As the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce and the City Council debate the newly proposed ”business licenses,” I have been waiting for someone–anyone–to refer to it as a tax (I’m looking at you, tea partyers).   In Newspeak language, as articulated by the Chamber’s manager of economic development, Chung Tan, the “license” is being established so businesses in Fayetteville can be promoted and “helped.”  Tan was quoted in last Thursday’s NWArkTimes:

“A big portion of our economic development is helping existing businesses… so if we don’t know who they are, or where they are, it’s very difficult to help them.”

Hmm.  So, the stated idea here is to require businesses in Fayetteville to pay for a license so that they can be “helped” by the city.

Council members Brenda Thiel and Matthew Petty have expressed reservations about the license being applied to small part-time businesses that are run out of people’s homes.  I’d say good for them, but truth is they’re simply looking out for their own interests.  At some level, they simply want to make sure that their own small home businesses are exempted from the “help.”

Here’s an idea: Why not make the licenses voluntary?  If the stated purpose of the license fee is to promote and help local businesses, then why not give businesses the option of deciding whether or not they would like the Chamber of Commerce’s help?  No?

The truth is that the license is a tax, and the license will further be used as a tool to help enforce sales tax collections.  Maybe that’s an idea that people could get behind, maybe not.  But a little honesty about the true nature and purpose of the so-called license would be a good place to start the discussion.

On Monday, the Northwest Arkansas Times ran an op-ed from a local tea-partyer, James Laubler, that went on at length about the Fayetteville School Board’s plan to use a combination of reallocation and refinancing  to pay for improvements to the current high school.

Laubler made a couple of reasonable points.  It is reasonable to wonder if the Board can make good on their promise of budget cuts (which have yet to be spelled out) and whether or not expected future revenues will hold true.  But it isn’t accurate to say that the board has decided to “circumvent the voters.”  The Board has a budget that they are free to work with, and they are free to allocate the approved budget as they see fit.  Unlike the situation with the proposed millage that was defeated, the overall size of the district’s budget is not being grown under the current plan.  If anything, the Board should be commended for coming up with a fiscally responsible way to improve the current high school.

Laubler even seems to take issue with the very idea that the federal government is subsidizing the rate at which the district will have to pay back any stimulus money it receives, but one can hardly blame the Board for making sure that Fayetteville takes advantage of what’s being offered.  If Laubler has an issue with the provisions of the stimulus money, then he should take that up with federal lawmakers.  From our local perspective, it would be ridiculous to not take advantage of the opportunity.

The real problem with Lauber’s rant, though, was that his arguments dissolved into outlandish melodrama.  He said the Board must be “socialists, communists, or bought politicians with no moral compass,” and he reminds us all that “this is not a socialist or communist nation.”  He says there is a movement in this country to take back “our country from these types,”  followed up with threatening language that he “wouldn’t want to be the one to ultimately challenge these patriots.”  He closes with more threatening innuendo, as he references the American Revolution and tells the Board not to “anger us the way the last king did.”

Ugh.

Ultimately, and with sweet irony, the tactics employed by those who rely on  this type of  grandstanding are the architects of their own undoing.  While there are some segments of our population who may be moved by such demagoguery, most Americans prefer common sense and reasonable discussion.   They respect the opinions of reasonable people, and reject those who aren’t.

If anything, Lauber’s letter assured sensible Fayettevillians that the Board’s plans are sensible.  There’s not many who want to be on the side of the local McCarthyite.

Apparently, political ineptitude runs throughout the “tea party” movement.  Recent events at their national convention were downright embarrassing.

Fayetteville High School students are participating in an annual ritual to raise money for less fortunate families in the district.  Here is the announcement from the district blog:

The annual FHS Student Council Homeless Vigil will be held on Thursday, December 3, beginning at 5 pm. The fund raising goal for the 2009 vigil is $11,000, and all proceeds go to help families in need in the Fayetteville School District. The students will sleep outside in makeshift shelters, warming themselves by a fire in a barrel. Donations of cash and non-perishable food items are greatly appreciated and may be dropped off at the vigil, which will be held in front of the FHS gym on Stone Street.

These students slept outside in the frigid temperatures last night and continue their vigil today.  The students had raised $6,400 toward their goal of $11,000 as of 10 am this morning.

These same students are also assisting with the blood drive at the high school today.

