First, let’s follow the money!  Apparently quite a few of you contributed to a favorite cause, including Planned Parenthood, Chess in the Schools, and the Network for Public Education.  From what was reported to me, the total seems to be just north of $8,000. Thank you, because having that public challenge provided a major incentive NOT to quit!   And, believe me, there were a few times during my 78-mile ride when my 78-year-old body cried out for a nap!

(Sorry to be so late with this news: We have had a houseful of family and, full disclosure, the Women’s World Cup was a very high priority in our home!)

I have begun blogging at Forbes.com, at their invitation.  My first piece is titled  “It’s Summertime. Do You Know Where Your Children’s Teachers Are?”   I’d appreciate your clicking to take a look……

Summer reading for education wonks:  My list includes David Kirp’s forthcoming The College Dropout Scandal; William Doyle and Pasi Sahlberg’s Let The Children Play; the paperback edition of Ted Dintersmith’s What Schools Could Be; and The Wit and Wisdom of Diane Ravitch. 

Not exactly education but not to be missed: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari (I’m late to the party with this one).

Also, please do not miss Ted Kolderie‘s short and compelling booklet, Minnesota Is Creating a Self-Improving System.

I also have The Mueller Report.  Reading the second part makes me wonder why the House has not opened an Impeachment Inquiry.  If not now, when!!  (There are at least three different editions; I have the Washington Post version.)

Happy reading…..

Well, last Friday was so beautiful that, even though it wasn’t literally my birth anniversary, I decided to go for it.  My daughter Elise and I hit the trail at precisely 7AM. While we were the only humans around, we certainly were not alone.

The snapping turtle, one of two, was intent on laying her eggs, and the goslings were protected by at least a half dozen aggressively vigilant Canada Geese.  The adult deer could have been the yearling I encountered on the path a year ago.  During the day we probably saw three or four times as many chipmunks as people!

The first half went well, and we stopped for lunch (energizing smoothies) at the 44-mile mark in Yorktown, New York.

My daughter kept an eye on me, making certain that I was hydrating properly. What’s more, Elise was riding a folding bike!  This is the cycling equivalent of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers line: “She did everything he did, only backwards and wearing heels.”  While I’m no Fred Astaire, Elise is a latter day Ginger Rogers.

So….if you’re donating, do it in her honor. Or maybe you should give twice as much?

So now you want to know how it turned out? Did we make the full 78 miles?

(roll of drums)

Yes, with an extra 8/100ths of a mile (about 400 feet!) tossed in for good measure.

I know 78 miles sounds like a lot, but the secret is simple: a flat course that’s almost entirely in shade, a slight tailwind for the return half, lots of liquid, and great company.  Next year I hope some of you will join me/us for a 79-mile ride (Lord willing and the creek don’t rise).

Now, about those donations. It’s time to pony up, friends.  I am giving to the Network for Public Education, Planned Parenthood, and Chess in the Schools, a wonderful program for NYC kids founded by Lewis Cullman, the remarkable philanthropist who died at age 100 on Friday.  I’ve served on the Chess Advisory Board for years and have seen first hand how much good it does for so many children; it introduces them to the mental discipline of chess, and that skill often carries over into other aspects of their lives.

A final note: On Monday, four days before my ride, I was diagnosed with a slight tear in my right rotator cuff. I didn’t ask the orthopedist or my new physical therapist whether I should attempt the ride, because I was pretty certain how they would have answered.  But it was all good…..

Thanks for your interest.  Write those checks, and now let’s get back to the serious stuff of reclaiming America and America’s public schools from the grifters and ideologues.

All the best,

John

What follows is a diversion from the political madness and (perhaps) an opportunity for you to donate to a favorite cause.   In just a few days I will turn 78, and on or around my birthday I will once again attempt to bike my age.  This will be my 9th consecutive attempt, and, while I was successful the first eight times, as a stock prospectus is required to state, “Past performance is not indicative of future results.”

The ride doesn’t get any easier for two obvious reasons:  Every year the distance increases, and every year I am a year older.  An athletic nephew has suggested that it might be time to consider switching to kilometers; to be honest, there are mornings when yards would be a challenge!

However, last year I managed 83 miles, which I guess means I have 6 miles in the bank, plus 2 miles stored up from the year I was supposed to bike 73 and went 75.

Last year I challenged readers to donate $77 to their preferred cause if I made it, and many of you accepted the challenge.  You reported donating $90,000, an astounding sum!  However, my friend and noted author Jim Loewen (“Lies My Teacher Taught Me,” “Sundown Towns”) generously earmarked $77,000 of his annual donation to Tougaloo College, the HBCU in Mississippi, in my name and said I could count it toward the total, which I did.

Still, $13,000 is a pretty cool number.

Last year I suggested Planned Parenthood as a recipient, and that’s an even better idea this time around.

The Network for Public Education does important work on behalf of teachers and strong public schools (and also for “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party”).

I’m impressed by the fledgling Coalition of Independent Public Charter Schools, a group that is trying to get charter schools to behave honorably (which, unfortunately, many do not do.)

As a former education reporter, I’d be happy if you chose to donate to the Education Writers Association,  The Hechinger Report, or Chalkbeat, three organizations that improve the quality of education reporting and contribute mightily to the public’s understanding of the enterprise.

Finally, if you want to give me a birthday present, please send a copy of my book, “Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education,” to friends of yours who still believe in the faux ‘Education Reforms’ of George W. Bush (“No Child Left Behind”) and Barack Obama (“Race to the Top”).   While it is obvious that the Trump Administration is hostile to public education, his predecessors did incalculable damage with their embrace of ‘test and punish’ accountability and largely unaccountable charter schools.  As I argue in the book, schools have to stop asking, “How Smart Is This Child?” and ask instead, “How Is This Child Smart?”

