I will graduate high school knowing how to take the derivative of complicated logarithmic equations. I will not graduate high school knowing how to file taxes. I will graduate high school knowing which European leaders were responsible for the catastrophe that was the League of Nations. I will not graduate high school knowing how to work towards a resolution of the Syrian refugee crisis. I will graduate high school knowing the differences between a Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnet. I will not graduate high school knowing how to fix a flat tire. I will graduate high school knowing who has the best chances of playing pro ball. I will not graduate high school knowing if I have an aptitude for my chosen fields of study.

See a problem?

The American education system—public and private—has a tendency to emphasize various academic fields of study that, though helpful to a point, often become essentially unhelpful. Call me crazy, but I think it is important to hold the ability to be able to invest in your own future in high esteem. I ought to be able to graduate knowing I am prepared for at least the most basic difficulties life is guaranteed to throw at me… like filing taxes. After all, Benjamin Franklin asserted that “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

I didn’t learn that quote in school, though. No, I learned it in my own independent reading, something I wish more people did more often. The more popular trend, though, is just to scoff because “there’s video games to play.” Are video games going to teach you any life lessons? Help you grow up? Learn something important? No. Try some Shakespeare. Some Bronte. Maybe some Plato. Pick up a Newsweek. If you really need to spend mind-numbing hours staring at a screen, do it when the news is on so you can recognize there are worse horrors in the world- much worse- than the poorly animated zombies running around your TV screen.

I know I’m guilty of spending a few too many hours staring at a screen some days, too, but I always try to fight my way back to reality. I know I have a tendency to slacken my quest for knowledge when I walk out of the school doors, but I never stop. I know homework makes it difficult some days; I’m well aware it’s hard to catch up on world affairs while trying to do some “wicked hard implicit differentiation,” as my Calculus teacher calls it. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try. If school isn’t going to provide us with what we feel is the necessary, then we have to work for it ourselves. Even if that means I give up some precious free time. Even if that means I trade in Divergent for Dante’s Inferno. Even if that means I trade in TBS for CNN. Even if that means I trade in pizza with friends for volunteering at a local food pantry.

School can only expose us to so much reality without risking censure from the school board. You’ll probably never see a class field trip to the homeless shelter. So the responsibility falls to us. Our education system can only give us the tools we need to succeed- critical thinking, literacy, mathematical capabilities- but it can’t build the whole boat for us.

Maybe, then part of the reason I can’t fix a flat is because I’ve never searched for the information. Not just because the school didn’t provide it. Perhaps it’s a crazy notion, but maybe- just maybe- we are as responsible for our education and understanding as any school administrator.

The post I’m graduating from high school, but what has school actually prepared me for? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Students in Missouri’s Republic school district won’t find Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five or Sarah Ockler’s Twenty Boy Summer in their school libraries. Classics like The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Grapes of Wrath are on every “top banned books” list in the country.

I wanted to know what unpopular literature my kids may not have access to at school, and thought I could turn it into a valuable lesson, so I asked my middle-schoolers to check with their librarians. They even explained that Mom expressed an interest in “writing about banned books”. Operation Lesson Learned was a no-go; the librarian they asked put the [temporary] kibosh on our lesson by refusing to provide a list of banned books. “That’s that”, my daughter summed up. Not so fast. The list of censored material was censored?

Since it was after school hours at this point, I called my local public library. I spoke with a friendly voice in the reference section about how to obtain a list of banned books in my area and/or in my school district. I explained that I had fruitlessly checked the district’s website and that my children were refused a list at school. After an assurance that the Wentzville branch of public libraries did not participate in censorship, I was told that the absence of a list from the school district may mean that there aren’t any banned materials. Furthermore, banning is different than “challenged” materials. I was directed to the American Library Association website for more information.

Apparently a challenge is the first step in “removing or restricting” material. For schools, this may mean a person or group of people would approach the school board and challenge a book or idea being used or available in a school. Usually it is done to protect children from ideas or knowledge that challenge instigators find undesirable or disagreeable. When a challenge is made, a committee is formed to determine if it has merit. A banning is simply a successful challenge and more rare than you may think.

Through a series of informative charts and graphs on the ALA’s website, I picked up a few more things. First, as previously noted, the books most often challenged and/or banned are also the most read and in most cases the most praised. One could argue that banning a book makes reading it more desirable. The top four reasons given for challenging a book in order from most to least: sex, offensive language, violence, age appropriateness. (what is up with our sex hang-ups anyway?)

