Archive | 2012

Battling teen addiction: ‘Recovery high schools’

8 Jul

Teen substance abuse is at epidemic levels.

What is Substance Abuse?

HELPGUIDE.ORG defines substance abuse and also describes some of the traits of a substance abuser.  Although, the focus of this article is children and teens who abuse various substances, there is a widespread problem with their parents and caretakers. A recent report found that many children live with parents who are substance abusers Often children who evidence signs of a substance abuse problem come from homes where there is a substance abuse problem. That problem may be generational.

eMedicineHealth lists some of the causes of substance abuse:

Substance Abuse Causes

Use and abuse of substances such as cigarettes, alcohol, and illegal drugs may begin in childhood or the teen years. Certain risk factors may increase someone’s likelihood to abuse substances.

· Factors within a family that influence a child’s early development have been shown to be related to increased risk of drug abuse.

o Chaotic home environment

o Ineffective parenting

o Lack of nurturing and parental attachment

· Factors related to a child’s socialization outside the family may also increase risk of drug abuse.

o Inappropriately aggressive or shy behavior in the classroom

o Poor social coping skills

o Poor school performance

o Association with a deviant peer group

o Perception of approval of drug use behavior

Substance abuse is often a manifestation of other problems that child has either at home or poor social relations including low self esteem. Dr. Alan Leshner summarizes the reasons children use drugs in why do Sally and Johnny use drugs?

How Can You Recognize the Signs of Substance Abuse?

Parents provides general signs of substance abuse and also gives specific signs of alcohol abuse, and several different drugs, narcotics, and inhalants. The general warning signs are:

· Changes in friends

· Negative changes in schoolwork, missing school, or declining grades

· Increased secrecy about possessions or activities

· Use of incense, room deodorant, or perfume to hide smoke or chemical odors

· Subtle changes in conversations with friends, e.g. more secretive, using “coded” language

· Change in clothing choices: new fascination with clothes that highlight drug use

· Increase in borrowing money

· Evidence of drug paraphernalia such as pipes, rolling papers, etc.

· Evidence of use of inhalant products (such as hairspray, nail polish, correction fluid, common household products); Rags and paper bags are sometimes used as accessories

· Bottles of eye drops, which may be used to mask bloodshot eyes or dilated pupils

· New use of mouthwash or breath mints to cover up the smell of alcohol

· Missing prescription drugs—especially narcotics and mood stabilizers

Remember, these are very general signs, specific drugs, narcotics, and other substances may have different signs, it is important to read the specific signs. One way of helping children recover and continue with their lives is a “Recovery High School.”

Huffington Post is reporting in the article, ‘Recovery High’ Schools Help Students Battling Addiction (VIDEO):

At Northshore Recovery High School in Beverly, Massachusetts, teachers are not only focused on helping their students pass their classes and graduate — faculty members also play an active role in helping the student body overcome addiction. There are an increasing number of “recovery high schools” like this one opening across the country, where students are finding a safe haven with peers who are similarly committed to recovery from drug and alcohol addictions.

“There was a 50/50 chance of me either dying or getting better,” former Northshore student Alyssa Dedrick told NBC. “I think going to a recovery school really increased my odds, not only of recovery, but of survival in general.”                                                           http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/06/recovery-high-school-help_n_1654041.html?utm_hp_ref=education&ir=Education

All Treatment. Com provides a really good explanation of “Recovery High Schools.”

All Treatment interviewed Helene Cross, President and CEO of Fairbanks (in association with LaVerna Lodge) and Rachelle Gardner, Director of Adolescent Services at Fairbanks and COO for Hope Academy :

AT: What is a recovery high school?

Rachelle Gardner: It’s a school that provides a safe and sober environment, where young people can achieve academic success and also success in maintaining sobriety and support. It’s an environment that fosters relationships and long-term sobriety, giving young people the support in order to do that, and being able to achieve academic success, which in a normal traditional school, they haven’t been able to achieve. This gives young people hope and a chance to go on to secondary education, whether that is a community college or a large university.

This gives young people hope and a chance to go on to secondary education

AT: Who makes a good candidate for recovery high school?

RG: A young person who is willing to address their addiction issues, willing to receive support around staying sober and who want to achieve academic success. The two key points are that they want to be sober and they are interested in their education. If those two answers are ‘yes’ then a support system can be built around them in any type of recovery school.

Helene Cross: We should highlight the distinction between a recovery school and a treatment school. In recovery school, a young person has gone through treatment first and they have those tools that you learn in treatment, so there’s a common language and an opportunity to interact with peers in that culture using those tools.

RG: Most of the students are also receiving some sort of therapeutic support outside of the school. So they’re in an intensive outpatient program, family counseling, they’re seeing a private therapist, or they’re in some sort of halfway house. Since they’re treatment issues are dealt with outside of the school, the school is there to wrap their arms around them and support them in their recovery efforts.

AT: What should students and parents know before attending recovery high school?

HC: It’s a small school. One of the things parents want to know is how it is different than a normal school. We need to emphasize the difference in the way we teach and the fact that we understand recovery and provide this supportive environment, but there are some things they will sacrifice. A small school doesn’t have a football team, and a small charter school with a limit budget doesn’t have money for electives. We have talented teachers who can teach art and creative writing and music and we can play sports outside, but we don’t have organized sports the same way a normal school would. So they need to balance the sacrifices against the important goal – if we support the recovery and academic success, then this young person who is very vulnerable in terms of being able to graduate, will graduate. Sometimes it’s harder for the parent to give up their aspirations of their daughter being the homecoming queen or their son being a football star, but that’s a decision they have to make.                                  http://www.alltreatment.com/rehab-center-information-and-questions/rehab-interviews-recovery-high-schools

In Underage drinking costs society big-time, moi said:                                    Assuming you are not one of those ill-advised parents who supply their child with alcohol or drugs like marijuana in an attempt to be hip or cool, suspicions that your child may have a substance abuse problem are a concern. Confirmation that your child has a substance abuse problem can be heartbreaking. Even children whose parents have seemingly done everything right can become involved with drugs. The best defense is knowledge about your child, your child’s friends, and your child’s activities. You need to be aware of what is influencing your child                                      https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/underage-drinking-costs-society-big-time/

Resources:

Association of Recovery Schools                                                                       http://www.recoveryschools.org/

Recovery High Schools: Giving Students a Second Chance                                          http://www.drugfree.org/join-together/addiction/recovery-high-schools-giving-students-a-second-chance

Related:

Seattle Children’s Institute study: Supportive middle school teachers affect a kid’s alcohol use                                                                                                            https://drwilda.wordpress.com/tag/substance-abuse/

The rich are different: Mercer Island underage drinking                                            https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/the-rich-are-different-mercer-island-underage-drinking/

Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children                                 https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/schools-have-to-deal-with-depressed-and-troubled-children/

New study about substance abuse and kids                                             https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/new-study-about-substance-abuse-and-kids/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Parents must exercise oversight of media use by children

7 Jul

In Monitoring the media use by kids, moi said:

Bullying is increasingly a problem in schools and the new venue for bullies has become the Internet. Kristanda Cooper writes in the Florida A & M student paper about Social Media  is New Venue for Cyber Bullying of Children

With the emergence of Facebook, Twitter and even MySpace, bullying has moved from the schoolyard into people’s homes via the Internet.

There are more children enduring harsh harassment from their peers that they are deciding to end their lives to escape the verbal and physical abuse.

In January, 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, an Irish native who moved to Northampton, Mass. with her family, ended her life due to pressures of being bullied and harassed at school. For five months, Prince was harassed verbally and via the Internet. According to CBSnews.com, the day Prince ended her life, was the day she was “pelted with a beverage container and cursed at as she walked home from school.” Nine teens are currently facing charges of stalking, criminal harassment and violating Prince’s rights.

Sadly, Prince’s story is not the first.

Stephanie Clifford has an article in the New York Times, Teaching About the Web Includes Troublesome Parts It is important for parents to know how their children are using social media not only for the prevention of the child becoming a victim of bullies, but also to ensure that their child is not the aggressor. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/monitoring-the-media-use-by-kids/

Michele Molnar writes in the Education Week article, Does Parents’ Role Include Close Monitoring of Online Activities?

In “It’s Modern Parental Involvement,” National PTA President Betsy Landers recently wrote for the New York Times expressing her view that parents should “try to stay a step ahead—or at least keep up with—new media and technology to protect their children.”

Well, good luck with that! I suspect some of the most technologically adept among us adults can still be stymied by a savvy teen bent on circumventing our social media prowess. But, I digress. Landers’ points are interesting and earnest.

She continued that it’s the parents’ responsibility “to protect their children, at least until these children become adults. Parental use of all available resources, including electronic monitoring tools, should not be considered an invasion of privacy; it’s simply modern involvement….”

Other viewpoints in the series include:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/parentsandthepublic/2012/07/does_parents_role_include_close_monitoring_of_online_activities.html?intc=es

Many parents are asking the question of whether they should spy on their kids?

Perhaps the best advice comes from Carleton Kendrick in the Family Education article, Spying on Kids

Staying connected

So how do you make sure your teens are on the straight and narrow? You can’t. And don’t think you can forbid them to experiment with risky behavior. That’s what they’re good at during this stage, along with testing your limits. You can help them stay healthy, safe, and secure by doing the following:

  • Keep communicating with your teens, even if they don’t seem to be listening. Talk about topics that interest them.

