(For those of you who forgot your HS government class, HB stands for “House Bill” and SB stands for “Senate Bill.” The number after is simply the proposal number.   Bills are numbered in sequential order as they are submitted.)

HB 1002

Expanded authority of the state to establish charter schools.  Currently only major cities and universities have the authority to establish charter schools. For Indiana that specifically means the city of Indianapolis, Ball State University, Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corp. and Lafayette School Corp.  No other entity has gotten into the charter school process.  Indiana has about 50 charter schools in existence.  Fort Wayne holds two of those charters, managed by Imagine Schools.  My friend works at one of the charter schools and she likes it.  It’s nothing amazing, but it’s something different from the traditional public school model.  I don’t think charters are the answer to all our school problems, but they are an option.  I really don’t have a problem with expanded the charter school system.  It’s an option…

HB 1003

Proposed school voucher program including private schools.  Read my thoughts about the School Voucher Debacle.

HB 1247

Students could graduate high schools in three years and use their state tuition and apply to secondary schooling.  I like this idea.  Who decided that students must be in a high school setting for four years?  Many students need four years to get their basic education and mature as a young adult.  Some other students don’t need that time.  At my old school, students routinely graduated early.  They finished all their credits and either took college classes or outright graduated a semester or two early.  I enjoyed my four years of high school, but that’s not to say they everything needs that.  Some students should be advanced and continue on to college early.  As for the money issue, the state is already giving money for college for students.  Why not not?  It’s a shifting of funds, but probably would not be a huge amount.  I imagine that most high school students would still stay in the building for four years.  This proposal would only affect a small part of the general population.

SB 575

Would restrict collective bargaining authority for teachers.  Overall I don’t quite get this whole teacher union thing.  I believe that unions had their time and place in American society.  However, presently we need to reexamine their need and purpose in our educational system.  Are they a necessary tool in our box?  I’m not quite sure what the alternative is, but I know that a change is needed.  This bill may or may not make a difference.  I’m very ambivalent on this one.  I’ll have to follow the debate on this a bit more to get a better idea of my opinion.

Any other bills out there catching people’s attention?  It’s a busy legislative season…

Let’s start back at the beginning: school vouchers or school choice was proposed by Milton Friedman (economist from the 1950s, remember your U.S. History class’ chapter on the origins of the Cold War, yeah we talked about him).  In a 1955 essay, Friedman stated “Let the subsidy be made available to parents regardless where they send their children–provided only that it be to schools that satisfy specified minimum standards–and a wide variety of schools will spring up to meet the demand.”  Okay so the idea is nothing new.  But we (the American public) have never been as serious about the idea until now.  (I know this idea was put forth in the 1970s, but it didn’t really get off the ground, so I’m going to focus on today).

Currently, the Indiana House Speaker is coauthoring a bill to create a school voucher program.  And many are calling foul.  The article puts forth two back issues with the proposal: no positive results from existing programs and no public call for.  I am not going to get into the religious aspects of the proposed program or the politics behind the program.  Instead I want to look at the purely educational.

Results

The article highlighted the two longest running choice programs (Milwaukee and Cleveland).  Studies done have show no positive results from the choice programs.  Well, that’s entirely possible.  Too many variables go into getting positive results in schools; school choice alone may not be any better than the current system.  But it might also not be any worse.  What are our criteria for success?  What exactly are the terms?  Every time I read a study looking at school achievement, I want to know the specifics…. Taking many psych, poli sci, and soc classes has taught me that people can create horrible studies and people can skew results just about any way they want.  So again, what are the specifics?  Unfortunately even the best educational studies are inherently flawed.  We are dealing with human beings (and in this case, children) who don’t like to behave as you would think they would.  Like I always teach my economic students, all the theories in the world may notbe enough when you throw messy humans into the mix.  We just love to mess things up… So I am a bit suspect of the results (or lack of results) for school voucher programs.

