Commentary, In the beginning ...
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed,
without any other reason but because they are not already common."
~ John Locke, Philosopher
Harry Potter breaks sales records
The sixth volume of the Harry Potter saga sold more than 8.9 million copies in the first 24 hours it went on sale in the United States and Britain to become the fastest-selling book in history, publishers said.
"This weekend was nothing short of a triumph for publishing, bookselling and reading," Barnes & Noble Chief Executive Steve Riggio said.
Comment: What did you do over your summer vacation? I read Harry Potter!
Baltimore City Schools in MD fail students with special needs
... Nearly 99 percent of Baltimore's 10th-graders with disabilities failed the state reading test this year. The school district has failed to increase the high school graduation rate for students with disabilities from 32 percent to 41.6 percent, as it agreed to do in a 2000 consent decree.
Lawyers representing children with disabilities say the financial crisis is partly to blame for a major breakdown in services that occurred last school year, reversing a few years of progress. They say special-education students were hurt by widespread teacher vacancies, class sizes as large as 50 students, buses that failed to show up, and layoffs at the central office that prevented the district from providing schools with adequate support and technical assistance.
"Children should be able to get to school and when they arrive at school all the staff needed to teach them should be there and qualified to do so," the brief states.
MSDE Superintendent Grasmick said federal special education dollars for the entire state are in jeopardy if the city schools don't come into compliance with special education mandates because the federal government holds the state accountable for the performance of its school districts.
Comment: Might POVERTY be another reason that kids with special needs are not succeeding in over-crowded classrooms with untrained teachers? What kind of environment do these kids come from and go home to? I bet the wealthy kids in Baltimore City go to private schools, not public. The "cream of the crop" take their high test scores with them. The poor students need more services, better trained teachers, and hope. Most need alternatives to traditional schooling to combat the poverty in which they live. Yes, a college degree is one way out of poverty, but a student must survive to achieve that goal. Food, clothes, shelter, and safety, however those basic necessities are obtained, take priority over attending school. Want these kids to pass those tests and graduate? Help them acquire the basics to survive: safe neighborhoods, medical and mental health care, and alternatives to the traditional 2x4x6 education model: two covers of a textbook, four walls of a classroom, six hours per day of instruction. Just because you raise the bar doesn't mean that everyone can or will want to jump over it. (See article below.) Some will always go under it, and some will need to go around it.
Texas Schools take hard look at GED
Programs could die as diploma alternative begins to hurt ratings
... raising the bar higher and higher is not going to make them jump over it ...
Many students need the GED, and Mr. Demore is afraid the change will eliminate tools for those students.
Dr. Cole of Carrollton-Farmers Branch said that while educators agree traditional diplomas are the best option, for some students they are not always possible to attain. Some students have to leave school to raise a family.
"Financially, some cannot handle traditional school," he said. "That doesn't change just because they can't get a GED."
"The GED is a viable option to get an education," another educator said. "I've seen it change lives."
Comment: Taking away alternatives for becoming educated is going in the wrong direction!
NYC Mayor Plans New Standards for 7th Graders
Boasting that his threat to hold back failing third and fifth graders had spurred record increases in reading and math scores, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday that he would extend the policy to seventh graders.
"Everyone across the country understands 'end social promotion,' " said Martine G. Guerrier, a Brooklyn representative on the Panel for Education Policy and a fierce critic of the mayor's promotion plan in its earliest days. "But 'Fund intervention and remediation' - that's not a sexy policy initiative."
"Why doesn't the mayor and his chancellor have a plan to help kids at risk of dropping out before they do?" he asked in a statement. "Our dropout rate is a citywide shame."
Comment: Retaining older students is a very bad idea. I experienced this once in a self-contained class including grades 6-7-8 for students with learning disabilities in a rural county in VA. One 15 year-old student was talking to another older student saying that he thought he got his girlfriend pregnant last weekend. The two of them were sitting next to an 11 year-old girl who was dying of brain cancer. Just didn't seem quite right. And, my heart broke every time I heard a high school student explain his failures, "What do you expect? I failed kindergarten." Retention does more harm than good. Research supports this saying that most students who are retained more than once drop out of school. They are humiliated by being the oldest student in that grade, so they escape by being truant until they are old enough to drop-out. But, it seems like passing a test to please the NCLB-god is more important than keeping kids in school. If they drop-out, they can't score poorly on those tests because they won't be there to take them. Sadly, maybe that's the real goal.
