Archives for May 2010

On May 11, 2010 the Houston Chronicle reported that more than 22,620 Texas secondary students who stopped showing up for class in 2008 were excluded from the state’s dropout statistics because administrators said they were being home-schooled, according to Texas Education Agency figures.

Are students who are leaving schools being disguising as thousands of middle and high school dropouts ?

While home-schooling’s popularity has increased, the rate of growth concentrated in Texas’ high school population has nearly tripled in the last decade, including a 24 percent jump in a single year.

In some states, parents are required to file sworn affidavits when they withdraw their children. Many states also require families to submit curriculum, attendance records or test scores when they opt to home-school.

In Texas, the Texas Education Agency requires a “signed statement from a parent/guardian or qualified student” or “documentation of an oral statement by the parent/guardian or qualified student made within 10 days of the time the student quits attending school in the district, signed and dated by an authorized representative of the district” noting that they intend to attend home-school.

A 2008 audit of one of the Houston-area districts with the highest number of home-schooled high schoolers “” Clear Creek ISD “” concluded that only 167 of the 276 students had sufficient documentation from parents to meet the state’s definition. Information was lacking in the other 109 cases.

The U.S. Department of Education found that roughly 77 percent of home-schoolers are Anglo. Most are also the children of college educated, middle class parents. More than one-third of parents cited providing “religious or moral instruction” as the primary reason for their decision to home-school.

The Texas Home School Coalition estimates that more than 300,000 Texas children are home-schooled, with an annual growth rate around 7 percent since the mid-1990s. Leaders also estimate that between 2 and 3 percent of all Texas students are educated at home.

Once families withdraw from public school, there is no follow-up.

Some advocates complain that Spanish-speaking and special-needs student are especially vulnerable to being pushed out of public schools.

Home schooling provides an alternative path for students to graduate and as such I am in favor of it.  However, if it is being used to disguise students who dropout than that is an entirely different matter.

Where are the screams?

I fail to understand why politicians of both parties, the media, policy makers and the business community are not screaming about the following information which appeared on May, 6th in the Washington Post written by Harold Meyerson.  The above named people are supposedly most concerned about the inability of schools to produce a globally competitive workforce yet how do schools do this if teachers, are fired and schools are operating on a 4 day week.  I am not saying that money is the solution to all of education’s problems, but the dire predictions just make the journey more perilous.
One of the precious few points of consensus in our polarized land is that we need to do a better job educating our kids.  The worst recession since the 1930s is clobbering the nation’s schools.

In Indiana and Arizona, the legislatures have eliminated free all-day kindergarten. In Kansas, some school districts have gone to four-day weeks. In New Jersey, 60 percent of school districts are reducing their course offerings. In Albuquerque, the number of school district employees is down 10 percent. In the D.C. suburbs, Maryland’s Prince George’s and Virginia’s Prince William counties have increased their class sizes.

A recent American Association of School Administrators survey of 453 school districts in 45 states shows how bad things are. One-third of the districts are looking at eliminating summer school this year. Fourteen percent are considering going to four-day weeks (last year, just 2 percent did). Fully 62 percent anticipate increasing class size next year, up from 26 percent in the current school year. The teacher-to-pupil ratio, the AASA says, will rise from 15 to 1 to 17 to 1.

Nationwide, estimates of teacher layoffs range from 100,000 to 300,000, with some experts pegging the most likely number nearer the high end. Layoffs are likely to be hardest on the youngest teachers — “probably the most tech-savvy teachers we have,” says Rep. George Miller, the California Democrat who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee. Nor do many talented, young people elect to enter the profession, he adds, when the profession is shrinking.

“You can’t just push the pause button on kids’ education and say, ‘Wait a while,’ ” says Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, who chairs the Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Yet there is little willingness in Congress to craft another broad stimulus package even though education provisions plainly enhance the nation’s ability to create a globally competitive workforce.

There is also little support for finding offsetting cuts or tax hikes to pay for such a bill. Accordingly, Miller and Harkin have introduced legislation in their respective houses narrowly targeted to saving the schools. Each has authored a provision to allot $23 billion to education for the coming fiscal year, with the hope of including it in the next supplemental appropriation bill that contains emergency appropriations that don’t have to be offset by cuts or tax hikes. (Miller’s provision also includes an additional $2 billion to help local governments avoid laying off police officers and firefighters.)  Their bills protect America’s future — and that future is now.

Take a few minutes and write to your state and federal representatives.  Write to your business community, chamber of commerce and have your parents write as well.

Remember, it is not our children who are at-risk, it is our future that is at-risk.

The following article has been posted on my publisher’s (Eye on Education) website, https://blog.eyeoneducation.com/2010/04/08/should-cell-phones-be-allowed-in-schools.aspx?utm_source=bronto&utm_medium=email&utm_term

As the percentage of students in high school, middle school, and even elementary school who own cell phones continues to grow, the debate over whether they should be allowed to use them in school becomes more heated.

The Pros

The chief argument in favor of allowing cell phones at school is safety. Students can contact their parents or another authority figure in case of an emergency, and vice versa. Furthermore, parents can reach their children at any time and learn their whereabouts. Cell phones provide an extra measure of security, and they’re convenient.

And students will use them anyway. According to MSNBC, CommonSense Media conducted a poll that revealed that 63 percent of students still use cell phones at schools with cell phone bans.

