Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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September 2006
A little whack on the butt
(Texas principal Anthony Price)
Sometimes you hear old-timers talk about their youthful days, and the terrifying principals who enforced discipline with an iron hand — or just as likely with a wooden stick. My father has a story from high school about a teacher who struck a kid so hard he knocked a tooth out.
Thank goodness those days are gone, right?
Think again.
In today’s New York Times they write about one principal who paddles kids with pride in Texas and notes that corporal punishment is alive in well in more than a dozen states, including Ohio.
About a decade ago, Ohio made it much more difficult for school districts to allow corporal punishment. In order to keep the policy allowing paddling, districts were required to form committees to study the issue and conduct a public vote. That was more than most school boards wanted to do and all but a few dumped whatever paddling they still allowed. (At the time I covered Milton-Union’s effort to keep paddling, jumping through all the hoops to maintain the policy.)
For my own kids, I strongly oppose paddling, spanking or whatever you want to call it. I’ve never struck my own children. To me, that’s the easy way out. Correcting them without violence takes a bit more work but I think it’s far more effective. I absolutely wouldn’t want a school official paddling them.
What’s your view of corporal punishment at schools?
(Image credit: www.nytimes.com)
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: My Favorite Posts, School Violence
School shooting: Tragic, probably unpreventable
(Student are evaucated Wednesday from Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo.)
The Colorado school shooting this week, which injured several students and left one dead in a rural district, was heartbreaking. But could anything have been done to prevent it?
One expert says probably not.
This is the lead from an Education Week story on the shooting (subscription required to read the whole thing):
The hostage-taking at a rural Colorado high school this week that left one student and the armed intruder dead was a rare event and one that would have been nearly impossible for school leaders to prevent, school safety experts said.
And here one expert in the story describes why these incidents are so hard to stop:
“When you have someone who is suicidal, armed, and willing to die, there aren’t any procedures short of having the building locked and secured the whole day that would have prevented this,” said Del Elliott, the director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
“And doing that is not practical, because these incidents, while so devastating, are very rare,” he added.
Mr. Elliott, whose violence-prevention center has worked closely with many Colorado school districts on safety issues since the Columbine shootings, said the 1,300-student Platte Canyon school district and its three schools were participants in a statewide hotline that was set up after Columbine to report threats of school violence.
“But in this instance, it appears that nobody knew this man and would have known of his plans,” he said.
Another expert in the story said a “well-trained and alert staff” is the best defense to an incident like this, but even then a determined intruder unconcerned with his own personal safety can make bad things happen very quickly.
Schools always must strike a delicate balance between access — being open and friendly to their community — and safety. The experts are right that vigilance helps. Unfortunately, they’re probably also right that sometimes these things cannot be stopped.
But at least they are very, very rare.
(Image credit: New York Times via AP)
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: School Violence
Google as teacher
This all started when I caught my second grader watching Titanic on HBO.
I was about to shoo her away but the boat had just hit the iceberg and she was fascinated. She wanted to know how and why the boat sank. So I kept watching with her until it turned on it’s side, split in two and slid below the surface to the ocean floor.
When it was over, she looked at me and asked, “Can we Google the Titanic?”
So we did, and we found a lot of great stuff, including this video by an artist who is selling paintings of the sunken ship that he made in a submarine. Out the window he points us to the majestic ship in its shadowy underwater grave.
Back at school during her weekly library visit, she searched for, and found, a book about the Titanic. At home she read it to me and we learned, among other things, that the Titanic had two sister ships — the Olympic and the Britannic.
“What happened to the sister ships?” she asked me. “Are they still around?”
I had no idea.
“Can we Google them?”
I got my computer.
“Type in ‘Titanic sisters,’” she instructed.
At the top of the results was a site called Titanic & Her Sisters and for the next half-hour or so we read the amazing stories of the Britannic and the Olympic.
Both were commissioned into the British navy during World War I — The Olympic as a transport ship for British and American troops and the Britannic as a hospital ship to evacuate wounded soldiers.
All three sister ships had serious incidents at sea.
The Olympic was accidentally rammed off the English coast by a navy ship, but survived a gaping hole and was repaired. It sailed for 27 years until it was unceremoniously stripped and scrapped.
The Britannic was sunk by a mine or a torpedo off the coast of Greece and now sits at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.
But the best story of all on the site was the story of Violet Jessop, who amazingly had been a stewardess on the Titanic when it sank and on the Olympic when it was rammed, and then was working as a nurse’s aide on board the Britannic when it sank. Incredibly, she survived the worst disasters of all three sister ships.
As I shut the computer down and sent my daughter to bed, I thought about how powerful the Internet can be as a teaching tool. Most of the time, it can answer questions a child has about almost anything. You can see pictures of a ship that sailed almost 100 years ago and even visit it at the bottom of the ocean by riding along with an enterprising artist.
The encyclopedias of my youth just can’t compare.
(Image credits: www.interet-general.info, www.google.com)
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: My Favorite Posts, Teaching and Learning
Yearbook “report card” pans administrators, students
It seems more than a few DDN readers got a chuckle out of Tuesday’s story of a Wayne High School teacher and yearbook moderator who gave low marks to administrators and students in Huber Heights via a yearbook parting shot.
A 30-year teaching veteran who retired at the end of the last school year created a page in the yearbook with a mock “report card” that graded the administration an F for “Failure to support staff, inconsistant (sic) lack of preparation, make Wayne a place people want to escape rather then a place they feel respected and safe.”
She also gave students a C, noting “improvement needed, lack of effort, do not pay attention, more study time needed.”
Many of our online readers saw humor in the story, pushing it up among our most viewed stories of the day at DDN.com yesterday. But I’ve got a serious question for you:
Is this story really that surprising?
In Huber Heights, where nerves are still a little frayed from a recent strike by teachers and support staff, it’s generating a lot of talk. And it’s a big problem for the district, which was not amused by the report card. They can’t just tear the page out because the back side carries a tribute to students who died in a car accident last year. They’re trying to come up with a way to cover the page. That is a costly, distracting hassle.
But are the teacher’s report card comments really that different from what other teachers said during the strike? A yearbook probably isn’t the proper forum to air complaints. That’s certainly the district’s view.
The report card noticeably assigns no blame to teachers for the district’s problems. During the strike, some in the community put all the blame on the teachers. The divisions there run pretty deep.
Perhaps it’s a sign that teachers, administrators and the community in Huber Heights need to find a way to begin a conversation about the schools to try to understand what it might take to get them all on the same page?
(Image credit: www.studentsfirst.us)
Mom and dad made me cheat
The latest Carnival of Education has some good stuff this week. My favorite post in this week’s compilation of the best education blogging was from one of my favorite teacher bloggers, Mrs. Cornelius, who writes about cheating and a complaint from some kids that they HAVE to cheat on the busy work because their parents are making them take so many tough classes.
I’m also included in the Ed Carnival for a post that asks, “what if Harvard dumped the SAT?” You can find me in this week’s Carnival of Ohio Politics, too, for a post about the education debate by the candidates for Ohio governor.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: The Carnival of Education
Football and the magical GPA: An academic disgrace
(Michael Oher, football player)
How do you get a high school sophomore into college who is homeless, attended 11 schools in 13 years, missed 46 days of school in first grade, didn’t even attend for 18 months around age 10 and sports a 0.9 GPA at the end of 10th grade?
Impossible, right?
Oh, did I mention he weighs 344 pounds and is a potential NFL football star? Now what do you think his chances of getting to college are?
If you guessed 100 percent, you’re right.
I’m a huge fan of Michael Lewis, the author of a great book about baseball called Moneyball and a frequent contributor of engaging narratives to the New York Times magazine.
Lewis writes a lot about sports and this week’s cover story in the Times magazine is another mesmerizing read. It’s mostly the inspirational story of Michael Oher, once homeless and essentially orphaned, who now appears headed to NFL riches.
But along the way, the story indicts education systems that alternatively failed Oher and now seek to exploit him. The Memphis school district takes a beating for passing him on year after year even when he wasn’t even showing up for school.
But as it becomes clear in high school that Oher has the potential to make millions in football, supportive adults surround him and try somehow get him onto a college football team despite the train wreck that is his academic career.
Most stunning to me was the way they turned his D average into a sports-eligible 2.65 GPA almost overnight. And apparently this is perfectly OK under NCAA rules. Oher signed up for Internet courses in “character education” offered by Bringham Young University:
“The B.Y.U. courses had magical properties: a grade took a mere 10 days to obtain and could be used to replace a grade from an entire semester on a high-school transcript. Pick the courses shrewdly and work quickly, and the most tawdry academic record could be renovated in a single summer.”
Oher also had help from a tutor, Sue Mitchell. Here’s what it took to pass one of these BYU “courses:”
All you had to do in such a “character course� was to read a few brief passages from famous works — a speech by Lou Gehrig here, a letter by Abraham Lincoln there — and then answer five questions about it. How hard could it be? The A’s earned from character courses could be used to replace F’s earned in high-school English classes. And Michael never needed to leave the house!
Thus began the great Mormon grade-grab. Mainly it involved Sue Mitchell grinding through the character courses with Michael. Every week or so, they replaced a Memphis public school F with an A from B.Y.U. Every assignment needed to be read aloud and decoded. Here he was, late in his senior year in high school, and he had never heard of a right angle or the Civil War or “I Love Lucy.â€? But getting the grades was far easier than generating in Michael any sort of pleasure in learning.”