If you think you might want to ride with me (and one of my daughters, bless her), send me an email at john.merrow@gmail.com.

I will let you know the outcome, one way or another.  If you will tell me about your donation(s), I will keep a running tab….

And thanks for reading this far. Now I have to go stuff myself with pasta!!

“Charter School” is a vague descriptive term, akin to “Restaurant,”  in that neither term tells you very much. One of them, however, is dangerously vague.

“Restaurant” is vague but not dangerous.  The word tells you only that the establishment serves food of some kind, but nothing else. It might offer great cuisine–or greasy slop.  It might be a fast-food joint or a 3-Star Michelin legend with a 6-month waiting list for a reservation.   And, if you do go there for a meal, that’s the extent of your obligation.  If it’s bad, you can get up from the table and leave….

So, now imagine you are standing outside a building sporting a sign reading “Charter School.”   All you can discern from the term is that it’s one of about 7,000 publicly funded but privately managed charter schools.   And the possibilities of what that charter school might be are dizzying.  Here are just some of them:

1. It might be part of a national chain of schools or a stand-alone “Mom and Pop” school;
2. It might have been authorized locally or set up by a distant authority (which may not be keeping its eye on things);
3. It might have a Board of Directors made up of local parents and other residents, or it could be controlled from afar by a Board with no local representation whatsoever;
4. It might have an admissions test, even though it is supposedly a public school, or it might be open to all comers;
5. It might be financially transparent, or it could refuse to reveal how it’s spending the public money that it receives–which means its leader could be making more than $500,000 a year, even if his or her school has only a few hundred students;
6. It might have a Draconian–and unpublished–discipline code that, unbeknownst to the public, systematically excludes students with special needs and/or children of color, or its code could be published for all to see; and
7. It could be what’s called a ‘conversion charter,’ a school that is closely connected to its home school district, or it could be fighting its own district for resources.
8. You won’t see a sign for a ‘Virtual Charter School,’ where education is conducted on line.  According to Education Week,  a study of 163 “virtual” high schools revealed that many fail to graduate even 50% of their students.  From the article: “Online charter schools, which are run mostly by for-profit companies, have long struggled with poor academic outcomes—from test scores, to academic growth, to graduation rates, to attendance rates. The most high-profile study, done by economists at Stanford University in 2015, found that students attending an online charter school made so little progress in math over the course of a year that it was as if they hadn’t attended school at all.”   In 2016 Education Week published “Rewarding Failure,” an exhaustive study of the ‘Cyber Charter School industry, and its findings remain shocking.

Now let’s follow the money, because our hypothetical “charter school” might have been established as a not-for-profit school or set up to make money.  As it happens, that supposed distinction is now one without a difference, because an awful lot of so-called non-profit charter schools are systematically looting their state treasuries in ways that are perfectly legal, thanks to state laws that were deliberately written to allow the ripoffs.   In “Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education,” I focused on North Carolina.   But here’s information about Arizona.  Pennsylvania.  Florida.  Michigan. California.  California again.  Tennessee.  New Mexico.  (I could go on and on, but you get the point: the Charter School Industry is rife with scandal.)

If you are on Twitter, just follow #anotherdayanothercharterscandal, for a drumbeat of verified bad news.   Here’s one from earlier today.  And another.

The Network for Public Education, which is vigorously and vigilantly anti-charter, recently summarized the situation in a report entitled “Asleep at the Wheel.”

The most prominent pro-charter school organization, The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, generally ignores any and all bad news, preferring instead to serve as a cheerleader.  It has its own “Hall of Fame” and “Champions for Charters,” for example, and it offers a template for local charter schools so they can fill in the blanks to boast about themselves.  These smart marketing techniques are, I suppose, designed to keep the public from knowing the truth about the chaos that is Charter World.

Could our hypothetical “charter school” be doing great work?  Well, sure, but the evidence suggests that most charter schools do not outperform their traditional counterparts. 

Many of the Democratic hopefuls are weighing in on education generally and charter schools specifically.  Peter Greene, a keen observer, has created a clever way to evaluate what they are saying.  Echoing a standardized test scoring system, the candidates can be deemed to be ‘below basic,’ ‘basic,’ ‘proficient,’ or ‘advanced.’ Here’s part of what it takes to receive an ‘advanced‘ score: The candidate recognizes that “The modern charter school movement is understood as part of a larger wave of privatization that threatens to replace government by the people with ownership by the rich and powerful. Advanced candidates recognize that the teaching profession is suffering not just from low pay, but from shrinking autonomy and a lack of support for public institutions. They recognize that high stakes standardized testing is driving schools in unproductive and toxic directions.”  

I began by saying that ‘Charter School’ is a dangerously vague term.  Unlike restaurants you can walk away from, many parents make extraordinary sacrifices to enroll their children in charter schools–without knowing enough about the school they are committing to.  It’s not so easy to walk away, but that charter school might be one of the awful ones described above.

If you’ve read this far, you know that I am concerned about charter schools, an effort that began with the best of intentions more than 30 years ago.  I served as moderator of the seminal meeting near the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota, back in 1988.  From that meeting came the draft legislation that Minnesota passed in 1990 and the first charter school in Saint Paul in 1992.  The visionaries hoped that all school districts would establish charter schools as learning laboratories, but that has just not happened.

