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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > March
March 2006
Voucher rule changes pass
Here’s the story I wrote for today’s paper. It didn’t end up making it into the paper today, but some version of it should be in tomorrow’s paper.
By Scott Elliott
selliott@DaytonDailyNews.com
Thousands more kids in Dayton and across Ohio are eligible to receive private school vouchers under newly approved rules.
Changes to the voucher law were passed by the legislature as part of a budget corrections bill this wee and are awaiting Gov. Bob Taft’s signature. Normally, new laws take effect in 90 days, but spokesman J.C. Benton said the Ohio Department of Education will begin following the new rules immediately.
The voucher program will allow students in consistently low performing schools to use up to $5,000 in state money for private school tuition. When the program kicks off this fall it will be the nation’s largest statewide voucher program, helping 14,000 Ohio kids attend private schools.
Under the new rules:
• Students attending schools that have been rated in the two lowest state categories — academic watch or academic emergency — would be eligible. This would include Dayton’s Belle Haven, Edison, Fairview, Hickorydale, Cornell Heights and McNary elementary schools, plus Dunbar and Belmont high schools; Jefferson Twp. High School; and Camden Elementary School in Preble County.
• In Dayton, all incoming kindergartners and all students attending charter schools can seek vouchers under the new rules.
Statewide, 45,000 kids will now be eligible to apply, probably guaranteeing they will all be used. If more than 14,000 apply, lowest income students would be given first priority.
Tom Mooney, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, said the teachers’ union opposed the expansion, because it believes the changes will hurt schools that are improving.
“We think its a bad idea to expand a program that hasnt even been launched yet,� he said. “There is no track record anywhere that shows vouchers improve student achievement.�
Daria Dillard Stone, program manager for the Dayton-based Parents Advancing Choice in Education, said the new rules offer help to parents who need it.
“It gives them more choices,� she said. “Anything that increases their options is a plus.�
Contact Scott Elliott at (937) 225-2485.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
A win for voucher supporters
Proposed new rules to greatly expand eligibility for vouchers that I wrote about recently have passed the legislature and are now headed to Gov. Bob Taft for his signature. The Ohio Department of Education said they will begin following the new rules immediately and plan to take out ads and hold informational meetings in Dayton and other affected cities.
You can find my summary of the new eligibility rules here.
And look for my story tomorrow in the Dayton Daily News.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Ohio’s new school watchdogs
With the announcement yesterday that The Academy of Dayton is losing its sponsorship, Ohio saw a new idea in charter school accountability begin to kick in.
It’s an approach only Ohio has tried, and a lot of people around the country are watching closely to see how it goes here.
Last summer, the Ohio Department of Education got out of the business of watchdogging charter schools entirely. Under a new state law. The department has a new role — to approve “authorizers,” or sponsoring organizations, to direct charters day-to-day.
These new sponsors could be school districts, universities or non-profit groups, provided those groups could show the state that they had enough cash, appropriate management and a coherent plan for operating charter schools. Once approved, each sponsor could take up to 30 charter schools under its wing and, in doing so, became solely responsible for the school’s success or failure.
This was a plan backed by charter school proponent, with the goal of giving the monitoring power to an oversight group that was really invested in helping the school succeed — an overseer who would nurture schools along and, advocates hoped, would put a foot down when schools failed to live up to their expectations.
When the state played this role, it was handicapped by the scope of the job. There were hundreds of schools to monitor and limited resources. Plus the charter idea came from outside the education department, essentially dumped in its lap by the legislature in 1997. Especially in the early years of charters here, the department struggled just to put decent oversight processes in place.
So how is the new system working? Well, already the Lucas County Educational Service Center has declined to renew 12 of its schools and now Academy of Dayton has fallen short with its sponsor, the Ohio Council of Community Schools.
The council’s non-renewal letter was pretty direct, detailing all the contract requirements the school did not fulfill. For instance, the school failed to apply for 501(c)(3) non-profit status, add local people to its governing board, give adequate notice for public meetings, produce an annual report and complete background checks on all employees. That’s even before you get to the council’s concerns about the school’s staff turnover and low test scores.
It’s not over yet for Academy of Dayton. If they can find a different sponsor to take them on, they can remain open next year. It will be interesting to see how that search turns out.
Charter advocates are sensitive to charges that the schools are not accountable and are low performing. Their hope is that the sponsors will be more vigilant than the state, helping good schools grow and forcing low performers to improve or close. If so, proponents believe the movement will look better overall as more good schools flourish and bad schools disappear.
If it works, expect to see this model appear in other states.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Reading, ‘Rithmatic … and nothing else
On Sunday, Sam Dillon wrote in the New York Times about a new study from the highly-regarded Center for Education Policy that shows class time is sinking on subjects not tested under No Child Left Behind.
