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The “Diploma’s Count 2008” report (www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/06/05) criticizes the schools in its Executive Summary by stating, “About 71 percent of 9th graders make it to graduation four years later, according to data from 2005, the latest available.  And that figure drops to 58 percent for Hispanics, 55 percent for African-Americans, and 51 percent for Native Americans.” These figures have made the national and local news media.

What has not been reported is the following quotation from the Executive Summary:  “Those rates improved slightly from 2004 to 2005 for all groups.”

I do not have a problem with negative reports about schools in the press and a 71% graduation rate is nothing we should be jumping for joy about.  But I would like all of the evidence reported.

We know that our non-traditional students take greater risks than traditional students.  In a report issued by the the CDC, these facts are confirmed.

The study is the latest in a series of survey of US high school students taken every two years.  The findings come from a survey of about 14,000 high school students. The 2007 data showed higher rates of risk-taking by Hispanics in several areas.

Hispanic students were more likely than either whites or blacks to attempt suicide, ride with a driver who had been drinking alcohol, or use cocaine, heroin or ecstasy.  About 10 to 11 percent of Hispanics said that they attempted suicide, compared with around 17% of whites, and 9% of blacks. The report noted that black and white students are reporting less sexual activity than in previous years but there was no decline among Hispanics.  Hispanics also most often drank alcohol on school property, were offered  or sold illegal drugs, and occasionally skipped school because they feared for their safety.

Whites reported the highest rates of smoking and heavy drinking, while blacks reported the highest rates of obesity, violence and sexual activity.

The 2008 Diplomas Count Report  was issued today by “Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, the people who publish Education Week.  The report is revealing for those in the United States.  It shows that U.S. Public High Schools are losing 6.829 students per day.  (This works out to 171 school buses, per day, loaded with children dropout in a 180 school year.)  The state of California, which educates the most students, is losing 900 students per day.  Texas is losing 656 per day while North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming are losing 10 or less.  You can visit your state’s results by accessing (https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/06/05/40sgb.h27.html).

Educators know that the school year has time built in to recharge batteries.  As summer approaches, you need to take some time for yourself.  Turn off your internal clock.  You do not have to get up at an unearthly hour.  Your do not have to time your physical functions around your break or lunch.

Take this time to read the book you have been promising yourself you would read.  Get to know your husband/wife/children.  Play some golf.  Take a vacation.  Or simply do nothing!

You’ve earned the time. Now spend it.  Enjoy yourself.

Hope to see you back here soon.

Students, federal and state governments are producing a revenue stream for colleges.  Yet little of the revenue is going into the classrooms, according to a new report from the Delta Cost Project, a Washington DC based non-profit organization. (https://www.deltacostproject.org/)  The fastest growing operating expenses are related to research, public outreach and financial aid.  What is more upsetting is that the percentage of students who are graduating hasn’t kept pace with increases in enrollments, revenue and total spending.

The report is based data from the US Department of Education from the past 18 years from almost 2,0000 schools representing 90% of students.

The cost of college (for the current school year) has risen from 4.2% at community colleges to 6.6% at public 4-year colleges.  According to the Organizations of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States spends more money per student than any other industrialized nation, yet it ranks at the bottom for degree completion (54%).  The organization average is 71%.

The cost of going to college is still rising much faster than inflation or Americans’ household income. The average cost of one year at a private U.S. college or university is now $21,235. That is up from about $15,000 five years ago. To put the 40% increase in perspective, household income in the United States during this same period rose just 4%. This makes it increasing difficult for middle class, poor and minority students to attend schools of higher education.

Tuition at less expensive, state-run universities is increasing even more rapidly. According to Patrick Callen, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, that is because states are feeling the effects of a sluggish economy. “Public institutions have had their budgets cut by states, and they’ve been raising tuition to replace public money that’s been taken out of their budgets,” he says. But budget cuts are just part of the reason tuition rates have been increasing so rapidly. Mr. Callen points out that more and more American high school students are going to college, because nowadays, it is nearly impossible to earn a middle-class income without a college degree. This has created what he calls a “sellers’ market”-and schools are taking advantage of it.

The result is that students today are graduating with nearly twice as much education-related debt as graduates had ten years ago. A study conducted by the Public Interest Research Group found that nearly 40% of student borrowers leave school with what are considered to be “unmanageable” debt levels. Their payments, in other words, amount to more than 8% of their monthly incomes.

Patrick Callen says if something isn’t done about the cost of a college education, it’s going to have an impact on America’s future. “It influences students’ choices, like whether to go to graduate school, and can you afford to go get a graduate degree, if you already owe a chunk of money, in a field that isn’t going to have big economic returns – you know, teaching, social work, etc.”

The debt may also force people in their 20s to delay getting married and starting a family – a factor that could be behind the rising age of first-time marriage that the United States has experienced in recent years.

