AI beyond cheating

 AI Beyond “cheating”

 

Students have embraced AI with a vengeance.  Who can blame them? It’s easy, fast and promised to be perfectly correct.   According to teachers, students have quickly caught on to AI and are using it regularly.  That’s ok with them as long as kids come clean that the work is not theirs.

But there is another more serious issue that is bothering teachers.   Teachers are very concerned that it is the perfection of AI that is most damaging.  Students are increasingly fearful that their own work just “won’t be as good”.   Thereby, putting students’ willingness to risk being wrong.  Allowing yourself to be wrong is at the very essence of creativity.  It is only when we are willing to be wrong, to step outside the acceptable box, that creativity happens.

Educators have a very dark view of what AI will do to students.  Educators- teachers, and district leaders- expect AI to have a negative impact on teens’ mental health over the next 10 years.  A full 69% feel this way.  Just 14% predict the influence will be positive.

On the other hand, just about a quarter of the teens surveyed believe AI will have a negative effect on them.  And 30% believe the impact will be positive.

What isn’t new about this news is that typically the younger generation is more accepting of new technology and educators are not only of the older generation but are usually slower to accept technology in general.

While teachers may view the “outsourcing” of writing to AI as cheating, from the students’ viewpoint this use of AI is anxiety reducing. They don't worry that they will be wrong or grammatically incorrect.   Consequently, the use of AI for written work is seen very differently by younger teens.

What is of greater concern to mental health, by both generations is the use of  AI to supercharge bullying with deepfake pornographic images of classmates.   As generative AI develops, creating these deepfake images will be easier and that kind of impact on mental health will be much greater.  There have already been multiple instances of students creating porno image so classmates and posting them on social media.  

“We have met the enemy and they are us” as the cartoon character said so many years ago.  Educators need to address the immediate issues that are now, including teaching kids the potential horror of the internet and AI.  We have work to do much beyond worrying about who has written that 5-page term paper on the causes of WWII.  AI is way beyond cheating.

April is Autism Month

 April is Autism Month

During the month of April, we give attention to the issue of autism.  Which is a good thing because during the other months of the year we can spend looking for appropriate programs for kids and adults who are on the spectrum.

According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, autism is a condition that results from differences in the way that a brain develops.  Autism is a spectrum disorder.  That means its manifestation can be very minor and subtle or at the other end be very severe to the point of totally overwhelming an individual’s life.

As with anything else, the extra attention in the media has created an influx of identification.  That, taken together with the historical (Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson) identifications, being diagnosed with mild autism is almost a social benefit.

One of the more common treatments is ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) usually done one to one and requiring many hoops through which families need to jump in order to receive the service.  All 50 states now have laws requiring that insurance cover the treatment for people identified.  However, treatment is expensive so insurance companies are slow to accept the need.

What else is there?  First and foremost, we should be essentially past the view that kids on the autism spectrum are are emotionally disturbed and should  be treated as such.  People on the autism spectrum are not emotionally disturbed, even if their behaviors might sometimes mimic those who are.

Secondly, instruction in social awareness and speech and language therapy are crucial interventions to ensure that more mildly impacted individuals can thrive at their highest level.  Lastly, the earlier the better, is particularly critical for those on the autism spectrum.  Progress can be slow but the earlier intervention begins the better.

But what of adults who may be late to the diagnosis.  Counseling for social awareness and compensation in social situations ensures that adults can make the most of their abilities.

Autism is with us all year long.  It’s a lifelong complication for those on the spectrum.  The manifestations of the diagnosis are multiple and often co-morbid with other disabilities.

May will soon be here.  It would be good to double down on providing service for the remaining eleven months until we come around again to autism’s month.

 

Free to fail

 Free to Fail

Would you let your child run out in front of a moving vehicle?  Probably not.  But would you let your child fail a school?  How far should teachers and parents go in letting kids fail?  How much will you complain if a child is not doing well at school?

Every good teacher knows we learn more about how a child learns when he/she fails at something than when they get the question correct.  Why is that?  Because when we fail, we can figure  out why we failed.  But when we succeed we don’t take the effort to figure out why and often we can succeed for the wrong reasons.

Children (and adults) need to fail to improve learning.  The trick is to figure out  how much failure is encouraging and how much is discouraging to the point of believing we can’t do something.  In essence we are looking for the Goldilocks spot where we get it just right.

Is doing the best a child can do good enough for success.  Maybe, but not always.  In the real road of life, excuses are not going to be made for a child because he or she has a disability.  In fact, quite the contrary is true. If a child has a disability that child may have to work harder to get a job than the plain kid who doesn’t have a disability even though both individuals may be able to do the job equally well.  Trying out for a team or interviewing for a job, doing the best one can do will not necessarily bring home the victory.