Charm still strong in sixth 'Potter'
... And then there are the emotional tensions of adolescence. Harry and his friends are now 16 and their hormones are running wild. Hermione becomes insanely jealous when Ron participates in public make-out sessions with a classmate. Harry can't stop thinking about a certain Gryffindor girl.
Comment: When can I pre-order Harry Potter Book 7?
More about Harry ...
... the plot hurtles along, gaining a terrible momentum in this volume's closing pages. At the same time, the suspense generated by these books does not stem solely from the tension of wondering who will die next or how one or another mystery will be solved. It stems, as well, from Ms. Rowling's dexterity in creating a character-driven tale, a story in which a person's choices determine the map of his or her life - ...
Comment: "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
~ Professor Dumbledore, p. 333, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J. K. Rowling
A Time for Geeks
People who track youth trends have noticed the shift in attitude, too.
"It feels like, for a while there, we were hearing so much about bullying in schools -- and this is almost a time for the geeks to stand up for themselves," says Schuyler Brown, a trendspotter for advertising and marketing firm Euro RSCG.
Comment: Geeks may rule for now, but there will continue to be bullies until we teach acceptance and appreciation of differences, not just tolerance.
Governors from 45 states agree to develop common measures for establishing high school graduation rates ... Education experts say a key predictor of whether students eventually will graduate from college is not race or economic circumstances but whether they completed a rigorous course of study in high school.
Comment: This educator begs to differ. Much more needs to be done BEFORE students get to high school if they are going to tackle and succeed in a more rigorous course of study. They need good health care and home environments that encourage them to strive for college. And, there are some students with special needs who need a different course of study altogether such as functional living and vocational training. I have worked in two of the five states that did not agree to this, MD and CA. The others were TX, FL, and WY, also Puerto Rico.
Comment: Give kids something good to read and they will read it, or, find someone to read it to them, or listen to it on tape. It's also interesting that this new Harry Potter book has already been printed in Braille.
The sixth book, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," has been No. 1 on Amazon.com's best-seller list since it was announced in late 2004. Read more about it.
A Magical Day for Harry Potter Fans, Half-Blood Prince Flies off Shelves
Saturday the yeoman's work will be done by postal and overnight package services, which will deliver more than 2 million "Prince" pre-orders to customers all over the world. Moreover, bookstores may sell 10 million copies in the first 24 hours, according to an estimate by the British bookstore chain Waterstone's.
Potter Author Gives Castle Reading
As the clock struck 12, Rowling emerged from behind a secret panel inside the glowering medieval castle to read an excerpt from the sixth chapter to a spellbound group of 70 children from around the world.
After the brief reading, the children erupted in screams and applause.
Comment: Appealing the impossible goals of NCLB in Maryland, some schools take advantage of a one-time waiver to save their schools from "failing" when their schools' test scores are dragged down by the scores of students with special education needs. Why is this so hard to get? Students with special needs need different educational plans, not the same curriculum and assessments. That's what the IEP, individualized educational plan, is supposed to do.
Most took advantage of a one-time waiver for schools in which special education students were the only group that failed to meet performance targets on the Maryland School Assessments. More than 100 schools fell into that category out of the 267 statewide initially labeled as missing the targets, according to a Washington Post analysis of data on the state Education Department's Web site. Read more about it.
Comment: Finally, some common sense! Measure growth of individuals; don't compare apples and oranges. However, the impossible goal of ALL students reaching proficiency by SY 2014 is still set in stone. States decide exactly what "proficient" means.
Under the No Child Left Behind law, schools are gauged based on how their current students perform compared with last year's students on math and reading tests.
State leaders say that system does not account for yearly changes in the student population and does not credit students who make big gains but fall short of school goals.
Spellings, addressing a gathering of the American Federation of Teachers, gave her strongest indication yet that she may embrace a "growth model" -- that is, one that measures the academic growth of individual students as they move among grades.
Read more about it.
Comment: Received a joke today that makes a good point: Teach basics, then beyond.
See story: The Lone Ranger and Tonto
Comment: More support for vocational education ...
