Many of us complain that our education system is broken and failing our kids and our country. Mayor Sullivan of Anchorage hosted an Education Summit in mid-November and invited 100 participants to hear about making the Anchorage School District a world class education system. As a followup to that summit, the Mayor will host six community conversations to involve more of the community and to move the improvement process forward. So, if you are concerned with changing the educational system and improving Anchorage’s education system so all our kids can compete in the global economy, you need to register for these “community conversations”. For more information go to: http://www.muni.org/Departments/Mayor/Pages/Mayor’sEducationSummit.aspx.

Earlier in November, the Alaska Policy Forum released a report card for the schools in the Anchorage School District. With that report card as a starting point, the Forum created a more improved rating system, and integrated it into a clickable map for easier navigation. If you have questions or comments about this map, feel free to email

Bob Griffin, Education Research Fellow, Alaska Policy Forum at bgriffin at alaskapolicyforum dot org  

or

David Boyle, Research Associate, Alaska Policy Forum at dboyle at alaskapolicyforum dot org.

Take me to the ASD Report Card

UPDATE, Monday November 28, 2011:

Alaska Policy Forum has revised the letter grades that were assigned to the SBA averages for each school in the Anchorage School District. The new system is as follows:

We feel this grading system to be a better representation of the SBA testing results. We have also created a clickable map to better display the grades and make the information more accessible (Flash required). To view the new map, visit here:

http://www.alaskapolicyforum.org/resources/anchorage-school-district-report-card/

END UPDATE

We all remember the days when report cards were given to us by teachers and the great anxieties those days held. This was especially true when the grades were not good and we had to show them to our parents so they could sign off on the report card. Some of us even tried to hide our “achievements”!  If students are graded and held accountabl for their achievements,then school districts should be accountable and receive grades, as well.

For example, Florida has graded all its schools since 1999 on an A to F scale, resulting in dramatic improvements in student achievement. These schools are required to prominently post the school grade at the school. We have developed a grading system for the ASD based on results of the Standards Based Assessment (SBA) tests administered to public school students in grades 3 through 9. Students in tenth grade are required to take a combined SBA/HSGQE test. Per the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development,  ”the SBA in grades 3 through 10 measure student achievement in relation to the performance standards/grade level expectations.”  All students in grades 3-10 are assessed in reading, writing and mathematics.

This report card only considers scores in mathematics and language arts, with the reading and writing scores combined for an average into a language arts score. The scores in language arts and mathematics were averaged together and a school grade was assigned based on the following: see above.

If your child is having difficulties with the Everyday Math program or is doing well in the EDM program, then you should attend the community input meeting the School District is hosting and provide comments. This is your golden opportunity to help your child with math. The School District is reviewing the EDM program and soliciting input from parents as part of the decision making process of the selection/retention of a math program for K-6 students.

The Council of Great City Schools issued a report on the Everyday Math program in ASD in February of this year. There is a wealth of information in the report including comments from teachers and principals. In summary, the report places responsibility for poor implementation of the EDM program on the staff and Administration-and this is after nearly 15 years of the program in the ASD. It is hard to imagine that the District can improve this program with additional professional development in the near future.

So, if you or your children are having problems with Everyday Math in school, get to the community input meeting at Begich Middle School at 6pm, October 18th. Remember, this is about all the kids.  See you there.

(more info…)

Years ago, Woody Guthrie wrote about “This land is your land” but is it really?  It’s time we paid attention to the workings of the Title 21 planning process and what it will mean to the everyday person on the street. Following are some of the requirements for single family residences:

#The standards will avoid monotony in structure design…

#The width of a driveway is limited to less than 30 percent of the curb frontage

#You must provide a porch at the primary front entrance and it must be at least four feet square and covered by a roof at least four feet square.

And the list goes on and on telling property owners what they can and cannot do with their property. The intent is to make the city pleasing to the eye, kind of like the facade in a Western movie. However, the effect is an overreaching government mandating what individuals can do with their property.

So, if you want to learn about Title 21 and what it means to/for you, go to the Title 21 forum on October 12, 6:30pm at the Wilda Marston Theater/Loussac Library.

(Newsweek) Bill Gates and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten have different views on teachers’ personnel systems and how to fix teacher evaluations. (Read more…)

(National Review) Rich Lowry points out the costs we pay to keep making ethanol fuel out of corn.  These costs include a 45 cent/gallon subsidy and taking food from the poor so we can drive environmentally friendly vehicles. Of course, there just may be a connection to the first presidential primaries in Iowa and ethanol. (Read more…)

The Anchorage Assembly voted down the three year nearly 15% increase in wages for plumbers (most at AWWU). Was this the right decision? The average AWWU plumber receives about $109,000 annually in pay and benefits; the average Anchorage non-AWWU plumber gets about $68,000 annually(not including benefits, if any). If you want to know what your public employee plumbers make go to: http://www.alaskapolicyforum.org/resources/municipality-of-anchorage/flowchart42/.

You decide if current wages are fair and what you think the pay raises, if any, are deserved. By the way, our military members will onlyget a 1.6% pay raise next year.

From the Apothecary blog over at Forbes.com:

The Office of the Actuary in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently put out its annual projections of national health care spending. And, contrary to the President, the actuaries find that Obamacare will dramatically increase the near-term growth rate of health care costs. In 2014, the actuaries find that growth in the net cost of health insurance will increase by nearly 14 percent, compared to 3.5% if PPACA had never passed. The growth rate of private insurance premiums will rise to 9.4 percent, from 5.0 percent under prior law: an 88% increase. (Read more…)

Executive Director Jeremy Thompson explains Why Alaska Government Transparency is a Worthy Cause

Here at the Alaska Policy Forum we believe that transparency is always the best public policy. As the state’s only free-market think tank, we believe transparency is the key to a more educated, involved, and successful Alaska. We believe that public record information should be readily available to the public, so that decisions can be made in a context of accountability.

Are your tax dollars being leveraged effectively? Are federal, state, and municipal programs reaching the goals promised by various administrations? Are the desired results measureable? These are the questions that we want the average voter to ask.

When it comes to state employment, it can be difficult for the average voter to get their minds around the costs. Recognizing this, Alaska Policy Forum has collected payroll data from the State of Alaska, the Municipality of Anchorage, and the Anchorage School District and – for the first time – this information is available to Alaskans in one on-line location. Why did APF gather thousands of pages of public record documents and present them to the public? It was not, as some have suggested, to expose hard-working Alaskans and have the ultimate ‘gotcha’ moment. In case you need further proof, both my wife and my mother-in-law’s salaries are now listed online – and any married man will tell you nothing is worth jeopardizing his relationship with his mother-in-law.

No. We tackled this project because we are committed to transparency and to fostering a more educated, involved, and successful Alaska. The time for the fiscal conversation is now: Current government spending is at levels that are unprecedented in our state’s history.

Our hope is that Alaskans will review the information provided here http://publicpayroll.alaskapolicyforum.org and educate themselves on Alaska’s fiscal situation, that they will call their legislators, their assemblyperson and their PTA and let them know what they want to see happen. Voters are a very persuasive people when they act. Our state’s future and our children’s future – yours and mine – depend upon it.

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