Jon Lowder

Reading, Writing, Rithmetic Without Books?

Celeste went to our youngest son's open house yesterday at Meadowlark Middle School.  She said that in at least two of his classes the students will not be receiving textbooks.  Rather there is a classroom set that will be shared by all of each teachers' classes and they are looking into making the materials from the textbooks accessible online.  Celeste's question to me: "So where do all our tax dollars for education go?"

This question seems particularly relevant in the wake of my post yesterday and Esbee's post about school supplies and the "Letter to the Editor" in the Winston-Salem Journal re. why our kids' supposedly free education still requires parents to come up with money for school supplies.  When the school doesn't supply textbooks for students then we're talking about failing at the most fundamental level, not on the level of "nice to have" extras.

You could argue that this is simply our schools moving into the 21st century, BUT if you're going to make that move then you darn well better make sure that everyone is able to move with you.  Some questions that immediately pop to mind:

• What about the kids who don't have internet access at home?  If the answer is "They can go to the library" then I have to ask, "What if the library is closed at 6?" or "How do they print off any materials they might need?", or "How do they get to the library if their parents are working" or "What if the library is open but all the computers are occupied?"
• What if your access goes down for the evening?  Will you be given extra time to turn in your work?
• Finally, from the way the teachers were talking about it Celeste wasn't sure that the book materials would definitely be available online?  If they're not how are we as parents, some of whom haven't looked at this subject matter in over 25 years, supposed to help our kids with their homework?

Like I said this might work if the school system had provided every student with a laptop and if WinstonNet had gotten their free wireless network up and running so that everyone had free internet access.  But neither of those things happened and they probably won't happen anytime in the near future, so the "digital divide" still exists and if the schools are putting reference materials online then they are putting those kids on the wrong side of the divide at a further disadvantage.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm no Luddite, and I wish the teachers at our kids schools would use the online tools available to them even more than they do, but I also would expect that if they want to communicate with parents then they wouldn't just post it on the website but also send a note home.  Believe me, there are plenty of people still out there who don't check the website or don't check their email everyday.  Shocking as it is to someone like me it's a reality.  So until they can be absolutely sure that every child and their family has access to the online tools the school system's administrators need to stick to their knitting and provide the students with the basics they need to do their learning.

I'm going to try and find out if this "classroom set" of textbooks is a system-wide policy with the Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools.  I'm going to contact the school district and see if someone will talk to me, so stay tuned.  Maybe we're misunderstanding what the teachers said, but my gut tells me this is a cost saving measure with the schools, and if that's the case then they can consider me the leader of the pack in fighting against any future bond initiative until they get this mess fixed.  Before they lay another brick I want to see textbooks in every student's hands.

Worse Than Not Getting Your School Supply List In Time is...

A little while back I wrote what seems to be becoming an annual feature: the "We didn't get our school supply list in time for the tax-free weekend" post.  Well, I think I discovered something even worse than not getting the list: a store that pretends to have your school's list and uses it to shill stuff that might even be on the school's banned list.

According to blogger Kelby Carr her local Wal-Mart provides shoppers with school supply lists that purport to be from the schools and/or teachers themselves.  And in the comments to her post you'll find just a few people with their own, similar stories.

As Kelby points out it's one thing to provide a "suggested list" and quite another to position your school supply list as being "official" when in fact it's not.  She also makes a great point that many families that shop at Wal-Mart may not have a lot of disposable income, so if they end up buying some unnecessary items it could really hurt them.

Esbee wrote today that she finished up her school supply shopping with relatively little damage to her pocketbook, and she also points to a Letter to the Editor in the Winston-Salem Journal that asks why our public education system isn't able to provide supplies for children despite all the money we spend on it.   Although I think the letter writer was a little too snarky and the letter was written in such a way that he sounds like he's blaming the poor for their problems (he wrote "needy" children), he has a valid point when he asks why we can spend so much money on education yet not find a way to make sure kids have paper, pencils, protractors, compasses, etc.

