Failing Schools look to a Longer School Day

States and school districts nationwide are moving to lengthen the day at struggling schools, spurred by grim test results suggesting that more than 10,000 schools are likely to be declared failing under federal law next year.

In Massachusetts, in the forefront of the movement, Gov. Deval L. Patrick is allocating $6.5 million this year for longer days and can barely keep pace with demand: 84 schools have expressed interest.

“In 15 years, I’d be very surprised if the old school calendar still dominates in urban settings,” said Mark Roosevelt, superintendent of schools in Pittsburgh, which has added 45 minutes a day at eight of its lowest-performing schools and 10 more days to their academic year.

This from the New York Times. Photo by Erik Jacobs for The New York Times.

Time spent in High-quality day care centers was correlated with Higher Vocabulary Scores through elementary school. But, that's only the Good News.

Photo by Bill Crandall for the New York Times

Poor Behavior Is Linked to Time in Day Care

A much-anticipated report from the largest and longest-running study of American child care has found that keeping a preschooler in a day care center for a year or more increased the likelihood that the child would become disruptive in class — and that the effect persisted through the sixth grade.

The effect was slight, and well within the normal range for healthy children, the researchers found. And as expected, parents’ guidance and their genes had by far the strongest influence on how children behaved.

But the finding held up regardless of the child’s sex or family income, and regardless of the quality of the day care center. With more than two million American preschoolers attending day care, the increased disruptiveness very likely contributes to the load on teachers who must manage large classrooms, the authors argue.

This from the New York Times.

Girl's death stirs debate over psychiatric meds

Parents of 4-year-old accused of intentionally overmedicating daughter

Rebecca Riley, 4, died Dec. 13, 2006, in Hull, Mass. Rebecca's parents, Michael and Carolyn Riley, are accused in the drug-poisoning death. Associated Press Photo.

MSNBC.com reports:

In the final months of Rebecca Riley’s life, a school nurse said the little girl was so weak she was like a “floppy doll.” The preschool principal had to help Rebecca off the bus because the 4-year-old was shaking so badly. And a pharmacist complained that Rebecca’s mother kept coming up with excuses for why her daughter needed more and more medication.

Powerful drug cocktail

According to the medical examiner, Rebecca died of a combination of Clonidine, a blood pressure medication Rebecca had been prescribed for ADHD; Depakote, an antiseizure and mood-stabilizing drug prescribed for the little girl’s bipolar disorder; a cough suppressant; and an antihistamine. The amount of Clonidine alone in Rebecca’s system was enough to be fatal, the medical examiner said.

Troubling questions

But the tragic case is more than a story about one child. It raises troubling, larger questions about the state of child psychiatry, namely: Can children as young as Rebecca be accurately diagnosed with mental illnesses? Are rambunctious youngsters being medicated for their parents’ convenience? And should children so young be prescribed powerful psychotropic drugs meant for adults?

'Happy medicine'

Prosecutors say the Rileys intentionally tried to quiet their daughter with high doses of Clonidine. Relatives told police the Rileys called Clonidine the “happy medicine” and the “sleep medicine.”


Rebecca’s uncle, James McGonnell, and his girlfriend, Kelly Williams, who lived with the Rileys, told police that the Rileys would put their kids to bed as early as 5 p.m. Rebecca, they said, often slept through the day and got up only to eat. When Michael Riley decided the kids were “acting up,” he told Carolyn to give them pills, McGonnell and Williams told police. According to McGonnell and Williams, Rebecca spent the last days of her life wandering around the house, sick and disoriented. But the Rileys told police they were not alarmed. “It was just a cold,” Carolyn repeatedly said during police interviews.

After Rebecca’s death, police found only seven Clonidine tablets in the family’s medicine tray; the pharmacist said there should have been 75. All together, prosecutors say, Carolyn Riley got 200 more pills in one year than she should have.


The annual number of U.S. children prescribed anti-psychotic drugs jumped fivefold between 1995 and 2002, to an estimated 2.5 million, according to a study published last year by researchers at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville, Tenn.

GAO Outlines Strengths, Weaknesses of Reading First

The federal Reading First program has led to changes and improvements in reading instruction, but the U.S. Department of Education failed to guard against federal officials’ “mandating or directing states’ decisions about reading programs and assessments, which is prohibited by [law],” the Government Accountability Office says in a report released today.

The long-awaited report on Reading First by the investigative arm of Congress substantiates the findings of a broad review of the reading initiative by the Education Department’s inspector general.

Little new ground is plowed in the report in describing problems with the oversight of the $1 billion-a-year program authorized under the No Child Left Behind Act. It agrees with many of the conclusions outlined in six reports by the inspector general that have been released since last September. Those reports found that federal officials worked to influence the selection of reading programs used in participating schools, interference that is prohibited by law; and that some commercial programs and assessments appeared to have been favored, and others disadvantaged, in the grant-review process.

This from Education Week.

A Play on Iraq War Divides a High School

The New York Times reports:

Student productions at Wilton High School range from splashy musicals like last year’s “West Side Story,” performed in the state-of-the-art, $10 million auditorium, to weightier works like Arthur Miller’s “Crucible,” on stage last fall in the school’s smaller theater.

For the spring semester, students in the advanced theater class took on a bigger challenge: creating an original play about the war in Iraq. They compiled reflections of soldiers and others involved, including a heartbreaking letter from a 2005 Wilton High graduate killed in Iraq last September at age 19, and quickly found their largely sheltered lives somewhat transformed.

“In Wilton, most kids only care about Britney Spears shaving her head or Tyra Banks gaining weight,” said Devon Fontaine, 16, a cast member. “What we wanted was to show kids what was going on overseas.”

But even as 15 student actors were polishing the script and perfecting their accents for a planned April performance, the school principal last week canceled the play, titled “Voices in Conflict,” citing questions of political balance and context.

The principal, Timothy H. Canty, who has tangled with students before over free speech, said in an interview he was worried the play might hurt Wilton families “who had lost loved ones or who had individuals serving as we speak,” and that there was not enough classroom and rehearsal time to ensure it would provide “a legitimate instructional experience for our students.”

“It would be easy to look at this case on first glance and decide this is a question of censorship or academic freedom,” said Mr. Canty, who attended Wilton High himself in the 1970s and has been its principal for three years. “In some minds, I can see how they would react this way. But quite frankly, it’s a false argument.”

At least 10 students involved in the production, however, said that the principal had told them the material was too inflammatory, and that only someone who had actually served in the war could understand the experience. They said that Gabby Alessi-Friedlander, a Wilton junior whose brother is serving in Iraq, had complained about the play, and that the principal barred the class from performing it even after they changed the script to respond to concerns about balance.

“He told us the student body is unprepared to hear about the war from students, and we aren’t prepared to answer questions from the audience and it wasn’t our place to tell them what soldiers were thinking,” said Sarah Anderson, a 17-year-old senior who planned to play the role of a military policewoman.

Bonnie Dickinson, who has been teaching theater at the school for 13 years, said, “If I had just done ‘Grease,’ this would not be happening.”

Frustration over the inelegant finale has quickly spread across campus and through Wilton, and has led to protest online through Facebook and other Web sites.

“To me, it was outrageous,’’ said Jim Anderson, Sarah’s father. “Here these kids are really trying to make a meaningful effort to educate, to illuminate their fellow students, and the administration, of all people, is shutting them down.”

First Amendment lawyers said Mr. Canty had some leeway to limit speech that might be disruptive and to consider the educational merit of what goes on during the school day, when the play was scheduled to be performed. But thornier legal questions arise over students’ contention that they were also thwarted from trying to stage the play at night before a limited audience, and discouraged from doing so even off-campus. Just this week, an Alaska public high school was defending itself before the United States Supreme Court for having suspended a student who unfurled a banner extolling drug use at an off-campus parade.

The scrap over “Voices in Conflict” is the latest in a series of free-speech squabbles at Wilton High, a school of 1,250 students that is consistently one of Connecticut’s top performers and was the alma mater of Elizabeth Neuffer, the Boston Globe correspondent killed in Iraq in 2003.
The current issue of the student newspaper, The Forum, includes an article criticizing the administration for requiring that yearbook quotations come from well-known sources for fear of coded messages. After the Gay Straight Alliance wallpapered stairwells with posters a few years ago, the administration, citing public safety hazards, began insisting that all student posters be approved in advance.

Around the same time, the administration tried to ban bandanas because they could be associated with gangs, prompting hundreds of students to turn up wearing them until officials relented.

“Our school is all about censorship,” said James Presson, 16, a member of the “Voices of Conflict” cast. “People don’t talk about the things that matter.”
~

From the script: Voice of Conflict

National Guard Sergeant Ben Flanders:
I reenlisted again! There was something profound about serving my country, and although I had been a national guardsman for six years and I was getting paid and getting benefits, I wasn’t seeing where I was providing a service---until I was actually deployed to Iraq. Then my butt was on the line and that readjusted my whole focus that --service to the country is really important. I realized it’s really important to have a strong military, and I alsorealized that we need to keep our leaders accountable. Do I support the invasion? I’m not 100% sure. We need congressional hearings about what led to that.I believe in this country, it needs people who are critical and analytical and take their own skills and strengths and put them to some use. I have a lot of conviction about staying in Iraq. We should not leave, and that’s because of the work we did, and I believe in that work. We confronted an enemy that easily would have chosen to bomb a café or kill innocent civilians.

Sgt. Robert Sarra:
...We had been in a firefight, we had been in an engagement, and the engagement was over and I see this woman walking out in all black, shes got a bag in her arm, shes wearing a berka. Uh and shes walking out towards the armoured vehicle. And the guys on the Amtrack start waving their hands and yelling at her stop stop and their raising their weapons and i went, “ok one or two things are gonna happen: this woman is gonna put up her hands and surrender and start talking to the marines or she’s gonna walk up to these guys and explode. And if she blows up, she’s gonna kill a bunch of those guys or wound a bunch of them. I’ve got a clear shot with nothing behind her. And this was all, i mean (snaps fingers continually, while nodding head) the was spilt second ya know? It happens all that fast. Pulled up my rifle, took two shots at her. (takes deep breath) I know i probably missed the first shot, the second shot, I’m pretty sure i hit her. And as soon as that second shot went off, the guys on the other vehicle opened up and they cut her down. She fell to the dirt, and as she fell, she had a a white flag in her hand. At that moment there, I lost it, I threw my weapon down on the deck of the vehicle and I was crying and i was like Oh my god, what are we doing here? whats happening? I had a gunnery sargent, who had been in the first war, he said it happens there’s nothing you can do to bring her back, it happens we gotta keep going.Spilt second decision that’s all, you pull the trigger, you trigger something else...

Army Captain Patrick Murphy:
I trained 600 Iraqi soldiers in small class settings. I taught rules of engagement, but I also taught them what it meant to be a soldier. I’d tell them about the seven army values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless services, honor, integrity, and personal courage. I told them to be loyal to their country. I spent a lot of time with them. I told them, “You are my brothers now. We are brothers in arms. In history we fought like the dickens with the Japanese and the Germans and look now. Ten years from now, I’m going to come to Iraq on vacation and visit my brothers. We are brothers now in the same profession, with the same goal: a better Iraq. This is a defining moment in your country’s history, and you are true patriots for your country.”

Sgt Kelly Dougherty:
...The enemy could be anyone that you see, you don’t know where to focus your attention, you don’t know where to focus your anger—the aggression and the hatred that would be focused on a clear enemy gets focused on every single Iraqi.

Islamic Woman:
Don’t blame it on Islam. Every religion has its extremists. In times of chaos and disorder, those extremists flourish. Iraq is full of moderate Muslims who simply believe in “live and let live”. We get along with each other – Sunnis and Shi’a, Muslims and Christians, and Jews and Sabi’a. We intermarry, we mix and mingle, we live. We build our churches and mosques in the same areas, our children go to the same schools…it was never an issue. Someone asked me if, through elections, the Iraqi people might vote for an Islamic state. Six months ago, I would have firmly said, “No”. Now I’m not so sure. There’s been an overwhelming return to fundamentalism. People are turning to religion for several reasons. The first and most prominent is fear. Fear of war, fear of death and fear of a fate worse than death (and yes, there are fates worse than death). Encroaching Western values and beliefs have also played a prominent role in pushing Iraqis to embrace Islam. Just as there are ignorant people in the Western World, there are ignorant people in the Middle East. In Muslims and Arabs, Westerners see suicide bombers, terrorists, ignorance, and camels. In Americans, Brits, etc. Iraqis see depravity, prostitution, ignorance, domination, junkies, and ruthlessness. The best way people can find to protect themselves, and their loved ones, against this assumed threat is religion.

Lincoln County High teacher resigns after allegations

The Danville Advocate-Messenger reports:

A French teacher resigned this week from Lincoln County High School after allegations that she was at a student’s house party and was involved in behavior described as “inappropriate.”

Elsa Wachter, who has taught at the school for two years, resigned on the spot when Superintendent Teresa Wallace asked her about an alleged incident during the party involving several students, according to Kentucky State Police.

The New Anti-Intellectualism in America

When Curricular Rigor and ‘Pedagogical Fraud’ Go Hand in Hand

It seems odd to accuse the schools of anti-intellectualism when they are engaged in a relentless drive for higher test scores, and students are required to take more difficult academic courses. Passing rates on some state and local tests show small increases, but there has been little if any improvement on well-established national tests. The small gains we’ve seen may be the result of concentrated instruction on narrowly defined objectives. But we are not promoting intellectual habits of mind. Indeed, we may be reducing intellectual life to mental labor. What are the signs that this is happening?

See Nel Noddings' OpEd in Education Week.

"Dropout" to receive Harvard Degree

The School Bill Gates left to start Microsoft will bestow honorary degree

Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., will speak at Harvard University's commencement ceremony in June and like all commencement speakers will receive an honorary degree from the institution.

It's hard to guess if Gates, the wealthiest person in the world and co-founder of a company that brought in US$44 billion in revenue last year, cares. But the programming whiz who once dropped out of Harvard will likely feel some sense of satisfaction.

Gates arrived at Harvard as a freshman in 1973 and while there got to know Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, who lived just down the hall. Gates had already discovered his interest in software, having programmed computers since the age of 13. While at Harvard, Gates helped develop a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer, the MITS Altair.

During his junior year, Gates dropped out of the university to work full-time on Microsoft, a company he and his childhood friend Paul Allen founded. In hindsight, it's hard to criticize that decision.

Source: InfoWorld

Teen who wants to wear anti-gay T-shirt takes battle to court

A Neuqua Valley High senior has gone to federal court seeking the right to wear an anti-gay T-shirt to school next month on the day after a national event in support of gays is scheduled in schools.

Heidi Zamecnik, 17, is asking the court to order her school and Indian Prairie District 204 to allow her to express her anti-gay beliefs on April 19, the day after the 11th annual "Day of Silence'' is scheduled to protest harassment of gays in schools.

According to the Web site http://www.dayofsilence.org students and teachers across the country plan to observe the day in silence "to echo'' the silence that gay students face all the time.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday on behalf of Heidi and an NVHS freshman did not state what written message they planned to wear on T-shirt.

This from the Chicago Sun-Times.

In Fairfax's 'No Child' Fight, A Refusal to Leave Children Behind

Jack Dale is no anti-testing zealot, shielding the little ones from the reality of a competitive world. He's not out there with the activists who believe the No Child Left Behind revolution in American schools has turned education into a grim, mechanistic culture.

But the superintendent of Fairfax County schools, who presides over one of the highest-achieving systems in the land, has taken a stand at the schoolhouse door: "The last thing I'm going to do is subject some third-grader to tears because someone's standing over them saying, 'You must complete [this standardized test], you must complete.' That's not happening. Let them fire me for it."

This from Marc Fisher of the Washington Post.

Battling the 'No Child' Backlash

David Broder opines in the Washington Post:

"The last thing President Bush needs is another fight with his political base. But that is what he has found as he presses Congress to renew the No Child Left Behind Act, his signature education program passed by a bipartisan majority in the first months of his first term.

Last week, 57 Republican legislators signed on as sponsors of legislation that would -- in the view of the administration -- destroy No Child Left Behind. The bill would allow any state that objected to the law's standards and testing to excuse itself from those requirements and still receive federal school aid...

...The president, who has disdained compromise with the Democrats on Iraq policy, or the budget, or much of anything else, finds himself dependent on Democratic help to rescue this notable domestic initiative. He is lucky that they are still willing to give it.

There are ways to reinforce the goals of high proficiency for all students while reducing the bureaucratic regulations, and that should be the measuring stick for renewal of No Child Left Behind."

But the dissenting Republicans' idea of letting every state set its own standards and measure its own progress is a certain way to consign many youngsters to second-class educations. And that would be a serious step backward."

Exhibit of Civil Rights-era Photographs on Display

An exhibit of works by world-renowned civil rights photographer Ernest C. Withers will be on display during March and April at the Cooper Campus of Bluegrass Community & Technical College (BCTC).

The event is the result of a joint venture between the University of Kentucky Office of Multicultural and Academic Affairs and the BCTC Multicultural Affairs Office.Forty of Withers’ photographs will be on display March 19 through April 9 in the main hallway of BCTC’s Oswald Building, located at 470 Cooper Dr., Lexington. The exhibit will be open during regular college hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. It is free and open to the public.

Ernest Withers was born in Memphis, Tenn., in 1922 and began his career in photography while serving in the Army. After fulfilling his military duty, Withers returned to Memphis and during that time photographed many pivotal moments of the civil rights movement, including the Montgomery bus boycott, the Medgar Evers’ funeral, and the assassination and funeral of Martin Luther King Jr. Withers also documented the music scene on Beale Street as well as the Negro Baseball League and black social life in Memphis. To date, he has published four books of his photography: "Pictures Tell the Story," "The Memphis Blues Again," "Let Us March On," and "Negro League Baseball."

Source: UK press release.

Is Utah out to suppress high school clubs? Gay-straight alliances in the crosshairs.

The New York Times reports:

Most people would probably not consider the average high school chess club to be a hotbed of disorder or immorality. But a club is a club, and Utah has decided that student groups need some stern policing and regulation.

Next month, a 17-page law will take effect governing just about every nuance of public school extracurricular clubs, from kindergarten jump rope to high school drama. How groups can form, what they can discuss in their meetings, who can join, and what a principal must do if rules are violated are addressed.

But the school clubs law, signed last week by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., was not really intended to rein in the rowdies down at the audio-visual club, some lawmakers said. The real target was homosexuality.

“This is all about gay-straight alliance clubs, and anybody who tells you different is lying,” said State Senator Scott D. McCoy, Democrat from Salt Lake City, who voted against the law.
State Senator D. Chris Buttars, a Republican from the Salt Lake City suburbs and the law’s co-sponsor, said in an interview that he saw the need for the measure after parents from a high school in Provo, Utah, protested the formation of a gay-straight club in 2005.

But Mr. Buttars said his bill was intended to bring uniformity to the rules. The centerpiece, he said, is a clause giving school administrators the authority to ensure that clubs do not violate “the boundaries of socially appropriate behavior.”

“If a gay-straight club wants to meet together, as they say they do, just for friendship, I have no problem with that,” Mr. Buttars said. “But I think school districts should have the authority to do whatever they need to do protect their schools — the law gives them authority to make decisions to protect the physical, emotional, psychological or moral well being of students.”

The State Board of Education opposed the bill and asked Governor Huntsman to veto it. Carol Lear, a lawyer for the board, said in an interview that she feared that the complicated rules and the subjective decisions that might be made in defining the term “socially appropriate” could entangle principals in red tape and litigation.

More from the Salt Lake Tribune.

All the talk today is about Tubby Smith. But what are they saying in Minneapolis?

The Star Tribune gives us the northern view of Tubby's move.

Here's what they're saying:

"Tubby Smith? Really?"

"It's a move that brings instant credibility to a Gophers program."



Minnesota Athletic Director "hit the jackpot with Tubby."

"They'll [KY] find out they've lost a gem."

"Consider us in a state of shock."

"The last couple years, I couldn't give away Gophers tickets. I think you're going to see an immediate turnaround now."

"...10th highest winning percentage among active coaches."

"The guy was coaching at one of the top basketball schools in the country. I mean, Kentucky's won tons of NCAA championships, SEC championships and everything else. There's no comparison between the two jobs. One job is the New York Yankees and the other is, maybe, the Minnesota Twins. Here's a guy leaving the Yankee job...that don't happen very often."

"Only Arizona coach Lute Olson has a longer streak of consecutive 20-win seasons than Smith's 14.

"Wow!" "It's probably the perfect hire."

"A strong defensive coach and motivator..."


"He definitely brings a lot of experience. He knows what it takes to win. He's won a national championship. We need that type of aura in our program."


"As soon as you say Tubby Smith ... it's a big name,"

"He's tough, he's good, he runs a clean program, he's great. I'm sounding like I'm going to be his recruiting coordinator. I just love him. To me, he's a special guy. I think it's great for our league; it's great for Minnesota."

"He's going to really invigorate that city, put a lot of enthusiasm back into that program."



"...shocked to learn tubby was available."



"...an absolute coup."



"One of the great things is Minnesota has fans that care so much about the program but also they don't have wacky expectations."



"I obviously knew that Tubby and the Kentucky faithful had not been on great terms the last two years and he's a proud guy. Obviously, it was a great position he was in for 10 years and I thought he did an excellent job but the expectations at Kentucky are really incredible. I am surprised it was a boom-boom situation."



"It's a scenario where he averaged 26 wins a year, won five SEC tournament championships, five regular-season titles, 263 wins in 10 years, a national championship, yet people were taking full-page ads out [calling for his ouster],"



"He's more than just a coach. He's a mentor. He's a leader. He knows how to do it and do it right. That's why I'm so upset today."

"I'm a little shocked by it. I didn't think they'd bring in someone like Tubby Smith. That's big-time, and I wish them all the best."



"Wow. I did not know that. ... It's good for the Gophers.

"When I heard it...I really wanted to tell somebody. ... It's a huge name, and talk about keeping kids in Minnesota -- this brings instant credibility to that."



"I was very surprised, but I'm not disappointed. I'll tell you that."

"...the thing we’re still struck by is how big-time this move is, particularly in a sports market — college and pro — that is often small-time or, at best, medium-time.

"It’s not just [a] bold [move]. It has the potential to be a perception-changing move. For too long, the teams in this market have aimed low and hoped high."



"Kentucky has been on the backslide. Coming here would obviously be a move to stay one step ahead of the posse, so to speak, because nobody would confuse Minnesota’s place on the hoops food chain with Kentucky’s."



"...the Big Blue Nation made him feel unwanted."

"I think it's an absolutely phenomenal day for the University of Minnesota to announce a man like Tubby Smith as the head basketball coach."

"Everybody wanted a big name, and he's a big name plus a great coach. I think Tubby is going to create a lot of excitement in Minnesota. I think he's going to bring a lot of pride back to Minnesota."

"What a choice -- not in my wildest dreams would I have ever anticipated something like this...I was a Flip [Saunders] man, but this takes away the disappointment. "



"He's going to demand 110 percent effort, and when you've got a coach like that, people are willing to pay for their seats and be patient."



"They know it won't take forever -- there's light at the end of the tunnel now."

~

Photo by Renée Jones Schneider, Star Tribune

~


For more Minnesota perspective here's Sid Hartman's audio discussing Tubby's move to Minnesota. Or you can vote on "When Tubby will lead the Gophers to the NCAA.

Speed Stackers ! Who knew?

Ludlow Elementary School will send five of its 60 speed-stacking team members to West Carrollton, Ohio, to participate in a tournament Saturday.

The team, led by June Smith in the school's physical education department and Cathy Pedro in the family resource center, is in its second year of competition.

The sport is a "track meet for your hands at warp speed," according to www.speedstacks.com.

Participants race against the clock by stacking and unstacking 12 plastic cups in various sequences. "It's all about speed, eye-hand coordination and agility," Smith said.

Most participants are between the ages of 9 and 12. Saturday's event will have more than 200 students from four states competing. It's a sanctioned event, meaning some of the students could qualify for the world competition April 14 and 15 in Denver.

Story by William Croyle; Photo by Meggan Boooker/The Cincinnati Enquirer

~
This is my old elementary school ! I'm so proud.

State Takes Control of Troubled Public Schools in St. Louis

Photo by Huy Richard Mach/St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The New York Times reports:

The Missouri State Board of Education voted on Thursday to take control of the troubled St. Louis public schools.

At an emotional meeting in Jefferson City that was interrupted by students who had arrived by bus from here to protest the expected decision, the board voted, 5 to 1, to strip the St. Louis Public School District of its accreditation, effective June 15.

The board also voted to provide for a transitional three-member panel appointed by state and local officials to run the city’s 93 public schools, many of which are old and run-down. The district’s seven-member school board will remain intact, but will have no governing authority.
The governor, the mayor of St. Louis and the president of the city’s Board of Aldermen will each appoint one-member to the transition panel.

A spokesman for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Jim Morris, said the three-member panel was expected to run the district for the next six years, although the State Board of Education could elect to extend the panel’s term indefinitely.
“Ideally, the local board would be in a position to resume authority over the district once it’s turned around,” Mr. Morris said.

The St. Louis school district is at least the seventh to be taken over by a state since March 2004, said Jennifer Dounay, policy analyst for the Education Commission of the States, but none were as large as St. Louis. A year ago, the Maryland legislature blocked an attempt to take over the Baltimore schools.

The St. Louis district, which has 35,000 students — many of whom are poor or homeless — has a history of financial, administrative and student achievement failures. Its cumulative debt in 2006 was almost $25 million, according to the State Board of Education, and it has had six superintendents since 2003.

Prichard Committee launches pre-k initiative focusing on quality, access

The following is a press release from the Prichard Committee:

LEXINGTON, KY – A new initiative of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence will focus on making high-quality, voluntary preschool available to all of Kentucky’s children.

The advocacy campaign, Strong Start Kentucky: Quality Pre-K for Every Child, will target specific areas:

Adequate state funding for preschool programs

Support for community-based programs

Enhancing the quality of public and community preschool programs

Expanding the number of champions for preschool throughout Kentucky

The campaign has the support of Pre-K Now, a national public education and advocacy organization that emphasizes high-quality pre-kindergarten that improves child outcomes, can be delivered in a variety of settings that offer choices to parents and is available on a voluntary basis to all children whose parents want it for them. Pre-K Now is supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts and other funders.

The Prichard Committee will work with parents and policymakers in partnership with leaders from early childhood, business, education, religion and health care to develop recommendations on ways to improve the quality of and access to Kentucky’s public and community-based preschool programs. That process will involve a review of Kentucky’s current pre-k policies and practices and other elements now in place in the state.

A key part of Strong Start Kentucky is a web-based advocacy program to deliver campaign messages, encourage more Kentuckians to join the pre-k effort and facilitate communication between advocates and state-level policymakers. The Strong Start Kentucky web address is: www.StrongStartKY.org.

As a first action, the web site will direct preschool advocates to a message they can send to state legislators acknowledging the $23 million annual increase in pre-k funding in the 2006-08 budget and urging them to make voluntary high-quality programs available for all children.

“Although Kentucky’s public preschool program serves many low-income 4-year-olds and 3-year-olds with disabilities, there are thousands of children who don’t have access to quality pre-k,” said Robert F. Sexton, executive director of the Prichard Committee. “This campaign will emphasize the importance of increasing the availability and affordability of quality preschool programs statewide.”

A report on preschool in Kentucky and proposed strategies and recommendations for improvement will be released prior to the 2008 General Assembly.

Huck Finn - Off the required reading list?

The (Raliegh) News-Observer reports:

Ken Gilbert read the story of Huckleberry Finn in the late 1960s in a segregated black North Carolina school, but he doesn't remember much about Huck's adventures and the book's status as an American classic.

What he does remember is class discussions of a racial slur. Mark Twain used it over and over. "We never got to the story line," he said. "It was the racial issue."

When his daughter Nia was assigned to read it in 10th grade, his memories of a racially volatile childhood came surging back.

Now Gilbert is reviving a century-old debate by asking St. Louis Park High to remove the novel from the required-reading list.

He does not seek to ban the book from the school. "I don't care if all of America reads the book," he said, but he doesn't want it to be required reading.

I happen to be one of those guys who believes Huckleberry Finn to be the great American novel. It provides a picture of the nation at a critical juncture, when America was just becoming a force in the world. Mark Twain's insightful treatment of the dignity of man, in the face of overt state-supported racism was edifying to me - a priviledged white man growing up on the Ohio River a century later.

Twain's treatment is humorous but also realistic including the dialect and words used by common folk at the time. And there's the rub. The common folk were ignorant. The common folk believed other men to be property. The common folk were politically incorrect, to a grave fault.

In the book's most compelling passage, Huck is forced to battle with his conscience. The issue was whether to "turn in" Jim, a runaway slave who was also Huck's friend. But as fate (or is it fiction) would have it, Huck never could "behave," and he swallowed his shame for being a low-down abolitionist, and covered for Jim. During the exchange, the n-word was used.

In another time and in another place, I would read that passage aloud to my class substituting the word "slaves" (socially acceptable perhaps, but hardly an improvement) for the offending label. I loved to listen to my students work out for themselves what was truly right and what was morally wrong, and I regret that students might be led away from that experience.

On the other hand - I don't really understand what it means to be oppressed for my race. If I did, I'd like to think I would fight back and try to strike down the language and symbols of my oppressors.


As Huckleberry Finn might say, I'm stuck.


A new edition, the only authoritative text based on the complete original manuscript, was published in 2001. It is the product of painstaking research by the Mark Twain Project at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library that began shortly after the manuscript's first half was uncovered in a Hollywood attic in1990.


The book is considered Twain's best work, as well as a compelling commentary of American race relations, class and violence that is as provocative today as when published in 1885. The book's popularity continues, as witnessed by the more than 100 editions of the book in more than 53 languages and its presence not only in books around the world but on CD, audiotape and e-book.

Action, direction sought at higher education summit

USA Today reports:
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings will convene a summit Thursday aimed at building consensus among higher education stakeholders as they chart a road map for reform.

More than 300 people, including college presidents, corporate CEOs and congressional representatives, will be asked to share views on how to move forward on 25 items identified by the department as having the greatest potential to improve higher education.

The list grew out of recommendations by a controversial Spellings-appointed commission last year that concluded, among other things, that college tuition is too high, graduation rates are too low, poor and non-traditional students are not being well served by the higher education system, and nobody really knows what college students actually learn.

In an effort to make the college search process more user-friendly, Spellings will announce Thursday a pilot project in which three states (Kentucky, Florida and Minnesota), each supported by $100,000 in federal money, will create or upgrade websites so different types of students (returning adults, say, or community college transfers) can compare institutions.

Related USA Today stories: Thursday Education Secretary Spellings Margaret Spellings Universities

Waivers again debated by Pike County school board

The issue of transferring students between neighboring school districts was debated Tuesday evening.

As of 2005, the board set a cap on student transfers at 340.

Last year, the school board granted waivers allowing 369 students to attend city school, an additional 29 students over the limit. The school system loses $3,500 for each student it loses to other schools.

Some members believed theboard should show more flexibility in those numbers. Member J.C. Cheney said there should be marginal room beyond the cap in the interest of parents' wishes. “I don't see anything wrong with going over by ten,” Chaney said.

McGuire said the board needed to show no flexibility toward the issue.

This from the Appalachian News-Express.