Is there hope?  There might be, because some of the independent public charter schools are banding together in a new organization, The Coalition of Community Charter Schools, which is designed to give a voice to the 3,000-plus independent (‘Mom and Pop) charter schools.  This organization seeks to return to the original vision of charter schools. To that end, it has created a comprehensive Statement of Principles that it expects all members to adopt and adhere to.  The Principles, the equivalent of the old Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, include financial transparency, no admissions test, local control, multiple measures of accomplishment, collaboration, a commitment to diversity, and respect for teachers.

How many independent charter schools will be willing to commit to these principles is an open question.  I’m hoping that at least half will join.   If very few are willing to be open, then the charter movement is in deeper trouble than I feared

Frankly, I think this is the last best hope for charter schools, but I am not neutral on this.  I helped a little bit with the planning for the new organization and have moderated two of their early gatherings.

To sum up, the term “Charter School” tells us almost nothing, which is why I suggest that no one even consider enrolling a child in a charter school unless they have access to its disciplinary code; its graduation, promotion, and retention rate; the diversity of its students and teaching staff; the measures of accomplishment it uses; and the salaries of its leadership.  All that information is the equivalent of a restaurant menu, and just as you read a menu before ordering, so too should you learn this information before entrusting your child to that supposedly wonderful “Charter School.”

Your comments welcome at themerrowreport.com, and thanks….

Full disclosure: Although I have never met or interviewed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, I am a huge fan.  In fact, the closest I have been to her was at the Education Writers Association’s annual conference in Baltimore recently.  Sitting maybe 75 feet from her, I was dazzled as I watched her hold off some tough questions from education reporters, a notoriously aggressive bunch. That stellar performance gave the lie to those who mock her intelligence.

In Baltimore she proved that she is smart.   Sure, she made a lot of gaffes early in her tenure, but now–after just 27 or 28 months on the job–she doesn’t get flustered.  She has learned to avoid  answering direct questions; instead, she ignores whatever she is asked and pivots back to her talking point: “Students and parents need ‘freedom’ to choose.”  Ask her anything, and she will–with a smile–talk about ‘freedom.’   She couldn’t do that if she weren’t a smart cookie.

Moreover, Secretary DeVos is a gutsy defender of minority positions.  Here’s an example: A less courageous person would fold under pressure and take the popular position that public schools are vital to our future because they enroll about 90% of students.  But, showing a backbone of steel, DeVos swims against the tide.  She is not afraid to criticize public education.  And she hasn’t just shown courage once or twice; no, she’s out there regularly–every day–taking on public education, essentially saying “Damn the consequences!”

I also admire her because she is a great friend of the American teacher, something her critics never acknowledge. In Baltimore, for example, she came out strongly in favor of paying teachers about $250,000 a year!  She cleverly suggested pegging teachers salaries to the salary of the President of the American Federation of Teachers.  Since the average teacher salary today is under $60,000 and the AFT President makes nearly $500,000, the Secretary is proposing a salary INCREASE of about $190,000 for the average teacher.   So, the next time someone says DeVos doesn’t like public school teachers, wave that in their face and tell them to zip it!

Sadly, not a single education reporter led with that news in their stories about DeVos at the EWA annual meeting.  I was embarrassed for my profession, frankly.  Quadrupling teacher salaries, for crying out loud!  Why wasn’t that their lead story?

I also admire the Secretary’s neutrality on the question of pedagogy.  Although she is the nation’s leading educator, she refuses to get drawn into arguments about which approaches to teaching and learning are most effective.  Phonics and phonemic awareness versus whole language?  No comment!  Project-based learning versus rote memorization?  No comment!  Social and emotional learning versus a strong focus on academics?  No comment!   So neutral is she that I don’t believe DeVos has ever said anything about teaching and learning, focusing instead on ‘freedom.’  When it comes to the central issues of teaching and learning, she is religiously opinion-free.

And finally, DeVos has shown that she’s in it for the long haul. She doesn’t get thrown off course by an occasional stumble or a temporary setback but hunkers down and works harder toward the goals she has set.  Let me give you an example, more evidence for you to use should you hear anyone criticizing our Secretary of Education.  DeVos is from Michigan, where she and her billionaire husband have strongly supported school choice, virtual charter schools and for-profit charter schools.  On her watch, 80% of Michigan’s charter schools began as or became for-profit schools, and the overall education system has declined in what some have called ‘A Race to the Bottom.’   Even when evidence emerged that for-profit charter schools generally have disappointing academic results, low graduation rates, and frequent financial scandals, DeVos has not wavered in her support.

Now that she is our nation’s top educator, she is promoting what she supported in Michigan, arguing that these approaches, when free from picky regulations and serious oversight, will give students the ‘freedom’ that is a vital part of the American dream.

Some other leaders might have looked at the evidence and wavered in their commitment, but Secretary DeVos has the courage of her convictions.  She’s in it for the long haul.

Call me a fanboy, but, as I see it, Education Secretary Betsy Devos has it all: brains, the courage to defend minorities,  pedagogical neutrality, a deep commitment to higher salaries for America’s teachers, and the strength to stay the course despite the evidence.

Convinced?

I was raised to believe in public schools.  My parents taught me that good public schools both improve and unite their communities.**  Moreover, they said, great teachers transform children’s lives by unlocking their potential, which allows them to cast off whatever shackles they had been born into and rise into the middle class and beyond.  Education was liberation, they said, and I embraced the view that schools did not simply ratify the social status a child was born into.

Now, however, I realize that our economic system is so sharply tilted in favor of the privileged that even the best efforts of teachers are not enough to open the doors of opportunity to significant numbers of poor and underprivileged students.

