From the Shanker blog
Each dollar spent on a high-quality early childhood program in the Chicago Public Schools yields $4 to $11 in benefits to the economy, according to a new cost-benefit analysis. (Full disclosure: Barbara Bowman, Chicago’s Chief Early Childhood Education Officer, who oversees the program, was a key advisor on our early childhood education report.)
According to a press release from the National Institutes of Health, which funded the study, researchers evaluated the effectiveness of the federally funded Chicago Child-Parent Centers (CPC) by surveying former students and their parents, and analyzing students’ education, employment, criminal justice and child welfare records for the participants through age 26. Since the program was first established in 1967, researchers have been able to follow the effects of the intervention over time. Their work includes a previous study, which found that “children who had been enrolled in CPCs were more likely to go to college, get a full-time job and have health insurance. The same students were less likely to go to prison and less likely to suffer from depressive symptoms.”
“Our findings provide strong evidence that sustained high-quality early childhood programs can contribute to well-being for individuals and society,” said Arthur Reynolds, director of the Chicago Longitudinal Study and co-director of the Human Capital Research Collaborative at the University of Minnesota. “The large-scale CPC program has one of the highest economic returns of any social program for young people. As public institutions are being pressed to cut costs, our findings suggest that increasing access to high-quality programs starting in preschool and continuing into the early grades is an efficient use of public resources.”
http://shankerblog.org/?p=1818
Showing posts with label charcter education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charcter education. Show all posts
Monday, February 7, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
Want them to learn? Teach them to get along
If i had a class of 50 kids that wanted to learn I could be succesful but if I had a class of 5 who didn't, I would have no chance. -anonymous
From Education Week
by Sarah D. Sparks
From role-playing games for students to parent seminars, teaching social and emotional learning requires a lot of moving parts, but when all the pieces come together such instruction can rival the effectiveness of purely academic interventions to boost student achievement, according to the largest analysis of such programs to date.
In the report published today in the peer-reviewed journal Child Development, researchers led by Joseph A. Durlak, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Chicago, found that students who took part in social and emotional learning, or SEL, programs improved in grades and standardized-test scores by 11 percentile points compared with nonparticipating students. That difference, the authors say, was significant—equivalent to moving a student in the middle of the class academically to the top 40 percent of students during the course of the intervention. Such improvement fell within the range of effectiveness for recent analyses of interventions focused on academics.
Compared with their peers, participating students also significantly improved on five key nonacademic measures: They demonstrated greater social skills, less emotional stress and better attitudes, fewer conduct problems such as bullying and suspensions, and more-frequent positive behaviors, such as cooperation and help for other students. Also, the effects continued at least six months after the programs ended.
“We learned this is very practical for schools and doable in schools,” Mr. Durlak said. “There can be a payoff academically for these kids that compares to a lot of straightforward academic interventions, which is really sort of amazing.”
Social and emotional education seeks to provide a foundation for academic instruction by teaching students skills in self-awareness and management, getting along with others and decision-making. Programs vary from afterschool courses taught by outside providers to schoolwide efforts incorporating curriculum, teacher professional development, school activities and parent training.
For this study, researchers distinguished SEL programs intended to teach social skills broadly from programs focused on fixing specific behaviors, such as bullying.
The research team identified individual practices in 213 school-based studies, covering 270,034 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. About half the studies used randomized controlled trials. The team informally announced preliminary findings in 2007 that suggested SEL programs increased academic achievement. ("Social-Skills Programs Found to Yield Gains In Academic Subjects," December 19, 2007.) For the final report, the researchers narrowed the focus to include only programs that had no academic component, and were provided during the school day as universal programs, rather than those targeted to specific students with behavior problems.
The researchers found the SEL programs most likely to be effective followed what Mr. Durlak called the SAFE model: “sequenced,” step-by-step instruction; “active” learning, such as role-playing; with sufficient time “focused” on each lesson; and “explicit” learning goals. The most effective programs used all four practices together.
Lost Teaching Time
Corinne Gregory, the president and founder of the Seattle-based schoolwide SEL program SocialSmarts, suggested the improvement in those soft skills likely caused the rise in academic achievement, in part because educators could teach more efficiently with calmer, more cooperative students. A 2003 brief by the policy-research group Public Agenda found teachers reported losing as much as 30 percent of instructional time to deal with behavior problems in class, and Ms. Gregory said some of the schools participating in the SocialSmarts program reported increasing students’ time on task by more than 40 percent.
“We focus all of our efforts on that nasty end point of the social-emotional continuum, bullying, rather than preventing all the other problems that lead up to that,” such as disrespect in the classroom or cheating, Ms. Gregory said. “By then, it’s almost too late in the game.”
Yet one finding ran counter to both the researchers’ expectations and prior research: Simple teacher-led programs vastly outperformed multifaceted programs involving schoolwide activities and parent involvement. While classroom-based programs showed significant improvements across all five social measures and academics, comprehensive programs showed no significant effect on students’ social-emotional skills or positive social behavior, and were less effective at improving academic performance.
The finding bears echoes of an Institute of Education Sciences study released last fall, which found that seven of the nation’s most common character education programs failed to yield significant social or academic improvements.
Prior studies have suggested students respond better to programs that reinforce social learning throughout the school and at home, but this study found that programs with more components were less likely to follow any—not to mention all—of the best practices of sequenced, active lessons based on explicit goals and focus on each goal for enough time.
“The more-comprehensive and broader programs tended to have more implementation problems,” Mr. Durlak said. “Trying to do more in the schools tends to be harder, takes more coordination, involves more people—they’re a lot harder to pull off.
