Posted by
Billy email MADBillyD@aol.com on Friday, July 31, 2009 11:27:48 AM
(Blogging will be on the light side this morning because I am about to leave for the airport. I hope to blog later today or next week from Vegas but you never know how the web is going to work when you are away from your home base. )
The state teachers union agrees with goals laid out Thursday by Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman to attack the state's gap in achievement between white and black students, which is the nation's widest in one area.
Jess Wolf, president of the politically powerful Nebraska State Education Association, cautioned that Heineman's goal of assigning the best teachers to the most troubled schools will be controversial with some educators.
The State Commission of Industrial Relations has consistently ruled that school districts cannot pay certain teachers more than others, said Karen Haase, a Lincoln attorney.
“We can't give (good teachers) extra salary unless we pay everyone extra salary,” she said. “The governor always glosses over that. ... It's really frustrating.”
The differing views came after Heineman issued a call to action in a speech to a state school administrators group, saying it was unacceptable that the achievement gap was so wide.
A federal report released this month found that black children in Nebraska trailed their white peers on national math and reading tests by some of the widest margins in the country. The gap in eighth-grade math scores for 2007 was the nation's widest.
State officials recently discovered that the academic achievement of African-American students, as measured in eighth-grade math tests, was worse in Nebraska than in any state in the old South.
“The status quo is not working. Changes must be made now,” Heineman told the annual meeting of the Nebraska Association of School Administrators in Kearney. “We can't afford to lose another generation of African-American students, or any student population, with an academic achievement gap.”
The governor laid out a three-pronged attack:.
(What! Shouldn't people who do better than others in the same field get paid better. This is what is wrong with the state teachers union. However the governor is also wrong if he thinks schools without support from parents are going to make kids better and want to learn. It is hard to teach kids who parents aren't home at night to make their children do their homework either by their own choice or because they have to be away. Yes there are things schools can do like teach values. It would help if we had school choice where parents can send their kids to the best schools. Read more on this issue
School ideas draw mixed response .)