Franklin Schargel’s Blog

I wish you and yours a glorious Christmas, a happy Chanukah, and a happy Kwanzaa,  a happy, HEALTHY, and prosperous New Year.  And may the New Year bring a year of peace.

See you in the New Year.

Franklin

Even though the current administration has a few days left, Margaret Spellings, the Secretary of Education in the Bush Administration has issued new regulations to make schools more accountable for high school dropout rates. All states will need to implement a uniform tracking system to determine how many students graduate on time and how many drop out. Schools have used a variety of methods to report dropouts, graduates, and transfers, many of which underestimated dropout rates and inflated graduation rates, according to the federal government.

The rules also require raising graduation rates for all students, including minorities and students with special needs. A school might have a high overall graduation rate, but still have a low rate for minority students or those with disabilities. States are allowed to set their own targets for improvement, and the federal government cannot force states to set more ambitious goals. But U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said it can make states accountable publicly for failing to graduate more students.

www.ed.gov

According to a new report from the United States Department of Agriculture, some 691,000 children went hungry in America sometime in 2007, even before this year’s sharp economic downtown.

The department’s annual report on food security showed that during 2007 the number of children who suffered a substantial disruption in the amount of food they typically eat was more than double the 430,000 in 2006 and the largest figure since 716,000 in 1998.

Overall, the 36.2 million adults and children who struggled with hunger during the year was up slightly from 35.5 million in 2006. That was 12.2 percent of Americans who didn’t have the money or assistance to get enough food to maintain active, healthy lives.

Almost a third of those, 11.9 million adults and children, went hungry at some point. That figure has grown by more than 40 percent since 2000. The government says these people suffered a substantial disruption in their food supply at some point and classifies them as having “very low food security.” Until the government rewrote its definitions two years ago, this group was described as having “food insecurity with hunger.”

The findings should increase pressure to meet President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to expand food aid and end childhood hunger by 2015, said James Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, an anti-hunger group.

Among other findings:

_The families with the highest rates of food insecurity were headed by single mothers (30.2 percent), black households (22.2 percent), Hispanic households (20.1 percent), and households with incomes below the official poverty line (37.7 percent).

_States with families reporting the highest prevalence of food insecurity during 2005-2007 were Mississippi (17.4 percent), New Mexico (15 percent), Texas (14.8 percent) and Arkansas (14.4 percent).

_The highest growth in food insecurity over the last 9 years came in Alaska and Iowa, both of which saw a 3.7 percent increase in families who struggled to eat adequately or had substantial food disruptions.

Source:

• https://ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR66/ERR66.pdf

Educators know that students who are hungry have a difficult time studying and learning.  Schools may have to pick up the slack when parents are unable to feed themselves and their children.

For students who graduate high school in the bottom 40 percent of their class, college is usually a waste of money.  More than two-thirds of such students who enroll as freshmen fail to earn a college degree.  Colleges admit that these ill-prepare students are accepted,  then the colleges re-mediate them and cash their tuition payments but do little to prepare them for the real world.  When these students dropout, they leave campuses with a mountain of debt from student loans, lowered self-esteem and unprepared for work.

Then, knowing this, why do colleges accept them?  Colleges need to fill their seats and use tuition monies to fund other projects.

College dropout rates exceed K-12 dropouts with students who successfully graduated from high school.

What are students and parents to do?  Probably go to a career-oriented community college or enrolling in job-train programs given by some corporations.

Source:  The Chronicle of Higher Education

A report issued by the National Center for Educational Statistics:  The Status and Trends in the Education of American Indians and Alaska Natives: 2008 examines both the educational progress of American Indian/Alaska Native children and adults and challenges in their education. This report shows that over time more American Indian/Alaska Native students have gone on to college and that their attainment expectations have increased. Despite these gains, progress has been uneven and differences persist between American Indian/Alaska Native students and students of other racial/ethnic groups on key indicators of educational performance.

