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THE BEST & THE BRIGHTEST: PASSING THE TORCH OF
PUBLIC SERVICE
A mix of reasons can be blamed for the declining interest of
ambitious young people to fill federal jobs, including a negative
perception of government that has been building since the Vietnam
War, higher salaries in the corporate sphere, and a sense that
government agencies are bureaucratic jungles that resist innovation
and creative problem solving, says Max Stier, president of the
Partnership for Public Service. "Young Americans today, however, are
extraordinarily idealistic, they are the most active citizens in
recent history, and they are volunteering for community service at
record levels," he says. "The challenge is now to convert that
interest in community service into a similar commitment to
government service." To make matters more urgent, officials at the
U.S. Office of Personnel Management say one-third of the 1.8 million
federal employees will be eligible for retirement in five years,
creating a potential vacuum. Slow hiring procedures, coupled with a
reluctance by politically appointed federal-agency leaders to tackle
long-term hiring needs, could mean that government will eventually
lack enough skilled workers to approve new patents or medicines,
root out drug traffickers, administer to the needs of veterans, or
do many other tasks that keep the country running and moving
forward, says Stier. The government also faces plenty of competition
to fill those spots from other employers, notably charities, which
are stepping up their own efforts to recruit top-notch employees.
U.S. SPENDS AVERAGE OF $8,701 PER PUPIL ON
EDUCATION
The United States spent an average of $8,701 per pupil to educate
its children in 2005, according to the Census Bureau, with some
states paying more than twice as much per student as others. New
York was the biggest spender on education, at $14,119 per student,
with New Jersey second at $13,800 and the District of Columbia was
third at $12,979. Seven of the top 10 education spenders were
Northeastern states. The states with the lowest spending were Utah,
at $5,257 per pupil, Arizona at $6,261, Idaho at $6,283, Mississippi
at $6,575, and Oklahoma at $6,613 per student. The 10 states with
the lowest education spending were in the West or South. Overall,
the United States spent an average of $8,701 per student on
elementary and secondary education in 2005, up five percent from
$8,287 the previous year, the bureau said. Funding is largely a
state and local responsibility under the U.S. system, with 47
percent coming from state governments, 43.9 percent from local
sources and only 9.1 percent from the federal government. Students
in Northeastern and Northern states tend to perform better on
standardized tests than students in Southern and Southwestern
states. "It's not necessarily so that states with higher spending
have higher test scores," said Tom Loveless, an education policy
expert. Loveless said two areas where education spending might make
a difference were in teacher salaries and small class sizes for
first graders. But overall, Loveless said the relationship between
spending on education and test performance was not strong.
PRISON VS. EDUCATION SPENDING REVEALS
CALIFORNIA’S PRIORITIES
It has been said that a government's budget isn't only a statement
of priorities, but also a reflection of a society's values.
California's proposed budget reveals skewed priorities and hollow
values. For the first time, and unique among large states,
California will soon spend more on its prisons than on its public
universities. It has been projected that over the next five years,
the state's budget for locking up people will rise by nine percent
annually, compared with its spending on higher education, which will
rise only by five percent. By the 2012-2013 fiscal year, writes Maya
Harris in the San Francisco Chronicle, $15.4 billion will be spent
on incarcerating Californians, as compared with $15.3 billion spent
on educating the state’s citizens. More prison spending will mean
better pay for the highest paid, most politically influential prison
personnel in the nation, as well as more prisons, but no one is
certain it will result in a better corrections system. However,
there's no uncertainty about the benefits that flow from investing
in education. Nothing predicts future success better than a good
education, and nothing guarantees failure more than the lack of one.
The correlation between the lack of educational opportunities and
imprisonment could not be more direct. We not only continue to feed
the prison system at the expense of funding education, we've also
blurred the lines separating the educational and criminal justice
systems, creating a school-to-prison pipeline with a predictable and
steady flow. Police have become an increasing presence in our public
elementary, middle and high schools. Schools are spending millions
of dollars to hire their own police forces or contracting with local
authorities. Kids are routinely searched before being allowed into
the building, under surveillance by video cameras in hallways and
subjected to random searches of their backpacks and lockers.