Wow. I just found that shocking. In a matter of weeks they took a kid who is barely prepared for high school work and not only got him into college, they made him eligible to play football! Here’s how the story of his academic makeover ends. Sean is the wealthy private school gadfly who adopts Oher:
On July 29, Michael took his final B.Y.U. test — another character course. Sean sent the test to Utah by Federal Express, and the B.Y.U. people promised to have the grade ready by 2 o’clock the following afternoon. … With Michael’s final A in hand, Sean rushed the full package to the N.C.A.A.’s offices in Iowa. The N.C.A.A promptly lost it. Sean threatened to fly up on his plane with another copy and sit in the lobby until it was processed — which led the N.C.A.A. to find Michael’s file. While it remained suspicious and didn’t close its investigation, the N.C.A.A. on Aug. 1, 2005, informed Michael Oher that he was going to be allowed to go to college and play football.”
Amazing.
(Image credit: www.nytimes.com)
Permalink | Comments (11) | Categories: Colleges and Universities, My Favorite Posts, Sports and Athletics
Can Dayton pull off the “big promise?”
After studying the Kalamazoo Promise for a week, I can tell you this much:
—It’s a fascinating experiment, a great idea and, so far, already a remarkable success in many ways.
—It’s going to be a great challenge for Dayton to match its success.
The tough question for the community, and for the wealthy individuals and foundations who might fund the program, is whether the potential benefits would be worth the significant costs.
Some questions that might help them work through it:
—What is the goal?
The mere fact that the Dayton Promise is being pushed by an anti-sprawl group signals that this is as much about issues of economy and development as it is about education.
The economic dimension is important in Kalamazoo, too. Their plan has attracting smart people to move to Kalamazoo as a primary goal. Scholarships for their kids are the bait.
If Dayton also wants this — and from the initial meeting I attended it was clear the proponents of this idea do — they may have to ask themselves hard questions about whether the proposal on the table right now is enough. One import to Kalamazoo quoted in my story today says Dayton’s plan likely would not have attracted her to move the way the Michigan plan did.
If the program doesn’t motivate people to move here, is it still worth doing?
—How can the program be held to a manageable size?
Kalamazoo is about half the size of Dayton and it’s school district is about a third smaller than Dayton Public Schools. The scholarships there are available only to graduates of the public school system.
Dayton proposes a program open to all city residents who graduate high school, no matter whether they go to public or private school, in the city or not. That scope is well beyond what they’re doing in Michigan. It could mean Dayton’s Promise could have up to twice as many kids as the Kalamazoo Promise.
—What will the costs be?
Kalamazoo is estimating its costs at $10 to $12 million a year when it is up to full speed. Those are huge numbers. For a self-sustaining program, it may need as much as a quarter billion dollar endowment.
If Dayton’s program is significantly bigger, as the proposal seems to suggest, its costs could be even higher, even with the more limited scholarship amounts.
I’m guessing the expanded eligibility is designed to make the program more attractive to powerful potential funders who support charter and private schools.
Supposedly, Kalamazoo has three billionaires backing its plan. Dayton doesn’t have that much philanthropic firepower, but it does have a lot of well-heeled potential donors to call on. Keeping them all happy may require fancy footwork.
Will the eligible schools currently planned be enough?
Do all Ohio state universities have to be in the program to make is a real draw, the kind that might actually improve the economic fortunes of the city? Does Ohio State, Ohio’s biggest and best college, have to be one of the options? Should Miami University, a top state school less than an hour away, be included?
How all these questions are answered may very well determine the success or failure of any Dayton Promise.
Make yourself an unofficial adviser to the project. How would you tell the proponents of this idea in Dayton they should craft the program to give it the best chance to work?
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools, Urban School Issues
Scholarship plan aims to mirror Michigan’s success
By Scott Elliott
Dayton Daily News
Steward Sandstrom moved to Kalamazoo, Mich., for the Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
For a man accustomed to tossing his extra money into savings accounts for a first-grader and 15-month-old, the free college educations that Kalamzoo offers allows Sandstrom to pursue another dream.
“Now I might be able to buy a Harley. I won’t have to spend it on tuition,� he said.
Grassroots Greater Dayton, an anti-sprawl group, hopes its version of the Kalamazoo Promise will have a similar effect — drawing smart, education-minded parents to breathe new life into a city in economic decline.
Anonymous donors there contributed millions to turn the city into “promise land,� as some newbies call it — a place where all school district graduates are guaranteed a free education at any state college.
Grassroots Greater Dayton hopes to raise enough for its own promise — up to $20,000 for Dayton school district residents who graduate from any public or private high schools to attend one of 10 local colleges.
Sandstrom, who left Iowa to become the president of the Kalamazoo Chamber of Commerce, said the Promise is brilliant.
“Work force is the most critical need of towns this size in the Midwest,� he said of the city of 72,700 people. “What an effective work force development tool this community has. And think of what it says about the way community leaders invested in the community.�
When Jack, his first-grade son, is about 13, Sandstrom wants to roll up the driveway on the Harley of his dreams.
“That would be just at the point when words like “coolâ€? and “dadâ€? don’t go together anymore,â€? he said. “I hope for maybe a week those words can come back together.”
Paula Norder cares deeply enough about her son’s education to move her family from their Portland, Ore., home of 10 years to a Midwestern city she had visited just once for a Nirvana rock concert years ago.
The more she learned about the Kalamzoo Promise of free tuition the more she liked the idea of moving to western Michigan. She put in for a transfer with her company and the Norders moved in July.
“I never completed my degree and I know there are opportunities for which I am not as competitive as the next person,� she said.
Norder wanted her first-grade son to be assured of going to college.
“The degree really gives you an advantage,� she said.
Local proponents would seek to mirror Kalamazoo’s success attracting newcomers like Norder and Sandstrom.
The city, a little less than half the size of Dayton, last November launched a scholarship program that offers full tuition to any state school for all students who graduate after spending their entire school careers in the city’s public schools. Partial scholarships are available for those with fewer years in the district.
The goal was to bring new families to the city, injecting energetic, upwardly mobile parents into the city’s work force while at the same time providing opportunity and hope to the city’s children.
It’s working, said Bob Jorth, executive director and the only employee of the Promise.
“The kids are very aware of the Promise and they now want to finish high school,� he said. “It isn’t just any scholarship that could motivate the kids like this. It’s that it sounds too good to be true, and it isn’t. It’s all carrot and no stick.�
The program is funded by anonymous individual donors — there are rumored to be five wealthy contributors — at a cost of about $2 million this year and eventually reaching up to $12 million annually. Since the Promise was announced, the city has seen a huge jump in school enrollment, a rise in home prices, new families from 30 states and more than 90 percent of last spring’s graduates attending college this fall.
“It’s an incredible thing that this much has happened in just 10 months,� Jorth said.
Last week, Grassroots Greater Dayton said it was in the final planning stages for its proposal and that it hoped to start fundraising in November.
The proposal for Dayton is different than what Kalamazoo offers. The scholarship would not be for full tuition in all cases. It would offer $5,000 a year up to $20,000 for four years. And it would be good at 10 local colleges only, not statewide. The schools are the University of Dayton, Wilberforce, Central State, Wittenberg, Antioch, Kettering College of Medical Arts, Sinclair, Wright State, Clark State and Edison.
But Dayton’s plan, targeted for 2008, would be open to more kids — any high school graduate who lives within the city school district, even if they attended a private or charter school.
With less money and fewer college options, the question is if Dayton’s plan would have the same broad appeal.
“That’s a reasonable gamble on Dayton’s part,� Jorth said. “It’s still got the “wow� factor.�
Norder said she thought Dayton’s plan might be better at keeping families in the city than attracting new families. She said she still would have considered Kalamazoo if its program had Dayton’s limits, but much less strongly.
Jorth said he’s been contacted by other cities about copying the Kalamazoo Promise, but that Dayton is farthest along. Cincinnati also is considering a program in partnership with two Kentucky cities.
Norder said Ohioans should go for it.
She doesn’t know what her six-year-old son will want to do after high school, but she likes knowing that he will have options.
“If he wants to be a doctor or a lawyer, it’s just phenomenal that he could go to a great place like the University of Michigan for pre-law or pre-med, have that paid for and walk into graduate school without a student loan,� she said. “And if he wants to study music or history or something else, there will be a state school and he can get a degree in whatever his heart desires.�
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: My Favorite DDN Stories
The Kalamazoo Promise: Signs of success
How dramatically can a college scholarship program affect a city? Consider what a 10-month-old Promise program has done in Kalamazoo, Mich.:
Move-ins: New families from 30 states and 50 other Michigan communities have relocated to the city.
Housing: Through Aug. 1, home prices and home sales both were up 6 percent over the prior year while in the region prices were up just 1 percent and sales dropped 4 percent.
Enrollment: It’s up by more than 900 this fall — twice what was estimated — a gain of nearly 10 percent in a school district that had lost 2,000 students over 10 years.
Transfers and dropouts: In 2004, 265 students left the district between the first and second semesters. Last year, just 21 left.
College: Of 400 graduates eligible for the scholarships, 350 used them for college this fall and another 21 went to college by other means.
Local Impact: Of those 350 scholarship users, 70 percent enrolled at the local state school — Western Michigan University.
Minorities: Nationally, 57 percent of black high school graduates went to college in 2005. Last year, 82 percent of black male grads in Kalamazoo went to college using the Promise and 93 percent of black females.
