Franklin Schargel’s Blog

I started posting articles on this website on December 15, 2007.  This is my 1,000th post.  I am indebted to all readers, like you, who have viewed and suggested other topics.

This site has reached all corners of the earth.  I am amazed where this is read.  We have reached close to  500,000 views, almost 225,000 unique, first time viewers.

Readers in the United States make up 2/3 of the readers and Canadians almost 8 percent.  I would have expected that but after Canada comes readers from Morocco, and the Philippines.  Readers are coming as well from high-performing nations like Japan, Finland, and Singapore.  Obviously dropout prevention is a global issue.

I continue to write articles and books and to do workshops, keynotes and presentations.

Thanks again for your readership and suggestions.  Keep reading.

Till # 2,000, I remain,

Franklin Schargel

 

 African-American males are suspended three times more often than white males, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education. But according to a report from the African American Policy Forum, “Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected” Black girls are suspended six times more often than white girls””meaning there’s a larger gap between black girls and white girls than black boys and white boys.

A 2010 study by Texas A&M researcher found teachers might respond more harshly to black girls because they “seem to defy these traditional standards of femininity which suggest that girls should be quiet, reserved and submissive. Instead, Black girls are assertive, independent and emotionally resilient.”

 

In November, shortly after Gov. Sam Brownback won re-election, experts forecast that the state would bring in $1 billion less than expected over the next two years. He responded by cutting state agency budgets and proposing the transfer of funds among various state accounts. In December came news of a revenue slump, falling to $15.1 million below estimates. Mr. Brownback proposed increasing taxes on liquor and cigarettes, slowed reductions in the income tax and changed the way money was distributed to public schools.

But the governor’s budget headaches have continued: January receipts fell $47.2 million short of predictions, and Mr. Brownback has responded by cutting funding for public schools and higher education by a combined $44.5 million.

The Kansas City Public School District has already endured $45 million in lost state revenue since 2009, said Cynthia Lane, the superintendent. Mr. Brownback’s cut of 1.5 percent to public school funding statewide would amount to a loss of $1.3 million in her district, she said. That comes as the state has still not paid the district $3 million for capital expenses required under a formula intended to help poor districts. Mr. Brownback has asked legislators to change that formula, and they have proposed a bill that would reduce the district’s aid by another $1.4 million, Ms. Lane said.

Mr. Brownback’s Democratic opponents and some moderate Republicans blame the state’s fickle budget situation on the deep income tax cuts that the governor has ushered into law in recent years. The governor and his supporters say that the state needs to operate more efficiently and find more sustainable ways to finance its largest costs: education, Medicaid and public employee pensions.

On Tuesday, after signing the bill that allowed for the cuts and cash transfers to fill this year’s deficit, Mr. Brownback again urged lawmakers to rewrite the formula used to provide aid to the neediest school districts. If the Legislature saves money by doing so, he asserted, it could restore the $28 million in cuts to K-12 public schools that he called for this month. The governor has also asked lawmakers to overhaul the means for financing schools in general.

The increases in school funding have mostly gone to things unrelated to classroom instruction, like building expenses and pensions, said Mark Tallman, the associate executive director for the Kansas Association of School Boards.

Another complication is added by a lawsuit brought by a group of school districts and parents asserting that the state has violated the Constitution by not providing adequate funding for education. In December, a state district court said that Kansas schools were not adequately financed, a decision that was appealed before the state Supreme Court. If the court orders the state to increase spending, it could conflict with the cuts that the governor has ordered.

According to Vera Institute of Justice, True Cost of Prisons Survey in 2012, Kansas spent $158.2 Million on its prisons which amounts to $18,207 per inmate.  No school system in Kansas spends that much money on its students.  The governor must not have heard of the “school to prison” pipeline.  Governor Brownback believes that education is expensive.  It is not ““ ignorance is expensive. We either pay for education up stream or the lack of education downstream. Obviously the governor has made his choice.

 

I posted a question on a website asking “why do educators work under the most intolerable conditions?”  This is one of the responses that I received.I do not know how many of you have felt this way.  I think the last lines, have the most impact.  I am indebted to Marshall Ward of the Calloway County School District for sending this to me.

Here is a segment of a resignation letter from a veteran teacher, Gerald J. Conti, a social studies teacher at Westhill High School in Syracuse, N.Y. reprinted in the Washington Post April 6, 2013

“… it is with sad reluctance that I say our own administration has been both uncommunicative and unresponsive to the concerns and needs of our staff and students by establishing testing and evaluation systems that are Byzantine at best and at worst, draconian. This situation has been exacerbated by other actions of the administration, in either refusing to call open forum meetings to discuss these pressing issues, or by so constraining the time limits of such meetings that little more than a conveying of information could take place. This lack of leadership at every level has only served to produce confusion, a loss of confidence and a dramatic and rapid decaying of morale. The repercussions of these ill-conceived policies will be telling and shall resound to the detriment of education for years to come. The analogy that this process is like building the airplane while we are flying would strike terror in the heart of anyone should it be applied to an actual airplane flight, a medical procedure, or even a home repair. Why should it be acceptable in our careers and in the education of our children?”

