Tim:

Are you saying that high expectations correlate with high success? All I have to say is when we as a nation expected to come out of the depression and win World War II, we did. When we had high expectations to go to the moon, we did. When we had high expectations to defeat communism, we did.

Where are the high expectations for our schools? Despite NCLB's flaws, it's the only body of law at any level that sets high expectations. We need to do some things at the local level as well to start setting high expectations.

1. We should ask our district to turn every school into a fundamental school where parents and teachers must sign a contract of commitment.

2. We should set the goal today that every school should be a distinguished school.

It's time to get rid of low expectations in education. If we can go to the moon and defeat communism, we should certainly expect and demand high-performing schools.

Scott

I'll bet we're not going to like the answer to the question of the School District that POSTS these standards and has these expectations for their kids.

Tim,
Just because these expectations are not on the web site of a district does not mean they do not exist. That's like saying if the district does not post the lunch menu on their web site, that the kids are not getting lunch. So if a school district does not have a web site does that mean there must not be a school district? Hey I know, lets have the expectation that Arnold will keep the promise he made last year to schools, then it will happen, right? Lets have the expectation that Arnold will not waste 80 million taxpayer dollars on a special election. Lets have the expectation that instead of wasting 4 billion dollars a week in Iraq, to enrich the aerospace industry, that we will instead use that money to invest in America and its people. With NCLB why is the federal government getting involved in public education when by the Constitution this is a states right? Don't you guys support the Constitution? Arleigh

Scott, the sad truth is that many parents don't care about fundamenmtal schools, from middle school to high school. Some parents don't have the time or the inclination to even check on the kid's progress every week. Teachers spend time filling out progress reports that don't get read. I personally know parents that are more interested in the sports program at the school than its academic program. More parents can quote the teams win/loss stats than can quote the academic score. Parents are shocked when thay find out during their kid's senior year that the kid is not going to be able to go to UCLA, Berkeley, or (fill in the blank). No matter what some parents say, they are not really engaged in school. If asked to sign a "contract of commitment" many, many would decline. All they care about is good grades. If their student is getting a good grade in a class, the teacher is brilliant; if the student is getting a poor grade, the teacher is an idiot. I hear it every day.

Jerre:

You raise many great points about the current system and the different challenges parents face. The first part is stating reality; the second step is finding solutions. However, I would say that just because that is the reality does not indicate that the system should continue to encourage such behavior on the part of parents.
Successful schools always have one common denominator in that parents are involved and engaged in their child's success. This is very similar to the "broken window theory" in policing. The more involved communities are in public safety, the safer the community. Once a community begins to accept broken windows, graffiti remains up for months, and neighborhoods begin to allow criminal elements to operate without complaint, we begin to see increases in crime. Toleration of poor behavior leads to further poor behavior because one has implicitly allowed such behavior to continue and degrade.

We have a school system now where teachers, principals, and school administrators want parental involvement, but aren't getting it. That's reality as you have stated. What I am talking about is changing that reality to raise parental participation.

I don't believe we should water down our standards because some parents have poor parenting skills or don't care. We should not excuse parents out of their responsibilities anymore. The school system should not be an enabler for such behavior just as a police system should not reinforce criminal behavior in a community.

I think this is kind of like saying because some students don't do their homework; we are going to get rid of homework for everyone.

As far as progress reports are concerned, I think we need to change that system as well. Teachers spend way too much time filling out the required amount of paperwork that it undermines their ability to focus on the curriculum and lesson plan delivery. We should look to technology to simplify it. Having grown up with a teacher as a parent, I've seen a district mandate on progress reports a minimum amount of comments.

Imagine, if you will, a requirement for over 200 middle schoolers progress reports that mandate at least 2-3 comment bubbles along with telling parents their student is failing, endanger of failing, satisfactory, or outstanding. This turns progress reports from simple feedback into Tolstoy's "War and Peace" for a teacher and undermines a teacher's ability to prepare lesson plans and implement the curriculum. The comment bubble philosophy may work at the elementary level where teachers have 36 or less kids, but at high school and middle school with over 200, I think we need to rethink this and use technology to simplify the process.

We used to have a saying in basketball. Let scorers score, rebounders rebound, and passers pass. Never let someone who does not have that skill set in a position do something they do not have a skill set for. I say, let teachers teach, administrators administer, and custodians manage the facilities.

Teachers didn't get up one day and say, I want to be a teacher so I can discipline kids. They went into teaching to develop kids. Yet, they spend more and more time disciplining because the system has watered down the rules for those that break them. Administrators didn't go into management to fill out useless forms; they went into it to run an effective school and see people succeed. When administrators are stuck in the bureaucratic morass of rules and regulations, they aren't managing, and when custodians represent the security of the school as they do now, they aren't managing the facilities. We have the best people doing what they are not best at. Is that the way any successful organization, private or public is run? I think not.

You may come back and say, we don’t want to create silo-thinking in the bureaucracy either. This is still a point and drawback I’m thinking about, so stay-tuned. I would appreciate feedback on these ideas. Have a great day.