This is not a new problem. But the trend is potentially more severe now with NCLB so narrowly focused on reading and math.
In 2000, I wrote in the Dayton Daily News about Cincinnati’s Taft High School, where kids were forbidden to take any untested subject until they passed a state exam (excerpt below). But at least back then, Ohio’s state test covered five subjects — reading, writing, math, science and citizenship.
Even back then, some were complaining that kids were learning less history to instead focus on citizenship and missing out on important studies in art, music and other “specials”.
It’s one of the byproducts of high stakes testing — when we create high incentives for everyone to pass tests, those tests can become more important than anything else. This is one of the most common complaints I hear from parents. Twice in the last week, a father has lamented to me about how his kids seem to do nothing else but prepare for tests.
What’s the solution? How can we ensure subjects that have been viewed as important to learning for hundreds of years — music, art, foreign language, physical education — remain a part of our kids’ education? One solution is more tests. We can test all those subjects too.
What’s your solution?
Here’s the excerpt from my six-year-old story on Taft High School. To me, it doesn’t sound much different than the examples in Sam’s piece in the Times:
Last October, Ohio Gov. Bob Taft praised a new program at a high school named for his grandfather as a model for inner city schools across the state.
That program at Taft High School blocks freshmen from taking art, music, foreign language or gym until they pass the ninth-grade proficiency test.
“They made a very convincing case to me that if those kids don’t learn the basics - the reading and the writing - and if they don’t get them right away in ninth grade, they’re gone. They’re out on the street. You’ve lost them,” Taft said in an interview Friday.
Taft High School has elevated passing the ninth-grade proficiency test to its top priority for incoming students - at the exclusion of almost everything else.
Freshmen who still need to pass the test - just about everybody at Taft - spend four class periods a day in core courses - English, math, science ans social studies. Two other periods are reserved mostly for test preparation.
School administrators say passing the proficiency test is so important to student success that they must make it the No. 1 goal for freshmen.
The approach horrifies some educators who believe music, art, physical education and foreign language are vital parts of learning that should not be an afterthought.
“I think that flies in the face of what a well-rounded education would be for youngsters,” said John Mahlmann, executive director of the Virginia-based National Association for Music Education. “I think it’s outrageous.”
Freshman Cynthia Jackson thinks every suburban Ohio kid who dreads dodging kickballs in gym class should be thankful. While kids at other schools play games in gym, she keeps working on her basic skills.
Jackson believes the school will help her with the ninth-grade proficiency test, which she must pass to graduate. But she admits that thinking about the test wears on her. At Taft, very few students in Jackson’s freshman class spend any part of a school day in sport, in song or at an easel.
To even set foot in a foreign language class, a Taft freshman must be in the top 5 percent of the class - measured not by grade-point average, but by proficiency test score.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Testing
Carnival tents are up
This week’s Carnival of Education is up at the Right Wing Nation blog.
The Carnival is a weekly compilation of the best in education blogging that is usually hosted by The Education Wonks. My post that asks if the testing industry is cracking under the pressure of NCLB is included in this week’s roundup.
And a belated congratulations to carnival founder and organizer, The Education Wonks, for being named best education blog in the annual Best of Blogs awards.
Permalink | |
Does Google make you dumber?
In a recent New York Times Op-ed, a technology author suggests the ease of search engines has weakened the research skills of students. He cites an example from an Israeli study in which only 15 percent of students could use the Internet to find “a picture of the Mona Lisa; the complete text of either “Robinson Crusoe” or “David Copperfield”; and a recipe for apple pie accompanied by a photograph” even with no time limit.
The author believes kids have become so used to popping key words into today’s excellent search engines like Google that when their searches fail to produce good results our kids don’t know what to do next. They don’t have the research skills to seek alternative methods to find information.
I’m always wary of the argument that great technology, the kind that makes our lives easier, is necessarily detrimental to our skills. But as someone who searches for information for a living I do believe students will need new research skills as more new tools become available. Information overload is already a problem.
This might be an argument for more librarians, and better trained librarians, in our schools. How do you propose we fight Google stupidity?
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: My Favorite Posts, Teaching and Learning
Girls and colleges, what’s fair?
A college would never look at two applicants with similar credentials (test scores, class rank, activities, quality essay, good recommendations) and choose one simply because of their gender, right?
And if they did, would it surprise you to know that schools prefer to admit a lower ranked boy over a higher rated girl?
That is the reality according to an Op-Ed piece by the dean of admissions at Ohio’s Kenyon College. Jennifer Delahunty Britz gives a revealing glimpse into the pressure on universities to maintain some semblance of gender balance in the midst of a trend that has seen fewer boys and more girls going to college.
