FERPA Explained to Parents. A Crystal Ball Moment?

Will my child be successful in school?  Look to the data....or maybe not?

The Federal Government believes data is king and wants to track school children from birth through their lives for workforce development.  It's shrouded as education reform, but it is really for the establishment of state longitudinal data systems to connect with various federal agencies and approved private firms to collect data on your child to establish a managed workforce.

Data will set your child's educational/career path and the Federal government believes this data will dictate your child's future.  Don't worry yourself that you/your child will be faced with choices, responsibilities, teenage angst, etc.  By setting up these data systems, the future will be clear and the Federal government will direct your child.

To accomplish this data gathering, FERPA regulations have been relaxed so more entities have access to your student's information.  Worried about data being shared on your child with agencies/companies without your knowledge?  Never fear, taxpayer.  FERPA is soothing your fears and explaining how this data sharing is advantageous and necessary for educational success.  The government has created a document for parents to assure them this data will equip the government to ensure students receive a quality education:

 
It is important to ensure that all students have access to a quality education. Parents should be able to take an active role in their child’s education and know answers to some basic questions about their child’s likely future success.


We take exception to the last sentence when it states "parents should be able to take an active role in their child's education".  It should read "parents have the primary and ultimate responsibility in directing their child's education".  This is the difference between government taking responsibility for your child's learning via data gathering vs parents/children holding themselves responsible for their educational progress or lack of progress.  Since when did it become the prevailing thought that parents "should be able" to take an active role in their child's education?  When did parents need permission to have the primary responsiblity for their child's educational direction?

The document contains questions parents might theoretically ask about their child's future success.  The answers (according to the government) ostensibly can be obtained by computing the data gathered on children from birth.  MEW's editors (Gretchen in red; Anngie in blue) have answered these questions from a  parental/student directed view of education, not a data driven pronouncement of failure or success:



• When my son leaves his early childhood program, will he be prepared for kindergarten? We guess that depends on how willing he is and how able he is to learn.  A more important question is why is he in early childhood in the first place?  Do you want your child tracked from birth for the government's/workforce's interests? Do you even know what being prepared for kindergarten means? Your own past, where begin prepared meant you had on matching shoes  and knew not to eat paste, is not a good starting place. If you want to go on blind faith that some government sponsored program is giving him all he needs you can, but if he turns out to be unprepared, do you think you might have had a role in his unpreparedness?

 
• Does my daughter’s school have large achievement gaps between subgroups of students? Are the gaps closing?  That's a good question.  We (the Federal government) are solely concerned about achievement gaps between subgroups.  If your daughter is in a lower subgroup, we will have standards/assessments that will help her perform better.   

In fact, if your daughter is in Florida and is in a lower performing subgroup, she will not have to attain a high percentage of achievement. 

If your daughter is Asian or Caucasian, we really don't care about her.  Those achievement scores are high enough, we want to spend our resources on the lower groups.  And dear reader, notice we don't really care about individual achievement.  We are only concerned about tracking students as subgroups.  That's imperative for the data.  Forget about individualism.  It's all about the "community" and subgroups now.

 
• What are my daughter’s chances of graduating from high school?  As long as she keeps her grades up, doesn't get pregnant or become a drug/alcohol addict, she'll have a good chance.  And oh, by the way, strong parenting and sense of responsibility might just be a factor in her chances of graduating. Didn't we address this back in kindergarten? Whether she graduates or not depends on how high YOUR motivation for her to graduate is. Seeing as you haven't figured this out in 12 years we must say we have our doubts about your daughter's chances. Still expecting a government bureaucracy to guarantee this for you tells us she is fighting an uphill battle.

• What percentage of children at my son’s high school take the ACT/SAT and what’s the average score? This is important as well.  Don't worry about this.  Many schools are now paying for students to take the ACT/SAT even if the student doesn't want to go to college or is not intellectually equipped for college. Still concerned about average performance? Your children really do have a challenge don't they?

• What courses should my son take if he wants to be prepared for college?  If he wants to be an engineer, math/science.  If he wants to be a writer, literature/English courses.  Why ask such a question? Along with the usual English, math, and science, we would also recommend that he take a course in economics and one in personal finance. If he is going to go to college, he will need to understand the horrific debt he will start his adult life out with thanks to outrageous increases in college tuition over the last two decades. A basic economic course will show how the ready government supply of tuition loans has enabled universities to continuously increase their tuition, by much as a 400% in some cases.  If your son's high school or local community college offers a course in contract law, that would also be helpful so he can understand the terms in the contract he will be asked to sign for these loans which states they will never be forgiven thanks to sections of the 2010 Health Care Act.

