Number 2 Pencil

Hummingbird hands

Sorry for the non-bloggage. All my spare time has been spent scrubbing down my house, raking leaves, and dressing the cats in little bowties in honor of the impending visit by my parents tomorrow. That'll be the first time they find out about the ring. Gonna be quite a visit.

It's also my birthday tomorrow, and in honor of it one of my coworkers brought in nuclear-strength three-layer brownies today. The three layers are (1) rich fudge brownies (2) thick buttercream icing and (3) dark chocolate. My fingers are trembling so bad from all the sugar (the recipe calls for four cups) that I'm finding it difficult to type. Seriously.

Bloggage will resume once life, and my pancreas, calm down.

Update: Devoted Reader Independent George says:

So wait - you told us before you told your parents? Aww, shucks. I bet they won't be happy to hear that, though...

You know, I didn't think about this until I read his comment, then I realized - I told you guys before I told anyone. Seriously. I didn't tell everyone at work until Monday, and then I was so busy at work that I didn't email all my friends until Wednesday! And no one in my family knows yet!

So all of my Devoted Readers were the first to know. It's telling that while I was able to wait to tell about this, I simply could not wait to blog it.

Update #2: Not only did the cats completely reject the bowtie idea, but my older, more jaded cat looks distinctly unimpressed by the ring:

Let's all hold hands and sing!

In an email, Devoted Reader and fine edublogger Daryl Cobranchi said, "You've got to see this." And he was right:

Bob Dylan they ain't, but the musicians featured on "No Child Left Behind? Bring Back The Joy" bring just as much passion and protest to what they view as an abomination of the 21st century: federal education policy. No Child Left Behind Songs.

"Cutting out recess? It's insanity," Lee says. "It doesn't make any sense. It's
like telling a teacher they can't have a break or a superintendent that they can't go to a conference. So what did they do in the '50s and '60s down in Birmingham? They sang. We thought, 'Why don't we do the same thing to protest [judgments of school quality] on a single standardized test?' Music is a great form of communication."

For now, let's leave aside the condescension, arrogance, and historical ignorance that is required to equate - with a straight face - a folk album protesting school reform with marchers (who were denied the rights to vote, work, or be treated equally by the law) getting battered by fire hoses and attacked by police dogs. Let's just skip over that nasty stuff and appreciate these fine, fine, lyrics:

Track No. 6, "Test the Kids" (to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It"):

No Child Left Behind says test the kids/While teachers are maligned, test the kids
If the CEOs are liars, put the kids' feet to the fire/Shouting "Vouchers, we desire!" test the kids.
If your schools they are crumbling, test the kids/And Congress it is bumbling test the kids.
Business wants more competition and public school demolition/It's a hunting expedition, test the kids.

I don't care if that sounds good while sung. It doesn't even make sense. Is it supposed to be anti-voucher? Pro-crumbling schools? Against making judgments about bad teachers and bad teaching? Against any sort of competition in schools? But that can't be right, given that the proceeds go to an alternative school, the World Of Opportunity. Of course, it's not really a surprise that Susan Ohanian is involved with this, because she's a proud "test resister" who happily quotes anti-testing "experts" like Monty Neill on her website.

I suppose it's no surprise in general that the hippies who have refused to grow up have latched on to opposing NCLB, opposing vouchers, and opposing school choice. But I think they might find it surprising how many minority families disagree with them. I'm all for alternative schools, but I also believe that it's just as silly to insist that true education can't happen in conjuction with testing as to claim that testing, in and of itself, will improve education.

Education/testing round-up

Yes, I'm officially distracted from just about everything but The One Ring to Rule Him All (heh), but here are a few tidbits from the news and blogs of late:

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Tereza Heinz Kerry speaks out on education (and check out that scary pic):

In terms of education, Heinz Kerry blasted Bush's No Child Left Behind reform measure as an unfunded mandate that has increased bureaucracy. Schools have been hampered rather than helped by its mandatory assessments, she said, and some extracurricular activities are falling by the wayside as schools teach to the tests.

"Tests should be a measure that is enabling, not disabling," Heinz Kerry said. "Tests that are a trap are sinful."

"Sinful"? I thought President Bush was supposed to be the religious fanatic. Elizabeth Edwards says testing is nice and cheap, though. Maybe the idea of something that doesn't cost a lot is what gets Heinz-Kerry's gander up?

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Freeven of Mental Hiccups wants to cut out the middleman and pay parents for their kids' high test scores:

What if we said to a parent, “We’ll give you $1000 if your kid does well on the NAEP test; we’ll give you $2000 if he does great?” I have to believe that an extra grand or two would motivate a parent to make sure his kid does his homework and shows up for school on time and ready to learn. I have to believe that parent would be in the face of teachers and administrators who don’t do their jobs. I have to believe that such a program would be especially motivating to poor, minority, and single parents, who need the that extra money and whose kids typically perform poorly.

So, who thinks that the type of people who blow a gasket over the idea of giving teachers merit pay would go nuclear over this idea? Me, for one.

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If you feel like subscribing to Time (or already have a password), they've just published an article about how schools might be leaving gifted students behind by not allowing them to skip ahead.

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Are science and grammar obsolete, inscrutable, and of no use to today's kids? Well, schools are certainly acting like it. Erin O'Connor is now teaching high school instead of college students; here are her observations about the grammar skills of her young charges (link via Joanne Jacobs):

My colleague and I distributed the worksheet as an informal diagnostic, a way of gauging just where on the grammar curve our students are. What we discovered did not surprise us particularly...Most high school students these days are not on the grammar curve at all. The parts of speech are largely mysterious to them; the rules of punctuation and agreement are likewise unfamiliar. Semi-colons, colons, and dashes do not come into play in their writing because they do not know what they are for. Sentence fragments abound because many do not know that a sentence requires a subject and a verb, nor can they tell reliably when something is a subject and when something is a verb. Forget about objects and indirect objects, simple and compound sentences, subordinate clauses and participial phrases: such terminology is Greek to the vast majority of them.

Don't get me wrong. Kids today are as smart, creative, and sharp as ever. Their grammar deficit is not their fault. They can't be blamed for what they were never taught. It's increasingly unfashionable to emphasize grammar and the rules of syntax in school, the reasons ranging from the hang-loose notion that the rules of usage are confining and binding and irrelevant anyway since language is a living, breathing thing, to the feel-good notion that grammar is boring and mind-numbing and kids will be turned off to reading and writing forever if they have to learn it.