Public Outcry

The article points to a few polls that have shown little to none public interest in a school choice program.  But here’s one thing I’ve learned from studying America, we are a fairly apathetic bunch.  Only a small part of the population will ever speak up with their opinions.  The rest is content to sit back and take whatever they get.  Oh sure, people complain, but that doesn’t mean that they will ever offer a solution or get off their butts to do anything about it.  Instead, we are content to let “other people” take care of things like education.  Again I am suspect that this reason means anything…

Conclusions (or not…)

Reading my responses, it seems like I am pulling for school vouchers.  But in reality, I am not for school voucher programs, but I’m not against them either.  I see them as another option to attempt to reform our school systems.  Like I ranted in a post a couple of weeks ago, I just want a change.  I want us to try something, anything.  Because keeping everything the same, doesn’t seem to be working.  So I guess I have no problem with Indiana attempting some version of the school vouchers.  It would be an interesting change. And who knows, maybe it really would make a difference?  Arguing about it stops any change and reform.  Maybe we just try it in an area or on a limited basis.  So I’m not going to write a huge editorial letter supporting the program, but I won’t bash on the lawmakers who support it either.  Just something to think about…

For

As documented everywhere, systems are losing money.  States and local entities are cutting school funding across the country.  But school attendance is not decreasing.  So where do schools turn to make up the money.  One option is fundraising (the word that all parents dread; a discussion is forthcoming on the topic).   Another option is ad space.   Schools are full of blank space just waiting to be filled with advertisements for the next new pen design.  Why not use the space for something that going to make the school some money?  According to the article, a system in St. Francis, Minnesota recently committed 10-15% of the lockers to ad space, making up part of the budget deficit.  The logic is “plant an ad, save an art class.”  I get the idea.  As to the arguments about students being bombarded with ads all day long, who are we kidding?  Children are exposed to ads everywhere they go.  We need to teach students to be discerning viewers when it comes to ads, no matter where they see it.  Selling ad space can be a way for systems to deal with the future budget shortfalls.

Against

What type of ads do we allow?  I realize that there is a difference between advertising for a office supplies and the latest video games.  There is a question of appropriateness in the products placed.  The article did mention a San Diego district refusing space to a for-profit college citing a bad message about debt to the students.  There needs to be a process by which the school board and principle evaluates the potential ads.  That then brings up the next question: Where do we draw the line?  Once we put an ad on the lockers, do we then open up the desks, the walls of the gym, the school supplied folders or planners, etc.  Where do we stop?  It might just be a slippery slope to covering everything.  Finally there is the ultimate question: What does selling ad accomplish in the long run?  The answer is unknown.  Selling space is a band-aid to the ultimate problem of budgets and decreasing funds.  We need to address school funding; look back at the basic structures.  Where does the money come from?  Where should it come from?  How do we provide extraordinary schooling for all students in the future?

Ads may be the temporary solution for cash-strapped systems, but let’s hope it isn’t the permanent solution.

This post has turned into quite a rant, but I felt the need to just get it off my chest.  I have become so frustrated with all the “talk” lately.  I may be adding to the “talk,” but I at least feel like my real feelings are out there.  Now to get down to business…

Education is the transmission of civilization. — Will Durant

What is citizenship?  What does it mean to be an American?  What should we teach to students about being an American?  How do we approach these very complicated topics?

Being a high school social studies teacher, these questions come up a lot.  I constantly wonder what I should or should not be teaching with respect to our country.

What I Want to Teach

We live in a great country.  America offers so many opportunities for its citizens.  While the country has not always made the right choices (e.g. treatment of native americans in the 1870s), we have the opportunity to make our country’s future better.  We are allowed to participate, voice our opinion, run for office.  We should take advantage of those activities.  In fact, we need to take advantage lest those freedoms are taken away from us due to apathy.  We need to pay attention to current events.  We need to recognize our similarities to others, but respect our differences.  We need to constantly be connecting to one another and furthering the conversations about what we want in the future.  Whoever the president is, we need to respect that person as the leader of the country.  We need to try and connect with those that do not share our political opinions.  We need to gain a basic knowledge of government structures and the history of our country.  We need to be proud to be American, but not arrogant in our attitude.

What I Feel Pressured to Teach/or Not Teach

America is the best country in the world, hands down.  Any who disagree with that statement are imbeciles and terrorists.  If you are not (insert political affiliation depending on school or setting), you need to see the error of your ways.  To do that, I will tell you that you are wrong in everything you believe in. Anyone who is not like me is not a “true American.” Our system runs itself, we don’t need to be an active cog in the machine.  We have a pure democracy.  America will always be “Number 1″ and that’s the way it should be.

…

I love teaching citizenship, but only if I get to teach citizenship.  I want to challenge my students to think about what it means to be an American, what part we play in the system, what responsibilities come along with our freedoms.  I want my students to view the government as an entity in which we, the citizens, can mold and shape our country to be the best it can be.  That doesn’t mean being hte best at everything, but the best we can be.