  • Respect and ask their opinions.

  • Give them privacy. That doesn’t mean you can’t knock on their door when you want to talk.

  • Set limits on their behavior based on your values and principles. They will grudgingly respect you for this.

  • Continually tell them and show them you believe in who they are rather than what they accomplish.

  • Seek professional help if your teen’s abnormal behaviors last more than three weeks.

A 1997 landmark adolescent health study, which interviewed over 12,000 teenagers, concluded that the single greatest protection against high-risk teenage behavior, like substance abuse and suicide, is a strong emotional connection to a parent. Tough as it may be, you should always try to connect with them. And leave the spying to James Bond. It will only drive away the children you wish to bring closer.

In truth, a close relationship with your child will probably be more effective than spying. Put down that Blackberry, iPhone, and Droid and try connecting with your child. You should not only know who your children’s friends are, but you should know the parents of your children’s friends. Many parents have the house where all the kids hang out because they want to know what is going on with their kids. Often parents volunteer to chauffeur kids because that gives them the opportunity to listen to what kids are talking about. It is important to know the values of the families of your kid’s friends. Do they furnish liquor to underage kids, for example?  How do they feel about teen sex and is their house the place where kids meet for sex?

So, in answer to the question should you spy on your Kids? Depends on the child. Some children are more susceptible to peer pressure and impulsive behavior than others. They will require more and possibly more intrusive direction. Others really are free range children and have the resources and judgment to make good decisions in a variety of circumstances. Even within a family there will be different needs and abilities. The difficulty for parents is to make the appropriate judgments and still give each child the feeling that they have been treated fairly. Still, for some kids, it is not out of line for parents to be snoops, they just might save the child and themselves a lot of heartache.

Related:

Protecting your child from predators                      https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/protecting-your-child-from-predators/

Social media spreads eating disorder ‘Thinspiration’ https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/social-media-spreads-eating-disorder-thinspiration/

Children’s sensory overload from technology https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/childrens-sensory-overload-from-technology/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Boys of color: Resources from the Boys Initiative

6 Jul

Moi wrote in The teaching profession needs more males and teachers of color:

Moi believes that good and gifted teachers come in all colors, shapes, sizes, and both genders. Teachers are often role models and mentors which is why a diverse teaching profession is desirable. Huffington Post has the interesting article, Few Minority Teachers In Classrooms, Gap Attributed To Bias And Low Graduation Rates which discusses why there are fewer teachers of color in the profession.

Minority students will likely outnumber white students in the next decade or two, but the failure of the national teacher demographic to keep up with that trend is hurting minority students who tend to benefit from teachers with similar backgrounds.

Minority students make up more than 40 percent of the national public school population, while only 17 percent of the country’s teachers are minorities, according to a report released this week by the Center for American Progress….

In a second report, the CAP notes that in more than 40 percent of the nation’s public schools, there are no minority teachers at all. The dearth of diversity in the teaching force could show that fewer minorities are interested in teaching or that there are fewer minorities qualified to teach. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/11/few-minority-teachers-in-_n_1089020.html?ref=email_share

The lack of diversity in the teaching profession has been a subject of comment for years.

In 2004, the Council for Exceptional Children wrote in the article,New Report Says More Diverse Teachers Reduces the Achievement Gap for Students of Color:

Representation of Diverse Teachers in the Workforce

The number of diverse teachers does not represent the number of diverse students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2003):

·         In 2001-2002, 60 percent of public school students were White, 17 percent Black, 17 percent Hispanic, 4 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, and 1 percent American Indian/Alaska Native.

·         According to 2001 data, 90 percent of public school teachers were White, 6 percent Black, and fewer than 5 percent of other races.

·         Approximately 40 percent of schools had no teachers of color on staff….

The Impact of Diverse Teachers on Student Achievement
Increasing the percentage of diverse teachers not only impacts the social development of diverse students, it also is directly connected to closing the achievement gap of these students. Research shows that a number of significant school achievement markers are positively affected when diverse students are taught by diverse teachers, including attendance, disciplinary referrals, dropout rates, overall satisfaction with school, self-concept, cultural competence, and the students’ sense of the relevance of school. In addition, studies show that

o    Diverse students tend to have higher academic, personal, and social performance when taught by teachers from their own ethnic group.

o    Diverse teachers have demonstrated that when diverse students are taught with culturally responsive techniques and with content-specific approaches usually reserved for students with gifts and talents, their academic performance improves significantly.

o    Diverse teachers have higher performance expectations for students from their own ethnic group.

Other advantages of increasing the number of diverse teachers are: more diverse teachers would increase the number of role models for diverse students; provide opportunities for all students to learn about ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity; enrich diverse students learning; and serve as cultural brokers for students, other educators, and parents. http://www.cec.sped.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=6240&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CAT=none

A diverse teaching corps is needed not only to mirror the society, but because the continuing family meltdown has broadened the duties of schools.https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/the-teaching-profession-needs-more-males-and-teachers-of-color/

There is an argument about the state of boys of color in this society. Many say the objective observable evidence points to a crisis.

Moi supports the Boys Initiative. Here is information about the Boys Initiative:

An increasing number of our boys and young men are not achieving to their full potential. The problem affects all of our boys and young men, regardless of race or ethnicity. While the problem is far more significant and chronic among minority youth, achievement also eludes white young men.

Besides young men themselves, this trend impacts their potential life partners, our communities, and our nation. The US and the world are becoming increasingly economically competitive. For the success of our society as well as our young men it is therefore essential that we begin to address this issue in a meaningful way. 

We launched The Boys Initiative to tackle this important issue. Because young men start out as boys, the Initiative is a national campaign to shed light on both boys’ underachievement and young men’s FAILURE TO LAUNCH.

The MISSION of the Initiative is to serve as a BIG TENT, to shed light on these trends, to foster dialogue and debate about them, and to collaborate on solutions with those who are committed to the futures of our nation’s youth.

Our goal is to be an INFORMATION AND ACTION HUB. We do this by partnering and building coalitions with organizations that represent the interests of girls and women, boys and men, parents and teachers and adolescent health care providers, among a host of other individuals, organizations and professionals devoted to the wellbeing of our nation’s youth. The Boys Initiative does not endorse or advocate for any particular point of view or proposed solution.

http://www.theboysinitiative.org/

Here is an example of the information available at their site:

Welcome toThe Minority Report, a publication ofMinority Male Youth 2005, a project of 

The Boys Initiative

W.K. Kellogg Foundation Promotes Racial Healing with New Online Documentary 

blackgivesback.com, June 29, 2012

Emotion Restriction and Discrimination Increase Depression in Minority Men
Rates of depression among African-American men are significantly lower than those found in African-American women, yet the suicide rates of African-American men are higher. This disparity caused Wizdom Powell Hammond, Ph.D., of the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of North Carolina to explore possible causes. Hammond recently conducted a study that looked at how adhering to masculine norms affected rates of depression among African-American men. Hammond wanted to determine if these men were underrepresented because they avoided help-seeking. Men who hold themselves to the masculine ideal of emotional restriction may internalize their feelings, especially feelings of stress, and avoid help-seeking for mental health issues such as depression.
Good Therapy, June 15, 2012

How Minority Millennials Are Driving Politics
Last Sunday, I was one of the estimated 40,000 people who attended a “silent march” in New York City organized by the NAACP to protest the New York Police Department’s “stop-and-frisk” policy, which disproportionately impacts black and Latino males. One young black woman marching directly in front of me was holding a sign that said, “silence is violence.” When I asked her what it meant, she said, “A lot of us have problems with the whole silent march thing. The problem is we have been silent too long.” It seemed she was not alone – there were other young blacks and Latinos who chafed at the request that they march in silence, chanting slogans like “New York cops, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.
Time, June 21, 2012

Guest Voz: Latino inmate sentenced as juvenile speaks out on Supreme Court’s life without parole for youth
Today the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion abolishing life without parole (LWOP) sentences for the 2,500 prisoners across the U.S. who were condemned to die in prison for crimes they were convicted of as juveniles. Courts will now have discretion to impose a lesser sentence in those cases and consider age as a factor in sentencing. Juveniles can receive LWOP sentences, however, it is a discretionary sentence now, not a mandatory sentence in cases involving homicide. Prisoners all ready serving LWOP sentences for crimes they were convicted of as juveniles are now eligible for resentencing. How that process occurs will vary by state.
Latina Lista, June 25, 2012

Near-Westside Indy mentorship program provides positive male role models

They come from different family backgrounds and neighborhoods, but on Friday nights at the Rhodius Park Family Center, about 30 teenage boys meet for a common goal: learning how to become responsible young men. The teens are part of Boys II Men, a mentorship program founded in 1995 by Lars “Edward” Rascoe III, a former teacher for Pike Township Schools and a school administrator for Eastern Star Jewel Christian Academy. The group connects students in Grades 7-9 with positive male role models and promotes civic engagement, academic achievement, personal responsibility and respect for women. To date, more than 2,500 young men have participated in Boys II Men.

Indy Star, June 25, 2012

High court ruling on juvenile life sentences offers thousands of inmates a chance at freedom 

The Supreme Court ruling that banned states from imposing mandatory life sentences on juveniles offers an unexpected chance at freedom to more than 2,000 inmates who had almost no hope they would ever get out.