Children need to be allowed to fail.  Neither parents nor teachers should jump in and rescue a child before he or she is allowed to fail.  Resilience is a critical life skill.  The road of anyone’s life is going to have some potholes.  A child needs to be prepared for that road.  Parents and teachers are not going to be able to run ahead filling in those potholes.

Antifragile teaching and parenting is about allowing kids to explore and fail at age appropriate tasks. Otherwise, kids become fragile adults, falling into those potholes.  It’s about intervening to teach the child how to do the task him or herself, not running ahead and doing the task for the child or removing the reason for failing.  Intervening to make sure your kid gets a job or is admitted to a school that is not merited is ultimately setting the child up for failure.  

Jumping in when tasks are too hard rather than allowing the child to have a reasonable struggle and enjoy the glow of having achieved something hard is not only better for the child now but better for the adult the child will become.

Both teachers and parents want kids to believe in themselves.  That isn’t going to happen if they are never given a chance to earn their success  and, thereby, have a reason to believe.  Free to fail is the price of success.

So what's YOUR IQ

 So What’s YOUR IQ

What’s your IQ?  You probably don’t know and if you think you know, you are probably wrong. 

IQ, or intelligence quotient, is best determined in your pre-teens or early teens.  It is also best measured by an individual IQ test, either the Stanford-Binet (SB) or one of the Wechsler series tests.   The two tests are similar in that they each yield a rating of a person’s intelligence, but they are very different in outcomes.  The SB test has its roots in France where Theodore Simon and Alfred Binet were commissioned to develop a test to determine which children would benefit from a public school education and who would not.  Later Lewis Terman, working at Stanford University, adapted the test for American children.  Hence we have the Stanford Binet.  Poor Terman gets little credit.  The important things to remember about the Binet test as it is often called, is its original purpose AND that is it very language based.  Therefore, children with good language skills will do better than children whose language skills are not as well developed.

The Wechsler series of tests were developed by David Wechsler.  There are separate tests for very young children, school age children and adults.  The Wechsler tests differentiate between verbal skills and performance skills.  The Wechsler tests deliver better information to inform instruction.  

Both test purport to tell the examiner how smart a student is.

But do they?   Yes and no.  First of all remember the original Binet test was developed to determine who would succeed in a typical French school.  In many ways today, the tests do their best job at determining which kids will do well in a typical American school.  And they are pretty good at that.  What the tests don’t tell us is which students who do poorly in these tests, MAY still do well in school.

Schools today are increasingly trying to provide alternative methods of instruction.  The traditional school is highly verbal.   If you have good language skills you will do well on both the tests and  in school.  However, there are lots of kids who don’t have great verbal skills.  As schools move to provide learning through other channels of input besides language- think digital games, Smartboards, and project based learning- these children can show their “smarts” as well.

The other big question is, does a person’s IQ score change.  Will how well a person scores on the test  change?  The test activities are based on what the vast majority of kids at a particular age can do.  If a child is tested at a young age and doesn’t mature at the expected rate, his/her scores will go down.  On the other hand, if a child has increased environmental experiences and improved language abilities, scores could go up.

Both tests use a 100 score as average.  Deviation from that mid-point measures above average and below average academic ability.  These tests do not, nor were they ever intended to, measure other talents such as art, music, science or personal relations.

The good news is that educators are learning to rely less and less on these scores so we can all relax a bit.

Let's Make it easier

 Let’s make it easier

 

There is a considerable shortage of teachers all across the country.   In Maryland, the larger counties are scheduled to end the school year with still well over 200 vacancies.  Baltimore County is taking the approach of just eliminating those positions.   

Both the State Department of Education and the State Legislature are taking a different approach.   Right now, in order to get a license as a teacher, an individual must pass an exam called the Praxis I, which is a national exam to measure basic skills in reading, writing and math.  The Educational Testing Service has established cut off points for passing.  Many teacher candidates, especially candidates for elementary teachers, fail the math test.  On the one hand, you would think that a college graduate should be proficient in basic academic skills, yet failing parts of the test once or even twice is not out of the ordinary.

Under proposed new guidelines these tests would be gone.  Instead, school districts would develop their own onboarding requirements which the MSDE would need to approve.  Will that get more folks interested in becoming teachers?  We don’t know.  But the corresponding question is do we want people who can’t pass a test of basic academic skills teaching our kids basic academic skills?  