THE
CONDITION OF EDUCATION 2007
High school students in the United States are taking more courses in
mathematics and science, as well as social studies, the arts, and
foreign languages, according to The Condition of Education 2007
report by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for
Education Statistics (NCES). The general increases in credits earned
since the early 1980s are, in large part, a product of more
graduates taking more advanced courses. The Condition of Education
is a congressionally mandated report that provides an annual
statistical portrait of education in the United States. The 48
indicators included in the report cover all aspects of education,
from student achievement to school environment and from early
childhood through postsecondary education. The report shows that
enrollment in U.S. public schools is becoming increasingly diverse.
Minority students make up 42 percent of public school enrollment.
Twenty percent of school-age children speak a language other than
English at home. The rate of college enrollment immediately after
high school increased from 49 percent in 1972 to 69 percent in 2005.
About three-quarters of the freshman class graduated from public
high schools on time in 2003–04.
YEARBOOK SHOWS TEEN DRINKING, SMOKING POT
Most likely to succeed? Try most likely to go to jail. The yearbook
for the high school in a town near Denver published photos of
students smoking marijuana and drinking beer, drawing ire from
parents and administrators. Hannah Fredrickson, the senior who
served as yearbook editor, said she regrets not balancing the
yearbook pictures of teenagers smoking pot with pictures of non-drug
users. She also said she is sorry about not warning her principal.
But she said people need to know what is going on. "The point of the
yearbook entirely is to cover what happens in the year," she told
KCNC-TV. "You'd be surprised at how many children at Conifer High
School smoke pot. I wanted to push more for a deeper side of
Conifer, which, for a lot of students, is drugs and alcohol." The
Jefferson County School District began an investigation after
parents complained. The school offered to take back yearbooks and
give refunds. "There were some things ... that I don't feel that I
can defend. There were some pictures and quotes that I do believe
have crossed the line," Acting Principal Pat Termin said. Students
were shown holding a bong and exhaling smoke in one section and
mocking citations for underage drinking in another.
MAJORITY WOULD LIKE "NO CHILD" LAW LEFT BEHIND
Nearly two-thirds of American adults want Congress to re-write or
outright abolish the landmark No Child Left Behind Act that mandates
nationwide testing of elementary students to determine if public
schools are performing adequately. Opposition is especially high
among people most familiar with the law, according to a survey of
1,010 adults conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio
University. Controversy about the law has grown in recent months as
Congress begins the debate on whether to re-authorize the measure
that President Bush has touted is one of the most important
achievements of his administration. Dissent against reauthorization
has developed within President Bush’s own party. Fifty-two
Republican House members and five GOP senators are calling for a
repeal of the law in favor of a more flexible system of achievement
standards to be negotiated between the U.S. Department of Education
and individual states. Only about a third of poll respondents said
they think the law has had a positive influence on public education
while slightly less than half said it has had a negative impact and
a fifth were undecided.
WHITE SUPREMACY IS NOT COLOR BLIND
A Supreme Court ruling this summer on voluntary integration plans of
Louisville and Seattle schools could sound the death knell for Brown
v. Board of Education, warn the editors of Rethinking Schools in
their spring issue. If the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to uphold
voluntary integration plans in these two cities, it would wipe out
the last vestiges of the 1954 Brown decision still in place. Over
the years, the court has so chipped away at Brown that it is a mere
shell of a decision, honored in speeches every Martin Luther King
Jr. holiday but ignored in practice 365 days of the year. While
conservatives argue that race-conscious policies are no longer
necessary because the United States is becoming a multiracial,
multiethnic society, Theodore Shaw of the NAACP Legal Defense and
Education Fund points out that "This country has always been a
multiracial, multiethnic society. The problem has never been mere
race consciousness. It has been white supremacy." The editors
challenge teachers to find new ways to struggle against our
increasingly resegregated schools.