Ironically, she says the boys are now a sought after “minority” in the college selection process. That’s because a majority of college students are now women, and that majority is growing. Some estimate the percentage of boys among college students could fall as low as 40 percent in the next decade or so.
Some might say fine, if the boys don’t do the work, don’t admit them. And if colleges see their percentages fall way out of whack, so be it. But Birtz says even if a college wanted to follow that route, in an effort to be fairer to the girls, it would be courting disaster to do so. Statistics show if there are too few boys, it becomes even harder to attract male applicants. And, interestingly, they’ve found women will also stop applying if a school tilts too far female.
So Britz worries about our daughters. While boys can slide into good colleges with more ordinary credentials, the competition among girls to get into the same colleges can be fierce.
Birtz doesn’t see simple solutions to this problem. What would you tell that her colleges should do?
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Colleges and Universities
NY Times agrees with DDN
Michael Winerip says in Wednesday’s New York Times what Mark Fisher and I have been writing since 2004 — the testing industry is buckling under NCLB.
The cracks already are beginning to show as a host of scoring problems over the last week demonstrated.
In our 2004 national award winning series, Fisher and I looked at the emerging crisis of capacity in the testing industry. Interestingly, Winerip focuses on how capacity problems and high costs have even the U.S. Department of Education encouraging states to take short cuts that might actually lead to less meaningful tests and results that tell us less about how kids are doing.
We’ve seen these trends lead to questionable short cuts in scoring, but the Times suggests costs and capacity may also lead states to uses dumbed down tests to begin with.
As a nation, we put a lot of faith in standardized tests, and we tend to take for granted that the information they give us is accurate and tells us something valuable about the students who take them. But with all the problems facing the test industry, is it time to ask tougher questions about testing?
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Testing
Pretty women free to molest?
Over at one of my favorite education blogs, The Education Wonks, they’re outraged that former Florida teacher Debra LaFave gets no jail time after having sex with a 14-year-old student.
The Wonks thinks there is a double standard. Would any male teacher avoid jail for having sex with a 14-year-old female student?
LaFave, a beautiful former model who plans to write a book and is interested in an entertainment career, did a masterful job of spinning her story. Her camp argued there is no double standard.
According to her defenders, men in her circumstance are just as frequently not sentenced to jail time. They argue that the judge listened to the boy’s family, who did not a trial that would require the boy to testify. I’ve even heard her defenders suggest boys may not be harmed deeply the way girls are by sex with adults women as teenagers and that she face more danger in jail than most women because of her beauty.
Personally, I was stunned she was not punished more harshly.
What do you think the arguments LaFave that resulted in a jail-free plea deal? Is there a double standard in these cases?
A $1.4 billion experiment
The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday began a three-day series looking at the pros and cons of charter schools in Ohio. The PD’s reporters estimate Ohio has spent $1.4 billion on charter schools only to see most fail. But the series does point to examples of successful charter schools. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Lessons from Dayton
It looks like Detroit is the first big city school district to be dramatically affected by market forces. They could learn a lot from looking at Dayton.
Enrollment there is dropping dramatically while charter schools have grown. They’re closing schools left and right. The districts is being forced to constantly readjust its budget and is consistently underestimating its enrollment losses. And even private schools are closing as enrollment declines there have hit a critical point.
The Detroit News story I cited doesn’t get into the charter school impact. But last year when I was living in Michigan, reading the daily news of the Detroit schools had a familiar tone.
An advantage Dayton has that Detroit lacks is a cohesive school board committed to financial stability. Dayton also got some lucky financial breaks that helped. But I’ve often wondered what might have happened if the district hadn’t responded aggressively to the financial challenges of choice. What if the competition had forced a real financial collapse?
Detroit, with its paralyzing politics and managerial struggles, could show us. If you’re interested in school choice, this is one to watch.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Test companies flunking out?
It’s been a bad week for the testing industry, but then again this is the heavy time for test administration and scoring. And the industry appears to be buckling under the pressure.
First Pearson Measurement, the company that scores the SAT, acknowledged they had messed up the scores on at least 4,000 answer sheets.
Now my colleague Mark Fisher updates a story he wrote about last year in which a scoring mistake on a professional qualifying exam actually cost teachers their jobs. And now Education Testing Service has been ordered to pay $11 million in damages to some of the teachers who were harmed. Here’s the New York Times’ take on it, too.
And the Times also reports that CTB McGraw Hill, another huge testing company, accidentally included sample test questions students had already seen on 400,000 New York state exams. Now they have to toss those questions and try to readjust the scoring to account for fewer questions.
How confident are you that your child’s test scores are going to be correct?