What’s to be done?   Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, politicians in Florida and elsewhere, many Republicans, and ‘Corporate Democrats’ like Cory Booker want to change the way we go to school–by providing vouchers or opening more charter schools.  This approach, which they call ‘choice,’ will not even begin to touch the inequity that pervades education. In fact, I believe these changes would weaken an already endangered system.

It may be helpful to look back to how things were just over a half century ago. As it happens, things have not always been so unfair.

After finishing college in 1964, I taught for two years in a public high school just outside New York City.  I came to admire the energy and commitment of many of my colleagues,  women and men who were in the business of transforming lives and unlocking potential.

After more teaching and two graduate degrees, I began covering education for NPR in 1974, the start of a 41-year career, most of it spent in public school classrooms.  I met countless women and men who dedicated their lives to helping kids grow and move up. I told as many of their stories as I could, in order to make the point that race, class, economic status, parental education, and neighborhood were not destiny.  Public education at its best was a liberating force.

But gradually it dawned on me that my stories were all too exceptional, and that the real story was that far too many hard working young people were not catching a break, not being rewarded for their effort and their accomplishments. For them, The American Dream that they believed in was a hoax.

Make no mistake about it. These are special kids, high-achieving students from the bottom economic quartile who have triumphed against great odds. Just consider the money that is spent on the schools they attended for 12 years.  Sometimes the dollar gap is racial:  “School districts where the majority of students enrolled are students of color receive $23 billion less in education funding than predominantly white school districts, despite serving the same number of students – a dramatic discrepancy that underscores the depth of K-12 funding inequities in the U.S.” 

But education’s dollar divide cuts across racial lines.  Basically, the poorest districts–Latino, White, and Black–also have the least-experienced teachers, the worst facilities, the highest rates of teacher turnover and teacher shortages, the most time given over to drill and practice, the fewest Advanced Placement opportunities, and on and on.

Despite this, these students–no doubt inspired and pushed to succeed by their teachers–achieved enough to warrant acceptance into highly selective colleges…..IF those highly desirable colleges were willing to open their doors to students in need of financial aid.

Whoops, that’s a BIG ‘if,’ because most are not.  While more than one-third of all college students qualify for Pell Grants (a reliable proxy for family income), only about 10-15% of the students at our most selective colleges are receiving Pell Grants.  Pell recipients are likely to attend colleges that accept most applicants.  For example, at Cal State University at Merced, about 61% of students are on Pell Grants, and it’s 58% at the University of New Mexico and 44% at Montclair (NJ) State University.   But Pell Grant recipients make up only 15% of the students at Yale, 13% at Duke, and 11% at the University of Chicago.

Poor kids, no matter how qualified, just are not likely to show up in The Ivy League.  Here are some harsh facts from the Georgetown University Center for Education and the Workforce.

“Today’s higher education system is divided into two unequal tracks stratified by race and funding. White students are overrepresented at selective public colleges that are well-funded with high graduation rates, while Blacks and Latinos are funneled into overcrowded and underfunded open-access public colleges with low graduation rates. The gap in funding for instructional and academic support between selective and open-access public colleges has also been growing, which makes the system even more separate and unequal.”

AND:  “Students at selective colleges have an 85 percent chance of graduating, while students at open-access colleges have only a 51 percent chance of graduating.”

AND:  “Selective public colleges spend, on average, almost three times as much per full-time equivalent student on instructional and academic support as open-access public colleges.”

AND: “The combination of racial segregation and widening disparities in spending between public selective and public open-access colleges has exacerbated race-based gaps in educational and economic outcomes. Not all students can access the best public colleges and the benefits they confer. The result is that the public higher education system is another factor that is disproportionately keeping Blacks and Latinos from fulfilling their potential, entering the middle class, and living fully in their time—the basic commitments of a democratic capitalist society.” (emphasis added)

Those who do persist are almost guaranteed to graduate deeply in debt, a circumstance that shapes their life choices.   It’s not just the Pell Grant recipients who are in debt.  Collectively, 44 million men and women–not all of them graduates–owe more than $1.5 trillion, which works out to about $35,000 per debtor.   But chances are that it’s those who started out disadvantaged are still in the same boat, deeper in debt than their privileged counterparts.

However, even if we managed to equalize education spending in public schools and even if all colleges agreed to have a minimum of 20% of their student body be Pell Grant recipients, that would not begin to touch what has gone wrong with our basic economic structure.

Some history: “Up until the early 1980s, an annual minimum-wage income—after adjusting for inflation—was enough to keep a family of two above the poverty line. At its high point in 1968, the minimum wage was high enough for a family of three to be above the poverty line with the earnings of a full-time minimum-wage worker, although it still fell short for a family of four. The falling minimum wage has led to poverty and inequality. Today, at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, working 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year yields an annual income of only $15,080.”

Is that clear?  Back then, One worker earned enough to support a family, meaning that the other adult could choose to be at home with the children.   Today, a worker earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour and putting in a 40-hour week earns $15,000 a year…..and 21 states still use the federal wage as their guide.

I have a friend about my age whose first job–in New York City!–paid enough so he could afford his own apartment in Manhattan.  Contrast that with today’s young graduates, often sharing space with two, three, or four others.

Today the working poor bear the brunt of our unequal system.  “The promise of work is part of the American Dream. Most Americans believe that people who work, especially those working full-time year round, should be earning enough to provide for their families….And the experience of working poverty for most racial/ethnic groups in the U.S., including Whites, has increased since 2000, signifying a disturbing trend in the labor force and a need for policy that ensures all work pays a fair wage.”