"Our society needs to train young people for jobs and careers. Where are the painters, mechanics, insurance salespeople, carpenters, bankers and other professionals and technicians going to learn their trade? Not from the system supported by the California Teachers' Association. A college education and a classroom-lecture learning environment are not for everyone. Look at the street corners where you see young people craving a useful and interesting learning opportunity. California's education industry needs to provide meaningful, beneficial, nuts-and-bolts vocational education for high-school students, so they have a future of success and not failure." ~Reinhard Ludke, structural engineer, in S. F. Chronicle, 6/15/05 (Source: Susan Ohanian's Notable Quotes)
Comment: A call from factories for craftsmen who are masters of legacy machinery who also understand computers, mechatronics, and an offer of apprenticeships to train such future workers strongly suggest that we should not be killing vocational education in high schools.
"Many manufacturers are extending training to the next generation of workers still in high school, in programs that often resemble European apprenticeships. Such programs offer short shifts at local factories for high school students, teach applied math and science skills and forge bonds with students."
Read more about it.
Comment: I taught "military brats" from 1991-1995 in Germany. It's true that they have different needs. Many of them "PCS" in or out of schools many times during their K-12 years. Being the new kid on the block all the time can be stressful. Needing to adjust to different graduation requirements in different states can be stressful. Having a parent away on "TDY" (temporary duty) or in combat duty can be stressful.
The Military Child Education Coalition is meeting to discuss the needs of these globe-trotting students.
'Special' education helps all students
Comment: Intervention specialists or resource teachers help all students in an inclusive classroom.
Senioritis "cured" with projects of choice.
Comment: This is a very good idea!
On teaching reading:
"I would like to suggest a solution, or at least part of a solution. We know that when children and adolescents have access to interesting and comprehensible reading material, they will read it. We also know that when children and adolescents read a lot, they improve in literacy (reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar and spelling) and general knowledge (readers do better on tests of history, literature, and even “practical knowledge”). In fact, it may be the case that free voluntary reading is the primary way we develop literacy and gain a extensive knowledge of the world. Students who do a great deal of free voluntary reading do very well on standardized tests."
Comment: This is TRUE! I've seen it happen many times in my teaching career!!
Comment: I can't emphasize enough how much we need vocational education in our high schools!
"Kids drop out of high school and fail not because they are dumb, but because many of them do not want to sit in a classroom listening to poorly presented material they have no interest in. Kids want to build, create and do something useful. They just don't have places and people to help them."
Read more of this PRO-Vocational Education article.
Comment: Inclusion works for some, but not all. Some kids will always need special schools.
British leader of special education says, "... children can feel excluded even if they are in a mainstream school." She also says, "This ideal of inclusiveness 'springs from hearts in the right place,' but she describes its implementation and the consequent moving of pupils out of special schools as a 'disastrous legacy'".
Comment: Virtual high schools in Michigan provide another option for students and choice is key in their success.
No more ..."2-by-4-by-6 paradigm. In other words," he explained, "the two covers of a textbook, the four walls of a classroom and the six hours a day that students are in school. That's been the old model for the way we educated, and it's a model that's increasingly less efficient."
Comment: Choice increases compliance.
"A fundamental aim of education is to organize schools, classrooms and our own performances as teachers in order to help children acquire the capacity for significant choice. Learning is really a process of choice. If children are deprived of significant choice in their daily activities in school, if all their choices are made for them, then the most important thing that education is concerned with is simply being bypassed." ~ David Hawkins, "The Bird in the Window"
Comment: Need more programs like this one; need alternative schools, too, whatever it takes to keep kids out of lock-ups.
Standing Between the Lockup and a Diploma
Comment: I think that private schools will be getting lots of business as states begin enforcing exit exam requirements.
Exit Exams Can Be Optional If You Plan Ahead by Suzanne Heath, Research Editor Wrightslaw
Comment: What's the best reading method? The one, or combination of many, that works!
"For now, brain research on Ethan and normal readers underscores the resilience and adaptability of each person's brain, so that there's more than one way to become a good reader..." Read more about it ...
Comment: Forcing a young child to pick-up rocks alone is an inhumane and unsafe punishment. It is not related to the "misbehavior" and teaches that bigger people can hurt smaller ones, a lesson in how to be a bully. "We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane." ~ Kurt Vonnegut
"Ted Feinberg, assistant executive director of the National Association of School Psychologists, questioned Doerhoff's decision to have elementary pupils pick up rocks.
