Archives for March 2011

As a result of surfing the web, I discovered www.freetech4teachers.com In a age of decreased educational spending, it is a major coup to find such a valuable free source of material including lesson plans.  Material is available for ESL, elementary, middle and high school.  Give it a try!

Free Technology for Teachers is written by Richard Byrne and read by a daily audience of 30,000 subscribers.

The number of U.S. schools with such poor graduation rates that they are known as “dropout factories” fell by 6.4 percent between 2008 and 2009.

In 2008, the nation had 1,746 schools with graduation rates no higher than 60 percent. That number fell by 112, to 1,634, the following year. From 2008 to 2009, there were 183,701 fewer students attending these low-performing schools, an 8 percent drop.

The data are detailed in an update to the November 2010 report “Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic.”

Last fall’s report detailed the change from 2002 to 2008 and found a 13 percent decline over six years, from 2,007 “dropout factory” schools in 2002 to 1,746 in 2008. The report was authored by the Johns Hopkins University Everyone Graduates Center, America’s Promise Alliance, and Civic Enterprises, which are hosting the gathering along with the Alliance for Excellent Education. Overall, the number of students attending dropout factories has declined from 2.6 million in 2002 to 2.1 million in 2009, nearly a 20 percent improvement.

Here’s the breakdown of the change in “dropout factories” by region from 2008 to 2009:

• West“”Down 12.5 percent (313 schools in 2008; 274 in 2009)
• Midwest“”Down 8.2 percent (269 schools in 2008; 247 in 2009)
• Southeast“”Down 4.8 percent (912 schools in 2008; 868 in 2009)
• Northeast“”Down 2.8 percent (252 schools in 2008; 245 in 2009)

Looking at the state-by-state picture, 18 states had a decline of three or more dropout factories, 23 essentially stayed the same, and nine had increases of three or more. Some of the state highlights in the total number of schools with a promoting-power ratio of 60 percent or less:

• California (decline of 25)
• South Carolina (-25)
• Illinois (-20)
• North Carolina (-16)
• Georgia (+10)
• New York (+10)
• Ohio (+5)

Rural districts experienced a 15.5 percent decline in the number of schools falling into the “dropout factory” definition, according to the new report.

The report cites developments in the effort to lower the dropout rate, including requirements that schools calculate high school graduation rates by using a common formula, and that they set goals and meet annual targets.

While many states have made progress, the number of dropout factories and the number of students who attend them is still distressing.  And yet governors wish to continue to cut the number of schools (Detroit), increase class size to 60 students to a classroom (Detroit), cut educational spending (Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey) and in other ways depreciate the value of education.

My latest blog for the Huffington Post has just been posted.  It title appears above.  If you would like to read it, go to

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/franklin-schargel/waiting-for-superman-does_b_837908.html.

I have seen the film and believe, as I state in the blog that it has identified educators and teacher unions as the enemy and charter schools as the ultimate solution.

Scapegoating Educators

Franklin Schargel

Hunting season has begun and educators are the targets.

The governors of Wisconsin, Florida, New Jersey, and Ohio and now the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island have determined that educators and public education make highly visible, easy to attack victims.  They are attempting to balance their budgets on the backs of public servants.  But not all “public servants” only those who are “not essential.”  Essential services like the police, firemen, public hospital and sanitation workers have been exempted from the cuts.

Educators did not cause this problem.  But it is easier to target educators rather than the financial, insurance and banking industries that did.

Education, in most states, is a major component in the makeup of state and local budgets.  Many states spend close to 50% of their budget on schools.  But politicians tell their constituents that education is expensive.  Ignorance is far more expensive.  Estimates of the percentage of prisoners who are school dropouts range as high as 82 percent.  Prisons cost taxpayers more than $32 billion a year. Every year that an inmate spends in prison costs $22,000. An individual sentenced to five years for a $300 theft costs the public more than $100,000. The cost of a life term averages $1.5 million. Some states are spending more money on prisons than education. Over the course of the last 20 years, the amount of money spent on prisons was increased by 570% while that spent on elementary and secondary education was increased by only 33%. No school district in the country spends that much on education.

