Franklin Schargel’s Blog

The following was written by Ernest Logan, President of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators. (Used with permission)

“Dear Colleagues:

I recently had a discussion with a woman who told me she believed that too much was asked of schools and school leaders.  Parents are failing our children, she said as well as a society that values a quick buck and celebrity culture.  “What can a school possibly do in six or seven hours a day when they go home to such emptiness?  It’s simply impossible for a school to provide a child with all the things he’ll need in the future educationally, socially and culturally if they get little of that at home” she said.

My response suprised her: “If the job is too tough for any of my members,’ I told her, “They should find another profession.  The reason we’re in this business is because we believe we can make a difference in every child’s life.  We accept the challenge to face what you call an impossible task.  There are no excuses for failing to educate children.”

“But why?” she asked, still not getting it.

I answered her:  “We forge ahead against the odds because we believe our children are worth it.  Anyone getting into this business knows ahead of time what they are getting into.  I don’t waste my time listening to complains about about ‘what we can do.’  Educators have plenty of solutions.  What they need from the system is the resources, support and funding to get the job done.”

You should have seen her face. Not only had I rejected her sympathy for my members’ “plight,” I spurned her notion of an impossible task.  All she could say was, “Wow!  You have to be really committed to believe that.”

We are.  Being an educator is a calling.  There are so many children who need us in so many ways –  it’s not enough to simply provide children with reading and math classes and expect them to bloom.  Children come to our schools to be nourished intellectually and emotionally.  We can’t plant seeds and then walk away praying for a good rainstorm later in the day.  We must help the seedlings grow, prop up those hat need more support and help all of them reach for the sun.”

‘Till next time.

People at my workshops ask if I have read any good educational books.  Thank to my travel schedule and the whims of the airlines, I have the opportunity to read a number of outstanding books.  So a number of these blogs will deal with some of my recent favorites.

There is a simple message in Scars of Love – Tears of Hope.  The message is that educators can and do influence the lives of children.  Written by Deborah Goforth, an educator with 27 years experience, this highly personal vision of what teaching is all about.  The author explains, how we can leave scars of love on the children we see and interact with every day of we can leave scars of hurt. The stories Deborah tells are poignant as well as refreshing.  They evoke tears as well as laughter.

The book can be ordered at www.bookmasters.com/marketplc/01936.htm

Michigan reported that the results from the Michigan Merit Examination showed that more than half of the the high school juniors who took the test failed.  Michigan recently revised its high school curricula and made them more difficult.

But the road to school failure doesn’t begin in high schools.  How can a student who enters high school reading on a 4th grade level be expected to graduate from high school reading, at minimum, on the 9th grade level when he or she has failed to improve their reading scores in elementary or middle school?  High schools take “the hit” for school failure when the reality is that students need to improve in elementary and middle schools.

The answer is not so simple.  Because data clearly indicate that retaining a student increases the likelihood of their dropping out between 20% – 90%.  What needs to be done once a student has failed to master material is to build immediate safety nets into the learning process.  That means establishing mentor programs, after-school or Saturday remediation classes.

Till next time.

Franklin

Susan Newman is the former Under Secretary of Education for Elementary and Secondary Schools in the George W. Bush administration.  The following article appeared in the Detroit Free Press.

“Six years after the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind law, there is frustratingly little evidence that it will close the achievement gap between low-income, minority children and their middle-class peers. Despite the heroic attempts of many dedicated educators, NCLB-inspired school reforms, like so many others before, have failed and will continue to fail to change the trajectory of our disadvantaged children.

As President George W. Bush’s assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education during NCLB’s passage and initial implementation, I began my journey believing that raising standards would be enough to help low-income children succeed. I have learned that closing the achievement gap requires much more. The failure is not a result of the president’s espoused “soft bigotry of low expectations,” but because many children grow up in circumstances that make them highly vulnerable.

Schools educate middle-class children well but struggle to function as remedial, clinical institutions. Once a child starts falling behind in school, catching up is mostly a pipe dream.

In their 1995 book “Meaningful Differences,” Betty Hart and Todd Risley calculated it would take approximately 41 hours of extra intervention per week to raise language scores of poor children to those of their well-off counterparts by age four — and that’s before starting preschool!

The impetus for change built into NCLB was to effectively “shame” schools into improvement. We now see that the shame game is flawed.