'Is he a feudal lord building a pyramid?' Feinberg asked from his office in Bethesda, Md. 'School discipline is not the same as hard labor in prison. School discipline needs to have an educational purpose. What was he teaching this girl — how to pick up rocks? This would only cause frustration, anger, embarrassment and more oppositional behavior.'"
Read more about how one teacher who stood-up for this girl was fired, then supported by her colleagues who quit!
Comment: Juvenile Justice? Not for the girls. "What is wrong with this country? We are so quick to celebrate young people who succeed: the entertainers, the athletes, and we abandon those who need us the most." (paraphrase from Judging Amy TV show, season finale, 5/05)
When Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman first proposed designing a special program for girls in juvenile lockup, girls at the Miami detention center had no job training, no treatment, and stayed locked up longer than their male peers.
As Lederman recalls, the girls had to wash their own underwear with soap in the shower.
''Girls in the detention center were not getting half the services boys were getting,'' said Lederman.
What resulted was a first-of-its-kind program called Girls' Advocacy Project, or GAP. The program, which provides mentors and tutors to girls in detention, offers mental health and drug abuse counseling, sex education and gang prevention, academic assistance, and help with independent living skills.
Within five years, GAP had become a national model. In next year's budget, Rep. Gustavo ''Gus'' Barreiro, a Miami Republican who chairs the Justice Appropriations Committee, had asked for $1 million to expand GAP statewide.
Instead, Gov. Jeb Bush killed the program entirely Thursday.
Read more about it.
Comment: Struggles and success for this "differently-abled" student whose own "special educators" did not believe in her accommodations or her ability to succeed.
Read more about it.
Comment: Susan Ohanian has a section on her website about stupid test items. This one caught my attention.
"There aren't any fence posts!" a child burst out. Second graders at my school were taking the California Standards Test in Mathematics. One problem, presumably testing their ability to multiply, showed a pointed piece of wood and said it was a fence post so many inches wide. In a second picture a number of these boards were placed side by side and students were asked to calculate the width of a fence containing that many fence posts. As the child realized, there were no "posts." The picture showed slats or pickets.
In another example typical of standardized tests, students were asked to subtract a two-digit number from a three-digit number, with regrouping. The first answer given was the sum of the two numbers, increasing the likelihood that some students would add rather than subtract.
Read more about tricky test items for second graders on the CST.
Comment: It's just common sense that students with more resources and better educated parents will most likely score better on standardized tests. How much more research do we need to prove this? Spend the money on books and better maintained bathrooms for kids.
It is obvious that children of successful, well-educated parents have a built-in advantage over the children of struggling, poorly educated parents. Call it a privilege gap. The child of a young, single mother with limited education and income will typically test about 25 percentile points lower than the child of two married, high-earning parents.
Read more about what matters and what doesn't matter when it comes to raising "smart" kids.
Comment: Where did these great ideas about school go? I still believe in them. Do you?
1. The emphasis must be upon learning, rather than teaching.
2. A student must be accepted as a person.
3. Education should be based upon the individual's strong, inherent desire to learn and to make sense of his environment.
4. All people need success to prosper.
5. Education should strive to maintain the individuality and originality of the learner.
There are 12 more great ideas and suggestions for how to make them happen ...
Comment: I really liked this article that asks for proficiency, not sameness.
"In summary, NCLB rings hollow for gifted students and for students who need quality education the most. Instead of requiring of everyone the same proficiency, maybe NCLB ought to focus on strengths, interests, and talents of students (and their teachers), and fund intervention programs, gifted education programs, alternative programs, vocational programs, and special education programs. Changing focus might actually help students reach their potentials rather than leaving them languishing in or dropping out of schools in which there is really no place for them."
Read more about it.
"It does not make sense to force all students into the same curricular pattern [or] mold. This is likely to yield many disaffected students, a lot of dropouts, and other unintended consequences. I think it is better to have some flexibility in courses, a variety of tracks, if you like." ~ Howard Gardner, in The News Journal, 3/5/05
"Demand for alternative education increased with the passage of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, which required that students who receive extended suspensions or expulsions attend programs during their sanction."
