Current Affairs Archive

When Al Gore was announced as a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize last week, the honor seemed to do little to end the international debate over whether his film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” should be shown in schools.

While the immediate reaction in the U.S. centered on whether the former vice president will run again for president—or whether the Nobel committee has secret ties to Osama bin Laden, depending on where you get your news—the honor has not vindicated perceptions that the film and the global warming issue are too politicized to teach in public schools.

In Britain last week, a judge ruled that while the film is “substantially founded upon scientific research and fact,” there are several significant errors, from sea levels rising 20 feet in the near future to bleaching of coral reefs (most of his criticism centered on insufficient evidence to support the claims). High Court Judge Michael Burton ruled, in response to a lawsuit by a parent, that showing the film in schools violates a law that bans promoting partisan political views in the classroom.

There have been a few similar incidents in the U.S., where school boards and administrators have faced criticism from parents who either don’t want “An Inconvenient Truth” shown or want opposing viewpoints presented. The Federal Way, Wash., school board got bashed by critics and supporters of the film in January when it temporarily placed a moratorium on showing the film, then later said teachers must present other viewpoints.

One thing is for sure: there’s a growing drive to educate students about the environment in U.S. schools, including public, private, and parochial schools (some are using their newly built sustainable facilities as a demonstration tool). And even though the mere mention of Al Gore seems to, well, make a few heads explode, more conclusive scientific evidence will become available over time to either further prove or disprove the disputed points in “An Inconvenient Truth.” Just in time for a sequel.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

If it is successful, Pennsylvania won’t be the first and they probably won’t be the last state to ban teachers from staging a strike. Yet, if state lawmakers do finally manage to push legislation through, the Keystone state will be the most significant of the 37 other states that prohibit job walkouts.

Just since 2000, Pennsylvania hosted 60 percent of the 137 teacher strikes that occurred nationally, earning them the dubious distinction of the teacher strike capital of the country. Something obviously is not working there and a better solution must be found.

Yet, I’m torn and not sure if the answer is simply to forbid teachers from striking. Yes, the approach seems to have worked in many of the other states with similar laws. Florida’s stringent policy, which could see an employee fired and a union fined up to $20,000 for staging a strike, has been so effective that only one teacher strike occurred between 1975 and 1987.

On the other hand, California, our largest and most populous state, doesn’t put the kibosh on teacher strikes and has only seen three such walkouts since 2000.

While it’s true that teachers aren’t the only labor group who have been restricted from striking, it seems like such a drastic and strong-armed tactic to employ when collaboration and consensus would be better suited to the situation.

One thing is for sure: No one, even teachers, wants to willingly halt the delivery of education.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

We all know what poverty means … or do we? Ever since the federal government attempted to define poverty in the 1960s, critics have argued that those guidelines are inaccurate and out of touch with reality.

The debate has grown and splintered in recent years, with some saying poverty is as much about choices as it is about circumstance, while others decry that viewpoint as myopic and ignorant of the very real institutional infrastructures that limit the mobility of the indigent.

Poverty makes an educator’s job that much harder because poverty typically doesn’t travel alone. It comes with lower levels of literacy, health issues, poor nutrition, and a host of other social ills that schools must face and conquer.

If that’s not enough, schools are increasingly seen as the great equalizer, the one place where one can increase their chances for success and a better future. In studying new data released from the Internal Revenue Service, the Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB119215822413557069.html) recently discovered the gap between the richest and poorest American has continued to grow.

Many academicians cited globalization and the associated skills needed to compete in a “flat world” as the reason for the chasm and Bush, himself, told WSJ that a good education, especially one that incorporates 21st century skills (read "What's Ready" http://www.asbj.com/MainMenuCategory/Archive/2007/September.aspx in September ASBJ for a comprehensive look on this topic), was one of the few sure ways to combat the economic inequality.

Bottom line: Educators, you have your work cut out for you.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

Tough-talking Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani loves teachers. No, really. But he loves children more.

In one of the very few questions on K-12 education to come out of the GOP presidential debates, the former mayor of New York City was quizzed last week on his 1999 statement that the city’s school system was “no good and beyond redemption” and should be blown up. His now-infamous remark enraged the city's teachers union.

That said, why does Giuliani think he’s the one to reengage the nation’s teachers, who already have been alienated by his statements and the No Child Left Behind Act, asked one moderator at the Oct. 22 Florida debate sponsored by Fox News.

“I love teachers. I think teachers are wonderful. There are great ones, there are average ones and there are bad ones, but I really care about the kids more,” he responded.

Giuliani then spoke of a privately funded scholarship program in the late 1990s that paid tuition to private and parochial schools for 2,500 low-income students in New York City. That program convinced him of the need for school choice, he said.

“It seems to me the thing that's wrong, right at the core of No Child Left Behind, is the enforcer of standards should not be the bureaucrat in Washington or on the board of education. It should be the parent. We should have choice. We should empower parents. They should decide -- private school, parochial school, public school, charter school, home school,” he added.

Of course, Giuliani is working hard to convince GOP voters that he is conservative enough to carry the party’s nomination, and the Florida debate was hardly a forgiving format. But if he wins the primaries, it will be interesting to see how he handles his opinions of choice and the New York City schools—the same system that just brought home the 2007 Broad Foundation Prize for Urban Education for its reform efforts.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

The idea struck me as counterintuitive. After all, how many supervisors would give a worker struggling with a small task a bigger project? Maybe it’s not the best analogy, but it’s pretty close to what New York education officials are proposing for the 12,000 students on the brink of dropping out.

Desperate to keep the students from giving up on school, the state’s Board of Regents approved a plan on Tuesday that would place at-risk students in college courses, where they could earn college credit while still in high school.

Dual-enrollment program have found success in many school districts across the country, but New York’s version would be one of the first to specifically target potential drop outs.

