Franklin Schargel’s Blog

USA Today reported that while the number of students taking the Advanced Placement Tests “hit a record high last year”, the number of students who failed to reach a 3 score (in order to gain credit) fell.  Last year 2.9 million examinations were taken in order to gain college-level credit.  The newspaper found that more than two in five students (41.5%) earned a failing score of 1 or 2, up from 36.5% in 1999. In the South, nearly half of all tests- 48.4% earned a 1 or 2.

The newspaper also reported that “more students, rewarded by weighted grades, and in some cases, cash payments,are taking the bait.”

Schools have pushed Advanced Placement testing as a means of increasing student performance and have failed to adequately prepare both teachers and students for the rigor of the higher standards demanded from Advanced Placement courses.  There needs to be an investment of time, funding and preparation if school districts and principals which to offer advanced placement. Not doing so is deceptive to students, parents and the community and in the long run, is harmful to everyone.

Franklin has been selected to be the “author of the month” by Eye on Education.

Please check out their blog at https://blog.eyeoneducation.com/

If you need additional information about his books or having him speak at your school or conference, call him 505/823-2339.

Board member Randy Freeman, an elementary school teacher and parent to four daughters in Menifee schools, said he supports the initial decision to ban the dictionary temporarily.After a parent complained about an elementary school student stumbling across “oral sex” in a classroom dictionary, Menifee Union School District in California, officials decided to pull Merriam Webster’s 10th edition from all school shelves earlier this week.

School officials will review the dictionary to decide if it should be permanently banned because of the “sexually graphic” entry, said district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus.

“It’s just not age appropriate,” said Cadmus, adding that this is the first time a book has been removed from classrooms throughout the district.

Meanwhile, some parents are questioning the district’s response.

“If we’re going to pull a book because it has something on oral sex, then every book in the library with that better be pulled,” she said. “The standard needs to be consistent ….”

Freeman said it’s “a prestigious dictionary that’s used in the Riverside County spelling bee, but I also imagine there are words in there of concern.”

Let’s get real.  With all of the things that schools have to deal with, one parent’s complaint has started the ball rolling.  I looked at the dictionary and words like, “kill”, “murder” and “war” which to me, are more offensive and obscene are still in the dictionary.

A survey conducted by Peter Hart Research Associates based on interviews with 302 employers revealed the following most important staffing requirements:

89% said effective communication, both orally and in writing.

81% said critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills.

79% said the ability to apply knowledge and skills to real-world settings   through  internships or other hands-on experiences.

75% said analytic skill, complex problem-solving.

75% said the ability to make ethical decisions.

Notice none of the employers said that passing high performance tests, as required by No Child Left Behind is on the list.

Teen age pregnancy continues to make headlines with Sarah Palin’s daughter announcing that she would be abstinent until marriage.  This is after she bore a child while a teenager.  Data indicate that abstinence doesn’t work with teenagers.  A new report from New Child Trends indicates that 34 percent of young women who had been teen mothers did not earn a high school diploma or a GED, compared with only 6 percent of young women who had not had a teen birth.

Among the other findings presented in a fact sheet entitled Diploma Attainment Among Teen Mothers:

Slightly more than one-half (51%) of teen mothers received a high school diploma by the age of 22, compared with 89 percent of young women who had not given birth during their teen years.

A higher proportion of teen mothers earned a GED (15 percent) than did their counterparts who had not experienced a teen birth (5 percent).

Younger teen mothers are less likely than older teen mothers to earn a diploma.  Among young women who had a child before the age of 18, only 38 percent earned a high school diploma by the age of 22, compared with 60 percent of those who were 18 or 19 at the time that they had their first child.

Black teen mothers are more likely than Hispanic or white teen mothers to earn a diploma or GED by age 22.  More than two-thirds (67 percent) of black women who had a child before the age of 18 earned either a high school diploma or GED, compared with 55 percent of white women and 46 percent of Hispanic women in this category.

Data used in this study were drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1997 Cohort.

With the nation’s increased emphasis on increasing graduation rates, stopping teenage pregnancy would seem to be a topic of discussion in homes as well as schools. Giving birth as a teenager determines the rest of a child’s life script.

A new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that the average young American now spends practically every waking minute “” except for the time in school “” using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device, .

Those ages 8 to 18 spend more than seven and a half hours a day with such devices, compared with less than six and a half hours five years ago, when the study was last conducted. And that does not count the hour and a half that youths spend texting, or the half-hour they talk on their cellphones.

And because so many of them are multitasking “” say, surfing the Internet while listening to music “” they pack on average nearly 11 hours of media content into that seven and a half hours.

The study’s findings shocked its authors, who had concluded in 2005 that use could not possibly grow further, and confirmed the fears of many parents whose children are constantly tethered to media devices. It found, moreover, that heavy media use is associated with several negatives, including behavior problems and lower grades.

The study found that young people’s media consumption grew far more in the last five years than from 1999 to 2004, as sophisticated mobile technology like iPods and smart phones brought media access into teenagers’ pockets and beds.

While most of the young people in the study got good grades, 47 percent of the heaviest media users “” those who consumed at least 16 hours a day “” had mostly C’s or lower, compared with 23 percent of those who typically consumed media three hours a day or less. The heaviest media users were also more likely than the lightest users to report that they were bored or sad, or that they got into trouble, did not get along well with their parents and were not happy at school.

The report is based on a survey of more than 2,000 students in grades 3 to 12 that was conducted from October 2008 to May 2009.

On average, young people spend about two hours a day consuming media on a mobile device, the study found. They spend almost another hour on “old” content like television or music delivered through newer pathways like the Web site Hulu or iTunes. Youths now spend more time listening to or watching media on their cellphones, or playing games, than talking on them.

The Kaiser study found that more than 7 in 10 youths have a TV in their bedroom, and about a third have a computer with Internet access in their bedroom.

The heaviest media users, the study found, are black and Hispanic youths and “tweens,” or those ages 11 to 14.

Schools have attempted to ban the use of cellphones, PDA’s, Ipods, etc and  run into resistance from parents and students.  This study indicates that student use of technology is built into their DNA and schools need to identify ways to harness this technology rather than banning it.