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By George Archibald / THE WASHINGTON TIMES

American students are not taking enough science and math courses in preparation for college or the work force, say education officials responding to yesterday's release of a federal study of high school transcripts.

"What is scary to me is that more than 50 percent of our students are not taking any science in the 12th grade," said Sharif Shakrani, deputy executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board. The board administers federally required standardized tests under the No Child Left Behind Act.

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* * *

The report, issued by the U.S. Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics, was based on a study of transcripts from more than 20,000 graduating high school seniors from 277 public and private high schools.

The report shows, overall, that high school graduates took some tougher courses and raised their overall grade point averages during the past decade, but scores on standardized tests that measure achievement have stayed relatively flat since 1995.

"Does it reflect progress or grade inflation?" Katy Harvey, principal of Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, asked during the forum.

* * *

Despite improvements in school standards during the past decade, 60 percent of employers still rate the basic skills of high school graduates only "fair or poor," said Michael Cohen, president of Achieve Inc., a nonprofit group that helps states raise academic standards and achievement.

"The majority is not prepared for what they face. We have by design a K-12 system in this country where students are proficient but not prepared," Mr. Cohen said.

"There is not a single parent in the country who, if s/he had a clear vision of the challenges our children will face over the next 100 years, would be the least bit satisfied with the education services provided to students." See, e.g., Education failing to serve economy, business leaders say and The Population Implosion.

States need more rigorous requirements, he said.

"Just 35 states require four years of grade-level English in high school. Only 12 states require Algebra 2. Most states are not even close to requiring what is necessary."

Officials say they're concerned colors may indicate gang activity
CARRIE LEVINE & STEVE LYTTLE / Charlotte (NC) Observer Staff Writers found via Zero Intelligence

Northridge Middle School is banning a staple of the teenage wardrobe: solid-colored T-shirts.

Check, please! From preemptive strikes on terrorists to preemptive strikes on T-shirts. Thank you, Osama, for driving this country into psychosis.

Principal Tom Bridges said he is especially concerned about students coordinating their shirt colors because it might indicate gang activity at the northeast Charlotte school.

It also might be an innocent, constitutionally protected activity of freedom of association. Is there some reason why normal people have to increasingly live their lives under rules instigated by the behaviors of a few deviants?

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"We'd heard on Thursday that there might be something happening Friday with kids wearing white T-shirts," Bridges said. "It was a small number of kids, but we decided to deal with it."

Undoubtedly, relatives of The Fonz. No more Happy Days!

Bridges said staff members are especially watching for groups of students wearing colors associated with gangs, such as white or pink.

Let's just pass a law. If you're a member of a gang involved in a criminal enterprise, you have to wear pink socks, yellow pants, a red shirt and a clown nose to school. Everyone else gets to wear what they want.

School spokeswoman Jerri Haigler said that although some high schools -- including West Mecklenburg High School and Olympic High School -- have also banned solid colored T-shirts, she is not aware of any other Charlotte-Mecklenburg middle schools that have done so.

Could it be possible that a student will think to mark his solid colored T-shirt with a message that says, "This is no longer a solid colored T-shirt," and that gang members will start wearing solid colored T-shirts that say, "This is no longer a solid colored T-Shirt."

I wonder what schools will do if gang members decide to all get the same kind of haircut? Suppose they all decide to get the same kind of haircut as the principal has?

* * *

Lide said she has "little to no concern" about gang activity at Northridge.

* * *

Haigler also said there is no evidence of a gang presence at Northridge.

I have news for you principals. If there is "no evidence" of gang activity in your schools, that means two things:

1. A few students planning to wear solid colored T-shirts must not be evidence of gang activity; and
2. Banning solid colored T-shirts because they might indicate gang activity when, in fact, there is "no evidence" of gang activity, is flatly illogical, bordering on the paranoid.

* * *

Haigler and Bridges said any student who arrived at Northridge wearing a plain white T-shirt Friday was given a blue-and-green shirt to wear.

Are you kidding me? So, all these alleged white T-shirt gang members show up at school and the school makes all of them change into blue-and-green shirts! What's the diff? They are all still marked by identically colored shirts! It's just that the school got to pick the colors, not the gang! That's progress. That's the sign of genuine doctor- or master-degreed thinking. I hope there's no intelligent life watching us from outer space.

Wonder if tomorrow the white T-shirt gang shows up in blue and green shirts? Will the school hand out white T-shirts?

This definitely qualifies for the "Alice's Restaurant Hall of Fame" award. See, Alice's Restaurant Massacree, 2003, Bossier School Board upholds Advil expulsion, District will investigate handling of hat incident and Student Suspended For Having Scissors.

Findings go to the SJC
By Anand Vaishnav, Boston Globe Staff

See, Money won't solve poor school woes, a Boston Herald editorial.



Take a look at that S-G fans. The top four highest spending schools in the Massachusetts lawsuit (bottom of chart) are spending between $1,000 and $2,500 less per student than Scotia-Glenville in 2003. That means S-G is spending between $3 million and $7.5 million more per year than these high-spending Mass. schools. And local superintendents say they don't have a spending problem--they have a revenue problem! I note that the average living costs in Mass. are higher than the average for NY.

Note: The distribution of state aid in Mass. was not found to be unfair. As the chart shows, rich schools get less aid. The Mass. court found that the amount of aid given to poor schools isn't adequate, but once again, no one is questioning the prices paid for the services delivered.

Second Note: The Boston Herald reports that the Massachusetts Teachers Association and the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers provided the $1.5 million to fund this case. What do you want to bet that teachers' unions would think twice about funding these kinds of cases if courts were to look at the amount paid for salaries and benefits in determining whether state funding is adequate?

Required Funding = Cost x (Services + Programs). In every case where courts have found funding to be inadequate, they have treated Cost as a constant, not a variable. The unions love it.

Massachusetts is shortchanging children in its poorest school systems and should overhaul the way it finances public schools, a judge ruled yesterday.

The judge's decision, the latest chapter in the 26-year battle over school funding in Massachusetts, could reshape classrooms across the state if the Supreme Judicial Court follows the recommendations. The findings of fact by Suffolk Superior Court Judge Margot Botsford go to the high court for the final ruling.

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The improved test scores and the billions of dollars pumped into the state's 1,900 public schools since 1993 have helped, but they have not been enough, Botsford wrote. Her recommended remedies, which state education officials would carry out, include establishing free preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, constructing adequate school buildings, and determining how much more money is needed for children with special needs. She also called for better leadership in some of the school districts named in the suit.

I'll bet the judge found preschool in the Mass. constitution in the same paragraph that says gays can be married.

If the SJC requires the state to follow Botsford's recommendations, the cost could be considerable. The SJC and the Legislature must determine how much they would cost, the lawyers said.

* * *

Victoria J. Dodd, a Suffolk University Law School professor who has studied the case, said that yesterday's findings could have a huge financial and educational impact.

"Her suggestions and recommendations will end up influencing education in Massachusetts, should the Supreme Judicial Court adopt them, and possibly will even influence the education of children in other states," Dodd said. The judge's comprehensive ruling could serve as a model for other states dealing with similar suits, she said.

Botsford also wants the highest court to order the state to get students to achieve state academic standards and foot the bill of achieving that goal. She also said the state must address neglected subjects such as arts and health.

She pointed out that the state's basic aid to schools increased 12 percent annually during the last decade, going from $1.3 billion to $3.2 billion. In response, schools added elective courses, lowered class sizes, and provided summer school.

But recent state and local budget cuts have slowed the progress made since 1993; state basic aid to schools dropped by 4.5 percent between 2003 and this year. Because of the high cost of schooling needier students, the money has not been enough for struggling cities and towns, she wrote.

Springfield, for example, saw its state funding double to $236.4 million in a decade, Botsford wrote. Yet the 106-year-old Forest Park Middle School still holds classes in coat rooms, locker rooms, and the basement. There are just 12 microscopes for its 930 students.

Could this be a matter of local spending priorities and not a matter of unfairness?

* * *

Judges nationwide are ruling in favor of poorer school systems that assert they are not receiving enough money to educate low-income students. Twenty-four states have education finance suits pending, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and solutions come with billion-dollar price tags. Botsford recommended that Massachusetts follow New York, where a commission charged with carrying out that state's school-finance ruling found that it could cost an extra $2.5 billion to $5.6 billion a year.

A 21st Century Student Article of Vision
Achievement alone is the proper standard for 21st century education.
By Denis P. Doyle / L.A. Times
Denis P. Doyle was a member of the National Commission on Time and Learning. He is vice chairman of a company that makes Web-based products to advance education reform.

Supporters and opponents of social promotion are fighting last century's war. Grouping students by age and advancing them in lock step is an artifact of the agrarian calendar and factory model of schooling that emerged in the late 19th century. That it is still with us is a commentary on just how conservative schooling is. If the school clock and calendar once made sense, they no longer do.

Precisely. I made the same point in this article on social promotion:

Yes, we all know that social promotion is more for the benefit of teachers than students. Who wants to fight with parents? Who wants to hold a student back? Social promotion is an example of system needs trumping student needs. Schools that educate The 21st Century Student don't have to worry about which grade to put students in. Every student always works at the level appropriate to his or her knowledge and skills. Socially, every student remains with his or her own cohort, though academically students may span several cohorts simultaneously.

See, also, UTAH BOARD PROPOSES THAT STUDENT ADVANCEMENT BE BASED ON COMPETENCY RATHER THAN SEAT TIME.

It is time to rethink the organization we call school, and with it the very idea of social promotion. (As onetime teachers union head Al Shanker said, if "a quarter of the products don't work when they reach the end of the assembly line, and a quarter fall off before they get there, it's time for a new metaphor.")

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As every parent and teacher knows, children's developmental trajectories vary widely, and the notion of grouping children by age is a convention without meaning. Indeed, in the example of social promotion is it actively harmful.

The child who is held back feels diminished and unsuccessful, but the child promoted beyond his ability is sure to be more frustrated than ever. Both sides of the social promotion debate are losers because they take for granted the antique process of age grouping.

As it is, a full chronological year separates the youngest from the oldest student in each grade, and the developmental difference is often much greater. Nothing is more frustrating to both teachers and students than trying to bridge a huge achievement gap within a single classroom.

The solution is genuinely performance-based instructional grouping, a format that schools must master in the 21st century. In performance-based schools, students would be held to high academic standards and would work to achieve them for as long — or as little time — as it took. Indeed, that is the de facto model in high school and college. A student takes Spanish 1 until it's mastered, then moves on to Spanish 2.

At a more humdrum but no less important level is how most of us master lifetime sports like golf, skiing, tennis and running. We work at it till we get it, and age is only the roughest proxy for achievement. In my last ski-school class, ages ranged from 24 to 63.

In 1993, Pat Graham, former Harvard Graduate School of Education dean, told the National Commission on Time and Learning that for more than a century "time was the constant, learning the variable; in the future we must hold learning high and constant and make time the flexible variable." It is time to make this vision a reality.

The elementary schools of Beaufort, S.C., are an example of successful multi-age grouping at work; there, students are held to the same high standards, but instruction is organized by achievement level.

Holding a child back at the end of a grade is painful if the school experience is defined in terms of age grouping; if it is defined in terms of performance measures, students can blend social groups across academic lines, just as older and younger siblings do.

The opportunity and the challenge lie in finding ways to permit tracking student performance in real time.

Unlike end-of-course tests, real-time tracking would allow the teacher to intervene when the intervention can work, and the student to learn before falling dangerously behind.

There is no more certain evidence than the social promotion debate that we are still prisoners of time. Breaking out of that prison is the promise of performance-based schools.

Denis gets most of this right. What he isn't saying, and maybe doesn't see, is that grouping students by performance-based instructional grouping is still grouping. It still suffers from the fallacy of trying to advance students together in lock-step. Mostly, Denis is simply proposing to reduce the variability of learning levels and learning rates within classrooms. While that would be an improvement, it simply isn't adequate for giving every student the opportunity to make the most of his/her time in school. We have to convert to individualized, computer-aided instruction for the courses and students where it makes sense.

Send in the clones
Dale Wallace, a Calgary teacher / For The Calgary Herald

This is one of the most outrageously ignorant and bigoted articles I've seen written by a person claiming to have an education and be an education professional.



