Franklin Schargel’s Blog

Jaime Escalante, the teacher who did the “impossible” (sic), got all minority students to take and pass higher levels of mathematics tests recently died.  Because he was dealing with minorities, the powers that were, refused to believe that they didn’t cheat.  The following tribute was issued by the White House Initiative for Education Excellence for Hispanics, U.S. Department of Education, Hispanic Outreach & Resources.

Stand and Deliver’ Inspiration and Long-Time Educator Jaime Escalante Loses Battle with Cancer

It is with a heavy heart that the White House Initiative announces the passing of Jaime Escalante, mathematics educator and the inspiration for the movie “Stand and Deliver,” starring Edward James Olmos. The native Bolivian and education veteran, 79, lost his battle with bladder cancer at 2:27 p.m., Tuesday, March 30. We pay tribute to Jaime Escalante and his lasting contributions to the field of education.  Our thoughts are with his wife, children and grandchildren.

To read more about Jaime Escalante’s phenomenal career visit:
https://www.biography.com/hispanic-heritage/jaime-escalante.jsp

American schools are frequently compared to higher performing foreign schools with the reminder that our schools need to be globally competitive in today’s economic climate.

If we look at the TIMSS Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study or PISA Programme for International Student Assessment examinations given by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and (OECD), we can see many differences between America’s low achievement rate and those of other countries.   One of the major differences is about to be addressed by the Obama’s administration’s “Common Core State Standards” which were released on March 10th.

The Constitution of the United States does not mention education and therefore education is assumed to be a state function not a federal government function.  This has led to a patchwork of high and low state standards.  The new “Common Core” is designed to remedy that.  The draft lists a grade-by-grade list of common standards which 48 states and Washington, DC have agreed to follow.  (Alaska and Texas are the only holdouts.)

The English/language arts standards aim to “lay out a vision of what it means to be a literate person in the 21st century.”   There are 300 pages of appendices which offer examples of student work from the minimally acceptable to highest performing.  There does not seem to be an attempt to tell teachers how to teach to the standards.

The government is soliciting public comments until April 2 by going to www.corestandards.org  The final version is expected to be posted in late spring.

School sports provide important functions in schools.  They teach team work, build school morale, raise funds, inspire competition and competitiveness and provide problem-solving skills. Yet there is a downside to this activity.

The United States Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, has said that if he had any say in it, dozens of teams in the NCAA championship basketball competition would be declared ineligible to participate.  It seems that a number of teams had graduation rates of less than 40%.  The list includes #1 ranked Arkansas (29%) and includes Baylor (36%), California (20%), Clemson (37%), Georgia Tech (38%), Kentucky (31%), Louisville (38%), Maryland (8%), Missouri (36%),  New Mexico State (36%) Tennessee (30%), and Washington (29%).

The figures were compiled from NCAA rates and come from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida.  The reported rates do not include transfers or players who leave early for the NBA.

School sports also cost schools a great deal of money.  To have such high failure rates among basketball players is unacceptable.  It would appear that the players need to have academic mentors and additional academic assistance.  why can’t these schools allocate funds to assist these young people?

If these graduation rates affect colleges, then school administrators in middle and high schools should look at how many of their athletes fail to graduate.  After all schools weren’t built to develop athletes but were built to develop brains and academics.

Of course they should!

As most of you are aware, all staff from Central Falls High School in Rhode Island have been fired because the school has made little progress in improving student’s tests scores in reading and mathematics.

President Obama joined the discussion this week by stating, “If a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn’t show any sign of improvement, then there’s got to be a sense of accountability.”  Later this month,  Secretary of Education Artie Duncan will release a list of 5,000 of the nation’s lowest performing schools.  The firing of teachers or at least making them reapply for their jobs is becoming a nationwide trend.  In Boston public schools announced that staff at six low-performing schools would have to apply for their jobs.  In California, staff in 188 low-performing schools would have to do the same.

I  do not know enough about the situation to form a opinion about whether these firings were justified.  I would like to know what assistance, if any, was provided to help these teachers succeed.  I feel certain that the problem in Rhode Island  did not begin in the high school.  How much professional development was provided by the superintendent or principal?  How much seniority did the principal have?  How much responsibility for learning did the parents have?  How much extra assistance was provided to students in the form of tutoring?  Were teachers supplied with qualified mentors?  Until we have answers to these questions, we should not rush to judgment.

I do not know how many of you saw this in Newsweek.  For those of you who didn’t, here it is.

Diane Ravitch is one of the brightest educational writers in America.

