Franklin Schargel’s Blog

The New York Times reported that the Roman Catholic school system is in decline. In Brooklyn, NY the Diocese of Brooklyn has closed 14 schools this year. The projection is that the Diocese of Brooklyn last week proposed closing 14 more elementary schools. Enrollment in the nation’s Catholic schools has steadily dropped by more than half from its peak of five million 40 years ago.

Parochial schools provide a valuable service to many of our nation’s youngsters. In recent years, they have attracted poor and minority students “” including non-Catholics “” seeking havens of safety and order from troubled public schools. Roughly 20 percent of parochial school students are not Catholic, according to experts.

The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. was so desperate to save seven struggling parochial schools last year that it took down the crucifixes, hauled away the statues of the Virgin Mary, and “” in its own word “” “converted” the schools in the nation’s capital into city charter schools.

The Washington choice seemed an extreme measure to deal with the predicament facing Catholic education: How to maintain a Catholic school tradition of no-frills educational rigor, religious teaching and character-building “” a system that has helped shape generations of America’s striving classes since the turn of the last century “” when Catholics are no longer signing up their children.

Roughly 2,000 parochial schools have been since 1990, a majority in just the last eight years.

At its peak in 1965, the church’s network of parochial schools numbered more than 12,000 in the United States. The bulk of those were built starting at the turn of the century, when Catholic bishops commanded every parish to build one, largely from concern that waves of Catholic immigrants then arriving from Ireland and Italy would be lost in a public school system that was openly hostile to their beliefs.

By 1965, roughly half of all Catholic children in America attended Catholic elementary schools, according to the National Catholic Educational Association. Among Latinos, the fastest-growing church group “” soon to comprise a majority of Catholics in the United States “” it is only 3 percent.

What has caused this trend? There are a number of factors including a shortage of nuns and priests who once ran the schools at no extra cost and have been replaced by lay staff with pension benefits. Another factor is the rising cost of tuition

Arne Duncan, the new Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration was confirmed unanimously. Saying that it was an “extraordinary time” for the nation and an “extraordinary time to be working on education,” Duncan testified that he approached the position of secretary of education with three deeply held beliefs. First, every child from every background can be successful when adults do their jobs and give the children the opportunities to succeed. Second, when adults fail to properly educate children, they perpetuate poverty and social failure. Third, children have one chance at a quality education. For that last reason, he said, “we must work with an extraordinary sense of urgency. Simply put, we cannot wait because they cannot wait.”

Explaining that President Obama views education as “both a moral obligation and an economic imperative,” Duncan outlined some of the education initiatives that Obama plans to pursue. He mentioned the need to improve the access to and the quality of early childhood education, to raise standards and increase teacher quality, and to ensure greater access to higher education and strengthen institutions such as community colleges, which he said were “critically important” to giving people a second chance at retooling their skills and getting back into the workforce.

Duncan noted two themes that were very important to him and that he felt should permeate the work that needed to be done. The first was to do dramatically better and continue to innovate, which, as he explained it, means building upon what works and challenging the status quo. The second was to recognize and reward excellence.

“We have to elevate the teaching profession,” he said. “We have to build upon this next generation of leaders in our schools and our state boards. And we have to find ways to scale up what works. There are great, great pockets of excellence as we look across every state in this country. We have to find ways that scale up what works and shine a spotlight on those educators who are doing an extraordinary job and going above and beyond the call of duty”¦”

EDUCATION

President Obama and Vice President Biden believe that our kids and our country can’t afford four more years of neglect and indifference. At this defining moment in our history, America faces few more urgent challenges than preparing our children to compete in a global economy. The decisions our leaders make about education in the coming years will shape our future for generations to come. Obama and Biden are committed to meeting this challenge with the leadership and judgment that has been sorely lacking for the last eight years. Their vision for a 21st century education begins with demanding more reform and accountability, coupled with the resources needed to carry out that reform; asking parents to take responsibility for their children’s success; and recruiting, retaining, and rewarding an army of new teachers to fill new successful schools that prepare our children for success in college and the workforce. The Obama-Biden plan will restore the promise of America’s public education, and ensure that American children again lead the world in achievement, creativity and success.
Early Childhood Education

* Zero to Five Plan: The Obama-Biden comprehensive “Zero to Five” plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. Unlike other early childhood education plans, the Obama-Biden plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama and Biden will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state Zero to Five efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school.
* Expand Early Head Start and Head Start: Obama and Biden will quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding, and improve quality for both.
* Provide affordable, High-Quality Child Care: Obama and Biden will also increase access to affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.

K-12

* Reform No Child Left Behind: Obama and Biden will reform NCLB, which starts by funding the law. Obama and Biden believe teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. They will improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for college and the workplace and improve student learning in a timely, individualized manner. Obama and Biden will also improve NCLB’s accountability system so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them.

* Support High-Quality Schools and Close Low-Performing Charter Schools:
Barack Obama and Joe Biden will double funding for the Federal Charter School Program to support the creation of more successful charter schools. The Obama-Biden administration will provide this expanded charter school funding only to states that improve accountability for charter schools, allow for interventions in struggling charter schools and have a clear process for closing down chronically underperforming charter schools. Obama and Biden will also prioritize supporting states that help the most successful charter schools to expand to serve more students.
* Make Math and Science Education a National Priority:
Obama and Biden will recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession and will support efforts to help these teachers learn from professionals in the field. They will also work to ensure that all children have access to a strong science curriculum at all grade levels.

