Documentary Reveals Oklahoma Uses Discredited "Whole Word" Reading Instruction in Many Classrooms, Yet the Oklahoma Department of Education Does Nothing

Today I read with interest an article by Jennifer Palmer for Oklahoma Watch, "In Oklahoma, a Discredited Theory of Reading is Widely Used". In her piece, she informs that a documentary by a group called "American Public Media Reports" has found that many schools across the nation are using a type of reading now called "three-cueing", but what has also been called for decades, "whole word language". 

I'M OUTRAGED AND YOU SHOULD BE TOO! Private Student Data On Google Docs For ALL To See!

For years now, ROPE (and others like Kaye Beach) have been warning parents that not only are public schools NOT the place to expect student privacy to be considered sacred, but that public schools are now sharing student data publicly. Just this week, I've become privy to information that absolutely PROVES this to be the case once and for all. Before I continue, I need to thank a current Oklahoma City teacher (who shall remain nameless) for this information - and also Howard Houchen and Kaye Beach - for contributing to this blog. This teacher - as other teachers in the OKC public school system - has been told that she must upload her students' information to Google Docs. She has refused. She, like fellow teacher Nikki Jones from Tulsa, has chosen to stand for children and their privacy and innocence! We thank her very much.

I will warn you, this is not going to be my typical long, researched to the nth degree blog. I simply want to post the screenshots here and give basic explanations. Frankly, I do NOT want to post this blog as, once I do, all the names of the students in the documents plastered on the web for everyone to see will have an arrow pointed in their direction. For that, I am truly sorry. I don't see any other way to break this story, however.

As many of you know, Teach For America (TFA) has been recruited to a very high degree in Oklahoma in order to make up for the 'teacher shortage'. If you take the time to research TFA, you'll find that many concerns have been raised about the program. This should be an addition to the growing pile.

This is a screenshot of the home page for the Oklahoma Teach for America Corps. It can be found at this address:  http://wechangetheodds.weebly.com/

Please note the tabs at the top. Please notice that Jefferson, Roosevelt and US Grant are not only former US presidents, but current Oklahoma City Public Schools.

For purposes of explanation, I have clicked on the "Jefferson" tab. Here is a screenshot of the partial page under that tab.

These are a portion of the TFA Corps members assigned to Jefferson.

I decided to click on Thomas Joyce - he looks quite colorful. Here is the screenshot resulting from that click.

 

Yes, as a Constitutional Conservative, I'm a bit miffed by the quote, however, please note that his name is in red type. Here's what I found when I clicked on his name.

Yes, that says, "Data" and "Data 2".

This is what I found when I clicked on "Data". Yes, these are spreadsheets of his students with their full names and grades.

This is what came up when I selected "Data 2". I will not show what is behind the green boxes as these often have student ID numbers as well as full names and grades. As a teacher, I was not allowed to have my students switch papers for others to grade as this was a violation of their privacy. WHAT THEN IS THIS? I AM OUTRAGED AND YOU SHOULD BE TOO!

Of course this was the same for TFA teacher after TFA teacher listed on this site for all three schools. Just so you'll know I'm not making this up, here's the tab from Roosevelt:

Going further, here is the screen shot for one of these teachers, Dalton Goodier.

Good news. He knows Tomas Paine. However, when you click on his name, you get this:

And when you click on "Data" you get this:

I'm going to leave this picture very small here, as there are student names, grades and ID numbers visible (since redacted). Not only that, but some are SPECIAL EDUCATION STUDENTS.

There was another TFA participant, Julie who even had phone numbers visible on her documentation:

Now. Do you understand? Is this where you want your child's information - on a Google Doc for ANYONE TO READ (and/or some public education watchdog publishing on her blog)? Please, please immediately find out if your child's teacher is storing your child's data on GOOGLE DOCS and tell them you want this data removed IMMEDIATELY. This is DEFINITELY in violation of our states new Parental Rights law, HB1384 or the OSCN Network Title 25. This should be lawsuit worthy.

ADDENDUM 1/5/2015: We revealed this issue at a private meeting this morning. Soon after, the Google Docs site went black. No one without the original web address will be able to find it - however, if you went to the website to verify our post, you will be able to. So will I and anyone else who did the same thing. In fact, anyone who is a Google user, could have pulled it into their Google Docs account and used it, edited it, or shared it.