I can still remember the kids who showed up on the first day in clothes they were embarrassed to wear because they were old, out of style, torn up, etc.  The kids' families literally didn't have the money for new jeans so they wore their older brothers'.  Those same kids were on assisted lunches and tried to hide the fact.  So you can imagine the stress their parents were under when it came time to buy supplies, and I'm sure it made this time of year that much harder on them. I'm also sure that today there are many families feeling that same kind of stress.

So let's ask our leaders why things are the way they are, but let's also make sure that our community's children get what they need for school.  It's only right.  Esbee also points to an article about organizations and individuals who are helping kids get what they need.  Let's all do what we can to help.

Tax Free Frustration

Once again we've reached the infamous tax-free weekend where we're encouraged to buy all our kids' school related stuff without having to pay sales tax.  One problem: we don't have specific supply lists for the kids.  Following is a rant, and if it sounds familiar it's because I ranted on the same topic this time last year.

This year we have one kid in middle school and two in high school.  I was able to find a generic supply list on the middle school's website, but even then I had to find it by digging through their site and locating it in the "Document Manager" folder about four levels down from the home page.  Maybe they sent the list home with the kids at the end of school, but even so wouldn't it be safe to assume that many folks lost it and that it would be a good idea to have a link to it from the school's home page?  Also, the last item on the list says "Individual team lists with team specific supplies will be available at Open House."  Going to their handy-dandy calendar I find that the Open House is August 19, over two weeks after the tax-free weekend.

As for our two older kids there's a nice note on the high school's home page that students in Algebra I, Algebra II, Advanced Functions and Modeling, Pre-Calculus, Calculus should purchase one of three calculators for use in those classes.  Unfortunately there's no mention of which calculator geometry students should purchase.  We learned the hard way last year with our oldest that you want to make sure you get the right calculator for geometry.  We're hoping that his sister can use his from last year, but since it's a different teacher we don't know if she'll recommend the same calculator or not. And of course I couldn't find anything resembling a supply list on the school's site.

I'm willing to bet that the teachers and administrators blame the state for having the tax holiday too early, and maybe they're right. Heck, last year the Winston-Salem Journal editorial page went so far as to blame the tourism and real estate lobbies for getting the state general assembly to require schools to open later so that families could vacation at the beaches through August. (You can read the excerpt on my post from last year; unfortunately I think the original editorial is behind the paper's firewall). But until the General Assembly acts and pushes the tax holiday further back couldn't the teachers and administrators throw us a bone and have their lists ready and posted on the website by the end of July?  They don't even have to make photocopies, just post them on the website! 

When you think about the money involved you begin to realize that this stuff adds up.  Specialized calculators can run you $100 or more, and by the time you throw in three ring binders, folders, presentation materials, special books, etc. you're talking at least a couple of hundred bucks per kid.  Multiply that amount by 7% and you're looking at real money.

Look at it this way: If we don't include things for which we don't need a list, like clothes, shoes, backpacks, etc. then maybe we're talking about saving $15-20 in taxes on the items from the teachers' specific lists.  Heck, let's be even more conservative and say it's $10.  Well at my kids' high school there are roughly 2,000 students so at $10 per student that's $20,000 in savings.  Isn't getting a supply list online by the end of July worth $20,000?  Now take that $10 across all 51,000 students in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County system and you're talking half a million dollars that parents could be saving on the tax-free weekend.

Think about what $500,000 can get you.  You could fill a Chevy Suburban's gas tank 1 1/2 times, or give the superintendent a 2% cost of living raise (I know, cheap shot).  Seriously though, this is crazy.  If you're going to have a tax-free weekend specifically for school purchases then doesn't it make sense to let parents know what they need to purchase?  Until the state changes the date for the weekend wouldn't it make sense for the school board to require that schools/teachers have their lists up by the week before the tax holiday?

As I wrote last year there might be a good reason for this.  Teachers may not come back to work in time to get their lists together, but how much does it change from year to year?  Why not have it up on the school's website before they go on summer break?  Or as my wife pointed out last year, why did we have those lists on time two years ago but not last year or this year?  Maybe the teachers need an incentive.  Well here's one: we parents might not be so pissy when they hit us up for $3 for this party, and $5 for that achievement prize, and $2 for those extra hand outs to augment their lesson plan if they would help us out on these supply lists.    

