Executive Director's Report: NSBA's Center for Public Education is the best place for accurate, unbiased data

4/25/06 -- Is it true or false that the math performance of American students is declining? The answer is false. Despite reports in the media about declining academic performance, the truth is that over the last 10 years, NAEP math scores have risen at both grade 4 and grade 8 and among all racial and income groups.

Is it true or false that reducing class size has the greatest impact on low-income and minority students? The answer is true. In fact, the results are most significant at kindergarten through grade 3 and if total class size is between 15 and 18 students.

Knowing the answers to these kinds of questions is vitally important to the work of school board members everyday.

When questions arise as school boards debate issues like math performance and class size, board members need to be able to sort out the fact from the fiction, the truth from media reports, and the emotion-driven arguments from reason.

Now there is a place to go to get the kind of reliable information board members need when they have to evaluate a proposed policy or piece of legislation or answer questions from the media or parents.

This place is the Center for Public Education -- the one-stop resource for clear, credible information about public education.

The center’s newly designed website features balanced information written in plain English. Its only bias is that it is pro-public education.

The center provides important information, tools, and publications for state associations, school board members, other education leaders, and the public to help them make well-informed, effective decisions. It capitalizes on the power of the Internet to be fast, comprehensive, accessible, and interactive.

The new website reflects the ideas and recommendations of local school board members who participated in surveys and focus groups.

One of the highlights of the website is a section on “Research You Can Trust,” featuring research that is valid, practical, and objective. The only agenda it serves is getting at the truth. Some of the research already online addresses the characteristics of high-performing, high-poverty schools; the effect of teacher quality on student achievement; the effect of class size on student achievement; and standardized testing and its effect on instruction.

Other resources on the center website are success stories about how school districts have implemented lessons from the research, guidance on how to build community support, the latest news, summaries of the latest reports, and much more.

NSBA couldn’t have created the Center for Public Education without the generous support of corporations, state school boards associations, and others.

Corporate donors who contributed $100,000 or more to help make the Center for Public Education possible include Brokers’ Risk Placement Service Inc., ARAMARK Education, Apple Computer Inc., Munich American RiskPartners (a division of American Re-Insurance Co.), Pearson Education, and Sodexho School Services.

The state school boards associations of Texas, California, Illinois, Arizona, and Kansas also contributed $100,000 or more.

Many, many individual school board members and others in education have also contributed to the center.

These people “get it.” They believe in the value of public education, and they understand how they can connect and support your efforts to improve public education.

We are indebted to their commitment and belief in what the Center for Public Education will mean for school board members, education leaders, parents, media, and the public.

The Center for Public Education is designed to be used by anyone concerned with the education of our future generations. But it’s the local school board members who need it the most.

You are the greatest shapers of public opinion of our schools today. You have the credibility and the influence within your communities to make a difference in how issues are debated and decisions are made. You must be armed with the truth when passions rise and conflict ensues.