Franklin Schargel’s Blog

A new report by the Josephson Institute of Ethics asked more than 43,000 high school students whether they’d been physically abused, teased or taunted in a way that seriously upset them. Nearly half of them say they’ve bullied someone in the past year, and nearly half say they’ve been the victim of bullying.  Previously, it was believed that bullying peaked in middle school.

In the survey, 10 percent of teens admitted bringing a weapon to school at least once, and 16 percent admitted being drunk at school.

The study’s release comes in a year of several high-profile suicides related to bullying, including that of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince of Massachusetts, who prosecutors say was relentlessly bullied by the six girls charged in her death.

The U.S. Department of Education recently sent letters to schools, colleges and universities around the country warning them that failing to adequately address ethnic, sexual or gender-based harassment could put them in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws.

Bullying has become a “hot button” issue especially considering the suicides relating to bullying and cyberbullying that has plagued the nation.  Educators cannot ignore the problem and need to take active and proactive steps to address this serious issue.

As we have moved into the 21st century, school have increasingly been charged with tasks formerly associated with the church and the family.  In addition to teaching reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmatic, schools need to teach driver’s education, swimming, sex education. suicide and violence prevention, the evils of smoking, drugs and alcohol and an entire liturgy of other topics.  Not only do educators not have the time to add these topics but, in some cases, they haven’t had the training to deal with them.  Schools have become the nation’s emergency room dealing with situations that the rest of society doesn’t want to deal with nor does society have the answer to these problems.

During one of my workshops, a parent asked, “What should we do about guns in school?”  After giving a variety of things that schools can do to protect children and adults, I replied, “I don’t have the data, but I believe that if we reduce the number of guns in society, we will cut down on the number of guns in schools.”  According to the FBI’s School Shooter Report, most of the sch0ol shooters obtained their guns from their home.

Schools reflect society, not the reverse.  When people complain that students lack positive values or they or they will ruin society, the correct response – I feel is to look at the negativity of campaign advertising or the recklessness of the financial and banking community.

Current thinking indicates that everyone should attend college and graduate. Last year, President Obama declared a national goal of having the highest percentage of college graduates in the world by 2020. Yet a new report issued by the American Institutes for Research “Finishing the First Lap: The Cost of First-Year College Attrition in America’s Four-Year Colleges and Universities,” reveals that 30% of those who enter college, do not return for the second year.

The report focuses its attention on the $7.6 billion in grant money from state governments over a five-year period that is lost.  Another $1.5 billion in federal grants were spent by the federal government.  That’s more than $9 billion in aid that goes to students who barely spend enough time at college to learn their way around campus.  According to the report, “13 states posted more than $200 million of state funds lost to students dropping out before the second year of college.”

The states include California ($467 million), Texas ($441 million), New York ($403 million), Illinois ($290 million), North Carolina ($285 million), Ohio ($277 million), Florida ($275 million), Indiana ($268 million), Michigan ($239 million), Georgia ($237 million); Louisiana ($213 million), Tennessee ($205 million) and Kentucky ($201 million)

Nationally, only about 60 percent of students graduate from four-year colleges and universities within six years. The study did not examine community colleges, where first-year dropout rates are even higher.

I believe that the focus needs to be on why these students, the “better students” who survived the K-12 system, dropout.  Readers of this blog are aware of my feelings that not everyone needs to go to college and that colleges continue to build seats which they must fill.  Students are aware that high school criteria may not make a difference in determining if they go to college.  Colleges need to validate high school work by not lowering their standards in order to fill their seats.

Both the number of children in poverty and the child poverty rate increased between 2008 and 2009, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which released new national estimates of poverty. The number of children in poverty rose from 14.1 million to 15.5 million in 2009 and the child poverty rate increased from 19 percent to nearly 21 percent. In addition, the number and percentage of children living in “deep” poverty (households with incomes below 50 percent of the federal poverty level) also increased (from 6.3 million to 6.9 million and from 8.5 percent to 9.3 percent in 2009, respectively.) Children made up more than a third (35.5 percent) of all people in poverty in 2009.  These numbers represent an increase again over 2007 data, which reported 13.3 million children, or 18 percent, living in poverty in the United States.

A substantial body of research links poverty with multiple negative outcomes for children. When compared with children from more affluent families, poor children are more likely to have low academic achievement, to drop out of school, and to have health, behavioral, and emotional problems. These linkages are particularly strong for children whose families experience deep poverty, who are poor during early childhood, and who are trapped in poverty for a long time.

In 2009, a family of four including two children was considered to be living in poverty if their income was below $21,756.  Under this criterion, 42.2 percent of U.S. children lived in “low income” households in 2009.