SocialSmarts is such a comprehensive program, and while Ms. Gregory said it has shown positive academic and social effects, she acknowledged that implementation “has been a challenge.”
“Everyone from the janitor to the principal has to be responsible for this,” Ms. Gregory said. “We’ve had schools that said we can’t send this [parent activity] home; the parents won’t read it. I say, well, you can be sure they’ll never read it if you don’t send it home.”
To offset the implementation issues, SocialSmarts requires schools to purchase a license for the program, rather than buying a curriculum. It also provides a newsletter, training for teachers and parents, and online platforms where teachers share practices.
Mr. Durlak said the researchers would continue to add to the research database, which now includes studies only as recent as 2007, and hopes to dig into the best practices of effective programs in more depth.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/02/04/20sel.h30.html?tkn=PXQFihDVI3TOrrIR1y5BISuEyRKqZZYDPKYL&cmp=clp-edweek
From Education Week
by Sarah D. Sparks
From role-playing games for students to parent seminars, teaching social and emotional learning requires a lot of moving parts, but when all the pieces come together such instruction can rival the effectiveness of purely academic interventions to boost student achievement, according to the largest analysis of such programs to date.
In the report published today in the peer-reviewed journal Child Development, researchers led by Joseph A. Durlak, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Chicago, found that students who took part in social and emotional learning, or SEL, programs improved in grades and standardized-test scores by 11 percentile points compared with nonparticipating students. That difference, the authors say, was significant—equivalent to moving a student in the middle of the class academically to the top 40 percent of students during the course of the intervention. Such improvement fell within the range of effectiveness for recent analyses of interventions focused on academics.
Compared with their peers, participating students also significantly improved on five key nonacademic measures: They demonstrated greater social skills, less emotional stress and better attitudes, fewer conduct problems such as bullying and suspensions, and more-frequent positive behaviors, such as cooperation and help for other students. Also, the effects continued at least six months after the programs ended.
“We learned this is very practical for schools and doable in schools,” Mr. Durlak said. “There can be a payoff academically for these kids that compares to a lot of straightforward academic interventions, which is really sort of amazing.”
Social and emotional education seeks to provide a foundation for academic instruction by teaching students skills in self-awareness and management, getting along with others and decision-making. Programs vary from afterschool courses taught by outside providers to schoolwide efforts incorporating curriculum, teacher professional development, school activities and parent training.
For this study, researchers distinguished SEL programs intended to teach social skills broadly from programs focused on fixing specific behaviors, such as bullying.
The research team identified individual practices in 213 school-based studies, covering 270,034 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. About half the studies used randomized controlled trials. The team informally announced preliminary findings in 2007 that suggested SEL programs increased academic achievement. ("Social-Skills Programs Found to Yield Gains In Academic Subjects," December 19, 2007.) For the final report, the researchers narrowed the focus to include only programs that had no academic component, and were provided during the school day as universal programs, rather than those targeted to specific students with behavior problems.
The researchers found the SEL programs most likely to be effective followed what Mr. Durlak called the SAFE model: “sequenced,” step-by-step instruction; “active” learning, such as role-playing; with sufficient time “focused” on each lesson; and “explicit” learning goals. The most effective programs used all four practices together.
Lost Teaching Time
Corinne Gregory, the president and founder of the Seattle-based schoolwide SEL program SocialSmarts, suggested the improvement in those soft skills likely caused the rise in academic achievement, in part because educators could teach more efficiently with calmer, more cooperative students. A 2003 brief by the policy-research group Public Agenda found teachers reported losing as much as 30 percent of instructional time to deal with behavior problems in class, and Ms. Gregory said some of the schools participating in the SocialSmarts program reported increasing students’ time on task by more than 40 percent.
“We focus all of our efforts on that nasty end point of the social-emotional continuum, bullying, rather than preventing all the other problems that lead up to that,” such as disrespect in the classroom or cheating, Ms. Gregory said. “By then, it’s almost too late in the game.”
Yet one finding ran counter to both the researchers’ expectations and prior research: Simple teacher-led programs vastly outperformed multifaceted programs involving schoolwide activities and parent involvement. While classroom-based programs showed significant improvements across all five social measures and academics, comprehensive programs showed no significant effect on students’ social-emotional skills or positive social behavior, and were less effective at improving academic performance.
The finding bears echoes of an Institute of Education Sciences study released last fall, which found that seven of the nation’s most common character education programs failed to yield significant social or academic improvements.
Prior studies have suggested students respond better to programs that reinforce social learning throughout the school and at home, but this study found that programs with more components were less likely to follow any—not to mention all—of the best practices of sequenced, active lessons based on explicit goals and focus on each goal for enough time.
“The more-comprehensive and broader programs tended to have more implementation problems,” Mr. Durlak said. “Trying to do more in the schools tends to be harder, takes more coordination, involves more people—they’re a lot harder to pull off.
SocialSmarts is such a comprehensive program, and while Ms. Gregory said it has shown positive academic and social effects, she acknowledged that implementation “has been a challenge.”
“Everyone from the janitor to the principal has to be responsible for this,” Ms. Gregory said. “We’ve had schools that said we can’t send this [parent activity] home; the parents won’t read it. I say, well, you can be sure they’ll never read it if you don’t send it home.”
To offset the implementation issues, SocialSmarts requires schools to purchase a license for the program, rather than buying a curriculum. It also provides a newsletter, training for teachers and parents, and online platforms where teachers share practices.
Mr. Durlak said the researchers would continue to add to the research database, which now includes studies only as recent as 2007, and hopes to dig into the best practices of effective programs in more depth.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/02/04/20sel.h30.html?tkn=PXQFihDVI3TOrrIR1y5BISuEyRKqZZYDPKYL&cmp=clp-edweek
Monday, January 31, 2011
Building kids of character: Quality time defined
by Deborah Hansen
“To go from a boy to a man is a very long road, which needs the help of older men…. but older men are working overtime or retiring to Florida….
