Common Sense For School Administrators

Ms. Cornelius of A Shrewdness of Apes has some advice that really should be read by school administrators and wannabees:

1. Have meetings only if you have something to say. Holding meetings for the sake of holding meetings, or to show the higher-ups that you hold regular meetings, wastes valuable time for everyone. This is especially important in the days before the school year actually starts. Teachers are trying to get their classrooms ready-- sometimes after the summer maintenance staff has broken or misplaced half of their belongings-- and the last thing they need is for you to read a Powerpoint presentation to them like they are preschoolers.

And how do you find something to say? Walk out amongst us, into the school, into the classroom, into the hallways. Stay current on what's going on in education. Ask people what they need and what they think. Then take that seriously.

2. Telling a room full of people you appreciate them is very nice indeed. Telling five individuals on your staff you appreciate something specific they have done is far nicer.

Of course it requires more work, not to mention attention to detail. But consider what you ask your teachers and staff to do in the course of every school day. This can be done. It SHOULD be done. And it shouldn't be done just to people who hang around your office. This behavior also shows that you know what is going on in the classrooms and hallways.

Please consider going over to her place and reading the whole thing.

Those or you who are school administrators or admin wannabees (but more especially those a who have little or no classroom teaching experience themselves) can save yourselves a whole lot of time by giving some serious thought about what Ms. Cornelius has to say.

You'll be a better leader for it.

Merit Pay Chronicles: A Teacher Speaks!

Maria Neira is a former classroom teacher who runs a teachers union in New York State. Consider reading what she has to say on the subject of teacher pay based on test scores:

Fully understanding last week's battle in Albany over whether student test scores should be used to determine which teachers earn tenure requires a broader appreciation of what it means to be a classroom teacher.

Too often, teachers' views on classroom issues are not taken seriously. School boards, think tanks, politicians, business leaders and other self-styled educational experts all think they know our jobs better than we do.

Former American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker would warn that these powerful figures were sending teachers a message: Be obedient. Keep your mouth shut. Don't rock the boat.

Yet, too often, teachers must rock the boat, such as when school boards and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to muscle the Legislature into allowing a flawed plan to use student test scores in making tenure decisions.

The assessments, given in third through eighth grades, are designed to measure students' progress in math and English language arts. They are not designed as tools for evaluating teachers' knowledge, classroom management skills, ability to collaborate with other teachers or efforts to involve parents.

In addition to excluding guidance counselors, physical education teachers and those who teach grades -- or subjects -- that are not tested (a point few ever considered), inappropriately linking test scores and tenure would also discourage new teachers from taking assignments in high-need school districts.

If your career is riding on how a handful of students answer questions on a single test in mid-January -- and you have no control over the resources available to you, or your students' health care or home circumstances -- wouldn't you choose to teach children who don't face educational challenges?

A better way to determine which teachers get tenure is for administrators to take their supervisory responsibilities seriously. Good administrators regularly observe new teachers at work, make suggestions for improvement and follow up to see if their teachers incorporate those suggestions into practice.

Probationary teachers should also receive meaningful professional development, mentoring and peer support, and should know how to use test results to diagnose student learning problems and, if necessary, to reshape their instructional practices. The most important decision about a teacher's career should follow a thoughtful, comprehensive review of the teacher's skills, not be based on a simple snapshot.

Every day, it seems, teachers have to fend off ideas from so-called experts who have never worked a day in a school. And then, when the teachers union -- the voice of the profession -- objects, they accuse the union of being the problem and begin the finger-pointing and public shaming.

Can you imagine the reaction of corporate CEOs or prominent doctors at big research hospitals if teachers weighed in on their business models or medical therapies and made decisions without their input?

How would they like it if they had no opportunity to use their professional judgment, were micromanaged from afar, denied the resources they know they need and then were told they are not working hard enough?

You can almost hear them protesting that teachers don't have the necessary expertise in finance or medicine to make those kinds of changes. They would be outraged.

To end the achievement gap and improve school performance, there must be recognition that teachers and their union aren't the problem; they are the solution. Instead of marginalizing teachers, teachers must be part of the dialogue -- from the very start.

As professionals, teachers should be equal partners and at the center of decisions that affect their profession and, more importantly, the lives of their students. When teachers -- and, for that matter, parents -- are pushed to the sidelines, students are the ones who pay the heaviest price.

Teachers believe in accountability for what they can control and welcome the meaningful, true accountability that comes with having a place at the table.

True accountability is done with teachers -- not to them. It is only possible when educators have a voice in setting the standards and benchmarks upon which accountability is based. Until then, teachers and their unions are going to be passionate, persistent advocates for the alternative -- standards and policies that make sense and benefit our students and the profession.

To get to that point, you can bet teachers will continue to rock the boat -- on tenure, and all the issues that impact learning and teaching.

Maria Neira, a former New York City elementary school teacher, is vice president of New York State United Teachers. She lives in Loudonville.

Agree or disagree, what Ms. Neira has to say is definately thought-provoking.

Texas Teacher Shortage?

They're crying out for teachers in the Lone Star State:

Each day, students of different races, genders, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds enter the nation's classrooms. Unfortunately, for some, these factors may work against them - especially in urban areas.

According to TCU's [Texas Christian University] Center for Urban Education, urban schools - those schools with low socioeconomic and/or predominantly minority students - have the most critical shortages of qualified teachers and, therefore, the most openings for college graduates.

The center is designed to help meet this need by training future teachers to help them succeed in urban schools.

"Urban communities are in the state of making sure that all children are successful," said Jennifer Brooks, director of TCU's Center for Urban Education. "We must work and make sure they have teachers who are qualified and have experiences to make them successful."

A study by The Education Trust, an advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., found that in the nation's high-poverty schools, 34 percent of secondary classes in core academic subjects are assigned to teachers who lack a college minor in the subject.

You should consider reading the whole thing.

In a society where one's social status is directly related to one's take-home pay, maybe our best and brightest college graduates will choose to serve in the classroom when and if they can earn half-way decent wages for themselves and their family.

When Girls Go Stupid

What more can be said about this crime? And what can be done to stop the stupidity of this type of made-for-video violence?

When They're Too Cool For School

Sad But True.

Heh. It's just a matter of time before those all-knowing Washington lawmakers and their associates accomplices over at The Kingdom Of Spellings will attempt to legislate an attitude-change for America's youth.

