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June 28, 2006

Does Lou just have the Summer Blues?

Or is he right about education in America?

Dobbs: No summer vacation for our failing schools
By Lou Dobbs
CNN

Editor's note: Lou Dobbs' commentary appears every Wednesday on CNN.com.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- School's out in nearly every part of the country, and students are delightfully spilling into their summer vacations with little, if any, thought of what September will bring.

But for just about a third of all high school students in this country, summer brings no respite from the failure of our public education system. Those students have already dropped out of high school, and they have left behind nearly all hope of furthering their education and assuring individual prosperity.

The failure is not theirs alone, and we all bear responsibility for failing an entire generation of students in our public school system. We must understand that our educational crisis will have long-lasting and profound effects on our national future.

Our elected representatives and educational administrators all but refuse to acknowledge that high school graduation rates for American public schools were higher nearly 40 years ago than today. And while one-quarter of white high school students drop out of high school, the problem is magnified for blacks and Latinos, about half of whom drop out of high school, according to the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University and the Urban Institute.

There's no question the economic fallout of these astonishing dropout rates will be devastating. High school dropouts have much higher rates of poverty, imprisonment and welfare enrollment. Even if these dropouts can get a GED and a job in our increasingly credentialed workforce, today's high school dropouts will make at least 35 percent less than high school dropouts of a generation ago. Worse, of those who are fortunate enough to graduate, too many lack the skills to enter college.

But a high-school diploma or college degree is as important as ever in our society, where our federal government and corporate America have combined to launch a full-scale attack on the middle class. Workers without so much as a high-school diploma earn on average $18,734 a year, according to the Census Bureau, about $9,000 less than their counterparts who have graduated high school. Armed with a bachelor's degree, the average worker earns nearly three times as much as a high-school dropout.

Those numbers indicate the critical need to mount a national attack on the crisis that is far worse than administrators and educators have reported. Whether schools and their administrators are lying or cheating, or they're simply incompetent, matters little. Without independent educational studies, we would have no idea as to the depth of the crisis that faces our public school students in this country.

These so-called educators and administrators may be trying to keep the graduation numbers high so that they can meet the high standards of the No Child Left Behind initiative. While that initiative has not shown nearly as much success as its proponents and advocates had promised, it's done better than most of its critics and opponents would have you believe. In any event, the program offers far too little and lacks urgency in dealing with this crisis.

And we're not talking only about money. Ironically, the United States spends a larger percentage of its total GDP on educating its students than just about any other country in the world. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development statistics also show that we expend more money per student for primary and secondary education than almost any other nation. And while the Bush administration has changed the formula for Pell Grants, leading to negative cutbacks for prospective students, more than $60 billion in federal student loans will be distributed this year. That's why it's so difficult to solve this systemic problem.

But we do have reason to hope. There is a growing movement to hire quality teachers and pay those teachers what they deserve. Voters in Denver, Colorado, last November approved a dramatic change in the way teachers' pay is structured, opting to boost their own property taxes by $25 million in order to offer bonuses for improvement in classroom performance and incentive pay for teaching in the city's under-performing schools. Already, it's having a measurable impact, and other cities like Chicago, Illinois, and New York are planning initiatives.

And a bold new educational program called the Kalamazoo Promise has begun in Michigan. Under this plan, students will receive free tuition at Michigan's state-funded universities and community colleges if they enter the Kalamazoo school system at kindergarten and remain in that school system through the 12th grade, maintaining certain established grade levels. Other students will receive substantial help with their college tuition as long as they enter the public school system by the ninth grade. Incredibly, it's all being funded by anonymous donors, and they need to be commended for their efforts.

Certainly none of us has all the answers to fixing our failing schools. But here are a few thoughts, just to add to what I hope becomes a national effort to assure the quality education of the next generation:

It is time to restore absolute discipline to our public schools and classrooms to eliminate every extraneous program in kindergarten through eighth grade that does not focus on reading, literature, writing, American history and civics, mathematics and natural sciences.

We should begin to redress the compensation of all public school teachers to ensure that we have the very best and brightest educating our next generation. For me, that means paying teachers far more and demanding far more of them.

The role of the federal government should be to provide, no matter what the cost, a scholarship program that provides a family stipend to economically disadvantaged students who demonstrate exceptional intellect and talent.