Risky? You bet, though most of the lawmakers and bigwigs in New York seemed willing to take that risk.

“Especially with the expense of college being what it is, if you can get kids from disadvantaged families to complete work in high school, they would be saving substantial dollars,” Manhattan assemblywoman Deborah Glick told the New York Times.

Ok, hold on a minute. We’re not just talking about disadvantaged kids, even though statistically, many underperforming students do come from impoverished backgrounds.

Who we’re talking about are students that, for a variety reasons, have become disillusioned with school and the solution, from a practical and analytical standpoint, doesn’t seem to me to include making what is already difficult for them, even more challenging.

I wouldn’t tell someone who is obese that the way to solve their weight issues is to train for a marathon. The lofty goal may work for some, but it seems that individual would be better served to examine why they battle weight problems in the first place and what they could do simply, everyday to win that battle.

Not all students want to go on to a university and not all students have to. I understand the power of setting goals high, but let’s not set them so high we forget to deal with what’s in front of them.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

Call me a nerd if you want to, but I really like this book. It’s called The New Meaning of Educational Change, and it’s not exactly beach reading.

I’ll admit I was skeptical -- both (generally) of my upcoming assignment to write about change, and (specifically) of this 338-page tome by Michael Fullan, an emeritus professor at the University of Toronto, which I found using the time-honored research method of typing “educational change” in Google and seeing what came up.

It turns out this is the fourth (!) edition of this same book, hence “new” in the title. It seems the professor has been writing about this subject for some 25 years. Is there really that much to say about change? I thought. Can’t you -- in the immortal words of the philosopher Nike -- “Just do it?”

I was wrong. Far from being irrelevant and “academic” -- in the worst sense of the word -- the book goes to the heart of why schools and school districts have such a hard time with what Fullan calls “innovativeness.”

“We vastly underestimate both what change is … and what factors and processes account for it ...,” Fullan writes early on, and then proceeds to explain why.

All real change, whether voluntary (your new curriculum, perhaps) or involuntary (NCLB), involves what one researcher calls “loss, anxiety, and struggle.” And, thus, ambivalence. The only way change can take hold, Fullan says, is if there is “shared meaning” among all parties involved. In other words, those at all levels, from conception through implementation, must know what problem the proposed change is expected to address, how it plans to do this, how progress will be measured, etc.

Examples abound. For instance, I thought of shared meaning -- or, more precisely, the apparent lack of it -- in relation to NCLB and its provisions for Adequate Yearly Progress. It’s a good bet that the people who thought up AYP did not plan on urban schools trying to achieve it by narrowing their curriculum, cutting out arts and science, and drilling their students relentlessly. But that is what some educators have done. Why? I suspect it’s because they have perceived this change as threatening on a number of levels. The “meaning” for them is much different than it is for the politicians and policymakers.

As Fullan puts it, “meaning” must be fostered in relation to both the “what” and the “how” of change.

“It is possible to be crystal clear about what one wants and totally inept at achieving it,” Fullan writes. “Or to be skilled at managing change but empty-headed about which changes are most needed. To make matters more difficult, we often do not know what we want, or do not know the actual consequences of a direction until we get there.”

Beach reading? Hardly. But a good primer on the kind of groundwork it will take to change America’s schools.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

Since the death of a 17-year-old Virginia high school student from a drug-resistant staph infection—and a federal report revealed such infections are more common and deadly than thought—the reaction of school officials has alternated between anxiety and downright alarm.

But, if public health officials are correct, the proper response is simply vigilance.

As school leaders will learn in the upcoming issue of School Board News, more and more students and teachers infected with Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are being reported across the nation. And MRSA is deadly, killing nearly 19,000 Americans each year.

But let’s put it in perspective. Influenza—the common flu—kills 36,000 people annually. What’s more, MRSA is treatable, despite its resistance to penicillin and some other antibiotics. Finally, the risks of infection are greatly reduced if students are encouraged to practice good hygiene, such as washing their hands and keeping open wounds covered.

Indeed, public health officials note that, for all the legitimate concerns about this new “superbug,” school officials will learn to cope, just as they did when the first HIV-infected students showed up in schools. As far as MRSA is concerned, infected students can return to school once they’re under treatment, and in most instances, school officials aren't going to have to shut down to disinfect schools.

Amy Garcia, executive director of the National Association of School Nurses, puts it all in perspective: “There are other infections that are easily spread in the school setting, so schools should have policies and procedures in place for dealing with MRSA but also tuberculosis, influenza, and other serious illnesses.”

Del Stover, Senior Editor

Last week I wrote about New York’s big idea for keeping its more than 12,000 potential dropouts in school: Send them to college. I still think the plan is off and in talking with other folks and reading other literature, I have more to say about it.

First, I know the number one reason kids lose interest in school is because they get bored and they don’t see how learning any of “this stuff” matters. The buzz word is relevance.
Time and time again, educators say the solution lies in the instruction. If they want to keep the kids engaged, teachers have to provide a rich and varied curriculum that includes lots of real-world examples and opportunities for students to direct their own learning.

College certainly offers a lot of freedom and choice, but I wouldn’t consider many of my professors (especially the ones in the lower level courses) particularly adept at teaching. Sure, they were geniuses in the subject matter, but professors weren’t always the best at conveying that information. Also, entry-level college courses, which are typically large, lecture-hall formats, aren’t the best place for struggling students.

Now, if we’re talking about elective courses or vocational programs (the latter of which has found success in New York City) that’s different, not only because the class size is probably smaller but also because the class was of particular interest to the student. But that still doesn’t address how that will help students who haven’t mastered basic skills like reading and writing.

So, let me get this straight. In order for New York’s plan to work, it would need skilled instructors who really know how to reach these students and courses that really speak to kids. Hey, isn’t that what high school is supposed to offer? If not, why are we sending students there in the first place?