Over the past generation, home-schooling has grown across Canada. Presently there are about 80,000 young people home-schooled in Canadian kitchens. Parents who home-school their children, like Graeme Hunter of Ottawa, who recently wrote an article for the Herald espousing home-schooling, are now holding up statistics to say how great home-schooled kids perform academically. Plus, they pat themselves on the back because their kids' values are something better than "secularism and multiculturalism."

No matter how the picture is painted, the simple truth is that kitchen-table education is inferior to the one offered in public schools.

Kitchen-table education. What shall we call education in public schools? Mass produced, assembly line education? See, e.g., Industrial-age assumptions about schools. Anyone looking for insults about public schools need only read New York Teacher of the Year John Taylor Gatto's works.

At any rate, why should it matter where a child learns? Isn't it the learning that matters? Still, this educator's first shot is not an argument but an irrelevant, pejorative assault. Is that how we teach kids to write these days? It's more like bullying and intolerance than reasoning, don't you think?

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If education were as simple as good grades, perhaps valid arguments could be made of the superiority of home schooling children. All that would have to be done is compare the grades of home-schooled children to the ones educated in the public system. However, any perceptive parent knows that there is more to education than grades. Rather, it is the setting up of conditions where a young person can learn and grow and become the person they choose to be and not simply be a clone of their parents.

One assumption appears to be that grades don't measure quality. Another assumption is that those who homeschool are more interested in having their children become like themselves than they are in having their children evolve into a person of their own choosing.

If the first assumption is questionable, the second one is down right ignorant. Anyone ever try to keep a child from becoming who s/he wants to be? It's impossible, for one.

For another, it's homeschoolers, not government school teachers, who go out of their way to their children's interests and talents to learning. Even when government schools try to do it they get it wrong. See, e.g. Student-directed learning is disaster for education.

Many homeschooling parents believe that rather than attempt to socially engineer and domesticate all children according to a set of government and committee approved rules and values derived by consensus, the education of each child should be unique. Indeed, many homeschooling parents would likely argue the "conditions" set up by public schools are more conducive to indoctrination than learning.

Granted, many parents desire to transmit their values and beliefs to their children. Indeed, all parents do this, even if only unintentionally and indirectly.

However, to turn a phrase:

If educating children were as simple as government and committee approved rules and values derived by consensus, perhaps valid arguments could be made of the superiority of publicly schooled children. All that would have to be done is compare the public-school process of planning lessons and selecting content and compare that to the process used for home-schooled children.

The obvious flaw that this parallel reasoning reveals is that process isn't necessarily related to quality. And the obvious flaw revealed by John Stuart Mill in Chapter II of On Liberty is that educators have no greater access to infallible truth than homeschooling parents.

Finally, assuming everything Dale has written is absolutely true, which is more consistent with freedom: A system where everyone has to attend a government school, or a system that permits choice? The purpose of government is not to limit freedom, but to create the conditions by which it can thrive.

Education is like a mother bird teaching its young to fly. It is a gift of freedom that allows children to truly define themselves. It allows children to throw back the protective covers of their parents, and have them see and experience the world with the help and encouragement of minds whose primary purpose is not to protect but to explore. The student-teacher relationship in a public school is as intellectually mighty a Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe in the early 1500's. Now, students and teachers are the explorers of the new world of science, art, and ideas.

Joanne Jacobs comments:

Isn't it home-schooling that's like a mother bird teaching her young to fly?

Dale has his metaphors screwed up. Home schooling is to mother birds as public schooling is to lion tamers!

Why? Because of all the rules it takes to make the system of public schooling work that are completely unnecessary in the homeschooling context. Sit in your seat. Raise your hand. Wait your turn. Wait for others to finish their tests. Zero tolerance for having your medications or Motrin or pointing your finger like a gun or pencil sharpeners or saying what you really think if it violates a school rule. That's lion taming.

Some may call it socialization, which is important, but politeness, empathy, sharing and so forth can be learned in other contexts and at home. In public schools, the list of restrictions on thinking and behaving is so long it actually impedes education as much as promote it. (I know I'll hear from those who think chaos rather than order dominates public education.)

Beyond that, Dale's romanticism and anthropomorphization of birds reveals a profound ignorance of animals. Birds teach their young very little. They feed them to a certain age, kick them out of the nest, and the youngsters either fly or die. Bird parents do not "teach" their fledglings how to fly. It's mammals that spend time teaching their offspring.

Dale seems to believe that parents will be more protective and less probing than government educators. Perhaps, but one has to wonder exactly how exploratory government educators can be with rigid, state-set standards, ubiquitous concerns over offending others and huge incentives to avoid saying or doing anything that might cause conflict or tempt a lawsuit. Moreover, in my opinion, no child's education can be complete without addressing issues of spirituality, which public schools frequently evade if not denigrate.

The idea that homeschooling parents cannot have an intellectually mighty relationship with their children is nothing less than ignorant bigotry. Read John Stuart Mill's Autobiography and consider the following.

One of my moments of great awakening in college occurred in the Ohio State University library. I was bored and skimming a reference shelf when the Great Soviet Encyclopedia caught my eye. I randomly picked out a volume and flipped through some pages until I came to the US Civil War. I started reading the entry and I couldn't put it down. The Soviet perspective on what was happening in the US during the 1800s was so foreign to my education and thinking that it was like reading about a completely different war!

It was filled with interpretations of forces and events deeply colored by the Soviet world view. I was shocked almost to the core by the perspective of American motivations portrayed in the text. What became most important to me was understanding why the Soviets held this perspective and how it affected their thinking, especially about us.

Soon, I came to wonder why I had the perspective of the Civil War that I had and how it affected my thinking! What was the "truth" about the Civil War? (To replicate this experience in a small way, see if reading this short article on American and Russian Perceptions of Freedom and Security does it for you.)

My point? A homeschooling parent can teach the Civil War from multiple perspectives--American, French, Soviet, etc. And a homeschooling parent can do it in depth. Government school teachers don't do that.

So, I ask you: Who has the freedom to supplement a child's core education with Socrates and Rousseau, Copernicus and Keppler, veterinarian science and astrophysics, foreign language starting at age 5, international travel, and thousands of other enriching perspectives, disciplines, opportunities and skills, the professional government teacher or the parent? Dale is hopelessly biased if he thinks government education is "intellectually mighty," especially compared to the potential of homeschooling parents for dramatically increasing the breadth and depth of pre-college education.

Scientific thought progresses not because it is told what should be researched or invented; rather, scientific knowledge is developed according to its own laws -- laws that students are free to explore independent of religious or moral impositions.

Another false assumption. Who says people with religious and moral convictions can't be free to explore and do rigorous science? That's just absurd.

In the artistic world, true art is created out of the mind, full of feeling and emotion, and is a life-giving force. Five hundred cloned prints that look exactly like the original in every detail equals a bastardized kind of spirit-deadening art.

I ask you, where are the clones? Are they among the homeschooling parents or the education professionals?

The American Federation of Teachers says, "Education is supposed to be the great equalizer." How do you "equalize" students without creating clones with clone curricula in clone settings and clone teachers?

Want to be free to draw a picture of your soldier-father? Don't try it in a government school. Censorship of both art and ideas is a hallmark of government schools, not a badge of honor.

Ideas are to be examined and argued, re-examined and re-argued. If a young person decides to make an idea part of who they are, then it is done by their own free will. Even Jesus preached that humans have free-will and choice. It seems that if a parent truly believes in their children's well being, they will allow them to think and to choose and not simply become what the parent wishes. Isn't it wonderful that in Canada a doctor can raise a truck driver and a Catholic can raise an atheist? In education, forces outside the child -- such as parents -- would gladly influence the child and mould them. They want them to attain certain standards and uphold certain beliefs. True education must unshackle itself from the manacles of parental influence.

Again, Joanne Jacobs comments:

And shackle itself to the manacles of government influence, I assume.

Any system of education that teaches children to read well enough that they enjoy reading will free young minds to explore and grow.

Dale has demonstrated nothing if not the consummate skill of stereotypical thinking, which is to say no thinking at all.

One of my biggest jobs as a parent with a child in the public schools has been to fight to keep my child from becoming the kind of stereotypical thinker Dale and others of his ilk teach kids to be. Joanne has it exactly right. Kids are more shackled than liberated by a government school education.

Granted home-schooled children might be, as Hunter says, "healthy, well adjusted and successful," but they will pay with their free-thinking minds.

In 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: God is Dead. But, according to Hunter, God is very much alive. Hunter maintains the two main motivations to home-school young people are "religion and morality."

Important concerns to be sure, but not the only ones. Violence and bullying come to mind.

However, what is dead in the home-school movement is the imagination. Great education, like scientific discoveries, art and ideas, must define itself regardless of outside influences or opinions.

You mean the inside influences of politics, government and teachers, constrained by laws and school system priorities and needs and defined by consensus is the pathway to excellence? Has this guy ever read a single sentence from Thoreau's On the Duty of Civil Disobedience?

It is not created to satisfy the needs or desires of the parent but to satisfy the needs and desires of the child.

Nearly every article posted on this website is an example of system needs trumping student needs. Government schools have to constantly balance system needs against student needs. Homeschooling parents, being freed from the rules and regulations that constrain learning in government schools, have far more latitude in meeting the needs and desires of their children.

Just one example: All children in a government school will generally read the same book when learning about words beginning with the letter R. However, homeschooling parents are free to use a book about ballet, football or any other topic of interest in teaching their children the R-words.

A child's mind must be stroked and allowed to expand and not struck down and made into a print of a previous mind.

I'd say Dale's mind has been stroked and re-stroked . . . and that way too much stroking of children's minds goes on in government schools.

But, let's say I'm wrong and Dale's right. Let's say homeschooling parents predominately strive to create their children in their own self-image. Is there no value to that?

Frankly, I'm wondering if Dale has any children of his own and if he does, whether he considers himself to be the kind of teacher toward his own kids that he has portrayed homeschooling parents to be.

Despite the shortcomings of government schools, they obviously have many strengths. And when the day comes that they provide education that meets the needs of The 21st Century Student, then Dale can try his essay again with a far greater probability of success.

BY ANA MENDIETA / Chicago Sun-Times Staff Reporter

See this prior story.

Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan will recommend today a 15-day suspension for the white teacher who made a racial slur against an 8-year-old African-American boy in her third-grade class.

The suspension recommendation will be made at a closed-door disciplinary hearing with the Graham Elementary School teacher, the principal and a union representative. It will be held at Graham, 4436 S. Union.

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* * *

The white third-grade teacher, who has taught at Graham for seven years, exploded to a school security guard with a racial epithet last month after becoming frustrated with the boy's behavior. She had called the guard twice on March 17 to come to her third-floor classroom and remove the child.

By the time the guard arrived from the first floor, the teacher shouted: "Get this f------ n----- out of my classroom before I kill him," staff at the school reported.

In the private sector, she would have been fired on the spot.

The teacher immediately apologized to the security officer and realized it had been a mistake, Chicago Public School officials said.

Educators are pleased with third- and 12th-grade numbers, and they promise to keep making improvements.
By LOGAN MABE, St. Petersburg (FL) Times Staff Writer

TAMPA - Each year, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test shows that Hillsborough's third-graders are getting a little bit stronger in reading and math.

But the key word is "little."

That's exactly right and it's the same story around the country. Why? Because the system of public education produces precisely the kind of results it is designed to produce.

The system can't be fixed. It's a horse. Beating a horse will not get you significantly better results. Neither will feeding it more hay. Or putting it in a better stable. As pointed out in this article, educators need to abandon their horses for the equivalent tractors, contour plowing, and hybridization.

Obstacles to Education Quality and The root cause of education mediocrity demonstrate the major impediments to improving academic outcomes are a consequence of the system, itself. A horse is not a tractor and nothing you do can make it a tractor. Until education is re-formed to educate The 21st Century Student, educators will keep beating a dead horse.

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To much fanfare, state officials released preliminary third- and 12th-grade results for the FCAT on Monday, and Hillsborough came out slightly better than most school districts and better than it did last year.

A celebration of trivialities. If the nation is as smart as we believe it is, we should be able to do much better.

