Education

As seen in a WaPo article and blog posting:

The agreement calls for eliminating sales of sodas, diet sodas, sports drinks, juice drinks, apple juice or grape juice in elementary schools. Water and more healthful juices such as orange juice could continue to be sold, but in only eight-ounce or smaller containers, according to sources who were briefed yesterday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan had not yet been announced.

In middle schools, the same drinks will be offered but in containers as large as 10 ounces.

In high schools, the drink size will be limited to 12 ounces. No sugary sodas will be sold, and half the drinks offered will be water or a low-calorie beverage, such as diet soda, diet lemonade or diet iced tea. Sports drinks will be allowed, as will juice drinks as long as they have fewer than 100 calories per serving.

It’s about darned time. Of course, I’m amazed that such a requirement is necessary. In my elementary and junior high schools, I don’t recall there being a vending machine accessible to students on campus. I think there may have been Hi-C machines at my high school, but I don’t recall having used them.

The idea that that sodas are/were being sold on campus boggles my mind….although I do have to admit that caffeine got me through going to a high school with a 7:15am start time.

I’m aware that some schools derive income from deals made with the bottling company. Given how tight education budgets are (temporarily setting aside my gripes about how education money is being mis-spent), I assume that those monies will be made up for somehow.

(As heard on the BBC World Service) The University of Warwick has released a paper challenging the idea of social mobility in the United States:

The new research led by Professor Robin Naylor, an economist at the University of Warwick, shows a strong link between the earnings of fathers and sons. It also demonstrates that the likelihood of a son having earnings similar to his father’s is greater for those born into particularly rich or particularly poor backgrounds. The study, to be presented at the Royal Economic Society’s 2006 Annual Conference, examines how ‘intergenerational mobility’ compares between the UK, the United States and the Nordic countries of Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Some of the main results are that:[...]

• Despite the commonly-perceived view of the US as an ‘open’ society with ready opportunities for individuals to rise from poverty to affluence (from ‘rags to riches’), the evidence shows that the opposite is true. On average, a son’s earnings are more closely related to his father’s earnings in the United States than in any of the other countries.[...]
• The major difference between the United States and all the other countries is in the very poor prospects of sons with fathers earning in the lowest 20% or bottom quintile. These sons have a 40% likelihood of themselves becoming bottom quintile earners, twice that which would arise with perfect mobility and much higher than in the other countries. In the UK, the figure is 30% while in the Nordic countries it is 25-28%. The ‘rags-to-riches’ depiction of intergenerational mobility in the United States is a myth: upward mobility is especially low there.

The BBC report includes an interview with the British author of the study, who theorizes that one of the potential causes for comparative mobility rates is in the distribution of education funding. In other words, in the U.S. and the U.K., more affluent families are better able to get quality education for their children, either by accessing private schools or by moving to areas with good school systems. In Scandinavia, there is more blatant redistribution of education funding, which shores up the quality of education in areas where there are more economically disadvantaged residents.

I’m not sure that I agree with that conclusion, although not being familiar with the school systems in the UK and Scandinavia tends to limit my ability to opine in an informed manner here. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are some cultural or sub-cultural differences at work as well.

What I do know is that one potential interpretation of the study’s findings — that more money will fix all problems — is flawed. Simply throwing money at a problem is never the right answer. Money can be part of the answer, but it should be used in an intelligent manner with measurable results. If results aren’t seen, redirect the money to a better potential solution.

As seen in a wire story:

Young Hurricane Katrina refugees living in Texas scored considerably worse on a statewide standardized exam than Texas children, and thousands of them could be held back.

Teachers and state officials blame the low scores on New Orleans’ poor school system, the trauma of being abruptly uprooted from their homes, and the possibility that some of them were put in the wrong grade after arriving in Texas with no records.

The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, a test of reading and math ability, was given in February to third- and fifth-graders, who must pass in order to move up to the next grade.

Only 58 percent of evacuees in third grade passed the reading portion, compared with 89 percent of all students. In fifth grade, 46 percent of evacuees passed the reading portion, versus 80 percent among all students.

I don’t discount the effects of becoming refugees have on these children. Moving/changing schools is hard for many kids, and when the move is a result of the effective destruction of a major city…. It’s got to be rough.