Censorchimps: The East Texas Subspecies

Who would've thought that wearing a "John Edwards for President" T-shirt would get a kid suspended from high school? The lawsuit was inevitable:

A Waxahachie High School sophomore is suing the school district for the right to wear a T-shirt supporting John Edwards as a 2008 presidential candidate.

The Liberty Legal Institute on Tuesday announced that it was suing the Waxahachie Independent School District on behalf of Pete Palmer and his parents.

According to an institute representative, the district violated Palmer's constitutional right to free speech when it sent him home from school in October for wearing the shirt, threatening him with suspension if he did so again.

The suit seeks permission for Palmer to wear the shirt on campus, as well as unspecified monetary damages and reimbursement of the student's legal fees, according to the institute.

"I just think they’re wrong," Palmer said during an October interview with FOX 4 News. "And I just think it’s an incorrect policy and it needs to be changed."

WISD Superintendent Thomas J. Collins said that shirts with political slogans are against dress code policy, which is clearly posted online.

“It had nothing to do with trying to stifle anyone’s free speech,” Collins said.

When I first saw this story, I thought that it might have been an April Fools' prank.

Nope.

You can follow this link to get to the backstory. And there's more here.

D.C.'s Gangster Education

In today's Washington Post, Colbert I. King let's us know how bad it has gotten in many of the public schools in our nation's capital:

"Security at Wilson High to Be Tightened" announced a headline in The Post's March 21 Metro section. More stringent measures were being put in place after 13 students were arrested because of two fights that week, the story said.

I first visited Woodrow Wilson High School 52 years ago as a 155-pound guard on Dunbar High School's football team. We played the Wilson Tigers to a 13-13 tie. Back then, student clashes were largely governed by rules and referees and limited to the athletic field.

Today, they play war in the cafeteria.

To reduce the violence, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee wrote in a letter to parents that when Wilson students return from spring break on Monday, they will stay in their classrooms for lunch. Rhee told me in an interview Wednesday that the "classroom lunch" will last for two days "while the school finalizes plans for a new lunch structure."

How did the District's once premier high school end up like this? It didn't happen overnight. And Wilson's sad state shouldn't surprise the city's powers.

On March 1, Mai Abdul Rahman, the mother of a Wilson student, sent Rhee an e-mail laying bare the problem.

Rahman sent copies to Mayor Adrian Fenty; the deputy mayor for education, Victor Reinoso; the D.C. public school ombudsman, Tonya Kinlow; D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray; Mary Cheh, who represents Ward 3, where Wilson is located, on the D.C. Council; as well as The Post and another local paper.

Rahman described an assault on her son that occurred Feb. 26 in Wilson's gym during lunch recess:

He "walked unaccompanied into the gym [and] found himself surrounded by five 9th grade students. . . . For several minutes they proceeded to punch him in the face until two 12th graders broke it up."

"On the same day," Rahman wrote, "a 9th grade student was also 'jumped,' a term used to describe the violent assault action of one group that belong to a gang as they hit and maim their lonely victim. All these violent crimes occurred a day after Wilson security had discovered a gun that was found through the metal detector scanner in a student's bag."

Of her son, Rahman wrote: "The doctor says he was lucky to escape a skull fracture or loss of vision or hearing. He was instructed to recover at home with pain and swelling medication, ointments and a sun lamp to loosen the blood clots and facial trauma he has suffered."

The e-mail continued: "This school year, Wilson has had a rash of violent student assaults and countless number of robberies. I am sure you are aware that our students are often victims of the same crime two or three times. . . . So far in the last three weeks both the Hawk security guards and D.C. police have confirmed to me that they have made 4 arrests of students in the school facilities for a combination of assaults and other criminal activities."

Rahman said that she was concerned that some Wilson students have been subjected to "terror and violence," that teachers and staff weren't present to protect students, that security guards are few and poorly trained, and that security cameras are poorly placed and vandalized.

She pointed to teenagers who roam hallways and the gym, looking for others to prey upon. "Most lack the proper tools to maintain class interest and focus, so they are rarely in class to the delight of most teachers who are tired of the discipline issues."

Things are so out of hand, Rahman wrote in a follow-up e-mail, "that assailants at Wilson often capture their attacks by video and circulate them with little fear of being caught and these videos that offensively chronicle their attacks are being used" to intimidate "all those who dare challenge their assailants."

In her e-mail, Rahman pleaded for more trained staff and services at Wilson.

Rahman, who is active in the PTA, is a doctoral candidate in urban school reform at Howard University. She echoed the worries of other Wilson parents.

Her initial e-mail to Rhee had about as much impact as a mosquito biting an elephant's hide. Sure, there was plenty of huffin' and puffin' -- expressions of sympathy, promises of meetings and committees to do this and that.

But without Rahman's persistence, her son's chief attacker -- an 18-year-old ninth-grader -- would not have been arrested and expelled.

So what? This youth was detained at the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services "Youth Services Center" for one night and released to his home the following day.

Perhaps that's a good outcome for him. But it's bad news for the children who want to learn.

Rhee now understands what she's got on her hands.

She is giving Wilson more security officers, closing the school to further enrollment and adopting a zero-tolerance policy that can get disruptive students expelled. She is meeting with staff members from Youth Rehabilitation Services to work out better arrangements for dealing with DYRS-supervised youths who are entering public schools. Some parents believe -- wrongly, Rhee says -- that DYRS youths in public schools are the source of the problem.

News for Rhee: The problem is not confined to Wilson.

Here's some more news for Rhee: the problem of out-of-control students isn't confined to the D.C. public school system.

'Tis The Season For Parents And Kids To Be Scammed

As the parent of a 16-year-old (the TeenWonk) high school junior that has a 4.35 G.P.A., we've been getting a number of so-called "nominations" for inclusion in this or that "national honor roll," "who's-who book," and, of course, the United States Achievement Academy.

The "nominations" were made by her well-intentioned (but unknowing) teachers, who think that they are doing the kids a favor by so "honoring" them with inclusions in these various national honor rolls and "who's-who books."

What the teachers are doing, instead, is a (unintentional) disservice to their students. They aren't just setting the kids' parents up to spend money in order to buy these who's-who books, but worse, far worse, the teachers are setting the kids and parents up to receive a flood of junk mail.

Sadly, many teachers and parents don't know that most (and quite possibly all) of these "honor" outfits are scams.

