States Lowered Proficiency Bar
What a way to show you made progress. The National Center for Education Statistics found that in 26 states, from 2005 to 2007, lowered their adequate yearly progress standards, whereas only 12 schools appeared to raise the bar. This is amazing! Well not entirely. In Georgia, as long as a school makes progress year to year, that is minimally improving their test scores, attendance, and subgroups, all while getting to exempt certain students, from the previous year, they make AYP. This is frightening. We are always complaining about how poor our education system is and yet state officials are lowering the bar to make sure their schools pass federal mandates. However, how can states really do anything with the NCLB being so stringent on how things are run. Students are being pushed through the system because they were exempted from being included in the reports because of status, even though they failed every test or had poor attendance.
They also go on to discuss how states could have arrived at this lowered bar. Some states did not change the test, but changed the cut off scores, while others modified the test or standards. In Georgia, the curriculum used to be based off of prehistoric standards. With NCLB, the state came up with QCC's to help improve Georgia's educational system. A sample of some QCC's for lit is here. These standards did not even have a chance to root into the system before state officials decided they weren't working. How can you tell if something as big as changing education standards for an entire state is working if you only allow it for 4 or 5 years? Then they changed to GPS standards or Georgia Performance Standards. Now, I have little problem with these new standards that are as of this year, fully implemented and incorporated into our curriculum. But, will these standards get tossed after 5 years if someone thinks they are not working? Who knows, but one thing is for sure, we need to set the bar higher. If all the students are encouraged to do is the minimum, then we can't get mad at them as teachers OR parents for slacking and making D's and C's. After all, those are grades that can pass them and make them eligible for sports. If you want to improve the educational system for the U.S., uniform standards must be incorporated and the bar needs to be moved up 4 or 5 rungs because the stuff they learn in class today was elementary for me when I was in public K-12 education. These kids can't read rulers, solve problems by themselves, come up with new ideas, or even create art because of the low standards we have placed on them. Let's get tougher, please.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Killing the College Student with Fees
College Tuition Up Sharply Amid Recession
In this article, Justin Pope provides some great insight and staggering numbers on the rising costs of tuition in the country. The average tuition in the country is now at about $7,000 per year at a 4-year public college, up over 6% from last year despite the economy. Costs are constantly on the rise despite all of the cuts in funding and all of the budget cuts colleges are making to deal with the economy. Despite this number, they say actual incurred costs are only about $1,600 for a 4 year student per year. I would like to know where they are getting that amount from. I am thankfully and gratefully lucky that Georgia has the HOPE scholarship and I was only "forced" to take out about $9,000 in student loans over the 4 and a half year period I was in school. Much of that went to living expenses though and had nothing to do with the college. There is a much greater underlying problem with the public education system though, that they will not speak of. Teachers, professors, researchers, deans, presidents, and so on are getting so filthy rich from the public colleges it is sickening. Just check out Open Georgia. On this site you can find all of the salaries for state/public employees for the entire state of Georgia. I attended Georgia State University and at this DI-AA (D one double a) school, there are over 40 people making over $200,000 a year. These people rarely even see a student, they simply preside over the school. Now I am not belittling their jobs, because it is important to run a school to the best of its ability and be competitive with other schools in the state and the country. But for purposes of serving the state and the educational system, why should they make so much money?! Why are they entitled, being employees of the Georgia government, to make more than our Governor (who made $137,000 in base salary in 2008)? Because it is deemed important? Why am I making so little to teach 700 kids a year and the president of GSU receives over $400,000 to preside over a college? At UGA (University of Georgia) there are over 100 people making over $200,000 a year. Why did fees go up? Because people higher up refused to take part in cost cutting measures. I am sure that they took like a 1% pay cut or are now working 10 less days a year now than they did last year, but how in the world can you justify so much money being spent on a salary at a government entity? It is a waste of funds. I would say that if everyone making over $200,000/year was to give up between 30 and 40,000 of their salary, which would equal what regular teachers have had to forfeit due to stae mandated furloughs to balance the ill begotten state budget, our cost to enroll would not go up. During my stint at GSU, the cost for me to attend 4 or 5 classes a semester went up over $1,000. My first year in 2004 it cost only $1600 for full time tuition plus about $250 in fees. By December of 2008 it would have cost me $2900 for full time tuition without fees. Luckily I only needed 2 or 3 classes so I paid for part-time. Again, the HOPE grant payed for most of it, but that is still from a state-funded program through lottery ticket sales. Today, students are having to pay so much more for so little education. I was baffled by the costs of some master's programs. I am extremely excited to be a part of VCSU, not only because of the Tech Ed program, but because it is affordable. UGA, Ga Tech, Va Tech, and even Purdue wanted in excess of $25,000 per year for their master's programs. And for what? A piece of paper that says I completed a rigorous program and forked out almost $60,000 for a $10,000/year raise? I believe the term for what we are trying to do today is, "Work smarter, not harder". I do not want to be in debt for my education for the rest of my life, I will find what works at a better price. The material and knowledge I have gained here at VCSU far out ranks the opportunity I could have had to call myself a UGA graduate.
