January 09, 2007
Intimates of President Bush have singled out Southern Methodist University as the likely site of his presidential library, but faculty members, complaining of being bypassed, are raising sharp questions about the schoolÂ’s identification with his presidency.In a meeting Tuesday, faculty members complained of a lack of consultation over the emerging agreement and all but demanded answers from the universityÂ’s president, R. Gerald Turner, on the relationship that would develop between the university and the library.
“There’s been a lack of transparency from the beginning,” said Tony Pederson of the journalism faculty, urging the university’s administration “to be more forthcoming with detailed information.”
Cal Jillson, a political science professor, called for “more rounded information” because, he said, “this train is leaving.” He said there could be a final decision on the library before the end of the month.
Rhonda Blair, the president of the faculty senate who convened the meeting even though many professors were still away on winter break, said she would pass on the questions to Dr. Turner on Wednesday.
The session grew out of the uproar after an op-ed article in the student newspaper, The Daily Campus, by two professors at the universityÂ’s Perkins School of Theology complaining about the library selection process.
One history prof wants to know what it would take for the University to "walk away from the deal. Frankly, I don't care -- I would urge the site selection committee to walk away from the SMU location. Either Baylor or the university of Dallas would be a better choice -- or the committee could take a step towards raising one of our local institutions, the University of Houston, to the first-tier status it deserves among state universities here in Texas by placing the presidential library in the largest city in the state.
Frankly, if SMU profs don't like the political implications of locating the Bush 43 library on their campus, the library should go somewhere it would be appreciated.
Posted by: Greg at
11:15 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 375 words, total size 3 kb.
December 25, 2006
But now we do have confirmation from "journalists" of what those of us who actually work with students already knew -- which makes it "news" and therefore unquestionably true (because after all, would reporters every lie to you?). How long until we get the over-priced longitudinal study of student writing by researchers with the "proper academic credentials" to "prove" what we already know?
Zoe Bambery, a senior at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, might send more than 100 instant messages -- IMs -- during a typical evening. So during the SAT exam, the 18-year-old found herself inadvertently lapsing into IM-speak, using "b/c" instead of "because" as she scrambled to finish her essay.She caught herself and now is careful to proofread before hitting print. But she is hardly the only student to find IM phrases creeping into school work.
"They are using it absolutely everywhere," said Sara Goodman, an English teacher at Clarksburg High School in Montgomery County who has worn out many purple and red markers circling the offending phrases in papers and tests.
Wendy Borelli, a seasoned English teacher at Springbrook High in Silver Spring, finds photo captions for the school yearbook sprinkled with shorthand such as "B4" and "nite." A student who left on a brief errand to the office announced he would "BRB."
In 2004, 16 million teenagers used instant messages to communicate, up from 13 million in 2000, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Students say IM language has become so ubiquitous they often do not realize they have lapsed into it.
"It's just natural. I had to learn not to do it" in papers, ChiChi Aniebonam, 17, said about her proficiency in IM. "I'm in AP literature, where you just can't put it into your writing, but when I'm writing something informal, now and again I use it."
And these are the top students -- you can only imagine how much more prevalent these issues are with average students who want to get academic tasks done with as little mental or physical exertion as possible and therefore avoid formal reading and writing whenever possible ("Mr. RWR -- You mean you actually read books for fun? Really?").
Then again, English is a constantly evolving language, as comparisons between books written today and those written before WWII (not to mention in earlier periods) will amply demonstrate. Sentence structure, voice, and vocabulary all have changed again and again -- and so I can only expect it will do so in the future. The question is one of how far we and future generations will allow the informality to progress without calling a halt to what some would call the debasement of the English language.
Posted by: Greg at
07:11 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 528 words, total size 3 kb.
December 23, 2006
Columbia University said yesterday that it had notified students involved in disrupting a program of speakers in early October that they were being charged with violating rules of university conduct governing demonstrations. The university did not disclose the number of students charged with violations.ColumbiaÂ’s president, Lee C. Bollinger, announced the disciplinary proceedings in a letter to the university community yesterday that was also released publicly. But he said he would not provide further details because of federal rules governing student privacy.
The charges will be heard next semester by the deans of the individual schools the students are enrolled in. Possible sanctions include disciplinary warning, censure, suspension and dismissal.
Mr. Bollinger noted that as president, he is also the “final avenue of appeal for those found to be in violation of University Rules.”
The disrupted program, sponsored by a campus Republican group on Oct. 4, featured speakers from the Minuteman Project, which opposes illegal immigration and has mounted civilian border patrols.
The ambiguity of the statement concerns me, though -- were those who were charged the individuals who rushed the stage to break-up the speech? Or did the Columbia charge those who defended the speaker and freedom of speech? Is that why Bollinger hides behind privacy law in refusing to disclose the number of students charged, or even what the charges are?
But beyond that, I'm troubled by the ambiguity in this part of the statement.
Mr. Bollinger said the university would tighten rules governing all student events, and require advance agreements about how events will be staged and who from outside Columbia will be allowed to attend.
In light of the failure of Columbia University officials to invite Gilchrist back, and previous actions antithetical to free speech and open inquiry, I fear this means that onerous burdens will be placed on those conservative groups that seek to invite "controversial" (read that "mainstream conservative") speakers because of the actions of PC Brown Shirts, while letting liberal speakers on with few restrictions because conservative believe in freedom of speech.
Posted by: Greg at
06:03 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 397 words, total size 3 kb.
And so a PC weenie decides to protest --"> by lighting himself on fire.
A man used flammable liquid to light himself on fire, apparently to protest a San Joaquin Valley school district's decision to change the names of winter and spring breaks to Christmas and Easter vacation.The man, who was not immediately identified, on Friday also set fire to a Christmas tree, an American flag and a revolutionary flag replica, said Fire Captain Garth Milam.
Seeing the flames, Sheriff's Deputy Lance Ferguson grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran to the man.
Flames were devouring a Christmas tree next to the Liberty Bell, where public events and demonstrations are common.
Beside the tree the man stood with an American flag draped around his shoulders and a red gas can over his head.
Seeing the deputy, the man poured the liquid over his head. He quickly burst into flames when the fumes from the gas met the flames from the tree.
The deputy ordered the man to drop to the ground as he and a parole agent sprayed him with fire extinguishers.
''The man stood there like this,'' the deputy said with his arms across his chest and his head bent down, ''Saying no, no, no.''
The man suffered first degree burns on his shoulders and arms, Milam said.
Kern County Sheriff's Deputy John Leyendecker said the man had a sign that read: ''(expletive) the religious establishment and KHSD.''
On Thursday, the Kern High School Board of Trustees voted to use the names Christmas and Easter instead of winter and spring breaks.
I'm sorry -- the only thing incindiary about the school district's decision was the inane response of this religious bigot. And yet somehow, I doubt we will hear many folks criticize his actions, because he was acting in the service of a politically correct agenda. If, on the other hand, this had been a Christian protesting a decision to close for a Muslim or Jewish or Hindu holiday, we would hear all about bigotry and xenophobia from those who play the identity politics card.
This double standard was noted in a comment on another site I frequent in a different context.
I think it's funny that someone who doesn't like Muslims is called a racist, but someone who can't stand Christians isn't.Not funny "haha", more like funny "hmmmmm".
Indeed.
Here''s hoping that when he gets out of the hospital, this flamer faces charges for unsafe public burning, arson, and destruction of public property.
Posted by: Greg at
04:51 AM
| Comments (51)
| Add Comment
Post contains 451 words, total size 3 kb.
P, 
, December 20, 2006
"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."
Will someone please explain to me how that constitutes an endorsement of religion. After all, the THEORY of evolution is exactly that -- a THEORY. How does saying that it is a THEORY constitute a statement at all about religion?
After all, the study of science is supposed to be careful, open-minded, and critical regarding the evidence presented to support a theory. How does urging exactly such an approach to the THEORY of evolution constitute an endorsement of religion, not of science and the scientific method?
I guess this means that the study of science in this country must be close-minded, slip-shod, and uncritically accepting of claims based upon the authority of the majority.