Erin isn't exaggerating here, and she's also not incorrect to call this type of education wrong-headed:

What I've found is that kids--and the adults they become--dislike not being able to tell whether what they have written is written correctly, that they recognize on a fundamental level that they have been done a collective disservice by their teachers, and that they are quite eager to learn a skill they know to be crucial to their ability to function effectively as adults in this world.

And if "educators" don't respond to that, Bob the Angry Flower is happy to show them the errors of their ways.

Meanwhile, Samizdata links to an article by a professor who believes that science is the new Latin, and is just as hated and useless as its predecessor. The comments on both sites suggest that the real problem is with science as it is taught today, and I agree. While most will not find arcane scientific facts any more useful to their adult lives than the declension of Latin verbs, it is absurd to claim that the mental discipline that results from learning the scientific method, rules of grammar, and any foreign language, is not essential to genuine education.

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Ontario's current Education Minister is upset with the former Minister, who doesn't think much of the current plans to "revamp" the standardized testing system:

Education Minister Gerard Kennedy lashed out at his Conservative predecessor Saturday, demanding she "apologize'' for her criticism of a proposal to revamp standardized testing in Ontario. Elizabeth Witmer made the comments in published reports Saturday, accusing the Liberal government of trying to lower the province's education standards by redesigning the tests...

"This is their decision making and I believe they felt they were doing it in good faith as she asked them to.''

So what's all this about? Testing time will be cut in half for a number of exams, and Whitmer - who supposedly orchestrated this change - claims this results in a lowering of standards.

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Finally, one elementary school in Florida is calling in the SWAT team - in a good way.

Symptoms: Euphoria, and a strange urge to go buy Brides magazine

I've been trying to blog this afternoon, but I keep getting distracted. I kept seeing this glint out of the corner of my eye, down near my keyboard. When I finally looked down at my hands, I noticed that I'd developed an odd, sparkly growth on the fourth finger of my left hand. I thought I'd snap a quick photo if it with my camera phone and post it on here, on the off chance that some of my more Devoted Readers might recognize it and give me some medical advice:

(To answer the first three questions I bet people will ask:

1. No, we haven't set a date
2. Yes, these packages are far too cheesy
and
3. YES, we plan to have one of these at the reception.)

Vibrating socks and "adjusted" SAT scores

Caveon's biweekly Cheating In The News newsletter is up. One link explains why everyone drives badly in France and why the unemployment rate is so high - because every one is spending time and money on James Bond-ian schemes to get around the driver's license exam. I bet the new Texas A&M Aggie Honor System Council would have those vibrating socks confiscated in a heartbeat.

And speaking of cheating, some school do it too; University of South Florida officials have resigned after hiding low test scores of incoming freshmen.

Two top University of South Florida admissions officials resigned after a university investigation showed they ordered below-average entrance exam scores by USF freshmen dropped from reports filed with the state. One of the officials involved said Thursday that USF was following the lead of other state universities and that top school administrators knew about the adjustments.

University spokeswoman Michelle Carlyon said school officials were looking into whether the deletions inflated USF's average test scores and, if so, by how much.

One of those officials insists that USF did nothing wrong, or even out of the ordinary:

Until summer 2003, if a student admitted to USF took the SAT or the ACT more than once, the school reported to state education officials the score received on each sitting, [Dewey Holleman, 41, director of undergraduate admissions]
said. In summer 2003, admissions officials learned other state universities weren't playing by the same rules, Holleman said. Some reported the highest scores to the state and excluded the lower ones, he said.

Admissions officials weren't trying to fool the state, because the state education department already receives the results of all the standardized tests Florida high school students take, he said.

I doubt that last point gets USF off the hook; the matter of whether the state has the scores doesn't affect whether, or how, USF was supposed to report them.

They're such angels when they're sleeping

I love having a camera phone, so that I can snap candid photos, like this one of my "kitten" (14 pounds) happily dreaming away:

When parents try sometimes, they just might find, kids get what they need

Joanne Jacobs rightfully rolls her eyes at the idea of parents needing support groups in order to say no to their kids. The cause of this eyerolling is an MSNBC article that suggests parents these days have no clue about how to rear responsible, non-materialistic children:

Eloise Goldman struggled to hold the line. She knew it was ridiculous to spend $250 on a mini iPod for her 9-year-old son Ben. The price tag wasn't the biggest issue for Goldman, a publicist, and her fund-raiser husband, Jon. It was the idea of buying such an extravagant gadget for a kid who still hasn't mastered long division. If she gave in, how would Ben ever learn that you can't always get what you want? Goldman knew there was a good chance the iPod would soon be lost or abandoned, just like Ben's toy-of-choice from last year, a bright blue drum set that now sits forlornly in the basement of their suburban New York home. But Ben nagged and pestered and insisted that "everyone has one." Goldman began to weaken. Ben's a good kid, she reasoned; she wanted him to have what the other kids had. After doing a neighborhood-mom check and finding that Ben's peers were indeed wired for sound, Goldman caved—but not without one last attempt to salvage some lesson about limits. She offered her son a deal. We give you an iPod, you forfeit your birthday party. "Done," he said. Then, without missing a beat: "Now what about getting me my own Apple G4?"

Oookay. The electronic gadgets, by the way, are not the issue here. After all, it's normal for children to want things that members of their peer group have, and it's not ridiculous in this day and age for children to want their own computers. What's appalling here is the idea that the parents seem to be held hostage to their 9-year-old's idea of what is acceptable for him to have. The party-iPod bargain seems born less of ingenuity than of desperation on the mother's part.

One could argue, as does MSNBC, that there are more materialistic goods targeted to kids these days, and that it's more difficult than ever to keep a kid who is a gadget/clothing/accessories "have-not" from noticing how much other kids seem to have. But the theory behind rearing healthy kids really hasn't changed, and the expert statements quoted here shouldn't seem new to responsible parents:

While it's certainly true that affluent parents can raise happy and well-adjusted children, the struggle to set limits has never been tougher. Saying no is harder when you can afford to say yes. But the stakes have also never been higher. Recent studies of adults who were overindulged as children paint a discouraging picture of their future. Kids who've been given too much too soon grow up to be adults who have difficulty coping with life's disappointments. They have a distorted sense of entitlement that gets in the way of success both in the workplace and in relationships.

Psychologists say parents who overindulge their kids may actually be setting them up to be more vulnerable to future anxiety and depression. "The risk of overindulgence is self-centeredness and self-absorption, and that's a mental-health risk," says William Damon, director of the Stanford University Center on Adolescence. "You sit around feeling anxious all the time instead of figuring out what you can do to make a difference in the world."