In this article, Justin Pope provides some great insight and staggering numbers on the rising costs of tuition in the country. The average tuition in the country is now at about $7,000 per year at a 4-year public college, up over 6% from last year despite the economy. Costs are constantly on the rise despite all of the cuts in funding and all of the budget cuts colleges are making to deal with the economy. Despite this number, they say actual incurred costs are only about $1,600 for a 4 year student per year. I would like to know where they are getting that amount from. I am thankfully and gratefully lucky that Georgia has the HOPE scholarship and I was only "forced" to take out about $9,000 in student loans over the 4 and a half year period I was in school. Much of that went to living expenses though and had nothing to do with the college. There is a much greater underlying problem with the public education system though, that they will not speak of. Teachers, professors, researchers, deans, presidents, and so on are getting so filthy rich from the public colleges it is sickening. Just check out Open Georgia. On this site you can find all of the salaries for state/public employees for the entire state of Georgia. I attended Georgia State University and at this DI-AA (D one double a) school, there are over 40 people making over $200,000 a year. These people rarely even see a student, they simply preside over the school. Now I am not belittling their jobs, because it is important to run a school to the best of its ability and be competitive with other schools in the state and the country. But for purposes of serving the state and the educational system, why should they make so much money?! Why are they entitled, being employees of the Georgia government, to make more than our Governor (who made $137,000 in base salary in 2008)? Because it is deemed important? Why am I making so little to teach 700 kids a year and the president of GSU receives over $400,000 to preside over a college? At UGA (University of Georgia) there are over 100 people making over $200,000 a year. Why did fees go up? Because people higher up refused to take part in cost cutting measures. I am sure that they took like a 1% pay cut or are now working 10 less days a year now than they did last year, but how in the world can you justify so much money being spent on a salary at a government entity? It is a waste of funds. I would say that if everyone making over $200,000/year was to give up between 30 and 40,000 of their salary, which would equal what regular teachers have had to forfeit due to stae mandated furloughs to balance the ill begotten state budget, our cost to enroll would not go up. During my stint at GSU, the cost for me to attend 4 or 5 classes a semester went up over $1,000. My first year in 2004 it cost only $1600 for full time tuition plus about $250 in fees. By December of 2008 it would have cost me $2900 for full time tuition without fees. Luckily I only needed 2 or 3 classes so I paid for part-time. Again, the HOPE grant payed for most of it, but that is still from a state-funded program through lottery ticket sales. Today, students are having to pay so much more for so little education. I was baffled by the costs of some master's programs. I am extremely excited to be a part of VCSU, not only because of the Tech Ed program, but because it is affordable. UGA, Ga Tech, Va Tech, and even Purdue wanted in excess of $25,000 per year for their master's programs. And for what? A piece of paper that says I completed a rigorous program and forked out almost $60,000 for a $10,000/year raise? I believe the term for what we are trying to do today is, "Work smarter, not harder". I do not want to be in debt for my education for the rest of my life, I will find what works at a better price. The material and knowledge I have gained here at VCSU far out ranks the opportunity I could have had to call myself a UGA graduate.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Dropouts Increasingly Going to Prison
Kids are dropping out of school like flies. It seems that everything else has their attention, except the important stuff. Girls, money, drugs, video games, the media, TV, and many other things are capturing their attention. Well, it was no surprise to me, but a great deal of insight and information when the NY Times posted this article about the number of dropouts going to prison. The article says that 1 in 10 male high school dropouts are in prison or juvenile compared to 1 in 35 who are high school grads. This 10% rate is staggering, but also believable when you look at the type of students who are dropping out. This means that of the 6.2 million dropouts, there are at least 200,000 or 300,000 kids in jail. Low-income kids, at-risk kids, kids with no home support have no intention of being in school but looking to survive because that is what they see every day on the streets anyway. As an educator, this is alarming, our next generation has already taken themselves off the map and into a life of crime and punishment. Hopefully there are a lot of teens that go to jail and learn that is not the life to live, but not everyone thinks that. There can be many attributes to the dropout rate and the imprisonment rate of dropouts, but it all points to one thing. Desperation. Adults that dropped out and are now over 25 have an unemployment rate of 7.2%. That number drops dramatically to 4.2 for high school grads and to 2.3 for college grads. This disparity could lead to desperation. For individuals younger than 25 that rate stands at 54%, 32% and 13% respectively.