Posted by: Greg at
04:56 AM
| Comments (10)
| Add Comment
Post contains 169 words, total size 1 kb.
December 18, 2006
Before David Paszkiewicz got to teach his accelerated 11th-grade history class about the United States Constitution this fall, he was accused of violating it.Shortly after school began in September, the teacher told his sixth-period students at Kearny High School that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard NoahÂ’s ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven, according to audio recordings made by a student whose family is now considering a lawsuit claiming Mr. Paszkiewicz broke the church-state boundary.
“If you reject his gift of salvation, then you know where you belong,” Mr. Paszkiewicz was recorded saying of Jesus. “He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he’s saying, ‘Please, accept me, believe.’ If you reject that, you belong in hell.”
The student, Matthew LaClair, said that he felt uncomfortable with Mr. PaszkiewiczÂ’s statements in the first week, and taped eight classes starting Sept. 13 out of fear that officials would not believe the teacher had made the comments.
Since Matthew’s complaint, administrators have said they have taken “corrective action” against Mr. Paszkiewicz, 38, who has taught in the district for 14 years and is also a youth pastor at Kearny Baptist Church. However, they declined to say what the action was, saying it was a personnel matter.
I'm sorry -- PaszkiewiczÂ’s statements are out of bounds. They go well beyond an expression of opinion and into preaching.
Which is not to say there is not a proper place for the discussion of religion in a high school classroom. I teach world History, and am obliged to talk about a number of world religions. I strive to be neutral on them all, including Christianity. I do, however, find myself struggling to explain some of the finer points of Christian theology when we discuss the Reformation, because you cannot understand what it was all about without actually talking about the theological controversies that were at its heart. But I do not -- and steadfastly avoid -- preach my view of religion.
And even my fellow "extremists" on religion in the public arena agree with my view.
Even some legal organizations that often champion the expression of religious beliefs are hesitant to support Mr. Paszkiewicz.“It’s proselytizing, and the courts have been pretty clear you can’t do that,” said John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a group that provides legal services in religious freedom cases. “You can’t step across the line and proselytize, and that’s what he’s done here.”
On the other hand, that is not to say that I wholeheartedly agree with Matthew's position on the issue.
In a Sept. 25 letter to the principal, Matthew wrote: “I care about the future generation and I do not want Mr. Paszkiewicz to continue preaching to and poisoning students.” He met with school officials and handed over the recordings.
I don't think that discussion of Christianity -- even discussion that crosses appropriate boundaries -- constitutes "poisoning students."
Still, Matthew's actions in this case are every bit as appropriate as those of students who object to the political proselytizing that goes on in the classrooms of many liberal teachers and professors. I'm pleased he stood up for what is right.
Posted by: Greg at
04:15 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 590 words, total size 4 kb.
December 13, 2006
Texas public school students better play hard during their upcoming winter breaks because next December some will have fewer days off and — bah, humbug! — others will be stuck studying for finals.The new state law ordering school to start later in the summer has forced local educators to make tough decisions that will influence families' vacation plans and could affect students' performance on high-stakes tests and semester exams.
Many area districts recently adopted their calendars for 2007-08, and this much they have in common: Classes begin Aug. 27 (the law bars districts from starting before the fourth week in August) and end after Memorial Day.
But, by sprinkling teacher-training days in different places, districts have varied the length of popular vacation times.
Some, including the Houston Independent School District, have proposed a shorter, three-day Thanksgiving break. Others — Pearland is one — opted for a weeklong break, meaning students stay in school through early June.
One sticking point for many districts became when to end the first semester: before or after winter break. Ending before the break meant, in most cases, cutting short the Thanksgiving holiday. But dragging the semester beyond the break meant students would have to study for end-of-course exams over their vacation.
My district has not acted yet -- but I expect that no one is going to be completely happy with the outcome.
I talked about this issue back in January, and came up with my own proposed school calendar. I think you will see the problems this whole situation creates for district planners.
Posted by: Greg at
11:37 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 322 words, total size 2 kb.
December 12, 2006
But I have really mixed emotions about this.
Stephen Murmer's secret career as an artist has caught up with him.Murmer, a popular high school art teacher, was suspended after objections were raised about his private abstract artwork, much of which includes smearing his posterior and genitals with paint and pressing them against canvas.
Murmer contacted the American Civil Liberties Union on Friday, saying school administrators had suspended him with pay for five days because of his work as a painter and that he could face further punishment, ACLU legal director Rebecca Glenberg said.
Murmer has been instructed by Monacan High School administrators not to speak with the media, Glenberg said. He did not return messages seeking comment Tuesday.
Schools spokeswoman Debra Marlow confirmed that a Monacan art teacher had been placed on administrative leave but declined to provide additional details because it is a personnel issue.
"In the school system, personnel regulations state that teachers are expected to set an example for students through their personal conduct," Marlow said. "Additionally, the Supreme Court has stated that schools must teach by example and that teachers, like parents, are role models."
Murmer went to great lengths to keep his work life separate from his activities as an artist, said ACLU executive director Kent Willis. As an artist, he goes by the name "Stan Murmur," and appears in disguise in photographs and videos promoting his art.
"As a public employee, he has constitutional rights, and he certainly has the right to engage in private legal activities protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution," Willis said.
Like I said, I really don't know what to think about this one -- is there a line beyond which we teachers cannot go if we wish to stay in the field of education? What do you think?
More on this story in the Washington Post
Posted by: Greg at
11:23 PM
| Comments (8)
| Add Comment
Post contains 372 words, total size 2 kb.
NEEDHAM, Mass. -- Needham High School has abandoned its long-standing practice of publishing the names of students who make the honor roll in the local newspaper.Principal Paul Richards said a key reason for stopping the practice is its contribution to students' stress level in "This high expectations-high-achievement culture."
The proposal to stop publishing the honor roll came from a parent. Richards took the issue before the school council, which approved it. Parents were notified of the decision last month. Richards said he received about 60 responses from both parents and students and the feedback has been evenly split for and against.
After all, it isn’t about learning and growing – it is about making kids feel good about themselves, regardless of whether or not they have anything to be proud of.
Then again, maybe I'll respect this more when the school district bans reporters from athletic contests and orders the athletic department to quit supplying statistics/scores to the media. After all, we wouldn't want some kid to get hurt feelings because he/she failed to excel at some sport, would we? Furthermore, it would relieve stress on kids living in this high expectations-high achievement culture just as effectively as cutting the honor roll does.
Posted by: Greg at
01:27 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 226 words, total size 2 kb.
NEEDHAM, Mass. -- Needham High School has abandoned its long-standing practice of publishing the names of students who make the honor roll in the local newspaper.Principal Paul Richards said a key reason for stopping the practice is its contribution to students' stress level in "This high expectations-high-achievement culture."
The proposal to stop publishing the honor roll came from a parent. Richards took the issue before the school council, which approved it. Parents were notified of the decision last month. Richards said he received about 60 responses from both parents and students and the feedback has been evenly split for and against.
After all, it isn’t about learning and growing – it is about making kids feel good about themselves, regardless of whether or not they have anything to be proud of.
Then again, maybe I'll respect this more when the school district bans reporters from athletic contests and orders the athletic department to quit supplying statistics/scores to the media. After all, we wouldn't want some kid to get hurt feelings because he/she failed to excel at some sport, would we? Furthermore, it would relieve stress on kids living in this high expectations-high achievement culture just as effectively as cutting the honor roll does.
Posted by: Greg at
01:27 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 239 words, total size 2 kb.
December 11, 2006
Three universities asked a federal court in Detroit to delay a state ban on affirmative action programs until after this yearÂ’s admissions and financial aid cycles. The colleges, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University, want to complete their annual admissions and financial aid cycles using the standards that were in effect when the process began earlier this year. The voter-approved initiative to ban the use of race and sex preferences in university admissions and government hiring is to take effect Dec. 23.
And thus these university officials stand in a long line of dishonor with Orval Faubus and George Wallace in seeking to illegally engage in racial discrimination in education. Fire them all, and replace them with true believers in civil rights and a color-blind society.