Though we didn't delve into much of what is wrong with Google Docs and other 'cloud' based, shareable media in this meeting, one meeting participant added that many schools he knew of used Google Docs and the documents were all offline so no one could see them. I told him Google Docs were easily hacked. He observed that he didn't know anything about that. Unfortunately, just because school officials don't know about it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Schools today are using technology at such rapid rates that training and understanding of the media is getting lost in the shuffle. Sadly, so is the privacy of our state's kids.

Complaints About Sexually Inappropriate Reading Material In High School Part 2 - Garbage In - Garbage Out

Though Part 1 of this post has been viewed over 15 thousand times, I have been very disturbed to see the amount of comments making excuses for the material described by the mother's letter. I tend to believe few people have actually read her letter - which explains the comments about wanting to burn or ban books - but many commenters have read the book and still felt it appropriate reads for their children.

People who believe we're for book burning or banning or censoring, etc., please note the following points about the first post:

• The mother was responding by trying to educate her school board that it was breaking their own 'rule' about how books are adopted for students.
• The mother never suggested that the books be 'banned', or 'burned' or anything else, she merely provided information to suggest that these books were not written in a style appropriate for HIGH SCHOOL children.
• The mother approached the school board of this particular district in order that they understand her concerns - which is not only well within her rights as a taxpaying citizen - but her duty as a parent.

The themes of these books (The Kite Runner and The Glass Castle) are difficult to be sure, and yes, there are difficult situations all around us in the world today. Should kids understand rape? Certainly - in order for them to be able to protect themselves. We start at the earliest ages telling our children they should allow no one but their parents to touch the parts of their body that clothes are meant to cover.

Here's the rub. What kind of language do you use to convey that message? What kind of imagery do you invoke to create this level of understanding? NOT that found in these books. NOT for high school students.  I'm going to publish some parts of the books below. This is not WRITTEN (note I say 'written' - I'm saying nothing about the difficulty of the 'theme') in a manner appropriate for young students to read - college aged and above, fine.

I'm going to print some of the more concerning passages from these books in order that readers understand exactly the issue at hand.

These passages are from the Glass Castle:

p. 82 - Empty beer cans and whiskey bottles and a few half-eaten tins of Vienna sausages littered the floor. On one of the mattresses, Billy’s father was snoring unevenly. His mouth hung open, and flies were gathered in the stubble of his beard. A wet stain had darkened his pants nearly to his knees. His zipper as undone, and his gross penis dangled to one side. I stared quietly, then asked, “What’s the funny thing?” “Don’t you see?” said Billy. “He pissed himself!” Billy started laughing...

p. 86 – Billy smushed his face against mine, then grabbed my hair and made my head bend sideways and stuck his tongue in my mouth. It as slimy and disgusting, but when I tried to pull away, he pushed in toward me. The more I pulled, the more he pushed, until he was on top of me and I felt his fingers tugging at my shorts. His other hand was unbuttoning his own pants. To stop him, I put my hand down there, and when I touched it, I knew what it was, even though I had never touched one before.”

p. 103 – One night when I as almost ten, I as awakened by someone running his hands over my private parts. At first it was confusing. Lori and I slept in the same bed, and I thought maybe she was moving in her sleep. I groggily pushed the hand away. “I just want to play a game with you,” a man’s voice said.

p. 146 – Erma [the grandmother], who’d been drinking since before breakfast, told Brian [approx. 9 year old brother] that his britches needed mending. He started to take them off, but Erma said she didn’t want him running around the house in his skivvies or with a towel wrapped around him looking like he was wearing a goddamn dress. It would be easier for her to mend the britches while he was still wearing them. She ordered him to follow her in to Grandpa’s bedroom, where she kept her sewing kit. They’d been gone for a minute or two when I heard Brian weakly protesting. I went into Grandpa’s bedroom and saw Erma kneeling on the floor in front of Brian, grabbing at the crotch of his pants, squeezing and kneading while mumbling to herself and telling Brian to hold still, goddammit. Brian, his cheeks wet with tears, was holding his hands protectively between his legs. “Erma, you leave him alone!” I shouted. Erma, still on her knees, twisted around and glared at me. “Why, you little bitch!” she said. 

p. 161 – Of course I went. I’d never gotten inside the Green Lantern, but now I’d get an up-close look at a genuine prostitute. There were lots of things I wanted to know: Was whoring easy money? Was it ever any fun, or was it just gross? Did Kathy and her sisters and her father all know Ginnie Sue Pastor was a whore?... Ginnie Sue offered us seats at the table. She had heavy breasts that swayed when she moved, and her blond hair was dark at the roots...