What is also frightening about this data, is that the NY Times reports the nation will spend about $290,000 on the dropout during their lifetime. Wow, let me just say that is astonishing. We are throwing money out the window to feed, clothe, and jail these individuals. Altogether that would be $87 billion dollars wasted if 300,000 dropouts spend their lives in and out of jail and other government programs. Some of these issues translates into multiple other issues. Single women having children with no father and no support, jobless men who cannot get off unemployment, individuals living off welfare, and an overall tone of not caring that you are worth nothing. This has to stop. We already see a problem has occurred, yet these people are birthing a new generation. How can we expect a "failure" to product a "success" if they have nothing to look up to? America needs to be re-educated on the need for an education. Every time you turn around the media has some dirt on education. Can we just stop the blame and look inside. Maybe we are doing something wrong at an individual level. That is what people need to start looking for. Quit putting the issues on someone else when its not their responsibility.
Kids are dropping out of school like flies. It seems that everything else has their attention, except the important stuff. Girls, money, drugs, video games, the media, TV, and many other things are capturing their attention. Well, it was no surprise to me, but a great deal of insight and information when the NY Times posted this article about the number of dropouts going to prison. The article says that 1 in 10 male high school dropouts are in prison or juvenile compared to 1 in 35 who are high school grads. This 10% rate is staggering, but also believable when you look at the type of students who are dropping out. This means that of the 6.2 million dropouts, there are at least 200,000 or 300,000 kids in jail. Low-income kids, at-risk kids, kids with no home support have no intention of being in school but looking to survive because that is what they see every day on the streets anyway. As an educator, this is alarming, our next generation has already taken themselves off the map and into a life of crime and punishment. Hopefully there are a lot of teens that go to jail and learn that is not the life to live, but not everyone thinks that. There can be many attributes to the dropout rate and the imprisonment rate of dropouts, but it all points to one thing. Desperation. Adults that dropped out and are now over 25 have an unemployment rate of 7.2%. That number drops dramatically to 4.2 for high school grads and to 2.3 for college grads. This disparity could lead to desperation. For individuals younger than 25 that rate stands at 54%, 32% and 13% respectively.
