Kim’s late post- good article!

Bill Gates has been upfront about his concern for our current educational system in the United States.  Unlike a lot of others, Gates has put or at least is putting his money where his mouth is.  It seems people on all sides or at least most of them are in agreement that there is something wrong with our current educational system.  We are hearing all of this about high schools that are failing at the same time we are graduating top students who are entering top schools and military academies.  Where then is the disconnect?  Why is it that all we hear about is how our country is failing?

 While I do not agree with all of the testing ideas that Gates supports I do agree with the idea that we are not preparing for the global economy. International business students all over along with many other people are reading the book “The World is Flat.”  Agree or disagree with the information in the book it is hard to argue that the world is indeed becoming flat.  This means that we are not always going to have the most educated kids in the world.  Education is a competition and the world is more than eagar to beat us at education along with anything else.

“Too often, we lack the political will to take the steps necessay to ensure that America remains a technology and innovation leader.  In too many areas, we are content to live off the investments that previous generations made for us – in education, in health care, in basic scientific research- but are unwilling to invest equal energy and resources into building on this legacy to ensure that America’s future is as bright and prosperous as its present.”

 Innovation is seeing what the country is going to need and planning for it so that when the time comes we have a workforce prepared to be competitive.  For a long time, in my opinion, our country had a diversification of our labor force.  I really liked the way Gates in the video we watched in class spoke of a family wage.  We no longer have a diversified family wage.  It is very difficult for an eighteen year old kid to make enough money to support a family that does not significantly lack that of the educated.  For a while families could make choices to both seek employment in order to make up for these differences.  This option is less and less of a solution.  The difference between the haves and the have nots is as large as ever.

The problem that I feel is not being addressed is the class difference that is being created.  Those who are not college bound know it early on and feel the social stigma that comes with it.  This only furthers the divide.  We spoke of this in class in terms of tracking.  Gates talks about personalizing learning to make it “more relevant and engaging for students, therby to ensure no child is left behind.”  It is not relevant for students who are struggling to be placed in lower level courses and pushed to study subjects that do not interest them and are not put into a context that would.  When we do not consider what students are interested in, it makes it all the harder to have them engage in a subject they should master.

 This makes me consider the social networking and gaming that our students are clearly interested in.  We should know from past experiences that it is what people are interested in that they will excel at.  We do not always know what interests children.  Maybe we are not asking or accepting value in what they are.

Oprah recently spent some unspeakable amount of money to build a school in Africa.  Now do not get me wrong, Oprah is awesome and while she got some bad press for this move I am not in a million years going to slam someone who is helping people.  We are all people and if whoever she helps, good for her.  At the same time I heard that one of the arguments for not building a school in America, where education is hurting was that kids here only want ipods and shoes or other material items.

 I can’t help but wonder why.  Our kids see it everyday.  Has anyone read the O list?  What does she give away on the Christmas show?  What do we all want?  Our kids are interested in technology, maybe we are not making what they are interested in part of what we are teaching and therefore not fostering an education that is relevant for them.  So our schools are working for kids who are inindated with the importance of their studies at home but not for the kids who are less motivated but many just as smart.

Gates also speaks to the Early College high schools of which “there are 125 in operation in over 20 states.”  This is a great idea because kids want to get on with their lives.  They want to leave home and be independent and the faster they think they can do this the more eager most kids are.  My daughter is currently on track to complete two college Spanish courses by the time she graduates from high school.  The thought of this is very exciting for the kids, especially those like her that are planning on a career or at least a degree in foreign language.  What I see happening is that the more they are taken seriously at school the more the take themselves seriously.  For her and most of the other girls in this class getting less than an A is a problem.  Nobody has to tell them this.  They are just proud of what they are doing.