Permalink | | Categories: Testing
A hug, kiss and frisk for junior
The Philadelphia city schools are asking parents in that district to check their kids pockets for contraband before sending them to school. This comes after a couple discoveries of drugs at schools, but school officials say the pocket check can be a big help keep forbidden items, ranging from weapons to toys, out of schools.
Is this a sensible request or have Philly school leaders gone over the edge?
Permalink | | Categories: The Parent-Teacher Divide
Popcorn, candy, commentary
The latest Carnival of Education is up and it features a nice pull out quote from my post about Martin Sheen’s visit here last week. Check it out.
Permalink | | Categories: The Carnival of Education
Oh hey can you sing …
The New York Times reports a coalition of teachers, with corporate sponsors, is traveling the country teaching the National Anthem.
Apparently, a recent Harris Poll showed only 40 percent of Americans can recite the words to the Star Spangled Banner. And many people don’t know the story behind the song.
This is another argument for requiring kids to sing the national anthem in school each morning instead of reciting the pledge of allegiance.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: The Pledge of Allegiance
Tests scores as wrong answers
How easy is it for a testing company to mess up your child’s score? A humid day, a lightly filled bubble or a thousandth of an inch alignment problem could change an SAT score or an Ohio Graduation Test result.
Mark Fisher and I wrote today about Pearson Measurement, the company that scores the SAT and most of Ohio’s state tests. Last week, the College Board announced that 4,000 SATs tests had scoring errors. Today, the New York Times reports 1,600 more SATs that should have been rechecked were not.
Here’s a little flavor from our story:
…the SAT problems were caused by humidity in the rainy northeastern U.S. that slightly swelled the paper size of some answer sheets. Most scoring sheets from those areas were not affected, only those with bubbles that were filled in lightly or incompletely. For those, the registration of the scoring machine was off just slightly, enough to miss bubbles that had been marked.
“They were off by just a fraction — a thousandth of an inch,” Hakensen said.
Companies like Pearson are under enormous pressure in the NCLB era. There simply are not enough companies doing test scoring and not enough testing experts for these companies to hire now that nearly ever state is creating more tests to meet the demands of NCLB. That means mistakes like this are likely going to be made more frequently and parents are going to have to watch their child’s scores carefully.
If something seems out of line with your child’s score compared to their prior test results, ask questions. Appeal for the test to be re-scored.
Testing technology in the U.S. simply is not what it could be. The process of test creation, setting passing scores and grading all have serious flaws and can result in scores that can be misleading.
Standardized tests are useful tools. They can give good information about where a child stands compared to other kids their age. But no one test can be relied on to make a total judgment about a child’s academic success, aptitude or intelligence. This SAT mess is just one example why not.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Testing
Your test score may be closer than it appears
Last week I read an interesting story by my pal Patti Ghezzi at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about a new process in Georgia that allows students who fall just short of passing the state graduation test to grovel and beg before the state school board, which then decides whether or not to grant exceptions (none were granted in this story).
Perhaps these kids are being way too nice. Danielle Mathis, the prime example in the story, is a top student who scored a 499, one short of the 500 needed to pass, on the state science test and might have to forego college in the fall as a result.
I think critics of standardized testing probably would tell Danielle to stop begging for a favor and go get a good lawyer. She’s got a case. Statistically speaking, she has already passed this test.
Mark Fisher and I wrote about a similar case for the Dayton Daily News in 2004. Here’s an excerpt:
(High school student Tynisha) Edmondson was so close (on the graduation test), some testing specialists said she may have a valid argument that she already has passed the exam.
She scored 198 on the proficiency test she took in March - just short of the 200 needed to pass. That’s very likely within the standard error of measurement that applies to such tests. The standard error, similar to the margin of error in a political poll, means the results could be off by an equal percentage in either direction. (testing expert Jim) Popham said Edmondson’s 198 is statistically indistinguishable from the passing score of 200.
But states and testing companies won’t tell you this, but every standardized test has a margin of error, plus or minus a few points either way. So a student who falls just short, can make a compelling case that their score should be close enough to count.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Testing
Are mom and dad bidding?
My daughter’s first grade teacher had her baby, a girl, a little bit ahead of schedule on Thursday. I’m mildly concerned about her having a substitute teacher for six weeks or so. But on the other hand, this early arrival means it’s likely the teacher with who she’s had such great success this year will return before the year is out.
Claire, my seven-year-old, was really excited when she heard about the baby. My wife let her call me at work to tell me the news.
A couple months ago, one of my friends from work had a baby and she e-mailed around a link to Kettering Medical Center’s baby page where you can look up photos of newborn children. It was the first time I had seen one of these hospital baby sites, and it was cool — complete with an option to leave the parents a congratulatory note.
Claire remembered this.
“Dad, can we go on the Internet and see the baby? You know, look her up on eBay?”
