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• • • • •

District will investigate handling of hat incident
Dave Seibert / The Arizona
Republic
Originally posted March
17, 2004

The Scottsdale Unified School District is also planning to investigate whether
school officials and a police officer acted appropriately when the
17-year-old was arrested at school after he refused to turn his baseball hat
from the side to the front.

Listen
up parents. Schools are applying the student dress code to adults when they are
on campus. See, e.g., School
Dislikes Parent’s Hair Coloring. That means if you wear your hat sideways,
you should be prepared to adjust it or be arrested!

"I think it’s important that we look into this and find out what we need to
know and move forward," district spokesman Tom Herrmann said.

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Morgan’s original three-day suspension for the March 5 incident began
Monday, the day students returned from spring break.

The teen’s mother, Bobbie Morgan, said she talked to school principals early
Monday in hopes of getting her son back in school immediately. She said she
was told he could return but would have to spend half his lunch hour cleaning
the cafeteria for 10 days.

She declined. "Hasn’t he suffered enough?" she asked.

Exactly
right. In fact, if it were my child, I’d tell the district he wouldn’t be
returning to school until two days after the suspension had run because he would
be visiting a psychologist about his anguish over being suspended for 3 days for
wearing his hat sideways!

Later Monday she, Morgan, Morgan’s grandmother and another Saguaro parent and
son met with top school officials in a closed two-hour meeting where the
suspension was reduced.

Scottsdale police said they arrested the teen because the officer worried that
the situation might escalate.

Morgan was jailed for several hours on suspicion of disorderly conduct,
failure to obey a police officer, trespassing and interfering or disrupting an
educational institution.

For
wearing a hat sideways? A round of Alice’s
Restaurant, anyone? Good thing he wasn’t littering.

Bobbie Morgan wants the school district to ask police not to pursue charges.

"I want them to stand in Marlon’s corner, too," she said. "I
placed him in their care."

School security guards asked Morgan to turn his hat around. It is against
school policy to wear hats sideways. Morgan, who is Black, said the rule is
selectively enforced. He refused to turn his hat and refused to go to the
office.

Do
schools really need mandatory rules about which direction to point the bill of a
cap? This calls for the invention of caps with two bills. That way school
officials won’t know if they are coming or going, which will probably cause them
to double the period of suspension.

Morgan said Monday that if he had to do it all over again, "I probably
would have just went to the office and just settled it another way."

The Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools
Phi Delta
Kappa
Oct. 2005

PDK
has released its 37th annual poll results on the public’s attitude toward public
schools. Setting aside misleading
questions and methodological problems, let’s see what the most significant
findings are.

1. Lack of financial support is solidly entrenched in the public mind as the
major problem facing the nation’s public schools. Responding to an
open-ended question, 20% of those surveyed mention lack of financial support.
This problem has been among the top problems mentioned for 15 straight years and
has been the top problem for six years running. This year, it attracts almost
twice the number of mentions of any other problem.

When
you consider that 10% of the public is either employed in public schools or has
an immediate family member so employed, and that union press releases constantly
reinforce alleged funding problems, it’s rather surprising that more people
don’t think lack of financial support is the biggest problem of public schools.

The same is true in public education. We need schools for The
21st Century Student, where most instruction is provided over the Internet
for students to use at their own teacher-guided pace on their own schedules. The
biggest problem facing public schools is the failure to rapidly create
captivating, exceptional-quality online lessons to be substituted for classroom
instruction where it makes sense and for the students who can thrive by it. The
problem is not the amount of money, but how it’s being spent.

2. The high level of support Americans give to schools in their community is
unchanged, and support for the public schools grows in direct proportion to the
closeness of respondents to those schools. In this poll, 24% assign an A or
a B to the nation’s schools; 48% award an A or a B to schools in the
community. This figure rises to 57% when public school parents grade the schools
in the community and to 69% when parents grade the school their oldest child
attends.

People
seem to grade the quality of public schools based on more than academic
outcomes. Compared to what public schools could be accomplishing academically
with 21st century schools, very few of them warrant a grade higher than B+.

3. The public’s strong preference is for improvement that comes by
reforming the current public schools rather than by finding an alternative
system. Asked to choose between the two options, the public has, since this
question was first asked, consistently chosen reform through the existing
system.

I
happen to think that approach can work, though I’m not opposed to alternative
systems. The problem with reforming the present system is that it just isn’t
happening to any great extent. It’s all just Tinkering.
That’s a tragedy because we are cheating our children out of a better future.

4. The public opposes permitting parents and students to choose to attend
private schools at public expense. Fifty-seven percent of respondents oppose
making this choice available as compared to 38% who favor it. The percentage in
favor peaked at 46% in 2002 and has declined by 8% since that time.

All
schools are public schools. All schools are private schools. It’s a
distinction about trivialities, not academics and learning. How is it in the
public’s interest to deny students the opportunity to be educated in the best
school available? The children of teachers are disproportionately represented
among private school students. What’s good for the kids of teachers can’t be bad
for the rest of us.

9. The public believes that the current emphasis on standardized tests will
lead teachers to teach to the test and does not regard this as a positive
outcome. Fifty-eight percent say that teaching to the test will be
encouraged, and 54% say that this is a bad thing.

It
is a bad thing. But it’s not as bad a thing as not testing students and letting
them watch movies and talk about feelings in their march toward a diploma. Had
the standards of teachers not fallen so low, we never would have needed mandated
standardized testing. It’s a pox created by the profession.