This is human nature. This is also something good parents have known for almost as long as there have been kids to rear. But today, parents apparently feel the need to band together just to learn to say "no" to their kids:

This generation of parents has always been driven to give their kids every advantage, from Mommy & Me swim classes all the way to that thick envelope from an elite college. But despite their good intentions, too many find themselves raising "wanting machines" who respond like Pavlovian dogs to the marketing behemoth that's aimed right at them. Even getting what they want doesn't satisfy some kids — they only want more. Now, a growing number of psychologists, educators and parents think it's time to stop the madness and start teaching kids about what's really important — values like hard work, delayed gratification, honesty and compassion. In a few communities, parents have begun to take action by banding together to enforce limits and rules so that no one has to feel guilty for denying her 6-year-old a $300 Nokia cell phone with all the latest bells and whistles. "It's almost like parents have lost their parenting skills," says Marsha Moritz, 54, who helped found the Parent Engagement Network, a support group in Boulder, Colo.

Joanne's response?

The parents need a support group? What wimps!

When my daughter said, "I want" too much, her father would sing, "You can't always get what you want" till she begged him to stop. I just made it clear that nagging, whining and sulking never would be effective strategies. Keep asking and what you get is a mean, crabby mother.

One of the best child-rearing skills is the ability to act crabbier, crazier, and more annoying than a whiny kid. The image of Joanne's daughter being driven mad by a father warbling old Rolling Stones tunes is just hysterical - not to mention effective.

When homeschoolers attack

The Muskegon County (Michigan) school district, along with local fire and rescue agencies, implemented their new emergency response plan this week:

Terrorists will strike a busload of students in the Whitehall area on Tuesday [September 21], killing more than a half-dozen and sending dozens more to hospitals. It's not a crystal ball that allows such a disaster to be foreseen. It's all in the plans -- disaster preparedness plans, that is.

Local school district transportation directors instigated the exercise because they wanted to test their abilities to respond to emergencies, said Tom Spoelman, transportation consultant for the Muskegon Area Intermediate School District.

Sounds good, right? Nothing like a drill to make sure all the agencies are prepared, right? Sure - but there's the one little issue of the fictional terrorist group that the school invented for the purpose of the drill:

The exercise will simulate an attack by a fictitious radical group called Wackos Against Schools and Education who believe everyone should be homeschooled. Under the scenario, a bomb is placed on the bus and is detonated while the bus is traveling on Durham, causing the bus to land on its side and fill with smoke.

Emphasis mine. I realize this is not one of the more important elements of the exercise, and the school district should be commended for undertaking such a drill (which seems like it was a useful exercise). But I can't help but think that the fake terrorist group was designed to be one to which, they assumed, no one would take offense (which means any particular religion, sex, or political party was out). They were searching for a group they assumed no one would defend.

So they made up a group of radical homeschoolers who care enough about their kids to homeschool them - but are willing to threaten the lives of kids who attend public schools. Sheesh. I'm sure the Muskegon County school district officials aren't offended by that - but the Devoted Reader who sent this my way sure was. And so was his homeschooled daughter.

And so is Michelle Malkin, who has a roundup of links that includes a homeschooling blogger who received an "apology" from the school, lists of angry emails sent to the school district, and the statements from two Muskegon school officials:

As educators, we believe that the first and most important teacher is the parent, whether in home schools, public schools, or non-public schools. We all work together to ensure a safe and secure environment for our children to live and grow.

We sincerely regret offending home school educators. We believe that all parents are educators and do important work at home with their children.

In this day and age of political correctness, it is probably true that the school district could not have named any group without creating a firestorm (including, sad to say, white supremacists or Islamic terrorists, both of whom have attacked American citizens in the past). But in that case, why define the group at all? The focus was, as it should have been, on the rescue mission itself; the school could have given the fictional terrorist group a meaningless acronym for a name, and left it at that.

I guess I should just be thankful they didn't go the Columbine-mythology route and assemble a group of fictional, organized, murderous goths.

Insane, but in a good way

Tuesday, October 5th. Animal Planet. I am so there.

Austin Stevens: Snakemaster

Nothing will stop Austin Stevens from trying to get that perfect photo. In Austin Stevens: Snakemaster, camera-bearing Austin wades through swamps and into deep caves teeming with bats, scorpions and spiders; he zooms along dusty trails in Australia's outback on a dirt bike; and he braves perilous white-water rapids and waterfalls. And the danger doesn't stop there! Once he reaches his goal he must face venemous snakes, avoid their lightning-fast strikes, and set up for the perfect picture. With several clicks, Austin's photographs capture the beauty and diversity of these adaptable reptiles. Each episode features a new snake, a new adventure, a new photo op.

Check out the show's trailer where he dives (without thinking) off a three-story boat to grab an anaconda in the Amazon. Wow. And the most I've ever done is knock a small child aside so that I could be the first to hold a baby alligator during the last leg of a swamp tour.

Thanks to Devoted Reader Mike D. for the link.

When "an educational dream" doesn't have much to show for education

An op-ed in the Seattle Times says schools shouldn't be judged on test scores alone:

From the inside, Seattle's Orca elementary feels like an educational dream.
The school has energized parents, a passionate staff and a racially and economically mixed student body. It's popular, with waiting lists to get into kindergarten and first, second and third grades.

From the outside, though, something looks wrong at the South End alternative school. According to the state's bellwether standardized test, Orca is one of the worst schools in the Puget Sound region. Last year, only two of 37 Orca fourth-graders passed all three sections of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL). The school was last among Seattle's 70 elementary schools in writing and near the bottom in reading and math.

Predictably, the author then goes on to say it's "insane" to judge Orca by WASL scores. But is it really? The school may be popular, especially with parents who consider racial and economic diversity a selling point for a school. But if the teachers are doing such a great job, why are the kids not doing well on basic-skills tests?

It is troubling that Orca kids do so poorly on the tests. As Principal Ben Ostrom says, it raises the question of whether all students get enough "rigorous academic challenges."

But standardized tests don't work equally everywhere. One example: When Orca kids take in-class tests, sometimes they can choose to take them verbally instead of in writing. You can't do that with the WASL.

Well, no, you can't, because writing is one of the skills measured on the WASL. Why should we assume that a student who chooses to take tests orally (as one of my readers points out, the word "verbally" is incorrect here for making a distinction between written and spoken responses) is in fact learning what they need to know when it comes to writing? Why should we assume that it's perfectly okay for students to be tested in whatever manner they choose? If they learn better that way, fine, but they might be handicapped later on if they haven't learned to write well. And that's why Washington State tests that particular skills. And it explains why Orca is dead last in that area.

