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March 2007
Raising Graduation Rates: How Daunting Is It?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At the state Teacher of the Year banquet last night, State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox told the honored teachers she needed their help in lifting Georgia’s high school graduation rate.
“We’ve got a stretch goal,” she said. “I want everyone to remember this number: We’re at 70 percent now, we’re going to be at 85 percent by 2010. So we are ramping up and we’re going to hit that target.
“Are you with me, teachers?”
The response? Some tepid applause and one, “Yes!”
It wasn’t clear to me whether the audience wasn’t listening or the educators were skeptical they could raise the graduation rate by 15 percentage points in three years.
The teacher I sat next to, himself a former state Teacher of the Year, later said he was glad to hear the superintendent raising the expectations for getting students through school.
Still, he said of the goal: “It’s daunting.”
Talk About A Class Size Reversal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After taking an unyielding stance last year that public school classes should meet lower size requirements, leaders in the Georgia General Assembly are reversing course — at least for high schools.
Earlier this week, House lawmakers passed a bill that wipes out lower, absolute size limits for all regular education high school classes in core subjects, such as English, math, science and social studies.
Under current law, next school year, high schools were supposed to maintain classes of no more than 28 pupils in those core classes. If this new bill passes, principals could continue assigning as many as 32 kids per class.
In February, state Rep. Brooks Coleman (R-Duluth) had offered a bill to delay smaller high school classes for a couple more years so school systems had time to prepare for the financial hit of hiring more teachers and procuring more classroom trailers. Now the bill goes further by erasing requirements put into law years ago when Gov. Roy Barnes was still in office.
Apparently, some lawmakers no longer believe smaller classes are important in high school. Anyone out there think this decision is related to Gov. Sonny Perdue’s continued cuts in the school funding formula?
When Teaching, Does Race Matter?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My colleague, Brian Feagans, had an interesting story this past weekend about a brouhaha in South Georgia over the hiring of foreign teachers, mainly Jamaicans.
Apparently, a couple of school board members in Glynn County were so irritated the system recruited and hired more than a dozen experienced teachers from Jamaica, they dredged up an arcane state law from 1938 — which prohibited foreigners from working in state government, except in limited circumstances — to force the board to cancel some of the teaching contracts.
While the issues surrounding the use of immigrant teachers are interesting, I was more interested in the issue of race. Apparently, the hiring of these Jamaican educators helped diversify the system’s teaching ranks, which was important in Glynn because the schools were under a federal desegregation order.
The article got me thinking about what characteristics teachers need to successfully teach students. Is being the same race a factor?
College Dropouts: Should We Care?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Only about a third of freshmen that enroll at Kennesaw State University finish within six years — far below the national and state averages, according to a story today by AJC reporter Aixa Pascual.
But the Board of Regents is no longer accepting such dismal graduation rates. Last year, the board doled out more than $2 million to Kennesaw, Georgia State University, University of West Georgia, Valdosta State University and Georgia Southern University to start what are essentially dropout prevention programs.
As part of that push, earlier this school year, KSU officials held a special ceremony for incoming students complete with professors, who donned caps and gowns and marched under a “Class of 2010” banner, to get students focused on the reason they’re there.
Was that a little over the top? Maybe. But what I really want to know is: Is it the role of a university to ensure that every student who enrolls has the help he or she needs to earn a degree or does the responsibility for finishing fall solely on the student?
Special Ed: What Happens When A Student Falls Through The Cracks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Late last week, a federal judge ordered Atlanta Public Schools officials to pay at least $34,150 a year for a former student to attend a private school to finish his education — a ruling that could end up costing the system more than $136,000, not including attorneys’ fees.
According to AJC reporter Kristina Torres’ story, school psychologists misdiagnosed Jarron Draper as “mildly intellectually disabled” when he was a fourth-grader. They didn’t realize Draper actually had dyslexia until he reached high school. By then, he was at least six grade levels behind his peers.
Draper’s family had to fight to get him re-tested — even though federal law requires that special education students be evaluated every three years — because they knew he wasn’t mentally disabled. Had they not had the gumption to take on Goliath, as his aunt put it, Draper, now 20, may never have had the chance to graduate.
Thinking about this case, I can’t help but wonder: Is this an extreme example of a student slipping through the proverbial cracks or does this happen more often than educators care to admit?