Education affects a lot of people, not just educators.  It affects parents, businesses, as well as law enforcement.  But more importantly, it affects our future and our global competitiveness. Wisconsin Democrat Representative Tamara Grigsby said, ” Governor Walker’s budget represented an absolute annihilation of education in the state”.  It was not long ago that the president, businesspeople and state governors who were decrying the fact that our schools were not “globally competitive”.  But since children don’t vote, they are easy targets.

Wisconsin’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, is cutting small business taxes while trying to reduce essential spending and threatening to prevent public employees from striking. The state has a budgetary shortfall of $3 billion over the past two years (Wisconsin budgets biennially). But Walker campaigned on creating a business-friendly climate, and called a special legislative session to enact his plans.

Walker won legislative approval for the centerpiece of his tax cut plan, a supermajority requirement for sales or income tax rate increases. The new law does not prevent property tax rate increases or other tax adjustments.

Walker promised tax cuts for businesses on the campaign trail and introduced the bill as part of his jobs-creation agenda. He hasn’t said how he plans to make up the lost revenue, and Democrats have blasted the cuts as too insignificant to stimulate job creation.

The media is comparing public and private sector employee salaries but is failing (in most cases) to recognize that public employees have college degrees.  According to Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration, “Forty-eight percent of government employees have college degree compared to 23 percent in the private sector.  Teachers, social workers, public lawyers all are required to have at least 4 years of college.”  According to Dr. Reich, “comparing apples to apples and you’d see that over the last 15 years the pay of public sector workers has dropped relative to private-sector employees with the same level of education.  Public sector workers earn 11 percent less than comparable workers in the private sector”.

The Green Bay Packers are reportedly planning to ask local voters to approve extension of a special additional 0.5 percent sales tax, worth $19 million annually, to fund their purchase and redevelopment of land around Lambeau Field. Public policy experts oppose the extension, arguing that sales tax revenue can be put to better use, like public education and transportation funding.

In his effort to encourage business growth in the state, Governor Walker has proposed eliminating state capital gains taxes without identifying how to make up for those tax eliminations.

Legislators state that state budget imbalances have been caused by unfunded retiree health coverage liabilities and pensions.  But these underfunded programs have been well known over a period of time and little or nothing has been done to adjust the funding.

Governor Walker has conspicuously exempted police and firefighters ““ both unions backed his campaign last year.  While the governor is demanding savings from state employees and the low-income citizens who rely on public services, he is also advocating a cut in corporate taxes, which will increase the state’s deficit and proposing no-bid sales of government assets.

Compare what is happening in Wisconsin, Ohio and New Jersey with what is happing in Nebraska. Republican Governor Dave Heinemann has proposed a $16.5 million initiative aimed at attracting jobs while saying he will not raise taxes.  He is aware that his state must spend money on education and job programs in order to attract economic development.

Governor Walker contends that bargaining rights for public employees has caused state deficits to dramatically increase.  But states that deny employees bargaining rights like Nevada, North Carolina are running deficits of over 30 percent.

Something is wrong with the picture in Wisconsin, by attacking those most vulnerable and those least responsible for the state financial crisis may make sense to the governor but makes little sense to too many.

If you enjoyed this article, it appears on the Huffington Post. I will be writing for them.  You can visit their website.  I also appear on YouTube.

A new report from the Internet security firm AVG indicates that more small children can play a computer game than ride a bike. The Digital Diaries study  said that 58 percent of children aged two to five know how to play a “basic computer game” compared with 52 percent who know how to ride a bike. Sixty-three percent can turn a computer on and off, and 69 percent can use a mouse. By contrast, only 20 percent can “swim unaided,” 11 percent can tie their shoelaces without help, and 20 percent know how to make an emergency phone call.

The study was conducted by contacting 2,200 online mothers of children between two and five years old in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

What are the implications of this survey?  Children today need both skills – life and technology.  While it is great that they know how to work a computer or play video games, they also need “people” skills – the skills they need to deal with people and not with machines.

Read more: https://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-20029002-238.html#ixzz1Bby0kyLf