The Wombat’s Blog

Cannot Understand the Law I have to Enforce0

The Police is understaffed and trying to recruit local cadets. Turns out the people applying don’t have the reading skills to become police officers. Kind of scary that of all the possible options, the point of failure is “reading comprehension” for somebody who is supposed to enforce scores of written laws.

Good to see that the Chief of Police is not contemplating lowering the standard.

(Original found here.)

Young police recruits struggle to pass exam
by Erin Miller
West Hawaii Today
Saturday, March 17, 2007 9:48 AM HST

Response to the Police Department’s youth cadet program has been good, but academic difficulties may keep some candidates out of the program.

Police Chief Lawrence Mahuna said Friday the department received more than 100 applications for the program, which is set to begin this summer.

The scoring of applications isn’t finished, but among applicants who failed the entrance exam, reading comprehension was a “major issue,” Mahuna told Police Commissioners at their monthly meeting.

Cadet applicants who were unable to finish the test in the allotted amount of time struggled with understanding what they read, he added. Other components of the test include following logical progression, analytical thinking and math skills.

“Do you ever have meetings with teachers, to let them know we pass the students who can’t read?” Commissioner Karolyn Lundkvist asked Mahuna. “To correct that, it seems we could start with some kind of forum for the teachers.”

Mahuna said doesn’t think blaming teachers or the state’s Department of Education is the right approach.

“It’s not so much that they don’t recognize the problem,” he said. “The problems arise with behavior management, the inordinate amount of time spent doing that and it disrupts the rest of the class.”

Mahuna said he did not anticipate lessening the test’s difficulty level, because to become police officers, applicants must have at least a high school diploma or its equivalent. One goal of the cadet program is to help the cadets become full-fledged police officers when they are old enough to apply.

Mahuna said after the meeting that some of the applicants taking the test were still in high school and haven’t completed their education.

Commissioner Anita Politano Steckel said members of the public might push for education reform — if they knew students were unable to pass tests like the Police Department’s entrance exam.

“We can’t get people to pass a rather ordinary [exam],” Politano Steckel said. “I hope this gets out and you get the public excited.”

Commission Chairwoman Pudding Lassiter told Lundkvist to pursue a forum with police, school and community representatives to discuss the problem.

The youth cadet program is part of the department’s ongoing recruiting drive to fill vacancies. The department has openings for 43 sworn officers and 17 civilian employees.

Posted: local, education

Who Has to Feed Our Children?0

Two articles coming back to back regarding school lunch programs. Apparently students are being denied lunch, if they lose their lunch tickets. What’s worse: having hungry (and fidgety) children in the classroom, or teaching them responsibility by not losing the tickets in the first place. The solution: beg the population. “If each person in the community gave just one dollar …”

What about the parents? Isn’t that what parents should do, ensure that their kids are fed, rested, and clothed. No, the response is

It’s about aloha, loving the kid. Why deny them lunch? … People are obviously not thinking about the welfare of the child.

Yikes. I’d understand it for kids in kindergarten or the early elementary grades (but then you might not want to ask them to handle “meal tickets” in the first place), but once you get older …
(Originals found here and here.)

School lunch policies questioned
by Lisa Huynh
West Hawaii Today
Monday, March 12, 2007

Prompted by an incident in which a Kohala High School student was denied lunch because he lost his lunch ticket, Hawaii Island administrators are revisiting a long-standing debate about school lunch policies.

The question of whether students should be given lunch when they lose their lunch tickets or forget to bring their lunch money — and whether grade level should guide policy — is a complicated one involving education and finances.

The Department of Education does not have an umbrella policy for how schools should handle lunch distribution. The issues are dealt with on a school-by-school basis, said Randy Moore of the Office of Business Services.

Often schools will provide lunches to students regardless of the situation but in doing so at least several Big Island schools have accrued school-lunch-loan debts. Further, educators have expressed the need to hold students accountable for their actions.

Lani Eugenio, the mother of a Kohala High student, recently appealed to the state DOE and the Board of Education to address problems related to school lunch policy after her son was denied lunch when he lost his lunch ticket and wasn’t able to pay for its replacement.

In a memo to the DOE and BOE titled “Feed Our Children,” Eugenio wrote that her “child lost his lunch ticket and asked that the $5 replacement fee be taken out of his account, which had nearly $100. It was denied and he was denied lunch.”

She said the department and board responded to her letter but have made no changes to the system.

Kohala High School Principal Catherine Bratt said the school has attempted to address the issue of lost school lunch tickets by offering to keep the tickets in the cafeteria, where students can retrieve and return them at meal times.

“If they haven’t had a ticket, we’ve basically given them wiggle room,” Bratt said. However, unpaid loans have led to the school accruing outstanding loans close to $50. Bratt said she’s heard of other schools that have had significantly higher debts from lending students money for lunch.

Hawaii’s public schools have automated systems in which parents are notified immediately when school lunch accounts are running low, said Bratt.

Schools are reimbursed by the federal and state governments for free and reduced lunches. The data from the lunch programs aids federal government tracking of low-income students.

In the 2005-2006 school year, roughly 6.6 million free meals and 2.3 million reduced-price meals were served in Hawaii, according to Glenna Owens, DOE school food services program manager. The state received about $18 million in federal reimbursements for free meals, and about $5.5 million for reduced-price meals.

West Hawaii Complex Area Superintendent Art Souza said the general understanding is all students are going to be fed. Before becoming superintendent, Souza said he inherited a school-lunch-loan debt when he was principal at Waikoloa Elementary.

“The difficulty is, how do we collect the school lunch loans?” Souza said. “It’s an ongoing problem and there’s no right or wrong answer.”

He added there are many levels of understanding on the issue. For some schools, making students responsible for their money and tickets is a form of teaching civic responsibility.

Standard practice from the state office is for elementary schools never to deny children food, said Owens. However, the same practice does not hold for high schools, likely because the students are expected to be more responsible.

Eugenio believes students should never be held accountable for their tickets, and that the school administration is responsible for feeding the students so they are not malnourished.

