DPS Official: Parents could be an obstacle to reform

DPS official: Teachers, parents could be obstacle to reform

BY TODD SPANGLER
FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF

WASHINGTON — Detroit’s school board president took to heart U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s message Monday that additional funding could slow to a trickle if stimulus cash isn’t used for needed reforms.

But Dr. Carla Scott, a pediatrician, had her own message for Duncan, saying that if teachers, their unions and parents aren’t on board, the reforms Duncan — and President Barack Obama — are calling for could fail for lack of trying.

“We can’t have an extended school day; it’s against the teachers’ contract. We can’t have school on Saturdays; it’s against the teachers’ contracts. The engineers aren’t willing to come in on Saturdays, it’s against their contracts,” Scott said. “That’s why everybody has to be at the table to say what kinds of changes do we need to make and what kind of changes are you willing to put into your contract.”

Officials from more than two dozen urban school districts, including Scott, visited the White House as Duncan told them that if funding from the $787-billion stimulus bill is used to perpetuate the status quo, the funding will dry up. Money is expected to be doled out a bit at a time and will eventually flow more to districts making successful changes.

Scott said that will require more than just school boards and superintendents being involved, adding that she’d like to see a standard national contract for schools drawn up that indicates where unions are willing to give in order to put reforms into place.

The Detroit school district, with a deficit of more than $200 million and a new state-appointed financial manager, is in bad shape. But it also is set to get $530 million, though its financial manager said that money won’t likely be used to plug the deficit because that would just delay making necessary changes.

Bring the Boys Along!

Bring the Boys Along
The White House Council Obama Forgot

By Kathleen Parker
Wednesday, March 18, 2009; A13

 

With a flick of his pen, President Obama finally laid to rest Freud’s most famous question and iterated one of man’s hardest-learned lessons: Women want what women want.

And the wise man sayeth: “Yes, dear.”

Thus it came to pass that the president created the White House Council on Women and Girls to ensure that all Cabinet-level agencies consider how their policies affect women and families. Presumably, men and boys may expect to benefit from what is helpful to women and girls. We shall see.

There’s little profit in criticizing a move to make life better for the fairer sex. Still, one does have to suppress a chortle as we pretend that the First Father’s rescue of damsels in distress is not an act of paternalistic magnanimity. Chivalrous, even.

Oh, well, irony is hardly a stranger to gender. Neither are exaggeration and myth. If I may . . .

First, the statistics Obama cited as rationale for the council weren’t quite accurate, though they were, to borrow from Stephen Colbert, truthy. And surely the president can’t be ignorant of the fact that boys in this country are in far graver danger than girls in nearly every measurable way.

Where’s the White House Council on Men and Boys? Okay, let men fend for themselves. But boys really do need our attention, not only for themselves but also for the girls who will be their wives (we hope) someday. We do still hope that boys and girls grow up to marry, don’t we? Preferably before procreating?

Certainly, the Obamas seem to have this hope. A model family, they undoubtedly want their girls to excel and, eventually, to marry equal partners. But boys won’t be equal to girls if we don’t focus some of our resources on their needs and stop advancing the false notion that girls are a special class of people deserving special treatment.

There isn’t space here to fully critique each statistic mentioned by the president, but here’s just one: Women still earn 78 cents for every dollar earned by men.

As has often been explained, apparently to deaf ears, this figure is derived by comparing the average median wage of all full-time working men and women without considering multiple variables, including the choices women and men make. A more accurate picture comes from a 2007 report prepared for the Labor Department by CONSAD Research Corp.

Although women do not lead as many Fortune 500 companies (only 3 percent, according to Obama), they account for 51 percent of all workers in the high-paying management, professional and related occupations, the study found. Women outnumber men, for example, as financial managers, human resource managers, education administrators, medical and health services managers, and accountants and auditors.

Otherwise, wage differences can be explained by “observable differences in the attributes of men and women,” including, among many, the fact that a greater percentage of women than men take leave for childbirth and child care, which tends to lead to lower wages. Also, women may place more value on “family-friendly” workplace policies and prefer non-wage compensation, such as health insurance or flexibility.

The statistical analysis, which included these and other variables, produced an adjusted gender wage gap between 4.8 percent and 7.1 percent. The gap shrinks to almost nothing when men and women of equal backgrounds and tenure are compared, according to another study of young, childless men and women.

While no one would argue that women shouldn’t be compensated as well as men for the same work, it isn’t quite accurate to suggest a widespread problem of wage discrimination.

Or, as the Labor Department labor study warns against, to justify policy-level correctives.

Whatever imbalances remain should be self-correcting as women and men achieve educational parity, but that’s if boys get some help. Indeed, men and women reached educational parity with college graduation rates in 1982. Today, women receive 58 percent of bachelor’s degrees and represent half of graduates in medical and law schools.

Boys, meanwhile, are the ones dropping out of school or being expelled. They’re the ones failing, abusing drugs and committing suicide. What kind of men do we expect them to become, assuming they survive?