In more than two dozen states, lawyers can now ask for new sentences. And judges will have discretion to look beyond the crime at other factors such as a prisoner’s age at the time of the offense, the person’s background and perhaps evidence that an inmate has changed while incarcerated.

The Washington Post, June 26, 2012

Supreme Court Upholds Affordable Care Act, A Boon To Minority Health In The U.S.

In a largely unexpected turn, the U.S. Supreme Court declared nearly the entire Affordable Care Act a constitutional and fully legal shift in the American health care system. The court’s decision will be dissected today by legal scholars, health care experts, sharp-tonged commentators and ordinary Americans. But what may not be so widely discussed or understood is the sweeping effect that the court’s decision will likely have on minority health in the United States, according to health care economists and policy analysts. That broad benefit to minorities is a point the Obama administration itself has made — though somewhat infrequently — and one that’s likely to be invoked more often after the favorable ruling, as the presidential election fight intensifies.

The Huffington Post, June 28, 2012

The Unfair Criminalization of Gay and Transgender Youth

Gay, transgender, and gender nonconforming youth are significantly over-represented in the juvenile justice system-approximately 300,000 gay and transgender youth are arrested and/or detained each year, of which more than 60 percent are black or Latino. Though gay and transgender youth represent just 5 percent to 7 percent of the nation’s overall youth population, they compose 13 percent to 15 percent of those currently in the juvenile justice system. These high rates of involvement in the juvenile justice system are a result of gay and transgender youth abandonment by their families and communities, and victimization in their schools-sad realities that place this group of young people at a heightened risk of entering the school-to-prison pipeline.

Center for American Progress, June 29, 2012

Lawmakers reach out to at-risk boys, men

At 15, Erik Montreal is a recovering alcoholic.

The Coachella Valley High School junior began to drink at 13, but now celebrates sobriety after receiving help from the Riverside County Latino Commission. On Friday, he shared his story of addiction and recovery before the California State Assembly Select Committee on the Status of Boys and Men of Color, which held a four-hour hearing at Bobby Duke Middle School in Coachella.

Erik was one of about 24 speakers to share personal stories that emphasized the importance of support for minority men and boys who endure deteriorating schools, poor living conditions, violence and significant social prejudice.

My Desert, June 30, 2012

Anger runs deep over Supreme Court rejection of youth sentencing laws

Verle Mangum was 17 years old and high on methamphetamine when he took a baseball bat to a mother and her 11-year-old daughter after the mother caught him having sex with the daughter in her Clifton home. His sentence for their brutal murders was mandatory life in prison without parole. Mangum is 33 now. He had little hope of ever seeing the outside of prison walls, until a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week determined that his sentence, and those of 49 other prisoners in Colorado and about 2,600 across the country, is unconstitutional.

The ruling found that juveniles could not be sentenced to mandatory life in prison without parole.

Denver Post, July 01, 2012.

Juvenile justice: Courts turn focus to rehabilitation

It might seem like a simple process: commit a crime, go to court, go to jail.

But what if the offender is just a kid?

For juvenile courts, they’re continually striking a balance between punishing offenders and trying help them through counseling and mentoring programs, said Doug Schonauer, Coshocton County Probate and Juvenile Court administrator.

Schonauer has worked for the juvenile court 19 years, and during that time, he’s noticed a shift toward rehabilitation rather than punishment, he said. Various studies have shown rehabilitation works better with youth than adults, so that has become the court’s focus, Schonauer said.

Coshocton Tribune, July 01, 2012      

Young Black Males’ Writing Workshop at UIC Spawns National Curricula  

A summer writing institute for adolescent black males based at the University of Illinois at Chicago is advancing literacy around the country through two curricula based on it. Scholastic, Inc. recently launched “On the Record,” a middle-school school curriculum by Alfred Tatum, director of the UIC Reading Clinic. Last year, Scholastic published Tatum’s “ID,” a writing curriculum for high school.

Tatum based both curricula on the principles of his African American Adolescent Male Summer Literacy Institute, featured last fall in a PBS special, “Too Important to Fail,” by journalist Tavis Smiley.

Newswise, July 07, 2012

5 Latino-Inspired Books for Boys 

NBC Latino, July 04, 2012

Young people of multiple disadvantaged groups face worse health due to more discrimination
An Indiana University study found that teens and young adults who are members of multiple minority or disadvantaged groups face more discrimination than their more privileged peers and, as a result, report worse mental and physical health.
Medical Press.

Related:

Is there a ‘model minority’ ??                                 https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/is-there-a-model-minority/

UN-traditional Father’s Day message: Don’t become a father unless you can make the commitment to YOUR child https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/un-traditional-fathers-day-message-dont-become-a-father-unless-you-can-make-the-commitment-to-your-child/

Study: The plight of African-American boys in Oakland, California                                                    https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/study-the-plight-of-african-american-boys-in-oakland-california/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Teachers unions are losing members

4 Jul

All politics is local.

Thomas P. O’Neill

Moi would like to modify that quote a bit to all education is local and occurs at the neighborhood school. We really should not be imposing a straight jacket on education by using a one-size-fits-all approach. Every school, in fact, every classroom is its own little microclimate. We should be looking at strategies which work with a given population of children.

A Healthy Child In A Healthy Family Who Attends A Healthy School In A Healthy Neighborhood. ©

The question which increasingly asked is whether teachers unions help or hinder education.

PBS has a great history of teaching, Only A Teacher: Teaching Timeline which discusses unionization:

Unions

There are two national teachers unions in the United States today, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. The NEA was founded in 1857 as a policy-making organization, one that hoped to influence the national debate about schools and schooling. Over the next hundred years, it played a significant role in standardizing teacher training and curriculum. Until the 1960s, the NEA tended to represent the interests of school administrators and educators from colleges and universities.

The AFT, on the other hand, was always much more of a grass-roots teachers’ organization. It was formed in 1897 as the Chicago Teachers Federation, with the explicit aim of improving teachers’ salaries and pensions. Catherine Goggin and Margaret Haley allied the CFT with the labor movement, going so far as to join the American Federation of Labor – an act that horrified everyone who wanted to see teaching as genteel, white-collar employment. At the same time, the union conceived its work in terms of broader social improvement, bettering the lives of the poor and the alienated. By 1916, several local unions had come together to form the AFT. In the 1940s, the AFT began collective bargaining with local school boards, which again horrified some people. Collective bargaining always carries the threat of strikes, and teachers, as servants of the community, were long seen as both too indispensable and too noble to engage in work stoppages. The issue of strikes remains contentious today.

Teacher militancy has waxed and waned over the past 50 years. But many teachers believe that whatever gains they have made — in pay, benefits, job security and working conditions — have come from the efforts of their unions. Today, the NEA and AFT flirt with the idea of merging and have made significant strides towards combining their memberships. Their common interests — greater professionalization, increased authority for educators, enhanced clout in Washington, better working conditions and improved schools — dictate working together, and perhaps even becoming one very powerful union.                                                       http://www.pbs.org/onlyateacher/timeline.html

See, “Understanding the History of Teachers Unions,” a Panel Discussion with Diane Ravitch http://webscript.princeton.edu/~sfer/blog/2010/12/understanding-the-history-of-teachers-unions-a-panel-discussion-with-diane-ravitch/

Greg Toppo writes in the USA Today article, USA’s top teachers union losing members:

The National Education Association (NEA) has lost more than 100,000 members since 2010. By 2014, union projections show, it could lose a cumulative total of about 308,000 full-time teachers and other workers, a 16% drop from 2010. Lost dues will shrink NEA’s budget an estimated $65 million, or 18%.

NEA calls the membership losses “unprecedented” and predicts they may be a sign of things to come. “Things will never go back to the way they were,” reads its 2012-14 strategic plan, citing changing teacher demographics, attempts by some states to restrict public employee collective bargaining rights and an “explosion” in online learning that could sideline flesh-and-blood teachers. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-06-28/Teacher-unions-education/55993750/1

There must be a way to introduce variation into the education system. To the extent that teachers unions hinder the variation in the system, they become a hindrance.

Related:

Debate: Are Teachers’ Unions the Problem—or the Answer? http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/03/18/debate-are-teachers-unions-the-problem-or-the-answer.html

Quiet Riot: Insurgents Take On Teachers’ Unions
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2087980,00.html#ixzz1zgjC7qGS

Can Teachers Unions Do Education Reform? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204124204577151254006748714.html

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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ACT to assess college readiness for 3rd-10th Grades

4 Jul

There have been a number of cheating scandals over the past couple of years. Benjamin Herold has a riveting blog post at The Notebook which describes itself as “An independent voice for parents, educators, students, and friends of Philadelphia Public Schools.” In the post, Confession of A Cheating Teacher Herold reports:

She said she knows she’s a good teacher.

But she still helped her students cheat.

“What I did was wrong, but I don’t feel guilty about it,” said a veteran Philadelphia English teacher who shared her story with the Notebook/NewsWorks.

During a series of recent interviews, the teacher said she regularly provided prohibited assistance on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) exams to 11th graders at a city neighborhood high school. At various times, she said, she gave the students definitions for unfamiliar words, discussed with students reading passages they didn’t understand, and commented on their writing samples.

On a few occasions, she said, she even pointed them to the correct answers on difficult questions.

“They’d have a hard time, and I’d break it down for them,” said the teacher matter-of-factly.

Such actions are possible grounds for termination. As a result, the Notebook/NewsWorks agreed to protect her identity.

The teacher came forward following the recent publication of a 2009 report that identified dozens of schools across Pennsylvania and Philadelphia that had statistically suspicious test results. Though her school was not among those flagged, she claims that adult cheating there was “rampant.”

The Notebook/NewsWorks is also withholding the name of her former school. because the details of her account have been only partially corroborated.

But her story seems worth telling.

During multiple conversations with the Notebook/NewsWorks, both on the phone and in person, the teacher provided a detailed, consistent account of her own actions to abet cheating. Her compelling personal testimonial highlighted frequently shared concerns about the conditions that high-stakes testing have created in urban public schools. The Notebook and NewsWorks believe that her confession sheds important light on the recent spate of cheating scandals across the country….

She said she knows she’s a good teacher.

But she still helped her students cheat.

“What I did was wrong, but I don’t feel guilty about it,” said a veteran Philadelphia English teacher who shared her story with the Notebook/NewsWorks.

During a series of recent interviews, the teacher said she regularly provided prohibited assistance on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) exams to 11th graders at a city neighborhood high school. At various times, she said, she gave the students definitions for unfamiliar words, discussed with students reading passages they didn’t understand, and commented on their writing samples.

On a few occasions, she said, she even pointed them to the correct answers on difficult questions.

“They’d have a hard time, and I’d break it down for them,” said the teacher matter-of-factly.

Such actions are possible grounds for termination. As a result, the Notebook/NewsWorks agreed to protect her identity.

The teacher came forward following the recent publication of a 2009 report that identified dozens of schools across Pennsylvania and Philadelphia that had statistically suspicious test results. Though her school was not among those flagged, she claims that adult cheating there was “rampant.”

The Notebook/NewsWorks is also withholding the name of her former school. because the details of her account have been only partially corroborated.

But her story seems worth telling.

During multiple conversations with the Notebook/NewsWorks, both on the phone and in person, the teacher provided a detailed, consistent account of her own actions to abet cheating. Her compelling personal testimonial highlighted frequently shared concerns about the conditions that high-stakes testing have created in urban public schools. The Notebook and NewsWorks believe that her confession sheds important light on the recent spate of cheating scandals across the country.

One might ask what the confessions of a cheating teacher have to do with the announcement by ACT that they will begin offering a series of assessments to measure skills needed in high school and college. Although, it is in the early stage of development, one could question whether this assessment will turn into a high-stakes test with pressures on students, teachers, and schools. Admittedly, it is early.

Caralee Adams writes in the Education Week article, ACT to Roll Out Career and College Readiness Tests for 3rd-10th Grades:

ACT Inc. announced today that it is developing a new series of assessments for every grade level, from 3rd through 10th, to measure skills needed in college and careers.

The tests, which would be administered digitally and provide instant feedback to teachers, will be piloted in states this fall and scheduled to be launched in 2014, says Jon Erickson, the president of education for ACT, the Iowa City, Iowa-based nonprofit testing company.

The “next generation” assessment will be pegged to the Common Core State Standards and cover the four areas now on the ACT: English, reading, math, and science.

“It connects all the grades—elementary school through high school—to measure growth and development,” says Erickson. “It informs teaching, as students progress, to intervene at early ages.”

The assessment would look beyond academics to get a complete picture of the whole student, he says. There would be interest inventories for students, as well as assessment of behavioral skills for students and teachers to evaluate.

It will fill a niche as the first digital, longitudinal assessment to connect student performance across grades, both in and out of the classroom, according to the ACT. The hope is to get information on students’ weaknesses and strengths earlier so teachers can make adjustments to improve their chances of success.

ACT has not arrived at a cost for the assessment system, but it intends to offer it in modules for states, districts, or schools to buy to administer to all students. As a nonprofit organization, Erickson says ACT wants to keep pricing affordable and at the lowest price acceptable to states. Teachers could choose to use all or part of the assessment, likely in the classroom during the typical school day. ACT is still field-testing the system so the length of the assessment is not set.

With digital delivery of the test, students would have automatic scoring and real-time assessments, says Erickson. (There would be pencil-and-paper testing to accommodate schools that would not be equipped with computers.) The assessment would include a combination of multiple-choice, open-response, and interactive items that would incorporate some creativity into testing, he adds. It would be both formative and summative for accountability purposes….

Just how states might use the new assessment is uncertain. It could replace the current state test, be given as a lead-up to the test, or used as a supplement for it, he says.

ACT developed the test in response to needs expressed by states to improve college and career readiness, says Erickson. Providing integrated testing from elementary to high school, with the ACT as the capstone in 11th grade, “will be a game changer,” he adds. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/college_bound/2012/07/act_plans_to_roll_out_career_and_college_readiness_tests_for_3rd-10th_grades.html?intc=es

There is no magic bullet or “Holy Grail” in education. There is only what works to produce academic achievement in each population of children. That is why school choice is so important.

There must be a way to introduce variation into the education system. The testing straightjacket is strangling innovation and corrupting the system. Yes, there should be a way to measure results and people must be held accountable, but relying solely on tests, especially when not taking into consideration where different populations of children are when they arrive at school is lunacy.

Related:

Early learning standards and the K-12 continuum https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/early-learning-standards-and-the-k-12-contiuum/

Jonathan Cohn’s ‘The Two Year Window’ https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/jonathan-cohns-the-two-year-window/

What , if anything, do education tests mean? https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/what-if-anything-do-education-tests-mean/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©



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Homeschooled kids make the grade for college

2 Jul

In Homeschooling is becoming more mainstream, moi said:

Parents and others often think of school choice in terms of public school or private school. There is another option and that is homeschooling.Homeschooling is one option in the school choice menu. There are fewer children being homeschooled than there are in private schools. There are fewer children in private education, which includes homeschools than in public education. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the vast majority of students attend public schools. Complete statistics can be found at Fast Education Facts

The question, which will be discussed at the end of this comment, is: What is so scary about school choice? After all, the vast majority of children are enrolled in public school and school choice is not going to change that.

What is Homeschooling?

Family Education defines homeschooling. 

Homeschooling means learning outside of the public or private school environment. The word “home” is not really accurate, and neither is “school.” For most families, their “schooling” involves being out and about each day, learning from the rich resources available in their community, environment, and through interactions with other families who homeschool.

Essentially, homeschooling involves a commitment by a parent or guardian to oversees their child or teen’s educational development. There are almost two million homeschoolers in this country.

There is no one federal law, which governs homeschooling. Each state regulates homeschooling, so state law must be consulted. The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has a summary of each state’s laws. State Homeschool Laws The American Homeschool Association (AHA) has resources such as FAQ and the history of homeschooling at AHA

Kelsey Sheehy writes in the U.S. News article, Home-Schooled Teens Ripe for College:

But parents and students from the home-schooling community say the nontraditional method yields teens that are more independent and therefore better prepared for college life.

More than 2 million U.S. students in grades K-12 were home-schooled in 2010, accounting for nearly 4 percent of all school-aged children, according to the National Home Education Research Institute. Studies suggest that those who go on to college will outperform their peers.

Students coming from a home school graduated college at a higher rate than their peers­—66.7 percent compared to 57.5 percent—and earned higher grade point averages along the way, according to a study that compared students at one doctoral university from 2004-2009.

They’re also better socialized than most high school students, says Joe Kelly, an author and parenting expert who home-schooled his twin daughters….http://www.usnews.com/education/high-schools/articles/2012/06/01/home-schooled-teens-ripe-for-college

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/homeschooling-is-becoming-more-mainstream/

Melissa Venable, Ph.D. has a great article at Online College.Org. about homeschooled kids and college.

In the article, 15 Key Facts About Homeschooled Kids in College, Dr. Venable writes:

Homeschoolers often enter college with more credit

Homeschooled students are able to work at their own pace, and as a result, students have the freedom to move significantly faster than those in a traditional classroom. Michael Cogan, a researcher at the University of St. Thomas, discovered that homeschool students typically earn more college credits before their freshman year than traditional students, with 14.7 credits for homeschoolers, and 6.0 for traditional students. Earning college credit before freshman year can save thousands of dollars and shave time off of a degree. The 14.7 average credits for homeschoolers represent a full semester of freshman year, which is typically 12-15 credit hours.

Homeschool students do better on the SAT and ACT

Perhaps benefiting from personalized test prep, homeschool students typically score higher on standardized college admissions tests. The homeschool average for the ACT was 22.5 in 2003, compared with the national average of 20.8. The SAT was no different, with a homeschool average of 1092 in 2002, and a national average of 1020. ACT and SAT scores are very important for college admissions and even financial aid, so doing well on these tests is vital to a great college experience.

Homeschool GPAs are consistently higher

As a homeschooled student, you work on a flexible schedule. Young children may rely greatly on their parents for scheduling and instruction, but high schoolers typically become more autonomous in their studies, learning key skills for success as independent students in college. Research indicates that this time spent learning how to study independently pays off, as homeschoolers typically have higher GPAs than the rest of their class. Homeschool freshmen have higher GPAs in their first semester at college, with 3.37 GPAs for homeschoolers, and 3.08 for the rest. This trend continues with an overall freshman GPA of 3.41 vs. 3.12, and senior GPAs of 3.46 vs. 3.16, indicating that homeschoolers are better prepared for college.

Homeschooled students are more likely to attend college

Homeschooled students seem to be more likely to participate in college-level education. As reported by the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, more than 74% of home educated adults between 18-24 have taken college level courses. This rate is much higher than the general US population, which comes in at 46% for the same age range.

Homeschoolers are everywhere

Patrick Henry College is one college that specifically caters to the homeschool population, but homeschoolers are increasingly accepted in a wide variety of colleges and universities. In fact, homeschoolers are now in over 900 different colleges and universities, many of them with rigorous admissions. Some of these colleges include Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, and Rice University.

Homeschooled students are more likely to graduate

Making it to college is one thing, but actually sticking around and graduating is another. Students who have homeschooled will typically do better than other students, with a slightly higher retention rate, at 88.6% vs 87.6% for traditional students. Graduation rates show a higher disparity between homeschoolers and the national average, with 66.7% of homeschooled students graduating, compared to 57.5%.

Some colleges actively recruit homeschool students

Homeschool students have proven themselves to be so outstanding that several colleges have begun to actively recruit them. Boston University, Nyack College, and Dartmouth are among them, with a Dartmouth College admissions officer recognizing, “The applications [from homeschoolers] I’ve come across are outstanding. Homeschoolers have a distinct advantage because of the individualized instruction they have received.”

Homeschooled students are very likely to succeed in college

Research and probability indicates that homeschooled students typically do very well in college, not just academically, but socially as well. Skills learned in homeschooling translate very well to the college campus, with strong self-discipline and motivation. Colleges recognize this advantage, including Brown University representative Joyce Reed, who shares, “These kids are the epitome of Brown students.” She believes they make a good fit with the university because “they’ve learned to be self-directed, they take risks, they face challenges with total fervor, and they don’t back off.”

High school transcripts are often not required for college admissions

Although traditional students will typically be expected to submit their high school transcript, homeschooled students usually do not need one, submitting other information instead. Sixty-eight percent of US universities will accept parent-prepared transcripts. Others will take portfolios, with letters of recommendation, ACT or SAT test scores, essays, and more, allowing homeschooled applicants flexibility in admissions.

Homeschoolers can play college sports

As long as they meet standardized guidelines, homeschooled athletes can be awarded freshman eligibility to participate in college level sports. The number of homeschooled students participating in sports is growing as well, with up to 10 each year in 1988-1993, and as many as 75 students in the late 90s. Homeschool waiver applicants are typically approved, and in the 1998-1999 school year all applicants in Divisions I and II were approved, indicating not only an increased interest in college sports from homeschoolers, but an excellent openness in participation.

Many homeschoolers are National Merit Scholars

The National Merit Scholar program is an academic competition offering prestige and cold hard scholarship cash for high achieving students. The number of homeschool National Merit Scholars is increasing at a high rate: in 1995, there were 21 homeschool finalists, compared with 129 in 2003, a 500% increase. Homeschoolers are clearly doing well in their studies, and as a result, are reaping the rewards in scholarship money to use in school.

Homeschooled students may have higher college acceptance rates

Colleges and universities often recognize that homeschooled students tend to be exceptional in their academic performance, and combined with advanced studies and extracurricular activities, make great candidates for admission. In addition to actively seeking out homeschooled applicants, colleges may also be accepting more of them. In the fall of 1999, Stanford University accepted 27% of homeschooled applicants. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s an incredible number when you consider that this rate is twice the acceptance rate experienced by public and private school students admitted in the same semester.

Homeschool students are often in honors programs

High achieving homeschool students can benefit from advanced curriculum in college, which is why so many of them end up in honors programs once they go on to study at universities. At Ball State University, most homeschooled freshmen were admitted at a higher level than regular students. Eighty percent of homeschool students were admitted to “upper levels of admission,” and 67% were in the Honors College.

Homeschooled students may receive federal financial aid

Due to some confusion in the past, homeschooled students may have had to obtain a GED in order to qualify for financial aid. But the Homeschool Legal Defense Association indicates that laws have changed, and as long as students have completed their education “in a homeschool setting that is treated as a homeschool or a private school under state law,” they are eligible for federal financial aid without a GED.

Many scholarships are available to homeschooled students

Traditional scholarships are often open to homeschooled students, but there are also some created specifically for the homeschool crowd. In an effort to attract stellar homeschooled students for admission, colleges are developing homeschool scholarships. Belhaven offers $1,000 per year, College of the Southwest awards up to $3,150 each year, and Nyack College will give up to $12,000. With the high cost of a college education, these scholarships can really pay off for homeschoolers.

http://www.onlinecollege.org/2011/09/13/15-key-facts-about-homeschooled-kids-in-college/

Many of our children are “unschooled” and a far greater number are “uneducated.” One can be “unschooled” or “uneducated” no matter the setting. As a society, we should be focused on making sure that each child receives a good basic education. There are many ways to reach that goal. There is nothing scary about the fact that some parents make the choice to homeschool. The focus should not be on the particular setting or institution type. The focus should be on proper assessment of each child to ensure that child is receiving a good basic education and the foundation for later success in life.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Surviving a ‘diploma mill’

1 Jul

The Washington Post described the scope of the “diploma mill” problem in Hundreds Linked to Diploma Mill  Dr. Bruce Johnson wrote the Diploma Fraud. Com article, Students Beware! Diploma Mills Still Exist:

How extensive is the diploma mill problem? According to the article PhD, The Easy Way, published in the Chicago Tribune, it is estimated that 9,600 people may have bought fake degrees from a now shuttered St. Regis University in Washington state, and among the student roster were police officers and a Chicago Public Schools instructor. Several St. Regis employees pled guilty to fraud and that is only the tip of the phony degree iceberg. If it seems too good to be true that you can obtain a degree without going to class, well, it probably is. It may seem difficult to imagine that anyone could purchase a degree in this manner, especially with increased attention to accreditation and regulation of financial aid. However, diploma mills still exist – they offer degrees at for a substantially reduced investment and the transaction is often completed with a phone call or an email. The type of degree received is usually based upon a description of your life experience. All you need to provide is payment and suddenly you’re “qualified” for a new career, which is never a good idea to follow. In Diploma Mill Concerns Extend Beyond Fraud, George Gollin, a board member of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, an accrediting authority recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, noted that “it is difficult to pin down how many diploma mills exist, or how many bogus degrees are bought each year;” however, he estimates that at one time “companies sold 100,000 to 200,000 phony degrees a year.” http://diplomafraud.com/2012/02/23/students-beware-diploma-mills-still-exist/

What is a Diploma Mill?

The Missouri Department of Higher Education defines a “diploma mill”  as :

What is a “diploma mill?”

A dictionary definition is “an unaccredited school or college that grants relatively worthless diplomas, as for a fee.”   

Alternatively, a diploma mill might be described as an institution of higher education operating without supervision of a state or professional agency and granting diplomas which are either fraudulent or, because of the lack of proper standards, worthless….

The key point is “diploma mills” have few standards. 

How to Spot a Diploma Mill?

There is an excellent article at ELearners.Com which tells you how to spot <a href="

They often have names similar to well-known colleges or universities, but fail to mention an accrediting agency or name a fake accrediting agency.

The organization frequently changes addresses, sometimes moving from state to state.

Written materials typically include numerous spelling and grammatical errors, sometimes on the diploma itself.

Overemphasis on the speed and brevity with which someone can receive a degree (e.g. “Call now and have your degree shipped to you overnight!”).

Degrees can be earned in far less time than normal (e.g. 27 days) or the diploma is printed with a specific backdate.

There is no selectivity in admissions, or any questions about previous test scores or detailed academic history.

No interaction with professors or faculty (e.g. only two emails are received from a professor).

Degree requirements are vague or unspecified, lacking class descriptions and without any mention of how many credit hours are required to complete a program.

Tuition and fees are typically on a per-degree basis.

Grade point average (GPA) and academic honors (e.g. Summa Cum Laude) can be specified at the time of purchase.

Buyer beware, if it seems too easy and too good to be true, you probably should investigate the accreditation of the school.  

What to Do If You are enrolled in a Diploma Mill?

The first step is not to enroll in a diploma mill in the first place. Jennifer Williamson of Distance-Education.org has written the great article, What to Do If You’re Enrolled in a Diploma Mill:

But maybe you didn’t spot these signs up front—for whatever reason—and you’ve been fooled by a diploma mill into parting with your money. While it’s not likely you’ll get your money back, there are a few things you can do.

First: stop giving them your money

If you’re involved in paying tuition with the school, stop paying immediately.

Do not, under any circumstance, list the degree on your resume

List an unaccredited degree on your resume and you not only risk your reputation—you risk your job. It’s better not to have a degree at all than to have a degree from a diploma mill—and companies do check these credentials, sometimes years after the person has been hired.

Ask for a refund in writing

If you’re sure you’re enrolled in a diploma mill, send a letter immediately requesting a refund of all tuition money you’ve paid. Send it by registered mail, explain why you want the refund, and make a copy for your own records. It’s doubtful that the diploma mill will send back your money, but it’s worth a shot—and the letter may be useful if you want to take your complaint to court.

Notify the authorities

Tell your state’s attorney general office what’s happened—there should be a way to file complaints on the attorney general’s website. It’s possible that the attorney general’s office will choose to go after the diploma mill.