What is also frightening about this data, is that the NY Times reports the nation will spend about $290,000 on the dropout during their lifetime. Wow, let me just say that is astonishing. We are throwing money out the window to feed, clothe, and jail these individuals. Altogether that would be $87 billion dollars wasted if 300,000 dropouts spend their lives in and out of jail and other government programs. Some of these issues translates into multiple other issues. Single women having children with no father and no support, jobless men who cannot get off unemployment, individuals living off welfare, and an overall tone of not caring that you are worth nothing. This has to stop. We already see a problem has occurred, yet these people are birthing a new generation. How can we expect a "failure" to product a "success" if they have nothing to look up to? America needs to be re-educated on the need for an education. Every time you turn around the media has some dirt on education. Can we just stop the blame and look inside. Maybe we are doing something wrong at an individual level. That is what people need to start looking for. Quit putting the issues on someone else when its not their responsibility.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Grading Our Educational System
Grading Education Isn't Easy
It has become increasingly obvious to me that everyone that looks through the window every day at school, does not really understand what's going on. Everyone has an opinion about the state of education, yet no one who gives those opinions has the correct answer to solve our problems. Maybe if everyone started with themselves, asked themselves what they could do to help, it would fix itself, without our state governors stepping in, without our government stepping in, and without our President stepping in. In this article, the author discusses the issues of how public and charter schools are performing in Ohio. The concept of a charter school is to allow parents a choice. The charter schools give parents the opportunity to put their students in a community school that is exempt from certain state mandates so that the school can put its best effort forward. These schools generally receive more money than other public schools, but can also incur unintended costs. The success rate of these schools is extremely high in most cases, with almost 35,000 students enrolled in Georgia charter schools, there is a lot going on. In Ohio, there are over 75,000 students enrolled in charter schools. These schools have traditionally outscored public schools in goals for value added education. In recent years, though, regular schools have taken over. Progress is being made every year in all schools, for the most part, but can we tell which is truly doing better? Does this mean that charter schools are useless now? No, I don't believe so, but there are some issues charter schools are facing that are much greater than public schools. With the current economic state, charter schools are in financial danger. Many schools are failing and having to close or revert back to a public school. This costs jobs and social and economic impacts for the surrounding communities. What can we do to save charter schools or improve our public schools? Outsiders cannot answer those questions. I wish I could say I had all of the answers, but I think everyone in education would agree with that statement. Every person that is an educator or an administrator has some piece of the puzzle to fix what is going on. We are losing ground to other countries in aptitude and ability, yet we are complaining instead of fixing. Let's get on the same page, make some goals, and go accomplish them. I bet the entire country would be a little better off.
It has become increasingly obvious to me that everyone that looks through the window every day at school, does not really understand what's going on. Everyone has an opinion about the state of education, yet no one who gives those opinions has the correct answer to solve our problems. Maybe if everyone started with themselves, asked themselves what they could do to help, it would fix itself, without our state governors stepping in, without our government stepping in, and without our President stepping in. In this article, the author discusses the issues of how public and charter schools are performing in Ohio. The concept of a charter school is to allow parents a choice. The charter schools give parents the opportunity to put their students in a community school that is exempt from certain state mandates so that the school can put its best effort forward. These schools generally receive more money than other public schools, but can also incur unintended costs. The success rate of these schools is extremely high in most cases, with almost 35,000 students enrolled in Georgia charter schools, there is a lot going on. In Ohio, there are over 75,000 students enrolled in charter schools. These schools have traditionally outscored public schools in goals for value added education. In recent years, though, regular schools have taken over. Progress is being made every year in all schools, for the most part, but can we tell which is truly doing better? Does this mean that charter schools are useless now? No, I don't believe so, but there are some issues charter schools are facing that are much greater than public schools. With the current economic state, charter schools are in financial danger. Many schools are failing and having to close or revert back to a public school. This costs jobs and social and economic impacts for the surrounding communities. What can we do to save charter schools or improve our public schools? Outsiders cannot answer those questions. I wish I could say I had all of the answers, but I think everyone in education would agree with that statement. Every person that is an educator or an administrator has some piece of the puzzle to fix what is going on. We are losing ground to other countries in aptitude and ability, yet we are complaining instead of fixing. Let's get on the same page, make some goals, and go accomplish them. I bet the entire country would be a little better off.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Who wants to be in school longer?