These are excerpts from the Kite Runner:

p.7 – “Hey you!” he said. “I know you.” We had never seen him before. He was a squatty man with a shaved head and black stubble on his face. The way he grinned at us, leered, scared me. “Just keep walking,” I muttered to Hassan. “You!  The Hazara! Look at me when I’m talking to you!” the soldier barked. He handed his cigarette to the guy next to him, made a circle with the thumb and index finger of one hand. Poked the middle finger of his other hand through the circle. Poked it in and out. In and out. “I knew your mother, did you know that? I knew her real good. I took her from behind that creek over there.” The soldiers laughed. One of them made a squealing sound. I told Hassan to keep walking, keep walking. “What a tight little sugary cunt she had!” the soldier was saying, shaking hands with the others, grinning...

p.72-76 – “Whatever you wish.” Assef unbuttoned his winter coat, took it off, folded it slowly and deliberately. He placed it against the wall. I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost....Assef motioned with his hand, and the other two boys separated, forming a half circle, trapping Hassan in the alley...”I don’t know,” Wali was saying. “My father says it’s sinful.” He sounded unsure, excited, scared, all at the same time. Kamal and Wali each gripped an arm, twisted and bent at the elbow so that Hassan’s hands were pressed to his back. Assef was standing over them, the heel of his snow boots crushing the back of Hassan’s neck...Assef knelt behind Hassan, put his hands on Hassan’s hips and lifted his bare buttocks. He kept one hand on Hassan’s back and undid his own belt buckle with the free hand. He unzipped his jeans. Dropped his underwear. He positioned himself behind Hassan. Hassan didn’t struggle. Didn’t even whimper. He moved his head slightly and I caught a glimpse of his face. Saw the resignation in it. It was a look I had seen before...

Ironically, there is also this passage:

p. 116 – My mind flashed to that winter day six years ago. Me, peering around the corner in the alley. Kamal and Wali holding Hassan down. Assef’s buttock muscles clenching and clenching, his hips thrusting back and forth.

The author of the book himself, makes plain that what he saw, he can't unsee. It haunts him even in his waking hours. How do you then justify allowing children (they are under 18) to read such clear word pictures as to give them the ability to 'see' things they can't 'unsee' from reading such explicit writing? You really believe the world is such a horrible place that most kids are going to be exposed to this kind of thing? I don't. I think kids take in what you give them. If it's garbage, you get garbage out, if it's light, you get light. If you don't believe me, look at Ferguson Missouri - look at how the instances of rape, aggravated assault and murder of children by children have increased as the availability of porn and explicit video games have cornered the market.

Here's the worst part - these passages are needlessly graphic. I will convey exactly the same 'theme' below:

My mind flashed back to that winter six days ago. Me, peering around the corner of the alley, watching in horror, as Hassan was cruelly raped.

You're telling me the words I used above don't convey the feelings of the author on page 116? Absolutely they do. We can still feel his self-loathing, his disgust, we just don't have to have the mental picture associated with the act.

Unfortunately, we're seeing this kind of thing more and more. Just recently, it was found that several of the books on the Common Core ancillary list were replete with this kind of imaging - books like The Bluest Eye and Dreaming in Cuban - have come under fire recently for the imagery invoked by this same style of writing - a style that many find inappropriate for underage youth.

Readers are certainly entitled to their opinions - and they certainly have the right to address their school boards on this issue - but society has become decidedly more coarse in near direct proportion to the amount of non-light-bearing forms of entertainment available today. There are ways to educate children in the 'ways of the world'. Providing them with such graphic images is not the way to do that and produce healthy children for a healthy society.