Permalink | | Categories: Young Children, Young Children
Roosevelt’s chances get better
For those who really want to see historic Roosevelt High School saved, the news was pretty good this morning.
My colleague Cathy Mong reports that two groups that have been proposing separate redevelopment plans have decided to merge their proposals and create a joint plan.
The groups had somewhat different visions for how the 1923 school could be redeveloped and separately the financing on each proposal was good but not a slam dunk. For some time, observers have been whispering that the two groups should work together instead of compete.
Perhaps their joined proposal and financing will add up to a stronger case for saving the building and make what was shaping up to be a very tough call for the school board a little easier.
Permalink | | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
The real stars of this show
Chaminade-Julienne Senior Alexa Lopez, third in a line waiting to ask questions of actor Martin Sheen and two other speakers, stepped to the to the microphone in her blue-striped, rugby-style school uniform shirt and asked this question of Sheen:
“Last year when you went to Fort Benning, Ga., to protest against the School of the Americas, I was there, too, and I just wanted to ask what made you want to go there and do that?”
Sheen paused. “You were there too?”
This little story, I think, sums up what was remarkable about the strikingly two-way conversation about social justice that took place at C-J Wednesday.
Sure, on the stage you had a major celebrity in Sheen who is well known for his social activism, having been arrested many times for protesting on behalf of the poor and other causes. Also up there was Sister Rebecca Spires, who worked along side martyred Sister Dorothy Stang in Brazil and still spends her life trying to make the world better for the poor of that nation. And on hand was Emily Goldman from the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights, who described the impact of her parents’ decision to enter the Peace Corps, whcih led to growing up with daily visits from poor begging children in Central America.
So you think teenagers are checked out? That all they care about is the new song in their iPods or the release of the next Grand Theft Auto video game? You should have been there Wednesday.
The C-J kids referenced their own volunteering or activism many times. And they asked questions that made it clear they were really thinking about the implications of doing those things in their lives, whether through their work or in their personal time.
“How can we learn more about what’s going on in parts of the world that are ignored by the news?”
“What do you say to those who say your work is utopian and real change can never be achieved?”
“What would you tell young people who are discouraged and don’t believe one person can make a difference?”
As the questions went on, Sheen, Spires and Goldman scooted forward in their chairs in anticipation as each student stepped forward with something new to ask. They eagerly reached for the microphone to talk about how social activism changed their lives, made a difference even if only in one small corner of the world and made them more hopeful about the future.
And the end of the hour-long discussion, Spires had these final words for the students:
“I want to thank you today,” she said. “I am inspired by you. I am happy you exist. And we are really counting on you to carry on.”
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: My Favorite Posts, Private Schools
Sheen: One person can make a difference
By Scott Elliott
Dayton Daily News
DAYTON — Martin Sheen was 14, a Chaminade High School freshman with a bad smoking habit, standing on the corner by the school sucking down a last drag before heading to class one morning.
Up pulled a car and out came Chris Kuhn, a classmate Sheen disliked for bragging about his fighter pilot father.
“He’d bring in his father’s head gear or the whole pilot outfit,� Sheen recounted Wednesday at Chaminade-Julienne High School. “He made us all feel so insignificant and jealous.�
But there on the sidewalk that day, the unnoticed Sheen watched as Kuhn’s father put the car in park, got out, walked around to the sidewalk and kissed his son on the lips.
“What a public display of parental love,� Sheen said. “I was struck by it. And to this day if any one of my children or grandchildren comes through the door I kiss them right smack on the lips.�
The lesson Wednesday for an auditorium packed with an estimated 500 students?
“You never know when you are doing something that is affecting someone,â€? Sheen said.
That was the actor and Dayton native’s call to arms for social activism. After a ceremony honoring Sister Dorothy Stang, a nun killed last year in Brazil, Sheen and Sister Rebecca Spires, who worked with Stang in Brazil, and Emily Goldman, a human rights lobbyist, spoke to the students.
Answering a question from senior Krista Seaman, Spires said she first realized she could make a difference through activism when family and friends disapproved of her first black friend.
“Right then and there I decided I was going to be on the other side of this whole society,� she said.
Another student asked why work for social change when it seems hopeless that one person could make a difference?
“This is really the fundamental question for all of us,� Sheen said. “How do you make a difference and what difference does it make? This has to be highly personal. The only thing you can change is you.�
Sheen, who has been arrested dozens of times for protesting on behalf of social issues, urged the students to look inward for what they might do to help their communities or the world.
“You have to look inside and say, ‘I cannot not do this and be myself,’ � he said. “I don’t even think about trying to change other people’s minds. I do it for myself.�
Permalink | | Categories: My Favorite DDN Stories, Private Schools
Why not Dorothy Stang Catholic School?
