Teachers in Harold Texas can carry guns!

I was wondering when this was going to happen. See the New York Times article of August, 16.

If the schools are so violent, that the teachers need to carry guns, what about the children who are attending those schools to learn? How are they to cope with the violence?

Chalk up a point for home schooling in Harold, Texas.

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Homeschooling OK in California

With the excitement over the opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing (wasn't that amazing!), enjoying the last days of vacation, and getting ready for school to start, you may have missed the announcement of a California state appellate court's 08/08/08 ruling, permitting home schooling "as a species of private school education". Is 'species' a legal term? Wouldn't 'sub-category' have been a better description?

In February, the court, in a child protection hearing, ruled that parents must have a teaching credential to home school their children. The irony of the ruling being that private school teachers, in California, are not required to have a teaching credential. Score 1 for home schools.

Governor Schwarzenegger, who had sided with the home schoolers, praised the decision. Even Jack O'Connell, State Superintendent of Public Instruction admitted that home schools have a place in California education.

"As head of California's public school system, it would be my wish that all children attend public school, but I understand that a traditional public school environment may not be the right setting for each and every child."

According to the Home School Legal Defense Association (the only resource I could find on the topic), home schools out-perform public schools by 30 or more percentage points.

See the LA Times article.

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Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

My friend and colleague, Lee, sent this video to me. Sir Ken Robinson speaks some truths about education. The video comes from the TED website.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The video is about twenty minutes long but Sir Ken Robinson is an entertaining speaker and you will find yourself enjoying the talk.

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Algebra in 8th Grade Revisited

First, a fictional story about children in the state of Californialand

In Californialand swimming is a big deal. All children are expected to learn how to swim.

Some children start learning to swim when they are young. Maybe they have swimming pools in their back yards or the family has a beach house. Maybe they belong to the swim club. Some of these children even get to take swim lessons. They become very proficient swimmers and may even be on a swim team.

Other children don't have the same exposure to pools and beaches. But maybe the grandparents or the neighbors down the block have a pool. These children get intermittent exposure so don't have the same developed abilities as the children previously mentioned. They usually learn to tread water and dog paddle but they don't have developed swim strokes.

Other kids have minimal exposure to pools and beaches. Sometimes their parents are even afraid of the water and that fear is passed on to their children. Although these children may wade in shallow water, they really are not skilled swimmers and would not be considered "water safe".

Then a new law is passed in the state. All kids aged 12 years 9 months to 13 years 8 months must be thrown in the deep end of the pool to be tested for their ability to swim. They will either pass or fail.

It does not take an expert to predict what happens. The kids on the swim team, those with pools in their back yards, and those who take swimming lessons pass the test at an advanced level. They are ready for scuba lessons, ocean surfing, or the synchronized swim team.

Others, who get some exposure to pools and beaches, do fairly well. They do not have the stamina to swim 10 laps or do rigorous water sports but at least they are ready for the next level swim lesson.

Some kids can barely dog paddle to the side while their parents nervously watch with vicarious spasms of fear. No one can really say these are proficient swimmers and alas they fail the test.

And then there are still the few kids who have to be rescued while they panic and are not even able to tread water.

It is too bad that the Californialand Board of Swimming Proficiency, does not think to make sure that all kids are at least proficient swimmers before throwing them in the deep end of the pool.

But the state's rationale, according to the Governor, it that not exposing all children to the deep end of the pool by 8th grade, creates an equity issue. All kids should have the exposure to swimming in deep water by 8th grade otherwise, in their way of thinking, they won't be able to be on the swim team or learn to surf, and how fair would that be? So, throw the kids in the deep end and give them the exposure. No one could ever accuse the Governor of not providing education equity to all students.

The flaw in logic is that equity does not start in the eighth grade. To throw kids who do not know how to swim into the deep end is not equitable. It is trying to fix the problem with the wrong tool.

Back to Reality

Most thinking and compassionate people do not throw their children in the deep end of the pool to teach them to swim. But the State Board of Education, with the Governor's urging, has decided to throw all eight graders into Algebra.

Here is what some of the people on the National Mathematics Advisory Panel had to say about California's new policy, taken from the article entitled, Math Experts Question Wisdom of Calif. Algebra Rule, in Education Week:

Tom Loveless, Ph.D. in education, M.A. in special education, and an A.B. in English, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Director of the Brown Center on Education Policy, classroom teacher for 9 years -

“It’s a shortsighted policy that confuses taking a course with learning. The state has not been serious about preparing kids for algebra—they’re just throwing it on the schools. It’s absolutely far-fetched." Also, policymakers there [California] were wrongly assuming that simply enrolling students in 8th grade algebra will result in more of them becoming proficient in the subject. An examination of students’ math course-taking and test performance shows that premise to be false.

Vern Williams, B.S. math education, teacher for 37 years, Math Counts Coach, teacher of the year Virginia 1990 -

California schools, when faced with the reality that many of their 8th graders are not ready for Algebra 1, will simply water down those courses and craft classes that are Algebra 1 “in name only.” Some students, even motivated ones, are not ready for algebra until 9th grade. By forcing students into that class early, schools risk not only discouraging struggling learners, but also holding back higher-achievers, who have to wait for classmates to catch up.“Sometimes, it’s strictly the [lack of] math preparation, but also, there are just kids, even bright kids who ... need to be exposed to a bit more math in 8th grade, or to a pre-algebra course.”