All graduating seniors in the top 10 percent of their class should be assured federally funded national scholarships to pursue university educations in mathematics, science and English. And stipend programs should be instituted, conditional on an educational commitment to teach in our public schools after their college graduation.
With the July Fourth holiday weekend approaching, restoring quality education to our public schools will help assure that every American celebrates every day as Independence Day.

Posted by Tim Keaney at 12:06 PM

Comments (11)

June 22, 2006

Profile in Courage - Public Schools Style

I've said a lot of things in this blog over the last two years about the SVUSD. About their lack of planning, and their lack of long-term planning.

But what I have been saying PALES in comparison to what Trustee Stratton says this morning in the Ventura County Star - If you think parents need to read it, please pass it on.

Here is the link and here is the story:

School district fails its students
By Greg Statton
June 22, 2006

Failing to plan is planning to fail. An old adage that is universally recognized as one of the basic truths of management — except by the Simi Valley Unified School District board of trustees. And what's worse, not only will the district fail, many of the students will do so as well. These are the students who are taking Standardized Testing and Reporting this month and are not prepared for the new grade eight science test.

How does this happen? It started over a year ago. The state had adopted a new set of standards for eighth-grade science, standards that were based on a full year of science instruction. The district staff came to the board with the proposal to adopt a full year of science for our district — just as most of our neighbors have. That should have been a simple action.

But a few teachers of the elective classes came to the meeting and lobbied against the full-year science classes. It would have impacted enrollment in their classes. The science teachers, thinking this was a slam dunk, were not there. The board rejected the staff recommendation. Let the students take the test and well see how they do was the comment. By then, of course, it will be too late for those kids.

It is not rocket science to see what will happen. Half the kids take a full year of science. They should be fine. A quarter will take a full semester in the fall. Our science teachers have adjusted their curriculum to cover the full gamut required by the standards. That's a tough assignment, but it might work. The last quarter are taking a semester of science right now and will simply not get all the material covered adequately. Their scores will undoubtedly be lower. I apologize to those students and their parents. It is not their fault.

We will get the scores back in the fall, too late for that school year, so another class of students will be impacted. At best, we will be able to rectify this by the 2007-08 school year. That's assuming we can hire the additional science teachers we will need. Right now, we couldn't offer all of the eighth-graders a full year of science if they wanted it.

Understanding basic science is crucial in today's complex world. We spend an extra million dollars a year for science teachers to teach our fourth- through sixth-grade students. But then we throw it away in the eighth grade by shortchanging our students. I hope that the students don't get too discouraged by their scores. We just didn't prepare them.

— Greg Stratton, of Simi Valley, is a member of the board of trustees for the Simi Valley Unified School District.

---end---

Post your comments, and have a debate.

Tim

Posted by Tim Keaney at 09:41 AM

Comments (60)

June 20, 2006

Substitute "Brangelina" and she'd have been fine

A Las Vegas high school graduation ended with roars of protest after school officials turned the microphone off right in the middle of one of the valedictorian's speeches. The microphone cut out after the valedictorian at Foothill High made reference to God.

I can understand how officials must have wanted to protect the highly impressionable high schoolers who probably spent many high school hours watching "Pimp my ride" or other MTV tripe - but mention God and you are done for.

I thought we were suppose to embrace and support diversity?

Perhaps if we taught history and the constitution in schools, we could respect how diverse the founders expected us to be, when they wrote the first sentence of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

This young lady, the class valedictorian was clearly, freely expressing her belief that she was thankful to god for her blessings. Yep, there is no place for that in american schools - why wasn't she arrested?

Watch the video and read the story here, and then post a comment.

Perhaps, instead of saying "God", she had replaced it with "Pimped my diety", she would have been allowed to finish.

Tim Keaney

Posted by Tim Keaney at 09:52 AM

Comments (6)

June 19, 2006

13% of students are reading at grade level

For your discussion pleasure - what should be done with the LAUSD. You've got a liberal mayor, fighting liberal unions and an entrenched liberal school board.

Sounds like a recipe for progressive change doesn't it? I think not. Instead of writing statewide bond measures, maybe guys like Rob Reiner should run for the school board..

Click below to read the editorial from the WSJ - post your comments below!

Tim

L.A. Story
June 19, 2006; Page A14

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is a Democrat with impeccable liberal credentials who wants to fix his city's dreadful public schools. He has one big problem: He's meeting fierce resistance from the liberal Democrats who run the teachers unions, dominate the school board and control the state legislature.