So, suppose you had to choose name for a new Catholic school in Dayton and I told you this:
There’s a Dayton native, a nun, educated in Catholic schools here, who spent her life helping the poor and was named an official martyr by the Vatican little more than a month ago. Oh, and her family really likes the idea of naming a school for her.
What would you think about using her name?
On Wednesday, Martin Sheen, a Chaminade High School grad, was back at his old school to unveil a painting he commissioned of Sister Dorothy Stang.
It was a very nice event, with members of Stang’s family on hand along with friends and members of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur order of nuns to which she belonged. Sheen later spoke to the students, urging them to follow Sister Dorothy’s example by working for social justice.
Meanwhile, earlier this week the name was announced for a new inner-city Catholic school formed by the merger of five schools together — Mary Queen of Peace Catholic School.
At the event for Sister Dorothy, I spoke with one of her relatives who said the family had offered her name for the school and was a bit disappointed the committee leading the merger passed.
So I decided to ask why. The person handling publicity for the new school explained that Stang’s name was one of five finalists out of 60 suggested names. They put the list to a vote of the elementary kids in the five merging schools and they picked Mary Queen of Peace.
A committee made up of the four parish priests overseeing the merger went with that. She said they felt Mary Queen of Peace might be more inclusive to the whole city, and that it would avoid giving the impression the school was more identified with the parishes and schools Sister Dorothy attended.
But some think an opportunity to honor a real hometown Catholic hero was wasted. What do you think?
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Private Schools
A funny Martin Sheen moment
While answering questions from students at Chaminade-Julienne High School Wednesday, actor Martin Sheen said one of his happiest moments was the first time he got arrested during a political protest. It wasn’t the first time he’d been arrested, he said, but it was the first time he was happy about it.
He said the arrest took place nearly 20 years ago in New York, where he was part of a group protesting Star Wars.
I took a look around at the high school juniors and seniors. Star Wars? The looked at each other in disbelief. How could anyone be against one of the greatest movie franchises of all time?
No, no, kids. Not THAT Star Wars.
Remember, the seniors and juniors in the audience were born in 1988 and 1989! They are a little too young to remember the Reagan-era billions the military spent chasing a science fiction dream — the Strategic Defense Initiative, a space-based laser system to shoot down nuclear missles.
Nickname: Star Wars.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Private Schools
Sanity prevails in BB gun case
Reporter Amelia Robinson just told me Xenia schools have decided not to expel a student who carried a BB gun near a school.
She said school officials decided common sense needed to prevail in this case. Look for a complete story in tomorrow’s paper.
Any thoughts on the decision?
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: School Violence
The best way to teach young kids
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel today is wrapping up a fine three-day series on the explosion of interest in state-paid pre-school nationally. The final story in the package looks at Oklahoma, which is a pioneer offering free pre-school to all four year olds who want it.
This is an interesting trend. The brain research over the past 15 years is a slam dunk — you can’t wait until age five to begin teaching your children. The years from 0 to 5 are crucial to the developing brain. Involved, educated parents or a good pre-school, for instance, can mean a a child is exposed to millions more words at an early eage helping them buildi their vocabularies and grow their language skills. And yet, our education system doesn’t begin until kindergarten, when some kids are already woefully behind.
But while there is a general consensus that more education earlier is a good idea, the question of who should provide it, how we ensure instruction is high quality and how to pay for it are unsettled.
Right now, pre-school in every state is a hodge-podge of public and private child centers and in home care. It takes a lot of work to find quality pre-school care for your kids.
But centralizing, standardizing and expanding pre-school brings a new set of problems. One, of course, is cost. How will states pay if they want to expand publicly funded pre-school options down to age four or even lower?
And finally, with state money comes higher expectations for quality and accountability. Some are already talking about the implications for testing very young children.
One final thought. While it seems sensible that more pre-school helps kids grow academically and should improve their life chances, there isn’t great research to demonstrate this is true or show us what types of programs do the best job. There are three big studies along these lines, but all three are old and limited in important ways. There is a real need for more research in this area.
What do you think about states paying to expand pre-school?
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Young Children
DDN blogs rock
Jay Rosen, NYU journalism chair and author of the excellent PressThink blog, recently led a team of students that evaluated blogging at all of the top 100 US newspapers. They came up with a really good list of the top six papers for blogging (Houston Chronicle, Wash Post, USA Today, St. Pete Times, Atlanta, San Antonio).
Under the comments, I said I thought his team ought to take a closer look at what we are doing here at the Dayton Daily News with blogs. In his reply, Rosen mentioned that the Dayton Daily News was one of the finalists his team discussed! I thought that was quite a nice endorsement.