What We Learned at Dinner Last Night

Dinner with the kids gets more and more interesting as they get older.  Just last night we learned the following from our oldest two, in 9th and 8th grades respectively:

• Teachers will randomly seize students' cell phones and check them for pornographic pictures.  It has become an unfortunate practice for some kids to take nude pics of themselves with their phone-cams and send them to boyfriends, girlfriends or just friends.  Unfortunately these kids don't stop to think about what happens if boyfriends become ex-boyfriends and decide to share that embarrassing picture with all their good buddies, or post it on MySpace, etc. (Here's a coincidence: The Journal had an article today about this rising trend with teenagers).
  
  All this came up over dinner because one of our kids' friends had received a self portrait of a topless girl. The girl had taken it and sent it to an ex-boyfriend in an effort to win him back and of course that kid forwarded it to a friend who forwarded to another friend, and so on.  Luckily our kids' friend immediately deleted the picture so when a teacher asked to see his phone there was nothing to find.
  
• The sheriff's deputies will do K-9 inspections of students' lockers.  If a dog "hits" on a locker then school administrators will inspect 10 lockers to the left and 10 lockers to the right of the locker that was originally targeted.  According to the kids it was just 8 lockers in each direction last year, but they increased it this year. They also say that electronic devices cause the dog to hit, so students regularly have MP3 players and the like confiscated from their lockers.

Our kids really do live in a different world than the one I grew up in, and I grew up in the suburbs of DC!  We had gangs, regular fights, drugs and such, but we didn't have K-9 dogs sniffing our lockers and we didn't even have police on campus on a regular basis.  They showed up only if an administrator called them.  Although I do remember feeling like I had no rights and chomping at the bit to become an adult who didn't have to put up with a lot of petty crap (never occurred to me to think about the responsibilities that came with those freedoms) I think the kids today are more put upon than we were.  I'm not necessarily saying it's wrong, I'm just saying it's different. Maybe it has to be this way because the consequences of age-old teenage boneheadedness are so much worse.

Take the whole cell phone thing.  We didn't have cell phones; they were still years away and cell phones with cameras were even more distant.  If we'd had them I'm sure we would done equally stupid things with them as our kids, but in our day the worst that would happen is that you'd write some sort of explicit note and it would fall into the wrong hands.  Maybe a few people would see it an talk about it.  The idea of hundreds or thousands of people seeing nude self portraits would have been literally unfathomable, but today you make one silly mistake and literally the whole world might know about it.

One thing that does worry me is the "guilty until proven innocent" attitude that seems to prevail in the schools.  Take our kids' friend.  What if the picture had been sent to him, without his knowledge, while he was in class.  The teacher takes the phone and finds the picture and the kid is instantly in trouble for something his friend did.  He did nothing other than have a phone that can receive pictures, yet he'd probably be disciplined for the picture being on his phone. Doesn't seem fair.

We made sure to point out to the kids exactly why it was a horrible idea to do something like sending a naked picture of yourself to a friend.  It seems not to have occurred to them that their friends might do something inconsiderate with the picture as the result of a falling out, or even make an innocent mistake and forward it to someone else who would then blast it to the world.  Sure, we talked about the immorality of such actions, but with kids it's usually a good idea to point out the practical implications of their behavior.  It tends to hit home much more than, "Don't do it because it's wrong."

Damning With Faint Praise

I went to an awards ceremony last night that I'll remember for a few reasons. First, it was held in a packed school gym without air conditioning so it was hot as blazes and many of us were sitting in a puddle of sweat. Second, I got to see my daughter recognized for her play on the school soccer team, which was especially sweet because this year she had the guts to try out after not making the team last year.  Even better she not only made the team but was a starter.