As a father of two girls, Obama wants to do the right thing by women. A noble purpose. But if he wants America’s girls to find proper mates, he might create a White House Council for Boys and, perhaps, Fathers.

It’s the right thing to do for a nation that aspires to equality. Just say yes, dear.

kparker@kparker.com

Arne Duncan- Can he save Urban Education?

WATCH THE SECOND VIDEO FIRST!!!!!!

While the world had me looking at Michelle Rhee and Linda Darling Hammonds as possible  candidates for the top job in Education, here comes Arne Duncan. Without me being too sarcastic, I hope that the only reason that our President elect did not pick one of these two very talented women is because they don’t play basketball…lol

In 2007, only 17 percent of eighth graders tested at or above grade level in reading in Chicago Public Schools – the school system administered by Arne Duncan since 2001. 

President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday tapped Duncan to become secretary of education in the upcoming administration. 

Duncan, hailed by Obama as a reformer, said he would like to take the lessons he learned in Chicago with him when he moves to Washington. “I’m also eager to apply some of the lessons we have learned here in Chicago to help school districts all across our country,” Duncan said after Obama formally named him to the job in Chicago.

I agree with David Boaz who states “ In seven years running the Chicago public schools, this longtime friend of Obama was apparently not able to produce a single public school that Obama considered good enough for his own children.”

 

I am anxious to see what programs Mr. Duncan has in store for schools around the country.  Because he has experience leading an urban school system, I hope that he will introduce policies that will be a win-win-win for students, parents and educators.

Project 119- Leave No Future Olympian Behind! – Part 2

 

RAY SUAREZ: Professor, tell us about the nationwide sports school system. How does it work?  

SUSAN BROWNELL: The Chinese sports system consists of about 3,000 sports schools of different types. So the sports schools at the local level are spare-time schools where children can go after they attend their regular classes.

Then, if they move up the scale, if they’re good enough, they’ll be recruited into a sports boarding school. And there they have exited the regular educational system and they board at the school where their education may not be — may not get the attention that probably it should get.

And from that point, maybe they will be recruited onto the provincial team. The provincial and municipal teams are really the backbone of the Chinese sports system. And once you get onto that team, you’re essentially a professional athlete, although they don’t like to use that word. They prefer to call them “specialized athletes” and to think that the financial aid they get is something like a college scholarship would be in the United States.

And then, finally, there are sports where there are national teams. And those are sports where the best provincial athletes are further recruited to a national centralized team, which will train either in Beijing or in training centers around the country.

RAY SUAREZ: The way I understand it, these schools basically make the athlete into a ward of the state for as long as they remain in the system. Is there an advantage to families who were able to place a child into the national sports system?

SUSAN BROWNELL: Education is really highly valued by Chinese parents. And for that reason, well-educated parents and parents from white-collar backgrounds are usually not in favor of their children joining a sports boarding school.

So most athletes come from peasant backgrounds or worker backgrounds, except maybe for a few sports which are very popular here, such as badminton and table tennis, it is said will be able to recruit children from white-collar backgrounds more so than other sports.

Certain sports are called “the bitter sports,” such as weight-lifting, long distance running, race walking. And those sports are considered to be sort of physically uncomfortable. And those are the ones that typically are — the athletes almost all come from peasant backgrounds.

So basically, in China, the sports system is seen as a means of social mobility. I know there’s a stereotype in the Western media that it’s a system that ruins lives, but, in fact, the perception in China is that, in most cases, it’s a ticket to a better life, especially for peasants who are given a residence permit once they make the provincial sports team.

And this is really a big advantage in life for a peasant who comes from a rural background where he’s held to that background through the residence permit system, a rural residence permit.

 

There are some things about China that I do not want to adopt, there are some ideas that I do. Project 119 should be looked at by our U.S. politicians. Instead of eliminating the physical education programs in elementary schools, especially the more impoverished areas, they should be investing more money into the programs. As of Today, China has more gold medals than United States. Their percentage for gold and silver medals is around 80% whereas our percentage of silver and gold out of the total amount of medals won is around 63%. In order for United States to reclaim their status, they are going to have to invest more money into schools that can recruit and train potential Olympic winners. Now I am not saying that all potential winners come from the inner cities but without an adequate physical education program in the inner cities, we are definitely missing out on a number of potential Olympic winners.

I love Micheal Phelps’ story because he was a child who used swimming as a positive outlet for his bundled up energy.  I know plenty of children who could and would benefit from a structured swimming, gymnastics, golf, tennis, rowing program. In order to prepare for the global games, we are going to have to adopt a more global view of education and not just reading, writing and arithmetic. We are going to have to embrace a more progressive way of ensuring that all children are given the opportunity to explore their Olympic dreams.

Chicago Students Plan First- Day Boycott

Posted Aug 13th 2008 6:00AM by Carmen Dixon
Filed under: BlackSpin, Education

Chicago State Senator James Meeks (D-Chicago) has proposed a rather radical action to protest the underfunding of Chicago’s inner city schools.