Note that the figures released are from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey and are national-level only.  Later, the Census Bureau will release poverty estimates from the American Community Survey that will cover the nation, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, every congressional district and all counties, places and metropolitan areas with populations of 65,000 or more.

Maybe if we raise the economic level of families, academic achievement will rise as well.  Too many politicians do not want to address that problem.

In a study published by the journal Child Development, it showed that African American boys’ reading scores improve by four points (which is considered significant) as they increasingly logged more time on the computer.  Girls achievement test score also improved.

In 2008, children ages 10-12 were text messaging, playing games, studying and surfing websites an average of 3.4 hours a week.  Those ages 16-18 spent 6.3 hour a week at the keyboard that year.  The report added that computer use “involves problem-solving, reading, communication and these skills help children.” Increased time on the computer did not mean less reading and studying.

At a time when nearly one in 10 American workers is unemployed, college professors are guaranteed jobs for life, teach only a few hours a week, take entire years off, dump grading duties onto graduate students, drop their workweek to a dozen hours or so, all while making $100,000 or more a year. The cost of a college education has risen, in real dollars, by 250 to 300 percent over the past three decades, far above the rate of inflation. Elite private colleges can frequently cost more than $200,000 over four years. Total student-loan debt, at nearly $830 billion, recently surpassed total national credit card debt. It is also foolish that graduate programs are pumping new Ph.D.’s into a world without decent jobs for them. Meanwhile, university presidents can make upward of $1 million annually.

Two new books recently were published which will merely intensive the discussion,  ­Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids “” And What We Can Do About It (Times Books, $26), by Andrew Hacker, a professor emeritus of political science at Queens College, and Claudia C. Dreifus, a journalist (and contributor to the science section of The New York Times  and Mark C. Taylor’s Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities (Knopf, $24).

The books point out that tenured and tenure-track professors earn most of the money and benefits, but they’re a minority at the top of a pyramid. Nearly two-thirds of all college teachers are non-tenure-track adjuncts who frequently earn $1,500 to teach a single course. At Williams College, a small liberal arts college, 70 percent of employees do something other than teach.

All of this comes at a time when Columbia University reports that its endowment had dropped by “at least” 30 percent.

Simply brushing off calls for reform may no longer be an option. In this time of educational reform, now is the time to address these issues.

Officials from the Detroit School announced they would close 44 schools.  Detroit’s announcement follows others around the country. Kansas City, Missouri, schools decided to shutter failing schools and a Rhode Island school decided to fire all of its teachers in an attempt to make the school better.

To me, it is an overly simplistic answer to a very complex problem.  Is the problem solely the teachers’ fault?  Do the community, parents and school administrators share the blame?  We need to admit that the educational system is broken.  The people who regularly read this blog know that.  The present educational system is based on a concept designed, with few changes, during the industrial age.  In our middle and high schools, we pass children along an assembly line based model that should have been examined and improved a while ago.  The system still works for a decreasing number of students but it needs to be revised, modernized and strengthened to meet the needs of the students and the society as well.

For some, the easy answer to any problem is to fire the worker.  Were the workers at General Motors and Chrysler responsible for the failure of their companies or was it the people who ran the company?  Did Goldman-Sachs, Enron or the banking system failure the fault of the workers or the failure of the bosses?

Rhode Island has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.  Central Falls is one of the poorest towns in the state.  According to Wikipedia, the median income in the town is $22k. More than 96 percent of the Central Falls High School students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, according to the school’s Web site, and only 6 percent of the people in the town have a college degree. The parents and residents of Central Falls are struggling financially and lack postsecondary education to help them seek higher paying jobs.

Does anyone really believe that by firing teachers the lives of the children will improve and that the newly employed teachers will improve test scores and learning?

Teachers are not magicians. They are unable to pull higher test scores and the lower the dropout rate by pulling answers from a hat. They need help from the parents, help from the community, help from the administrators, help from state and federal governments.

According to Education.com, Rhode Island in 2007/2008 spent more money on inmates ($38,503) than on starting teachers ($33,815).  But the answer isn’t simply throwing more money on a failing system.  Teachers are aware when they enter the field how much they will be paid.  They enter the field because they want to help children learn.  Data indicate that they do not leave the field mainly because of low pay.

Or take a look at the Chicago Public Schools, where former CEO Arne Duncan, now U.S. secretary of education, closed many schools. There’s been little change in scores because students are being transferred to other low-performing schools. It hasn’t worked because the community’s attitude and level of support hasn’t changed.