Sources: Kalamzoo Promise, Greater Kalamazoo Board of Realtors, Kalamazoo Public Schools
Permalink | | Categories: My Favorite DDN Stories
This has to be a tall tale
(Larry the Cucumber and Bob the Tomato)
I like Veggie Tales. It’s a clever cartoon in which silly animated vegetables act out Bible stories. These videos are religious programming, for sure. The show’s religious message is prominent, if not especially in-your-face, as the stories all are moral lessons from a Christian perspective.
The story Saturday’s New York Times that NBC has bought the rights to broadcast Veggie Tales left me puzzled. The deal specifies that all references to God and the Bible be edited out before the show is broadcast on the network.
To which I can only say — huh?
A few questions you might have:
—Why would NBC want Veggie Tales at all if they find its religious nature offensive?
The stories retold in the Veggie Tales videos are BIBLE stories. Doesn’t the idea of telling Bible stories without mentioning God or the Bible seem a bizarre?
NBC says the show has “universally accepted religious values” but that its company standards prohibit the promotion of “any particular religion or a particular denomination.” Editing out references to God and the Bible, the network says, allows the show to meet their standards for broadcast.
—Why would the makers of Veggie Tales agree to such a deal?
One of the creators of the show told the Times he was shocked by the cuts that were required and never anticipated how extensive the editing would be. But he has not quit the effort as a “favor” to the media company that owns the show. That company said getting an edited version on the air is, in its view, better than nothing at all.
Veggie Tales is plenty popular and well known without NBC. I’m surprised the show didn’t try to find a different network or stick with the wildly successful video market.
What do you think? Would the unedited Veggie Tales really spark protests against NBC? Is an edited version of the show a good compromise?
UPDATE: I actually watched Veggie Tales on NBC Sunday morning and found the word “God” was not blepped or removed. The only noticeable difference was that the network appeared to cut the wrap up “moral lesson” at the end in which the characters generally talk about what happened and discuss what God and the Bible say about it. I wonder if the Times was in error when it said nearly all references to God would be edited out, or if the network made changes after the Times story appeared?
(Image credit: www.oklahoma.net)
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Schools and Politics
A nasty little political fight
(Robert Slavin, Success For All reading program inventor)
Some big news is breaking today that has education junkies fired up.
It comes down to this — did officials at the U.S. Department of Education work to steer federal dollars earmarked to help kids read to companies they preferred? An explosive report, which the education department again tried to bury with a Friday afternoon release, says yes they did.
Sam Dillon of the New York Times has the stunning details here.
This has been a simmering controversy for months. Back in June I met Bob Slavin of Johns Hopkins University, inventor of the respected Success For All reading program and one of the first critics to come out and accuse the education department of not playing fair. Slavin said kids who might benefit from a program like Success For All were being denied so the department’s friends could make a few bucks.
Slavin is a huge big shot in the reading curriculum world but some thought took a big risk by speaking out. He must feel pretty vindicated today. The report includes E-mails within the department in which officials pretty openly discuss their efforts to craft the program selection committees to be friendly to certain companies.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings was quick to say these problems occurred under her predecessor, Rod Paige. Some of the key players involved are no longer with the department.
The question is what happens next? What should the repercussions be for the department?
(Image credit: www.nysut.org)
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Schools and Politics
The best affordable colleges
(Ohio’s affordable Miami University)
Years ago, when I attended the University of Dayton, it was named a “best bargain” school by different magazines nearly every year. I think tuition back in the late 1980s was around $6,000 a year.
But with a year at UD now in the $20,000 range, I’ll probably never be able to afford to send my kids to school there. They certainly don’t make those bargain lists anymore.
And apparenlty, a new ranking shows, almost no other Ohio schools do either.
Kiplinger is out with it’s latest list of the 50 most affordable colleges in the U.S. and Ohio doesn’t fare well.
Miami University is the only Ohio school to make the list, ranked 22nd most affordable for in-state tution and 33rd for out-of-state.
Virginia comes off looking great (I first spotted the ranking through the Roanoke Times’ Campus Watch blog) with excellent schools like the University of Virginia and William and Mary near the top of the list plus three other schools in the rankings.
California has six schools on the list, including world-renowned Berkeley and UCLA. North Carolina have five schools on the list and Florida had four.
On the other hand, Ohio’s neighbors were similarly unrepresented — Michigan had one school on the list, Pennsylvania had two and Kentucky had one, while Indiana and West Virginia had none. Other big Midwestern states like Wisconsin (2), Illinois (1) and Iowa (0) didn’t fare much better.
The cost of tuition in Ohio has been going up. Has it gone too far? Or can midwestern states like us simply not afford to offer low tuition as they did in the past?
(Image credit: www.bbonline.com)
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Colleges and Universities
The education debate: What they actually said
(Ken Blackwell and Ted Strickland)
I just learned that WMUB public radio in Oxford has a podcast available for the education debate this week between Ohio’s candidates for governor — Democrat Ted Strickland and Republican Ken Blackwell.
Want to hear what the candidates said for yourself? Click thru and check it out. Then stop back here and let me know:
—Who do you think won?
—What impressed you most from either candidate?
—What disappointed you most from either candidate?
(Image credit: AP)
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Schools and Politics
A promise: Kids will get to college
(Heather Roth of Kalamazoo, Mich.)
Suppose you could magically give every kid who lives in the city of Dayton the means to go to college. Would that really motivate people, especially upwardly mobile middle class families, to move into the city?
We may get the chance to find out.
Back in the summer I wrote about a local group that had this dream of making college possible for Dayton kids and at the same time providing an economic boost to the city.
They’re no longer dreaming. Now they’re serious about doing it.
In today’s paper the anti-sprawl group, Grassroots Greater Dayton, acknowledged they have a program ready to go and they hope to start fund-raising in November with the goal of offering scholarships to kids in 2008.
The program is modeled after the Kalamazoo Promise, a similar effort that’s about a year old in Michigan that offers full scholarships to any Michigan college to kids who graduate after 13 years in the city’s public schools.
Dayton’s proposal is different in interesting ways. I’m working on a follow up story that will look at how things are going in Kalamazoo and how these differences might affect the Dayton program. Among them:
—The scholarships are limited. Kalamazoo offers full rides to any state school. Dayton would offer $5,000 a year for four years. This is probably a function of fiscal realities here.
—Private and charter eligibility. In Dayton, all kids living in the school district would be eligible for up to $20,000 in scholarships, not just kids attending the school district. Why? I’m guessing it may have to do with who might fund the program. Some education minded individuals and foundations locally have pet interests outside of the school district, like the Mathile Foundation (Catholic schools) and the Fordham Foundation (charter schools).
—Only local colleges are included. Kids could take their scholarship money to these 10 schools: Sinclair Community College, Central State University, Wright State University, Clark State Community College, Edison Community College, University of Dayton, Wilberforce University, Wittenberg University, Antioch University, Kettering College of Medical Arts.
On the surface, the logic of this move is easy to see. It keeps smart local kids in the community and bolsters local colleges. But I think Kalamazoo’s program — with free tuition to any state school, including excellent schools like Michigan and Michigan State — is more attractive and more likely to bring out of the area families to Kalamazoo (a Realtor group there says it has gotten calls about the program from every state).
An argument could be made that this limits the program if students can’t use it to attend some of the state’s best schools, like Ohio State and Miami University.
Would the Dayton Promise, as proposed, be enough to move your family into the city of Dayton?
(Image credit: Ed Roth)
Permalink | Comments (14) | Categories: Colleges and Universities, Dayton Public Schools
Gov candidates talk education
Ken Blackwell and Ted Strickland
Democratic candidate for governor Ted Strickland and his Republican opponent, Ken Blackwell, Wednesday debated education in Columbus and the offered starkly contrasting views of how our education system should work.
While both agreed funding was dysfunctional, Blackwell preferred to let money to follow kids to whatever schools they like — charter, public or private. Even beyond his support of charters and vouchers, Blackwell advocated more privatization — even outsourcing food service, busing and other non-classroom aspects of public school districts.
Strickland was sharply critical of Blackwell’s approach, calling charter schools a “rip off” and pointing directly to White Hat charter school operator David Brennan as an example of an education “profiteer” who makes millions from low-scoring schools. Blackwell ripped Strickland for not offering many specifics of what he would do if governor.
We have more in Thursday’s paper, but one thing jumped out at me. With Strickland well ahead in the polls, I’d think charter school and voucher advocates must be shaking in their shoes at the thought of having governor so opposed to the school choice movement. For the past eight years, the school choicers have mostly gotten what they wanted because they were so well connected to the state leadership.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Schools and Politics
Charters gobbling Columbus
Don’t look now, but here comes Columbus storming up the list of cities with strong charter school movements.
Dayton has long been No. 1 in Ohio, and until recently No. 1 in the country for the percentage of kids attending charters.
But it looks like Columbus could come up fast.
The Dispatch today reports a bigger flood of kids than expected left the district this fall. The story is very familiar to those of us in Dayton.
Columbus schools have been treading water, staying still this year in academic emergency when most other urban districts, Dayton included, moved up on the state’s rating scale. Like Dayton of five or six years ago, Columbus now is closing schools under financial pressure.
This is a developing story to keep an eye on. Columbus could soon join districts like Milwaukee, Detroit and Washington, D.C., among the large urban districts that families are fleeing. That would be curious because while Columbus has its problems it doesn’t have nearly as bad a reputation as the schools in those cities.