“It’s about aloha, loving the kid. Why deny them lunch?” she said. “… People are obviously not thinking about the welfare of the child.”

A different approach to solve the same problem.

Konawaena program ensures kids are fed
by Lisa Huynh
West Hawaii Today
Friday, March 16, 2007

If each person in the community gave just one dollar, no student would go hungry. This idea led to a plan and a realization for Konawaena High School teacher Alex Cadang.

The lifelong educator’s idea came from an encounter with a student who, hungry and embarrassed, silently left the school cafeteria after being denied lunch because her meal account was empty.

“I was angry and approached the cafeteria manager about the situation. I asked, ‘Why not just give her the food?’ and he explained that he needed to follow the policies,” said Cadang, an in-school suspension specialist.

Instead of fixating on reasons why students should not or could not be fed, he sought a way in which they would.

Shortly after his encounter with the student, Cadang approached friend Ed Finnegan with the idea of starting a fund. It would help feed students who qualify for free or reduced lunch in emergency situations.

“What we tried to do was keep it very simple … children who have meal cards that are depleted may use our funds,” Finnegan said. “… Regardless of the amount of money you’re donating, you know that you are funding meals for kids.”

With the help of caring people in and outside of the school, and with the support of the Principal Shawn Suzuki, Cadang created the “No Child Left Hungry” Program. Despite Cadang’s not having advertised the program, word spread quickly around campus and many stepped forward to make donations.

“What’s wonderful about this is that people in the community have such a passion for the students. They just want to help our kids and families,” said Suzuki. “… This goes beyond giving money. They are not only giving their money, they are giving their time.”

Finnegan and Cadang call the plan a simple solution from simple folks, but they also acknowledge the larger implications of their collective efforts.

“I’d rather have 1,000 people give $1 than one person getting a tax write-off, because then people will understand the plight of our children,” said Cadang.

Konawaena is not alone in struggling to deal with state and federal school lunch policies prohibiting meal loans. West Hawaii Today highlighted the issue in a recent article involving Kohala High School.

Schools are reimbursed by the federal and state governments for free and reduced lunches. The data from the lunch programs aids federal government tracking of low-income students. In the 2005-2006 school year, roughly 6.6 million free meals and 2.3 million reduced-price meals were served in Hawaii, according to Glenna Owens, Department of Education school food services program manager. The state received about $18 million in federal reimbursements for free meals, and about $5.5 million for reduced-price meals.

Cadang said he wanted to share his school’s story in the hopes that it would help others determine their own solutions.

“Sometimes it’s difficult to look beyond the problem,” Cadang said. “We think we have a model that might help other schools.”

Even though Cadang said he knows the system will be abused by some, he still believes it is worthwhile.

The DOE does not have a policy for how schools should handle lunch distribution. The issues are dealt with on a school-by-school basis, said Randy Moore of the Office of Business Services.

Suzuki said implementation of the program does not negate the fact that students must be responsible for their meal cards.

“The expectation is students will still be responsible for their cards and showing us their identification,” he said. “This is just really a different vehicle for addressing the problems and I sure hope it will do some good.”

School cafeteria manager Kip Yamamoto said keeping meal cards in the cafeteria is difficult because, at the high school level, the students come in at different times and there are too many cards to look after.

“I told (Cadang) that (the program) is a good idea because there are kids that come in without cards or money. It’s a good thing when we can pull up the funds from a general account,” said Yamamoto.

Although he does not deal directly with the students most of the time, Yamamoto said it is hard for the cafeteria staff to turn away students.

For more information, contact Alex Cadang at 323-4500.

Posted: social/culture, local, education

The Need for Lists - the Power of Junk0

Interesting article by a college president questioning the usefulness of the US News and World report College Rankings.

There are a few threads to follow: Sarah Lawrence decides to stop using SAT scores, without affects on the students applying. However US News will calculate an arbitrary average SAT score for that school without regards to reality. So the school decides to consider dropping out, i.e. supplying even fewer statistics to US News which will then fill in again for them. So if they decide not to participate, they will be participated by a news organization highly dependent on the success of those rankings.

So lies are being uses as statistics. A national ranking system turns out to be anything but. A national news magazine ends up losing all integrity. And a college is being under the gun to stand up to principle, or to be broadly misrepresented by those with the power. Who ends up good coming out of this?
Thank you for writing this article. I hope that we get some sort of retraction from US News & World Report, but if there isn’t - shame on you.

Too bad we’re all so dependent on lists - that we need rankings to make informed choices.

(Original article posted here.)

The Cost of Bucking College Rankings
By Michele Tolela Myers
Sunday, March 11, 2007

Like most college presidents, I have seen many prospective students and their parents show up on campus in recent months, clutching their well-worn copies of U.S. News & World Report’s rankings issue. U.S. News has smartly tapped into students’ need to sort out colleges and universities in a rational way. Parents, who face increasing college costs, understandably want to know where best to make that expensive investment.

U.S. News benefits from our appetite for shortcuts, sound bites and top-10 lists. The magazine has parlayed the appearance of unbiased measurements into a profitable bottom line.

The problem is that the U.S. News college rankings are far from reliable.

Turns out that some of their numbers are made up. I know that firsthand. Two years ago, we at Sarah Lawrence College decided to stop using SAT scores in our admission process. We didn’t make them optional, as some schools do. We simply told our prospective students not to bother sending them. We determined that the best predictors of success at Sarah Lawrence are high school grades in rigorous college-prep courses, teachers’ recommendations and extensive writing samples. We are a writing-intensive school, and the information produced by SAT scores added little to our ability to predict how a student would do at our college; it did, however, do much to bias admission in favor of those who could afford expensive coaching sessions.

Since we dropped the SAT altogether, we no longer provide SAT information to U.S. News & World Report. Our two years’ experience with this practice has been very good. Faculty members report that our students continue to be terrific. Their average high school grades, high school ranks and grades in Advanced Placement courses have not changed.