Unfortunately the main reason I'll remember this particular ceremony was the presentation of one of the school's highest athletic honors. Asked to say a few words about the recipient a teacher/coach said the following (I'm paraphrasing): "I thought about how to describe this girl and what I think is that she and I are a lot alike; we're both great athletes and students and we're both really well liked. We had a love-hate relationship this year, and I yelled at her a lot but I think she's better for it and I think we'll see that as she succeeds at the high school and college level."

To be honest I couldn't believe she'd said what she had so after we got home I asked my daughter if she'd heard the same thing. She said "yes" so it seems I did hear right.

Note to teachers, coaches and anyone else in a position to speak about their charges: it's about the kids, not you. And even if you do believe you're the greatest thing since sliced bread you aren't focusing on them if you say "I like you 'cause you're just like me!"

Congrats Ms. Maxey

Last week the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools named its teacher of the year and it was West Forsyth High School's Amy Maxey. Ms. Maxey happens to be my oldest son Michael's geometry teacher this year and I can honestly say I think having her as his teacher is the best thing that could have happened to him.  The reason is that it's an honors level class and when Michael struggled with the class I contacted Ms. Maxey to ask if she thought we should move him to the standard geometry class.  Her answer was an emphatic "no" and that she thought Michael simply needed to work a little harder.  That was good enough for me and Celeste so we kept him in her class.

Here's the thing, at the beginning of the year lots of kids dropped from her class because they found the work too difficult which is what you might expect from an honors level course, especially geometry. I talked to the father of one of those kids and he encouraged his daughter to drop the class so she wouldn't screw up her record and hurt her chances at getting into a good college, a legitimate concern.  So between the tough course and the grade consideration, there's often a lot of motivation to move a kid rather than work with them.  Ms. Maxey could have easily told us to move Michael, and it probably would have made her life easier to do so. One less kid to help through the wilds of geometry, a subject that's eaten many the high schooler alive, myself included, means more time to spend with the students who "get it." Instead she encouraged him to stay and pushed him to attend her before-school tutoring and review sessions that she runs on a regular basis.

So Michael decided to stay put.  Did he one day wake up a whiz at geometry?  Heck no.  He hates the subject and can't wait to be done with it.  On the other hand he truly likes Ms. Maxey and appreciates how much she's tried to help him.  Somewhere down the line he'll also appreciate the side benefit of this struggle; that he learned how to push himself when something didn't come easily.  Even this late in the year he's learning how he needs to change his habits to improve, how much harder he'll need to work, how many more hours he'll need to study if he's going to be a great student.  And on top of that I figure he's probably learned more about geometry by staying put than he would have if he'd moved, which is the whole point. Would his "letter grade" have been higher in the other class?  Probably, but he's better off working his butt off for a C than he is coasting to a B or an A and you'll never convince me otherwise.  (BTW, if we thought Michael wasn't capable of a B or A in honors geometry we would have moved him, but let's just say we think the kid has yet to reach his potential).

How's this for a testament to a teacher: one of her students can't wait for the day he'll never have to touch her subject again, but already senses that she's one of the most influential teachers he'll ever have, and his parents already know she'll be one of the most influential teachers in his life.  That's what I call an educator.

EOGs and Hens

This is EOG (End of Grade) testing week at the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. Esbee writes of her son asking where his healthy breakfast is because his teacher exhorted his class to make sure they have a healthy breakfast in preparation for the tests.  My kids have been exhorted to eat healthy breakfasts during every EOG week since they've been in the school system.  Erin, my lovely straight-A daughter, asked me to show her how to fry eggs on Monday so that she could make them for herself each morning this week.  She'd been informed by one of her teachers that eggs were the best form of protein and that it was essential that she eat them this week so that she could perform at peak level on the tests.  If I'd known they were going to give this advice I'd have invested in some hens last month so that I could corner the EOG egg market.

All of this begs the question of why the teachers aren't concerned about our kids' protein consumption the other 30-odd weeks (or whatever it is) of the school year?  Is it not important that our kids have proper nutrition to learn those mundane daily reading, writing and 'rithmetic lessons?  Are they implying that learning isn't as important as performing? 