I'm sure the WASL isn't perfect. But to judge from the sample test items, it also isn't anything that should be throwing eager and educated young minds for a loop. If Orca's fourth-graders can't read an article about grey whales and write down two details from the article, there's a problem, and the blanket statement "standardized tests don't work equally everywhere" just doesn't cut it.

And neither does a bad attitude:

Last year, five fourth-graders boycotted [the WASL]. As 19-year Orca teacher Liz Neuman said:

"I could give a rip about the WASL. We can teach to this test, but then how much of what makes this school great will be left when we're done?"

Something tells me Ms. Neuman's insistence that learning to read stories, and write details about them, has nothing to do with a great education is part of the problem.

Public school teachers exercising choice

Are public school teachers more likely than the general public to send their kids to private schools? The Washington Times says yes:

More than 25 percent of public school teachers in Washington and Baltimore send their children to private schools, a new study reports.

In Washington (28 percent), Baltimore (35 percent) and 16 other major cities, the figure is more than 1 in 4. In some cities, nearly half of the children of public school teachers have abandoned public schools.

In Philadelphia, where 30.9% of all parents choose private schooling, 43.8% of local public school teachers do so.

Some of these teachers, I'm sure, have special needs children who can benefit more from private schools. And while teachers at the low end of income are more likely than all families to use private schools, teachers at the high end of income are less likely to use private schools.

But one conclusion to be drawn from this is that public school teachers are as well-aware, if not more so, than the general public of the differences in quality between public and private schools as one goes up and down the income ladder. I don't really see these results as damning to teachers; I see these results as yet more data supporting parental choice in the school system. These conclusions certainly don't support the educational status quo which states all parents, including low-income ones, should be satisfied with government-run public schools. If the teachers aren't, there's no reason parents should be.

What's more, when teachers DO start to prefer public schools, it just might be because there are more choices in that area:

The report says the school choice movement has begun competitively forcing public school improvement, particularly in cities like Milwaukee, called "a hotbed of school reform," where 29.4 percent of public school teachers sent their children to private schools, the study finds.

"If so, it might be evidence that choice is having the intended effect of spurring improvements in public education there. Or perhaps the emergence of [public school] charters has provided another free option to lower-income teachers who might otherwise choose private schooling."

An interesting note: 11 of the 21 schools for which teachers are less likely to send kids to private schools than the general public are in the South. But of the 29 schools where teachers are more likely, only 7 are in the South. It could be just a trick of the sample surveyed, but also might support the idea that the South has more functional urban public schools (or just fewer private schools from which to choose).

Also - hmmm:

Michael Pons, spokesman for the National Education Association, the 2.7-million-member public school union, declined a request for comment on the study's findings. The American Federation of Teachers also declined to comment.

Non-testing roundup

A list of the stuff, other than work, that has been distracting me from blogging.

1. Amphigory cosmetics and jewelry - I absolutely love these guys. Not only are they two of the nicest people I've ever corresponded with, but (a) their makeup is top-notch (pale skin? no problem!), (b) their jewelry selection is stunning, and wonderfully categorized (Crosses, Creatures, The Graveyard, Magickal Symbols, and Miscellaneous), and (c) portions of sales from many items benefit the Great Cats of Indiana Foundation, a rescue organization near them that has lions, tigers, cougers, etc.

2. Allahpundit - One of the better, funnier political pundits out there, who has been extensively covering RatherGate. I love the fact that his blogroll is divided into Great Satans, Little Satans, and (for female bloggers), Satans That Make Allah Feel A Little Funny In The Pants.

Other blogs to which I am now addicted: Just One Minute, The Kerry Spot, Captain's Quarters, Powerline, and Polipundit. And this is one of the best descriptions I've ever read of the power of the blogosphere.

3. Wide-eyed op-eds by new college students about how gosh-dang different college is from high school. This one from the Montana Standard takes the cake for sheer gee-whillikers-ness. You mean you can go to the bathroom whenever you want in college? Really?

There are also strident guidelines from university learning centers, "joke" lists that are pretty accurate, no-nonsense lists that are funnier than the joke lists due to extreme understatements ("Distractions can be numerous because or [sic] opportunities to become involved in non-academic activities."), and other assorted chatty lists of useful advice.

Bottom line: If you're a college freshman, and you haven't yet figured out that you have to take responsibility for your education, well, you can't say you weren't warned.

4. Kingsnake.com. All reptiles, all the time. Great list of herp breeders and supplies. And the t-shirts aren't bad, either (though I can't find a current link to them). I thought I had posted a photo of my dearly-departed Arizona Mountain King, Tiago, to these forums, but his photo is actually on the About.Com exotic pets gallery pages.

5. SomethingAwful.com. Obnoxious, extremely-non-PC humor. This diatribe against anti-Republican protestors splits my side every time I read it.

6. The latest US Census Bureau statistics (yes, I know I'm a geek). Not only are the reports insanely detailed missives on topics you've never thought about in your entire life (vehicle use surveys from Montana, anyone?), but there's a wealth of information there for anyone who likes to debate political issues and their impact on society.

Making over the goths

Right now, Fox is showing an episode of "Renovate My Family" that is a very odd, low-rent version of the Munsters. You remember - they had the one normal teenager? Well, this is a family with a goth mom, goth mom's perpetual fiance, two goth kids - and one normal little blonde teenybopper. And the normal teen supposedly wrote to Fox to get them to remake her mom, get her mom to marry her fiance, and knock the house down and rebuild it.

My boyfriend thinks it's all staged, and I have to agree. The "goth" decorations in the house are all Halloween decorations from Spencer's, and crap like that. I know a lot of adult goths, and adult goths do NOT dress their house up like "every day is Halloween" (even though that's a great song). Adult goths have spent a tad bit more money on their surroundings, or they've personalized their house with their own artwork and sculptures, or they collect gothy stuff (like Halloween Barbies) and display them in nice china cabinets like any other collector. Real adult goths do not buy every skull sold at the mall and hang them from the chandeliers for everyday decorations. That's for teenagers.

The decor that is being presented to us as "weird" and "fearsome," I could put together for $50 over eBay. Nu-uh. The coffin in the den (which doubled, supposedly, as the normal teen's bedroom) had a paper freakin' skeleton in it, for pete's sake. NO self-respecting adult goth clutters their home with that crap, except when throwing Halloween parties. This is an example of a good goth decorating scheme - it's not prepackaged, and it's definitely unique (note: her bedroom is pink). My bedroom has angel sconces, purple walls, purple velvet everywhere - and no skulls. My dining-room is dragon-themed - but no skulls.

Hmph. Talk about reinforcing negative stereotypes.