Have you read citizenship textbooks lately?  You don’t have to, I’ll tell you what they’re like.  They’re boring and misleading.  They focus on the structure of our government without any real discussions.  They are so objective, they’re worthless.  Government and citizenship are not objective, they are subjective and that’s kind of the point.  The evolution of nationality and identity needs to continue.  You wouldn’t know it by the static way textbooks describe America.

Maybe that’s what I should do next — write my own citizenship textbook wth egnaging questions, activites, and discussions.  Now if only i can find the time…

When hired, I was told by many friends and colleagues that private schools have much better attendance because parents are much more involved.  I hate to say this, but my experience has shown this to be completely untrue.  Private schools have the same attendance problems as public schools and I dare say the same parent problems.

The entire time at the school, the attendance policy bugged the crap out of me.  Why couldn’t we get it right?  There are so many components to this problem, but I thought today I would take a stab at at least discussing some of the components.  I’m using the local public school system as a reference, but have also done random reference searches for various systems across the country.

*Disclaimer: I am working under the assumption that the compulsory attendance laws will still be in effect.  My bf and I had a huge discussion about the merits of those laws.  He would like to see high school attendance and classes treated more like college–the grade consisting of a couple of papers, a midterm, and a final.  I am not sure whether I want to go that far.  The arguments for and against changing that system are separate issues.  For the purposes of this post, I am going to completely ignore that side of the discussion.

Let’s break the discussion down into a few parts:

General Absences

Most schools have a written policy about the attendance, including how many days, excused versus unexcused, consequences, procedures for absences, make-up work policies, and tardies.  My school had one of these.  I’m not sure anyone followed anything written, but it was there, in the parent-student handbook, the faculty handbook, the webpage, all over the office.  One of the biggest issues with attendance policies is enforcement.  In a broad sense, I don’t care what your rules are as long as you follow and enforce them.  I don’t see why anyone would take the time to develop a policy and then let it sit there.

Excused/Unexcused Absences

What are excused absences versus unexcused absences?  How are they treated differently?  In a general sense, sickness, field trips, college visits (2 a year for juniors and seniors), family deaths, weather related, etc count as excused.  Being absent because you don’t feel like coming to school would be unexcused.  Excused absences that exceed a magic number must have a petition on file to still be considered excused. For example, students with chronic illnesses need a doctor’s note to still be considered excused.  For unexcused, there is a magic number that when exceeded should lead to consequences.  Our local’s number is 9.  Once reached, students are referred to the YMCA’s Status Offender Court Alternative Program.  The program is not unique to the area, but most systems work with the city government or organizations like the YMCA to offer alternative schooling options or at least consequences to excessive absences.  Again, if we take the time to write out a policy, then please enforce it.

Tardies

What about tardies?  This is really where my former school failed.  Students would constantly trickle into throughout 1st period.  Sure, they stopped by the office to get an admittance slip, but that’s all that happened–no consequences, no discussions, nothing at all.  And the students would expect me to not be upset and disrupt my teaching to make sure they got the missed assignments and such.  Um… no.  It’s not my problem or any teacher’s problem that you couldn’t get out of bed in the morning.  Many of the policies I read stated that “___ tardies = an unexcused absence” but no discussion on consequences on each tardy.  I did find one school system from North Carolina that states students must make up every hour of class they missed after school to get credit.  Otherwise, I assume they forfeited any credit and grades given during the missed time.  Interesting approach.  Very time consuming for the school to set up, but at least it makes students responsible for their missed time.

Make-up Work

Whether students are tardy, absent unexcused, or absent excused, there is the issue of make up work.  I completely agree with mostly every school system when they state that it’s the student’s responsibility to obtain make up work, but what really happens?  I will tell you what happens, students come back and nothing.  They don’t ask, they don’t check the trays (where I put all the missed assignments every day), they don’t check the website (that I update daily with assignments and activities).  Nothing happens until the next time they receive a progress report and freak out about the “0″s listed.  I tell all my students at the beginning of the year that it’s their responsibility to contact me about make up work.  But they don’t and then the parents, students, and admin seem to think that it’s the teacher’s fault.  I say no!  We all need to be very thorough with placing the responsibility back into the student.  If not, we are just catering to their irresponsibility.

Credit for Classes

With any time out of class, the subject of credit must come to mind.  How often do students need to be present to gain credit for their classes?  Of course, we’re specifically talking about high school courses, but it’s still a big issue.  My local system seems to be silent on the topic.  I couldn’t find any specific statement relating to credit and time.  A New York  system states that students must attend at least 85% of any class to receive credit.  Some other systems gave similar statements with specific percentages and even how many specific days.

