Number 2 Pencil

Happy Halloween!

Remember that WA school board that cancelled Halloween, so as not to offend the myriad real-life witches that live nearby? Uh, well...oops.

Halloween Cat - gif files, a free pattern, even a yoga pose (for humans, not cats).

Best. Halloween. E-Card. Ever.

Finally, the Halloween spirit:

Friday catblogging: Classic photos

Haven't had the chance to take any recent photos, but here are a few of my favs. First up, Pippin when he was still "Nelson" as a ward of the local shelter:

Next, me, thrilled, holding Pippin on the day I brought him home (Valentine's Day of this year):

Finally, Pip and his older sister, happily birdwatching together:

Twins take ETS by storm

They're cute. They're hip. They're awfully smart. And they both did pretty darn well on the SAT:

It seems like the kind of SAT question custom-made for Dillon and Jesse Smith of Long Beach: If one out of every 1,511 students taking the SAT will get a perfect score, what are the odds that twin brothers will both ace the test? nswer: No one knows for sure. Nevertheless, that's what the Smith twins have done.

Both Dillon and Jesse Smith, 16-year-old fraternal twins, achieved the elusive top score of 1600, a number most high school seniors dream about seeing on their SAT score report. "I was very, very happy," said Dillon, describing the moment he realized that both he and his brother received the top score on the aptitude test. "I've been hoping for it since we started."

It was a rare thing to hope for. Of the 1.4 million high school seniors who took the test in 2004, only 939 scored a 1600, according to the College Board, which administers the test. With those numbers, the odds of any two people getting that score would be almost 1 in 2.3 million -- and that doesn't even take into account whether those two people are related, never mind twins.

No, it doesn't (although, as my Devoted Reader Maureen points out, the Newsday reporter gets it wrong by implying that the probability would decrease if family relations were factored in). Dillon and Jesse don't have identical DNA, but they did share a tough mom with high expectations:

"I expected it," said Smith, 44, a physical education teacher at I.S. 143 in Washington Heights. "They have the potential to do even better -- maybe even write the tests ."

What? Momma Smith thinks they could become psychometricians one day? Be still, my beating heart. Oh sure, Jesse is quoted as saying that he doesn't think the test really measures anything, but I figure he's just being modest and humble. After all, I've yet to see the article where a perfect-scoring student is quoted as saying, "Yeah, this test really measures how smart you are, and this proves I'm the best!" I know some top scorers think that, but they'd never say it.

Number 2 Paws

Catblogging hits the big time:

In the vitriolic world of political Web logs, two polar extremes are Eschaton (atrios.blogspot.com), a liberal, often anti-Bush site with a passionate following, and Instapundit (www.instapundit.com), where an equally fervent readership goes for hearty praise of the Administration.

"It brings people together," said Kevin Drum, who began the cat spotlight last year on his own blog, Calpundit (www.calpundit.com). "Both Atrios and Instapundit have done Friday catblogging. It goes to show you can agree on at least a few things."

Have we gone from, "Why can't we all just get along?" to, "Why can't we all just cat around?"

The NYTimes mentions Lawrence Simon and the Carnival of the Cats, from which I was linked for the first time ever. I can't believe that the first time there's a set of links that could lead NYTimes readers to N2P in three clicks comes about because I posted photos of kittens last Thursday.

Silly, but I'll be happy for any additional traffic that wanders this way. Come for the cat-blogging, stay for the test-defending.

(Via Outside the Beltway)

Girls still not figuring out why the birds are different from the bees

Hot on the heels of the fashion mavens who tell us that skin is not in - something concerned parents always knew - come the worried experts telling us something else that concerned parents always knew - girls who take pride in promiscuity face myriad dangers:

Heather, a 16-year-old with sandy blond hair, remembers how it felt the time she had sex on the same day with two different boys. Neither was her boyfriend. "I felt like I was in control," said the Neenah, Wis., native, who like other teens interviewed for this story is being identified only by her first name. "I felt like a player."

Fourteen-year-old Mia of Racine, Wis., explains with pride how she uses a calculated approach to flirting and dating to extract money from multiple boys. "I've been pimping," Mia said. "I've got dudes who give me money every day."

My guess is that parental influences - or lack thereof - play a big part in these sorry tales. Or perhaps this is due to the great public school "socialization" factors that we hear so much about?

A lot of adults may not want to believe it, but these and other teenage girls are adopting some stereotypical "male" attitudes toward sex, according to reports from a national research firm and interviews with girls and officials who work with them...Planned Parenthood says that promiscuity is helping fuel the rise of sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers - diseases that can rob girls of the ability to bear children. There's also evidence the trend is turning dangerous in other ways, with girls sexually harassing and even assaulting boys.

Kieran Sawyer, executive director of the TYME OUT Youth Center, a Catholic organization in Waukesha County that runs teen programs that focus on relationships, agreed.

When even Planned Parenthood is siding with the worried parents and the Catholics, you know things have gone too far. It's understandable that, in the revolutionary 70's, feminists trumpted the notion that a woman's independence might depend on her acting like a man - in bed and out - but it's appalling that the notion is still around in this day and age, and for teenagers, no less. Women might have come a long way, baby, but STDs, unwanted pregnancies, and fractured relationships still abound, and ghetto wear that encourages women to objectify their body parts is no more "empowering" now than it would have been in 1972.

To counter these aggressive attitudes, Planned Parenthood is reworking the teen workshops it runs in schools and churches and through other community organizations to place greater emphasis on the importance of healthy relationships. The workshops will force girls who act like pimps and players to examine why.

"We want to ask girls who play boys: `What was the value? What do you get out of this?'" Lathen said. "We want to help girls understand and reject the stereotypes the media projects of them so they can make positive, healthy decisions about their bodies."

Good luck. Given all the "you should be as sexy as you want" messages that have been pushed by "feminists" over the years, Planned Parenthood may find themselves stymied by young girls who literally do not understand any other way to be than as a sex object. And if they don't drag parents into these conferences as well, it's unlikely that will change.

And what would such an article be without a "parents just don't understand" line?

"What a lot of boys and a lot of adults don't understand is that the door swings both ways," said Lisa, 18, of Brookfield, Wis. "It's not just boys who sometimes want something purely physical. Girls have needs too."

Guess what, Lisa? You're not the first girl to think that. You're also not the first girl to think that all those negative things - pregnancies, AIDS, date rape, horrible relationships - aren't going to happen to you. I wish you had more responsible adults in your life to tell you that these bad things can happen, and that satisfying your physical needs does not now, nor has it ever, nor will it ever, come without a high price. Too many girls nowadays are willing to ignore it.

Before any of my Devoted Readers jump in and say this - yes, if I had a daughter, she would be called Alice; she would be homeschooled, and kept in pigtails, and dressed in tights, flat shoes, and jumpers until she was 16 years old. If you think my attitudes mean that I would probably drive any child of mine crazy, yes, you're right.

I always wanted to wear a tiara and sash

I'd always thought it would be a tad surreal to win an Academy Award, or an Olympic gold medal, or some such spectacular trophy for all-around splendiferousness. Surreal because of the rush of adrenaline that comes from all the admiration, knowing you are appreciated - but also knowing that you better get off your duff and do something else so that you don't seem like a flash in the pan.

It's even more surreal, I can now say, to receive a lovely award for which you didn't know you were being considered, and in fact didn't know existed. I fired up my computer this morning to read the following email from Daryl Cobranchi:

Kimberly,

Daryl

Wha? What? Through my blurry and uncaffeinated eyes I stared at the screen. I couldn't figure out what Daryl was talking about. There was an email immediately preceding his with the subject line, "WINNING NOTIFICATION!!!", but even an uncaffeinated hedgehog could've figured out that that was one of those Nigerian-lottery scams. Being not quite as sharp as a hedgehog this morning, I clicked on it, just to be sure:

ATTN;WINNER, We happily announce to you the draws of the Centenary Olympics Big Lottery International programs held on the 25th of OCTOBER 2004 here in Athens, Greece.This promotion takes place every Olympic year You were entered as dependent clients with: Reference Number:NM/BC921245/KY13, and Batch number NM/207161/KOP....

Okay, so it's not that. I went to Daryl's site, and discovered that Education News has declared N2P to be "The BLOG of The Century." They don't say which century; I hope they don't mean the last one:

In Defense of Testing Series
Number 2 Pencil: The BLOG of the Century
Tuesday, October 26, 2004

It seems hard to believe that Kimberly Swygert's BLOG, Number 2 Pencil, approaches its third anniversary. It still seems so new. For those of you unfamiliar, Kimberly is a card-carrying psychometrician who expresses in her BLOG her open, honest, and informed opinions on education policy in general and standardized testing in particular. Before she started, no psychometrician had been willing to do this, in the interest of protecting their careers. We all owe her a debt of gratitude for her courage.

Wow. How flattering. Especially given all of the other edublogs out there (see the list over on the right-hand side of this page if you don't know about them). And they got the timeline right, too - N2P will indeed celebrate its third anniversary in January of 2005. It sounds amazing even to me, especially considering that I thought no one would ever read this blog. Well, I thought maybe some other psychometricians might read it, but no one else.

What a nice way to start the day. A bit surreal, as I said, but nice. Had I known I was in the running for such praise, I would have tried a bit harder and posted a few more testing-related articles, at the expense of a few catblogging posts. But hey! - I made the Carnival of the Cats this week too. So I must be doing well all around.

Now would be a good time ("I'd like to thank the Academy...") to thank those who have provided a great deal of academic, moral, and technical support for N2P, almost since day 1: Joanne Jacobs, Dr. Greg Cizek, Dr. Richard Phelps, John Rosenberg, Dean Esmay, Daryl Cobranchi, and every single one of my Devoted Readers. Without you, this blog would be nothing.

This post will stay at the top of the page for the day; scroll down for new posts.

Proud wearer of long skirts and blazers since 1991

Just think, all you homeschooling parents - here you were keeping your kids away from the "socialization" of hooker-chic fashion, so you don't get to sigh with relief now that Vogue has declared it's okay for a young girl to look like she's not for sale:

Sitting down is a complicated maneuver when you're wearing low-rise jeans.

A word long missing from the style lexicon, it's suddenly on the tongue of every trend-watcher, on the runways of London, Paris and New York, and in the latest issues of magazines as different as Seventeen, InStyle and Vogue.

Aren't you homeschooling parents pleased? The runways of Paris have deemed that it is okay to encourage you to dress your daughters modestly again! Don't you feel bad that your girls didn't get to experience the hooker craze while it was popular?

In a single season, fashion has flipped from cheesy to cutesy...The backlash against revealing fashions has been unusually virulent in recent months, says Lyn Mikel Brown, an associate professor of women's gender and sexuality studies at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.

In other words, try explaining "hooker chic" to an 8-year-old.

What, you mean you homeschooling parents never did have to explain that, because your daughter wasn't surrounded by pre-teens in thongs and low-rise jeans all day long? What were you thinking, not letting your daughter be "socialized" appropriately? Don't you know that unless she wears whatever Vogue tells her to, she'll be doomed to a life of unhappiness?

Update: Thanks to Devoted Reader Liz for posting the links to dressing modestly sites on my comments. A Google search for "modest prom" or "dressing modestly" will also find a lot of sites. Why am I not surprised to find that the very skirt I am wearing today is featured on the Hannah Lise: Modest Clothing for Women and Girls site? Okay, mine has a zebra-pattern in place of the block pattern (and Boston Proper charged three times as much as this site does) - but it's the exact same skirt. And I'm very happy to have found a site that sells long skirts WITHOUT slits.

Do they teach wrestling moves in education programs these days?

Looks like someone should have tried out for the WWF, not the NEA:

Teacher Katrina Ann Rucker, 30, is charged with battery and cruelty to children for allegedly beating a parent who tried to retrieve her daughter's book bag, The Macon Telegraph newspaper reported Friday.

Principal Karen Konke sent letters to parents about the incident. "Let me assure you the school is safe and that our students have been involved in appropriate instructional activities throughout the day," Konke wrote.

Um, where's all the lingo about how the school has "zero tolerance" for this kind of behavior? Or does that only apply to students? As Daryl Cobranchi notes, parents are pulling their kids from this school.

The schools that do it right

Something tells me that touchy-feely educators who are in favored of unstructured and unsupervised learning techniques would be horrified to hear of these practices - and even more horrified to realize that they work:

When California posts numbers Thursday on its scale for measuring school performance, it will show two Silicon Valley elementary schools -- Millikin and Faria -- at unprecedented heights: a perfect score. The schools have shared a similar philosophy in their path to a 1000 score on the state's Academic Performance Index Growth Report. Both maintain a strong focus on excellence, and use back-to-basics methods to achieve it.

At Millikin Elementary in Santa Clara, Yvette Kamfirouzi's kindergarten class looks different. The students, instead of sitting cross-legged on the floor, sit quietly at desks in neat rows. Kamfirouzi stands at a whiteboard, explaining how to draw in missing details on the outline of a dog. Although her instructions veer toward the abstract -- "Remember, we're drawing the dog from the side, so it only gets one eye'' -- the children take dutiful note.

"Dutiful"? "Sitting quietly"? "In neat rows"? Oh, the horror!

"From Day One in kindergarten,'' said veteran Millikin fifth-grade teacher Chris Preece, "our students know what they're here for.''

Let me guess - it's not to "find themselves."

Which is: to work hard and master the basics -- and do both with a minimum of wasted time. Both Milikin and Faria, in Cupertino, offer spots to students from all across their districts, with lotteries determining who gets in. Both demand a high degree of commitment from parents and students. And both offer a strictly back-to-basics curriculum that stresses reading, writing and math.

It is true that Milikin and Faria do not serve disadvantaged populations. But I can't think of a better plan that theirs for a school that wants to help disadvantaged students become advantaged as soon as possible. The worse the home life, the more necessary the type of structure and immediate feedback that these schools possess.

Parents are expected to buy into that philosophy when they enroll their children. If they are lucky enough to win in the January lottery -- last year the school had 260 applications for 60 kindergarten spots -- parents and their children are required to sign an agreement before enrolling. Students pledge to be respectful and do their work; parents pledge to support learning at home, and to get their kids to school every day.

The Millikin philosophy is not for everyone, she acknowledges. Some would have difficulty adapting to the school's highly disciplined approach. Most schools try to adapt to accommodate the frenetic energy levels found in any group of children; at Millikin, it's the children who are expected to adapt.

Imagine that. What a retro concept.

Staff members hasten to say that the school is not some Dickensian bastion of grimness...

They shouldn't have to. It's appalling that a disciplined environment is considered synonymous with "Dickensian" in today's educational settings. Structure, and rules, and discipline for children do not equal torture. Even worse, teachers from the school suffer some harassment from other educators, for supposedly taking only the "smart" kids. Sounds like other schools are unwilling to admit that smart, hard-working kids don't just exist - they can be created, and that's what schools like Milikin and Faria are trying to do.