Second, we're supposed to believe the mom will marry her fiance just because the show's host say so, and in the time and manner chosen by the hosts? Right. The family can pack everything they want to save in two hours, and leave everything else behind, potentially to be thrown away? Right. And a team of workers will rebuild a house from scratch in one week? Right. The mom will stop being goth, even though she's a musician who works from home, and doesn't need another look? Right.

The more I watch it, the more I'm convinced they took a normal-ish family and staged the whole decor-goth thing. The better to play into stereotypes about how goths (a) think it's all about skulls and coffins and (b) really want to be "normal," if someone would just help them change.

Update: On the other hand, they just showed the family after their makeovers, and they all look so uncomfortable in their new hairdos/makeup/outfits that maybe it is for real. Certainly, any goth I know would look that awkward if you separated them from their black eyeliner (okay, some of the stereotypes are true). I'm still not buying the paper skeletons, though.

Update #2: Okay, the house is pretty dang spiffy. I love the iguana reptariums, for one thing (although I would have felt weird about someone else handling my reptile). It's my dream to have some nice ones built that are comfy for snakes, yet beautiful to display. The Japanese bedroom is lovely, and the master bathroom looks like something a real goth would design.

But those pimped-out cars? Oh, honey, no. If the skulls went in the trash, those tricked-out hubcabs should go right in with 'em.

Scary student threatens to bomb school

A plot to bomb an Michigan high school was foiled by the alert daughter of a local university police officer who specializes in "cyber crimes":

Authorities credited Celia McGinty of Moscow, Idaho, with foiling a plot to bomb Chippewa Valley High School outside Detroit.

Marvin Osantowski, 52, the boy's father, was charged with concealing stolen firearms and pleaded not guilty. Bond was set at $500,000.

Sounds like it could have been a disaster waiting to happen, if the boy was serious (and not just a disaffected little bigot shooting off his mouth to a girl). The school has some suggested comments for parents on their site:

What Parents Can Say To Their Child(ren):

• Talk to your school counselor or school social worker, if you have any worries or concerns. They are ready to help.

Boy, the school is (understandably) keeping the kid at arm's length. Why was he transferred from the other school? And why would he want to bomb a school he'd been at for only 10 days? He certainly wouldn't have had a lot of time to dislike the people there. Maybe the fact that he was relatively unknown is what is freaking people out. Well, that, and the Nazi flag, and the bomb plans, and the threats, and the ammo.

A toast, to our alma mater!

Hee hee hee. What is it with the Southwest and bizarre school-related news? If it's not tortillas at graduation, it's shot glasses at homecoming:

Officials at Rio Grande High School [NM] aren't getting a buzz from the school's homecoming memento. Nearly 100 shot glasses etched with "Dreams Will Come True 2004" were handed out in advance of the celebration last week — until the principal got word of it.

"We emphasized this is not for drinking," Chavez said.

Uh huh. For toothpicks. Because we all know how teenage kids like to ride around and...collect toothpicks. What do the Homecoming King and Queen win? Matching flasks? For toting around mineral water, I'm sure.

The ugly truth (or dare) about campus "hazing"

Prisoner # 1 : "What're you in for?"
Prisoner # 2 : "A riotous game of Truth or Dare."
Prisoner # 1 : (backs away slowly...)

Police are investigating reports of hazing involving several senior girls at St. Paul's School. The incidents allegedly involved groups in two dormitories at the private boarding school last weekend. Dean of Students Douglas J. Dickson said he learned about the incidents this week and reported them to police. He said the school also will investigate and consider disciplinary consequences for the young women involved.

School officials would not say what students had done that was considered hazing. They did say the behavior did not involve physical contact or physical harm.

Emphasis mine. What were these brutal actions that necessitated police involvement and counseling? You guessed it - Truth or Dare:

The Union Leader reported that multiple unnamed sources indicated the hazing was directed at about a dozen new girls and involved at least partial nudity in one of the two dormitories involved. The newspaper also reported the hazing in the second dormitory allegedly involved a "truth-or-dare" game with questions about sexual experiences.

Ooookay. Did I mention that I played Truth or Dare in slumber parties in sixth grade? I was a shy creature then and would have preferred other games, but come on. I was playing by choice. What's more, anyone can make something up for the "Truth" part, the extroverts can perform the "Dares," and everybody's happy.

And this is a crime?

Hazing is a crime in New Hampshire and is defined as any coercion or intimidation presented as a condition of initiation into a group and that might cause students to hurt themselves physically or psychologically.

I'm trying to decide who's more immature here - the girls who decided that it was good idea to play Truth or Dare, or the ones who need counseling because of it. I mean, come on, folks. There's no need for hazing that leaves somebody missing a limb, and outright bullying should be reported, but were these girls forced to play Truth or Dare? If so, how? What's to stop a normal 18-year-old girl from getting up, saying "good night," and retiring to her dorm room? This wasn't even a sorority hazing, from the information given; just a bunch of girls sitting around being goofy. And now facing criminal charges.

This keeps up, in 20 years college students won't even speak to each other.

Update: In my rash of blogging, and rush to judgment, yesterday, I screwed up; this is a boarding high school, not a private college. Doh! That makes the whole situation more understandable - but the fact that the girls in question do not seem to have been in a sorority, and don't seem to have been participating in any sort of organized hazing, yet were still prosecuted under an anti-hazing law, still bothers me.

Update #2 : A reader who apparently knows one of the victims in question says "As a friend of one of the girls who was the object of this little game...When someone forces anything down another person's throut, causing them to choke, cutting off their ability to breathe, it's not a game." The article notes that school officials specifically stated no physical contact occurred, which would suggest that somebody isn't being honest here.

Perhaps the what-seemed-like-an-overreaction on the part of school officials to the hazing - and the mention of counseling - should have tipped us off to the possibilty that a lot more occurred here than a simple game of Truth or Dare.

Update #3: Although I'm swamped with work, I have to spend a bit more time on this; there seems to be enough interest in this story to warrant further investigation.

This article gives a tad more detail about what happened:

The seniors woke the new girls up in the middle of the night, forcing them to simulate oral sex with bananas and answer sexually explicit questions, the employee said. St. Paul's determined the hazing was more severe in one of the dorms, Kittredge II, where five of the senior girls lived, than the other dorm, Ford...

Isolated incidents of hazing have occurred at St. Paul's before, according to Dickson, and the school has handled other hazing cases like it has handled this one.

Interestingly, though, the hazing is now being denied, at least by some alleged victims:

At least some of the freshmen girls whom St. Paul's School officials say were hazed told the dean of students they were willing participants in a nighttime initiation activity. In a letter written to the dean before 15 seniors were suspended or the incident was reported to the police, freshmen from the Ford dormitory said they did not think anything bad had happened.