But this principled decision has put us in jeopardy. I was recently informed by the director of data research at U.S. News, the person at the magazine who has a lot to say about how the rankings are computed, that absent students’ SAT scores, the magazine will calculate the college’s ranking by assuming an arbitrary average SAT score of one standard deviation (roughly 200 points) below the average score of our peer group.

In other words, in the absence of real data, they will make up a number. He made clear to me that he believes that schools that do not use SAT scores in their admission process are admitting less capable students and therefore should lose points on their selectivity index. Our experience, of course, tells us otherwise.

But the story does not stop here. When I reported this conversation at Sarah Lawrence, several faculty members and deans suggested that perhaps it was time to stop playing ranking roulette and opt out of the survey. A few colleges explore this option each year, but most don’t follow through (Reed College is one of the few exceptions I know of), because, like unilateral disarmament, unilateral withdrawal from the U.S. News ranking system is dangerous.

We discovered how dangerous it can be through a presentation U.S. News made at the 2006 meeting of the North East Association for Institutional Research. There, the magazine indicated that if a school stops sending data, the default assumption will be that it performs one standard deviation below the mean on numerous factors for which U.S. News can’t find published data. Again, making up the numbers it can’t get.

The message is clear. Unless we are willing to be badly misrepresented, we had better send the information the magazine wants. We haven’t yet decided what we will do. But if we don’t go along, we understand we will be harmed because many students will assume that Sarah Lawrence is much less selective than it actually is.

The reality is that the magazine’s rankings issue has a large circulation and that parents and students rely on these rankings to make a college choice that has enormous educational and financial implications. This gives the magazine the power to keep colleges playing the game it sets and controls.

Why should we care if we lose our place in their rankings? Because ultimately, so many people take these rankings seriously. I would at least like to let them know how misleading the whole affair is.

The writer is president of Sarah Lawrence College.

Posted: media, science, education

The $1k Shot in the Foot0

The local Board of Education is the Charter Schools don’t see each other eye to eye. So the BOE investigates and accuses the Charter Schools of mismanagement of funs, because they wasted $1728 over 2 1/2 years. Yup.
Are you kidding me? Less than $2000 of waste, spent on 2 things in 2 1/2 years.
If you’re a monopoly, and a disliked one at that, don’t shoot off your mouth on small stuff like this, it just makes you look petty. In fact, if that is it, then hats off to the Charter Schools for running such a tight ship.

Now the required solution is for the Charter School office to come up with a Strategic Plan.

…?

Waa ha ha ha ha.

And you wonder why public education is in the condition it is in? Well you don’t … it’s … right … there.
(Original found here.)

BOE Audit Questions Charter Schools’ Management of Public Funds
by Nancy Cook Lauer
Stephens Media Capitol Bureau
Tuesday, February 27, 2007 8:04 AM HST

HONOLULU — A key committee of the Board of Education, distraught over an audit that showed an apparently free-wheeling and free-spending Charter School Administrative Office, on Monday recommended the findings be turned over to both the state Ethics Commission and the Department of Labor.

Members of the BOE Audit Committee were especially concerned over undocumented luncheon meetings totaling $618 and staff celebrations and farewell parities totaling $1,110 during the almost 21/2-year period covered by the audit. They also questioned why the charter office paid expenses for two charter school directors to travel from the Big Island to attend a BOE general meeting.

The internal audit covered spending at the office from Sept. 1, 2004, to Jan. 12 of this year. The undocumented spending on meals and parties came during the tenure of former Executive Director Jim Shon, whom the board fired last summer. The office has had four “permanent” or interim directors in its three-year existence.

“This is problematic all around,” said BOE Chairwoman Karen Knudsen. “It’s quite apparent that we haven’t had anyone in here who’s had management experience.”

BOE auditor Chris Lee said the primary weakness at the office was the lack of formal policies and procedures and a strategic plan. If those two weaknesses were corrected, the other 11 problems he found should go away by themselves, he said.

“This one looks a lot worse than it really is,” Lee said.

State law allows charter schools and the administrative office to operate outside conventional state laws but requires the office to have formal policies and procedures.

Interim Executive Director Maunalei Love said the office would follow the audit recommendations and get the formal strategic plan and policies and procedures completed as soon as possible — perhaps even by next month. She said employees had started working on them when she came on board about four months ago, but the project had to take a back seat to other urgent business in the short-staffed office.

The audit could, however, help torpedo a bill moving through the Legislature that will take some oversight of charter schools away from the BOE and give it to a recently formed charter school review panel. After being heard in the House Finance Committee last week, the bill is being kept from a full floor vote while the committee awaits the audit report.

While some of the newer board members, such as Kim Coco Iwamoto, told the board “I think we can take the high road,” many on the committee spent the good part of an hour and a half grilling Love and Chief Financial Officer Bob Roberts on the audit’s findings.

Board member Garrett Toguchi pushed for the involvement of the Ethics Commission on the travel and meals expenses and the Department of Labor on a contract employee whose position was being turned into that of a full-time employee.

“It begs the question of stewardship of public funds,” Toguchi said.

Steve Hirakami, president of the Hawaii Charter Schools Network, and John Thatcher, the former president, were the two Big Island charter school directors who flew to a BOE meeting at the request and expense of the charter school office.

Hirakami said the office paid because the two were asked to lend their expertise to an issue before the board, but he didn’t recall what it was.

“The kind of things they are finding is real nit-picky,” Hirakami said, recommending the office get an independent audit done to help them better understand the issues.

“We have six or seven of the schools getting audited annually and it’s a real good tool,” Hirakami said.

But after repeated grilling of her CFO and herself, Love’s patience was wearing thin.

“I was hoping that this would be something advantageous,” Love said, “particularly something to help us move on and not to justify what had happened in the past but as a way to move forward.”

Posted: social/culture, local, education

Protecting Consumers or Corporations - the School Lunchbox0

This article talks about government testing on lead-levels in vinyl school lunchboxes and how it was determined that the lead levels are acceptable to young children.