We do need as a country to look at the careers that are innovative and then pump money into fostering them.  I think education and writing for that matter is not a ton different than Field of Dreams.  Kids are interesting people and most all of them, even kids from low income families are interested in something.  Much of Hollywood exists due to low income kids.  If we build it they will come.  Kids do want a future, many of them are just unsure what they are being pushed to test well on in high school has anything to do with this future.  In all honesty how can we blame them when we are struggling with the same questions.

 Link to Article

Happy Meal

“In Lynn, Indiana, there is a company called Goliath Casket that makes caskets up to 52 inches wide.”

“According to the consumer research firm Mintel Group, we guzzled $37 billion in carbonated beverages in 2004.  The same year we spent $3.9 billion on cookies–$244 million of which were Oreo cookies sold by Kraft foods for about $3.69 a package. In 2003 we splurged $57.2 billion on meals at restaurants such as Denny’s, Chili’s and Outback Steakhouse. Potato chip sales hit $6.2 billion in 2004.” 

These statistics are from Michael S. Rosenwald in his article for the Washington Post “Why America Has to Be Fat: A Side Effect of Economic Expansion Shows Up in Front” (22 January 2006).  In this same article Rosenwald is self-described as fat which is actually 70-80lbs overweight. 

In 2001, I myself joined the huge number of obese Americans. This did not happen overnight and for many years I have pondered the psychology behind it. On more than one occasion I have cursed my membership in the once thin now Kristy Alley, Ann Wilson, Winona and the recently late Anna Nicole fat women’s club. I think I still have some TrimSpa next to my Weight Watchers fat barometer, Tom Greene’s Thin for Life, the complete series of Windsor Pilates and Billy Banks kick boxing for Health videos. The collection goes on. In fact, I would say it is fair to assume that for every pound I have gained there is a purchased remedy in my basement sitting on my $2500 dollar, top of the line tread mill.

Ironically I have another collection that I have not thought of in years. Morgan Spurlock’s “Super Size Me” brought to mind the full size storage bin also in my basement filled with the one and only McDonald’s Happy Meal toy collection that my children and I spent years collecting. With the exception of being an extra large mom, I would consider myself a relatively good parent. For this reason I could not possibly leave Simba out of The Lion King collection. I mean he was the main character! Micky D’s is smart. They know to hang out with popular friends like Disney. They know to pass out toys that are part of a collection and they know to hold the most coveted one until the end.

 

I am fortunate to have had engaging parents. My mother painted and my father made furniture. They were both avid readers. I participated in show choirs, craft clubs, played the piano, danced, and learned to sew, cook and garden all in elementary school. It was only natural for me to carry these skills into my own adult life and share similar experiences with my own children. I never let my children play in the play lands in fast food places because I thought they were full of germs and yet I still I would have to say that we have many Mickey D memories. When I think about it I would have to say that more than any other restaurant McDonald’s took the prize in our family mostly because of the Happy Meal toys. Kids love them!

 

What was different about my life is that I was always working as opposed to staying home like my mother. Fast food became part of our lives.  Oprah would call my experience with the Spurlock movie an “aha moment.”  It is not like it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that McDonalds is bad for you especially when you are putting on weight. What you do not always put together is that life is not going to slow down and another thing that you do not think about is the fact that when you eat bad foods your body begins craving them. When Spurlock talked about how good the food made him feel and how quickly he wanted more of it my jaw nearly dropped. It is so true.

 

According to Rosenwald’s article, “French fries helped drive up the U.S. potato consumption by 30 percent between 1977 and 1995.”

 

Prior to children I rarely ate fast food. Since that time I have gained a little over one hundred pounds. Super Size Me contemplates when we will be able to look at the fat person and say “don’t you dare get that desert.” I thought a lot about this. While I am relatively open about my weight and many times have joked about how many months it will take for my thighs to rot off in the grave I wanted to crawl out of class following this movie. Worse yet was the look on the guys face at Blockbuster when I went to rent it.  I thought he was actually going to say “lady, there are no fries in this case, it’s just a movie.” When I am working at Blockbuster in a couple of years, I will be much more sensitive to the customer.