Comment: And with IDEA so that students can continue their education when they are put out of school. The real reason that we need more alternative programs is, again, MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES. We are all different and different does not mean deficient!
Read more about it.
Comment: We need more public high schools like Urban Academy, more great counselors like Alex White who will answer the phone, and more resilient, determined students like JR. What a great story!
Out of a Homeless Shelter and Into an Eager College
Red ink falling out of favor with teachers
Comment: I never used red ink when grading papers because of the negative connotations of the color red. I also checked CORRECT answers to emphasize what the student was doing RIGHT, not X-ing wrong answers to tell him/her how much he/she did not know. I made these recommendations to my student teachers, too. Some folks said that I was being overly sensitive to kids' feelings. Naw, I was just in tune with my own. I hated getting back papers with all of my mistakes X'd in red with minus how many wrong answers I had made at the top in big red letters. This was embarrassing and made me feel bad. Now it seems that my idea about grading papers differently has caught on, and with parents!
Students Delve into Reading
Comment: I never thought of "choice of reading materials plus time to read for pleasure" as a reading METHOD, but that's the "method" that I have always used with secondary students, and I know that it works!
Punishing Students with Special Needs with Tests
"I don't think I should have to take any test if I have not already taken the class," he wrote. "I feel like I am being punished for being in special ed."
Comment: NCLB has overshadowed IDEA and made the IEP meaningless if all students must master the same content to pass the same test in order to graduate. There's no individualization in a "one size fits all" federally mandated program. The discussion about special ed students taking the CAHSEE and the doubt expressed about some of them not being able to pass it, EVER, sounds familiar!
Comment: The GIFT of ADHD? Check out this new perspective, which I have had forever!!
"Some men acquire learning by the process of saturation, others by welding". ~ Biographer of Benjamin Franklin in THE EDISON GENE: ADHD and the Gift of the Hunter Child by Thom Hartmann
Comment: I had many "light bulb" moments while reading this book. I recommend that you read it, too. It contains what I know to be true about folks with ADD/ADHD, and much more. Hartmann combines information from the fields of neurology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology to give insights into folks who do not fit the standards of the "average" student that our public schools are designed for. He describes schools as TORTURE for these "misfits." His words ring true to me.
Revised IDEA approved. I have questions...
The House on Friday approved an update of special education requirements and pledged less pressure on teachers and more enforcement of high standards for the disabled.
Less pressure on teachers BUT higher standards for disabled students? Is it possible to have both?
In a key provision, the bill aims to boost discipline, giving schools more freedom to remove disruptive children if their behavior is not a result of their disability.
BUT, often their behavior is a result of their disability!!! IEP Teams say it isn't so they can get rid of the kid for awhile and so that they don't have to do more work writing and implementing a behavioral intervention plan!
For teachers, there is the promise of less paperwork.
Details, please!
On the money front, Congress will recommit to the promise it made long ago: covering up to 40 percent of the additional cost of educating children with special needs. It now pays less than 19 percent, and states and schools must make up a difference of billions of dollars.
Kids with special needs cost lots of money for little result. Many will not reach the desired standard of college-bound student. Preparing these kids for WORK with vocational skills is not considered a "high standard."
"For $10 billion we could fully fund IDEA and get up to that 40 percent cost share," said Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wisconsin. "It's just a question of priorities." Kind said the administration may ask for another $75 billion for Iraq next year and "with just a fraction of that amount we could fully fund IDEA."
Priorities, indeed!
Under the new deal, Congress would reach its spending share by 2011, but that's based on yearly increases that are not guaranteed.
Promises, promises...
(Source: Story outdated and removed from CNN.com)
"... both sets of numbers tell the same old story: Most students in high-poverty, high-minority schools continue to lag badly behind their more advantaged classmates, no matter how you measure it. That's what most needs attention."
Comment: Did you know that schools that do not accept federal funding do not have to meet NCLB requirements because they have nothing to lose? Schools that need financial funding MOST may lose it because their students are poor. Does this make any sense to anyone?
Read more about it.
Comment: What an insight!
"Guess what? We're pretty good at teaching kids with lots of money in their family, kids with books at home, kids who have food on their table, kids with stability in their lives," she said. "We're not so good at teaching those who don't have those things."
Read more about it.