It comes across that they tried to look at the situation with a scientific mind, by testing what children may really be exposed to. But can the government really predict how the products will be used. Is it really wise to err on the side they did. But then there is always risk analysis to help you make economic decisions.

(Original found here.)

Did Government Hide Lunch-Box Lead Levels?
By MARTHA MENDOZA
The Associated Press

In 2005, when government scientists tested 60 soft, vinyl lunch boxes, they found that one in five contained amounts of lead that medical experts consider unsafe — and several had more than 10 times hazardous levels.

But that’s not what they told the public.

Instead, the Consumer Product Safety Commission released a statement that it found “no instances of hazardous levels.” And it refused to release its actual test results, citing regulations that protect manufacturers from having their information released to the public.

Those data were not made public until The Associated Press received a box of about 1,500 pages of lab reports, in-house e-mails and other records in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed a year ago.

The documents describe two types of tests:

• The first involves cutting a chunk of vinyl off the bag, dissolving it and then analyzing how much lead is in the solution.
• The second involves swiping the surface of a bag and then determining how much lead has rubbed off.

The results of the first type of test, looking for the actual lead content of the vinyl, showed that 20 percent of the bags had more than 600 parts per million of lead, the federal safe level for paint and other products. The highest level was 9,600 ppm, more than 16 times the federal standard.

But the CPSC did not use those results.

“When it comes to a lunch box, it’s carried. The food that you put in the lunch box may have an outer wrapping, a baggie, so there isn’t direct exposure. The direct exposure would be if kids were putting their lunch boxes in their mouth, which isn’t a common way for children to interact with their lunch box,” said CPSC spokeswoman Julie Vallese.

Thus the CPSC focused exclusively on how much lead came off the surface of a lunch box when lab workers swiped them.

For the swipe tests, the results were lower, especially after the researchers changed their testing protocol. After a handful of tests, they increased the number of times they swiped each bag, again and again on the same spot, resulting in lower average results.

An in-house e-mail from the director of the CPSC’s chemistry division explained that they had been retesting with the new protocol “which gave a lower average result than the prior report … ,” he wrote. “This shows … that the overall risk is lower than our original testing would have showed, as the amount of lead dislodgeable is mostly taken out with the first wipe and goes down with subsequent wipes.”

Vallese explained it this way: “The more you wipe, the less lead you actually find. With fewer wipes, we got a higher detection of lead presence. We thought more wipes was closer to reflecting how you would interact with your lunch box. It was more realistic.”

The test results also show that many lunch boxes were tested only on the outside, which is unlikely to be in contact with food. Vallese said this was because children handle their lunch boxes from the outside.

As a result of their tests, the CPSC issued a public statement last year reassuring consumers that they had nothing to worry about: “Based on the extremely low levels of lead found in our tests, in most cases, children would have to rub their lunch box and then lick their hands more than 600 times every day, for about 15-30 days, in order for the lunch box to present a health hazard.”

Vallese said the commission stands by those statements.

But the results were disconcerting to outside experts who reviewed them.

“They found levels that we consider very high,” said Alexa Engelman, a researcher at the Oakland, Calif.-based Center for Environmental Health, which has filed a series of legal complaints about lead in lunch boxes.

“They knew this all along and they didn’t take action on it,” Engelman said. “It’s upsetting to me. Why are we, as a country, protecting the companies? We should be protecting the kids. I don’t think in this instance they did their job.”

Although these test results are only now being aired publicly, the CPSC did provide them to the Food and Drug Administration last summer.

The FDA’s reaction was completely different from the CPSC’s. In July 2006, after receiving the test results, the FDA sent a letter to lunch-box manufacturers warning them that their lead levels might be dangerously high and advising them that the FDA might take action against them because the lead would be considered a food additive if it rubbed off onto kids’ lunches.

In response to the FDA warning, Wal-Mart stopped selling soft lunch boxes with vinyl liners, and offered refunds to customers who wanted to return the ones they already had.

Some manufacturers revamped their manufacturing processes to eliminate lead, or stopped making the lunch boxes altogether. Those changes have been prompted in large part by pressure from the Center for Environmental Health and several other nonprofit advocacy groups in New York and Washington state that have been testing lunch boxes and publicly airing the results for several years.

Lead is a stabilizing agent in vinyl, but there are other chemicals that can be used instead of lead. Almost every lunch box found with lead in the vinyl lining was made in China.

Allen Blakey, a spokesman for the Vinyl Institute, a trade association representing manufacturers of vinyl, said his organization defers to the regulatory agencies.

“The CPSC was pretty clear that they did not see a danger in these lunch boxes. The FDA had a slightly different take on it. But basically, we have not seen any indication of actual harm from the lunch boxes,” he said.

Public-health experts consider elevated levels of lead in blood a significant health hazard for U.S. children. Studies have repeatedly shown that childhood exposure to lead can lead to learning problems, reduced intelligence, hyperactivity and attention-deficit disorder. There is no lead level that is considered safe in blood, and recent studies have shown adverse health effects even at very low levels.

“I don’t think the Consumer Product Safety Commission has lived up to its role to protect kids from lead,” said Dr. Bruce Lamphear, a lead-poisoning specialist at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. “As a public agency, their work should be transparent. And if one is to err on the side of protecting children rather than protecting lunch-box makers, then certainly you would want to lower the levels.”

Posted: politics, environment, science, education

Being Accountable to Non-Standards0

The Law of Unintended Side Effects. The Administration claims that at least this law introduced “Accountability.” Great. Nobody seems to feel good about it. The results aren’t changing. Here in Hawaii they are debating lowering our state standard since we’re apparently aiming too high. Simple situations can accept simple solutions. But situations are rarely simple.

(Original found here.)

Congress to weigh ‘No Child Left Behind’
By NANCY ZUCKERBROD, AP Education Writer
Sat Jan 13, 1:07 PM ET

The No Child Left Behind law was supposed to level the playing field, promising students an equal education no matter where they live or their background. From state to state, however, huge differences remain in what students are expected to know and learn.

Each state sets its own standards for subjects such as reading and math, then tests to see whether students meet those benchmarks. It’s a practice under increasing scrutiny as Congress prepares to review the five-year-old law.