I encourage you to check out our other blogs if you are not familiar with them. I can especially recommend Mark Fisher’s wine blog and Margo Rutledge Kissell’s blog called Homefront, for military families with loved ones deployed overseas, as good example of MSM blogs with distinct voices and strong content.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Journalism
BB gun at school — sanity check time?
Rules are rules. But some situations call for leaders to exercise their judgment, too.
So here’s the question — is Xenia school board going overboard if it expels a 12-year-old boy for bringing a BB gun on school grounds?
Here’s what happened. The boy left the middle school he attends after the last bell, went home, got the BB gun and went to meet his buddies for some target shooting into the water of a nearby creek. Unfortunately, he met the other guys on the grounds of an elementary school and he was carrying the BB gun in his hand. A school official spotted him and that’s what initially led to a 10-day suspension.
But the district’s “no tolerance” procedure in a weapons case is to automatically move for expulsion. So administrators are asking the school board to toss him. Superintendent Jeff Lewis says in Ameila Robinson’s story that the kid had no malicious intent, did not realize he was doing anything wrong and the police said he did nothing threating or illegal.
Expulsion is a sensible punishment for bringing a weapon to school, even a BB gun. Every kid, this boy included, should know that under no circumstances is it permissible to bring a gun — real, BB, even a toy gun — onto the grounds of a school in the post-Columbine world.
But is a 10-day suspension enough? Or should the board approve his expulsion?
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: School Violence
Problem Solving: What a concept
By Scott Elliott
Dayton Daily News
So you’ve got a beautiful new school in New Madison, set off from a smooth, black-topped parking lot by a perfectly manicured lawn. In spring or fall, a teacher’s trek to the side door is a smooth glide over grass.
But then winter snow and rain turn the scene to a sloppy tundra that necessitates a cold, roundabout walk to the door.
What’s needed is a brick or stone path that could be plowed, Tri-Village teacher Kimberly Puckett thought. It’s a problem that has a solution. It’s a MATH problem! Her math class could do it!
What would that take? Measurements for a scale drawing. Algebra to predict the number of bricks. And a volume calculation for the gravel base.
It worked. The path was laid and a new class was born, known simply as “problem solving.” And Puckett is up for another major teaching award.
The Path
Math can be a swirling wet saw and a face full of soft white mud.
So Puckett found while cutting bricks in 90 degree heat, turning her black hair and safety glasses grey with speckles of muck, to give a gritty problem-solving lesson to a huddle of teenagers.
Convincing high school kids that math can be motivating instead of monotony is a sometimes dirty job.
But Puckett’s interactive approach has earned her another of the teaching profession’s gold stars — she is a national finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching.
In a way, the latest accolade is the legacy of that steamy day with the wet saw in 2004.
Out of it came “The Path� — a simple brick walkway across 50 feet of grass to keep teachers’ shoes dry on snowy days. And for Puckett’s neophyte crew, the straight and steady bricks were a mathematical badge of honor.
“Ten years down the road, they might be still using it and remember the people who did this,� said junior Travis Richardson, who laid brick for two days even though he wasn’t in the class that designed the walk. “Maybe our names will live on for a while.�
From that fingernail-caked experience also grew a popular new high school “problem solving� class. Now Puckett and an everchanging troop take their whacks at solving important problems in the school. This year, they are updating the tornado safety plan.
“Its amazing what kids can do, and will do, when you give them the power,� Puckett said.
Creativity noticed
As her kids chase down the janitor’s keys in search of undiscovered tornado-safe spaces, Puckett has become the school’s lead problem solver and fun maker.
And her creative teaching continues to get noticed.
Puckett is one of two Ohioans among 253 Presidential Award finalists. About 100 winners will get $10,000 and meet President Bush in March. In 2001, she won the $25,000 National Educator Award from the Milken Family Foundation.
Ryan Burkhardt learned calculus from Puckett as a Tri-Village senior and now team teaches with her.
“Some teachers say they have high expectations but when the kids come up short, they say, ‘good enough,’ � he said. “Whether it’s with precalculus or lower level students, she sets a high bar and keeps pushing until you get over it.�
Handshake connection
In the problem solving class, Puckett seldom lectures. Instead, kids hunched over school designs or huddled around the board as she hovered at the edges with encouraging whispers and warm smiles. Or she’ll square her shoulders, stare a student in the eye and offer a gentle challenge — “show me.�
A personal connection, she said, is key. Early in her career, with a particularly uninspired class, Puckett began a daily tradition of standing at the door to offer a handshake as the kids leave. Everybody laughed, but she noticed a spike in attendance.
“I didn’t see it coming the first time,� said junior Lewis Laux, whom Puckett this year tutored at home for six weeks after leg surgery. “She just hopped out of nowhere, patted me on the back and said, ‘Good to have you in class, Lewis! Bye!’ �
Doing projects such as the tornado plan gives the kids purpose, Puckett said.
