Archives for October 2011

How well do your students know and understand the U.S. Constitution?

A new survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center shows Americans don’t have a good grasp of the Constitution or its powers, highlighting the need for better civic education.

“These failings threaten the future of our democracy,” wrote retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. “If we don’t know what makes this country special and worth saving, how will we know how to safeguard its promise of freedom and opportunity.”

Some of the findings from the  survey:

• Just 38% of the poll’s respondents can name all three branches of the U.S. government (executive, legislative and judicial) One-third are unable to correctly name any of the branches.
• 15% correctly say John Roberts is chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, but almost twice as many respondents (27%) correctly named Randy Jackson as a judge on TV’s American Idol.
• A majority of people (55%) incorrectly believe the Constitution was signed in 1776. That’s the year the Declaration of Independence was signed. The Constitution was signed Sept. 17, 1787.

As a former history teacher, I am appalled at the results of this survey.  But there is a price to be paid by the country by deemphasizing the importance of history.  As the report indicates, we need to have all stakeholders (politicians, businesspeople, parents and educators) stressing the importance of history.

According to Peter Drucker, “What gets measured gets done.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation in its report, The Silent Epidemic” found that the main reason children drop out of school.  But politicians and the people behind the No Child Left Behind legislation have ignored this.  By insisting that high stakes tests focus on language arts and mathematics, schools are increasingly reducing time for art, music, social studies and science.   Preparation for increasingly high-stakes tests has reduced time for social studies and science. state and federal budget cuts are decimating already hobbled music, art, library and physical education budgets.

A 2007 Center on Education Policy study found that 44 percent of elementary schools had decreased instructional time spent on non-tested subjects since the 2002 implementation of No Child Left Behind, on average reducing time spent teaching the scorned subjects by 32 percent.

I believe in the theory of “unintended consequences”.  But I am not sure if this emphasis on high stakes testing of math and english is one of “unintended consequences”.  Some students come to school because of art, music, science, social studies and physical education.  By eliminating these subjects, students become increasingly bored, and cannot relieve the pressure of instruction.   It is as if these politicians have asked and answered the question, ‘how do we make school more boring and even less interesting’?

Jon Carmichael, age 13,, committed suicide in March 2010 as a result of being bullied and the lack of actions taken by his middle school officials.  At least that this the basis of Jon Timothy and Tami Carmichael of Cleburne, Texas lawsuit for $20 million against the Joshua Independent School District.  Their claim alleges that the school district ignored multiple acts of bullying including where their sun was thrown into a trash can, had his head flushed into a toilet and was stripped nude, tied up and again placed into a trash can.  The lawsuit claims that a tape of the last incident was posted on YouTube but was taken down when a staff member requested it but failed to report he incident to the school.

On September 1, 2011, New Jersey instituted the toughest bully laws in the nation.

My job here is not to debate the merits of the case – a court will decide that.  But in a time where there are fewer dollars available for education, schools need to be cognizant of bullying that may take place.  My latest book, Dropout Prevention Field Book, has a number of practical, easy to implement practices that schools can use to identify and prevent school bullying.

Plagiarism is going social, according to Turnitin.com, which found that one-third of plagiarized material in student papers can be traced to social networking, content sharing, or question-and-answer websites.

Turnitin.com offers software that checks student papers against a vast database of prior works and the internet at large, looking for matches that can indicate possible plagiarism. An analysis of the top sources of matched content flagged by the software reveals a significant shift in the last few years, the company says””from so-called “term paper mills” to social sites and homework help sites.

While social networking and content sharing sites accounted for the highest percentage of all matched content, one-quarter of all matched materials came from legitimate educational websites, the company said””many of which use “.org” or “.gov” domain names. These sites often include pages dedicated to helping students complete their homework or prepare for tests.

The results of the company’s analysis reveal a change in habits as students increasingly turn to online sources for help with class assignments. They also indicate a need for students to learn better research skills, including what makes a source legitimate and how to cite their sources properly.

This is not meant to be an endorsement of Turnitin.com

Source:  eClassroom News <[email protected]>

The Irene-Wakonda School District in South Dakota has joined the list of school districts which have shortened the school calendar by eliminating school on Fridays.  This was done to save money. South Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature slashed aid to schools this spring by 6.6 percent to help close a $127 million budget gap.  One quarter of all school districts have moved to some form of abbreviated school schedule.  According to one study, more than 120 school districts, mostly in the West, now use four-day weeks.

The district will add 30 minutes to each day and in elementary schools will shorten physical education and recess.

I understand the need to save money but the budget cuts strike at the purpose of education – teaching and learning.  As one person wrote to me, “States are eating the seed corn.”  But children don’t vote and therefore become easier victims.  But what happens to a parent who works a five day week and has to take care of child on Friday?  What happens to a child who is in middle or high school who doesn’t have school on Friday?  What do they do with their time? Doesn’t the politicians care?  Obviously not!

A Federal Appeals Court in Pennsylvania has ruled that students cannot be disciplined at school for put parodies of their principals on MySpace on their home computers. “The postings, however led or offensive, will not likely cause significant disruptions at school and are therefore protected under prior Supreme Court case law.

Would the reverse be true?  If school people write about their students on their home computers would the courts uphold their first amendment rights?

There are a variety of websites that offer free learning for both students and teachers.  Below are the names of a few:

AcademicEarth.org – Offers more than 1,500 video lectures by professors from Harvard, Yale and other top universities on topics as diverse as art, architecture, history and astronomy.

ITunes University (download a free copy of Itunes) – The site features more than 350,000 video lectures from universities and museums around the world.

KhanAcademy.org – has more than 21,000 plus video lectures conducted in short segments by Salman Khan.

YouTube.com – most students have viewed videos from this website.  But educators can use the short segments to teach history, art, etc.

History.com and Biography.com – both of these television channels offer free television shows which will enhance classroom instruction.