Interesting side note: Gene Harris applied for Dayton’s superintendent’s job and was never even interviewed during a 2000 hiring fiasco involving a search firm.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Watch the college admission dominos fall
(Harvard University’s Memorial Church)
Last week, there was a ton of buzz in the blogosphere about Harvard’s decision to stop early admissions, a process by which some students can get a yea, nay or maybe in October from their top choice school. Some believe this gives an advantage to weatlhy, informed, aggressive elites. And last year nearly a third of Harvard’s class was granted early admission.
Today Princeton followed suit, also dumping early admissions. You can expect other Ivies to follow, and then probably most colleges.
This is an interesting example of the power of top schools to change the admissions process. Which made me wonder … what if Harvard decided to dump the SAT?
Did you know there already is something of a movement in this direction by smaller colleges? You can find a list here of 700 colleges that have made the SAT or ACT optional.
What would happen if Harvard did the same?
They certainly don’t need the SAT to make admissions decisions at Harvard. Most of the kids who apply have such high scores that the school’s selections almost always come down to other factors anyway. If elite schools abandoned the SAT, it might lead to more holistic applicant screening nationwide.
What do you think? Should Harvard lead this fight too?
(Image Credit: www.asergeev.com)
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Colleges and Universities, Testing
Teaching: What really makes it great?
So over the past several days, I’ve posted data about local teachers here at Get on the Bus.
But here’s a question — does any of this stuff matter?
So far, I posted data for:
Let’s take attendance out of the question, since teachers in our area come to work at a high rate across the board anyway.
But of the other factors — certification, education, experience — what factor really matters most? Or is it a factor not even on my list here that makes the most difference to developing a great teacher? What factors or attributes should parents most want from their child’s teachers?
Everyone can weigh in here, but if you’re a teacher, I’d especially like your take on it.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Teaching and Learning
Teacher qualifications
Here’s one last chunk of data about teachers from the state report card release last month. The state has one standard for what makes a qualified teacher — its certification process. The federal government has another — it requires states to set a standard for “highly qualified teachers.”
Here’s how some of our local districts, from the 10-county Dayton area, stack up:
Teacher certification
At the top: These districts have 100 percent certified teachers:
Yellow Springs, Cedar Cliff, Bethel, Tri-Village, Covington, Franklin Monroe, Eaton, Arcanum, Fort Loramie, Russia, Troy, Tri-County North, Greeneview, Milton-Union, Tipp City, Vandalia-Butler, Hardin-Houston, Sidney, Mechanicsburg, Ansonia, Northmont, Oakwood, Urbana, Madison, Mississinawa Valley, Kings, Ross, Miamisburg
At the bottom: These districts have less than 98.5 percent certified teachers, which puts them on the low end in our area, but as you can see many of them still have a very high percentage:
Twin Valley 98.5
Edgewood 98.5
Monroe 98.5
New Miami 98.4
Botkins 98.3
Beavercreek 98.2
Northridge 98.1
Jackson Center 98.1
West Liberty-Salem 98
Springfield 97.8
Bradford 97.6
Lakota 97.5
Anna 97.3
Northwestern 97.2
Tecumseh 97
Huber Heights 96.9
Graham 96.8
Kettering 96.8
Centerville 96
Jefferson Twp. 95.7
Dayton 92.7
Trotwood 91.7
Fairlawn 81.8
Temporary certification
Temporary certification is for teachers who have at least a bachelor’s degree but have not completed teacher training and testing. Most area districts have close to 100 percent of teachers with permanent certification. Only these districts in the Dayton area have more than 3 percent of teachers with temporary certification.
Bradford 7.5
Piqua 5.9
Milton-Union 5.4
Mississinawa Valley 5.3
Fort Loramie 4.8
National Trail 4.8
Fairborn 4.2
New Miami 3.8
Preble Shawnee 3.2
Highly qualified teachers
Most area districts are at or close to 100 percent highly qualified. These are the exceptions, with less than 95 percent highly qualified:
Botkins 94.9
Tecumseh 94.5
Graham 93.5
National Trail 93.7
Northeastern 93
New Miami 93
Fairlawn 92
Trotwood 90.4
Dayton 84.8
Permalink | | Categories: Teaching and Learning
The most educated teachers
Looking at state report card data about teachers, I was a bit surprised by the spread among the 82 Dayton-area districts when it comes to teacher education.
At the top, Anna has 85 percent of its teachers with at least a master’s degree. At the bottom, Edgewood has just 23 percent of its teachers with advanced degrees.
Here’s more fromt the top and bottom of the list for the districts in Preble, Darke, Miami, Shelby, Champaign, Clark, Green, Montgomery, Warren and Butler counties:
The most experienced
In these districts, at least 65 percent of the teachers have a masters degree or more:
Anna 85.1
Versallies 78.9
Yellow Springs 76.8
Mississinawa Valley 74.9
Southeastern 74.7
Franklin Monroe 73.9
Eaton 71.9
Twin Valley 71.2
Oakwood 70.5
Kettering 69.8
Troy 69.6
Sugarcreek 69.1
Brookville 69
Fort Loramie 68.8
Franklin 66.9
Tipp City 66.5
Xenia 66.4
Piqua 65.9
Beavercreek 65.8
New Lebanon 65.8
Sidney 65.7
Tri-County North 65.3
The least experienced
Less than half of the teachers in these districts have at least a masters degree:
Wayne 49.9
Little Miami 49
West Carrollton 48.5
Covington 46.4
Arcanum 46.1
Jackson Center 42.7
Newton 41.9
Mechanicsburg 40.4
Talawanda 39.9
New Miami 38.5
Trotwood 34.1
Dayton 33.3
Northmont 29.7
Bradford 25.3
Edgewood 23.4
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Teaching and Learning
The most, and least, experienced teachers
Here’s another chunk of data from school district report cards about teachers. More experienced teachers, generally, know some of the better tricks of the trade.
On the other hand, younger teachers sometimes are better trained in the most recent teaching techniques. Having a less experienced teaching staff is not always a major impediment to good school district test performance. Growing districts tend to hire more new teachers, for instance. Look at Mason — one of the best scoring districts on tests. The rapidly growing district has the least experienced teaching staff among the 82 school districts in the Dayton-area (That’s 10 counties — Darke, Shelby, Champaign, Miami, Clark, Preble, Montgomery, Greene, Warren and Butler).
Here are the districts with the most experienced and least experienced teachers:
These districts all have average teacher experience of 17 years or more
Yellow Springs 22
Cedar Cliff 21
Bethel 20
Twin Valley 20
Southeastern 20
Northridge 19
Springfield 19
Sugarcreek 18
Tri-Village 18
Covington 18
Frankin Monroe 18
Eaton 18
Arcanum 18
Fort Loramie 18
Jackson Center 18
Russia 18
Graham 18
Clark-Shawnee 17
Northwestern 17
Newton 17
Troy 17
Tri-County North 17
Botkins 17
These districts all have average teacher experience of 13 years or less
New Lebanon 13
Carlisle 13
Lakota 13
Triad 13
Fairlawn 13
Franklin 13
Northmont 13
Lebanon 13
Hamilton 13
Oakwood 13
Wayne 13
Dayton 12
Fairfield 12
Urbana 12
Madison 12
Mississinawa Valley 12
Talawanda 12
New Miami 12
Kings 12
Edgewood 12
Ross 12
Miamisburg 12
Bradford 11
Monroe 11
Trotwood 10
Little Miami 10
Mason 8
Permalink | | Categories: Teaching and Learning
The best and worst teacher attendance
There’s a ton of data in the school district report cards, including a bunch of data about teachers. I’m going to throw some of it out here on Get on the Bus over the next several days.
Today, let’s look at teacher attendance. The truth is, teacher attendance is very high across the board. All but four districts in the entire state are above 90 percent for teacher attendance.
Locally, districts range only from 94.9 percent up to 97.4 percent. Here are the best and worst ranked out of 82 Dayton-area districts in Preble, Shelby, Darke, Miami, Champaign, Clark, Montgomery, Greene, Warren and Butler counties:
At the top: Districts with better than 96 percent teacher attendance
Anna 97.4
Graham 97.3
Russia 97.1
Botkins 97
Monroe 96.9
Tipp City 96.8
Wayne 96.5
Mad River 96.5
Northeastern 96.5
Miamisburg 96.4
Jackson Center 96.3
Ross 96.3
National Trail 96.2
West Carrollton 96.2
Oakwood 96.2
Brookville 96.1
Southeastern 96.1
Hamilton 96.1
Fort Loramie 96
Twin Valley 96
Piqua 96
Arcanum 96
At the bottom: Districts with less than 95 percent teacher attendance
Madison 94.9
Preble Shawnee 94.9
Vandalia-Butler 94.8
Urbana 94.7
Northwestern 94.7
Fairborn 94.7
Fairfield 94.6
Clark-Shawnee 94.6
Springfield 94.6
Versallies 94.6
Beavercreek 94.6
Huber Heights 94.6
Northridge 94.4
Mechanicsburg 94.3
West Liberty-Salem 94.3
Mason 94. 2
Trotwood 94.1
Dayton 94
Greenville 93.4
Cedar Cliff 91.8
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Teaching and Learning
Huber strike, walking debated
There are two great conversations going on right now under two of my recent posts.
Last week I wrote Let the healing begin? as a wrap up to the Huber Heights school strike. But under the comments there’s a bit of a debate going over who won in Huber and what it means going forward.
Before that, I wrote a post called Walk this way? in which I proposed letting my two kids, in second grade and kindergarten, walk a half-mile to school alone.