Young girls abandoned by their father may go into depression, but young men will burn your city down.”
Once and Future Myths, by Phil Cousineau
It is time for us to accept the fact that what our society is doing for our children isn’t working very well. Don’t get me wrong: Many parents embrace their roles as the builders of character, but there are thousands of others who are not picking up that banner. Their children are left to find their way to adulthood on their own, and look where that has led us. We live in a community that reverberates with violence, and those ripples permeate every corner of town.
Calls for mentors go unanswered. A few folks trickle in, but the need is much greater than a trickle. We need a flood of adults who are willing to give ONE HOUR A WEEK to a young person who has no one to ask important questions of, or show them how to dress for a job interview, or just listen to their hearts. If everyone who attended a football game in this town gave an hour to mentoring, the children within our reach would benefit for the rest of their lives. Plus, our city would be a safer place to live. It’s that simple.
Related to this, there are probably few of us who haven’t read at least one book or watched one television program that encourages us to spend “quality time” with our children. The statistics in support of the concept would most likely reach around the globe. The studies also provide data about the dire consequences that lie ahead for children who don’t get the time they need from the important adults in their lives, all reflective of the quote above by Phil Cousineau.
We need to be clear, though, on exactly what constitutes “quality time.” Some folks seem to think merely being in the presence or their children qualifies, but quality time is not:
■picking the kids up from school or practice and then talking to your friends or office on the cell phone all the way home.
■eating at the same time but in different rooms.
■seeing a movie together but not discussing it when it’s over.
■going to the mall together but taking off in different directions until it’s time to leave.
■taking the family out for dinner but not allowing the kids to get involved in the conversation.
■asking your children what they think and then condemning them for their answer.
I think you get the picture. Quality time means active engagement. It means talking to your children and then listening to them in return. We must discover who our kids are underneath the façade they like to present to us and their peers. We should also be prepared to share ourselves with them, complete with the mistakes we made and what we learned from those mistakes. It means attending to one another.
Many young women are depressed, lost in a media-drenched view of the world that is warped beyond comprehension. And young men are burning cities down. We must all carry a share of responsibility for these children.
Yes, that means you.
http://deborahhansen.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/building-kids-of-character-quality-time-defined/
“To go from a boy to a man is a very long road, which needs the help of older men…. but older men are working overtime or retiring to Florida….
Young girls abandoned by their father may go into depression, but young men will burn your city down.”
Once and Future Myths, by Phil Cousineau
It is time for us to accept the fact that what our society is doing for our children isn’t working very well. Don’t get me wrong: Many parents embrace their roles as the builders of character, but there are thousands of others who are not picking up that banner. Their children are left to find their way to adulthood on their own, and look where that has led us. We live in a community that reverberates with violence, and those ripples permeate every corner of town.
Calls for mentors go unanswered. A few folks trickle in, but the need is much greater than a trickle. We need a flood of adults who are willing to give ONE HOUR A WEEK to a young person who has no one to ask important questions of, or show them how to dress for a job interview, or just listen to their hearts. If everyone who attended a football game in this town gave an hour to mentoring, the children within our reach would benefit for the rest of their lives. Plus, our city would be a safer place to live. It’s that simple.
Related to this, there are probably few of us who haven’t read at least one book or watched one television program that encourages us to spend “quality time” with our children. The statistics in support of the concept would most likely reach around the globe. The studies also provide data about the dire consequences that lie ahead for children who don’t get the time they need from the important adults in their lives, all reflective of the quote above by Phil Cousineau.
We need to be clear, though, on exactly what constitutes “quality time.” Some folks seem to think merely being in the presence or their children qualifies, but quality time is not:
■picking the kids up from school or practice and then talking to your friends or office on the cell phone all the way home.
■eating at the same time but in different rooms.
■seeing a movie together but not discussing it when it’s over.
■going to the mall together but taking off in different directions until it’s time to leave.
■taking the family out for dinner but not allowing the kids to get involved in the conversation.
■asking your children what they think and then condemning them for their answer.
I think you get the picture. Quality time means active engagement. It means talking to your children and then listening to them in return. We must discover who our kids are underneath the façade they like to present to us and their peers. We should also be prepared to share ourselves with them, complete with the mistakes we made and what we learned from those mistakes. It means attending to one another.
Many young women are depressed, lost in a media-drenched view of the world that is warped beyond comprehension. And young men are burning cities down. We must all carry a share of responsibility for these children.
Yes, that means you.
http://deborahhansen.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/building-kids-of-character-quality-time-defined/
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Building kids of character: Needs vs. Wants
By Deborah Hansen
“One of the weaknesses of our age is inability to distinguish needs from greeds.” -Don Robinson
Recently I watched a television program that followed the story of a family that sold everything and moved to Africa. One of their purposes was to provide their children with an understanding of what is truly important in life.
Their children were less than enthusiastic about this adventure, as you can imagine. They whined and cried, lamenting the critical needs they had in order to get from dawn to dark every day. Things like their televisions, computers, video games, and cell phones.
However, by the end of the family’s stay in Africa, the kids didn’t want to come home.
They had discovered the difference between the things that are necessary to living a meaningful life and those things that are merely non-essential gadgets.
Perhaps we all have lost sight of what is necessary in life. We have fallen into the trap set for us by the media and advertisers, the trap that insists we need the latest cell phone, a bigger car, a laptop and a PC at home, plus and now a mini-computer that goes everywhere with us, too.