"We were given candy and had a choice of whipped cream and a banana and a devil dog," the freshmen wrote. "Again, all of the new students wanted to participate and eat their food, meaning that no one was forced." The letter was signed Third Formers of Ford House, making it unclear whether all or just some of the freshmen wrote it.

The parents of one of the suspended students also deny hazing:

“If what my daughter did is hazing, then they have an epidemic of hazing on campus,” said Hilary Mullarkey of Long Island, N.Y., adding she knew of seniors in at least three other girls’ dorms who participated in similar behavior at the elite, Concord boarding school.

Mullarkey and her husband, Robert, said no sexually explicit questions were asked of new Ford house students. But the Mullarkeys agreed what allegedly occurred in another dorm, Kittredge II, was hazing. They claim their daughter’s dorm was “painted with a Kit II brush” and claim the school unfairly singled out Ford house for punishment.

So now, some parents are talking. And their claims are consistent with the Concord Monitor's report that the hazing was "more severe" in Kit II than in Ford.

So what really happened? Who knows? Some freshmen apparently didn't have a problem with the hazing, but at least one must have complained for the school officials to discover the situation. It's possible that most or all the freshmen willingly went along with a situation that ended up being more traumatic than they had bargained for.

The school seems willing to stand its ground on the suspensions. Be interesting to see if more parents start talking; either we'll see a new rash of complaints, or another group of parents defending the hazers, or both.

Update # 4: Be sure to read the comments - N2P is showing up on the first page of Google for a search on "St Paul's School hazing," and two sets of parents have commented to counter the official claims. The Champlaign Channel has more on the parents - and students - who deny that hazing took place, and now parents are reporting that the college plans of the suspended seniors may be affected:

A tradition for welcoming new girls at St. Paul's School that got out of hand this month may have long-term consequences for the 15 senior girls suspended for hazing. "Our children's reputation and records have been permanently marred and their college hopes destroyed," reads a statement from parents including Hilary Mullarkey, whose daughter has been suspended for two weeks and must write a letter of apology.

The Kittredge seniors were suspended through the end of the term. No one affiliated with Kittredge II could be reached for comment for this story, but several former students agree events there went too far.

Sounds like the "tarred with the Kit II brush" theory is holding up.

Leave No Secretary (of Education) Behind

There's an interesting detail to this apparent snubbing of US Secretary of Education Rod Paige:

The Ohio NAACP withdrew its invitation to U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige, an outspoken critic of the group's national leadership, to speak at its weekend convention. Paige, who was initially invited three weeks ago to discuss the No Child Left Behind program, was cut from the program at the request of the national NAACP, Ohio NAACP President Sybil Edwards-McNabb said Thursday.

Edwards-McNabb said national NAACP leaders told her there was an "imbalance" in her slate of convention speakers. She said she had invited Bush and Sen. John Kerry. Bush agreed to send Paige, she said, but Kerry did not respond.

Emphasis mine, and so what? That's Kerry's loss. Leaving aside the rudeness of disinviting someone to an event of this magnitude, why would it be "unbalanced" to have a representative of President Bush there if his challenger was not there? The programs implemented by the Bush administration have a wide-reaching effect on every schoolchild today, and these programs deserve discussion by those who have had a hand in implementing them - no matter who Bush's challenger is. Just because "the opposition" wasn't there to give their side doesn't mean that Paige wouldn't have been a very appropriate speaker. Certainly, there's plenty he could have discussed that doesn't have anything to do with partisan politics.

But wait, it gets better:

Asked about the role of the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is scheduled to speak today, she said Sharpton was a guest of the local NAACP, not a surrogate for Kerry. But Ohio Democrats had a different understanding. Sharpton is "speaking as a representative of the Kerry campaign," said Brendon Cull, spokesman for the Democratic Coordinated Campaign in Ohio. John White, spokesman for the national NAACP, said Thursday he was unaware that Edwards-McNabb had been directed to cut Paige from the lineup.

So, Sharpton is essentially being allowed to speak, with no concern for "balance." And the previous clashes between Paige and the NAACP don't make this situation look any less like a last-minute, high-profile snub:

The war of words between the Bush administration and NAACP has worsened this year. Bush passed on the group's national convention in July after attacks by NAACP leaders Julian Bond and Kweisi Mfume on Bush's programs, especially No Child Left Behind.

The same month, Paige responded in the Wall Street Journal to criticism from NAACP leaders that black conservatives like himself were "puppets" of white people. Paige wrote that Bond and Mfume had betrayed their "organization's own origins."

And now they disinvite him. Shabby. Certain observers aren't afraid to connect the dots:

Robert Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, said the NAACP's move will backfire.

"It would have been a small blip on the radar screen and now it will be a big story," Bennett said. "The NAACP is supposed to be nonpartisan, but because Rod Paige is George Bush's secretary of education, they disinvite him. Isn't that ludicrous? Democrats can't tolerate any diversity in the Republican Party at all."

Putting pressure on the schools

In New Mexico, a school principal is fretting about the fact that his students didn't make the AYP (adequate yearly progress) targets this year:

Gonzales Elementary Principal Michael Lee knows exactly why his school didn't make "adequate yearly progress" this year under the federal No Child Left Behind Act: The fourth-graders didn't learn how to use rulers and measure quantities.

It is particularly painful to him, because his daughter was among the fourth-graders who took the test used to rate the school, and he thinks they're an exceptionally bright bunch of kids.

Dude. Fourth-grade is not too early to learn to use a ruler. It pains me to see these educators who insist that their students are smart - but just haven't gotten around to learning some basic facts and skills. If they really are that smart, heck, they should be converting inches to centimeters by now.

Still, Lee knows what his school has to do: Make sure this year's fourth-graders learn how to measure. Gonzales began a Cooking with Kids program this year, so the teaspoons and measuring cups they'll use in that program should help.

Well, that's something, but surely they could learn about measuring devices in math class as well, right? The article in general is good, but there are a few testing criticisms thrown in that, well, don't add up:

Sewing also sees problems with regard to students whose first language isn't English. Under the law, students have to start taking the standardized test in English three years after they enter the United States. Sewing said research shows language development takes five to seven years. "It's frustrating for these kids," she said. "It makes them feel like a failure."

"I would ask the adults out there, 'If you moved to China and lived there for three years, would it be fair to measure your education and your skills in Chinese?' " Sewing added.