Esbee also writes that she thinks the EOGs put an inordinate amount of pressure on the kids. As you might have guessed I'm in total agreement with her.  I wonder if the teachers and administrators are actually shooting themselves in the foot by putting such an emphasis on the tests.  How many kids do poorly on the tests because they freeze under pressure?  I knew a lot of kids who were much better students than me who did much worse on standardized tests than I did because they tested poorly, and they tested poorly because they stressed way too much about the tests.  In other words I benefited greatly from my laissez faire attitude towards education and my friends who were diligent students often suffered from caring so much.  But in the long run who's better off?   Let me just say this: my SAT scores were better than my wife's but she was an honor student while I was a mediocre student.  There's one person in this house who knows how to apply algebra to every day situations and it's not me.  She learned, I performed.

While I'm all for measuring students' progress and holding our educators accountable for their work I think that standardized testing is a hammer being used for a screwdriver's job.  We're talking about teaching children, not programming computers.  These are little people trying to learn how to make their way in the world.  Is it fair to judge a teacher who has 30 kids, 20 of whom are from broken homes or have parents working three jobs to make ends meet, with the same yardstick you're using to measure a teacher who has 30 kids, most of whom come from stable homes with parents that have the time to read to them at bed time and take them to the library?  Is it fair to quantify a year's learning simply by using test results? Wouldn't it be better to somehow measure a child's learning relative to their unique situation and the teacher's performance relative to their circumstance?  Wouldn't it be better to somehow reform our education system so that we emphasize continual growth and learning and the practical application of that knowledge in building a better life?  Maybe then we'll make education relevant enough that 1/3 of our kids don't drop out of school.

But, I'm a realist so I think I'll start building a hen house out back.  Anyone know how to figure the area I'll need?  Everything I "learned" about geometry I forgot as soon as I put down the #2 pencil.   

We're Number 1,294!

Esbee points to the Newsweek list of top high schools in the US of A.  Winston-Salem/Forsyth County has two schools on the list: Mt. Tabor at #185 and West Forsyth at #1,294. Our kids are either at West or are headed that way so I'm happy to see them on the list, which is better than not being on it at all.  But of course these kinds of lists are subjective so they need to be taken with a grain of salt. 

Out of curiosity I looked to see the ranking of the school our kids would have gone to if we'd stayed in Northern Virginia.  I believe they would have gone to Forest Park which was ranked 1,019 so not a whole lot of difference.  If we'd not moved from our very first home in West Springfield, VA our kids' high school would have been ranked #244.

I also looked to see how my old high school (the one I attended before transferring to a small Lutheran H.S.) ranked and Washington-Lee in Arlington County, VA came in at #64.  The other schools I would have attended had I not gone to the small Lutheran school (we moved a lot) were Oakton (#103) in Vienna, VA and Marshall (not ranked) in Fairfax, VA.  Celeste's alma mater, Potomac H.S. is ranked #562.

Now if my kids are anything like me they'll pick their colleges based on the list of top party schools and not the Newsweek listing of top colleges by various categories.  Of course my children are much wiser than I'll ever be.

NIMBY Immigration

My Mom sent me this article from the Washington Post about the migration of illegal immigrants from the Prince William County, VA school system (the system my kids were in until we moved to Winston-Salem) to the school systems in Fairfax, VA and Arlington, VA.  Last year Prince William County enacted some rules to deny services to illegal immigrants and the result is that many have moved to neighboring counties.

Illegal immigration is obviously a hot-button issue for lots of people.  I find myself coming down in the middle between the open-borders crowd and the "put em all in a boxcar back to wherever they came" crowd.  The way I see it this country was built on immigration and although every immigrant group through the generations, be it the Irish, the Italians or the Asians has endured a level of vehement discrimination, they've injected a level of energy and purpose to our country that it's hard to imagine America without.  So my problem isn't immigration, it's illegal immigration.

Now don't jump to the conclusion that I think the illegal immigrants are bad or evil people.  I imagine they are doing what any number of us would do in their situation; seeking opportunity and a better life for them and their families.  I have to believe that if we somehow found a way to reform our immigration process we could do away with lots of the illegal immigration problems that we deal with.  However, until that bigger problem is solved we do have to deal with illegal immigration and if a community decides to do it by denying government services unless someone can prove legal status then so be it.

