Columnist Eugene Kane is upset by the performance of Wisconsin’s black 8th graders on the recently released NAEP Writing results. He’s just as upset with how his paper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel played the story.
“State black 8th-graders rank worst in nation in writing,” the headline read.
“There’s always plenty of blame to go around when things get this dismal,” Kane writes. “I’m talking teachers, principals, politicians, business leaders, and of course, the parents of all those low-achieving students. But don’t worry about blaming the kids. They already got theirs in that screaming headline.”
“Any story about failing black kids always includes the usual comments from adults embarrassed by the situation who insist things can get better. The problem is too many people are already way too familiar with the below-par performance of black students in Milwaukee to believe anybody cares,” he concludes.
Kane’s kicker delivers a kick in the teeth:
“To be fair, the headline should probably be more inclusive next time, naming Wisconsin as the home of “the worst teachers and parents of black eighth-grade students in the nation. Doesn’t feel too good, does it?”
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First there was the Washington Post story about elementary school kids getting tagged as sexual harassers. Yesterday, Joanne Jacobs posted a story about an 8-year old in Colorado suspended for sniffing a Sharpie marker. It made us wonder what else students are getting in trouble for these days. A quick survey of suspension-worthy offenses making in news in the last week range from serious offenses to seriously strange.
Two girls were suspended from a Pennsylvania high school for writing a “murder list” with the names of 48 students and teachers on it; a boy in Palm Beach, Florida did something similar. A South Carolina 8th grader was suspended for wearing a KKK t-shirt, while a couple of Cleveland area middle schoolers were sent home for putting racially inflammatory posts on You Tube. A Chattanooga 7th grader hid a gun (real) in his locker, while three teenagers in Ontario, Canada were suspended for pointing a machine gun (fake) out of a car window in their school parking lot. A 8th grader in Phoenix realized he had left a knife in his knapsack over Spring Break and, mindful of the school’s strict weapon policy, reported himself to school officials. He was suspended anyway. A 7-year old in Maryland may be expelled for bringing his uncle’s gun to school, thinking it was a toy. In Florida, a 15-year old was charged with a felony for poisoning a teacher’s water with Visine because “he didn’t like the class or her.” Six Florida baseball players were suspended from the team after an alleged hazing incident. A large group of middle school students in James City, Virginia were caught texting each other to plan a cafeteria food fight. School officials thwarted the plot, suspending 15 miscreants. Meanwhile an even larger group of West Virginia high school students got ten days each for breaking into the school and moving about 600 desks into the hallways. They also hid thousands of dollars worth of telephones and calculators, but didn’t damage any of them, and ignited a book in a microwave.
A female high school student in Massachusetts wore the wrong color sweater to school and refused to take it off. A St. Louis freshman wore shorts on a recent 70-degree day and was suspended for violating a rule that prohibits them between November 1 and April 31. A Haverhill, Massachusetts 11-year old accused of sexually harrassing two girls claimed he was only quoting the TV show South Park. A case of suspended animation in Alaska, where a fifth-grade boy got in trouble for drawing Anime-style pictures of nude females. His parents say it’s artwork. Finally, a first grader in Brockton, Mass was suspended for three days after school officials said he sexually harassed a girl in his class by allegedly putting two fingers inside the girl’s waistband while she sat on the floor in front of him.
For the record, it’s not just the kids. A Santa Ana, California elementary school teacher was busted for having a gun in school, and the coach of the Marblehead (Mass.) High School football team drew a two-game suspension for chewing tobacco while coaching.
For years, Tucson 2nd grade teacher Anne Lee has had her students recite Pledge of Allegiance in three languages–English, Spanish and American Sign Language. One of her students whose father is a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense organization got wind of the practice, and inevitably, a grand fecal oscillatory collision resulted.
