Franklin Schargel’s Blog

The Obama administration recently released its “Blueprint for Reform,” an outline of its proposal for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The “blueprint” suggests a number of significant revisions to the current iteration of the law, the No Child Left Behind Act. It emphasizes the administration’s goal of preparing all students for college or a career through the implementation of rigorous state standards. It revises the accountability structure to reward schools, districts, and states that make steady progress in increasing student achievement. It offers districts flexibility in spending funds on human capital development in exchange for  reforms to teacher and principal evaluation systems.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/03/education_reform101.html

The recession is starting to effect schools and school budgets. State Governments under the pressure of balancing their budgets have started cutting into school budgets layoff teachers, proposing to go to 4 day weeks (without regard to how it impacts working family schedules), changing bus schedules so that buses can do double runs, or starting school earlier or later (for the same reasons).

The Mississippi Senate has voted to give school districts the option of keeping children in class five fewer days for the next two academic years.  This would take the academic year from 180 days to 175.

Where are the policy makers, business and media people who recommend that in order to make the United States more globally competitive, we need to extend the school year and extend the school day not shorten it?  Why have they lost their voices?

I am indebted to Trace Vaughn for making me aware of this story.

Yarbrough: Governor’s priorities are embarrassing

Athens Banner-Herald

Published Saturday, March 20, 2010

In the midst of one of the worst economic crises in memory, the members of the Georgia General Assembly have to make some extremely difficult financial decisions. I don’t envy them.

To make their challenge even harder, up pops Gov. Sonny Perdue with some budget add-ons. This time we aren’t talking about concrete fishponds. While teachers are being furloughed, state employees laid off and budgets slashed to the bone, news reports say our chief executive desires to spend $9 million to finish a horse show complex at the fairgrounds in Houston County, his home county. He also has $67 million proposed for a rural economic development program that includes a more than half-million-dollar grant to move Little League Baseball Inc. to -where else? – Houston County.
There’s more. The governor wants $10 million to help move the College Football Hall of Fame to Atlanta after it fumbled opportunities in South Bend and Kings Mill, Ohio.
The reasoning coming out of the governor’s office for the pork projects is that the expenditures will help “economic development.” Hogwash.
You want to talk economic development? According to a study by the Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education, Georgia college graduates average twice the income – and half the unemployment – of high school graduates. On average, college graduates pay 72 percent more in state and local taxes than non-graduates.
ARCHE says one-fourth of Georgia adults who did not finish high school live in poverty, and 86 percent of prisoners in Georgia did not continue education beyond high school. Their incarceration costs you and me nearly $800 million annually, the report states. I could go on, but I think you get the drift.
How does one attend college and successfully attain a degree and contribute his or her tax dollars to a state in bad need of every dime available? He or she generally comes through a proficient K-12 feeder system. I’m not convinced a horse park in Houston County does much to improve public education in our state. Also, I doubt seriously that a high-tech firm will move its headquarters to Atlanta just to be near O.J. Simpson’s chin strap.
In the meantime, public education is getting sliced and diced, and no one seems able to stop the bleeding. I spoke recently to the Georgia PTA during its visit to the legislature. In a profession that has more special-interest groups than a yard dog has fleas, nobody sees public education in the broad perspective better than PTA volunteers.
The Georgia PTA is tracking close to 100 pieces of legislation having to do with public education in the House and Senate this session. Some bills are good, some are bad, and a few are just plain ugly.
The truth is that education in Georgia lags near the bottom of the national barrel because, despite the rhetoric from our politicians, our state doesn’t have a cohesive plan for improving public education and there is no entity or individual that seems able to change that perception.
Where is state Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox? Does she have a vision for public education that we the citizens can rally around and tell our legislators what we want our schools to be, instead of vice versa? She may have the greatest plan since Pontius was a pilot, but I don’t know what it is, and I doubt you do, either.
In the meantime, teachers are getting furloughed, and while that’s going on, Sonny Perdue wants to build a horse barn with our tax dollars.
Even the horses have to be embarrassed.

https://www.onlineathens.com/stories/032010/opi_592995935.shtml

“Schools need to be globally competitive, just as businesses are.”

So starts my article appearing in SEEN Magazine,

https://www.seenmagazine.us/Sections/ArticleDetail/tabid/79/ArticleID/556/smid/403/reftab/317/Default.aspx

The best students graduating from your community’s schools are not competing with the best graduates from the next community but with the best graduates in the world.

If you are interested in reading the rest of the article simply click on the URL above or go to SEEN Magazine’s website.

The recent suicide of Phoebe Prince who was literally bullied to death has caused me to republish an article that I was asked to write by a Mental Health Unit.  The death of one youth is one too many but when it is by suicide, it is even more painful.  For parents, educators, and teens, feel free to share this article.