Conclusion

I don’t really have a conclusion other than we need to reevaluate our attendance policies.  And then once a policy is made, please stick to it and follow through, consequences and all.

I found a couple of articles about the local school system and their budget.  So I will start there…

Looking at next year’s budget, the school board approved a total operating budget of $274 million.  Wow!  I cannot even comprehend that number.  It should be sufficient to run a school system for a year, right?  Well, maybe not.

An interesting note about that $274 million: only 23% comes from local property taxes.  What a minute!  I thought school systems were primarily funded by property taxes.  Well I guess not anymore.  A majority of the funds seem to be coming from the state (an estimated $207.2 million in fact).  Again I have not found a good explanation of exactly how, but I’m assuming that the state funds are primarily from state income taxes.  I don’t know how else the state could spend ~$207.2 million for one metropolitan area’s schools.  So we are seeing a dramatic shift in where the money is coming from.  Interesting note…

Back to the total, I found some interesting things about this number.  The $274 million is a decrease of 7% from last year.  I know the local schools have all been hit in the last few years with budget cuts.  The local school system had to decrease its budget by 15%.  They started two-three years ago in preparation for the upcoming cuts.  So we have been in a transition period, tyring to trim the budget and reduce costs where ever possible.  Mostly that has translated to fewer staff positions and the closing of a high school.  So we’ve been cutting the budget already.  Now next year another 7% must be trimmed.

Looking a bit deeper into the approved budget, I found a break down of some of the big dollar items:

1. $19.9 million for capital projects
2. $19 million for transportation
3. $12.3 million for debt service
4. $8 million for racial balance.
5. $3.8 million for pensions
6. $3.3 million for bus replacement

1. is usually detailing building up keep.  With almost 60 buildings, the local system has a lot of costs involved in keeping them habitable.  Those in the system know that not all buildings are alike.  Some have heating/cooling problems.  Some have crumbling facades (being that many are over 50 years old).  Some are too small or not handicap accessible.  Some are only wired for technology through a very janky system.  In total, the buildings are in bad shape and definitely need some upkeep money.  In a dream world, all the buildings would be renovated 30 year into their life, but that’s not the case.  Instead we have to devote $19.9 million just for upkeep.

2. We have a lot of kids to get to and from school.  I understand… but isn’t there some way to decrease this amount?  See #4.

3. Like many modern businesses, the local school system, at various times, didn’t have the money it needed.  So what did it do?  Borrow of course.  And now there needs to be a portion of the budget devoted to paying back these loans.  Oh how I love our credit obsessed society!

4. Why is this in here?  Well it all started in the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.  You know, the one that demanded school systems not segregate.  Well the local system didn’t desegregate until the 1970s after a court case was brought against the system.  Since the 1970s, the local system has routinely bussed the “inner city” students to the “suburban” schools to achieve a racial balance.  (Make sure you replace “inner city” with “minority” and “suburban” with “white” to fully understand that sentence.)  Even now we are dedicating $8 million and consequently a huge portion of the transportation section to bus students from their neighborhood school across town to achieve some type of artificial integrated school.  This really needs to be revisited.  Are we making the best choice for these students?  Is forced integration the way to fix our segregated town?  Shouldn’t we focused on getting every kid a valued education instead of worrying about the variety of skin tones in the classroom?

5.  I am all for teachers having pensions, but this section really brings up the larger topic of teacher pay.  For my thoughts, you can read my previous blog post — $120,000 for 20 years of service?

6. Okay, I realize that after some time, vehicles need to be replaced.  What I don’t understand is the amount?  Really are they that expensive?  Or a better question might be, can we do with a lesser amount that the current fleet?  This definitely connects back to #2 and #4.

Currently there are 31,568 students attending the system.  If we take our raw total of $274 million and divide by the amount of students, we are spending $8679.68 per student.  Now I know that figure doesn’t actually tell us anything, but it’s the one that school systems like to put out there in the media.  ”System A spends $10,000 per student and System B spends $8000 per student.  Clearly System A is better.”  Like almost everything that comes out about this topic, the figures are misleading.  We don’t actually spend ~$8700 per student.  But how much do we actually spend?  Unfortunately the answer is buried somewhere in all the Klingon garbage.  If you find an answer, please share!  I would really like to know.  Maybe them we could really discuss the real cost of education…

“When you speak your words echo only across the room.  But when you write, your words echo down the ages.” — Bud Gardner

So I love writing… but like many casual writers, I often have trouble getting started.  And if I have problems getting started, I know my students have trouble.  How do teachers deal with this dilemma?