So I know how and [mostly] why it’s done but I still don’t know which, if any, materials are banned in my kids’ school district. The list was so difficult to obtain, it was either highly offensive or non-existent. At this point, I was no longer mildly curious. I was going to get that information from someone, somewhere. It was time for another phone call.

I rang up the kids’ school and connected with the library. After explaining what I was after, I was transferred to the head librarian’s desk where I left a message. Soon after, my phone buzzed the Star Trek theme song. Bingo.

The good news is that there wasn’t a big secret. The head librarian did not know of any banned books (she would know, right?) and in the many years she has held her position, she told me she has participated in only one challenge committee. The challenge: a book called Puppies. The reason for the challenge: a single reference to the word ‘bitch’ as it applies to…yep, puppies. Because the single reference to the term ‘bitch’ was used in an informative context and not intended as derogatory, it was deemed appropriate usage and the challenge went nowhere.

The potential bad news is that I have yet to get a definitive answer. Given the lack of information online, the word of my school’s head librarian, and the lack of student or parent outrage, I’ll assume our school is relatively censorship-free. Little to no censoring insofar as it applies to books, anyway.

The lesson, I told my kids, is that while it is okay to have and promote your own beliefs and opinions, it’s not okay to [systemically or otherwise] force them on others. It’s okay to decide what books your children read, it’s not okay to make that decision on behalf of other parents. Why? Perhaps because our forefathers understood that knowledge is power and the desire to ensure the people had this power led to writing of the very first amendment to the Constitution. The more varied and culturally diverse the information we have access to, the more knowledgeable—and thus powerful–we can be.

The post My kids’ school doesn’t ban books. I checked. And yours? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and the state’s legislators are considering the consolidation of school districts in order to save the state money. Quinn has stated that there are 270 school superintendents who make salaries higher than that of the Governor. Quinn is planning to place Lt. Governor Sheila Simon in charge of this effort, due to her experience as an educator and concern for the school system.

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton is on record as favoring the addition of incentives to sweeten the deal for local districts that are merging. This might include building a new school for two districts that merge, or paying off the debt of a school to make it more attractive as a merger partner.

The Governor’s office notes that the incentive model has been tried in the past with only limited success, presumably leaving the state with forced consolidation as the primary method.

There are several considerations with the school consolidation issue that do not seem to have gotten the attention of the decision makers, or perhaps they would just rather not talk about them. Proponents of consolidation always mention the savings, but it should be noted that some costs will go up, not down. Governor Quinn has proposed lowering the transportation budget for the districts at the same time that students will have to travel longer distances to get to their classes. These costs will continue to rise as the cost of gasoline rises, which seems likely to continue over the long term.

In areas where school consolidation has occurred, it has been noted that cons for larger schools include a loss of personalization for students whether troubled or gifted. There is also the problem of uprooting children from schools where they are established and putting them in a larger milieu they may be poorly prepared to deal with, particularly important for more rural areas. Many communities will fight to maintain local control over their schools, and will resent any effort to remove or weaken their influence on their children’s education.

Even if there are many administrators who make more than the Governor, they will not be the only layoffs to occur as a result of consolidation. The economic impact to local communities from this lost revenue is another blow to economies already hard hit.

The New Rules Project has documented advantages of small schools, including improved dropout rates, higher grades and higher rates of college attendance. The “cost savings” of larger schools are only apparent if the results are ignored. If we consider the goal of schools to be improving the lives of students, enabling them to be better citizens, and earning higher incomes (therefore paying higher taxes) then smaller schools are actually much more cost effective than larger schools. All of that is before you even begin to factor in such things as “sense of community” or physical safety which can be difficult to quantify, but that we know are greatly enhanced in smaller schools.

Parental involvement is much greater for smaller schools than for larger schools. This factor is picked up on by children who value education higher when they see their parents taking a personal interest in it. The attendance rates of smaller schools are higher than the larger schools, attesting to the sense of community felt by students of the smaller schools.

Many studies have attested to the negative impact of poverty on educational prospects of students. Many are unaware that this is mitigated in smaller schools; in fact reducing the size of the school is directly tied to improved outcomes for the students whose families are in poverty!

Studies also show  smaller schools being safer than  larger schools. Comparisons done of schools in high crime parts of cities found direct correlations between the level of violence and the size of the school, with smaller schools being much less violent. These inner city schools also achieve greater graduation rates as they become smaller, even when factors such as higher rates of learning disabilities are factored in.