11. The public believes that the achievement gap can be substantially
narrowed while maintaining high standards for all students. Eighty-one
percent of respondents hold the view that the gap can be narrowed without
sacrificing high standards.

In
theory, the public is right. In practice, that’s not the way things are going.
Where the achievement gap is being closed, it has more to do with changes in
tests and scoring. While the standards stay high, what students must do to
demonstrate proficiency is being reduced. It’s high standards with low
accountability, which makes high standards meaningless.

14. The NCLB strategies are frequently out of step with approaches favored by
the public.

* NCLB uses a single test to determine if a school is in need of improvement.
Sixty-eight percent say that a single test cannot give a fair picture.

It
isn’t fair, but the unfairness doesn’t cut the way most people believe. The use
of a single test makes schools look better than they are since there’s only one
test to prep for! Schools are gaming these exams and reducing the scope of
instruction. "What gets measured gets done."

* NCLB tests only English and math to determine if a school is in need of
improvement. Eighty percent say testing English and math only will not give a
fair picture. This rises to 87% within the "great deal" of knowledge
group.

* NCLB gives parents of a child attending a school found to be in need of
improvement the chance to transfer their child to a school making "adequate
yearly progress" (AYP). Seventy-nine percent say they would prefer to have
additional help given to their child in his or her own school.

Students
can choose that option if they like. They can also transfer out.

* NCLB requires that test scores be broken out into eight groups based on
ethnicity, English-speaking ability, poverty level, and disability status and
reported separately by each group. A plurality of 48% opposes this requirement,
with most of that group saying that they do so because they believe all students
are equal — and presumably should be treated in the same way.

How
can you assure all students are being treated equally unless you look at
different groups of students? Moreover, what does equal treatment mean? Equal
results? Equal instruction? Equal opportunity?

* Support for reporting scores separately, however, is strong among those
claiming knowledge of NCLB.

* With limited exceptions, NCLB requires students enrolled in special education
to meet the same standards as other students. Sixty-eight percent say these
students should not be held to the same standards.

If
students never have to reach, how can they be the best they can be?

* NCLB includes the scores of special education students in determining whether
a school is or is not in need of improvement. Sixty-two percent say these scores
should not be included.

What
about equality for special education students?

* * *

* NCLB determines whether a school has made AYP based on the percentage of
students meeting fixed goals in passing English and math. Eighty-five percent
believe that it would be better to base AYP on improvement shown during the
year.

That
reform is coming. It’s called value-added
assessment.

* * *

16. The public is equally divided on whether a large number of school
failures would reflect shortcomings of the schools or of the law. Forty-five
percent believe that the public schools should be blamed if a large number of
schools fail to meet requirements. Forty-three percent say it is the law that
should be blamed.

That’s
the ideal result for such a question. But, when you consider all the changes that
make it easier for schools to meet AYP, and all the testing and scoring games
played to avoid missing AYP, a large number of school failures would more
greatly reflect the shortcomings of schools than of the law.

17. The public’s concerns regarding NCLB are consistent with the facts that
the public favors a curriculum that offers a wide variety of courses and would
prefer to see a child of theirs be active in extracurricular activities and earn
average grades in school as compared to earning A grades but not participating
in activities. Asked to choose between a wide variety of courses and a
concentration of courses, 61% of respondents opt for a wide variety of courses.
Given a choice between having a child of theirs earn A grades and having a child
earn average grades but be active in extracurricular activities, 64% choose
average grades and extracurricular activities.

This
is why China is going to eat our lunch. The short term happiness gained by
mediocre learning and fun activities is going to produce long term misery for
our children. The adults should know better.

18. The public does not believe that the increasingly common practice of
pursuing postsecondary education online should lead to a requirement that each
high school student take at least one course online. Fifty-six percent of
respondents say they would not require each high school student to take one
course online.

Remember
the people of Famished? More than half of a typical high schoolers instruction
should be provided online.

20. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed would like to see a child of theirs
take up teaching as a career. Sixty-two percent of respondents endorse
teaching as a career for their child.

I
guess most people don’t see teaching as such a badly paid career.

A vision of the tomorrow that should be today.
Originally posted Feb.
19, 2003

Abigail Daugette, 6, reads at the 21st Century Charter School. Tim Halcomb / Indianapolis Star staff photo See, also, The Root Cause of Education Mediocrity, Our Schools and Our Future, Computers, Technology & the Internet and articles on this site referring to The 21st Century Student.

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, systems
thinking, marketing,
media
literacy and business
and science ethics.

We need to stop reinventing the wheel and start
accumulating sophistication by producing thousands of high-quality, interactive,
multimedia, learning-style-specific, Internet-delivered, parent-monitored,
student-selected lessons with instant feedback, online professional support and
software applications to monitor each student’s progress on every lesson.
Education needs to become far more complex and flexible while teachers’ jobs are
simplified.

I’m going to make an attempt to describe what a 21st century education will, and
actually already should, look like. I’m sure I’ll make additions and
modifications occasionally. Eventually, I’ll add some structure to it.

