunch.  

About the Workshop:

With the desire to improve assessment comes the need for improved assessment tools. Learn a number of teacher-designed authentic performance tasks and accompanying scoring mechanisms that help teachers in grades 4-12 measure student understanding of content topics in any class, for all subjects, and across the grade levels. Because they are classroom-based, and tied directly to the curriculum, they provide an alternative to the more distant standardized tests. 

 

Learn more about this workshop by clicking here.

 

About the Presenter:

 

Larry Lewin, a classroom teacher for 24 years at the elementary, middle, and high school levels in Oregon, now consults nationally on educational topics of interest.

He served as the Eugene School District's teacher on special assignment for Language Arts, was a member of the state of Oregon's New Standards Committee, and now is an adjunct professor at the University of Oregon's College of Education. He is the author of nine books for educators and has articles published by ACSD, Educational Leadership, Scholastic and Instructor magazine.

Since 1992 he has presented seminars for the Bureau of Education & Research, ASCD, numerous regional conferences and since 2009 presents for Staff Development Workshops. He has presented educational workshops in 46 states and 4 countries.  

 

_____________ 

 

 

Assessing Student Progress 

in the Standards-Based Classroom 

 

A two-day workshop for private school teachers

administrators, and curriculum directors of grades K-12

   

Presenter:  Carolyn Coil, Ed.D.  

 

Dates:         February 19 & 20, 2014  

Times:        8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., each day 

 

Location:

                   San Diego Academy   

                   2800 E. 4th St.  

                   National City (San Diego Area), 91950 

 

Registration Fee:  $50.00 per person if postmarked or faxed on or before February 5, 2014.  Otherwise, $65.00 per person.  Fee covers all three days of the program and includes materials, continental breakfast, and lunch.  

 

 

About the Workshop:

This workshop consists of a two-day face-to-face workshop with Carolyn Coil PLUS three webcasts that can be used for follow-up and to share workshop insights with others in your school. Participants will learn about various types of assessments and the purposes of each. You will see practical ways to design units and assessments using the Common Core State Standards in conjunction with a variety of differentiation strategies.

 

BONUS - Webcast follow-up sessions!   

 

In addition to the two-day face-to-face session, Carolyn will also be presenting three 20-minute video segments that can serve as a follow-up for session attendees and a discussion starter for those colleagues who were unable to attend the workshop.  The three video segments will encourage and support implementation of ideas presented during the face-to-face sessions.  (A webcast link will be emailed to attendees 2 weeks after the workshop. Attendees will be encouraged to take a "Train the Trainer" role and lead the follow up discussions with their colleagues.)

 

About the Presenter:

 

Carolyn Coil, Ed. D., is an internationally known presenter and educator. An enthusiastic, motivating, and energetic speaker, she has worked in the field of education for over 30 years. She has a master's degree in gifted and special education and a doctorate in educational leadership. Carolyn presents workshops for teachers and administrators on a wide variety of topics, including Assessment Strategies, Gifted Education, Differentiation, Common Core State Standards, Motivating Underachievers, and Developing Critical and Creative Thinking. She has taught at all grade levels and has been an Adjunct Professor at several universities.

 

Carolyn has presented at international, national, state, and local conferences and has presented workshops throughout the United States and in many countries throughout the world. She does many types of teacher training in individual schools, with small groups of teachers and with larger organizations.

 

 

In an about face, California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson has announced that he will require public school districts to offer new tests aligned with the Common Core State Standards in both math, and English-language arts during the current school year.  The Superintendent's decision comes on the heels of a warning from the U.S. Department of Education that failure to uphold federal testing requirements could result in the withholding of some $45 million of federal funds to be received by the California Department of Education, as well as larger amounts of Title I and Title II-A funds that might be withheld from districts.  The potential withholding of federal funds from districts may curtail the participation of private school students, teachers and administrators in the above-named programs.

Superintendent Torlakson's decision was made public in a departmental news release issued November 21.  The announcement contains no reference to the state's tiff with the U.S.D.E.  Nor does the document make mention of the fact that the state must still secure testing waivers from the federal government, to release it from its obligation to double test students in grade levels three-through-eight.  A copy of the waivers request letter, co-signed by Superintendent Torlakson and State Board of Education President Dr. Michael Kirst, can be viewed, here.