Comment: This article focuses on California's accountability program: pros and cons, hopes and fears, dreams and reality ... What bugs me most about comparing test scores is that the "testees" or students change as do their teachers. And, the test results rarely get to the students and same teachers who taught them or will teach them in the future. Different kids...different scores. Different teachers...different scores. Comparing apples and oranges!
Read more about it.
from THE BOTTOM LINE by Robert E. Kay, MD, Psychiatrist
"I have surveyed 50 friends -- and teachers -- and based on their answers I think it's quite safe to say that there's no one, anywhere in the United States, who would let the government order them into a public or a private school building for even one hour a week, make them study some obscure and/or irrelevant subject mandated from on high, test them on the art of transient storage, and then make their future career in large part dependent on passing the course.
That is, the almost universal response to the idea of a one-hour compulsory attendance law for grown-ups is to threaten to hire a lawyer, or call 911, or consult with the ACLU!"
Comment: If compulsory school attendance laws were abandoned, how many kids would go to school? These days I am often thinking about life without school, since I'm not teaching or taking any classes. There are so many other ways to learn outside of the school building. We need alternatives to the traditional sit, be quiet, listen, regurgitate. We need learning communities that invite students in based on needs and interests. The way it has always been done needs to change.
Read more about it.
Quotes from A Conversation with Susan Ohanian
"Handing out standards in the name of preparing everyone to meet the high skills that will be demanded for employment in the twenty-first century is as cynical as handing out menus to homeless people in the name of eradicating hunger. Does it matter how carefully the menu calibrates its offerings to the federal Food Pyramid, advising people to be sure to choose 6-11 daily servings from the bread/cereal/rice/pasta group, 3-5 servings from the vegetable group, and so on?
Let them eat cake. Let them take calculus.
It's not fashionable these days to say that some students can learn trigonometric functions and some can't—or don't want to. When did we decide that calculus is more important to the nation's well-being than welding or band? I don't want to argue about who will and who won't take calculus or read Hamlet. I want us to sit down and discuss at what age we start training kids to think that if they don't go to college, they will be failures (with the converse that if they do go, they will be successes).
...test scores are more a function of zip codes than any innate talent.
Why isn't a child's Happiness Index taken as seriously as her algebra score? Why don't we ask kids, What do you really want? Ask that—and then shut up and listen to the answer.
These questions are neither frivolous nor rhetorical. The corporate call for high standards and No Child Left Behind's number crunching steal away childhood, setting schools on a course that will produce angry children who grow up to be adults whose values are skewed and who are mad as hell to boot.
Some food retailers have introduced labels indicating that an animal 'was raised with care.' Can schools do any less? Every teacher, every year, must be able to testify that every child was educated with care."
Comment: Gotta say that she's right!
Read more about it.
Bringing Up Mason by Tom Dunkel in the Baltimore Sun, 7-04-04
Posted: 2004-08-01 on Ohanian's website
Ohanian's Comment: This article is from the Baltimore Sun, July 4, 2004. The subhead says that when Orioles player B.J. Surhoff and his wife, Polly learned that their son had autism, they stepped up to the plate with everything they had to battle the disorder. It is a remarkable story but also terrifying. What do families without these financial resources do?
Comment: If you didn't see this article in the SUN, please take time to read it. It will be good for your heart. And, Ohanian asks a very relevant question: What do poor parents do with kids with autism? Most can't afford private tutors and psychologists who come to their house for private sessions in a chosen behavior modification program up to 40 hours per week. They count on public schools to help their kids. Are these kids with such special needs getting what they need? Will they learn how to dance and to be proud of doing so?
Read more about it.
15,000 CHILDREN IMPROPERLY INCARCERATED BECAUSE MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES NOT AVAILABLE
Congressional investigators report that 15,000 children with psychiatric disorders were improperly incarcerated last year because no mental health services were available. Children as young as 7 were incarcerated because of a lack of access to mental health care. More than 340 detention centers, two-thirds of those that responded to the survey, said youths with mental disorders were being locked up because there was no place else for them to go while awaiting treatment. Seventy-one centers in 33 states said they were holding mentally ill youngsters with no charges. The number awaiting mental health services accounted for 8 percent of those in the responding detention centers. In California, 27 centers reported unnecessary incarcerations of youths awaiting mental health services; 19 reported that some of the children had attempted suicide. (New York Times, 7/8/04)
Comment: Let's get them healthy before we test them to death.