• Is my son likely to need to take remedial courses in college to catch-up or will he be prepared?  We guess it depends on him and the school district.  You know, it's really about responsibility here.

 
• When my daughter graduates from college, will she be able to find a job and how much will she earn?  Well, as companies are depleting their workforce due to Obamacare, it is doubtful she will be able to find a job and if she does, it will probably be part time.  We remain optimistic as the current administration has attempted to turn our public school system into a mammoth jobs training program. However, they have also scaled down a full work week to 30 hours and consider any employment a success. As such her ability to earn will be limited. Our entire economy may be filled like Hollywood restaurants with waiters, waitresses and barristas with liberal arts degrees waiting for their chance at the career they really want.

The government still insists it has the ingredient necessary for educational success (I can't refer to it as "educational excellence"):

States have been working to establish longitudinal data systems to help answer these questions, and to determine what works and what doesn’t when it comes to our children’s education.

Leave it to data sets and data systems to determine what works in your child's education.  Take away personal choice, responsibility, inherent ability, family situations, unplanned pregnancy, drug use, recessions/depressions, lack of jobs, etc.  It's all about the data and this data will provide the answers to the questions above.  Don't worry your head (turn in your parent card) about your responsibilities and certainly don't demand responsibility from your student.  Personal responsibility isn't relevant on a data set.  

Another Teacher Says "I Quit": An (Un) Intended Consequences of "The Complete Lives System"?

Does music therapy fit within the Obamacare law or does the scarcity of resources to a needy population dictate its demise?

Another teacher says "I Quit". 

This teacher has requested anonymity to protect former colleagues.   Teacher Kris Nielsen in North Carolina quit because of the increasing impossible top down mandates for teachers and students.  This anonymous teacher was "frozen" out of providing services to special needs students when the district tightened criteria for assessment/evaluation referrals.  This teacher believes this indicates the beginning of the scarcity of services to the special needs population.  Note these students are the neediest in the educational system for services.

Read the Complete Lives System on which The Affordable Care Act in 2014 is based, "Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions", and see if you agree with this teacher.  Are affordable care and educational services only available to the "common" student, the student who can adapt to a "common" system?  Is the new health care system designed to help/protect special needs students or to eradicate services for this population?

*******************************************************************************************************

Director of Educational Services

XYZ School District

Anytown, USA

Dear  *****,

Until the 2009-10 school year, I provided music therapy services to an average of 25-30 students.  During 2010-11, my caseload decreased to approximately 15 students.  In 2011-12, my caseload dwindled to 8 students.  This year, I received a purchase order and contract, but  no students in this district are receiving music therapy services or being referred for assessment/evaluation.  Based on conversations with other staff members, it is evident that the district has begun the process of systematically tightening the criteria wherein students are referred for assessment/evaluation to the music therapy program and encouraging therapists to reduce current caseloads

Pre-determined reductions in services to special education students are especially concerning given the upcoming implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2014.  I urge you to review this legislation, along with the enclosed document, "Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions", AKA "The Complete Lives System", co-written by Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of Rahm Emanuel, former Chief of Staff for President Obama). 

America's current national debt is more than $16 trillion and our government will be proposing yet another increase in the debt limit before year's end.  At some point, America's deficit spending will STOP and students at our district will be among the first to feel the effects of the, "allocated...attenuated", care outlined by Mr. Emanuel and implemented through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

I was the first Board-Certified clinician to provide music therapy services to students in this district in 1997.  It has been a pleasure to work with other knowledgeable special education professionals over the past 15 years and a privilege to provide necessary quality services to many, many students.  Therefore, it is with a heavy heart that I am returning the purchase order and contract for my services.  I will no longer be providing services for the district because I see the district actively implementing allocation of services, AKA rationing, described in the Complete Lives System.

Sincerely,

xxxxxx

Our New National Anthem? Teach THIS Song to Students.

Instead of the soaring Star Spangled Banner as America's national anthem, I suggest the sad and poignant song Our Town better reflects our country and its slide from exceptionalism to a European model of government.  

How sad Americans now want more federal government intrusion in their lives while losing their individual freedoms in the process.  Here is Our Town performed by Iris Dement and Emmylou Harris expressing sorrow of what once was:

And you know the sun's settin' fast,
And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts.
Well, go on now and kiss it goodbye,
But hold on to your lover,
'Cause your heart's bound to die.
Go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town.
Can't you see the sun's settin' down on our town, on our town,
Goodnight.