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

I always find fascinating what Census Bureau surveys reveal. In the latest analysis of data collected in 2004, it seems parents are taking ever more active roles in their child’s education and upbringing, in general. That’s good news since studies have proven that parent involvement is incredibly important to student success.

For instance, the number of children under the age of 12 who had restrictions on the content and quantity of television they viewed increased by more than 10 percent from more than a decade ago. Even teenagers had to live with more restrictions on their television viewing, which went up by 7 percent from 1994 to 47 percent.

Meanwhile, more than half of respondents reported reading an average of six or more times a week to 3- to 5-year-olds and seven or more times per week to children who were between 1 and 2 years old.

And more kids are participating in extracurricular activities like music, dance, computer, and language lessons than a decade ago; rising from 24 to 33 percent for 6- to 11-year-olds -- though the figures are higher for wealthier and Asian families.

To check out the data, go to the Census Bureau at www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/2004_detailedtables.html .

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

I am the parent of a 10-year-old who has been diagnosed as bipolar.

There, I wrote it.

It wasn’t easy. And I’m sure that someone, somewhere, will read this and tell me what a terrible parent I am. That I should rule with a firm hand. That I should not give my child pharmaceuticals to regulate her moods. That the world of child psychiatry is ruled by people who don’t know what they’re doing.

An article in Monday’s Los Angeles Times -- “Are We Too Quick to Medicate Children?” (www.latimes.com/features/la-he-psychkids5nov05,0,4453070.story?coll=la-tot-features&track=ntothtml) -- all but tells me that. Hoping against hope, I read the story, thinking it might provide a balanced look at dealing with children and mental illness.

But there’s no balance in this debate. The article notes that “Mental-health professionals have long warned that the stigma of mental illness and the cost of its treatment have left millions of Americans with psychiatric disorders to suffer untreated.”

In the same paragraph, it cites critics who say child psychiatry is in the middle of a “scourge of overdiagnosis” and warns that people will be less likely to “accept youthful misfits for who they are and to help them adapt without prescribing drugs or attaching labels.”

"I don't want to face her as an adult and say I didn't do everything I could to make her well. I feel like I'm answering to her future self," says the parent of an 11-year-old girl. "But so much of this is a crapshoot. No one wants to feel that their child is a guinea pig."

I know how that parent feels. It was an agonizing decision to have our child treated for her disorder, to see her have to take four drugs every day. It’s also agonizing to see this sweet, smart, gifted child whose brain runs 10,000 mph derail, overwhelmed by anger, anxiety, or an internal/external blip in her universe that appears from nowhere.

It’s agonizing to see how her moods affect her siblings and the rest of her family, to know that – like clockwork – something bad will happen if she doesn’t take her meds by a certain time because she just can’t maintain control. Not won’t, but can’t.

It’s just as agonizing to see how many who are so quick to judge, to say that what’s right for them should be right for everyone else. Just look in the comments section after the article and you’ll see what I mean.

The Times article, like countless others, raises legitimate questions about a legitimate debate. But it fails to capture the nuance and the internal struggles parents face when they make decisions like this. If our children are our future, we owe it to them to do everything we can, without casting blanket judgments on others.

Glenn Cook, Editor-in-Chief

Some of us ASBJ editors have been debating the merits of New York City’s plan to put some struggling students into postsecondary courses to keep them from dropping out. Whether that becomes a model for other districts or a disaster swept under the rug, or something in between, I’m sure Naomi Dillon will let us know in a couple years.

But a similar concept that’s quickly gaining ground is high school majors. Yes, majors for 13- and 14-year-olds, just like colleges. Florida, South Carolina, and numerous school districts have policies that require students to choose a course specialization, and other states and districts are taking similar approaches through similar concepts, such as career academies.

My first reaction when I started research for a School Board News story was to roll my eyes, and apparently a lot of parents have the same reaction. After all, what eighth-grader (most of the plans required students to choose their topic of specialty even before entering high school) has much of an idea what career path they will pursue? And when I looked at Florida’s laundry list of approved subject majors—which included strands like sculpture and culinary journalism—my response (which cannot be printed in its entirety) included the question, “Who do they think is going to teach all this?!”

But after talking to a few folks I was persuaded that the programs have potential, albeit with a lot of caveats.

Administrators who favor majors think they will give students more focus and more ambition during their high school careers, much like a specialized magnet school or career academy, and boost their college applications. Most majors would only be taken through electives, usually one course the first two years and two courses in the junior and senior years, although the theme of the major could also influence the teachings of some of the core classes. Plus, administrators say many students already know their interests, and this could be a way to help students engaged. Gene Bottoms, a vice president at the Southern Regional Education Board, notes that while so many national groups are sounding alarms about 21st century skills and more rigor in core classes, not much is being done to figure out how to keep kids interested in school.

The concept has merit, at least for some students, in some schools, some of the time. Certain conditions need to be met: Students need flexibility to try out different majors, and shouldn’t be forced to choose if they aren’t passionate about their schools’ offerings; majors should be broad enough to allow students to explore different areas within a field; and, perhaps most importantly, the school must have the capacity to teach these courses well.

Will these programs become a model or be impossible to implement? Stay tuned; I’ll check back in a couple years.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

Earlier this week, Swiss researchers released the findings of a survey they disseminated to more than 5,000 Switzerland youth. In essence, the study (conducted in 2002) determined among those 16- to 20-year-olds who smoked marijuana only, marijuana and cigarettes, or abstained from both, the group who solely smoked marijuana were “more socially driven … significantly more likely to practice sports and they have a better relationship with their peers,” than those who smoked neither.

The study, published in this month’s issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Medicine, appears to contradict the widely-held belief that marijuana is a gateway drug and its use can lead to experimentation in other drugs … which leads me to my point and our current ASBJ cover story, “Politics and Research.”