“Fourth-grade kids in the District of Columbia are learning different math from kids across the (Potomac) river in Virginia. It’s crazy. Math is math,” said Michael Petrilli, vice president for policy at the Thomas Fordham Foundation, a Washington-based education reform group.

The solution, say Petrilli and other advocates, means standards of learning that are uniform nationwide.

Republicans generally have opposed national standards. GOP lawmakers say state and local officials know what is best for their students and as the primary funders of elementary and secondary education, should have primary say in running schools.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has opposed national standards but recently indicated she would consider voluntary ones. Spellings said she would have strong reservations, however, about proposals that would free states from the No Child Left Behind law’s requirements as a reward for raising standards.

Many Democrats, along with education reform and business groups, say a patchwork of standards is inefficient. They also say students in states with low standards will have trouble competing in the global economy. Many other industrial nations have more stringent standards than those in the U.S.

There are signs states are wrestling with the problem. Some are talking about sharing tests and looking at benchmarks that would identify the skills U.S. students should have when they finish high school.

Advocates of national standards say the No Child Left Behind law is encouraging states to set low standards so schools can avoid consequences that come with missing annual progress goals.

Schools that miss those targets must take steps such as paying for tutoring or overhauling staffs. All students have to be proficient, which generally means working at grade level, in reading and math by 2014.

At least one state, Missouri, lowered its standards after the federal law went into effect.

Gene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said it is understandable that some states would set low standards. “They’re trying to make sense out of this. They’re trying to survive,” he said.

Wilhoit said, however, that is seen as unfair that states with high standards are treated the same as those with lower standards. He said states willing to raise their standards to a high, possibly uniform, level should be given regulatory relief and financial incentives.

Supporters of national standards point to the vast differences between student performance on state tests compared with a rigorous national one as evidence states are using weak standards.

A study by the Washington-based children’s advocacy group EdTrust showed 89 percent of fourth-graders in Mississippi were deemed proficient or better in reading on recent state tests. Meanwhile, only 18 percent reached that level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — the gold-standard of scholastic achievement in the United States.

In Oklahoma, 75 percent of fourth-graders were proficient or better in math on the state test. On the federal test, 29 percent met that standard.

In Massachusetts — a state with relatively high standards — the gap is narrower. Fifty percent of fourth graders were proficient in reading on state tests, compared with 44 percent on the national test.

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the committee overseeing education issues, has proposed legislation generally encouraging states to raise their standards to a consistent level, as has Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.

Dodd’s legislation won the endorsement of the National Education Association, the largest teacher’s union.

“We know that we need to take a look at the rigor and the wide diversity and range of content standards,” NEA lobbyist Kim Anderson said.

One bit of evidence that uniform standards are effective comes from schools run by the Defense Department for military families.

Student scores at those schools, which operate outside the No Child Left Behind law but which have uniform standards, are higher on the national assessment than scores of other students, according to Vanderbilt University researcher Claire Smrekar.

She said there are many reasons for that trend but that uniform standards at the Defense Department schools play a role. “I would say they provide clarity and consistency within the system,” she said.

Among educators, there is a concern national standards would become outdated and that changing them would be difficult and bureaucratic.

Brenda Dietrich, a superintendent in the Topeka, Kan., area, said she has not formed an opinion on national standards, but does see a logic to them.

“If we’re all going to be held to a standard, it certainly would be nice if it were the same standard,” Dietrich said.

That is probably going to be the winning argument, says Michael Dannenberg, who directs education policy at the Washington-based New America Foundation, which recently held a forum on national standards. “My view is that the country is on an inexorable march toward national standards, and the question is not if but when and how,” he said.
___
On the Net:
Education Department background on the law: http://www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml
Compare state standards: http://nclb.ecs.org/nclb/rpt_details.asp?surveyfirsttwo

Posted: education

The Limits of Designing Diversity0

(Original found here).

Quick illustration of the complexity of achieving a “just” society. What is somebody’s success is somebody else’s desire. Since we can’t all share, people will lose out. Even with complicated rules and adjustments, the sense of fairness and entitlements can get complicated.

This is about a successful school district in Seattle that does reverse discrimination - encourage minorities to attend for a better education. Of course that means that other people will get kicked out (in this case 300 other people).

Clueless In Seattle
By George F. Will
Sunday, December 3, 2006; B07

SEATTLE — This city’s school district decided in 2000 that because the son of Jill Kurfirst and the daughter of Winnie Bachwitz are white, they should be assigned to an inferior and distant high school. If they had not left the Seattle school system, this would have required them to rise at 5 a.m. in order to leave home by 5:30 a.m., alone and in the dark, to take the first of three buses, returning home between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., with almost no time left for homework, family activities and adequate sleep.

The parents argue that the racial school assignments — actually, assignments by pigmentation — that so injured their children violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws. The reliably unreliable U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit — often reversed but never in doubt — predictably ruled, with interesting indifference to pertinent Supreme Court precedents, against the parents. Soon — oral arguments are tomorrow — the Supreme Court can remind the 9th Circuit of the Constitution’s limits on what schools can do in the name of “diversity.”

Students can seek admission to any of Seattle’s high schools. But the Seattle School District decided to engineer a precise racial balance in its most popular — because much better — high schools, which are chosen by more students than they can accommodate. The district wanted each oversubscribed school to reflect the entire system’s ratio of 40 percent whites and 60 percent nonwhites. So it adopted a race-based admission plan to shape the schools’ “diversity.”

The district gave preference to certain applicants, using considerations it called “tiebreakers.” One, which benefited about 10 percent of applicants, was whether the student had a sibling at the desired school. Another was whether the student’s race would produce or maintain a 40-60 balance.

When registering children for high school, parents were asked to specify each child’s race. If parents did not specify, the district did so based on visual inspection of the parents’ or child’s pigmentation. The school board president has said that “skin tone matters.”