How A $3 Million Education Initiative Cost Only $30,000
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Remember all those high-profile election-year education initiatives Gov. Sonny Perdue pushed through the state Legislature last year? Turns out they weren’t as expensive as the governor, who’s now serving his second term, had anticipated.
Take the High Performance Principals program, which was supposed to fix failing schools by luring star administrators to undesirable campuses with $15,000 renewable salary bonuses.
The governor set aside $3 million in the state budget to start the program and touted it in his State of the State address. When the legislation passed, Perdue traveled to Roswell High School to sign the bill in front of 2,500 students, faculty and staff.
Then, after state education officials identified more than 100 worthy principals to mobilize and spread across the state, Perdue invited each and every one to the governor’s mansion for a special meet-and-greet.
So how many of those educators actually took the offer to move to a low-performing school? According to AJC education reporter Kristina Torres, just two — including one who said he was planning to move to his new campus anyway.
Now, before you start thinking this was just some failed political ploy, consider this: Perdue has set aside $2.25 million to recruit more high-performance principals next school year.
A Controversy Of Mathematical Proportions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some parents in Cherokee County are in an uproar because their gifted seventh-graders might be penalized for taking algebra this year. The problem: That course is being phased out under the state’s new math curriculum, which is being introduced in public schools over several years.
This is the first school year the new material is being taught in seventh grade. But Cherokee is still teaching upper-level seventh-graders the algebra course. Now state officials are saying the school system goofed and that those pupils will be off-track, maybe even behind, when they get to high school.
Cherokee Superintendent Frank Petruzielo, not one to mince his words, has criticized state officials for a curriculum he says could end up hurting college-going students. This may be the first sign — but I’m guessing not the last — of displeasure with the revised math courses.
State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox is fond of pointing out that Georgia’s new math is based on the Japanese model. The question: Can that model be translated?
That Pesky ‘Achievement Gap’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Results from recent state End of Course Tests, which were given to public high school students at the end of the fall semester, show huge gaps between the performance of white students and black and Hispanic kids.
This disparity struck me because these exams are given at or near the end of the course. (Hence, their name.) Supposedly, students are being tested on material in biology, physical science, American literature — and a handful of other select courses in which the assessments are given — that they’ve been taught all semester.
Kids also have an incentive to do well: State rules require that the scores count as 15 percent of final course grades. But, with few exceptions, students are doing poorly. According to passing percentages presented to the State Board of Education earlier this month, black and Hispanic students, in particular, are floundering.
Take biology, where only 34 percent of blacks and 39 percent of Hispanics passed the exam compared to 70 percent of whites.
With results like that, I really gotta wonder: What is going on?
Selling Vouchers As ‘Tradition’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A new report and accompanying press release being touted by supporters of taxpayer-funded, private school tuition vouchers calls such financial assistance a long-standing “tradition” in Georgia.
Like football on Sunday, the report says that since at least the 1970s, Georgians have supported government aid for families who choose a private education.
Researchers with the Virginia-based Institute for Justice — a Libertarian law firm that’s represented voucher advocates in court cases across the country — unearthed almost $6 billion in state funds that have gone to private schools in the past three decades.
“There is, in fact, nothing new or controversial about … the idea of offering students the choice of public, private or religious schools with state funds,” the report says.
Funding researchers tallied comes from a collection of college scholarship programs as well as a couple of child care programs. None is used for K-12 students looking for an alternative to public schools — a plan the Legislature’s now considering for children in special education.
Not surprisingly, Pre-K and HOPE accounted for well over half of the money detailed in the report. Of course, those programs are supported by Lottery revenues, not taxes.
That distinction shouldn’t make a difference, according to the Institute’s Clark Neily, who was at the capitol Monday, and Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson, the sponsor of the special-needs scholarship bill. But critics say it does matter because the Lottery isn’t a mandated tax meant to pay for government services, such as public education.
Either way, is this a “tradition” lawmakers should build upon or not?
Has SPLOST Passed Its Prime?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lots of talk in recent days about the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax elections, which are being held in several metro school systems Tuesday, including Atlanta, Decatur, DeKalb, Fulton and Henry.
If approved, during the next five years the taxes could generate more than $2 billion for area school facilities.
The “penny sales tax” — as it is often, although incorrectly, called — has been a popular way for systems to raise money for building new schools and upgrading aging campuses. But raising revenue from an additional 1 percent charge on purchases hasn’t always been foolproof.