Up the street beside that red neon light,
That's where I met my baby on one hot summer night.
He was the tender and I ordered a beer,
It's been forty years and I'm still sitting here.

But you know the sun's settin' fast,
And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts.
Well, go on now and kiss it goodbye,
But hold on to your lover,
'Cause your heart's bound to die.
Go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town.
Can't you see the sun's settin' down on our town, on our town,
Goodnight.

It's here I had my babies and I had my first kiss.
I've walked down Main Street in the cold morning mist.
Over there is where I bought my first car.
It turned over once but then it never went far.
And I can see the sun's settin' fast,
And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts.
Well, go on now and kiss it goodbye,
But hold on to your lover,
'Cause your heart's bound to die.
Go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town.
Can't you see the sun's settin' down on our town, on our town,
Goodnight.

I buried my Mama and I buried my Pa.
They sleep up the street beside that pretty brick wall.
I bring them flowers about every day,
But I just gotta cry when I think what they'd say.

If they could see how the sun's settin' fast,
And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts.
Well, go on now and kiss it goodbye,
But hold on to your lover,
'Cause your heart's bound to die.
Go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town.
Can't you see the sun's settin' down on our town, on our town,
Goodnight.

Now I sit on the porch and watch the lightning-bugs fly.
But I can't see too good, I got tears in my eyes.
I'm leaving tomorrow but I don't wanna go.
I love you, my town, you'll always live in my soul.

But I can see the sun's settin' fast,
And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts.
Well, go on, I gotta kiss you goodbye,
But I'll hold to my lover,
'Cause my heart's 'bout to die.
Go on now and say goodbye to my town, to my town.
I can see the sun has gone down on my town, on my town,
Goodnight.
Goodnight.

Political Pedophiles Targeting America’s Youth

It should be no surprise why children are so crass to each other.  Harry Reid demonstrates today's version of America civility and discourse.

The article below is written by a guest editor:

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Elections have consequences.  Most people would agree that those consequences can be negative or positive.  Most people assume that the consequences involve taxes, social issues, or national security.  Many people are not aware of the negative consequences affecting our Nation’s youth.  During the last two election cycles, both parties have expressed the importance of “targeting” the youth vote. I’ve recently learned firsthand that it comes with a cost. 

            The day after the election was a rough one for me as I had to come to grips with the fact that my Presidential choice didn’t win.  I had spent a long four years attempting to raise awareness of the future consequences of electing a president who wanted to fundamentally transform America into something that in my opinion, was far from the America I had grown up in and loved.  Like 49% of America, I woke up on November 7, 2012 and contemplated where I would go from here. 

 My sixteen year old daughter came home from school and was quite visibly upset.  She sat down at the kitchen table and proceeded to tell me what had happened at school earlier in the day with regards to reactions to the outcome of the election.  During election night she was on Twitter as was I watching for reaction and results.  At one point, she tweeted “Go Romney!”  Within minutes, she was bombarded with the most vile and hate filled Tweets, most of which came from kids her own age in different parts of the country.  As a mom, I tried to tell her to just let it go and unfollow those which are really vulgar and offensive.  At one point, her own local friends started to tweet degrading and nasty tweets simply because she didn’t have the same pick as theirs.  Having been on Twitter during election night myself, I also saw firsthand how people were treating each other.  I was shocked at how nasty, degrading and abusive the “youth” had become.  She was attacked and told by one of her friends that she was a “gay- hater!”  She was called a racist as well as other things that I cannot write in a blog.  During the day at school she said kids were being so hateful and rude to each other and that the bus ride was almost unbearable.  They were pitted against each other and at one point she thought the outburst might erupt into violence.

            Later that evening she was Skyping a friend of hers who lives in Florida.  They were talking about the election and soon discovered that they had made different choices.  Her friend is a fifteen year old girl who comes from a pretty conservative family.  She stated that during the school day, someone had asked her if she was happy with the outcome of the election.  When she told then that she was, the other kids really started giving her a hard time.   I found it interesting that the hatred did not simply come from one side of the political spectrum, but it was just as bad for both.  She told me that she became really upset with what she was hearing in the halls and at her locker.  Students were using racial slurs when talking about and referring to President Obama.  There were calling him a n****r who wanted to take away guns.  The worst part was the fact that all of this was taking place within earshot of teachers and no one would intervene!  She told me that later in the day; some white students were talking about some African American students and saying they should go back to being slaves.  After confiding in a teacher about what was happening, she decided to go tell an administrator.  Simply put, she was told that there were a lot of “rednecks” in the community and there wasn’t anything the school could do.  

I’ve been an educator for seventeen years and have never seen anything as bad as this!  What have we as a Nation become?  The past four years have done nothing to strengthen us as communities and Americans.  In fact, people are more racially divided that ever before.  Since when is it ok to completely eviscerate a person, especially a fifteen or sixteen year old girl or boy (yes, they are still children), simply because you don’t agree with him/her?  As Americans, how have we allowed and condoned this type of behavior from our children?  Does getting out the youth vote mean to completely radicalize our children and turn them into uncivilized humans that are so intolerant of anyone who dares to disagree with them?  Has the far left succeeded in creating a new generation of voters that will faithfully follow their lead by inciting violence and tearing down anyone who dares to disagree?  If Alinsky (or Harry Reid) type behavior and tactics from the left have become normalized in every day interactions, why are we surprised to witness the same type of behavior from those students from the right? Where are the adults?  Why is this behavior accepted? 

While watching post-election coverage, almost everyone mentioned the fact that the left has strategically “targeted” the youth for the past 5 or 6 years and in doing so has secured a group of faithful and loyal supporters.    Excuse me!  Those are our children! I have been fighting the government overreach into our states, schools, and lives for a while now.  I am convinced that this type of “targeting” does nothing but breed hatred, racism, and cultural intolerance.  I refuse to allow my children and the children of America to be used as pawns in this supposedly new bipartisan and transparent America! If this is what four years under the current president has done for the youth of our Country, I shudder to think of what the next four years will do.  I have never in my lifetime seen people so racially divided and bitter.  The part that is most shocking to me is what is happening to our kids as a result of this.  Are we as parents not having crucial conversations with our kids about politics, elections, and civic responsibility?  Have our kids become tolerant of so much, that they think nothing of using racial slurs and attacks for simple viewpoints? 

 

As Americans, it is time to start having those crucial and sometimes uncomfortable conversations with our kids about what our own values and beliefs are and how we as a Nation need to conduct ourselves.  I refuse to believe that this is it. All is not lost, but it is up to us as parents, Americans, and teachers to stop this “targeting” of our youth.  We would never send our kids into the world without talking to them about the dangers of drugs and alcohol and the consequences of use.  Why on earth would we send them out into the world without having conversations about civic responsibilities and how to conduct themselves in a respectable manner no matter with whom they agree or disagree?  As Americans, we can do better.  We have to.  Our integrity as a Nation is at stake.  We may not be able to monitor every move our child makes.  We may not be able to guide them 24/7.    We can, however, make sure we arm them with the tools they will need in the future to begin to resist the propaganda being perpetuated in our schools, on TV, and in the mainstream media.  Will you stand with me to reclaim our children from the grips of those who wish to simply use them as pawns in an attempt to fundamentally transform us into something unrecognizable to the rest of the world?  If not us, who?  If not now, when?  The future of The United States of America is at stake. Don’t let it slip away on our watch!

Educational Reform: It's All George Bush's Fault! Or Right Wing Corporate Greed!

Does this book have ALEC's name on it or the president's?  Who should shoulder the blame for ed reform policies? Rightwing (and other) organizations or Obama?

We have four more years of Obama's educational blueprint.  Some progressives believe this blueprint is being written by right wing organizations.  The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been tagged as right wing because it is funded by private corporations to boost corporate power and profits.  It establishes model legislation for states to use in education as well as other areas.  Think of it as private corporations tapping into taxpayer funding via legislative models (such as charter schools).  StudentsFirst also fits the mold of wanting to create more quasi private/public programs, but founder Michelle Rhee is a Democrat.  Like the heavily demonized right wing organizations, she apparently also loves money, power and control and has fit herself nicely in the "free market" niche that really isn't "free market".  Her TFA program and push for charter schools uses taxpayer money for private companies, which does not meet the test of a true "free market".   She is not technically rightwing (because of her political affiliation) but she certainly fits the mold of private corporations determining how tax money is spent.


Whether or not the organizations funding these "reforms" are left or right is inconsequential and the privatization blame of the educational system should not be placed on the corporations.  These organizations are just doing what corporations are allowed to do via political decisions.  The politicians and appointed officials are the ones to hold responsible in educational legislation, mandates and waste of billions of dollars.  Obama and Arne Duncan are regulating and/or mandating Race to the Top state and district grants, common core standards, teacher evaluations, FERPA revisions.....but  many progressives believe Obama was still the best presidential candidate even though he went against their educational ideas.  Government officials have the power to allow the corporations to use private money in a "free market" ruse and they are ultimately responsible for the privatization of education.

Whether or not Romney would have restored educational control to the states, we'll never know.  I'm not holding my breath that Obama's associate and friend Bill Ayers' letter imploring Obama to change his educational stance will make one iota of difference in the centralization/privatization of education.  It doesn't matter to Obama which private corporations/think tanks are providing services necessary to implement the Federal mandates. Disappointed progressives should be holding politicians/appointed officials accountable for allowing this transformation of education to occur.  When Race to the Top funding was approved, the Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the White House.  The politicians and appointed officials are the ones are responsible for these mandates stagnating public education, not the "right wing" educational cabal now profiting from this legislative decision.

Do you believe George Bush's NCLB was bad?  It was.  So what does Obama do when he assumed office? Did he relax federal standards and mandates?   Not by a long shot. He pursued RTTT, teacher accountability tied to test scores, waivers to NCLB (referred to as NCLB on steroids) and financial help to states by requiring them to sign on to common core standards.  However, the educational progressives believe Obama is preferable to a candidate who at least espoused states' rights for educational decisions.

We will probably witness four more years of mandates that the Federal Government can't fund and neither can the states or districts.  Teachers will complain, students will perform badly on common tests, and public education will decline even further.  Private corporations (whether from the left or right side of the aisle) will realize tidy profits as a result of the federal mandates on what constitutes a good education (more computers, common assessments, etc).  Meanwhile the progressives will blame it all on the "right" wing school choice organizations (even as some are made up of dedicated Democrats) instead of where it belongs: the Obama administration and the Democratically controlled Congress and Senate in 2008-2010.

Why George Bush is a target for the progressives for his poor educational decisions while Obama deflects criticism for even more onerous educational policies is puzzling.  Right wing organizations  keep getting blamed for educational failure, privatization of public schools and wasted funding.  The blame belongs with the politicians allowing this to occur, both on the national and state level.  But somehow, I bet this is still George Bush's fault.

 

How Did We Get Here?

Half the country today is thrilled with yesterday's results. The other half is shaking their heads wondering, "How did we get here?" The answer is surprisingly simple and obvious to probably 95% of the people who read this blog. We carefully trained people in our classrooms to vote this way.

If you read Charlotte Iserbyt The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America or John Gotto The Underground History of American Education, you already know the history. From B.F. Skinner to outcome based education, we have been working to make the American citizen one who is trained to respond to certain stimuli in a predictable way. Then those in power who want us to approve what they are doing merely need to invoke the appropriate stimuli. If you do it right, that stimuli can be reduced to a 30 second sound bite.

We decided that Prussian military training was an appropriate model for the classroom. Follow your leader without question. The collective is what's important. Uniformity equals efficiency which is the most desirable state.

We taught generations to idolize Edward Bernays who felt that  manipulation of society was necessary, because we suffer from the 'herd instinct' which he said was irrational and dangerous. We decided not to teach that Joseph Goebbels agreed with Bernays and gave the world Nazis.

We allowed progressives to take away the role of the family in raising the child and instead make the public school the source of all wisdom and knowledge. Today we call this education equity, where even the inequity of parentage is removed by placing the child, at the earliest possible age, in the uniform environment of school.  And when some tried to take education back into their own hands, those in control created whole language and fuzzy math to make parents feel dumb and unnecessary. You needed an expert to teach your child, they said, and academia was working hard to churn out these experts.

Parents felt shut out of the class and stopped paying attention to what was being taught in the classroom. This made the transition from teaching history to "social studies" so much easier. It allowed the public school system to introduce the concepts of: American Imperialism, the destruction of indigenous peoples by white European invaders, moral relativity and non-judgementalism of other cultures, anti-capitalism, anthropogenic global warming, wealthy white slave-owning deist founders and social justice, to the public school student with the parents even realizing it.

The public school system flipped our understanding of the federal government on its head. Instead of it being the least powerful or restrictive form of coalition among a group of independent states who wished to unite primarily for the purpose of defense, it became the top down dictator of public policy in all those states. Protecting the states became protecting the people, and the list of things they needed to be protected from grew and grew. Even locally, government's protective role was expanded to the point, where in a city like New York, the public needed to be protected from their freedom of choice in beverages and fats.

We taught, after World War II, that America's goal was to "spread democracy around the world," which became, "America is a great democracy." Democracies are to be idolized. We stopped teaching Alexander Fraser Tytler's progression of civilization in which he predicted that, "A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

So it should be of little surprise that we have at least half our population voting for those who can promise them the most from the public coffers, who equate Democrat with democracy and think that both are good, who only have the attention span of a 30 second commercial to inform themselves prior to voting for the persons who will have total control of their lives for the next 2-6 years.

And they said our education system was failing. I would say that yesterday's election is proof positive that our public education system is a remarkable success. 

Agency Based Education - The Ultimate Local Control

Today as we go to the polls to exercise our right to vote, most of us feel a sense of accomplishment. This is the time we can stop complaining about government and actually do something about it. We tend to feel better when we are proactive and do something.

In the world of politics we can either vote for someone who believes as we do, or spend time after they're elected trying to convince them that our point of view is best. Then we must wait for them to do their legislative or regulatory thing to achieve our goals. This is not a proactive approach and does not always work out for us. In fact, lately, it seems we rarely get the results we want. However, this is not all we can do about issues that we are passionate about. Sometimes, we must ignore politics all together and act locally to achieve the ends we want.

Agency Based Education is an organization that has a different blue print for education than the modern public school system. They have deconstructed the purpose of education to be the place "in which individuals exercise choice to exert their faculties to learn to be moral, self-governing, contributing citizens of good character; identify their gifts and talents to be empowered to overcome barriers in pursuit of their life’s missions; and maintain a free society to ensure these opportunities exist for future generations."

To achieve these goals they believe that the education system:

1. Must be based in choice and not compulsion
2. Helps develop an internal moral compass as one fosters a recognition and love of truth
3. Recognizes that truth best inspires when sought from original source materials
4. Should be individualized to allow children to identify and develop their gifts and talents and discover their life’s missions
5. Must recognize that parents have the sovereign stewardship to guide their children’s educational journey

Point #5 is the key to this type of education. You can't get any more local with education control than the parent. And this approach blows the doors of choice wide open. Choice is not limited to the mandatory public (or charter) schools available.

It must be noted that origination of the organization and its work is based in the book “Teach the Children, An Agency Approach to Education,” by Neil Flinders. Their target audience is in Utah. On their website they state, "Neil’s book is a magnum opus reflecting a lifetime of studying educational principles and theories. Although the book reflects a strong presence of Neil’s religion (LDS), the directions presented for achieving the results of an agency-based education are non-specific to a religion and can be implemented by any teacher or parent who is concerned with teaching children to take personal responsibility for their education by doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right way, for the right reason."

So go ahead and vote for your favorite candidates today, but instead of focusing on what they promise government will do to educate your child, consider Agency Based Education's beliefs about education and think about what you believe the purpose of education is and what can you do to help your child achieve those goals.

Become a Pro-Active Parent for Your Student (Short of Home Schooling/Private Schooling)

 
Our last post suggested parents become more pro active in the education of their children, particularly if they are in the public school system.  With the educational belief/mandate that all children learn in a common manner and common standards/assessments, the parental responsibility of ensuring a child receives a good education becomes even more imperative.


How do parents keep an eye on what/how children are learning?  How are parents not perceived as "the problem" for failing children?  The following press release, Parents Need To Be More Involved In Education, will give parents some ideas on how to become more involved in the child's education:

_____________________________________________________________

 

(Free-Press-Release.com) July 18, 2012 -- Almost every analysis of education ends up blaming parents.

Parents don’t care. They’re ignorant. They won’t talk to their kids. They won’t read to their kids. They won’t teach their kids. They fight teachers instead of helping them. Parents are the problem.

“I hear these criticisms all the time,” says Bruce Price, founder of Improve-Education.org. “I started to wonder if the accusations are fair. And what can we do to fix the situation?”

Price asked a minister in his office building if parents were really so bad. The minister quickly responded: “Fifty-fifty.”

“Okay,” Price decided, “let’s work with that. Let’s assume the criticism is one-half true and one-half unfair exaggeration.”

With regard to the unfair part, Price believes what we’re actually hearing is a cop-out. The school system rarely accepts responsibility for its many failures. It’s so much easier to blame voiceless, powerless parents. (Here’s a better idea: let’s blame the people actually in charge--the elite professors and administrators who adopt the bad policies.)

“With regard to the half that’s true,” Price continues, “let’s consider what might be done to make parents more helpful. Maybe they just need some pointers, some gentle nudges. Hey, parents, do these simple things and your kids will be more successful in school and in life. That’s worth a try, right?”

What follows is a short list of five suggestions for use by schools, religious organizations, community groups, etc. Put this list on websites, newsletters, programs, flyers, anywhere there is some empty space.

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Parents Involved In Education


-- Answer all your child’s questions. (Ask if there are any more questions.)

-- Teach your child something new every day, something factual and basic that everyone needs to know. Use a story in the newspaper, news on the TV, or something a child says. Information that might be obvious to you as an adult is not obvious to a kid.

-- Read to your child every day if possible. Have the child sitting next to you so you can explain how reading works. (If you cannot read, it’s very important to be honest about this and to take steps to learn to read.)

-- Encourage your child to have a positive outlook on school and education. Stress that it will be fun. There will be new friends to meet and interesting new things to do.

-- If at all possible, support teachers and schools unless they are doing something clearly wrong.


(Provided by Improve-Education.org / Bruce Deitrick Price)

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Price sums up the current situation. “Schools don’t seem to be improving, unfortunately. Therefore, EARLY INTERVENTION in all subjects is becoming more crucial.”

“Public schools use Whole Word, Reform Math, and many other methods that don’t work. I’m afraid that Common Core Curriculum is just going to lock in lots of bad ideas. The best defense is a good educational offense. Teach your kids what they need to know because the schools may not do the job.”

For a list of what schools should be teaching, see Bill of Rights for Students 2012.

 

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MEW note:  I would add to the above list.   If your child is gifted or has special needs, it may very well be true that the "schools may not do the job".  The strive to be "common" in standards/assessments and outcome based goals is not only unattainable for the "average" student, it is impossible to ask gifted and special needs students be held to that "common" benchmark.  On its face, this goal to provide "common" education is clearly unattainable, just as the 100% proficiency goal of NCLB proved to be.

 

So how many more billions of dollars of waste and student failures will we see in the coming years with these failed/failing educational "reforms"?

Just what is wrong with Common Core in Vermont?

What's wrong in Vermont CCSS is also what's wrong in any of the CCSS states connected to Smarter Balanced Constortia.  These are standards/assessments produced by private trade organizations and financially supported by the DOEd.

What happens with common core standards in Vermont happens in Missouri since we are states in the Smarter Balanced Consortia.

Susan Ohanian writes about the future of Vermont public education.  As you read it, just insert Missouri in place of Vermont and you will have a good picture of what Missouri's future education will look like.  If your state is one of the remaining states in Smarter Balanced, this is your educational future as well.  From vtdigger.org and Putting a test on computer doesn't make it up-to-date:

The press release published in VTDigger (Oct. 23) by the Vermont Department of Education makes me weep. I shed tears for what the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium has in store for Vermont children. Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca says, “These sample items will provide Vermont teachers with an early look into the rigor and complexity students will see on the Smarter Balanced assessments.”

Looking at the sample items for English Language Arts/Literacy, I’m reminded of that old Wendy’s ad, “Where’s the beef?”

Rigor and complexity? No. Mind-numbing drill on material that research shows is useless? Yes.

Read more here.

The ironic point is you, as a taxpayer into your local district, have little control about whether your district uses these mind-numbing drills.  It's consortia driven so your state educational agency can't direct the assessments to a meaningful degree either.  Short of taking your child out of the public school and either private schooling/home schooling options, what can a parent do to make sure their child receives the education he/she needs?  Ohanian has a suggestion:

If you want your young child to develop savvy about how words work, buy her lots of “genre” riddle books — books such as those written by Katy Hall and Lisa Eisenberg: Creepy Riddles, Spooky Riddles, Turkey Riddles, Fishy Riddles, Piggy Riddles, and so on.

Parents, it's time to become the educational advocates your child needs to become an independent thinker and responsible for his/her own life decisions.  The "free market" privatization of education with taxpayer dollars with no taxpayer input isn't going to provide the education your child needs.  The "free market" and governmental agencies will provide an education to supply a managed workforce, but as for learning academics in a meaningful way (and learning  how to use them for life skills) and applying them to a self-directed life, that's just not the goal.  It's not going to happen.  It's up to parents to either supplement or pull their kids out of this system. It's not for the kids in the least. 

Ohanian has extensive links on what's wrong with the common core here.

The Accreditation Game

If you live in or around St. Louis you are very familiar with the crisis created when St. Louis Public Schools lost their accreditation from the Missouri State Board of Education. Loss of accreditation is meant to send a message to the school district, "You really need to do better."

For the individual student the consequences are less dramatic. They still receive a diploma. They are still eligible for all scholarships they would otherwise be eligible for. While they might, in theory, have a harder time qualifying for college admissions, MO DESE says it "has not identified any instance where a student who graduated from an unaccredited school district has been disqualified from consideration for admission." So where might they feel a pinch?