The two children wanted to attend Ballard High School because of its biotech academy. In the 2000-01 school year, when 82 percent of the city’s students sought admission to the five best schools, the children were among the 300 students denied admission to the school of their choice because their race interfered with racial balancing.

Although Seattle never had segregated schools, the district discusses its racial preferences with reference to “segregation” and “integration.” But a statement by the district reveals that racial preferences are supposed to serve social engineering: “Diversity in the classroom increases the likelihood that children will discuss racial or ethnic issues and be more likely to socialize with people of different races.” Or different skin tones.

Is that a “compelling government interest,” sufficient to justify race-based school assignments? The 9th Circuit, siding with the district, argued two propositions, both of which conflict with Supreme Court precedents.

One was that racial preferences are benign if they do not ” unduly harm any students” or ” uniformly benefit any race or group of individuals to the detriment of another” (emphases added). But the Supreme Court has rejected this idea that the equal protection clause protects group rights rather than individual rights.

Second, the 9th Circuit said broad deference is owed to the judgments of local school districts. But no line of cases has established that high schools enjoy even the limited latitude that universities have in treating race as a factor when deciding who may be admitted. Rather, the Supreme Court has held that public secondary education “must be available to all on equal terms.” And here are samples of the Seattle district’s judgments which the 9th Circuit thinks deserve deference:

Until June, the school district’s Web site declared that “cultural racism” includes “emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology,” “having a future time orientation” (planning ahead) and “defining one form of English as standard.” The site also asserted that only whites can be racists, and disparaged assimilation as the “giving up” of one’s culture. After this propaganda provoked outrage, the district, saying it needed to “provide more context to readers” about “institutional racism,” put up a page saying that the district’s intention is to avoid “unsuccessful concepts such as a melting pot or colorblind mentality.”

The Supreme Court has said that all racial classifications by government are “presumptively invalid” unless narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. The district’s repellent Web site revealed the interest that the district considers so compelling that it justifies racial preferences. Supreme Court deference to such race-mongering would make a mockery of the equal protection guarantee.

georgewill@washpost.com

Posted: design, politics, education

Improving School Safety0

(Original here).

Oooh oooh oooh, I have some ideas. Please, please, please. We’ve had a couple of school killings recently, again. Apparently totally senseless. So now the headline reads “Bush pledges action on school safety.” The nice thing is that the article is tying this into Bush’s “No Child Left Behind Act”, which Bush says

needs some changes

Yet we want to reauthorize it.

So in the spirit of more senseless legalization, here are a few quick thoughts on improving school safety.

1. Metal Detectors (it’ll benefit the economy)
2. Arm Everybody (will also be beneficial to the economy)
3. Cops on Campus, 1 per Classroom
4. Dress Code: only form fitting clothes, there’ll be nothing to conceal, guys in tights
5. No Assembly on Campus (plotting a conspiracy)
6. Curfew/Lockdown: no water breaks, no one to move between buildings unsupervised
7. Jail Time for offenders, perhaps in Cuba?

and so on ad infinitum. This is too easy.
Root Cause analysis anyone?

Well. One solution is to have the federal government pay for 28,000 low-income students to transfer to private schools, at a cost of $100 million.

What does the rest of the civilized world do?

Bush Pledges to Work for School Safety
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer
Sat Oct 7, 6:22 PM ET

President Bush on Saturday lamented recent “shocking acts of violence” in schools, and promised his administration will do what it can to keep centers of learning safe for students.

The White House is convening a conference on school safety Tuesday. Federal officials, school workers, parents, law enforcement officials and other experts are to gather in Chevy Chase, Md., a Washington suburb noted for exceptional schools.

The conference is being hosted by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. Bush and his wife, Laura, are expected to attend part of it.

“Our goal is clear: Children and teachers should never fear for their safety when they enter a classroom,” the president said in his weekly radio address.

In the past two weeks, three schools in three states have been hit by deadly attacks and several others have faced threats.

A gunman killed himself and five girls Monday at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania. A 15-year-old Wisconsin student was arrested Sept. 29 in the shooting death of his principal. On Sept. 27 a man took six girls hostage in Colorado, sexually assaulting them before fatally shooting one girl and killing himself.

Schools in Virginia, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon and Wisconsin have been closed or locked down in the past week because of threats of violence or guns on campus.

“Laura and I are praying for the victims and their families, and we extend our sympathies to them and to the communities that have been devastated by these attacks,” the president said.

Bush also pushed for reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law, which he says needs some changes. Under the law, schools that get federal poverty aid and fall short of their yearly progress goals for two straight years must offer transfers to students. After three years of failure, schools must offer low-income parents a choice of tutors.

The law is scheduled to be renewed by Congress next year, but some education observers have speculated it may be bumped until as late as 2009, after the next presidential election.

Leading Democrats backed passage of the law, but they now say Bush has not adequately funded it.

The president outlined a series of ways in which the law could be improved, such as by expanding testing in high schools, an idea he has pitched to Congress for two years. He also said he wants the federal government to pay for 28,000 low-income students across the country to transfer to private schools, and has asked for $100 million to pay for the initiative.

“Thanks to this good law, we are leaving behind the days when schools just shuffled children from grade to grade, whether they learned anything or not,” Bush said. “Yet we still have a lot of work to do.”

Posted: politics, education

Teacher Assaults - Seeking a Public Forum0

(Original here.)

I was actually pretty happy with this article, but it requires some close reading. The initial reading seems to suggest that a disgruntled teacher contacted the newspaper to shame the school’s principal into action. He did this by throwing out some rather heated terms, such as “racially motivated assaults.” The reporter was good enough to check the sources and to contact a lot of people for input, including one of the accused students. Everybody responded and gave their input into the situation.

Taking the whole thing together gives you an appreciation for the complexity and subtlety of the situation. How do you define assault (and how many “assaults” really happened)? If you try to break up a fight, have no relationship with the kids and get hit, can you should “assault”? Is this situation truly racial or do non-whites experience hostility? Is this a question of being a good teacher (regardless of race)? Are the administration’s hands tied? It’s interesting to see how in the last paragraph the main whole topic flips from protecting teachers to helping the students.