However, to the extent that the problem is a reflection of inherent differences between school systems…well, being held back a year because you didn’t pass a standardized test has really got to stink.

I also can’t help but wonder about the effects of selection bias on the stats reported. One would think that subpart students are more likely to be overrepresented in any sample of disadvantaged individuals. I’d think it’s likely that better-than-average students were probably more likely to be among the families that were able to make alternate living arrangements more quickly after the storm, rather than being among the masses of refugees.

In other words, before damning the New Orleans public school system, it might be worthwhile to account for that bias. True, from what I hear, New Orleans schools had major issues; and I have heard comments to the effect of Katrina being the best thing to have happened to the school system in a long time. But at least consider potential distortions in the metrics when doing the comparisons.

This morning, DailyKos saw the posting of another anti-Intelligent Design rant.

Normally, I wouldn’t make note of it here, on the grounds that it’s beyond the scope of my already too-unfocused blog. However, part of the rant struck a chord with me. Arguing why officials shouldn’t keep trying to mandate Intelligent Design be taught in public schools in the wake of a court ruling that such a practice violates separation of church-and-state:

But here’s an even better reason to avoid it: Kitzmiller ended up costing the Dover ISD a million bucks and it cost the pro-creationism board members their posts. And in that case, the winning legal team went easy on Dover out of concern for the innocent taxpayers. They cut the bill in half. Next time it could be full damages, every dime, nickel, and penny of expense incurred, dumped on to you, the taxpayer. And with Dover as a precedent, and given the devastating language and tone in Judge Jones’s decision in Kitzmiller, odds are higher than ever that that’s exactly what will happen.

Writing as someone whose already obscene property tax bill is likely to rise 6% this year in part because of some idiotic litigation the town found itself involved in, the “don’t do it because it’s going to be expensive and futile” argument sounds pretty good to me.

After all, shouldn’t that money be going towards supplies, textbooks, and teachers’ salaries…or staying in taxpayers’ bank accounts… rather than going into attorneys’ wallets?

This wire story caught my eye today:

School board members in a Minnesota district call it anti-American and anti-Christian. In New Jersey, members of one school board argue it’s a waste of money. Now, a suburban Pittsburgh school district is abolishing it over questions of politics and cost.

Supporters of the increasingly popular college preparatory curriculum known as International Baccalaureate are firing back with some of the same arguments — saying efforts to quash IB are about the beliefs and politics of the program’s opponents.[...]

High school students pursuing an IB diploma study subjects from six groups: language, individuals and societies, math and computer science, the arts, experimental sciences and a second language. The core of the curriculum is a 4,000 word-essay, a theory of knowledge class and a community service requirement.[...]

Critics, however, have argued that IB’s multicultural themes promote values that conflict with traditional Judeo-Christian values. Some opponents have called it Marxist because the International Baccalaureate Organization is a signatory to the Earth Charter, a collection of global principles created in France in 2000.

This is one of those stories that makes a person say, “what the heck?!”

I had a passing acquaintance with the IB program when I was in high school. My high school, Memphis White Station, didn’t offer it, and instead went gung-ho with AP offerings.

I was somewhat jealous of the IB program because it seemed to be viewed more highly among colleges (particularly international universities that expect more of students than what most American high schools provide), and because I found the coordinated curriculum of the program appealing. (In the 11th grade, I had a great deal of synchronicity among my AP U.S. History, Honors English, and AP Music Theory classes that made it a very good year for me.)

I didn’t recall ever hearing anything about IB being un-American.

The wire story makes reference to the Earth Charter. I hadn’t previously heard of it before, but a query to Google solved that problem. A copy can be found here.

There are clauses in there that arguably go against current policies of the current administration — it’s very pro-UN, pro-environment, and it can be interpreted as anti-corporate. However, that doesn’t necessarily make it anti-American. While I’d like the document more if it mentioned using entrepreneurship and lightly-regulated-but-otherwise-free market to facilitate its other goals…. that doesn’t make it un-American.

Have things deteriorated to the point where I’m a traitor if I think the UN is a potentially good idea, if only it could operate more efficiently? Am I unpatriotic because I’d like to see industry operate in a sustainable manner?

