Franklin Schargel’s Blog

The most recent data from the National Center on Educational Statistics (NCES) showed that more than 3.3 million students were either suspended or expelled in 2006 – nearly one in 14.  Of these fewer than one in 10 were for offenses such as tardiness, talking back to a teacher or violating a school’s dress codes.  For minority students, in 2006, about 15 percent of black students were suspended as compared with 7 percent of Hispanic students, 5 percent of white students.  In New York City, the Civil Liberties Union revealed that suspensions of 4-to 10-year-olds had increased 76 percent since 2003.

If these statistics had resulted in better school performance or less violence I could support zero tolerance.  Unfortunately, this is not the case.  Research shows that zero tolerance fails to improve student behavior.  It is a “quick fix'”because it remove from class/school the students who could profit the most from increased education and denies them access to needed services like counseling.  Worse still, it increases the likelihood that the suspended students will be involved with the justice system which will lead to their dropping out of school. 

Franklin has been invited to present at the 19th International Conference of the Israel Society for Quality in Jerusalem, Israel.  The topic of the presentation is “Building Global Economies:  From The Schoolhouse to the Workplace.”

Here is one more thing for parents and educators to worry about. 

You’ve heard of the digital divide, but how about the app gap? That’s the new term coined by Common Sense Media, which conducted a study looking at the amount of time children under the age of 8 are spending in front of screens.

The study found that there is a growing gap between children from wealthier families who spend more time involved in mobile apps and lower-income children who are more involved in traditional TV watching. Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group based in San Francisco, surveyed almost 1,400 parents and found that 47 percent of families with incomes more than $75,000 had downloaded apps for their children, while only 14 percent of families earning less than $30,000 had done so.

The study also found the following:

• 52 percent of all 0- to 8-year-olds have access to a new mobile device such as a smartphone, video iPod, or iPad/tablet.
• 38 percent of children this age have used one of these devices, including 10 percent of 0-to 1-year-olds, 39 percent of 2- to 4-year-olds, and more than half (52 percent) of 5- to 8-year-olds.
• In a typical day, 11 percent 0- to 8-year-olds uses a smartphone, video iPod, iPad, or similar device to play games, watch videos, or use other apps. Those who use mobile devices spend an average of 43 minutes a day doing so.
• TV is still the most popular choice for occupying the time of children. Common Sense found that children 0-8 years old spend an average of 1:40 watching television or DVDs in a typical day.
• Infants and toddlers (0- to 1-year-olds) spend 53 minutes per day watching television and DVDs, twice the amount of time spent reading or being read to (23 minutes).

There has always been a gap between wealthier children and poorer kids, when you look at what toys and educational resources they have access to. But it’s interesting to see how mobile devices have become so quickly deployed by parents as both educational and time-killing tools for their kids. Some of this might just be an extension of TV time, with kids just swapping one screen for another. But as more apps proliferate that are designed to educate and engage younger children, it can help make them more digitally savvy at a younger age.

That can have bad consequences, and indeed, the American Academy of Pediatricians has long recommended that children under the age of two shouldn’t spend any of time in front of screens. But with more child-friendly software, these mobile devices might be a tool to help children get ahead, creating more of a divide between the haves and the have-nots.

The gap should close over time with the decline in prices for mobile gadgets. Devices like a $199 Kindle Fire can help open the tablet market to more parents. But the price of software may still be a barrier if children’s apps sell for a premium. We’re in an app crazy era now, and it’s extending to our youngest children. This is how many of them are learning about computers and software, and the impact on child development and education will be something to keep track of.

A U.S. Department of Education study estimated that there are 200,000 K-12 students from 40 states involved in virtual education.  In a 2009 Department study, K-12 students did as well or better in online learning classes as in a traditional classroom.