By the way, there is no way to know if the improved scores mean improved learning. The tests could have been easier. The scoring policy could have changed. The state could have used a new or modified statistical calibration tool. The tests may have carried forward more of the same kinds of questions from previous tests. The secrecy of the tests may have been compromised. There's just no way to tell.

It could also be that the subject matter and skills tested on the exams are becoming more predictable over time. As teachers are better able to predict what will be on the exams, they are better able to focus their courses on exam contents. This may well increase scores without increasing learning as material previously taught is dropped, especially if the probability of it appearing on the exam is low.

The numbers brought a smile to the district's top educator.

"I think we'll continue to make improvements because we'll continue to place our resources in those youngsters who are not performing," Hillsborough School superintendent Earl Lennard said. "The important thing is to continue to push the top scale as hard as the lower scale."

Sixty-seven percent of the district's third-graders tested at their grade level or above in reading, compared with 66 percent statewide.

In math, 65 percent of Hillsborough's third-graders were at their grade level or above, compared with 64 percent for the state.

The numbers mean that for every three students in the third grade in Hillsborough, only two of them are doing third-grade work or better in reading and math. But district officials contend that what the state calls "grade level" is actually performance above the national average.

There was a bit of improvement in the county's poorest readers - those that score a level 1, or the lowest grade on the FCAT. Locally, 21 percent of third-grade students were at level 1, and the state mark was 22 percent.

Hillsborough and the state improved by a single percentage point over last year.

The third-grade scores are crucial because they determine how many of those students will be eligible for promotion to the fourth grade when school ends next month. As it stands now, about 4,000 third-graders could be held back unless they can prove reading proficiency.

They'll have a chance to do that this summer when the district opens its remedial summer reading camps. Those students also can be promoted by passing one of two additional tests available to them.

About 500 high school seniors may not graduate after failing to pass the reading and math portions of the 12th-grade FCAT, which is used as a high school exit exam. That's about the same number that were ineligible for graduation last year.

Overall, district officials like the shape they're in given the relative newness of the FCAT.

"Once you get a handle on what the state wants you to do, you have to retool the factory," said Sam Whitten, the supervisor of assessment. "A lot of it is figuring out the changes in expectations, getting on the same playing field, laying some groundwork for the kids."

Peter Berger / Gazette

Peter Berger teaches English in Weathersfield, Vt. Read more Peter Berger articles.

Public schools face many problems. Some we brought on ourselves, like low standards in the name of self-esteem, lax discipline masquerading as compassion, and aimlessness disguised as child-centered education.

Schools also grapple with societal issues. Poverty, racial and ethnic divisions, corruption, and bureaucracy affect us all, but they're more pervasive in larger city systems. For forty years, reformers have attempted to solve these socioeconomic problems as if they were educational problems and as if they affected all schools the way they trouble New York and Los Angeles.

No Child Left Behind continues the tradition of offering solutions to problems that most schools don't have. Even when districts have to contend with similar issues, the solutions for Hartford, Conn. aren't likely to be the same as the remedies for Hartford, Vt.

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Maybe. If you're talking about incremental changes within the existing education delivery system, which is the NCLB approach, then Peter is right. If you're talking about re-tooling education to serve The 21st Century Student, then he is wrong.

Vermont's education commissioner formerly worked in New York. He contends that NCLB's authors "forgot about Vermont, Wyoming, Montana when they designed this law."

Apparently, those aren't the only places they forgot about.

According to an Associated Press report, a dozen states from Virginia to Utah are currently rebelling against NCLB. An Education Week poll estimates that 28 percent of American voters now oppose the law, up dramatically from 8 percent a year ago.

Breaking down data

NCLB's sponsors wanted all schools to improve, but the "no child" they were primarily worried about leaving behind was a poor, minority kid in a city classroom. That's why they required that districts break down their testing data into demographic subgroups based on race, ethnicity, income, language and disability. That way no subgroup would be left behind either.

Ninety-five percent of a school's registered students and 95 percent of the students in each subgroup have to take the annual assessments required by the law. Bear in mind that registered students aren't necessarily attending students.

If just one subgroup fails to make "adequate yearly progress," the entire school or district fails. In Massachusetts, 94 percent of the state's districts scored high enough to make adequate yearly progress, but two thirds were listed as failing because not all their subgroups made the cut.

Even worse, if a school falls short of 95 percent participation, even in just one subgroup, NCLB also designates the school as failing and subject to the law's sanctions, including funding cuts and the termination of local control.

Admittedly, some schools manipulate the numbers. Three Illinois districts redefined "junior" not as someone in the third year of high school, but as someone with enough credits to graduate the following year. As a result, 20 percent of their lowest-performing 11th-graders were no longer juniors, and their schools' scores improved.

Most schools, though, wind up in trouble simply because too many students don't show up. California officials reported that nearly two-thirds of their high schools "failed on participation rate only." Participation rate was also the leading reason for failure in Texas and Boston. In Green Bay all five failing schools were cited strictly because of participation."

New Jersey's governor was irate when one of his state's finest schools failed because three special needs students didn't take a test. An Alaska high school failed when three of its 52 economically disadvantaged students were absent. A Michigan middle school also missed the cut-off by less than one percentage point. In Georgia 187 schools failed solely because they missed the 95 percent threshold.

Easing up

Federal officials acknowledged similar problems in almost every state. They've since relented slightly to permit emergency medical excuses and to allow schools to average their participation rates over three years. This hasn't eased many minds.

One Green Bay principal has resorted to "knocking on doors, ringing doorbells, and actually transporting students to school when we could find them." An anxious Georgia principal raffled off movie tickets and MP3 players in a desperate attempt to lure kids into school on testing day.

Schools employ these tactics so their scores will be valid according to NCLB. Except, if we're judging a school's performance, how valid are the scores of students the school doesn't get to educate? You wouldn't judge my doctor by my health if I don't go for treatment when I'm sick.

Oops! Here we see the false assumption that schools have no responsibility for motivating students to learn or for providing education services in a manner that motivates them to want to learn. If students aren't showing up at school, that might be an indication that something about the school isn't working well. Think bullying, violence, boring classes, teachers and administrators that are overly strict or overly lax, etc.

The core problem in public education is students receive no significant reward for hard work or high motivation and productivity. They learn to do the minimum to get by, and professional educators through the '80s and '90s, desirous of avoiding conflicts with parents, were more than accommodating in reducing the minimum needed to get by. Some are still doing it.

The system produces exactly the results it is designed to produce. Significant improvements cannot be obtained without significant changes to the system.

As to Peter's general point--you can't know the meaning of a number until you look at the factors used to calculate it--that's always true.

In the same way, it doesn't make sense to hold schools accountable for the scores of students who don't regularly attend school, kids that hopefully we'll be able to find or that we have to bribe with movie tickets. How can anyone possibly blame me for what someone who doesn't show up doesn't know?

Students excited by learning show up. Teachers have a role in creating learning excitement. I'm not talking about showing movies and making class fun with discussions about social issues and feelings. I'm talking about instilling a passion of interest and curiosity in the subject matter that leaves students feeling intolerably unfulfilled unless they work hard to learn more.

We need to hold schools and teachers accountable for the job they do. It's wrong to ignore their shortcomings and failures because those failures hurt students and society.

But it's just as wrong and counterproductive to blame schools for things that aren't their fault. A law that turns good schools upside down hurts us just as much.

This is the most important paragraph in the article. Not because of what it says, but because of what it implies.

When you have talented people working as hard as they can to write standards and laws intended to improve education outcomes and the best that can be done is to hurt as just as much as it helps, that tells you the system is operating at capacity. It can't do any more. If you want more, you have to make design changes to the system or create a different system.

Peter always bellies up to the issue without seeing exactly what it is or what needs to be done.

While classroom instruction must be maintained for the courses where it makes sense and for the students who thrive by it . . .

IT'S PAST TIME TO BEGIN THE STEADY
TRANSITION TO A 21ST CENTURY SCHOOL

where every student will:
• Have 24-hour-a-day, year-round access to high quality, personalized instruction.
• Begin each day's learning exactly where s/he left off the day before.
• Move forward at a pace that ensures mastery of each lesson, being neither rushed nor held back by other students' progress.
• Take no state exam before s/he has successfully completed all the requisite materials.
• Be rewarded for hard work and ambition with the opportunity to complete as much vocational, technical or college instruction as possible before graduating.
• With the guidance of teachers, customize learning to include the skills and knowledge s/he finds most stimulating and useful.
• Have education enriched with courses like financial, investment and credit management, conflict resolution and systems thinking.

A NY Post Editorial



If you leave the safe unlocked, expect the crooks to clean you out.

And then come back for more.

That's the lesson of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity's call yesterday for yet another $10 billion in taxpayer money, supposedly to build and repair New York's public schools.

That's on top of the nearly $11 billion a year more the group wants for operating costs. Yet New York already spends $39 billion a year on schools - virtually the most per student of any state.

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Take note, S-G taxpayers: This lawsuit is going to increase our taxes. Not only will we have to pay taxes for S-G, but we will also have to contribute to NYC's school funding needs, even though the property tax in NYC is 20% lower than here.

And you can bet CFE's demands will keep growing.

That's because in 2001 a zealous Manhattan judge in the pocket of the educrats ordered Albany to open its coffers to folks like CFE - the plaintiffs in a lawsuit - and let them help themselves.

And the state's highest court endorsed this madness.

So is it any surprise that CFE is going for the gold?

Greedy doesn't begin to describe the feeding frenzy now under way.

Consider CFE's demands: On its first bite of the apple, the group insisted on $7 billion to satisfy the ruling by Judge Leland DeGrasse.

The amount was staggering - particularly given that the state budget was already $6 billion in the red. But no one came to arrest the group's leaders, so they went back for another bite a few weeks later.

And who can blame them?

This time they demand nearly $11 billion in new cash.

Still no sirens. So why stop there?

Last month, the group came up with a novel twist on robbing taxpayers: It demanded $20 million to cover its legal expenses and - get this! - "to allow us to continue in the future." (Gagging yet?)

The thieves, you see, don't trust their educrat partners-in-crime to share the wealth soon to rain down on them as a result of DeGrasse. They want these millions to go directly into their pockets.

New York's reaction? Ho-hum.

So yesterday the group munched on the apple yet again: It wants yet another $10 billion, for construction projects.

New York needs a "Marshall Plan," you see, for its schools, the group said.

By next week, they'll be wanting $87 billion - the amount being spent to secure and rebuild Iraq.

Now, these demands would be laughable - except that the state's leaders are treating the DeGrasse ruling as a valid license to steal.

Too bad; as the Manhattan Institute's Sol Stern noted on these pages yesterday, the entire court case was a set-up: DeGrasse owes his job to the education-cartel-owned Democratic Party.

Which is why the non-jury trial he conducted made Soviet kangaroo courts look fair. Most outrageous: his dismissal of strong evidence that spending in New York (again, virtually tops in America) was "adequate" to fund the constitutionally required "sound basic education."

Even as the judge based his ruling on dubious assertions from folks with vested interests in a new cash orgy for the schools.

Do the schools need more money?

Experts at Management Analysis and Planning (whose finding DeGrasse dismissed) didn't think so, calling the amount spent in Gotham "adequate."

Education Week, a benchmark professional journal, actually ranked the state No. 1 nationally on funding "adequacy."

And Standard & Poor's warned that "there is no guarantee that the replication of higher spending . . . will replicate higher achievement . . . across the state."

But this is not about achievement.

It's about lining pockets.

With hard-earned taxpayer dollars.

For shame.

By Chris Bristol Yakima (Washington) Herald Republic

YAKIMA — Not many people get to quit a job months after they were fired. Sean Painter is an exception.

Fired last summer amid allegations he sexually harassed students, the East Valley School District teacher and soccer coach recently negotiated a deal with school officials, who retracted his termination and let him resign retroactively.

That's the way it goes in public education. School districts only care about saving money and getting rid of the teacher. They don't care if dangerous teachers get hired by other districts. Washington is one of the few states that is doing something to end this practice.

Agreements such as this should be void as being against public policy.