All kidding aside I think two things. One, nobody thinks when they are picking up a quick meal that they are hastening an addiction process and that hours after they finish this meal they are going to crave sugar laden carbohydrates. When we think of addiction we think of cigarettes, alcohol, crack or whatever, but not fast food. Two, I do not think we consider the heath concerns in terms of how short of time it takes for this stuff to actually hurt our bodies. Spurlock speaks of chest pains and trouble going up the stairs.  I do not remember when this started for me but I can assure you that I never would have guessed that it came with the first 10 or 20 pounds. Looking back I bet it did and somehow went unnoted.

 

Full Article

 

Free Free Set them Free

Perhaps Sting was right all along and we were just not listening to him.  Reading the articles related to NCLB makes it very difficult to take the objective/what can we do to fix things approach. While I am entering posts at the last minute I have spent every spare minute over the last week trying to understand how we have arrived where we have with this issue. I appreciate the posts entered on this same issue by several classmates.  Even when we are able to put NCLB in some historical context,what are we suppose to actually do in the classroom to change things? We are still going to have these tests and the results are still going to be a giant factor in our employment, especially our early employment. I also find it very interesting that we originally began this entire education reform endeavor to help students who were at risk and somehow we have completley revamped the way we are teaching the ones who were doing fine or even better than fine. While it is a nice thought and a very kind act to invite students from the failing schools over into the classrooms with students that are not failing how practical is it? Are we really best serving the youth of America by mixing students who we know are at different levels and then attempting to teach them either the same or split our teaching time into basically teaching two classes? This does not seem best for the student who is excelling or the student who is not. It is not a matter of fair it is more an issue of what are we doing to education? 

For those of you that are working with NCLB I am sure it comes as no surpise that I am pulling a giant majority or articles that are bashing and not much else. While this information is in fact all true and very easy to relate to after spending any amount of time in education I am not finding many about the solutions or ideas. I did come across several pieces that spoke to the fact that teachers are going to have to use their voices to communicate these issues to the public but beyond that I found no solutions that seemed viable to me.

 It is worth mentioning that some very influential people  including Warren Buffet have alluded to the fact that many of our problems in the country including ones currently facing education are most likely going to be remedied via the corporate world. I find this particularly interesting in light of where we are going with philanthropy in education. Organizations such as Learning to Give, although I think it has been renamed are actually being brought to the classroom reflecting the philantropic culture that is fast pushing through both pop culture and mainstream politics. In posts to come I hope to have some information on what particularly the big foundations like the Gates Foundation are doing in thier efforts to support and help sustain public education. As educators I think is is worth our knowing. In the meantime perhaps we could become free agents!

Link to Article

No Adult left Behind

 55.3% of Americans chose to vote in the 2004 presidential election, this was our best turnout since 1968. Out of 171 voting countries we rank 139. Education has struggled with a focus from its beginning. Without looking at the history of education it is easy to assume that there was a time people were happy with the direction of it. This is simply not the case. As our country’s philosophy and economy have changed so has  the focus of education and perhaps rightly so. In the early sixteen hundreds education in America was rooted entirely in religion with a goal of educating people in reading so that they would understand the laws of God. It was assumed that a lack of education was a tool for the devil. Perhaps the devil is wearing other than Prada these days. In the mid 1600’s three paths had emerged for education. The first was Latin school for young men aspiring to enter the clergy. The second was the assumption of the father’s occupation and the third was the then popular apprentiship. Famous students such as Benjamin Franklin were amoung those choosing the latter. While these forms of education may seem rudimentary today they came equipped with some of the same issues we are currently facing. Parents were concerned about the future of their children in an ever changing world and wanted to have some assurance that they were doing everything they could to see this to fruition. The apprentiship tract was one in which monthly payments would be made to a craftsmen for a period of approximately seven years in return for the proper education of a child.  In 1647 government passed official rules for apprentiship to help ensure people were getting what they paid for. In the late 1600’s laws for schoolmasters were passed based on the size of towns recognizing the need for formal public education, this was the first time in our history that government set aside funds for the education of our youth. Separation of church and state came with laws passed in 1785 specifically the Land of Ordinance or 1785. Laws, lawsuits and issues continued to plague education and people fought for the improvement of education and the equality of education all along the way. I was surprised to find that we, in truth, have never had a time in the history of our country that we have felt education was up to par or was where we wanted it to be. It has been the subject of debate for four decades.

