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THE COST OF EDUCATING BORDER-CROSSING CHILDREN
Thousands of Mexican children are flocking across the U.S. border to
attend school, sparking a debate in towns along the border over
whether U.S. taxpayers should have to bear the costs of educating
them. The border crossing is so common in El Paso, Tex., reports the
Associated Press, that officials opened a special lane just for
students this month. The influx has prompted complaints from those
opposed to spending U.S. tax dollars to teach students from Mexico.
The issue is especially timely in El Paso, where the school district
-- which expects to take in 10,000 new students in the next five to
eight years -- is preparing for a $230 million bond election for new
schools next month. Elaine Hampton, a professor at the University of
Texas-El Paso, says the strained state of public education in Mexico
pushes many students across the Rio Grande, just as the hope of
better jobs entices their parents. The growth of Mexican border
towns like Ciudad Juarez far outpaces the government's ability to
build schools, Hampton said, forcing many to turn away students.
Mexican schools also can be too expensive for some parents, charging
fees for books, photocopies and sometimes even the cost of
administering a test. Although many school officials are unhappy
about the situation, they say there are few ways to control the
number of Mexican residents attending their schools. As long as a
parent or guardian has proof of residency in that school district --
such as a water bill or lease -- their child can attend. Many of the
students were born in U.S. hospitals, making them U.S. citizens who
live in Mexico. Others use the addresses of American friends or
relatives. Community pressure has pushed other districts to crack
down on those who violate residency requirements.
COMFORTABLE CLASSROOMS: STUDENTS DON’T HAVE TO SQUIRM TO LEARN
Many of the places where vital teaching occurs, if not designed
expressly for physical torment, are infamously uninviting. Most
public schools today are 20th century adaptations of the schools in
the original American colonies. In the industrial version of
schools, students became products to be passed from grade to grade
until sufficiently educated to work in a factory. School buildings
reflected this ultimate goal, with classroom after similar classroom
aligned along each side of a corridor, and regimental rows of hard
chairs symbolizing strict attention and serious purpose. Nothing
about the industrial school model required comfort as a precondition
for success. In fact, school comfort, through the introduction of
seemingly superfluous elements, was often seen to militate against
the high ideal of efficiency. Even though no research or evidence
supports this idea, a myth persists to this day that an
uncomfortable school is probably good because it creates
self-disciplined kids, not pampered softies. A considerable body of
research about environmental design shows the positive effect
comfort can have on learning, human productivity and creativity. In
this Edutopia article, Prakash Nair and Randall Fielding argue for
greater investments in softer seating, cleaner and fresher air,
noise controls, adaptive and flexible learning spaces, access to
healthy food, smaller learning communities, and creating
environments where students can feel both secure and significant.
NATION’S WOEFUL LACK OF MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
FOR CHILDREN
The editors of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel offer three facts to
keep in mind when weighing whether security aides should be allowed
to use plastic handcuffs on unruly students in Milwaukee Public
Schools:
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1.
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The aides already are restraining students. The aides sit
on them or otherwise hold them down until police arrive; |
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2.
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Students already are leaving school in metal handcuffs.
Police called to disturbances often use the restraints in making
arrests; and |
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3.
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The need for the restraints is a symptom of a huge
problem that exceeds the schools' scope: the lack of mental health
services for troubled children, whose ranks appear to be swelling. |
The
problem transcends board of education policy. The state and the
nation must make the mental health of children a top priority.
The handcuffs could be safer for all concerned than the present
methods of restraint by security aides -- sitting on students
could lead to dangerous chest compression -- and the use of
handcuffs in schools would not be all that novel. Schools must
guard against overuse of the restraints. They must serve only as
a last resort for out-of-control students, never as punishment.
Milwaukee Public Schools suffer because of the dereliction of
other institutions. Federal and state government must step up
funding for mental health services. The Madison-based Wisconsin
Family Ties says nearly 90,000 school-age children statewide
have serious mental health disorders and that most of them are
not receiving the help they need. Executive director Hugh Davis
blames, in large part, lack of government funding. Treating
mental problems at a young age would save society both money and
trouble later.