In many areas this has led to efforts to replace the larger schools with smaller more effective ones. The Urban Academy in New York City sends over 90% of its students on to college, despite drawing students from one of the most impoverished areas of the city. Urban Academy has 120 students and has been designated a National Showcase site and has won several awards for excellence. Even so, state officials proposed consolidating the school in the name of cost savings. Then, New York University researchers  showed that when all costs are figured in, the smaller schools actually cost less to produce a graduate than the larger schools do. Of course the larger schools do produce many more dropouts, so it depends on what your goal is.

The state of Illinois should at least do a complete study of the consequences and true costs of consolidation before jumping on the “one size fits all” bandwagon that has ill-served so many students.

The post When school districts consolidate: pros & cons appeared first on Occasional Planet.

On September 15 of this year, police surrounded a field house at Whittier Dual-Language Elementary School in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. Andy Donakowski of In These Timesreports that the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) had made plans to tear it down, but parents and residents of this Mexican-American community were determined to save the building. Over 100 community members pushed past police barricades in support of the activists. The police gave up and left.

According to Donakowski, for many years, the field house, affectionately known as “La Casita,” had served as an informal community center for GED courses, ESL, and even sewing classes. The parents not only wanted to save the building but also create a library for Whittier School, which had none. They had met with school officials multiple times before September but got nowhere. They had fought for seven years for an expansion of the school and won over a million for renovations, but then they were in disbelief when CPS decided to use a portion of that money to take precious space away from them. CPS argued the building was structurally unsafe and converting it into a library would be too costly—an argument the residents found to be untrue.

Determined to keep the field house, a group of working Latina moms began a 24-hour sit-in to keep the field house from being razed. The group also demanded the Chicago City Council and the Chicago Public School system answer for over a million dollars in misspent public funds earmarked for Whittier School. CPS responded, by turning off the gas—the heat and hot water—just as the weather turned cold. This, instead of answering their questions about the completed renovations to Whittier Elementary, responding to their requests for a meeting, or building them a library. Eventually, CPS relented and restored the gas and water. While occupying the field house, the mothers began to receive donations of books and shelves from across the city and began a small library. The moms spelled each other and the community kept them supplied with food.

On October 19, 36 days after the sit in began, CPS CEO Ron Huberman finally granted the parents a meeting. He agreed to save the field and use the $356,000 allocated for demolition to renovate the structure. He also promised to build a library inside the school and lease out the field house to the Whittier Parents Committee for a $1 annual fee. Huberman gave the parents a signed letter outlining the terms of an agreement. On October 28, the parents called off the sit-in but continue to push for “La Casita” to be converted into a library because they know there’s not enough room inside the school. Donkowski reports:

“The fight continues so that we can ensure that we have a quality education for all children!” the Whittier Parents Committee declared on October 28.

For many parents in the community, the sit-in offered a chance to educate future generations. “I’m teaching [my kids that] they need to stand up for their rights,” says parent Araceli Gonzalez. ”If they see other people that are trying to get something good for them, go ahead and help.”

But it was also a learning opportunity for Gonzalez. ”I’m forty-six-years-old and I’ve never done this in my life,” she says.  ”It’s never too late to start.

On a personal note, about twenty years ago I lived in the Pilsen neighborhood. At that time I was touched by the fierce devotion the Mexican American residents had to their families, their children, and to their community. Above all, they desperately wanted their kids to get a good education. It was that strong sense of community and purpose that allowed them to spontaneously organize the sit-in at Whittier and then support each other for over a month. They were afraid but did it anyway. I’m not surprised they had the courage to go up against CPS, and I’m not surprised they won.

The post Latina moms take on Chicago Public Schools—and win appeared first on Occasional Planet.

A former champion of No Child Left Behind has written a book criticizing the policy as a failure, especially because it relies on standardized testing. Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch also says school choice is a bad idea.

According to blogger Monica Potts, of  Tapped: [group blog of The American Prospect], Ravitch says:

“There should not be an education marketplace, there should not be competition,” Ravitch says. “Schools operate fundamentally — or should operate — like families. The fundamental principle by which education proceeds is collaboration. Teachers are supposed to share what works; schools are supposed to get together and talk about what’s [been successful] for them. They’re not supposed to hide their trade secrets and have a survival of the fittest competition with the school down the block.”

Potts comments:  “The idea of school choice fuels the charter school and voucher systems,  and the hope is schools become better through a sense of competition. A steady, if unproven, criticism of school choice systems is that the best schools simply enroll the best students. Even if they don’t actively do so, there could be a self-selection bias in the parents who actively seek out better schools to send their children to. But research found the biggest problem was that parents who were offered the chance to enroll students in better schools often did not do so. They liked the idea of the school as being part of the community.

After looking at the data, Ravitch now feels that’s an idea worth going back to.”

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