 The most recent developments came with the Johnson administration and the Secondary Education Act of 1965.  Johnson was hoping to reach underprivileged children as he addressed poverty in our nation. The Secondary Education Act of 1965 increased funding to public schools by approximately 200% over the following ten years however, from 1975-1985 this huge increase could only brag 2%. If this was not enough of a blow for education. Then came Reagan in 1980. Reagan cut funding by some 21%. What followed was the Nation at Risk report that suggested common or core curriculum/benchmarks.

In 1990 the National Center for Educational Statistics claimed that only 40% of students were meeting these new standards. In 2000 a National Panel for Educational Goals was formed. Six very lofty goals followed and were supported by Clinton both when he was a senator and during his administration with Goals 2000. George W. Bush is simply continuing this idea of the betterment of education or so it would seem.

 So why is all the history important? How does it pertain to the classroom? First I think in order to be effective as teachers and influence the community we need to understand the big picture. We need to understand that as the world economy changes so does education. It is our job to look at the ways that we can influence change. We live in a country that fought bitterly for the right to vote and yet only about half of us do. Perhaps we need new legislature that targets not leaving adults behind.

Who are the individuals that are sitting on these committees for education reform?  What is the actual percentage and dollar amount that schools are losing when they do not meet AYP? Is the issue more about school funding  in terms of the dollar or more about protecting the jobs of school faculty that are not meeting AYP in their classrooms, buildings, districts? What alternative funding is available? What is the policy of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation as they have overtly identified education reform as one of the foundation staples? What more is it that we could know? Where are the statistics from the last five years that No Child Left Behind has been in effect?  What are the overall results?  Has it made adequate political progress?

No David!

Row v. Wade may have thought it cornered the market on grandiose and sustainable controversy in America but No child left behind is moving in fast.

I know someone who in 1977 at the age of nine became a baseball fan.  A Detroit native, he fell hard and fast for the team that last year won the American league Championship following thirteen consecutive losing seasons.  A lifetime of following and analyzing baseball with a passion whom one could compare to that of Bubba Gump and Shrimp.  Yet, when asked “how well do you know the game of inches” my friend would reply “there are those who know more.”

In education it is typical for college professors to ask students to think about a teacher they had that moved them and why.  This is also a typical question of educational interviewing panels.  I have had many teachers.  By this point most of us have.  The one who stands out in my mind is a chemistry professor here in Grand Rapids.  This man will tell you he was sure he wanted to be a chemist from the time he was a young child.  He is married to a chemist.  He is head of his department.  His friends are all chemists, his accomplishments in the field are many and for those of you who have figured out who I am speaking of, yes he even looks like a chemist.  Meaning if you saw him in the health and beauty department in Meijer shaking his head at the legality of selling acetone when it is marketed in the form of nail polish remover you would say to yourself, “I bet that guy is a chemist.”  If you ask the good doctor how much he knows about chemistry his response is likely to be “I know far less than I hope to”.

I chose to research no child left behind last night by accident when I caught the tale end of some screenwriting from ” the man behind Ally McBeal”. Murphy Brown long gone Bergen delivered a poignant closing argument that anyone who follows David E. Kelley’s work would recognize as more than just political muse.

My mission is to learn as much as one can fit into a semester about “No Child Left Behind” because while I think I know alot I know less than what I hope to.  So far my feeds are from cnn.com and foxnews.com.

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