YOUNG MOM BEATS OBSTACLES TO BECOME
VALEDICTORIAN
There was a time when Myrtle Nickerson didn't expect to get a high
school diploma. But this Saturday, the brown-eyed, baby-faced teen
will walk across the stage as valedictorian of her class. Her
alternative school, in the Houston Independent School District (HISD),
serves students who are two or three years behind grade level. In
sixth grade, Nickerson landed on the honor roll. In seventh grade,
too, reports Ericka Mellon in the Houston Chronicle. The summer
after seventh grade, Nickerson got pregnant. A friend's mom helped
Nickerson enroll in HISD's school for pregnant moms. The next year,
as a freshman, Nickerson went to the Contemporary Learning Center,
where semesters last nine weeks, instead of the traditional 18. The
classes cut out the fluff, and determined students can graduate in
about 2 1/2 years. With a baby and a heavy class load, Nickerson
struggled to carve time out for homework. Some days, she would work
through lunch. Other days, she woke up at 3 a.m., two hours before
she had to get her daughter, Pahris, up for day care. Beverly
Campbell, the high school guidance counselor, says she's seen many
teen moms make excuses to skip school. "With Myrtle, it was
different," Campbell says. "She always tried to schedule
appointments for her baby after school. She was always telling me
about the baby's diet. If we had a school T-shirt, she says, 'I
can't buy that because I have to buy vitamins.'" Pahris graduated
from the three-year-old class at her day care this week. Mom will
follow this weekend. She'll put a gown over her black dress and with
a grade point average of 3.6, walk across the stage as
valedictorian. In the fall, Nickerson will enter Texas Southern
University. These days, she dreams of being a pharmacist.
NURTURING STUDENT MOTHERS
Some Wisconsin school leaders are creating a vibrant school unique
to both Milwaukee and the country: a middle school focused on
teenage mothers. Milwaukee's Lady Pitts also works with pregnant and
parenting teens, but at the high school level. Locally and
nationally, the teen birth rate continues to decline and cities are
closing alternative high schools for pregnant teens, mainstreaming
the young women instead. Yet in Milwaukee, Northern Star's
prominence continues to grow. "For some reason, especially this
year, I have gotten so many calls from the families of sixth- and
seventh-grade students because the girls are pregnant and at schools
that don't cater to the needs of teen parents," said Valerie
Benton-Davis, Northern Star's principal and founder. "These girls
are blatantly being told not to come to school because it leads to a
bad image for the school." While Northern Star has steadily built a
student following and community partnerships, the school offers a
case study in the challenges of fitting alternative schools into an
increasingly standardized system. Northern Star is judged on
attendance rates, reports Sarah Carr in the Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel, but many of its students have to miss school during
maternity leaves or when day care falls through. It's judged on how
many students test at grade level, even though several of its
students arrive having missed months, if not years, of school.
Several schools in Milwaukee and throughout the state focus on
students who have been out of school for years, struggled at other
schools or are recent immigrants still learning English.
WHERE EDUCATION IS A MATTER OF PRESTIGE
Debates about improving student performance rarely take into
consideration an important perspective of students, that is, how
much they value an education and whether they see education as a
path to success. In this Education Sector First Person, Abdul Kargbo
gauges such perceptions in contrasting settings: the secondary
school he attended in Sierra Leone, one of the world's poorest
countries, and the suburban high school he attended in the U.S., one
of the world's richest countries. Despite the poor condition of the
facilities, getting an education was a privilege in Sierra Leone.