Here's the Principal's Message from Milikin:

Millikin Basics+ is an alternative school open to all children grades K - 5 in the Santa Clara Unified School District. We are a school that provides a creative, nurturing atmosphere in which to teach a rigorous standards-based curriculum. The primary emphasis of the Basics+ program is the mastery of basic academic skills and the establishment of good study habits. Art, music, computer lab, science lab, curriculum oriented assemblies and field trips as well as many after school enrichment opportunities, help to create a balanced educational program of the highest caliber here at Millikin Elementary. High standards of performance, accountability, and behavior are maintained. Our program requires a strong commitment from parents to help develop the individual personal growth and responsibility of their children so that the school can concentrate on all students achieving proficiencies in academic skills across all content areas.

Contrast that with, say, the type of mission statements you see with dense edu-jargon about diversity, self-esteem, "critical thinking," or self-enrichment, as though school were just a navel-gazing camp or a place to be indoctrinated into become a social activist. The type of mission statements where it's impossible to figure out what, if anything, is actually taught at the school. Like the one for Berkeley High, the only public high school in the Berkeley Unified District:

The Mission of Berkeley High School, an economically and culturally diverse community in a progressive town with rich traditions and established values, is to ensure that each student will achieve success as a productive citizen from a curriculum which assures individual development through critical/creative thinking; through communication skills; and through the application of modern technology in a safe, caring environment with total community support.

Berkeley was declared to be a failing school in 2003. Is anyone surprised?

I'm thinking of changing my name to "This Kimberly Person"

Anyone remember this post, back in April of this year, in which I expressed concern that a teacher named Linda Sorter who spends her time teaching "peace activities" in the classroom?

I thought my opinions were expressed rather mildly - instead of getting all fussy about someone dragging politics into the classroom, I merely asked the following: "Why can't Ms. Sorter just admit that teaching her students her particular, one-sided political beliefs is a big part of her agenda, if not the main part?"

Ms. Sorter was welcome to reply to me to clear up some of my other questions, including whether students who believed that winning the peace means waging war would be welcome in her classroom. I would have posted such a reply had I gotten it (and do note that when a former student of hers posted a comment to defend her, I did not remove it).

Ms. Sorter has indeed written me, but not to clear up any misconceptions I may have. Here is her email, in its entirety:

Kimberly, I stumbled into your website and was quite shocked to find myself "reviewed and evaluated" by you. I have no idea who "you" are, and you, having not the decency or the courtesy to meet me, have NO idea who I am. I can accept any criticism based on fact, but you have no idea what you are talking about. It was pretty awful reading your catalog of lies. Sure gave me enough to know and evaluate you. My former student, JR who responded to your degrading and ridiculing comments, said it all. Thank you, my dear former student, for defending the teacher who always gave the best of herself in her classroom, and for growing up to practice the principles you learned there. Surely you are making the world a better place. Which is a lot more than I can say about this Kimberly person. I will not read your site again, so your response is meaningless to me. Suffice to say, I feel sorry for you, Kimberly.

Note that she didn't actually correct anything I said. She didn't address any of my questions. She just insulted me. So mature. So effective. And so worthy of someone who considers herself an "educator."

What's more, her shock at realizing that her publicly-available information has been read on the Internet, and judged by the public, suggests a bit of discomfort, shall we say, with the Information Age. Somehow, I believe even Miss Manners would support me in my belief that I was in no way discourteous in commenting on news articles about Ms. Sorter's doings without introducing myself to her first.

On the other hand, I can't really say that she didn't clear up any of my misconceptions. I think after reading her reply, we can all guess just how she would have responded to a student who disagreed that origami cranes are useful for spreading the "peace", can't we?

Calling upon the god Neptune is not always helpful

Italian kids indulge in a little vandalism to get out of an exam:

Four Italian teenagers have confessed to flooding one of Milan's best known schools, causing an estimated 500,000 euros in damage, because they did not want to sit a Greek exam. The three girls and one boy, aged between 16 and 17, delivered a letter to the school's headmaster on Thursday, explaining how last weekend they blocked drains in a bathroom before they turned on washbasin taps and left them running.

The headmaster, Carlo Arrigo Pedretti, said the pupils wrote in the letter that they flooded the school to avoid having to sit their ancient Greek test on Monday morning. "I am stunned, I cannot believe it," Pedretti said. "These kids have no idea of the consequence of their actions."

I agree, but in a different way than Pedretti probably thinks. I mean, the Greek language has been around, in one form or another, for over 2100 years. It's not going to go away before the flooded school gets repaired. If those students ever get let back into the school, that evil exam will be sitting there, patiently waiting.

Meow meow meow meow, pt 2

My Friday catblogging has not gone unnoticed: Lawrence Simon of This Blog is Full of Crap is hosting Carnival of the Cats this week, and last Friday's post featuring five kittens is on it.

When one size doesn't fit all

NCLB requirements aren't quite catching everyone - not in a ethnic sense, anyway:

Mesa sixth-grader Valeria Quezada, 11, cannot tell the truth when she takes a standardized test and faces questions about her race and ethnicity. She is Hispanic and a first-generation U.S. citizen on her father’s side of the family. But her mother is white and non-Hispanic.

The five standard categories, which the federal government created in 1977 and incorporated into the No Child Left Behind law in 2002, are: White, Black, Hispanic, Asian and American Indian.

This is old-fashioned, but it was done for simplicity's - and statistical - sake. It's hard to understand why neither the reporter, nor anyone interviewed for this article, felt the need to point out that schools are required to show results disaggregated by these five ethnic groups, which explains why the categories are so large and broad. The goal wasn't to come up with categories that would cover every kid (a la the US Census model), but to define them broadly enough that there would be a substantial sample size in each category. If 10 more ethnic groups get added, it would be logical to require schools to meet the target for all of those new groups as well, which would be much more difficult.

And I'd bet that if "Other" were provided as a category for which schools didn't have to show results, quite a few poorly-run schools would be shoving all their bad test-takers into that category.

Tom Horne, state superintendent of public instruction, said the state is only following directions from the federal government and should not be blamed. "I’m opposed to racial categories on standardized tests," Horne said. "I think students learn as individuals and not as members of a racial or ethnic group."

I agree 100% - about the "students learn as individuals" part. One's race does not define one's performance. Not asking about race, however, makes it possible to disguise race-related test scores gaps, which do persist in this country due to inequalities in education and cultural specifics, not to mention the soft bigotry of low expectations. Removing the racial questions smacks too much of a cover-up to me.

I'm cheating, I know, but I'm doing so well!

The Battalion newspaper from Texas A&M profiles a brainless wonder:

A student walks into her crammed classroom. She finds the perfect seat - one against a wall. The teacher has the seating arrangement so that tests given to the students differentiate from Form A to Form B, each form with different questions and answers. The student makes sure her seat sits at exactly an angle which allows her to see a test in front of her that is identical to hers. Every once in a while, she glances to her front neighbor's test to compare her answers, calculating her peeks to coincide with when the teacher looks away.

"I knew that in high school, if I hadn't cheated, I wouldn't have done really well on my daily assignments," she said. "I didn't cheat on exams. Here, there
aren't any daily grades, so it's more important to do well on exams."

And what about when you graduate and enter the real world, which produces "tests" for which no cheating is possible? Will you expend your energy trying to get around every rule? Will you try to set up every situation so that you can check your "answers?" Will you eventually become insightful enough to wonder why you didn't bother to learn as much as you could in school, or why you didn't choose a major that inspired you so much that you preferred learning to cheating?

Please, Ms. "Aggie with an Alibi". Do the professional world a favor and list this article on your resume when you graduate. If just one company is spared from hiring such a selfish and deluded twit, I'll be pleased.

A "bilingual" program that doesn't produce bilingual kids

El Verano (CA) Elementary School, dismayed by test score gaps, is dismantling its bilingual ed program:

With a third year of federal sanctions ushering in "corrective action," El Verano Elementary school is bracing for some abrupt changes - and the biggest one will likely be dissolving its bilingual program. The aim is to phase the three-year program completely by the end of this school year and have all former bilingual students immersed in full English instruction.

Luis Lopez said he had enrolled his daughter at El Verano so that "she could get some basic Spanish." He said that if the program wasn't working or revealing high enough test scores, "Show me the results. I want to see why it's not working."

I'm confused. He's upset because his English-speaking daughter doesn't get to learn Spanish? My guess is that's not where the problem lies.

The bilingual program at El Verano has roughly 60 children from kindergarten through second grade. The term "bilingual" is somewhat of a misnomer; unlike Flowery Elementary's dual-immersion program, where the intent is to create a bilingual student, the setup at El Verano uses Spanish to help transition children to English.

Why on earth would they choose not to do dual-immersion? Especially for elementary school kids? Whatever their reasons, it appears the gap between those learning English and the overal student body has made the school officials stop and think.

Kerry vs. Bush

More on the education policies from our Presidential candidates:

Roger Giroux, superintendent of the Anoka-Hennepin School District, remembers the old days, when every child wasn't expected to pass every test. If every child passed, "that was a sign of a poor test," Giroux said. "Tests are supposed to discriminate on the performance levels of kids."

It's a big question in the 2004 presidential race.

I understand Giroux's point, but NCLB isn't about challenging tests. It's about minimum-competecy testing, which is why the howls of indignation about the "unfairness" of the tests are often incorrect.

Kerry contends that schools need another $27 billion to implement the law and says that the current funding shortage has left schools too little money to spend on other things, such as smaller classes, textbooks and after-school programs. And he said the situation has been made worse by the president's pursuit of tax cuts for the wealthy.

Education Secretary Rod Paige said the debate over how to fix the nation's schools is about much more than money. From 1965 to 2000, he said, the federal government spent more than $130 billion on programs for disadvantaged students, but "the money seems to have made little difference." The new law, he said, "is making a positive difference in millions of lives" because schools are being forced to show that they're accountable for the money they're spending.

Money without accountability is a waste.

If schools are not testing, that's "punishing children," Bush said, because schools then have no idea how their students are performing.

"I went to Washington to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations," Bush said in a speech in Chanhassen earlier this month. "I felt strongly we needed to end this business about just shuffling the kids through, grade after grade, year after year, without teaching the basics. We've raised the standards. We measure early to solve problems before it's too late."

...On its Web site, the Kerry campaign complains that too many states are measuring student performance "with fill-in-the-bubble tests that limit both teaching and learning." While Kerry says he's committed to making the law work, he is promising to support states that use more "sophisticated tests that capture the full range of skills that we want students to develop."

Wow, I hope he's planning on plowing a lot more money into the system, then. And when are these new exams going to be pilot-tested and validated?

Many educational critics say that schools are already spending too much time on testing, which takes away from instructional time.

Not if they're good tests, and not if the curriculum is in agreement with the testing standards.

The Tasmanian Devil(ish system)

A Western Heart is all over the new grading system that's being implemented in Tasmania. Note to US teachers - if you think your jargon-laden paperwork requirements are bad, get a load of this:

The world is watching Tasmania's education reforms, says Education Minister Paula Wriedt. Dramatic changes to the state's educational system will start from next year. But teachers fear they are not ready for the transition, which will use vastly different assessment criteria from kindergarten to Year 10.

"This does require a big shift, it's quite groundbreaking," Ms Wriedt said yesterday. "I know some people are not comfortable with the change but equally there are many who are really excited about it...Students don't have to learn everything in the classroom as they always have."

Emphasis mine. What could that last line possibly mean?

From next year teachers will prepare report cards on how students do in whole new areas. Once phase-in is complete, report cards will not list traditional subjects like maths or english, with a grade for each.

A teacher who contacted The Mercury yesterday said many of her colleagues were sceptical and angry about the new system. She said it was over-theorised, jargonised and difficult for teachers, let alone parents, to understand. The secondary teacher said she would have to collaborate with every other teacher on her nearly 300 students.

Not to mention she'll need to have a firm grasp on the continuum underlying the construct of "social responsibility." Or at least what the Dept. of Ed considers socially responsible. Quite a change from focusing on teaching the ABC's.

I'm sure more teachers would be skeptical and angrey too - if they knew anything about the new system, that is:

...in a survey of 1334 teachers across the state by the Australian Education Union, 92 per cent said they did not have good knowledge of the marking system. More than half of primary teachers and three-quarters of secondary ones surveyed said they had little or no knowledge of the new system...

And you thought NCLB had a lot of resistance. This program is going to be implemented next year, and 75% of secondary teachers know very little about it?

From next year, government schools must assess four key areas - inquiry, numeracy, literacy and well-being. More will follow in 2006. They fall into five "essentials" - thinking, communicating (eg, literacy and numeracy), personal futures (ethics and well-being), social responsibility and world futures.

"Thinking"? How, exactly, does one measure "thinking" without focusing specifically on a subject area that a student is "thinking" about? Can a student be determined to be "thinking" well if no one checks to see if they got the right answer? Since when is numeracy part of "communication?" Does this mean that it doesn't matter how well you understand math, only how well you convey it to others? "Personal futures?" You've got be kidding me. How are teachers going to grade on that? Who's defining "well-being" here, especially when we're talking about teenagers? (Let me guess, goths wouldn't be defined as doing "well.")

"Social responsibility?" "World futures?" Those are weighted as heavily as "literacy and numeracy?" I'm highly suspicious of any "social responsibility" that is obviously divorced from civics and history learning; I doubt this method is intended to turn out patriotic and informed little Tasmanians.

The new learning replaces conventional division of subjects into mathematics, English or science - and nothing is compulsory. Instead, "cross-curricular units" will be studied by drawing on various disciplines. For example, learning about water could draw on maths, science and geography.

"Nothing is compulsory." That says it all. I guess being "socially responsible" doesn't extend to having enough of a backbone to insist that all children in Tasmanian schools learn some required amount of math, language, history, and science.

New York - It Ain't Kansas

As if NYC teachers didn't have enough to worry about (third-grade reading tests, anyone?), their personal possessions are getting pilfered:

An outbreak of thefts has plagued city schools, as petty criminals have made off with cell phones, purses, jewelry and laptops. One teacher even lost her coat from inside school headquarters at the Tweed Courthouse - where guests are scanned and photographed and have to cough up identification before entering.

A Bronx middle school teacher who asked to remain anonymous said he has been pickpocketed twice while working and once caught a sixth-grade girl in the act. "The students feel like there are no consequences," he said.

Good Lord. My job is stressful, too, but at least I don't have to worry about what's in my pockets.

TGIF

This has been a very productive week, work-wise; not quite so for blogging, or anything else (you should see the pile of laundry in the bedroom). My brain is rather fried at the moment, so here's a list of unrelated things - some education-related, some definitely not - going through my head.

Do any colleges in Oklahoma cover "Lessons Learned From The Debacle That Was Prohibition" in history class?

Hey, I'm a fan of Febreze, too - but I'm tactful about it. What is it with crazy teachers and their obsessions with smells?

The California College Republicans - talk about a marginalized group - have had it with Rock the Vote's alleged "non-partisanship," and their fake draft scare.

According to Common Sense and Wonder, a French deputy believes that English as the primary world language won't last, and recommends that all French schoolchildren be taught Arabic instead. Yeah, that'll fix things.

If you're going to take a shot at Ann Coulter, you'd better have good aim. Because if you miss, all you're going to do is enrage her.

I'm a cat-lover. But even I think this is a tad much. Then again, I thought "Friendster" was silly, too.

Bittersweet has the best response to those Brits who think they need to tell us how to vote.