• "No child left behind" is replaced with "Provide every
  child with the opportunities needed to achieve to the best of his/her
  abilities." (The current law perpetuates the comfortable practice of
  teaching to the middle, if not to the bottom of the class). The focus
  changes from pace of teaching to the pace of each student’s learning.
• To the extent practical, students receive instruction via computers, which
  can deliver exceptional instruction with consistency. Students who do not
  learn well on computers will be provided alternatives, such as traditional
  classroom instruction.
• Take every student from where (s)he is academically and provide at least a
  year’s learning for a year’s schooling.
• Within the same classroom, probably organized by age cohort, students may
  proceed through the curriculum at their own rate, which is monitored to
  ensure adequate progress. Students who need to take more time, take it.
  Students who "get it," can move on, taking extra time when they
  get "stuck." The teacher will have students at many different
  levels of the curriculum, probably working on materials from different
  grades. Far less time will be spent on instruction. The teachers’ job will
  be to motivate students to consistently apply themselves and do their best,
  in addition to supplying brief motivating stories, exercises or discussions.
  (More like teacher as coach and monitor than as instructor.) See
  this
  article on how one student used a set-your-own-pace curriculum to finish
  high school by age 15.
• To progress through each lesson in the curriculum, students will have to
  perform with at least 85% proficiency, or some other level, possibly
  variable, depending on individual student abilities. Report cards will not
  have grades, but a number for each subject that indicates the student’s
  progress through the curriculum. For example, a second grade student might
  receive a 3.4 in reading, indicating (s)he is 40% through the 3rd grade
  reading curriculum, or a 1.8, indicating the student is 80% through the 1st
  grade materials.
• Students will take state standards exams upon reaching established
  checkpoints. For example, upon completing 80% of the 4th grade English
  Language Arts Curriculum, the student would take the 4th grade ELA. Results
  would be known the same day of the test and remedial action (probably
  unnecessary since students arrive at the checkpoints at their own rates), of
  likely short duration, can be immediately commenced.
• Parents would be able to view student lesson materials and texts online
  before and after the student uses them. They would be able to see the
  results of exercises and drills. They would also be able to request specific
  additions or substitutions of materials within the curriculum. For example,
  a reading exercise to improve vocabulary might offer a story on ecology or a
  story on evolution. Usually, the student would be able to choose which story
  to use, but the parent could block certain choices.
• Parents would also be able to monitor, in real time, much of their
  children’s studies and work. They could send instant messages of praise and
  encouragement, or even suggestions for improvement.
• Students will be able to choose online materials, videos, texts or
  readings among different viewpoints, instructors, presentation styles,
  subjects, their own learning style and other variables, depending on their
  interests and other variables. The teacher will assist students in exploring
  the approaches that work best. See, Educators
  shift focus to kids’ learning styles.
• Every student will have Internet access at home, provided, or perhaps
  subsidized by the school. Students will be able to continue working at home
  during illnesses, snow
  days or other absences. Indeed, to keep class sizes really small, some
  or all students may work one day at home and the next day at school.
• Since students proceed through the curriculum at their own rate, the
  curriculum will be online and students will follow it sequentially in
  typical cases, but may also have the freedom to do related lessons at
  different grade levels if they wish to explore a topic in more depth while
  they are into it, provided they are making adequate progress through the
  curriculum.
• Since much of the curriculum will be provided via the computer when
  appropriate and effective, teacher absences filled in by substitute teachers
  will result in far less "down time."
• Since students may proceed through the curriculum at their own rate, some
  students may take 14 years for a traditional K-12 program and others may
  take 10. The reward for completing the curriculum in 10 years would be the
  opportunity to graduate from high school after 13 years with 2 years of
  college completed. College courses would be provided locally or via the
  Internet. The cost would be covered by the school as part of a minimum
  13-years education (including kindergarten). This could save students and
  their families tens of thousands of dollars and be a highly motivating
  factor for students to work hard with rapid and effective progress. In other
  words, the system will reward hard work and self-discipline.
• Since the curriculum is online and all students have Internet access at
  home, students may elect to proceed through the curriculum on weekends and
  during breaks and vacations. In other words, disruptions to the learning
  process by system needs or schedules need not occur.
• Students would be able to receive help on lessons either from an online
  teacher, or the classroom teacher.
• Parent discussion of school work would be far more informed since students
  can show parents exactly what they covered from day to day. Alternatively,
  or in addition, the computer may create links to the students work for the
  past 10 days that parents can simply click and inspect.
• Most testing, including some essay exams, will be graded by the computer.
  Teachers will have online files of each student’s work in each subject. The
  computer may scan across weeks or years of data to detect weaknesses in each
  student’s learning or skills.
• Students will be able to take tests when they are ready. They will not
  have to wait for the rest of the class to be ready, nor will they be rushed
  into taking tests they aren’t prepared for. Moreover, they will take only as
  much time as they need taking tests. They will not have to wait for the
  slowest student in the class to complete each test. Time saved in taking
  tests has the potential for adding almost a year’s learning to the education
  of fast test-takers.
• Many lessons will provide additional information for parents about
  activities, books or websites that may be used to supplement the goals and
  materials for each lesson.
• Many lessons will provide links to related enrichment materials. For
  example, a science lesson may link to information on the
  history of science.
• For those concerned about social skills, peer interaction, class
  participation, recess, recreation, P.E., music, art, hands-on learning,
  etc., these will be interspersed throughout the day or week.
• Lessons in the curriculum will include optional "enrichment"
  readings or exercises, including information on story structure, critical
  thinking, theory of knowledge, exercises to broaden the scope of thinking or
  to improve synthesis and evaluation skills, and many other areas of academic
  import.
• The curriculum will be modernized, including instruction on life-long
  financial planning, critically evaluating media and information disseminated
  by public officials (especially how to hear what is not being said), greater
  emphasis on statistics, communication skills, ethics, conflict resolution,
  reasoning skills, etc.
• Elementary students will be able to learn a foreign language with
  side-by-side stories in different languages. They will be able to hear those
  stories read aloud or even read the stories to the computer, which may store
  recordings for teacher evaluation.
• Computer/Internet instruction will enable families to take vacations and
  breaks at their own convenience.
• Students would be able to watch classroom instruction via video streams
  from classrooms.
• There will be a far greater emphasis on independent learning skills.
  Learning how to become a learner will be a top priority. Students will
  prepare for state standards and regents exams not through the use of review
  books, but through the preparation and use of their own outlines and notes.
• In addition to increasing their knowledge and thinking skills, students
  will find, understand, document and model dynamic interactions and
  relationships within and among subjects using software like Inspiration,
  Stella, Powersim
  and Vensim. See clexchange.org
  and join
  a k-12 listserv or read
  archived messages. Also, see The
  Waters Foundation.
• It should be far easier to keep transient students on a constant path of
  learning, even to the point of maintaining the same curriculum while
  attending several schools during the same year.
• Students will be able to chose from among several online texts. If they
  have a problem with a concept or skill using one text, they can try another.
  Accessing different texts will automatically generate royalty payments to
  the owners. This should cost less than purchasing the same amount of
  materials in textbooks.
• Students who are capable and interested could complete their academics in
  1/2 to 2/3 of a school day and spend the rest of their time, in or out of
  school, pursuing their interests, talents and passions, be it in art, music,
  science, government, dance, acting, sports, economics, healthcare, public
  service, mechanics, culinary arts, technology, social advocacy, animal care,
  or anything else their parents would support. In other words, it would be
  possible for many students to do what child actors do–become educated while
  being more productive.
• As students work through the curriculum, the computer will automatically
  generate a chronolgical and topical page of links to the materials used so
  students can quickly find and retrieve information previously accessed. The
  page(s) of links will stay with the student throughout elementary and
  secondary school, and perhaps for life!
• Homework becomes more like school work at home because the teacher is
  either available online or virtually within the lesson. Moreover, since the
  rest of the class does not have to be on a particular student or teacher’s
  schedule, homework can be accomplished with greater flexibility. If Tuesday
  nights are busy, the student needn’t stay up until midnight to squeeze in
  homework.
• Students could earn "merit badges" similar to the
  Boy Scouts in all the areas offered by them and more.