If the entire time that I was in China, I was enrolled in a program that, for eight hours a day, was supposed to immerse me in Chinese and teach me the Chinese language, then yes, it would be fair. I might need a different standard than a native speaker - I can see the argument for that - but it's not unfair to test me to see if I'm where I should be after three years.

Gonzales Elementary's Lee said he'd rather "be sucker-punched" than repeat the experience of hearing his school had failed to meet AYP. "What we have to do at Gonzales is make darn sure we're teaching the standards. And because this test is based on standards, that should be easy."

"The pressure is going to build. And if principals and teachers are feeling pressure, then you can be sure that kids are feeling pressure. I have to wonder if this is the kind of world we want to bring them up in?"

If I had a fourth-grade daughter, and the choice was rearing her in (a) a stress-free environment, or (b) an environment with some stress in which she learned how to use a ruler, I know which one I'd pick.

Meanwhile, over in Boston, the educators insist that the "failing" labels are wrong:

...For the first time, a district could land on the federal watch list if just a single category of students fell below federal standards. Educators attributed the ballooning list to that new provision, which isolated the performance of groups including Hispanics, blacks, special education students, and low-income students...

"To me, it's sort of like the terrorist alerts that the federal government puts out and says, 'Everybody watch out, there's terrorists out there," he said. "No Child Left Behind is trying to motivate people from fear rather than well-thought-out initiatives."

So is it better for schools not to know if one group is doing more poorly than another? Is it better for parents not to know this? Mayer is apparently of the belief that any shortcoming within a school shouldn't be made public. But others don't agree:

Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington who has studied how states comply with the federal law, said bringing shortcomings to light is likely to spur progress.

"The real question is, is it better to know or not to know" how groups of students are doing, he said. "I think there is a growing public awareness it's better to know."

When "progressive education" means retaining the status quo

Joanne Jacobs uncovered a brilliantly idiotic op-ed about how our children are too important to risk experimenting with, when "experimenting" is defined as "changing the public school system to something that might work better":

The NAEP data adds to the growing body of evidence that charter-school students do not outperform comparable students in regular public schools and should raise serious questions about continuing to employ charters as a sanction under the No Child Left Behind Act. More importantly in Washington, it should give us pause as we consider whether to approve or reject Referendum 55, on the November ballot, that would establish charter schools in this state.

...while charter-school supporters point to other studies and anecdotal information to show that charter schools can work, vying studies don't demonstrate who is right and who is wrong. They simply demonstrate that the possibility for success of children in charter schools is an unknown. Our children's education is too important to try experiments to see what works best.

Emphases mine. Leaving aside the fact that the authors, Darlene Flynn and James M. Welsh, don't cite too many of the "vying studies" to support their arguments that charter schools cannot work, I find the whole "we can't take chances" approach bizarre. I mean, wasn't the whole theory of "progressive education" that infested public schools in the 1970's built on the assumption that schools should take chances and come up with a Brave New World of education, one that freed children from the horrors of - gasp! - rote memorization? Aren't educrats supposed to be the ones that oppose the status quo, with its accountability measures, adherence to objective standards, test scores, and all those other pesky old-fashioned measures of education?'

But when a truly innovative concept appears, why, it's batten down the hatches! We must protect The Children from "the unknown." Sheesh.

Brian Micklethwait rightly pokes the educrats in their fearful bellies:

...there are a lot of public sector schools where parents would love it if the outcome was an "unknown", instead of the all-too-known that they are instead stuck with.

I think I know what these authors were trying to say with this amazing sentence, but the words they actually used show, I think, how out of touch they must surely be with lots of parents. They've said things like this to their friends and co-educrats so often, to such warm applause, that they truly didn't realise what they'd put. When they talk or write about "experiments", they, and their usual audiences and readerships, see evil right wing monsters inflicting cruel tortures on furry white animals and chucking defenceless kids off an experimental cliff. But lots of others will simply see them turning their backs on the obvious way (experiments) to make progress and to add to the store of human knowledge, in this case to the knowledge of how best to impart knowledge to the next generation.

Emphasis mine, again. It's obvious to us that the "progressive" educators of the past are now the ones most afraid of real progress.

Learning by example

Given the reader email I receive, I believe that there are plenty of parents out there who, given the chance, would like to slam a pesky educrat or two up against a wall.

However, doing so in the name of anti-bullying is a bit, well, paradoxical:

A woman has been charged with slamming into an assistant principal at a middle school open house, the third time in several years that a mother has been accused of assaulting Anchorage School District staff.

Police said that Toro stepped in front of Naylor as Meister approached. Meister then said, "So what would you do if I did this?" and slammed into Toro, police said. "It was her full body hitting hard against his chest and shoulders," Fiedler said. "It was very sudden."

What, is she the parent of a bully who wants her child to have more opportunities to show off his technique? Sheesh.

The civics classes are coming! The civics classes are coming!

My Devoted Reader Reginleif is in a grumpy mood over this Boston Globe editorial, which celebrates the efforts of educational groups to bring back civics education. Sounds good, right?

REMEMBER CIVICS class? Too many people don't, and that's why national groups working to make democracy and citizenship riveting parts of the kindergarten-through-12th-grade curriculum deserve a rousing blast of John Philip Sousa -- with flags. The newest effort, started in March, is the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, which last month gave grants of $150,000 each to six states to make civics a priority.

Skaggs wants to get young people to be as passionate about voting as many of them are about recycling, which, he noted, "has instilled in people the idea that every can matters." He asks, "Why haven't we instilled the kind of civic faith in people that tells them every vote matters?"

Here's Reginleif's commentary:

Wouldn't be so bad on the face of it, but the express reason given in the editorial is that people have become "too" anti-government, and they're hoping for a renaissance of statist indoctrination.

I didn't quite read that into the article. Of course, the part about Americans being too anti-government is explicitly stated:

But civics -- which was a priority after World War II -- is no longer embraced by an America that has developed an ornery anti-government streak.

Tam Taylor, press officer of the 40-year-old Center for Civic Education -- a Calabasas, Calif., group that has led the movement for a better-informed citizenry -- noted that the Vietnam War protests, followed by the Watergate scandals and the cultural revolution, soured the public on civic involvement. The national focus on science and math after the launching of Sputnik also stole attention from civics -- and those disciplines still eclipse Democracy 101.

Haven't Americans always had an "ornery anti-government streak"? I'd be willing to bet that civics education was given more weight back before the 1960's, but I find it hard to believe that (a) we don't teach civics any more because we focus too much on math and science, or (b) civics is somehow more important now than ever to kids who are all-too-often lacking the necessary literacy and numeracy skills to support themselves, much less enter government service.