Go here and read this very illuminating piece by a New York City doctor who did a little homework on these companies. Then read this little eye-opening followup.

And then take a look at how the Better Business Bureau of Kentucky describes the so-called "United States Achievement Academy." Be sure to scroll-down and see the list of "other names" that this business operates under.

Vanity Publisher Indeed.

Helicopter Parents Vs. Stinger Teachers

When are "involved parents" too involved? In one Maryland district, the fur is flying between some parents and a number of teachers:

The Baltimore Sun ran an article on Tuesday about parental involvement taken to the extreme. The trigger was an annual survey by the Howard County Education Association that shows a majority of teachers say they have been subjected to harassment, and most of the harassment is done by parents.

You should really read the whole thing and follow their links.

George F. Will Gets Beyond NCLB

From tomorrow's Washington Post George Will writes:

No Child Left Behind, supposedly an antidote to the "soft bigotry of low expectations," has instead spawned lowered standards. The law will eventually be reauthorized because doubling down on losing bets is what Washington does. But because NCLB contains incentives for perverse behavior, reauthorization should include legislation empowering states to ignore it.

NCLB was passed in 2001 as an extension of the original mistake, President Lyndon Johnson's Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which became law in the year of liberals living exuberantly -- 1965, when Great Society excesses sowed the seeds of conservatism's subsequent ascendancy. ESEA was the first large Washington intrusion into education K through 12.

NCLB was supported by Republicans reluctant to vastly expand that intrusion but even more reluctant to oppose a new president's signature issue. This expansion of Washington's role in the quintessential state and local responsibility was problematic for three reasons.

First, most new ideas are dubious, so the federalization of policy increases the probability of continentwide mistakes. Second, education is susceptible to pedagogic fads and social engineering fantasies -- schools of education incubate them -- so it is prone to producing continental regrets. Third, America always is more likely to have a few wise state governments than a wise federal government.

With mandated data collections -- particularly tests of "adequate yearly progress" in reading and math -- NCLB was supposed to generate information that would enable schools to be held accountable for cognitive outputs commensurate with federal financial inputs. Bad data would make schools blush and reform.

Fourteen months ago, the president said, "The gap is closing. . . . How do we know? Because we're measuring." But about those measurements . . .

NCLB requires states to identify, by criteria they devise, "persistently dangerous schools." But what state wants that embarrassment? The Post recently reported that last year, of America's approximately 94,000 public schools, the "persistently dangerous" numbered 46. There were none among the 9,000 schools in amazingly tranquil California.

NCLB's crucial provisions concern testing to measure yearly progress toward the goal of "universal proficiency" in math and reading by 2014. This goal is America's version of Soviet grain quotas, solemnly avowed but not seriously constraining. Most states retain the low standards they had before; some have defined proficiency down.

So says "The Proficiency Illusion," a report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which studies education reform. Its findings include:

The rationale for standards-based reform was that expectations would become more rigorous and uniform, but states' proficiency tests vary "wildly" in difficulty, "with 'passing scores' ranging from the 6th percentile to the 77th." Indeed, "half of the reported improvement in reading, and 70 percent of the reported improvement in mathematics, appear idiosyncratic to the state test." In some states, tests have become more demanding; but in twice as many states, the tests in at least two grades have become easier. NCLB encourages schools to concentrate their efforts on the relatively small number of students near the state test's proficiency minimum -- the students who can most help the state meet its "adequate yearly progress" requirements.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a Republican who represents western Michigan's culturally cohesive Dutch Calvinist communities, opposed NCLB from the start because he thought it would "tear apart the bond between the schools and the local communities." He believes the reauthorized version of NCLB will "gut" accountability. He is gloomily sanguine about that because he thinks accountability belongs at the local level anyway and because removing meaningful accountability removes NCLB's raison d'etre. He proposes giving states the option of submitting to Washington a "Declaration of Intent" to reclaim full responsibility for K-12 education. Such states would receive their portion of K-12 funds as block grants.

But Rep. Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican, warns that Washington, with its unsleeping hunger for control, steadily attaches multiple strings to block grants. He proposes to allow states to opt out from under NCLB's mandates and regulations and to give residents of those states tax credits equal to the portion of their taxes their state would have received back in federal funds for K-12 education. Garrett thinks that this could be a template for states to escape many entanglements with Washington.

NCLB intensified what Paul Posner of George Mason University calls "coercive federalism." Kenneth Wong and Gail Sunderman of Brown University and the Harvard Civil Rights Project, respectively, say NCLB "signaled the end of 'layer cake' federalism and strengthened the notion of 'marble cake' federalism, where the national and subnational governments share responsibilities in the domestic arena." Hoekstra's and Garrett's proposals would enable states to push Washington toward where it once was and where it belongs regarding K through 12 education: Out.

Ever since I was a young TeenWonk, I've observed that no matter which political party was in charge in Washington, the federal government just got bigger.

And that was true even when Ronald Reagan occupied the White House in spite of the fact that he publicly expressed his desire to abolish the Department of Education.

If past behavior is the best indicator of future performance, I think that I know what the future holds for the vast Washington EduCracy that has sprung up ever since Jimmy Carter created this Administrative Empire Department back in 1980.

It's just going to get bigger still while becoming ever more intrusive and dictatorial. All the while the Department will continue loudly screeching about the need to hold others (especially those who actually work with children) "accountable" for what goes on in the classroom. Meanwhile they will continue exempting themselves from any accountability whatsoever when it comes their own regrettable lack of substance or success.

U.S. Students Not Comparing Well With Others

It seems as though American students continue underperforming when compared to many of their international peers:

Finland and South Korea have topped the world in a new student ranking survey.

According to the OECD, the two countries lead the world when it comes to education, especially in reading and science.

In particular, Finnish students ranked top in science, while South Korean teenagers were first for reading.

The results come from the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment, which yearly tests 400,000 15-year-olds in 57 countries.

The students are tested on mathematics, literacy, and particularly on their knowledge of science.

The United States, Spain and Italy were among the 32 countries whose education was found to be below the average.

Over at the National Center for Education Statistics, they have this:(emphasis added)

Highlights from PISA 2006: Performance of U.S. 15-Year-Old Students in Science and Mathematics Literacy in an International Context

This report summarizes the performance of U.S. students on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), comparing the scores of U.S. 15-year-old students in science and mathematics literacy to the scores of their peers internationally in 2006.