If you live or work in Fayetteville, please consider stopping by the high school to show your support for these kids and their causes.

UPDATE: FHS students raised $14k+!

One wonders what those of us here in Northwest Arkansas have done to deserve so much attention from charlatans lately.  In the last year we have been visited by Eva Klein and Associates, Tony Wagner, and now Sarah Palin.  Unfortunately, the community coughed up money to be wooed by Eva Klein and Tony Wagner.  Palin is at least coming for free, unless you count the cost the English language is incurring by losing any non-ironic use of the word “rogue” henceforth.

The latest sum of money the community will be parting with–$36,000 to be exact–is going to pay Phi Delta Kappa for conducting a curriculum audit of the Fayetteville School District.  Like Eva Klein & Associates did for Fayetteville (for $150,000), Phi Delta Kappa came into town  for a few days and held focus groups with community members to hear their ideas.  In February they’ll provide us with a nifty presentation that summarizes what community members told them.  The modus operandi of these types of consultants is well-known. Dilbert has been lampooning them for years.

To be sure, the report that Phi Delta Kappa comes up with won’t look exactly like the same ideas the community gave them.  They’ll be re-written in such a way that any resemblance or lack of substance will be obfuscated by consultant-speak gobbledy-gook.  For example, when the Rogers School District hired Phi Delta Kappa to conduct an audit, one of the recommendations they received was:

Develop and implement a comprehensive curriculum management system that delineates short- and long-term goals, directs curriculum revision to ensure deep alignment and quality delivery, and defines the instructional model district leaders expect teachers to follow in delivering the curriculum.

Translation: Establish a system to set and achieve goals. And make it a good one.

Here’s another recommendation from the Rogers audit:

Research, identify and implement strategies to eliminate inequities and inequalities that impede opportunities for all students to succeed.

Translation:  Do what you and every other school district has already been doing (or should have been doing) for decades.

I’m willing to bet Fayetteville’s audit will contain many of the same recommendations given to Rogers.  These types of consultant groups have stock boiler-plate language that they recycle time and time again.  I also expect to see some of the views of the community rewritten in consultant-speak.  Here’s some of the comments and concerns the Northwest Arkansas Times picked up from teachers and parents at one of the focus groups:

I got this list from the newspaper, which cost me fifty cents–a whopping $35,499.50 less than Phi Delta Kappa is going to charge for repackaging these ideas in consultant-speak.

I don’t know exactly why organizations pay money to outside consultants, like when the city paid Eva Klein & Associates to tell us that the University was one of our strengths, and that the perception that Fayetteville was anti-business was one of our weaknesses.   Don’t we already elect and pay people to think about these things and have a vision for what we need to do?  So why are they sub-contracting out their duties?

Still, I don’t want to prejudge the Phi Delta Kappa report too much, and I am hopeful that when the report comes out it will be useful.  But my concern and my prediction is that some form of the goals written above, re-written in consultant speak, along with some more generic goals, like the ones in the Rogers report, are going to make up the bulk of what Fayetteville receives.

We’ll come back to this in February when we finally get our hands on the report, at which time we’ll translate it into English and check my predictions.

Yes, as an academic, and as someone interested in the well-being of schoolchildren across the state, I am thankful for the cacophony of voices entering the education policy discussion in NW Arkansas and beyond.

I know that this is not a universal view.  Many of our friends and colleagues working in Arkansas public school districts may not share my rosy view.  Those working in local school districts or at the state level may not be too thrilled that our “genius little bloggers” or faculty in the Department of Education reform are injecting themselves into important policy discussions related to racial integration, school millages, charter authorization, or so-called “21st Century” learning.  I have heard it said that some of the Ed Reform group or our blogger friends are obstructionists to local schools — of course, I think they are wrong.  Disagreement is NOT obstruction.

In fact, they should be thankful for the interest and involvement of outside researchers and observers.  This is the work of the University; indeed, the motto of the U of A is Veritate Duce Progredi (in Latin).  In English, the motto is “To Advance with Truth as our Guide.”  In that spirit, faculty at the University (along with our genius little bloggers) should continue to examine data, evaluate programs, conduct research, rigorously address policy questions, and share our views with the public.  Anything less would be shirking.

