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In case you missed it, Alma & Colin Powell discussed the growing problem of school dropouts on Morning Joe (https://www.educationnation.com/index.cfm?objectid=555C184E-CB08-11DF-8853000C296BA163&aka=0).

The good news is that I am gratified that the dropout crisis is getting as much publicity as it is and horrified that the problem is as large as it is.

Hawaii in an attempt to save money in this downturned economy and dramatic falloff of tourism, closed schools on 17 Fridays.  This was done without a regard to working  parents. Parents had to use vacation or sick days.  Some enlisted the help of grandparents. Many paid $25 to $50 per child each week for the new child care programs that had sprung up.

Children, meanwhile, had to adjust to a new meaning  of T.G.I.F. Getting them up for school on Mondays grew harder. Fridays were filled with trips to pools and beaches, hours of television and Wii, long stretches alone for older children.

Four-day weeks have been used by a small number of rural school districts in the United States, especially since the oil shortage of the 1970s. During the current downturn, their ranks have swelled to more than 120 districts.  But Hawaii is an extreme case. It shut schools not only in rural areas but also in high-rise neighborhoods in Honolulu. The state owes billions of dollars to a pension system that has only 68.8 percent of the money it needs to cover its promises to state workers, Hawaii instituted the furloughs even after getting $110 million in stimulus money for schools.

Unlike most districts with four-day weeks, Hawaii did not lengthen the hours of its remaining school days: its 163-day school year was the shortest in the nation.

The furloughs were originally supposed to last two years, but the outcry was so great “” that a deal was hammered out to restore the days next year.

America is sacrificing its future by sacrificing its children.

GENERAL AND MRS. COLIN POWELL TO PRESENT AT NBC NEWS’ “EDUCATION NATION” – TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

Presentation Will Address the Nation’s High School Dropout Crisis and the Need to Prepare Our Future Workforce

In an effort to bring awareness to the critical issue of the nation’s high school dropout rates in the U.S., General Colin Powell, Founding Chairman of America’s Promise Alliance, and Alma Powell, Chair of America’s Promise Alliance, will jointly appear for a special presentation at NBC News’ “Education Nation” Summit on Tuesday, September 28th.  America’s Promise Alliance is the nation’s largest multi-sector partnership organization dedicated to improving the lives of young people. The presentation will address the systemic impact of low graduation rates, and the steps needed to drive policy change, support communities and transform the lives of the country’s most vulnerable students. Following the presentation, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of “Morning Joe” will have a discussion with the Powells and take questions from the audience.

“When it comes to education and the future of our children, the time for change is now,” said General Colin Powell, USA (Ret.), Founding Chairman, America’s Promise Alliance. “The risks of inaction to our economy and the integrity of this country are too great if we do not address the dropout crisis.”

“Having access to an education that challenges and inspires our young people to reach higher and give back is one of the most important things we can do as Americans,” said Alma Powell, Chair of America’s Promise Alliance. “This job is too big and too important for the schools to tackle alone, so we must all do our part in ensuring the success of our youth. “˜Education Nation’ is a great example of the collaborative effort needed to act on the lessons we’ve learned and to start making a difference today.”

The Powells’ appearance is an integral part of NBC News’ first annual “Education Nation””” fostering an urgently needed national conversation about the state of education in America, giving voice to committed teachers, parents, students and policymakers.  Through the “Education Nation” Summit and multi-media programming, NBC News  (plans to explore) explores the greatest challenges,  (will highlight) highlights solutions and examines innovative ideas in education today. Shining a spotlight on the state of education in America, NBC News will hold decision-makers accountable for improving education for America’s future.

Founded in 1997, America’s Promise Alliance (the Alliance) is comprised of more than 400 partners across various industry sectors working to help improve the lives of children and youth. In an effort to raise awareness of America’s high school dropout crisis, the Alliance launched its Dropout Prevention Campaign in April 2008. Through this work, the Alliance has sponsored more than 100 Dropout Prevention summits nationwide ““ bringing together more than 35,000 mayors and governors, business and civic leaders, child advocates, school administrators, students, and parents to develop workable solutions and action plans to raise graduation rates in their communities.