We want it all and we have convinced ourselves that we need these things in order to be successful people. The economy is reflecting this inability to rein in the human tendency for more, always more. The sight that was never in end arrived a few years ago and seems intent on hanging around, bringing unemployment and misery to many.
As parents, we must teach our children to distinguish between wants and needs. Bottom line, our needs are food, water, shelter, and clothing. These are the things that keep us alive. Therefore, they are the only essentials.
The kids who went to Africa discovered that their new friends in that part of the world had food, but not in great quantity and certainly not in the varieties available to them back in the States. Yet, everyone had enough to live on. They also learned, though, that there are many children in Africa as well as other places around the world, including America, that simply don’t have enough to keep them alive. This knowledge changed their way of thinking about food and water forever.
Children demand the latest fashions as if they are absolutes, too. They do not have the maturity to foresee how quickly they will grow out of those pricey name brands. Or that the family income is barely covering food, housing, and electricity. Our job as parents is to take charge of the spending in a way that balances the “wants” with the “needs.”
Technology has allowed inexpensive electronics to dominate our lives as if these tools are essentials. Yes, some of them make life easier and some are necessary to carry on a business (and pay the bills for the family), for example. However, our children have been convinced that they are vital elements for them, too. Does every child need a cell phone? Texting and calling their friends is fun and keeps them in touch with their peers, but let’s call it that: A “want” and not a “need.” They CAN live without them, both literally and figuratively.
The character of not only our children but of our society is being warped due to the inability to distinguish between what is essential and what is media- and advertising-induced delusion. We are being slapped in the face with our foolishness as we struggle to pay for all these non-essential things, things that we convinced ourselves were necessities of life. Let’s re-teach our children this valuable lesson so they aren’t faced with it again in the future.
http://deborahhansen.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/building-kids-of-character-needs-vs-wants/
“One of the weaknesses of our age is inability to distinguish needs from greeds.” -Don Robinson
Recently I watched a television program that followed the story of a family that sold everything and moved to Africa. One of their purposes was to provide their children with an understanding of what is truly important in life.
Their children were less than enthusiastic about this adventure, as you can imagine. They whined and cried, lamenting the critical needs they had in order to get from dawn to dark every day. Things like their televisions, computers, video games, and cell phones.
However, by the end of the family’s stay in Africa, the kids didn’t want to come home.
They had discovered the difference between the things that are necessary to living a meaningful life and those things that are merely non-essential gadgets.
Perhaps we all have lost sight of what is necessary in life. We have fallen into the trap set for us by the media and advertisers, the trap that insists we need the latest cell phone, a bigger car, a laptop and a PC at home, plus and now a mini-computer that goes everywhere with us, too.
We want it all and we have convinced ourselves that we need these things in order to be successful people. The economy is reflecting this inability to rein in the human tendency for more, always more. The sight that was never in end arrived a few years ago and seems intent on hanging around, bringing unemployment and misery to many.
As parents, we must teach our children to distinguish between wants and needs. Bottom line, our needs are food, water, shelter, and clothing. These are the things that keep us alive. Therefore, they are the only essentials.
The kids who went to Africa discovered that their new friends in that part of the world had food, but not in great quantity and certainly not in the varieties available to them back in the States. Yet, everyone had enough to live on. They also learned, though, that there are many children in Africa as well as other places around the world, including America, that simply don’t have enough to keep them alive. This knowledge changed their way of thinking about food and water forever.
Children demand the latest fashions as if they are absolutes, too. They do not have the maturity to foresee how quickly they will grow out of those pricey name brands. Or that the family income is barely covering food, housing, and electricity. Our job as parents is to take charge of the spending in a way that balances the “wants” with the “needs.”
Technology has allowed inexpensive electronics to dominate our lives as if these tools are essentials. Yes, some of them make life easier and some are necessary to carry on a business (and pay the bills for the family), for example. However, our children have been convinced that they are vital elements for them, too. Does every child need a cell phone? Texting and calling their friends is fun and keeps them in touch with their peers, but let’s call it that: A “want” and not a “need.” They CAN live without them, both literally and figuratively.
The character of not only our children but of our society is being warped due to the inability to distinguish between what is essential and what is media- and advertising-induced delusion. We are being slapped in the face with our foolishness as we struggle to pay for all these non-essential things, things that we convinced ourselves were necessities of life. Let’s re-teach our children this valuable lesson so they aren’t faced with it again in the future.
http://deborahhansen.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/building-kids-of-character-needs-vs-wants/
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Start the Revolution
Thomas Jefferson wrote; “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” He’s basically saying if those in charge aren’t doing the right thing then the people they govern have the right to kick them out or change their situation. Whenever I hear about the latest fiasco regurgitated out by Tallahassee it just makes me think, those bastards don’t have our best interests in mind. Isn’t it time we took Jefferson’s words to heart and made a change after all isn’t the state engaging in destructive practices?
They give tax breaks to special interests such as the sugar and bottled water industry among others many of which don’t have an inkling of a presence in Jacksonville. They are going to force us to help pay for high speed rails that connect cities far away. The state government is not only trying to steal home rule but it is already violating the constitution by not funding education and is attempting to do so again by superseding the will of the people by rolling back the class size amendment. They pick and choose what rules they are going to follow, following the rules they like or that benefit them and their friends ignoring the ones they don’t like, like adequately funding education.
The Florida Constitution says “The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the State of Florida. It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders. Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education and for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of institutions of higher learning and other public education programs that the needs of the people may require.”
Adequate provisions? Are they doing so by cutting education budgets year after year? Do you think this helps the “paramount duty” to provide a high quality education or harms it? Their mandates requiring algebra II and chemistry interfere with us preparing children to be good citizens which should be the “paramount responsibility” of a good school system. They ignore this part of the constitution daily and as a result haven’t they lost the moral authority required to govern us?