Report to the Better Business Bureau

Reporting to the Better Business Bureau is a good move because it will serve to warn other potential students about the school. The reporting process only takes a few minutes and can be done entirely online, and the Bureau may be able to help you resolve the complaint.

If you’ve been had by a diploma mill, you don’t have a lot of options. But you can go public with your grievance and it’s possible law enforcement will decide to go after the school. Tell your attorney general and notify the Better Business Bureau. Stop doing assignments and paying tuition to the school. Send a registered letter outlining the reason why you want a refund, but don’t count on getting your money back. Don’t list your unaccredited degree on your resume or try to let your employer think your degree is real. If you do, you could experience some negative repercussions. http://www.distance-education.org/Articles/What-to-Do-If-You-re-Enrolled-in-a-Diploma-Mill-220.html

If you have been sucked into a diploma mill scheme, at the federal level, you can file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. You can go to Federal Trade Commission Complaint and you can report fraud to your state. Consumer Fraud Reporting.Org lists how to contact your state attorney general. http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/stateattorneygenerallist.php

Resources:

Diploma Mill Degrees Too Good to Be True http://www.cmn.com/2012/06/diploma-mill-degrees-too-good-to-be-true/

How to Spot a Diploma Mill  http://www.onlinecollegedegrees.net/avoiding-cheap-education

Related:

Beware of diploma millshttps://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/beware-of-diploma-mills/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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A strategy to reduce school suspensions: ‘School Wide Positive Behavior Support’

1 Jul

In U.S. Education Dept. Civil Rights Office releases report on racial disparity in school retention, moi said:

One of the causalities of the decline and death of newspapers is the decline in investigative journalism. When the Seattle PI was still a print publication in 2001, they published a series of articles about discipline in the Seattle Public Schools. At that time, the list of behaviors included:

                                              1.   Disruptive conduct

                                              2.   Fighting

                                              3.   Disobedience

                                              4. .Assault

                                              5. Rule-breaking

                                              6. Alcohol/drugs

                                              7. Theft

                                              8. Trespass

                                              9.   Smoking

                                              10. Weapons

When this report was written, African American students were suspended at a higher rate than other students. The great thing about this piece of journalism was the reporters examined assumptions about what could be causing the disparity in expulsions. The assumptions about why African American students are disciplined and the statistical reality often do not provide clear-cut answers. The Seattle PI followed the report with a 2006 Update and the disparity issue remained. Perhaps, Dr. Bill Cosby is on to something with his crusade to ask tough questions about whether a “hip hop” culture is conducive to promoting success values in a population who must survive in the dominant culture. Debates about what cultural norms are healthy and should prevail are not useful to a child who is facing a suspension or expulsion and who must deal with that reality. It is imperative that children stay in school and receive a diploma or receive sufficient skills to allow them to prepare for a GED. If a child is facing a suspension or expulsion, the parent or guardian has to advocate for the child and the future placement and follow-up treatment for the child. The hard questions about placement in an education setting center on student behavior and whether the behavior of the individual child is so disruptive that the child must be removed from the school either for a period of time or permanently. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/u-s-education-dept-civil-rights-office-releases-report-on-racial-disparity-in-school-retention/ The U.S. Department of Education has developed the strategy of “School Wide Positive Behavior Support” in an attempt to lesson the number of suspensions. See, LA School Implements Positive Behavior System http://www.educationnews.org/k-12-schools/la-school-implements-positive-behavior-system/

The Department of Education’s OSEP Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports describes “School Wide Positive Behavior Support” in School-wide Positive Behavior Support Implementers’ Blueprint and Self-Assessment1 2:

What is School-wide Positive Behavior Support?

School-wide Positive behavior support (SW-PBS) is comprised of a broad range of systemic and individualized strategies for achieving important social and learning outcomes while preventing problem behavior with all students. SW-PBS is not a specific “model” but a compilation of effective practices, interventions, and systems

change strategies that have a long history of empirical support and development and individually have been demonstrated to be empirically effective and efficient. In addition, SW-PBS has relevant applications to educating all students in schools, not just students with disabilities. SW-PBS is the integration of four elements

�� Operationally defined and valued outcomes,

�� Behavioral and biomedical science,

�� Research-validated practices, and

�� Systems change to both enhance the broad quality with which all students are living/learning and reduce problem behaviors.

First, SW-PBS emphasizes operationally defined and valued outcomes for all students. Specified academic and social behavior outcome indicators are linked to annual school improvement objectives, local and state initiative priorities, and individual academic goals and objectives. Data are used to describe, choose, and

evaluate goals/outcomes. Valued outcomes include increases in quality of life as defined by a school’s and/or individual student’s unique preferences and needs and by positive lifestyle changes that increase social belonging.

Second, SW-PBS is based on a clearly established behavioral and biomedical sciences that can be applied to address problem behavior in schools. The approach is based on conceptual principles from behavioral and biomedical research.

�� Behavior is learned and can be taught.

�� Behavior is lawful and predictable.

�� Behavior occurrences are affected by environmental factors that interact with biophysical characteristics of the individual.

�� Understanding the relation between physiology factors and environmental variables is a critical feature when supporting students with behavioral, social, emotional, and mental health issues.

�� Assessing and manipulating environmental factors can predictably affect occurrences of behavior.

�� Data collection and use for active decision-making are important for continuous intervention, program, and system improvement.

Third, SW-PBS emphasizes research-validated practices, interventions, strategies, curriculum, etc. to achieve goals and outcomes. Data are used to guide which practices should be selected and/or adapted to achieve goals/outcomes. The selection and use of evidence-based practices are given priority.

Fourth, SW-PBS gives priority to systems change considerations that support the effective and efficient selection and implementation of practices by school personnel (e.g., teachers, school psychologists, administrators). These organizational working considerations operationalize policies and guiding principles, operating routines, resource supports, and administrative leadership. Internal behavioral expertise and

capacity are developed, and data-based decision making is emphasized to improve the selection, adoption, outcomes, and durability of practices. Together these four elements provide schools with the opportunity to efficiently organize scarce resources and support the adoption of effective practices….http://www.osepideasthatwork.org/toolkit/pdf/SchoolwideBehaviorSupport.pdf

Robert Horner, George Sugai and Claudia Vincent write in Impact about “School Wide Positive Behavior Support.”

In the article, School-wide Positive Behavior Support: Investing in Student Success, Horner, Sugai and Vincent write:

School-wide positive behavior support (SW-PBS) is an approach that begins with a school-wide prevention effort, and then adds intensive individualized support for those students with more extreme needs. SW-PBS has five core strategies:

  • Focus on preventing the development and occurrence of problem behavior, which is more effective, cost-efficient, and productive than responding after problem behavior patterns have become ingrained.
  • Teach appropriate social behavior and skills. Because children come to school from many different backgrounds, schools must define the core social expectations (e.g., be respectful, be responsible, be safe), and overtly teach the behaviors and skills associated with these expectations. When all students in the school are taught the same social skills, a social culture is established where students not only have personal knowledge about social expectations, they know that everyone in the school knows those same social expectations.
  • Acknowledge appropriate behavior. Students should receive regular recognition for appropriate behavior at rates that exceed rates of recognition for rule violations and problem behaviors. Negative consequences alone will not change problem behavior. Instead of ignoring problem behavior, a continuum of consequences (e.g., correction, warning, office discipline referral) for problem behavior should be maintained and used to prevent escalation and allow instruction to continue in class.
  • Gather and use data about student behavior to guide behavior support decisions. Data on what problem behaviors are being observed and how often, where and what time of the day they are occurring, and who is engaging in these problem behaviors enable schools to develop the most effective, efficient, and relevant school-wide behavior support plan.
  • Invest in the systems (e.g., teams, policies, funding, administrative support, data structures) that support adults in their implementation of effective practices.

Over the past six years, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) has invested in technical assistance to states and districts choosing to implement SW-PBS. Over 2900 schools across 34 states are now implementing or in the process of adopting SW-PBS. Implementation is occurring primarily in elementary and middle schools, but the approach is now being adapted, applied, and studied in over 200 high schools….

  • Most schools in the U.S. are not implementing the evidence-based practices associated with SW-PBS. As part of the technical assistance process, schools have been assessed prior to adopting SW-PBS practices. On average, schools are using less than half the basic features, and none of the schools evaluated have demonstrated effective implementation prior to receiving technical assistance.
  • When technical support is provided, schools are successful in adopting the evidence-based practices associated with SW-PBS. Typically, school teams composed of five to seven individuals receive three, one- to two-day training events each year for two years. Schools throughout the country have documented the ability to adopt SW-PBS practices with high fidelity when they receive this level of support.
  • Once schools adopt SW-PBS practices to criterion they are likely to sustain those practices over long time periods. Longitudinal studies indicate that SW-PBS practices have sustained up to 10 years following implementation, even with turnover in administrators and core team members. In a recent evaluation of schools in Illinois, 86% of schools adopting SW-PBS in 2002-03 sustained or improved their level of implementation in 2003-04.
  • When SW-PBS is implemented to criterion, results indicate the following improvements in academic and social behavior outcomes: a) 20-60% reduction in office discipline referrals for students with and without Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), b) increases in the time students spend in instruction, c) decreases in the amount of time administrators and teachers spend addressing problem behaviors, and d) improvement in the perception of school safety and mental health through decreases in “risk factors” and increases in mental health “protective factors.” In addition, preliminary results indicate that SW-PBS implementation is associated with a decrease in the number of students identified for tertiary interventions because of intense support needs (Eber, 2005).
  • When investments are made in both behavior support and effective instruction, improvements in academic performance are experienced. During 2002-03, 52 elementary schools in Illinois using SW-PBS to criterion were compared with 69 schools that were just adopting SW-PBS and were not at criterion. On average, 62.19% of third graders in schools using SW-PBS met or exceeded the state reading standard. By comparison, an average of 46.6% of third graders in schools not using SW-PBS met the same standard.
  • Investing in development of local systems is an effective strategy for moving from small “demonstrations” to larger-scale applications. Implementation of SW-PBS involves not simply training for school teams, but training of a) local coaches or facilitators who work closely with teams to build and sustain evidence-based practices, and b) local trainers who are able to conduct team training on a distributed format within two years. By investing in building the capacity of local states/districts to train and evaluate SW-PBS, the cost of training the third and fourth generations of teams is reduced. External trainers and national technical assistance becomes less necessary. For example, in Illinois a state system of trainers and coaches now supports over 444 schools implementing SW-PBS. In Maryland, a state system of trainers and coaches supports over 321 schools implementing SW-PBS.
  • Implementation of SW-PBS is cost effective. Schools are able to adopt SW-PBS and establish local coaching and training infrastructure within a two-year initiative process. The cost to schools to sustain SW-PBS requires no additional dollars. This approach is about using existing resources better, not adding new costs. The cost of problem behavior in schools is a hidden drain on school resources. For example, when Kennedy Middle School implemented SW-PBS they documented improved student behavior, with an annual reduction of 850 office discipline referrals and 25 student suspensions from the pre-implementation level. This change translated into a time savings of 30 administrator days and 121 student school days.

In summary, schools will not achieve the academic standards we now require if they fail to build the positive social culture needed for sustained academic engagement. Traditional punishment and exclusionary strategies are not effective practices for improving student behavior…. http://ici.umn.edu/products/impact/182/over2.html

In Inappropriate discipline: The first step on the road to education failure, moi said:

Family First Aid has a good discussion about the types of behavior problems that result in suspension or expulsion.  Dore Francis has a guide, which lists what parents should do if their child is suspended. The guide gives detailed instructions to these steps and other steps. Francis also lists what questions to ask after meeting with school officials.

Additionally, Family First Aid discusses the education questions a parent or guardian should ask when their child has been permanently excluded from a school setting because of behavior problems. The focus at this point should be how best to address the behavior issues that resulted in the disciplinary action. It is important to contact the district to find out what types of resources are available to assist the student in overcoming their challenges. Many children have behavior problems because they are not in the correct education placement. Often, moving the child to a different education setting is the beginning of dealing with the challenges they face. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/inappropriate-discipline-the-first-step-on-the-road-to-education-failure/

Resources:

What is School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports? http://www.pbis.org/

Related:

The Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/the-trauma-and-learning-policy-initiative/

Jonathan Cohn’s ‘The Two Year Window’ https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/jonathan-cohns-the-two-year-window/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Education Trust report: Retaining teachers in high-poverty areas

1 Jul

Every population of kids is different and they arrive at school at various points on the ready to learn continuum. Schools and teachers must be accountable, but there should be various measures of judging teacher effectiveness for a particular population of children. Perhaps, more time and effort should be spent in developing a strong principal corps and giving principals the training and assistance in evaluation and mentoring techniques.

The Ed Trust report, entitled “Building and Sustaining Talent: Creating Conditions in High-Poverty Schools That Support Effective Teaching and Learning,” examines how several districts have handled the issue of teacher retention:

Specifically, districts should take the following steps:

• Recruit talented school leaders to their highest need schools, an get them to stay. In addition to the districts spotlighted earlier, the District of Columbia Public Schools has taken a rigorous approach to principal recruitment. The district scours student achievement data from school districts around the country (especially those close to D.C.) and then actively recruits principals of top-performing schools.

• Put in place teacher and school-leader evaluation systems that differentiate educator effectiveness in order to identify top performing teachers and leaders. Using these systems in conjunction with data on working conditions and attrition, districts can study which teachers are more and less satisfied, as well as which ones are staying and leaving — and why.

• Provide teachers in the highest need schools with meaningful professional growth and career ladders as well as opportunities to collaborate with other teachers, as Ascension Parish and Boston Public Schools have done.

• Avoid isolating their most effective teachers and, instead, build teams of highly effective teachers in the district’s most challenging schools, as both Boston Public Schools and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools have done.

• Concentrate not just on recruiting new school leaders and teachers to high-need schools, but on developing the skills and instructional abilities of existing employees, as have Fresno and Ascension Parish.

• Implement a tool to measure teacher perceptions of their teaching environment, such as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ working conditions survey, and then use data from the tool to identify target schools and determine primary issues that need to be addressed. For example, Pittsburgh Public Schools works with the New Teacher Center to implement a district-wide survey on working conditions. The district requires all schools to use the data to identify a plan of action and pays special attention to the plans of schools with the poorest survey results to ensure that the planned interventions align with the identified areas of need.

• Once better evaluations are in place, districts should make working conditions data part of school and district-leader evaluations. North Carolina requires that survey data on working conditions are factored into school-leader evaluations, which encourages leaders to take the survey results seriously and to act on areas identified as needing improvement.

CONCLUSION

To date, the conditions that shape teachers’ daily professional lives have not been given the attention they deserve. Too often, a lack of attention to these factors in our highest poverty and lowest performing schools results in environments in which few educators would choose to stay. For too long, the high levels of staff dissatisfaction and turnover that characterize these schools have been erroneously attributed to their students. But research continues to demonstrate that students are not the problem. What matters most are the conditions for teaching and learning. Districts and states have an obligation to examine and act on these conditions. Otherwise, we will never make the progress that we must make to ensure all low-income students and students of color have access to great teachers.                                                                                     http://www.edtrust.org/sites/edtrust.org/files/Building_and_Sustaining_Talent.pdf

Melanie Smollin has an excellent post at Take Part, Five Reasons Why Teacher Turnover Is On The Rise See, Report: Make Improving Teacher Working Conditions a Priority http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2012/06/report_make_improving_teacher_working_conditions_a_priority.html

In Study: Teacher turnover adversely affects students moi said:

Every population of kids is different and they arrive at school at various points on the ready to learn continuum. Schools and teachers must be accountable, but there should be various measures of judging teacher effectiveness for a particular population of children. Perhaps, more time and effort should be spent in developing a strong principal corps and giving principals the training and assistance in evaluation and mentoring techniques. Teachers must be compensated fairly for their work.Dave Eggers and NÍnive Clements Calegari have a provocative New York Times article, The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries The Center for American Progress has a report by Frank Adamson and Linda Darling Hammond, Speaking of Salaries: What It Will Take to Get Qualified, Effective Teachers In All Communities

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/study-teacher-turnover-adversely-affects-students/

Related:

School Absenteeism: Absent from the classroom leads to absence from participation in this society https://drwilda.wordpress.com/category/dr-wilda/page/15/

New Harvard study about impact of teachers https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/new-harvard-study-about-impact-of-teachers/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Report: Some good news about high school graduation rates

30 Jun

If children are to have a chance to participate not only in society, but in the economy, they must graduate from high school. In A B.A., not a high school diploma is the new threshold degree, moi said:

Laura Pappano reports in the New York Times article, The Master’s As the New Bachelor’s

Call it credential inflation. Once derided as the consolation prize for failing to finish a Ph.D. or just a way to kill time waiting out economic downturns, the master’s is now the fastest-growing degree. The number awarded, about 657,000 in 2009, has more than doubled since the 1980s, and the rate of increase has quickened substantially in the last couple of years, says Debra W. Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. Nearly 2 in 25 people age 25 and over have a master’s, about the same proportion that had a bachelor’s or higher in 1960.

“Several years ago it became very clear to us that master’s education was moving very rapidly to become the entry degree in many professions,” Dr. Stewart says. The sheen has come, in part, because the degrees are newly specific and utilitarian. These are not your general master’s in policy or administration. Even the M.B.A., observed one business school dean, “is kind of too broad in the current environment.” Now, you have the M.S. in supply chain management, and in managing mission-driven organizations. There’s an M.S. in skeletal and dental bioarchaeology, and an M.A. in learning and thinking.

Alexander Eichler is reporting in the Huffington Post article, Many With Only High School Degree Laid Off During Weak Recover:

Among those Americans with only a high school degree who have lost a job since 2007, a third became unemployed after the official end of the recession, according to The Washington Post.

It’s a troubling statistic in its own right — job seekers without a college degree are having serious difficulty finding work in the current market, and the unemployment rate for high school graduates is more than twice that of college grads — but it also underscores the fact that, for many Americans, the recovery hasn’t felt very different from the recession that preceded it.

Economists consider the Great Recession to have ended in the summer of 2009, nearly three years ago. That’s the point when the economy stopped outright shrinking and began growing again. But the subsequent period of modest expansion has been marked by job cuts, uncertainty and a gradual erosion of financial security for many Americans. These conditions are expected to remain pronounced for a long time to come.

U.S. employers cut 529,973 jobs in 2010, according to the outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas. In 2011, that number rose to 606,082. At the same time, wages and benefits barely grew, with the high jobless rate giving employers little incentive to pay workers more. Today, there are still nearly 13 million Americans looking for work.

It’s not that life has gotten much better for those with a job either. All together, median household incomes have now fallen more in the recovery than they did during the recession. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/07/jobless-recovery_n_1260678.html?ref=email_share

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/a-b-a-not-a-high-school-diploma-is-the-new-threshold-degree/

So, the Education Week report about improved high school graduation rates is welcome news.

Here is the press release about the Education Week report:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

CONTACT: Carrie Matthews, (301) 280-3190, CommDesk@epe.org

National Graduation Rate Keeps Climbing; 1.1 Million Students Still Fail to Earn Diplomas

Report Examines Challenges Facing Latino Students; Identifies Promising Strategies and Districts Beating the Odds 

Individualized Graduation Reports Issued for All 50 States and D.C. 

WASHINGTON—June 7, 2012—A new national report from Education Week and the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center finds that the nation’s graduation rate has posted a solid gain for the second straight year, following a period of declines and stagnation. Amid this continuing turnaround, the nation’s graduation rate has risen to 73 percent, the highest level of high school completion since the late 1970s. The report shows that the nation’s public schools will generate about 90,000 fewer dropouts than the previous year. Nationwide improvements were driven, in large part, by impressive gains among Latino students.

“It’s no exaggeration to say that the educational and economic future of the nation will hinge on our ability to better serve the nation’s large and growing Latino population, which faces unique challenges when it comes to success in high school and the transition to college and career,” said Christopher B. Swanson, Vice President of Editorial Projects in Education, the nonprofit organization that publishes Education Week. “Given what’s at stake, it is heartening to see that graduation rates for Latinos are improving faster than for any other group of students.”

The nation’s 12.1 million Latino schoolchildren encounter significant barriers on the road to educational success: language challenges, poverty, lagging achievement, low rates of high school and college completion, and, more recently, a wave of state laws targeting illegal immigrants that have put additional strain on Hispanic students, families, and communities. The 2012 edition of Diplomas Count—Trailing Behind, Moving Forward: Latino Students in U.S. Schools—takes a closer look at the state of schooling for this population of students, the challenges they face, and the lessons learned from some of the schools, districts, organizations, and communities that work closely with Latino students.

The report—part of an ongoing project conducted by the Bethesda, Md.-based Editorial Projects in Education—also tracks graduation policies for all 50 states and the District of Columbia and presents an updated analysis of graduation patterns for the nation, states, and the country’s 50 largest school systems. The new analysis focuses on the class of 2009, the most recent year for which data are available.

GRADUATION RATE TRENDING UPWARD

The national public school graduation rate for the class of 2009 reached 73.4 percent, an increase of 1.7 points from the previous year. Much of this improvement can be attributed to a rapid 5.5 point rise in graduation rates among Latinos and a 1.7 point gain for African-Americans. These increases more than offset modest drops in graduation rates for Asian-American and Native American students. Rates for white students remained largely unchanged. Diplomas Count 2012 www.edweek.org/go/dc12

The class of 2009 marked the end of a decade—punctuated by periods of sluggish growth and some troubling reversals—during which the nation’s graduation rate rose by more than 7 percentage points. These improvements have been widespread. Forty-four states have posted gains ranging from a fraction of a point to more than 20 points. All major demographic groups have also improved, with the drive toward higher graduation rates led by African-Americans and Latinos, both of which have posted improvements of 10 percentage points over the last 10 years.

While such signs of progress are reason for encouragement, that optimism is tempered by the reality that far too many young people are still failing to complete a high school education. Diplomas Count projects that 1.1 million students from this year’s high school class will not graduate with a diploma. That amounts to 6,000 students lost each school day, or one student every 29 seconds.

LATINOS IN FOCUS

Because the Latino graduation rate, at 63 percent, lags substantially behind the U.S. average, this group makes up a disproportionate number of the students who do not finish high school. Of the 1.1 million members of the class of 2012 that we project will fail to graduate with a diploma, about 310,000 (or 27 percent) will be Latinos. Two states—California and Texas—will produce half the nation’s Hispanic dropouts.

The educational experiences of Latino students are largely reflected in—if not directly driven by—the characteristics of the communities in which they live and the school systems by which they are served. Latinos are much more likely than whites to attend districts that are large and highly urbanized, that serve high proportions of English-language learners, and that struggle with high levels of poverty and racial and socioeconomic segregation. Yet some schools, districts, and communities—including those profiled in the report—have demonstrated records of success serving diverse Latino populations.

In a special analysis conducted for Diplomas Count 2012, the EPE Research Center identified a nationwide group of large, majority-Hispanic districts that are beating odds when it comes to graduation rates. Topping the list is California’s Lompoc Unified School District, which graduated 89 percent of its Latino students, compared with an expected rate of 67 percent. Three other districts “overachieved” by at least 15 percentage points: the Ceres Unified and Merced Union districts in California and Arizona’s Yuma Union High School District. High-performing systems outside the West and Southwest included those serving Providence, R.I., and Yonkers, N.Y.

SPECIAL WEB-ONLY FEATURES AVAILABLE AT EDWEEK.ORG

 The full Diplomas Count 2012 report and interactive tools: http://www.edweek.org/go/dc12.

 State Graduation Briefs for the 50 states and the District of Columbia featuring detailed data on current graduation rates and trends over time, definitions of college and work readiness, and state requirements for earning a high school diploma: http://www.edweek.org/go/dc12/sgb.

 The public release event for Diplomas Count 2012 will be streamed live in a simulcast from Washington, D.C. The webcast will be available at 10 a.m., EDT, on June 8 on edweek.org: http://www.edweek.org/ew/dc/2012/dc-livestream.html.

 EdWeek Maps, a powerful online database, lets users access graduation rates and other information for every school system in the nation and easily compare district, state, and national figures at maps.edweek.org.

# # #

The EPE Research Center is the research division of the Bethesda, Md.-based nonprofit Editorial Projects in Education. It conducts policy surveys, collects data, and performs analyses that appear in the annual Quality Counts, Technology Counts, and Diplomas Count reports. The center also conducts independent research studies and maintains the Education Counts and EdWeek Maps online data resources. The EPE Research Center is on the Web at http://www.edweek.org/rc.

In Is mandating 18 as the dropout age the answer? Moi said:

History is a race between education and catastrophe.

H. G. Wells

This world is in a period of dislocation and upheaval as great as the period of dislocation which ushered in the “industrial revolution.” The phrase “new, new thing” comes from a book by Michael Lewis about innovation in Silicon Valley. This historical period is between “new, new things” as the economy hopes that some new innovator will harness “green technology” and make it commercially viable as the economy needs the jump that only a “new, new thing” will give it. Peter S. Goodman has a fascinating article in the New York Times, Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs Unless, children are given a meaningful education which provides them with basic skills to adapt to a changing environment, the education system is producing a permanent underclass which will not be able to participate in the next “new, new thing.” The U.S. Department of Education has issued the following Press Release which describes the new method for calculating graduation rates.

Henry M. Levin and Cecilia E. Rouse opine in their New York Times opinion piece, The True Cost of High School Dropouts:

If we could reduce the current number of dropouts by just half, we would yield almost 700,000 new graduates a year, and it would more than pay for itself. Studies show that the typical high school graduate will obtain higher employment and earnings — an astonishing 50 percent to 100 percent increase in lifetime income — and will be less likely to draw on public money for health care and welfare and less likely to be involved in the criminal justice system. Further, because of the increased income, the typical graduate will contribute more in tax revenues over his lifetime than if he’d dropped out.

When the costs of investment to produce a new graduate are taken into account, there is a return of $1.45 to $3.55 for every dollar of investment, depending upon the educational intervention strategy. Under this estimate, each new graduate confers a net benefit to taxpayers of about $127,000 over the graduate’s lifetime. This is a benefit to the public of nearly $90 billion for each year of success in reducing the number of high school dropouts by 700,000 — or something close to $1 trillion after 11 years. That’s real money — and a reason both liberals and conservatives should rally behind dropout prevention as an element of economic recovery, leaving aside the ethical dimensions of educating our young people….

Proven educational strategies to increase high school completion, like high-quality preschool, provide returns to the taxpayer that are as much as three and a half times their cost. Investing our public dollars wisely to reduce the number of high school dropouts must be a central part of any strategy to raise long-run economic growth, reduce inequality and return fiscal health to our federal, state and local governments.                                                                                 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/opinion/the-true-cost-of-high-school-dropouts.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

In order to compete internationally, the U.S. must have an educated workforce and high school is the first step for college and additional vocational training.                                                        https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/is-mandating-18-as-the-dropout-age-the-answer/

Related:

Is there a ‘model minority’ ??                                                                                 https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/is-there-a-model-minority/

Title IX also mandates access to education for pregnant students                        https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/title-ix-also-mandates-access-to-education-for-pregnant-students/

Helping at-risk children start a home library                                                      https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/helping-at-risk-children-start-a-home-library/

Research papers: Student Motivation: An Overlooked Piece of School Reform                                           https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/research-papers-student-motivation-an-overlooked-piece-of-school-reform/

Study: When teachers overcompensate for prejudice                                   https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/study-when-teachers-overcompensate-for-prejudice/

A baby changes everything: Helping parents finish school                               https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/a-baby-changes-everything-helping-parents-finish-school/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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