The response to that one has been fascinating. While many commenters admit THEY walked to school every day as kids, few were willing to allow their own kids to do so today. To which I asked, is the world really that much more dangerous now than when we were kids?
Have a thought to add about the Huber Heights strike or the walk-to-school debate? Click the links and add your own comment.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Schools and Politics, Young Children
The moment the lightbulb goes on
(West Carrollton kindergartner Serenity Speck with teacher Darla Myers last month at the Walter Shade Early Childhood Center)
It’s the most satisfying moment for an adult dealing with a child — whether it’s a parent, teacher, coach, whatever. It’s when their eyes get a little wider and a smile cracks across their faces. Yes, they get it!
If you like to read about those moments, this may be your chance.
Over at the Spunky Home School blog, they’ve dreamed up a neat little contest. Submit your personal experience with a true “education moment” for a chance to win a digital camera. The contest is open to anyone, blogger or not, teacher or not. (I learned about it from The Education Wonks).
Just for fun, I sent Spunky a link to one of my favorite posts about the powerful lessons of history. I’m not entirely sure who is the teacher and who is the learner in my story.
If you click Spunky’s comments, several of the entrants have posted links to their stories. And there a some good ones already. I really liked this home school lesson about the environment. There’s also this funny story of what a little one picks up from books (not always what you’d expect).
(Image credit: DDN contributed photo)
Permalink | | Categories: Teaching and Learning
Car crashes through school windows
A stolen car lost control early today and crashed through the windows of the “auditeria,” a combined auditorium and cafeteria, at Wogaman Elementary School, a building under construction at 920 McArthur St.
Dayton Public Schools’ construction chief John Carr said the car ended up on the stage and a blood trail suggests the car thief, apparently barefoot, ran down a hallway and exited out a side door just after midnight. No suspects were caught.
Carr said the damage shouldn’t delay the school’s planned opening on Oct. 30. He estimated the repair costs at under $20,000 and said insurance should cover the repairs.
“It sounds worse than it is. Most of it will be cosmetic,” he said.
For the schedule of school openings in Dayton, go here and for the complete list of what schools will be rebuilt, go here.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: School Construction
What kids know about Sept. 11
Andy at Pass-Ed is hosting this week’s Carnival of Education. You can find my “Village People” edition of the carnival from last week here. This week, Andy included my post about Ohio, testing and cheating.
I found a post from Andy’s round up at Just a Substitute Teacher’s Blog about Sept. 11 particularly interesting. Just A Sub was teaching a second grade class on Monday and asked the kids what they knew about why the school was holding a moment of silence. Apparently all or most of them had no idea.
I guess I’m amazed that could be true. My oldest daughter is in second grade. She knows plenty about Sept. 11. She’s read about it in the paper, seen news of the anniversary on T.V. and when she had questions we talked about what happened that day in 2001.
Are the kids in Just a Sub’s class really that out of touch? Are their parents intentionally shielding them from the realities of the world they live in?
Just a Sub decided not to try to explain it all to the kids. That’s probably a good self-protection decision. But shouldn’t SOMEBODY tell them?
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Young Children
An Ohio education: The good and bad
(Alex Brattain, 19, guards a pile of stuff on move-in day at the University of Dayton on Aug. 17)
A study by a national higher education group has good and bad things to say about Ohio schools. (I first spotted this at the Campus Watch blog.)
Here are the Ohio highlights:
Math scores are up: The percentage of eighth graders scoring “proficient on the “nation’s report card” — a national test — is up considerably, especially at high school.
Achievement gaps remain: The disparity between black/hispanic and white performance here is stark. The study highlights one problem — course selection. The percentage of kids taking upper level math is much higher for white kids than other groups. There’s a similar story on rich vs. poor kids — the wealthy kids are far more likely to go to college in our state than in others.
College is getting more costly: Wow. The percentage of family income needed to pay for an in-state, four-year college here jumped to 42 percent from 28 percent. That’s the worst gain in the nation!
(Image credit: Ron Alvey, DDN)
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Colleges and Universities
This man is a genius
I met Thomas Allor Jr. Friday night at a tutoring fair put on by Dayton Public Schools. He was a friendly, jovial guy with a round face and a quick wit, and many parents were drawn to his flashy display on the video screen of the computer he had set up. The two parents I was following around instantly signed up for his tutoring service.
Allor is a Michigan math teacher. About four years ago, prodded by a graduate school professor, he started kicking around an idea for starting an online tutoring company on the side. No Child Left Behind was newly passed back then and it included a provision that earmarked millions of dollars for private tutoring for kids at low scoring schools. So he launched Tutorial Services.
Last spring at age 40, Allor retired from his school district teaching job to focus full time on tutoring kids over the Internet.
Let me tell you the rest of this story, then tell me if you agree that Allor is a genius. Here’s what he did.
First he spent hours and hours online searching for an existing online tutoring program he could use for his business. He ultimately went with Compass Learning, a Web-based program in which the student works through a self-guided curriculum.
Then he connected with a computer supplier. He told me he has a discount deal with Dell Computers, but it appears Allor also purchases at least some of his computers from corporations that trade them in after a one to five year lease.
Allor told me the computers he uses cost about $500 retail. I’m guessing he gets them at a deep discount — maybe half that cost.
Allor recruits students who are eligible for free tutoring paid by the federal government under NCLB. The federal law requires schools that are not meeting test goals to set aside 20 percent of their federal aid for private tutors for any student in the school that wants to hire one. There are very few restrictions on who the student can select for tutoring.
In Dayton this year, 20 percent of of the district’s federal aid is about $1.1 million. That will fund $1,600 in tutoring for about 700 kids.
So when Allor met parents at the fair Friday, he was offering quite a deal. He said he’d come to their homes and install a free computer they can keep. Then the students works on reading skills on their own through Compass Learning’s online curriculum at its website.
Allor and the parents can keep tabs on the student by logging on to Compass’ Website and checking their progress. Allor gets paid $30 for every hour of online work the student completes — the same fee he said he charged students for his one-on-one tutoring services when he was working as a teacher. If they fall behind, he calls to check up on them. Payment comes to Allor straight from the school district.
Allor told me he has about 135 students in three states, most of them using federal tutoring dollars to pay for his services.
So I started ballparking his cash flow. He makes about $1,600 per kid. I estimate the computer costs him roughly $250. Let’s suppose his fee to Compass is also $250 per student. And lets charge off another $200 per student in other costs, like travel, marketing and his own labor. Allor’s company has no other employees.
So that’s $1,600 of income minus $700 in costs per kid. If my math is close, he’s making about $900 per kid. Multiply that times 135 kids and he will make $121,500 this school year. Now I see how he could retire from teaching so young!
Anybody want to argue with me when I say this man is a genius?
Permalink | Comments (11) | Categories: My Favorite Posts, Online Learning
We’re No. 2!
Well, in my view Dayton is still No. 1 — the nation’s biggest charter school city not hit by a hurricane.
Dayton has been the nation’s top charter school city for about four years. The rapid growth of charter schools here, and parent demand for more, had driven this movement from one charter school with about 60 kids when I began covering education here in 1999 to 33 schools with about 6,500 kids today. That’s about 28 percent of public school students in the city.
The only serious contender to Dayton in recent years has been Washington, D.C., hovering in the low 20s. But then came Katrina.
Back when I visited New Orleans in June an odd collection of forces were seeking to pull the public schools back from the physical destruction it endured — the state, the school board, community leaders and even outside players like the federal government and insurers had more indirect roles.
But out of all this turmoil came an opportunity to reshape what may have been the worst city school system in the nation. And the antidote reformers chose first was choice.
With the goal of promoting education outside the broken bureaucratic school system, most of the reopened schools were reborn as charters.
It’s a huge experiment and one that will be fascinating to watch.
Meanwhile, Dayton remains, in my mind, the more classic example of the power and problems of choice, and its on a more manageable scale. Our city remains an important guide to what to expect in the future as choice options grow in other cities.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Let the healing begin?
Huber Heights schools, desperately in need of healing and fence mending, got off to a rocky start last night as the school board ratified a new three-year contract for teachers and support staff.
Board member Carl Fisher, the no vote in a 4-1 decision, called out the teachers during the board meeting, speaking directly to union president Becky Whited, he said, “shame on you for leading our teachers out on strike.”
He went on to say, “Grow up and take responsibility for your actions. I’m afraid this community may pull its support and put us in a financial dilemma — then we’ll all have something to cry about.”
Not exactly the kind of first step toward reconciliation these two camps could really use.
Fisher’s statements and the details of the final deal show two things about a strike that never should have happened — it was the broken relationships that led talks to collapse and in the end it was money that settled the deal.
When talks broke down, the two sides were very close to a deal — too close to not get one done. The sides essentially agreed on pay and were close on health care costs.
During the strike, we heard a lot from the union about other issues like class size, outsourcing and release time. How did those issues get resolved?
—Class size. A new committee will review problem cases.
—Subcontracting. No ban on outsourcing, just a guarantee that no CURRENT teachers lose their jobs to outsourcing.
—Release time. The trade off was two more teacher workdays in exchange for giving up one hour early release days.
Folks those are NOT earth-shattering changes and every one of those issues should have been resolved prior to a strike.
Which leaves us with money. In the end, the union gave the board what it wanted — more employee contributions toward health care — in trade for a one-year free pass with current benefits and another year with a solid 3 percent pay raise on the back end of the deal. They both got a financial takeaway they needed to strike a bargain.
The new contract is a good compromise, but one that was mostly about money and one that certainly could have been worked out without a strike, but for the pervasive mistrust on both sides.