The Shame of Newsweek
By Diane Ravitch on March 16, 2010 8:33 AM | 55 Comments | No TrackBacks
Dear Deborah,
Did you see Newsweek last week? What a stunning and uninformed attack on teachers and teachers’ unions. The cover of the magazine told the story: The Key to Saving American Education, by Evan Thomas and Pat Wingert. It was printed on a classroom blackboard. In the background, on the same blackboard, was the handwritten phrase, repeated again and again, “We must fire bad teachers.”
The story itself is a parody of a right-wing rant. It seems that the nation’s classrooms are overrun with “bad teachers,” pedophiles, “weak” teachers, ineffective teachers, dumb teachers, and others who remain in the classroom only because they have “lifetime tenure.” Evil teachers’ unions protect these people who are harming our nation’s children. Researchers now know, the writers say, that if we could fire all these malingerers, the notorious achievement gap between the races would soon close and America would once again lead the world in education.
The writers hold out hope: non-union charter schools and Teach for America will “save” American education.
Leave aside the odd assertion that “much of the ability to teach is innate.” (How do they know?) Leave aside the adulation for Michelle Rhee, Wendy Kopp, KIPP, and anyone who fights teachers’ unions. Leave aside the horror stories about teachers accused of abusing students and keeping “a stash of pornography and cocaine at school.” The article is a flamboyant example of outright hostility to teachers, to the organizations that represent them, and to public education itself.
Nowhere does the article mention that the highest-performing state in the nation is Massachusetts, where all or almost all teachers belong to unions; nor does it mention that the highest-performing nation in the world is Finland, where all or almost all teachers belong to unions. Nowhere in the article is there an example of a non-union district or state in the United States that has achieved high academic performance.
Instead, the article baldly asserts that “New Orleans has made more educational progress than any other city, largely because the public-school system was wiped out.” Hurricane Katrina made it possible to get rid of public education and to wipe out unions, which the article claims are the biggest impediments to high academic achievement.
No use to point out that TFA, with its 4,100 new teachers every year and its 17,000 alumni, is not going to “save” American education or replace a teaching force of 4.6 million. No mention of the many studies that show that TFA often does not outperform ordinary, experienced teachers. No reason to note the high attrition rate of students at charters like KIPP and YES Prep or to acknowledge that teachers at such schools typically work 50-60 (or more) hours each week, which is not sustainable. (By the way, all of this is documented in my book.)
The Newsweek writers applaud the firing of all the teachers at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. It doesn’t bother them that teachers were not individually evaluated, but fired en masse. But that is not enough. They won’t be satisfied until large numbers of teachers are dismissed, teachers’ unions are crushed, and public education is replaced by non-union charter schools.
Never mind that the research on teacher effectiveness on which they rely is highly speculative and highly contested. Never mind that non-union charters, on average, do not outperform regular public schools. Why bother with such details?
Newsweek, it seems, speaks for the Jack Welch School of Management: Fire the bottom 10 percent every year. A friend said the other day, “If Newsweek is so smart, how come the magazine is in such deep financial trouble? Maybe they need to fire 10 percent of their staff every year.” A dose of their own medicine?
Diane

It is critical to any nation to have sufficient number of highly qualified teachers.

The National Task Force on Teacher Education in Physics released a report which indicates that of 23,000 teachers of high school physics, only one-third have a major in physics or physics education.  The task forces urges physics departments and colleges of education to”recognize that they have a responsibility for the professional preparation of  physics teachers.”

As long as industry has the ability to pay people who major in physics two to three times more than schools can afford to, we will have a shortage of qualified people who are teaching science or math.  Expecting people who paid $14,000 or more per year for their college education to go into education for the glory of working in schools, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

You’ve heard of addiction to alcohol and drugs?  You’ve heard about food addiction.  Have your heard about “internet addiction”?

In a study conducted by the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, 1,300 people between the ages of 16 and 51 found that many of them were addicted to spending many hours scanning websites, texting, gaming sites, and online communities.  The study found that these people were more likely to be depressed. Of the sample, 1.2 percent were “internet addicted”.  Because of the amount of time they spent on the web, their online relationship had replace real social activities in the real world, leaving them isolated and depressed.

Many of us know children (and adults) who have become so dependent on cell phones, mp3 players, and the Internet that they forget to eat, play or sleep.

The real questions are what are the implications for schools?  For school counselors?

My other concerns are which comes first:  Do depressed people turn to the Internet?  Or does the Internet cause people to become depressed?

One other thing to consider and question:  With the growing number of virtual schools, will this (does this)  result in depressed and lonely people and what do we do about that?

With states finding shortfalls in their budgets because of the recession, Missouri along with other states has decided to cut spending for public education.  I understand the need for cuts but I believe that cuts in education should be among the last cuts made by states.

The Kansas City Star reported that Missouri’s yacht buys can save up to $30,000 on the purchase of a $500,000 yacht.  This exemption, experts say, costs the state $6 million a year.

Missouri State Senator Jason Crowell (R, 27th District) says that $47 million is being cut out of K-12 classrooms and $15 million is being cut from the school bus transportation budget.  But that $25 million is being added to the Kansas City Chiefs’ budget.

I don’t know about you, but I am getting extremely tired of hearing politicians say how important education is for the nation and for states and then cutting spending.