And sometimes our (faculty, researchers, bloggers, etc.) view of the truth may not be the same as that of our friends in Little Rock, local school districts, or anywhere else.  And that’s OK.  Everyone engaged in the discussion with an interest in the well-being of our schoolchildren has an equal right to air our views and let the public decide which ideas are best.  Arguments over ideas are good for our democracy and good for Arkansas.  (Indeed, we should work to keep the focus on ideas and avoid personal attacks in these heated debates.)

Those employed by our local school districts do not have a monopoly on caring about children and education.  Sure, many of our school leaders have a deep faith in the importance of public schools and have dedicated much of their professional lives to leading these schools.  But this does NOT mean that they are always right.  They’re not.  And it is unfair to dismiss the views of any opponents of school leaders as “against public education.”

All of us who care deeply about kids and education do not need to think the same way.  In fact, our kids and our schools will all be better off if policy discussions can benefit from a diversity of views.  We can all learn from each other, we can all have the same ultimate objective of a well-educated Arkansas, and yet we can all still be individuals!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday’s Northwest Arkansas Times had a story about Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan’s economic development team. The so-called “Fayetteville Forward Economic Accountability Council” was launched six months ago. You can tell this council is doing good work because acts that are accompanied by alliteration are always awesome. Now, I think the mayor’s done a fine job of running the city so far. Still, the to-do list of the Fayetteville Forward Economic Development Summit’s Priorities that was reprinted in the paper was pretty amusing. It lists all of the projects underway with the mayor bragging that “We’ve completed five of the eighteen projects.” But most of the accomplishments are little more than forming committees and declarations about future actions as opposed to any real accomplishments. Here’s the list for those of you who missed it:

First of all, you gotta love how “pending” sounds so much better than “nope.”

But my real point here is that this list looks more like political showmanship than anything else. I know Jordan is, in fact, a politician, and he is motivated to manipulate the public’s perception of him as best he can. At the same time, smart people read the newspaper, and I think many of them see all of the politico-jargon, such as work, identify, promote, establish, explore, and support, for what it really is–a whole lot of nothing. Most people see this political mumbo-jumbo like employers see puffed-up resumes. Still, to-do lists are important. Just take a look at the to-do list I used to write this blog-post:

With a list like this, everyone can see I’ve accomplished six of eight of my goals! I know it’s probably in Jordan’s best interest to pad his public perceptions with some puffed up press release (gotta love that alliteration!) that makes it sound like he’s getting things done. But I just can’t help wishing our politicians were a little more straightforward, kind of like this guy.

The results from the survey sent to voters shortly after the failed millage election were released over the weekend. The Fayetteville Flyer has a great graphic summarizing the results. As expected, the cost of the plan was named as the biggest reason for voting against the millage. However, viewing this as simply a cost issue would be mistake. The final price tag of the plan was the direct result of many smaller design decisions made along the way.

Superintendent Vicky Thomas has shown good leadership moving forward from the failed millage vote. I am encouraged to see the district  working on what seems to be both an ambitious and prudent “Plan B.” From what I’ve heard renovation may start as soon as the doors close for summer break.

Last night Fayetteville Superintendent Vicky Thomas made a proposal to school board members which moves the district forward from the failed millage election. The proposal is modest compared to the pre-vote plan which called for large scale demolition and reconstruction. If the school board approves the plan, the district will issue approximately $45.3 million in bonds which will be used to make targeted improvements to the current campus.  The new plan still allows the district to take advantage of the Qualified School Construction Bonds allocated to the district by the state Arkansas Department of Education. To service the debt inside the current budget, the district will have to cut spending in other areas. Chief Financial Officer Lisa Morstad hinted that administrative spending would be the first to be cut, and that spending on instruction is safe. We have yet to hear how this new plan affects the decision to add the 9th grade to the high school campus, but I imagine the district will have to stick with the current grade structure at least in the short term.

I would like to applaud Vicky Thomas’ swift action moving forward from the failed millage election. This new plan seems to be both timely and prudent. I look forward to hearing more detail about the plan.

Here are the local news articles:

Democrat Gazette

Morning News

The Simpsons had a great episode Sunday night. Brian tells me that after a few rough seasons, The Simpsons are “back,” and after this episode I’m inclined to believe him.  You should watch the whole episode if you have the time, but if not here are a couple of my favorite scenes:

1. “21st Century” education – watch from about the 7:40 mark until 9:50
2. Skinner can’t just fire a teacher – watch from 18:20 until 20:30

The hip new teacher, Tufts degree in hand, who uses his iPhone to text the kids that their homework consists of twittering and friends them on Facebook got me thinking about 21st century education again.