In short, education reform has not yet begun. The current model of
education delivery today in most public schools still looks a lot more like the
late 19th century model than the 21st century model. The
teacher-at-the-head-of-the-class, teacher-as-primary-instructor, lock-step
movement of the entire class through the curriculum, uniform texts and readings,
classification of students by levels of learning ability and standardized test
results, A to F report cards, grading, teacher-dependent learning rather
independent learning, uniform breaks and vacations, 180-day teacher work-year,
equalization of students by having them end 13 years with essentially the same
amount of education, are all in their last days.

The only question is, "How long will NY’s teachers and unions resist
coming into the 21st century?" As this
WSJ article says, "[E]ducators, while sincere, are among the most
change-resistant workers on the planet."

Kimberly Swygert / Number
2 Pencil
October 18, 2005

The News-Leader (MO) covers a presentation by an
educator with a radical plan for schools that might be suitable for, oh,
about 1% of the student population:

Just hear me out, educator Bruce Smith told a small crowd Monday at Drury
University. Students should set their own schedule, work at their own pace and
decide, in many ways, what they want to learn. Smith was providing an overview
of the Sudbury schools model,
which emphasizes independence and democracy - with students and teachers being
the governing force and decision makers.

Here we go again. The fetishization of unstructured learning and the assumption
that students today always know enough about what they like to choose anything
at all.

Kimberly
doesn’t get it–at least not in the context of schools for The
21st Century Student. Bruce is essentially right. Students must set their
own schedules, their own pace and their own course of study. But that can’t
possibly work in the atmosphere of today’s public schools where lessons
are boring, focused on slow to moderate learners, delivered at fixed times
in fixed locations at a fixed pace and with the preponderance of incentives
driving students to work no harder than needed to get by. Setting students
free in a learning culture like this guarantees disaster.

But suppose lessons were so compelling students couldn’t wait to see what
happens next. Suppose that rather than being motivated to merely get by, the
faster students learn, the more rewards they get–like finishing two-years worth
of college or graduating with a joint high school and technical diploma. Suppose
students had to master a core curriculum that included basic applied statistics,
marketing, advertising, opinion polling, personal finance, economics, law,
personal health and fitness. Suppose students had to achieve reading
rates twice today’s average, typing rates of 60 wpm and solid math, science
and social studies skills. And suppose students could integrate all this into
the issues, topics and vocational pursuits that most excite and intrigue them,
working year-round if they like, taking vacations when convenient, consulting
with teacher-coaches and attending special seminars and small
learning-reinforcement sessions. That’s the system of education we need to
create. We have the means.

Smith is a former Columbia high school teacher who left public schools because
he thought the system was squashing the natural curiosity in children. The
schools stress independent thinking and de-emphasize standardized testing.
Students are encouraged to follow their passions.

I wonder if "follow" means "learn the facts about," or if
it’s okay to just be independently "interested." One could argue that
being passionate yet uninformed about a topic is worse than being ignorant and
uninterested.

I
agree, but suppose each lesson requires the demonstration of mastery, too.
Before moving beyond the scope of a student’s current inquiry, s/he must pass
tests or complete other work with an 85% or greater degree of acceptance.