But it was not free, and the only children who went to school were
those whose parents could afford tuition fees. Still, education was
so highly prized that even the poorest people, who daily had to do
without basic amenities, strove to get enough money to send their
kids to school. Discipline and competition were central elements of
schooling in Sierra Leone. Corporal punishment was liberally meted
out for infractions both major and minor. But the psychological
consequences of academic underperformance were even more devastating
than the physical because students competed against their peers for
status. In every class, students' average grades were tabulated to
produce a hierarchy in which everyone was ranked. Needless to say,
nobody wanted to be last. Upon moving to the U.S., Kargbo discovered
that troublemakers had a disproportionately negative impact on
teaching and learning. Teachers often spent as much time trying to
enforce discipline as they did actually teaching. And most students
seemed to not care about their actual grades. In fact, some of those
with the lowest averages almost seemed proud of their bad scores.
DEMILITARIZING WHAT THE PENTAGON KNOWS ABOUT
DEVELOPING YOUNG PEOPLE
While many students are celebrating their graduation from high
school or college, thousands of other adolescents have either
dropped out of school or are chronic underachievers. In this
Brookings Institution paper, Hugh Price examines the successful
tactics the U.S. military uses to engage and train young people --
and offers provocative new strategies for schools. The United States
military enjoys a well-deserved reputation for its ability to reach,
teach, and develop young people who are rudderless, and for setting
the pace among American institutions in advancing minorities. Young
people receive military-style education and training in an array of
settings, most typically in a branch of the military. Various
branches also partner with public schools to operate programs that
emulate the military atmosphere and methods. These military and
quasi-military programs exhibit many attributes that appear to
contribute to the young people's success and therefore might be
appropriate to incorporate in a new approach to educating youngsters
who are performing way below par, disengaged from school, or
dropping out. Patterning the education of civilian youngsters after
the military does raise legitimate anxieties and worrisome issues.
The key is to embrace and customize those attributes that strengthen
the education and development of adolescents, while eschewing the
characteristics and methods that do not belong in a civilian
enterprise.
WHY KIDS NEED LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES DURING
THE SUMMER
As the school year ends, parents should provide high-quality
learning opportunities for children during the summer months. All
students fall almost 2.6 months behind in math skills over the
summer, studies show. And for low-income children, the slide in
reading is particularly harmful: They fall behind an average of two
months in reading while their middle-income peers tend to make
slight gains. By fifth grade, low-income children can be as much as
two years behind in reading. A recent study of Baltimore students by
Johns Hopkins University researchers showed that 65 percent of the
achievement gap between poor and affluent children can be explained
by unequal summer learning experiences during the elementary school
years. "Summer should be fun, but parents shouldn't let it be a
break from learning," says Ron Fairchild, executive director of the
Johns Hopkins University Center for Summer Learning. "High quality
summer learning opportunities keep children healthy, safe and on
track in school." In addition to academic losses, children also may
gain unhealthy weight over the summer. Summer programs can also have
a positive impact on juvenile crime, support working families, teach
skills needed for the workforce, keep kids safe, and provide much
needed child care. Well-designed summer programs balance
opportunities for learning, enrichment and recreation. While
research shows that remedial summer school often has little impact
on student achievement, studies of high-quality summer programs that
combine academics with enrichment demonstrate that these programs
can have a powerful and lasting effect. What's needed, Fairchild
notes, is increased public and private investment in summer learning
opportunities to address the educational and social challenges
facing children in high-poverty neighborhoods.
MORE SCHOOLS ARE DITCHING FINAL EXAMS
As thousands of public school students sat for standardized tests
last week and others prepare for upcoming final exams, Wildwood
School in West Los Angeles is one of a number of schools across the
country using oral presentations -- or exhibitions -- to determine
students' readiness to move on to the next grade, or to graduate.