But that wasn't all. Although it lacks the force of a court order, the agreement also sealed records in the case, restricts what East Valley school officials can say about his departure and withdrew a complaint about him to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

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The deal lets him say he "chose" to resign, instead of saying he was forced to. In return, Painter dropped his pursuit of a financial settlement from the school district.

Once a common practice for school districts trying to get rid of teachers accused of misconduct, deals like this soon will be history because a new state law that takes effect in June.

The new legislation came in response to a Seattle Times series that documented the ease with which coaches — at least 98 in a 10-year period — continued to coach or moved from one school district to another in Washington after being reprimanded or fired for sexual misconduct.

Sealing personnel records and concealing findings of sexual-misconduct investigations are two of the practices the new legislation bans. The new law will require that hiring school districts ask for records of sexual misconduct from applicants' former employers — and that former employers give it to them.

Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, who sponsored the legislation, was disappointed to hear East Valley negotiated a deal even as The Times' December series, "Coaches who prey," was exposing such practices.

The deal with Painter was made in January. Details of the agreement, along with more than 400 documents in the case, were recently obtained as part of a public-records request filed by the Yakima Herald-Republic.

"It's unbelievable," Kohl-Welles said. "I want to support our school districts, and I really believe most do a fine job. But we know perpetrators are out there, and to think they can leave one school district and blithely go to another and start the same behavior again is just unacceptable."

East Valley schools Superintendent John Schieche defended the deal, saying it achieved two major goals: "One, not to pay (Painter) a dime. Two, that he leave our district and never come back."

* * *

Multiple reprimands, warning

By the time Painter left East Valley, some students had nicknamed the 34-year-old teacher "The Perv Painter."

Painter taught science and math at East Valley Central Middle School and coached boys and girls soccer at East Valley High School from 1998 to 2003. Both soccer teams won the Class 2A state title in 2000, his second year as head coach.

According to school records, Painter had been formally reprimanded three times by October 2002 for harassing female students and a staff member. He was warned he could be fired if it happened again.

In May 2003, school officials began a new investigation when another teacher reported in writing that after showing a film on sexual harassment by teachers, "three girls in the back row shouted out simultaneously, "Mr. Painter!"

The district suspended Painter, and Schieche fired him July 31. In doing so, he cited new allegations that Painter had touched, swatted and kicked female students on the buttocks, tickled and hugged them and made frequent flirty remarks.

In a recent interview, Painter denied the allegations against him and said school officials were forced to settle the case because of credibility problems with some of his accusers.

Painter said he settled to spare students the trauma of testifying. Painter also said he has since come to regret that decision.

"I should have went all the way and made them suffer," he said.

Genesis of the deal

Painter appealed his firing and got a lawyer paid for by the state teachers union, the Washington Education Association. Nearly two dozen students were deposed under oath in preparation for the hearing.

Meanwhile, Schieche notified the state superintendent's office that Painter had been fired for sexual harassment of students and other conduct that demonstrated "poor professional judgment."

In October, Schieche added another allegation: An East Valley High graduate, a former soccer player on Painter's team, told school officials he had brought liquor to her dorm room at Central Washington University in Ellensburg.

By December, Painter's attorney and the school district's attorneys were negotiating a settlement that would allow him to resign retroactively.

Painter sought $10,000.

The sticking point was money. In a letter dated Dec. 4, Painter's attorney, Ed Shea Jr., of Pasco, offered to settle the case on the grounds that taking the matter all the way to an appeal hearing could cost the school district at least $15,000 to $20,000 in legal costs.

The school district, which had rejected a demand for one-year's salary, didn't want to pay Painter. On a copy of Shea's settlement offer, somebody wrote "NO MONEY AT ALL!" in the margins.

Six weeks later, the negotiations were complete. Painter agreed to walk away empty-handed and promised not to sue or seek reinstatement.

In return, the district agreed to let him resign retroactively and to withdraw the complaint to the state superintendent's office. It also agreed to seal records about the case.

Under the agreement, only the East Valley superintendent can answer inquiries from prospective employers about Painter and must confine his answer to a simple statement that says Painter received satisfactory teaching evaluations and won state titles as a soccer coach.

If a prospective employer asks more questions, the superintendent is required to say that female students had accused Painter of "inappropriate comments and behavior," but that two or three of them later retracted or altered their accusations.

Schieche said he believes he could almost always tell prospective employers about the allegations. Even the hint of such allegations would dissuade other districts from hiring Painter, he said.

* * *

The legislation will prohibit virtually every facet of the Painter settlement. Although the legislation takes effect June 10, it does not apply to existing agreements.

Kohl-Welles, the state senator, took exception to Schieche's belief that hiring school districts will ask tough questions about Painter.

The "Coaches who prey" series in The Times documented numerous episodes in which hiring school districts failed to check references or, desperate for qualified coaches, looked the other way, she said.

The new legislation requires that hiring school districts request sexual-misconduct records from applicants' former employers. Current state law says only that school districts "may" request such information.

Agreements that conceal records of sexual misconduct are also prohibited. The state superintendent's office also is required to finish investigations of misconduct within one year and verify, as previously required by law, that allegations of criminal behavior have been reported to the police.

By Laura Walsh, Associated Press Writer

HARTFORD, Conn. -- State lawmakers, responding to a poor showing by students taking the Connecticut Physical Fitness Assessment, are considering legislation that would require schools to provide students with more physical activity and better nutrition.

Only 35 percent of students taking the annual physical fitness test during the 2002-03 school year passed all four sections of the exam, according to the State Department of Education. That's virtually unchanged from a year ago and 4 percentage points lower than during the 1999-00 school year.

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Who should be surprised? Students rarely break a sweat in gym. You can't build strength and endurance in archery. What passes for physical education now includes disc golf, fencing, horseshoes, bocci ball, archery, pickleball (similar to badminton and tennis), hiking, self-defense, tumbling, in-line skating and dance. Running, push-ups and sit-ups are rare. Schools need to re-focus on shaping kids up.

It's also important to note that grade-school activities like dodge ball, tag, kick ball, musical chairs, and relay games are out. And, get this, some schools don't want children jumping rope. A rope is too tempting, some have said, to use as a weapon!

Meanwhile, physical "educators" have proposed On-line PE classes and playing video games in PE!

And people wonder why kids are out of shape!

"That statistic is very sad," state Rep. Themis Klarides, R-Derby, said Monday. "It's very unfortunate that in a state where people put so much emphasis on our children being prepared for college or a career that somehow their health has fallen through the cracks."

During the test, students are asked to walk or run a mile, perform as many curl-ups and push-ups as they can and stretch as far as they can while in a sitting position.

How can they possibly do these when they rarely do them in gym class?

The test is given to fourth-, sixth-, eighth- and 10th-graders. It aims to measure cardiovascular endurance, flexibility and upper body and muscle strength, said Barbara Westwater, acting bureau chief of Curriculum and Instruction for the state Department of Education.

Students pass the test if they meet certain benchmarks. A 9-year-old boy, for example, should be able to do nine push ups, and a 9-year-old girl is expected to do seven.

"There's definitely a lot of room for improvement," Westwater said. "What we have to recognize is that it's not just about the physical activity the children have in school, but it's what they do throughout the day."

Klarides has introduced legislation that would mandate 20 minutes a day of recess for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, as well as a 20-minute lunch with fruits, fruit juice, water and lowfat dairy products. The bill has passed the House and is now headed to the Senate.

By MICHAEL JENNINGS / Trenton (NJ) Times Staff Writer

Compare your compensation to a teacher's

In New Jersey there is a 3 percent cap on school budgets, inflation hovers around 2 percent, and school districts are giving teachers 4.5 percent raises.

It's about time the national press picked up on this.

By the way, New Yorkers, take a look at the 3% cap on increases in school spending. When's the last time you saw your school district increase spending by 3% or less?

"It's a recipe for ruin," said Lawrence Township Superintendent Max Riley. "Seventy-five percent of your costs are decided at the bargaining table. When 75 percent of your budget is going up 4 or 5 percent, while the bottom line is only going up 3 percent that puts the squeeze on everything else."

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In advance of next Tuesday's school elections, districts are mailing voters pie charts that label salaries and benefits as a "fixed cost" that accounts for up to 80 percent of all spending. Board of education veterans and administrators contend they are largely powerless to control their biggest expense, though, other than Riley, they didn't want to be quoted.

The teacher-lobby influenced labor laws have been designed to create precisely this result. They must be reformed.

"It's an artificial labor market, supply is kept artificially low; the union wields great power with the Legislature so the playing field is tilted toward union," Riley said. "The mediation rules are meaningless. Every district wants to avoid a strike that plays havoc with the lives of working parents and divides a community for years. There are no teeth in the law banning strikes, so they can strike with impunity."

New Jersey Education Association spokesman Steve Wollmer contends state collective bargaining rules favor school boards.

If that were true, then why are school boards giving out raises they can't afford and that cause them to cut teachers and student programs?

"There is no closure mechanism, such as binding arbitration," he said. "There are many steps in the process - mediation, mandatory fact-finding and a super-conciliator - but if a board doesn't want to reach an agreement they don't have to, and there is no right to strike for teachers."

However, in 2000, Hamilton school employees were fined $500,000 after an eight-day walk. The money eventually was paid back into a scholarship fund.

Wollmer said districts are angry with a new law that took away a school board's power to impose its last contract offer on teachers, the threat of which often served to get concessions from teachers.

"It's called collective bargaining, you are supposed to collectively reach an agreement at the bargaining table," he said. "Allowing one side to unilaterally impose its offer is antithetical to the process."

Schools should be able to unilaterally impose pay rates as long as the increase in total compensation matches the rate of inflation. If teachers want more, they are going to have to offer something of value to get more.

Wollmer said that while new contracts have been giving teachers 4.5 percent raises, the amount districts spent on teacher salaries last year increased by only 2.9 percent, because many experienced and high-salaried teachers are retiring.

New Jersey's average teacher salary is $51,955, third highest in the nation, but that ranking falls to 30th when adjusted for the state's cost of living, according to Education Week magazine, which used 2001 figures in its national survey.

"That's what teachers cost," said Nick Lorenzetti, superintendent of Hopewell Valley Regional schools. "It's like gas, the price goes up. To drive you have to pay at the pump. For kids to learn you have to pay teachers.

Like gas? The price of gas would be $10 a gallon if it had kept up with the rate of inflation since 1920. It would be more than $30 a gallon, and up to $50 a gallon in some places, if it had increased at the same rate as teacher compensation. Like gas my as.

More importantly, the price of gas is set in a free market where competition encourages efficient production and distribution. Since the '60s, teacher compensation has been set by unionized collective bargaining in the context of a monopoly. Like gas my as.

* * *

Hopewell Valley's proposed budget spends the maximum allowed under the state's 3 percent cap, which is technically on revenues, and in turn, dictates spending. Despite a 6 percent tax increase for most residents and laying off at least 10 employees, school officials say it is inadequate to meet the district's technology needs.

In September, Hopewell Valley voters will be asked to approve a $12 million referendum that earmarks more than $1 million for computers, software and other technology improvements.

"I should be paying for those purchases through the regular budget," Lorenzetti said. "But I can't because of the cap and the increases in our fixed expenses."

* * *

Everyone agrees one factor pushing up salary settlements is a shortage of high school math and science teachers.

"Your most in-demand teachers drive the salary guide," said Riley, who makes $150,000 a year. "You have to pay them enough to stay, and the teachers less in demand all benefit."

Though those teaching home economics, kindergarten and gym are among Lawrence's highest paid instructors, most of those making $75,000 or more teach science, math and special education. The district's highest paid teacher makes $78,000.

"Who said teaching gym or home economics is easier than high school physics?" Lupo said. "Is it more challenging to teach an advanced placement class of the best students or a regular class where some of the children aren't motivated?"

Everything is equal, right? If that's true, then we should all make the same wage. Which is more challenging, teaching phys ed or delivering the mail and collecting garbage day after day after day?

* * *

In a survey of 2002 graduates from The College of New Jersey, teachers reported making $36,000 their first year out of school. Their starting salaries were lower than those reported by business, engineering, nursing and science majors, but more than those with liberal arts degrees.

No mention of hourly rates? When factoring in actual hours worked and typically better benefits, beginning teachers earn more per hour than almost everyone.