Students ages 4-19 are accepted. There are no formal grades. Depending on
state standards, many Sudbury schools do not require standardized testing.

If there are no formal grades, the anti-testing attitude is a given. Grades, and
test scores, imply a set standard to which students are being compared. That
standard might be a set amount of facts learned, or how other students are doing
with the same material, but it’s always there. Except at Sudbury schools, where
their philosophy sounds like it would make any sort of useful comparison
virtually impossible.

I
don’t know how Sudbury does it, but grade levels are a complete contrivance
designed to serve system needs, not student needs. They provide a structure to
the school organization. Students aren’t naturally in one grade or another,
especially with respect to different subjects. At any given time, students are
at fixed points in a journey of acquiring knowledge and skills. Those points may
correlate to a certain part of the school year in a grade level, but this
correlation is completely unnecessary to academic progress except where
instruction must be provided en masse. The absence of grade levels in no way
requires or implies the absence of proof of learning.

After the presentation, Smith fielded audience questions ranging from
student-teacher ratios - although there are no specific ratios, ratios are
much smaller than in the public school system - to how the system deals with
children with special needs.

I wonder if any questions were along the lines of, "What will you do to
ensure that my child learns something in your school? What will you do to ensure
that they learn something that will allow them to support themselves as mature
adults?"

Good
questions.

How does a student know if he’s graduated - one man asked. The crowd laughed.
In order to graduate, students must prepare and defend a thesis over a
six-month period, Smith said.

"Say what? What if my child needs more than six months to explore his
chosen passion? What if he doesn’t express himself well in writing or in speech,
instead choosing interpretive dance? What if his style of learning precludes him
being required to defend anything about it to impartial observers? Didn’t you
say that he gets to decide how quickly his education goes? How dare you set such
an arbitrary and unmoving standard! My child is special and can’t possibly
develop his passionate work of, of, whatever it is, on that sort of schedule!
"

The
student gets to set her pace of learning. In a 21st Century School, her typical
learning pace would be known. If it slows or increases, computer software would
detect that and generate a notice to teachers for intervention and/or closer
monitoring. Having control over one’s pace of learning doesn’t mean one gets to
decide when one graduates.

Kimberly seems to believe that flexibility precludes high standards. Perhaps in
the current educational enterprise. But higher standards and greater skills do
not necessarily require inflexibility. Just the opposite.

And if Sudbury school administrators expect never to hear that, I have some
lovely, inhabitable lakefront property in New Orleans to sell them.

One parent speaks out in support of the school:

"I would say one of the biggest ones is the ability for my daughter to be
able to know herself and make choices and have freedom," Frey said. Frey
is against standardized testing, saying it adds stress at a young age, doesn’t
test children on skills they will need in real life and places an emphasis on
learning how to test, instead of learning.

Because, as we all know, life never requires that you be able to withstand any
sort of test, or live by someone else’s schedule. Making life choices also never
requires the drudgery of learning facts. Life involves no stress, and no
restrictions on freedom, and no knowledge of standardized-test friendly skills
like literacy and numeracy.

Life
requires all that. It also requires freedom, the power to make choices and the
opportunity to succeed and fail. Standardized testing is mostly a necessary
evil. It provides a relatively inexpensive means of ensuring students learn at
least something at school. Sadly, the dominate culture in public schools has
shifted to chasing test scores. It’s professional malpractice. A high quality
curriculum expertly taught will produce all the high scores anyone needs.

Can you imagine how a child who was actually in this system from ages 4 to 19
would do in the real world? The only one I bet would survive would be the
natural scientific geek who - to the horror of the school, I would think - would
insist on being taught rigorous mathematics and chemistry and biology. This
would be the lucky child who understood intuitively that many of the world’s
triumphs and adult successes don’t involve passion and self-knowledge so much as
they involve lots of hard work, stress, and precise calculations.

The
assumption that giving students guided choices and learning flexibility reduces
hard work, stress and precise calculations is a biased and flawed opinion.
Getting students to work harder and more precisely requires expanding choices
and increasing flexibility. To be sure, in 21st Century Schools there will be
interventions when students slack off, though mostly they won’t because it will
be against their own selfish interests–like finishing a year’s worth of
schoolwork in 180 days rather than spreading it over 240 days. But mostly, the
focus will not be on marching in a straight column. It will be on maximizing
each student’s potential for success.

I’m on the Beltway for a Sunday Drive.

A Gazette Letter to
the Editor
Originally posted Dec.
12, 2002

This is in response to Lana Lovett’s Nov. 26 letter, in which she criticizes
Schenectady city schools because her oldest son’s progress is discouraging.

Parents are too quick to blame schools for their children’s failure. Consider
the fact that between birth and 12th grade, a child is in the school’s care for
about 10 percent of the time. So if the child is in the parent’s environment for
90 percent of the time, who has more influence over his progress?

An accepted educational tenet cites five factors that influence a child’s
success (in no particular order): 1) the number of parents in the household; 2)
the amount of time watching TV; 3) the amount and quality of books in the home;
4) the number of days absent from school; and 5) the amount of homework a child
receives. Parents are the major influence for four of these factors.

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As an educator myself, I contend it would be wonderful to have all my students
earn "A"s, but as in life itself, there is a wide range of
capabilities.

I find the biggest disservice I can do for a parent is to gloss over their
child’s weaknesses, and cavalierly dole out "A"s.

I know that if I were running a for-profit school and were dependent on my
constituents’ happiness to keep my doors open, I might throw around a bunch of
"A"s too.