The Cranky Professor notes a growing disenchantment with the PTA, and I don't blame him for wondering why only "one voice" can be heard.

FInally, I just have to say that the current crop of movie actors doesn't do much for me (and no, it's not just because I'm getting old; I've always been this way, more or less). Brad Pitt does nothing for me. Johnny Depp just looks messy. Viggo Mortensen is too much of a peacenik. And few of them could turn my head, even for a second.

But the old-time movie actors - back when men were men, who could sing and dance as well as act - really turn my head. If Colin Ferrell approached me at a party, I wouldn't be distracted. But if a man who looked like Gene Kelly walked through the door - and smiled at me:

...my affianced fidelity vows would be seriously put to the test.

Cheating news roundup

Caveon's biweekly Cheating In The News collection includes this description of over-achieving cheaters:

High-tech schemes to achieve undeserved academic success can sometimes be quite intricate. One case involved two senior undergraduates at a major East Coast university. While one was taking the nationwide Graduate Record Examination, he used a wireless transmitter to send images of the test to his accomplice waiting in a van. The accomplice then ascertained the answers to the test questions, sending them back to the exam taker via walkie-talkies. The two young men supposedly invested $12,000 in equipment to implement their plan; they were arrested on charges of burglary and unlawful duplication of computer material.

Raise your hand if you think it would have been a lot easier to just study for the dang test than to go to this much effort. Examples like this give lie to the notion that all cheating is based on laziness. Some examinees expend so much effort in cheating that it can only be from the ego-boosting high that comes from defying authority. A natural outgrowth of the "you're perfect just as you are" false self-esteem lessons taught in our schools, I'd say.

Columnist Trevor Bothwell of The Fence, on the other, keeps the blame on the schools, but insists that the "cooperative learning" lessons are the cause:

For years now public schools have championed the merits of “cooperative learning,” where students are grouped into mini-communes of four or five. The idea here is to encourage cooperation between peers, where the brighter students in the group are expected to facilitate the learning of those less academically adroit.

Aside from the sheer foolishness of expecting any individual student to be responsible for the learning of anyone but himself, “cooperative” methods of learning discourage independent thinking in addition to encouraging misbehavior and cheating. Indeed, these instructional methods are invented by the very same teachers who believe grading papers with red ink is “pretty frightening” for kids, at least according to Sharon Carlson, a health and physical education teacher at JFK Middle School in Northampton, Mass.

From the New York Post comes a tale of today's confused teenagers:

A national survey of 24,763 high-schoolers found 62 percent of them admitted cheating on a school test in the past 12 months, 27 percent stole something from a store during that period, and 40 percent admit they "sometimes lie to save money." In a telling twist, nearly a third didn't even tell the truth on the integrity survey — 29 percent of the students polled by the Josephson Institute of Ethics 'fessed up to fibbing on one or two of the more than 60 questions.

But, despite owning up to dishonest behavior, a whopping 98 percent of the students believe "honesty and trust are essential in personal relationships" — and 83 percent said at least half their acquaintances would put their name on a list of "the most ethical people they know."

Sad to say, they might be the most ethical people they know. Their friends could certainly be worse. The part about honesty in personal relationships is sad on several levels. My guess is what these kids consider inter-relationship "honesty" is being blunt, tactless, and telling the other person exactly what you think of them - which is NOT necessarily the key to a successful relationship. The kinder world of moral individuals who practice social hypocrisy to keep the peace (the "little white lies" that make life easier) has been replaced by a world in which cheating is fine, and so is insulting people to their faces.

Finally, at UT-Arlington, a panel on academic honesty brings out some interesting statements:

Cheaters prosper, Engineering Senator, Nicolas Cornor said. “Martha Stewart, Haliburton, Enron and Microsoft are accurate representations that honesty in the public doesn’t get you anywhere,” the aerospace engineering sophomore said.

Isn't Martha unhappily divorced and in jail right now? Sure, she's still rich, but I'm not sure I'd want to be in her shoes.

Patricia Nickel, testing assessment services coordinator, rebutted by saying students have a responsibility to hold up the university’s reputation even after they leave. “If you cheated your way through school and you don’t really know the material, you are hurting the university,” Nickel said. “These people go out into the work force and represent UTA. If they look bad, we look bad.”

Patricia Nickel, coordinator for testing assessment services, rebutted by saying if people can not turn off their cell phones for an hour lecture, then they should really ask themselves what they are doing here.

I like this Nickel gal.

Friday catblogging

Here's what I saw, last night at the intake center, when I opened the cage containing Kirsten, George, Chris, Eddie, and Betty:

Here's what I saw a millisecond after I put some canned food in the cage:

Hungry little buggers, they were.

Need a cat? Go here!

Update: Welcome to everyone from Carnival of the Cats! To find all my previous catblogging pictures, enter "catblogging" into the search engine on the right-hand side of the page.

Also, please note that many, if not all, of the catblogging photos were taken with a camera phone, hence their less-than-stellar quality.

I guess "The Wizard of Oz" is off the playlist this year

Good grief.

PUYALLUP - "Let them have their 30-minutes of dressing goofy and having candy," said Silas Macon on the grounds of Puyallup's Maplewood Elementary School Wednesday afternoon. He'd just learned the grade school tradition of a party and parade in costume during the last half-hour of class before Halloween night won't happen this year in the Puyallup School District for his two daughters.

"They're so worried about being politically correct anymore that we're not allowed to do much of anything," said parent Tonya Reynolds whose daughter attends Maplewood Elementary.

So, let me get this straight. Christians who don't like Halloween, and don't allow their children to celebrate it, are just narrow-minded bigots who shouldn't be allowed to push their views on the rest of us. After all, there's nothing on the district guidelines about not offending Christians.

But Wiccans who don't like Halloween - they're perfectly okay? And banning Halloween costumes and celebrations for everyone, regardless of their religious identity, is somehow not narrow-minded in this circumstance?

I know Wiccans out the yin-yang. While they aren't impressed with the Hollywood portrayals of witches (insane, sex-crazed, scary, or some combination of the three), I've yet to hear one complain about children's Halloween costumes. My Wiccan friends are too busy dressing up as goddesses, men, or Jeannie from "I Dream Of Jeannie" to really care what anyone else is wearing.

Update: Via Wizbang, I found the Downtown Chick Chat, who says:

Give me a break! What's next? Pumpkins will go on protest for pumpkin cruelty because people are carving them as jack-o-lanterns and removing their guts?...

I believe in God but I don't get all pissy about people dressing up as Angels, Devils, Nuns and so on. Lighten up people!

Yeah. What she said.

She's the Little Engine That Could

Yahoo! for Joanne Jacobs:

At the start of 2001, I quit my well-paid, high-status, no-heavy-lifting job as a San Jose Mercury News columnist and editorial writer to write a book on a start-up charter school. For awhile now, I've been wondering if I'd ever get the book published. Finally, after interminable delays and dithering, I have a publisher, Palgrave Macmillan. The advance is pathetically small, so if I make any money from the book it will come from royalties, which I'll have to generate by relentless self-promotion. With the help of my blogger buddies, I hope. Anyone who's a close personal friend of Oprah, drop me a line.

I'm still a bit stunned. I've got a real, big-name publisher. Soon I'll have a deadline (I love deadlines) and School Work: How Two Grumpy Optimists Started a Successful Charter School will have a scheduled publication date and it will happen.

After the big waves come the waivers

Thanks to the recent stampede of hurricanes through Florida, some schools may be able to obtain a "storm waiver":

State education officials said Tuesday that some hurricane-ravaged schools can appeal their grades next summer if students show unexpected declines on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. But the same consideration doesn't extend to the students themselves.

To be eligible for a grade waiver, schools must have been shut down more than five days by a hurricane, have shown good or improved grades over the last three years, and drop at least a letter grade next year. They must also show obvious effects of hurricane damage, such as a high number of dislocated students or classes on double sessions.

One other solution: Change the FCAT to measure how well students know to board up houses, purify drinking water, and plot evacuation routes. You know, the skills children need to best function in Florida.

Sounds like Teresa just opposes teaching kids to read

Best of the Web gets off two irresistable jabs at the Kerry camp today:

As if the conflicting polls of "registered voters," "likely voters" and "national adults" weren't confusing enough, now we have a pair of surveys of American children that show contradictory results:

Apparently kids who read favor Bush, while those who watch TV prefer Kerry. Hmm, whose parents are more likely to vote?

Heh. Meanwhile, Teresa Heinz Kerry ingratiates herself with public school teachers, and shows her oh-so-empathetic side for the work teachers do every day:

From a USA Today interview with Teresa Heinz Kerry, the opinionated ketchup heiress and philanthropist:

According to her White House bio, Laura Bush has worked as a public school teacher and librarian. Does Teresa not believe these are "real jobs"?

Double heh. And don't miss Joanne's citing of John Kerry's "nuanced" comments on NCLB.

Update: Teresa realizes her mistake:

"I had forgotten that Mrs. Bush had worked as a school teacher and librarian, and there couldn't be a more important job than teaching our children. As someone who has been both a full time mom and full time in workforce, I know we all have valuable experiences that shape who we are. I appreciate and honor Mrs. Bush's service to the country as First Lady, and am sincerely sorry I had not remembered her important work in the past."

Skipping out on the exams

Fellow blogger Liz Ditz emailed me to point out that students are skipping out on exams that are low-stakes to them, but high-stakes to the schools:

Torrey Pines High School [CA], the academic powerhouse proclaimed by Newsweek as among the top 100 campuses in the country, is in the academic doghouse. Nearly 300 students at Torrey Pines skipped the statewide standardized tests in the spring, and because of low turnout, one the highest-achieving high schools in California didn't receive a statewide ranking, known as the Academic Performance Index.

Principal Rick Schmitt said the API score is a symbol of a school's academic standing. It affects property values and is used by real estate agents to sell homes..."Individuals feel there's nothing in it for them," said Schmitt of students who are expected to take the tests. "If the community is better informed and once people understand what it means on a bigger scale, they can appreciate why it's important."

Well, yes, but I can see why students skip. Trying to get good data without stakes for the test-taker has always been a thorny issue, and there's not any one solution that works for all tests. When students get fed up with tests to the point of drawing cool patterns on their bubble sheets, something's gotta change. The data are worthless at that point. Students must have an incentive.

They study hard for the SAT and sweat over the APs; they at least show up for the high school exit exam. But yet another test that doesn't matter at all, to them, might be too much.

Stressing out in Virginia

Devoted Reader nicksmama sent this along with the headline, "Bad test-takers rejoice!":

Diane Smart has seen the stress and strain Praxis I puts on some teachers. For their sake, she's hoping the Virginia Board of Education lowers the scoring standards later this month for the general-knowledge teacher assessment test.

Virginia has the highest minimum required scores of the 28 states that use Praxis I. While most teachers pass the state requirements, others struggle.

And...isn't that to be expected? Otherwise, why give the test? Oh wait, I get it - everyone who has a love of teaching should be allowed to be a teacher, right? No matter how much - or little - material they've mastered.

On Oct. 28, the state Board of Education will consider lowering the standards in one or more of the three assessment areas...The standardized test is similar to the SAT. Each section takes about an hour to complete.

The average requirements in other states are about 172 for math, 174 for reading and 172 for writing.

Emphasis mine. Care to tell me why men and women with bachelor's degrees shouldn't be expected to do well on a test of ninth-grade math?

Smart thinks the discrepancy is unfair and can force people to take the $130 test multiple times. She points to No Child Left Behind, which is the same in all states, and says Praxis I requirements also should be uniform.

"Unfair"? Really? Why? Because someone always fails it? And I thought teachers disliked NCLB because it imposed government standards on student performance. Now we hear that teachers want government standards on teacher performance?

Despite Virginia's allegedly-unreasonable high standards, it's not like massive numbers of would-be teachers are failing it. But the statistics are telling:

According to 2002-03 statewide data, about 92 percent passed the reading section, and 86 percent scored at least the minimum on math. People fared worst in writing, with 82 percent passing.

If you want to teach children, you should be required to pass any and all writing exams the state puts before you. End of story. Writing well is not an elective skill for a teacher of any subject, at any level. The ACT and SAT are alternate exams - and they both have writing components.

Let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel

The education-related news of late has been a tad...strange.

I would have killed for this job when I was a kid. I doubt I would have given the thumbs-up to asparagus salsa, though.

I never knew voodoo was this popular in Japan, much less among school principals.

I remember sweating to death during those long August band practices in South Carolina. I do not remember, however, any band instructor being dumb enough to think that this was a good way to cool us all off.

"Don't count your chickens before they hatch" may be a cliche, but it's one that St. Mary's College apparently never learned.

My, Philadelphia makes the national news with such classy education stories. And it's not the first time this school made the news in this way this year, either.

The freak dancing controversy has reached upstate Washington! Rebellious students are planning to have an alternative dance that will most likely feature some freaky stuff. Best line: "'It's kind of ridiculous they are saying this is sexually explicit' when every dance, even the bunny hop, can be so, said Corbitt, a Kamiak senior."

If any of my Devoted Readers know how to do a sexually suggestive bunny hop, can they teach Dave and I how to do it before our wedding receptions? Man, my grandmother would faint.

Update: And then there's the Children's Center of San Lorenzo Valley, which is fed up with grant cuts, and no longer interested in Tupperware parties.

Figures lie, but some more than others...

When someone admits that the statistics they're using to "prove" their point are false, but it's all for a good cause, well, them's fightin' words:

A Rockville animal-rights activist has sent out a mass mailing to property owners in Garrett County, Md., stating they should not allow bear hunters on their properties because 40 percent of them are drug addicts, drunks or mentally unstable.

"My personal opinion is that anybody who goes out and shoots helpless animals has a psychiatric problem," said Mr. Hightower, 82, a former hunter and World War II veteran. "Logically, statistically if you look at a sample of the regular population, certain people will have some kind of psychiatric problems."

Oh. Yeah. That's logical. And statistically sound. To make an opinion about a mental condition you're not qualified to diagnose, and extrapolate that the condition is true for a certain portion of the population in question (about which you really know nothing) and then to send out an unsolicited mass mailing to complete strangers using numbers you admit are false....yeah.

And it's supposedly the hunters who are mentally ill?

This is why statistics get a bad rap, and why most people who read them are soon snoring with boredom, under the assumption that the numbers are horse puckey anyway.

This is also why I reassure people, when mentioning all the animals I've lived with and animal shelters I've worked for, that I'm not actually an animal-rights person.

Don't let the sweet look fool you - Bubba could kick your butt

The work schedule is kinda crazy right now - I didn't get home until 10 pm last night, and I have a ridiculous amount of stuff to do this weekend. I should be able to post, but I can't promise to answer email too promptly, nor to necessarily use all the lovely suggestions all of you are sending my way. I apologize if you sent me something juicy and haven't yet gotten the honor of a reply.

In fact, I have to skip out on my volunteer work this evening because of work, but here's a bit of catblogging to tide us over:

Lawrence of the erstwhile Amish Tech Support provides the best of his "catcam." Don't miss any photo of Edloe, who is so large she has developed her own gravitational mass.

Down South, we grow 'em big, and we name 'em "Bubba."

The blog CatOutLoud comes to you courtesy of a feral cat rescuer.