Board members and administrators said districts' salary scales often favor more experienced teachers. In several contracts reviewed by The Times, teachers in their first few years get 3 to 4 percent annual raises, while those who have been in the classroom a decade or more get 6 to 7 percent raises.

Know why? Three reasons. 1. A relatively senior teaching force. 2. Pension benefits calculated on final pay. 3. The willingness of school boards to shift salary into pension because it comes out of somebody else's budget.

Teachers also get attractive perks. In addition to unrivaled job security, a generous pension plan and free retirement health care, they get 10 or more sick days, which can accrue and are bought back upon retirement, and get three or more personal days to use during the 10-month school year.

10-month year? It's a 9-month year that's been extended to 10 months by more holidays and breaks.

The fastest growing aspect of teacher compensation is health care benefits.

Most school districts participate in the State Health Benefits Program, which last year raised premiums for fee-for-service coverage by 23 percent and for managed care by more than 27 percent, according to the New Jersey School Boards Association.

Districts typically pay 95 or 100 percent of insurance premiums that provide teachers and their families with health, prescription and dental coverage.

"Something has to be done about the rise in health care costs; it's getting unbearable," said Ken Hall, the interim superintendent for Washington Township schools. "It's not a problem unique to schools, but (with public employees) we are feeling the pinch more."

Something has to be done about who pays for health care costs.

* * *

"Teaching is hard," said Lupo. "Many parents can't control two teens at home. You think it's easy to control a room of 25 teens, six hours a day?

"We earn our money and than some."

It may be hard in some places, but not in all places. The hard-working teachers of the 1960s controlled 35-student classrooms for half the pay in current dollars. They arguably produce better results to boot.

Besides that, whose job isn't hard? Who gets paid what they're worth? Work is supposed to be hard, but most workers can't turn on the VCR and call it work. They can't take field trips or attend assemblies and call it work.

Everyone should compare their compensation to a teacher's and draw their own conclusions.

By S.A. REID / The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The proposed overhaul of Georgia's English and language arts curriculum sets a goal that some teachers find daunting: They would be expected to have students read the equivalent of 25 books a year.

Teachers and parents have written and e-mailed the state Department of Education to say that the proposal, known as the Habits of Reading standard, is unreasonable and does not account for wide differences in students' abilities, interests and access to reading materials. English teachers (known as language arts teachers in the lower grades) are alarmed because they fear the whole burden will fall on them.

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Pat Wall, a media specialist at Fulton County's River Trail Middle School, argues that quantifying the number of materials or books that students should read is wrongheaded.

A standard that sets the number of books to be read without addressing standards for the quality of reading skills is wrongheaded. Students need to become better readers, not just read more. They need to learn to read interactively. They need to learn how to have a conversation with the author as they read. They need to learn to think across many disciplines as they read. They need to learn to read much faster than 120 words a minute, which is about the oral pace. All of these skills must be taught and practiced. Reading more books doesn't mean students are becoming better readers. Every student should read How to Read a Book and master all the skills in it.

Now, what I want to know is why professional educators aren't talking about quality reading? Why are they focusing on quantity, which any high school dropout could propose?

"There are some people who will take that literally," Wall added. "I know they are meaning this should include anything that a student reads in a course of a year. It's just going to be very hard to track that number."

Lisa Boyd, who teaches English at Rockdale County's Salem High School, doesn't see how she can add to her students' workload, which already includes five or six works during the school year plus summer reading of three novels and two plays.

"The idea of 25 books is so vague," Boyd said. "This is not concrete or specific, so I don't think it accomplishes our goals for revising the curriculum."

The proposal is part of a massive revision of the state curriculum, including changes in science, math and social studies as well as English/language arts. Over the years, critics have said the current standards cover too many subjects in too little depth.

* * *

Goal not a requirement

The 25-book proposal, unlike other parts of the curriculum, would be a suggestion, rather than a requirement. It is modeled after one of the literacy goals that the Atlanta-based Southern Regional Education Board is pushing high schools and middle schools to adopt.

* * *

Georgia could be the first state to adopt the 25-book recommendation, though Atlanta's Therrell High and dozens of schools across the nation already have, according to Renee Murray, a school improvement consultant and literacy expert with the board.

Reading a million words, which equals about 25-30 books, can add 1,000 words to a student's vocabulary, improve reading skills and boost overall academic performance, experts say.

It depends on what students read. If they read books without rich vocabularies, then they will not learn more words. This is what happens when students self-select the books they read. Many opt for short and easy rather than rich and challenging.

* * *

The state would not attempt to track whether schools or school systems actually are making sure that students read the equivalent of 25 books a year.

An unenforced standard. What's the point?

Cynde Snider, a language arts teacher who helped develop the proposed curriculum, says some teachers are criticizing the proposal because they misunderstand it.

"I'm not concerned about the 25 books because I know we [English teachers] are not solely responsible," said Snider, who teaches at Fayette County's Starr's Mill High School. "It's a team effort. I think if we could get kids reading more, we'd see improvements in all kinds of areas."

If schools offered honest to goodness reading instruction, students would improve with much less time invested.

The state's largest district, Gwinnett County Schools, has encouraged reading across academic disciplines for years, said Tricia Kennedy, Gwinnett County Schools' executive director of curriculum and instruction.

The district allows schools and teachers to select the readings, Kennedy said. Students, for example, sometimes read biographies and autobiographies of significant mathematicians. They also could read Rachel Carson's "The Silent Spring," then analyze the mathematical and scientific concepts in the book.

That's good. I'm in favor of that. However, it's no substitute for reading instruction.

School board wrestles with funds for advocacy
By ERIC FRY / JUNEAU (ALASKA) EMPIRE

A proposed Juneau School District policy that would let it spend public money to take sides on a ballot measure is intended to protect the district from potential claims it has broken state election-spending laws, administrators say.

But the Juneau School Board's Policy Committee, meeting Thursday, couldn't agree to pass along the policy to the full board. * * *

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The policy would match state law, which allows school districts to advocate a position on a ballot measure as long as they previously appropriate money for that purpose. School districts can provide impartial information without making a specific appropriation.

Local school officials said they don't intend to spend public money to advocate in election issues. * * *

But the school district's attorney, Ann Gifford, said that passing the proposed policy and appropriating a few hundred dollars would protect the district from complaints that its activities, even if intended to be impartial, were violating the law.

School Board member Julie Morris said the policy was open to abuse.

"I don't like it. Just because something in law says we can do something doesn't make it right," she told the committee.

In the past, the district has produced information sheets about school bond measures. The School Board's current policy allows spending public funds in elections only to provide impartial information.

But sometimes citizens have questioned whether the materials were impartial, and there are gray areas in the law, Gifford said.

School Board member Bob Van Slyke said he prefers the current policy. If the board adopts the proposed policy, it should include a statement explaining that the policy is intended to protect the district from complaints that it has broken the law, he said.

School Board member Phyllis Carlson said the board is responsible for protecting the district and should approve the policy.

"Without this, we open ourselves to the challenge that we look like we're advocating for one side or the other on whatever particular issue it is," she said.

This is a great article for showing how change occurs.

Schools may always communicate factual information about their plans, but at times they cross the line into advocacy. See, e.g. this story about a New York school district. And occasionally, advocacy by schools may be appropriate to counter an unfair characterization of what schools intend to do.

What to do? Pass a law that permits school boards to engage in advocacy and rely on the political process to keep school boards from spending too much money on advocacy.

At first many are opposed, arguing that taxpayers shouldn't have their money spent to tell them what to decide and how to vote. But, the law is passed and schools authorize advocacy just as a defense against lawsuits in case their neutral, factual information turns out to be one-sided.

Eventually, one school district will push the envelope and run a full scale advocacy campaign for a building project or something else, especially after having lost one or two previous votes. If the referendum passes, the advocacy money will be interpreted to be an important factor.

School supporters in other districts will say: Why should our children be put at a disadvantage, especially since the law permits advocacy? The argument that taxpayer money shouldn't be used to force taxpayers to raise even more money to oppose what they see as inadvisable spending increases will fall on deaf ears.

Pretty soon, schools will learn that by spending 2% to 6% of their budgets on advocacy, they can optimize revenues for operations. Whole industries will grow up to help schools plan campaigns to extract more money from taxpayers.

The truth is, even the factual information provided by schools is advocacy. They reveal the facts that support their position and conceal or distort the facts that don't. Moreover, taxpayers already pay for school advocacy through the union dues paid by educators. See, Keep schools out of teacher politics. If teachers need to pay larger union dues to advocate for their positions, all they simply need do is raise their dues and demand pay increases to cover their increased costs. The same result could be obtained by negotiating with schools to directly pay education lobbyists rather than pay the money to the teachers, who must pay the money to their unions, which then use the money for lobbying.

Student problems begin at home
Public schools struggle to fulfill rearing roles abandoned by parents
By Nick Jans / USA Today

It's the start of another school year with those first magical weeks of classes, when each student is eager and everything seems possible.

But for me this year is different. Though I've been a teacher since 1977, this September school is going on without me. These first months of retirement should be, I suppose, a time to reflect proudly on what I've accomplished and perhaps even to wax a bit nostalgic. Instead, I find myself tired and troubled, overcome by the notion that I've escaped rather than retired.

Over the years that I taught both junior and senior high, there's been a notable decline in the quality of our schools. Standardized test scores have diminished; college professors complain that high school graduates -- some of them straight-A valedictorians -- are incapable of writing a decent paragraph.

Of course, the issue is well publicized. Countless studies and dollars have been focused on poor public school performance and how to address it. The two-year-old No Child Left Behind Act is merely the latest and most elaborate fix offered in a quarter century of handwringing, finger-pointing and pontificating.

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Unfortunately, most of that time, the effort and money have been wasted, bypassing the issue's true heart. There is something terribly wrong with our schools, but it has nothing to do with the quality of teachers, the curricula or textbooks -- or even how much money we spend. The problem is far simpler and more ominous: the students themselves.

This opinion is common among teachers who've served double-digit years in the trenches. Kids these days ain't what they used to be. I know that rant has been popular since the time of the Romans. But these children are different from those of just two decades ago -- not in raw ability, but in their essential attitudes and readiness to learn. If I had a hundred bucks for every time a student cheated on a test, or had the nerve to tell me, in the middle of an impassioned lecture, that my presentation was ''boring,'' I could be driving a new car.

I'd suspect I was at fault, except that teacher friends of mine from Michigan to California to Alaska (where I taught) have similar stories.

Of course there are many wonderful students. But today's kids, as a group, just don't buy into the entire adult-run institution that is modern public education. Caught up in the narcissistic values of hip-hop, immersed in ultra-violent video and computer games, casually and brazenly sexual, these kids consider themselves grown and independent by age 14, in no need of further guidance.

Consider, for example, an April study by Jupiter Research indicating that 95% of teenage boys and 67% of teen girls regularly play video games -- including the best-selling Grand Theft Auto, where players gain points by murdering cops and beating prostitutes to death with bats.

At the same time, a national survey in Education Week found that 74% of students admitted to engaging in ''serious'' cheating during the past year. Is it any wonder that a 2000 Gallup poll cited education and a decline in ethics as the two most serious problems facing our country?

If we consider that the main function of schooling is to socialize tomorrow's citizens and acclimate them to our values, America is in big trouble. Schools, after all, mirror society; the shortcomings of the former are inextricably tied to the latter's failings. Blaming teachers because your kid can't read makes as much sense as blaming the dentist for a mouthful of cavities.

So if not the schools' fault, whose?

The music, movies and computer games are just symptoms. The fault lies squarely in the failures of the home, and in the disintegration of the traditional family. For many reasons -- dual incomes, divorce, separation and more -- quality face time between parent and child has shriveled. Schools struggle to take its place.

Today, our public schools are expected to provide (in addition to academic instruction) up to two meals a day, homework help, daycare, entertainment, a sense of well-being and a basic respect for society and its laws.

Not so long ago -- certainly in the supposedly turbulent 1960s and early '70s, when I was in school -- everyone assumed these were the home's provinces. Yet while today's parents have abdicated these basic responsibilities, they become incensed if a school disciplines their child for an issue as basic as academic dishonesty or cussing out a teacher. And, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, parent satisfaction with secondary schools continues to decline.