What are some of the leading voices in education saying about 21st Century Skills? Last month NationalJournal.com had an interesting piece where they asked this very question. I find the responses of Diane Ravitch and Andy Rotherham particularly interesting. These two left leaning ed policy gurus, Ravitch worked in both the H.W. Bush and Clinton education departments and Rotherham was a domestic policy wonk for Clinton, downplay the importance of the bluster, hype, and corporate marketing that is the 21st century skills movement.

Both of these experts reach the same conclusion concerning the newness of 21st Century Skills.  Rotherham writes:

I’ve been among the skeptics of a lot of what masquerades as 21st Century Skills. The whole construct of “new” skills seems to me to reek of contemporary flattery and miss the point that none of these skills are actually new. What’s new today is the need for universality: In other words, in the past elites in society (our society and others throughout history) had these skills while the masses generally did not. Today, by contrast, our commitment to a more equitable society as well as the demands of our economy mean a deliberate effort must be made to ensure that all students learn how to think, analyze, problem-solve and so forth.

Rotherham goes on to point out that “Thinking that these skills are ‘new’ rather than thinking that they are simply ‘more necessary’ leads to different remedies.” That’s some crucial advice for districts that currently have the adoption of 21st century skills on their agendas. You can find the full text of Rotherham’s comments here.

Diane Ravitch’s take on the topic is especially scathing, especially when she notes that the movement has the potential to be a cash-cow for peddlers of products marketed to enhance 21st Century learning:

The notion of “21st century skills” is a fiction. There are no such skills. Every single skill listed as a “21st century skill” has been in demand long before the 21st century, in some cases for many centuries.  Most of what is now proposed–whether critical thinking skills or working in groups–has been an integral part of the progressive education movement since the early years of the twentieth century. Anyone knowledgeable about the history of American education would recognize most of these skills as another manifestation of progressivism (see Lawrence Cremin’s The Transformation of the Schools or my own Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform). In reality, the so-called 21st century skills are no more than an echo of the ideas that have dominated our colleges of education since the early twentieth century.  I have elsewhere (http://blog.commoncore.org/?p=88) suggested that the schools should emphasize such 19th century skills as love of learning, the ability to think for oneself (individualism) and to work alone (initiative), the ability to stand alone against the crowd (courage), and so on.  The board of P21, the organization that promotes this alleged movement, is top-heavy with representatives of the major technology companies, suggesting at least to me that the movement will end up noted as a lobbyist for selling more hardware and software to the schools. But even the idea of information literacy is not new. Schools have already spent billions on equipment from these same companies (and others that have since disappeared).  Our children are not deficient in skills or in computer literacy; they know better than their parents how to use computers to access information. Unfortunately what they lack is the knowledge with which to evaluate the information they so easily access.  They are deficient in knowledge; they are deficient in understanding of history, civics, science, geography, foreign languages, the arts, and literature. Anyone who has seen Jay Leno’s street interviews (his Jaywalking interviews) has observed the profound ignorance that Leno encounters when he meets young people and asks them questions about the most basic ideas and facts of history, civics, and geography. Those he interviews–who seem to be mainly in their early 20s–laugh about their ignorance; they think it is funny that they know so little of the world. They do not lack thinking skills or computer literacy. They lack knowledge.   The 21st century skills movement, like so much else that we are now doing in education, will plunge us even deeper into our present morass of happy ignorance.

I have been surprised that more liberals have not spoken out against the 21st century skills movement. One of the main goals of the movement is, as articulated by Tony Wagner, to make our kids more attractive drones so they will be employable by corporations. Liberals should be at least a little uncomfortable with the corporate backing the movement has gotten.

Tonight at 9 p.m. CST on PBS, viewers can catch the national debut of The Buffalo Flows.  The Buffalo Flows is a film about the Buffalo River written and produced by local UA professor Larry Foley, with photography by Trey Marley, editing by Dale Carpenter, and narration by Ray McKinnon.  It also features music by the UA’s James Greeson.  The film recently won 2 emmy awards.  Here is a clip that features some of the original music and some beautiful pictures of the Buffalo River.