ENGAGING CITIZENS IN THE PROCESS OF
EDUCATIONAL IMPROVEMENT
Drawing on three years of field research and extensive theoretical
and empirical literature, “Democratic Dilemmas” chronicles the
day-to-day efforts of educators and laypersons working together to
advance student learning in two California school districts. Julie
A. Marsh reveals how power, values, organizational climates, and
trust played key roles in these two districts achieving vastly
different results. In one district, parents, citizens, teachers, and
administrators effectively developed and implemented district wide
improvement strategies; in the other, community and district leaders
unsuccessfully attempted to improve system wide accountability
through dialogue. The book highlights the inherent tensions of
deliberative democracy, competing notions of representation,
limitations of current conceptions of educational accountability,
and the foundational importance of trust to democracy and education
reform. It further provides a framework for improving
community-educator collaboration and lessons for policy and
practice.
Read the first chapter for free at the above link.
ILL-INFORMED DECISION-MAKING FOR SOME
PROVISIONS OF NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
Supplemental Education Services, a key component of the No Child
Left Behind (NCLB) act, has been adopted and implemented without any
systematic research or scrutiny, notwithstanding potential problems
that call out for investigation, according to a new report from the
Education Policy Research Unit and the Education and the Public
Interest Center. The policy brief, by professor Patricia Burch of
the University of Wisconsin-Madison, examines the supplemental
education services (SES) provision of NCLB, which requires school
districts to pay the cost of after-school tutoring services for
eligible students attending schools that have failed to meet
mandated Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) benchmarks three years in a
row. Those schools must set aside up to 20 percent of their Title I
funds to pay for tutoring services provided by state-approved
operators. These operators are a mixture of for-profit or nonprofit,
public or private firms. The report finds that SES programs have low
participation rates and offer limited services for English Language
Learners and special education students. It also finds that states
and school districts lack the capacity to offer significant
monitoring or accountability for SES programs-in stark contrast to
the NCLB law's strict accountability measures applied to the schools
themselves. But the key finding of this report is essentially a
non-finding: the overwhelming absence of evidence to support (or
refute) the wisdom of the SES policy. The report states, "existing
research offers little information about specific conditions that
support positive outcomes" from supplemental education services
provided under the law. "To make well-informed decisions in the
future, policy makers will require additional empirical evidence."
The report recommends policy makers redesign NCLB to commission
federally funded evaluations that assess the effects of SES on
student achievement and the access of at-risk students to SES
programs; it also offers concrete recommendations for amending NCLB
to assist local school districts and state education agencies in
administering SES programs. Burch also recommends that policy makers
examine and reconsider "NCLB's apparent tension between the
high-stakes accountability imposed on schools and the more limited
measures for holding SES providers accountable for their
contributions to student achievement."
SCHOOL LUNCHES DEPEND ON FAUX JUNK FOOD
Dominated by doughnuts, pizza and foods-on-a-stick, the average
school menu in West Virginia can read like the offerings at a
glutton's dream buffet. While the food choices may appear unhealthy,
administrators say they are sneaking in nutrition to combat
childhood obesity in a state where 13.7 percent of children were
overweight in 2005. In schools across the state, fat and calories
are being cut by furtively supplementing hamburgers with soy and
subbing applesauce for shortening in cake. "We get a lot of
criticism for serving pizza so often, but the cheese is low fat and
the crust is whole grain," said Richard Goff, director of the state
Department of Education's Office of Child Nutrition. The faux junk
food push is the nutritional equivalent of making airplane noises
while zooming a spoonful of food into a child's mouth: a dressy
distraction intended to get children to clean their plates, writes
Shaya Tayefe Mohajer for the Associated Press. While the faux junk
food movement may be an appropriate stepping stone to healthy
eating, some nutritionists say it could establish bad habits. Ann
Cooper, director of nutrition services at Berkeley Unified School
District in California, said she is appalled that a meal of chicken
nuggets, tater tots, chocolate milk and fruit cocktail with high
fructose corn syrup meets the nutritional requirements under the
national school lunch program. "We don't need to put tricks into
food, it's just another processing mechanism and that is not
enough," Cooper said.