Preprimary, Elementary, and Secondary Education

During the 2005?06 school year, some 644,000 public elementary and secondary school students, or about 1 percent of all public school students, were American Indian/Alaska Native.  During 2006″“07, Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) schools served nearly 48,500 American Indian/Alaska Native students. In 2006, some 14 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native children were served by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which was a higher percentage than the percentage of children in all racial/ethnic groups. In comparison, 9 percent of the general population was served under IDEA. (Indicator 2.3)  A larger percentage (66 percent) of American Indian/Alaska Native 8th-grade students reported absences from school in the preceding month than 8th-grade students of any other race/ethnicity in 2007 (36 to 57 percent). In 2004, American Indian/Alaska Native students in grades kindergarten through 12 had a lower suspension rate (7 percent) than Black students (15 percent), but a higher rate than students of all other racial/ethnic groups. In 2006, a smaller percentage of American Indian/Alaska Native students (75 percent) reported receiving a high school diploma than White (91 percent) and Asian/Pacific Islander students (93 percent). In 2006, only Hispanic young adults had a higher status dropout rate (21 percent) than American Indian/Alaska Native young adults (15 percent). Status dropout rates represent the percentage of 16- to 24-year-olds who are out of school and who have not earned a high school diploma or General Educational Development (GED) credential. A smaller percentage of American Indian/Alaska Native 2-year-olds than 2-year-olds in all other groups demonstrated specific cognitive skills in vocabulary, listening comprehension, matching, and counting in 2003″“04.  For example, 74 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native children demonstrated receptive vocabulary, compared to 84 percent of all children. (Indicator 4.1)  On the 2007 4th- and 8th-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading and mathematics assessments, American Indian/Alaska Native students generally scored lower than White and Asian/Pacific Islander students but not measurably different from Hispanic students. (Indicators 4.2  A higher percentage of American Indian/Alaska Native high school graduates completed core academic high school coursework in 2005 (36 percent) than in 1982 (3 percent). However, these percentages were smaller than the comparable percentages for the total population of students (52 percent in 2005 and 10 percent in 1982). On the sections measuring critical reading and mathematics of the 2007 SAT college entrance exam, American Indian/Alaska Native students scored lower than the national average, but higher than Black and Hispanic students. In critical reading, American Indians/Alaska Natives had an average score of 497, which was higher than the scores for Black students (433) and Mexican American students (455), but lower than the overall average (502).  In 2007, 78 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native 8th-graders in public schools reported using a computer at home, which was lower than the percentage for 8th-graders of any other racial/ethnic group (82 to 96 percent). In 2007, greater than 25 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native children in grades 4 and 8 reported use of a traditional language within the family at least half of the time.

At grade 4, some 31 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native students attending high density
schools (in which American Indians/Alaska Natives made up at least a fourth of the
enrollment) had administrators who reported visits by American Indian/Alaska Native
community members to share traditions and culture three or more times during the school
year, compared to 9 percent in low density schools. Higher percentages of American Indian/Alaska
Native students in schools in which American Indians/Alaska Natives made up at least a fourth of the enrollment had administrators who reported specific problems in school climate than did American Indian/Alaska Native students in lower density schools. In 2007, 4th- and 8th-grade students in these high density schools had administrators who reported serious problems with student absenteeism, student tardiness, lack of family involvement, and low expectations. In 2006, some 21 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native children between the ages of 12 and 17 reported the use of alcohol in the past month, compared to 11 percent of Black and 8 percent of Asian children who did so.

A report issued by the National Center for Educational Statistics:  The Status and Trends in the Education of American Indians and Alaska Natives: 2008 examines both the educational progress of American Indian/Alaska Native children and adults and challenges in their education. This report shows that over time more American Indian/Alaska Native students have gone on to college and that their attainment expectations have increased. Despite these gains, progress has been uneven and differences persist between American Indian/Alaska Native students and students of other racial/ethnic groups on key indicators of educational performance.
Demographic Overview
In 2006, there were 4.5 million American Indians/Alaska Natives in the United States, representing 1.5 percent of the total U.S. population. In 2006, almost half (49 percent) of all American Indians/Alaska Natives including those of Hispanic ethnicity, resided in western states.  In 2003, there were more than 560 federally recognized American Indian/Alaska Native tribes, with the largest tribes being Cherokee and Navajo.
Since 1990, the median age of American Indians/Alaska Natives, including those of Hispanic
ethnicity, increased by 5 years, from 26 to 31. In 2006, the median age for the general population was 36 years.  In 2006, 27 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native individuals lived in poverty compared
to 13 percent of the general population. At 36 percent, the American Indian/Alaska Native
poverty rate was higher among families on reservations than among families in other American Indian/Alaska Native areas in 1999.  In 2005, the overall fertility rate for American Indian/Alaska Native women (ages 15 to 44 years) was 60 births per 1,000 women, which was lower than that for women in general (67 per 1,000); however, birth rates for young American Indian/Alaska Native women (ages 15 to 24 years) were higher than among young women overall (53 per 1,000 compared to 41 per 1,000 for 15- to 19-year-olds and 109 per 1,000 compared to 102 per 1,000 for 20- to 24-year-olds). Infant and child mortality rates for American Indians/Alaska Natives were higher
than those for all infants and children under age 20. For example, the child mortality rate for 15- to 19-year-olds was higher for American Indians/Alaska Natives (94 per 100,000) than compared to the general population (65 per 100,000).