Cat unsuccessfully chases bird, through house - a photo essay.

When Cats Attack! - guaranteed to make the blood run cold.

Over at Meryl Yourish's place, it's Kittypalooza.

Finally, when cats and computers mix. I must say, my Pippin loves watching websites scroll by.

Well, he can't plead a "disadvanted" upbringing

The royals are not immune to the cheating bug, it appears:

Prince Harry was secretly taped by his Eton teacher to prove her claims that he was an exam cheat, a tribunal heard today. The hearing listened to the recording of the prince saying he had only done a "tiny, tiny" bit of the coursework for his art A-level.

The tribunal heard that shortly after making the tape Miss Forsyth justified her actions in a letter saying "no one was prepared to listen to my complaint".

If I follow the story correctly, Miss Forsyth is claiming that in order to keep her job, she was forced to prepare material that would be submitted as part of Prince Harry's A-level coursework. If true, this is appalling, but then the entire scenario seems appalling, with mud being flung in every direction.

Education in the debate

From the third Presidential debate on October 13, 2004:

Mr. President, what do you say to someone in this country who has lost his job to someone overseas who's being paid a fraction of what that job paid here in the United States?

You see, we'll never be able to compete in the 21st century unless we have an education system that doesn't quit on children, an education system that raises standards, an education that makes sure there's excellence in every classroom.

Comments?

Camden: Throwing good money after bad

The October version of Reason contains one of the most depressing articles I've ever read, about children trapped in a cycle of failing, violent schools:

Like every junior high school student in Camden, New Jersey, 12-year-old Ashley Fernandez attends a school that has been designated as failing under state and federal standards for more than three years. But low expectations were the least of this seventh-grader’s problems. In 2004 Ashley’s gym teacher became irritated by his unruly class and punished all the girls by putting them in the boys’ locker room. Two boys dragged Ashley into the shower room. One held her arms and the other held her legs while they fondled her for more than 10 minutes. The teacher was not present, and no one helped Ashley.

In all, more than 100 parents have removed their children from Camden schools because of safety concerns. The school district’s response: a truancy crackdown.

Author Lisa Snell isn't buying school districts' responses to the low transfer rate:

Since the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, less than 2 percent of parents nationwide have transferred their children to other public schools. Teachers unions, school administrators, and journalists have argued that the low transfer rates prove parents do not want more choices and that they prefer their local schools. But while parents have more information than ever about the quality of their children’s schools, in most cases they still have no way out of a failing institution.

Many parents of students in failing schools are not even aware of the right to transfer. A federally funded survey of Buffalo parents by the Brighter Choice Public School Project found that 75 percent of the parents surveyed did not realize their children attended a school designated as in need of improvement, which means it did not make adequate yearly progress in reading or math for two consecutive years. A full 92 percent said they would like to switch schools. A comparable percentage of parents in Albany also were unaware of the transfer option.

Ms. Snell believes NCLB in its current form is part of the problem, but the solution is not removing the law, or simply throwing more money at it, but removing restrictions and adding more true choice for parents:

...a better solution is to break up the education dollars to increase capacity, allow more competition, and increase high-quality choices. In June 2004, for example, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who is in the unique position of legally controlling Chicago schools, introduced a plan to open 100 of the city’s worst-performing schools to competition. By 2010 Daley intends to recreate more than 10 percent of the city’s schools -- one-third as charter schools, one-third as independently operated contract schools, and the remainder as small schools run by the district...

Camden schools show that more money is not the answer. Camden is one of New Jersey’s 30 Abbott districts -- districts with low property-tax bases that receive supplemental funding from the state. As a result, Camden’s per-pupil funding is higher than the New Jersey state average of $10,000 and the national average of $8,000; the Camden district has revenues of approximately $15,000 per pupil and receives large portions of federal Title I dollars. Camden schools had more than 1,200 incidents of serious violence in 2001-02, an increase of 300 percent from the previous year. The district has refused to release updated school violence numbers since then, but this year saw several highly publicized incidents, including a foiled Columbine-style plot to shoot students and an increase in the number of schools labeled persistently dangerous.

Ashley Fernandez doesn't attend an underfunded school. She attends a dangerous one. It's important for everyone involved in the education reform debate to understand that.

Looking for the union label

Well, we know where John Kerry stands on merit pay for teachers. He's all for it - but only if the NEA approves as well:

NEA also sent a bus on a weeklong tour of Florida's schools, trying to bring out the vote for Kerry while pretending the trip is nonpartisan. Beginning next Monday, until the end of the month, the bus will be touring Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. NEA itself is filming the expedition, which will be wonderful and inspiring for the union if Kerry wins, but will end up in a broom closet somewhere if he loses.

It also appears the Kerry campaign has squared the circle regarding its stated support for performance pay in the face of NEA opposition. Kerry education adviser Robert Gordon told the Cleveland Plain Dealer the performance pay plan would be voluntary and subject to collective bargaining with local teachers' unions. "No one would be forced to do it," Gordon said. "It would reward teachers who go the extra mile. There are many places in the country where unions have set up systems like this."

The Plain Dealer reporter evidently did not ask the appropriate follow-up: "Name them."

Lending a helping hand

Cal State would like to reduce the numbers of incoming freshmen who require remedial classes, so they're doing early assessment on California juniors. The test used is an extended version of the state standardized exam, and the results are depressing:

Just more than half of California 11th- graders who took an early assessment test were college-ready in math, and only one- fifth were prepared in English, according to results from the California State University's new high school testing program.

Forty percent of California high school juniors this spring volunteered to take part in CSU's early assessment program. Fifty-five percent of math test-takers were deemed college-ready, as were 22 percent of students tested in English.

So these were the kids who were motivated and organized enough to volunteer. Presumably all of them are planning on attending college. And yet only 22% are ready in English? Good heavens. Cal State hoped to identify the problem areas, and they certainly have. What they do with this information now will be the crucial part.

A partnership between the Long Beach-based state university system and California's K-12 schools, the program aims to smooth the transition from high school to college by giving struggling eleventh-graders extra help during their senior year so that they can avoid remedial course work if they are admitted to a CSU...

To help struggling students during their senior year, CSU faculty have developed a new 12th-grade writing and reading course and have set up Web sites offering math and writing tutorials and feedback.

The diagnostic and tutorial services for reading and math that CSU is providing look to be substantial, and solid. I believe, though, that this project is essentially a tacit admission by CSU that college-bound students are no longer expected to acquire the necessary academic skills in high school. Some students have always needed extra help to reach the college level, and certainly high schools do not design every curriculum as college-prep worthy. But a program on this scale is obviously intended to remediate a large number of students who will earn a California high school diploma and expect to attend college, yet have not been adequately prepared.

Is it a better idea than just offering remedial classes in college? Yes. Should the high schools involved feel just a tiny bit of embarassment that this is so necessary? Yes to that, too.

The most he can hope for is to become a literate cabbage someday

Harry of ChaseMeLadies.com is a British teacher in the midst of writing report cards who sounds just about fed up with kids. I hope he's not ready to snap - but I do love his way with words:

Writing their reports at the moment. Revenge! That will wipe the smiles off their nasty little faces! A lot of teachers give everyone top marks for everything, but I see it as my duty to say quite clearly "Your child is an illiterate cabbage," if this is the case. "He is in the advanced class because no one has ever failed him. Nevertheless, he speaks English like a dog."

In Hong Kong a school report is simply a fire-and-forget missile: you send it to the parents, and that is the end of it. In Italy I had to give everyone the highest grades possible, just to keep their appalling pushy mammas off my back; otherwise I’d have them turning up in person to hound and badger me. Some of them were actually aggressive, convinced that anyone who dissented from the view that their child was a genius must be motivated by malice. Very often I was motivated by malice, but that is not the point. In these reports I can say only that their whelp turns up late and acts the goat, spilling things and irritating me greatly.

A budding psychometrician

Holy cow. It's the first-ever, "I want to be a psychometrician" article that I've ever seen:

Sara Monempour was 2 when her family moved from Tehran to L.A. Then she did what most new Americans do: learned English. Attending Los Angeles County public schools, Monempour excelled in class but scored "unbelievably low" on standardized reading tests, up to and including the SAT.

Now 23 and a doctoral student at the University of California-Los Angeles, she hopes to become part of a small but growing group of elite researchers, known as psychometricians, who do little else but think about standardized tests.

"Do little else." I love it. I guess that's supposed to seem bizarre to the average reader...well, I guess it is bizarre.

No Child Left Behind, President Bush's education reform law, more than doubled the number of standardized tests schools must give each year, and it very likely will double it again in coming years.

Only about a dozen universities have psychometrics programs. Most turn out only one or two graduates a year. But once they're on the job, psychometricians burn out quickly, observers say. For one thing, new federal requirements say tests given in the spring must be processed before students return in the fall, months earlier than in the past.

Several small quibbles, already:

1. It's an article about psychometricians and the first quote is not from a psychometrician, but from someone who is rabidly anti-testing? (Never mind that, in this case, his quote is correct.)

2. "Burn-out quickly?" Funny, but I associate burn-out with police officers and neonatal intensive care nurses. Every single psychometrician I know is employed as fully as they want to be, and we all work long hours for organizations that are often under-staffed. But I can't think of one psychometrician I know - and I know dozens - who would consider him- or herself to be "burned out."

The rest of the article is fairly informative, including the following:

It's worth pointing out that even psychometricians say such tests shouldn't be the sole criterion determining whether teachers can teach, whether schools pass muster, students graduate or colleges accept them.

"Test scores are limited in what they tell you about a person, and test users don't always keep that in mind," Walker says.

True. Those tossing about overheated statements like "reducing a person to a number" are always testing critics, and usually uninformed ones at that. No psychometricians claim that everything about a person can be measured, nor do any claim that all decisions should be made quantitatively. If your college does well with students who bomb the SAT but can put together a great artistic portfolio, so be it. Don't use the test. Use what works. But don't claim the test is flawed for everyone just because it doesn't work with your population.

On that note, back to Ms. Monempour. I'm thrilled that she has noticed an issue with the tests. I'm thrilled as heck that she even knows what a psychometrician is, much less is actively studying to be one. But I do have one question. Given that she's noticed a pattern with all of her bilingual classmates, is she willing to enter the field of psychometrics with an open mind, and consider the possibility that schools these days may not do a very good job of teaching bilingual students Standard English? Or that some other factor may be at work?

The problems can lie with tests, with the education, or some mixture of the two. I have the feeling that the more involved Ms. Monempour becomes with psychometrics - and I wish her all the luck in that regard - the more she will notice that tests sometimes uncover ugly truths that others do not wish revealed. If she decides the problems are with the tests, I hope she sticks to her guns, and actively researches ways to fix them.

Show me some writing standards!

Colleges don't need a new standardized writing exam, claims the Southeastern Missourian:

...is there a need to better test college students' writing skills?

Southeast admissions director Debbie Below said the Cape Girardeau school already has its own writing assessment program and Southeast won't make prospective students spend additional money to take another ACT exam.

It appears that schools are not so much relaxed about writing as they are more anxious about other subjects:

Despite the new emphasis on writing, a spokesman for the Iowa City, Iowa-based ACT says skill with words is not the biggest failing of incoming college freshmen.

In contrast, only 40 percent of them are academically prepared to earn a C or higher in algebra, and only 26 percent are prepared to earn a C or higher in college biology, Gullette said.

Emphasis mine. According the Missouri Department of Secondary Education home page, the MAP requires Missouri students to know Algebra. I think. The homepage is confusing, and the math framework page is even more so. Page 59 finally gets around to mentioning some concrete examples, but it's hard to tell just how much algebra is tested at the high school level.

Anyway, some Missouri colleges say they have their own writing assessments, but the matter-of-fact description of why just about curls my hair:

Bratton said some colleges like Southeast [Missouri State] require new students to take a writing test to determine what freshman English course students must take. Others determine course placement on the basis of the ACT score on the English part of the exam...

"There are always going to be people who don't write very well," he said.

Funny, but I don't remember there always being college students who could not write in complete sentences.

You can shoot skeet - or Rebels - but just don't let anyone know...

Oversensitive educators are no longer satisfied with mere draconian zero-tolerance rules - they want high schoolers to be recruited to break the rules for educational purposes:

A teenage Civil War buff has been suspended from school and faces serious charges after his replica musket was found in his car trunk at school in the Orange County community of Pine Bush. Joshua Phelps had been at a reenactment with his Civil War costume, including a musket last week. He threw the uniform and equipment into his truck and forgot about it. Tuesday a security guard at the Pine Bush High School saw it and called police.

His mother, Valerie Michaels, is outraged, saying the school has blown this thing way out of proportion. She also says in the trunk was a costume, shoes, leather belt, powder keg, and a leather cartridge box. Phelps used the costume when taking part of the reenactment of the Battle of Chancellorville which was staged by the 124th New York State Volunteers. The reenactors say they are models of the unit that came from Orange County and fought in the Civil War. High school students were recruited to take part in the reenactors club. Phelps' mother questions why the students are given fake guns if they can be arrested for having them.

Good question. Is this not the stupidest thing you've ever heard of? It is a replica. Of a historical weapon. Which was in his car. After he partipated in a reenactment which involved high school students. Why don't schools just go ahead and ban students for even thinking about anything that might possibly, in any way, have to do with a weapon, of any kind, even if that weapon isn't real, or is used only for education or sporting events?

Oh, wait, they're already doing that:

LONDONDERRY, N.H. (AP) - The school board has voted to ban a photo of a student from the senior section of his high school yearbook because he is posed with a shotgun...

Last month the yearbook staff, adviser, principal and superintendent chose to bar the photo from the yearbook, saying the firearm was inappropriate.

Note the violent, filthy, murderous photo of Douglass on the CNN page. Also note that the school had already confiscated Douglass' gun enthusiast magazines.

Joanne Jacobs believes schools should have the right to ban whatever they consider inappropriate when it comes to senior photos - but we also have the right to mock them for being so terrified and ignorant of weaponry that the mere suggestion of it is enough to send them into a panic. Maybe Ms. Sousa's daughter could transfer to Londonderry High.

Someone needs to buy "art" a dictionary

Oh dear Lord. We hurt her feelings:

The artist who misspelled the names of famous people in world history on a large ceramic mosaic outside Livermore's new library can spell one word with ease: N-O. That's Maria Alquilar's new position on fixing the typos.

"No, I will not return to Livermore for any reason," Alquilar, of Miami, told The Associated Press in an e-mail. "There seems to be so much hatred within certain people. They continuously look for a scapegoat. I guess I am the sacrificial goat."

Why am I not surprised that, in addition to her inflated self-esteem and self-assessment of artistic talent, she is good at playing the victim hand as well? And by "victim," I mean not just of the town, but of the ineffable artistic impulse as well:

When asked whether she chose the words and names for the work or whether the city provided her with a list, Alquilar took an artistic stance in response.

"The art chose the words," she said.

Hear that, naysayers? Einstein's image told her to misspell his name. The muse of Michaelangelo insisted that spelling was irrelevant. Ignorance is now excusable if one is in the throes of artistic fever, which should please the nation's touchy-feely "educators" no end.

Woohoo!