Just about any topic can be spun, stretched, dissected, or altered in some way to achieve different results, as Senior Editor Del Stover discovered in reporting on the field of education research. That’s not to say there isn’t merit or value in many of these reports, even the bad ones.

Nor am I saying the Swiss researchers who conducted the marijuana-use survey were purposefully trying to skew the findings, or that what they found isn’t true. It just may only be true for that small group. In Switzerland, marijuana-use has risen among that age group, in contrast to the decline it has made among American teens.

Research can only tell us so much, and it’s up to you as savvy consumers of the literature to determine what to take from it and what to leave behind.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

I was a “bean counter” today, but alas, not a very good one.

I’m talking family finances here, not accounting. The bean-counting exercise that I and about 25 other journalists participated in was sponsored by two home finance experts from the University of Maryland Cooperative Extension, who know something about how hard life can be when you’re from a low-income family.

The game seemed simple. We were divided into seven “families” of varying size. Mine was the Smith family, consisting of a granddad in poor health; his son, who works two jobs; and the son’s 11-year-old child, a boy in middle school. They all live in a two bedroom apartment in suburbia.

Each family was given 13 cards signifying basic households needs -- housing, utilities, food, clothing, health care, etc. -- and a bunch of beans. The object? Put your beans -- all 20 of them -- where they’re most needed. The only problem, of course, is that there’s too many needs and not enough beans.

For example, do we buy a used vehicle for the family breadwinner (at a cost of three beans) or hope there’s public transportation to get him to his two jobs (one bean)? If we choose the latter, we’re assuming this suburb has adequate bus or rail service that happens to mesh with our breadwinner’s work schedule.

How about housing? If we assume we can live in public housing, it will cost us only one bean; renting will set us back three. What about food, insurance, furniture, clothes, and -- dare we mention it -- the occasional gift?

Two things stood out. To conserve beans, we Smiths made a lot of assumptions, one of which was that there would always be willing relatives around to help us with laundry, clothes, and other needs. Of course, we couldn’t afford a phone and could barely scrounge for a TV, which leads to our second observation. Being low-income in America (but not necessarily below the so-called poverty line) can be an isolating and disempowering experience. No wonder the poor don’t vote as much as the rich, for example; they’re too busy trying to get through the day.

What does this have to do with you? If you have any low-income children in your school district, and practically all of you do, you know the answer: It means everything. Your students come from a variety of backgrounds, with a variety of needs, hopes, dreams, and concerns. Your job -- a most complicated of jobs, if there ever was one -- is to educate them all.

The Family Spending Game can be found at: http://ffsn.wsu.edu/documents/SpendingGame.pdf.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

I love to shop, especially on the Internet. And as much as I love a good bargain, I’m also a stickler for customer service. And that was one reason I was very happy to see the Utah voucher program go down in flames last week.

Yes, online shopping and school vouchers are indeed related, thanks to Patrick Byrne, the president and chairman of Overstock.com. Byrne’s been throwing money at the pro-voucher campaign in Utah. As the head of First Class Education, a lobbying group, he hawks the “65 percent solution” to states, a mandate that 65 percent of education funds must be spent in the classroom.

I could spend the rest of this blog hashing out my thoughts on vouchers and school finance, but I’d rather defer to NSBA’s positions and rant about Overstock.com instead.

When I first discovered Overstock.com several years ago I was smitten with its vast selection and $2.99 shipping. A couple purchases brought me coupons and daily e-mails with specials, and I often couldn’t resist a quick browse through the site.

But one thing quickly became apparent: Nearly everything I ordered was slightly damaged—not horribly, but just enough so that it wasn’t worth the effort of sending it back. Value was OK, but not great. My final straw, though, came when I ordered dining room chairs from Overstock.com, and of course all six were damaged. This time I sent two back and asked for replacements.

And then I spent the next two months calling and e-mailing customer service reps based overseas trying to find my replacement chairs. Nobody could answer my questions. In short, I eventually demanded my money back, sent all Overstock.com e-mails to my spam folder, and vowed to only buy from companies (Costco, Nordstrom, REI, etc.) that have a clue about customer service and quality. Since my debacle last year, I’ve heard similar complaints about Overstock.com from friends and colleagues, and a quick Google search for Patrick Byrne and Overstock.com has turned up some even more interesting stories.

So I’d like to send this message to Mr. Byrne and the Overstock.com reps -- just in time for holiday shopping: Shut up about education and focus on your company’s customer service and quality control issues instead.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

It’s been more than a week since Utah voters overturned the state’s voucher law, and now that voucher proponents have had a chance to lick their wounds, I’d like to offer them a piece of advice: Give up.

It’s not just that I think vouchers threaten to drain taxpayer dollars from public education, or that I’m concerned that research still hasn’t show voucher programs are any more successful than the public schools in raising student academic achievement.

No, I think voucher advocates should throw in the towel for a more pragmatic—and cynical—reason. Making taxpayer money available to private and parochial schools threatens their unique and independent status in American education.

As I see it, once private schools begin to accept taxpayer money, they’re in trouble. A few headlines about misspent public funds, unsafe school conditions, and biased student admissions policies, and lawmakers will spring into action to “right the wrongs.” Within two decades, private and parochial schools will be as regulated as the public schools.

Some private school supporters already have voiced this warning. But the lure of state and federal dollars is strong. It will be a bitter irony if the voucher movement ever “wins” the fight for taxpayer dollars and destroys private education as we know it.

And, alas, it does damage to public education as well.

Del Stover, Senior Editor

Hailing from Hawaii, where holidays like May Day and King Kamehameha Day would shut down schools and traffic, I was fairly familiar with how local and cultural traditions could rise to the level of an island-wide celebration.

When I moved to the mainland (and through the grade levels) I became increasingly aware and involved in commemorating the contributions of African Americans during Black History Month in February.