In a cogent blog piece available, here, National Association of Independent Schools President John Chubb raises probing questions about a new book bearing the provocative title, The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools.  The tome, co-authored by University of Illinois professors of education Chistopher and Sarah Lubienski, advances the notion that when controls for the influence of important family background variables are put in place, public school students eclipse the performance of private school counterparts on a national, standardized test. 
 
Such a finding acquires plausibility only if consumers of the Lubienski's research are willing to ignore its underlying methodology.  The researchers' major shortcoming lies in their choice of variables used to describe students' socio-economic backgrounds.  As Dr. Chubb observes, they do this in "multiple ways that over-represent student disadvantage in public schools and underrepresent it in private schools."  In other words, the criteria bias the findings by making private school students appear less poor, and public school students appear more poor than is actually likely to be the case.  He notes that when a pair of Harvard University researchers analyzed the same test score data using more valid means of classifying students, "...the public school advantage disappeared and a private school advantage returned."
 
Dr. Chubb's most poignant objection to The Public School Advantage, however, is leveled not at its authors' methodological shortcomings, but squarely at their purpose.  He writes:

Kudos to Dr. Chubb.

It was the late Tip O'Neill who coined the phrase "all politics is local," an adage with which most private school leaders are likely to agree.  Few are the schools that have neither negotiated the maze of requirements established by a planning commission, tangled with a zoning commission over expansion plans, or faced contentious neighbors before a city council.  Important as such commonplace political experiences may be, the former Speaker of the House had something slightly different in mind when invoking his oft-quoted catch-phrase. It was the ability of elected officials at higher levels of government to show how state and federal legislation directly impacts constituents, their families and communities that is key to their electability and re-electability.  And let's be clear about this: re-electability is job one for any elected official, save for those opting for voluntary retirement.

Most elected officials attempt to inform their local constituents of their posture on major political issues, as well as their involvement in and positions on key pieces of legislation.  Of course, they take pains to craft their communications with their own political future in mind, highlighting those accomplishments and positions thought to resonate with a majority of voters in their respective home districts.

From the politician's perspective, pursuing the primary goal of re-electability requires a "less is more" approach to general communications with their constituencies , a commonplace that is somewhat inescapable.  To be fair, members of the state legislature cast votes on thousands of bills, each year.  Even a freshman member of the State Assembly may author twenty or more bills.  Many bills are lengthy, complex, and not readily subject to description in standard forms of correspondence to a general constituency.  Most politicians will, therefore, tend to highlight the bills and/or issues that promise to deliver the greatest amount of support at the ballot box. 

In light of such realities, it behooves "we the people" to see that the "all politics is local" insight cuts both ways.  That is to say, in order to achieve our desired outcomes, we must keep our elected officials mindful of the impact their votes have on our lives, and permit them to calculate the political consequences.  (Counting is one thing every elected official knows how to do well!)  It need not require large campaign contributions or a massive number of activist constituents to garner the attention of an elected official.  What is often required is organization, to inform and mobilize people at both the grass roots and grass tops.

For years, CAPSO has maintained a web-based Legislative Action Center, and has, through its member organizations, called upon private school leaders to take action in support of, or in opposition to various bills, administrative actions, or judicial proceedings of vital interest to private, K-12 education.  Our track record has been formidable, even remarkable when one considers that we've never made a cash contribution to any candidate for office, or elected official.

How have we done it?  I've often remarked that CAPSO's most effective political tool is its organization letterhead.  When elected officials scan the list of our member organizations, they see diversity writ large.  We work hard to let them know CAPSO's bylaws require unanimity among the members in order for positions on pending legislation to be taken in the name of the Association.  So when they hear from us, they know there's widespread support for our position, and they start counting.

We've done well, but we can do better.  Which is why CAPSO's leadership is currently deliberating means by which the Association can heighten the political profile of California's private school community.  At stake is freedom from excessive governmental regulation in those critical areas that permit private schools to establish, pursue and achieve their distinctive visions and missions: admissions, hiring, curriculum, instruction, evaluation, governance and finance.  We are committed to developing new initiatives designed to strengthen the voice of California's private schools.  Stay tuned!

Ron Reynolds

The next edition of the CAPSO Midweek E-Mailer will be published January 8, 2014.