PISA, first implemented in 2000, is sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental agency of 30 member countries. In 2006, fifty-seven jurisdictions participated in PISA, including 30 OECD jurisdictions and 27 non-OECD jurisdictions.

The results show the average combined science literacy scale score for U.S. students to be lower than the OECD average. U.S. students scored lower on science literacy than their peers in 16 of the other 29 OECD jurisdictions and 6 of the 27 non-OECD jurisdictions. Twenty-two jurisdictions (5 OECD jurisdictions and 17 non-OECD jurisdictions) reported lower scores compared to the United States in science literacy.

On the mathematics literacy scale, U.S. students scored lower than the OECD average. Thirty-one jurisdictions (23 OECD jurisdictions and 8 non-OECD jurisdictions) scored higher on average, than the United States in mathematics literacy in 2006. In contrast, 20 jurisdictions (4 OECD jurisdictions and 16 non-OECD jurisdictions) scored lower than the United States in mathematics literacy in 2006.

Differences in student performance based on the selected student characteristics of sex and race/ethnicity are also examined. Following the presentation of results, a technical appendix describes the study design, data collection, and analysis procedures that guided the administration of PISA 2006 in the United States and in the other participating jurisdictions.

Get the full report at the bottom of this page.

Not surprisingly, Queen Of All Testing And Classroom Teacher Accountability U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is not happy with the results:

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) today released results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). PISA assesses science, math and reading skills of 15-year-old students in the principal industrialized countries every three years. In 2006, all 30 OECD-member countries and 27 additional countries and other jurisdictions (e.g., Hong Kong) participated in PISA.

Regarding the 2006 PISA results, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings today made the following statement:

The PISA results released today offer additional data on how America's students are stacking up against their peers in other countries. With scores flat since 2003, the U.S. continues to score below the OECD average and in the middle of all countries assessed.

While disappointing, it speaks to what President Bush has long been advocating for: more rigor in our nation's high schools; additional resources for advanced courses to prepare students for college-level studies; and stronger math and science education. In fact, students are being assessed in science under No Child Left Behind this school year. And, the President has proposed making science assessments an element of states' accountability calculations.

Through such initiatives as the Academic Competitiveness Council and National Math Panel, we're bringing research-based strategies and best practices into our classrooms. By equipping educators with more data to customize instruction, we're laying the groundwork to strengthen math and science education. It's the right course for our students and our workforce.

We're surprised that Queen Secretary Spellings didn't incorporate her pet phrase "In God We Trust All Others Bring Data" into the Department of Education's press release.

Here's a thought: Maybe someone should hold her accountable for this chronic underperformance...

Not likely, given this administration's demonstrated propensity to overlook poor performance at the top.

It seems as though those of us who serve in the classroom are the only ones who get hammered for low test scores "underperformance."

Babies Having Babies: Now A Generational Problem

While I was reading this Iowa story about the 29-year-old grandmother, I wanted to tear my hair out in clumps:

Quad-City area teenagers are still having babies. But the good news is that fewer teens are doing so across the region — and in Iowa, Illinois and the United States as a whole — than 10 years ago.

Some say the teens who are having babies seem to be getting younger and younger, including a few junior high or middle school students, but the most recent state health department

statistics available do not closely track the ages of teen parents.

What the statistics do show is an overall decline in births among people younger than 20 years since about 1995.

And then there are stories such as Celia’s.

She sits clad in pink Eeyore pajamas, flipping through channels from her hospital bed.

The room is dark and quiet, just right for sleeping. But Celia Magee is wide-awake. She can’t stop looking down at the tiny boy cradled in her left arm.

“I don’t know even what color his eyes are yet,” she says. “He never opens his eyes.”

Russell Eugene is 1 day old.

His mother is 15.

She fidgets with a bottle of milk as she talks.

She can’t wait to get back into her old clothes. When will the baby weight go away?

And shopping. She loves to shop. She can’t believe her son already has more new clothes than she does.

Then, sitting up straighter in bed, she asks, “When do you think I can play basketball again? I want to go out for the team at school.”

She can’t yet imagine the sleepless nights, the responsibility.

Until a few days ago, Celia’s bedroom was the biggest in the house.

And she didn’t have to share it with anyone.

The big bed, the colorful comforter set, the fluffy pillows: She loved it all.

But the teen especially loved the sense of family, and the tranquility, that came with it.

For six months, Celia lived at the new Brighter Futures Maternity Home, which operates from a house in Davenport.

She had to find somewhere to live because her mother was so angry, she says.

And it turned out to be a good choice. The house parents and volunteers treated her like family. She still talks to them almost every day now that she has moved out.

Celia, who moved in when she was three months pregnant, was the first to finish the program and have her baby while living in the home.

“That was a special bond,” said Tammy Ryan, a member of the home’s board of directors and the resident child birth assistant and educator. “I got to know a lot about her.”

Celia’s mother, Leticia Magee, always warned her to never get pregnant. It would complicate things, she said.

Leticia is a grandmother at 29. She was 13 — a seventh-grader — and living in Chicago when she gave birth to her oldest child.

She lived with her grandmother and named the baby after her: Celia.

“I was determined to finish high school, but college wasn’t for me,” she said. “I was 20 when I had my next child.”

Now she has four: Celia; 9-year-old Romeo Johnson, 4-year-old Ramone Johnson and 1-year-old Romello Johnson.

She always urged Celia to tell her if she was having sex so she could arrange birth control for her.

But when Celia did tell her, it was too late. They found out during a doctor’s appointment that she was already pregnant.

“I cried,” Leticia said. “I was upset.”

Celia said she could not believe it, either.

She and Russell’s dad are not together. They are more like friends, she said.

Celia has known her own father, who lives in Chicago, only since she was 10.

She and Russell are living with her mother and three little brothers in the Lincoln Homes complex in Rock Island, where the family moved five years ago.

They left Chicago after Leticia heard about a friend moving to the Quad-Cities and how much low-income housing was available.

She wants to open a beauty shop, but for now she stays home with her youngest sons and new grandson.

Back at home with her mother and brothers, Celia — wearing pajamas and a do-rag that covers her hair — holds the baby. Her tank top shows off two black tattoos on her arms.

One, which winds down her forearm, reads “Tish,” her mom’s nickname. Another, below her shoulder, reads “Manica Magee,” which is the teen’s rap name.

