Education

You've done a splendid job - on this page and on your page of videos - of framing critical questions. You missed a few, however, and that's inevitable. First, some comments on "framing" those questions you've already raised, and then, second, a few loose ends still left.

NCLB anticipated the high stakes were to be against the schools, not the students, so any real evaluation of NCLB ought to be against the schools-standard, not the kid standards. In other words, the "risk" was the schools' risk, not the kid risk: low performance would indicate needs of the school, not sins of the children. As one remarkably dim school committee member put it "you can't blame the school," to which I suggested, "but we elect YOU to fix the school, not blame it." The problem with NCLB is that it became a blame game rather than a diagnosis.

A corollary problem is that it relies, in almost all states almost exclusively, on a bubble test - a multiple choice system invented in the days of punch card computers. With technology available today, that is absolutely absurd, and is more a measure of the Bush administration's "outsourcing" and bumbling than even Katrina. There is plenty of technology - in the schools themselves - to support computerized essay tests, behavioral and project based assessments, of both group and individual students. A real NCLB would include those measures in direct proportion to how they represent a schools' goals, as framed by local systems, in response to state and federal standards. Now THAT would be quite a different assessment system.

It would not be a pass-fail exam. It would be a diagnostic moment, worth a lot more than its cost, since it would engage the whole community in producing and demonstrating learning along a lot more than NCLB criteria. Teaching to THAT kind of test means...teaching.

In terms of your framing of assessments, beyond that larger question of post-NCLB standards, you ought to look at more innovative tests like those developed by PACE, at Tufts (http://pace.tufts.edu/), where they measure creativity, practicality, and wisdom in simple, reliable essays addressing open ended questions. There, and in similar innovative measures, are plenty of tools to create real and important standards to compare schools, districts, regions and states.

Among loose ends, over thirty years ago Abt Associates did a formal evaluation of Vouchers, for the Office of Economic Opportunity. We found, fairly conclusively, that they served to re-segregate schools, make more disparity in grades and achievement, and, generally, to break apart communities whose common interests could be a shared resource for all children. Not much has happened since that study, other than a lot of class and race and other junk has ignored this and other hard, clear and useful data.

Finally, your reference to "market sources" ignores the effect of those same sources on our ... economy as it were. Markets are constructed, not natural, forces, and their impact depends on who knows what about whatever they want to know. I think that workforce readiness is ugly, and skepticism often elegant; that engagement trumps detail and often mobilizes passion; and that the purpose of public education (note the distinction!) is to create a public - a community of shared experience that knows and accommodates the differences among groups, classes, languages, and aspirations. That is hardly a radical vision, since it's almost verbatim what Horace Mann called "the common school" a century ago.
 

You have missed a major area of controversy --that of special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.  I am a special education advocate and am approaching 16 years work in the field of advocacy, largely after having to cope with my oldest son with his dyslexia and ADHD. I had to actually go to due process twice, not an easy task. But we prevailed and our son did receive the public and the non public school education that he required. I have another son with similar needs and due to our dilegence, he too received a full diploma and is in college now. Our third son was a typical learner, but in many respects his needs were not met either, as he is gifted in math and the system does not enhance this appropriately.
I work for a non profit in northern California that provides for technical assistace, training, and direct advocacy for families with children who have exceptional needs. We also train school district staff, community mental health staff, and regional center staff.
There are numerous issues with assessment, under identification, a lack of teaching to multiple intelligences, a lack of research based methodolgy in RSP rooms (although there is research to support certain methodologies..)  the over identification of African Americans within special education statistics, a lack of benefit to special education students; only 30 % ever receive a full diploma, and the reality that school districts attorneys are covered by the district and parents can ill afford the costs of keeping schools in compliance with IDEA.
How is it that this public education forum has missed an entire draining and very difficult area of pucblic education to discuss. Can you please amend the page to include Special Education?? Thanks
Noreen at neringle @yahoo.com

As a former school teacher, I feel all of the above discussions are just so much fodder for all the arguments that will follow them. Mostly nonsense. I am trained in Montessori and Waldorf education and used them at a private, (but not elitist and expensive) community school, run by parents, where I taught for 12 years. We did not TEST, our children were not regimented. If a youngster was having trouble in a particular class because of a personal problem, that child was allowed to go out and play on the swing set for a while or go to the pottery room to throw something on the wheel and then got one-on-one socialization time with an adult (either parent or teacher) at the school. We also spent a lot of time socializing our children, feeling it was one of the most important aspects of their education. We did not use textbooks but had the children create their own books. We took the children on week-long camping trips where they studied and learned how to take care of themselves in the wilderness. We had music, art, theatre, and lots of structured play and physical activities. Every child that ever graduated from this school went on to a public high school and then graduated from one of the top colleges in the country. My children and their friends are now running things like the Sierra Club and alternative energy concerns. They are activists for peace and justice and adamant environmentalists. And this was not an expensive propositions. We gave these children this wonderful start for a total expenditure of $1500 per child, now gone up to $2,000, and many families work off tuition and some get financial aid. Good education does not take a lot of money. It is actually better for younger ages if the things used in the classroom are creative projects created Montessori style using found objects and the natural world. What our tuition paid for was excellent teachers who, by the way, loved their work. I know I did...and after working for a few years in a public school...this place as a GOD-SEND. I would never go back to public school education which at this point I equate with PRISON.

I've just given this blog a quick readthrough...I'm hopeful...but, given the past 25 years of educrock from both parties, pessimistic...here's an honest good luck from the trenches!!!

drpk
www.educatorroundtable.org

I think the big issue for the coming decade will be what to do about the education industry's resistance to: a) adopting research-validated programs and methodologies for ... just about anything, and b) reading, much less understanding and using, research findings from allied fields - psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and the like.

The education industry seems intent on maintaining the fiction that schools are such incredibly unique environments and organizations that they somehow even manage to defy the law of gravity.  School learning is school learning, and allegedly has nothing to do with cognition and information acquisition and use.  Disabilities are just "educational disabilities," which have no relationship to professionally-diagnosed real world disabilities, and thus are impermeable to professionally-developed, research-validated programs and methods of remediation.

Most of all, the education industry is fixated on maintaining that all of its failures represent flaws in its supplies - that is, flaws in the children who walk into schoolhouse doors.  Apparently the education industry is allowed to define the students it can teach  and define those it fails to teach as inherently defective.  In fact, since some schools do teach these kids - the poor, minorities, non-home English speakers, kids with disabilities - it is clear that the defect lies in the education industry - its paid adults; its structure; the training it establishes as necessary and appropriate for the members it credentials.  Yet research continually shows that fully-credentialled educators are not significantly better, in terms of student outcomes, than those who are not fully credentialled.

As long as the education industry is allowed to set its own goals and measure success, without outside verification, we're going to keep on having children who are not educated well because the education industry has been allowed to define these children, ipso facto, as defective.

The United States does not have defective children.  The United States has a defective education industry which appears incapable of self-improvement.  Serious change will have to be forced into the closed environment by outsiders with budget and authority to do so.  Failing that, vouchers, vouchers, vouchers ... at least for those children whom the education industry has defined as defective, but whose parents know differently.

Dee Alpert, Publisher
The Special Education Muckraker
http://www.special educationmuckraker.com

Joe,

Excellent response. Deep breath, and here goes:

1. Thanks for the understanding that "Top 5" is a loser's gambit when it comes to education. On top of that, length limitations forced many things from their deserved place in this post. They'll surface in future posts, and perhaps in a few mild edits to this post itself.

2. As an Apple Distinguished Educator (and seriously, I'm aware that's as much PR for Apple as anything), and moreover an edtech freak in my classrooms over the last several years (see my other blog at http://beyond-school.org for more, if interested; it's a fun place with a great community), I hear you loud and clear about the sucktastic nature of most of the objective high-stakes tests. The Linda Darling-Hammond videos on the Videos post in "About," while not particularly tech-centric, are still right on in their push for performance-based assessments - and yes, "assessments" are the Good Witch to the Wicked Witch of "tests".

3. Backing up a bit, though, it seems from my talks and readings that these high-stakes tests have been perverted into "blame the students" instruments, since low-performing schools are playing shell games with the low-performing students: e.g., when they close schools to make them newly-constituted "turnaround" schools - cf. Duncan - those new schools suddenly lack many of the lowest-performing students, who have been shuffled into lower-performing schools eleswhere. Sucktastic.

4. The PACE tests. I checked your link, and think I read into that a few months ago. Isn't that group working to replace the SAT with a higher-order test? I'm all for it, if we're stuck with supporting the SAT-ocracy, which in my experience is a hugely distructive distraction from learning in high schools.

5. Vouchers: My readings confirm your claims. If you could toss a link to that Abt study, that would be great.

6. Re: "Market forces," you'll be pleased to note, if I read you correctly, that I made the same point in a snarky little close to my "Quizzing the Experts" post. :)

I really appreciate the depth and insight of your comments, and your genial tone, by the way. Hope to hear and learn more.

Clay

Noreen,

Thanks for the input. I'm sympathetic, and urge others to read your comment.

I see your issue as a sub-category, along with ELL's (which, as an ESL specialist who has fought annual battles with administrators who want to lump students with special learning needs into the same categories and classrooms with ELLs, I keenly understand is apples and oranges), of Point 2: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessments. As I revise this post, I'll expand that section accordingly, though as I told Joe above, is subject to length limitations.

Two final notes: The great thing about blogs is that they unfold and expand over time. As this one does, both you _and_ I, in posts and comments, can continue to spotlight the issues you raise.

Wilma,

Excellent testimony (though the first two sentences made me brace for a flame ;-).

If you haven't checked out the Sudbury Schools and the "Voices from the New American Schoolhouse" documentary on the Fairhaven School in Maryland - see the "Top 10 Videos" post - I think you'd appreciate them. I do.

But there's a fine balance for me in this space: it's devoted to _public_ education. And while I largely hold that NCLB should just be scuttled altogether, I'm compelled to follow a pragmatist's gut instinct (also based on much reading in policy circles) that Congress is not open to abandoning NCLB any time soon.

That's why the focus of this post is mostly on things that most observers I've read agree will be the major issues in Congress and the Department of Education; if that's the field to be contended under the Obama administration, I can't ignore it.

I can, however - _we_ can - meet them on that field, and try to shift their thinking in directions we believe are more fruitful.

I hope this makes sense.

And for the record, your prison metaphor is not lost on me by a long shot. It's true even of private schools.

Scott,

Being a descendant of immigrants myself (and few Americans are not), I'm not sympathetic to those without for them.

Further, don't take this harshly: posting huge articles in comment threads is bad netiquette. Link to them, and do the work to give us a succinct summary of why we should care. If we do, we'll follow the link.

Finally, if I'm correct in assuming that the article argues we should focus on driving immigrants out of America because they represent some unobservable prospect of epidemics etc, I find that wrong on so many fronts.

Health care for all is something most countries, except the US and South Africa, are pretty good at delivering. Cuba is great at it. America could be, if it chose.

And to suggest we should drop talking about education in order to first mobilize in an anti-immigration army does not align with the topic of this site: education.

Philip,

Thanks for that. We seem to share similar measures of hope and pessimism. I think we've got to give Obama, Duncan, and Congress the benefit of the doubt that times can change now - Obama's talking pretty good talk, though Duncan frankly worries me.

We've also got to give them the benefit of some forceful, loyally opposed citizenship if they start seeming like more of the same.

That's my hope for this space and its community in the coming months.

BTW, the EducatorRoundtable looks like good stuff. Thanks for the link.  I know Jim Horn slightly, and plan to drag him over here from time to time :)

Dee,

I'm with you all the way . . . until the vouchers. And even there, I'm sympathetic to the dilemma of parents who believe in the _idea_ of supporting public education for all by sending their children to public schools, but who at the same time are seeing their children damaged by some schools.

So while I agree with your diagnosis, I'm really interested in hearing from you your ideas about how the system should be changed - your "treatment" of the patient, to extend the medical metaphor.

And then, what actions do you think most effective in getting the "treatment" implemented?

Thanks again,

Clay

Scott-

check out the article  under Global Health- tag "Dengue Fever"

they talk about Dengue Fever being a problem.


Two different sources talking about the same issue- you could be onto sometime

The Earth is round, bounded and finite. Earth's resources and the many substitutes which are derived from its resource base are limited. Given Earth's acknowledged biophysical limitations, it is no longer possible for anyone to reasonably hold the position that the current colossal scale and anticipated unbridled growth of per-capita consumption, global production capabilities and human population numbers worldwide can be sustained much longer. The incredible magnitude of unchecked over-consumption, unrestrained overproduction and unregulated overpopulation acitivities of the human species in our finite planetary home in these early years of Century XXI will soon become patently unsustainable. The idea that Earth can sustain the global overgrowth activities of the human species indefinitely, much less forever, is a product of wishful thought, not common sense or reason.

As we are discussing this vital matter, the environment is being recklessly degraded and the Earth's resources are being relentlessly dissipated by the global consumption, production and progation activities of the human species. Our children could find that my generation --- a single not-so-generation elders --- has depleted a lion's share of Earth's storehouse of resources, irreversibly damaged Earth's environs, and mortgaged their very future in the process. In the strongest possible terms, I want to point out how accepting human limits and Earth's limitations... and behaving accordingly... could be a goal worth achieving. If so, perhaps we could start now.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176

It's unfortunate how ill-defined most people's definition of public education can be. Dengue fever, indeed! Surely there are more appropriate places to grind some the axes shown here!

Beyond that, one intriguing question is what people expect from schools. In most cases, parents want kids to get the best of what they remember from their schooling. That ignores a huge amount of R & D in "what works" as well as the cumulative impact of innovations and their revisions.

Along those lines, I wonder who else remembers the "new math" - along with "new physics, biology, chemistry, history, etc." - of the 1960's-1970's. There was a rich library of experience in "discovery method" which has transmuted into "problem based" or, less open-ended, "project based" learning. And that, in turn, is now nested on the net at http://www.edutopia.org/

Some of the ax grinding in these initial responses - from immigration and health to ecology - are particularly interesting as project-based or problem-based activities for kids themselves. My question is really why we arrogate curriculum to teachers and to instructional designers (like me) when, in fact, the questions should come from the kids, as should the investigations. Curriculum ought to be posting a few large, nasty questions, and then working out some interim answers.

Ironically, that seems to be the response, at least so far, to this blog. In other words, can we tie our responses more closely to how people learn? how people can help others learn? what institutions are mosts useful? perhaps, at least occasionally, appropriate? and what skills are, might be, or are most surely not appropriate to pulling the naive learner through the transitions needed to become at least a mildly expert learner?

One other tiny axe to grind: Duncan's title in Chicago was a lot more than a nuance. In the 1970's I spent some time in a desegregation effort sponsored by the then Illinois Department of Education (directed, in Chicago, by Malcolm X's half brother). The scheme eventually shifted to decentralizing the system which had developed, as have most large public school systems, an amazing bureaucracy of Superintendents superintending other deputy, associate, and whatever lesser Superintendents, all rarely leaving anyone's office to actually "superintend." Our idea was to generate desegregated activities during a week, and increase the ratio of those activities year after year, cutting local school budgets if they failed to meet goals, increasing those budgets when they exceed those goals, until the system worked "together."

Even that scheme evaporated eventually, but the decentralization and the creation of a CEO made a very big difference. Creating some kind of measures, and reinforcing those measures with financial and other incentives, leads to a very different view of what schools can be. And that view is best expressed in Duncan's choice.

While there are surely downsides to such methods - school "game systems" more and faster than such systems get invented - there are also some serious benefits to setting goals and exploring how they can be, or shouldn't be, met. One school system I'm now working with, for example, is actively examining how it might evaluate all k-12 education in terms of how much financial aid does it's 12th grade (or early admission) graduates elicit from their next school, college, or training source. The poor get more, the rich get better; the industrial training pays well, as does some of the military; while the higher ed costs plenty, and generates never enough but substantial aid. That's the KIND of measure that schools never explore, and precisely the kind that we might expect from a Duncan appointment.

I posted about your site on my homeschooling blog http://thehomeschoolingexperiment.blogspot.com/
I am a former public school teacher who decided to home school my seventh and youngest child, the other six having attended and graduated public schools. I do not despise public education. In fact I believe it serves a great need. But I do think it could learn a lot from our home schooling community and that our home schooling community could learn a lot from public education. I don't think they need to be exclusive, and in fact enjoy co-mingling my youngest son's own educational experience amidst public, private and home schooling.
Hoping my fellow homeschoolers enjoy your site and can offer sincere input and take away valuable insight.

Please click on the following link for more education concerning the human overpopulation of Earth.

www.change.org/ideas/view/accepting_human_limits_and_earths_limitations


Thank you.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176
www.panearth.org

Nobody seems to be talking about one of the fundamental issues.  Length of time in school and when school starts for youngsters. 

1.  In the US we don't have enough school days, and they aren't long enough.  Instead we send kids home with homework, which has extremely limited value in many subjects.

2.  The summers are what are destroying the educational chances of the lower income (at-risk) students.  The summers are when they fall behind, not during the school year, when they match up pretty well with the rest of the population.

3.  By starting all students in school at the same month, despite clear evidence that children 6-12 months younger than their classmates do as much as 12% less well than their older counterparts in the years to come, we automatically handicap our younger students for no reason other than convenience.  Answer:  we need multiple tracks (we had them in California when I was growing up), at least two, ideally three.  This way we

The vacations, shorter but more often, can be synchronized so that families can still take them together.  The long summer vacations are absolutely unnecessary anymore, since there are almost no family farms requiring child labor.  They cause loss of learning in students who don't have activated parents, they cause financial loss for parents who need to find long-term day care (very few stay-at-home parents anymore).

These adjustment would immediately boost learning, simply through better scheduling and more contact hours.

My two cents...

Peter Ellenstein
Independence, KS

Thanks for taking the time to email me and for clarifying your remark. People’s concern about the current state of public education in the U.S. should not be de-legitimized because they are not teachers-nor should the opinions of those who are or have been teachers be more authoritative–so thanks first of all. You raise several points that I’ll answer one by one.   1) You claim that “if a voucher system goes into effect most of our students who do not belong to wealthy families will be left behind in schools that will become even more under-funded. This population will definitely include special needs students and ESOL students. . Any voucher system that takes money away from the schools and the educators is simply not acceptable.” As I mentioned in my previous response, you offer no evidence to substantiate your position. Between 1990 when the first modern voucher system was enacted in Milwaukee (Vermont and Maine have both had statewide voucher programs since the late 1800’s) and 2003, the last year for which comprehensive public school financial data are available, 12 parental choice programs were enacted. Not a single state experienced a decline in public school funding. In fact, public schools in those states experienced a five percent annual funding increase in real, inflation-adjusted terms. (See Chapter. 5 of Not As Good As You Think: Why the Middle Class Needs School Choice). It is also important to note that every voucher program in existence today targets low-income or special needs students. The primary limitations on students’ participating in those programs are opponents who insist on student enrollment caps or the exclusion of sectarian schools.   2) You claim that I state that “fewer than 1/3 of California public schools are socioeconomically disadvantaged, have disabilities or are English language learners.” No, those statistics apply to the California schools my colleagues and I studied in our book, not all California schools. Defenders of the current schooling system claim that the reason why most schools are not doing well is a lack of funding and a challenging student population (spending and social ills). The clear implication is that if public schools did not have those challenges, they’d be doing fine. We put that theory to the test, and our analysis of California public schools reveals alarming numbers of them still aren’t performing.   3) As we state throughout our book, ALL children deserve high-quality education options regardless of their families’ income or address so your following questions do not apply:   “Because the numbers are not the majority does this mean these children should suffer through an educational system that has money taken away from it? Do you believe the concept that the majority has a right to overwhelm the minority? As a teacher I can’t understand how anyone can believe this.” Again- I don’t. What I don’t understand is why ANY child, much less generations of them, should be sacrificed to a schooling system that refuses to reform. In California, students are still assigned schools based on where their parents can afford to live, which reinforces socio-economic segregation. Low-income families are just plain stuck. They should be allowed to send their children to a good public school outside their attendance area, with transportation vouchers if needed, or they should receive private school vouchers and scholarships. Because California does not publicly report how well schools are educating children by grade-level-only school level, which masks individual student performance-many middle- and upper-income parents move to expensive neighborhoods because they’ve been led to believe the schools are better than they are. They too should be allowed to send their children to a good public school outside their attendance area, or they should receive their children’s education funding in the form of vouchers and scholarships if they prefer private schools, which, by the way, are about half as expensive as public schools. This means every student who transfers to private schools using vouchers or other scholarships saves limited public education dollars, which could then be re-directed where the need is greatest. An analysis of exiting school choice programs finds that from 1990 to 2005, school choice programs have saved nearly a half billion dollars combined. (See Chapter. 5 of Not As Good As You Think: Why the Middle Class Needs School Choice).   4) You note, “Many of us in education are working on systems that do not only build a curriculum for their students but also work a system in which the parents can be part of the system. This is an on-going task by teachers who have always wanted their students to succeed.” Meaningful parental involvement begins with the choice of where to send their children to school. this choice should not be the exclusive privilege of the well-to-do. Just like higher education funding follows pre-school and college students to public and private schools of their choice in the form of grants, so too should it follow them throughout their K-12 years.    Jim, when it comes to school choice, we have more than 30 years of empirical evidence now, so it’s time to move beyond fear and speculation about such programs: none of the dire predictions you and many others make have come to pass. I hope you will consider familiarizing yourself with at least some of the existing research.     Thanks again for writing, Jim, and I hope this email clarifies my position.    With best regards,   Vicki E. Murray, Ph.D. Senior Policy Fellow, Education Studies Pacific Research Institute 660 J Street, Suite 250 Sacramento, CA 95814 Tel. 916-448-1926 Ext. 4 Fax 916-448-3856 Web: http://www.pacificresearch.org/

Although there is much I agree with in there post I have to take issue with the idea that charter schools do more "creaming" than magnet schools. In my experience (Baltimore City Public Schools) I see exactly the opposite. The magnet schools drain the engaged students who would be bringing up the level of conversation for all students out of the open enrollment schools. Charter schools on the other hand are open to all and enrollment is based on a lottery. Both types of schools require at least moderately involved parents to fill out applications and even just know of the existence of these schools, plus in the case of magnet schools they need to take kids to required testing.

That being said magnet schools and charter schools are needed to keep kids enrolled in public schools. Life for gifted and talented students at poorly performing schools can be a terrible experience. Bullying is constant if you're a nerd in an environment where school is not even close to cool. Until that can be changed I think we have to have magnet schools. Charter schools are just a way to allow more school autonomy and educational approaches that are not currently in the mainstream. I don't see any "creaming" in that.

O.K.  having healthy students is not a concern- sick kids can learn.

I guess he was wrong.

Can you experts discuss the role of students and parents and their responiblities towards learning?

Teachers can only set the stage, its the parents who complete the cycle of learning.


What of Harvard's report on Education?
The child will succeed if the mother reads- real direct and simple

Peter E: No summers? 

May I ask? Are you a teacher/parent?

I know of many students who are part of extended families.
During the summer they'll go to the other parent's home.

Teaching at-risk students is very stressful and emotionally draining. When and how would the teachers recoup?

Not to mention working another job to pay the bills.

Clay... Please consider adding a video by John Taylor Gatto, a former New York State teacher of the year, who is now a profound critic of our public school system to your list of videos.  I think it is only fair if you want to reflect the FULL SPECTRUM of educational thought in this country.  Gatto is very provocative and thought provoking, because he brings in a historical and all sorts of other contexts.

Cooper Zale
www.leftyparent.com

Clay,

What do you think of replacing school funding via property taxes with a state-wide tax of some kind?

I agree, poor schools will always be underfunded.

I've worked at a school where several of the parents volunteered to pay for the installation of air conditioning! to my current position where I must keep cereal in the classroom, as there are many days half my students leave home without breakfast!!

Thanks and welcome to my friends, Pat and Carolyn.  I really believe that this dialogue is necessary and we can all hope for real results. Thanks for Clay's quick responses and energy for the task.

I hope this is not too long and too scattered for readers to follow. I have comments back and wish to carry my thread.. I guess having my days off, I have a lot to say, which work come Mon will not allow..

Clay, I am still thinking that special education is its own category, given the large funding amounts, the time consumption for teachers, both general education and special, the complaint procesesses, which parents did not set up, but sadly special education is a complaint driven process,  and the on going issues that I do hear from administrators and teachers in public education.

Disability civil rights happens to be a vital component of this issue, one,  which frankly, I do not believe most public school teachers have fully or willingly embraced.  I come from a family of educators and took many education courses in both Califronia and Washington DC. I have 3 degrees (BA, BS and MSJ)  and have been highly trained by both federal (OSEP) and state departments of education to do what I do. I am an active listener. I have been involved with stakeholder committees for years. I have testified at many CA Curriculum Frameworks = dog and pony shows, State Board of Education meetings, federal meetings re IDEA for comments re rules and regulations to implement IDEA. I do not view my work lightly, I am passionate, logical, and I achieve results that change children's lives, usually for the better. Being an advocate is rather like being the keeper of a code that most parents and members of the John Q Public do not know even exists. IDEA/ = California Special Education Programs: A Composite of Laws is complex beyond measure. Each state in the nation has a similar composite of laws. all required to implement IDEA. I am worried about Arne Duncan as
Obama's ed choice, as his record re special education is largely  absent.

I will continue to simply state here,  that if we want meaningful change in the special education arena, than it deserves its own focus. There is so much required to be knowledgeable in this area that I really do not want to diminish and dilute the discussion.

A further comment to Wilma. Sorry,  but your summary of Waldorf / Montessori inspired education does not do justice to most special education students and their families. My sister trained in Montessori and taught in a pure Montessori school for several years in southern CA. I have had many discussions with such educators. My neighbor taught in a Waldorf-inspired public charter school. I have seen and reviewed  Waldorf assessments on children.  Many such schools in CA, routinely ask special needs children to leave their schools, and this is with dedicated involved parents, who care and are voluntering time, effort, and supplies.

We all have to recognize that there is a place for teaching specific skills early.  There is a need for teaching phonics and the language of mathematics and to certain beginning early academic skills, especially,  when many special needs children need skills taught, reviewed, and reinforced not once, but hundreds of times. I have also personally seen some special needs children become isolated and shunned in such schools by their own peers, despite the attempts to enhance socialization. I think some special needs students can achieve in your school preference, especially the more creative ones with gifts in spatial, interpersonal, naturalistic, and artistic abilities.

As a long time peace and justice activist, I am happy that I might be replaced by some graduates of your schools. At the same time, I hope a consensus process of decision making at such schools, within the Individual Education Program would also embrace the reality that a child with mild cerebral palsy and dysgraphia might actually benefit from using a computer to write. This has not been the outcome of caring educator teams in such schools. A bit too much on the philosophy and a lack of common sense on the unique idenitified needs of the child before the teachers.

I do not mean to be critical of the Montessor Waldorf type  schools, I welcome their approach, but the necessary accommodations required under IDEA are not optional, if the school is a public charter school. Many are private and they do pick and chose their enrolleees. Accommodations are a vested civil right and must be validated, supplied, and funded without hesitation in public schools. I have also seen students, who do not learn well in these school and who enter publci schools 4-5 years behind.

As for issues with magnet schools draining resources and engaged students. We need options and variety in any educational planning. There is no such thing as once-size/type-fits-all education. The more variety and creative energy we can instill in public education will be for the better. The public system is wedded to mediocrity and less insistence upon the status quo might change this.  Changes are needed and these are welcomed  by me, anyway.

Okay, so in summary,  my real understanding of education came not from being schooled, but from being my three sons first teacher. I ache for the children who are born to parents, who have their own real life struggles and are not there educationally and at times emotionally for their kids. This can be both disadvantaged or priveleged parents.  Teachers should not be expected  to be raising children and should not need to teach children basic manners or to do their homework.... (This is however, not the same with a child with autisitc related sensory meltdowns...that is another whole chat.) There is much that needs doing re parents and education, so I wholly agree and shame on a parent who does not figure out a way to make a parent-teacher conference. (phone, email, and preferably in person). Still, I do know of people, who work in jobs where they have no such  granted time off in small businesses (not mandated by family leave laws). Sometimes the narrow scope of 2 to 5 o"clock scheduling is a real problem. Teachers can be creative in allowing for early morning slots, agreeing to a night of phone calls here and there. What about extending some time off in the week to a teacher, an afternoon off, (with a sub.. if needed) so she can hold three Sat morning conferences. Or would the teacher's union have a fit?

Enough for now.. by the way I have a total sense of humor about all of this.. so I hope everyone else does. Carry On.

The USA should have an education system from K-University that is the envy of the world, but all the money goes in the pockets a few people at the top.

That what's happen when you have school boards running our schools!

 I just found this on line and wish to share it as an educational overview re funding and special education. It is basic and I think a bit of a service for those who may not be aware. 

Our schools and infrastructure are crumbling. I am not expecting money to solve this issue fully. There has to be a will to make special needs students matter and not be the throw away kids.

Noreen     Please see article below: 



http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/01/03/school-districts-forced 
-cover-increasing-costs-special-education-despite-federal-promise-pay-40-per
cent/print/
Federal government backs down from spending promise for special education
By Steph Kukuljan
January 3, 2009 | 4:58 p.m. CST
COLUMBIA — At 9 p.m. Thursday, learning specialist Bill Bishop left work at Oakland Junior High School after finishing a four-hour tutoring session with two students. During regular school hours, he teaches in a portable classroom, working one-on-one with students who have severe behavioral problems and have been pulled from the regular classroom.

The opportunity to work directly with students is what triggered Bishop to switch to special education teaching after spending 12 years at the juvenile justice center, a job he said was more administrative than anything.

Public schools nationwide are required to provide special education services to all students who need them, according to the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. To help offset the costs, the federal government promised to fund 40 percent of the states' excess cost, which is determined by doubling the estimated national average cost of educating a
student and paying 40 percent of the difference.

But since 1975, the federal government has failed to fund the whole 40 percent, instead providing up to half of that. Shortfalls are made up at the district level, forcing districts to rely more on state and local funds coming from taxes, said Dale Carlson, coordinator for special education administration for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The lowest amount given was 10.5 percent in 1981, and the highest amount given was 18.5 percent in 2005, according to the Department of Education and Congressional Research Service. Unlike Social Security, the 40 percent is not required to be paid by the government.

Although the federal government has slowly increased the amount of funds it gives for special education, it has also broadened the definition of a "child with a disability," therefore increasing the cost of services.

The term now includes children with mental retardation, hearing impairments
(including deafness), speech or language impairments, visual impairments (including blindness), serious emotional disturbance, orthopedic impairments, autism, traumatic brain injury and other health impairments or specific learning disabilities.

Columbia Public Schools is No. 4 on the list of Missouri school districts receiving the most special education funding from the state — almost $3.3 million. The Special School District of St. Louis County, which provides special education services for all districts in St. Louis County, receives the most — a little more than $30 million. Kansas City receives $5.2 million and Springfield R-XII also receives about $3.3 million.

Oakland Junior High School principal Kim Presko said that the majority of money spent on special education is for personnel and that the services students need are mostly instructional strategies.

"It might be smaller class sizes, longer time to take tests or getting read to," Presko said of the services provided.

Presko said she evaluates the amount of general and special education services needed for the school in March and gives the list to the district, which responds between April and July.

For the 2009-10 school year, the district faces a $3.2 million deficit. There is currently no plan that addresses the deficit, although the school board is debating possible solutions.

Despite varying budget scenarios, Presko said students will be taken care of.

"Everybody (will) still get services. They just may look different," she said.

The deficit is representative of the challenges many other districts face with the rising costs of education and a lack of funding from the federal government.

Five bills were recently introduced to the U.S. Congress to make the 40 percent funding mandatory, but they never made it out of committee discussion.

As for Bishop, he follows the "old-school" tradition of teaching without a lot of money.

"I'm making do with what I have," he said.

Peter, I don't think longer school days or children starting school sooner is the answer. Countries that out perform the US have children attending school from 7 years old to 16 year old, not 6 - 18. It's not the amount of time in school that produces results; it's what is taught and how it is taught that matter.
I do however agree with the homework issue. In fact, I believe it was John Hopkins University that conduct some research on the topic and discovered that homework in the early grades turns kids off to school, and only from middle school on does there seem to be any benefit.
And in regards to summer vacations I only have one response: schools are not child care centers and the argument that parents are inconvenienced for child care during this time should be a mute topic.

According to Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" surveying a number of educational studies.  The number of hours of contact is significant.  Also the issue with summers is that summer has proven to be the time when lower-income students fall behind because they lack stimulus.  Regarding summer vacations, I merely mean that if we had three tracks, we could group younger children by birth month more effectively, eliminating the huge bias caused by the up to 12% age and developmental  difference within younger grades.  by the time they reach middle school it doesn't matter so much, but at younger ages it affects everything, cognitively, physically, socially...My point about Summer vacations was merely that our school schedule model was created for a different era, and it is silly to continue using it simply out of habit.  There are more affective schedules, and if we really want to improve schools and improve our educational system, nothing should be off the table.

No Child Left Behind is the stupidest thing ever created and should simply be scrapped.  It didn't work in Texas and it hasn't worked nationally and we have a hard enough time keeping good teachers and administrators as it is.

Wilma,
Don't write off public education so thoroughly. There ARE over 200 public Montessori schools, and many more that are hybrid, with various Montessorian methods and materials. One of the critical problems in adapting public schools to Montessori methods is - as you imply - the issue of testing, but many charters and public charters (not unique to Massachusetts, but more usual here) address testing issues obliquely rather than through simple compliance. Further, there are many Montessori's where, after Grade 6, tests are viewed as games and things to win or lose rather than live or die.

Finally, special ed is hardly what it once was: it's no longer pure expense, and often is quite feasible in a mainstreamed classroom with adequate support, and it is surprisingly common to find that support available from parents, college students, and others. Don't ignore the critical contributions made by Head Start, for example, in early diagnosis, treatment, and mainstreaming. That is, after all, the underlying foundation for funding Head Start, through the research of the High Scope Foundation on early Head Start diversion (http://www.highscope.org/). 

Simple way to cut costs and to provide practical accountability...

Eliminate high-cost standardized testing.

Have passing grades at 80% instead of 60%.

Have advancement, and not retention, be something that must be justified. Students should repeat grades if they don't understand most of the content.

Use teacher-collected portfolios... spend 10% of the current testing budget on auditors to ensure that portfolio gains match student grades in random samples.

Judge teacher efficacy based on class start-of-year to class end-of-year gains. Teachers who work with populations that are starting below "average" (e.g. ELL, special ed, etc.) should be judged based on student gain compared to themselves, not chronological grade level expectations.

Bonuses should be tied in to certain targets -- %tage of students making the full year of gain for regular ed, %tage of students making gain proportionate to their diagnostic potential for special education, etc.

Portfolios should include both student work samples, and teacher-made or textbook unit tests that align to state performance objectives. Since student work and the tests teachers use to drive instruction should already be meeting these objectives, the only extra work for the teacher is to create an extra file folder for each student, and to run copies of student completed work for the file.

Standardized testing is a publisher's cash cow. It does NOTHING for the students, and takes a sizable chunk out of instructional time.

I think public education policies should be examined and edited by a panel of educationists each representing one of the proven educational systems (Montessori, Waldorf, Dewey, Sudbury, etc.).  Panel revisions would reflect an intelligent sharing of relevant information (from each panelist's educational paradigm) and open-minded consideration of facts.  These revisions would be presented to another panel of educational strategists (also hailing from the educational systems mentioned above - perhaps panel members should be voted from within each system's ranks) who would design teacher education and teacher professional development timelines and milestones for the transition. 

A few cautions that will help this dialog to generate more ... dialog. 
1. Beware of vertical pronouns. Too many "I's" turn people off, and it's not because of your visibility, but, rather, their invisibility to you. Noreen, you used that pronoun 20 times in your first four paragraphs. What might it have said if you'd been talking about others before you talked about yourself?
2. Beware of educationists, experts, paradigms, strategists, textbooks, gain scores, even portfolios. The language of pedagese drives out ideas faster than a fart in a still barn. Let's keep it cleaner, clearer, sweeter and less turgid. Let's also keep it fun, since school is really a lot more tolerable if the fun part is celebrated at least a little.
3. Let's look for alternatives rather than complain about continuing problems. NCLB will probably be re-authorized in some form. Rather than complain about tests, what tests have you found that reveal more than the SAT/ACT kind? Who says four or five alternatives is a "good" number for multiple choice? Why is the subject "English" rather than "communication" or "media literacy"? Why "math" rather than quantities and algebra? Which states get the tests back faster than the year it seems to take in Massachusetts? and how can tests be more useful for feedback? I really like Michelle's portfolio scheme, but wonder if anyone has seen it done in a fashion to support more comparisons - past and present, Jim vs. Jack, me vs. what I want to be??

And let us, please let us, look for best practices because THOSE are the way we'll change systems. Keep in mind that the best practice for some people is most certainly NOT the best practice for all people, and the Obama message can work for everybody.

     As a recently retired public school teacher in New York City I would confirm that turnover is one of the most important and best ignored issues of education.
     The most debated issue in the Ideas section of this website is the international language Esperanto. While most Americans have barely ever heard of it, the language is spreading via the internet to nearly ever country of the world. It is no longer a European phenonomena. Conventions with thousands of participants, using only Esperanto, are occuring in China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea among others.
     Developed in 1887 by a Polish Jew, L.L.Zamenhof, it spread as part of a non-violent peace movement, in line with Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Early Esperanto speakers met with Gandhi.
It is this beleif in peace, world citizenship, and a multicultural world that motivates the voters on this issue. My blog www.EsperantoFriends.blogspot.com includes  2 videos on the subject.

Since my style has mostly been at odds with the norm, I have experienced much suppression and derision during my public school upbringing.  So much so that I received very low marks and dropped out of high school feeling like a misunderstood intellect.  When at 40 I re-entered the educational system, how shocked I was in my placement tests to score in 95 percentile in most subjects.  I maintained a 4.0 throughout my undergrad and graduate programs and achieved my doctoral status 10 years later, at 50, 4 years earlier than program design.  Had I been nurtured by the public education system when I was a girl, I would have gone on to fulfill my dream of being a bio-chemical engineer.  As it was, I became pregnant and spent most of my adult life struggling as a poor and undereducated single mother.  I do not feel comfortable sticking around places I where I feel unwanted.  Too bad I let those teachers get to me, but my chemistry just would not let me overcome the feelings of degradation.  My greatest hope for the evolution of public education is that teachers recall experiences like mine as a means for monitoring exclusivity when it comes to interacting with students.

Hi Folks,
So many ideas and we really wonder what this space will be for after the transtion team picks a few of the top ideas and that is that. Education appears to be declining.
Love innovation and reform, but the laws that bind the teachers districts have been passed back and forth so many times, it is a cranival ride. It is the same problems that throw up road blocks over and over. I see that Duncan will likely try the experimental - charter school route, with little real improvements in outcome. Not down on charter schools, new paths, research based methodologies,  since  special needs children need alterantives, but seems people herein are venting  (needed) and their ability to bring change very limited.
Joe  I guess you work with edutopia, just an FYI George Lucas used a Slingerland reading tutor from the school that rescued my eldest from educational retardation. He had the funds of course to do this all privately in his home.
The numbers are what people do not pay enought attention to relating to special education = one in five people (children, middle, high school, young adult, adult) have either a learning challenge or emotional challenge that impedes their learning. There are posts here that suggest some un or underidentified learning challeges and really hard publci school experiences..

Another core issue until we establish a Department of Peace, there will never be enough money for educational change. Pure and simple we like to fund war, but we begrudge our children their potential.

Several misconceptions merit clarification. First, I'm on the other coast from George Lucas, in metro Boston, where "problem based curriculum" is as uncommon as it is in Iowa. Yet there is a substantial interest in engaging different people, interests, and ages in the overall issues of k-12 schools, which is remarkably open in many Greater Boston communities (as I expect it is in many other regions, if they're approached "right" - i.e., with negotiation and patience rather than a Gaza like battleground).
Second, I strongly object to homeschooling, and view the Horace Mann "Common School" as one of the greatest American contributions to family and community in the history of man. That said, many schools are less than common, and many school systems are as tolerant as Sarah Palin, so home schooling may be a critical need in some circumstances. That makes it neither a privilege nor a curse, but, rather, an unfortunate last resort. (I once ran across a remarkable hybrid of a home school resource Charter School, focused on environmental sciences in k-8 grades, in Northern California, and supplementing homeschool families with formal, exploratory field work. THAT kind of hybrid meets everybody's needs.)
Third, I really think any school should use an individualized curriculum. Ironically, this is remarkably simple for a well organized, delegating teacher to manage, and even easier for teams of teachers to coordinate across an incredible range of skills, subjects, and projects. Typical schools ignore the power of collaboration - among teachers as well as with kids and teachers. Most schools - including universities - completely ignore (or fight) the learning kids deliver to each other, which is by far the most critical in both subject matter and application. Individualization is best achieved by collaboration, and that critical paradox is equally ignored by reformers and reactionaries.
That said, school change (as opposed to reform) is not so tough at all. Paradox is everything. When I taught kids in lockup, for example, I found every kid reading a different book (their means of avoiding tests). So I brought in a stack of 3x5 cards and asked each kid to supply "5 really hard questions to ask the next kid who reads that book you're reading." They loved it. They did it every day. They compared how to ask hard questions. They reported to each other on the content, style, methods, and quality of each others' books, both on paper, in questions, and in constant discussion. Almost a quarter of the kids had serious reading difficulties diagnosed and in treatment. I asked the SpED teacher how her kids in my class could read so well, and she was totally flummoxed.
It's not so hard to teach, but it's a real bitch to learn.

Children in the public school ARE slaves in a sweat shop of mindless busywork, hostages for six hours a day, confined to a building, devoid of play, physical activity and the arts. Then, children are forced to be slaves for several more hours each night doing more mindless busywork! This lasts for 13 years of their lives! The best years of children's lives are wasted on producing useless output for useless grades, having their minds, bodies and wills controlled, regimented and stifled for the sole purpose of becoming obedient and productive cogs in the working world "someday". How about we "simulate" democracy and freedom by actually allowing children to live in a democracy and be free? Imagine children learning what THEY want to learn HOW they want to learn it! Imagine youth learning via the method that nature intended them to learn thorugh: PLAY! Imagine childhood actually being joyful! Imagine socialization that is actually positive and mutually benefical and not toxic and tormenting! Read anything by John Taylor Gatto, especially "Dumbing Us Down". Matt Hern, Jan Hunt, John Holt, Steven Harrison and others have paved the way for the millions of unschoolers and homeschoolers living and learning truely in freedom and joyfully- living democracy instead of having life "simulated" for them. How about we turn the buildings of confinement that we call public schools and turn them into community learning centers where people of all ages can go for support, enjoyment, inspiration and can both teach and learn (or not) whatever they wish? How can we think we are going to change this country when we are churning all young Americans through the same antiquated, failed system that they did in the 1850's when public school was first forced on the population? Public school was instituted to produce obedient factory and mine workers and soldiers- How will this oppressive, abusive system of compulsory education raise the kind of progressive, compassionate, empathic, creative, social-justice-minded individuals that we hope to raise?

Hi Mr. Burell!
I cannot agree with you more with your ideas.  Espeically the test score system.  Are test scores the only way to evaluate and refelct on an individual?  I think that there's so much more methods that can be used to not necessarily judge, but get a sense of who the person is.
And the point that you kept emphasizing at our english seminar class last year about how teaching and education shouldn't always be so fixed is definitely right.  They traditional ways of teaching and assessing doesn't seem to apply any more as much as it used to back in the days.  The world, indeed, is developing at an extreme rate that new ideas are needed quickly more than ever.
It's been real nice to read your posts again!!! :)

Hi Mr. Burell!
I cannot agree with you more with your ideas.  Espeically the test score system.  Are test scores the only way to evaluate and refelct on an individual?  I think that there's so much more methods that can be used to not necessarily judge, but get a sense of who the person is.
And the point that you kept emphasizing at our english seminar class last year about how teaching and education shouldn't always be so fixed is definitely right.  They traditional ways of teaching and assessing doesn't seem to apply any more as much as it used to back in the days.  The world, indeed, is developing at an extreme rate that new ideas are needed quickly more than ever.
It's been real nice to read your posts again!!! :)

Hi folks,
Here is an article that I found to be very interesting and apropos to certain posts above:
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Fallacy of "The Best and the Brightest" By Chris Hedges
Elite universities breed elitists, but they don't generate much honest intellectual inquiry. The people who teach at them often lack basic ethical sense, which is why they often make terrible leaders for our country. And they often lack the kind of intelligence needed for providing competent leadership for our society. The "best and the brightest" from these schools have actually ruined our country.
READ MORE HERE:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081208_hedges_best_brightest/
------------------------------------------------------------
For those who are more like me (not as up to date on the situations as the posters above), there was also a great article in Mother Jones mag (I think it was Sept-Oct '08).

Our family is committed to raising awareness and bringing about positive change for transparency, accountability and responsibility of Government Officials regarding the urgent need for Nationwide Uniform Standards that ensure Equal Access/Civil Rights of ALL Children in U.S. Schools. ALL children must have access to safe, healthy and supportive learning environments.  The state legislatures of 29 states have abolished corporal punishment in schools.  Ohio Governor Ted Strickland has proposed a school paddling ban tied to education funding, if approved, Ohio will be the 30th state to ban school paddling.

I am the mother of 3 school-aged children and our family resides in a paddling school district in Middle Tennessee.  Two of our children attend middle school where paddling is administered routinely for minor infractions just outside of classrooms in the hallway.  In our complacency, we never dreamed that Corporal (Physical) Punishment (Paddling with a wooden board) would be necessary for any of our 3 children at school, as they are intelligent, reasonable and well behaved.  One year ago, I received a call from my 13 year old son's middle school assistant principal informing me that she was about to administer a paddling to him for going outside with his class when he was told to stay in.  We were only called at our son's insistence, as all of our children have been taught from an early age that no one has the right to touch them, they can say no, get away and tell someone in order to protect them from sexual abuse.  I informed her that we do not paddle our children and did not want them to.  She insisted that he must still be "Punished" and we agreed upon an acceptable form of "Discipline" that did not involve physical punishment. We immediately wrote to Federal, State and Local Government Officals and Elected Representatives only to receive responses that tell us "By LAW, it is the responsibility of our Local School District Board of Education to adopt policies regarding the administration and operation of local schools.  We have written to our local school district's Board Members of several occasions and made a verbal/written presentation at their board meeting on April 14, 2008 during "Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention Month"  to demand they take action to prohibit corporal punishment of children in our county schools and to date, we have received NO RESPONSE. 

Since the beginning of 2009 our 12 year old daughter has told of 2 paddling incidents that took place in the hallway just outside of her classroom and she told us the students names and the number of blows they received as she could overhear them.  Teachers verbally threaten students with physical punishment and show them wooden paddles with holes drilled into them that they keep in their desk drawers.  How is my child supposed to learn in an atmosphere filled with fear?  Our family does not physically punish or hit our children and we do not feel that paddling is effective, it doesn't make the child turn in missing work, improve grades or teach them appropriate behavior.  In fact, the paddled child probably feels humiliated and resentful of the teacher who paddled him.  I am very concerned about paddling taking place in schools because it is not regulated in any manner and it's just plain wrong.  We tell our children not to hit.  Educators who hit students with weapons (wooden paddles) to deliberately inflict physical pain and suffering intended to punish them powerfully model physical assault/violence to schoolchildren as the acceptable way to solve problems.  Schools and teachers who purchase weapons (wooden paddles) with tax payer funds and possess/use them are in direct conflict/violation of Zero Tolerance of Weapons in Schools Policies.

As members of Tennesseans for Nonviolent School Discipline, we worked on letters to editors of newspapers in paddling school districts in Middle Tennessee to inform citizens of the U.S. Department of Education, Office For Civil Rights paddling statistics as reported by schools in their community and what they can do to protect their children.  The reported number of paddling incidents is staggering!  Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a report titled "A Violent Education" on 8/20/08 with recommendations to Government Officials to Immediately Abolish Corporal Punishment (Paddling) in U.S. Schools. The report cites U.S. Department of Education, Office For Civil Rights statistics where schools reported disciplining over 223,190 students by hitting, spanking or similar means for such minor infractions as chewing gum or violating school dress codes.

Tragically, current news headlines regarding investigations taking place in the Chicago Public School System include HUNDREDS of incidents of child abuse reported in schools and a 9 year old boy in Decatur Co., GA suffered deep bruising at Potter Street Elementary School when the ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL PADDLED HIM 3 TIMES IN ONE DAY!

The cost to eliminate educators right to assault and batter schoolchildren is $0.

Our family is thankful to educators who refrain from physical punishment of schoolchildren. According to an important new report on physical punishment of children in the U.S., read the full report at www.phoenixchildrens.com/discipline, the majority of American adults are opposed to physical punishment by school personnel. The report has been endorsed by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the National Association of Regulatory Boards and others. There is a growing momentum among other countries to enact legal bans on all forms of physical punishment, bolstered by the fact that the practice has come to be regarded as a violation of international human rights law. There is little research evidence that physical punishment improves children's behavior in the long term. In contrast, there is substantial research evidence that physical punishment puts children at risk for negative outcomes, including increased aggression, antisocial behavior, mental health problems, and physical injury. The clear connections between physical abuse and physical punishment that have been made in empirical research and in the child abuse statutes of several states suggest that reduction in parents' use of physical punishment should be included as intergral parts of state and federal child abuse prevention efforts.  For alternative discipline strategies, please visit www.stophitting.org.

It would seem appropriately inappropriate to suggest that attendance officers who fail to meet quota be paddled on the public square; that teachers whose students do not meet a specific test score be paddled regularly and publicly; that prinicipals whose schools are off budget, below attendance goals, or whose students fail to meet specific test score goals receive a public paddling. There is an old Alinsky rule - with which one presumes Obama and others are familiar - which is NOT to dignify the arguments of your opponents whose arguments are contemptible, but, rather, to make them absurd by extension. Dealing with a bunch of thuggish rule makers and enforcers in any way but thuggishly, enhances their credibility way beyond any other response. Were Tennessee a garden of peaceful delight, reflecting the humane and best wishes of those who beat children, perhaps they might merit such respect. But it ain't.

Having lived and worked abroad for more than 20 years, the lack of understanding about what is happening outside of 'fortress America' is shocking.  American students need to have curriculum contents expanded to allow young people to understand the principles of humanity in their daily lives, and how they can help shape a vision for tomorrow where less money is spent on guns and warfare, and more funding is directed to making the world a better place.  

The American Red Cross in cooperation with the Pearson Foundation has produced an incredible resource for teachers - Welcome to Exploring Humanitarian Law: A Practical Guide for Teachers.   http://pearsonfoundation-rc.org/redcross-ehl/

The 5 module course will help raise students awareness so they can make a difference in the world today. Students make the contents of their studies their own by teaching others, creating materials to share with others and applying what they have learned by planning and carrying out projects.

The importance of the American Red Cross as a world-wide organization is underscored.

I really appreciate this article and its accuracy. The five controversies mentioned really are the biggest debates in public education-- with the high stakes testing controversy probably being the most prominent.

Just yesterday there was an article in the Daily Hampshire Gazette (www.gazettenet.com) written by a teacher about ways to test students and evaluate schools and individual teachers. His biggest concern was that while there is no concrete way of federally evaluating a school's progress other than standardized testing right now, there is absolutely no way of testing a school's ability to provide and enable student growth in other ways. I think that this is where a huge question must be asked: should schools, teachers, and students be evaluated more on academic test scores or should they be evaluated more on how students learn to progress socially, physically, and academically? How can we test and evaluate other aspects of education other than the purely academic part?

That also begs the question that this article asks in number 5: what is the purpose of education? Should education's sole purpose be to learn math, science, social studies, and language arts, or should its role be expanded to also encompass personal growth in other areas?

I may have inadvertently made this article and comment more complicated than necessary, but I think those are important questions to ask about education. Until the United States government and education system can come to a consensus, these issues will remain just what they are: controversy and debate.

There is no reason why standardized, multiple choice tests are the only measure - and, in fact, they rarely are. Another easily accessed measure is attendance, and sometimes even timely attendance; attendance of parents at conferences; grades - in systems where there is adequate computer support - often work better than tests and usually are more immediately available.
And those measures can be compared in different schools, districts, and over time; related to issues like income, race, language, age, sex and other features; and derive some interesting but not very conclusive information.
At the same time, however, realize that multiple choice tests were invented in the age of punch cards, and our technology has ... progressed. We can now analyze essays by kids via computer; we can even evaluate simulations, games, and acting via computer. And they know that. So there's no reason to use the standard tests all the time, other than to pay tribute to the standard test makers, who are largely Republican.

My rule of thumb is that, if a kid could answer the question with fewer than three clicks of a google it's a wasted question. They know it; we know it; even many teachers know it. On the other hand, if even google wouldn't give them a good answer, then you're asking the right question.

Schools really do waste some of their resources or time on, trivial projects. Many schools check to see if they are meeting enough needs of the students and then decide to take a new approach. I understand that teachers and faculty want to try something new, but rather then trying a new way to help teach or help pass the students, why not improve the way that works.
Students act according to how teachers wan the students to view their class. Students a re bound to do better if the teachers class is likable. It is not about the material, but the atmosphere of the class. In College, however this is really difficult considering classes are much larger. There are many factors that concern the school system and its affect on students.
Great arguments i just wanted to say my bit continue the great informative arguements.

I think that schools should focus on the more important things like making sure that the students actually learn something in school. Most students don't pay attention because they are not interested in class and that is because they just read from a textbook and answer some questions. A lot of the time they are just bored of going over the same thing repeadetly. I think that the teachers should teach the curriculum in a way that the students will like. Not just study because of a big state exam.

First of all, thanks to all of you, and especially Clay, for a lively and worthwhile discussion.  I've gotten caught in flame wars on a couple of other forum sites here at change.org, and this is a welcome change.

I think a core problem is that "making sure students learn" is harder than it sounds, largely because we're really not very good at deciding what they should learn and evaluating whether they've learned it.  Standardized tests, with all their faults, were actually an improvement over the idiosyncratic patchwork of grading standards that preceded them, especially in certain school districts where kids from the favored socioeconomic and ethnic groups always got high grades and others always got low grades.  In a simlar vein, as one of the "radicals" who fought for student surveys of perceived teaching quality, I personally feel partly responsible for the problems such surveys, misused, have caused.  Certainly we never contemplated that such surveys would replace all other methods of evaluation!  Maybe one important lesson here is that no one method of evaluation is best for all purposes, and relying on one method -- grades, tests, essays, eventual income, whatever -- egregiously oversimplifies the assessment.