Remember a few years ago when Gwinnett County had an estimated $300 million budget shortfall because SPLOST wasn’t generating enough money? Board members there had to turn to the county development authority to bail them out with an unusual lease-purchase arrangement.
The taxes up for renewal Tuesday are now 10 years old. If a majority of voters agrees to another extension, those SPLOSTs will live on for five more years. So answer me this: Is it time to find a new way to finance school construction or is the current system working?
UPDATE: Apparently voters are happy using SPLOSTs to pay for schools. According to my colleague Kristina Torres’ story, all of the taxes were renewed Tuesday by overwhelming margins.
Stop Leaving Children Behind
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The 28 years I spent in Georgia schools had a profound effect on who I am and how I think. I am the product of tremendous public schools and amazing teachers. But now I see the federal No Child Left Behind Act undermining both.
NCLB was supposed to narrow the “achievement gap” between black and white students. According to Harvard’s Civil Rights Project and recent national test results, it has not done so. In fact, it may be exacerbating the situation as highly qualified teachers leave failing schools, unwilling to work in unrewarding, high-stress environments.
In our frantic race to ratchet up test scores we have turned schools into oppressive institutions that dehumanize and miseducate. Many young students are learning to hate learning.
As school districts across the country jettison history, civics, science, the arts and foreign languages, they are doing away with subjects that lead students to better understand who they are and where they are going. The ultimate price: a society of hard workers but shallow thinkers.
Shouldn’t America treat its most precious resource better?
Today’s guest blogger, Philip Kovacs, is an assistant professor of education at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Kovacs grew up and attended public schools in Fayette County, earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia and a master’s and doctorate from Georgia State University. Also chairman of the Educator Roundtable, a grassroots group pushing for the repeal of NCLB, Kovacs will be at GSU Saturday hosting a one-day conference on the federal law.
Lawmaker: More Confederate History, Please
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A day after Black History Month ended, a Georgia lawmaker filed a bill calling for April to be designated “Confederate Heritage and History Month,” and encouraging all the subsequent state observances and classroom lessons such dedications inspire.
State Sen. Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga) hasn’t gone as far as mandating that Georgia schools carry a Confederate History curriculum, he’s merely suggesting they consider one, particularly because of the state’s role in the Civil War.
“Many of the war’s prominent battles were fought in Georgia,” Mullis’ bill states. “… Much of Georgia was laid waste during Sherman’s march to the sea and Georgians of all classes and every profession gave generously and sacrificed much to the Confederacy and its cause.
“It is the most momentous period in the history of the South and our state since the American Revolution and deserves official honors and recognition.”
Interestingly, the “cause for Southern Independence” — as the bill calls it — began in February 1861. But the observance for Confederate Memorial Day has long been held in April, coinciding with the end of the war here. I guess Mullis opted to stick with tradition and not move the commemorations to another month.
Then again, February’s already been taken.
UPDATE: According to the latest article by my colleague, Sonji Jacobs, Mullis’ bill received a favorable review Thursday. Keep a lookout: “Confederate Heritage and History Month” could be coming to a school near you.
Sexual Predators In Schools: What To Do?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For the second time in less than a week, a metro Atlanta school employee has been charged with sexually assaulting a minor.
First, a Fayette County custodian was arrested after a 16-year-old reported that he had molested her for several years, sometimes at the Peachtree City elementary school where he worked. Then, yesterday, Cobb County police arrested a substitute teacher, who worked at several elementary campuses, after students reported inappropriate touching.
Unfortunately, incidents like this seem to happen every school year. Remember the Pike County superintendent who was arrested after using his office computer and telephone to proposition a 15-year-old? At least in that case the victim was an undercover police officer working an Internet sting operation.
In the more recent arrests, officials from both school systems said they conducted routine criminal background checks on the individuals before they were hired. Neither turned up a prior criminal record.
Now, those men may end up being cleared of any wrongdoing. But what I really want to know is: Is there anything more that administrators can do to prevent children from being harmed by sexual predators at school or do parents just have to accept that schools are not always the safe places they may want them to be?
UPDATE: Check out what the Fayette County principal told parents about the janitor’s arrest in the latest article from the AJC.