YOUTH SUICIDE

Franklin P. Schargel

It doesn’t seem right that a young person between the ages of 11 and 19- who has lived for such a short time and has a long life ahead ““ would choose to die.  Look up “teenage suicide’ at google.com and you will find 1,100,000 “hits.” And with good reason:

DID YOU KNOW?

• In the next 24 hours 1,439 teens will attempt suicide.  As many as 250,000 adolescents made a serious unsuccessful effort to kill themselves last year.
• Every 90 minutes a teenager or young adult is successful in killing themselves.
• According to experts, suicide is the third leading cause of teenage deaths after automobile accidents and homicide.  Almost as many teens die from suicide as the fourth through the tenth leading causes of death combined.
• The suicide rate in the past 25 years has been decreasing, yet the rate for those between 15 and 24 has tripled. The adolescent suicide rate is nearly 33% higher than that of the overall population.
• Many youths have sought help in the month before the suicide.
• The ratio of male to female suicides is four to one.  However young women attempt suicide nine times more frequently. Guns are the most common means of suicide among males.  Pills are the most commonly used method of suicide for females.
• White males have had the highest increase in suicide, which rose 50% between 1970 & 1978.  The incidence for white females increased 12%.  Suicide among young blacks has also dramatically increased.
• Half of all children who have made one suicide attempt will make another, sometimes as many as two a year until they succeed.

WHAT ARE THE CAUSES?

Depression- A teen that is feeling suicidal may see no other way out of their problems, no other escape from emotional pain or no one to whom they can communicate about how they feel.  Depression expresses itself in a variety of ways including:  changes in appetite; chances in activity level; loss of sleep; lack on interest in activities that normally give pleasure; social withdrawal; and thoughts of death or punishment.

Substance Abuse Problems– Alcohol and some drugs are depressants.  Youths who are depressed may take these substances thinking that they will help ease the pain.  In reality, they make the situation worse.  They may limit their ability to assess risk, cloud their judgment, make good choices and think of solutions to their problems.

Teenage Stress ““ There are many pressures on teenagers – one’s that they have never experience before.  These include social, academic and personal, sexuality and relationship pressures. Some teens struggle with weight and eating problems, while others face learning difficulties in school. Getting in trouble in school or with the law, fighting with parents are risk factors for suicide.  A traumatic event like a breakup, failing a test, an unintended pregnancy or getting into an accident can bring on suicidal tendencies.

Violence ““ There is more violence in the newspapers, on television, on electronic games and in the movies.  Many children live in increasingly violent neighborhoods.  There is increased violence in the homes including familial violence and sexual abuse.  And it is easier to get the tools (guns and pills) of suicide.  If there is a gun in the home, youths are 5 times more likely to commit suicide than in homes without a gun.

Lack of parental interest – Many children grow up in single ““parent households.  Others have two working parents. According to one study, 90% of suicidal teenagers believed their families did not understand them.

Data show that families are spending less time together and more of our young people are spending more and more time in front of television screens.

WHAT ARE THE WARNING SIGNS?

The list below lists the most prevalent causes of youth suicide.  The list is not all-inclusive but should assist educators in identifying the most common warning signs. Not all youngsters who exhibit these signs will commit suicide.  However the greater the number of warning signs, the greater the likelihood of suicide predictors.

Warning Signs

Youth are most at risk of attempting suicide are those who:

• Made previous suicide attempts
• Talks about committing suicide
• Feels that “it is all my fault”
• Exhibit anger
• Signs of serious depression, moodiness, hopelessness, withdrawal
• Is a loner.
• Increased use of drugs or alcohol
• Changes in the sleeping or eating habits of the student.
• Cries often
• Talks about being bullied
  
• Chronic or sudden truancy
• Gives away possessions
• Recent suicide of a loved one or family member
• Preoccupied with death and dying
• Loses interest in their personal appearance
• Turmoil within family (divorce, remarriage, separation, merging of two families)
• Have a family history of suicide
• Have had a recent stressful event or loss in their lives
• Have easy access to lethal methods, especially guns
• Show signs of changes in eating and sleeping habits.
• Exhibit rebellious behavior or running away.
• Have difficulty concentrating or decline in quality of school work
• Loss of interest in previously pleasurable activities
• Gives verbal hints, such as “I won’t be a problem for you much longer,” or “Nothing matters.”
• Conflicts around sexual orientation
• Experienced a romantic break up
• Accessibility of firearms
• 
  
• Increased pressure to perform, achieve, be responsible
• Taking unnecessary risks

The greater the number of warning signs, the greater the risk.

WHAT CAN EDUCATORS DO?