Jacksonville is not only the largest city in Florida size wise but it is the largest population wise to. Now it’s true some metropolitan areas are bigger, but like Orange Park doesn’t give us any kickbacks. cities like Miami and Tampa aren’t getting subsidized by their suburbs either. This means Jacksonville proper has more people paying taxes to the state and much of that money is going elsewhere?
Now through their education bills they seek to wrest even more home rule away from us. They use our tax dollars to subsidize other counties, dole our money back to us and then tell us how we should spend it. For years they underfunded our children saying different kids in different parts of the states were worth more and I don’t think I need to explain what a fiasco the lottery and the f-cat have been.
What kind of job is the Florida state legislature doing too? The state’s unemployment rate is high our deficits are high, they have different priorities than the citizens of Jacksonville, and they siphon monies away from us, so exactly what are we getting out of this relationship. If we broke away from the state could we do worse? If we are going to fail don’t you want it to be on us rather than because some politicians far away who don’t have our best interests at heart gave us no other option.
Jefferson further wrote; when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. How long are we to wait for the state government to do the right thing, and if they are neglecting our children aren’t they threatening our future. How long can we endure a “history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over…” Jacksonville.
Friends and fellow citizens it’s time we recognized the state government is not our friend, for far too long we have been an afterthought an unwanted associate who they could take from and give very little back to. When are we going to wake up and say enough is enough?
There is a social contract between us and them and when they continuously break it or disregard it then it’s time for us to move on. It’s time for us to start having our best interests in mind rather than hoping people far away who have shown us nothing but distain do. Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration says not only is it our right but it’s our moral responsibility to do so.
It’s time somebody in this state got morals. It’s time somebody in this state took responsibility. It’s time we did.
In the last year Ed White high school on the Westside has seen more than its fair share of tragedies. The latest involved the senseless of murder of sophomore Tiphne Hollis just 16. By all accounts she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and unfortunately there have been no arrests in the subsequent two weeks. She however hasn’t been the only member of the Ed White family in the news and perhaps lost in Tiphne’s tragedy is the horror that befell Delores Futrell. She was murdered by Ed White alums Randall Deviney.
Tiphne and Randal were on drastically different tracks while at Ed White. Tiphne’s teachers all say she was a sweet, quite girl who worked hard and had a bright future. Randal on the other hand was a special education student who had quite the reputation for causing trouble. I remember when was hired I was warned to stay away from him and a couple other students too. I thought “stays away, um, aren’t I a teacher.” Randal and my path never really crossed, though I have had more than a few that were just like he was in my classes.
Now Randall Deviney wasn’t a murderer back then he was just defiant and disrespectful, without conscious and remorse. He thought he could behave however he wanted and school was nothing more than an inconvenience to him and if any teacher got in his way they could expect a tirade of foul language as he explained what he thought of them and education in general. In those regards he is like dozens if not hundreds of other students here in the county. Students who I know are on the road to disaster. And we have the same plan in place for them and that’s just to cross our fingers and hope they don’t too many people down with them. In the meantime we try and stay out of their ways as well.
To be honest even if we would have decided five years ago that we as a society wanted to save him I don’t think we would have had a chance. He was far too damaged and angry as close to a lost cause as you can get. Sadly this means Delores Futrell, the 65 year old disabled neighbor that was reported to have been so kind to him that he would call her grandmother, whose throat he subsequently slit, fate had probably already been sealed.
I do however wonder what would have happened had we gotten to him as an eight year old or an eleven year old. If we could have recognized through his behavior and grades which by all accounts were always poor at best, that this kid was in trouble, that he needed help? If we could have gotten him counseling or extra help, something could he and Delores had been saved then? Maybe it’s worse than that, maybe his teachers did recognize his problems but there was nothing they could do, handcuffed by the system of shrinking and hard to get resources.
The truth is I don’t know but I do know that Florida is fiftieth out of fifty on what we spend on education while at the same time we are sixteenth on what we spend on prisons. Maybe if those two stats were switched Delores would still be alive. Furthermore we spend almost three times more on prisoners than we do on students. Prisons where necessary are reactive, education and care are proactive. Chicago Longitudinal Study reports "For every dollar invested in high-quality, comprehensive programs supporting children... there is a $7-$10 return to society in decreased need for special education services, higher graduation and employment rates, less crime, less use of the public welfare system, and better health."
I also know prisons have become big business. There are 139 prison facilities that hold over a hundred thousand inmates within the Florida Department of Corrections. This number does not include count county jails, federal prisons, or people on probation. How many of them could have been saved had we decided we want to invest in children. How many more Delores could have been saved? What about Tiphnes, her murderer is still on the loose but odds say it will be a young man with a history of trouble and poor academics.
The legislature recently gave yacht owners a tax break, joining a long list of special interests that don’t contribute their fair share. At the same time they did this they voted to cut money to education and slash money to other social services including the transition of children from state care to independent living. They are cutting funding to pregnant woman and families too. In doing so how many more Tiphnes, Delores and Randall’s fates are they sealing?
They give tax breaks to special interests such as the sugar and bottled water industry among others many of which don’t have an inkling of a presence in Jacksonville. They are going to force us to help pay for high speed rails that connect cities far away. The state government is not only trying to steal home rule but it is already violating the constitution by not funding education and is attempting to do so again by superseding the will of the people by rolling back the class size amendment. They pick and choose what rules they are going to follow, following the rules they like or that benefit them and their friends ignoring the ones they don’t like, like adequately funding education.