Of course, there is financial aid available for students, but Patrick Callen says increases in grant and scholarship money have not kept up with the increases in tuition. And he says universities have not always distributed that money wisely, because they are competing with one another for smart, accomplished students.

“A larger and larger percentage of the aid that’s there is not going to the students for whom it might make a difference in whether they go to college or not,” says Mr. Callen. “It’s going to be used as an enticement in this competition for students that will raise your prestige by getting students with the highest SAT scores (i.e. national exam scores) and the highest grade points out of high school.”

But unless more universities crop up in the United States, it will remain a sellers’ market – until the cost gets so high, that is, that students simply cannot go, regardless of how much debt they are willing to assume.

In most societies jobs with the highest prestige generally get the most money.  According to a new book, “The Teaching Penalty” written by Lawrence Mishel (President of the Economic Policy Institute), Sylvia Allegretto (an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and Sean Corcoran (an assistant professor of Economics at New York University) public school teaches earn considerably less than comparably educated and experiences people and less than people in occupations with similar educational and skill requirements.

When compared with other professionals, teachers earn, on average, about $154 less a week or 14.3% than people similarly qualified people.  According to the researchers, nowhere in America do teachers earn more than those comparably educated.

Some will argue that it is difficult to compare teaching with other professions.  Teachers receive health insurance and retirement benefits.  The authors took that into account and found that side benefits narrowed the pay gap by just 3 percentage points in 2006.  “In other words, the 15 percent weekly pay disadvantage based on wages alone translates to a 12% disadvantage when you factor in benefits.  And the authors compared a week of work, rather than an entire year.

In the past, teaching was a default occupation for women. Back in 1960, women teachers were paid 14.7 percent more than other women with similar educations.  But that is no longer the case.  Women are being offered higher paying, less stressful jobs.  And the pay gap that was a 4.3 percent shortfall in 1996 became a wide gap by 2006 when it was 15.1 percent for all teachers.

Educators know in advance that the salaries in education are not good but they enter the field anyway.  They enter the field because they love children.  But loving children and low wages do not pay for food, other necessities or gasoline.

Research has shown that good teachers are the single most important factor in the academic success of children.  But America needs to attract and hold onto 2.8 million new teachers in the next 8 years.  The rising pay gap will make it difficult to attract teachers and even more difficult to hold onto the ones we presently have.

Both Republicans and Democrats have told us that education is important. The message has come from governors, mayors, legislators and presidents.  But educators can no longer be paid in platitudes of the good intentions of our policy makers.  While money alone will not make the difference in improving education, it will go a long way to show our educators how valuable their services are really valued.

I know that there are many important issues in this upcoming presidential election.  To mention a few, the mortgage crisis, health care, the funding for social security, the cost of gasoline, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our policy toward China.  But our country’s future depends on our young people.

Our federal budget reflects our nation’s priorities. And in a report issued by First Focus (www.firstfocus.net/Download/CBook.pdf) in the past five years, children have lost significant ground in the federal budget.  “While overall spending on children’s issues increased by about 1.4%, in real terms, total federal non-defense spending grew at nearly  10 times that rate.  As a result, the children’s share of the federal non-defense budget declined from 11 percent in 2004 to 10 percent in 2008.  This drop continues a trend in which the budget share allocated to children has declined 23 percent since 1960.  President Bush’s fiscal year 2009 budget proposal continues this trend.  While spending on children’s health programs will increase by 2.2 percent, discretionary spending in this are would drop by 12 percent from 2008 levels.  42% of all federal spending goes to the military, 16 percent goes to health care and only 4.4 cents goes toward education, training and social services. (Source:  Public Education Network Weekly Newsblast, 4/18/2008).

As the presidential candidates come to your neighborhood, it is critical that educators ask, “Why do children come last?”

Nine third graders were suspended this week after school officials in WAYCROSS, GA uncovered a plot that they planned to attack their teacher.  The children allegedly brought handcuffs, a knife, a heavy crystal paperweight and several rolls of duct tape to school.  The Waycross police said that the 8- and 9- year olds were seeking revenge against the teacher because she had scolded one of their friends.

School violence is nothing new.  In the 1960’s a film called “Black Board Jungle” was made  about violence in an inner-city school.   What is new about school violence is that it is taking place in small town, rural and suburban  America (and the world – Finland had a school shooting incident) and it involves guns and automatic weapons.  Parents moved out of  inner-city schools to escape violence, drugs, gangs and crime and guess what, these things have followed them

What can schools do to protect themselves, their staff and their students from school violence?  First, they must remain vigilant and need to recognize that no school or community is immune.  School leaders and staff need to read their school safety plans, update them if necessary and make sure that EVERY staff member  knows what they are to do in case of  an emergency.

The FBI and the Secret Service have written two reports which can be downloaded.  The FBI report is called “The School Shooter Report” and the Secret Service’s “The National Threat Assessment Report.”  Every school should have at least two copies, one in the principal’s office and one in the school library’s teacher reference file.

Parents, staff and most importantly, students need to be protected from violence.