College brought me even more exposure to the sections of the year that government officially carved out to highlight America’s diverse cultures: Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May and Hispanic Heritage Month that kicks off on Sept. 15, for example.

So it was with some surprise that I learned only recently that an American Indian Heritage Month existed. It’s in November. I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, in producing December’s cover story, “Trail to Progress,” it became clear that for a majority of the public, Native Americans, their history, their issues, and their way of life were largely invisible and not entirely understood.

To be fair, American Indian history from the time the first European settlers landed until the present is a complicated and nuanced story, typically told from the non-Indian perspective. The history of Indian education is just as complex, as it became a tool in the federal government’s drive to control and assimilate the hundreds of tribes living in the country.

But the history is important if you want to understand where American Indians, especially American Indian students are today and why, statistically, they struggle more than most other demographic groups.

I could not tell it all in the pages of our magazine. So in the weeks leading up to the December edition’s release and even beyond, I’ll try to share what I learned during my reporting … which was a lot, though I feel like I just barely touched the surface.

For starters, I’ll leave you with a study that the non-profit research center, the Public Agenda, released in late August. “Walking a Mile: A First Step Toward Mutual Understanding” (www.publicagenda.org/WalkaMile) is a candid and revealing look at how Indians and non-Indians view each other.

When asked by the moderator what he wanted non-Indians to know about Indians, one Indian male said, “Maybe you should tell that we still exist.”

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

I like musicals. I admit it. A rush of emotions come over me whenever I can sense a big song and dance number is about to occur. But not all musicals are created equal. Though I’d received the VHS as a holiday present from my sister one year, I’d never liked “Oklahoma!”

The first collaboration between the famed composer/lyricist duo, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, the 1955 movie version was too hokey, too over-the-top, and too gosh-durn-golly-gee for my tastes.

But when I returned from Tahlequah, Okla., where I had traveled for the December ASBJ cover story, “Trail to Progress,” the first thing I did was pop the tape into the machine. It was still annoying and I still fast-forwarded through most of the musical numbers. But it was fascinating, too, as I watched it with new eyes and new knowledge.

Set in 1906, just a year before Oklahoma became a state, the musical was supposed to imbue the hope and excitement of the new settlers trying to make a life for themselves in this new territory.

Not once, however, were American Indians mentioned or even seen--- a major omission considering how the federal government had forcibly moved numerous tribes and thousands of their members into the area, with promises that the territory would be their’s forever, only to buckle beneath pressure from land-hungry prospectors.

History books have long been decried for their imbalanced recounting of significant events and facts of the past, especially as it relates to Native Americans. And it seems Broadway musicals, as long as they are, are also guilt of the same thing.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

You’ve got to put this in perspective. Yes, two District of Columbia school employees may have spent more than $13,000 in student activity funds on things like an $82.50 bottle of wine and a strip club outing. But it’s not easy working for the D.C. schools these days, especially with all the criticism they’ve received. And compared to the $31.7 million allegedly stolen from the city treasury in an elaborate property tax return scheme, $13,000 seems like pretty small change -- in fact, it’s less than the cost of educating one district student. So, I mean, what’s the big deal?

OK, not very funny. But neither are the stories of fraud and mismanagement that seem to pop up regularly from one of America’s most troubled school system. And it’s especially disturbing to me after I spent more than a year writing a series (Children at Risk) that basically said the nation needs to spend more money on poor children and the schools they attend.

There is corruption in the public sector and in the private sector as well. People predisposed to mistrust the public sector will generalize from examples like those above. Critics of the private sector will point to their Enrons and Tycos.

Certainly, the District of Columbia schools -- and many others -- need to be overhauled; the dead wood pruned, the corruption and sheer incompetence exposed. And, as I said in an earlier blog, I think new school Chancellor Michelle Rhee may be the right person for the job.

But at the same time, I hope people don’t conclude that this is all districts serving disadvantaged students need. If you’re skeptical, look at the Education Trust report, Funding Gaps 2006, which shows that schools serving the nation’s low-income students received far less funding, on average, than those serving advantaged ones. Or read the report Growth and Disparity: A Decade of U.S. Public School Construction 1995-2004, which shows that district with poor students spent thousands less on infrastructure than their wealthy counterparts, and that the money they did spend was more likely to be used on basic repairs rather than educational enhancements.

So, please, keep making the case that schools -- all schools -- need adequate funding. Keep up the campaign. Just don’t use D.C. as your poster child.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

For centuries, the education system in America was a way to streamline the population, especially foreigners, into a certain way of thinking, acting, and contributing to society. Some might even argue, myself included, certain aspects of that uniformity still exist in schools.

But such lock-step mentality was as dangerous and short-sighted then as it today. Want proof? Take a look at what “civilizing” did for the Cherokee Nation, whom historians referred to as one of the Five Civilized Tribes because of their advanced system of government, laws, and education.

In 1821, the famed Cherokee leader, Sequoyah, is credited with introducing a syllabary upon which the Cherokee language is based. Within six years, the publication of a bilingual newspaper and other materials result in 90 percent of tribal members being literate in their native language; Oklahoma Cherokees even had a firmer grasp on English than whites in Texas or Arkansas.

But despite operating what one official called “the finest school system west of the Mississippi River,” the Cherokees first saw the federal government place one of its own officials in charge of Cherokee education and then eventually saw the abolishment of the system all together once Oklahoma became a state.

A half-century later, the result of such a takeover is documented in the 1969 Senate Subcommittee on Indian Education Hearings, which found adult Cherokees completed an average of 5.5 years of schooling, drop out rates for Cherokees in public schools were as high as 75 percent, and 40 percent of adult Cherokees were functionally illiterate.

It was a sharp and tragic decline for the Cherokees and a lesson to everyone about the hazards of ignoring the differences and unique qualities that everyone possesses.