* Address the Dropout Crisis:
Obama and Biden will address the dropout crisis by passing legislation to provide funding to school districts to invest in intervention strategies in middle school — strategies such as personal academic plans, teaching teams, parent involvement, mentoring, intensive reading and math instruction, and extended learning time.

* Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities:
Obama and Biden will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, to serve one million more children.

* Support College Outreach Programs: Obama and Biden support outreach programs like GEAR UP, TRIO and Upward Bound to encourage more young people from low-income families to consider and prepare for college.
* Support College Credit Initiatives:
Barack Obama and Joe Biden will create a national “Make College A Reality” initiative that has a bold goal to increase students taking AP or college-level classes nationwide 50 percent by 2016, and will build on Obama’s bipartisan proposal in the U.S. Senate to provide grants for students seeking college level credit at community colleges if their school does not provide those resources.
* Support English Language Learners:
Obama and Biden support transitional bilingual education and will help Limited English Proficient students get ahead by holding schools accountable for making sure these students complete school.
* Recruit Teachers:
Obama and Biden will create new Teacher Service Scholarships that will cover four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher education, including high-quality alternative programs for mid-career recruits in exchange for teaching for at least four years in a high-need field or location.
* Prepare Teachers:
Obama and Biden will require all schools of education to be accredited. Obama and Biden will also create a voluntary national performance assessment so we can be sure that every new educator is trained and ready to walk into the classroom and start teaching effectively. Obama and Biden will also create Teacher Residency Programs that will supply 30,000 exceptionally well-prepared recruits to high-need schools.
* Retain Teachers:
To support our teachers, the Obama-Biden plan will expand mentoring programs that pair experienced teachers with new recruits. They will also provide incentives to give teachers paid common planning time so they can collaborate to share best practices.
* Reward Teachers:
Obama and Biden will promote new and innovative ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them. Districts will be able to design programs that reward with a salary increase accomplished educators who serve as a mentors to new teachers. Districts can reward teachers who work in underserved places like rural areas and inner cities. And if teachers consistently excel in the classroom, that work can be valued and rewarded as well.

Higher Education

* Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit:
Obama and Biden will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students. Recipients of the credit will be required to conduct 100 hours of community service.
* Simplify the Application Process for Financial Aid:
Obama and Biden will streamline the financial aid process by eliminating the current federal financial aid application and enabling families to apply simply by checking a box on their tax form, authorizing their tax information to be used, and eliminating the need for a separate application.

Students with Disabilities

Obama and Biden will work to ensure the academic success of students with disabilities by increasing funding and effectively enforcing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and by holding schools accountable for providing students with disabilities the services and supports they need to reach their potential. Obama and Biden will also support Early Intervention services for infants and toddlers, and will work to improve college opportunities for high school graduates with disabilities.

There are many advantages that small schools offer over large factory-model schools. They allow greater attention to be paid to students who need an identity as well as recognition that they may need additional assistance. However, Bill Gates admitted at a session held at the Form of Education, that they are not the silver bullet he had believed.

The Gates Foundation has spent approximately $2 Billion in the past ten years supporting a “small schools” initiative that breaks existing low-performing schools into 400-student blocks. The theory is that these small schools will reduce drop-out rates — even in the absence of other major improvements — by making students feel part of a community. When all the teachers and principals know your name, you have to keep showing up, right?

Now, Bill Gates has acknowledged that the results have been “disappointing” too. Gates shared the information. Here’s what he said in his speech:

“In the first four years of our work with new, small schools, most of the schools had achievement scores below district averages on reading and math assessments. In one set of schools we supported, graduation rates were no better than the statewide average, and reading and math scores were consistently below the average. The percentage of students attending college the year after graduating high school was up only 2.5 percentage points after five years. Simply breaking up existing schools into smaller units often did not generate the gains we were hoping for.”

The evidence is clear that smaller impersonal schools are no more effective than larger impersonal schools.

So what is the answer? “The defining feature of a great education is what happens in the classroom,” Gates said. “Everything starts from that and must be built around it. So we’re going to sharpen our focus on effective teaching””in particular supporting new standards, curriculum, instructional tools, and data that help teachers””because these changes trigger the biggest gains, they are hardest to scale, and that is what’s holding us back.”

It is something we already know. We need to create better qualified, highly effective teachers. Simply relying on “highly qualified teachers” is not the answer. We have all had highly qualified teachers (teachers who knew the material) who were not highly effective (knew how to teach the material.)

As he said, “Money is tight. We need to spend it wisely. We’re now spending $8 billion a year for teachers with master’s degrees, even though the evidence suggests that master’s degrees do not improve student achievement. We’re spending billions on a seniority system, even though the evidence says that seniority, after the first five years, may not improve student achievement. We’ve spent billions to reduce class size, even though there is no strong evidence that spending money to reduce class size in high school is the most impactful way to improve student performance. And the last thing we can afford””-whether the economy is good or bad””-is to pay teachers who can’t do the job. As President-elect Obama and others have pointed out: We need to give all teachers the benefit of clear standards, sound curriculum, good training, and top instructional tools. But if their students still keep falling behind, they’re in the wrong line of work, and they need to find another job.”

As I have indicated in earlier blogs, in these times of economic crisis, education takes a disproportionate hit in cutting back. In the state of Florida, the state legislature recently suggested a cut in educational spending equal to almost $467 Million.

We cannot attract enough people who are willing to work in poor conditions, without sufficient administrative support and for a low salary.