I’m not sure that the teacher who wanted to raise the issue got the forum to get his point across. Congratulations to the newspaper for trying to do this in a balanced way. Too bad though that they chose the inflammatory title.

Incidents involving teachers becoming too prevalent to be called isolated
by Lisa Huynh
West Hawaii Today
lhuynh@westhawaiitoday.com
Saturday, September 23, 2006 10:25 AM HST

After allegedly being attacked by a student while trying to break up a fight, a West Hawaii teacher said his experience is indicative of greater disciplinary problem in schools.

The Kealakehe High School teacher was injured in late August when he attempted to break up an altercation between two students.

While the student said he accidentally shoved the teacher, the teacher claimed he was the target of assault.

Is this incident one example of many persistent problems within broken disciplinary and justice systems? Or is it an isolated incident handled appropriately by effective response programs?

Disciplinary action, assault records

Kealakehe High teacher Larry Rice, through his own research, said he uncovered seven assaults on teachers — all Caucasian — in the past four years; though the exact figure is difficult to verify because not all assaults have been reported. Those that are fall into one category of offenses.

“The consequences are not acceptable for teachers on campuses,” said Rice. “They are not deterring students from committing these assaults. It’s not the right message.”

Class A suspensions under the state Department of Education’s disciplinary code, Chapter 19, are the most serious offenses. They include burglary, robbery, assault and sale and possession of dangerous drugs. Administrators are given sole discretion to decide consequences.

However, umbrella-type federal polices require schools to respond uniformly when guns or drugs are brought to schools, according to West Hawaii Complex Area Superintendent Art Souza.

Suspension is the most common consequence of student misconduct, but many believe it does little to curb misconduct.

“It works for some and does not for others,” said Souza, a former principal at Waikoloa Elementary and Honokaa High School. “The suspension is probably as meaningful as the support we get from parents. If there is no cooperation from parents, it loses its effect.”

Though an option, transferring the misbehaving student to another school is seldom done, said Souza.

“Why would we do that? It doesn’t solve the problem,” he stated. “It’s the responsibility of school (in which the incident occurred) to work with the parents and the youngster.”

Kealakehe Principal Wilfred Murakami said four to six “technical” assaults against teachers have occurred at his school in nearly 10 years. In most cases, teachers were injured breaking up fights between students, he said.

“First and foremost we have a safe and secure campus. When students behave inappropriately we deal with them in a prudent and appropriate manner,” said Murakami. “A student actually seeking out a teacher to do bodily harm? That has never occurred to my knowledge.”

Former interim Kohala High School vice principal and teacher Alan Brown, who has been at the school 15 years, said it does not have a problem with teachers being assaulted. In the past three years, 11 to 13 class A offenses per year were reported occurring at Kohala High.

Konawaena High School Principal Shawn Suzuki said no teacher has been assaulted there in the last four years. The school did, though, have the highest number of class A offenses of West Hawaii schools in the last two years.

Administrators at Ka’u High School could not be reached for comment by press time.

According to the Hawaii Police Department, one assault on a teacher in April 2006 was reported for West Hawaii during the past two years. Police said information beyond that period is not in their computer system and was difficult to retrieve.

Disclosure of the teacher’s ethnicity and site of the assault is prohibited to protect the rights of the juvenile, said Kona Patrol Capt. Paul Kealoha. A report is not filed unless initiated by the victim.

Randy Shelor, Kealakehe High teacher, was assaulted five years ago by a student attempting to steal his wallet.

“This was a case about a kid on a bad day, with a bad life, in a bad room,” said Shelor, who said he suspected the student was under the influence of crystal methamphetamine, or ice.

While he does not tolerate assaults for any reason, Shelor said his early approach did not help the situation.

“I was a brand-new teacher who didn’t know the culture … you could have called me rude,” said Shelor. “I wasn’t kid-friendly or relationship-oriented.”

The student who attacked Shelor was suspended for “just” 15 days. Shelor felt the DOE did what it could to address the issue, but the state’s justice system failed. A week after Shelor filed a report with police, he followed up on the incident only to learn no paperwork existed. Nearly two years later, he said the case was dropped without notice. It had become consolidated with other unrelated charges against the student.

An issue of race?

Although Rice contends race played a major role in these assaults, several male Caucasian teachers — all quick to emphasize that no assault should be tolerated — said attacks have more to do with lack of trust than race.

“As a white male, I feel completely comfortable (on campus),” said Jim Young, Kealakehe High student services coordinator. “There is not an epidemic … Some people choose not to have relationships with the students. That’s what most of this is about.”

The perception of racism, to some degree, plays a key role in allegations of rights violations. Often at the center of claims of racism in Hawaii’s schools is the Hawaiian word “haole,” meaning foreigners or Caucasians. Some teachers take offense with the word, which can be derogative or simply descriptive.

Though Young admitted to being called a haole in the past, he said the catalyst isn’t usually a racist remark, but a student objecting to a grade he or she received.

Kealakehe High student Fetu Iongi, who was involved in one of the alleged assaults, denied any racial divide between Caucasian teachers and Asian or Pacific Islander students.

“Oh no, to me, it’s not like that at all,” he said.

Jeffrey Hartman, the school’s student services coordinator, said he’s been called an expletive term and “haole” during his first year as a teacher but said it was not racially motivated. Though, he does not see a difference between the word haole and other derogatory words used to described ethnicities.

“Any time you quantify anyone by the color of their skin, you treat them like an object,” said Hartman. “But the incident in question is not a racial issue.”

Hartman, a 17-year Hawaii teacher who taught at Konawaena High for 12 years and Kealakehe High for two, said he has never felt unsafe on either campus.

“I taught at Konawaena when the school could really be considered a school in crisis … there were three to four fights every day. Even in those times, as a Caucasian, I never felt like I was unsafe or at-risk … because my job was to hold every child in my heart.”

Hartman maintained he is not making excuses for student misbehavior.