While a higher minimum wage would help, the real issue is income/wealth inequality and not education spending, how schools are structured, or the minimum wage.  Since 1969 the number of people in poverty hasn’t changed much, but the share of wealth going to the top one percent has doubled.  And the super-rich, the nation’s highest 0.01 percent and 0.1 percent of income-earners have seen their incomes rise much faster than the rest of the top 1 percent in recent decades.  Right now the richest 0.1% take in 188 times as much as the bottom 90%, a situation that the Trump tax cut only exacerbated.

“In the 1950s, a typical CEO made 20 times the salary of his or her average worker. Last year, CEO pay at an S&P 500 Index firm soared to an average of 361 times more than the average rank-and-file worker, or pay of $13,940,000 a year,” according to recent reports.

Happily, I’m not the only slow learner now catching on.  According to a new Washington Post/NBC poll,  60% of registered voters say the economic system benefits those in power, not all people.  They’re understanding that today’s young generation is all but guaranteed to be the first in our history to earn less than their parents, unless we make some drastic changes.

Of course schools need to change.  Right now, schools are asking the wrong question–“How Smart Are You?”–and then using test scores to provide most of the answer.  And so, despite legions of talented and dedicated teachers, our education system ends up ratifying the social and economic status  that their students entered with.  It doesn’t have to be this way.

We need to allow teachers to ask the more important question about every child–“How Is He or She Smart?”  Asking that question changes the game….as I write about in “Addicted to Reform.”

We do NOT need vouchers, private school choice, or for-profit charter schools.  These are schemes to draw attention away from efforts to defund public education.  That ‘noise’ keeps us from looking at the big picture, the fundamental unfairness of our economy.

But make no mistake about it: We cannot solve public education’s problems without attending to the fundamental unfairness of the American economy.

I say forget “Make America Great Again” (or any other slogan that involves ‘Again.’)  Why not “Make America Play Fair” or “Make America PAY Fair” instead?

Your comments are welcome at themerrowreport.com

** Full disclosure: My parents’ belief in public education did not prevent them from sending me off to boarding school in 9th grade.  In their defense, that’s what their parents had done with them; they had six children living in a 3 1/2 bedroom home; and I was a genuine pain-in-the-neck.

Those who shout about “Fake News” and assert that journalists are “The Enemy of the People” are either demagogues and wanna-be dictators, crooks who are trying to cover up their crimes, or people who have been duped.  While the demagogues and crooks are probably beyond redemption, many of those who have been fooled might be open to evidence.  So in that spirit, let’s show them what good journalism looks like; let’s show them how strong independent journalism makes our society function more honestly and more effectively.

With that in mind, I want to ask you to dig into at least some of the following  examples of remarkable reporting in the education space, finalists in the 2018 Education Writers Association annual journalism contest.  I had the distinct privilege of being one of the judges.  Below are examples of the very opposite of “Fake News.”  Real news that matters….

1) First, here are three pieces from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, whose coverage area includes Parkland and Marjory Douglas Stoneman High School.  The first provides a time line that reveals how many adults failed to do their jobs, which meant that more kids died.

http://projects.sun-sentinel.com/2018/sfl-parkland-school-shooting-critical-moments

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/fl-florida-school-shooting-discipline-20180510-story.html

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/fl-ne-florida-school-crime-reporting-20181127-story.html

2) I have no doubt that you have heard of MS-13, the notorious gang known for its brutality. President Trump has spoken about it many times.  What you may not know is how some schools have responded to the threat.  Pro Publica, working with The New York Times and New York Magazine, did some digging and produced these two chilling stories that you will not quickly forget.

https://features.propublica.org/ms-13/a-betrayal-ms13-gang-police-fbi-ice-deportation/

https://features.propublica.org/ms-13-immigrant-students/huntington-school-deportations-ice-honduras/

3) Journalists perform a public service whenever they dig deeply into an issue that most of us wonder or worry about.  Here’s an example: reading problems.  No doubt you have children, grandchildren (or friends and neighbors with either) who struggle with reading.  Want to know why?  So did Emily Hanford, with this remarkable result: https://www.apmreports.org/story/2018/09/10/hard-words-why-american-kids-arent-being-taught-to-read   Prepare to be shocked when you learn that most teachers are not taught how to teach reading.  There is established science, but it turns out that a lot of education professors either ignore it or are unaware of it.

4) Great education journalism makes our children and our schools safer and better.  That’s a huge generalization, but I stand by it.  Here’s a wonderful example, this 4-part series from the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Part 1: Learn at your own risk
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/lead-paint-poison-children-asbestos-mold-schools-philadelphia-toxic-city.html

Part 2: Hidden peril
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/asbestos-testing-mesothelioma-cancer-philadelphia-schools-toxic-city.html

Part 3: Botched jobs
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/lead-carbon-monoxide-silica-poisoning-construction-students-teachers-philadelphia-schools-toxic-city.html

Part 4 is an invaluable “School Checkup tool” that allows parents and others to see what’s going on in their school.
http://data.philly.com/toxic-city/lead-poisoning-paint-asbestos-mold-asthma-philadelphia-schools-map-search-tool.html#/

By the way, interactive features like Part 4 of the Inquirer’s series are becoming standard operating procedure in journalism today.  Here’s a wonderful one about lead in the water in public schools in California, created by Ed Source.  https://edsource.org/2018/interactive-map-lead-levels-found-in-california-schools-drinking-water/602769  I urge you to share it with all your California friends and family members.