The Florida Constitution says “The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the State of Florida. It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders. Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education and for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of institutions of higher learning and other public education programs that the needs of the people may require.”
Adequate provisions? Are they doing so by cutting education budgets year after year? Do you think this helps the “paramount duty” to provide a high quality education or harms it? Their mandates requiring algebra II and chemistry interfere with us preparing children to be good citizens which should be the “paramount responsibility” of a good school system. They ignore this part of the constitution daily and as a result haven’t they lost the moral authority required to govern us?
Jacksonville is not only the largest city in Florida size wise but it is the largest population wise to. Now it’s true some metropolitan areas are bigger, but like Orange Park doesn’t give us any kickbacks. cities like Miami and Tampa aren’t getting subsidized by their suburbs either. This means Jacksonville proper has more people paying taxes to the state and much of that money is going elsewhere?
Now through their education bills they seek to wrest even more home rule away from us. They use our tax dollars to subsidize other counties, dole our money back to us and then tell us how we should spend it. For years they underfunded our children saying different kids in different parts of the states were worth more and I don’t think I need to explain what a fiasco the lottery and the f-cat have been.
What kind of job is the Florida state legislature doing too? The state’s unemployment rate is high our deficits are high, they have different priorities than the citizens of Jacksonville, and they siphon monies away from us, so exactly what are we getting out of this relationship. If we broke away from the state could we do worse? If we are going to fail don’t you want it to be on us rather than because some politicians far away who don’t have our best interests at heart gave us no other option.
Jefferson further wrote; when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. How long are we to wait for the state government to do the right thing, and if they are neglecting our children aren’t they threatening our future. How long can we endure a “history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over…” Jacksonville.
Friends and fellow citizens it’s time we recognized the state government is not our friend, for far too long we have been an afterthought an unwanted associate who they could take from and give very little back to. When are we going to wake up and say enough is enough?
There is a social contract between us and them and when they continuously break it or disregard it then it’s time for us to move on. It’s time for us to start having our best interests in mind rather than hoping people far away who have shown us nothing but distain do. Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration says not only is it our right but it’s our moral responsibility to do so.
It’s time somebody in this state got morals. It’s time somebody in this state took responsibility. It’s time we did.
In the last year Ed White high school on the Westside has seen more than its fair share of tragedies. The latest involved the senseless of murder of sophomore Tiphne Hollis just 16. By all accounts she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and unfortunately there have been no arrests in the subsequent two weeks. She however hasn’t been the only member of the Ed White family in the news and perhaps lost in Tiphne’s tragedy is the horror that befell Delores Futrell. She was murdered by Ed White alums Randall Deviney.
Tiphne and Randal were on drastically different tracks while at Ed White. Tiphne’s teachers all say she was a sweet, quite girl who worked hard and had a bright future. Randal on the other hand was a special education student who had quite the reputation for causing trouble. I remember when was hired I was warned to stay away from him and a couple other students too. I thought “stays away, um, aren’t I a teacher.” Randal and my path never really crossed, though I have had more than a few that were just like he was in my classes.
Now Randall Deviney wasn’t a murderer back then he was just defiant and disrespectful, without conscious and remorse. He thought he could behave however he wanted and school was nothing more than an inconvenience to him and if any teacher got in his way they could expect a tirade of foul language as he explained what he thought of them and education in general. In those regards he is like dozens if not hundreds of other students here in the county. Students who I know are on the road to disaster. And we have the same plan in place for them and that’s just to cross our fingers and hope they don’t too many people down with them. In the meantime we try and stay out of their ways as well.
To be honest even if we would have decided five years ago that we as a society wanted to save him I don’t think we would have had a chance. He was far too damaged and angry as close to a lost cause as you can get. Sadly this means Delores Futrell, the 65 year old disabled neighbor that was reported to have been so kind to him that he would call her grandmother, whose throat he subsequently slit, fate had probably already been sealed.
I do however wonder what would have happened had we gotten to him as an eight year old or an eleven year old. If we could have recognized through his behavior and grades which by all accounts were always poor at best, that this kid was in trouble, that he needed help? If we could have gotten him counseling or extra help, something could he and Delores had been saved then? Maybe it’s worse than that, maybe his teachers did recognize his problems but there was nothing they could do, handcuffed by the system of shrinking and hard to get resources.
The truth is I don’t know but I do know that Florida is fiftieth out of fifty on what we spend on education while at the same time we are sixteenth on what we spend on prisons. Maybe if those two stats were switched Delores would still be alive. Furthermore we spend almost three times more on prisoners than we do on students. Prisons where necessary are reactive, education and care are proactive. Chicago Longitudinal Study reports "For every dollar invested in high-quality, comprehensive programs supporting children... there is a $7-$10 return to society in decreased need for special education services, higher graduation and employment rates, less crime, less use of the public welfare system, and better health."
I also know prisons have become big business. There are 139 prison facilities that hold over a hundred thousand inmates within the Florida Department of Corrections. This number does not include count county jails, federal prisons, or people on probation. How many of them could have been saved had we decided we want to invest in children. How many more Delores could have been saved? What about Tiphnes, her murderer is still on the loose but odds say it will be a young man with a history of trouble and poor academics.
The legislature recently gave yacht owners a tax break, joining a long list of special interests that don’t contribute their fair share. At the same time they did this they voted to cut money to education and slash money to other social services including the transition of children from state care to independent living. They are cutting funding to pregnant woman and families too. In doing so how many more Tiphnes, Delores and Randall’s fates are they sealing?
Thursday, January 6, 2011
History will judge
History will Judge
History will judge the current generation by its ability to solve the public education crisis, is what a local business leader and former governor of West Virginia Bob Wise told Jacksonville CEOs Wednesday at the graduate now summit hosted by the United Way. What a ridiculous statement because if things continue on the path they are now, future generations won’t be able to judge anything through history because they both won’t understand it or be able to read it.