For the next phase of this work, in its most significant campaign to date, the Alliance launched “Grad Nation” in March 2010 with the support of President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “Grad Nation” is a ten-year effort to mobilize Americans to end the dropout crisis and prepare young people for success in higher education and the 21st century workforce.

The Powell’s presentation will be covered on MSNBC and streamed on msnbc.com live and for delayed viewing. For more information, visit www.educationnation.com.

About Education Nation

“Education Nation” is a nationally broadcast in-depth conversation about improving education in America. Through an interactive summit on Rockefeller Plaza parents, teachers and students meet with leaders in politics, education and technology to explore the challenges and opportunities in education today.  NBC News will turn Rockefeller Plaza into a “Learning Plaza,” a series of galleries open to the public to explore the latest technologies and techniques used in award-winning classrooms nationwide. The entire week of September 26, all NBC News platforms will highlight education stories, while broadcasting live from the Plaza.

There isn’t any argument that education in America needs to be improved.  Politicians on all sides of the spectrum agree.  The discussion is not about whether it should happen but how it should happen.  Is the Race for the Top the way to go?  I do not think so.  It DEMANDS that states raise the cap on how many charter schools they have.  There are excellent charter schools and there are terrible charter schools.  Just as there are terrible public schools and excellent public schools.  Charter schools were supposed to be educational learning laboratories which were benchmarked for best practices.  To envision them as the sole universal answer to the ills of American education is as foolish as believing that high stakes testing would, by itself, raise America’s achievement level.  All that the testing achieved was to confirm what we already knew ““ that children of low income families do worse on examinations that children of high income families.  It then rewarded high achieving schools and punished low achieving schools.  What stupidity.

If we wish to improve America’s schools, we need to systemically improve all aspects of America’s schooling.  We need to improve early childhood education and make it available to every student.  We need to level the playing field of school spending so that schools in affluent areas get as much funding as those in the inner cities.  If children do not learn the way teachers teach, then teachers need to teach the way students learn.  We need to have colleges validate high school degrees by not accepting students who are not prepared to enter college and stop accepting and remediating those who are below college admission standards.  We need to have schools of education train teachers with the skills they need and not what the schools of education want to teach.  And politicians need to stop coming up with sound bite solutions to highly complex educational problems.

On July 29, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved an appropriations bill that would provide the U.S. Department of Education with $48.8 billion in discretionary funding for Fiscal Year 2011. That amount represents an increase of about $2.7 billion over last year, but is $800 million less than the amount President Obama requested in his budget.

Included in the Senate Appropriation Committee’s version of the Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education appropriations bill was $625 million for the School Improvement Grants program, which targets the nation’s lowest-performing schools. The committee included a provision directing 40 percent of these funds be used to turn around the five thousand lowest-performing secondary schools, including the nation’s “dropout factories,” where 60 percent or fewer high school freshmen progress to senior year on time.  The major funding stream for assisting the lowest-performing K”“12 schools is the School Improvement Grants program or SIG.

The bill would provide $14.94 billion for the Title I program, an increase of $500 million over last year. The Striving Readers program would receive $250 million, an increase of $50 million, while Statewide Data Systems would receive $65 million, an increase of about $7 million.

The bill will next go to the Senate floor, although a timetable for its consideration has not been set. On the House side, the Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee passed its version of the bill on July 15, but it has yet to be taken up by the full House Appropriations Committee.

When is enough, not enough?  The funding, while welcomed, is not enough to reach half of the nation’s dropout factories.

What do high scoring foreign nations have in common?  High scoring nations like Finland and Singapore, which score very well on the TIMMS and PISA, have national curricula and high national standards.  While this is not the only factor it beats the patchwork of state standards that the United States has.

Twenty-seven states have adopted the newly issued national education standards and more are expected to do so in the next few weeks.  This is a radical change as states have traditionally accepted state control over the development and deployment of curriculum.

