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SCHOOLS GET TOUGHER ON MILITARY
RECRUITERS
The Pittsburgh school board has tightened restrictions on recruiters
who visit district high schools, but didn't go as far as some
members wanted. The policy change, which was approved despite one
"no" vote, was driven by concerns about high-pressure tactics by
military recruiters. Because federal law requires the military have
the same access as other recruiters, the change also affects
companies and colleges who court students at high schools. In
Pittsburgh Public Schools, recruiters now must register with an
administrator after arriving at a school. The board banned
recruiters from using contests, drawings or lotteries, or from
giving money or gifts, except minor promotional items or
scholarships. In a move that predominantly affects military
recruiters, the board banned exhibits or video games depicting
weapons or violence. The board also ordered the creation of a system
for logging complaints about recruiters, reports Joe Smydo for the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Over objections from two board members, the
board cut two provisions from the proposed policy. One would have
limited recruiters from a given organization to four visits per high
school per year; the other would have banned recruiters from serving
as tutors or mentors, unless they were parents. While the board at
previous meetings considered banning recruiting in cafeterias and
hallways, the policy doesn't go that far. Principals will determine
where recruiters may interact with students.
ARE YOUR JEANS SAGGING? GO DIRECTLY
TO JAIL
Jamarcus Marshall, a 17-year-old high school sophomore in Mansfield,
La., believes that no one should be able to tell him how low to wear
his jeans. "It’s up to the person who’s wearing the pants," he said.
Mr. Marshall’s sagging pants, a style popularized in the early 1990s
by hip-hop artists, are becoming a criminal offense in a growing
number of communities, including his own. Starting in Louisiana, an
intensifying push by lawmakers has determined pants worn low enough
to expose underwear poses a threat to the public, and they have
enacted indecency ordinances to stop it. Since June 11, sagging
pants have been against the law in Delcambre, La., a town of 2,231
that is 80 miles southwest of Baton Rouge. The style carries a fine
of as much as $500 or up to a six-month sentence, reports Niko
Koppel for The New York Times. "We used to wear long hair, but I
don't think our trends were ever as bad as sagging," said Mayor
Carol Broussard. An ordinance in Mansfield, a town of 5,496 near
Shreveport, subjects offenders to a fine (as much as $150 plus court
costs) or jail time (up to 15 days). Police Chief Don English said
the law, which takes effect Sept. 15, will set a good civic image.
Behind the indecency laws may be the real issue -- the hip-hop style
itself, which critics say is worn as a badge of delinquency, with
its distinctive walk conveying thuggish swagger and a disrespect for
authority. Also at work is the larger issue of freedom of expression
and the questions raised when fashion moves from being merely
objectionable to illegal. Sagging began in prison, where oversized
uniforms were issued without belts to prevent suicide and their use
as weapons. The style spread through rappers and music videos, from
the ghetto to the suburbs and around the world. Following a pattern
of past fashion bans, the sagging prohibitions are seen by some as
racially motivated because the wearers are young, predominantly
African-American men. Yet, this legislation has been proposed
largely by African-American officials.
SCHOOLS OFFERING DAY CARE CENTERS
Many urban school districts have day care centers attached to some
schools. In Washington, D.C., five schools have day care facilities,
including Bell Multicultural, a bustling high school that serves
about 800 students. Doris Briones credits Bell's day care center
with allowing her to graduate last spring. She is now enrolled in a
college-prep program. "When I got pregnant, I was really depressed.
I thought that everything was gone already for me," she said. "This
day care center helped me through four years of school. By taking
care of my child and letting me have the opportunity to study, here
I am." Bell's principal, Maria Tukeva, decided to add the center to
the school a few years ago. First, she had to overcome her fear that
providing free day care -- just off the main corridor, for everybody
to see -- might make parenting look desirable or easy. To counter
that message, she asks the teenage moms to participate in a
pregnancy prevention program. About 80 day care centers attached to
public schools have gone through the rigorous process of earning
accreditation from the National Association for the Education of
Young People, reports Nancy Zuckerbrod for the Associated Press.