That the Los Angeles Unified School District, the country's second-largest after New York, faces a crisis is hard to dispute. Some 81% of the district's middle school kids attend failing schools, which might be one reason that one in three eventually drops out. L.A. schools superintendent (and former Democratic Colorado Governor) Roy Romer dutifully notes that elementary math and reading scores have risen in recent years. But the fact remains that only 13% of students are reading at grade level, and 11% are at grade level in math. The only word for such results is horrifying.

Among minority students in the district, who comprise the vast majority, the situation is even worse. Last year, nine out of 10 black and Latino fourth-graders scored below proficiency in reading and math. Eighth-graders fared worse. Just 8% of black eighth-graders are proficient readers, and 7% are proficient at math. For eighth-grade Latinos, the numbers are 9% and 6%, respectively.

You might think that a Democratic mayor in a Democratic city would garner plenty of establishment support for fixing a system so poorly serving members of a traditional Democratic constituency. Think again. In April, Mr. Villaraigosa announced a school reform plan that calls for "more mayoral oversight for the purpose of ensuring accountability." His proposal has met nothing but denunciation from his fellow liberals.

Currently, public education in L.A. is controlled by an elected seven-member school board, which not only appoints the superintendent but also holds sway over everything from teachers contracts and budgets to curriculum, collective bargaining and the hiring and firing of principals. Under Mr. Villaraigosa's proposal, these core duties would be turned over to the superintendent, who would answer primarily to the mayor.

This is unacceptable to the United Teachers of Los Angeles, the local union that currently controls the school board by fielding candidates and financing what are low-turnout elections. The status quo is great for union power; it just doesn't do much for kids. But then again the unions long-ago put their own clout above education quality.

Mr. Villaraigosa also faces opposition in Sacramento, where the state legislature must ultimately approve any Los Angeles Unified reorganization. His opponents there are lawmakers who carry water for the California Teachers Association, the state teachers union, which is as fearful of these reforms as its local affiliate in L.A. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, Assembly Education Committee Chairwoman Jackie Goldberg "called mayoral control undemocratic and an oversimplification that would not fix the district's fundamental problem: its lack of money."

Never mind that the National Center for Education Statistics puts per-pupil spending in the district at more than $10,000, which is above both the state average of $8,700 and the national average of $9,300. Or that California teachers enjoy the best pay packages in the U.S. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who supports mayoral control, submitted a budget proposal this year that would amount to more than $11,000 for each K-12 student in the state. But if the Governor thinks the CTA, which savaged him in last year's special election, can be appeased monetarily, the Jackie Goldbergs of the state legislature should be a wake-up call.

As for Mr. Villaraigosa, it doesn't matter that he's a progressive Democrat, married to a public school teacher and himself a product of the labor movement who's fought on behalf of teachers unions. And it doesn't seem to matter that the top-down approach he's put forward has met with some success in other large urban school districts -- such as New York, Chicago, Denver, Boston and Philadelphia -- where it's been promoted largely by reform-minded Democrats over the strenuous objections of Democratic interest groups.

Mayoral control alone won't cure all that ails Los Angeles public schools, and Mr. Villaraigosa isn't arguing that it will. But introducing more accountability to a system that's failing children as badly as L.A.'s is a good place to start. And the fact that the liberal political establishment would fight one of its own to defend a status quo that is producing such atrocious results makes you wonder whether there's any education reform instinct left in the Democratic Party.

Posted by Tim Keaney at 11:51 AM

Comments (9)

June 15, 2006

Pomp & Circumstances

In the last few days, several posters have challenged me to tell them what's wrong with California's schools. I am happy for the challenge and will get to that post soon.

First off though, let's come up with what's right in California's schools:

1. Incredible, innovative teachers who come to work every day, work with passion, creativity and devotion to the kids who cross their threshold every day. I've met many and know many well.

2. Parents who dedicate their time, energy and resources to help the schools. Whether it's fundraising, helping in classrooms or cleaning the schools, many loving and dedicated parents go the extra mile.

3. Kids are amazing - they come to school, many too young, and many act like sponges lapping up every ounce they can learn. Kids come to school with hope, opportunity and promise.