What's more, I believe the decline in civics education goes hand-in-hand with a decline in the general standards of education. Certainly, some public schools have spent the last 30 years urging their children to "find themselves" and have prized "deep thinking and creativity" over hard facts, which doesn't necessarily inspire a student to enter politics any more than a scientific or mathematical field. The problem isn't limited to civics, in other words.

I don't have a problem with a re-emergence of civics in the classroom. In fact, I think it could produce more students who are informed, yet ornery anti-government types (like Reginleif), as opposed to the uninformed "rebels" we see marching in the streets everywhere nowadays. Good civics education, to me, isn't so much about accepting governmental interference as it about gaining an understanding of how the system works, so that it may be changed in effective and positive ways.

Cato conference on a marketplace of educational choices

The fine folks at the Cato Institute asked me if I would post a link to their upcoming conference, "Creating a True Marketplace in Education." The event, which is free, looks interesting:

...when it comes to American elementary and secondary education, there is no free market; government dictates where children will go to school, when they will go, what they will learn, and how much money will be spent. It's a lifeless system that produces poor academic achievement and widespread disaffection rather than a diverse array of effective educational options. So how do we go from the status quo to an alternative that thrives on the dynamism of the market? What are the essential requirements for such a system? Where can we find market-based education already at work?

Lisa Snell is on one of the panels; she runs the website Education Weak, which is worth reading, and not updated nearly enough (I know, I know - pot, meet kettle).

Mind the Gap! (in Minnesota)

There's much test-score fretting in the North Star state:

Minnesota students are traditionally among the nation's top performers on key standardized tests. Unfortunately, the statewide averages mask an embarrassing reality. Students of color consistently score far below their white classmates.

A recent report from the Education Trust, Inc., highlighted the issue. Minnesota eighth graders ranked first in the nation in math on the 2003 National Assessment for Educational Progress. The average score among the state's white students (291) topped the list. The average score for African American students in Minnesota (251) ranked 22nd among the 50 states. Only Wisconsin had a wider gap between white and black scores.

I can't find the report on the Ed Trust site, although there's a lot of other good information on there. I particularly liked this article entitled "Good Teaching Matters," although that's another "duh" statement as far as I'm concerned.

But I digress:

The low test scores are a point of frustration to some; a source of anger for others. The Rev. Randolph Staten of the Minnesota Coalition of Black Churches says state officials have failed to adequately address the educational disparities.

Achievement gaps are often attributed to income level and home environment. Low-income families often have few educational resources at home. Recent immigrants don't always have the English language skills needed to keep pace in school. Some experts also point to low classroom expectations, peer pressure and teacher quality as key factors.

Nice to see that the tests aren't vilified here. And few reporters will touch upon the hot button of peer pressure and testing, even though at least one study suggests that peer pressure is more highly related to test score performance than is family income. It's more PC to blame the tests than to blame the negative peer pressure and low expectations that abound in poor schools.

Anyway, I tried to find out more about what's being discussed, and done, in Minnesota. (Note to self: Avoid future Google searches using "Minnesota score gap" as keywords, since this produces an avalanche of Packers articles.)

I found some 2003 NAEP data which suggests that the gap between fourth-grade boys and girls is increasing in reading; on the other hand, the black-white gap decreased slightly in fourth-grade math. Eighth-grade gaps between black and white students did not appear significantly changed from the previous year - which is good, because they're wide in both math and reading. If anyone knows of other articles that examine the Minnesota gap, let me know.

Stating the obvious when it comes to education

From the FortWayne.com site comes an article entitled, "Parents influence student success: Schools’ ISTEP scores tend to rise with close family support," to which I can only say: Duh.

...in the end, what happens in the classroom is only part of what will determine a student’s success. Much of how successful a child’s academic career is is determined by how involved their parents are in their education, educators say.

“All the studies have shown that children whose parents are involved in their education in some way, they do better in school,” Roberts said.

Please tell me this is not actually news to any parents, or teachers, out there.

...being involved in the PTA isn’t all there is to being involved in a child’s education, said Joyce Epstein, director of the Center on School, Family and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She founded the National Network of Partnership Schools to support schools in strengthening parent involvement.

Schools thought if they could get their PTA groups larger, it would boost their students’ success, but there is more to helping their children than volunteering, Epstein said. Parents also need to know how to help their children learn at home.

Again: duh. Perhaps this is only being reported as "news" because we've reached the point where parents figure the teachers will do ALL the work, and the parent needs only attend a PTA conference or two. If that much.

I don't mean to discredit Epstein's work - she sounds like she's doing a bang-up job. It's just rather sad that it needs to be done.

...Schools with high poverty rates face the challenges of less educated parents who may not feel comfortable in a school building or may not have the time to volunteer because they are working long hours.

“We don’t want people to stop having a good newsletter or picnics,” she said. “(Further) activities may focus on families linking with children at home or on homework. Some things may be that families are gaining information through seminars or workshops or a session on how to support your children in testing. It becomes a much more comprehensive part of school work in general.”

If she's successfully explaining to parents the importance of helping their kids prepare for testing, she's doing the work of the angels.

Worries about the new SAT and "that essay" unfounded

There's a new "new SAT" article making the rounds. Let's examine it, shall we?

The SAT is undergoing significant changes in 2005, including the elimination of those dreaded analogies...

Hey, I liked those!

...and the addition of a Writing section that includes an equally dreaded 25-minute essay...

Students who plan on attending college should NOT be afraid of having to write a short essay in 25 minutes. This is hardly setting the standard too high.

The changes are:

_A Writing section will be added, with questions on error identification, sentence improvement and paragraph improvement, plus a 25-minute essay. The writing test replaces the SAT II writing test previously taken by students applying to selective schools.

The revisions to the exam, the first in 10 years, make the test "better reflect what students are actually doing in classrooms," says Kristin Carnahan, associate director of public affairs for the College Board, the organization that designs and administers both the SAT and PSAT.

At the same time, some observers began saying cultural bias in questions' wording hurt the scores of minorities.

Not a bad timeline. Actually, the article in general is very good, and even-handed. The only "critics say" line is above, where it's actually appropriate. The reporter spends a lot of time on the topic that is most nerve-wracking - "that essay":

As for that essay - it will be read by two graders in a process that has been followed for years by the College Board in grading its SAT II writing test. Furthermore, the essay counts for only one-third of the Writing grade.

So students should relax.

An interesting testing dilemma

Jason Karlawish, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, wonders if a standardized test would be useful in judging who is competent to vote in elections. Needless to say, this has some folks in a tizzy:

When should people with Alzheimer's or other cognitive impairments lose the right to vote? A new report suggests it's when they can't pass a standardized competency test.