Pregnant girls often have to be prodded to stay in school, even with
the availability of day care. One in four girls who drop out of
school does so because she is pregnant or a parent, according to a
survey by the Gates Foundation. Very few boys who drop out cite that
reason. Studies indicate that when teenage parents go on to earn
high school degrees, the odds increase that their children will
finish school. Research shows children of teenage mothers lag behind
other children when it comes to school readiness, language
development and communication and interpersonal skills. But studies
also show that providing disadvantaged children with high-quality
preschool can narrow those differences.
BAPTISTS TURN FROM PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Convinced that God has been erased from public schools, Southern
Baptists are now working to open their own schools, where Jesus is
writ large and Bible study is part of the daily curriculum. Church
leaders are not calling for a wholesale exodus from public schools,
which would be a monumental hit, considering that Southern Baptists
make up the nation's largest Protestant denomination with 16 million
members. Rather, they talk about alternatives to public schools
capable of educating a new generation ready and willing to advocate
for biblical principles rather than popular culture. "In the public
schools, you don't just have neutrality, you have hostility toward
organized religion," said Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern
Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. "A lot of parents
are fed up." Southeastern is leading the push, sponsoring a
Christian School 101 workshop, reports Yonat Shimron for The News
Observer (Charlotte, N.C.). The program is designed to train church
leaders to open private schools. At Southeastern and elsewhere,
Southern Baptists have become convinced that fighting to change the
system is futile. They say public schools have long demonstrated a
commitment to teaching evolution over creationism, world faiths over
Christianity, sex education over abstinence, moral relativism over
Christian claims of truth. Southern Baptist leaders are careful to
reiterate that they have no desire to harm the public schools or
offend its workers, many of whom are proud Southern Baptists. And
indeed, many Southern Baptists are quite happy with their children's
public education. "Enloe High School is a great school," said Thomas
Dresser, referring to the Raleigh public school that his daughter,
Virginia, attends. "It's real diverse, and there's lots of
opportunities. I think it's possible to get a good education about
your faith at home. It's not essential you get it at school."
CELEBRATE THE WEEK OF THE CLASSROOM TEACHER & WORLD TEACHERS’ DAY
Recognition is important. It's your turn to acknowledge our
children's educators. Association for Childhood Education
International (ACEI) has designated September 30-October 6, 2007, as
a special week to officially applaud our children's educators, and
has joined with over 100 countries in recognizing World Teachers'
Day. Teachers are vitally important to the development and success
of all children, and they deserve our appreciation and support.
Teachers not only devote their time and energy to students, they
often donate a portion of their income. Teachers spend an average of
$475 a year on their students, reports Quality Education Data, Inc.,
an education market research and database firm. ACEI offers free
materials to help communities implement their own celebrations for
the Week of the Classroom Teacher and World Teachers' Day. A
detailed planning guide filled with suggestions, and materials, such
as bookmarks, certificates, thank you notes, and sample letters, can
be found at the above link.
PART-TIME CAFETERIA WORKERS VS.
HUNGRY KIDS
The Los Angeles Unified School District receives about $2.85 a child
a day from the state and federal governments to provide breakfast
and lunch to students. Of that amount, according to the nonprofit
group California Food Policy Advocates, or CFPA, about $2 must be
spent on milk, supplies, salaries and benefits, leaving about 85
cents for the food on your child's Styrofoam tray. Given this paltry
budget, it seems astounding that our children are fed at all, yet
L.A. Unified's food service manages to serve nearly half a million
meals each school day, and it does so within or exceeding U.S.
Agriculture Department nutrition guidelines. Part-time food service
employees are seeking the same health benefits -- including coverage
for their families -- that their full-time counterparts enjoy.