And here’s another, created by Alvin Chang for Vox, that reveals how school districts can deliberately segregate schools: https://www.vox.com/2018/1/8/16822374/school-segregation-gerrymander-map

(To see all the 2018 finalists, go to the home page of the Education Writers Association: https://www.ewa.org/awards/2018-finalists-reporting-awards)

Clearly, great journalism isn’t just about writing but about telling stories that matter.  So here’s one final example that should put the “Fake News” screed to rest, the faces and voices of people affected by the Parkland murders.  http://interactive.sun-sentinel.com/voices-of-change/  It was also produced by reporters at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, a newspaper that I have just subscribed to.

One request: Share These Stories…

Just as important, please support your local journalism.  This endangered profession will not survive unless we act.  Thomas Jefferson said it best: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Thank you…..

(I originally titled this piece “Retirement Sucks,’ but a careful reader, the education wonk Joe Williams, sent a note using the phrase “No Glove Left Behind,’ and I have shamelessly stolen it from him….because it’s far more clever than my effort.)

To be completely honest, I’ve been at loose ends ever since retiring from the PBS NewsHour a few years ago.  Reporting about public education gave me a sense of purpose, and suddenly that was gone.  I tried my hand at business, hoping to finally make some decent money, but, sadly, my college admissions consulting business went belly-up, I was no longer serving on the Board of Directors of Pearson, whose board I had joined in hopes of reforming that controversial organization from within, and I couldn’t interest a publisher in the book I wanted to write, “101 Reasons Manhattan’s Upper East Side is NYC’s Most Exciting Place to Live.” 

Basically, I had nothing but time…and nothing to do.  So I spent hours every day on long meandering walks, trying to come up with an activity that would give my live a real sense of purpose.   One day in early December, it clicked.  Everywhere I looked, or so it seemed, I saw a lost glove or a misplaced mitten. It happened so often that I finally decided to do something about it. 

I began picking them up, taking them home, cleaning them, and putting them in a pile in our second bedroom.  Because I got so focused on searching for strays, I walked into lampposts and more than a few pedestrians.  But the thrill of the hunt was worth a few bumps.

I enlisted my wife and a few friends and neighbors, and before long we had more than 100 mismatched gloves and mittens, the stash pretty much taking over our second bedroom.

You might think that collecting lost gloves is a fool’s errand.  I disagree.  The needy receive coats and hats from Operation Warm and One Warm Coat.  SolefulCaring and Shoes for the Homeless provide winter boots for the needy, but no one has been paying attention to their hands.  We could fill that niche and meet that need!

I suggested calling our effort “gLOVEs” or maybe “Mitten Smitten,” but those names didn’t fly with my family.  Then a grandchild who’s been helping out composed this haiku:

          Lost gloves, lone mittens

          searching for a mate. Please help

          warm shivering hands.  

And her last line struck a chord, and that’s how our organization to collect, clean, match, and donate gloves and mittens got its name, WARM HANDS.

My son, a computer whiz, is building a data base and an app that will allow us to make easy matches. 

Matching gloves turned out to be more difficult than I had imagined.  The two (one left, one right) have to be the same color, type, and size.  And in pretty much the same condition.

Gloves and mittens are actually pretty interesting.  Turns out that until fairly recently most of those sold here in the United States were made in China or somewhere else in Asia, but there’s been a resurgence, and most gloves sold here in America are also made in America.  That was a pleasant surprise.  Glove factories can be found on Native American reservations, in Orthodox and Amish communities, and in several state prisons.  Not sure where this fancy suede driving glove was made, but it’s a beauty.

Much of what I learned about gloves and mittens came from the glovemakers trade association, Making American Gloves Again.  I have a connection to the organization and am hoping that it will endorse WARM HANDS.  While I don’t know its President, a Mr. José Loff, personally, my sister-in-law has a second cousin who lives just four or five blocks from Mr. Loff and has seen him walking his dog.  I hope that connection will be enough to get an endorsement from Mr. Loff’s organization, MAGA.

By the way, that fancy suede driving glove turned out to be our first matched pair.  I found the first one near our apartment, and three or four days later my wife came across its mate not far from where I found the first.  We’re surmising that the owner either dropped both the same day or perhaps came back to search for #1, failed to find it, and threw away #2. 

 It’s now April, and I am pleased to report that we have donated three dozen pairs of clean gloves and mittens to a homeless shelter not far from our home in New York City. 

We now have close to 250 unmatched gloves and mittens in our apartment, and it turns out, the more gloves and mittens we have, the easier it is to find matches. That’s why I am hoping you will send any stray gloves and mittens you find to the address below.  After all, WARM HANDS is filling a need, and we want it to grow.

WARM HANDS helps in another important way.  It’s an antidote to despair. If you are feeling powerless in an age when Presidential lying and Congressional cowardice are rampant, WARM HANDS will restore your sense of purpose!  You are significant, you are making a difference, you are saving the world, one glove at a time! 

Right we’re delivering clean pairs of gloves and mittens to needy organizations here in New York City, but–if this takes off–I see no reason why we cannot help needy people in Chicago, Indianapolis, Lincoln, Nebraska, and elsewhere.  I came across these two yesterday morning, the last day of March, but I think that has to be the end, for now, because glove/mitten weather is a thing of the past here in New York City.

Please send the gloves and mittens–but clean them first!–to WARM HANDS, 1148 Fifth Avenue, Apartment 9D, New York, NY 10128.  

To be honest, I still miss reporting on Betsy DeVos.  However, I am continuing to work on  my book for tourists, tentatively called “The 101 Most Exciting Things to Do and See on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.”  I could use some help with the list because so far I have found only six or seven.

