Archives for July 2012

The Census Bureau has released data that for the first time in U.S. history more than half of all babies born last year were members of minority groups.  Hispanics, blacks, Asians and othr minorities in 2011 accounted for 50.4% of births, 49.7% of all children under 5 and slightly more than half of the 4 million children under 1 year old.

While minorities had 5.9% fewer children last year than in 2010, births among non-Hispanic whites fell 10.1%.  The nation’s largest minority group -Hispanics, the median age is 27.6.  For whites, it’s 42.3 and for Blacks 30.9.

The population of children under 18 shrunk by a quarter million last year – the same amount as the over-85 population increased.

Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire are the oldest and whitest states.  Utah and Texas are the youngest.

The growth of the nation’s diversity has huge implications for education.  The growth of school-age Hispanic children, especially those about to enter kindergarten, poses a big challenge.  Most states vote on school budgets and with the growth of an aging white population, and the shrinking of under 18-year-old population, state funding for schools will be facing huge challenges.  There may be a greater need to provide ESL classes as well as teachers who have the ability to speak Spanish.

I recently spent some time visiting both Cambodia and Vietnam and saw some of their schools.  Both countries (while different from each other) have some things I believe we can learn from.

Observations of both:  Like most of the rest of the education world, there is a shortage of teachers.  This is caused by the low pay in each country.  Many of these dedicated people are forced to take other jobs which pay better or, like our guides) quit.  As in much of the developing world, there are fewer teachers and fewer schools in rural areas.  Students in primary schools go to school for a half a day in order to better “use” their limited resources.  In Cambodia, high school costs $10 a month.  While this doesn’t sound like much, for many families, this puts secondary school education out of reach.

I was particularly impressed with the Vietnamese treatment of their Special Education students.  These students are identified early and are educated separately.  They are given career education classes during the day and academic classes during the afternoon and evening.  We saw blind students being trained to play musical instruments and taught to sing.  Other Special Education students were being trained to weave or sculpt.  These students were being trained to be productive workers as soon as they left school.

Class sizes were high – 40 in primary schools in rural areas and 15 in the inner cities.  Teachers believed that they were unable to deal with all of these students in such large classes.  While we saw “teacher aides” in some classes, they were missing in others.

Universities were broken into specialties.  Students who wanted to become teachers go to a Teaching University.  Those interested in Engineering went to an Engineering University and so on.

 

According to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey. the unemployment rate in 2011 had the national average at 7.6% but those without a high school diploma had a 14.1 percent.  Those with a high school diploma had a 9.4 percent unemployment rate.

The median weekly earnings for those without a high school diploma averaged $451 ($23,452 a year).  Those with a high school diploma averaged $638 a week ( $33,176 a year).  That is almost a 30 percent increase for 4 years of high school completion.  

Think your students and would be interested in these figures?

Franklin has been invited to present a session entitled “School Leadership & Cultures That Build Graduation Rates” at the SREB Conference to be held at the New Orleans Convention Center.

Franklin has been invited to present a session entitled “Stopping Dropouts:  Linking At-risk Students to Data-Driven Strategies” at the SREB Conference to be held at the New Orleans Convention Center.

Do you remember the “good old days” when all educators had to worry about were gum-chewing in class, talking or passing notes, or shoving in the hall?  Now these minor disruptions are the least of our problems.

We are now concerned about budget cuts, bullying, and weapons in school.  Schools are now addressing problems which used to be addressed by other components of society – families, the church and government.  And like many other elements, we have created “zero tolerance” rules and regulations which lead to suspension from classes or even school.  These zero tolerance rules increase the likelihood of students dropping out of school.  The harsh penalty of exclusion leads students further down the road toward prison. 

I favor the penalties for bringing a weapon into school.  But a “one size fits all” penalty has resulted in a pre-school child being expelled for bringing a paper gun to school.

Students shouldn’t be excluded from school but placed in a different environment where a child may be given a second chance.  The message we give students who are tardy and then suspended is , “you were absent for 10 days, so your punishment is to be suspended for 10 more days.”  How can a student possibly make up the work?

School officials need to look at the individual infraction and then determine the penalties.