“My profession is being demeaned by a pervasive atmosphere of distrust, dictating that teachers cannot be permitted to develop and administer their own quizzes and tests (now titled as generic “assessments”) or grade their own students’ examinations. The development of plans, choice of lessons and the materials to be employed are increasingly expected to be common to all teachers in a given subject. This approach not only strangles creativity, it smothers the development of critical thinking in our students and assumes a one-size-fits-all mentality more appropriate to the assembly line than to the classroom. Teacher planning time has also now been so greatly eroded by a constant need to “prove up” our worth to the tyranny of APPR (through the submission of plans, materials and “artifacts” from our teaching) that there is little time for us to carefully critique student work, engage in informal intellectual discussions with our students and colleagues, or conduct research and seek personal improvement through independent study. We have become increasingly evaluation and not knowledge driven. Process has become our most important product, to twist a phrase from corporate America, which seems doubly appropriate to this case.”

“After writing all of this I realize that I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me. It no longer exists. I feel as though I have played some game halfway through its fourth quarter, a timeout has been called, my teammates’ hands have all been tied, the goal posts moved, all previously scored points and honors expunged and all of the rules altered.”

 

According to PAY SCALE & BUSINESS INSIDER:

The 15 Best Paying Jobs for Recent Graduates were:

1. Electrical Engineer              $61,400
2. Software Developer              $59,800
3. Mechanical Engineer          $58,000
4. Business Analyst, IT           $54,000
5. Supply Chain Analyst          $51,300
6. Civil Engineer                       $51,000
7. Financial Analyst                 $50,600
8. Auditor                                   $50,000
9. Operations Manager           $47,200
10.  Data Analyst                        $47,000
11. Web Developer                   $45,900
12. Construction Asst. Project  $45,300
13. Insurance Underwriter      $44,600
14. Buyer                                     $43,800
15. Technical Writer                 $43,500

Where are educators on this list? Is anyone surprised that we are not on the list? Payscale wrote,on  February 7, 2015, that K-12 educators made between $42,968 (Elementary) to $46,436 (High School).

 

Virtually, everyone agrees that the key to high performance in schools is getting highly qualified, highly motivated, highly effective teachers. Yet read the article below.

INDIANAPOLIS – An alarming number of teachers are failing Indiana’s new licensing exams. So many the State Board of Education voted unanimously to lower the passing scores.

Passing rates, some in the single digits, are about half what they were on the previous exams. The new ones were written to Indiana’s new educational standards.

Educators attribute lower scores to the unfamiliar rarity of the new exams and a lack of study materials.

The board will take a final vote on the proposed changes   If approved they will take affect 90 days later.

So it is a problem of either lowering the water or raising the bridge.

Franklin has been selected to be on the Board of Directors of the International Association of Dropout & Truancy Prevention (IADTP) for 2014-2015.

The number of home-schooled children continues to rise in the country “” now up to an estimated 2.2 million.  Public oversight of home schooling? Not so much, The Kansas City Star reports.

In fact, Pennsylvania “” where home-schooling families had to register with the local school district, submit study plans and follow other rules “” recently eased its regulations under pressure from home-school advocates.

Is there government oversight to ensure that children are actually doing schoolwork and not being forced to work at family businesses?

Proponents, however, insist that parents who make the decision to home-school are committed to the task, and their children end up scoring higher on academic assessment tests than those in traditional schools.  Are the parents of home-schooled children well-educated and good teachers? There should be some type of review to make sure kids are progressing

In Missouri, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education makes clear on its website that it does not regulate or monitor home schooling. About the only rule governing home schooling in Kansas is that parents should notify the local school district when they stop doing it.

Religion is probably the biggest reason for home schooling. Others include anti-government sentiment, failing public schools, bullying, social elements and a child’s inability to cope in a conventional classroom.

The National Education Association, a union of teachers and other school employees, has never wavered in its position that “home schooling programs based on parental choice cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience.” It, too, continues to push for more oversight.

With good parents, things go well. But some parents aren’t good teachers. I could not home school my children.  I do not know enough math and science for one thing.  How would you like to be a teacher of a child who was home-schooled and not subject to any assessment?  What would a high school do with a child who couldn’t read? How would that child perform in college?