Thank you, and bless you…..

If you Google ‘College Admissions Scandal’, you’ll get 157 MILLION citations.  That’s how it is dominating our conversations.  It is absorbing stuff, the story of rich people getting yet another advantage in gaining access to the top shelf–but this time getting caught in the act.   Some of the pieces I have read include thoughtful suggestions about how to make the admissions process more fair, but most are largely salacious details and hot air/outrage.   I’d like to suggest EIGHT changes that could make the process a little bit more fair.

My bona fides: I recorded the process at four elite private institutions–Williams in 1986, Amherst in 2004, and Middlebury in 1990 for PBS and Dartmouth for NPR in the late 1970’s.  In every instance, some applicants had been ‘flagged’ by athletic coaches or heads of the music and drama departments.  Some applicants were flagged as ‘legacies,’ meaning a close relative had graduated from the college, and others were noted because their families had the capacity to make a major gift (or had already made one).  That’s standard operating procedure at elite institutions; the central question is, of course, how low would an institution go to accepted a ‘flagged’ applicant?  As a reporter, I could only ask that question.  At the end of the day, it depended upon the integrity of the process and of the individual members of the admissions committee.

Producer Tim Smith and I were the first television journalists to get access to college admissions, at Williams in the spring of 1986. We spent three days videotaping everything that moved, and of course the Committee talked about ‘flagged’ applicants, including athletes, musicians, and children of alumni, but it never occurred to me that the ‘flags’ could have been fabricated.  I assumed that the coaches, orchestra leaders, and other flaggers were putting their team/orchestra’s interests first and saw nothing that made me suspect otherwise.   Now we have to question EVERYTHING.

Those institutions tried to be ‘need blind,’ that is, to accept the most deserving students without considering their ability to pay, and, as far as I can recall, their conversations never touched upon whether a student would need financial aid  However, I am also certain that they could tell from the applications who would need to be supported, and who could pay.  A good admissions officer doesn’t need a completed FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) form to separate the “haves” from the “have nots.”

Regarding the current scandal, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised because we know that money talks.  However, I am disappointed in the coaches, who I assumed were putting their team first.  I knew that coaches could ‘flag’ athletes, but it never occurred to me that the flags might be for sale.  Now I am disappointed in myself because I failed to ‘follow the money’ when I was doing my reporting.

Here are EIGHT changes that I believe would make the admissions process better:

1) Elite colleges should stop participating in the annual US News & World Report college rankings process.  Just stop!  Because US News uses a college’s rate of rejection as an important measure of its quality, many colleges have stepped up their efforts to recruit applicants–just so they can turn them down.  After all, the more a college turns down, the better US News says it must be.  If Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Princeton, MIT, Stanford et alia just said NO to US News, that would be a step in the right direction.

2) Cap the common application at four, the number of applications that are free of charge for those who qualify.  It’s now too easy for high school students with well-off parents to apply to dozens of colleges with one keystroke, and many kids do just that. This is another loophole that favors the wealthy, and we need to close as many of them as possible.  However, if we want to level the playing field, then colleges should do more reaching out to high schools in low- and moderate-income schools and help students apply.

By the way, the US News frenzy and the common application changed the admission process dramatically between our coverage of Williams in 1986 and Amherst in 2004.  In 1986 prior to the common application, every application was read by at least two members of the committee, and the entire committee met as a whole for days (often arguing passionately about particular candidates). However, by 2004 the flood of applications had forced Amherst to establish a SAT/ACT cutoff point; applicants below a certain number were rejected without a reading.  In 2004 Amherst had what amounted to two committees, which met and admitted and rejected candidates separately.

3) Administer–free of charge–the PSAT to all high school sophomores and juniors in low income schools.  If not the PSAT, then some test that is a good an indicator of talent and potential.  It might be an eye-opener for many kids in low income areas, because now many of them don’t even try to apply to “elite” colleges because they feel they don’t or won’t qualify; their scores might help change their minds.   Always remember that talent is randomly distributed, while test scores are closely related to parental income.  

4) Stop requiring the SAT and/or the ACT scores on college applications.  As many as 1,000 colleges and universities have already done this.   What might replace those standardized exams?  Here’s one intriguing possibility, reported by Bloomberg Business Week.

5) Fund public schools equitably so that every student has access to a counselor, who can guide them toward colleges that seem to be a good fit, and modern physical facilities like physics labs, and advanced curricula.   Since education is a state responsibility, state governments must put up the dollars.

6) As national policy, let’s pay for at least two years of higher education (or career training) in return for two years of National Service.  While I think the ‘free college’ talk is bogus, I am all in favor of a return to JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”   I believe a lot of idealistic and pragmatic young people would jump at the idea of spending two years in a branch of our military, the Peace Corps, the National Park Service, Americorps, the University of Notre Dame’s ACE Teaching Fellows Program, Teach for America, a qualified NGO, or other service programs.  Before Ronald Reagan’s presidency, most higher education aid was in the form of grants; today, of course, it is all loans and more loans: 71% of those who graduate owe money, and their average debt approaches $30,000.

If we as a nation invested in the post-secondary education of our young people, that would have a ripple effect: colleges and universities would be less dependent upon the largess of wealthy people, corporations, and foundations.  In time, that would change the dynamic in the admissions process by reducing the advantage that rich people now have.

7) In truth, we do not have to wait for Congress and the Administration to create National Service.  Our richest colleges could strike that deal themselves, because their endowments are staggering.  Our ten richest universities–Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, Texas A&M, the University of Michigan, Columbia, and Notre Dame–control close to $200,000,000,000 in endowment funds.  They could offer every student they admit a ‘full ride’ in return for a commitment to give back two years of service.