For more information on educating Native Americans, see my article, “How One District Is Improving Native American Achievement,” at www.asbj.com.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

Oh, the unintended consequences of being assigned Mutiny on the Bounty as eighth-grade summer reading. I know because I was so assigned. My parents knew because of the salty effect it had on my language.

I remember one morning at breakfast:

Mom: What will you have for breakfast, Larry?

Larry: “By God, I’ll have pancakes!”

Mom: “O … K. And what would you like with that?”

Larry. “Orange juice…… By God!

Mom: I think we need to talk about your language.”

Yes, that happened (more or less as stated). But, joking aside, reading the Nordhoff and Hall novel of adventure on the South Seas -- its tale of loyalty and betrayal, and of the indistinct line between good and evil -- was incredibly enriching. So was reading the other novels I was assigned in the upper elementary and middle grades: Old Yeller, The Yearling, The Call of the Wild, A Member of the Wedding. I only vaguely remember the stories, some of which I might never have read if not introduced to them in school. What I do recall is the effect they had on me, how they helped me visualize a boundless world outside myself.

I thought about this yesterday while reading a letter from a Maryland woman in the New York Times. She was responding to an article about a National Endowment of the Arts report on the endangered status of reading for fun. (“Study Links Drop in Test Scores to a Decline in Time Spent Reading” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/arts/19nea.html?ref=opinion). And she praised, albeit ironically, the Times headline for making the connection between test scores and reading, “because only the evidence of lower test scores will move the myopic beast loosed by No Child Left Behind to change its course.”

Then, the kicker. “My son attends arguably the best public middle-school program in Baltimore,” the letter writer, Christina Myers, said, “and the language arts teachers there have been told not to teach novels until the spring, after the state testing is over.

“The absurdity might almost make me laugh, if it weren’t so horrifying in its implications.”

I would have used the word “sad” -- how sad that these children, and so many others like them, are being denied the kind of transformative experiences I remember from my youth.

Please, don’t let this happen in your schools.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

My cousin, a teacher, recently lamented about the presidential race: “When is someone going to talk about education? I probably would vote for anyone that said they were going to ditch NCLB!”

Well, if you want change… meet GOP candidate Ron Paul, a 10-term congressman from Texas. He not only wants to ditch NCLB, he’d also abolish the entire U.S. Department of Education as well. (And the Internal Revenue Service and income tax, too.)

The federal government should have no say in education policy -- nor should it give any money, the libertarian-leaning Paul says in a statement provided by his campaign.

“I want to abolish the unconstitutional, wasteful Department of Education and return its functions to the states,” he writes. “By removing the federal subsidies that inflate costs, schools can be funded by local taxes, and parents and teachers can directly decide how best to allocate the resources.”

In 2001, Paul blasted the NCLB legislation: “Schools remain accountable to federal bureaucrats and those who develop the state tests upon which participating schools performance is judged … the current system of imposing oppressive taxes on America's families and using those taxes to fund federal education programs denies parental control of education by denying them control over their education dollars.”

His education priorities center on annual tax credits: $5,000-per-child credits for public, private, or home-school expenses; and $3,000 credits for full-time teachers. He’s also a huge supporter of homeschooling.

Paul’s mostly dismissed as a bit of a nutball. But after the first GOP debates he picked up quite a fervent following -- he’s set GOP fundraising records and won praise from celebrities as diverse as crooner Barry Manilow and punk rocker Johnny Rotten. He’s recently shown some life in the New Hampshire and South Carolina polls, although he’s still far from the first tier.

Political pundits, though, have questioned his math when he proclaims the U.S. government can do without an income tax. And while the teachers unions and other education groups gripe about NCLB and the federal bureaucracy, I highly doubt he’ll be getting any endorsements from them. Change is needed, but not to the point of blowing up the whole system.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

Should schools put twins in the same class or separate them? And what, if any, say should the parents have in this process?

Plenty, if you ask me.

The question came up in an interesting story published this week in Boulder, Colo.’s The Daily Camera. The story notes that schools are educating more multiples, citing statistics that show 34 of 1,000 births now are twins.

School officials make good points in the story, saying that twins are split up to encourage individual strengths and because one sibling often dominates. But some districts require all multiples to be separated, prompting a rise in parent citizen groups that have pushed for legislation to be involved in the placement of their children. Laws have been passed in four states – Georgia, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Texas.

Legislation is a bit much, but it’s what happens when common sense gets thrown out the window. Unlike many parents, I do believe the school knows best in some areas.
But as the parent of fourth-grade twins, I can’t imagine being told by the school that requiring them to be separated is what’s best for my children.

Or, as Kathy Dolan, a New York mom to twin boys and creator of www.twinslaw.com, says in the story: "You can't have these across-the-board policies. Children should be placed according to their needs, and you have to have parent input. We really know whether they need to be together or apart."

I couldn’t agree more.

Glenn Cook, Editor in Chief

A few weeks ago I provided a link (and hopefully some of you followed it) to a telling study produced by the non-profit think tank, Public Agenda. Walking a Mile certainly corroborated what I’d discovered in my reporting of December’s ASBJ cover story: Very few non-Indians understand the issues, challenges, and misconceptions American Indians face.

I include myself in that group. I knew that Native Americans had treaty rights, but I didn’t how that started, what it meant, and how it affects life for American Indians today. I had some vague sense that the federal government had entered into agreements with hundreds of distinct indigenous tribes in exchange for land many, many years ago.

But I didn’t know what the government had promised, and even more importantly, if it had honored those promises. A 2003 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights shows they have not. “A Quiet Crisis,” which reviewed the budgets of the six main federal agencies tasked with serving the 562 federally recognized tribes, is, to put it mildly, shocking.