N2P got over 15,000 hits yesterday - a new record. Thanks to all my Devoted Readers for checking out this site so regularly, and welcome to all new readers.

(Hey, if now is not the time to mention my Amazon tip jar on the right-hand side of the page, when is?)

Wrangling the polls

Chris Correa reflects on whether we should listen to journalists at all when it comes to polling results, as NPR suggests that most journalist might be "innumerates:"

One of the rarely admitted secrets about journalists is that many of us are functional "innumerates" -- another way of saying "mathematically illiterate." Oh sure, we can add and subtract reasonably well. But with some exceptions, journalists generally don't know, understand or aren't interested in numbers. As for more complex subjects such as statistics and probability, well... many journalists would be hard pressed to tell the difference between "average" and "mean."

Chris says "mean" is the arithmetic mean, while "average" could be any measure of central tendency (mean, median, or mode). I confess I've never heard "average" used for anything other than the arithmetic mean, but then I'm around statisticians all day, and we're pretty precise. Has anyone else ever heard of using that to mean a general measure of central tendency?

Anyway, the rest of the NPR article is quite good, and supplies a few guidelines for interpreting poll results yourself:

One of the clearest explanations of what is trustworthy and what is less trustworthy about polling comes from professor Kathleen Woodruff Wickham of the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

What is the raw data? Do the math yourself, if you can.

To which I'd add:

1. Is the group representative of the population to which it should generalize? In plain English, that means if you want to know how the US college-age student population feels about something, you survey a large sample of US college students. Sound intuitive, but you'd be amazed how many researchers attempt to generalize to a population from which they have neglected to sample. Surveying a group of college students will not tell you who is going to be elected President this year, because (a) college students skew more left-wing than the rest of the population, and (b) 18-24-year-olds don't vote to the same extent as older adults.

2. How was the poll collected? Even if the sample is not self-selected, finding people through telephone vs. door-to-door vs. direct mailing vs. email is going to get you very different populations. Plus, if the topic of the poll is emotional (Lord knows the current election is), getting information over the phone vs. over the internet vs. face-to-face may produce different results.

3. How forthcoming are the pollsters with the raw data? Bottom line is, if it's not posted on the web, you should be able to email them or call them to get the information, and they should be happy to provide it. If they're not, be suspicious.

I took an entire course on survey sampling in college, which is a tad much for anyone who's not going to spend their life doing that. But I enjoyed it.

Update: Tall, Dark, and Mysterious has comments. I have to admit, blogs like his make me wish I was single (hee).

Cost of unsupervised mall trip and Hello Kitty cards: Lots of $$$. Teaching your kids that they can't have everything they want: Priceless

Joanne Jacob's latest entry on FoxNews Views (where she mentions N2P - yay!) has this link to new credit cards - for the preteen set:

"Freedom! You can use the Hello Kitty Debit MasterCard to shop 'til you drop," the card's Web site enthuses. The prospective audience? The young women who grew up with the 30-year-old icon -- as well as much younger girls. "We think our target age group will be from 10 to 14, although it could certainly go younger," said Bruce Giuliano, senior vice president of licensing for Sanrio Inc., which owns the brand.

"It's no different than an allowance; just a safer way to manage an allowance because if you're a parent, you can find every place your daughter spent her money: how much, when and where," Klamka said. "You get a higher level of control than just giving your daughter $100 and say, 'Go to the mall.' "

I love Joanne's succinct reply:

I achieved an even higher level control by never giving my daughter $100 to go to the mall.

Seriously. I don't recall going to a mall unsupervised between the ages of 10 and 14, much less being given money in addition to my allowance for spending. How is it "control" to give your daughter a card (with fees described by one insider as the worst they'd ever seen) and let her go shopping unsupervised?

When religion and homeschooling mix

Over near Iron City, PA, homeschooling is in the news:

Some Mon Valley school district superintendents say opposition to their districts' home schooling programs is non-existent. That's not the case elsewhere in the state, where two families who home-school their children filed suit against public school districts Sept. 27.

Their complaints contend Pennsylvania's Religious Freedom Protection Act nullifies requirements in the state's school code that force home-schoolers to present proof of curriculum and coursework completed.

The second lawsuit addresses the same issue, and it's not clear yet if PA's RFP Act, signed last year, covers this type of claim:

Monessen School District Superintendent Dr. Alex Warren said he is not familiar with the legislation and is unsure if it supports the parents' claims.

Chelen said 12 home-schooled students living in the area report to Monessen school officials twice a year and take an annual standardized test as a means of assessment. She said the program has been well received by parents in the district who teach their children at home.

It's not just school officials who are skeptical:

Linda Wohar, of Brownsville, a home schooling advocate, has home schooled 10 of her children. She said she recently read about the lawsuit and concluded it is "invalid."

"It's not really something applicable to home schoolers in PA at all. It's kind of vague," she said of the lawsuit. "They're saying that it keeps them from practicing their religion. It's not really that appropriate and most home schoolers aren't really behind them."

I'd say someone with 10 kids knows of what she speaks.

This article says four, not two, families in all have filed similar lawsuits:

The Combs, one of four Pennsylvania families who have filed similar claims across the state, believe the home-schooling law restricts their religious freedom in a way that violates the law.

As a result, Homer-Center School Superintendent Joseph Marcoline has filed truancy charges against them.

I have the feeling that these sorts of claims are arousing ire in other homeschooling families because they play into the common negative stereotypes of homeschooling parents - that they're all religious freaks who don't want anyone else educating, or even coming into contact with, their children. I think it's a bum rap - the Combs should be able to contest the school's decision, if they believe the law protects them - but I can see why it might grate on the nerves of others.

Doing it right in Yonkers

One very disadvantaged school district in Yonkers (NY) is doing well on the state standardized exams, and enquiring minds would like to know why:

Seventy-seven percent of Yonkers elementary school students are now meeting the state's standards. That's compared to 79 percent of all elementary schools statewide -- including other large urban districts such as Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.

And results released in June show fourth-grade English test scores climbed from less than 34 percent of students meeting the state standards in 1999 to 65 percent this year.

From the press release:

A sample of the most improved schools, when contacted by the State Education Department, gave these reasons for improvement: an all-out district or schoolwide effort to improve achievement, hiring of math instruction specialists, intensive staff development focusing on math instruction, an improved curriculum in line with the standards, teaching math more every day, setting targets for improvement, using the achievement data to help individual students, grouping students flexibly by achievement level to give them the help they need, and before- and after-school help.

Emphasis mine. Hoorah.

Looking down their noses at basic skills

The Marshall Democrat-News (MO) picks up on a recent report by the Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) that suggests problems with NCLB, and reprints arguments from the AP that support the study. Not having read the study myself, I'll just link to Secretary of Education Rod Paige's strongly-worded response to the study, here, which suggests a deeply-flawed methodology and results that aren't quite what PACE claims they are.

(Update: It appears now that not only was the study mistakenly attributed to PACE, but the organization is actively trying to distance themselves from the study. Interesting. )

I'll try to do a more in-depth analysis of this controversy later. Right now, I just want to nitpick by selecting this one passage from the news article:

Another major flaw of NCLB is the emphasis placed on standardized tests to measure performance.

Many states have scaled back ambitious tests, reverting to the commonplace Iowa Basic Skills test to evaluate proficiency in basic ability. Nevertheless, wasting an entire month on instruction to pass a test is ridiculous, but schools are forced to do so in the face of lost funding.

Think about this for a minute. Basic reading and math skills are something to which students "attach very little value." Schools are "forced" to spend weeks on teaching these very basic skills. It's a "time-waster" for students to be able to pass the "commonplace" IBST, much less more ambitious tests. Schools should be free to focus on history, equations, and physics without first ensuring that they are giving all of their students a solid grasp of the basics.

Do these critics hear themselves?

Some of these critics might say that what this really means is that the skills tested are so basic it wastes students' time to prepare for the test. But if students really have the basics down cold, schools should have to spend virtually no time on test prep. While I agree that many tests are not perfect, and it's bad to have a test that is completely out of sync with the curriculum, it's just plain to silly to complain about how much time schools are forced to spend going over basic skills, and then say the problem is with the tests.

Why do the smart ones leave?

We've all seen the horrible numbers indicating that college students majoring in education, or those who intend to go into teaching or further study in education, have pretty low SAT and ACT scores overall. But Chris Correa (who has a very sexy edublog, by the way) reports on a new study which suggests that those education majors with high test scores don't remain teachers very long - and it's not all about the Benjamins:

Retaining high-quality teachers has been a concern addressed by both local and national policies. Merit pay models address the problem that teacher pay in the public sector is not market-based. Are skilled teachers leaving the profession to earn more money in another field?

Past research in other labor markets suggests “job match quality” is an important factor in turnover; young teachers who feel that they are overqualified for teaching may be less likely to continue teaching.

I believe it could also be a factor that those who do well on tests such as the ACT don't share the antipathy towards testing of many of their peers; they may have less patience with the knee-jerk anti-testing attitudes that define much of educational discourse nowadays. It's entirely possible that the problems could be as much political as intellectual.

(Link via Joanne Jacobs).

One reader shares his experiences

N2P Devoted Reader and author Bernard Chapin has a new book out, Escape From Gangsta Island: The Progressive Decline of an Alternative School. It's being serialized here. Background information on the Eastland Center, where Mr. Chapin worked, can be found here. Go check it out.

Math relativism at its worst

Devoted Reader Greg M. reports on a math education kerfuffle in his area. The issue is whether the math curriculum in that district is being used because it is effective, or because the district itself created the text - and gets a 2% royalty on every book sold:

Test scores showed Hillsborough County students making significant strides in math compared with the rest of the nation. The racial achievement gap is closing. It was because of an elementary curriculum called Voyages, according to the national company that bought and marketed it.

The truth: Hillsborough elementary schools use at least two separate math programs in an attempt to reach every child.

The controvery is arising here because the school district claims that Voyages is not the core curriculum - which makes it impossible to tell why score gains might have occurred. The publisher disputes that anything other than Voyages could be in use, and the aggrieved parents dispute the claim that Voyages is any good:

That was news to Voyages' publishing company, said Reggie Powe, founder of New York-based Metropolitan Teaching and Learning.

"In the last three years, this has been the core curriculum in kindergarten through fifth grade'' in Hillsborough, Powe told The Tampa Tribune. When informed the district is using Voyages along with other nationally published textbooks, Powe said, "I don't see how that can possibly be.''

Interesting. Why could that not possibly be? And what is Voyages, anyway?

Voyages helps students learn higher-level reasoning skills and prepares them for FCAT, but it doesn't always work, [teacheres] said. Traditional math programs consist of showing a skill followed by pages of practice problems using it. Voyages uses word problems and hands-on materials to help students understand how numbers relate. The concept is taught before the skill.

"Voyages is tough if you don't have the basics,'' said Jay McNair, a fifth-grade math teacher at Tampa's Oak Park Elementary until he transferred to James K-8 school last week. "If you don't read well, you're going to have trouble.''

If you're in fifth-grade and don't yet know your multiplication tables, I would imagine you would have trouble - and all the blathering on about concepts vs. skills isn't going to fix that. In addition, the use of word problems certainly does assume a certain reading level; adding the reading load to the math requirement seems like it would only make things more frustrating for those students who are falling behind.

The parents who yanked their kids were most definitely not impressed:

When Voyages was used, the children struggled. The mothers, all college educated, said they found the program poorly written, poorly organized and lacking in basic comprehension skills.

Accustomed to helping their children with homework, they said they didn't know how to help with this math.

So what are these new methods that leave parents confused?

Today's math isn't always about getting a specific answer, but about how you get the answer, Hillsborough educators say.

"It's not three plus five is eight anymore,'' says Edie McDermott, a second-grade teacher at Tampa's Cannella Elementary School who has taught for 18 years. "You learn to look at it a different way.''

I feel like I need an alarm symbol - like Drudge's blue light - that goes off whenever an "educator" begins discussing new math techniques by saying that they're not really about, you know, math anymore, because we just can't expect today's schoolchildren to master three plus five without getting bored or taking a hit to their self-esteem.

My first reaction is this:

What I would like to do to shut up someone spreading this nonsense is this:

But I think the most succinct graphic I can apply is the quality of math education that such math-phobic theories are going to provide:

Anyway, back to the article.

The emphasis is on knowing why you are doing math before tackling calculations, says Lia Crawford, Hillsborough County Schools elementary math supervisor.

They no longer take time to drill multiplication tables, so children who don't know them don't take time away from those who do.

What. Does. That. Mean? It seems to mean that it no longer matters for children to know multiplication tables, and that those who do not know them set the standard for the level of the classroom instruction - but surely it can't mean that.

Ultimately, one of the major goals is to succeed on the annual Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, which checks for higher-level thinking skills and reasoning.

"There's not just one way to find an answer,'' said Shana Tirado, math resource teacher at Tampa's Lomax Elementary Magnet School. "And there's not always just one right answer, if you can justify how you got there."

Emphasis mine. Gee, no wonder parents are having a hard time helping their kids with this math. I'd imagine any parent whose job depends on them doing something right, as opposed to finding a creative, "justifiable" way of screwing it up, would find this problematic.

As Greg put it:

Maybe I can use that with my customers: I didn't get your order correct, but here is the clever way I got it wrong. So pay me anyway.

Parents are happy, but educators are "concerned"

I'm sure all you homeschooling parents out there will be deeply moved to hear that one Mississippi education official is "concerned" about the rising rates of homeschooling:

Peggy Peterson, director of compulsory school attendance enforcement with the Mississippi Department of Education, said she fears that some children may not be receiving top equality education instruction from their parents. Mississippi Department of Education statistics show that the number of families homeschooling in the state has increased since 1999, when officials began monitoring enrollment.

A total of 11,063 Mississippi children were homeschooled last year, up from 8,768 in May 1999. Lauderdale County alone had 281 families homeschooling their children in May of this year.

Which is an increase of 26% - not too shabby. Ms. Peterson is concerned that some parents just aren't qualified to teach their kids. Amusing, in a state (along with Minnesota) for which the passing scores on PRAXIS I are the lowest in the nation in math and reading. Here are the "tough" questions on the math portion - no calculators allowed!

Peterson's office is the only one with the state Department of Education that has anything to do with homeschooling. Families that homeschool their children must register with their county's school attendance officer; the officer, in turn, reports to Peterson's office.

"Mississippi has the most lenient homeschool laws in the nation," Peterson said.

Good for it, say those who homeschool there:

Joseph and Mary Beth Hallman of Lauderdale County homeschool their son and daughter. They said they wanted to make sure their children receive the best education possible. "No one cares more about our children than we do," said Mary Beth Hallman, whose two children have never attended a public or private school. "And it is a privilege to teach them at home."

Sarah Nicholas, a spokeswoman for the state College Board, said homeschool students often score higher than public school students on the American College Test and the Scholastic Aptitude Test - two national, standardized tests used for college admissions.

"I don't know why they score so high," Nicholas said. "But historically, students who are homeschooled usually have exceptionally high scores on those tests."

Ms. Nicholas is being polite in claiming ignorance of why homeschooling kids do so well. It has something to do with parents who are smart, motivated, and consider it a privilege to be able to teach their own kids.

