August 10, 2008 - August 16, 2008 Archives

Getting parents involved in their child’s education is a goal just about every school strives for. So, we don’t need to rehash why it’s been proven to be so critical to the academic success of a student, nor why it’s been so difficult to achieve at times (though, if you want all that background check out my story in the ASBJ archives

Most savvy educators know that involved parents can be the lynchpin to keeping students on track. Now, researchers have found that parental involvement can have a significant impact on a particular group of kids: the ones that grow up, literally, fast.

Studies have long ago confirmed that early maturing girls often engage in risky behaviors like drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, violence, and delinquency. Yet experts have been unable to determine how to halt the unfortunate connection. The findings from this most recent study may provide a start.

Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham; University of California, Los Angeles; University of Texas, Houston; and the Rand Corporation, surveyed 330 fifth-grade girls and their parents from each of the aforementioned cities. About a quarter of the girls had physically matured early, meaning they had begun menstruating before the typical age of 11 years old.

Researchers asked the girls and their families about the former’s behavior and the latter’s level of involvement in their personal life. Their answers indicated that physically advanced girls who had parents that weren’t as involved, acted out more, bullying and starting fights.

The study, published in this month’s edition of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine determined that parents need to set limits, know who their kids’ friends are, and what they do in their spare time, but also show affection, be supportive and talk about uncomfortable subjects like sex and drugs.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

Think reality TV is all about fierce competitions and love connections and broken friendships and all the ensuing angst? The networks couldn’t possibly be interested in anything as boring as school administration or school board meetings… right?

Not so. Tru TV (formerly Court TV) will debut its new reality series “The Principal's Office,” which tracks the daily lives of several school administrators, on Aug. 21.

Roger Caitlin, the TV critic for the Hartford Courant, reports that the first episode will feature Jessie Ballenger, an assistant principal at Danbury High School in Danbury, Conn., busting a freshman who sneaks off campus to have lunch at a friend’s house.

But don’t expect to see any of the more mundane tasks of the job, Caitlin adds.

The show "has a light touch to it, like ‘Parking Wars,’ the series about Philly meter maids. It's like ‘Cops’ but with curriculum specialists. But really all they seem to do (in the opening episode anyway) is dole out discipline,” he writes.

Tru TV may have spotted a trend. The Miami Herald recently reported that the number of South Floridians tuning in to the local public-access channel to watch the Miami-Dade school board meetings live has doubled since February—to some 19,000 on any given hour.

In recent weeks, viewers have seen the board members heatedly discuss whether to fire Superintendent Rudy Crew, lay off hundreds of employees, spar over nepotism rules, and form alliances and rivalries akin to the original "Survivor" reality series. Occasionally, a rowdy speaker or audience member gets hauled off by security.

Unfortunately, the programming doesn’t seem to be helping the school board’s image, according to viewers quoted by the Herald:

“The meetings are like a train wreck,” says Mario Artecona, executive director of the Miami Business Forum and a regular viewer. “You know it’s going to be a mess, but you can’t look away.”

Adds Justin Koren, a middle school teacher, “It can be addicting to watch scandal after scandal for 12 continuous hours without commercials. That is, until you realize the entertainment is at the expense of our children.”

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

The recent attempt by some school board members to oust Miami-Dade County Superintendent Rudy Crew is going to be a part of my upcoming article in ASBJ, tentatively titled, “We Know What Works in Education, So Why Aren’t We Doing It?”

That’s because a key finding in my article is that stability in a school system’s top leadership is key to successful school reform.

No school board member is going to be surprised by that conclusion. Yet, as Miami-Dade County makes painfully clear, being obvious isn’t the same as being easy—even when everyone wants to do the right thing.

The effort to terminate Crew’s contract may have failed by a 5-4 vote, but with the Miami Herald describing Crew as “embattled” and a community leader describing school board meetings “like a train wreck,” does anyone believe that the district’s leadership is 100 percent focused on student achievement?

This kind of dispute is why so many school reform efforts fizzle out. Schools only improve when the school board and superintendent work together on a common vision—and work hard to sustain their reform effort year after year.

Yet that partnership is easier said than done. While Crew has won national acclaim for the work he’s done in the last few years, a series of missteps—including a combative attitude toward critics—has hurt the superintendent at a time when a budget deficit makes him politically vulnerable.

There are times, of course, when a school board must say good-bye to a superintendent. But there also is a time for a school board to bite the bullet, accept that the superintendent still can get the job done, and redouble its efforts to rebuild a working relationship that’s in the best interest of students.

What’s the right call in Miami? I don’t know. I just hope that both Crew and his critics on the school board remember what their continued dispute puts at risk. Months of bickering will distract both the school board and administration from their focus on student achievement. The enthusiasm for reform among principals and teachers will wane as they wait to see which way the political winds blow.