Leticia told the girl she could get inked if she kept her grades up. They went to Chicago to get it done.

“She earned them,” Leticia said, nodding her head.

Celia writes rap songs in her spare time, but she does not foresee making a living by doing that.

“I want to do computers,” she said, or maybe health occupations.

Leticia wanted Celia “to have more out of life” than becoming a teenage parent.

“But anything can happen,” she said. “I want her to go to college.”

Her mother admits that sometimes she is “too much of a friend than a parent” to her daughter, who turned 16 on Oct. 18.

“Everybody’s gotta make their own decisions and your own choices, too,” Leticia said. “But she’s cool. She’s gonna be all right.”

Celia was supposed to return to Rock Island High School six weeks after having the baby Sept. 26.

But she and her mother say there was a mix-up with the credits she earned from the Kimberly Center in the Davenport School District while staying at the maternity home.

Celia finally returned to school Nov. 13, but not at Rocky. Now, she’s going to the district’s Thurgood Marshall alternative school, which offers “credit recovery,” she said.

By the end of the school year, she should qualify to start back in August as a junior at Rocky, she said. She is taking basic courses such as math, health, English and physical education.

And she’s dog-tired most days.

Russell — almost 2 months old now, wide-eyed and alert — does not sleep much at night.

“He got his days mixed up,” she said, gently rubbing Vaseline on his little face. “He sleeps all day. I try to switch him around, but he won’t.”

The baby has cradle cap on his scalp, too, she says. Her mother tells her not to worry: The baby will grow out of it.

So she tries to focus on school, but mostly she thinks about gym class.

“You can leave early, but I stay,” she said. “I play basketball.”

The hoops are unlike the ones near her apartment where people hang on the metal rims and bend them. At school, they’re just right.

She can’t wait to get back.

It's hard to know where to begin with this one. I feel so sorry for the kids who have to operate under such intolerable circumstances.

What's happened to our urban culture when so many young women don't seem to see that there is a problem with having children with multiple men? And what can be done to remedy the situation?

Worse, the so-called "fathers" who produce these children often give little, or no, financial support for their offspring.

But what must surely be the worst of all is that these "fathers" very rarely bother to invest any of their time with the kids. Consequently, these youngsters have few, if any, positive male role-models in their home lives, not to mention the structure that in-the-home dads usually provide for their children.

And for the sake of my own peace of mind, I'm not even going to delve into the sad fact that so many people who don't seem to be able to earn enough money to support themselves and their kids all-too-often seem to have enough cash on hand to pay for tattoos and other alleged body art.

And yes, according to the federally-imposed No Child Left Behind Act, the schools are solely responsible for ensuring that the children of such "parents" attain grade-level proficiency in reading, math, and science.

Banning 'Lil Ghosts And Goblins At The School House Door

Halloween is still weeks away. But already in Colorado the PC crowd has begun its campaign to suppress yet another harmless childhood rite of passage:

BROOMFIELD - There won't be little ghosts and goblins at Kohl Elementary School this Halloween.

In a newsletter sent home to parents, Principal Cindy Kaier wrote that the traditional Halloween party celebrated in classrooms each year will be replaced by a fall party on Friday.

And because the party is focused on fall, not Halloween, children can't wear costumes.

Parents expressed frustration that they weren't included in the decision.

Brook Kimber said it's hard to explain a random Oct. 5 party to a child.

The decision came after a discussion that culminated in an "emotional" meeting with teachers that focused on school holiday parties and how Kohl could continue to celebrate without leaving out anyone.

What's next? Is somebody going to say that we can't celebrate the 4th of July because it might offend the English?

The Spellings Report: Pushing NCLB

The nation's report card has just come out and Queen of All Testing U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is positively giddy over the news:

"Student achievement is on the rise," said Secretary Spellings. "No Child Left Behind is working. It's doable, reasonable and necessary. Any efforts to weaken accountability would fly in the face of rising achievement."

Spellings noted that 48 states and the District of Columbia either improved academically or held steady in all categories.

"To those who would suggest that No Child Left Behind is not working, our nation's 4th- and 8th-graders and their teachers just proved the naysayers wrong," Spellings added. "Math scores for 4th- and 8th-graders and the reading scores for 4th-graders are at historic highs and the biggest gains were made by African American and Hispanic students."

More than 700,000 students nationwide participated in the 2007 Nation's Report Card on reading and math, and they represented a diverse student population, including one-third minority students and a growing proportion of English language learners.

"At a time when our student population is becoming more diverse, educators and students are rising to the challenge and excelling in the classroom," Spellings said. "I'm pleased with the progress but not satisfied. As we inch closer to our goal of having every child on grade level in reading and math by 2014, we need to continue to pick up the pace. I am confident that our nation's schools and teachers can get the job done."

Spellings emphasized that today's results prove once again that moving away from accountability would send us in the wrong direction.

"What President Bush has proposed in his reauthorization plan for No Child Left Behind is the right direction," said Spellings. "It provides parents more information and options to make the right educational decisions for their children; it gives states and schools more effective ways to target resources and interventions where they're needed most; and it gives educators more incentives to teach in our most challenging educational environments.

"Bottom line: No Child Left Behind is empowering parents and students by infusing accountability into education—and the Nation's Report Card shows that it is working on behalf of our nation's children," said Spellings.

Naturally enough, these results will provide useful ammunition for those who are battling for the reauthorization of NCLB.

Did you notice that last paragraph? As with most of her utterances, the Secretary expounds the need for public educators to be held accountable for the success of the public education system.Far from it.

As professionals, we do need to be "held accountable" for our classroom performance and its effectiveness.

What we've always had a problem with is that when Spellings and her ilk mention accountability, it's nearly always the classroom teachers and site administrators who are held wholly accountable for students' academic progress; she rarely, if ever, mentions the need for parents and students to also be responsible for at least making an effort to achieve success.

The Free-Radical Approach To EduReform

The editorial board of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is saying that what's needed in order to overhaul public education is to actually go ahead and really overhaul public education:

End high school at age 16. Take schools away from school districts and school boards and give them to hired private contractors, most likely liability corporations owned and run by teachers. Fund schools from the state rather locally. Pay teachers $95,000 a year, but demand quality.

Those and other recommendations — contained in a report titled "Tough Choices or Tough Times" — amount to a radical redesign of public education. The goal is to revitalize and reform schools so that American workers can compete in the new global economy.