ERIC ALMOND
Scotia

It
appears that Mr. Almond is a master-degreed teacher at Van Corlaer Elementary
School in Schenectady. While I acknowledge the difficulties of teaching in the
city, and the positive impact parents can have, Mr. Almond is way off base to
criticize Ms. Lovett’s editorial (below) as she appears to be the kind of parent
Mr. Almond wants and they appear to agree that giving out unearned grades is bad
practice.

Mr. Almond ignores Ms. Lovett’s point that her children are doing much better in
the charter school–or rather, he suggests with no possible apparent source of
evidence, she is being duped by the charter school–and sets out on a theme to
indict the parents. If Ms. Lovett were solely to blame for her son’s failure in
the city school, nothing would have changed when she put him in the charter
school.

To prove parents are too quick to blame schools for their children’s poor
performance, Mr. Almond first brings up the red herring that students are in
school only 10% of the time between birth and age 18. What of it? About 50% of
time is spent on personal hygiene, eating and sleeping. Another 20% is spent on
non-TV recreation, sports, religion, travel, chores, work and family matters.
During K-12, public schools take up about 60% of the remaining time, or about
20,000 hours, including homework (but not after school programs or sports),
which Mr. Almond conveniently neglected to mention. That’s enough time to
produce excellence at the high school level of academic competence.

To answer Mr. Almond’s question, “Who has more influence over [a child’s
educational] progress,” the answer is THE SCHOOLS. It’s absurd to add
sleeping time to the time available to parents to make a difference in academic
performance outcomes. But I’m used to dealing with absurdities when it comes
to professional educators.

Rather than fight with Mr. Almond over this point, though, I’d like to switch.
How about this, Mr. Almond: Since I have my child for 90% of the time, and what
I do, or don’t do, impacts on my child’s academic performance, how about giving
me 90% of the money spent to educate my child and you can have the other 10% to
do your job? You seem willing to accept 10% of the responsibility for education
outcomes, you can have 10% of the money. Heck, I’ll even use my numbers instead
of yours. Give me 40% of the money and you keep 60%, and let’s see if parents
can do a better job with that 40% than public schools do.

Mr. Almond lists five factors that influence student academic success, pointing
out that parents have control over four of them. His purpose is to prove that
not only do parents have more time with students, and hence more influence, but
parents also control most of the important factors contributing to academic
success. What a bunch of hooey.

What Mr. Almond does is write a list of things parents can do to improve
academic outcomes, omitting a very important one—parental involvement with
schools—and adding an irrelevant one—the amount of homework assigned by
teachers—and comes up with a dazzling display of addition to imply that
parents are more responsible for academic success than schools.

Obviously, academic success is not based simply on the five factors he lists.
What about teacher certification and training, the curriculum, efficient use of
class time, classroom instruction, class size, feedback on homework, pedagogy,
classroom discipline, teacher absences, tutoring, after school programs, and on
and on? Do these have less to do with academic outcomes than single-parent
households with trash novels for kids to read while watching vampire slayer
shows and skipping school occasionally? Give me a break. Mr. Almond needs to
rewrite his equation before he does the addition. (BTW, a day’s worth of PBS
programs is as good, if not better, than a day’s worth of school for many
students.)

I agree that parents have influence over academic success, but let’s not get
carried away and make insinuations and contrived arguments to make the point.
Schools need to better utilize parents in ways they are interested in being
involved.

Mr. Almond not only attacks parents but he insinuates that the charter school
might be doling out unearned A’s. He gives no evidence to back up this damning
insinuation. What kind of educated person would do that? A professional teacher?

Actually, making up evidence to prove points seems to be a specialty of some
educators. In the face of a
true case of homework injustice related to the absence of a S-G Board member’s
child, I saw and heard S-G Teacher Union President Patricia Johnson trump
the injustice with pure speculation. She reported that one of her students (not
the board member’s child) told her just before class that he had a doctor’s
appointment and couldn’t attend. Pat said that when she came out of class 40
minutes later she saw the student in the hallway. She concluded the student lied
to get out of class. Maybe, but it’s not that difficult to get in and out of a
Scotia doctor’s office within 40 minutes. Rather than get the facts, too many
educators are too willing to manufacture falsehoods or engage in suppositions to
support their positions and beliefs. It’s highly unprofessional.

Mr. Almond says if he were running a charter school he might dole out unearned
A’s to keep parents happy. I think that says a lot more about Mr. Almond’s
character than it does about the practices at the charter school.

It may or may not be the case that the charter school is engaged in grade
inflation, but I seriously doubt he has any evidence of that. On the other hand,
there is evidence that public
schools are engaged in grade inflation to bolster their images and budget
support in the name of motivating students and avoiding conflicts with parents,
and I doubt, though I have no evidence, that Schenectady City Schools have
completely avoided this trend. Indeed, from Ms. Lovett’s letter, it appears the
city is willing to pass failing students.

Mr. Almond’s editorial demonstrates some of the shortcomings of public schools,
not the least of which are to be reasonable, to be accountable and to be
truthful and not make up stuff about parents and charter schools.

It would be wonderful to give Mr. Almond an "A," but, as in life
itself, there is a wide range of teacher editorial capabilities.

In response to the article that appeared in the Nov. 20 issue regarding the
charter school, I am very upset with the Schenectady school Superintendent, Dr.
John Falco.

I have had a child in the Schenectady school system for the past six years and
been practically begging the school for help for him, and to date, have been
ignored. The Schenectady school system just pushes the kids through, whether or
not they know the material that is being taught.

