Survey Responses Part 6
COALITION UTAH asked State Board 7 candidates about PARTNERSHIPS, WORKFORCE & STUDENT PERFORMANCE. Here's what they had to say...
Partnerships, Workforce & Student Performance - 12
A) Do you support public-private partnerships (aka community engagement) in schools? Why or why not?
B) Do you support requiring students to perform work-based or service-based learning as a condition of graduating? Why or why not?
A) I do not support public-private partnerships in schools. First it’s unconstitutional, It creates too many shareholders and turns our students into a commodity.
B) I’m thinking through the 2nd part of this question, my reservation is the word required. I like the idea of work based learning as an option that can be used for graduation. I need more understanding of what service based learning entails before I could say whether I support it or not.
A) No. Partnerships are ultimately outsourced to third parties. Therefore, there isn’t adequate oversight or accountability. We don’t want third party relationships in schools.
B) The idea sounds great. You need to ask yourself what kind of service would count as a condition of graduating. Are we talking about church service, government regulated service, or service that is in line with families’ values? We need to know who is regulating the requirements. If it’s the government then no. I believe that church service should count and things that align with family values and beliefs.
A) I don’t believe in Public/Private Partnerships in any situation whatsoever! These are contaminated with corruption.
B) [Not provided]
A) It obviously depends on what kind of private organizations are getting involved and whether or not they have selfish interests, like exploiting cheap teenage labor. Public-private partnerships need to be properly regulated.
B) I appreciate the great strides our schools have made to make more technical education, certificates, and licensing possible. I think our schools can do even more to promote more trades and not push a university path for all students, but I don’t support said requirements for graduation. Those choices should be left up to the parents and students concerned.
A) Absolutely. It makes a difference to have public, parental, and community support for a school. Partnerships are very important. The more active the support, the more successful the school. My last school, I had great support from the PTA, service-based entities, business partners and such. The city supported our school as we also reached out to help the community through service.
B) Service-based or work-based learning should not be required for graduation. It should be offered to those who are interested in participating. Many schools have a graduation cord for service-based learning or work-based learning. This is something to be celebrated not required.
Some prestigious universities require service-based learning for applications to their school. That opportunity these partnerships provide for service-based learning helps to achieve that prerequisite.
I used to teach my SBO’s something I heard from another SBO Advisor, that service is like wetting your pants. Everyone sees the effect, but you are the one who receives the warm feeling. The best service is the one that happens without external recompense.
A) Public-private partnerships lack transparency. The private entity is profit driven and takes control away from the public school. I do not support PPP’s. especially in our education system.
B) I do not support requiring work-based, or service-based learning as a condition of graduation. Not all students would benefit from these programs and requiring them as a condition of graduation would be a waste of their time. Graduation should be based on academics, not forced service.
Partnerships, Workforce & Student Performance - 13
Utah student proficiency scores on language, math, and science consistently fall below 50%, yet graduation rates remain at ~ 90%, averaged statewide. Graduation rates are considered a key metric of system “success.” There is concern that this metric is misleading and that students are graduating “functionally illiterate.”
A) Is this concern valid? Why or why not?
B) What likely accounts for the proficiency and graduation disparity and what may be a possible solution?
A) There is an absolute concern with graduating students who are “functionally illiterate”. That is an education system that has failed our children.
B) We need to get to the root problem of why this is happening before it can be fixed.
Is there an influx of illegal immigrants into our schools, children who don’t speak English and hinder what is being taught in our classrooms? Are we putting too much time into subjective social and emotional learning and not focusing on core subjects? These are just 2 areas that could be looked at to help resolve this problem in education.
A) This concern is absolutely valid. We are pushing our kids through the education system year after year when they are not hitting end of year benchmarks or standards. I subbed in a 6th grade math class, and the class could not identify a quarter, dime, nickel or penny. How does this happen? Our kids are in school for 6 plus hours a day. How does a 6th grader not understand money? This is a reality. The statistic in the above question proves students are graduating when in reality they aren’t academically ready. HUGE problem.
B) We need smaller classroom sizes, more reading and math intervention, and less pushing kids through when they are not academically ready or prepared.
A) This gets back to three of my most important goals:
1- Academics (R,W, A)
Get schools out of the social ideology business and back into basic education business.
2- No State-sponsored Religion IE: DEI and SEL.
Let parents teach Religion values and beliefs at home if they want. Not the state-sponsored religion of Dei and SEL
3- Textbooks not Chromebooks.
B) Let’s safeguard the kids from pornography which they can regularly access and even innocently access on school provided Chromebook computers.
Let’s stop the Big Tech invasion of privacy and constant overcorrection and monitoring and let the kids learn in a natural way more like we did when we were kids.
A) Yes this is a valid concern. We are doing a disservice to students when we lower the bar and there are instances of students who graduate and are vastly unprepared for the next step. Students should be competent learners and held accountable instead of pushed along.
B) [Not provided]
A) No, is not valid. Evidence: look at the NAEP results, the Nation’s Report Card. SAT used percentiles, nobody understood percentiles and Stanines. We scored the 62%ile, nobody understood how impressive.
Next the CRT’s, a minimum standard test, in other words, we want to make sure you have an adequate knowledge to move onto the next math class or English class. Science is not linear; therefore, end-of-year test. The students scored high as far as pass rate. Yet, we still normed it so that only 75% would pass statewide.
Mathematicians mocked the goal of NCLB – 100% pass-rate, impossible to achieve due to norming.
B) We moved to the SAGE/RISE test which was no longer a minimum standards test but a test of excellence. We want to measure and rank students, teachers, and schools. No longer do we look for those students who were not ready for the vertical move to the next level. We want to find those who excelled while looking for cause-effect and VAM’s such as MGP and statements like the one you made.
The format of the test is to get a tougher follow up problem if you get the previous one correct. If you’re wrong, you receive a less difficult problem. The theory is you go back and forth to receive your true ability and score. Great for the GRE and other alphabet tests to get into grad school. The Collegeboard knows not to do this. The legislature took away the importance of the test by rendering no consequence for the students perfoming poorly. Can’t be used for grades nor placement. The best tests are those teacher-made assessments testing what they have taught, anchored by state and national tests.
A) This is a very valid concern.
B) I feel that the main culprit is “No Child Left Behind.” This policy has meant the students are advanced even when they do not meet the requirements. Schools are being applauded for quantity over quality. There is also a general feeling that you can’t hurt the child’s, or the parent’s, feelings by failing a student who is underperforming. But, when we do this, we are failing the student. We are producing a generation of young adults who are wholly unprepared for the world in which they will soon be thrust.
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