1. While no one single symptom ““ or even a combination of factors is a predictor of suicide. If you suspect that a student is suicidal, teachers and students should tell a counselor or an administrator.
2. Always take suicidal comments very seriously.  If a student says that he or she is thinking about suicide, you need to take the comments seriously.  If you assume that the person is only seeking attention, you may be making a serious and potentially fatal decision.
3. Listen attentively to everything that a potential suicide person has to say. Encourage the person talk as much as he or she wants to.  Listen closely so that you can be as supportive as possible, and learn as much as possible about what is cause the pain.
4. Comfort the person with words of encouragement. There is no script to follow in these situations.
5. Don’t lecture or point out all the reasons a person has to live. Instead, listen and reassure the individual that depression and suicidal tendencies can be treated.
6. If you suspect that the individual is at high risk of suicide, do not leave the person alone. If you are in doubt, call 911.
7. Know your limits. Most of us have not been trained in how to handle situations like this.  Be supportive; listen attentively; let the person know that you are deeply concerned.
8. There are a number of local suicides “hotlines.” Their numbers are listed in your local telephone directories.  Check the numbers in front of your telephone directory or call the emergency numbers.  There is a National Suicide Helpline-1800-SUICIDE.  These telephone lines are staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by trained professional who can help without ever identifying the name of the individual calling.  All calls are confidential.

Website Resources

Teenage Sucide.com, https://www.1-teenage-suicide.com

American Academy of Pediatrics https://www.aap.org/advocacy/childhealthmonth/prevteensuicide.htm

Teen Suicide https://.focusas.com/suicide.html

Teens Health, https://www.kidshealth.org/

Franklin Schargel is a former classroom teacher, school counselor, and school administrator.  Mr. Schargel is currently a consultant and Senior Managing Associate.  He presents workshops on at-risk learners and preventing school dropouts.  He is also the author of 12 books dealing with school reform.  His latest book, 152 Ways To Keep Students in School” is a national best seller.

On April 1 NPR reported that Loyola Law School in Los Angeles is retroactively increasing all of its current students’ grades. That C+ from last year is now a B-. Everybody’s GPA just went up by 0.333. “For example, what previously was a B- would be a B, what previously was a B would be a B+, and so forth. All other academic standards based on grades, such as the probation and disqualification thresholds, are also adjusted upwards by the same magnitude. These changes are retroactive to include all grades that have been earned under the current grading system since it was adopted. This means that all grades already earned by current students will be changed. It also means that all grades going forward will be governed by the new curve. The effect of making the change retroactive will be to increase the GPA of all students by .333. The change will not alter relative class rank since the GPA of all students will be moved up by the same amount.”

The school says that it’s been grading on a harder curve than almost all the other law schools in California, so its students have been at an unfair disadvantage.

By “curving its grading system Loyola Law School is saying that education may be important not only because of whatever facts students learn, but grading is more important.

As one person commented, “Grading isn’t teaching, and testing isn’t learning. Professors don’t need grades. Students do, both to motivate them and to signal employers. Professors are being forced to impose a curve that did not match the actual performance of the students.”

If this weren’t so funny, it would be sad.  We are entering the generation of Lake Woebegon where all students are performing above average.  What do grades really indicate?  Do they reflect learning or are they simply a way of making students and parents and colleges feel better?  I believe that testing and ranking, while providing some benefits simply serve as a sorting system.  Possibly the best grading system would simply be “outstanding”, “passing” and “incomplete”.

This was the headline from the March 2010 ASCD publication, Education Update.  STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.  According to the article, 700 percent of all jobs will be created in STEM fields.  The article stressed the need for more females to be trained in STEM fields stating, “In 2007, women made up (only) 26 percent of mathematical and computer scientists and 11 percent of engineers.  As educators (we need) to think of new ways to engage girls in STEM classes”

I feel that we need to encourage all students, not just females to get involved with science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  Especially if 70 percent of the marketplace will be composed of these jobs.

What disturbs me is the emphasis on female involvement.  According to USA Today, 57% of all college attendees are female even though there are more men (15 million) than women (14.2) in the 18-24 year age group.  In addition most of the teachers in early childhood education are females.  One would think with the dominance of females in college and in elementary school classrooms, more young ladies would be majoring in STEM fields.

There was an outcry when Harvard President Lawrence Summers remarked that women might be underrepresented in sciences because of innate differences in ability.  There was an outcry when a 1992 report by the American Association of University Women entitled “How Schools Short-Change Girls”.

There has not been an outcry when more males dropout of high school and college resulting in a widening of a gender gap in educational achievement.  To state, as ASCD appears to be doing, that we need to encourage more females to enter fields, appears to me to be gender discrimination.

Full disclosure:  I am a male.