Campus Politics: Show Your ‘Diversity’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A little-noticed bill in the Georgia General Assembly would require each public college and university to annually report on the state of “intellectual diversity” on campus. Honestly, when I first read the title — “Intellectual Diversity in Higher Education” — I wondered if this was some way of getting more low-SAT scoring pupils into college.
But apparently intellectual diversity has nothing to do with a student’s intellect. Instead, the term refers to a school’s political atmosphere.
“Teachers should not take unfair advantage of the immaturity of students by indoctrinating them with their own opinions before the students have had an opportunity to examine other opinions,” the bill states. “… Surveys revealing ideological imbalance in the classroom, evidence of politicization, and public concern over this issue continue to mount.”
Now, even though the bill is co-sponsored by the Republican chairman of the House Higher Education Committee, it hasn’t moved since it was introduced two months ago. Still, some professors are concerned about the suspicion such a policy could foster.
“Have we lost the respect our society once had for both students and teachers, when parents sent their children to college to gain knowledge that they themselves could not provide them, from scholars who had devoted their lives to research and instruction?” Betty Jean Craige, a literature professor from the University of Georgia, asked in an guest editorial last month. “Have we arrived at a moment when students no longer feel fortunate to interact with faculty willing to share their views in the classroom? Does the promotion of ‘intellectual diversity’ mean that all ideas are of equal value?”
Pretty deep stuff. But I’m sure you’ll have plenty — or, should I say, a diversity — of responses.
Mainstream Vs. Self-Contained: What’s Better?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lately, I’ve been working on a story about the special education vouchers the Legislature is considering starting next school year, and one of the questions that keeps popping up is whether the program would segregate disabled kids from so-called regular education students.
The assumption here — at least for critics of the program — is that segregation would be a bad thing.
In Florida, where a similar voucher program has been in effect since 2000, I found parents of special needs children who felt their kids were not getting the attention they deserved when they were “mainstreamed” into regular public school classes. To remedy that, they took the voucher and sought out private school programs where children with special needs were in self-contained classrooms, surrounded by others with similar disabilities.
But, just as some experts think placing non-English speaking students in English-only classrooms improves language acquisition, some educators believe including disabled students in general education classes improves their chances of learning. I thought about this as I was reading a story about a local youth basketball league that includes deaf and hard-of-hearing children. On those teams, the learning goes both ways. The disabled kids get a chance to experience team sports, while the other players learn about children who are not like them.
So, at the end of the day, what’s better: mainstreaming special education students as much as possible or keeping them in smaller, self-contained programs?
Shopping For Schools
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Marietta City Schools, whose motto currently is “The Difference Is Excellence,” wants to become the “School System of Choice” by allowing parents to shop around for the right campus for their kids.
Superintendent Emily Lembeck has begun allowing parents to choose one of three elementary schools to send their children to next school year, rather than sending them to the campus for which they’re currently zoned.
According to a story by AJC education reporter Diane Stepp, Lembeck eventually wants to let parents choose from any of the system’s elementary campuses, each of which will be converted to theme schools, such as a school for the arts or one for gifted and talented kids.
In an interesting reversal of the typical school choice option — I’m thinking of charter schools and vouchers here — where parents often are encouraged to leave the public school system, Lembeck told Diane she hopes to lure families now using private or home schools.
One question: Will it work?
Cracking Down On Gangs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
News of the new DeKalb County Police Chief cracking down on gang activity caught my eye last night, especially the part about fining parents for kids who break curfew.
Obviously, the chief is more concerned about gang violence and lawlessness in the larger community, but the story made me think about the problem of gangs in schools.
Two years ago, more than 1,000 kids at Mundy’s Mill High School in Clayton County stayed home on a Monday after hearing rumors that “gangbangers” were going to shoot up the Jonesboro campus. Although police never uncovered such a plot, which surfaced after the weekend shooting death of a Mundy’s Mill senior, the fear of more violence was so real even the PTA president kept her son home.
So what I want to know is: If police can’t stamp out gangs in the community, can principals, teachers and parents do so at school?
Getting Tough On Bullying
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Columbus lawmaker wants to toughen the state’s anti-bullying law by expanding the definition of bullying, extending the policy from middle and high school all the way down to kindergarten, and requiring that administrators be trained in spotting bullying behavior, among other measures.
Public school systems in Georgia have had policies that prohibit and punish bullying since at least 1999. But, according to the current law, those policies only have to apply to sixth through 12th-graders.