The report was drafted over two years by the nonpartisan New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, chaired by economist and former University of Georgia President Charles Knapp. Knapp and former Cabinet secretaries, governors, mayors, business executives and state and local superintendents were charged with finding the best ways to re-invent k-12 education.

Now Knapp is shopping for a progressive state willing to adopt the reforms. He made a pitch last week to the Georgia House and Senate Education Committees, where legislators appeared more willing to embrace one or two ideas but not the whole package.

That's too bad, because Georgia's education system needs some kind of top-to-bottom transformation such as Knapp suggests. While schools are working harder than ever, students still don't fare well by many key measures, including national standardized testing, graduation rates and college attendance.

But no one in leadership is willing to rankle the established bureaucracies that would be affected by real change, and former Gov. Roy Barnes, defeated in his bid for re-election in part by opposition from teachers, takes the blame for that.

"I wanted to push education reform to the point where it was bipartisan and accepted," Barnes says. "My defeat led future leaders to take the safe route and leave education alone. I can't believe that has happened, but someone will arise. I just hope I live to see it."

At the current pace of education reform in the state — take a tiny step forward and then look around nervously, to make sure no major voting blocs are offended —Barnes isn't likely to see that change. Nor are his grandchildren. Georgia lawmakers refuse to even initiate a serious discussion about teacher quality, preferring to pretend that the answer to better teaching is a better crop of students.

That political rhetoric ignores the fact that Georgia recruits more teachers from the bottom third of high school students going to college than from the top third.

"It's time for truth-telling on this issue," Knapp told legislators. "Education is not a train wreck about to occur; it's a train wreck that has already occurred."

In 1971, the per capita cost of educating a child in this country was $3,400 in inflation-adjusted dollars. By 2002, that cost had risen by roughly two-and-a-half fold to $8,977. Yet fourth-grading reading scores over that time remained essentially flat, evidence that the higher investment is not yielding higher returns.

America's education system is not addressing the needs of students or the country, which, having already lost many low-skilled jobs to China and India, is now witnessing an exodus of high-skilled jobs to foreign shores.

Knapp's commission envisions an education process that would begin at age 3 and continue through 10th grade, when students would take European-style content exams to demonstrate they are college-ready. Upon passage — the commission expects a pass rate of 95 percent — students would be guaranteed the right to attend community colleges to obtain technical degrees or to complete two-year programs and then transfer into a four-year state college. They would also have the option of staying in high school to take advanced coursework in preparation for winning admission to private select four-year institutions. Students would not be locked into any single path; they could retake the qualifying exams again and again.

The commission predicts a $60 billion savings from the elimination of the traditional 11th and 12th grades. The savings would be invested into three crucial initiatives: Recruit a teaching force from the highest academic tiers; offer a pay scale that goes from $45,000 for novices to $95,000 for experienced teachers and give those teachers great autonomy; build an early childhood education system for every 4-year-old student and low-income 3-year-olds and provide at-risk students intense help to catch up with more affluent peers.

In exchange for the higher salaries, teachers would give up pensions in favor of 401(k) retirement plans. Teachers would no longer be financially rewarded for longevity, and they wouldn't have to enter the profession through colleges of education. The commission concludes that those schools, which now hold a virtual monopoly, don't do a good job preparing teachers.

Instead, applicants with a college degree would have to pass a teaching performance assessment.

"If colleges of education can't produce the best teachers, then get rid of them," said Knapp.

Under the commission's plan, school districts would not own or operate schools but rather oversee a field of entrepreneurs — often times teachers — who contractually agree to run schools and would have to meet performance standards, much as charter schools do now. Funds would come from the state, and schools would have full discretion over spending, staffing, scheduling and programs. But they would have to meet accountability standards imposed by the state.

This is no quick fix; the commission says it would take 15 years to put all the reforms in place. And the success of the reforms hinges on top-notch standards, assessments and curriculum, all of which take time to develop.

Daunting as such changes may be, they're vital if American students are to compete in the new global economy.

As the commission states, "It is a world in which comfort with ideas and abstractions is the passport to a good job, in which creativity and innovation are the keys to the good life, in which high levels of education — a very different kind of education that most of us have had — are going to be the only security there is."

Agree or disagree, (and we don't agree with much of this) there's plenty of food for thought here.

If one takes a cursory look at the Journal-Constitution's graphic, it's clear to see that what we're doing now isn't working.

And something has to be done.

Our Troubled High Schools: Gang-Banging The Indy Way

The plague of student juvenile gangs continues to infest many of our public schools, with the latest incident occurring in, of all places, an Indianapolis high school:

Seven North Central High School students face gang-related charges after a fight in the school cafeteria resulted in their arrests Thursday.

According to police reports, Special Deputy Thaddeus Jones of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department noticed two large groups of males yelling "north side" and "east side" and throwing gang signs near the school cafeteria at 7:20 a.m.

Jones and Assistant Principal Will Tyler attempted to separate the students when a 16-year-old student tackled a 17-year-old student, igniting a brawl that spilled into the cafeteria.

During the fight, science teacher Martin Keltey attempted to restrain student Devin Finney, 18, and was struck by a knee from one of the fight participants, a report said. North Central Principal CE Quandt said Keltey might have suffered a scrape during the incident but was otherwise fine.

The two who started the fight stopped only after Jones threatened them with pepper spray.

Quandt said no students were injured during the fight.

He was reluctant to call the incident a gang fight but said the police told him that some of the students had gang affiliations.

"Those allegations are being made by the police, not the high school," he said. "We're not prosecutors; we're educators."

Quandt said he had spoken to the parents of some of the arrested students and said they were disappointed in their children's actions but didn't believe they were involved in gangs.

Quandt said he doesn't believe North Central has a gang problem but said the school knows that some students are purported to be members of gangs.

"When you walk around school, you don't see kids throwing gang signs or wearing the clothes. . . . We don't allow it," he said.

IMPD Sgt. Paul Thompson said Jones' report was vague regarding the possible gang affiliations, and the Metro Gang Task Force hadn't been notified of the incident. Thompson said the task force hoped to talk to Jones on Monday.

Raphael Alberto, 19, Finney and four juvenile students were charged with criminal gang activity, battery with injury and disorderly conduct. Another student was charged with criminal gang activity, battery on a school official, battery and disorderly conduct.

All seven were taken to the Arrestee Processing Center. Because the juveniles were charged with criminal gang activity, they were held at the Marion County Jail with the two adults. They have since been released.