Carla Rivera in the Los Angeles Times reports that while the federal
No Child Left Behind Act and California's state high school exit
exam exert pressure on students to master standardized
fill-in-the-bubble tests, a growing number of educators argue that
exhibitions offer a better way to assess students' academic
achievements. Testimony last week during congressional hearings on
the reauthorization of President Bush's education reform law focused
on the need for the federal government to support states that use
performance-based assessments and on the increasing frustration that
parents and teachers have with high stakes testing. "I think what
politicians are hearing right now is that tests are driving the
curriculum and narrowing the way kids learn, so there is a lot of
pushback from parents and teachers," said Linda Darling-Hammond, a
professor of education. "There's more receptivity to the possibility
of a different approach to assessment than there might have been
five years ago."
ARIZONA TEACHERS CRITICIZE WORKING CONDITIONS
A large survey of Arizona teachers reveals that most think their
classes are too big to attend to the needs of each student, and only
60 percent have adequate teaching materials and technology. A
majority also say they spend at least five to 10 hours a week
working beyond the official school day. The snapshot is part of a
survey released by state officials today and designed to measure
working conditions inside schools. Every licensed teacher,
counselor, librarian, and principal in the state's district schools
had the opportunity to weigh in. More than half, or nearly 32,000
educators, participated, mostly teachers, reports Pat Kossan in The
Arizona Republic. Most teachers plan to stay in the business of
educating kids, but they want better on-the-job training.
Specifically, they want more or better direction for instructing
kids still learning English and students with disabilities. They
need more ideas on how to help students from low-income families
keep up with their wealthier peers. Teachers also are hungry for
more time to learn about technology and how to use it in their
classrooms. Teachers reported that they had little input into hiring
new teachers, creating student discipline policies, or how the
school budget will be spent, but most said they were fairly
evaluated and respected as professionals. A very large majority of
teaches report that schools are safe places where adults are
committed to educating every student.
THE EFFORT EFFECT: OVERCOMING "LEARNED
HELPLESSNESS"
In Stanford Magazine, Marina Krakovsky describes psychology
professor Carol Dweck’s work on achievement motivation. Originally
fascinated in graduate school by the research on "learned
helplessness", Dweck and others observed that people who believe
intelligence is fixed do not achieve as well as those who believe
intelligence is malleable. What fascinated them most was children
who put forth lots of effort and didn't make negative attributions
when they failed. This approach contrasts with the born-smart,
performance-oriented belief system. Children in this camp, even if
they're very good at things, tend to crumble when they encounter
frustration and failure. They see each task as a challenge to their
self-image, and each setback as a personal threat. They tend to
pursue only challenges they think they can ace and avoid risks and
other growth experiences. Long term, the belief that ability is
fixed undermines effort and stunts achievement. (spotted at
www.MarshallMemo.com)
SOARING COLLEGE COSTS MAY PREVENT ACCESS FOR
MANY QUALIFIED STUDENTS Americans believe that higher
education is key to a successful future, and the vast majority also
say that costs should not prevent qualified students from attending
college, according to a national survey conducted by Public Agenda
and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. The
survey reveals widespread concern that the opportunity to go to
college may not be available to all qualified students. In addition,
nearly two-thirds of parents of high school students do not believe
that rapidly escalating costs are leading to more learning on
campus. Moreover, more than four in 10 believe that waste and
mismanagement are a major factor in growing college costs, and over
half say that colleges and universities could spend less money yet
still maintain quality. The new report -- "Squeeze Play: How Parents
and the Public Look at Higher Education Today" -- reveals that a
record level of Americans, 50 percent, now say that a college
education is necessary for success in the workplace, compared with
31 percent in 2000. Reflecting an undercurrent of discontent, the
public blames colleges and universities, in part, for spiraling
costs. Despite their generally positive attitude toward higher
education, more than half (52 percent) say that colleges are like a
business and mainly care about the bottom line. "Most Americans
believe the college cost burden falls mainly on the middle class…"
says Jean Johnson, executive vice president of Public Agenda.
"However, minority parents are significantly more likely than white
parents to believe that many qualified students don't have the
chance to go to college." |