Now state Rep. Carolyn Hugley, a Democrat, wants to make all public schools follow more detailed procedures when dealing with bullies in the classroom, on the playground, at the bus stop — even on school computer networks. Interestingly, Hugley’s legislation would mandate that school officials refer bullies to counseling.
After reading the bill and thinking about all the media coverage on childhood bullying in recent years, I can’t help but wonder: Don’t teachers and principals take bullying seriously enough or does the law really need to be rewritten?
Standard-Setting: A Guessing Game
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Board of Education members this week will approve new “cut scores” for the upcoming Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, Georgia’s mandatory, standardized exams given in public elementary and middle schools every Spring.
Because the state curriculum is changing, the tests also must change to reflect new material being taught. This school year, the subject matter changes are occurring in math and science. With new material comes new exams and new testing standards or “cut scores” — the number of correct answers a student needs to pass.
Previously, state officials were loath to release those numbers — not to be confused with scale scores, which are reported to parents — because they said students wouldn’t work hard enough if they knew how many questions they needed to answer correctly. Of course, cut scores had been public information in other states, such as Texas, for years.
A few years ago, my predecessor at Get Schooled, Patti Ghezzi, forced state officials to release cut scores for some state exams, including the third grade reading test, which students must pass to be promoted. Back then, Patti found that correctly answering 42.5 percent, or 17 of 40 questions, allowed pupils to move on to fourth grade.
State officials then agreed to make the standard-setting process transparent by approving cut scores in public — instead of behind closed doors as had been the practice — and releasing the information immediately.
Funny, I can’t seem to find a list of the current cut scores on the state Department of Education Web site, and there’s no listing of the proposed cut scores the State Board of Education is considering, either. Absent this knowledge, does anyone care to guess what they might be?
Counties To Schools: Build Your Own Roads
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Responsibility for building roads, installing traffic lights and taking care of other infrastructure needs, such as bridges and sidewalks, could shift to local school systems under a proposal before the state Legislature.
Metro Atlanta school systems are building schools as fast as they can open them, but some county commissioners apparently are tired of paying for the necessary roadwork around those campuses. So state Rep. Martin Scott (R-Rossville) has sponsored a bill that lets county governments off the hook for those infrastructure needs.
The measure could sink the upcoming SPLOST elections in some of Georgia’s largest school districts. Fulton, DeKalb and Atlanta all are seeking an extension of the 1 percent local sales tax for schools. But it’s unlikely they’ve all budgeted for roadwork in their proposals.
Regardless of whose budget the money comes from, local taxpayers ultimately foot the bill. So I’m wondering if there’s a larger problem here that’s being overlooked. That is, shouldn’t someone in the Legislature consider alleviating the development that’s forcing systems to build new schools in the first place?
Special Education: Is It Always Us Vs. Them?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Department of Education officials are revamping special education rules because of changes made to the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Officials began accepting public comment on the state rules changes late last year. Since then, I’ve heard a couple complaints — one from a parent of a special education student and one from a special education advocate — that the state and local school systems did a poor job of soliciting input.
A Fayette County mother told me that, even though she is very involved at school, she didn’t find out about the changes until the first deadline to comment had passed.
There seems to be a prevailing attitude among parents that state and local education officials aren’t forthcoming with information when it comes to special education. Some have blamed this on the litigious nature of the system, which may make educators feel that they can’t speak freely.
But maybe I just have a skewed perception because I only hear from the disgruntled. So tell me: When it comes to special education, is there always an us (families) vs. them (educators) attitude, or is this idea just coming from a small, but vocal, group of unhappy parents?
Perdue: Grad Coaches ‘Leading the Nation’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue was in Washington, D.C., earlier this week talking up his program to put graduation coaches in every public high school and middle school.
According to a press release about the National Governors Association meeting, Perdue told his fellow governors: “Our high school graduation coaches are leading the nation in identifying students at risk of dropping out of school … .”
Policy experts at the Southern Regional Education Board have told me Perdue’s idea is unique, definitely something other states should consider.
During the fall election, the governor’s campaign ran TV commercials touting the success of the dropout prevention plan, which had begun in the state’s high schools just a few months earlier. Now, without even a full school year or graduating class to evaluate, the program already is “leading the nation.”
I’m always looking for a good success story to write, so tell me: Is this an education miracle in the making?
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