Extending these benefits to cafeteria staff who currently work only
three hours a day would cost an estimated $40 million a year,
according to school board calculations. Nowhere in the private
sector do three-hour-a-day employees expect to be eligible for full
family benefits; nowhere but in the surreal world of L.A. Unified
would anyone have the nerve to ask for them, writes L.J. Williamson
in the Los Angeles Times. This is fat that the food service's
too-lean budget simply doesn't have available. If health benefits
were extended to these part-time workers, the CFPA estimates it
would mean that the per-plate meal budget would be reduced from 85
cents to 49 cents. Making healthy food available for that amount
would take a miracle of biblical proportions. So we'd be improving
the healthcare of nearly 2,000 part-time workers at the expense of
the 500,000 children who eat in public school cafeterias every day.
CHOOSING MORE TIME FOR STUDENTS: THE
WHAT, WHY & HOW OF EXPANDED LEARNING
A crescendo of support from education researchers, analysts, reform
advocates, and lawmakers about the need for additional learning time
for our nation's under-performing students may well result in the
coming months in meaningful reform. In fact, U.S. Secretary of
Education Margaret Spellings believes that the expansion of learning
time will be the next major push in school reform. The reason: our
nation's public school students need to meet the demands and
challenges of the 21st century but they simply cannot in public
school systems that remain much the same as they were 50 years ago.
The shift in educational rigor that globalization has ushered in is
pushing policymakers to embrace systemic change in public education,
writes Elena Rocha for the Center for American Progress, with
particular focus on closing achievement gaps between disadvantaged
students and their peers. In rethinking what it will take for our
public schools to better serve students who are academically behind,
wisdom tell us that a comprehensive approach that encompasses
numerous options will provide the best opportunity to support
student learning. The expansion of learning time can serve as one
effective vehicle to modernize our schools because it allows
teachers, principals, community organizations and leaders, and
parents to build multiple curriculums to best educate our children
to succeed in the 21st century. Expanded learning time turns
dissatisfaction with the limitations of the current six-hour,
180-day school year into a proactive strategy that will create a new
school structure for children.
SCHOOLS PUSH GIFTED STUDENTS TO
THRIVE
Some of Florida’s brightest elementary students often get a few
hours each week to get advanced learning with their true peers --
those who also have scored at least 130 on an intelligence test. The
rest of the time, these students -- identified as gifted -- are in
regular classrooms. Parents say their children are being stifled and
not getting the "free and appropriate" education the state promises.
As parents of gifted children throughout the nation have started to
become more vocal about their children's education, educators are
starting to review gifted programs, reports Colleen Wixon for the
Treasure Coast Palm (Fla.). Some elementary schools in Martin and
St. Lucie counties offer full-time programs, in which gifted
children learn together throughout the day. Indian River County and
other Treasure Coast schools offer a "pull out" program, where a
gifted teacher works with students once a week. The teacher for
gifted students in Indian River County often travels to several
different schools each week. By high school, gifted programs are
almost non-existent. Educators say that's because students need to
fit other classes into their schedules. The state also is
considering changes to its gifted program, including how much money
it gives to districts for the program and how a student qualifies.
Currently, an intelligence test is used to determine eligibility,
but some have suggested using Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test
scores instead. Although some gifted children are self-motivated to
challenge themselves, others sometimes become disenchanted with
school and learning. Advocates for gifted students say some don't
learn proper study habits because they pick up lessons quickly and
then have to wait for the rest of the class to get the material.