So what do you think of the deal and of Fisher’s comments?
Permalink | Comments (24) | Categories: Schools and Politics
Richest to poorest school districts ranked
Since my story earlier this week on income and test scores I’ve had several request for the full list of data — each district’s Dayton-area rank for income and test performance.
So here it is:
These are the 82 districts in Darke, Shelby, Miami, Champaign, Clark, Preble, Montgomery, Greene, Warren and Butler counties, ranked from wealthiest to poorest for median income (from the state’s tax return data). I’ve also blogged on this issue here.
The number in parenthesis is the district’s Dayton-area rank (out of 82 districts) for performance index score, the state’s measure of test performance across all grades. The dollar figure is the district’s median income.
(9) Springboro $57,708
(1) Oakwood $56,825
(2) Mason $56,322
(15) Lakota $50,067
(6) Sugarcreek $49,097
(13) Beavercreek $46,355
(22) Little Miami $45,842
(3) Centerville $44,353
(7) Kings $40,994
(33) Monroe $39,683
(42) Bethel $38,722
(12) Tipp City $37,647
(27) Lebanon $36,815
(31) Ross $36,683
(26) Fairfield $36,028
(39) Greenon $36,002
(14) Northmont $35,957
(10) Anna $35,758
(19) Wayne $35,704
(48) Northeastern $35,646
(55) Madison $35,486
(37) Valley View $35,477
(63) Triad $35,173
(24) Miamisburg $34,649
(47) Huber Heights $34,491
(44) Edgewood $34,431
(20) Yellow Springs $34,268
(16) West Liberty-Salem $33,945
(11) Fort Loramie $33,943
(40) Miami East $33,735
(5) Russia $33,733
(74) Jackson Center $33,711
(8) Vandalia Butler $33,584
(57) Carlisle $33,160
(69) Mechanicsburg $32,911
(54) Graham $32,905
(23) Kettering $32,883
(21) Newton $32,878
(36) Southeastern $32,862
(28) Brookville $32,819
(45) Greenview $32,684
(41) Clark-Shawnee $32,496
(38) Tri-County North $32,378
(51) Northwestern $32,339
(67) Preble-Shawnee $32,271
(29) Talawanda $32,179
(4) Botkins $32,123
(32) Troy $31,893
(60) Twin Valley $31,823
(52) Eaton $31,639
(25) Frankin-Monroe $31,484
(49) Hardin-Houston $31,244
(35) Covington $31,086
(17) Versallies $30,953
(18) Cedar Cliff $30,626
(34) Arcanum-Butler 30,476
(30) Milton-Union 30,423
(46) New Lebanon 30,205
(68) West Carrollton 29,923
(66) Frankin 29,594
(61) Tecumseh 29,557
(50) Fairlawn 29,528
(81) Jefferson Twp. 29,282
(72) Xenia 29,104
(77) Bradford 28,935
(64) National Trail 28,876
(75) Tri-Village 28,607
(62) Urbana 28,569
(53) Ansonia 28,006
(59) Sidney 27,986
(70) Fairborn 27,569
(58) Mad River 26,811
(71) Greenville 26,610
(65) Hamilton 26,349
(78) Middletown 25,956
(79) Trotwood-Madison 25,578
(56) Piqua 25,345
(73) Mississinawa Valley 25,329
(43) New Miami 25,053
(82) Dayton 23,047
(80) Springfield 22,543
(76) Northridge 22,384
Permalink | Comments (11) | Categories: Testing
The “Village People” Education Carnival
The Village People really should have had a teacher in there too, don’t you think? Welcome to the 83rd Carnival of Education — the “Village People” edition.
Ever wonder who’s out there blogging about education? I’ve always sort of thought of us edubloggers as a motley crew of education “macho men” and “macho women” shooting the breeze about all things school-related down at the YMCA.
For this carnival, I tried to imagine which role each of us would play if the edusphere were a late-1970’s, arm-spelling pop music sensation. Make it all the way to the end and I’ll try to explain my rationale.
But first some housekeeping. View last week’s edition, here and the Carnival’s archives over there.
Next week’s carnival will be hosted by Andy Pass at Pass-Ed. E-mail your entries to him by 5 p.m. (Eastern) next Tuesday at “ap AT Pass-Ed.com” or use this handy submission form.
Now on to the midway!
The Cop (Journalists)
I recently looked around the edusphere and realized there are now nine MSM edublogs up from just three a year ago. And I think they are quite good. Here’s a taste:
At Get on the Bus, I write for the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News about something crazy I did on the first day of school — I walked to school with my kids. Now here’s an even crazier idea — is it safe to let them walk the half mile route themselves? Be sure to read the comments and Mrs. Cornelius’ terrifying cautionary tale in response.
In a great post called Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, education reporter Lanning Taliaferro discusses a college president’s plea for parents to back off. Lanning is one of the Hall Monitor bloggers at the White Plains (N.Y.) Journal News. And here Lanning sinks in a sea of SAT press materials.
My good pal and corporate sister Patti Ghezzi writes Get Schooled for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. And I admit I get “blog envy” when I see a post like she had last week about how Georgia moved, um, “up” to 46th in the nation for the percent of kids who pass the SAT. Check out some of the interesting arguments about the value of the SAT and the need for college among the 214 comments!!
At School Zone, Houston Chronicle Education Editor Jason Spencer calls out Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra for using a phone system the city schools purchased to relay vital information as a PR tool. Oh, and Jason notes Saaverdra pretty selectively chose the statistics he relayed while touting Houston’s SAT performance.
The L.A. Times’ School Me! edubloggers Bob Sipchen and Janine Kahn have been tracking Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s effort to take over the city schools with their Predict-O-Meter. But finally, Villaraigosa got his wish last week with a legislative victory.
So let me ask you this, teachers — does being a school board member make you an “educator?” At the Miami Herald’s Gradebook, education reporter and blogger Matt Pinzur writes about a candidate for state senator who’s salsa-esque, spanish-language campaign jingle calls this phone book salesman an “educator.”
The Roanoke (Va.) Times’ excellent website includes a very good edublog called Campus Watch that covers colleges. Last week they used the blog to keep readers updated about a dangerous fugitive who eventually was captured on a local college campus. Pointing to a provocative column by a local graduate student, education reporter and blogger Amy Kovac asks should students be allowed to carry guns for self protection?
Former MSMer Joanne Jacobs cites a Boston Globe column that exposes textbook companies that use fake handicapped kids and pass off hispanics as Native Americans in photos. Textbook Evaluator read the same story and has an idea — how about taking pictures out of textbooks altogether?
This Week in Education’s Alexander Russo may not be an MSM journalist, but he sure keeps an eye on us. Recently he critiqued how different papers covered the SAT score release differently.
The Construction Worker (Teachers)
It’s football season and like millions of other male (and even some female) sports fans I have just completed my fantasy football draft. I like fantasy football and baseball, but some of these leagues are a little nutty. I know people who have played fantasy golf, fantasy NASCAR and even fantasy bass fishing!
Anonymous educator takes this a step farther with “fantasy academics” — he and some other teacher friends picked top students in five subjects and the teacher who’s “team” does the best academically wins. Sound fun? At least one other teacher thinks the whole thing is unethical.
Dealing with pushy parents and other problems on the first day of school? Well it could be worse. Me-ander says you could be in Israel, where parents are in a class of their own. Oh, and some teachers have other small problems, like classrooms that have been bombed.
Dr. Homeslice asks if administrators should be able to go into a teacher’s gradebook without notification and change student grades based on state test results in a post titled What (or who) is in your gradebook?
Thespis Journal is in a celebratory mood on his one-year blogoversary! Congrats! Like me, he’s been tracking a teacher’s strike near Dayton and gets in the last word.
NYC Educator offers some great practical advice for new teachers, such as how to talk to parents. He also provides good links to other great advice they don’t teach in ed school.
Mamacita of Weekly Scheiss has been warning her students away from My Space for ages. Guess who just got her own My Space account and had somewhat of a change of heart? Still kids, behave yourself while you’re there.
So is John Stossel right in his criticisms of education in America? Now that Coach Brown has seen the show, he answers Stossel’s questions.
Merit pay is a always a contentious issue and in Iowa, they’re still trying to figure it out. The Education Wonks recap the latest and offer their reservations about such a system.
At The Colossus of Rhodey Hube points to a common sense study that finds those who eat breakfast do better in school. Everybody knows that, right? So how come only about half his students report doing so?
In California, La Maestra of California Live Wire plays off a Bob Sipchen column to highlight a program that effectively gets kids into college and what it takes to really make a difference.
Thinking of new ways to use the Web in your classroom? So is the Discourse about Discource blog. In fact, they’re thinking up the web tools of the future.
Do schools prepare kids for real life? Ramblings of an Australian Teacher takes on some recent snarky blog posts about how schools allegedly fail in this area.
Kelly Vaughan, once known as Mrs. Frizzle, is now teaching in Turkey. She writes about getting some of her burning questions answered at her new school.
Kids these days! No, Get Lost, Mr. Chips isn’t talking about his students. He tells the story of a fresh-out-of-college teacher applicant who was offended to be offered a long term sub position.
Hmmm. Is the Ames, Iowa, school district trying to collect a few extra bucks with its proposed textbook fees? At Textsavvy they do the math.
Lots of textbook posts this week! In his, Polski3 asks if there wasn’t a better use for old texts than throwing them in the dumpster.
At Three Standard Deviations to the Left they found an old children’s book by a famous illustrator that is, um, not exactly what we think of as suitable for children these days.