Here a just a few of their findings:

Slightly more than a quarter of Native Americans enjoy medical benefits through an employer; most rely on the Indian Health Service. Yet annually, IHS spends 60 percent less on its recipients than the average per person health care expenditure nationwide. In fact, the government spends less than any other group it has direct health care responsibility for, including veterans, Medicaid recipients, and prisoners. Is it any wonder then that American Indians have higher rates of diseases like tuberculosis, diabetes, and alcoholism resulting in a life expectancy that is lower than any other racial/ethnic group?

Of the roughly 4.5 million American Indians in the U.S., less than half a million live on reservations, land held in trust by the government. The housing situation on the reservations is grim, with about 40 percent of homes deemed inadequate compared to 6 percent nationally.

Today, less than 10 percent of American Indian children attend schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs -- a complete turnabout from a half-century earlier. Maybe it’s because in 2004, BIA schools spent about $3,000 per student, less than half the amount spent in public schools. Or could it be that BIA schools are generally in worse condition than schools nationally, even inner-city schools, with the backlog of needed repairs and construction tallied at close to $1 billion in 2001.

But what about all the benefits tribes receive, you ask, like tax exemption and the power to run casinos? Tribes are not exempt from paying taxes and, in fact, often pay more than their share. A study by the Arizona Commission on Indian Affairs, for example, found that for every dollar the state spent on a tribe, nearly $42 was returned through taxes levied on businesses on the reservation and sales tax on items bought by American Indians off the reservation.

For more details, visit the report at www.usccr.gov/pubs/na0703/na0731.pdf .

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

Poverty, high rates of unemployment, and disease. American Indians suffer a disproportionate amount of social ills, despite occupying the smallest portion of the U.S. population. Is it just a coincidence or is there a relationship between their small numbers and large hardships?

In his book, American Colonies, historian Alan Taylor estimates that between 1492 and 1800, the Native American population fell by 90 percent to just 600,000 as a result of disease, malnutrition, and the overall abuses from their new neighbors.

Currently, American Indians account for less than 1.5 percent of all Americans and 1 percent of all school children in public schools. It’s safe to say their sparse numbers and even aspects of their culture have made it easy for the general population to overlook them.

“We are a minority of minorities,” says Elona Street-Stewart, a member of the Nanticoke tribe and the school board president for Minnesota’s Saint Paul Public Schools. “It’s not about class presence. Just being Indian often renders you invisible.”

For instance, Street-Stewart says, some last names may be obvious while others, like Smith and Jones (which are very popular Indian surnames) are not. The physical and social indicators many rely on to distinguish certain group from others may also be ambiguous.

Until she helped eliminate Saint Paul’s practice of student identification by sight counts, Street-Stewarts’ own two sons were classified as Hispanic and Asian.

Often shy and circumspect, American Indian students are once again either ignored or misread as lazy or non-participatory in the classroom.

It’s easy to see how the totality of such factors and a general lack of exposure has cultivated an image of the Native American that is either negative or outdated, and it’s up to educators and schools to stop feeding into those stereotypes and reach out into the community, no matter how small it is.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

The girl perched atop the huge iron anchor in our neighborhood park looked about 6 or 7. My 3-year-old son, jumping up to scale the structure, brushed her dangling foot with his head.

“Shoo, shoo,” the girl shouted, kicking out her foot.

Standing near my son, I felt a sudden flash of anger. “Use your words to ask him to move,” I snapped. “He’s not a cat.”

My response was sharp and loud enough to elicit an apology from the girl’s nanny and a look of embarrassment from my husband and my older son.

Yes, I’m a helicopter parent. I won’t shy away from the label. I read my 9-year-old’s books (the Lemony Snicket series right now), watch television with him (“The Suite Life of Zach and Cody”), and check his homework. When he has a test, I help him study (I now know what kinds of clouds accompany cold and warm fronts). I’ve been a room parent since kindergarten. My younger boy goes to a cooperative preschool where I volunteer with the other helicopter moms in the classroom every month.

I could go overboard if I’m not careful, but Lori Drew’s example should make everyone pause. The 48-year-old mother from Dardenne, Mo., took the notion of parent involvement to a sickening extreme. Incensed that a 13-year-old girl had abruptly broken off her friendship with her daughter, Drew invented an imaginary boyfriend through a fake MySpace account, according to the New York Times (www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/us/28hoax.html?_r=1&oref=slogin).

The “boyfriend” wooed the girl online for several weeks before turning on her, sending her cruel messages and telling her “The world would be a better place without you.” The eighth-grade girl, who’d been battling weight problems and depression, hanged herself in her bedroom closet.

I grew up in the 1970s, and I’m not nostalgic for the days when most adults, including educators, believed bullying was a problem children needed to solve among themselves. I witnessed, and was the victim of, many acts of cruelty that children perpetrate on each other. Teachers and other adults shrugged their shoulders and looked the other way.

I wrote an article in ASBJ about bullying nearly a decade ago and was pleased to discover that the prevailing attitudes had changed. Now, most educators, child advocates, and mental health professionals say that adults can and should intervene. And that’s especially true now that bullies are equipped with high-tech tools – cell phones, texting devices, and social networking accounts.

Many bullied children are set up to be victims by their families long before they get to school. I don’t hover around my boys at the playground. But if I see someone bigger or stronger harming my preschooler (yes, that includes a little girl trying to kick him in the head), I’ll intervene. I want my boys to know I’ll protect them.

But what to say about a woman whose warped sense of maternal protection drove her to the prolonged torment of a troubled eighth-grader? There are no words.

Kathleen Vail, Managing Editor

Who is Mike Rose, and why is he so darned reasonable?

At a time when the Democratic presidential candidates are busy shredding each another in Iowa, and pundits on the Left and Right are deeming each other mortal threats to the America; when Ann Coulter is declaring a 10th Crusade against Islam, and a responder to ASBJ’s Your Turn poll ignores the month’s question to scrawl: “Impeach Cheney, then Bush!” … Amid all this, some UCLA education professor has the temerity to take on the most controversial K-12 issue of our time and come up with a most thoughtful, clear-headed, and non-biased analysis.