MARCHING BAND ESPECIALLY STRENUOUS IN
SUMMER HEA
Imagine hiking around in the hot sun for hours carrying as much as
20 pounds of dead weight while blowing up a balloon, and you've got
some idea of what August is like at marching band camp. Marching
band members may not generally be considered athletes, but students
do get a good workout, often in the heat, cold or mud. Members of
the color guard even dance while waving flags or twirling batons for
much of the band's performance, reports Amy Neff Roth for Healthy
Living magazine. "It's a very aerobic activity," said Martin
Hollister, director of the New Hartford (N.Y.) Senior High School
Marching Spartans. Band member Nick Decker, a rising senior, admits
that three-hour practices in the August heat carrying a Sousaphone
aren't the easiest. The National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA)
takes marching band seriously, noting the physical challenges of
standing in formation for long periods, wearing heavy uniforms in
warm weather and carrying instruments. Last August, NATA urged
schools to take precautions to protect band members' health. NATA's
recommendations include: medical exams for band members, training
and stretching, plenty of hydration during practices, instruction in
ergonomically correct methods of holding instruments, formation of
an emergency plan and a well-stocked first-aid kit on hand.
Hollister said there's definitely more awareness of these health
issues than there was in years past. He and other band staff stress
hydration during hot weather; students to bring their own water and
parents stand by with water jugs, he said. The band also is
inclusive, working hard to find places for people that match their
physical ability. For example, a few years ago, a girl who used a
wheelchair played in the non-marching ensemble, Hollister said.
CHALLENGES IN REPLICATING SUCCESSFUL
CHARTER SCHOOLS
The rapid national expansion of Green Dot Public Schools and the
Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) highlights the great potential for
such organizations to provide more high-quality public schools by
replicating successful charter schools. However, two new
publications from the National Charter School Research Project make
clear that efforts to quickly expand successful charter schools
through "managed growth" will not be easy. "Quantity Counts: The
Growth of Charter School Management Organizations" shows that
replicating successful charter schools has been tougher and more
costly than expected for both for-profit and nonprofit charter
management organizations (EMOs and CMOs). The report analyzes why
this is so and offers strategies to help new management
organizations shorten their learning curves and avoid problems
encountered by pioneering management organizations. The report
documents problems that go well beyond the legal and political
barriers thrown up by charter school opponents. Management
organizations (MOs) have struggled more with start-up and quality
control issues than they thought they would --issues such as dealing
with local politics; recruiting and training principals and
teachers; and figuring out how much centralization and
standardization is necessary. "Identifying and Replicating the "DNA"
of Successful Charter Schools: Lessons from the Private Sector"
summarizes lessons from the business and nonprofit sectors’
experiences with replicating complex organizations and applies those
lessons to charter school scale-up efforts. Even in the business
world, where replication is arguably a more straightforward process,
the majority of such efforts fail. Together, these two publications
offer helpful recommendations as well as pose challenging questions
about how to help communities find or create alternatives to
persistently failing schools.
SPECIFIC SCHOOL FEATURES LINKED TO
ELEMENTARY ACHIEVEMENT SCORES
Three elements of elementary school environments -- strong principal
leadership, high academic standards, and frequent teacher meetings
to plan instruction -- are associated with higher third grade math
and reading scores, according to a new research brief from Child
Trends. Schools with a fourth element -- low teacher turnover --
generally have better behaved children. Higher teacher turnover,
which can indicate an unstable school, is related to lower rates of
student self-control and school engagement among third grade
students. Using data from the Early Childhood longitudinal
Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), a nationally representative
sample of more than 20,000 children who started kindergarten in fall
1998, researchers found that many children do not experience key
elements in their schools that maximize their learning outcomes: 30
percent of all children attend elementary schools that do not have
strong principal leadership; just over half of all children are in
schools where their teachers meet together regularly to plan
sequenced and coordinated instruction; and, 15 percent of children
are in schools where teacher turnover is a problem. The findings
show that low-income children are more likely to attend schools with
poor learning environments. Children living below 100 percent of the
federal poverty line are twice as likely as children with family
incomes over 200 percent of the poverty line to attend schools with
low academic standards (20 percent versus 10 percent). Similar
disparities in teacher turnover are found by children's
race/ethnicity. Over 20 percent of black and Hispanic children go to
schools where teacher turnover is troubling versus 11 percent of
white non-Hispanic students.