The state of Colorado expects to spend $8.5 million on educating 14,200 students.  The states online school industry is growing by 12 percent because of the government pays private companies to teach student starting in kindergarten via computers with little state Department of Education oversight.  This despite a 2010 state department of education report that showed below-average test scores, dropout rates near 50 percent in some schools and a student=to=teacher ratio as high as 317 to 1 in one school. Online schools get paid for an entire school year even if a student drops out after October 1, the date that the state counts student enrollment.

Idaho and Florida have passed laws requiring high school students to take at least one course online.

Online schools have certain advantages:

• they allow students to proceed at their own pace;
• they are cheaper to operate than traditional schools;
• they free up time during the regular school year for students to take college credit courses or to take online classes in such thing as SAT prep.

At the same time, there are disadvantages to them as well:

• students do not get feedback on their work;
• there is little student-to-teacher interaction;
• students who get credit for the course or the tests may not be the same student who is registered for the class credit.
• some online schools are more interested in the monies involved rather than the education received.

I do not believe that “one-size-fits-all and will support any and all programs designed to get students across the graduation finish line.  I support virtual education where it meets the criteria of helping students graduate and thriving.

A National Center for Education Statistics report on dropouts has found that while there has been an overall decline in dropouts since 1972, there are still 3 million students between the ages of 16 and 24 without a high school diploma, a disproportionate number of whom are minority and poor.

While the United States unemployment rate is above 8 percent there are 5 percent of manufacturing jobs that go unfilled because business people cannot find a sufficient number of qualified workers.  At any given time, according to the the National Association of Manufacturers, there are 600,000 open jobs.

To cut down on the number of unfilled positions, the Manufacturing Institute created a portable skills certificate – the Manufacturing Skills Certification System.  In 2011, there were 85,000 of these portable certificates permitting a worker trained in California could find a job in Missouri or Illinois.  Right now, 113 colleges across the country have partnered with the Manufacturing Institute.  And the number continues to grow as additional community colleges join the partnership.

I know of a number of alternative schools which prepare their students to be “job ready”.  It would appear that this certification program would be an additional resource.

Student-loan debt, at $25,000 per graduating senior, now exceeds our nation’s credit card  debt. At the same time, the percentage of young people ages 16-24 who are working (around 49 percent) is the lowest since the government has been collecting data.  Today the cost of a college can range between $100,000 and $200,000 depending on whether the college is public or private.  Only 53 percent of today’s college graduate withing six years.  Annual college tuition is rising at close to twice the rate of inflation.

Why has the pace of increased college costs been rising so quickly?  Several factors should be considered:  Colleges continue to invest on improved infrastructure by  building classrooms, dorms and stadium.  Many tenured professors are paid not to teach in order to do research. Freshmen and sophomore classes are frequently taught by part-time lecturers in large lecture halls.  These lecturers are generally on one year contracts without health care, pensions or other benefits.

How long will students (and/or their parents) continue to borrow more for a less valuable education that takes longer, with less of an ability to pay off the increased student debt?

A new report from the Institute of Medicine states, “schools should become a major focal point for preventing the spread of obesity in the United States”.  With one-third of children now considered overweight or obese, the institute predicts that the health care costs associated with obesity could become “catastrophic” in future years.  Since children spend a great deal of their waking hours in school, the report suggests that this “puts schools in a unique position to support students in getting optimum physical activity, eating healthily, and achieving and maintaining a healthy weight.”

Schools do bear a responsibility for helping children who are either overweight or obese.  However, the Institute of Medicine is ignoring the extraordinary cutbacks in education across the country.  Haven’t they seen that the cuts are being made in physical education, as well as the unimportant areas of physical exercise because these subjects are not being tested by states or the federal government’s Race to The Top?

When did parents abrogate their responsibility of insuring proper feeding of their children in the home or at restaurants?  When did the restaurant industry become absolved of their responsibility to cut back on sugar and salt in the foods they prepare?  Why isn’t the Institute of Medicine calling upon them to be the “focal point for preventing the spread of obesity?“