Previously, my child should have failed, but the school system would not hold
him back because their belief is that it "hurts a child’s self
esteem." Does it make a child feel secure when he/she can’t read, write or
add?

Because the system is failing my oldest child, I decided to enroll my two
younger children in the charter school. I couldn’t be more delighted. When my
second-grader was in the Schenectady school system, he wasn’t taught how to read
or sound out letters. Now, my second-grader has excelled as well as my
kindergartner. My second-grader is a straight "A" student (on his own
merit, thank you), and my kindergartner is beginning to read thanks to a
fantastic program that the charter school has in place.

Dr. Falco, you have absolutely no right to criticize the best thing that has
ever happened to Schenectady. By firsthand experience, I can say that
Schenectady schools are failing our children, and so far, the charter school is
living up to its promise. Give our future (which happens to be our children) a
chance for a much better education than Schenectady’s system could ever provide.

LANA LOVETT
Schenectady

Charter school plans to grow
Portable rooms sought in Sch’dy
By MARY MARTIALAY / Gazette
Reporter
11/20/02

SCHENECTADY - The International Charter School is planning for an expansion to
425 students next year, according to Director Lillian Turner.

On Friday, the charter school will apply for grant money to lease portable
modular classrooms.

Turner said the units, which would go behind the current school building on
Eleanor Street in Bellevue, are one possibility to accommodate the expansion.
The charter school may also consider adding permanent space or expanding at
another site.

About eight classrooms should be needed, said Robert Giordano, a business
development director for SABIS Educational Systems Inc., the school’s parent
company.

Giordano said he did not know how much money the charter school would ask for,
or how much money would be needed to lease the portable units.

City district Superintendent John Falco said he questions the charter school’s
ability to recruit enough children to reach maximum enrollment.

Falco also said any change to the school building, which the district leases to
the charter school, must first be approved by Schenectady voters.

* * *

"We don’t have room for any more classes, there’s no room for a special ed
classroom, conference rooms, we don’t even have a teachers’ lounge," said
Turner.

As part of the lease agreement with the district, the charter school agreed to
limit its enrollment during its first three years. This year’s maximum was 300
children. Next year it will be 425.

"We’re hoping to go right up to 425," said Turner. To do that, Turner
said the charter will begin a recruitment campaign in June.

That campaign may employ all the methods of its original drive, including radio
ads, billboards, and door-to-door fliers.

But Falco said he doubts the charter school can muster 175 more children, and he
even questioned the current enrollment figures.

"Right now, we’re paying for 230, and a good part of that is on good
faith," he said. "They’re lucky if they’ve attracted 130," from
the city’s public schools.

Charter schools are publicly funded, but privately run. Under state law, the
school district had to set aside close to $2 million to pay for students to
attend the charter school this year.

Falco said the charter has "a long way to go" before it can put the
units behind the school building.

"This is very serious business," said Falco. "That property
belongs to the city of Schenectady. It doesn’t belong to a profit-making company
from a foreign country." Sabis was founded in Lebanon as a school for
Americans and others there.

It’s
clear that Falco dislikes the charter school. However, his raising of
nationalistic prejudices over an issue of classroom space for students
demonstrates his desperation and lack of good judgment. Rather than address the
issue positively, as school insiders always insist parents and the community do
for public school needs, he reaches into the bottom of the barrel for bias and
prejudice. Dr. Falco is doing some great things in Schenectady, but this remark
was illogical and callous.

Any changes to the building would have to be approved by voters during the
district’s budget vote in May, he said.

NY’s performance on national math and reading tests is not
nearly as impressive as on the state’s own tests.  In general, half as many
students pass the national tests and the rate of improvement is half that
reported by the state Education
Department.

In a long series of commentaries on NY’s exams, culminating in
"Nine
Commentaries on NY K-12 Exams: Testing to the Results," I have warned
that NY’s academic performance was not increasing as rapidly as claimed in press
releases.  Changes in exam content, cutoff scores and scale scores, among
others, created the appearance of improvement, which I estimated to be only
about half the amount advertised.  NY’s NAEP results substantially confirm
this.  

Although the Education Commissioner, Richard P. Mills, has
championed the standards movement which has somewhat, though far from greatly,
improved academics, he has let his responsibility to lead and motivate public
schools trump his duty to be completely honest and forthcoming about the causes
for rising test scores.   While always declaring "we have a long
way to go," he generally attributes rising scores to the hard work of
teachers knowing that other factors are in play, which, if publicly known, would
likely undermine confidence in the results reported.  This must stop. 
When changes are made to exams, cutoff scores or scale scores, these changes
must be explained in the press releases that report exam results.  The
people who pay the bills, students and educators deserve to be told the whole
truth and nothing but the truth.

With a panel of 5 graphs, located here,
I compare NY’s pass rate on state exams to its pass rate on national
exams.  The bottom line is that New Yorkers should be especially cautious
in relying on state Education Department data to assess the strength of our
students’ academic abilities and the rates at which they are increasing–if at
all.

By Laura Walsh, Associated
Press Writer
Originally posted April
14, 2004

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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your salary to any teacher’s

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.

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.

Experts dissatisfied with P.E. classes
By Colin Fly, Associated Press Writer via the Boston
Globe
January 17, 2005

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — As American children grow fatter and more out of shape,
physical education classes are being found wanting. Experts say there’s little
accountability for P.E. teachers in most schools. They say the classes are often
poorly run, and students don’t spend much time in them anyway.