NO TEACHING FOR YOU! Dr. Barresi and 3rd Grade Retention

I should have put State Superintendent Janet Barresi's face on the Soup Nazi (Seinfeld).  I can just hear her saying, "NO TEACHING FOR YOU!"

Here is her statement on the third grade reading retention act:

Superintendent Barresi comments on bill to weaken third-grade reading law
OKLAHOMA CITY (March 28, 2014) — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Janet Barresi made the following remarks concerning House Bill 2625. Slated for a vote Monday in the state Senate Education Committee, the measure would repeal automatic retention of students who score Unsatisfactory on the third-grade reading test and who don’t meet a good-cause exemption.“To deny children the opportunity to learn how how to read is to deny them an opportunity for success. Reading is the most fundamental aspect of an education. It is unconscionable that anyone would think it’s too much to ask that a school teach a child to read.
“Extensive research shows that moving children forward in school without the ability to read proficiently sets them on a course of falling further and further behind. It condemns them to frustration and failure. But there are also severe consequences for the students who are able to read proficiently, as fourth- and fifth-grade teachers must increasingly spend their time in remediation with the struggling readers.
“The Reading Sufficiency Act has been in existence for 17 years to identify and provide intensive remediation for struggling readers as early as kindergarten. And yet after 17 years and more than $80 million in funding, the percentage of Oklahoma students reading below grade level has remained flat. We cannot allow this to continue. We cannot continue sabotaging the promise of future generations.
“I urge Senate Education Committee members to continue to support high standards by ensuring that our children can read. I would ask that they let the RSA work. There already are good-cause exemptions to address an array of special circumstances. Predictions of catastrophe are simply incorrect. When the State of Oklahoma mandated end-of-instruction exams as a condition for high school graduation, critics made similar predictions that the sky would fall. Instead, Oklahoma’s young people rose to the occasion, with the passage rate at 99 percent.  
“The good news is that RSA already is working. It is igniting attention and innovation in reading instruction. We see school districts in Tulsa, Bartlesville, Putnam City and elsewhere making impressive gains in reducing the numbers of children with reading difficulties. It would be a mistake to start weakening the law just as it begins to show glimmers of its anticipated positive impact.”

No, Dr. Barresi, despite your continued use of Webster-sized, emotionally-charged, finger-pointing words (unconscionable), NO ONE I KNOW WANTS KIDS NOT TO READ.  I mean, NO ONE.  I've never met a person who has said, "Oh, throw kids out in a forest, they'll figure out reading for themselves", or "Shoot, kids don't need to read to get a job."  Obviously, you're thinking of people on some other planet here.

Several things about this statement make me just insane:

1. So the RSA has been around for 17 years and it wasn't going to work until we made the whole thing punitive?  So it's the kids who aren't wanting to read but get passed onto fourth grade?  NO!  I've been a teacher, I know how it works.  You tell the kid they aren't going to pass ______ (fill in the blank - reading, this class, this test...) if they don't do ______.  You then tell the parents and the principal this.  You then don't pass the kid.  You then get called into the carpet in the principals office where he/she says, "The parents are really upset about little Johnny not passing this ______.  I need you to just let him go on."  You say, "Yes sir/ma'am", because you know' they're going to be passed and you move on with your day knowing that at least YOU followed the rules.  So, who's fault is it that kids aren't reading by fourth grade?  I was watching Star Trek again this weekend and I'm always struck by Spock's (in this case Kirk's) line, "The needs of the many out way the needs of the one".  Interestingly, that's how government is SUPPOSED to work.  We just don't work it that way, we punish EVERYONE for the one or two teachers/principals/administrators allowing kids to move to the next grade to save a little grief.  What a giant load.
2. Dr. Barresi urges Senators to support high standards.  What?  I am beginning to think there is nothing more important in the world of education than Accountability.  I mean, who cares about the kids' well being or what the parents want - it's "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead" at our department of Education.  Then, to follow up this statement, she tells us about the "good cause exemptions" that make this bill well worth its salt.  What?  The good cause exemptions are all things teachers and parents were most probably doing anyway to make sure kids are reading appropriately, yet when you put the oneness for a child's passage to the next (elementary!) grade on ONE single test, the teacher has little time create portfolios of student work  in order to make sure they are available if they flunk the ONE test because she/he is too busy trying to beat them to death with reading curricula.  So why the necessity for RSA testing?  Because it's in the NCLB Waiver.  Yes, third grade reading retention is part of the assurances given to the federal government under 1B - "Transition To College and Career Ready Standards".  In effect, we have to have RSA in order to keep with the Common Core State Standards Initiative which is required by our NCLB Waiver.  Again, what a giant load.  Who do we owe for an excellent educational experience - parents/students or the federal government?
3. How in the world could you possibly determine RSA was working?  How?  This program has really only started this year and there have been no results from testing.  How in the world can you say that, although the program has been in existence for 17 years, we are suddenly seeing progress because of a test in the first year?  That has to be the silliest thing I've ever heard of from an organization that told OSU and OU researchers they didn't know what they were talking about when they condemned the Department's A-F grading scale.