WHICH CHILDREN BELONG IN SPECIAL EDUCATION?
Many children in special education classes may not belong there, the
government says. A new policy is aimed at intervening early with
intensive teaching to give struggling students a chance to succeed
in regular classrooms and escape the ''special ed'' label. There are
nearly seven million special education students in the United
States, and roughly half have learning disabilities. Most of those
are reading related, such as dyslexia or problems in processing
information. The Bush administration, following passage of a broad
special education law, issued rules in October that rewrote the way
schools determine if a child has a learning disability. States have
largely relied on a 1970s-era method that looks for disparities
between a child's IQ and achievement scores. The diagnosis of a
learning disability is often made around 4th grade, reports the
Associated Press. At younger ages IQ tests are seen as less
reliable, and it often takes that long for severe achievement
problems to become apparent. But that, critics say, is a
wait-to-fail approach. They point to research showing that
intervening early can make it easier for children to overcome their
problems.
EVERY ENGLISH SCHOOLCHILD GRANTED A FREE
TICKET TO A CLASSICAL MUSIC CONCERT England's eight
top symphony orchestras are jointly promising that they will give
every schoolchild free entry to a classical music concert. The goal
is part of a 10-year plan to promote classical music, which includes
a prize for budding composers. The organizers fear that with a
crowded curriculum and tight budgets, music easily gets squeezed out
of timetables. They say it enriches children's lives, teaches the
value of sustained effort and can help disruptive youngsters. The
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra's principal conductor, Marin Alsop,
said: "When I was a kid, I was a bit of a troublemaker. Then I
started taking violin lessons. What it did for me was it gave me a
feeling of self-esteem because I did something that was unique.” A
spokesperson for the Department for Education and Skills agreed that
as well as being a worthwhile activity for its own sake, music was
"a powerful learning tool which can build children's confidence,
teamwork and language skills". "A better musical education for
pupils can also help them hit the right note in their studies," a
spokesman said. Among other things, the government has announced
significant new funding to boost music education, especially school
singing, both in and out of school hours.
LEARNING TO WRITE SUCCESSFUL MINI-GRANT
PROPOSALS CAN LEAD TO MAJOR GRANTS
Think of a mini-grant as any grant under $5,000, but you can use
your own definition. The important thing to understand is that many,
many corporations and foundations have mini-grant programs. Visiting
the websites of corporations and foundations in your city, county,
and state, before researching grants opportunities elsewhere, will
alert you to the funding opportunities that are out there for the
asking. Now all you have to do is write the grant flawlessly, writes
fundraising guru, Stan Levenson, in the current issue of Campus
Technology. Regardless of the size of the grant opportunity, there
are six basic components to any grant application -- including the
mini-grant. According to Levenson, no application should be without:
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An assessment of how your efforts will meet an important
unmet need; |
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Well-articulated goals and benchmarks for success; |
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Clear program and process objectives; |
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Detailed methods and activities to be funded by the
grant; |
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Specific evaluation framework; and |
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A detailed and credible budget. |
HOW MANY STUDENTS REALLY GRADUATE FROM
AMERICA’S HIGH SCHOOLS?
“Understanding High School Graduation Rates”, a new publication
from the Alliance for Excellent Education, illustrates the
discrepancies in graduation rates reported by government and
independent sources, examines why this is important, and
explains how certain federal policies have contributed to the
graduation rate confusion. “Misleading graduation rate
calculations, inadequate systems to track students throughout
their education, and lack of accountability by the school are
undermining efforts to understand and increase the nation’s
graduation rate,” says Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for
Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. The
new report compares graduation rates reported by the states and
the U.S. Department of Education to those reported by
independent researchers. While the average difference between
state and independent sources is about 13 percent, the gap
ranges from a low of 4 percent to a high of 32 percent.