Posted by: Greg at
11:29 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 179 words, total size 1 kb.
December 10, 2006
A former English professor at Texas Southern University, who has served six months of a 10-year sentence for stealing thousands of dollars from programs she managed at the school, could be released on probation before Christmas.Dottie Malone Atkins, 67, pleaded guilty in April to theft by a public servant in connection with fraudulent requisitions she created and consultant fees she was paid as director of the Mickey Leland Center on World Hunger and Peace, and two other programs, prosecutors said. She was sentenced in June to 10 years in prison. She had faced a maximum sentence of 20 years.
But state District Judge Don Stricklin granted her request this week for "shock probation," meaning she will be released from prison after serving about 180 days and will be placed on supervised release.
"The good news is Ms. Atkins will be home for Christmas," said Sam Adamo, her lawyer. Her next court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday, according to court records.
Harris County Assistant District Attorney Donna Goode said the state opposed probation. She wants Stricklin to impose conditions of release that include restitution, community service and an apology to TSU administrators and students.
Prosecutors have said that from 2000 to 2002, Atkins stole about $76,000 from the Leland center, the university's anti-tobacco program and the Texas Legislative Intern Program.
They said she created fake requisitions and invoices for work that was not done.
This thief will not even admit the full extent of her crimes -- what is the deal with letting her out early? What is more, there is no requirement that she make restitution for the money she stole -- money that came from students at TSU and taxpayers of the state of Texas. And to listen to her lawyer, she is the victim in this case -- a victim of "gambling addiction".
Here's hoping that Judge Stricklin reconsiders his decision -- or that some avenue remains for the state to overturn his action. Serving five percent of a sentence and making no restitution for the damage she has done is no punishment for Atkins.
Posted by: Greg at
11:01 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 382 words, total size 2 kb.
December 06, 2006
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst agreed Wednesday with some lawmakers who want to replace the TAKS test with end-of-course exams for high school students."Our interest is to be able to move away from the test to end-of-course exams and have a standardized test where we could evaluate what the results of our teaching is (compared) to other states," Dewhurst said after speaking to the Statewide Education Legislative Briefing.
High school students would take end-of-course exams, and all seniors would be required to take either the SAT or the ACT.
The state would pay for that test, which would be nearly $50 per student, Dewhurst said.
Senate Education Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, recently proposed scrapping the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test for end-of-course exams in the higher grade levels.
The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, she said.
"I don't know of anybody who thinks it's a bad idea," Shapiro said.
She plans to push for the change during the next legislative session, which opens Jan. 9.
I certainly agree with the Shapiro proposal as it relates to the high school level. Indeed, I would go a step beyond that and include start-of-course exam as well, so that we can find out not only what students know, but also how much they are learning along the way. That would actually bring some real accountability to both students and teachers, which the current system tries, but fails, to impose.
Posted by: Greg at
11:38 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 257 words, total size 2 kb.
December 05, 2006
Oh -- it has to do with the picture, which no one found offensive for well-over a month.
The parents of two students threatened with suspension for donning buttons depicting Hitler youth are suing, claiming the boys' free speech rights were violated.The lawsuit, filed in federal court on Friday, seeks to bar the Bayonne school district from suspending or disciplining seventh-grader Anthony LaRocco and fifth-grader Michael DePinto if they wear the protest buttons.
The buttons, which were made to protest a mandatory uniform policy for grades K-8 adopted in September, have the words "no school uniforms" with a slash over a superimposed photo of young boys wearing identical shirts and neckerchiefs.
A lawyer for the parents, Karin R. White Morgen, said her clients did not want to speak to reporters, but provided a statement from DePinto's mother, Laura DePinto.
"I've gotten overwhelming support from MANY people that tell me that they absolutely agree with what the image depicted, an ominously homogenous group of blindly cooperative children," the statement said.
"That image showed no swastikas, no weapons, and Hitler himself wasn't depicted," she wrote. "The picture makes a profound statement about what can happen when we turn children into 'uniform' followers."
One student wore the button for at least six weeks before objections were raised last month, said Morgen.
This is the lame excuse offered by the school district.
The district, in letters sent to the parents, said the images of the Hitler youth "are considered objectionable and are offensive to many Bayonne citizens and do not constitute free speech according to Mr. Kenneth Hampton, attorney for the Bayonne Board of Education."
How, exactly, are they offensive, when no one objected for six-weeks? There are no symbols of racism or hate, and the message is clearly not one supporting Nazism or its evil works of genocide. What is being protested is forced regimentation. There can be no other legitimate understanding of the buttons, which clearly are free speech, according to the First Amendment of the Constitution.
I don't think that this should take long for the courts to decide -- after all, the controlling precedent in Tinker says the issue quite clearly in holding that neither students nor teachers "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."
Oh, and since you might be wondering -- I support the school district's uniform policy, and hope the challenge by the parents is rejected by the NJ Department of Education
Posted by: Greg at
12:01 AM
| Comments (81)
| Add Comment
Post contains 462 words, total size 3 kb.
November 21, 2006
Sylvia James hardly considers herself clueless in mathematics. After all, she finished sixth grade with a B-plus in the subject and made the Honor Roll, which she saw as a victory in a challenging year of fraction conversion and decimal placement.But what happened when she took the state math test?
She flunked it.
I'd come up with a list of reasons that could explain this outcome, but the Washington post already does that for me.
Students and teachers offer an array of explanations for why test scores sometimes fail to match up with grades. Some students don't take the exams seriously. Some freeze up. Still others trip over unfamiliar language. And teachers sometimes are not prepped in what the exams cover, especially when the tests are new. Occasionally, some school officials suspect, classes aren't rigorous enough to prepare students adequately.
How about all of the above. I've got students who don't do well on the sort of standardized tests that are used to test competency by the various states -- heck, my class valedictorian scored lower than me on both the SAT and ACT despite making straight As for four years of high school except in PE. Some kids do come in and just start bubbling -- or put their heads down and take a nap instead of testing. In some cases, teachers have not covered what will be on the test -- in my state, tenth graders take World History but the Social Studies TAKS covers primarily the pre-Civil War American History they took two years before in eighth grade and which I have time to only spend three or four class periods reviewing in the week or so before the test.
And then there is course rigor.I hear stories from teacher friends about what they do -- indeed, what they are required to do -- to keep the grades up and prevent too many students from failing. I've heard about principals walking into faculty meetings and telling teacher that no period may have a failure rate of more than 10% -- and that teachers who exceed that rate had better start polishing up their resumes. I know of one district that requires (in a policy adopted by the school board in open session) teachers to take any late work up until three days before the end of a marking period, and that further requires that any kid who fails a test be permitted to come in and correct it for a grade of 70% (the minimum passing grade) any time during the marking period. Do such grades really reflect learning -- or simply the ability of students to copy late assignments and make better guesses with wrong answers eliminated?
I won't even get in to the question of how some states, like Texas, change standards after the test is taken to ensure that the passing rate (or failing rate) isn't too high -- during the first year of the TAKS test, the test was "re-meaned" and the number of correct answers needed to pass was raised, causing six of my students to fail despite achieving the score that school districts had been told all year constituted a passing grade.
Quite frankly, the current testing regime around the country is a failure. It doesn't show what the government thinks it shows. What needs to be implemented is a set of rigorous start-of-course and end-of-course tests that show where a student begins and ends the school year, and how much actual learning has gone on in between. Otherwise, we have a free-floating measurement that doesn't show what a student learns, and is instead a mere snapshot of where kids are on a given day during the year.
But then again, the two-test strategy might actually reveal something relevant about student learning, rather than serve as a club to use against all of us crappy public school teachers.
Posted by: Greg at
02:43 AM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 676 words, total size 4 kb.
November 12, 2006
That’s right – as a teacher, I have no right to know that I have students who are felons – even violent felons – in my class room.
There is one exception – convicted sex offenders. But even then, will the local police do their job and notify my school? Will the school do its job and notify me? This article leaves me questioning whether I really know who is in my classroom.