More School: Obama Would Curtail Summer
I know many have posted about it, but I was very concerned about the report that came out Monday discussing Obama's plans for lengthening the time spent in school. Obama believes that our "agrarian centered" school calendars are outdated and we should spend more time in school because students are falling behind other countries. In the article, the AP states we spend more hours per year in school than students in Asian countries who frequently outscore US students in math and science. The problem has become that time addresses everything, which it does not. We should begin to look at several factors affecting our school systems. This includes the concept of "highly qualified teachers", how instructional time is spent, and the inconsistencies in our national views of education. With the NCLB act, school systems are being forced to comb through massive amounts of applications to find highly qualified teachers. I am amazed at some of the people these systems hire. Just today I went to a meeting on obtaining full certification for my county and was amazed at some of the questions people were asking about how to become a fully certified teacher. They had never taken the time to do research on their own, email our HR department, or had never made the connection between passing a teaching test in Georgia with the Professional Standards Commission. It befuddled me to see adults so lost in their own responsbilities. It made me wonder who is really teaching these students in the classroom if the teacher can't take care of their own business. Secondly, a lot of questioning has come of how we are spending instructional time. There has been a massive movement towards teaching with standards and to restructure the way we teach students. In this comes how we spend the allotted time with them. In my classroom, I do everything I can to maximize the students' LEARNING time and minimize transitions, breaks, or lulls in activity because I only see students for 90 minutes every other day, effectively seeing them for 21 or 22 days out of a 9 weeks period. I see other teachers constantly struggle to have enough work for their students to do all year and I am trying to pack things in right after another. Adding 3 more hours to our already 8 hour day will do nothing but tire teachers out quicker, lull the students to sleep or carelessness faster, and ruin the way we provide effective education. I am personally not going to work an extra 15 hours a week, when I already do that without the students to prepare my room, and not get paid 10 to 15 thousand more a year and ruin my already short summer vacation. In Georgia, we do not go to school from labor day to memorial day. About 95% of schools start around the first week of August and we go until the last week in May. This works out to be 10 months of school with intermittent breaks throughout the school calendar. That is a lot of time spent in school! The 180 days drags out to be about 280 when all weekends and breaks are taken into account. Lastly, when looking at other countries' educational systems, they are all nationally standardized. In the US, we have 51 different systems, rules, and standards. How do we expect to be successful as a whole of millions of students when they have to follow 51 different sets of expectations. It simply cannot be done and be expected to compete at an international level. We are simply wasting more time by adding hours to the school day. If things were done effectively and efficiently, we could probably wipe out about an hour of school a day and be more intelligent that we are now.
I know many have posted about it, but I was very concerned about the report that came out Monday discussing Obama's plans for lengthening the time spent in school. Obama believes that our "agrarian centered" school calendars are outdated and we should spend more time in school because students are falling behind other countries. In the article, the AP states we spend more hours per year in school than students in Asian countries who frequently outscore US students in math and science. The problem has become that time addresses everything, which it does not. We should begin to look at several factors affecting our school systems. This includes the concept of "highly qualified teachers", how instructional time is spent, and the inconsistencies in our national views of education. With the NCLB act, school systems are being forced to comb through massive amounts of applications to find highly qualified teachers. I am amazed at some of the people these systems hire. Just today I went to a meeting on obtaining full certification for my county and was amazed at some of the questions people were asking about how to become a fully certified teacher. They had never taken the time to do research on their own, email our HR department, or had never made the connection between passing a teaching test in Georgia with the Professional Standards Commission. It befuddled me to see adults so lost in their own responsbilities. It made me wonder who is really teaching these students in the classroom if the teacher can't take care of their own business. Secondly, a lot of questioning has come of how we are spending instructional time. There has been a massive movement towards teaching with standards and to restructure the way we teach students. In this comes how we spend the allotted time with them. In my classroom, I do everything I can to maximize the students' LEARNING time and minimize transitions, breaks, or lulls in activity because I only see students for 90 minutes every other day, effectively seeing them for 21 or 22 days out of a 9 weeks period. I see other teachers constantly struggle to have enough work for their students to do all year and I am trying to pack things in right after another. Adding 3 more hours to our already 8 hour day will do nothing but tire teachers out quicker, lull the students to sleep or carelessness faster, and ruin the way we provide effective education. I am personally not going to work an extra 15 hours a week, when I already do that without the students to prepare my room, and not get paid 10 to 15 thousand more a year and ruin my already short summer vacation. In Georgia, we do not go to school from labor day to memorial day. About 95% of schools start around the first week of August and we go until the last week in May. This works out to be 10 months of school with intermittent breaks throughout the school calendar. That is a lot of time spent in school! The 180 days drags out to be about 280 when all weekends and breaks are taken into account. Lastly, when looking at other countries' educational systems, they are all nationally standardized. In the US, we have 51 different systems, rules, and standards. How do we expect to be successful as a whole of millions of students when they have to follow 51 different sets of expectations. It simply cannot be done and be expected to compete at an international level. We are simply wasting more time by adding hours to the school day. If things were done effectively and efficiently, we could probably wipe out about an hour of school a day and be more intelligent that we are now.
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