Am I just another buck-passer? I sincerely hope not. I agree that our public school system bears responsibility for instructing our children. I believe it faces that task head on. U.S. schools are, in most respects, the best they've ever been. Ho-hum books and hands-off approaches disappeared decades ago. Educational theory has become a well-honed science, and new strides are being made and applied daily.

Compare the schools of today with the first public schools in Puritan New England, when students of all levels sat on rock-hard benches in a single classroom, copying on slates and memorizing passages from dog-eared copies of the classics. The teacher received little respect in the community, and was paid accordingly. Yet no one complained about the failings of the system, and literacy rates were arguably the highest in the world. The difference then was that the home was doing its job.

Today we indeed face a crisis in education. The stakes are just as enormous, the outcome just as uncertain, as those in the war on terrorism. Our society's very fiber is being tested.

While it's up to our schools to continue to improve, it's also time for parents to take back the responsibility of raising and educating their own children. It's simple, actually: Read to them. Play catch with them. Discipline them. Discuss and model ethical behavior. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, ''research supports the belief that high-quality education cannot be successfully accomplished without the active involvement of parents.''

Help does indeed start in the home.

Overall, a very good analysis with one glaring omission. Before I point it out, it's important to note that pouring money into public schools will not fix poor academic outcomes in schools, if Nick Jans is right. Nick has essentially confirmed what William Raspberry and Vince Dacquisto have said. "[C]ommon sense dictate[s] that we try to improve the first five years of a child's life, rather than play a futile game of 'catch up' with artificial solutions [from schools] that accomplish nothing."

The glaring omission is that schools are as much to "blame" for student attitudes toward education as parents are. Why? Rather than tighten up on discipline and hand out C's for average work, educators have decided that school should be fun and self-esteem requires positive stroking, A's, and pep rallies. Schools have slacked off academics in favor of social and cultural agendas. Students are encouraged to opine and all opinions are equal (unless they violate the teachings of the social agenda). Where once schools left students' beliefs, values and attitudes alone as long as the students followed school rules and behaved, today's schools expend time and energy in creating students with the same beliefs and values as held by educators. Schools put parent and student happiness ahead of accomplishing the mission unless the parent complains about the failure to accomplish the mission. Teachers correct fewer papers, teach fuzzy math, grammar and writing, show movies and engage in various activities and practices that not only fail to catch student errors but affirmatively teach bad habits. They teach students to rely on review books for standards exams rather than teaching them to prepare notes and outlines on their own. In trying to compensate for the lack of parental responsibility, educators step on the rights, values and beliefs of the parents who are doing the job, and even those who aren't, causing alienation. Students who go to school prepared to work and learn are ignored while those who are needy get the attention.

Indeed, schools compensate for parents in ways that amplify the problems rather than mitigate them. What schools need to do is find ways to take advantage of the way students are. They also need to end lock-step grade advancement and give students incentives to accomplish as much as they can, as quickly as they can. The main incentive would be to finish one or more years of college while still in high school. This would save parents thousands of dollars, which would give parents the incentive to see that their children apply themselves.

It's no wonder that by the time today's students reach junior and senior high school, where Nick taught, they are different from the students of 25 years ago. It's not just the parents. It's not just the students. It's not just the schools.

I am at fault
MSNBC



In a letter to employees, Wayne Hale, now the deputy space shuttle program manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, takes the blame for the Columbia disaster.

Hale said a worker at Kennedy Space Center had complained to him that they hadn't heard any NASA managers admit to being at fault for the disaster. "I cannot speak for others but let me set my record straight," he responded. "I am at fault. If you need a scapegoat, start with me."

‘I failed to stand up and be counted. Therefore look no further; I am guilty of allowing Columbia to crash.’

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"I had the opportunity and the information and I failed to make use of it," Hale explained. "We could discuss the particulars: inattention, incompetence, distraction, lack of conviction, lack of understanding, a lack of backbone, laziness. The bottom line is that I failed to understand what I was being told; I failed to stand up and be counted. Therefore look no further; I am guilty of allowing Columbia to crash."

Now that's something we should hear from nearly every public school superintendent in the country regarding the failure of government schools to produce academic excellence.

What do we hear instead?

We hear the Frosty Troy's of education (in the article following this one) claiming, "All is well."

Hale reveals a NASA culture that is willing to learn and change. The Frosty's of public education reveal an institution in denial and defying change.

---

I am not at fault
I Am Your Public School
By Frosty Troy / Oklahoma Education Association



I am your public school, a 200 year-old experiment giving America the strongest economy in world history.

Experiment is right. 200 years-old is subject to debate. However, government schools didn't "give" America its world-leading economy. Freedom and capitalism did that. Government schools played a role. And that role was played largely by non-unionized teachers for all but the past 30 or 40 years. Following the unionization of government schools, they have lost their compass. Academic standards declined to the point where states had to step in to raise them to previous levels.

And, although the experiment of government schools has gotten us this far, it is by no means certain they are adequate to the task of moving us forward. The argument that they worked in the past, therefore they will work in the future is weak, especially considering that government schools still run pretty much as they did when farmers produced food with draft horses and scythes. Education should be publicly funded, but the system of government schools that exists today belongs in a museum next to horse-drawn carriages. See, The 21st Century Student and Industrial-age assumptions about schools.

We are 88,000 buildings in more than 15,000 districts. And we are as diverse as this great country. This fall I embrace more than 46 million children; for most of them, I am their only hope for future success.

This is utter nonsense. First, if every government school were closed tomorrow parents would still find ways to give their children an education--through books, the public library, tutors, the Internet, private schools and their own skills and talents. Try closing hospitals and see if people can provide their own medical care.

Second, who should be happy that government schools are the "only" hope for success when self-interested union power perpetuates the monopoly that prevents students from having alternatives? Who would willingly and wisely put all their eggs in one basket? Why should we celebrate enslavement to a sole-source provider? If Mobil Oil were the only gas station allowed to operate in America, we'd all be grateful to Mobil as the "only" hope for providing the energy needed to drive our economy. Yet, Mobil Oil, like any would-be monopoly, would extract a huge price for its services and discount quality issues since consumers would have no alternatives. Sound familiar?

When the buses roll up, my doors are flung open to children of all shapes, sizes, levels of ability, some in wheel chairs, geniuses and the retarded, average and the developmentally disabled. They speak more than 100 languages, including Mong – the Cambodian highland children who came here with no written alphabet. I represent "home schooling" at its best for I am the "home school" of 10 million latchkey children.

It's a self-designed, self-serving dependency. People should shun systems that create dependency. Systems should create independence, but government schools celebrate the creation of dependency.

Moreover, the embracing of diversity is not the same as embracing excellence.

Some of you would judge me by test scores, but I would remind you that a test only measures one dimension of a student’s development – only in that subject on that day depending on whether the student tests well. Although, my SAT math and science test scores are at a 33 year high, and my ACT scores are up for 11 consecutive years. I remind you that those tests don’t include foreign language, music, art, drama and other vital extracurriculars.

As I have written before, standardized tests check whether students have learned the minimal amount of material needed for successful student development.

Anyone who has absorbed "the best possible educational experience" will be able to pass any standardized test in the country.

Consider a gastroenterologist who is a surgeon. Passing an anatomy test does not guarantee s/he is a good surgeon. But can s/he be a good surgeon without knowing enough anatomy to pass an anatomy test? It's nearly impossible.

Standardized tests may not measure the knowledge and skills about which we are most concerned. But they at least tell us this much: If a student can't pass a basic standardized test, there is almost no chance the student has the greater knowledge and skills we are most interested in. Standardized tests, like anatomy tests for medical students, tell us whether it is possible the student has the knowledge and skills we seek.

If [students think standardized tests] induce anxiety, [they] should have to face this 1895 8th grade exam, or an exam that truly tests what we are interested in knowing. Standardized tests are really low-anxiety, high self-esteem substitutes for the kind of exams we would give if we were serious. Students would actually have to perform the equivalent of "surgery" to get their diploma.

Moreover, if US government schools were all that good, why do our children perform at average levels on international exams like the TIMSS? Student test scores on SATs and ACTs have risen because the difficulty of these tests has fallen and because teachers are teaching to the tests to the detriment of the other dimensions of student development.

If some of the children fail, it isn’t for lack of trying by the faculty and staff – among the most dedicated and least paid among the industrial democracies of the world.

"If you compare the U.S. to all the other developed nations of the world, and standardize for exchange rate, or GDP, or any economic measure you choose, you'll find American public school teachers are among the highest paid in the world." ReformK12.com.

And most dedicated? Geeze. It's hard to squeeze in dedication among movies, field trips, assemblies and cafeteria-style, in-class feelings fests that pass for rigorous analysis. How many dedicated teachers do we have like this $100,000 teacher? Or these 75-hour-a week, $150-a-month Russian teachers?

Most children could do far better in school. See what these schools are doing.

My dirty little secret is that many of the 11 percent of children who drop out are the products of sorry parenting – parents who send me children who are undisciplined, unwanted, unwashed, unloved; some strung out on drugs and alcohol; some abused and neglected; few who have ever been taken to a church, synagogue or mosque. The miracle is that my doors are open to all of them and many are reached – not by textbooks alone but by teachers who know there is more to a child’s life than rote learning. For thousands of kids, the only hug they ever get they get in school.

Love and caring is not education. Students who are educated will find their own love and caring. I don't send my child to school to be hugged.

But the blame-the-parents line is as bogus as it is disingenuous. As pointed out in the comment above, some schools are doing the job even for large populations of impoverished students. More importantly, the high taxes extracted to pay for the monopoly prices charged by public schools, especially to pay for teacher compensation that is 30% to 50% higher than paid in the private sector, are an important contributing factor to the poor life circumstances of many children. Not only do parents have less income, but they have fewer job opportunities because of job-killing taxes. Only a rare teacher, like William Anders or Vince Dacquisto, is bold enough to suggest that investing more in families and less in schools is key to improving academic outcomes.

Kimberly Swygert comments:

So, is the message we're supposed to take away that public school is like the Salvation Army - they take in the Great Unwashed and love them, and if they don't educate them, well, they're uneducable? And one would think that "rote learning" is one of the, well, lesser evils for a child who is abused and neglected, so it's odd to see it thrown into this litany of malignancies.

The causes of student failure originate outside of the classroom - as do the solutions. By the time a child enters kindergarten, he is already "programmed" for success or failure in school, if we are to believe the doctors and researchers. Doesn't common sense dictate that we try to improve the first five years of a child's life, rather than play a futile game of "catch up" with artificial solutions that accomplish nothing? Let's invest our energy and money into helping families, splintered and broken as many are, raise their children in a wholesome, healthy, peaceful environment. -- Vince Dacquisto, retired Mont Pleasant Middle School Teacher

It is painful to be accused of failing African American children. That’s a calumny. Our greatest hurdle is that half of African American children are born to single moms, creating a whole new set of problems for the schools.

There you have it folks. Black single moms are the cause of failing children. It's the "greatest hurdle" faced by public schools! Is there any wonder why blacks broadly support charter schools and vouchers? I'll say this, though, it's rare to find an educator who will tell you the truth about what s/he really thinks. Now you know. It's the black single moms who are making public schools look bad.

My plea for more early childhood education goes unheeded, yet there are hundreds of millions of dollars for more tests.

Why would right-thinking people put their children in schools that fail students for more years? Are you crazy? Pre-school education must be provided in the private sector.

I grieve when I hear critics say I am "secular" because no specific beliefs are taught in this pluralistic system. But when it comes to doing God’s work – we’re on duty every day.

You can't excuse sin or failure by claiming to do God's work. "God's work" isn't a shield from criticism. How many scams and sins have been perpetuated in the name of God? Think Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart.

Moreover, claiming to do God's work in response to the criticism that teachers are secularists is over the top. It's non-responsive and I'd say it's rather impossible to be doing "God's work" in government schools that mandate a separation of church and state.

Last year more than 30 percent of the students got their only hot meal in our cafeterias.

That's nice, but it's not the reason why we have government schools. Children can eat hot meals in many places and just because they eat them in schools 180 days out of 365 is no reason to perpetuate a system that fails in its core mission to educate students.

