Bad report card for schools

Nebraska schools earned two F's and one A in a national report that calls the U.S. education system “archaic and broken.”

The system is a relic of a time when high school graduates could expect to live prosperous lives, when steel and auto factories formed the backbone of the economy and when portable computers were the preserve of science fiction writers, said the report, released this week.

Students' lack of preparedness for the modern workplace is “staggering,” the report said, and schools must innovate.

“Put bluntly, we believe our education system needs to be reinvented,” concluded the report, produced by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for a Competitive Workplace, Frederick M. Hess of the conservative American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, and the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington, D.C., think tank.

The report, “Leaders and Laggards,” drew upon federal education databases, published reports, surveys of teachers and principals and other data collected over the past four years.

No state earned A's in more than two of the seven areas studied, and most received a host of C's and D's.

Iowa schools received no F's, but the state's report card is nothing to write home about, either: It got no A's.

Nebraska received an A for its schools' ability to remove poorly performing teachers from the classroom.

Principals reported that factors such as teachers unions, documentation requirements, deadlines and tenure posed less of an obstacle to removing bad teachers than in most other states.

Nebraska got an F for what the authors describe as a “dismal job” of managing schools in a way that encourages thoughtful innovation. The state was marked down for having below-average academic standards.

The state was also docked because it doesn't penalize low-performing schools, reward high-performing schools or authorize charter schools.

Ninety-one percent of the Nebraska teachers surveyed reported being swamped by paperwork that interferes with teaching. Only 29 percent reported liking the way their school is run.

Nebraska was downgraded for its academic standards in science, math and English. The evaluation was based on 2006 research.

Since then, Nebraska officials have embarked on a multiyear effort to adopt more rigorous state standards and require statewide assessments in reading, math and science. New reading and math standards were approved this year. The state has joined in a national effort to develop core academic standards, and the Nebraska Board of Education is proposing to stiffen graduation requirements.

“Obviously, this study is not taking into consideration our new standards and the fact that we knew that they needed to be updated after five or six years, and that's being done,” said Betty VanDeventer, spokeswoman for the Nebraska Department of Education.

The state board and the department are also developing their own way to hold schools accountable rather than relying on federal processes it used in the past, VanDeventer said.

“That's in the works and something they're wanting to have done fairly soon,” she said.

Although the chairman of the Nebraska Legislature's Education Committee has dismissed the need for a charter school law, the Obama administration has made it clear that states without a law would be at a competitive disadvantage for grants.

Nebraska schools received an F for efforts to improve college and career readiness, coming in dead last among the states.

Among the weaknesses identified was a lower-than-average number of schools offering dual-enrollment programs, which allow students to earn high school and college credits simultaneously, and a lack of work-based scholarships.

The report penalized Nebraska for not having high school exams that gauge college or career readiness and because just 6.5 percent of the 2008 graduating class passed an advanced placement test. The national average was 15.2 percent.

Both Iowa and Nebraska were knocked in the ratings because almost no teachers enter the profession through alternative certification programs, which make it easier for liberal arts graduates and midcareer professionals to enter the classroom without conventional teaching preparation.

Iowa got knocked for school management, receiving a D, based in part on the paperwork burden on teachers and for a “weak” charter school law.

Its academic standards were not evaluated in the report. Iowa lawmakers approved a new Iowa Core Curriculum in 2008 for implementation by 2015.

Elaine Watkins-Miller, spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Education, said that although the state's charter school law was described as weak, Iowa has given parents school choice for years through open enrollment.

“They don't need the charter school law in order to implement some innovative initiatives and activities here in Iowa,” Watkins-Miller said.

Iowa has made inroads in alternate teaching certification, she said. Two months ago, the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners approved a process by which teachers who obtained a nontraditional license outside Iowa can teach in the state, she said.

The state has also started a teacher internship program for professionals in other career fields who want to be teachers.

“That is fairly new, so it might be true we don't have many people going through that, but it could grow in the future,” Watkins-Miller said.

Iowa's strengths were school finance, technology and data use.

Contact the writer:

444-1077, joe.dejka@owh.com