High Stakes Accountability in Schools is an Increasing Mental Health Concern
Those in favor of the enhanced emphasis on achievement testing argue that "high stakes accountability" will improve student academic performance. Those who add a focus on "closing the achievement gap" want to be certain that improved academic performance extends to all, not just some students. At the same time, there is a growing backlash to high stakes testing. Notably, state legislatures have reacted to the problems such accountability pressures are creating for schools and state budgets. Less noted has been the increasing concern about the mental health toll on students and teachers. Some see high stakes testing as further exacerbating students' negative attitudes about themselves and about going to school and as reducing teachers' desires to stay in the profession. They also point to the longer-range mental health and societal impact of the large numbers of dropouts (or "pushouts") across the country. Others seem to think that these "side effects" are the costs that must be paid to improve academic achievement. As cost-benefit analyses of high stakes testing continue, mental health concerns are emerging as critical considerations.
SCHOOLS RECORD DOUBLING OF VIOLENT DEATHS
The school year just ending was one of the deadliest in years, according to preliminary data showing 48 school-related violent deaths from August through June. That's more than in the past two school years combined and more than in any year in the past decade.... CDC officials note overall school crime declined in the past decade. (Quad-City Times 6/27/04)
Comment: Overall school crime is down, but violent deaths in schools are up. Kids are getting sicker and sicker. See first note.
(Source: mentalhealth-l-bounces@lists.ucla.edu, jm)
Comment: I always enjoyed doing creative writing with students because it is therapeutic.
Read about the InsideOUT writers program.
Comment: Adults Left Behind ...
"More than 34 million adults in the United States over the age of 18, or 16 percent of the adult population, have not completed high school.
The GED is a program of the American Council on Education, an association of the nation's colleges and universities. It is recognized in the United States and Canada as the equivalent of a high school education." (Source: CNN article no longer available.)
Read more about GED.
Comment: Basic literacy first, then beyond...
"Until every student has acquired the basic life skills, it is elitist of us to insist that they understand non-linear functions, the electron structure of the elements in the Periodic Table, the pre- and post-Columbian explorers’ voyages, etc.,etc., etc...
School reform is going in the precise wrong direction. I believe we must reinvent the curriculum so it emphasizes the true basic skills—the 3Rs of course, plus life survival skills such as conflict resolution. Not only would students learn more and become more productive citizens, they’d be less likely to say, 'Why do I need to know that?'"
Read more about this excellent idea for high curriculum reform.
Study details school sexual misconduct
Report: 10 percent of students subjected to inappropriate acts
"...teachers increasingly fear making even the most innocent gestures, like hugging a child having a bad day." (Source: Article outdated and removed from CNN.com)
Comment: I wrote a paper in my School Law course at VCU about this issue. I concluded that I would take my chances and hug students who needed to be hugged, but I would ask permission to do so first, and I would give them permission to ask me for a hug. This often happened in my high school classes, in front of other students. I remember one 18 year old senior with LD/ADD/EBD who was struggling with academics and personal issues. We had a "cat fight" one morning. Neither of us were morning people and hormones contributed to the misunderstanding. I phoned the parents and explained my part of the problem and asked that she apologize for her very disrespectful misbehavior before returning to class. The next school day, just as the tardy bell rang, in front of the other students, she came up to me and said, "I'm sorry for being bad yesterday." To which I replied, "Me, too." She hugged me so hard I couldn't breathe and she cried crocodile tears on my shoulder. When this moment was over, other students said they needed hugs, too, so the hug-fest began. All was well with our world for a cherished moment.
Comment: This article broke my heart. It shows that the economy and NCLB are hurting special needs kids. Although specifically written about NYC schools, I'm sure that such things are happening everywhere.
New York City Retools Special Education, but Pupils Slip Through Cracks
"I've been turned into a testing machine," said Valerie Negron, a psychologist at P.S. 45 in Brooklyn. "All the region cares is that I make my quota of three assessments a week. I did grief counseling for six or seven kids for deaths and divorce. I had to stop. I no longer work with teachers on behavior problems."...
So the last week of May, when Brooklyn officials still had hundreds to do, they summoned a half dozen psychologists to the Region 7 office, and ordered them to do several hundred evaluations in three days - without observing the children, consulting with teachers or talking to parents, according to two psychologists and a social worker...