4. Non-profit support organizations that dedicate time, money and innovative programs.

5. Voters - who time and again, vote to support education. Whether it's state funding, or local bonds, voters again and again speak with their wallets when it comes to education.

6. Special Ed and Intervention aides, who do the right thing every day, in many difficult circumstances, for little or no pay, and less recognition.

What do you think is right about California Schools? Post it here...

Posted by Tim Keaney at 08:57 PM

Comments (3)

June 13, 2006

How is YOUR district handling it?

Some districts are proactively helping kids pass the exit exam. Others are sitting on their hands, decrying the test as useless at bestm racist at worst...

Still others like Sacramento, actually have a plan:

Editorial: Do exit exam right
Sacramento schools show the way

Published 12:01 am PDT Tuesday, June 13, 2006
With graduation ceremonies in full swing, now is a good time to look at what schools are doing about students who have not passed the exit exam. The Sacramento City Unified School District is doing the right thing -- and should be a model for others.
Superintendent Maggie Mejia and a majority on the school board made it clear they were not interested in a "second-class diploma," giving students who do not pass the exit exam a "certificate of completion." Instead, they decided to focus on ways to ensure that all seniors get a real diploma.

In the Class of 2006, roughly 100 of the 2,400 students did not pass the exit exam. This is a small percentage, due in part to the district devising an individualized plan for each student. McClatchy High School had 30 seniors not passing, followed by Burbank with 26, Hiram Johnson with 16 and Kennedy with seven. At West Campus, all seniors passed. The new small high schools have done very well, with only one senior not passing at New Tech High. Genesis, a small school for struggling students, had six seniors not passing. With May test results coming soon, more students will pass and have a graduation ceremony in the fall.

Sacramento Unified has sent a letter to each parent offering students an August class to prepare for a fall retest. The letter also outlines other options for getting a diploma: remaining in school as a fifth-year senior, enrolling in Fremont Adult School's "high school diploma program" or enrolling in a general education program leading to a GED certificate.

For the Class of 2007, the school district is partnering with Sacramento ACT to provide mentors and do home visits with 11th-graders.

Most important, the district is targeting eighth-graders who have tested "below basic" on the California Standards Test. Without extra help now, those students are not likely to pass the exit exam on their first try in 10th grade. The district is offering a summer "Bridge Program" for these students.

In Sacramento, one-third of the students not passing in the Class of 2006 are English learners, many who have arrived in this country recently. Students coming from, say, Mexico, Russia or Laos as juniors may get credit for their courses that are like ours, but may need accelerated English intervention and a three-year plan. Other English learners who have had only intermittent education may need additional classes.

This is exactly what schools should be doing. In the past, without the exit exam, these students would have fallen through the cracks, sent out into the world without the skills they need to succeed. With the exit exam, that is changing -- for the better.

---end editorial---

Posted by Tim Keaney at 09:54 PM

Comments (4)

June 06, 2006

MEATHEAD!

The interesting thing about Prop 82 getting crushed tonight isn't that it's getting crushed, but rather, that over 40% of voters actually voted FOR IT.

I guess Californians:

1. Want k-12 fixed first
2. Don't want to increase taxes to increase preschool enrollment by 3%
3. Don't want to put private, park district and Boys/Girls club sponsored preschools out of business.
4. Don't think the County School Boards could handle more cash and bloated overhead
5. Don't want unionized preschool teachers...

Sorry meathead.... And way to go California!

Tim

Posted by Tim Keaney at 10:40 PM

Comments (33)

June 04, 2006

VIVA LA TAX DOLLARS!

Something is very wrong at La Academia Semillas del Pueblo,Here is a quote from their Principal Marcos Aguilar on "Brown vs. Board of Education"-

If Brown was just about letting Black people into a white school, well we don’t care about that anymore. We don’t necessarily want to go to white schools. What we want to do is teach ourselves, teach our children the way we have of teaching. We don’t want to drink from a white water fountain, we have our own wells and our natural reservoirs and our way of collecting rain in our aqueducts. We don’t need a white water fountain. So the whole issue of segregation and the whole issue of the Civil Rights Movement is all within the box of white culture and white supremacy. We should not still be fighting for what they have. We are not interested in what they have because we have so much more and because the world is so much larger. And ultimately the White way, the American way, the neo liberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction. And so it isn’t about an argument of joining neo liberalism, its about us being able, as human beings, to surpass the barrier.