Skip Fennell, President of NCTM, B.S., M.S., PhD (bio did not mention subject), classroom teacher, Maryland outstanding mathematics teacher of the year 1997 -

“I’m all about raising standards, but I wouldn’t want to legislate that every 8th grader take a course in Algebra 1." When it comes to that course, we need to provide access—to kids who are ready.” The math panel’s final report recommended that schools move more students into 8th grade algebra—but only if they had received thorough preparation in whole numbers, fractions, and other concepts.

Russell M. Gersten, Executive Director of Instructional Research Group, PhD special education, nationally recognized expert in both quantitative and qualitative research and evaluation methodologies, with an emphasis on translating research into classroom practice -

California officials would be better off focusing on math preparation at early grades and making sure that courses called “algebra” offer authentic algebra. “The reality is that a lot of kids fail algebra. If anything, [that] makes them math-aversive.”

From the other point of view:

Theodore R. Mitchell, President of the California Board of Education, PhD history of American education, M.A. history, B.A. economics and history, college professor and administrator, congressional adviser -

“The research has been pretty clear that Algebra 1 is a gateway course. We wanted to make it clear we’re going to give all kids the opportunity to go through the gateway. We will not have a two-tier system in middle schools. We’ve been doing a terrific job of getting more kids into algebra. We see this less as a hammer than as urging the state to get across the finish line. The good news is we’ve never heard this level of conversation about what it will take.”

Matthew M. Gardner, the president and chief executive officer of BayBio, an association representing more than 400 Northern California life-sciences companies with 60,000 employees -

“The industry’s view is that California’s science and math education is falling behind. We should expect more from the kids in our school system and from the system itself.”

Arnold , Governor of California, actor, body builder (was unable to find details of education) -

“To do otherwise, would lower our expectations and continue to divide our children between those we believe in and those we leave behind."

I think the Governor is using rhetoric to scare people. The whole notion of "no child left behind", at its foundation, has little to do with school or curriculum. The number one indicator of how children do in school is zip code: where kids live and the wealth of their families.

If we want to ensure that kids are going to be prepared to compete in the global market we need to address inequities such as: Two parents working full time at Wal Mart do not make enough to live in the community where they work. They do not have enough money for the rent, the car, car insurance, car maintenance, clothing, good nutritional food, basic medical care, putting money away for retirement, let alone the computer so that the kids can do their school reports, or the internet so they have the same access to information that their wealthy counter parts have. Yet the CEOs of big companies receive severance packages, after only a few years of work, that blow my mind. THAT is inequity.

Until that kind of inequity is addressed, the poor kids will do poorly and the wealthy ones will be just fine.

Related posts: California requires Algebra 1 for all eighth-graders
California Dropout Rate and Money

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California Dropout Rate and Money

California has a 1 in 4 Dropout Rate

California has a new system for accounting for students as they move from one school district to another. For the first three years the system will cost more than $33 million. The initial results indicate that California has a 24.2% dropout rate, far higher than the 13.9% reported last year using the previous method.

Although a 24% dropout rate is dismal, the good news is that California has a better way of tracking students. Previously, when a student stopped attending class, a truancy officer might check on the student if alerted by a conscientious teacher. But if a student checked out of school, there was little to no follow up to the whereabouts of the student.

It's Really About the Money

In a related editorial in the LA Times, the author states

"The Los Angeles Unified School District put its numbers [dropout rate] at about a third... Despite some of the rhetoric in the accountability movement, the dropout rates are not entirely the fault of public schools. Teachers cannot put an end to gangs or mend troubled families or solve poverty; yet all of these are elements of academic failure. The job of preparing a new generation is daunting; it will require a comprehensive approach that addresses health and welfare issues as well as educational ones.

But schools can and in some cases do make a big difference. San Jose Unified School District, for example, is an urban district with a 13% dropout rate. Yet despite the common wisdom that higher standards prompt more teenagers to drop out, San Jose pushes all of its students to complete a college-prep curriculum. Its Latino students are nearly twice as likely to do so as their counterparts across California, and their dropout rate, at 19.5%, is more than 10 points lower than the statewide figure and 15 points lower than L.A. Unified's."

The author is explaining that, because of the higher standards, the dropout rate is less in San Jose than it is in Los Angeles, especially for Latino students.

What the author doesn't mention, is that the median family income in San Jose, last year, was $87,941, while it was $44,713 in Los Angeles, (according to CNNMoney.com). That is more than double!

In one of my recent blogs I mentioned that Marin County has the top schools in the country by SAT scores. In California, Marin has the highest median income and Santa Clara ranks second (San Jose is the county seat of Santa Clara County).

To give readers perspective: I recently visited a Marin middle school that had gardens and lawns, and every student had a MacBook (an Apple laptop) that they could bring home. In the same week, I visited a Middle School in Oakland, situated in the middle of a field of asphalt, not a tree in sight, and the building had paint peeling from the ceilings. Where would you want to stay in school?

The mathematical equations:

higher median income = better school materials and facilities
higher median income = more rigorous curriculum
higher median income = higher SAT scores
higher median income = fewer dropouts

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