At least three others were involved in the fight, authorities said, but managed to leave the scene before they were identified or arrested.
Quandt said a video camera in the cafeteria was not working when the altercation took place.

Michal Sunderman, whose granddaughter attends North Central, said she was concerned about the incident and has seen what she believes to be gang activity near the school. But she said she doesn't fear for her granddaughter's safety.

"It's not surprising that there are gangs here," she said outside the school Friday. "It's sad, really."

Indeed, it is sad "that there are gangs here" in our nation's public schools.

Sadder still, Principal Quandt seems to be "in denial" about the problem within his school's student population.

One gang fight is one too many.

In order to maximize their learning potential, students must feel safe.

Therefore, schools must be the one place in our students' lives where they do feel absolutely safe and protected.

Any students individuals who engage in violence (or even threats of violence) towards other students (or school employees) need to be removed from the general school population.

Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire: A "Gotta Have?"

A book with a title like that is just begging to be bought.

Australian educator Murray Bourne liked it while Teacher Magazine's Howard Good didn't.

Heh. Maybe some kind-hearted soul will buy a couple of copies and leave them in our teacher's lounge.

I won't hold my breath.

Our Falling Reading Scores: What's To Be Done?

This is some troubling news:

Reading skills among U.S. students graduating from high school this year fell to the lowest since 1994 as measured by the most widely taken college-entrance exam.

Reading scores on the SAT declined 1 point to 502 after a 5- point drop last year, the test's operator, the College Board, reported today. The decline in 2006 had been the largest in three decades. Average math results fell 3 points to 515, and writing grades also declined 3 points, to 494.

The results for the test, taken by 1.5 million high school students, contradict findings from the rival ACT exam, which rose for the third time in five years. The declines also contrast with boasts by schools such as Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania that applicants have higher grades and test scores than ever as they compete in record numbers for freshman- class positions. Harvard accepted just 9 percent this year.

``It sort of confirms the sense in which education in our country is really a tale of two cities,'' said Barmak Nassirian, a spokesman for the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers, based in Washington.

Admissions executives at selective schools report ``a generation of hyperqualified candidates, the likes of which they've never seen,'' Nassirian said. ``Then you get numbers like this, which presumably paint a broader picture, and seem to speak of a general decline.''

International Comparisons

The SAT is primarily a U.S. test. On a 2003 assessment of eighth-graders in 44 countries, the average U.S. math score was lower than those in 14 nations, with Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan leading the way.

In science, U.S. eighth-graders were outscored by peers in eight countries, with Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea at the top. In both subjects, the U.S. students' score was above the international average.

College Board officials, while downplaying the one-year declines as statistically insignificant, said at a press conference today the increasing diversity of the test-taking population is pushing scores down. The class of 2007 had the largest number of SAT-takers ever. Maine now requires all high school students, including those not going to college, to take the exam, leading to a 41 percent increase of test takers in that state.

``There were some changes in the overall population taking the SAT,'' said Lawrence Bunin, senior vice president at the College Board.

Ethnic, Demographic Groups

The College Board, a nonprofit group based in New York, described the trend in SAT reading scores as ``essentially flat'' and said the direction of math results is up, although there was a 5-point drop during the past two years. The average math grade was 14 points higher than 20 years ago.

One critic of educational testing said declines in the past two years show that changes made to the SAT in 2005 undermined its usefulness as a measure of student abilities over time.

"The College Board failed to keep its promise that the revised SAT would be comparable to the old test,'' said Bob Schaeffer, a spokesman for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Schools Drop Tests

Almost 20 schools decided in the past year to drop the SAT and the ACT as a requirement for applications, the anti-testing group said. Officials at those schools have said they have doubts about the reliability of the standardized tests as predictors of students' college performance.

ACT Inc., based in Iowa City, Iowa, said the average score on each of the test's four sections rose for the class of 2007. That test was taken by 1.3 million students.

This year was only the second time the College Board reported results for the writing portion of the SAT. The section, started in March 2005, was intended to make the SAT more relevant to college-admission decisions.

The writing test was the only one of four sections in which the women's score, 500, was higher than the men's, 489. Men registered a higher average score in math, 533 compared with 499, while the gender gap in reading narrowed to 2 points, the smallest margin since 1973.

SAT reading scores rose for Mexican-Americans and other Spanish speakers, by 1 point, and for Asian-Americans, by 4 points. The most-affluent group, students in families making more than $100,000 a year, had an average reading score of 544. The poorest, those with less than $10,000 of annual family income, averaged 427.

How did the American public education system, once the envy of the world, get into such a sorry state?

And how can it be fixed?------------------------------See our latest entries.

The Elephant In The EduReform Room

When it comes to successfully reforming our chronically under performing public education system, the factor that nobody in the MSM seems to want to talk about is the sad reality that many of our classroom teachers are under qualified for the jobs in which they are assigned.

Well... almost nobody.

In a recent op-ed piece that appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Camille Esch shows us that elephant "hits the nail on the head" about the situation here in California, and, by extension, the country as a whole:

On Monday, the ACLU of Southern California and Public Advocates Inc. released an upbeat progress report on the results of the settlement of Williams vs. California, a class-action suit brought on behalf of the state's most-neglected students. In the lowest-performing schools, there are more textbooks, adequate facilities and teachers with proper credentials. However, the report, like the settlement, failed to address the bigger issue: achieving "teacher equity" across the state.

More so than textbooks or school facilities, research has shown that teachers have the greatest effect on student learning and, by extension, educational opportunity. Yet in addressing access to good teachers, the Williams settlement missed a rare opportunity to compel real action to equalize access to well-qualified and experienced teachers in California.

Filed in 2000, the Williams suit was about two things: the state's failure to provide all students with the basic resources needed to learn, and students' rights to an education provided on equal terms -- kids in poorer districts should have the same education as kids in well-to-do towns. It was settled in August 2004, and legislation that would allow the state to meet the settlement terms was passed into law the same month. It set aside money for monitoring schools, repairing them and providing textbooks. When it came to teachers, however, the settlement focused only on meeting basic standards.

In essence, the settlement legislation required counties to monitor whether teachers hold minimum credentials and authorizations for the subject area they teach, to do so more frequently in the lowest-performing schools, and to make public the number of misassigned teachers and teacher vacancies. This is good as far as it goes, but it ignores factors research has shown to be more important, such as teachers' years of experience or their demonstrated ability to raise achievement. Worse, it merely monitors the situation -- the settlement didn't require state money to be spent to bring more qualified teachers into low-performing schools.