Meeks has issued a call for all school kids in Chicago’s poorest districts to boycott the first day at their assigned school and instead head to resource rich predominately white schools and attempt to register there.

Meeks plan has supporters and detractors. …

It’s no secret that schools in predominately poor urban and rural communities just do not provide the educational opportunities to be had in solidly middle class or affluent communities. But what to do about it? Republicans and others favor various forms of “school choice” or voucher programs where children stuck in a lousy school would have the option to move to one with stronger academic options.

Others simply want state and federal government to allocate more dollars to improving under-performing schools. ‘No Child Left Behind’ is an example of a recent government initiative meant to insure that all students have some basic, uniform standard of achievement.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Nearly 50 ministers on Monday embraced plans for students to boycott at least the first day of Chicago Public Schools classes, a move aimed at ramping up pressure on state officials to address widespread inequities in education funding.

The church leaders from the city’s West and South Sides pledged their support as lawmakers return to Springfield on Tuesday to meet in a special session Gov. Rod Blagojevich called to consider the funding issue that has vexed lawmakers for decades.

The ministers said they would urge their congregations and communities to participate in the first-day boycott Sept. 2 and attempt to enroll Chicago students in New Trier Township High School District in north suburban Winnetka.

“We refuse to continue to allow the State of Illinois to orphan our educational system,” said Rev. Albert Tyson of St. Stephen AME Church.

Frankly, I do not accept that you can increase education funding by encouraging students to skip school.

“It’s counterproductive to urge kids not to attend school,” Gov. Blagojevich said at a separate event. “If a child misses a day of school, that child will miss an opportunity to learn. I think children should take advantage of every possible day they can to go to school.”

Further, he said, Chicago Public Schools would lose some state money if students skip because average daily attendance helps determine each school district’s overall funding.

New Trier District 203 Supt. Linda Yonke, bracing for Meeks’ attempt to enroll 1,000 students, labeled the ministers’ move a “political action” she hopes won’t be disruptive.

 

 

If this is not an example of Social Studies in action, I don’t know what is! If a teacher is not able to make a connection between this student centered event and various theories, laws and philosophies taught in Social Studies, then they are not a very effective teacher. Now on one hand we talk about how this current generation of students is this and they are that. But then we are afraid to have them participate in a volunatry peaceful protest. A protest that benefts them and their education. This is a perfect example of getting kids to buy into the type of education that they are receiving that will prepare them for the future. 

If you read my post about Mayors + Superintendents and look at that youtube channel that the episode that I posted originated from you will find the CEO of Chicago Public Schools. A CEO that just told a U.S. committee of politicians that his school district was on the rise. But we know that it all comes down to money! I wonder why our politicians in Washington D.C. are not pushing  for more money to fund education instead of slashing the education budget. Oh, I forgot they want to privatize education. I guess they didn’t get the newsflash from Edison Schools that privatization of public schools doesn’t necessarily work!

Give Chicago the money needed to improve their schools, reinstate the physical education, music, art, afterschool programs and psychological and Social Work staff needed to help students in these schools and enforce the NCLB standards and watch the students soar!

Mayor + Superintendent = School Improvement?

 

There is an experiment going on in education in Washington D.C., New York and Illinois. The mayors of these cities are being given absolute power to reform/improve/change the schools in their cities. Chancellor Michelle Rhee, CEO Arne Duncan and Chancellor Joel Klein are implementing educational policies that we might see in a city near us!

These three educational leaders and  Superintendent Beverly Hall (Atlanta Public Schools) recently spoke to the United States Education and Labor Committee. Superintendent Hall still has a school board to work with so basically she represented the typical inner city paradigm.

All three educational leaders from Illinois, New York and Chicago spoke about the huge improvements that they have been able to make within their individual school systems by not having to answer to anyone except for the mayor. All four leaders spoke about standardized test gains and them being able to close the gap between people of color and everyone else. What I want to know is if they are making actual strides in their districts. Anyone can come to Washington and tell the Education committee that their plan is working. I wouldn’t expect them to say anything else if they want to keep their jobs. And I have listened to enough superintendents to know that we can all manipulate test data to make us look good so I need to know the real deal about these school districts.

As a spectator, I have to assume that they are telling the truth about the strides that their districts have made until I find out information that refutes what they are saying.  If this educational  experiment works then I feel that whomever the next president is will endorse this type district improvement plan for all of our failing districts, so future mayors or current mayors be prepared to had this duty added to your job description.

I can definitely see the benefits of adopting a plan like this but doesn’t it infringe upon the voters of the district who normally vote for the people to represent them on the school boards? Without the school boards, who represents the people if they have a problem with what the superintendent or the mayor is doing in terms of educational reform?

If you work in any of these districts, please leave me a comment!

If you don’t work in any of these districts please leave me a comment!