And for those of you new readers who believe that all homeschooled children become adults who are severely lacking in social skills, I suggest you read this post, and this one, and this one - and all the accompanying comments. If you still want to take the chance to comment on here and claim that homeschooled kids are "missing out" on the social life, you can't say you weren't warned.

Presenting one side of the story

Aussie Mike Jericho is highly unimpressed that, in Texas, the R-rated Fahrenheit 911 is apparently considered suitable classroom viewing:

When not encouraging students in public schools to spurn Christianity... but embrace Islam, high school teachers are moonlighting as propaganda disseminators, spreading the word for John Kerry, and against President Bush.

How hard can it be to discover the rating of a film before showing in class? And why are we supposed to be impressed that, when told by a student of films that present an opposing viewpoint, the teacher then offered to show one of those films in class? If this were really about presenting a wide range of viewpoints, as opposed to propaganda, the teacher would have had a dissenting film ready to go. Instead, he figured he could get away with just showing this one. If he really wants to stimulate discussion, I suggest that he starts with Dave Kopel's work.

Be as freaky as you want, but not in public

Summit High School (OR) is trying to restore some decorum to school dances, and unsurprisingly, some students are upset that they don't get to do whatever they want:

Girls are buying gowns, spirit week is here and last spring's "no freak dance" rules are back — sort of. At Summit High, Saturday night kicked off homecoming season for Bend-La Pine schools. The Summit administration planned to maintain its course and forbid sexually-charged dirty dancing known as freak dancing.

This is no surprise to students, although not necessarily a welcome one, after last spring's upheaval over freak dancing. Bend High administrators' decision in March to shut down a dance early due to what was termed inappropriate dancing sparked a communitywide debate over how students dance at school functions. In April, Summit High canceled a dance, an event at which some students supposedly planned to freak dance in defiance of dance rules.

And the school is entirely within its rights to (a) set rules for etiquette, (b) eject those who break the rules, and (c) cancel the dance if students openly say they're going to ignore the rules. This seems like a no-brainer to me - but listen to the complaints:

"They're taking it to an extreme saying we're having sex on the dance floor," said Megan Hasenoehrl, 18, a senior sitting in the commons Friday morning... "You can't stop it," she said. "People don't know how to dance other than that."

The problem with restricting freak dancing is that it means some students will just go find entertainment elsewhere like at parties, said Matt Moore, 17, a senior. "Instead of doing borderline monitored activities they're going to be doing illegal activities by themselves," he said.

What an excellent time to explain to Megan and Matt that (a) part of growing up means learning what the rules are for civilized behavior, including how to dance in such a way that you don't frighten the chaperones, (b) the school is not responsible for doing everything in its power to keep students from going off and participating in illegal activities, and (c) etiquette has never claimed to be able to eradicate problematic behavior, only to force it to be discreet.

And that means no simulating sex on the dance floor. If students want sex, simulated or otherwise, they can go elsewhere for it. They're perfectly free to have "their own personal style" of dancing, as one junior put, but the school is perfectly free to deem that style unacceptable.

Putting 'em in preschool

The spectre of public preschool for all rears its head in this Oakland Tribune article, which contains one of the saddest sentences I've ever read:

SOMETIME between late August and early September, nearly 500,000 pint-sized children in California walked through the classroom door for the first day of their 13-year journey of public schooling. Some of those half-million kids already knew how to read that first day. Others couldn't recite the alphabet, count to 10 or even open a book to the first page of the story.

While state policy-makers spend billions of dollars trying to close the achievement gap once kids are in school, school reform efforts have largely ignored the enormous differences kids have from the first day of class -- differences that persist or even grow as the school years pass, research shows.

Emphasis mine. There are indeed differences here that go way deeper than socioeconomic inequalities - because there is NO excuse for a five-year-old not to even be able to locate the first page of a story. That suggests not only a home with no books, but also a home with no parents who care at all about a child learning to read.

Just five or six years ago, the idea of universal preschool was met with scoffs and sneers. It was too expensive. Not necessary. Way down on the education reform priority list.

But things have changed.

I don't remember the main scoffing being all about cost or necessity. I remember the skepticism mainly being about whether such a system would work, and whether or not we could hold it accountable for all that expense without starting up another Head Start-style controversy. Parents aren't reluctant to spend money on programs that work, but the public school system has been notoriously reluctant to allow inspection of its workings, or to allow objective measures of accountability to be introduced. Why would public preschool be any different?

Preschool advocates estimate that about 70 percent of families would choose to attend public preschool if given the chance...

Meanwhile, the poorest children's families owned an average of 38 books compared with the 108 books of the wealthy counterparts; poor children watched more television and were less likely to visit museums and libraries, and they were less likely to participate in dance, art, music or crafts, the study found.

Again, while money is related, that's not the only issue. There are plenty of kids who learn to read just fine in poor households. Money is not necessary to teach a child to read, but the discipline and effort to take them to libraries (or even to the corner newsstand for magazines) is necessary. If there are growing numbers of parents out there who are not even willing to do that, perhaps the option of a public preschool is good - if the preschool does give the kids the stimulus they need.

Critics of publicly funded preschool argue the best place for children before starting kindergarten is at home, where they can thrive under the care of their parents, or typically their stay-at-home moms. Critics also argue that taxpayers shouldn't have to cover the child care costs of other families.

Preschool advocates counter that all children can benefit from the socialization and emotional experiences preschool can offer and that not every home can provide all the pre-kindergarten preparation.

I agree with both sides - as, I suspect, many parents and teachers do. Another study demonstrates how this isn't really all about parental income:

A 2003 study by FIRST 5 California, a state commission funded by the tobacco tax, found the majority of children in the schools with the worst standardized test scores started school lacking basic skills. The study found:

83 percent couldn't tell about a personal experience in sequential order.

Emphasis mine. It doesn't take money to teach your kid to follow this kind of request. If the breakdown in parental effort is this huge, public preschool might be the only structure these kids receive. Again, I qualify this by saying that such a preschool would have to be willing to show that it is fact rectifying these problems.

Sound like Arnie wants to know that, too:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill in late September that would have created a commission to figure out how to create, implement and fund universal preschool.

"My administration recognizes that preschool, child care and school readiness programs are important factors to the future academic success and well being of California's youth," the governor said in a statement. "At the same time, I also strongly believe that before we make promises about expanding the preschool system, I want to be sure that the state can actually deliver on that promise."

When you decorate your home with crosses, dragons...and little red-white-and-blue elephants

I've discovered some gorgeous new (to me, anyway) blogs out there, including Australian group blog A Western Heart, which had me at "Hello," or rather at, "As-soon-as-the-photo-loaded." They do not claim to be goth, but try to tell me that photo represents anything other than a gothic sensibility. I also adore their mission statement:

We represent a broad section of western political and social belief, from Centrists to the Right, but are united in our devout belief that western democracy must be actively defended and championed, from threats within and without that seek to erode our hard-earned rights and liberties.

We are universalistic and inclusive. We write in the altruistic hope that it will make some small difference.

Right now, with Australian elections this weekend, everyone is linking to Mike Jericho's Count On Us Today, an anguished plea that, should "isolationist" forces win in Australia, we Americans remember the "old," braver Australia for the fighter she is (much more Aussie election coverage from Tim Blair).

The contributor's blogs are equally gorgeous. Bittersweet, in particular, seems like something a vampire would create if she had a hankering for blood and a distaste for Ted Kennedy. And then there's misanthropic goth-magnet Tiberius Alethius of the Asylum, which asks the burning question - "Which is worse - zombies or hippies?" He posts his replies to the obnoxious letters he gets from goths, which would only be marginally less stupid if they were spelled correctly. (The letters, I mean; not his replies, which are not subtle, not meant for delicate ears - but definitely not misspelled.)

On that note, go look at this goofy t-shirt I designed at Zazzle, which allows you to design and sell apparel. Goth, yet Republican. Yeah, there's a niche market. Something tells me my t-shirt is going to be a one-of-a-kind fashion statement.

Update: Woohoo!

Maybe they can issue the AYP reports in purple ink

Bob Ray Sanders of the Fort Worth Star Telegram would like us to hold schools accountable without ever, you know, pointing out which ones aren't doing so great.

The state has four categories for schools and school districts: exemplary, recognized, academically acceptable and academically unacceptable.

Stigmatizing? Let's stop it.

You know, there's a bunch of Halloween candy downstairs, and some Goldfish crackers, and some leftover pumpkin cheesecake. I'm all for going downstairs and eating all of it right now. But gaining weight from it? Let's just stop that. It would just be too unfair if I couldn't eat all I wanted without negative side effects.

And we'll sooner see the day when I can eat all the chocolate I want, without gaining weight, than we'll see the day where it's possible to hold a school accountable for student performance without there being stakes attached to some outcome measure. This incessant wishing that we could somehow help bad schools improve without telling them that they are bad is just silly.

(And to those of you who think I'm completely callous on the topic, let me point out that I think this equally-critical editorial is worlds better than the first, because it addresses specific points and makes specific criticisms about the state curriculum, instead of just whining about unfair it is to judge schools. I can't say I agree that the suggested science topics are out of line for what should be covered within one year of third-grade science education, but then I'm not a science teacher, nor a third-grader.)

Missing the point in Baltimore

Susan Baer of the Baltimore Sun answers letters from readers (free sub required):

Sue Allison, Lusby: Neither candidate is addressing the No Child Left Behind Act to my satisfaction. The only difference they seem to have is on whether or not the misguided law is fully funded. But does either candidate really believe that public schools can achieve absolute perfection (100% of students scoring in the proficient range of standardized tests in math and reading by 2014)? Do they really believe that this is what parents want for their children's education -- annual hysteria over extremely flawed, misleading, narrowly focused, dumbed-down standardized tests?

Baer: Education is another issue where voters have very strong opinions and where there is much divide over Bush's policies, specifically his No Child Left Behind Act. You're right -- both candidates have talked some about education during the campaign, but mostly in broad strokes. Kerry supported No Child Left Behind, but, as you point out, has been criticizing the Bush administration for falling $27 billion short of funding it. The Democrat also says he believes the act places too much emphasis on testing and believes other measures, such as attendance and parental satisfaction, should be considered. But neither candidate is going into much detail into the kinds of issues you're bringing up.

Susan thus misses the opportunity to point out that (a) public school teachers are state employees, in a way, (b) who's to say that privately-managed schools can't do better than public ones, and (c) NCLB gives parents choice to change schools if their kids are failing, which means parents aren't stuck with who the government chooses to replace in failing schools.

Zalee Harris, Prince George's County: ...I want to know when the government is going to remove non-academic High Stakes from our classrooms and free our teachers to teach Johnny and Twanna how to read, compute, and think without social indoctrination. I want Johnny and Twanna to learn the U.S. Constitution, be free to select courses that satisfy their own dreams, and be allowed to learn at their pace.

Baer: You raise a lot of powerful questions. Many educators and state and local officials agree with you, for instance, that Bush's Leave No Child Behind Act, a federal mandate for new math and reading standards, infringes on states' rights, even though the bill was passed with broad bipartisan support in Congress.

Wha? How on earth does Baer read this question as one that is criticizing only NCLB, which puts the focus back on core academics, hold schools accountable, and allows parents to escape failing schools? The author of this letter is clearly someone who is in favor of school choice, and is more than likely is homeschooling. Baer might be right in assuming that homeschoolers aren't too thrilled with NCLB, but what she misses is that they didn't like the way government schools were run before NCLB either. I strongly doubt that "many educators and state and local officials" would agree with the sentiments of letter writer, no matter how much Baer tries to cast the question in an anti-NCLB light.

Casting a worried eye on the straight guys

At Hastings High School (NY), students have been celebrating Spirit Week by dressing silly - Pajama Day, Dress to Impress Day, '80s Day (oh God, the clothing from my high school years is now officially considered bizarre.) But then school officials noticed yesterday was supposed to be "Cross-Dressing Day."

The officials said no. Not because, as you might think, that men in short skirts and bras would offend straightlaced sensibilities, or that they'd be acting too silly to focus on lessons. No, it's because they're worried about the feelings of the transgender communities:

As part of Spirit Week, students had already celebrated Pajama Day, '80s Day and Dress to Impress Day. Then educators saw yesterday's provocative theme promoted in posters around the school and asked student government leaders to announce an alternative: "New York Pride Day." About two dozen high-schoolers refused to wear Yankees shirts, however, instead borrowing each other's clothing and going to class.

Cross-dressing students said their freedom of expression was violated and that the prohibition sent the wrong message to transgender students who may want to cross-dress regularly.

What about students who regularly dress to impress? Or students who like 80's clothing? Weren't the earlier silly-clothing days disrespectful to them?

A liaison to the gay and transgender community said there is "a fine line" between personal expression and parody.

Yes, and the last I checked, both are protected by the First Amendment.

Some students pointed out that their garb was protected by the school's dress code as well:

A few students said they were following the school's Code of Conduct by respecting differences and rules on hemlines.

Laura Newman, the Westchester County liaison to the gay and transgender community, said she "could see both sides of the story. In some ways it could be seen as almost a parody, if girls are putting on charcoal mustaches and boys are wearing balloons under their (tops), are they doing it to poke fun, or are they doing it to express themselves really? It's kind of a fine line."

They're just doing it to be silly. They're teenagers. Just because they realize they look ridiculous in skirts doesn't mean they assume any person would. Trust me, they're not putting that much thought into the whole thing. They consider it to be a costume.

I'm a bit hesitant to post on this, because I got a snitty, hateful comment the last time I tried to post saying schools should spend less time focusing on the feelings of special-interest groups and more time insisting that all students treat each other with respect, no matter what. And to head off the heated comments about how I must not know any transgendered individuals - I know two of them. My guess is that kids cross-dressing as a way to be goofy and have fun is pretty far down in the list of things they consider to be offensive or insulting.

It's okay to mention God in the classroom when you're insulting the President

Remember the NJ teacher who got in trouble for posting a photo of President Bush in her classroom, as part of a presidential photo montage? Apparently, that counts as "inflammatory politics."

But I suppose this is just perfectly okay:

A Fitzgerald High School (MI) parent said he plans to complain to the school board at tonight’s meeting about what he says was one-sided political material introduced in class by his son’s American studies teacher.

Janette Brill, the Fitzgerald schools superintendent, said school officials are reviewing the teacher’s lesson plans and the Web site material questioned by Trail. “But he (the teacher) has used this material for the past three years,” she said, adding that Trail is the only parent or student to have complained.

I suppose the reason for mentioning that is to suggest that Trail is being overemotional in pointing out that the teacher took the material from a totally moronic and offensive website:

A portion of the dialogue reads:

A: Yes! You finally understand how the world works.

Interestingly, this creation is copyrighted 2003, which begs the question of how Queen has been using this exact same material in his classroom "for the past three years." I guess Queen got a jump on Bush-bashing even earlier than those who are dedicated enough to create an entire website around it.

Cheating news roundup

Caveon's biweekly Cheating in the News page is up. If you work for any sort of testing agency or department and would like to contribute to a survey about test security needs, here's your chance to do so.