Once again business and community leaders met to discuss the state of education in Jacksonville. If that sounds familiar it’s because it happens every few months or so. They do it so they can both point to statistics that say high school graduates make and spend more money, while shaking their fists, demanding something must be done and so they can appear to be doing something. I say appear because they have been having meetings like this for years now and they have almost nothing to show for them. In fact many people, who are in the know, teachers and parents, think things are getting worse. Jacksonville has a graduation rate of 65% which sadly is a bit misleading because a significant amount of new graduates aren’t prepared for college, working or anything.
If Jacksonville’s business and community leaders are truly interested and serious about improving education and to be honest I have my doubts after all it’s much easier to talk about change than do what is necessary to make sure it happens, the first and far the most important thing they need to do is lobby the state government to properly fund education. Mentors, community tutors and blue ribbon commissions are nice but what the school system needs is money.
Education needs mandatory longer days and summer school opportunities for children who need extra help. Education needs social workers and mental health counselors because quite often why children act up or don’t try at school has nothing to do with what is going on in school. Education needs more restrictive alternative programs to send children that hijack the learning environment to. Then education also needs multiple tracks so children can learn the arts, skills and trades as well. What do all these things have in common besides the fact we aren’t either doing them now or to the degree we should be? They cost money.
At the summit superintendant Pratt Dannals said “…we’re one great community away from being a great school system. It takes both.” In a way he’s right. Schools are not platforms for fixing the ills of society, though if done correctly school districts can enhance a city and can be immensely beneficial. Some cities crown jewels are its school system. Jacksonville’s schools unfortunately aren’t doing it right; instead of making things better they are exacerbating our cities problems. It’s not just the abysmal drop out and graduation rates that I am talking about either. In our city we can’t go a day without hearing about a young person committing some terrible crime. Businesses are likewise having difficult times finding capable, productive, and reliable workers. These are also some of the problems that Jacksonville’s public school system is contributing to.
When children don’t get consequences for their behavior it worsens. When children are pushed along from grade to grade they are rendered incapable of learning or being productive. When all children are forced into a one size fits all curriculum we shouldn’t be surprised when more and more don’t make it. When children drop out of school, don’t know how to behave or function in society we also shouldn’t be surprised that many turn to public assistance, crime or worse.
Jacksonville has serious problems that aren’t going to fix themselves either through cooking the books which is what the school board has been doing, by ignoring discipline, scrubbing children’s grades and encouraging children to take advanced placement tests they aren’t ready for or by having summits where the business elite get together to pat each other on the back and say something must be done. After all this is what we have been doing for a while and if you want proof of how successful it’s been, look at Duval Counties graduation rates over the last few years, 02-03, 63.7%, 03-04, 67.2%, 04-05, 65.5%, 05-06, 60.5%, 06-07,64.3%, 07-08 65.9%.
That’s our recent history. You be the judge of how we are doing
History will judge the current generation by its ability to solve the public education crisis, is what a local business leader and former governor of West Virginia Bob Wise told Jacksonville CEOs Wednesday at the graduate now summit hosted by the United Way. What a ridiculous statement because if things continue on the path they are now, future generations won’t be able to judge anything through history because they both won’t understand it or be able to read it.
Once again business and community leaders met to discuss the state of education in Jacksonville. If that sounds familiar it’s because it happens every few months or so. They do it so they can both point to statistics that say high school graduates make and spend more money, while shaking their fists, demanding something must be done and so they can appear to be doing something. I say appear because they have been having meetings like this for years now and they have almost nothing to show for them. In fact many people, who are in the know, teachers and parents, think things are getting worse. Jacksonville has a graduation rate of 65% which sadly is a bit misleading because a significant amount of new graduates aren’t prepared for college, working or anything.
If Jacksonville’s business and community leaders are truly interested and serious about improving education and to be honest I have my doubts after all it’s much easier to talk about change than do what is necessary to make sure it happens, the first and far the most important thing they need to do is lobby the state government to properly fund education. Mentors, community tutors and blue ribbon commissions are nice but what the school system needs is money.
Education needs mandatory longer days and summer school opportunities for children who need extra help. Education needs social workers and mental health counselors because quite often why children act up or don’t try at school has nothing to do with what is going on in school. Education needs more restrictive alternative programs to send children that hijack the learning environment to. Then education also needs multiple tracks so children can learn the arts, skills and trades as well. What do all these things have in common besides the fact we aren’t either doing them now or to the degree we should be? They cost money.
At the summit superintendant Pratt Dannals said “…we’re one great community away from being a great school system. It takes both.” In a way he’s right. Schools are not platforms for fixing the ills of society, though if done correctly school districts can enhance a city and can be immensely beneficial. Some cities crown jewels are its school system. Jacksonville’s schools unfortunately aren’t doing it right; instead of making things better they are exacerbating our cities problems. It’s not just the abysmal drop out and graduation rates that I am talking about either. In our city we can’t go a day without hearing about a young person committing some terrible crime. Businesses are likewise having difficult times finding capable, productive, and reliable workers. These are also some of the problems that Jacksonville’s public school system is contributing to.
When children don’t get consequences for their behavior it worsens. When children are pushed along from grade to grade they are rendered incapable of learning or being productive. When all children are forced into a one size fits all curriculum we shouldn’t be surprised when more and more don’t make it. When children drop out of school, don’t know how to behave or function in society we also shouldn’t be surprised that many turn to public assistance, crime or worse.