She said she feared that cutting corners in this way would haunt the schools come fall. "Children may get the wrong program," she said. "Some may need smaller classes or more services, but we wouldn't know. How could we know if we never looked at these children?"
Comment: Bravo for this one as it echoes my thoughts exactly.
"Research shows that weaker students learn more from tougher course work — if they stick with it. Big 'if.' Not every student wants a college education or needs one. Society needs plumbers and salesclerks. More good would come of counseling programs to keep the motivated kids who enter college on track for a degree... Let's not deprive kids of options, whether they lead to a college campus or carpentry."
Read more about it.
Comment: Kozol has always been one of my favorite writers about education because he remembers that PEOPLE are important.
The Details of Life, Publication Date: 2004-06-23, by Jonathan Kozol
"The pastor here has her three degrees: in economics (as an undergraduate at Radcliffe), then in law, and then theology. She also has a bracelet made of jelly beans that Jefferson's sister gave her as a present before Easter. It is, she told me once when I was looking at the brightly colored jelly beans that Jefferson's sister somehow linked together with a needle and a piece of string, the only bracelet anyone has given her since childhood--'more beautiful,' she said with pride, 'than finest pearls.' In an age of drills and skills and endless lists of reinvented standards and a multitude of new and sometimes useful but too often frankly punitive exams, it's nice to find a place where there is still some room for things of no cash value--oddball humor, silliness and whim, a child's love, a grown-up's gratitude and joy--that never in a hundred years would show up as a creditable number on one of those all-important state exams."
Read more about it.
48 School Deaths Highest in Years, by Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
Comment: So, President Bush cuts funding for juvenile crime prevention!
"Human beings often learn the way they grow, in spurts."
Comment: Interesting commentary on short-term learning objectives ... Is the time for paperwork justified by the return?
About Tourette's Syndrome ...
Comment: Interesting mind-body comment from a bright adolescent with TS...
The mind-body dichotomy is a perennial puzzlement for philosophers. Most people say, "I have a body.'' Perhaps we should say, "I am a body.'' People who say the latter mean that the mind, the soul -- whatever we call the basis of individual identity -- is a "ghost in the machine,'' a mysterious emanation of our physicality. They may be right. But were Andrew given to paddling around in deep philosophic water -- if he were, he would not be your basic boy -- he might reply:
"No way. Wisdom is encoded in our common language. We all have, to some extent, a complex, sometimes adversarial, relationship with our physical selves. And I more than most people know that it is correct to say 'I have a body.' There is my body, and then there is me, trying to make it behave.''
No Joy Left Behind? by Elisa Salasin
Comment: Nice thoughts about what's most important in the classroom...
"I urge teachers to continue to pursue the goals of nurturing joy, interconnection, and understanding in their diverse classrooms in spite of the relentless onslaught of scripted and quantified learning objectives that they face in the NCLB-driven system. The small efforts at learning the art of peace that go on in one classroom may seem insignificant in the face of the deep-seated divisions that our world must confront, but without such efforts there can be no hope for change."
When Less Is More
Ohanian Comment: Sternberg asserts, "We must listen to and understand the students whose achievement we are trying to raise." Listen to students. What a notion!
Comment: The author addresses educational reform and what students need...
"Fifth, we must keep an equally strong focus not only on the academic achievements of our students, but also on their social, emotional, physical, and mental health. An intense focus on high academic achievement for all students is the heart of what we do. This is necessary, but not sufficient, to produce informed, respectful, and respected citizens. We need an equally strong effort to improve student ethical achievement. High academic honor without high ethical behavior is no honor at all.
Where, then, will the children be? Without some modifications in the No Child Left Behind law, they’ll be somewhere far behind."
Students Get 2nd Chance to Excel
Ohanian Comment: It's good to see a positive story about alternative high schools. We need more such alternatives. Lots more.
Comment: More alternatives, please!
Scientists have discovered that the brain's centre of reasoning is among the last areas to mature
Comment: Interesting new information summarized in this article relates to teens being "unreasonable."
"Maturation starts with more basic facilities such as vision and hearing and then goes on to the ability to integrate and organise many inputs, to weigh consequences of behaviours and to relate to others. It is a smart sequence in terms of evolution and individual development."