FLORIDA LEADS GROWTH IN VIRTUAL
SCHOOLING
Virtual learning is becoming ubiquitous at colleges and universities
but remains, in many ways, in its infancy at the elementary and
secondary level, where skeptics have questioned such factors as its
cost and its effect on children's socialization. Virtual schools are
growing fast, though, at an annual rate of about 25 percent.
Estimates of elementary and secondary students taking virtual
classes range from 500,000 to 1 million nationally, compared with
total public school enrollment of about 50 million. There are now 25
statewide or state-led programs and more than 170 virtual charter
schools across the nation, according to the North American Council
for Online Learning (NACOL). FLVS is a pioneer and a model for many
of these other programs. FLVS, part of the Florida's public
education system, is the leader among K-12 virtual schools in terms
of innovation, depth of courses, rigor, and enrollment, said Bill
Tucker, chief operating officer at Education Sector, a Washington,
D.C., think tank. Founded 10 years ago, it offers more than 90
courses ranging from such basics as English and math, to specialties
that include keyboarding, computer programming, web design, Chinese,
marine science, Earth-space science, macroeconomics, and
microeconomics. Advocates say virtual learning has almost unlimited
potential, reports eSchool News, although some have raised questions
about funding and the amount of social interaction that students
receive from such schooling.
PHOTOGRAPHY IS A REVELATION &
LEARNING TOOL FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED STUDENTS
What would children who are blind show us about the world if they
learned to take pictures? The question first occurred to
photographer Tony Deifell in 1991, soon after graduating from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he studied
anthropology. A year later, he sought an answer by setting up an
experimental photography program, called Sound Shadows, at Governor
Morehead School for the Blind, in Raleigh, N.C. The state-funded
Governor Morehead is North Carolina's only school for the visually
impaired; established in 1845, it is one of the oldest in the United
States. Sound Shadows was based there for five years, from 1992 to
1997, during which time Deifell co-taught 36 students ages 12-19
with visual impairments. The kids not only learned how to point and
shoot, they also were taught how to use a camera to re-create dreams
and express personal vision, writes Alexei Bien for Edutopia. With
autofocus cameras, the students used sound as an informant, and
touch as a way to compose their images. But to envision the
photographs -- to assess them and learn from them -- required the
teachers and students to discuss the prints. The teachers would
faithfully report what they saw in each picture, and the students
merged those descriptions with what they had perceived or imagined
while in the field. Parker J. Palmer, a nationally recognized
educator and author, concurs: "Education bears a terrific
responsibility for cultivating wide seeing or narrow seeing. It's
not an unfair generalization that our colleges and universities turn
out way too many people who have power in the world, but no insight
or vision, no cultivated way of seeing its possibilities, or what it
is that's driving them." The camera served the school's students
inside the classroom too. "You don't need vision to have a learning
disability," says Governor Morehead teacher Shirley Hand. "Dyslexia
in Braille is the same as dyslexia in print." Linking photography
with creative writing assignments about dreams, fears, and vocations
was a way for Hand and others to increase literacy and draw students
closer to the dreaded Braille writer, which is complicated to learn.
What can children who are blind show us about the world once they
learn to take pictures? Above all, Rosen says, "The photos insist on
leaving behind preconceived ideas about people without sight, and
seeing how enlightened they are, and how they shed light on our
world."
AS A NATION HEADS BACK TO SCHOOL, A
LOOK AT THE NUMBERS
School is beginning or already under way for fully one in four
American youngsters and adults enrolled in the nation’s more than
95,000 public elementary and secondary schools, 3,200 charter
schools and nearly 4,300 degree-granting colleges, as well as for
the 1.1 million who are home-schooled. The United States Census
Bureau has computed dozens of statistics like these about the school
year, reports Sam Roberts for The New York Times. This month alone,
it found Americans will spend an estimated $7.1 billion on shopping
at family clothing stores and $2.1 billion at bookstores, much of it
presumably for back-to-school purchases. It is a volume that is
exceeded only around the winter holidays. |