In closing, we MUST allow teachers, principals - and most of all parents - to determine the course of students through public education - not our current superintendent!  I have no idea when the Oklahoma Department of Education became the Politburo, but it needs to stop.  The OSDE needs to let teachers teach and parents parent and stay out of the way.

Past Tense America

One of the things I truly love about schooling my kids at home is that I have the opportunity to also learn things I wasn't taught myself.  In the morning, I read the kids a classic poem (or two...or three) and/or a portion of a classic text.  This morning we read the Pied Piper of Hamlin by Robert Browning.

After the reading (sometimes as we are reading, if paragraphs are difficult for those under 12 to understand easily) the four of us discuss the reading.  What was the author trying to say?  What does this word mean?  What is the moral of the story?

I direct the conversation and steer the kids toward the meaning of the text or words if they are not grasping an understanding themselves.

This was the way school was taught years ago.  This is the way my mother, a now-retired English teacher with at least three Master's under her belt, used to teach her public middle school classes.  She LOVED the classics.  Why?  You HAVE to THINK to understand what words such as "gilder", "ermine" and "pottage" might mean today by determining their context in the passage or the sentence.  You HAVE to THINK to then understand the entirety of the passage or poem.

These texts give you the opportunity for endless learning - looking words up in a dictionary, determining context in a sentence, determining the purpose of the poem, studying about the writer....I could go on and on.

Dr. Terrence Moore of Hillsdale College has written a book called, "The Story Killers" about this very thing.  I suggest to anyone who doesn't understand the damage our new "shallow and fewer" standards are doing to the learning process of children, read this book.

I am posting two classic poems below - one by Emerson and one by Browning.  Both poems extol the virtue of what I will call "Past Tense America".

A Nation's Strength - By Ralph Waldo Emerson

Not gold, but only man can make
A people great and strong;
Men who, for truth and honor's sake,
Stand fast and suffer long.

Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly -
They build a nation's pillars deep
And lift them to the sky.

Reading this particular poem really brought home how far America has fallen (to me) since Emerson's time. Look at the words of that poem.  Do we "stand fast and suffer long" today? No, we want the quick, drive through version of EVERYTHING from religion to food! 

I Hear America Singing By Walt Whitman

I hear America Singing, the varied carols I hear:
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam;
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat; the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on is bench; the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter's song; the ploughboy's on his way in the morning or at noon intermission or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing;
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day - at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious song.

Whitman is not describing white-collared executives sitting behind a desk with an iPad below their hovering fingers.  Whitman is not describing Professors in Ivory Towers decrying the goodness of America as they simultaneously take research funds (hand over fist) from private corporations who have made their fortunes from the American work ethic and free enterprise system.  

No, Whitman is describing America in past tense.  An America in which calloused hands provided a tale of untold riches to anyone that shook them.  An America in which students were taught the value of independence through reliance on one's own efforts, and the benefits reaped by America because of the values therein instilled. 

Our education 'reform' measures (ie; Common Core) will never work in present-tense America because we are now the America of the soft underbelly that expects and deserves instead of works and perserveres.
 
Our education 'reform' measures (ie; Common Core) will never work in present-tense America because they are based on punishments and not an embracing of learning for the sake of learning. 

Our education 'reform' measures (ie; Common Core) will never work in present-tense America because we desire results without effort - critical thinking without foundational knowledge - tests (assessments) that teach instead of teachers who teach.