(By the way, Berea College in Kentucky has been providing tuition-free college for over 125 years. Berea doesn’t require service in return, but Berea graduates certainly learn to serve.)

For another example of “education for service,” consider the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg. Since 2008 it has provided–at no cost–two years at a boarding high school and four years at an elite college or university in the US or Europe to talented young people from every African country. In return they must pledge to return to their native countries to work for an NGO or a public service agency for five years.

8) For that matter, states could stem their ‘brain drain’ by paying the tuition for residents who attend a state college or university and also pledge to remain in the state for a set period of time (five years?) after graduating.  The list of states that are losing young graduates probably includes Michigan, North Dakota, Montana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Maine, for openers.

Perhaps public shaming will prevent wealthy and entitled families from behaving as if the world (and Yale) owe them, but parents treating their kids as trophies is not a new phenomenon. When John Tulenko and I reported on Attention Deficit Disorder in 1995, we found parents who actually wanted their children to be labeled ADD because they seemed to believe that the diagnosis absolved them (the parents) of any responsibility for their child’s not being on track to get into Princeton or Notre Dame.  That’s a close cousin to what’s happening now in college admissions, in my opinion.

Doing more to level the playing field, to make our society more egalitarian and to make college admissions more fair, is in the national interest.  If we want to remain competitive on the world stage, we must do more to find and nurture talent, wherever we find it.

Three questions: Who makes the rules for classroom behavior?  How much should 5-, 6-, 7-, and 8-year-olds get to decide, or should the teacher just lay down the rules? And does it make any difference in the long run?

In my 41 years of reporting, I must have visited thousands of elementary school classrooms, and I would be willing to bet that virtually every one of them displayed–usually near the door–a poster listing the rules for student behavior.

Often the posters were store-bought, glossy and laminated, and perhaps distributed by the school district.  No editing possible, and no thought required. Just follow orders!  Here’s an example:

I can imagine teachers reading the rules aloud to the children on the first day of class and only referring to them whenever things got loud or rowdy.

“Now, children, remember Rule 4.  No calling out unless I call on you.”

There are other variations on canned classroom rules, available for purchase.  This one uses a variety of flashy graphics to make the poster visually appealing, but the rules are being imposed from on high, which makes me think there’s little reason for children to adopt them.

I am partial to teachers and classrooms where the children spend some time deciding what the rules should be, figuring out what sort of classroom they want to spend their year in. I watched that process more than a few times. First, the teacher asks her students for help.

Children, let’s make some rules for our classroom.  What do you think is important? 

Or she might lead the conversation in certain directions:

What if someone knows the answer to a question?  Should they just yell it out, or should they raise their hand and wait to be called on?

Or:

If one of you has to use the bathroom, should you just get up and walk out of class? Or should we have a signal?  And what sort of signal should we use?

It should not surprise you to learn that, in the end, the kids come up with pretty much the same set of reasonable rules: Listen, Be Respectful, Raise Your Hand, and so forth.  But there’s a difference, because these are their rules.

This poster is my personal favorite. It’s from a classroom in Hampstead Hill Academy, a public elementary school in Baltimore, Maryland (and shared by Principal Matthew Hornbeck).  You’ll have to zoom in to see the details, which include what to do when working in groups: ‘Best Foot Forward,’ ‘Hands on Desk,’ and ‘Sit Big.’ And there are some things not to do, such as ‘Slouch‘ and ‘Touch Others.’

Another homemade one, entitled ‘Rules of the Jungle,’ makes me chuckle. I can picture the teacher and the children poking fun at themselves while creating a structure to insure that their classroom really does not become a jungle.

The words–Kind, Safe, Respectful–can be found in the store-bought posters; however, the children created the art work and made the poster.  It’s theirs; they own it.

The flip side, the draconian opposite that gives children no say in the process, can be found in charter schools that subscribe to the ‘no excuses’ approach.  The poster child is Eva Moskowitz and her Success Academies, a chain of charter schools in New York City.  A few years ago on my blog I published Success Academies’ draconian list of offenses that can lead to suspension, about 65 of them in all.   Here are three that can get a child as young as five a suspension that can last as long as five days: “Slouching/failing to be in ‘Ready to Succeed’ position” more than once,  “Getting out of one’s seat without permission at any point during the school day,” and “Making noise in the hallways, in the auditorium, or any general building space without permission.”   Her code includes a catch-all, vague offense that all of us are guilty of at times, “Being off-task.”   You can find the entire list here.

(Side note: the federal penitentiary that I taught in had fewer rules.)

Does being able to help decide, when you are young, the rules that govern you determine what sort of person you become?  Schools are famously undemocratic, so could a little bit of democracy make a difference?  Too many schools, school districts, and states treat children as objects–usually scores on some state test–and children absorb that lesson.

Fast forward to adulthood: Why do many adults just fall in line and do pretty much what they are told to do? I am convinced that undemocratic schools–that quench curiosity and punish skepticism–are partially responsible for the mess we are in, with millions of American adults accepting without skepticism or questioning the lies and distortions of Donald Trump, Fox News, Alex Jones, Briebart, and some wild-eyed lefties as well.

Because I agree with Aristotle that “We are what we repeatedly do,” I’m convinced that what happens in elementary school makes a huge difference in personality formation and character development.

Students should have more control (‘agency’ is the popular term) over what they are learning, and inviting them to help make their classroom’s rules is both a good idea and a good start.

As always, your comments and reactions are welcome.