February 10, 2008 - February 16, 2008 Archives

Green schools provide students and staff with a healthy atmosphere in which to learn, as well as, more opportunities for hands-on educational experiences. And although it may seem like going green would use up a large portion of a district’s budget, much of the money spent on green projects would be restored through savings on energy and water costs. According to the U.S. Green Building Council, the average green school saves $100,000 annually.

But according to Marcus Egan, NSBA’s director of federal affairs, more research and independent data needs to be conducted on going green to determine upfront costs and project benefits before schools make costly commitments. The House of Representatives’ Green Schools Caucus, formed in December 2007, could encourage this kind of research but have yet to make any serious gains, says Egan, who spoke about the subject at NSBA’s Federal Relations Network conference earlier this month.

Until then, Egan says, schools can certainly find small ways to make a big difference in their school environment and teach students about energy. The Green School program in Montgomery County, Md., for example, allows students a rare opportunity to explore energy efficiency by establishing “Green Teams” of students, who assess their schools and promote recycling efforts. According to the Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/30/AR2008013001763.html), conservation measures by “Green Teams” saved the school system $1.2 million in electricity costs last year.

With the economy experiencing a downturn and many school districts feeling the pinch, who couldn’t use a little more green?

Stacey Hollenbeck, Spring Intern

A big story came out of T.C. Williams High School here in Alexandria, Va., on Sunday -- and I’m not talking about Barack Obama’s speech to more than 3,000 enthusiastic supporters in the school’s gymnasium, although that would certainly qualify.

I’m speaking, instead, about a remarkably blunt opinion piece that appeared in Sunday’s Washington Post by long-time T.C. English teacher Patrick Welsh, a frequent contributor. It’s titled “A School That’s Too High on Gizmos,” and that’s putting Welsh’s views mildly.

Welsh feels the school and the district are in the grip of what a former Alexandria superintendent calls “technolust” -- the craving for more, more complicated, and more expensive electronic gadgets, largely independent of their impact on student learning. It’s technology for technology’s sake, Welsh says, not technology in service of something greater.

Welsh offers numerous examples. The $495 per-unit hand-held “school pads” that enable teachers to underline something displayed on the classrooms’ ceiling-mounted LCDs (“another way to waste money for people who are too lazy to write on the board,” one teacher says). The classes where every student has a laptop and where -- unbeknownst to teachers -- some are busy playing the online “Helicopter Game” and surfing the Net. And, most disturbing of all, a sense that teachers and administrators are spending more time on their computers than with actual students.

“We’re becoming like a correspondence school, where all communication is faceless,” one long-time teacher says.

The story seems to confirm my long-held fears about overreliance on school technology. I remember, for example, several years ago when I visited a West Virginia upper elementary school, and a teacher gushed over the ability of her students to put together PowerPoint presentations. Called me curmudgeonly, but I’d have rather seen them put together a well-reasoned argument.

I could be all wrong. A few months ago, I spoke with the principal of T.C. Williams (who comes under some pretty withering criticism from Welsh), and he insisted that technology is radically changing the way we acquire information -- indeed, the very way we think. Read Daniel H. Pink’s book A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, and you might become a believer too.

I did. Well, almost. The fact is, I’m over 50, and I sort of like my old mind. I love the newspaper (all those sections, nicely divided), books with weathered pages, and -- best of all, to my mind -- the most wonderful technological innovation yet invented: the glorious acoustic piano.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

There are more smart people in India and China than there are in the U.S.

Think that’s a politically incorrect or racially biased statement? Not so, says Freeman Hrabowski III, the president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

It’s actually a simple mathematical equation, he says. And he demonstrated it at the National School Boards Association’s Federal Relations Network meeting on Feb. 3.

Consider this: China’s population is about 1.3 billion, and India’s is about 1.1 billion. That’s a total of 2.4 billion people.

Assuming that about 10 percent of any population will be very smart, that adds up to about 240 million in their top tiers. Keep in mind that these populations place a high value on education and are driven to succeed as part of their culture.

Then consider this: The total U.S. population is about 300 million.

Welcome to the new global economy.

The only way the U.S. can compete is to instill a sense of urgency into today’s students, to help them understand that nothing in their lives is more critical to their future success than an education, Hrabowski says.

And hopefully, that equation—that so many more people are going to be competing for a few jobs—might get their attention.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

No one knows the exact figure. But, best guess, about one in three high school students in the class of 2008 will drop out of school before graduating.

The dropout rate is even higher in high-poverty urban centers—sometimes surpassing the 50 percent mark.

In recent years, officials in a number of states have proposed a worthwhile—but somewhat simplistic solution: Raise the age of compulsory school attendance to 18.

Sounds good in theory. But there are concerns: First, although 27 states have raised the legal dropout rage to 17 or 18, there’s spotty evidence that this mandate has had any real impact in the dropout rate. After all, how do school officials keep uninterested and restless older teenagers in school if they don’t want to be there?

And how many schools seriously track down truant near-adults and "compel" them to return to school?

There also are budget implications to this approach. Officials in Maryland recently estimated an older dropout rate would require the state’s high schools to find classroom space for as many as 21,000 students.

They’ll also need to find 1,100 more teachers—in a state with an acute teacher shortage—and come up with about $200 million in extra operating costs.

Certainly the investment is worthwhile. It’s a personal tragedy when a student drops out of school. And there’s a monetary price tag for society, as well: A study in North Carolina concluded that the dropouts of a single year cost the state $169 million annually in lost sales tax revenues, higher Medicaid costs, and more tax dollars poured into prisons.

So I understand why there’s interest in raising the legal dropout age.

But let’s be honest: A legislative mandate alone isn’t going to solve the problem. What we need are reforms to the large number of schools identified last year as "dropout factories." What we need are early intervention efforts that ensure every student entering high school is prepared for ninth grade. And what we need are school programs that keep kids engaged in their education.

So we’ll see how this plays out. It would be nice if state lawmakers put some money behind these good-sounding mandates. Alas, the record for such sound legislative policy is mixed, at best.

Del Stover, Senior Editor