Background checks prevent teachers who are registered sex offenders from working in schools, but no law keeps students with histories of committing sex crimes from sharing history lessons and hot lunches with their classmates in Texas.That leaves parents in the dark about who might be sitting in the desks next to their children.
No single authority knows how many registered sex offenders are high school students. About 2,400 registered sex offenders are younger than 21, the oldest age allowed for high school students in Texas. About 320 are younger than 17, said Tela Mange of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
But those figures do not likely reflect the actual number of youthful sex offenders. Those who are 17 or 18 can petition the courts to have their cases removed from the registry. Others may have dropped out of school, said Shannon Edwards, a staff attorney with the Texas District and County Attorneys Association.
"It's a very fluid number," said Tom Vinger, a spokesman for the public safety department.
In one recent case in Austin, a teacher was attacked by a student who was already a registered sex offender – one of three in the district. She didn’t know about his status, though it is unclear whether the school knew and withheld the information or whether they were unaware.
One of the major state teacher organizations (we have four – and as a right-to-work state, membership is voluntary) is seeking to ensure that the current law is followed. They are also seeking closer monitoring of those students convicted of violent or sexual crimes.
It's also led at least one teachers' advocacy group to call for stricter monitoring of students with histories of committing violent or sexual crimes."In my mind, good public policy dictates that the public and specifically educators be aware when there is a registered sex offender in their midst," said Jeri Stone, executive director of the Texas Classroom Teachers Association.
I agree wholeheartedly – and question why students with histories of sec crime or crime of violence are permitted back in a regular classroom setting. This isn’t me looking to add one more level of punishment, it is me being concerned about the safety of every other student on the campus. Shouldn’t these individuals be in a closely monitored alternative setting where it is less likely that they will have the opportunity to do harm to other students?
Posted by: Greg at
06:21 AM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 517 words, total size 3 kb.
October 30, 2006
This should be a shining moment for education schools. Never has the nation paid so much attention to improving the quality of teaching. Yet the institutions that produce teachers have never faced so much criticism."Teacher education is the Dodge City of the education world," said Arthur Levine, former president of Columbia University's Teachers College. "Like the fabled Wild West town, it is unruly and chaotic."
Stanford University educational historian David F. Labaree wrote in a recent book: "Institutionally, the ed school is the Rodney Dangerfield of higher education; it don't get no respect. The ed school is the butt of jokes in the university, where professors portray it as an intellectual wasteland."
The attacks have become so frequent and intense that some educators say they have gone too far. But a growing number of educators say ed schools fail to give teachers enough background in their subject matter, fail to prepare them for the difficulties of urban schools and fail to recruit the best students.
For a study on ed schools released in September, Levine surveyed administrators with firsthand knowledge of these problems: principals. Only two of every five principals surveyed said ed schools were preparing teachers very well or moderately well to get new curriculum and performance standards into the classroom. Only one-third said their teachers were very or moderately well prepared for maintaining classroom order. Only one-fifth said their teachers were that well prepared to work with parents.
Of course, there is little agreement on what to do to make things better. I'll put in my two-cents worth on the matter.
1) Require that students get a degree in their subject matter. My college allowed education students to take two fewer classes in their subject area so that they could take teaching methods classes. I had already taken the full class-load for a regular history degree before switching to the education program, so I was the exception among my classmates in having just as much preparation as a student seeking a regular degree.
2) Make education degrees a five-year program. Heck, maybe make it a Master's degree program.
3) Talk about how to deal with parents. My first parent conference was at 22, during student teaching. Many of my colleagues didn't have their first until after they were hired. It is a daunting experience, and one that most new teachers are ill-prepared for.
4) It is all nice to prepare teachers for a classroom where every kid has a computer at home, reads on grade level, and isn't worried about the food and shelter components of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. That isn't where I teach, nor is it where most teachers teach. help us learn about real kids, not ideal kids -- or the children of professors at the campus laboratory schppl.
Posted by: Greg at
11:30 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 521 words, total size 3 kb.
October 22, 2006
Direct grammar instruction, long thought to do more harm than good, is welcome once more.Several factors -- most notably, the addition of a writing section to the SAT college entrance exam in 2005 -- have reawakened interest in Greiner's methods.
Nationwide, the Class of 2006 posted the lowest verbal SAT scores since 1996. That was the year the test was recalibrated to correct for a half-century decline in verbal performance.
Gaston Caperton, the College Board president, has lamented the scarcity of grammar and composition course work in public schools. In surveys, not quite two-thirds of students said they had studied grammar by the time they took the 2005 SAT.
Those concerns, and a growing consensus among scholars that many high school graduates "can't write well enough to get a passing grade from a professor on a paper," drove the addition of a third section to the SAT, upending decades of balance between reading and math, said Ed Hardin, a content specialist at the College Board.
Let's hope for a more literate future generation.
Posted by: Greg at
10:13 PM
| Comments (170)
| Add Comment
Post contains 234 words, total size 2 kb.
October 14, 2006
Katy school district officials acknowledged Friday that two coaches did not have keys to unlock a room where an automated external defibrillator was stored, 25 feet from the track where 16-year-old Jhonathan Bruda collapsed and died last week.District officials originally told the Houston Chronicle that both track coaches — Ryan Ratcliff and Amy Pitzel had keys to the trainer's room on the morning of Oct. 6. They said Friday that police reports and witness statements won't be released now because of an ongoing investigation.
"We thought all the coaches had keys but now we know that's not true," said Steve Stanford, a spokesman for Katy Independent School District. ''Neither coach had a key."
This was just one of the discrepancies in the accounts the district gave this week about how coaches responded to Bruda, a Taylor High School cross-country team member who collapsed after a light workout.
Stanford also acknowledged Friday that a 911 dispatcher did, in fact, ask Pitzel if she had access to an AED. According to Stanford, Pitzel responded, "Yes, but I can't get to it."
Pitzel was relaying information to Ratcliff as he performed CPR on Bruda, Stanford said.
I'm not surprised by the discrepancies between the original account and the current one. It is only about two weeks since we had a 12-year-old collapse and die during football practice at one of the middle schools that feeds into my high school. The initial statements of the district and the later ones contained some differences that can best be ascribed to the rush to supply information in a timely fashion vs. the desire to to transparantly release all facts. None of the changes impacted teh basic narrative, though.
I am shocked, however, by the discovery that coaches didn't have a key to the defibrilator. I'm willing to bet that it will come out that only the "big sport" coaches have them. It is typical that minor sport coaches are disregarded in that fashion. Let's just hope that it didn't cost a boy his life.
Posted by: Greg at
04:30 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 390 words, total size 2 kb.
October 10, 2006
The computer keyboard helped kill shorthand, and now it's threatening to finish off longhand.When handwritten essays were introduced on the SAT exams for the class of 2006, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. The rest? They printed. Block letters.
And those college hopefuls are just the first edge of a wave of U.S. students who no longer get much handwriting instruction in the primary grades, frequently 10 minutes a day or less. As a result, more and more students struggle to read and write cursive.
Many educators shrug. Stacked up against teaching technology, foreign languages and the material on standardized tests, penmanship instruction seems a relic, teachers across the region say. But academics who specialize in writing acquisition argue that it's important cognitively, pointing to research that shows children without proficient handwriting skills produce simpler, shorter compositions, from the earliest grades.
Scholars who study original documents say the demise of handwriting will diminish the power and accuracy of future historical research. And others simply lament the loss of handwritten communication for its beauty, individualism and intimacy.
I'd add one additional reason for the use of printing -- the increase in the number of foreign-born or first-generation Hispanic students. The Mexican education system teaches block printing -- to the point that students do written work on what in this country considers to be graphing paper, with one letter to the box. Studetns who started school south of the border learned that system, and the children of such immigrants are often taught that at home. The result is a shift in style.
Posted by: Greg at
10:37 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 309 words, total size 2 kb.
October 09, 2006
First your try to prevent a speech by interrupting the speaker.
Then you rush the stage and unfurl banners, stopping the program.
You drive the speaker from the stage.
