We welcome Rob Eissler back to the Third Saturday Seminar.   He started us off last September.  He is back to talk about Accountability in Education (It appears many of the statistics reported have been manipulated which is suggested by many to be a consequence of No Child Left Behind) which his Committee in the Texas Legislature is getting ready to work on.

Rob Eissler is the President of Eissler and Associates, an executive recruiting firm based in his hometown of twenty-five years, The Woodlands, Texas. He received a B.A. in Architecture from Princeton University, and then served his country as a carrier-based attack pilot on the USS John F. Kennedy in the United States Navy.

Representative Eissler has spent twenty two years dedicated to the public education system of Texas, 18 of which were on the Conroe Independent School District Board of Trustees, including two terms as President.

In 1999, he was named one of 25 Original Hometown Heroes@ for The Woodlands by The Woodlands Villager/Courier newspapers and The Woodlands Operating Company, L.P. The Chamber of Commerce named him A Citizen of the Year@ in 1999, where he served as the Chairman of the Board in 1988. Mr. Eissler has also served as the President of the Woodlands Rotary Club and as a board member of the South Montgomery Y.M.C.A. He coached youth sports for twenty years and is well known as one of the voices of High School Football on the local radio broadcast of area games.

Mr. Eissler was originally elected to represent District 15 as State Representative in November of 2002. In his third session, he was appointed to serve as Chairman of the Public Education Committee.

Most of you know my concern about the quality of Education in Texas and for that matter in this country.   In February, I heard a report on NPR about a study by Eileen Coppola (Avoidable Losses: High-Stakes Accountability and the Dropout Crisis) a researcher at Rice that addressed the issue of graduation rate and it’s relation to accountability systems.  Happily, when I contacted Rob I found out that that his committee was getting ready to work on the issue and he was willing to come to talk to us about it.

If we are ever going to create anything approaching an “Inclusive Economy” we will need to have a well educated force of leaders at all levels of the economy.  America is manufacturing and designing less and less of what we consume.  Although we graduate some very very bright students who go on quickly to greater things, much of the product of our education system is barely motivated or equipped to be productive in a Hi-Tech information society/economy.

The clear indication of this trend is the growth of our debt to foreign governments and interests.  In a healthy global economy America should be producing services and goods of equal value to the imported foreign goods and services that we consume.

To be crass, the survival of our Social Security System depends on the increasing productivity of our work force.  Also in the long run I don’t thing it pays to be a long term debtor nation.  There may be consequences we won’t like, when they want redeem their US Currency.

At any rate, I think you’ll find what Rob has to say interesting.  GCG

If you would like some background on the subject of Accountability in Education check out the following article from NPR and see the links to the report
http://www.kuhf.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=23054&news_iv_ctrl=1521

Rice University Links Accountability with Drop Out Rates
Thursday, February 14, 2008
By: Laurie Johnson

Researchers at Rice University suggest there’s a statistical link between public school accountability systems and low graduation rates. A study released today shows programs like “No Child Left Behind” directly contribute to the dropout problem. Houston Public Radio’s Laurie Johnson.

Click to Listen (M3U file – will play on WinAmp or Windows Media Player)

The study examines data from 271,000 Texas students. The accountability system relies on student test scores to rate schools. So students who are likely to fail can bring down a school’s rating. Eileen Coppola says that’s where the problem comes in.

“Schools were allowed to hold kids back in the 9th grade. The idea was if they weren’t ready for the TAKS test in the 10 grade, they could be held back in the 9th grade. And so this was done in very large numbers. And so what we saw was that the more students were held back the higher the school ratings increased. But what happens is the more you hold students back in grade the more likely they are to drop out.”

Coppola is a research scientist at Rice University’s Center for Education. She spent seven years collecting the data and interviewing teachers and students. She says low-achieving students become liabilities to schools under the rating system. Her team found an overall graduation rate of 33 percent. That’s much lower than the state’s reported 84 percent.

“Those numbers did not take into account the mobility. We just didn’t have the data to take into account mobility. But we say that even if you add something like a 20 percent mobility rate of kids transferring out of the district, the graduation rates are still very very low.”

The Texas Education Agency is often criticized for its methods of reporting dropouts. The state doesn’t count students who drop out for reasons like pregnancy or incarceration. They also don’t count students who say they intend to take the GED.

You can find a link toRice University’s complete studyon our website KUHF.org.

Laurie Johnson. Houston Public Radio News.

Avoidable Losses: High-Stakes Accountability and the Dropout Crisis
Rice University’s complete study(Abstract)
http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v16n3/v16n3.pdf (Complete report)

No Child Left Behind Videos (Courtesy of Sidney Tietler, one of our members.)
You may be interested in the following short videos about No Child Left Behind. There are many longer videos on the subject on the Google video website.

There is one by educators, one from a Democrat debate, one by Obama, and one by Clinton. He could not find one by McCain.

Truth and Consequences – Educators and Students (9 minutes)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8852683595004721289&q=no+child+left+behind&total=1112&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

No Child Left Behind - scrap or revise? Democratic Debate (3 minutes)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1342879507350328168&q=no+child+left+behind&total=1112&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2
Barack Obama: No Child Left Behind (4 minutes)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5387820947241354510&q=no+child+left+behind&total=1112&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=9

Hillary on Education and No Child Lefth Behind (9 minutes)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-305185695042160783&q=no+child+left+behind%2C+clinton+site%3Avideo.google.com&total=15&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0