Included in Caveon's roundup is a description of an academic integrity pledge that students at Walter Johnson High School (Bethesda, MD) were asked to sign:

According to Assistant Principal Chris Merrill, the policy changes were enacted this year because the committee in charge of school improvement, as well as a group of teachers, realized that it was time to establish a way of both consistently defining plagiarism in addition to regulating actions taken against students caught cheating and plagiarizing.

Now, because students have signed the code, there is no question about whether what they have done is something they should be persecuted for or not.

This got me wondering about the role that honor codes play in the academic environment. Do educators think they work? How big a part do they play in student behavior? And are such codes ever controversial?

At McKinley High School in Hawaii, for example, an honor code created in 1927 mentions God, which is no longer acceptable:

A Hawaii high school will have to lose its controversial code that mentions the name "God." Tuesday the State settled with a student who sued the McKinley High School in a case dealing with separation of Church and State. McKinley is Oahu's oldest public high school and this code has been a part of the school since 1927. But this settlement puts an end to this part of McKinley High School's history.

In the settlement to a lawsuit, McKinley agreed to remove the code from all school materials - save one plaque with the original code. Under the terms of this settlement, the plaque in the McKinley administration building will be allowed to stay. But the school will not allowed to produce any other reproductions of the code of honor.

As far as influence goes, this article suggests that it's not so much what's written in the code as how the adults in students' lives follow it:

''Kids lie more now than I've ever known them to,'' says Charles Sawyer, president of the Itsy Bitsy People Palace, a private school on Chicago's South Side.

''The 40 percent of kids who aren't cheating look around and say, 'Everyone's cheating.' If enough people do it, then kids don't think it's wrong,'' says Michael Josephson, founder and president of the Josephson Institute. He teaches kids that ''no matter how many people do it, it's still wrong.''

At least one study has been done to show that colleges with honor codes have fewer instances of cheating, although the study is from 1998:

[Rutgers University Professor Donald] noted that more than one out of four students in college have cheated more than once. However, in every category, schools with honor codes recorded significantly less cheating than those institutions that do not have codes...

He noted that several institutional factors influence cheating. The largest influence on cheating is that cheating is considered a campus norm...Other institutional factors that influence whether students cheat include that the school has no honor code, penalties for cheating are not severe and students have little chance of being caught. The final influence is that faculty understanding and support of academic integrity policies is low. "Students noted [in the surveys] that some faculty members see cheating, and do nothing about it," he said.

Finally, Miami (FL) Palmetto Senior High recently drafted a pragmatic honor code:

The honor code committee also aims to identify what constitutes academic misconduct and prevent students from gaining an unfair advantage over other students through cheating.

"We don't include homework because we would have 50 people in our conference room everyday," Shosfy said. "We have to start with the big things and work our way down. Right now it would be impossible to enforce it. We acknowledge the fact that cheating on homework is wrong, but aren't punishing for it in the near future."

Makes sense. Hopefully, students will learn that for themselves that while cheating on tests is wrong, regularly cheating on homework is crazy, because you'll never learn anything that way.

Getting a jump on the Friday catblogging

From tonight's work at the intake center, two necessarily-blurry photos of three beautiful siblings, Beatrice, Eugenie, and Drew:

Need a cat? Petfinder.com! The shelter for which I volunteer is here.

"I love you/You love me/Regardless you still earned a D"

Remember the August entry about the horror of red pens? The idea that it matters more what color the teachers uses to grade papers, than how or what she teaches, just refuses to die:

An increasingly popular grading theory insists red ink is stressful and demoralizes students, while purple, the preferred color, has a more calming effect.

"I never use red to grade papers because it stands out like, 'Oh, here's what you did wrong.' " said Melanie Irvine, a third-grade teacher at Pacific Rim Elementary in Carlsbad. "Purple is a more approachable color."

Is it okay, then, if the purple helps the student to miss the point that they did, in fact, do something wrong? Or is pointing out what's wrong just completely verboten nowadays?

Irvine said that in elementary schools, it's unnecessary to point out every error. Instead, a teacher should find a more delicate way to help a child learn.

"This is a kinder, more gentler education system," Paper Mate spokesman Michael Finn said. "And the connotation of red is that it is not as constructive as purple."

Didn't you just know the marketing research folks were going to get involved at some point? And thus it was going to be said, with a straight face, that one color of pen was more "constructive" than another?

Here's a classic piece of educrat-speak:

"We try to be as gentle as we can and not slice children's thoughts to pieces with a red pen," said Laurie Francis, principal of Del Mar Hills Academy. "The red mark is associated with 'This is wrong,' and as you're trying to guide students in the revision process, it doesn't mean this is wrong. It's just here's what you can do better."

Oh. But if it's not wrong, why should they do better? Doesn't purple mean, well, it's really okay as is, and if you feel like improving it, here's something you could do - but no pressure, and no rush?

Really, I'm sure all these students will come back years later, when they're taking remedial classes in college, and thank their teachers for being so thoughtful with their choice in pen colors.

The idea that red induces stress, especially in younger children, has been around for years, said Lawrence Jones, a psychology teacher and former graphic-design instructor at The Art Institute of California San Diego.

"You associate red with blood, stop and danger," he said. "Teachers, realizing the immense problems they face with kids in education, find avoiding red helps them avoid one more negative in a child's life."

Wouldn't focusing on teaching in such a way that kids reduce their number of errors be a better way of reducing stress and avoiding negatives? I mean, color theory or no, if a kid is flunking, a kid is flunking, and the color with which the grade is conveyed doesn't do squat to help that kid.

Not surprisingly, as in all other articles I've seen on this topic, the teachers who prefer to stay with red are presented as old-fashioned stodges who are afraid to break with tradition:

...tradition is hard to break.

Some argue that American culture is one of extremes. They say the same students who receive color-sensitive grades leave school and play gory video games. And some attribute the dwindling number of red pens in the classroom to self-esteem sensitivity run amok. Skeptics discount fears of the shade and wonder whether all the attention to the color of a grade has any substantive effect.

Oh, those old farts with their red pens and hatred of video games. Let's just ignore them and get back to talking about the "progressive" educators and the loveliness of purple, shall we?

Stephen Ahle, the principal at Pacific Rim Elementary, said grading is much more sophisticated than it used to be. Every aspect of grading – from the language used to the teacher's tone and the color of ink used to make corrections – leaves a psychological imprint on students, he said. "I tell teachers to use more neutral colors – blues and greens, and lavender because it's a calming color," he said. "And, of course, kids also like purple because it's the color of Barney."

And school should always be something Barney would approve of, right?

The fine art of decision-making

Information about decision games appeals to me, because this is how my fiancee and I make pretty much every decision in our household:

"Who has to shovel the steps?"
"Let's flip for it."

or

"Are you going to dinner with me and my friends tonight?"
"Do I have to?"
"I'd like you to. Here, let's do rock paper scissors."

Etc. We play fair, and we do what we agreed to do if we lose (grumbling is allowed, though).

Anyway, I found these variations very amusing. First, there's the full-body version of decision-making:

MR told me about this full-body improvement on Rochambault (or "Rock-Paper-Scissors," as most of the world outside the SF Bay Area calls it): Bear-Cowboy Ninja. You start back to back with your opponent. Walk five paces, then whirl around and strike a pose.

Sound effects are optional, but add greatly to the game.

This sounds ideal for deciding, at 1 am, who has to pay for the next round of drinks.

The second entry is the "Geek-with-far-too-much-time-on-his-hands" version:

Unlike the first variation, the addition of alcohol will probably NOT make this version more enjoyable. Even sober, it's tough to remember the rules.

Update: Via the World Rock-Paper-Scissors Society website (thanks, Nanto!), we discover that lizards play a version of this game, you can learn about it at Stanford University, and the theory behind it is the basis for a lot of video games.

I will confess here that, much as I love to play games like r-p-s, game theory and judgment/decision making were my least-favorites areas of statistics when I was in graduate school. On the other hand, dice, cards, and rock-paper-scissors definitely enhance the Stats 101 teaching experience.

If yew kan drahw this, yew culd bee an ahrtist!

This is for all those educators who wish we'd stop focusing so much on reading and math and spend more time on developing the natural artistic abilities - and self-esteem - of students.

You wouldn't expect to see a lot of misspelled words when you enter a public library.

Alquilar blames city leaders for not catching what she calls "oversights."

Sounds like Alquilar's artistic abilities - and sense of self-worth! - are quite intact, despite the fact that she misspelled the names of some of the greatest artists and scientists of all time.

The Miami Herald has more:

Before Miami artist Maria Alquilar completed a $40,000 ceramic mural recently installed outside a Livermore, Calif., library, she might have wanted to step inside to consult an encyclopedia.

''This work is a fantastic work,'' said Alquilar, perplexed and frazzled by all the fuss. "It was meant to bring particularly young people an understanding of the interlacing of cultures.''

Emphasis mine. How dare we boogewasay types criticize her artistic creation by nattering on about correct spellings, of all things! So what if this creation was for a library - one cannot place such limits on the artistic impulse!

And it gets better:

Though the artistic faux pas was noticed within days of the installation in March, the city of Livermore -- a suburb outside San Francisco -- agreed this week to pay an additional $6,000 plus travel expenses for Alquilar's return to fix the errors.

''I wasn't concerned with the words, they were signposts,'' meant to stimulate an interest in learning, Alquilar told The Herald on Wednesday night. ''People that really love art, they wouldn't even have noticed it if they hadn't pointed it out,'' she said.

Emphases mine, again. My, somebody was paying attention the day the teacher said that "Your self-esteem has nothing to do with your accomplishments!" in class. Alquilar is refusing to fix the mural until she gets an apology for the library pointing out that she screwed up? People who notice spelling errors in the names of great artists must not really "love" art? Unbelieveable.

My more cynical Devoted Readers will not be surprised at all by Alquilar's former profession:

Alquilar, a former schoolteacher, was among four artists who applied for the job. It took her a year to create the mural.

She says that shifting the focus to an ''inconsequential'' oversight and away from the work misses the point entirely. ''I didn't go to the book and flip it open, because you don't do that when you're sculpting,'' explained Alquilar, whose works have been displayed in the Smithsonian Institution and the Rockefeller Collection, among other museums and galleries. "And I didn't even think of checking because I thought they were right.''

Emphasis mine, once more. Anyone want to hazard a guess as to why someone who shows such a great loathing for looking up "inconsequential" facts in books is now a "former" school teacher? Something tells me she wouldn't have been a fan of NCLB.

The one valid point she makes here is that someone else really should have noticed the errors in the work before it was installed, two years after it was completed. But her outrageous defense of making the errors in the first place suggests that she would have been less than open to criticism of any kind, at any point in the "artistic" process.

I can't watch videos on my (old, slow) home computer, but apparently there's one here:

http://www.foxreno.com/news/3788214/detail.html

The Fark posters, ever the lively bunch, point out that Ms. Alquilar might have seen the light if all the news article about this mess had misspelled her name. Another local poster, eatcaramels, took this photo of one of the misspellings:

The prevailing theme seems to be - $46,000 for that?

Finally, from her website, we read a description of another library mural:

The words and the quotes along with the esthetics of the work is designed to engage the viewer at the basic esthetic level to the intellectual and spiritual levels if the viewer takes advantage of the vast wealth of material that the library has to offer.

I guess I don't have enough of a love of art to understand that.

Update: Don't miss the followup, here.

And cut out those "shenanigans," too

The Brits have a better way with words. While we drone on about "sexual harassment" and "zero tolerance" in school, they just inform their students, "No canoodling on campus":

Eight pupils at a Wiltshire secondary school have been suspended after protesting against a ban on "canoodling".

Children at Warneford School in Highworth, were told they were not allowed to kiss, hold hands or hug. Several refused to return to classes last Friday lunchtime in protest [other news reports put the number at 200], and held a rally in the playing field.

The school has around 900 pupils aged between 11 and 16.

A school is within its rights to forbid affectionate physical behavior on school grounds, although suspending students for holding hands is a bit much. If you refuse to go to class, for any reason, you pretty much open yourself up to punishment.

And in the South, we call it "kadoodling" instead.

More here:

The protest came after head teacher John Saunders launched a crackdown on kissing, cuddling and holding hands at Highworth Warneford, a mixed comprehensive in Swindon, Wilts.

He wants to end "inappropriate behaviour" at the 900-pupil school, which achieved record GCSE results this summer. But Kim Cullinane, 15, said students intend to petition school governors. She said: "I admit kissing in school is not appropriate but saying we can't touch each other is too much. At 16 you can get married. There is a lot of anger about it."

The marriage age is irrelevant. Just because I'm more than old enough to get married (heh) doesn't mean I could canoodle with my fiance at work if we were both employed by the same company. But I digress.

Fellow pupil Lorna Averies and her boyfriend Alex Apps, both 13, also called the ban on smooching "unfair". Lorna said: "I can understand them not allowing it in lessons but what's wrong with kissing someone at playtime? Maybe the teachers don't want us to have any fun."

But some parents have backed the ban and father-of-two Rafu Mirh, 45, said: "It's perfectly reasonable that there is no touching. We have so many under-age pregnancies. They need more discipline."

Some other parents disagree:

However, one mother, Mandy Gray, 38, said: "Touching and kissing has been going on for years. They are never going to stop the kids doing that. The staff should concentrate on teaching. There are plenty of worse things like drugs and smoking which they should worry about."

Yes, but if the school tried to ban smoking, it's just as easy to say, "Smoking has been going on for years. They are never going to stop the kids doing that. The staff should concentrate on teaching. There are plenty of worse things..." and so on. Again, I don't think the school is out of line here in trying to enforce appropriate public behavior (if the punishment for infractions is appropriate). I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that school rules affect teenage pregnancy rates, but attitudes like "They're never going to stop kids from fooling around" certainly do.

Meanwhile, the fathers are saying, "This beats the hell out of wrapping paper."

A double standard is in place in the Kanawha County (WV) school district, where 10-year-olds are warned not to be sexual harassers - but are then encouraged to sell lingerie through catalogs:

If her son were caught at school with pictures of women wearing lingerie in suggestive poses, she’s certain he’d be in trouble. So why is he selling items from a catalog that includes racy women’s underwear and similar pictures for a school fund-raiser?

“My son is 10 years old,” she said. “He hasn’t had sex-education classes yet. We haven’t even had ‘that’ talk with him. He came home with a paper that told him how not to threaten girls, and telling him not to draw sexual pictures. But this? This is R-rated.”

By this, she means the Avon catalog, which some of you may not know has really branched out from lipsticks and perfumes. Avon ain't selling flannel nightgowns and granny panties, let's put it that way. In the past, 10-year-old boys would have neither been encouraged to sell such goods, nor exhorted to be sexually sensitive. It's not an improvement when they're asked to do both.

Update: This explanation (from "Anonymous") appeared in my comments section last night:

I am that mother who was upset about my children being asked to sell lingerie for their grade school. I want to set the record straight for the people who are wondering why I was upset. I don't have hang-ups about the human body and I own quite a bit of sexy lingerie. Also, I think Avon has wonderful products and have no problem with Avon selling lingerie to adults.

My children have been hurt in the past because I stood up to the principal and I don't want them to be hurt again either but I had to speak out this time, although anonymously, because I feel that the school should follow the same rules they make our children follow.

