March 16, 2008 - March 22, 2008 Archives

While some schools are using video games as a contemporary way to motivate children to exercise, schools in San Diego are adopting a classic approach.

Some San Diego students are taking part in before-school running clubs—spending the 15 to 20 minutes between the time they get dropped off in the morning and the time they begin classes to jog a few laps around the track.

The before-school clubs are organized by educators and members of the community concerned about childhood obesity.

In most cases, the clubs simply require someone to count laps—keeping costs to schools at a minimum, say the San Diego Union-Tribune. Without a doubt they’re far less expensive than a dozen Nintendo Wiis.

Before-school running clubs have added educational benefits too. According to experts, exercise can help students perform better academically.

“Exercise is like giving them a little bit of Ritalin, a little bit of Prozac,” John Ratey of the Harvard Medical School told the Union-Tribune. “They both work to help the learner stay in the chair.”

Mary Beason, principal of Loma Elementary School, is not only supportive of her school’s club, she’s a member. Beason runs with her students two mornings a week.

Talk about leading by example.

Stacey Hollenbeck, spring intern

To me, it is simply paradise. And, before I go any further, you must know that my impression of Lake Michigan’s eastern shore is colored by the many wonderful summers I spent there as a child. So if I say it outshines the Caribbean, well, consider the source.

I was lucky; my father’s job took him regularly to Manistee, an old lumber town of about 8,000 that bills itself as “The Victorian Port City.” Our family could stay in the area from mid-June until shortly after the Back-to-School Sale signs began appearing in the windows of J. C. Penny’s. We still vacation there every summer, and I -- Michigan booster that I am -- try to instill that same sense of magic in my two young daughters.

There’s another Michigan that is decidedly less magical -- the one that’s bleeding jobs from the troubled auto industry. And far from Detroit, in the very shadow of Michigan’s beautiful Gold Coast, lies the small industrial city of Muskegon, where nearly 30 percent of the children under age 18 live in poverty.

Lynn Moore of the Muskegon Chronicle wrote about one of those children recently in a remarkably sad story called “No Way to Live, No Way To Die.” It’s about a homeless teen named Rob Smith who gradually lost everyone close to him -- his father, his mother, his brother, and nephew -- and ended up crawling into a recycling bin one cold night on the campus of Muskegon High School, where he once attended, and was crushed to death when its contents were dumped into a trash compactor.

It’s not just his horrifying death but the descent of what Moore described as a sweet, funny, and slightly chubby kid into obvious depression that makes this story so disturbing. It’s not like he didn’t get help. People cared -- his school counselors, a teacher, and friends -- but ultimately it wasn’t enough.

“What you have is an American tragedy,” psychologist David Leonard told the Chronicle. “You’re looking at an abandoned human being.”

Schools can’t bear all the responsibility for saving children like Rob Smith, but they can be part of the search for solutions. In this month’s ASBJ, I write about districts that are collaborating with community agencies in setting up comprehensive mental health programs. A good place to start looking for information is UCLA’s Center for Mental Health in Schools.

I just couldn’t read this troubling story from a place that has been so good to me -- a place I’ve call paradise -- without mentioning it to you.

What’s that that Linda Loman says in Death of a Salesman, when her husband sinks inexorably into depression and despair? “Attention must be paid.”

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

Think you could survive 50 years--a half century--as president of your school board?

In Northeast Ohio, Richard A. Moss has already passed that mark. He’s been at the helm of the 1,430-student Cardinal Local School Board since the year the Ford Edsel made its debut.

Moss, who’s profiled in the April issue of ASBJ, is believed to be the longest serving school board president in the country. And during many of those years he worked two jobs—full time as a postal carrier and part time for the local telephone company. On weekends he also mowed grass and tended the local football field.

He’s dealt with everything from budgets woes to forced consolidations, building schools to figuring out what to do with vacant buildings and everything in between. A school board member who’s going to last more than one term, he says, is someone who embraces all the intricacies of the job, not someone who runs on a single-issue platform or has an ax to grind with other members or administrators.

Moss was kind enough to share some of his wisdom and lessons learned with me a few weeks ago, in between physical therapy sessions. His secret to making the job manageable is hiring a good superintendent and good administrators who can oversee the daily operations of the schools. He’s worked with six superintendents who’ve stayed from two to 23 years.