Right on the Left Coast gives us an update on his battle against illegal school fees.
Mike in Texas better be careful. Trust me, pulling pranks on the IT people can come back to haunt you!
Historyiselementary finds a Bible verse instructive for the classroom.
Ms. Q presents Teaching Autobiography posted at Ms. Q.
Tired of all the negativity about teenagers? Take a look at what Graycie’s class came up with for a poem about what teenagers can do. That’s pretty good work this early in the school year!
The Sailor (Parents)
Here’s an idea, parent edubloggers! Rory of Parentalcation solves the problems of education in seven simple steps. Something tells me not all teachers are going to like Rory’s plan.
Gretchen at Girls can’t what?, now a mother of two, explores how her early school experiences fostered issues with authority.
At Babbleogue, the neighborhood kids already are hitting her up for school donations.
Education Matters says a BBC story shows how we can help poor students.
At A Blog Around the Clock, Courtnix gives his son’s new science book rave reviews.
The Native American (Home Schoolers)
At Triviumpursuit, they imagine a conversation between Mr. Taxpayer and Ms. Voucher.
Texas Ed has a warning for Southern Baptists who plan to follow their church’s advice and home school — it’s not as safe as you think.
Playing off another Joanne Jacobs post, Spunkyhomeschool takes on the four types of state testing programs and puts the possibility of a national test into perspective for us.
The Cowboy (Interest Groups, Consultants and Publishers)
Michelle at AFT’s NCLB Blog asks, “Can you be a cynical optimist?” In other words, can you believe poverty has a strong impact on student learning and still believe teachers should keep trying to make a difference for these kids?
Ryan at Edspresso responds to a post at the AFT blog with a commentary on dueling studies.
Next week’s host, Andrew Pass, turns a $10,000 tip left for a waitress into a multi-faceted classroom lesson.
Which is the best way to spend $200,000 — on signing bonuses for teachers or to reduce class size? Going to the Mat explores the question. Maybe he should get together with D-edreckoning who claims to have written the definitive post on class size reduction.
Swimming Kangaroo recently asked if standardized testing really has made education better in Texas.
The Biker (Personal Finance Gurus)
At Pocket Change, it’s back to school week and the big question is, would you put food in a $975 lunch box?
And Jeff at Personal Finance Advice has a tip about a new service that could save students hundreds of dollars on textbooks.
Finally, thanks to everyone who submitted, to the Education Wonks for keeping this thing going each week, to those who pass the word about the carnival and, of course, our weekly readers!
Now my explanation for the Village People roles:
The Cop — We journalists are supposed to be “watchdogs.”
The Construction Worker — Teachers are the ones who do the hard work of “building” our kids academic skills.
The Sailor — Parents are supposed to be role models, just as our military officers are taught to always be on best behavior (in both cases, they still sometimes misbehave).
The Native American — Home schoolers are sort of out there on the frontier and often misunderstood.
The Cowboy — Shootouts from groups like AFT and the Alliance for School Choice turn the Web into their own personal Old West saloon.
The Biker — All I know is the guy who does my taxes used to have hair down to his knees and wore nothing but sandals. I suspect other finance-minded types have similar skeletons in their closets.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: The Carnival of Education
Carnival entries due!
Entries for the 83rd Carnival Of Education, to be hosted in this space tomorrow, are due TODAY.
Submissions should be received no later than 9 p.m. (Eastern), 6 p.m. (Pacific). Contributions should include your site’s name, the title of the post, and the post’s URL if possible. If you have an education blog and would like to offer a post for inclusion in the carnival, email me at scemel@aol.com or use this handy submission form.
View last week’s edition, here and the Carnival’s archives over there.
Barring unforeseen circumstances, the exhibits should open Wednesday.
Permalink | | Categories: The Carnival of Education
Learning from Piqua
If there’s one thing that struck me most while reporting today’s story about income and test scores, it was just-retired Piqua Superintendent Jerry Clark talking about how common it was for him to see kindergarenters who didn’t just have the usual problems of not knowing their letters and numbers.
These kids had never seen a crayon before. They had never held a book or been read to.
In essence, they were starting five years behind other kids sitting in the same classroom. Now that’s a challenge for a teacher and a school.
Today’s story had its roots in some musings here at Get on the Bus not long ago. That got me wondering just how strongly income and test scores were connected in Ohio and what that said about the fairness of our state’s system of evaluating schools.
Now we know the connection is very strong, and that the state is looking for new ways to evaluate schools.
I didn’t get as much from Clark or about Piqua into the story as I would have liked, but this small, poor city in a mostly rural corner of Miami County is a good example of how hard the work can be for schools to make a noticeable difference when it comes to state report cards, even when they are helping kids learn.
I’ve been interviewing Clark for about a decade, talking to him about the challenges of educating kids in cities like Piqua. This is a town with a lot of proud, hard working people who care about their kids. But some of the poverty there is extreme. For the schools, change took time, it took focus, it took community support and a lot of hard work. Finally, this year’s state report card ranked Piqua “effective” and when you look at the rest of the state you find very few examples of a school district ranked as low as Piqua for median income with an effective rating.
But the frustration for Clark was holding together his base of support year-after-year and keeping people believing that the road they were on was the right one. People are understandably impatient when it comes to their kids and the quality of their education and every year report cards came out saying Piqua was among the worst around.
Ohio’s system set the bar, for most tests, at 75 percent passing. That was a long road for Piqua. For years, Clark was looking at data and other results that told him Piqua was improving, but it’s hard to keep people believing when the state keeps ranking the district near the bottom. It made it tougher to pass levies and occasionally stirred political unrest for school leaders.
In recent years, Ohio has moved toward a middle ground. Those 75 percent passing rates are still required but districts now can get a nudge up the rating scale if they show strong improvement. Right now the “growth” measure the state uses is not very sophisticated. Essentially it looks at how well districts move their average scores up.
With next year’s new value-added system, Ohio hopes to track the test score changes of individual kids and quantify growth by student, classroom, school building and school district. It’s a very sophisticated system that some experts are not even sure will work. Clark, for one, is hoping it does.
One of the experts I spoke to for the story told me that for an individual student the “who they are” influence of their family background usually accounts for 30 to 40 percent of their individual test score results. That means the teacher generallly can influence up to 70 percent of their test result through “what they learned.”
But when you aggregate individual students together in large groups it becomes much harder to move the overall passing rates. The “who they are” side of the coin influences the overall percentages much more strongly. The education holy grail is finding a way to measure “what they learned” for large groups on a wide scale.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Testing
Income, test scores strongly linked in Ohio schools
By Scott Elliott
Dayton Daily News
Sometimes turkey and trimmings can tell you nearly as much about a school as test scores.
Kettering’s Oakview Elementary School would seem like a good bet for high scores. Located just a mile down Ackerman Road from upscale Lincoln Park, it draws from a bustling suburban neighborhood in a good performing school district.
But come Thanksgiving, former principal Ron Sinclair saw another side — some families were not as well off as the neighborhood might suggest.
Before retiring last year, he helped deliver Thanksgiving meals to about 30 families for a school with 385 enrolled.
“We were surprised by how many names we got,” he said.
State data lists a quarter of Oakview’s students as “economically disadvantaged,” fourth most in the district, which may help explain why it has rarely ranked higher than fourth among the eight Kettering elementary schools for test performance.
That family income is related to test performance is no secret. But a Dayton Daily News computer analysis shows a particularly strong connection in Ohio. The median income for its 610 school districts strongly correlates to their “performance index scores,” a state measure of test performance across all grades, the analysis showed.
The test score connection with income is more than twice as strong as with other state report card factors like race, teacher pay, teacher education or school district spending.
While some experts question if the state relies too heavily on test scores to judge schools, Ohio already is moving toward an ambitious new approach that next year will seek to measure the “value added” by a school independent of other factors.
Come test time, Sinclair knew the number of needy kids would work against Oakview, even with a top-rate staff, parents who cared and solid resources, including a counselor and extra staff to make quick plans to catch up struggling kids.
“You can work smarter and collect data and analyze things, but there are some overriding variable you just can’t make up through hard work,” he said. “Sometimes you can do an extremely good job and it doesn’t show up in the test scores.”
Kim Kappler’s last job change took her from one of Ohio’ poorest school districts to one of its wealthiest.
In 2005, Kappler came from Norwood schools — ranked 505th out of 610 for median income in 2004 — to Oakwood, ranked eighth in the state on the same list.
“In both of those situations, parents love their kids and want what’s best for them,” said Kappler, Oakwood’s director of curriculum, instruction and testing. “But in Oakwood, the parents can provide things Norwood parents cannot.�?
And it’s not just summer camps and lots of books. Kappler’s list of advantages starts with the basics — eye and ear screenings, dental hygiene, good nutrition.
“Parents in Norwood just had less education and experience,” she said. “In Oakwood, parents recognize their success is based on their own educational attainment.”
Just as educators say household wealth, or lack of it, can reliably help or handicap a student’s school success, median income in a community powerfully predicts standardized test success for school districts.
To determine just how strongly test scores and income are connected, the Dayton Daily News compared the statistical relationship between 2004 median income from tax returns with just released performance index scoresfor all 610 Ohio school districts. The correlation was robust — more than twice what researchers expect for a strong connection.
When the same calculation was run for other factors on Ohio’s state report card — race, teacher pay, teacher training and school district spending and size — the connection was less than half as strong as for income.
An identical analysis for just the 82 Dayton-area districts gave the same result — income was by far the strongest predictor of test success.