Scott

Hear! Hear! You’ve laid out the issues far more eloquently than I could. Parental involvement is higher in elementary, then falls off by half in middle school, than falls by half again for high school. We all see it – the stands are packed for a football, basketball, or baseball game. If only those parents would take the same interest in academics. I don’t think I’ve given up on parents yet, but I have no idea right now how to kindle their interest. I do hope that some brilliant thoughts come to you and I hope that they can be shared with teachers and administrators. Please keep presenting you thoughts on the blog.
Jerre

Jerre:

It appears to me that Americans are at their best when they are competing. The best always seems to come out.

Back east, I would wake up every saturday morning and their was something called knowledge bowl each saturday morning. I think extracurricular competitions have been cut down and down for fear of hurting self-esteem, but I must say that if competitive juices like at a sporting event were sparked in chemistry or math, one would see improvements.

Maybe, we should even consider grading on the curve again... The faster students see that their is a scarcity of grades jsut as their is a scarcity of money in the real world, it may spark greater improvements and more investments from parents.

I am speaking off the cuff a little and I am sure this is coming off unrefined, but I know in other countries kids are competing for scarce seats at a higher level and it is fierce. People want to be the best and stand-out at something. We start turning our education system into real competition in the public square just like football and you may see parental involvement go up.

Right now, we have yet to infuse our system with very American traits like industry and self-reliance. Personally, I think our system does not celebrate achievement enough and it does not motivate our kids.

when he was speaker of the house, Newt Gingrich used to pay students in his Georgia district with his own salary to do well in math and science. His argument was if we can pay a student to flip burgers, we should start paying kids to perform in physics. What if the top ten kids in each district were paid stipends? Do you think it might trigger motivation a bit?

Maybe, it'll even get parents involved...

Any ideas on your end?

Scott

Scott,

I like the bold idea. I met with Newt Gingrich when he came to town a few months ago ( In LA) and brought some students with me. They got a kick out of the event. The guy always has new ideas. Like his new Health Care Plan with Hillary Clinton. But his own salary, was his government salary, yes?

And Tim. Arleigh's point about the federal government power over education is interesting. Democrats usually argue for more fed power/money. Whereas, the Republican Party under Ronald Reagan wanted to shut down the entire dept. of education completly. It sounds lime you like the federal role Bush has chosen over the Reagan role, yes?

Hey, Tim. I'm dying to know the school district web site that showed you the STANDARDS that each of their elementary school students was expected to master before they move on to middle school. What was it?

In response to Scott's thoughts of June 18, there are proven ways to combine learning and competition. On one of the issues Tim posted, I talked about my involvement with FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). The kids, with some direction from adult volunteers, build a robot from a couple of boxes of parts. Then they compete at the local level. If they do well, they move on to the national level, where typically 200 or more teams from around the country compete. That three days is absolutely crazy and it took me a full day to recover. What they learn about science, engineering, computers and technology in a few weeks could not be duplicated from a book in anywhere close to that time. They also learn about teamwork and cooperation, concepts necessary to get along in today's business world. It does take money to get involved, but I was able to fund a great deal of my team with corporate donations. I'm willing to lead a team from Simi Valley but it's going to take a lot of parent volunteers to do it. But I already know what needs to be done and how to pull it together. You should have seen me the first year! I managed to stay about one day ahead of where I needed to be! Each day brought some new something that I hadn't thought of. But it was a great experience and the kids loved it. One ended up at Berkeley because of his participation on the team. Most stayed with it until they graduated. A couple came back to mentor the team in a later year. I could go on. Anyhow, if there is expressed interest it is something I would be willing to lead for Simi schools.
Jerre

Read it and weep boys - here is the district wih the standards I mentioned at the start of this post.

http://www.leanderisd.org/District_School_Info/curriculum/standards/standards.html

Oh, and Arleigh: Looks like they post their lunch menu too! WPHEW - Wouldn't want anyone getting hungry! (Lunch services are outsourced - EDITOR)

Jerre,

That's a compelling idea, and one I would certainly be interested in pursuing with you. Is it just high schoolers, or do younger kids get involved?

How would we get started? Should we send a letter to the school board? Are there grants available for something like this?

I would think parents who work at any of the bio/ science companies with kids in Simi Schools would want to get involved. Maybe a combination of grants from Baxter, Amgen, Boeing and SVEF could get it kicked started (or launched?)

Let's do this!

Tim

Tim: First, I just looked at the Leander web site. You're the expert on websites but it looks pretty good to me -- well laid out and comphrensive.

Second, the FIRST program has two levels. At the high school level, the kids build the big robots that are remote controlled. There is also a program for the middle school level that is based on a special Lego robot kit. I brought this program to SVUSD a few years ago and they just did not take to it. Maybe with a new group of people it could be made into something.

Grants and cash donations from foundations and companies are the best source of funding. But I believe that the families involved need to make a financial commitment also -- not much, but enought to show commitment. If a group of parents and kids are interested in hearing about the programs, I would be glad to share my experiences. Go to http://www.usfirst.org/ to check out the programs. We'll talk.

Jerre