“It’s a real transformation,� she said. “They go from looking like ‘I’m just here’ to ‘I make a difference.’ �
And they find lots of ways to overcome obstacles.
Harder is better
Junior Ben Newbauer, for instance, didn’t really want his rear end measured. But to save lives during a storm he agreed to squat on the auditorium’s wooden parquet floor and submit to the yellow tape.
“I think we’re going to need 2 feet by 2 feet for each kid,� Travis guessed.
Ben pulled up his knees and measured a little larger than Travis guessed — 22 inches wide and 32 inches long — numbers that were key to the overall space calculation.
Ben, who hopes to be a marine biologist, said he’d rather spend a week tackling the tornado task than do pages of problems each night.
“It’s harder for me to get the solution, but that actually makes it better,� he said. “This is actually fun.�
Permalink | | Categories: My Favorite DDN Stories, Teaching and Learning
A parent’s worst nightmare
My friend and former Dayton Daily News colleague John Keilman has written an amazing piece about heroin use in the suburbs in the most recent Chicago Tribune Sunday magazine.
John is probably the best pure writer I’ve ever worked with and he doesn’t disappoint here. The story chronicles how heroin was refined and then popularized in the Chicago suburbs and glimpses the inside tale of how kids are introduced to the drug and how well they can conceal it until things spin out of control.
It’s a scary subject for parents, but a must read. Even the best parented kid can skid off course and down one of the dark back alleys. Perhaps the best defense is to stay deeply involved in your kids’ lives. The active parent who notices every hair out of place is probably the best bet to catch on to a kid in trouble. But even that’s no guarantee.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Student Health and Safety
Carnival time
This week’s carinval of education is up at the The Education Wonks blog. Here’s my contribution to this week’s compilation of the best in education blogging.
Permalink | | Categories: The Carnival of Education
You play school board
The Dayton school board faces a tough, tough problem with Roosevelt High School. Put yourself in a school board member’s shoes for a moment. Here is the situation.
Roosevelt High School was one of the nation’s largest schools when it was built in 1923 and its architecture alone makes it an important artifact. Plus, the school played an intricate role in the city’s history as Dayton’s first integrated high school. The stories of it’s troubles with integration — including the notorious separation of black and white students for activities like swimming — are an intimate part of the city’s history and experiences attending Roosevelt helped shape many of Dayton’s most important leaders.
Most schools that are tagged “historically significant” are truly not, in my view. Most of the time schools have not played an important historical role. Rather, they are important because they are “emotionally significant” to a community that has relied on that school through generations in countless ways. You can argue that emotional significance is a reason to keep a building too, but it shouldn’t be confused with real historic significance.
In the case of Roosevelt, it cannot be argued that the school is not historic.
With more than 300,000 square feet, Roosevelt is a massive and ancient structure that was not well cared for through the years. It is very, very expensive to maintain. Even empty, Dayton spends $15,000 a month on maintenance — that’s $180,000 a year that could be spent educating kids.
The board has considered renovating Roosevelt and using it as a school along with other services. But the costs are huge. Their estimates for rehab are around $30 million, and the district just cannot afford to spend that kind of money. By comparison, the could build three elementary schools for the same cost.
Everyone agrees the best route is for someone else to take over the building and revitalize it. The school board cannot be the ones to do this. It is not a community development organization and it already has spent too much time and energy dealing with this distracting problem.
There are two strong redevelopment proposals, each with its own separate financing. Some wonder why these groups can’t work together and combine their financing, but they have very different visions for what Roosevelt can be in the future.
Above all else, the board does not want to relinquish control unless it is certain the developer can pull off its plan.
The hardest part of this is making an accurate judgment about the financing of the two redevelopment proposals. As much as the board might want to just take a chance with one of them, it really can’t. Nobody can afford for redevelopment to fail. If the board gives up the building and the developer fails, there will be nobody to rescue the school. It could just sit and rot for years, which does nobody any good.
Unfortunately, neither of the proposals have a financing plan that is a slam dunk.
If the board cannot be confident there is a viable redevelopment plan, they have one other very unattractive alternative. They can tear the school down.
This is their one chance to tear it down cost effectively and ensure no eyesore will be left on West Third Street. If they do it now, they will qualify for state matching funds through the Ohio School Facilities Commission, which means the state will pay two-thirds of the $900,000 or so cost of demolition. This can only happen now, while the district still owns the building and while it has OSFC projects underway.
The worst case scenario for the board is to give up control of the building, see the developer fail, be unable to tear it down and be blamed for years to come as the building rots.
So that’s the situation. If you were the board, what would you do?
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