“It doesn’t do any good to lie and deny,” he stated. “I’m not taking away someone’s pain but I don’t believe this community tolerates or looks away when there are racial attacks.”

Rice claimed other teachers may not report assaults more frequently because of fear of retribution.

Bill Hoshijo, Hawaii Civil Rights Commission executive director, said that in cases of racial harassment, if an employee is subjected to harassment by a manager/supervisor, co-worker or third party (in a school setting, a student is considered a third party), there is liability for harassment. Prompt and appropriate responses are those that curb future harassment, said Hoshijo.

When people file complaints, the commission explores the situation, as well as the corrective action taken by the employer to make a determination.

Hoshijo could not disclose whether teachers have filed violation claims citing racism.

Need for viable continuation schools

Murakami said disciplinary action in schools is dealt with sufficiently by the DOE’s Chapter 19. However, he said, the department does not give behaviorally and emotionally challenged students the attention they deserve.

He said Kealakehe High and other schools make due, but there is a dire need for continuation and alternative schools.

“Some of the students are trying to manage themselves but do not have the skills. They do not have habits of mind to handle themselves. In some cases we do the best we can given the resources we have,” said Murakami. “My feeling is that as far as the consequences, the definitions are fine, but the system needs to be more responsive to the needs of the students.”

While improvement is needed, Suzuki said, “Today, there are support programs to deal with issues on and off campus. There are different levels of counseling …. Will it work in the long run? I hope so. I hope we’re having a positive impact.”

Souza confirmed that while there are alternative programs on school campuses and remediation programs at the community adult schools, Hawaii does not have any independent continuation schools.

“It’s something we should look into,” said Souza. “It’s proven very successful in California. I talked to some administrators in California and they have spoken of the value of the continuation school format.”

Souza said Chapter 19 serves its purpose as a consequential response but is not necessarily a preventative measure.

“At schools, we have to examine what we are doing in a proactive way to curb behavior,” Souza said.

Rice pointed out that while continuation schools may be helpful, students who qualify for such programs are “so outside of the bell curve,” — meaning their behavior must reach severe levels to enter the programs.

“My biggest issue is the education system is being compromised considerably,” said Rice. “The learning environment of the silent majority is compromised because of the undisciplined minority.”

West Hawaii Today reporter Brendan Shriane contributed to this article.

Number of class A offenses (assaults, burglary, robbery, sale or possession of a dangerous drug)

2002-03
Kealakehe High School 42
Konawaena High School 26
Kohala High School 13
Ka’u High and Pahala El. 13

2003-04
Konawaena High School 83
Kealakehe High School 47
Ka’u High and Pahala El. 26
Kohala High School 11

2004-05
Konawaena High School 94
Kealakehe High School 21
Kohala High School 14
Ka’u High and Pahala El. 1

Posted: local, education

Starting a University - Strive to the Summit0

(Original here.)

This has been an ongoing story. The government now tied their university to a local developer (so no development, no university - smart). Current services provided are high payment jobs in food services, and nursing. There are no plans to change that. Strive high, they say. You should really look at the population here (highly educated) and the need for additional offerings.

With the growth patterns that will be occurring in West Hawaii, who knows what the center will evolve into.

We’ve been growing for decades now. We’re getting full. We could tell you (and have told you) what the center will (should) evolve into. You say “golf management.” We say “oh boy …”

There is a Hawaiian value called “Ku-lia i ka nu’u ” (strive to reach the summit). For some local people this is awefully flat country.

Gov. key to Kona UH campus
by Lisa Huynh
West Hawaii Today
lhuynh@westhawaiitoday.com
Friday, September 22, 2006 9:03 AM HST

Plans for a University of Hawaii campus in West Hawaii now hinge on whether Gov. Linda Lingle releases funds, said a UH official.

UH Hawaii Community College Chancellor Rockne Freitas said the university is prepared to plan and design the project once $6.9 million in appropriated funds are released.

Another $11 million has been appropriated by the 2005 and ‘06 state Legislature for the campus’ infrastructure, but UH will not request release of those funds until planning and design are complete.

“We’re very anxious about this project because the costs go up every year,” said Freitas, adding this is the first time the campus has come close to fruition.

He said the university worked closely with Big Island legislators Dwight Takamine, D-Hilo-Hamakua and Cindy Evans, D-North Hawaii to obtain funding, which will lapse at the end of this fiscal year if Lingle does not release it.

Lingle’s chief of media relations, Russell Pang, confirmed the university’s request is under review by the state Department of Budget and Finance. The review could take a couple of weeks to be completed, said Pang.

The Department of Budget and Finance denied the university’s first request for a recommendation to release funds earlier this year.

Planning and design of the West Hawaii campus will occur in conjunction with development of the university’s Komohana campus in East Hawaii, said Freitas.

“We will be working on (the two campuses) simultaneously. Hopefully construction will happen simultaneously, but we won’t hold up one project because of the other,” he stated.

The West Hawaii project passed its first major hurdle in July after the County Council voted to approve rezoning for the Palamanui development, which required developers to commit to building a 20,000-square-foot university building on 500 acres of state land.

The council also required developers to build a two-lane connector road between its northern boundary to Kaiminani Drive through the university’s permanent campus and another road to connect Queen Kaahumanu and Mamalahoa highways.

Hiluhilu, a partnership between discount broker Charles Schwab and Keauhou-Kona Construction Co., will build Palamanui, an estimated $480 million master-planned community, located mauka of the Kona International Airport.

Developers may build 1,116 residential units, with 200 deemed affordable; commercial space for medical clinics, offices and stores; and a 120-unit University Inn and Conference Center, according to published reports.

Freitas said the West Hawaii campus will offer the same services currently available at the UH Center in West Hawaii in Kealakekua. He said the university does not now have plans to add any new programs or facilities.

“We will immediately conduct a study to see what additional educational needs and opportunities the people in West Hawaii need and are looking for,” said Freitas. “Then we will make a determination as to what to add to the curriculum. With the growth patterns that will be occurring in West Hawaii, who knows what the center will evolve into.”

Posted: local, education