The common core standards took two years to develop and were first released in draft form in March, are an effort to replace the current jumble of state policies.  They lay out detailed expectations of skills that students should have at each grade level.  Adoption of the standards does not bring immediate change in the classroom. Implementation will be a long-term process, as states rethink their teacher training, textbooks and testing. The common standards spell out what students should learn in English and math each year from kindergarten through high school. States that adopt the standards by Aug. 2 win points in the National Race for the Top competition for a share of the $3.4 billion to be awarded in September.  Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and a number of other states have adopted the standards.  The question is whether states will have the necessary funds to put the standards in effect.

Texas and Alaska said they did not want to participate in developing the standards. And Virginia has made it known that it does not plan to adopt the standards.

Increasingly, national standards are seen as a way to ensure that children in all states will have access to a similar education “” and that financially strapped state governments do not have to spend limited resources on developing their own standards and tests.

The new common core standards are stronger than the English standards in 37 states and the math standards in 39 states.

“Vocabulary-building in the common core is slower,” he said, citing one example. “And on the math side, they don’t prepare eighth-grade students for algebra one, which is the gateway to higher math.”

Students are using the Internet to complain about teachers, principals and the schools they attend.  The vastness of the Internet and MySpace, Facebook and personal blogs permit students to vent about real or perceived complaints.

Some schools have taken have taken disciplinary steps against students posting critical content such as suspending students from the National Honor Society or banning the students from clubs or teams. There’s no question that attacks on principals and teachers are abrasive, degrading, racist, sexist, sophomoric and insulting, we tend to forget that students also have rights. Too often, adults seem to believe that you get handed the Bill of Rights along with your high school diploma; that’s not the case.

The issue of free speech in the schools seemed to be settled. In a landmark case in 1969, the Supreme Court upheld the First Amendment rights of public school students to wear black armbands to protest the war in Vietnam. The high court asserted that young people have First Amendment rights, noting, “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Short of a substantial disruption of school operations, the kids could have their say, the Supreme Court concluded.  The black armband has been supplanted by the Internet, a potent tool for information, education and character assassination.

The current law is murky, and might not be clear until the United States Supreme Court steps in.

The best legal path in these cases is to treat young people posting ugly and potentially defamatory content the way we would adults. If the content is illegal or threatening, charge them. If the content is libelous, sue them, as some teachers and principals have done. And if the content is neither criminal nor libelous, contact their parents.  While the Supreme Court has said that schools cannot suppress free speech, the Court has said nothing about parents metering out punishment.

USAToday reported (8/21/) that the kindergarten class of 2010-11 is less white, less black, more Asian and much more Hispanic than in 2000. For example, about one out of four 5-year-olds will be Hispanic. More Hispanic children are likely in the next generation because the number of Hispanic girls entering childbearing years is up more than 30% this decade.

The profile of the 4 million children starting kindergarten reveals the startling changes the USA has undergone the past decade and offers a glimpse
of its future. In this year’s class, for example, about one out of four 5-year-olds will be Hispanic.

A USA TODAY analysis of the most recent government surveys shows:

“¢About 25% of 5-year-olds are Hispanic, a big jump from 19% in 2000. Hispanics of that age outnumber blacks almost 2 to 1.

“¢The percentage of white 5-year-olds fell from 59% in 2000 to about 53% today and the share of blacks from 15% to 13%.

“¢Kindergarten enrollment is up, from 3.8 million in 2000 to about 4 million.

This is not just a big-city phenomenon. The percentage of minority children is growing faster in the suburbs and in rural areas.

In Lake County, Ind., a Chicago suburb, the under-20 population went from 51.8% white in 2000 to 47.1% in 2008. In rural Nebraska’s Colfax and Dakota counties, the share of Hispanic youths is rising while young whites are down from 60% to about 45% in the same period.

“¢Schools face linguistic challenges. The share of 5-year-olds who speak English at home slipped from 81% in 2000 to about 78%. The share of Spanish
speakers grew from 14% to 16%.

The article fails to point out another challenge facing educators.  Hispanics represent the largest group of school dropouts.  So in addition to having to address the language issue, schools need to address the steps needed to stop these youngsters from dropping out.