And when the college you attend seeks to punish you for violating the First Amendment rights of the speaker and his sponsors, as well as the academic freedom of the university community, you claim that you are the real victims!
The protesters who rushed the stage at Columbia University Wednesday night when the founder of a volunteer border-patrol group tried to speak are crying foul, asserting that they were the victims of the violence and that they should not be disciplined by the university.After the students climbed onstage, overturning tables and chairs and causing mayhem, President Lee Bollinger called the students' disruption of the event "one of the most serious breaches of academic faith that can occur at a university."
"It is unacceptable to seek to deprive another person of his or her right of expression through actions such as taking a stage and interrupting the speech," Mr. Bollinger said in a statement, adding that "of course" the university is investigating the incident.
Three students who claimed responsibility for taking the stage and interrupting the speech by the border-patrol group known as the Minutemen held a press conference yesterday on Broadway outside the university. One of the students, Karina Garcia, the political chairwoman of the Chicano Caucus, said that she and her fellow protesters were the victims of a "massive campaign of vilification and demonization."
Flanked by members of the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism group and the National Lawyers Guild, which have rallied to the student protesters' cause, Ms. Garcia said,"We wanted the whole world to know that the Minutemen are racists who terrorize defenseless immigrant families" and that the protesters set out to "sabotage them."
In other words, the arrogant Ms. Garcia claims that she and her Leftist colleagues have the right to determine what views are acceptable and may be expressed on the campus of Columbia University. They claim the right to respond with violence to silence any view that they disagree with. That is typical of a totalitarian mindset. I won't even get into the inaccuracy of the characterization of the Minutemen, whose group includes members of all ethnic groups and is concerned with stopping the illegal crossing of our nation's borders, not the race of the border-jumpers.
In a reversal of standard accounts of Wednesday evening's events, Ms. Garcia said that when the protesters stormed the stage, they were attacked by the Minutemen and other students. "Shame on the administration for launching an investigation into peaceful protesters," she said. Ms. Garcia referred to video footage captured by the Spanish television network Univision that she said depicted the violence.The video shows students fighting over a banner that the protesters unfurled, but the violence to which Ms. Garcia said she was victim is not evident.Ms. Garcia said that no disciplinary action had been taken yet. She nonetheless called on the public to send letters to Mr. Bollinger demanding that the investigation be halted. She said that he has already received over 3,000 such notes.
Student protesters attesting to the violence they said had been inflicted on them by the Minutemen followed Ms. Garcia at the podium. The student leader of the International Socialist organization, Monique Dols, said that the Minutemen's "violent backlash" was "in the same tradition of the attackers in Birmingham and Montgomery," referring to events of the Civil Rights era. Comparing the plight of illegal immigrants to that of blacks in the 1960s, Ms. Dols advocated for granting full rights to illegal aliens, noting, "Every movement for social justice has always been deemed untimely or too extreme. It's time for immigrant rights."
Ms garcia, what those who had reserved the stage and sponsored the talk were doing was defending themselves and their civil rights from a lawless mob intent on denying them their liberties as American citizens. Given the history of violent attacks upon defenders of American sovereignty by those who support immigration criminals, their actions were reasonable. You engaged in mob action, and they treated you like the violent gang you and your supporters proved yourself to be.
Ultimately, Ms. Garcia, you reveal yourself in one comment from the press conference.
Challenged by reporters to square her advocacy of free speech with her decision to take the stage at last Wednesday's event, Ms. Dols said, "The nature of these questions shows there's more concern for the Minutemen than for helpless illegal immigrants."
Damn straight -- we are much more concerned with preserving our nation and the rights and liberties enshrined in our Constitution than in allowing and assisting the violation of American law and American sovereignty. That comment proves that you place foreign law-breakers ahead of American citizens. You should be ashamed of yourself. Here's hoping that Columbia expels the lot of you.
Posted by: Greg at
10:59 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 840 words, total size 5 kb.
October 07, 2006
The James Madison University menÂ’s and womenÂ’s cross-country teams had run especially well against an elite field during a competition late last month in eastern Pennsylvania. Afterward, Coach Dave Rinker gathered a giddy, excited group of athletes with tears in his eyes.RinkerÂ’s runners noticed he was not smiling. In the middle of the meet, back here on the James Madison campus, the university had announced it was eliminating menÂ’s cross country and track, along with eight other, mostly menÂ’s, sports to comply with Title IX, the federal gender-equity law.
“Title IX was created in 1972 to prevent sex discrimination, and it was needed,” Jennifer Chapman, a senior on the women’s cross-country team, which is not being eliminated, said four days later as she led a protest rally of 400 students on campus. “But look what’s happening now. We rode the bus home from Pennsylvania for four hours, 14 guys and 19 girls all crying together. How is that supposed to have been Title IX’s intent?”
* * * James MadisonÂ’s student body of 17,000 is 61 percent female, and one provision for complying with Title IX instructs institutions to have the percentage of participating athletes match the ratio of men to women on campus. At James Madison, the elimination of seven menÂ’s sports (swimming, cross country, indoor and outdoor track, gymnastics, wrestling and archery) and three womenÂ’s sports (gymnastics, fencing and archery) will boost the proportion of female athletes to 61 percent from about 50 percent.
When the cuts take effect in July, James Madison will be left with 12 womenÂ’s sports and 6 menÂ’s sports, the minimum required to participate in N.C.A.A. Division I competition. Three full-time coaches and eight part-time coaches will lose their jobs, and 144 athletes will be without a varsity team.
Officials conceded that the three womenÂ’s sports eliminated might not be termed exclusively Title IX cuts. Rose said that fencing had struggled with a dwindling roster, that archery was a niche sport that might be better suited as a club team, and that gymnastics was not a conference sport and had few nearby rivals for competition.
Title IX is a good idea gone horribly wrong. The interest is there for the eliminated men's sports. The eliminated women's sports were struggling programs with limited interest. But because it has become a results-oriented game rather than an issue of providing the opportunity to participate in sports, men are consistently denied the chance to participate in activities in which they are interested and which women are not. Shouldn't the real measure not be matching the percentage of students enrolled, but rather the percentages of students interested in participating in sports?
Maybe we can start applying that logic to academic programs. We'll cap enrollments based upon sex, and eliminate programs that are so seriously out of balance that they are unredeemable. I suspect that we will then see a drop in the number of Women's Studies programs around the country.
Posted by: Greg at
02:02 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 538 words, total size 4 kb.
October 06, 2006
A teacher was hacked to death in this historic Mexican city that has been paralyzed for months by protests and violence, police said late Thursday. A colleague claimed the man was killed for opposing a teachers' strike.Thousands of trade unionists and leftists have been camped out in Oaxaca since May, building barricades, taking over buildings and burning buses. The protesters are demanding the resignation of Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz, accusing him of rigging the 2004 election to win office and sending armed thugs against dissenters.
Victor Alonso Altamirano of the Oaxaca state police said teacher Jaime Rene Calva Aragon was on his way to a meeting Thursday evening when he was killed by two assailants wielding hefty ice picks.
Fellow teacher Alma Rosa Fernandez accused militant leftists of killing Calva for opposing a statewide teachers' strike that was a catalyst for the wider protests. Fernandez, who also opposes the strike, said the dissident teachers have been receiving death threats.
"We blame this murder directly on the radical teachers' wings," Fernandez said.
And lest you think this couldn’t happen here, consider the history of union violence in this country. Union opponents are regularly stalked, threatened and assaulted. When will union thugs recognize that the right to join a union and the right to strike can exist only insofar as there is the equally valid right to refuse to join a union and to refuse to strike? Until they do, unionism is not about freedom – it is merely about who gets to do the oppressing of the workers.
Posted by: Greg at
01:52 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 275 words, total size 2 kb.
A teacher was hacked to death in this historic Mexican city that has been paralyzed for months by protests and violence, police said late Thursday. A colleague claimed the man was killed for opposing a teachers' strike.Thousands of trade unionists and leftists have been camped out in Oaxaca since May, building barricades, taking over buildings and burning buses. The protesters are demanding the resignation of Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz, accusing him of rigging the 2004 election to win office and sending armed thugs against dissenters.