That problem is apparent, even in Monday's report tracking improvements. The research looked at four regions, including Los Angeles County, and at statewide trends. It found that there are fewer -- but not few -- teachers who lack proper credentials or authorizations in low-performing schools.

More than half of those schools have teachers who are misassigned, meaning that they are teaching a subject area or students that they are not authorized to teach. In L.A. County, 70% of those schools have misassigned teachers. Across the state, nearly 29,000 teachers are misassigned, meaning more than 600,000 students (mostly in middle and high schools) are being taught by teachers who aren't trained in the subject area to which they are assigned.

An even bigger problem is English learners who don't have teachers certified to teach them. That situation exists in more than 20,000 classrooms with 20% or more of English learners. And there are certainly thousands more, because the Williams-initiated monitoring process doesn't require reporting on such qualifications in classrooms with less than 20% English learners.

The study was content to count the number of teachers meeting minimal standards. Finding an improvement in that number is not the same thing as analyzing whether Williams vs. California has led to greater equity in access to good-quality teachers. Despite the high-profile Williams lawsuit, a federal mandate to address teacher equity and years of research showing the unfair distribution of teachers, California has never made a serious attempt to develop a robust pipeline of highly qualified and experienced teachers who will serve in low-performing schools. Instead, the state has alternately denied the problem, tried to "define" it out of existence and continued to point to unproven programs and policies as evidence that it is doing something.

Although the Williams lawsuit could have spurred investment and innovation in addressing the problem of teacher equity, it mostly just required more reporting on it. Sadly, even if the implementation of the Williams legislation continues to progress, so too will inequalities for students.

Sadly, in all-too-many instances, our nations' kids are being taught by history teachers that don't know their history, science teachers who don't know science, math teachers who can't work math problems, and language arts teachers who are actually more comfortable speaking some language other than English when speaking with their colleagues.

It's a tragedy, really. -------------------------------See our latest entries.

Is This How To Build A Better NCLB?

The federal No Child Left Behind Act is up for reauthorization, and among the interested parties the jockeying for position has begun:

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House education committee, says he hopes to steer a bill renewing the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) through the House this fall, and one of the key changes he plans to propose is incentives for states and schools to develop more rigorous standards that reflect the need for 21st-century skills.

August 6, 2007—Proponents of educational technology for years have been saying that schools need to focus more on teaching so-called "21st-century skills," such as problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration. Now, it appears that momentum is finally building on Capitol Hill to encourage just such reforms: The chairman of the House education committee says he hopes to push legislation renewing the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) through Congress this fall, and one of the key changes to the law he plans to propose is incentives for states to develop more rigorous standards that reflect the needs of 21st-century learners.

"In so many meetings I have had in my district and elsewhere, employers say that our high school graduates are not ready for the workplace. Colleges say that our high school graduates are not ready for the college classroom. This is unacceptable," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., in a July 30 speech outlining his vision for reforming the nation's education law.

"In my bill, we will ask employers and colleges to come together as stakeholders with the states to jointly develop more rigorous standards that meet the demands of both. Many states have already started this process. We seek to build on and complement the leadership of our nation's governors and provide them incentives to continue. This requires that assessments be fully aligned with these new state standards and include multiple measures of success.

"These measures can no longer reflect just basic skills and memorization," Miller continued. "Rather, they must reflect critical-thinking skills and the ability to apply knowledge to new and challenging contexts. These are the skills that today's students will need to meet the complex demands of the American economy and society in a globalized world.

"Schools must no longer prepare our students to be autonomous problem solvers. The workplace they enter tomorrow will increasingly require them to work in teams, collaborating across companies, communities, and continents. These skills cannot be developed solely by simple multiple-choice exams.

"For too long, we have settled for standards and assessments that do not measure up to the high goals we have for our kids or the skills they must achieve. But let none of us for a moment believe that our students will be able to participate in this interactive and participatory culture and workplace if they cannot read, write, and understand math. Therefore, the bill will say that if states take this step and commit to the students of their state that they will prepare them for the universities and jobs of the future, then we will provide them with incentives and assistance to do so."

Focusing more on 21st-century skills was just one of several ideas Miller has for revising NCLB. Others include more fairness and flexibility, including new ways to measure a school's success; merit pay for teachers and administrators; and more funding to implement the law's requirements.

Miller said NCLB has brought about several positive developments in its nearly six years of implementation--but "we didn't get it all right when we enacted the law," he acknowledged.

"Throughout our schools and communities, the American people have a very strong sense that the No Child Left Behind Act is not fair, that it is not flexible, and that it is not funded," he said. "And they are not wrong. The question is, what we are going to do next?"

Miller said it's his goal as chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to pass NCLB renewal legislation in September. He said the law, as currently written, places too much emphasis on the math and reading tests, although those are still important indicators. Other tests, and measures such as graduation rates, also should be used to judge how schools are doing, he said.

Teachers unions have called for that kind of change, but the Bush administration and some Republicans in Congress say it could weaken the law.

Miller also said the law should pay teachers extra for boosting student achievement and for working in high-need areas--an idea generally opposed by the national teachers unions.

Republicans were unavailable for comment on Miller's proposals before press time. However, Rep. Howard P. McKeon, R-Calif., the senior Republican member of the House education committee, issued the following statement on the reauthorization of NCLB:

"No Child Left Behind is the law of the land because it balances real accountability with state and local flexibility and expanded parental choice like no education law before it. Changes to the law that weaken any of these three pillars of NCLB--accountability, flexibility, and parental choice--will be met with strong opposition from House Republicans and are likely to be a fatal blow to the reauthorization process."

Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Edward Kennedy, who chairs the Senate education committee, said he hopes the bill gets through his committee in September.

Senator Edward "Chappaquiddick" Kennedy's involvement notwithstanding in both the original NCLB Act and the "new and improved" version, I think it ironic that the original No Child Left Behind Act is about the only piece of domestic legislation that the Administration has pushed through that will leave a lasting mark on our society.

Nevertheless, as a traditional conservative, I'm opposed to federal mandates. Public education is a matter best best decided by state governments and locally elected (and therefore accountable to the people) school boards. ---------------------------------See our latest entries.