From Ben Stein's Diary

Ben Stein's take on the coming result of our public education:

This condition -- not wanting to learn or even knowing how to learn -- is going to kill this country, or at least the idea of a fluid, meritocratic society. The poor will stay poor and the rich who are willing to learn will stay rich.

This will eventually drag down national productivity to the point where we truly become a Third World nation with a thin slice of first world on top of. The process will take a long time, but it will happen. It is already happening.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/12/01/one-of-eight-billion/1

Waiting for Superman

Director Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) has made a new documentary about public schools. "Waiting for Superman" opens soon and is expected to generate alot of attention. In a recent article in New York Magazine entitled, Schools: The Disaster Movie, John Heileman discusses the movie and its director, whom he refers to as, "an unrepentant liberal." http://nymag.com/news/features/67966/ That's a strange term. What liberal school policies is Guggenheim unrepentant about? Racial desegration? The free school lunch program? Special education services for the disabled? If so, more power to him. But if he's unrepentant about busing, open classrooms, full inclusion, whole language, values clarification, or other variously liberal policies I could mention, then I'm not so sure. Heileman is probably using the term loosely, though it is still very weird. But I am getting way off track. What I really wanted to comment on is the thrust of Heileman's movie review: that terrific teachers are THE KEY to student success.

According to Heileman, Guggenheim's position is that "no variable is more critical to the success of students than terrific teachers." That may be true to an extent. Within the school, teachers probably are the variable most important to student success. Most people would agree with that. But what is wrong with Heileman's and Guggenheim's assertion is what it leaves out, the parents.

In a larger sense, it is not terrific teachers but rather terrific parents that are of paramount importance to children's success in school and in life. Waiting for Superman might acknowledge this reality, but nothing in Heileman's review suggests that it does. Instead, it offers the modest proposal that we bring in a new breed of teacher, a teacher who graduated from the top third, doesn't mind working nights and weekends or expect summers off. Perhaps that is what is meant by the movie title, Waiting for Superman, which I'll remind you Heilemen called a disaster movie. So here's the scenario: our poor helpless schoolchildren are trapped in failing schools. And they're going to fail unless terrific teachers rescue them. There are teachers currently on the scene trying to help, but they can't because they're weak and ineffective (or crappy, as Heileman put it). So the children must wait for Superman, or super teachers, to arrive. But what can we do to make super teachers come to the rescue?

Heilemen has the answser. He cites a study that says super teachers could be attracted to the field for a starting salary of $65,000 and a top salary of $150,000. Will the new breed of super teachers arrive in time to save the trapped children from failing?

Don't touch that dial, movie fans.

Unmentionable

Robert Samuelson, a contributing editor at Newsweek, recently wrote that the biggest reason school reform routinely fails "is almost unmentionable: shrunken student motivation." I'm guessing what Mr. Samuelson really finds almost unmentionable is not the lack of student motivation, because everybody talks about lack of student motivation, but rather it's cause. Here Mr. Samuelson bucks the standard line, which is that lack of student motivation is either the school's or the teacher's fault. Mr. Samuelson asserts that the reality is otherwise. According to Samuelson, as schools are including more and more students who formerly would have dropped out and as the adolescent culture has strengthened, school and teacher authority has eroded. "Motivation is weak," writes Mr. Samuelson, "because more students (of all races and economic classes, let it be added) don't like school, don't work hard and don't do well." http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/09/06/why_school_reform_fails_107033.html

Bracing, as is Mr. Samuelson's next assertion: "The goal of expanding 'access' -- giving more students more years of schooling -- tends to lower educational standards." I am reminded of a quip I once heard from a college professor friend of mine, "The only way we're going to not leave any child behind is if we don't go anywhere."

Could it be we are coming back to the realization that many students fail because they don't like school, don't work hard, and in some cases, don't belong in school in the first place?

Unmentionable indeed.