Just who does he think he is?

In his recent Education Week commentary, “Seek a ‘Fuller Language of Schooling’’ (www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/11/07/11rose.h27.html), Rose explores the kind of education NCLB, and its testing regimen, fosters and asks a basic, philosophical question: “What kind of education befits a democratic society?”

It is undeniable that the federal law “shines a bright light on those underserved populations of students who get lost in averaged measures of performance,” Rose writes. The assumption that all children can learn, that public institutions such as schools have a responsibility to their citizenry, that schools can be improved -- these are the democratic promises of NCLB.

“What is worth exploring, though, is the degree to which these tenets are invested in an accountability mechanism that might restrict their full realization,” Rose writes. He then discusses the advantages and disadvantages of standardized tests and their impact on teaching, particularly in school serving disadvantaged children.

Clearly, “NCLB has jolted some low-performing schools to evaluate and redirect their inadequate curriculum,” he writes. The question is: Have they done this “through a strictly functional and unimaginative curriculum (which, admittedly, might be better than what came before) or through a rich course of study that, as a byproduct, affects test scores?”

Rose, of course, argues for the latter and says “there are signs that we as a country are beginning to seek some fuller language of schooling” that goes beyond “scores, rankings, and an elaborate technology of calibration and compliance.”

“The No Child Left Behind Act will undoubtedly be reauthorized,” Rose concludes. “But my hope is that as we debate its merits and flaws, we will begin to develop more fitting ways to talk about children and the schools that shape their lives.”

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards has just announced its largest class ever—8,491 teachers attained certification this year, bringing the total number of NBPTS-certified teachers to more than 63,000.

These teachers should be commended for their work, having passed grueling tests to demonstrate teaching competency through videos and analysis of their instructional methods as well as subject-matter competency. Only about 40 percent of NBPTS candidates pass on the first try, and NBPTS thinks that only about 70 percent pass within the three-year time frame. Most teachers—even those who fail—say it was the best professional development they’ve ever had.

But the story behind this story is that most school districts and school boards do not know how to best use these teachers’ skills. While NBPTS has not kept in touch with its alumni, anecdotal evidence proves that most of the teachers go back to same jobs they had before, with little or no recognition of their accomplishment.

This is a shame. There are so many ways these master teachers, who obviously wanted a challenge, could be put to better use: as lead teachers, mentors, curriculum specialists, or assistant administrators. But school boards and administrators have tended to be oblivious. Researcher Julia Koppich recently told me that in her research school boards “barely registered on the radar screen” and many administrators were overwhelmed or unwilling to find ways to better use these teachers. She found that, surprisingly, the teachers unions were the most important factor in prodding districts to recognize, use, and reward these teachers.

So for any district looking for ideas for policies or practices, I’ve planted a few in the upcoming edition of School Board News (www.nsba.org/site/page_sbn_issue.asp?TRACKID=&CID=682&DID=9461).

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

That observation, often attributed to poet and philosopher George Santayana, needs to be heeded by policymakers in the District of Columbia.

Today, thousands of D.C. students stand on the brink of academic failure—and a future at risk of poverty and diminished opportunities. Yet the city’s adults are squabbling among themselves.

City council members complain they weren’t properly consulted about planned school closings, and parents jeered school officials at a recent public meeting. Meanwhile, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is alienating potential political support for school reform with a combative leadership style.

In a democracy, everyone has a right to debate public policy. But the tone of debate in D.C. has me worried that city leaders have forgotten their history. Political infighting and turf battles have sabotaged every serious school reform effort in the city for the past two decades, leaving the schools to languish and creating a revolving door of school leaders and dashed hopes.

I’m not saying that common sense won’t win out in the nation’s capital. But I think it’s worth pointing out that D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee confronts a daunting task, and quite frankly, she needs to wield a political and administrative sledgehammer if she is to succeed.

The Washington Post had it right in a recent editorial: “Ms. Rhee does not need 13 people telling her which schools to close or whom to hire and fire; rather she needs partners who have a stake in her success and will give her the necessary tools and support.”

That’s good advice—and a similar-worded message should be delivered to community leaders everywhere. Don’t argue about the job—work together to get it done. Our children’s futures are at stake.

Del Stover, Senior Editor

Brian Jackson stood barely taller than many of the middle school students he was coaching at the moment. But he had no trouble getting the group of energetic students to listen.

It’s not everyday you get to shoot a real bow and arrow in the back of school. To be honest, with school security being in a heightened state, it’s not everywhere that you see this either. But this is Tahlequah, Okla., where they make conscious effort to preserve the traditions of life.

Indian life, that is. On the easternmost edge of the state, Tahlequah is the capital and the heart of the Cherokee Nation, where I went to gain inspiration and insight for the current ASBJ cover story, “Trail to Progress.”

It turned out to be an ideal place, not only because of its history (the town marks the end of the Trail of Tears) but also because of its spirit and optimism, which is imbued in people like Jackson, a Cherokee member.

Nearly banished to prison on drug charges, Jackson was given a second chance and has apparently made use of it by crisscrossing the country as a motivational speaker and winning not one but two Guinness World Records for blowing up hot water bottles no less.

The archery lessons he teaches the middle school students today is a fun activity that camouflages what he’s really trying to get across. “If I set the target too close, they’d maybe hit it on their first or second try,” he says. “But if I set it just beyond their reach they’ll keep trying and it’ll give them something to shoot for.”

It’s all about setting goals and working towards them, even ones that seem out of reach, Jackson says.

“I ask them how many people do you know who are Guinness World Record holders? Then I ask them how many do you know who’ve tried?”

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor