Hijacking the futures of our Students
I would like to know what is happening to the people of Greenville County SC.
We are sitting on our hands and letting the Greenville County Superintendent of education hijack the futures of our sons and daughters.
Greenville County School Superintendent Penny Fisher knows the she is heading a failing system and she does not care as long as she is paid 200,000 dollars a year and does not go against the Board of Education even when she knows they are wrong.
Give the Board of Education and the school superintendent an F for educating our students.
The board and the school superintendent hate success in any public school.
The Charter High School located on the Greenville Technical College campus is a perfect example of their contempt for success in any public school in Greenville County.
While all of the Greenville County public schools are furnished buses, meals for the poor, money for the utilities and maintenance personnel for the public schools, Charter High school does not receive any of these necessities.
THIS IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE, GREENVILLE TECH'S CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL IS DOING A LOT MORE FOR A LOT LESS
Hoorah for Mr Crawford and his staff
Mr. Crawford is doing a great job of hiring the best teachers, instilling the desire for the students to learn and the pride his teachers have in teaching all of the students.
Does anyone think this may have something to do with Charter High school being rated number 15 on the best one hundred high schools in America.
I am of the opinion that if the superintendent of education and the Greenville County school board wanted the students of this county to have a successful future they would take some valuable lessons from Mr. Crawford and the teachers at the Greenville Tech Charter high school and insist that the rest of the county's schools start direct teaching instead of being the manager of their attitudes in a diverse society.
Being the most popular student in a multi cultured society will not land you in a good college or a good paying job.
Employers want people that are able to think and to read and able to write,
Greenville County schools are at the very bottom of the national list when it comes to academic standings, but we are the highest in the nation when it comes to high school dropouts. Greenville County school principles should be held accountable for the education the students are getting in their schools and they should be terminated if they are running a failing school. We are failing our students and when we do that we are failing America.
The Greenville County school system is not teaching our students, they are dummying them down. For instance, there are 16 and 17 year olds who cannot read and write.
Teachers that are not proficient in the subjects they are teaching.
When the principles hire a teacher to teach science and he/she is not able to set up a lab to test the students, the principle and the teacher should be sent packing.
The citizens of Greenville County have but a few voices on the school board who sincerely wants the students to succeed in school and be ready for entrance into any college or university they choose to attend.
These few friends of the students are almost always outvoted on any issue if it favors the student in their quest for an education.
South Carolina is the high school drop out capital of the United States and the only people who are happy about this is the special interest groups that make big money for recruiting corporations that move here to Greenville County to hire employees at the lowest possible pay.
We the people have a name for our school system it’s called Educational Operation NO TRUST.
The Greenville County school administrators like to boast about having the states largest school district; they say nothing about the states largest educational failure.
The Greenville County school board’s favorite son,
Bobby
Friday, January 25, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Bring Back American History
Diversity history noise
Robert HollandJanuary 11, 2008
In his Jan. 11, 1989 farewell address after eight years as President, Ronald Reagan warned that the teaching of U.S. history could be going into irreversible decline in the nation's elementary and secondary schools.
”If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are,” he said. “I am warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit.”
The Great Communicator's words have a poignant ring now that we know the memory-robber called Alzheimer's was about to afflict him. But his words were prescient in anticipating the assault on study of U.S. history that grows ever more intense almost two decades later.
The multicultural doctrine promoted by academic elitists is a prime culprit.
In Texas, academics have prepared a set of college readiness standards for the high-school curriculum that emphasize “diverse human perspectives and experiences” while omitting pivotal events and heroic movers and shakers.
For instance, while ignoring the enormous sacrifices made by the Greatest Generation to defeat fascism in World War II, the standards ask students to explain the impact of that war on “the African-American and Mexican-American Civil Rights Movements.”
While the standards make no mention of Pearl Harbor or the Battle of Normandy, they invite students to second-guess President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.
Instead of probing the intellectual roots of a Declaration of Independence that still motivates oppressed people around the world today, the proposed Texas standards imply that the American Revolution was nothing special.
Specifically, students are to “identify how revolutions such as the American, Cuban, French, Russian and Iranian Revolutions affected the functions and structure of government in those countries.”
The academics who drafted the standards up for adoption by the state's Higher Education Coordinating Board on Jan. 24 boasted that their approach was consistent with that of other states and national organizations. About that much they are right. Multiculturalism is weakening the study of U.S. history in many school systems.
Chicago is a case in point. There the public school system uses a voluminous curriculum guide for teaching history to its Latino students — Mexican history, that is, with U.S. history a mere footnote. The guide expresses hope that the instruction, pegged to state education goals, will “awaken in each child the joy and pride of the Mexican heritage.”
In tracing the Mexican independence movement, the guide praises Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla for ringing church bells as a call to the faithful to battle the Spaniards. So Chicago students learn of his exploits, but not of Paul Revere's Midnight Ride to warn American patriots of the British Army's advance on Lexington and Concord.
Later, Chicago students are taught in detail about Benito Juarez, a leader in developing the Constitution of 1857 limiting the power of the Mexican army. So they learn about him but not about James Madison, father of the U.S. Constitution. They also learn much about guerrilla fighters like Francisco “Pancho” Villa. But nothing about General George Washington.
The guide is full of time-consuming classroom activities to celebrate Mexican heritage and culture. Students can spend hours and even whole days making confetti eggs, pottery, blankets and goody bags for parties. Surely that time would be more productively spent teaching immigrant children to speak English, the primary language of their parents' adopted country.
Another exercise asks students to compare and contrast Independence Day celebrations in Mexico (Sept. 15) and the United States. As background, they are told of Father Hidalgo's bell ringing and address from the balcony of the palace in Mexico City. As for Independence Day in the U.S., the guide states that it is “celebrated on July 4 with elaborate fireworks displays throughout the country.” That's it — nothing about Thomas Jefferson's stirring evocation of mankind's “unalienable rights” in the Declaration of Independence.
The anniversary of Ronald Reagan's farewell provides an occasion to pause and to take his warning to heart. We need to insist that schools teach all children how America came to be, how it has striven to overcome its imperfections, and what it represents that is so special in the long history of the world.
Speculating about “diverse perspectives” ought to be secondary to teaching history — United States history.
Robert Holland is a policy analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va.
Copyright 2007 The Washington Times
Robert HollandJanuary 11, 2008
In his Jan. 11, 1989 farewell address after eight years as President, Ronald Reagan warned that the teaching of U.S. history could be going into irreversible decline in the nation's elementary and secondary schools.
”If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are,” he said. “I am warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit.”
The Great Communicator's words have a poignant ring now that we know the memory-robber called Alzheimer's was about to afflict him. But his words were prescient in anticipating the assault on study of U.S. history that grows ever more intense almost two decades later.
The multicultural doctrine promoted by academic elitists is a prime culprit.
In Texas, academics have prepared a set of college readiness standards for the high-school curriculum that emphasize “diverse human perspectives and experiences” while omitting pivotal events and heroic movers and shakers.
For instance, while ignoring the enormous sacrifices made by the Greatest Generation to defeat fascism in World War II, the standards ask students to explain the impact of that war on “the African-American and Mexican-American Civil Rights Movements.”
While the standards make no mention of Pearl Harbor or the Battle of Normandy, they invite students to second-guess President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.
Instead of probing the intellectual roots of a Declaration of Independence that still motivates oppressed people around the world today, the proposed Texas standards imply that the American Revolution was nothing special.
Specifically, students are to “identify how revolutions such as the American, Cuban, French, Russian and Iranian Revolutions affected the functions and structure of government in those countries.”
The academics who drafted the standards up for adoption by the state's Higher Education Coordinating Board on Jan. 24 boasted that their approach was consistent with that of other states and national organizations. About that much they are right. Multiculturalism is weakening the study of U.S. history in many school systems.
Chicago is a case in point. There the public school system uses a voluminous curriculum guide for teaching history to its Latino students — Mexican history, that is, with U.S. history a mere footnote. The guide expresses hope that the instruction, pegged to state education goals, will “awaken in each child the joy and pride of the Mexican heritage.”
In tracing the Mexican independence movement, the guide praises Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla for ringing church bells as a call to the faithful to battle the Spaniards. So Chicago students learn of his exploits, but not of Paul Revere's Midnight Ride to warn American patriots of the British Army's advance on Lexington and Concord.
Later, Chicago students are taught in detail about Benito Juarez, a leader in developing the Constitution of 1857 limiting the power of the Mexican army. So they learn about him but not about James Madison, father of the U.S. Constitution. They also learn much about guerrilla fighters like Francisco “Pancho” Villa. But nothing about General George Washington.
The guide is full of time-consuming classroom activities to celebrate Mexican heritage and culture. Students can spend hours and even whole days making confetti eggs, pottery, blankets and goody bags for parties. Surely that time would be more productively spent teaching immigrant children to speak English, the primary language of their parents' adopted country.
Another exercise asks students to compare and contrast Independence Day celebrations in Mexico (Sept. 15) and the United States. As background, they are told of Father Hidalgo's bell ringing and address from the balcony of the palace in Mexico City. As for Independence Day in the U.S., the guide states that it is “celebrated on July 4 with elaborate fireworks displays throughout the country.” That's it — nothing about Thomas Jefferson's stirring evocation of mankind's “unalienable rights” in the Declaration of Independence.
The anniversary of Ronald Reagan's farewell provides an occasion to pause and to take his warning to heart. We need to insist that schools teach all children how America came to be, how it has striven to overcome its imperfections, and what it represents that is so special in the long history of the world.
Speculating about “diverse perspectives” ought to be secondary to teaching history — United States history.
Robert Holland is a policy analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va.
Copyright 2007 The Washington Times
Friday, January 11, 2008
Clarion CallTeaching Teachers How Not to Teach
Do our schools of education really do good a job of training teachers?By George Leef
January 09, 2008
When Mom and Dad see little Sally’s report card, it probably never occurs to them to wonder how competent her teacher is. Teachers, after all, are professionals. They’re trained in university programs and licensed by the government, so they must be good at their jobs – right?There is a surprising amount of disagreement over that. As long ago as 1953, Professor Arthur Bestor ridiculed education schools (where nearly all aspiring teachers must obtain their credentials) as “educational wastelands.” More recently, in her 1991 book Ed School Follies, Rita Kramer wrote, “What we have today are teacher-producing factories that process material from the bottom of the heap and turn out models that perform, but not well enough.” Criticism of education schools doesn’t just come from outsiders. Some highly knowledgeable and vocal critics are to be found among the ranks of current and former education school professors. One of those critics is George Cunningham, who taught for many years at the University of Louisville. In a new paper for the Pope Center, Professor Cunningham explains why he does not believe that schools of education in North Carolina are doing an adequate job of training future teachers.As he sees it, the great problem is that most of the American public holds to one view of the role of schools, while most of the education school elite – the deans and the professors – hold a very different view. The public overwhelmingly believes that the function of schools should be mainly academic – that is, to make sure that children learn very well the skills and knowledge that it takes to succeed in life. If you accept that view, then schools succeed only if their students graduate with a high degree of literacy, with proficiency in mathematics, with a good working knowledge of science, history, our social institutions, and so forth. It follows that teacher training programs should ensure that their students are expert in teaching those things to young people. Someone who intends to teach math, for example, should be both well-versed in the field and well-trained in the techniques of explaining math to their students.On the other hand, the dominant view among those who run and teach in our education schools is that the key role of schooling is to achieve various social objectives. In their opinion, it’s more important for teachers to properly adjust students’ outlook on life and society than to instruct them in “mere” knowledge and facts. Under that view, teachers who devote too much time to “rote learning” (for example, learning multiplication tables) are not doing a good job and a school could be performing poorly even though all its students have mastered the “3 Rs.” Cunningham writes that according to this theory, “a child’s education is successful if he is exposed to the right attitudes by teachers, even if he does poorly in measures of learning on reading, math, history, science, and so on.”Cunningham has long observed the march of this “progressive” view through the nation’s education schools. His paper focuses on the University of North Carolina’s largest schools to see if the contagion is widespread here. He finds that it is.One sign of that contagion is the mission statements and “conceptual frameworks” of the education schools in the state. Read them and you’ll see that progressive theory controls. At Appalachian State’s Reich School of Education, for instance, the conceptual framework says:
"We believe that theory should guide practice in all aspects of our work. While we use a variety of theoretical perspectives in the preparation of educators, socio-cultural and constructivist perspectives … are central to guiding our teaching and learning. Our core conceptualization of learning and knowing – that learning is a function of the social and cultural contexts in which it occurs (i.e., it is situated) and that knowledge is actively constructed – emerges from the intersection of these two perspectives."As a result of the dominance of progressive theory in our education schools, we find a good many courses devoted to instructing prospective teachers that they should be “change agents” helping to combat all manner of social ills. What we do not find are courses that emphasize the most effective ways of imparting knowledge to young people. Education school students are not taught about a proven approach to primary education called Direct Instruction, for example, because its focus is purely on academic mastery, leaving no scope for socio-cultural diversions.Reading is the sine qua non of primary education. If a child doesn’t learn to read well, he will struggle in nearly everything. Through the work of the National Reading Panel, we have solid knowledge about the essentials for competent instruction in reading. How well do UNC education schools do in that regard? Cunningham reports on a 2006 study of 70 education schools nationwide that graded these schools on how many of the five key components of reading instruction they covered. Of the four UNC schools included (UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Greensboro, Fayetteville State, and Elizabeth City State), only UNC-Greensboro received a passing mark.Cunningham comments, “Unfortunately, it is quite possible for a prospective teacher to graduate from an education school in North Carolina without having received solid training either in reading or math teaching.” The fact that things are just about as bad in other states is cold comfort.In perhaps the most startling quotation in the paper, Cunningham quotes a principal from an inner-city school who says that as much as possible, she avoids hiring people who have been through education schools. She would rather hire someone who knows a subject and has the desire to teach it than someone with an education school diploma and a head full of “progressive” theories that waste precious time. If we want more effective teachers, we need to turn away from our current approach to teacher training. Read Professor Cunningham’s paper and see if you don’t agree.George C. Leef is the vice president for research at the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in Raleigh.
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Do our schools of education really do good a job of training teachers?By George Leef
January 09, 2008
When Mom and Dad see little Sally’s report card, it probably never occurs to them to wonder how competent her teacher is. Teachers, after all, are professionals. They’re trained in university programs and licensed by the government, so they must be good at their jobs – right?There is a surprising amount of disagreement over that. As long ago as 1953, Professor Arthur Bestor ridiculed education schools (where nearly all aspiring teachers must obtain their credentials) as “educational wastelands.” More recently, in her 1991 book Ed School Follies, Rita Kramer wrote, “What we have today are teacher-producing factories that process material from the bottom of the heap and turn out models that perform, but not well enough.” Criticism of education schools doesn’t just come from outsiders. Some highly knowledgeable and vocal critics are to be found among the ranks of current and former education school professors. One of those critics is George Cunningham, who taught for many years at the University of Louisville. In a new paper for the Pope Center, Professor Cunningham explains why he does not believe that schools of education in North Carolina are doing an adequate job of training future teachers.As he sees it, the great problem is that most of the American public holds to one view of the role of schools, while most of the education school elite – the deans and the professors – hold a very different view. The public overwhelmingly believes that the function of schools should be mainly academic – that is, to make sure that children learn very well the skills and knowledge that it takes to succeed in life. If you accept that view, then schools succeed only if their students graduate with a high degree of literacy, with proficiency in mathematics, with a good working knowledge of science, history, our social institutions, and so forth. It follows that teacher training programs should ensure that their students are expert in teaching those things to young people. Someone who intends to teach math, for example, should be both well-versed in the field and well-trained in the techniques of explaining math to their students.On the other hand, the dominant view among those who run and teach in our education schools is that the key role of schooling is to achieve various social objectives. In their opinion, it’s more important for teachers to properly adjust students’ outlook on life and society than to instruct them in “mere” knowledge and facts. Under that view, teachers who devote too much time to “rote learning” (for example, learning multiplication tables) are not doing a good job and a school could be performing poorly even though all its students have mastered the “3 Rs.” Cunningham writes that according to this theory, “a child’s education is successful if he is exposed to the right attitudes by teachers, even if he does poorly in measures of learning on reading, math, history, science, and so on.”Cunningham has long observed the march of this “progressive” view through the nation’s education schools. His paper focuses on the University of North Carolina’s largest schools to see if the contagion is widespread here. He finds that it is.One sign of that contagion is the mission statements and “conceptual frameworks” of the education schools in the state. Read them and you’ll see that progressive theory controls. At Appalachian State’s Reich School of Education, for instance, the conceptual framework says:
"We believe that theory should guide practice in all aspects of our work. While we use a variety of theoretical perspectives in the preparation of educators, socio-cultural and constructivist perspectives … are central to guiding our teaching and learning. Our core conceptualization of learning and knowing – that learning is a function of the social and cultural contexts in which it occurs (i.e., it is situated) and that knowledge is actively constructed – emerges from the intersection of these two perspectives."As a result of the dominance of progressive theory in our education schools, we find a good many courses devoted to instructing prospective teachers that they should be “change agents” helping to combat all manner of social ills. What we do not find are courses that emphasize the most effective ways of imparting knowledge to young people. Education school students are not taught about a proven approach to primary education called Direct Instruction, for example, because its focus is purely on academic mastery, leaving no scope for socio-cultural diversions.Reading is the sine qua non of primary education. If a child doesn’t learn to read well, he will struggle in nearly everything. Through the work of the National Reading Panel, we have solid knowledge about the essentials for competent instruction in reading. How well do UNC education schools do in that regard? Cunningham reports on a 2006 study of 70 education schools nationwide that graded these schools on how many of the five key components of reading instruction they covered. Of the four UNC schools included (UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Greensboro, Fayetteville State, and Elizabeth City State), only UNC-Greensboro received a passing mark.Cunningham comments, “Unfortunately, it is quite possible for a prospective teacher to graduate from an education school in North Carolina without having received solid training either in reading or math teaching.” The fact that things are just about as bad in other states is cold comfort.In perhaps the most startling quotation in the paper, Cunningham quotes a principal from an inner-city school who says that as much as possible, she avoids hiring people who have been through education schools. She would rather hire someone who knows a subject and has the desire to teach it than someone with an education school diploma and a head full of “progressive” theories that waste precious time. If we want more effective teachers, we need to turn away from our current approach to teacher training. Read Professor Cunningham’s paper and see if you don’t agree.George C. Leef is the vice president for research at the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in Raleigh.
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Who's minding the Campus
Students Lose When Diversity Is Main Focus
By JAY P. GREENE AND CATHERINE SHOCK Posted Tuesday, January 08, 2008 4:30 PM PT
A good education requires balance. Students should learn to appreciate a variety of cultures, sure, but they also need to know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Judging from the courses that the nation's leading education colleges offer, however, balance isn't a goal. The schools place far more emphasis on the political and social ends of education than on the fundamentals.
To determine just how unbalanced teacher preparation is at ed schools, we counted the number of course titles and descriptions that contained the words "multiculturalism," "diversity," "inclusion" and variants thereof, and then compared those with the number that used variants of the word "math." We then computed a "multiculturalism-to-math ratio" — a rough indicator of the relative importance of social goals to academic skills in ed schools. A ratio of greater than 1 indicates a greater emphasis on multiculturalism; a ratio of less than 1 means that math courses predominate.
Our survey covered the nation's top 50 education programs as ranked by U.S. News and World Report, as well as programs at flagship state universities that weren't among the top 50 — a total of 71 education schools.
The average ed school, we found, has a multiculturalism-to-math ratio of 1.82, meaning that it offers 82% more courses featuring social goals than featuring math. At Harvard and Stanford, the ratio is about 2: Almost twice as many courses are social as mathematical.
Teachers' Clique
At the University of Minnesota, the ratio is higher than 12. And at UCLA, a whopping 47 course titles and descriptions contain the word "multiculturalism" or "diversity," while only three contain the word "math," giving it a ratio of almost 16.
Some programs do show different priorities. At the University of Missouri, 43 courses bear titles or descriptions that include multiculturalism or diversity, but 74 focus on math, giving it a lean multiculturalism-to-math ratio of 0.58. Penn State's ratio is 0.39.
(By contrast, the ratio at Penn State's Ivy League counterpart, the University of Pennsylvania, is over 3.)
Still, of the 71 programs we studied, only 24 have a multiculturalism-to-math ratio of less than 1; only five pay twice as much attention to math as to social goals.
Several obstacles impede change.
On the supply side, ed-school professors are a self-perpetuating clique, and their commitment to multiculturalism and diversity produces a near-uniformity of approach. Professors control entry into their ranks by determining who will receive the doctoral credential, deciding which doctoral graduates get hired, and then selecting which faculty will receive tenure. And tenured academics are essentially accountable to no one.
On the demand side, prospective teachers haven't cried out for more math courses because such courses tend to be harder than those involving multiculturalism. And the teachers know that their future employers — public school districts — don't find an accent on multiculturalism troubling. Because public schools are assured of ever-increasing funding, regardless of how they do in math, they can indulge their enthusiasm for multiculturalism, and prospective teachers can, too.
Dissent Punished
Accrediting organizations also help perpetuate the emphasis on multiculturalism. In several states, law mandates that ed schools receive accreditation from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. NCATE, in turn, requires education programs to meet six standards, one entirely devoted to diversity, but none entirely devoted to ensuring proper math pedagogy. Education schools that attempt to break from the cartel's multiculturalism focus risk denial of accreditation.
Ensuring quality math instruction is no minor matter. The Program for International Student Assessment's latest results paint a bleak picture: U.S. 15-year-olds ranked 24th out of 30 industrial countries in math literacy, tying Spain and surpassing only Greece, Italy, Portugal, Mexico, and Turkey, while trailing Iceland, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic and all of our major economic competitors in Europe and Asia.
The issue isn't whether we should be teaching cultural awareness in education colleges or in public schools; it's about priorities. Besides, our students probably have great appreciation already for students from other cultures — who're cleaning their clocks in math skills, and will do so economically, too, if we don't wise up.
Greene is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the endowed head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. Shock is a research associate in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. This article was adapted from the winter issue of City Journal.
By JAY P. GREENE AND CATHERINE SHOCK Posted Tuesday, January 08, 2008 4:30 PM PT
A good education requires balance. Students should learn to appreciate a variety of cultures, sure, but they also need to know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Judging from the courses that the nation's leading education colleges offer, however, balance isn't a goal. The schools place far more emphasis on the political and social ends of education than on the fundamentals.
To determine just how unbalanced teacher preparation is at ed schools, we counted the number of course titles and descriptions that contained the words "multiculturalism," "diversity," "inclusion" and variants thereof, and then compared those with the number that used variants of the word "math." We then computed a "multiculturalism-to-math ratio" — a rough indicator of the relative importance of social goals to academic skills in ed schools. A ratio of greater than 1 indicates a greater emphasis on multiculturalism; a ratio of less than 1 means that math courses predominate.
Our survey covered the nation's top 50 education programs as ranked by U.S. News and World Report, as well as programs at flagship state universities that weren't among the top 50 — a total of 71 education schools.
The average ed school, we found, has a multiculturalism-to-math ratio of 1.82, meaning that it offers 82% more courses featuring social goals than featuring math. At Harvard and Stanford, the ratio is about 2: Almost twice as many courses are social as mathematical.
Teachers' Clique
At the University of Minnesota, the ratio is higher than 12. And at UCLA, a whopping 47 course titles and descriptions contain the word "multiculturalism" or "diversity," while only three contain the word "math," giving it a ratio of almost 16.
Some programs do show different priorities. At the University of Missouri, 43 courses bear titles or descriptions that include multiculturalism or diversity, but 74 focus on math, giving it a lean multiculturalism-to-math ratio of 0.58. Penn State's ratio is 0.39.
(By contrast, the ratio at Penn State's Ivy League counterpart, the University of Pennsylvania, is over 3.)
Still, of the 71 programs we studied, only 24 have a multiculturalism-to-math ratio of less than 1; only five pay twice as much attention to math as to social goals.
Several obstacles impede change.
On the supply side, ed-school professors are a self-perpetuating clique, and their commitment to multiculturalism and diversity produces a near-uniformity of approach. Professors control entry into their ranks by determining who will receive the doctoral credential, deciding which doctoral graduates get hired, and then selecting which faculty will receive tenure. And tenured academics are essentially accountable to no one.
On the demand side, prospective teachers haven't cried out for more math courses because such courses tend to be harder than those involving multiculturalism. And the teachers know that their future employers — public school districts — don't find an accent on multiculturalism troubling. Because public schools are assured of ever-increasing funding, regardless of how they do in math, they can indulge their enthusiasm for multiculturalism, and prospective teachers can, too.
Dissent Punished
Accrediting organizations also help perpetuate the emphasis on multiculturalism. In several states, law mandates that ed schools receive accreditation from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. NCATE, in turn, requires education programs to meet six standards, one entirely devoted to diversity, but none entirely devoted to ensuring proper math pedagogy. Education schools that attempt to break from the cartel's multiculturalism focus risk denial of accreditation.
Ensuring quality math instruction is no minor matter. The Program for International Student Assessment's latest results paint a bleak picture: U.S. 15-year-olds ranked 24th out of 30 industrial countries in math literacy, tying Spain and surpassing only Greece, Italy, Portugal, Mexico, and Turkey, while trailing Iceland, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic and all of our major economic competitors in Europe and Asia.
The issue isn't whether we should be teaching cultural awareness in education colleges or in public schools; it's about priorities. Besides, our students probably have great appreciation already for students from other cultures — who're cleaning their clocks in math skills, and will do so economically, too, if we don't wise up.
Greene is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the endowed head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. Shock is a research associate in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. This article was adapted from the winter issue of City Journal.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Over Representation of Minority students are disciplined in schools
Overrepresentation of African American Students in Exclusionary Discipline The Role of School PolicyPamela Fenning
Loyola University Chicago
Jennifer Rose
Loyola University Chicago
The overrepresentation of ethnic minority students, particularly African American males, in the exclusionary discipline consequences of suspension and expulsion has been consistently documented during the past three decades. Children of poverty and those with academic problems are also overrepresented in such discipline consequences. Sadly, a direct link between these exclusionary discipline consequences and entrance to prison has been documented and termed the school-to-prison pipeline for these most vulnerable students. In this article, the authors argue that ethnographic and interview data would support teachers' perceptions of loss of classroom control (and accompanying fear) as contributing to who is labeled and removed for discipline reasons (largely poor students of color). Exclusionary discipline consequences are the primary medium used once students are sent from the classroom. The authors recommend substantial revisions to discipline policies consistent with models of positive behavior support.
Key Words: ethnic disproportionality • discipline policies • suspension • expulsion
Loyola University Chicago
Jennifer Rose
Loyola University Chicago
The overrepresentation of ethnic minority students, particularly African American males, in the exclusionary discipline consequences of suspension and expulsion has been consistently documented during the past three decades. Children of poverty and those with academic problems are also overrepresented in such discipline consequences. Sadly, a direct link between these exclusionary discipline consequences and entrance to prison has been documented and termed the school-to-prison pipeline for these most vulnerable students. In this article, the authors argue that ethnographic and interview data would support teachers' perceptions of loss of classroom control (and accompanying fear) as contributing to who is labeled and removed for discipline reasons (largely poor students of color). Exclusionary discipline consequences are the primary medium used once students are sent from the classroom. The authors recommend substantial revisions to discipline policies consistent with models of positive behavior support.
Key Words: ethnic disproportionality • discipline policies • suspension • expulsion
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Is Zero Tolerance going to far
ERO TOLERANCE POLICIES ARE NOT AS EFFECTIVE AS THOUGHT IN REDUCING VIOLENCE AND PROMOTING LEARNING IN SCHOOL, SAYS APA TASK FORCE
Research Finds that Mandatory Discipline Can Actually Increase Bad Behavior and Drop Out Rates in Middle and Secondary Students
NEW ORLEANS – A review of the school discipline research shows that zero tolerance policies developed in the 1980s to stop drug use and curtail unruly and violent behavior in schools are not as successful as thought in creating safer environments to learn. These policies, which mandate that schools severely punish disruptive students regardless of the infraction or its rationale, can actually increase bad behavior and also lead to higher drop out rates, according to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) report. Based on these results, the APA today adopted a resolution recommending ways to target discipline more effectively in order to keep schools safe while also eliminating the need for a one-size-fits-all punishment for misbehavior.
APA’s governing body, the Council of Representatives, commissioned the Zero Tolerance Task Force to examine the research conducted to date on the effects zero tolerance policies have on children in schools. The task force reviewed the last 10 years of research to determine whether these policies have made schools safer without taking away students’ opportunity to learn; whether they incorporated children’s development as a factor in types of discipline administered; and whether educators referred juveniles to the justice system too often with costly consequences. Lastly, the review showed how families and communities are affected by these policies.
According to the report’s findings, schools are not any safer or more effective in disciplining children than before these zero tolerance policies were implemented in the mid 1980s. The research also shows that while school violence is a serious issue, violence in schools is “not out-of-control.”
Furthermore, the evidence suggests that zero tolerance policies do not increase the consistency of discipline in schools. According to the report, rates of suspension and expulsion in schools vary widely and can actually increase disciplinary action for those students who are temporarily withdrawn from school. The research also shows that schools with higher rates of suspensions and expulsions have a less than satisfactory rating of climate and governance and spend a disproportionate amount of time disciplining students. The evidence also shows that zero tolerance policies have not been successful at decreasing racial biases in disciplining students. The report found that a disproportionate number of students of color are still overrepresented in expulsions and suspensions, especially for African Americans but also for Latinos. “This uneven representation of discipline,” said the report chair, Cecil Reynolds, PhD, professor at Texas A&M University, “may happen because neither teachers nor school safety or security personnel are trained to evaluate or understand cultural differences that may influence behavior.”
The zero tolerance policies also do not consider children’s lapses in judgment or developmental immaturity as a normal aspect of development, said Dr. Reynolds. “Many incidents that result in disciplinary action in school happen because of an adolescent’s or a child’s poor judgment—not due to an intention to do harm. Zero tolerance policies may exacerbate the normal challenges of adolescence and possibly punish a teenager more severely than warranted. Zero tolerance policies ignore the concept of intent even though this is a central theme in American concepts and systems of justice.” Evidence also shows that zero tolerance policies have increased referrals to the juvenile justice system for infractions once handled in the schools.
Having to go outside the school system to deal with an unruly adolescent puts more stress on families and communities who may already be involved with school personnel. According to the review, those parents and other family members with teenagers who get suspended or expelled from school end up spending more money on incarceration ($40,000.00 a year versus $7,000.00 for yearly education) once their children get involved with the justice system. Costs are also incurred if students drop out of school from uninsured medical expenses, welfare, and treatment for increases in mental health problems.
There are strategies, according to the report findings, that can target disciplinary actions to specific misbehaviors without giving up school safety and mandating all students to the same punishment. Three levels of intervention are offered as alternatives to the current zero tolerance policies. Primary prevention strategies could target all children. Secondary strategies could target those students who may be at-risk for violence or disruption and tertiary strategies could target those students who have already been involved in disruptive or violent behavior. Initial reports of these strategies show reduced office referrals, school suspensions and expulsions and improved ratings on measures of school climate. The APA report does not recommend abandoning Zero Tolerance Policies but rather their modification so they can actually accomplish their original intent, to make schools a safer, more secure environment for all students and teachers. Based on current research findings, the APA recommends the following changes to zero tolerance policies:
Allow more flexibility with discipline and rely more on teachers’ and administrators’ expertise within their own school buildings.
Have teachers and other professional staff be the first point of contact regarding discipline incidents.
Use zero tolerance disciplinary removals for only the most serious and severe disruptive behaviors.
Replace one-size-fits all discipline. Gear the discipline to the seriousness of the infraction.
Require school police and related security officers to have training in adolescent development.
Attempt to reconnect alienated youth or students who are at-risk for behavior problems or violence. Use threat assessment procedures to identify those at risk.
Develop effective alternatives for learning for those students whose behavior threatens the discipline or safety of the school that result in keeping offenders in the educational system, but also keep other students and teachers safe.