Additionally, the report considers the costs of the dropout
crisis and identifies three core areas that are fundamental to
calculating, reporting, and improving accurate graduation rates:
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The need for all states to use the same accurate
graduation rate calculations; |
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The need for a state data system that tracks individual
student data from the time students enter the educational system until
they leave it; and |
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3.
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The need for federal policy that meaningfully holds high
schools accountable for improving student achievement on test scores and
increasing graduation rates so that low-performing students are not
unnecessarily held back or encouraged to leave school without a diploma.
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SCHOOLS BANNING iPODS TO BEAT CHEATERS
Banning baseball caps during tests was obvious -- students were
writing the answers under the brim. Then, schools started
banning cell phones, realizing students could text message the
answers to each other. Now, schools across the country are
targeting digital media players as a potential cheating device.
Devices including iPods and Zunes can be hidden under clothing,
with just an earbud and a wire snaking behind an ear and into a
shirt collar to give them away, school officials say. Some
students use iPod-compatible voice recorders to record test
answers in advance and then play them back, reports Rebecca
Boone for the Associated Press. Others download crib notes onto
the music players and hide them in the "lyrics" text files. Even
an audio clip of the old "Schoolhouse Rock" take on how a bill
makes it through Congress can come in handy during some American
government exams. "Trying to fight the technology without a
dialogue on values and expectations is a losing battle," Tim
Dodd said. "I think there's kind of a backdoor benefit here. As
teachers are thinking about how technology has corrupted,
they're also thinking about ways it can be used productively."
GAY-STRAIGHT ALLIANCES ARE TAKING HOLD IN
MIDDLE SCHOOLS
Harassment. Name-calling. Physical assault. Getting slammed into
lockers. Taunted in the hallways. Tormented in the bathrooms. For
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) teens, school
can be a battleground. In fact, LGBTQ students, as well as students
perceived by peers to be gay, are the most common targets of
harassment at school. That harassment can reach its most fevered
pitch in middle school, writes Carrie Kilman in Teaching Tolerance
magazine. Anti-gay harassment has prompted the widespread growth of
gay-straight alliances. Commonly called GSAs, these student-run
clubs create safe spaces for gay youth and their allies; most clubs
also organize campus wide events to increase the acceptance of
marginalized groups and reduce anti-gay bullying. Most GSAs are part
social, part support, and part leadership development. Research
findings are creating a wake-up call, prompting school
administrators to pay closer attention to anti-gay harassment.
Alarmingly, only eight states prohibited harassment based on sexual
orientation, and seven states criminalized any positive mention of
LGBTQ issues or people in the classroom.
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SPEAKS
The American Association of School Administrators (AASA) has
released “The Public School Speaks”, a new DVD that shines a light
on the importance of public education and makes a case for increased
financial and public support for our nation’s public schools. The
DVD is component in AASA’s Stand Up for Public Education campaign, a
multiyear effort to support high-quality public education. The
Public School Speaks is based on an article written by renowned
public education advocate Frosty Troy for AASA’s The School
Administrator magazine. As Troy wrote, “I am your public school, a
200-year-old experiment that has given America the strongest economy
in world history. We are 88,000 buildings in more than 14,000
districts. And we are as diverse as this great country. Last fall I
embraced more than 48 million children. For most of them, I am their
only hope for future success. Thanks to the vision of our forebears,
America had a 100-year head start on every other nation in creating
universal free public education. Today, even with all its flaws, it
is the finest system in the industrial world. I leave no child
behind, but some of you would dim my lights, leaving in the shadows
the poor, the blind, the lame and the developmentally disabled. The
Government Accountability Office says a third of my buildings are in
desperate need of repair. A third of my buildings lack wiring
sufficient to teach computer science, yet no help is forthcoming.
Rather, some would use public school dollars to construct new forms
of theocratic education. Do as you will, but as for me, I will stand
proudly in my neighborhood, America's last egalitarian institution,
my arms embracing the finest educators, administrators and support
personnel in the world -- dedicated to helping our children realize
the American dream.” More information about The Public School
Speaks, including a 30-second preview, is available at the above
link. |