“When Lance Altherr learned last week that his son was reciting the pledge in Spanish, he was outraged. He spoke with Lee and then Principal Paula Godfrey, demanding they stop the practice. They wouldn’t, and Altherr moved his son to a different class,” reports the Arizona Star. “In the days before the Internet, that’s where the drama would have stopped. But Altherr…took his case to the Internet, sending out mass e-mails and posting on message boards.”
Godfrey did some due diligence with her school district’s legal department and Arizona’s Department of Education. No problema, they said. To her credit, she even asked the Veterans of Foreign Wars if they deemed the practice offensive.
“The VFW gave her mixed signals on the matter,” reports the Star. “A VFW official first said in an e-mail that it was ‘not disrespectful to say the Pledge of Allegiance in either’ language ‘as long as it was stated as written.’ But when the heat turned up, the VFW’s national director sent the [Tucson Schools'] Governing Board an e-mail Thursday demanding a stop to the practice of Spanish-language pledges.” So far the school and Ms. Lee are sticking to their guns.
I seem to recall hearing that a Republican from Arizona is running for President this year who has had a little trouble with his party’s conservative wing on immigration issues. I wonder if Juro De La Bandera could be Campaign 2008’s version of the flag burning amendment?
Perhaps Woody Allen was right when he said the 90% of success is just showing up. Nearly every one of the 600+ teachers in the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage school district earned a $2,000 bonus under Minnesota’s “Q Comp” program, meant to reward quality teaching. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports in the 2006-07 year, 603 teachers “exceeded standards,” and six “met standards.”
Not a single one fell below standards.
Asked about the six who merely met standards must feel, state Sen. Chris Gerlach, R-Apple Valley, laughed. “Those must be the ones under indictment or something,” he told the paper. A merit-pay system that isn’t more selective, he said, is simply a pay increase.
Last year, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger pronounced 2008 would be “The Year of Education” in the Golden State. Now, it’s hasta la vista, baby.
Sharon Noguchi of the San Jose Mercury News looks at what lies ahead for California schools and doesn’t try particularly hard to mask her contempt: “Likely coming soon to a public school near you: ballooning class sizes, a wave of teacher layoffs and more outdated textbooks — courtesy of the spiraling state deficit. What a difference a few months — and a projected $14.5 billion budget deficit — make.”
The $4.8 billion dollars in projected cuts to education over the next 18 months are the deepest in nearly three decades, she notes, adding the cuts are based on optimistic economic predictions. “Art, music, elementary-level science, physical education? Forget about them,” says Noguchi. “The proposed cuts are daunting because schools have little discretionary spending. About 85 percent of their expenses pay salaries and benefits, locked in by union contracts. And much of other spending — for instance, updating textbooks — is required by law.”
The Princeton Alumni Weekly has named Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp its 13th most influential alumni of all time (thanks, eduwonk, for the find). I admire her as much as anyone – although clearly not as much as the Princeton alums who put together this list – but it’s curious to look at the venerable names staring up the ladder at Kopp.
Ralph Nader, whose bona fides as a consumer advocate should have secured his place even before the 2000 election, made The Atlantic’s recent list of 100 most influential Americans ever, but that’s not good enough for Princeton. He’s tied at #25 with Donald Rumsfeld, who can thank Nader and the Floridians who voted for him, for his second tour as Secretary of Defense. Richard Feynman? The atomic bomb, quantum computing and nanotechnology? Less influential than TFA. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com? Barely in Kopp’s rearview mirror at #20. But shed no tears for any of them. Save your sympathy for eBay boss Meg Whitman. She gave Princeton $30 million to build a new residential house, named Whitman College, and didn’t even make the list.
Finally, someone needs to click over to Wikipedia’s list of Princeton University people as soon as possible and do a little editing. It’s a Who’s Who featuring hundreds of heads of state, governors, U.S. Senators, Supreme Court Justices, and bold-face names from literature, business, science, math and academia. One name is conspicuous in its absence, however: Wendy Kopp.
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