In his blog post “I lost something very important to me“ on “Weblogg-ed,” a Web site dedicated to technological resources in the classroom, Will Richardson wondered about the messages cell phone bans send. He wrote, “What does [confiscating cell phones] teach those kids? First, it teaches them that they don’t deserve to be empowered with technology the same way adults are. Second, that the tools that adults use all the time in their everyday lives to communicate are not relevant to their own communication needs.”

The Cons

But they’re distracting. Even if their phones are on silent, students can text and go online during class. Educators opposed to allowing cell phones in schools also cite cyber-bullying, the use of phones and other technology to harass peers, as a reason to leave them at home.

Cell phones can also facilitate cheating. CommonSense Media found that two-thirds of students surveyed claimed that their classmates used cell phones to cheat on coursework, while one-third said they themselves had done so. Armed with high-tech phones, students can browse the Internet and ask their friends for answers to test questions, or store information to give their friends later on.

“When students have cell phones in their possession during school hours, many disciplinary problems stem from [cell phone] abuse,” Jon Akers, executive director of the Kentucky Center for School Safety, wrote in his article, “Student Cell Phones Should Be Prohibited in K-12 Schools.” (This article is available for download on the Kentucky Center for School Safety website.)

He adds, “The current barrage of illegal and immoral acts committed daily (on cell phones by students during the school day) far outweigh the parent’s right to talk (and in some cases, interfere) with their children during a school emergency.”

For me, the real question is how do schools learn how to incorporate the use of technology instead of banning it?

The Wall Street Journal published an article entitled Teacher Absences Plague Schools on April 28th.  According to the Journal’s analysis, one-fifth of New York City’s teachers were absent for more than two weeks last school year.  Absenteeism was highest in some of the poorest schools, where students and teachers face the greatest challenges.

The article failed to mention, that many of these highly at-risk students bring their problems to school because their parents do not speak to them.  Many come from single parent homes, or two working parents.  For some of these students, teachers provide the only adult they see during their waking hours.  The increasing problems of recession, unemployment and foreclosures mean that in addition to teaching, educators have become surrogate parents, and enforcers of school and community rules – things parents used to do.

Teachers are also exposed to childhood illnesses that children bring to school.  Many parents send sick children to school in  order not to hire baby sitters or so that they (the parents) will not have to miss work.

None of this is meant to excuse excessive absences.  But as a former teacher, I know how frequently upon my return to the classroom, I had to address the issue of substitutes who failed to provide adequate instruction during my illness.  Has anyone thought of paying teachers a bonus (of 10%) if they did not take a day off?  This would save school districts money.  (They wouldn’t have to pay a substitute in addition to paying for an absent teacher’s salary.)  It would also provide for continuing instruction and schools wouldn’t have to scramble to find substitutes.

In a new book, Nurtureshock:  New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman, the authors write, that children in a Massachusetts school are jumping rope in physical education classes without using ropes.  The reason for this is because some children will get a poor self image because they cannot jump rope.

While I am concerned about children’s’ self-image, this brings the issue of self-image to a new absurd level.  Where will this all lead?  Why not play baseball in school without using a ball or bat?  Why fail any child who has failed to master the educational material so that we can build a failing individual’s self-image?  Schools need to be concerned with building self image but at what cost?  I recently heard a comedian’s comments about this book.  He said that when he was in school, nobody was concerned about his self image because if they were, they would have eliminated things which hurt his self image like mathematics, science and English.  Students need to recognize, and schools need to play their part, that some children are better at jump rope, baseball and learning than others.  And that they need to try to do better rather than compromising their values.

As of 12 Noon, Mountain time the 200,000 person visited this site.  I am amazed and very grateful.

When this site went live, December 15, 2007 it was my vision that it would be visited by a few people.  I never thought so many people were concerned with at-risk learners and dropout prevention. I am happy that so many of you have found information that you can use.

For those of you who are interested in data, here are a few facts:

I expected that the 15 Effective Strategies would draw the largest audiences, I was wrong.  The people who  have searched for it have made it the second most visited posting.  The one posting which has generated the greatest number of “hits” is 25 Things Which Will Be Extinct in 25 Years.  As I have already indicated, it was sent to me in an email, I do not know from whom but I am delighted.   If you have not seen it, you can go to the archieves and locate it.

Fifty-nine percent  of all searches come to the website because people are looking for something of their interest.  12% of visitors are referred by websites like Bing (68%), 20% by Firefox, 9% by Safari.  The remaining 29% are people who have heard me speak, read my books, or found me on YouTube.

People in all of the 50 states have come to the website.  Canadians are the next highest viewers followed by Morocco, the Philippines,  Spain, India, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Brazil, Ireland (where is Louth?), Singapore, the Netherlands, Indonesia, France, South Africa and Sweden rounds out the top 20 nations.

I have received emails from many of you and comments from some.  If you wish to reach me, try [email protected] (Where is Louth, Ireland?)

If you are a reader and I am doing a presentation which you are attending, stop by and say hello.  If I can be of service to you, your school or school district, let me know.

I will have two new books out before the end of the year.  One titled, 162 Keys to School Success will be published by Eye on Education in July.  Look for a chapter in the “resources” section of this website.

Again, thank you!