If they play a sport the Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA) provides that students who transfer schools or do not meet the requirements for residency upon enrollment at the school are ineligible for 365 days unless they meet one or more exceptions.  There is an exception for students transferring from an unaccredited public school:

 A student may be eligible upon his or her first transfer from an unaccredited public school to an accredited public school where the student’s tuition is required by state law to be paid by the home district provided the transfer does not involve undue influence and is not for athletic reasons.  Likewise, a student may be eligible upon his/her first transfer back to his/her home school if the school regains accreditation provided: 1. the student transfers within 365 days of accreditation being regained and 2. the transfer does not involve undue influence and is not for athletic reasons.

As the Turner Decision showed, the other consequence for students is that they become eligible to transfer to an adjacent accredited district, provided the moon and the stars line up just right to allow that to happen.

James V. Shuls, the new education policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute wrote in a piece for The Missouri Record, "the state’s board of education has set the bar for accreditation and provisional accreditation very low; so low, in fact, that the distinctions are essentially meaningless. The distinctions are also inconsequential because they change very little for the district besides the label. And as Shakespeare noted, 'a low-performing school district by any other name would smell like a low-performing school district.'”

Susan Turk at St. Louis Schools Watch has another point of view. The distinction is not inconsequential for everyone. In a recent post she explored the State Board of Education's recent surprising turn around on its position regarding St Louis Public School District accreditation. Just one year ago they earned the required six points to regain their accreditation and it seemed the SBE was poised to give it to them. Then they made an abrupt change and said they wanted to see a two year upward trend in scores before they granted accreditation.  Yet just ten months later they have reversed themselves again and granted provisional accreditation, which DESE describes as being considered accredited. Mr. Shuls was right. It's just a label and one with very little meaning.

SLSW has a more pessimistic view. The SBE's decision comes at a time when St. Loius Mayor Slay has a challenger in the upcoming election, Lewis Reed who had reclaiming St. Louis public school accreditation as one of his main platform goals.

SLSW explained it this way,  

... Lewis Reed supports returning SLPS to the governance of the elected board of education.  He does not support the mayor controlling the SLPS.  

When the state board voted to find the SLPS unaccredited in 2007, they did so for political reasons.  They took the unprecedented step of removing accreditation not after a regularly scheduled once in 5 year accreditation review, but 2 years early. They did so because as has been documented by Wilbur C. Rich in the Winter 2008 issue of the Hoover Institute’s Education Next journal, “Mayor Slay” formed “an alliance with the governor (Blunt) to take over the schools.”

  

Mayor Slay’s sudden support for the approval of provisional accreditation for the SLPS, Dr. Adams’ and the SAB’s request for consideration of it and the state board’s approval at this time, after academic progress has slipped somewhat, only makes sense in the light of political expediency, the upcoming mayoral primary in March of 2013. Mayor Slay fearing the anger of SLPS parents, needed to take an issue away from Lewis Reed. 

So while accreditation has little impact on the students, it has huge impact, and political capital, for many others: the mayor, adjacent district superintendents, and parents.  Right now it is just a game.

It is important to remember what accreditation is supposed to accomplish.  It is supposed to assure parents that the services and operations of educational institutions are of an acceptable quality. Hence the provision that if a district loses its accreditation parents may apply to have their child attend another accredited district. This is parent choice based on information supplied by some outside agency that is supposed to be trustworthy. In the case of SLPS that can be debated. 

The Show Me Institute report made a useful suggestion based on this understanding of the purpose of accreditation. Such a rating system should allow parents to know how the actual school they send their child to is performing. The current system only tells them how the schools in their district, as an aggregate, perform. The magnet schools in St. Louis have helped pull up the districts scores, while the scores at individual schools remain dismally low. If parents are to be able to make an informed decision about where they send their child, the individual school should receive the accreditation or rating. Mr. Shuls recommends a report card type system. 

"The current system pre-supposes that the state can hold schools accountable by accrediting the school district, when in reality, school accountability is best achieved when families are allowed to hold their child’s school accountable," he writes. This would give parents useful information and remove the political capital inherent in the current district accreditation process. Not bad. It also means, at least in theory, that fewer students would be eligible for transfer at any one time since only individual schools would fit into that scenario. Parents with more ability to hold their individual school accountable might have better success at changing it and keeping their kids there which would be preferable to moving their kids out of their local district.

Too bad we're headed in the other direction with less and less local control and more control coming from Washington DC. But we can always dream.