Victor Alonso Altamirano of the Oaxaca state police said teacher Jaime Rene Calva Aragon was on his way to a meeting Thursday evening when he was killed by two assailants wielding hefty ice picks.
Fellow teacher Alma Rosa Fernandez accused militant leftists of killing Calva for opposing a statewide teachers' strike that was a catalyst for the wider protests. Fernandez, who also opposes the strike, said the dissident teachers have been receiving death threats.
"We blame this murder directly on the radical teachers' wings," Fernandez said.
And lest you think this couldn’t happen here, consider the history of union violence in this country. Union opponents are regularly stalked, threatened and assaulted. When will union thugs recognize that the right to join a union and the right to strike can exist only insofar as there is the equally valid right to refuse to join a union and to refuse to strike? Until they do, unionism is not about freedom – it is merely about who gets to do the oppressing of the workers.
Posted by: Greg at
01:52 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 283 words, total size 2 kb.
October 04, 2006
A suburban county that sparked a public outcry when its libraries temporarily eliminated funding for Spanish-language fiction is now being asked to ban Harry Potter books from its schools.Laura Mallory, a mother of four, told a hearing officer for the Gwinnett County Board of Education on Tuesday that the popular fiction series are an "evil" attempt to indoctrinate children in the Wicca religion.
Board of Education attorney Victoria Sweeny said that if schools were to remove all books containing reference to witches, they would have to ban "Macbeth" and "Cinderella."
"There's a mountain of evidence for keeping Harry Potter," she said, adding that the books don't support any particular religion but present instead universal themes of friendship and overcoming adversity.
The books are age appropriate and of high quality among other works of the juvenile fiction category. Eliminating them would leave the library impoverished in many ways.
Posted by: Greg at
11:03 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 188 words, total size 1 kb.
October 02, 2006
Amber Mangum was a frequent reader during lunch breaks at her Prince George's County middle school, silently soaking up the adventures of Harry Potter and other tales in the spare minutes before afternoon classes. The habit was never viewed as a problem -- not, a lawsuit alleges, until the book she was reading was the Bible.A vice principal at Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School in Laurel last month ordered Amber, then 12, to stop reading the Bible or face punishment, according to a lawsuit filed Friday by Amber's mother. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, alleges that the vice principal's actions violated the girl's civil rights.
"Amber's a new Christian, and she's trying to learn all she can," said Maryann Mangum, the girl's mother. "She reads her Bible and she goes to Sunday school. . . . It really upset me when she was not allowed to read it on her own time."
John White, a spokesman for the school system, said administrators learned of the lawsuit Friday and were not prepared to comment on its claims. "We're just beginning to look into it," he said.
Mangum said her daughter was reading her Bible on Sept. 14 when Vice Principal Jeanetta Rainey approached. According to Mangum and the lawsuit, Rainey told Amber that reading the Bible violated school policy and that she would face discipline if she continued to do so.
Later that day, Amber recounted the episode to Mangum, who is her adoptive mother and also her biological grandmother. James Baker, a family friend, sent a note to the school asking that the principal identify any policy barring students from reading the Bible during their free time.
The note quoted a section of the school system's administrative procedures, saying that students "may read their Bibles or other scriptures, say grace before meals, and pray before tests to the same extent they may engage in comparable, non-disruptive activities."
In other words, not only did the administrator ignore the constitutional rights of Amber Mangum, this administrator also ignored written district policy. And when the family challenged that misconduct, the school's principal decided to send teh complaint down the memory hole and ignore it.
No one is asking for special rights here. All that is being sought is equal rights. And if students may read the book of their choice during non-instructional time, the religious content of their choice cannot legitimately be used to thwart their choice of literature.
Posted by: Greg at
10:29 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 466 words, total size 3 kb.
A suburban school superintendent says he was only trying to be funny when he took videotaped interviews with his new teachers, spliced in his own gag questions and made the faculty members look like killers, strippers and drug users.Now he could lose his job.
"How do you like to unwind?" Bremen High School District Superintendent Rich Mitchell asks in the mock documentary that he later posted on the Internet. The tape cuts to a teacher who replies: "I enjoy a lot of leisure activities."
"Such as?" Mitchell asks.
"Killing," says the teacher.
Mitchell asks another teacher: "What were the results of the last drug test that you took?"
The reply: "It was positive."
School board president Evelyn Gleason said Mitchell could be fired over the stunt, though she said the seven-member board will first investigate. "I think at the very least an apology should be made," Gleason said.
"I personally think he stepped over the line when it went on the Web site," she said. "I think it was a bad idea gone wrong."
Now I'm all for a little humour at the beginning of the year, but this seems to have crossed the line. And making the video available where it could circulate is even worse. I wonder if this matter doesn't open the district up to lawsuits.
Posted by: Greg at
10:02 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 264 words, total size 2 kb.
September 28, 2006
A German family filed a complaint alleging that their freedoms were violated by a German law requiring attendance in public or state-sanctioned private schools. The family's religious beliefs are opposed to some topics addressed in state-sponsored education, including sex education and mythological fairy tales.Instead, the parents attempted to educate their children at home using a Christian syllabus developed by the "Philadelphia school," a Siegen, Germany, institution that is not recognized by the German government as a legitimate private school.
But the ECHR ruled that the objectives of a state-sanctioned education "cannot be equally met by home education" and that the law didn't violate the family's religious freedoms.
The court wrote that it was in the "general interest of society to avoid the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions and the importance of integrating minorities into society."
It ruled that the parents were allowed to educate their children from a religious perspective "after school and at weekends. Therefore, the parent's right to education in conformity with their religious convictions is not restricted in a disproportionate manner."
Oh, and about the law that was upheld – it isn’t a new one. It was one of the progressive educational reforms by an earlier Socialist government – the National Socialist regime of Adolf Hitler. So even today, it is Hitler who controls what and when German parents can teach their children.
Posted by: Greg at
10:05 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 277 words, total size 2 kb.
A German family filed a complaint alleging that their freedoms were violated by a German law requiring attendance in public or state-sanctioned private schools. The family's religious beliefs are opposed to some topics addressed in state-sponsored education, including sex education and mythological fairy tales.Instead, the parents attempted to educate their children at home using a Christian syllabus developed by the "Philadelphia school," a Siegen, Germany, institution that is not recognized by the German government as a legitimate private school.
But the ECHR ruled that the objectives of a state-sanctioned education "cannot be equally met by home education" and that the law didn't violate the family's religious freedoms.
The court wrote that it was in the "general interest of society to avoid the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions and the importance of integrating minorities into society."
It ruled that the parents were allowed to educate their children from a religious perspective "after school and at weekends. Therefore, the parent's right to education in conformity with their religious convictions is not restricted in a disproportionate manner."
Oh, and about the law that was upheld – it isn’t a new one. It was one of the progressive educational reforms by an earlier Socialist government – the National Socialist regime of Adolf Hitler. So even today, it is Hitler who controls what and when German parents can teach their children.
Posted by: Greg at
10:05 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 290 words, total size 2 kb.
September 27, 2006
A 12-year-old football player from North Shore Middle School died Wednesday afternoon after collapsing while his football coach gave a speech on the importance of academics.The unidentified seventh grader was the third local football player to die within 10 days.
The team had held a "light football practice and conditioning drills" before the talk, according to Galena Park Independent School District spokesman Craig Eichhorn.
Eichhorn said that attempts to revive the student by two coaches were unsuccessful. EMS personnel also tried to revive the youth with a defribillator, Eichhorn said.
The student was transported to the East Houston Regional Medical Center, where he was worked on for "several hours. At one point, they did get a slight pulse from him, but despite their best efforts, they were unable to save him," Eichhorn said.
Earlier this week, a player from Rice University died after practice. And last week a student from a school in HISD (a cousin of one of my students) died of a previously unknown heart condition while walking around the school track after school.
I'm really expecting this to be a rough day today. Ours is a close-knit community, if a large one, and I expect this to be taken hard by students and teachers alike.
Please pray for this young man, his family and friends, his classmates and teachers, and my entire school district.
Posted by: Greg at
11:14 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 281 words, total size 2 kb.
September 26, 2006
I'm tired of having to parse out meaningand weighing the relative level of suggestiveness of messages on t-shirts.
And it is a nationwide problem.
Ashli Walker rifled through a rack of designer T-shirts one recent afternoon, pondering which one she should buy and wear the next day to Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Prince George's County. The big black one that read, "TRUST ME..I'M SINGLE"? Or the snug white T-shirt emblazoned with, "I KNOW WHAT BOYS WANT"?They're blatantly sexual, occasionally clever and often loaded with double meanings, forcing school administrators and other students to read provocations stripped across the chest, such as "yes, but not with u!," "Your Boyfriend Is a Good Kisser" and "two boys for every girl." Such T-shirts also are emblematic of the kind of sleazy-chic culture some teenagers now inhabit, in which status can be defined by images of sexual promiscuity that previous generations might have considered unhip.
The T-shirts, which school officials say are racier than ever, are posing dress-code dilemmas on Washington area campuses. School systems typically ban clothing that expresses vulgarity, obscenity or lewdness or that promotes cigarettes, alcohol, drugs or weapons. For instance, T-shirts advertising Budweiser or the movie "Scarface," with Al Pacino holding a tommy gun, are taboo.
But sexually suggestive T-shirts often fall into a gray area that requires officials to evaluate one shirt at a time. Some messages are considered harmless -- "Single and Ready to Mingle" or "My Boyfriend Is a Good Kisser." Others are not.
"We try not to make a huge deal out of it, but we also want to be protecting the school environment," said Rick Mondloch, an associate principal at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax County, who recently ordered a "Pimps" shirt turned inside out. "These shirts are more risque than they were even five years ago and probably a little more blunt, so you have to be attuned to it."
I still recall a struggle we had over a t-shirt several years ago. Several girls had bought shirts that looked like old-style ads depicting a couple of soft-serve ice cream cones.. The slogan? "Tasty Cones -- Give One A Lick!" , with the little twirl at the top of each dessert placed strategically over the nipples? Dirty messages on the shirts? Or dirty-old men oggling innocent teenage girls (one parent's argument)? You decide.
Personally, I'm for uniforms for all students -- just to get the inapprorpaite messages off the shirts and the pants up to the waist.
Posted by: Greg at
10:35 PM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 432 words, total size 3 kb.
An award-winning Texas art teacher who was reprimanded after one of her fifth-grade students saw a nude sculpture during a trip to a museum has lost her job.The school board in Frisco has voted not to renew Sydney McGee's contract after 28 years. She has been on administrative leave.
The teacher took her students on an approved field trip to a Dallas museum, and now some parents are upset.
The Fisher Elementary School art teacher came under fire last April when she took 89 fifth-graders on a field trip to the Dallas Museum of Art. Parents raised concerns over the field trip after their children reported seeing a nude sculpture at the art museum.
The parents had signed permission slips allowing their children to take part in the field trip.
McGee's lawyer said the principal at Fisher Elementary School admonished her after a parent complained that a student had seen nude art.
McGee said the principal had urged her to take the students to the museum.
Now, McGee, who was honored with a Star Teacher Award two years ago, is on paid administrative leave until her contract with the school district expires in March.
So let me get this straight – the teacher was disciplined because there was art at the art museum? Like nobody knew that there might be a non-pornographic nude sculpture or painting somewhere in the building? What sort of morons are we talking about here?
But some parents are fighting back.
Other parents are worried about the future of the art program at the school, which they cite as a reason for moving into the neighborhood."Our main concern right now is what's going to happen to the children and what's going to happen to the art program at Fisher Elementary. It is the best art program. That's the reason we moved to this neighborhood. It's because of the teachers," said Shannon Allen, a parent. "It was a principal-approved trip. What's the big deal?”
I agree. It is not like the teacher brought a Penthouse into the classroom or stood the kids in front of an erotic sculpture. They passed by something in the museum – a public place – and caught a glimpse of a work of art.
Sometimes IÂ’m sort of ashamed to be an educator in Texas.
Posted by: Greg at
09:00 AM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 397 words, total size 2 kb.
September 21, 2006
When McLean High School students write this year about Othello or immigration policy, their teachers won't be the only ones examining the papers. So will a California company that specializes in catching cheaters.The for-profit service known as Turnitin checks student work against a database of more than 22 million papers written by students around the world, as well as online sources and electronic archives of journals. School administrators said the service, which they will start using next week, is meant to deter plagiarism at a time when the Internet makes it easy to copy someone else's words.
But some McLean High students are rebelling. Members of the new Committee for Students' Rights said they do not cheat or condone cheating. But they object to Turnitin's automatically adding their essays to the massive database, calling it an infringement of intellectual property rights. And they contend that the school's action will tar students at one of Fairfax County's academic powerhouses.
"It irked a lot of people because there's an implication of assumed guilt," said Ben Donovan, 18, a senior who helped collect 1,190 student signatures on a petition against mandatory use of the service. "It's like if you searched every car in the parking lot or drug-tested every student."
But the school can search every car in the parking lot without a warrant -- that is part of the agreement you make with the school when you get your parking sticker. And they can search your locker without a warrant as well.
And speaking as a teacher, I've seen how rampant plagiarism really is. Several years ago, one of my students submitted a research paper in which he told of sittin on a hillside overlooking Nagasaki, mentally tracing the path of the falling atomic bomb. The paper was lfed in its entirety from a website ("but I didn't copy anything -- my uncle wrote the paper for me"). In my college-level night class, I recently received a paper which was cut and pasted from multiple sources without even anything to connect the parts -- and included the claim that the NAACP had given the author their photo archive for cataloging and preservation (a direct copy from the Library of Congress website) without a single citation.
Either our students need more to develop greater personal honesty, or they need to accept that being checked for plagiarism is part of the implied contract between teacher and students.
Posted by: Greg at
10:12 PM
| Comments (41)
| Add Comment
Post contains 425 words, total size 3 kb.
September 20, 2006
A science teacher was suspended for allowing students to use the same instrument to draw blood from their fingers as part of a class project, district officials said Tuesday.About 50 students in two science classes at Salina High School South used the same lancet, or small pin, to prick their fingers on Monday, said Carol Pitts, spokeswoman for the Salina school district.
The science teacher, who was not identified, was suspended with pay during an investigation, Pitts said.
Pitts said there was additional concern that some of the students may have come in contact with blood when they washed the science experiment slides. She said it was unclear what experiment the classes were doing, but they may have been checking blood glucose levels.
She said the district was taking steps to ensure that the students were tested for diseases such as HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — and hepatitis, both of which can be spread by using a shared instrument to draw blood. The district was working with Saline County Health Department to establish testing procedures for the students.
"This is minimal risk," said Yvonne Gibbons, director of the health department. "I don't think there is any reason to panic, but we're cautioning the school to take the best possible course they can, and that would be to have the kids tested."
I’m a recently diagnosed diabetic, married to another diabetic. We each do glucose tests a couple of times a day – and we are scrupulous about ensuring that we dispose of the used lancets and test strips in a save manner for the sake of others. If this teacher was allowing lancets to be reused, he or she deserves to be fired. If it was just the lancing device, I’m less concerned but still troubled. Safety when dealing with body fluids should always be the rule in a classroom.
Posted by: Greg at
11:27 AM
| Comments (76)
| Add Comment
Post contains 354 words, total size 2 kb.
September 18, 2006
High school dropouts are significantly less likely than better-educated Americans to vote, trust government, do volunteer work, or go to church, according to a new report that reveals a widening gap in "civic health" between the nation's upper and lower classes.The report, a portrait of civic life in the United States, finds that Americans' disengagement from their communities during the past few decades has been particularly dramatic among adults who have the least education. Among people who lack a high school diploma, the percentage who have voted plummeted from 1976 to 2004 to 31 percent -- half the 62 percent of college graduates who voted in 2004.
Now the question has to be asked -- is this due mainly to poverty, or is it due to differences in attitudes? It appears that there is a connection. So not only does lack of an education lower one's income potential, it also lowers one's engagement in the community around you.
Posted by: Boyo at
09:57 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 202 words, total size 1 kb.
September 11, 2006
Harvard University, breaking with a major trend in college admissions, says it will eliminate its early admissions program next year, with university officials arguing that such programs put low-income and minority applicants at a distinct disadvantage in the competition to get into selective universities.Harvard will be the first of the nationÂ’s prestigious universities to do away completely with early admissions, in which high school seniors try to bolster their chances at competitive schools by applying in the fall and learning whether they have been admitted in December, months before other students.
Some universities now admit as much as half of their freshman class this way, and many, though not Harvard, require an ironclad commitment from students that they will attend in return for the early acceptance.
Harvard’s decision — to be announced today — is likely to put pressure on other colleges, which acknowledge the same concerns but have been reluctant to take any step that could put them at a disadvantage in the heated competition for the top students.
Except it does nothing to eliminate what is seen as being at the heart of the problem.
But at Harvard and many other universities officials have grown concerned that early admissions present a major obstacle to low-income and working-class students. Such students have also been hurt by steep tuition increases and competition with students from wealthy families who pour thousands of dollars into college consultants and tutoring.“I think there are lots of very talented students out there from poor and moderate-income backgrounds who have been discouraged by this whole hocus-pocus of early admissions by many of the nation’s top colleges,’’ said William R. Fitzsimmons, Harvard College’s dean of admissions and financial aid.
So how is this going to stop the spending of large sums of money by wealthy students intent on getting into the right school? How is this going to make college more affordable to the students in the middle -- neither poor enough to qualify for a free ride nor wealthy enough to afford it? It is all window dressing!
Absent a system like hospitals use to award residency positions -- one with nationwide competition and a matching system that includes all applicants and schools -- you won't get away from teh identical problem.
But then again, such a system would never be accepted.
It would kill athletic programs. It would end legacy admissions. And what of the poor kid who wants to go to a local college in his or her hometown who is instead assigned to Middle-Of-Nowhere State University in Hicktown, Montana?
So while the Harvard move looks good on paper, it doesn't really address the issues at hand -- and cannot.
Posted by: Greg at
10:34 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 479 words, total size 3 kb.
September 07, 2006
Texas Southern University has relieved former President Priscilla Slade of her teaching duties and started the process to revoke her tenure, campus officials said Thursday.The university's acting president, Bobby Wilson, notified Slade of the decision this week, saying her presence in the classroom poses "an ongoing threat of disrupting the academic process."
The move comes just days after Slade, who faces felony charges related to her spending of university money for personal expenses as president, requested and received teaching assignments this semester.
In June, the university's governing board fired Slade for using school funds to buy furniture, landscaping and a security system for her house, but did not take away her tenured faculty position. Her return last week provoked immediate controversy.
"There were a lot of people who were upset that the ex-president was allowed to teach," said board Chairman J. Paul Johnson. "It has been disruptive."
Slade has no place in the classroom -- and is one more example of what is wrong with tenure.
Posted by: Greg at
10:35 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 210 words, total size 1 kb.
August 30, 2006
So where does the money come from for the expected materials?
The posters were hung, the scissors and glue stashed in their proper places and the bulletin boards in Brenda Burlingame's classroom at Legacy Elementary School wrapped and trimmed in a cheery color.The room simply screamed "Welcome to first grade." That feeling didn't come cheap.
"I probably spent $500 this year," Burlingame said as she shopped for a few last-minute adornments at Loudoun Learning, a teacher supplies store in Leesburg. "No matter if you've been a teacher for five minutes or five years, it has to be done."
Across the region, teachers are digging into their pockets to buy the supplies that turn four walls and a few tiny tables and chairs into the image of a child's classroom, complete with cubbyholes and attendance charts and a cozy reading corner with pillows and a rocking chair.
In a nationwide survey conducted last school year by the National School Supply and Equipment Association, 94 percent of teachers said they spent their own money on school supplies. On average, they estimated they would spend $552 of their own money on their classrooms before the school year was over.
I don't spend that much money on my materials -- because as a male high school teacher, a certain minimalism is not unheard of. I've got a lot of laminated posters hung high enough on the wall that they cannot be vandalized or destroyed, so I can reuse thm from year to year. But were I an elementary teacher, the expectations would be much higher -- and i woul be spending a lot more out of pocket. Instead of $100, I would probably be closer to the $1000 that the wife of a colleague spent last year making sure that second grade was a year of stickers, projects, and other educational activities that would have been denied if submitted on a purchase order.
A teacher expense account would be nice -- not for three-martini lunches, but for the sort of supplies and materials that contribute to student learning. Take it out of the budget for the new football stadium, athletic arena, or natatorium.
Posted by: Greg at
10:28 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 422 words, total size 3 kb.
A) Bar her from campus until the dispute has been resolved.
B) File suit to recover the cash from the homes's sale to the #1 overall pick in the NFL draft.
C) Return her to her previous duties as an accounting professor.
Priscilla Slade, the former Texas Southern University president fired for her spending of school money on personal expenses, is teaching accounting courses on campus this semester.Her return to the classroom comes four weeks after a Harris Country grand jury indicted Slade and three aides for allegedly violating the university's policies and state laws in paying for household furnishings and landscaping, among other things.
* * *
Officials said the university could move to revoke her tenure, and Slade almost certainly would file a grievance. The grievance would be heard by a committee of faculty members, whose recommendation would go to the regents for the final decision.
Such a dispute would likely end up in court, officials said.
"Regardless of who it is, we have to make sure that due process is followed because faculty members nationwide have fought for the right of tenure," said Sanders Anderson, president of TSU's faculty council.
At most universities, professors with tenure have the implicit promise of a lifetime job. They cannot be dismissed, transferred or demoted, with the exception of extreme misconduct on their part or a financial emergency at the school.
And given that TSU operates like a poorly-run community college, with no admissions requirements to speak of and a sense that it can do what it wants because it is a "black thing", the odds of anybody doing anything about this travesty is pretty near zero. Heck, this is at least the third financial scandal at the place since I moved to Houston nine years ago. Maybe the alumni will create an endowed professorship in Slade's honor -- "The Priscilla Slade Endowed Chair of Crooked Accounting and Financial Fraud".
UPDATE -- 8/31/2006 -- A real newspaper would have published this editorial the same day as the original story. But then again, this is the Houston Chronicle, so a 36 hour delay isn't too bad.
Given the blizzard of bad press, the last thing TSU needs is to put its controversial former president at the head of a class while awaiting trial. Slade deserves and will get her day in court to prove her innocence of the two felony charges she faces for misapplication of fiduciary property. In the meantime, school officials should have assigned the tenured academic to non-teaching duties with a lower public profile.Such a course would have been the prudent way to minimize damage to the school's image while the question of Slade's professional future is determined. It's not too late to assign another professor to handle her teaching duties while justice takes its course.
Might I suggest having her was dishes in one of the dining halls?
Posted by: Greg at
11:04 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 537 words, total size 3 kb.
August 27, 2006
For all the differences between the sexes, here's one that might stir up debate in the teacher's lounge: Boys learn more from men and girls learn more from women.That's the upshot of a provocative study by Thomas Dee, an associate professor of economics at Swarthmore College and visiting scholar at Stanford University. His study was to appear Monday in Education Next, a quarterly journal published by the Hoover Institution.
Vetted and approved by peer reviewers, Dee's research faces a fight for acceptance. Some leading education advocates dispute his conclusions and the way in which he reached them.
But Dee says his research supports his point, that gender matters when it comes to learning. Specifically, as he describes it, having a teacher of the opposite sex hurts a student's academic progress.
''We should be thinking more carefully about why,'' he said.
I don't have an answer to this one. Is it single-sex classes? Single-sex schools? Is it something else? And if the best education for the most students is found in one of the first two solutions, will that certain forces in our society allow for such a system to be implemented?
Posted by: Greg at
06:34 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 239 words, total size 2 kb.
77 queries taking 0.2902 seconds, 689 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