Bashing NCLB

Here's my wish for the election season - no matter what Bush or Kerry come out with as their debate points, the main thing I'd like to see is an end to biased reporting in which the claims of those opposing NCLB are credulously repeated:

Dreary skies did not stop educators, past political figures and parents from gathering Saturday at the Ohio State House lawn to protest President Bush's education policy, No Child Left Behind. The message of the rally organizers and participants focused on high-quality education for all children, regardless of their race or socioeconomic status.

"I have taught the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich, and one thing I know is the testing necessary for No Child Left Behind is not facilitated properly," said Drue Barezinsky, special education teacher for Dublin City Schools.

Okay, I have a Ph.D., and I don't understand what Ms. Barenzinsky means when she uses "facilitated" here - the Act has not been brought about more easily, properly? But, moving on:

Rally organizers distributed information that claims the policy is punishing the schools rather than supporting them by using a standardized test to mislabel schools as failing and then place harsh sanctions on them.

"When I go home I don't mind spending personal time doing work for children, but when I have to spend my time working on meaningless paperwork to defend myself on why the students are unable to pass the test, I get upset," Barezinsky said.

So, being required to defend why students flunk the test a meaningless issue?

Many rally supporters say the system is failing children.

"When students fail, the schools are blamed," said Pattie O'Brien, a teacher in Athens, Ohio. "But the problem is we are leaving teachers and students behind. Educators, not legislators, should be making critical decisions about education."

We tried that. It didn't seem to work. Now we're trying something else. And since when is requiring teachers to be accountable for student learning the same thing as leaving them behind?

Some of the suggested alternatives smack of enough governmental interference to make NCLB look like a libertarian proposal:

Rally speakers spoke of many issues, and some speakers offered possible solutions.

"It will take $1.5 billion to do this. However there are five steps that must occur," [vice president of the Ohio Education Association Patricia] Brooks said. "Making a level playing field, providing resources and access to free school programs, provide intervention specialist in the classrooms, access to technology and having expertise teaching in the classroom will all help close the existing gap."

Emphasis mine. Making all the playing fields level among all children. Yeah, that'll happen. What's more, I thought activists like this opposed NCLB because it gave too much power to the federal government. Does Ms. Brooks really believe there's a system that can level the playing field yet keep governmental interference down?

The rally urged people to vote on Nov. 2 and elect a president who will support the schools.

Supporters were urged to go to www.rallyforchildren.org to learn more about the policy. "The hope of the nation depends on our children," VanRoekel said. "But what does that say when 99 percent of public schools will be labeled as failing?"

According to the most recent report, a quarter of the nation's schools failed to make adequate yearly progress. In notoriously-bad districts like Washington DC, the numbers are higher, but still only around 50%. If VanRoekel wants to pull numbers like 99% out of his hat, so be it, but there's no reason for reporters to credulously print them. I don't have much faith in activists' opinions of the issues when they make up numbers to give to the press.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the rallyforchildren website, which seems to be convinced that reading and math are not useful skills for children in the 21st century, advertises the appearance of testing critic Susan Ohanian at its rally, along with "musical performances" that will probably feature these artists. If nothing else, what passes for "music" among testing critics will convince NCLB supporters to put music education back in the classroom - fast.

Update: Be sure to check out Eduwonk's insider information on the city where the rally took place.

Countdown to election day

So far, the focus of the presidental race has been mainly security, and terrorism, and the military, but some voters want the focus to shift back to education:

...In campaign 2004, Bush and his Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry, say surprisingly little about education. Some educators and parents want to hear more.

When the president does mention schools, he boasts about his No Child Left Behind initiative, which he says "at long last" brings accountability to public schools and sends a message that poverty and race won't be excuses for academic failure. In a second term, he promises to bring the yearly testing regimen to high schools -- it is now limited to elementary and middle schools -- and to institute a new program to help districts better train teachers.

Urk. I'm a psychometrician, and even I don't know if I'd be willing to accept that bringing yearly testing to high schools is necessarily a good thing. Accountability, yes, but we've seen enough problems with exit exams that I'm not sure how well this model will apply to high school students.

Kerry devoted only a few paragraphs to education in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. But he does offer a blistering critique of the president's education policy, accusing Bush of so badly underfunding No Child Left Behind as to ensure the failure of many public schools.

We can talk about the funding issue all day, but it's silly to say that a Republican presidents want to "ensure" failure of public schools.

Kerry promises to repeal the Bush tax cuts for those earning more than $200,000 a year, in part to fully fund No Child Left Behind. He would also establish a federal fund to train teachers, provide bonuses to teachers who raise student performance, and begin a new after-school program for more than 3 million youngsters.

Sounds like he's just talking about the "evil rich" here, doesn't it? Like himself, I suppose. Notwithstanding the fact that Kerry voted for NCLB, I think he'll find the idea of giving bonuses to teachers who raise student performance a tough sell with some of his constituency. Jonathan Schorr has a lengthy discussion of Kerry's ideas here.

U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige, on the other hand, says the check is in the mail:

In an interview, Paige said federal education funding is slated to reach a record $57 billion in 2005, up 36 percent since Bush took office -- a bigger increase than the Clinton administration achieved during comparable periods.

"First we start off with the premise that the name (of) the bill bears: No child should be left behind -- notwithstanding their ZIP code, or notwithstanding their native language," Paige said. "All students should have an opportunity to experience our very best efforts."

Ultimately, the bottom line is, conservatives and liberals can come together in complaining about NCLB:

Nationally, conservatives complain that the law is a federal intrusion into local school districts, while liberals complain that it is underfunded. The National Education Association, the nation's biggest teacher union, backs Kerry but continues to seek an even broader overhaul of No Child Left Behind.

But Abigail Thernstrom, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and co-author with her husband of "America in Black and White: One Nation Indivisible," said Bush deserves credit for insisting that the new law respond to what he calls the "soft bigotry of low expectations," which he argues both underestimates and shortchanges minority youngsters.

Strange things are afoot in Nevada

Education Week's latest report says cheating may be up by as much as 50% in the Silver State:

Testing irregularities in Nevada’s public schools, including incidents involving student cheating and teacher misconduct, increased by more than 50 percent in 2003-04 from the previous school year, according to an annual report. The report, which was mandated by the legislature in 2001, found 24 incidents of student cheating and 10 incidents that involved the improper disclosure of testing materials to students by teachers in the past school year.

However, out of 121 testing irregularities listed, half were "the result of improper test administration." School officials insist that NCLB is so confusing that such irregularities are unavoidable.

Not surprisingly, Monty Neill of Fairtest, a notoriously anti-testing organization, insists that cheaters aren't the problem - tests are:

Monty Neill, the executive director of the National Association for Fair & Open Testing, a Cambridge, Mass.-based watchdog group, said that incidents of cheating nationwide are relatively few. But the 2½-year- old federal law has greatly raised the stakes for schools, he said...The federal law, in his view, has helped foster a kind of testing mania, and cheating obscures what he argues is the real problem: the improper use of tests.

Proctors can be expensive, and studies have shown that test administrators who are unfamiliar to students can make some test-takers uncomfortable. As a result, the students may perform poorly on the tests.

To which I can only say - get real. You can't convince me that NCLB is the only instance of classroom security to which today's students have ever been subjected. Yet we're supposed to believe that proctors - which needn't be highly-educated individuals - are out the price range for most schools, and highly intimidating across the board to boot?

Classic anti-testing arguments like the ones above seem to rest on two assumptions:

1. Teachers simply can't be expected to learn how to give secure exams in the classroom.

2. Educators cannot be expected to handle high standards without being willing to help students cheat on exams.

That is the underlying concept here, right? I'm surprised Education Week seems unwilling to point out to readers that, no matter where the standards are set, some educators would be willing to help kids cheat; this is no excuse for good educators doing so when higher standards apply.

What's more, Monty even puts the kibosh on giving teachers better instruction on how to administer tests:

Training teachers to administer tests, although a good means of prevention, also involves a trade-off, said Mr. Neill, because it can take time away from more educationally beneficial activities such as professional development.

Something tells me that Monty doesn't really want a world in which teachers understand the tests they're giving, and know how to give them properly, does he? It would remove his entire basis for explaining away cheating by insisting that we just can't expect these poor, poor educators to be able to follow the rules.

Luckily, Nevada doesn't seem to be listening to him:

Nevada education officials are taking some steps to reduce testing irregularities. The state department of education has refined its annual training sessions on test administration, solicited feedback from districts about unclear instructions and test-administration guidelines, and made testing guidelines available online, by mail, and at training sessions.

The department has also requested a full-time training officer to help oversee the testing-irregularities caseload, which is expected to increase when the state begins administering mathematics and reading tests that will be phased in this year.

Good. It's necessary. Interestingly, Nevada seems to keep close tabs on its teachers in other ways as well:

In addition to law enforcement records, the Nevada Department of Education also relies on a database maintained by the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification...The database collects records of licenses, suspensions and revocations from all 50 states, U.S. territories, British Columbia, New Zealand and several Canadian provinces, according to the organization's Web site.

"We used to just ask them if their license had ever been suspended or revoked somewhere else and they could honestly answer 'no,"' [State Superintendent Kevin] Rheault said. "Now we have grounds to take action ourselves if we find out down the line that someone lied on their application."

Distance learning in Florida

I wasn't aware that Florida was offering distance learning classes for high school students, but apparently the program is working out quite well:

More than 100 Broward County students are registered full-time and will benefit from anytime, anywhere learning that will meet their nontraditional needs. Students in traditional classes can also take online courses to augment their studies.

The virtual education students who took standardized tests last year performed exceptionally well. In the Florida writing assessment test, the average score placed the Virtual School third in the district. Seventy-nine percent of 10th-grade online students who took the test scored at grade level or above on FCAT math.

Of course, those students were already above the pack in performing at grade level, plus having the home structure that allowed for distance learning - but the results are still impressive. The facility is BECON, or Broward Education Communications Network; the website has plenty of information about what broadcasts are available.

Tromping through swamps before taking the test

Starting with the 2007-08 school, schools must test science knowledge to be in compliance with NCLB. So the goggles, test tubes, and slimy critters are coming out all over:

Around Maryland, school districts are getting ready: Anne Arundel County schools are buying new textbooks and materials for many of their science classes. Carroll County schools are putting much of their science curriculum online. As in Baltimore County, Howard County and Baltimore City schools are working to incorporate science into reading and math lessons, and vice versa, so that no subject suffers as a result of spending more time on another. In Howard schools, for example, students read technical science material...

Clayton McKenzie, 10, was having a blast. "You get to walk around and actually see things," he said.

Can't think of a more apt description of good science education for youngsters than that.

Battling over the FCAT (again)

Hurricane FCAT is wreaking havoc in Florida's Pinellas school district - the nation's 22nd-largest school district with over 113,000 students:

In a major shift this year in Pinellas schools, teachers have been told to move much faster through lessons and to narrow their instruction to material most likely to be on the state's standardized test.

School Board members also are complaining, upset that administrators did not brief them on such a large initiative until they rolled it out across the district.

Parents, too, are only now being informed. But the district administrators say they had no choice - almost half of Pinellas students are not performing at grade level. (No, this is not how is has to be - the FCAT grade levels are not norm-referenced, nor set at the average or the median, so there's no reason for half the population to always be reading below grade level. In this case, standards are set such that every kid, theoretically, could perform at grade level or above. There are norm-referenced portions to the FCAT, but the Sunshine State Standards are benchmarks.)

The district's mantra when presenting the new program has been: "If not this, then what? If not now, then when? If not you, then who? Our students can't wait"...

In math, the same class needs to master 45-, 90- and 180-degree angles before studying other angles that likely won't be on the test.

And so the passionate statements flow back and forth; one side insists that this is "teaching to the test" and the other side says that this is the best way to get all Florida's students up-to-speed on the standards.

Pretty soon, education will be so "enlightened" that students won't even need to show up

We live in interesting times when teachers write defensive letters to the editor about their decision to assign grades to students:

When I begin the school year, I ink my students' names into my grade book. There's nothing else on the pages yet –- no checkmarks, no alphabet letters, no percentages. But pretty soon we'll be filling things in.

One typical critic describes grades as a "club" and "a chance for teachers to give students a little payback." He condemns the work grades are based on as "random" events that only "occasionally" provide a "true reflection of what a student can do." He says he knows this from experience. The scary part is he's a college professor, and the experience he's talking about includes grading his own students.

Assigning grades is "payback"? I suppose actually teaching is "infringing upon students' rights" as well? Just what does this professor - who unfortunately is not named - think his students get from him if he doesn't believe in lowering himself to tell them how they're doing in his class?

I've given lots of tests and assigned lots of essays myself. Sometimes the questions I ask don't tell me what I need to know about what kids have learned. That's when I re-think and re-word them. Sometimes the answers warn me that my students haven't understood what I tried to teach them. That's when I go over the material again. Keeping track of their progress is why I listen to them in class and ask them if they think they've understood what we're discussing...

Letter grades don't tell a student's whole story. And they don't hit the bull's-eye every time. But letter grades aren't why public education's in trouble. Besides, we've already got enough information about how well kids are learning. That's how we know we've got problems.

The letter writer is a teacher at Weathersfield Middle School in Vermont. What I find most interesting about all this is that you could replace "letter grade" with "test score" and the letter would still flow pretty nicely. I've made all these arguments myself before in defense of test scores, but I didn't realize that teachers felt the pressure to defend letter grades as much.

When displaying a photo of the President is "inflammatory politics"

I'm starting to understand why American students have such a tenuous grasp of American politics and history:

You might say it is a symbol of the Great American Divide, a teacher putting up a picture of President Bush in the classroom. Some say it is partisanship while others say it is patriotism. Parents [are] expressing outrage after a teacher is kicked out of her public school for hanging a picture of President Bush next to pictures of other presidents in her classroom.

This is Crossroads South Middle School in Monmouth Junction, New Jersey. On Thursday, there was a back-to-school night for parents of students. Veteran English teacher Shiba Pillai-Diaz says she was shocked when three parents confronted her. The three, insisting the teacher either add John Kerry's photo to the montage of presidents or remove the Bush photo. When Pillai-Diaz refused, she says the school's vice-principal threatened her job which is an act that has parents here fuming.

Okay, so when parents don't understand the difference between a Presidential candidate and the actual President of the United States - whose photo is perfectly appropriate for a Presidential photo montage in a classroom - I'm not surprised that students might have a less-than-perfect understanding of the political system.

The NY Post has more:

A New Jersey public-school teacher claims she was bushwhacked by her principal yesterday when he ordered her to "get out" of the building after she refused to remove a photo of President Bush and the first lady from her classroom. The White House-issued photo of the Bushes was pinned to a bulletin board that held portraits of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and a copy of the Constitution.

"He told me that if I care about my employment at the school, I would take down the picture," she said. When she refused, the matter was taken up by the principal, Jim Warfel, who Pillai-Diaz said accused her of "causing disruption and hatred" with her "inflammatory politics" and told her to "get out" of the building.

Sounds like the principal doesn't like Republicans, nor does he like teachers who dare to keep their students informed about the identity of the current President. The school, however, continues to insist no one was fired. If Pillai-Diaz's comments are accurate, the whole thing is just appalling.