Task Force on Zero Tolerance: Chair: Cecil R. Reynolds, PhD, Texas A&M University; Jane Conoley, EdD, University of California at Santa Barbara; Enedina Garcia-Vazquez, PhD, New Mexico State University; Sandra Graham, PhD, University of California at Los Angeles; Peter Sheras, PhD, University of Virginia; and Russell Skiba, PhD, Indiana University.
Full text of the resolution is available at: http://www.apa.org/releases/ZTTFReportBODRevisions5-15.pdf
For more information/interview contact: Dr. Reynolds at 512-656-5075 or by email.
Research Finds that Mandatory Discipline Can Actually Increase Bad Behavior and Drop Out Rates in Middle and Secondary Students
NEW ORLEANS – A review of the school discipline research shows that zero tolerance policies developed in the 1980s to stop drug use and curtail unruly and violent behavior in schools are not as successful as thought in creating safer environments to learn. These policies, which mandate that schools severely punish disruptive students regardless of the infraction or its rationale, can actually increase bad behavior and also lead to higher drop out rates, according to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) report. Based on these results, the APA today adopted a resolution recommending ways to target discipline more effectively in order to keep schools safe while also eliminating the need for a one-size-fits-all punishment for misbehavior.
APA’s governing body, the Council of Representatives, commissioned the Zero Tolerance Task Force to examine the research conducted to date on the effects zero tolerance policies have on children in schools. The task force reviewed the last 10 years of research to determine whether these policies have made schools safer without taking away students’ opportunity to learn; whether they incorporated children’s development as a factor in types of discipline administered; and whether educators referred juveniles to the justice system too often with costly consequences. Lastly, the review showed how families and communities are affected by these policies.
According to the report’s findings, schools are not any safer or more effective in disciplining children than before these zero tolerance policies were implemented in the mid 1980s. The research also shows that while school violence is a serious issue, violence in schools is “not out-of-control.”
Furthermore, the evidence suggests that zero tolerance policies do not increase the consistency of discipline in schools. According to the report, rates of suspension and expulsion in schools vary widely and can actually increase disciplinary action for those students who are temporarily withdrawn from school. The research also shows that schools with higher rates of suspensions and expulsions have a less than satisfactory rating of climate and governance and spend a disproportionate amount of time disciplining students. The evidence also shows that zero tolerance policies have not been successful at decreasing racial biases in disciplining students. The report found that a disproportionate number of students of color are still overrepresented in expulsions and suspensions, especially for African Americans but also for Latinos. “This uneven representation of discipline,” said the report chair, Cecil Reynolds, PhD, professor at Texas A&M University, “may happen because neither teachers nor school safety or security personnel are trained to evaluate or understand cultural differences that may influence behavior.”
The zero tolerance policies also do not consider children’s lapses in judgment or developmental immaturity as a normal aspect of development, said Dr. Reynolds. “Many incidents that result in disciplinary action in school happen because of an adolescent’s or a child’s poor judgment—not due to an intention to do harm. Zero tolerance policies may exacerbate the normal challenges of adolescence and possibly punish a teenager more severely than warranted. Zero tolerance policies ignore the concept of intent even though this is a central theme in American concepts and systems of justice.” Evidence also shows that zero tolerance policies have increased referrals to the juvenile justice system for infractions once handled in the schools.
Having to go outside the school system to deal with an unruly adolescent puts more stress on families and communities who may already be involved with school personnel. According to the review, those parents and other family members with teenagers who get suspended or expelled from school end up spending more money on incarceration ($40,000.00 a year versus $7,000.00 for yearly education) once their children get involved with the justice system. Costs are also incurred if students drop out of school from uninsured medical expenses, welfare, and treatment for increases in mental health problems.
There are strategies, according to the report findings, that can target disciplinary actions to specific misbehaviors without giving up school safety and mandating all students to the same punishment. Three levels of intervention are offered as alternatives to the current zero tolerance policies. Primary prevention strategies could target all children. Secondary strategies could target those students who may be at-risk for violence or disruption and tertiary strategies could target those students who have already been involved in disruptive or violent behavior. Initial reports of these strategies show reduced office referrals, school suspensions and expulsions and improved ratings on measures of school climate. The APA report does not recommend abandoning Zero Tolerance Policies but rather their modification so they can actually accomplish their original intent, to make schools a safer, more secure environment for all students and teachers. Based on current research findings, the APA recommends the following changes to zero tolerance policies:
Allow more flexibility with discipline and rely more on teachers’ and administrators’ expertise within their own school buildings.
Have teachers and other professional staff be the first point of contact regarding discipline incidents.
Use zero tolerance disciplinary removals for only the most serious and severe disruptive behaviors.
Replace one-size-fits all discipline. Gear the discipline to the seriousness of the infraction.
Require school police and related security officers to have training in adolescent development.
Attempt to reconnect alienated youth or students who are at-risk for behavior problems or violence. Use threat assessment procedures to identify those at risk.
Develop effective alternatives for learning for those students whose behavior threatens the discipline or safety of the school that result in keeping offenders in the educational system, but also keep other students and teachers safe.
Task Force on Zero Tolerance: Chair: Cecil R. Reynolds, PhD, Texas A&M University; Jane Conoley, EdD, University of California at Santa Barbara; Enedina Garcia-Vazquez, PhD, New Mexico State University; Sandra Graham, PhD, University of California at Los Angeles; Peter Sheras, PhD, University of Virginia; and Russell Skiba, PhD, Indiana University.