Jacksonville has serious problems that aren’t going to fix themselves either through cooking the books which is what the school board has been doing, by ignoring discipline, scrubbing children’s grades and encouraging children to take advanced placement tests they aren’t ready for or by having summits where the business elite get together to pat each other on the back and say something must be done. After all this is what we have been doing for a while and if you want proof of how successful it’s been, look at Duval Counties graduation rates over the last few years, 02-03, 63.7%, 03-04, 67.2%, 04-05, 65.5%, 05-06, 60.5%, 06-07,64.3%, 07-08 65.9%.
That’s our recent history. You be the judge of how we are doing
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Building kids of character: The Benefits of Giving
By Deborah Hansen
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
“But, Mom, why do I have to give some of my money to charity? Can’t everyone else earn their own money like I had to? And my $2.00 won’t make any difference anyway, will it?”
Well, Mom. Can’t they? And will that $2.00 donation make any ripple in the pool of need that exists around the world? Why plant that apple tree when the sower of the seed knows the end result will never be enjoyed?
Most parents have heard the litany of ways to introduce their children to charitable giving, so we won’t belabor those here. A more interesting question is raised when our kids ask “WHY?” How do we respond to that?
First, we must act it out ourselves in order to sell it to our children. This begins by keeping the giving close to home. Neighbors, friends, relatives, we all have times of need in our lives when those around us can make a huge difference in the quality of our lives. Simple things like taking our trash cans to the curb, bringing in the mail, walking the dog, driving to the store, can be lifesaving actions when someone is ill or otherwise distracted. Do your children see you reaching out to touch others in these small ways? If so, they will witness the impact each of us can have on the lives of one other. It isn’t a big reach from giving to receiving help when it’s needed, the web of interconnectedness enveloping us all.
We all have soft spots in our hearts, and our children are no different. We can tap into those sympathies, thus funneling the donations to those specific charities. Animals, babies, orphans, or whatever seems to touch our child’s heart can be designated as the recipient of those $2.00 donations. It makes more sense to a ten year old that her donation will buy a bag of pet food, doesn’t it?
Of course, we are laying the mortar work for later charitable gifts to nameless people or organizations on the other side of the globe. It is one thing to do a good deed for a neighbor, but how DOES that $2.00 get from here to there in any meaningful way, Mom? We need to help our children see the effect that their $2.00 has when joined with hundreds of other such donations. A simple math lesson might do the job in this case, and could even lead to your child convincing his friends to donate, too.
Another factor in teaching our children the “why” of giving comes from an internal process that happens when doing so. As parents, we know this. We would do anything, sacrifice anything for our children. To do otherwise, would make us miserable. Some say that humans, as communal beings, are “hardwired” to hold the needs of the group over our own. It simply makes us feel good, while ignoring the needs of others makes us feel bad. Parents can use this fact by pointing out the emotional payoffs their children get from acts of giving.
Planting trees seems like such a futile exercise, doesn’t it? Much like donating that $2.00 to an organization halfway around the world, the giver putting forth the effort with blind confidence that a stranger needs it.
And saplings grow into strong and sturdy forests all around us, planted by someone who had faith in something they would never see.
http://deborahhansen.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/building-kids-of-character-the-benefits-of-giving/
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
“But, Mom, why do I have to give some of my money to charity? Can’t everyone else earn their own money like I had to? And my $2.00 won’t make any difference anyway, will it?”
Well, Mom. Can’t they? And will that $2.00 donation make any ripple in the pool of need that exists around the world? Why plant that apple tree when the sower of the seed knows the end result will never be enjoyed?
Most parents have heard the litany of ways to introduce their children to charitable giving, so we won’t belabor those here. A more interesting question is raised when our kids ask “WHY?” How do we respond to that?
First, we must act it out ourselves in order to sell it to our children. This begins by keeping the giving close to home. Neighbors, friends, relatives, we all have times of need in our lives when those around us can make a huge difference in the quality of our lives. Simple things like taking our trash cans to the curb, bringing in the mail, walking the dog, driving to the store, can be lifesaving actions when someone is ill or otherwise distracted. Do your children see you reaching out to touch others in these small ways? If so, they will witness the impact each of us can have on the lives of one other. It isn’t a big reach from giving to receiving help when it’s needed, the web of interconnectedness enveloping us all.
We all have soft spots in our hearts, and our children are no different. We can tap into those sympathies, thus funneling the donations to those specific charities. Animals, babies, orphans, or whatever seems to touch our child’s heart can be designated as the recipient of those $2.00 donations. It makes more sense to a ten year old that her donation will buy a bag of pet food, doesn’t it?
Of course, we are laying the mortar work for later charitable gifts to nameless people or organizations on the other side of the globe. It is one thing to do a good deed for a neighbor, but how DOES that $2.00 get from here to there in any meaningful way, Mom? We need to help our children see the effect that their $2.00 has when joined with hundreds of other such donations. A simple math lesson might do the job in this case, and could even lead to your child convincing his friends to donate, too.
Another factor in teaching our children the “why” of giving comes from an internal process that happens when doing so. As parents, we know this. We would do anything, sacrifice anything for our children. To do otherwise, would make us miserable. Some say that humans, as communal beings, are “hardwired” to hold the needs of the group over our own. It simply makes us feel good, while ignoring the needs of others makes us feel bad. Parents can use this fact by pointing out the emotional payoffs their children get from acts of giving.
Planting trees seems like such a futile exercise, doesn’t it? Much like donating that $2.00 to an organization halfway around the world, the giver putting forth the effort with blind confidence that a stranger needs it.
And saplings grow into strong and sturdy forests all around us, planted by someone who had faith in something they would never see.
http://deborahhansen.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/building-kids-of-character-the-benefits-of-giving/
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