But the sharp-minded 91-year-old is stepping down later this year—he’s decided it’s time to take a break and let someone younger have the job.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

Is there something wrong with public education? Or is there something wrong with our expectations for students?

I’ve been bouncing these questions around in my head for the past year, searching for an approach that will make for an interesting magazine article.

At the core of my musing is a somewhat radical and politically incorrect hypothesis: All the critics of public education are wrong. Our schools do their job well. They do exactly what they’re designed to do. They offer a solid education to America’s young people.

The problem is that all young people can’t take advantage of that education.

Oh, I believe all children can learn. It’s just that children living in affluent households—or those living in poverty who have a stable family life—are best prepared to learn.

And the rest—those living in abject poverty, unsupported in dysfunctional homes, or unable to speak English—start off with such disadvantages that it's unlikely they'll succeed. Worse, there is no way -- short of massive resources and individualized attention over many years -- that our society can negate that reality. Tens of thousands of children are doomed to fail. Many will drop out. And many are destined to lead diminished lives.

Of course, our idealistic, optimistic, and generous nation just can’t accept that reality.

As a nation, we’ve tried to help these children. We’ve poured billions of dollars into Title I programs. We’ve tried untold instructional approaches. We’ve restructured schools and taken over school districts.

Yet children still fail academically and our nation’s dropout rate remains shockingly high.

So where does that leave us?

Ah, there’s the rub. Should this be a story about the need to expand vocational education opportunities and scale back our unrealistic expectations that ever child can be prepared for college? Or is it a story about equity — and the need to focus even more financial resources on schools serving sizable at-risk populations?

Or, as much as we hate to consider the idea, is the story about a harsh reality: That it simply costs too much to educate every child to their full potential? That we don’t know how to educate large numbers of at-risk children? We don’t have the political will to do so? And we don’t have the intellectual guts to accept any of this?

I'm not as pessimistic as these musings suggest. But out of provocative ideas can come great article ideas. So I ponder such things.

Yet, it can also end up a pointless exercise. The readers of American School Board Journal will never give up on our nation’s schoolchildren. And they shouldn’t. They want answers. They want solutions.

So I need to keep looking for the right way to deal with this hypothesis. It may be a while before I start writing.

Del Stover, Senior Editor

The April issue of American School Board Journal is online now.

Find out how school boards are forging new relationships with their formerly contentious teachers unions by reading Del Stover's article: Your Unions: Harmony or Strife?

Should your teachers be paid based on their job performance? Naomi Dillon looks at the growing movement toward teacher merit pay in The Merit Pay Conundrum.

Want tips from a veteran school board member on how to survive the next round of contract negotiations? Take a look at Oregon board member Steven Klein's Teacher Contract Negotiations Dos and Don'ts.

If you're a subscriber, you have access to all of our articles and archives. Non-subscribers can read our cover articles for the month.

Money is a concern for most people these days. With prices rising on just about everything, the housing market and spending falling, and mass layoffs and unemployment beginning to outpace figures from last year, people are grasping for anything firm, solid, and stable.

In schools, that would be teacher salaries; though it’s not as if districts haven’t already tried to change the single salary schedule or -- as it’s euphemistically called -- the “steps and ladder” system.

With about 80 percent of most districts’ budgets going to salaries, reforming how teachers are paid has been an idea that has been around for some time, as I discovered in reporting on “The Merit Pay Conundrum,” in this month's issue of ASBJ.

Unfortunately, it’s been an idea that has failed many times for a host of reasons.

Take Texas, for example. In 2006, the state presented a school reform package that included two teacher bonus plans that together promised to be the largest educator incentive program in the nation. So, why have only a third of Texas’ districts jumped on the bandwagon? Well, as they say, the devil is the details.

The state Legislature allocated $148 million to the District Awards for Teacher Excellence (DATE) program, but it required districts to put up a 15 percent match. In addition, the legislature pinned the awards, which will begin next year, to improved test scores and similar student measures -- a tack that has been unpopular among educators.

But what really turned a lot of Texas school districts away was the uncertainty of future state funding for the program.

“When they looked at what it would take to be eligible for the program and the fact that state funds could not be guaranteed in future years, they had second thoughts,” Karen Moxley, president of the Grapevine-Colleyville Education Association, told the Dallas Morning News. The district backed out of the program after initially agreeing to participate.

The lesson here? In good economic times, but especially during bad ones, people yearn for stability -- even in bonuses.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor