Pop quiz

Nashville's police department pulled a pop quiz on local high school football attendees. The quiz had just one question and 4 young men failed.

Officers working Friday night’s football game at Whites Creek High School arrested a total of four persons for carrying guns after school administrators made the unannounced decision to use handheld metal detectors to screen persons coming through the gate. None of the four is a Whites Creek student.
(snip)
“It is illegal to carry guns on school property at all times, and that certainly includes sporting events,” Chief Ronal Serpas said, noting that even persons with handgun carry permits cannot carry guns on school property. “School administrators have done exactly the right thing in arranging for this type of unannounced weapons screening.”

From MNPD Press release dated 10/31/05

Thanks guys.

It's past time for cyber schools

"Imagine if Tennessee's state legislators of yesteryear had banned overhead projectors in schools; prohibited educational filmstrips, movies and audio recordings in the classroom; or outlawed computers to supplement traditional holdings in school libraries. Unfortunately, Tennessee's legislators of today may have made a mistake of an even greater magnitude by forbidding cyber charter schools and precluding the use of a technological tool that can advance learning in our state."

All that from the latest Tennessee Center for Policy Research Policy Brief, Cyber Charters in the volunteer State: Education Options for Tennessee's Forgotten. Shaka Mitchell makes some excellent points and I encourage every educator, legislator and parent to consider her arguments for cyber charter schools. Maybe her best is:

"One reason alternatives to the conventional public school system have experienced little traction is that charter schools, vouchers and magnet schools are largely considered options for improving urban schools. Everyone feels good about providing education options for minority kids in Memphis, but this attitude leaves out a large percentage of the population. More than a quarter of the state's population is considered rural..."

and then goes on to pointing out that cyber charters could be just what families in Rhea County, and others like them, need. She's exactly correct.

"It's outrageous that people have to drive 40 miles one-way to find a high school that offers a full range of classes. In Rhea, there is only one high school. If, in a given year, there is little interest in taking Physics for college credit, then the course will probably not be offered. "

Go read the rest, it's only five pages, and then contact your legislators and ask them "Why not?" Ask the Governor, in light of the the recent Governor's Association study and his own trip to Japan and his bemoaning the lack of scientist coming out of Tennessee schools, "Why not?"

Policies that work

The National Governor's Association for Best Practices. "Providing Quality Choice Options in Education" says that the following are being used to increase student achievement and graduation rates across the nation.

Innovative school choice policies highlighted in the report include:

• strengthening and broadening charter laws;
• supporting transportation costs for low-income students;
• expanding eligibility for students to take college courses in high school;
• increasing the availability of virtual course offerings;
• providing equitable funding for all education providers;
• adopting school-based funding mechanisms; and
• offering tuition assistance for students to attend non-public K-12 schools.

Tennessee has a long history of hindering many of these sorts of innovations. Our charter schools law is exceptionally constraining and seems designed to make them fail. Despite Al Gore inventing the Internet and helping inact a tax to provide online access to schools his own home state doesn't lead in e-learning which can be a very efficient and cost effective education delivery system. And we should surely understand by now that the folks best able to determine how to spend the money are usually those closest to its intended use.

The problem with most of these suggestions is that it requires someone to give up the power and authority they have. Power and authority that they've held for a long time and they will not give up easily.

Page 12 mentions our value-added system as being helpful.

This morning's Nashville City Paper has an article on this report. And for some odd reason their article left off the suggestion of offering tuition assistance for students to attend non-public K-12 schools.

Squandered

Today's Tennessean contains a "Nashville Eye" column that needs to be read and responded to. Not responded to by printing an excuse in the next edition of the paper, but responded to with legitimate action. La Quita Martin writes what I've heard from parents over and over. No one is listening. This is basic folks. No business survives without making it's customers feel like they're valued. Every successful business knows that without customers you have no business. Ms. Martin explains in today's column why she's no longer a public school parent.

[Director of Schools Pedro] Garcia never has grasped one tried and true, critical ingredient for a successful school — the buy-in from parents.

Instead, he ignored the parents of the students. Personally, during my five years with the system, he did not answer one letter that I wrote to him, nor did he return even one phone call. Parent groups in which I participated requested meetings which fell on a deaf ear. At school board meetings I attended, I watched him leave the room when parents spoke.

I'm sure they'll be some good reasons for some of this 'ignoring'. Regardless, her overall impression is the impression of lots of parents and THAT should not be ignored another moment longer.

The school system can no longer assume that they have the support of the parents of the children enrolled there. Surely our recent tax referendum proved that. The system seems to be squandering the good will and earnest desire of the most involved parents. These are the very parents that want to make the case for public schooling. Many of them believe, with a nearly religious fervor, that this is the best way to educate children. Many are loathe to choose a private education. But eventually, what they cannot get around is that their children have needs that must be met.

Sunday 10/30/05

It's Halloween, so bats in the attic seems appropriate--

Channel 9 is reporting bats and mold at Jasper Middle school in Chattanooga.

Indefinite sentences--

Those Dandridge boys who plotted to kill their middle school teacher and accidentally shot one of themselves in the leg were sentenced to "indefinite state custody".

An extracurricular distraction and tarnished star--

I've just got it stuck in my head that schools are for learning basic skills. But time and again the public schools are spending loads of time, money and other resources on the non-essentials. Memphis City Schools had to spend a good bit of time dealing with the suspension of and subsequent appeal of that suspension by a high school football star accordinig to the Commercial Appeal. The 'star' plead guilty to a misdemeanor assault of a 15 year old girl and he gets to stay on the team.

20% isn't nearly enough--

Mr. Scott Niswonger is quoted in the Greenville County paper during a teacher of the year ceremony.

“It’s believed that a student retains about 20 percent of what they learn in the classroom, but the life experiences will last for a lifetime

Speaking of life experiences---

The Lawrence County school system has a shop class that may be the ticket to breaking that 20% barrier.

Students in a Lawrence County school system masonry trade course will help build a new classroom facility for the program.

Something similar was done at my high school. The school was built on what was pretty much farm land. The shop classes OJT'd in new housing construction nearby. The guys (we were just on the cusp of the 'women's liberation' movement and my own appearance in drafting class was remarkable so yes, it's was just guys) learned construction trades and the city got an undeveloped area settled and on the tax roles.

Oh, the teacher of the year?

Dawn Werner of Fairmount Elementary.

Let's encourage this sort of fund raising--

The Nashville City Paper reports that a local rapper has donated a considerable sum toward local schools as a result of the efforts fo the Nashville Alliance for Public Education.

Rapper and Nashville native David “Young Buck” Brown recently donated $25,000 to Metro’s Advancement Via Individual Determination program, an initiative to help would-be first generation college students succeed in high school.
(snip)
Buck, who did not complete high school, expressed interest in supporting dropout prevention programs, according to NAPE Co-Executive Director Kay Simmons.

Let me know when he really starts walking the talk and gets his high school diploma.

Oh, if rapper fans are looking for a real role model--

they might seriously consider being mentored by Sarah Moore Greene in Knoxville.


Let's hope this works--

Citing a study done by Vanderbilt university last year TennCare will try and reduce the amount of mental-health drugs given to our school children beginning in January of 2006.

"TennCare has seen dramatic increases in potentially harmful levels of utilization, with unproven therapies, to treat children living with depression or ADHD," Hickey said in a news release. From the Southern Standard.

There is certainly a need for some children to be medicated. But across the nation this trend is the same. What used to be considered normal wiggling and standard 'boy' behavior has morphed into a mental problem. So much so that legislation has been introduced in several states to come to the aid of parents who disagree with teachers who are demanding children be medicated.

See HB 1971 for a Tennessee example. Check with Bobbie Patray if you want to help her protect the children and parental rights.

Ludicris extra-curricular activities eat up more resources--

Finally, the band gets to play. Details in the Houston Chronicle, the Indianapolis Star, the UK, and the Booneville Daily News. Glad we got that cleared up.

Katrina, Rita & Wilma means more expensive schools--

according to this Knox News report.

Rising construction prices have hit all building projects, not just schools, hard. Over the last few months, costs have jumped more than 20 percent on projects across Tennessee, according to Lola Potter, spokeswoman for the state Department of Finance and Administration.

No. 1 reason teachers lose their license--

sexual misconduct. Probably because it's so difficult to fire them for failing to teach or general misconduct. But this is a step in the right direction.

New rules passed by the state board last week would also allow for administrators to lose their licenses if they fail to report teachers who resign after allegations emerge. From the Tennessean.

and

The 80 teachers whose licenses have been revoked in the past three years comprise a very small fraction of the state's 59,000 educators, officials point out. Another 40 cases are still pending. From WBIR.

and

Charol Shakeshaft, a professor at Hofstra University, recently studied teacher sexual misconduct for the federal government.

Her 2004 analysis found that as much as 10% of students experience some type of sexual misconduct at the hands of an educator, whether verbal, physical or visual. (snip) About 7% of kids reported being physically abused, she found, though other studies have placed that number lower. (emphasis added) From WBIR.

and

The rules still must be passed by the state attorney general and the Government Operations Committee. From WKRN

Repurposing

The Nashville City Paper outlines some of what the school board is doing to get citizen input into the budget cuts that must be made.

One of places the school board has gone for ideas is Minneapolis, MN. According to the City Paper article Minneapolis initiated an input process called 'repurposing'.

“This whole re-purposing project is about letting the community around that school … decide what’s going to be in that building,” Nevill said. “Their goal is to never leave an empty building in a community.”

Well, I'm all for that. But perhaps we need to rethink the old fashioned brick and mortar school. Perhaps we need to open up that whole facilities mindset and seriously consider some other ways of providing classrooms.

I'll blame the following on Phil Valentine. Some weeks ago on my way to and from I heard a snip of his program where he was discussing modular classrooms. the jist of it was that a central facility is build of brick and mortar. That hub contains the office, gymnasium, library and cafeteria. From that hub modular classrooms radiate, as needed. It's cheaper and quicker to add a modular classroom. It's quicker and cheaper to move these to districts that need extra classrooms. It's cheaper to upgrade modular classrooms as technology and safety and health issues change--and they always do.

Year after year we guesstimate how many students will be enrolled and hand wring when we discover we don't have enough classroom space for them. And while some folks are going to recoil at the thought of portable classrooms for every child we should give this serious consideration in our day and age of mobile societies and the reality that we're never going to get this attendance count 100% right. The next best thing may be to give ourselves the flexibility needed.

The American School Board Journal touched on this issue in June of 2003. They cited Caesar Chavez Elementary School in Corona, CA, Clark County, Nevada School District, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, North Carolina's largest school district,

Setting up modular classrooms is also much quicker than building a new school from the ground up. Tom Duffy, a lobbyist for California's School Facility Manufacturers Association, says that planning, building, and inspecting a new elementary school takes about two years. But a similar number of modular classroom seats can be installed in just a few months.

and

The ready-made buildings, which are designed to last more than 50 years, are actually stronger than most traditionally constructed schools, he says.

"It'll stand up to Category 4 hurricanes and it's easily relocatable," Sanger says of his product. "A lot of the schools started using them as permanent buildings."

Because Royal builds its classrooms on an assembly line, the buildings are more cost-effective. Sanger says the total cost for putting in one of his buildings is $90 per square foot, compared to $120 to $140 per square foot for traditional construction.

and yes, there have been problems, but according to this report, most of those have been overcome.

Today's portable classrooms, however, look much more like traditional classrooms, at least on the inside. Most measure 35 feet by 35 feet and are built from far-sturdier materials. Many are wired for telephone, Internet, and cable TV access. The nicest models even have their own restrooms, water fountains, and sinks, meaning bathroom breaks don't interrupt lessons or force students to deal with bad weather.

We've only got so much money. Personally, I'd rather spend money on great teachers and excellent curriculum and resources instead waiting years for buildings to be built and then discover by the time the building opens the population has changed and district lines must be redrawn and neighborhoods disrupted. If the children are warm, dry and safe that's enough for me. Let the learning begin.

Buh bye

The morning media is making it pretty clear that Metro Nashville Public School Director Pedro Garcia is on his way out. This may be the first time I've agreed with my own school board member. She voted not to renew his contract at this time. I don't think this turn of events was a big surprise to anyone who's been watching or had a few conversations with parents of publicly school children in our town.

And like taxpayers who are demanding accountability for the dollars taken from them for public use and citizens who are demanding accountability from their legislators in regard to ethics, parents are also demanding accountability for the time their children spend in the care of the public school system.

The time of 'trust us, we're the professionals' is just gone. People are tired of excuses, run arounds, incoherent information and lack of basic respect for their being the bosses of council members, school board members and representatives of all flavors.

Telling is the amount of ink spent, again, on a sports issue. Since the days of Jamestown American's have been too distracted by entertainment and so again the news of what happened in the School Board meeting last evening which will impact 70 thousand of our children and a huge percentage of our tax dollars was cut up and pasted onto three different pages in the Tennessean. There was a couple of inches on the front page, a few more on page 8A and a few more inches, the bulk of the article, on 9A. You had to get to 9A for the money quote from Pedro Garcia:

"The cards are on the table. At this point in time, you would have to be very naïve to think that I'm going to be here in June 2007 to see what the (test) scores are." Tennessean

This reads to me like the man knows when to fold and walk. It reads to me like he doesn't have a lot of confidence in those '07 test scores.

Fix this!

If I see the Tennessean publish this same map showing Evergreen as south of Joyce Lane again I guess you'll hear me all the way to Broadway. Please guys, this makes it look like not one of you has actually been to the property. Evergreen (and so the Jim Reeves Museum) was on the NORTH side of Joyce lane. Credibility hinges on the details.

My apologies for the lousy rendering of the graphic when I added the arrow. I don't have an expert graphics department supporting my efforts.

Government needs

And yes, I've seen the Tennessean editorial against the latest efforts of Tennessee Tax Revolt to require Nashville government to check with it's citizens before upping our taxes. I look around and see a representative system that needs a bit of a "slap", as the Tennessean calls it. It's my opinion that the editor falls right into the same pit as some of our representatives when they write:

Elected officials who make difficult decisions on taxes have to weigh the responsibility of managing revenues. When revenues don't meet the government's needs, those officials face decisions, including raising taxes or cutting services.

They have a responsibiliy to manage expenses and revenues. When the Tennessean only mentions the income and not the outflow they overlook at least half of the issue.

Further the government has absolutely no 'needs' except self-preservation. The citizens of the city do have needs, yes. And there is no way that the city can meet all the needs of the citizens. So we have to debate about which needs are handled by the city and which are handled by the citizens themselves and/or various charities. Every time the city decides that they need more of my money I have to decide how long my children can wear those same shoes or where I can get cheaper milk. What I need is a government that understands its limitations and has the backbone to say "This far and no further" to well-meaning advocates begging for more.

A real boost for development and safety

Advocates say afterschool programs can boost academic, physical, and social development of children while keeping them safe. From WATE in Knoxville.

What can really boost all of these is a parent who can stay home. Let's work at helping parents keep more of their income so they can do what they can do--should do. It makes no sense for the government to tax them to pay for taking care of their very own children. Can we get off this merry-go-round?

Check with the folks at Tennessee Tax Revolt. If you see me I'll have a copy of their latest petition in my purse ready for you to sign.

I feel your pain

From Anderson County:

The county schools contract with bus companies to provide bus service to county schoolchildren. The agreed-upon contract between the school system and contractors allows only a $30,000 supplement each year for increased fuel costs. Because of the jump in diesel prices, the six contractors have already received the full $30,000 allotment with no increase slated for the remainder of the year.

"We're sympathetic with the contractors," Stonecipher said. "(But) we're tight, real tight (on the budget). -- We don't have any place to go (for the money)." from the Oak Ridger

Give them all the sympathy you can.

Let's be honest

Governor Bredesen was recently in Japan. Thankfully someone was honest.

“In almost every meeting I go too, I ask what are the impediments to your expanding of this site and what can we do about it?” Bredesen said. “In one of them that I remember well and I won’t quote the company, they just said we can hire lots of good workers. We cannot find management.” Hearing that from a Japanese company “very much got my attention,” Bredesen said,...

And it should have. It's not about Pre-K or lottery scholarships it's about getting back to basics and accomodating real learning.

We have full pages in our newspapers with faulty logic being utilized to prevent our students from utilizing the thinking skills they should have learned to evalute the legitimacy of arguments about such things as what is science. It's all well and good to say you want a diverse and thinking student body that results in quality managerial employees but when you won't allow them the resources and opportunity to actually think diversely and come to their own conclusions, to utilize the skills managers must have, what do you expect?

Nashville school board member Lisa Hunt wrote: "Teaching intelligent design in public schools reaches beyond these bounds, narrowing our sense of both knowledge and truth." I don't understand how she cannot see, or even allow, that the exercise of discussing the topic is vital to create a thinking population. It's like saying we shouldn't discuss communism in America because we're a republic. Getting to know the other side's argument tests your own foundation and allows you to own your point of view in a way that no droaning lecture from anyone can accomplish.

The Governor bemoans the lack of real scientists coming out of Tennessee schools. Perhaps it's because no one has taught them that real scientists question everything in their quest for truth--including the established science.

Nashville politics from the inside

Those of you interested in what's going on in Nashville politics will want to bookmark (add to your RSS feed) Word on the Street.

Birthed on Wednesday I just heard about this and the flap over Evergreen's demolition in Inglewood and behind the scenes insight make up the first two posts.

Today's post says that for the first time in his six year tenure the mayor is calling department heads together.

"I don't know yet what's happening, but I do know that a lot of dept. heads are real nervous. I mean the throwing up kind of nervous."

I'm all for sunshine into the workings of our city. I certainly wish Word all the best and hope it'll be a factual and insightful peek into what's going on in Metro government.

Welcome to the blogsphere, Word.

Volunteer in school

Brittany at NashvilleIsTalking wondered about volunteering in schools. It's an awesome thing to do and I applaude her in this effort. AND I suggested she contact Love Helps. Cindy and Dean Baker have been going into schools for a while now and have already greased the skids, if you will. They are especially considerate and accomodating of folks who work and have just a small slice of time do to this. Check 'em out.

Another historic loss?

This article about preserving the old Murphy school reminds me that we still have the gymnasium portion of Litton High that needs to be preserved and utilized. And in the wake of losing Evergreen our neighborhood shouldn't suffer another serious blow to our heritage. If you have a heart for the task contact the Litton Alumni Association and ask how you can help. They've got very specific plans to refurbish the building and make it a viable community center to augment the work they already do with children via sports on the rest of the property.

The image above is a Phil Ponder rendering of the school in its heyday. The gym is the very right portion and that's all that is left. You can purchase a print from the Litton Alumni Association.

Oh, and the terrible condition of the Litton Gym is all on Metro this time.

On the road SB meetings

The Nashville Metro School Board will be taking their meetings 'on the road' according to the Nashville City Paper. What seemed really odd to me was that despite news reports that many of Inglewood's schools are under capacity there is no report of a meeting taking place in an area that could be very impacted by school closings.

One scenario is closing Isaac Litton and absorbing it into Dalewood and Bailey, which are also under capacity.

If Litton closes, the district could save about $1.5 million, and there are other schools in the same situation. Shwab elementary is at 66 percent capacity, Dan Mills Elementary is at 67 percent, Inglewood Elementary at 68 percent, and Rosebank Elementary, is only 53 percent full. From NewChannel 5

This is going to be a huge hornet's nest. I would not want to be School Board Member Lisa Hunt and have to face the neighborhood explaining why, AGAIN, Litton is being closed. The closing of Litton High School and sending students to Stratford is still a sore point in the neighborhood and a reason why our neighborhood schools are under capacity.

I believe that there are benefits to smaller neighborhood schools that need to be carefully considered. Bigger schools further away from parents is not a better solution.

Retirees more and less

GM retirees get less and retired teachers get more--

We're learning about the givebacks that are being required from GM employees and being demanded by other auto makers and yet retired teachers aren't suffering the same fate accourding to this Shelbyville Times article.

One item the retired teachers are interested in is Senate Bill 381, which deals with pension and retirement benefits and an increase in the state paid portions for active and retired educators.

and

Another bill that has already gone through the Education Committee would allow children of retired teachers up to age 24 to receive a 25 percent high education tuition discount in Tennessee collages. Currently, the children of active teachers already receive the discount, but retired educators' kids do not. [Perhaps HB0973]

and

A bill that provides an additional 5 percent for the pension funds for retired teachers was discussed. [Perhaps HB0338]

Of course, there are plenty of other bills providing benefits to current and retired teachers and staffers and their children in the legislative pipeline. HB0052, HB0117, HB0250, HB0669 (my personal favorite), HB0748, HB1535, HB1608. Those are just about tuition. There are more.

National report card questioned

The Nashville City Paper reports that Standard & Poor's thinks NAEP needs context.

“Our whole business is transparency,” [Director Paul] Gazzerro said. “It’s not as simple as just throwing one proficiency rate up against another.”

Here's the SchoolsMatter page for Tennessee.

Tennessee is analyzing how its standards correspond with national standards, but the argument remains whether a national curriculum or an individual state’s curriculum is better. From the Nashville City Paper

It's all about freedom. Should the feds tell us what to teach our children? No. It's not constitutionally mandated. The feds shouldn't even be involved, imo. Oh, yeah, there's that money issue. Well, tell 'em to keep their money and we'll keep our freedom.

Getting a real job--

From today's Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle comes the news that their Director of Schools Sandra Husk has been given a three year contract extension after all 30 of their schools met state standards. In the article she's quoted as saying:

"I would like to see more emphasis towards vocational subjects," Steeley said. "We need to do a better job of having students prepared for the world of work when they get out of school. Not all students need to go to college or want to go to college. Some need to go to work and do a trade."

And some of those college bound students could use a bit of vocational training too. They'll probably end up 'working' at some point in their lives too.

High priority takes a slow boat

Ten weeks after being notified by the state Department of Education that it fell short of the federal benchmarks for two consecutive years, the system finally got around to telling parents. Letters about the system's shortfall were sent out with students' report cards last week, two and a half months after the system received an e-mail from the Tennessee Department of Education about its "High Priority" status. From the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal

When will these folks learn that communication with parents, those very parents they say they want to partner with in the education of these students, must be a priority?