Our only hope will be a Great Awakening of learning in our country, and until (and unless) we extricate ourselves from the cycle of government instilled poverty of effort, we will never summit that Everest.

Education Accountability Must Originate At The Local Level

 

A number of recent Oklahoman editorials have disparaged those NOT backing  ACE tests and the A-F grading system.  Apparently, those of us begging to differ with these complicated, federally-derived, accountability systems want dumbed-down standards that will graduate scores of unemployable public school students all across Oklahoma. 

Not to dodge credit, but that trend likely began in 1965 when the first 31 page, 605 section Elementary and Secondary Education Act (now No Child Left Behind – NCLB) unleashed a tidal wave of federal regulations upon local schools and established the ‘pay for play’ scheme that keeps states towing the line (according to the feds, "Here schools, do what we tell you to do, and if you do, we'll give you back some of the money we steal from your state's taxpayers to make you do what we want you to do.")  

Today’s NCLB is 9,601 sections and an untold number of actual printed pages.   

This in stark contrast to the philosophy of America’s Founders who believed that free public grammar school should be supplied by every township containing 50 families or more to teach the fundamentals of reading, writing, ciphering, history, geography and Bible study, with control and oversight directed by local school boards – a system which by 1776 had produced a higher literacy rate than we have today.

Could unchecked growth of federal control over public education be why NAEP reading scores for 17-year-olds have increased only one point since 1971 and NAEP math scores for 17-year-olds have increased only two points – over 41 years?  Why have SAT scores in the verbal category dropped 25 points since 1972 and math scores increased by only one?

According to the American Enterprise Institute, who released a paper entitled, Federal Compliance Works Against Education Policy Goals, “…fiscal and administrative requirements often lead to expensive and time-consuming compliance processes that are not related to improving student achievement or school success.”  Lindsay Burke, writing for the Heritage Foundation in The Dead Hand of Education Reform also reports that, “…while the feds provided just 7% of education funding, they accounted for 41% of the paperwork burden imposed on the states…”

Santa Fe South High School in Oklahoma City personified this thesis recently when they submitted their NCLB waiver (A-F) paperwork to the SDE only to find out that, while their test scores were fine, they were placed on the failing school list because their paperwork wasn’t filled out properly. 

The same day the disapproval of the A-F rules passed the Administrative Rules and Government Oversight Committee, Governor Fallin issued a press release indicating her support of the rules and the SDE issued a press release touting their receipt of nearly 7 million dollars in School Improvement Grants to be used for “turning around” schools determined to be ‘failing’ under the NCLB-prescribed A-F grading system.  

My son, in first grade at our local public elementary, doesn’t know his basic math facts or parts of speech, but has had week long units on Global Warming and Rainforest Ecology between his 2 days a week of Art (his is an Arts Integration school).  Recently, his teacher told me she just “doesn’t have time to teach [math facts] to mastery” because she has to teach to the test – the results of which will soon determine whether she keeps her job.

Not only are regulations and/or mandates confusing and generally counterproductive, they are expensive.  In a paper just released by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the authors show how regulations drive up costs and reduce competition.  In public education, the case can be made that mandates and regulations force money to be spent OUTSIDE the classroom on administrative and compliance processes that do not affect student learning, making it impossible for actual school choice to occur by reducing competition.  Why take your child to another public school when that school will be subjected to all the same federal mandates and regulations as all other public schools?  The authors also discuss the adverse incentives rife at the federal level to continue this trend ad infinitum. 

In the Competitive Enterprise Institute's yearly publication, "Ten Thousand Commandments 2012", the authors put an actual number to the cost of overall federal regulation.  They report, "Regulatory compliance costs dwarf corporate income taxes of $198 billion, and exceed individual income taxes and even pre-tax corporate profits."  We should absolutely take umbrage with this notion - especially when it applies to those institutions supposedly teaching our children the basic skills needed to succeed in life.

Vilifying those of us who believe education is a local issue best dealt with by parents, district school boards and education officials rather than nameless faceless bureaucrats at the federal – or even state level – will not change the fact that a layered, top-down bureaucracy will never solve governance problems like a locality.  Government closest to the people (parents) is always best because it is nearest the needs of the people being served (students/parents) and paying for the services (parents/taxpayers).