And un-Christian?! The Charter reads of peace, tolerance, charity, and responsible use of the bounty of creation. I fear that alleged christians who find such values to be un-Christian ought to re-examine the teachings of He whom they claim to follow.

Seen on ctnewsjunkie:

Senate President Donald Williams (D-Danielson) and Education Commissioner Betty Sternberg today announced a deal that will ban soda and other sugar drinks from public schools.

This is an extension of a bill that was vetoed last year. The big changes seem to be dropping a proposed ban on snack foods, a proposed requirement of mandatory exercise during the school day, and some funding items.

You know, back in my day in Memphis, the only place you could buy a Coke on campus was in the faculty lounge. I’m kind of amazed that these Yankees ever allowed vending machines on campus.

Sean at Connecticut Conservative points to a Hartford Courant article discussing the possibility of school breakfasts starting up in Enfield:

The proposal to serve breakfast to Enrico Fermi High School students will be back before the board of education next month, when it reviews a report suggesting the idea is popular among students.

I find this article oddly amazing. First, I thought most, if not all, of the schools I attended had some (albeit usually limited) breakfast service. Second, I had the distinct impression that such breakfasts were as “interesting” a culinary experience as lunch was.

Students actually want school breakfast?! Well, considering how high our property taxes are, maybe school cafeterias in Connecticut are deluxe dining establishments

From today’s New York Times:

College counselors at about 200 high schools nationwide, and a few college admissions officers, have joined to ask the College Board to give students the option of taking the three parts of the SAT separately, instead of requiring that they take the whole test in one sitting.

The SAT, the leading college admissions test, expanded to 3 hours 45 minutes earlier this year with the addition of a writing test to the old three-hour test of math and reading.

“It’s just too long,” said Brad R. MacGowan, a counselor at Newton North High School in Massachusetts who first posted the idea two months ago on a electronic mailing list for college-admissions professionals. “What with finding their seats, getting their materials, filling out the identification bubbles and test breaks, some kids have to stay at the testing center for almost five hours.

Pffft! Considering how long college exams can be, a 3:45 exam seems not too unreasonable.

However, I wonder how the SOA or the CAS would react to the idea of an almost 4-hour exam being too long.

I’ve often thought that the U.S. could do more to encourage American students to gain fluency in languages in addition to English. A case can be made that as other parts of the world see their economies begin to take off, it would be in our best intrests to have businesspeople who can speak the local tongue in those emerging markets, and the best/easiest time to pick up a new language is when one is young.

In Kansas City, folks seem to have a somewhat different view….

Most of the time, 16-year-old Zach Rubio converses in clear, unaccented American teen-speak, a form of English in which the three most common words are “like,” “whatever” and “totally.” But Zach is also fluent in his dad’s native language, Spanish — and that’s what got him suspended from school.

“It was, like, totally not in the classroom,” the high school junior said, recalling the infraction. “We were in the, like, hall or whatever, on restroom break. This kid I know, he’s like, ‘Me prestas un dolar?’ ['Will you lend me a dollar?'] Well, he asked in Spanish; it just seemed natural to answer that way. So I’m like, ‘No problema.’ ”

But that conversation turned out to be a big problem for the staff at the Endeavor Alternative School, a small public high school in an ethnically mixed blue-collar neighborhood. A teacher who overheard the two boys sent Zach to the office, where Principal Jennifer Watts ordered him to call his father and leave the school.[...]

The article goes on to mention that the suspension has been rescinded, and the school district’s position clarified.

That’s good. We wouldn’t want to repeat past sins of punishing students for exhibiting left-handedness (as was once common in Catholic schools) or for displaying any recognition of their family culture (c.f. the boarding schools that sought to Americanize indigenous people…).

The more things change, …

Volokh has a pointer to a New York Times report that a public interest group will be suing to ban the sale of sugared sodas in schools.

I appreciate the sentiment being expressed by the plaintiff. However, a comment under the Volokh post sums up the silliness this illustrates in today’s society:

What kind of country is it where I can get an abortion without my parents’ consent or even knowledge, but I can’t have a Pepsi with my lunch even with my parents’ full support?