How
nice of them to finally notice.

Lisa Lewis, a health professor, heard her two sons talk about how bad their high
school P.E. class was, so she went to see for herself.

You
couldn’t do that at Scotia-Glenville. I
couldn’t even visit a noisy study hall in the cafeteria. Parents are
considered as disruptive to the "learning" environment.

"It’s been terrible," she said. The teacher was a basketball coach,
and "that’s basically all they did — play basketball between 40 and 50
kids." Many students, especially those who weren’t athletic, just stood on
the sidelines of the disorganized game.

Sounds
like archery
class.

Nearly one-fifth of all high school P.E. teachers don’t have a major and
certification in physical education, according to the most recent numbers from
the National Center for Education Statistics.

Who
really cares? Any former Marine can run a P.E. class. Give me a break.

* * *

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that in 2003, only 28
percent of high school students nationwide attended a daily P.E. class, but 38
percent watched television for three hours or more each school night.

While 71 percent of the nation’s freshmen were in P.E. at least one day a week
– hardly enough to be effective, experts say — those numbers drop to 40
percent by the students’ senior year.

But participation varies widely by state. In Tennessee, for instance, only 18
percent of seniors were enrolled in a P.E. class, while New York has better than
90 percent participation.

90%
participation every other day doing what? You can call it P.E. class but if
students seldom break a sweat, what good is it? Thank God for Tae Kwon Do, where
my daughter did significant stretching, running, push-ups, jumping jacks and
other exercises, on top of discipline and character building martial arts, on
top of lessons to obey and honor parents, work hard in school and keep her room
clean! You tell me why public schools can’t do it but private sector businesses
without certified teachers can.

The National
Association for Sport and Physical Education says Illinois is the only state
that requires daily physical education K-12, while Alabama requires it for K-8.

In California, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, New York, South Carolina and Vermont,
accountability standards are being developed for health and physical education
programs.

"Unless we hold physical education teachers accountable for the fitness of
the student … there’s no way to evaluate who is good or who is bad because
we’re more concerned with math and reading," Lewis said. "There needs
to be some sort of minimal national fitness standard — that would be a very
easy thing to establish."

The
CDC and the President’s Council on Fitness and Sports have published fitness
standards for years. I wonder why the professionals haven’t been able to find
them? Or why they’ve ignored them? See this
article.

Some schools have done just that — like the Victor Central School District just
outside Rochester in Victor, N.Y.

Superintendent Timothy J. McElheran said his teachers are held to specific goals
and judged like any math or science teacher would be.

"It’s no longer the coach with the whistle around his neck," he said.
"Our physical education teachers are highly trained professionals."

What
a goofball! As if a coach with a whistle is incapable of devising and executing
a program that includes stretching, strength building and a cardiovascular
workout.

Honestly, if it takes highly trained professionals to achieve fitness we have
surely declined into a society of helplessness and dependency. I don’t know how
our ancestors ever found the strength to climb down from their trees without the
help of highly trained professionals. Maybe they fell out of the trees and
that’s why we’re here.

Victor’s nationally recognized program includes rock-climbing, kayaking,
cross-country skiing, archery and aerobic dance as options for students.

There
it is, folks. Archery. Within this particular mix of P.E. activities, it might
be acceptable. But really, when students meet every other day for P.E., every
class has to have a cardiovascular workout.

Torrey Pines students roll strikes for credit
By Sherry Parmet / SAN
DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
November 13, 2004

CARMEL VALLEY – One of this year’s newest PE offerings at Torrey Pines High
School is popular for obvious reasons: Students don’t have to suit up in gym
clothes, run laps, be big, tall or even athletic to land a spot on a team.

Bowling has lured more than 60 students, who say it’s the coolest alternative to
the widely despised gym classes.

"It’s such a chill class," said junior Taylor Yuhl. "It’s like
something I’d do on the weekends, so I don’t want to ditch."

* * *

A small but growing number of colleges offer full or partial scholarships for
bowlers, including the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Central Missouri State
University.

Torrey Pines students must complete two years of physical education, which
includes one year of a traditional gym class for most teenagers. An
ever-increasing list of elective PE offerings fulfill the second year
requirement and includes such classes as skateboarding, surfing, racquetball and
field hockey.

Senior Kyle Wilson said because he enrolled in some rigorous Advanced Placement
classes this year, he wanted to lighten his load by adding bowling to the mix.

"It’s relax time," he said.

Many students say bowling is the first sport they have ever been good at.

And it’s nothing like gym class.

Taylor said, "We don’t have to run around a track, and we can get food if
we want while we’re playing."

A snack bar sells cheeseburgers, chili dogs, cheese sticks and deep fried
mushrooms. Although some students forgo the more fattening fare.

* * *

The class meets every other day from 10 a.m. to 11:55 a.m. and students provide
their own transportation to the bowling alley.

* * *

That’s
nice. I wonder how many overweight bowlers there are? I wonder how many can’t
run a 10-minute mile without being completely winded and exhausted. Middle and
high school students should be at the peak of their physical fitness. They
aren’t going to get there by having PE classes like bowling and archery.
Every PE class should qualify as a complete workout to achieve and
maintain top fitness. From Fitness
Fundamentals (Developed by the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and
Sports):

Folks, bowling is a "cool down" exercise. It should never be
the main exercise of a PE class. Schools are spending more and more money to
provide students with less fitness. It’s ridiculous. Stretching, situps, pushups
and running around the track produce better fitness at no additional cost to
schools.