Unfortunately we get a lot of what I'd consider intellectually questionable verbiage from mouthpieces on both sides of the illegal immigration issue. The Post story has two quotes that typify to me the intellectual disconnect some of these folks suffer.  First there's the chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors:

"The resolution is clearly working," said Corey A. Stewart (R-At Large), chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. "It is driving down the non-English-speaking portion of the schools and saving us millions of dollars. They're going to other jurisdictions and costing them money."

Stewart called those jurisdictions "sanctuary" cities and counties, saying illegal immigrants are welcome there. He added: "There is going to be pressure to enact similar resolutions in those neighboring cities and counties." Officials from those jurisdictions reject that assertion.

I don't dispute that the resolutions are working as some intended, but what's with calling the other counties sanctuaries?  It makes it sound like they're putting armed police on the borders to prevent the good folks at ICE from entering and doing their jobs.  Just plain silly.

Then there's the representative from Mexicans Without Borders:

Immigration advocates also disputed Stewart's claim that those leaving Prince William are primarily illegal immigrants.

"The majority of our families here were mixed-status families," said Nancy Lyall, a volunteer with Mexicans Without Borders. "You're forcing the legal residents to leave the county as well. And, of course, many of the children are legal as well, and they're being forced to leave, too."

Well, duh.  If the parents are illegal and their kids were born here then I guess that gives you a mixed status family.  Note that the county isn't denying children of illegal immigrants access to the school system, rather they are denying other services to illegal immigrants themselves and instituting background checks for legal status of crime suspects.  Also note that the people are migrating to nearby counties with higher costs of living, yet it appears they feel they need to in order to continue getting county services that cost those counties' legal taxpayers.  I'm not sure Ms. Lyall is going to win many people over, including those with moderate views, with her arguments.

Before you accuse me of being a heartless bastard let me reiterate that I'm all for a very liberal immigration policy.  I'd like to embrace more immigration, the establishment of a highly proactive system for integrating our new neighbors into our society, and a welcome injection of energy and creativity into our society.  And if someone's here illegally and they get deathly ill, then by all means give them medical treatment (by law they must get such treatment, even in Prince William) and then a nice comfortable ride home and hopefully they can find a legal way to get back here. 

And to make sure I'm REALLY clear here, I'm not just talking about liberalizing immigration programs for Mexico and Central America.  What about all the displaced people in Iraq who would actually like to emigrate here, although after what we've done to their homeland I can't imagine why?  I think we should embrace them just as we did the Cambodian boat people thirty years ago after the end of the Vietnam War. 

Unfortunately because of the jackasses we've put in charge on the Federal level we'll probably not see workable immigration reform and it will be left to local communities to deal with it themselves, and you'll begin to see more and more situations like you see in Northern Virginia.  That's a true shame.

Legal Tender Not Accepted

More fun on the education front.  In a school district in New Jersey 29 students have been given two days of detention for paying for their $2 lunches in pennies.  Apparently it started out as a prank, but then turned into a protest over shortened lunch periods.  The school superintendent says that the students were disciplined "for holding up their peers and disrespecting lunch aides."

What I love is that the "educators", who must see every problem as a nail that must be hammered, couldn't come up with a solution that would counteract the protest.  The evidence that the "educators" were outsmarted by the eighth graders is the fact that the local media picked up the story.

What could the "educators" have done to avoid this little PR fiasco?  Maybe take the pennies, put them in a cup labeled with that students name and then count them after the lunch period is over.  If the student's payment is short then he or she can be billed for it later.  That way the students' peers aren't held up and their protest will peter out fairly quickly once they realize how hard it is to gather 200 pennies on a daily basis and then tote them to school.

Hey I'll be the first to say that eight graders can be a royal pain in the a-- to deal with, and sometimes I think that middle school teachers should get combat pay, but to be so stupid as this I think the "educators" involved here are getting what's coming to them.