Thousands of poor children find decent clothing and underwear in the school clothing closet filled by faculty, staff and PTA moms. Teachers spend nearly $600 of their own money for things like workbooks and pencils for needy children.

In many cases, it is in the teacher's self-interest to spend money for supplies, the budgets of which are cut to provide larger raises to meet teacher demands. Teachers not only get a partial tax write-off for this spending, but their retirement incomes are higher than they would be had schools not cut supplies budgets to fund bigger teacher raises. See, Classroom's Costly Lessons.

Role modeling, not mantras and Hail Marys come from a teaching profession that provides more Sunday school teachers than any other profession or occupation in America. Aren’t feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, nurturing the little ones spiritual injunctions in all the great religions of the world? No school prayer? I wish you could hear the thousands of reverent, whispered entreaties sent heavenward from students and faculty every day. God’s presence is palpable. One of the prayers I overhear most often is, "Please God, give me the patience to get through just one more day with these kids!"

Some would mock our athletic programs, yet for many of the boys, coaches are often their only male role models.

See, the Seattle Times' series, Coaches who prey. Beyond that, just because role models are found in government schools does not mean they wouldn't be found in alternatives to government schools. Government schools spend billions of dollars. They ought to be doing something good with all that money. Indeed, it would be nearly impossible not to do some good. But the issue is whether government schools are performing their core mission of educating the public well enough at reasonable costs. Just because someone is nice and friendly is no reason to let him/her have charge of a child's education.

Teamwork and sportsmanship are enduring principles that millions of our graduates have translated into successful careers and successful families.

These lessons are readily learned in many places outside of schools.

Some say I should prepare more students for college, as though college is for everyone. We are the only education system that educates the student to the level of his or her ability – doctor, mechanic, engineer, nurse, computer manager, carpenter.

Nothing could be further from the truth than to say that government schools educate all students to the level of their abilities. Government schools teach to the middle, with a new emphasis on the bottom being required by No Child Left Behind. See, The Root Cause of Education Mediocrity.

America is third in the world in college graduation rates – nearly 25 percent with a four year degree or more.

Yes, but the quality of a college education has also declined, in part to ensure that increasing numbers of students can graduate and fill jobs that have been politically defined as requiring college degrees. Other countries rely more on apprenticeship models, which are adequately effective for their needs and perhaps more effective than our college-as-first-career-step society, propagated to a large extent by the educators who benefit from such a system.

Who says there are no heroes today? Did you see the biographies of those rescuers who died in the World Trade Center tragedy? Firemen, policemen, union members, emergency workers – 90 percent of them public school graduates.

Public schools create heroes! Of course they do. Where else can they come from when all children are mandated to attend school and government school is the only realistic "choice" for 90% of the population. It's like noting that Earth is responsible for heroes since they all come from this planet!

But how about this, Frosty? All those heroes had families. So what if 90% went to public schools if the trait of heroism was nurtured, developed and modeled in families and homes? What makes you think government schools had anything to do with these acts of heroism? It appears to me that Frosty is a pure political opportunist--stealing the glory of others based merely on the fact of prior association. It's not only disrespectful, but unbecoming of a supposedly educated person.

I am passionately committed to the belief that God gives children different gifts, and we alone address all children whatever their gifts. We play no favorites, taking all of God’s children.

Notice that in the eyes of educators, parents count for little. Indeed, parents are evil. They don't address the needs of their children whatever their gifts. They don't feed them. They don't clothe them. They are poor role models. That's why we need government schools. To save children from their parents.

At base, Frosty wants us to love public schools because they have a monopoly, not because they produce excellent outcomes for reasonable costs. I note, however, that with the creation of schools for girls, schools for gays, schools for the disabled, military academies, and with a million homeschoolers, government schools are not "alone" and they are not serving the needs of "all children." Indeed, no single system of education can serve the needs of all children equally.

My most precious possession is more than 5 million special education youngsters – we alone address their needs. If your heart ever needs a lift, visit with a Downs Syndrome child happily employed thanks to public education.

It's a consequence of system design. It's not a consequence of having competed against alternative systems and coming out at the top. It doesn't mean this is the best way of doing things. It simply means this is the way things are being done. It's not an argument in support of perpetuating what exists.

I suffer the slings and arrows from those who stress my shortcomings in order to defund public education.

I know of no one who wants to "defund" public education. They want to "defund" government schools. That's different.

quote: Public education is a concept, it is not a structure. And what it really means is that students should be able to receive a free and appropriate education, one at the expense of the public. There are multiple delivery systems that can achieve that goal, and I think as we go forward into this new century, we are going to see a proliferation of new delivery systems. There are going to be cyber schools, home schooling, parochial schools, private schools, public schools -- all kinds of delivery systems. And I think that's going to be good, because that expands choices for parents. --U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige

quote: No idea in politics has hurt children more than the false and misleading idea that the quality of education is determined by how much we spend. What determines a child's future isn't how much is spent, but how wisely that money is spent. More than 35 years after Congress passed the first Elementary and Secondary Education Act, public school spending per pupil has more than doubled -- even when adjusted for inflation -- from $3,331 in 1965-66 to $8,194 in 2000-2001. Yet, citizens must ask, what have we gotten for all this? No, the problem isn't -- and never has been -- money alone. This is just the most tired of all excuses. --U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige

Yet my students out score students in the average charter school. Repeated studies show that when students are matched in family structure, family in come [sic] and family education attainment, public school students do as well or better than parochial school students.

What studies? The truth is, until we have a value-added measure of student progress, no one can know whether one school system is doing a substantially better job of educating students than another system. See, Adding value to education.

Defaming public education in order to promote vouchers for religious schools is an egregious miscarriage of education’s mission. I am held accountable by my school board – every dollar spent. Vouchers require zero accountability.

Defaming? Look at Frosty's argument for supporting government schools. Do you see anything about teaching? About how teachers are doing better at educating students to higher levels of skills, knowledge and thinking?

There's nothing here but sentimentalism and social services plus an outrageous defamatory attack against black single mothers as being responsible for the "greatest hurdle" faced by government schools.

Frosty's essay is a "Zoom-Zoom-Zoom" glitz advertisement for government schools appealing to all those who would never look at a Consumer Reports to decide which is the best car to buy.

Beyond that, school boards are no longer capable of governing schools because of all the red tape they've agreed to in teacher contracts. They can't hold educators accountable. The unions have seen to it, not just through contracts, but also in election politics.

Vouchers, on the other hand, are the only effective form of accountability left. Parents and students vote with their feet if they aren't satisfied. It's exactly this kind of accountability that Frosty seeks to thwart.

Yes, my corridors have known random acts of violence, yet the FBI says a child is safer in my arms at school than in his or her own home.

That statistic is driven by the problems of inner cities. The vast majority of rural and suburban students are safer at home than in schools where they are bullied, molested and shot at!

I'm surprised Frosty didn't blame the violence on black single mothers, like with student failure.

Thanks to the vision of our forebears, America had a 100 year head start on every other nation in creating universal free public education. Today, with all its flaws, it is the finest system in the industrial world.

Based on the defense provided by Frosty? A defense that tauts social services over academic services. A defense that blames black single mothers for academic failures. You have got to be kidding. Frosty has indicted the schools, not defended them. And regardless of whether we have the best "system" or not, the question is whether it is good enough to meet the needs of our students in an increasingly complex world. It's a "system" that has outlived its effectiveness.

Beyond that, as much as it appears Frosty would like to think so, the provision of government schools isn't written into the US Constitution. Indeed, there were no public schools in America when the Constitution was written.

However, O'DonnellWeb hypothesizes that the Constitution contains a "mysterious" 11th Amendment that provides:

Parents, being wholly unqualified in the endeavor of raising and educating children, shall leave them at the government indoctrination center between the hours at 8 AM and 4 PM each day, Except in summer, when the government teachers shall endeavor to bask in the glory of a three month vacation.

As I have pointed out previously, providing education through government schools is fundamentally inconsistent with the right of free-speech guaranteed by the First Amendment.

I leave no child behind, but some of you would dim my lights, leaving in the shadows the poor, the halt, the blind, the lame and the special education student.

And some educators would dim the lights of the top third of students by killing programs for gifted and talented students. These students are being left behind. They are wasting their talents in government schools waiting for the "not yets" to get it.

You would use public school dollars to construct new forms of theocratic education, yet the U.S. General Accounting Office national survey showed that a third of my buildings are dangerous and unsafe – yet no help is forthcoming. Do as you will, but for me, I will stand proudly in my neighborhood, America’s last egalitarian institution, my arms embracing the finest educators, administrators and support personnel in the world – dedicated to helping our children realize the American dream.

Pathetic appeal to emotionalism rather than quality outcomes. Education was never meant to make all people equal. It was meant to give all people an equal opportunity to become all they can be. In this, the experiment of government schools is failing at an increasing rate.

In My Opinion
Scotia-Glenville gadfly [crusader] has his own Web site
By ART CLAYMAN /Gazette

Jerry Moore has a Web site, lots of time, strong opinions and an attitude - all of which makes him a thorn in the side of the Scotia-Glenville school district, where he lives and his daughter goes to school. It also makes the site a must visit for anyone who cares about education, or just wants to be amused.

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Moore, a former lawyer and college teacher, says he started the site because he didn't like the way things were going with his daughter's education. Some examples: In grade school, he says, she wasn't taught to form her letters properly, and she still can't. In third grade she made virtually no progress in math and was in the 70th percentile - until he took over her math instruction during the summer and she rose to the 99th percentile. When he wanted to visit a study hall after hearing that it was too noisy to study, the principal told him school policy was not to allow parent visits because it would be a "distraction."

"Current" lawyer, thank you. I'm a former prosecutor and public defender. Click here for my background.

By the way, the principal said my observation of a noisy study hall in the cafeteria was "potentially disruptive," not a mere distraction!

He says the Web site (www.myshortpencil.com) grew out of a "six-year process of losing battles with the schools" and their refusal to take him seriously. "Now, nothing is said that is not also said by other educators, a Teacher of the Year in New York City, the secretary of education. It's not just Jerry Moore saying it."

Moore has two principal themes. One is academic excellence, which he claims the Scotia-Glenville district isn't really interested in. The other is cost. He maintains, "My daughter could have gotten what she has got for a lot less money."

Moore is the ultimate gadfly, appearing regularly at school board meetings, reading statements, filing endless Freedom of Information requests, etc. Recently he has tangled with the district over its cancellation of his daughter's class trip to France after Sept. 11, and its refusal to pay for her to attend the International Baccalaureate program at Schenectady High School. He regularly calls on Michael Marcelle, the schools superintendent, to resign.

First, it was not just my daughter I wanted to see have an opportunity to attend Schenectady's International Baccalaureate program, it was all Scotia-Glenville students who are interested in this academically rigorous, world-renowned program, from which as it happens, Art Clayman's own son will graduate this year. Second, there was no cost to the district to send any of the students to the program, except, perhaps for transportation, which I would have gladly covered. The IB program was offered by Schenectady through BOCES. Under the plan, a school could send a student to Schenectady plus retain the funding for teaching the student in the local district even though Schenectady would be doing the educating.

S-G feared it might reach a BOCES funding cap. If it did, it would have to pay part of the local and state taxes collected by the district on behalf of the transferred students to Schenectady. You see, the problem in this situation is that S-G was afraid it wouldn't make any money by permitting these kinds of transfers, not that it would cost the district money. It was also concerned about losing top performing students to Schenectady and the adverse impact that would have on its "reputation for quality."

Worse case for transferring students to Schenectady: The district would have to transfer money from its budget to Schenectady, but it wouldn't have the expense of educating the student. This is not a "cost." Only public schools believe they should be permitted to retain money for services not performed. From a taxpayers point of view, there was no additional cost. The money would have simply been spent in Schenectady rather than S-G. Public school officials claim to be interested in educating all the students, which means providing all students with opportunities to excel, not just poor performing students. To deprive S-G students the opportunities offered by Schenectady was simply a decision to compel low-cost, high-performing students to stay in the district to subsidize the cost of the district's other programs which have no benefit for the students who could have excelled in either the IB or Fine Arts programs in Schenectady. In other words, the decision was not made in the best interest of the students.