Schools fail not because they lack resources, or quality teachers. School influences are overwhelmed because so many children are molded by highly vulnerable and dysfunctional environments. The rhetoric of leaving no child behind has trumped reality.

A child born poor will likely stay poor, likely live in an unsafe neighborhood, landscaped with little hope, with more security bars than quality day care or after school programs. This highly vulnerable community will have higher proportions of very young children, higher rates of single parenting, and fewer educated adults. The child will likely find dilapidated schools, abandoned playgrounds, and teachers, though earnest, ready to throw in the towel. The child will drop further behind, with increasingly narrow options.

Shaming schools has become the cure to everything but the common cold, distracting attention from the devastating effects of poverty. We need to move beyond touting school reform as the magical elixir. It is important, but we need to mobilize other institutions to help solve this problem.

I’ve now joined with a group of national experts, from diverse backgrounds, areas of expertise and political beliefs, calling for a “broader, bolder approach” to education. Our proposals ( www.boldapproach.org) certainly include improving schools, but tie changes in classrooms to changes in the world outside.

For example, as a researcher and government official, I’ve seen highly successful early childhood programs where teachers focus relentlessly on prevention, effectively changing the odds for poor children. But such programs are too rare.

A broader, bolder approach must also ensure routine pediatric, dental, hearing and vision care for all infants, toddlers and schoolchildren. Many of the most intractable problems faced by young children and their parents can be traced to maternal health-related behaviors. Programs such as the nurse-family partnership project have shown stunning effects on young mothers’ ability to care for their infant’s nutritional, health and social needs.

I’ve also seen hospital and health center services that show low-income parents and children the pleasures of looking at books together. They demonstrate that pediatricians’ literacy-promoting interventions can dramatically improve the language of young children.

A broader, bolder approach also needs high-quality out-of-school support. Disadvantaged students often lose ground after school and during summers.

All this suggests that perhaps schools don’t have exclusive rights to education.

If we are to take seriously the prospect of really leaving no child behind, we need to support education whether delivered in K-12 schools, in clinics, child-care centers, community-based organizations, libraries, church basements or storefronts. By using the science of what we know works, we can help millions of children growing up in highly vulnerable circumstances to achieve a more promising future.”

SUSAN B. NEUMAN is a professor in educational studies specializing in early literacy development at the University of Michigan. Write to her in care of the Free Press Editorial Page, 615 W. Lafayette, Detroit, MI 48226 or at [email protected].

Senator John McCain has pledged to “freeze discretionary spending until we have completed a top-to-bottom review of all federal programs.”  Senator Obama has proposed about $18 billion annually increased in new federal education spending, including programs aimed at expanding early-childhood education and teacher training.  Senator Obama stated in a June 3rd speech, “We can’t afford to leave the money behind for No Child Left Behind.” By contrast, Senator McCain believes that NCLB is adequately funded.

State spending accounts for between 93% and 94% of all spending on education.

Two years ago, education ranked as the most important issue in America.  In a new poll conducted by the Lake Research Partners and released by the Public Education Network, education ranked third as the most important issue to Americans.  It was a distant third (12%) to gas prices (22%) and jobs and the economy (19%) but ahead of health care(11%) taxes (8%) crimes/drugs(8%) and homeland security (4%).  The poll conducted in May was based on 1,200 adults.

As educators, we need to ask the question of why do students who crash and burn in traditional schools thrive and succeed in non-traditional, alternative schools?  Should all students have the ability to go to college?  Absolutely.  But there are many students who succeed while working with their hands as well as their minds.  Where will we get the people to fix automobiles, computers and appliances like lawn mowers?  These are jobs which cannot be out sourced to China or India?

How do we get our candidates and our populace to understand how to value people who work with their hands as well as the brains?   Lori Lamb, Alternative Learning  Director Arkansas  Department of Education sent me an email which appears below.

” I see that 80% of activities in schools are created for 20%  of the students’ participation.  Our current system gives the message to  the majority of students that they don’t “fit” or “belong” when in reality if  they united, it would drastically change the system.  By investing in our  future now, the payoff will become exponential.  We can not continue to  turn a blind eye to a broken system created in the 1800s.”

What is your reaction?  I would like to know.

Franklin  ([email protected])

Till next time.