School Nurses on Splinter Removal: "No We Can't"

It seems to be standard practice in many schools that school nurses don't remove splinters, or even attempt to. The following account from a parent posted on webmd.com is illustrative:

DD1 got a splinter in her hand while playing at school yesterday. She told her teacher who sent her to the school nurse. The nurse cleaned her palm where the splinter was, put a band air on it and sent her home (with the splinter still inside her palm). When dd came home and told me she had a splinter and that she went to the nurse and got it fixed, I didn't worry too much. Later in the evening I took the band aid off to look at the wound and found the splinter still inside.

I took it out with a pair of tweezers - this is a feat because I'm the most squeamish person imaginable. I am not good at these kind of things. So, if I can do it, why couldn't the nurse do it?

http://forums.webmd.com/3/parenting-elementary-ages-exchange/forum/886/8

Now I'm not saying all splinters can be removed. If a splinter's in too deep, that's one thing. Nor would I expect, as one parent responded to the above entry, for a school nurse to physically restrain a child and wrestle a splinter out. But to not even try? I'll never forget the little boy in my own second grade class, Dalton, who came back from the office with a bandaid over his splinter. It was a fairly large splinter, just under the skin. Anyone with a pair of tweezers could have easily removed it. The little boy even stood patiently and bit his lip a time or two as I tried removing it with a pair of needle nosed pliers I'd fished out of my desk. As another parent noted on webmd.com, "Splinters hurt & can be quite bothersome. I know for my kids they complain continuously until it is removed."

Our school did not have a licensed nurse on staff. Instead, bandaids were administered by the attendance secretary, who was a loving, intelligent, and always helpful person who had raised a number of children. She would probably have been more than happy to remove Dalton's irritating splinter had she not been prevented by our District's policy. I have told Dalton's story to at least two licensed school nurses, and neither was surprised. If I remember correctly, and it's been a while, both of them told me they were prohibited from removing splinters.

Whenever someone asks me why I think our public schools are dysfunctional, I tell them the story of Dalton and his splinter. I also think of Little Loewy from Darkness at Noon. Little Loewy was a disillusioned Bolshevik, a true believer whose eyes were opened by the seemingly corrupt and counterproductive actions of his superiors in Moscow. The problem was, Little Loewy only thought of his communist ideals. He had no broader vision, no realpolitic. That's why he felt betrayed when Moscow began secretly shipping arms to Nazi Germany. In the story, he's just finished telling Rubashov, the protagonist, some bitter tale of woe about some incomprehensible thing the Party leaders in Moscow have done. "What are you telling me this for?" Rubashov asks. Little Loewy responds:

"Because it is instructive . . . because it is a typical example, I could tell you of hundreds of others. For years the best of us have been crushed in that way. The Party is becoming more and more fossilized. The Party has gout and vericose veins in every limb."

There is a parallel here. Just as Little Loewy couldn't understand the broader vision of realpolitic that led the party leaders in Moscow to do what they did, many parents and teachers don't understand why school nurses can't remove a splinter from a child's palm. But just like Little Loewy, we too lack the broader vision of our superiors. All we see is the face of the little hurting child, imploring us to do something about that splinter. We lack the broader vision, which is the fear of lawsuits that those who run our public schools are all too aware of.

Attorney Phillip K. Howard, author of Life Without Lawyers (2009) says that fear of lawsuits has upturned our society's "sense of balance on ordinary life choices."

Broward County decided to ban running in the playgrounds after it got a report showing that it had settled 189 playground awsuits in the prior five years. "To say 'no running' on the playground seems crazy," said a member of the Broward County School Board, "but your feelings change when you're in a closed-door meeting with lawyers."

The child with the splinter in his palm and the school board that feels compelled to ban running on the playground are of the same piece. What seems crazy is not crazy after all, esecially if you've been "reeducated" during a closed door session with lawywers. That's where you learn that you must remove all risk, no matter what the cost. "Sorry kid, I can't take that splinter out, and be sure you don't run on the playground when you get back out there."

A Plea for More Socialism with a Small but Welcome Nod to Reality

If you haven't visited the American Association of School Administrators website lately, you might not have seen a recent paper entitled, Healthier Students are Better Learners: A Missing Link in School Reforms to Close the Achievement Gap, written by Charles E. Basch and published by the Campaign for Educational Equity, Teacher’s College, Columbia University.
//http://www.equitycampaign.org/i/a/document/12557_EquityMattersVol6_Web03082010.pdf

The topic is "educationally relevant health disparities," which include asthma, skipping breakfast, vision, violence in schools, and physical activity. Urban minority students from impoverished areas tend to suffer from these issues to a greater degree than other students, accounting for part of the achievement gap observed in these students. Mr. Basch says all the things you'd expect from a champion of educational equity. For starters, he makes a plea for more bureaucracy and more regulation in our public schools. Don't believe me? Take asthma, one of the health risks that can negatively impact students. Mr. Basch says it's up to the schools to do something:

• have on file an asthma action plan for all students with known asthma
• use a variety of data sources to identify students with poorly controlled asthma
• provide intensive case management for students with poorly controlled asthma
• minimize asthma triggers in the school environment
• implement a policy to permit students to carry and self-administer asthma medications
• train school staff on recognizing and responding to severe asthma symptoms that require immediate action
• have a full-time registered nurse on staff at school
• provide parents and families of students with asthma information to increase their knowledge about asthma management

As any teacher can tell you, most of the above are currently being done in our public schools to one degree or another. Our public schools are generally clean and allergen free. Teachers are made aware of health issues such as asthma from reviewing the health information contained in the student's file. Conscientious teachers identify children with serious breathing issues and tell their parents. Teachers work with administrators, parents, and school nurses to allow children to use inhalants when necessary. All these things and more are being done every day in our public schools, as they have been for decades. But, according to Mr. Basch, the problem is that these efforts are "categorical and fragmented rather than strategic and coordinated."

In other words, our schools need to hire Asthma Awareness Specialists, Asthma Treatment Strategy Coordinators, and other asthma administrators to create more paperwork, conduct meetings, and make phone calls.

Alongside the plea that more bureacracy and regulation be heaped upon the schools, Basch is careful not to ask anything of students or parents. For example, skipping breakfast was identified as another "educationally relevant health disparity." As noted by Basch, the school breakfast program started as a pilot program in 1966 and became permanent in 1975. Since then, millions of children have participated in the program. Unfortunately, less than half of students currently enrolled in the free or reduced lunch program eat the school breakfast, even though they can get it for free or at a reduced price. Basch identifies two barriers to participation in the school breakfast program: 1) stigma associated with participation in a program intended for low income families; and 2) having to arrive at school early enough to eat breakfast.

To address the first problem, the stigma of participating in a program for low income families, Basch suggests making the free breakfast program universal. To address the second problem, having to arrive at school early enough to eat breakfast, he says that, "allowing students to eat breakfast in the classroom rather than the cafeteria would address the second.” Clearly, Basch's idea of educational equity does not involve personal responsibility.

Nevertheless, Basch does give a nod to reality that is most welcome. For years, teachers have been told to shut up about the problem of students who come to school in no condition to learn. Children who are chronically sleep deprived, from chaotic homes with drug use and criminal activity, among other factors, come to school unable to function in a classroom. But teachers have been told to shut up about that. At the school where I taught, the motto was "SUCCESS FOR ALL, NO EXCEPTIONS, NO EXCUSES!" And we are told that effective teaching can make anything happen in the classroom, no matter what's going on with the child at home.

So it was most welcome to see Mr. Basch come out against that lie in his paper:

No matter how well teachers are prepared to teach, no matter what accountability measures are put into place, no matter what governing structures are established for schools, educational progress will be profoundly limited if students are not motivated and able to learn.

We may not agree on the role of the schools or what their mission should be. But at least we agree on one thing: healthier students do learn better. It's what common sense educators have been saying for years.