By the way, what is it with this marginalization through the use of the term "gadfly"? What's wrong with crusader or reformer or independent thinker or involved parent? It's hard enough to make improvements to monopolistic bureaucracies without having to deal with pejoratives in the press.

A gadfly is a person who stimulates or annoys especially by persistent criticism.

A crusader is a person who undertakes a remedial enterprise with zeal and enthusiasm.

Which am I? In my opinion, the gadflies are in the school districts. They persistently complain they are underpaid with apathetic parents and too few resources to produce academic excellence. It's the same as criticizing parents and taxpayers for not doing enough. How's that different from criticizing the schools for not doing enough? I guess U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige is a gadfly, too.

Not satisfied
Frankly, I don't know if Scotia-Glenville compares unfavorably to other Capital Region districts, as Moore maintains. The evidence he presents is based on such things as students' performance on standardized tests and the number of kids who take AP courses, which may or may not be valid barometers. But I suspect that Moore would be unsatisfied no matter where his daughter went to school.

There are many school districts that put students first, provide excellent academic outcomes, have top-rate programs, are on the cutting edge of technology, welcome parents and the community into the classrooms, and spend a lot less money to do it. Scotia-Glenville is simply not one of those school districts. It's unacceptable for the money we spend, which, at $11,038 per student, is 39.7% above the national average. People ought to be incensed. S-G's pay priorities for teachers interferes with its ability to provide resources and programs for students.

That's OK, because there's a lot to be unsatisfied with in modern education. There is too much political correctness, too many interruptions, too much time spent on non-academic matters. There is too much emphasis on making lessons interesting and relevant, rather than having students learn names, facts and dates.

Moore may not always be right, but he knows his subject. He devotes between one and four hours a day to the Web site, using a search device called Webspector to cull articles from 400 newspapers and other sources on some of his favorite topics: teacher salaries, class size, school choice, academic excellence. The site averages more than a quarter-million hits a month, not only from local people but from those all over the nation and world. (Moore showed me the data on his laptop.)

January 2003's Statistics

Total Hits	262281
Total Files	164620
Total Pages	27803
Total Visits	11282
Total KBytes	3267822
Total Unique Sites	8315
Total Unique URLs	1645

The articles and links are good, but what helps make this site different are Moore's comments, which come directly after certain passages within the articles. He says he does this in part out of concern about copyright infringement. "I'm on the edge," he says, "I figure if I annotate, it's fair use."

Thank goodness he does, because the comments are the most enjoyable and interesting part of the site. That's especially true when Moore dissects the arguments of those with whom he disagrees, pointing out errors in fact and flaws in logic. His rebuttals are usually sharp, to the point, well-informed and well-written.

While most of Moore's ideas on education can be considered conservative, he has another side. He has been a mediator for the Law, Order and Justice Center of Schenectady, and does volunteer work for the Schenectady County Human Rights Commission and its Jail Oversight Committee.

But at this point in his life, it is education that is his mission and obsession. He may not be popular in his own district, but he is not so easily dismissed.

Art Clayman is the Gazette's editorial page editor, and can be reached at 395-3133 or clayman@dailygazette.com. The views expressed in his personal column do not necessarily reflect those of the newspaper.

I'm sure. Although I reluctantly, after several months, provided an interview to Mr. Clayman, I appreciate the work he put into the article, and his willingness to go out on a limb to do it.

April 5 Address to the School Board

At Ford Motor Company, quality is job one. At Ford, every person is responsible for quality. Quality is constantly measured. Problems are prevented not just fixed. Improvement is planned, managed and continuous. Defect-free results are the only acceptable standard. These are the principles of Total Quality Management.

Since Ford just makes cars and education is far more important, I presume professional educators would agree that quality is job one in education, too. I would like to know who is in charge of quality control in this school district.

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Let’s start with AP psychology. Many of you have college degrees. For those of you who took an introductory psychology course in college, how many of you were in classes where the students lectured and the professor sat in class and listened? Students are teaching 50% of the AP psychology course material in this school district. The teacher assigns topics for students to present in class. May I respectfully suggest you don’t need a master-degreed teacher to do that. The janitor could do it.

Beyond rarely teaching, the “teacher” uses a lot of class time having students fill out psychological assessment instruments. How may of you sat in your college classes filling out assessment instruments? These forms can be easily assigned as homework. Apparently, the teacher believes she has nothing better to offer students of her expertise and understanding of the subject than to have students teach the class and fill out forms, and perhaps she knows best.

My daughter has completed nearly a full year of college work at Union College and the University at Albany in courses covering science, history, French and English. She knows the difference between college work and high school work. She knows the difference between college instruction and high school instruction. She knows the difference between college thinking and high school thinking. In her opinion, AP psychology is being taught like a high school course, not a college course. And in my opinion, it’s not even being taught with the rigor of a good honors course that doesn’t carry the potential for college credit. Who is in charge of quality?

This week is movie week in economics. The entire week is being spent watching Tucker: The Man and His Dream. It’s the story about an American entrepreneur who envisioned building an automobile on the cutting-edge of technology only to see his dream extinguished by politicians and government bureaucrats. Kind of like the way my child’s dream for a high quality elementary and secondary education has been extinguished by this school district.

With all the technology available today, why are hours and hours of classroom time spent watching movies? Is there no way to provide these movies to students during study halls or for home viewing? Beyond that, what’s the point of watching all these movies? Some of them depict complex phenomena well worth pondering but students almost never write about it, read about it in more depth or even discuss it more than superficially. Economics is a senior course. Yet, as taught, it requires no more depth of understanding, work, integration, analysis or synthesis than an 8th-grade course. Who is in charge of quality?

My daughter is currently taking the college prep English course, which is supposedly writing intensive. In neither this class nor in any other has she been introduced to Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style,” or to any handbook of grammar, syntax, diction and composition. This is supposedly a college prep writing course. When I taught at the University at Albany, students who claimed to have earned As in high school honors English routinely turned in C papers, to be generous about it. I know why, now. Students aren’t being prepared to do college writing. They aren't reading the necessary books or doing the necessary practice. They receive scant feedback from teachers on too few writing assignments. Moreover, a high percentage of high school graduates must take remedial English courses in New York colleges. Who is in charge of quality?

In this college prep English class, students are working on other assignments and even reading recreationally during class time. The teacher recently caught a student doing math and sent him to the back of the classroom so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

This weekend, one of my sister-in-laws was visiting. She graduated from Scotia-Glenville 15 years ago. She told us that when a teacher caught her reading at the back of the class, he told her to close her book. Then he moved her to the front of the class and compelled her attention. Perhaps today’s teachers either know or believe their classroom instruction is so inconsequential that paying attention isn’t really necessary. Who is in charge of quality.

During the first semester, my daughter took the senior course in government. She is a note-taker, but for the entire course she wrote a mere 9 pages of notes—the equivalent of about two weeks worth of college notes.

The government course includes controversial and interesting topics, like abortion, gay marriage, gun control and free speech. The high school library has a well-written, comprehensive and fascinating series of books on these topics called “Opposing Viewpoints.” Did the teacher ever once assign any of these books for reading? No. Did the teacher even mention the books? No. Did the teacher require any outside preparatory reading on any of these controversial issues? Generally, no. Students left this government class with As and the belief that as long as they have strong feelings or opinions about an issue, then that’s sufficient for informed, intelligent, creative participation in democracy. They learned very little of what it really takes to work through these issues and understand the consequences of making changes or doing nothing. The final exam in this senior course did not require a demonstration of accumulated knowledge, wisdom and insight from 12 years of learning, but rather consisted of multiple choice questions. Is this sufficient for the challenges our children will face? Who is in charge of quality?

Quality is job one!

Student suspended for wearing nose stud
By Associated Press

PENSACOLA [Florida] - A middle school student has been suspended because she is wearing a small diamond stud in her nose, which the principal says is distracting.

Tori Swanson, 12, is serving a three-day suspension for wearing the stud to Bailey Middle School and it will be renewed every time the sixth grader shows up with it, Principal Judy Pippen said.

What a great way to get out of school. Simply wear a nose stud. In some states, the suspension would entitle the student to private home instruction!

Pippen said facial piercings distract other students and could hurt their performance on the state's standardized test.

I doubt they distract students. Baubles are part of their culture. It's the adults who can't concentrate when seeing these things.

Tori doesn't understand why she is being punished by the school. She got the piercing earlier this month with a friend and had her father's permission. Her mother Lori Swanson, a legal assistant, is threatening a lawsuit.

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What particularly galls Lori Swanson is that students in other Escambia County schools are allowed to wear nose studs. Norm Ross, the county's assistant school superintendent, said the district's disciplinary code gives principals discretion on what constitutes a distraction.

Tori doesn't plan to remove the stud.

"If it does become a problem, I would want everyone else in the district to take theirs out."

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School tells kids: Don't think pink
Gang fears stir hue and cry over color
By Jodi S. Cohen, Chicago Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporters Karen Mellen and Patrick Rucker contributed to this report

As a fashion statement, pink is a hot color this spring, but at Merrillville High School in Indiana, it also has become a hot-button issue.

District Supt. Tony Lux distributed a letter to students Wednesday in which he "discouraged" them from wearing pink because of concerns that it has gang and rap music overtones.

Please point to the pixel that is pink. Exactly where does pink begin and end?

Although Lux said dressing in pink could be "suspicious behavior," he emphasized the color wasn't banned.

The situation erupted Friday when Principal Mark Sperling announced over the loudspeaker that students should think twice before wearing pink clothing.

"It was meant as a gentle reminder that this color has other meanings," said Sperling, who was left somewhat pink-faced as students continued to laugh about it Wednesday at the school south of Gary. His request was misinterpreted as a ban, prompting angry calls from parents asking whether pink prom dresses should be returned.

"We all thought it was stupid, so on Monday, a lot of people wore pink," said sophomore Ashley Washburn, who dressed in a pink golf shirt.

Ten boys who showed up decked out in matching pink shirts and pink shoelaces were asked to change, Sperling said.

After discussing with other principals the seemingly odd increase in boys wearing pink, he decided to make the announcement. If a boy wears a pink shirt, "we will ask him to change," Sperling said. "We will not suspend him. We will ask him not to wear it."

There was some confusion Wednesday over whether the announcement applied to girls.

Haley Stoica, a sophomore, said her history teacher asked that she put a sweatshirt over her pink long-sleeve shirt earlier this week. "I'm wearing pink tomorrow," she vowed.

Merrillville students said pink became fashionable at the school after rapper Cam'ron wore pink in a music video and drove a pink SUV. They said it has nothing to do with gangs.

"It is not like guys in pink are flashing gang signs," Stoica said. "They are making a big deal out of nothing."

Sperling conceded there has been no gang activity at the high school but said he doesn't want students setting themselves apart by wearing a particular type of clothing. In retrospect, he acknowledged that instead of using the loudspeaker, "perhaps it would have been better to talk to a few kids individually."

Various lawsuits over the last few decades have upheld the right of schools to restrict the attire of students as long as they can prove a compelling reason to do so, said Terry Glaub, communications director for the Illinois Association of School Boards in Springfield.

In areas where gang violence is a problem, schools routinely prohibit clothing that suggests affiliation with a gang, said David Turner, executive director of the Springfield-based Illinois Principals Association.

"You just don't sit down and arbitrarily write a restrictive dress code," he said. "I'm not going to say that all the boys have to show up with button-down shirts and neatly shined shoes. ... You speak to things that are issues in your building--things that are disruptive to the educational process."

Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, stressed that administrators should balance concerns about safety with the rights of students to express themselves.

"It is that time when people get that sense of who they are, and sometimes they are experimenting," he said. "And dress is often one way that young people think to express themselves."

Sperling said he was stumped by the sudden increase in all those pink-clad teenage boys.

"Normally, boys don't wear pink. ... Most parents of boys don't go out and buy them pink shirts," he said. "I'm becoming aware that it's becoming a color this spring."

At a mall two miles from the school, stores were stocked with pink shirts for men.

"As you can see, we have quite a few selections of pink. ...," said Nina Sandoval, manager at Express Men. "It is the really in color right now."