And, if a change of leadership is in the cards, that means months of delay as the school systems waits for the selection of a new chief schools executive—and yet more months for this new leader to learn about the school system. And then there’s the danger that the new superintendent will want to put his or her stamp on things, and past reforms, which still need time to take root, will be tossed aside—and years of work will be wasted.

Things may yet settle down in Miami-Dade County. But the dangers are real enough, which makes the school system a timely example of how fragile the conditions for successful reform.

Del Stover, Senior Editor

I went to a high school that was on the outskirts of a town that was on the outskirts of a city. In other words, we were in the middle of nowhere. I think the term today is exurbs, though in truth, we were even one step beyond that.

It’s since changed (rows of major retailers flank either side of the main artery that runs through a now incorporated municipality), but that’s another story.

Quiet and quaint, my town certainly wasn't anyplace you’d expect someone to visit; certainly not for an extended period of time. But every year, a handful of exchange students would come, and suddenly our world would be different.

There was Pierre from the south of France and Stephan from Sweden. Even the fellow from Greece and the contingency from Mexico, neither of whom I never really talked to, made an impression on me and my classmates. Different countries, different languages, different circumstances, yet they were all instant celebrities at my school, bringing a glimpse of what lay behind our limited views.

I wanted to be one of them. Alas, it was not to be, but I hope one day to host an exchange student, since the experience is surely as enriching for the native as it is for the visitor. Unfortunately, today’s tough economy is making it harder for families to do just that.

From Texas to the Twin Cities, agencies that pair exchange students and host families have seen as much as a 50 percent drop in the number of open homes.

“Some families from the past have told us they can’t afford it anymore,” Marie Claude-Dijoud, director of the Garland, Texas-based-Educational Merit Foundation told the Dallas Morning News.

It’s the latest fallout in the economic downturn. And arguably, it’s among the most unfortunate because exchange programs provide Americans and visiting students with an experience that is simply invaluable.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

As the 1993-94 school year started, I had just moved from Texas to North Carolina to start work as the managing editor of a community newspaper. Like many small papers, The Reidsville Review thrived on a steady diet of cops, obituaries, features about small-town fairs, high school sports, more cops, and coverage of school and municipal government.

Except this time, the coverage of school governance came with a twist.

Fourteen days before I arrived, four school districts had officially consolidated into one. And the new district, Rockingham County Consolidated Schools, was heading for some dark days, faced with questions about its finances, central office alignment, facilities, student assignment policies, board and administrative politics, and the like.

It was a massive undertaking – and a big mess for some time. Some teachers, administrators, and board members embraced the new district, which had 25 schools and 14,500 students. Others stubbornly refused, believing that the old way was better.

Within two years, the first superintendent – chosen from one of the four former districts – resigned under pressure. A huge battle over redistricting, which would have corrected racial and economic inequities in terms of student assignment, resulted in no action by the board. Personality clashes were common.

In the fall of 1996, I left newspapers and became the district’s public information officer. Having been on the outside, looking in from a distance, I did not know how difficult this merger had been. Over the next four and a half years, however, I saw this rural district work through its growing pains firsthand.

Several months ago, American School Board Journal was approached by Gene Broderson, who manages the National Affiliate program for the National School Boards Association, about a project involving the newly consolidated Twin Rivers Unified School District. In July 2008, after six failed attempts and 60 years of acrimony, three elementary school districts and one high school district finally were unified into a single PK-12 entity in this area north of Sacramento, Calif. Or was unification just a word?

Gene’s idea was to examine the challenges a first-year district faces through stories in ASBJ and podcasts and webinars posted on the National Affiliate website. The first print story, “The Long Road to Unity,” appears in the September edition of the magazine – available at www.asbj.com on Aug. 20; the multimedia portions of the project are available at www.nsba.org/natwinrivers.

Through this project, which will be ongoing through next summer, we hope to provide a snapshot of how you merge four distinctly different communities together amid fiscal challenges and political rancor. We hope to provide readers with resources and tools they can use if they are faced with a similar circumstance.

And chances are that small districts eventually will face consolidation, though not on the scale of Rockingham County or Twin Rivers. As the story notes, the U.S. had 117,000 school districts and 25.5 million students in 1937-38; today, the number is closer to 14,500 and 50 million, respectively.

Still, half of the nation’s school districts enroll less than 1,000 students, and with a tight economy pinching budgets, legislators in several states are eyeing consolidation as a way to cut costs and provide expanded services to students living in far-flung rural areas.

Working with Gene on the interviews that we are using in ASBJ and online is an exciting challenge as a journalist and an opportunity to take a fresh look at a subject I’ve lived through. It’s also a reminder of how schools, more than just about any other institution in America, can incite deep-seeded passions in communities and those toiling behind the scenes.

I hope you will join us in this journey.

Glenn Cook, Editor-in-Chief