Oakwood’s income, for instance, would predict high-scoring success, and yearly it is among the highest-rated districts in the state and locally. Northridge, the lowest-income area district, would shock statisticians if it ever reached a top test ranking. It never has.
Ohio’s system of evaluating schools — district report cards — relies heavily on tests to judge school district effectiveness. But some educators and researchers question if that approach is fair.
“All the talk of school failure, but it’s always the schools in the more affluent areas that are doing pretty good,” said Chris Lubienski, a University of Illinois researcher who studies the effect of student characteristics on test performance. “Schools in high poverty areas are always the ones in trouble.”
Count Ohio lawmakers among those interested in other ways to measure school district effectiveness. In 2003, the legislature required the state education department to put in place a “value-added” system that will launch with the 2007 report card. Next year, this system will use a complex statistical model, similar to one developed for the state of Tennessee by statistician Bill Sanders, to try to quantify teacher effectiveness by controlling for the effect of income and other factors.
Mitchell Chester, the assistant state superintendent who oversees Ohio’s testing program, said the state’s own analysis of the relationship between median income and test performance also found a strong connection, although the state found the correlation was not as strong when about 60 districts with very high median income over $40,000 were removed.
Chester cautioned the studies don’t prove wealth, or lack of it, predetermine test scores. Schools do make a difference, he said.
“Is in fact what is going on here is some school districts are providing a rich, engaging and intellectually challenging curriculum and some are not?” he said. “You tend to find in higher wealth communities there is a demand for that. In communities with lower wealth you are not as sure to find that curriculum demand.”
Quality teaching and good curriculum can move students to higher test scores, he said. The state must hold schools to its expectations for test performance, but the value-added system can help further identify which schools are doing the job of helping kids learn.
“One of the appeals of value-added is it’s a measure not of simple attainment but of whether school districts are moving the kids from where they started,” he said. “It will be interesting to watch the data unfold. Are the strongest gaining districts some of those with lower results when you look at achievement at a point in time?”
Lubienski agrees that schools do make a difference. Researchers commonly find teachers and schools can account for up to 30 to 40 percent of a school’s test result. But that still means 60 to 70 percent of a school’s scores are connected more strongly to outside factors, family income especially.
“We’ve known since the 1960s that despite what we’d like to think, schools don’t have as much of an effect on achievement as some of the background factors do,” he said. “But schools are the one area you can influence through public policy. You can’t legislate that parents read to their kids.”
Even so, Lubienski is not sold on Sanders’ value-added system. The specifics of the math behind his calculations have not been made public — Sanders’ methodology is proprietary. The system seeks to hold constant all outside factors that might influence test scores to examine just the school’s effect on each individual student.
Lubienski is skeptical.
“I just don’t think social science is at that point,” he said.
But Jerry Clark, Piqua’s just-retired superintendent, said years of watching kindergarteners hold their first crayons or open their first books led him to fight for new state measures of student growth.
“The rating system was designed only for one snapshot, as if everybody were playing with the same set of circumstances,” he said.
Using a wide spectrum of strategies, Piqua this year earned an “effective” state rating this year despite being one among the Dayton area’s poorest districts. Piqua’s test performance ranks well above where its median income would predict.
“There are school districts that are doing a great job that may never score as well as districts serving kids from more advantaged families,” he said. “I’m thrilled there will finally be some recognition.”
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: My Favorite DDN Stories, Testing
Ohio, testing and cheating
Last week when I wrote about Texas’ plan for a huge expansion of its program to monitor cheating on state tests, a couple friends were quick to E-mail me with this reminder — it never would have happened without the Dallas Morning News.
The News’ education team wrote relentlessly in 2004 and 2005 about inconsistencies in the state’s test results that strongly suggested some schools were cheating. Unfortunately, the Morning News’ stories are no longer available online.
But what they found in analyzing school-by-school results were examples of schools that, for instance, were among the best in the state on reading but among the worst on math. Or schools where fourth graders ranked among the worst but the next year in fifth grade the same kids at the same school ranked among the best. This led them to teachers, students and administrators who had amazing tales of teachers who coached their classes through the exams and other cheating horrors.
So the question I asked last week was a simple one — if this sort of thing happens in Texas, what are the chances it’s also happening here in Ohio, another big state with a high profile testing program?
Last week, I got the chance to ask Mitchell Chester, who heads the state’s testing program for the Ohio Department of Education.
Chester said the state is adding new accountability checks, but he also acknowledged that in recent years the only questionable incidents the state has handled were all self-reported by school districts or the schools themselves. In other words, the state has not independently caught anyone cheating lately.
But, according to Chester, Ohio has asked its testing contractors to perform analyses of score patterns that may reveal the sorts of near-impossible trends that could indicate cheating. For instance, computers can raise flags when several students in the same class mark the same answers in large chunks. There’s a discussion of this method in the book Freakonomics looking at how it caught teachers giving kids answers in Chicago.
Ohio has also asked for an “erasure study.” This is a fascinating approach in which computers that can read erasure marks count how often answers were changed from wrong to right. This is another way cheating schools can be caught — sometimes teachers or administrators take score sheets and erase chunks of answers to replace them with the correct answers. Logic would tell you the odds are not good of a class full of students all erasing a the same group of answers and replacing them with the correct responses.
So it should be interesting to see if these new approaches lead to any bombshells that expose cheaters in our state.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Testing
Ron Harper’s new gym
(NBA great Ron Harper holds his Kiser High School jersey at a ceremony Friday to rename the school’s gym for him.)
If you didn’t read Saturday’s Tom Archdeacon column about the ceremony to rename Kiser Elementary School’s gym for NBA star Ron Harper, do yourself a favor and click the link.
I just thought it was a real nice story. Tom made it clear Harper was truly humbled by the gesture and I enjoyed Harper’s comments to the kids about believing in their dreams and listening to adults who can show you the way to reach your goals. Plus, Harper’s mother was repeatedly praised for her hard work raising six children working multiple jobs. All around it just sounded like a very nice event.
Harper, who played with Michael Jordan and won six NBA titles with the Bulls and Lakers, went to Kiser when it was still a high school. It just reopened this year in a sparkling new building and the principal, Sandra Kidd, is the mother of one of Harper’s childhood friends. Tom alludes to (but doesn’t really explain) a “chasm from years past between Harper and his hometown” that apparently has kept Harper from being more involved in Dayton. I hope this is a step toward resolving that.
I think the school district probably deserves some credit here, too. This is the kind of event that in the past would have been dreamed up by school officials but probably not pulled off with such effectiveness.
(Image credit: Jim Witmer, DDN)
Permalink | Comments (11) | Categories: Sports and Athletics
Huber settlement details
I think it’s kind of silly that the union and board in Huber Heights are refusing to officially give details of the settlement agreement that ended the strike and that teachers approved Thursday. I mean, the union gave 400 members the details of the deal. How can you expect to keep something quiet once you’ve told 400 people?
I’ve gotten lots of questions about the deal. Readers, especially those in Huber Heights, very much want to see how the sides settled and make up their minds whether this was a good deal for both sides — and for the community.
But since the people in charge are mum, it will fuel whispers and rumors. I’ve heard some that I feel pretty confident are probably true, but we’ve not nailed them down enough to get them in the paper. So I’ll caution you that this information comes not from a primary source but second-hand. Here’s what I’ve been told:
—It’s a three-year deal instead of two. This is key, as you’ll see in a moment.
—The teachers get a 3.5 percent raise the first and second years, then 3 percent the third year. Solid raises for three years is a win for teachers.
—The teachers keep their health co-pays the same the first year, but the co-pays increase for the last two years of the deal. This is the key to the deal for the board. A greater employee contribution for health care by employees cuts the board’s costs enough to make the deal work. Giving up one year of these cuts to get two apparently made the deal work for the board.
—Contract wording changes apparently satisfied the teachers on the side issues. I didn’t get any details on how they resolved the issues of outsourcing, class size, release time and zero tolerance. I was just told contract language was changed.
So that’s what I’ve been told. If you’ve heard something different, please post a comment and let us know what you’ve heard.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Schools and Politics
Walk this way?
Today, I took my six-year-old to her first day of kindergarten. And we did something really bizarre and radical.
We walked to school.
It’s about six blocks from my house to the school. Along the way, we could barely hear each other talk over the loud whizzing of a long line of cars zipping down a main thoroughfare.
On the other hand, the sidewalk was congestion-free — a lonely, unused concrete frontier.
I’ve been toying with the idea of allowing my two school-age kids — second grade and kindergarten — to walk to school on their own. But I wonder, is a 0.6-mile unsupervised walk down a public street by children this young grounds for criminal neglect charges these days?
I walked to school in second grade with my younger brother. And using Google Maps, I looked it up — 0.7 miles. Almost exactly the same walk my kids made this morning.
My kids walked through leafy Kettering, a typical suburban neighborhood. When I was young my walk was a bit more elaborate — across a college campus and through the center of downtown in a mid-sized college town.
But then again, this is a different world.
Today we send four-year-olds to self-defense classes and parents sit and watch every soccer and baseball practice (my parents dropped me off and picked me up). We’re terrified to let the kids out of our sight.
But walking to school is good for kids. Did you know there is even an international movement to encourage walking to school?
So put yourself in my shoes and give me advice. Would you let these young kids walk to school alone?
UPDATE: Other posts on this issue:
Permalink | Comments (41) | Categories: My Favorite Posts, Student Health and Safety, Young Children
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