Keep in mind, I was trained as a high school social studies teacher.  The only type of writing that I really teach my students is a standard history research paper.  I almost always give them a prompt and they work from the prompt.

Unfortunately most of the writing that I do and the increasingly more of the writing that I ask students to do does not have a specific prompt.

For example, I have been using a lot more reflective type papers for my psychology, sociology, and government classes.  These are meant to be a way for students to organize their thoughts on the topic.  However, students find these hard to start.  And I understand.

My advice: jot down some phrases, words, ideas, people, nouns.  Just as a start to get some things on paper.  Then try to connect the words on the paper.  Really that’s it.  But I still find problems with getting started.

I will keep trying.  And i will encourage my students to keep trying.

Do we allow students to use Wikipedia as a research source?

I use Wikipedia.  I use it for basic information.  I skim the entries.  And I often scroll down to the references and bibliography at the bottom of the page to get more information.  I have written enough research papers to tell credible and non credible sources.  I gravitate toward primary sources, but recognize the bias inherent in every source.  I have been taught all this and therefore am okay with Wikipedia.  Believe me I have found many mistakes or ambiguous statements on Wikipedia.

Through all this, I always banned its use for my students.  Why?  Because I was not confident that they could wade through the muck to find the gems.  They had never really been taught to research correctly.  And it wasn’t my job to teach them.  I am the social studies teacher, not the English teacher.  The English teacher should focus on research methods.

Wait, stop!  That should also be my job.  A huge part of every social studies class is research.  I need to teach my students how to correctly research.  How to discriminate the good from the bad.  How to use sites like Wikipedia as starting points.  How to move to more interesting sources.  This should be the lesson, not an overreaching ban.

We, teachers, need to rethink how we use technology in the classroom.  The internert is amazing.  It can open up so many doors to educational journeys and discoveries.  We need to take the locks off, arm our students with flashlights and safety helmets, and send them into the unknown.  They’ll succeed eventually, even if we have to pick them up and dust them off a few times in the beginning.  With time and guidance, they will be able to reach the light at the end of the tunnel safely.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/teachers-please-stop-prohibiting-the-use-of-wikipedia/4319

“The best gift of all: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in one another.”

It truly is the best thing of all.   It would be wonderful if all my students came from the perfect happy family, but I know that’s not reality.  I have had students that came from many types of families: good, bad, atrocious, quirky, none, etc…  It is hard to remember that not all students came from the same household and therefore they are going to act very differently.

To begin with, teachers start the year completely in the dark when it comes to students.  We get a gaggle of kids with no insights, no direction.  It takes time for students to open up about their family lives (unless they are 7 years old, then they love to share about their family).  I’m not saying that I want someone to tell me everything about my students before I meet them, but a heads up on some situations might be nice.

Thankfully, when I started I did have a few teachers give me a heads up on a few of the students.  I took all the information  with a grain of salt, but it did give me some direction in how to approach them.  After teaching for a few weeks, I started to notice some quirks about some of the students.  I quietly asked some of the other teachesr about the quirks, hopeful that I would gain some insight into how to reach these students.  Sometimes I got a tidbit of info that would help.  Other times I got a “that’s just a bad kid” line.  Often I didn’t listen to the “bad kid” lines, and it was a good thing.

Eventually some of the students started to share their triumphs and struggles.  In those stories, I would get a little glimpse into their family life.  And sometimes it shoclked me.  How did such a nice kid come from that crazy household?  Conversely, how did such a trouble maker come from a seemingly great family?  Their stories really gave me pause.  And sometimes, after hearing their story, I didn’t want to know anymore about their family life.  Not because I was uncaring, but because I cared too much.  If I knew something wasn’t quite right, I would feel the need to fix it for them.  (*If I had ever heard of abuse I would of course report it to the authorities, but I never heard about any.  The problems I wanted to fix were not anything illegal, but just not the way I would treat kids.)

Even though I think of all my students as my children, they aren’t.  They are a part of someone else’s family.  I am their teacher, not their problem fixer.  Some battles they are going to have to fight on their own.  But I will always be there to listen if they need to talk.  And just maybe their families will become a great environment.  Or maybe they already are.