Full text of the resolution is available at: http://www.apa.org/releases/ZTTFReportBODRevisions5-15.pdf
For more information/interview contact: Dr. Reynolds at 512-656-5075 or by email.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Zero Tolerance or Zero Sense
Zero Tolerance, 100 Percent Control
by William L. Anderson
In its daily editorial website, the Wall Street Journal keeps a running tabulation of the “zero tolerance” inanity that has swept public schools in this country. From the suspension of a third grade boy in Monroe, Louisiana, for drawing a picture of a soldier to the high school honor student kicked out of school because someone saw a dull table knife in her car, we are treated to accounts of “education” bureaucrats running amok.
The stories are treated with a humorous tone, largely in part because the actions of school administrators seem to be so ridiculous that it is hard not to laugh. One is tempted to believe that if the WSJ or other publications run enough of these stories, then the bureaucrats will be so shamed that they will stop this insanity. However, “zero tolerance” runs much deeper than what seems to be the case, as it is just one more tool that the public school establishment employs to control people. We ignore this truth at our own peril.
School administrators and school boards defend “zero tolerance” on the grounds that they are simply trying to prevent another Columbine High School copycat massacre. However, “zero tolerance” policies would never have prevented the Columbine murders in the first place, something that both the supporters and critics of these policies have failed to point out.
Before explaining why “zero tolerance” cannot prevent the kind of outrages we saw at Columbine, we need to examine that particular case. The two perpetrators, Dylan Kliebold and Eric Harris, had already skipped morning classes and entered the school building at the lunch hour. Therefore, even if they had been suspended from school for utterances or threats of violence on their web site, nothing would have prevented them from invading the school in the manner they did.
Furthermore, it is doubtful that the school authorities would have had any reason to suspend them at all. All of the planning done by the boys was in secret; the problem was not lack of school oversight, but a lack of interest by their parents in what their children were doing. Kliebold and Harris engaged in a surprise attack against unarmed teachers and students, which is why there were so many casualties.
Two teenage boys who most likely had no business being in school in the first place carried out the Columbine outrage. That is a far cry from seven-year-old boys being suspended for saying “bang,” or kicking a child out of school for drawing a soldier. Likewise, keeping an honor student from graduating because a table knife was in her car is not how one prevents bloodshed on school grounds.
It is hard to imagine that even public- school bureaucrats are so dull and witless that they cannot figure out what is obvious to everyone else. (I do give some leeway here, since some of the dullest and most witless people I have ever known have been public-school bureaucrats. One should never underestimate their potential for ignorance and stupidity.)
If “zero tolerance” does not prevent school violence – and most likely no one believes that it does – then why do school administrators insist of having such policies? I believe there are two answers to this question, the first being that officials believe such policies might help blunt liability charges should violence occur. The second (and this is much more likely) reason is that “zero tolerance” is a way for school bureaucrats to engage in mind control.
Few things strike more fear into school bureaucrats than trial lawyers, and one cannot blame anyone for trying to keep this class of parasites at bay. However, even if a school has the most restrictive policies in the world, the way that US judges have defined liability these past few decades means that no matter what one does, if a problem occurs, the property “owner” is at fault, period. The current legal climate actually makes such policies useless in avoiding liability.
Thus, we get to the most important reason for “zero tolerance” rules. They are a very effective way of controlling both children and, to a lesser extent, their parents. Like those in our culture who have defined deviancy downward, school bureaucrats are able to use these rules to create new categories of deviants who must be “cured” by the state if they are to return to decent society.
Take the youngster in Monroe, Louisiana, for example. The boy’s father is in the US Army, and the boy simply was drawing a likeness of him. While no one at the school was remotely threatened by this drawing, the fact that school officials suspended the boy and labeled him “potentially violent” has the effect of clouding the child with suspicion. He begins to wonder if, indeed, he is as bad as his teachers say that he is. This child, then, is a perfect candidate for the kind of indoctrination that has become famous at public schools.
No doubt, many children who have been severely punished under “zero tolerance” policies have found themselves in what are basically “rehabilitation” classes. For example, the honor student in Florida who had the table knife in her car has now been labeled as someone who might be dangerous. To repair her own record, school officials are going to insist that she receive some sort of indoctrination in order to “prove” to them that she is not going to harm anyone.
If this whole thing seems to be something out of Franz Kafka’s “The Trial,” it is because the same principle is at work. Kafka’s main character, who was on trial but was never made aware of his offense, ultimately sees himself as guilty. In the same way, school bureaucrats seek to make children who are of no threat to anyone suddenly think of themselves as deviant and potentially violent and to be in need of “cleansing” by the proper authorities.
If this seems far-fetched, remember that as students ourselves, we drew guns in art class, got in fights, and made “I’m going to kill you” threats regularly. Yet, no one called the police or had us suspended. A fight may have earned us a trip to the principal’s office, but that was about the extent of it.
Those days are gone forever. Whatever excesses we may have found in public-school systems 30 years ago, they were nothing compared to the totalitarian attitudes that are found in administrators and teachers, especially those who are active in the National Education Association. Instead of being the brainchild of overzealous administrators trying to keep peace in the schools, “zero tolerance” policies must be seen in the light of the current zeitgeist of public education, that being the worship of the state. Indeed, “zero tolerance” rules do not prevent violence. They are, instead, another example of the state’s violence against decent and law-abiding people.
June 7, 2001
William L. Anderson, Ph.D. [send him mail], is assistant professor of economics at North Greenville College in Tigerville, South Carolina. He is an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
© 2001 LewRockwell.com
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