The teacher shortage is serious.  There is no disputing that fact at all.  What does appear to be in question is just what is the best way to address the shortage.

The Maryland Blueprint for Education will raise starting salaries to 60K within a few years.   Will better salaries attract more teachers?   What happens when people discover that in order to afford the higher salaries, school districts are doing away with the customary year 2 and year 3 longevity increase steps?  

Teaching is a hard job.   And teaching is one of the most important jobs in our society.  Maybe we should work at giving teachers the professional respect they deserve.   Let THEM decide when their students are ready to move on in the content rather than the pacing guide.  Let THEM come up with creative ways to deliver the content instead of cookie cutter lesson plans.  And most importantly, let THEM develop relationships with their kids rather than keeping them long distance.  In the old days, that is what attracted teachers.  It was hard, but there wasn’t a shortage.  Will making it easier work? 

Are you happy yet?

 Are You Happy Yet?

 

Really, right now, are you happy?  Well maybe not happy, maybe just ok, just fine.  We seem to have entered into a period of preoccupation with being happy.  We worry that our kids are not happy.  And if they are not happy somehow it is within the power and responsibility of someone else to make them happy.  Along the way we have lost the notion that each of us is in charge of our own happiness.   And while we are there, “happy” is not a permanent state.   It is mostly an elusive moment. 

Most recent research has shown that emotions are highly reactive to the attention that is paid to them.  Yet we have apps on our phone to check in on our happiness, there are articles online of how to check on your happiness, we worry children to find out if they are happy.

All this attention to happiness seems to forget that what we want our children to be in resiient.  Remember the old Timex watch commercials.   “Takes a beating and keeps on ticking.”  That’s what we want for our kids.  Because in truth, into each life a lot of rain will fall.

Evidence shows that the more people value happiness and the more they chase it, the less happy they tend to be.  Asking students to continually reflect on their feelings belies the fact that how they feel right now may not be anything like what they will feel in an hour or maybe even 15 minutes.   Asking kids how they feel tends to amplify the negative feelings and ignore that these feelings may well be fleeting.  

In the past, when a child was complaining about what had gone wrong and her life in general, we would often encourage the child to manage, life will get better.   Today we rush the child off to be evaluated for meds or therapy.  We are in a period where it is hard to find someone who is not in counseling or therapy because they are not “happy” with their lives.  

Psychologists have noted there are people who adopt an “action orientation”, they  are able to focus on the task at hand without getting distracted by their emotional state.  On the other hand, those folks who have a “state orientation” can get so far down the rabbit hole of how they feel, that the task at hand doesn’t get done.

How successful in life will our kids be if their own feelings are always front and center?   How will they manage to complete a day’s work if they are consumed with how they are feeling in the moment?  Teaching kids to overvalue their own emotions sets them up for failure.

So, are you happy yet?  Truthfully, that’s not my job.  Suck it up buttercup.

 

Take a message, I'll get back to you

 Take a message, I’ll get back to you

 

Cell phones are taking over.   A chemistry teacher in California complained that kids were watching Netfix on their phones during class.   A teacher in Maryland says that students are using gambling apps during the school day AND placing bets.

In almost every classroom, students are sending Snapchat messages, listening to music and shopping online.  Many parents are not aware of the almost addictive like behavior kids have with their phones.  Maybe that’s because parents are behaving the same way.  

Most schools have rules regarding cell phone use.  The problem is that those rules are only sporadically enforced.  It’s too much trouble. Teachers don't want to get into the fight, especially since they don't feel supported by admin. Some teachers out and out admit that when a student is using her cell phone, she isn’t causing any behavior issues.

Governors and state legislators are getting into the act.  The Governor of Utah is urging all school districts to ban cell phones in school.  Last year, the Florida legislature passed a law that requires school districts to ban student cell phone use during class time and to block social media access on district WiFi.  Some districts like Orange County are banning phones altogether during the school day.

Nationally 77% of school districts prohibit cell phones for non-academic use.

But sort of like the speed limit on roads, enforcement and adherence are slim.

One teacher in Maryland bought a 36-slot cell phone caddy for students to store their phones.  But few students comply and some say they don’t have their phones, even if they do.  So he has given up and figures as long as they are quiet…

Students and parents push back saying they need to be in contact with their kids.  Kids need to be able to call parents.   REALLY- How did kids and families stay in touch before cell phones?   Amazingly, folks managed.

Students will tell you enforcement varies from teacher to teacher.   Teachers will tell you that enforcing the cell phone ban should be an administrators’ responsibility. Often students are calling their parents to complain about a teacher, but that's a story for another day.  The best working systems are those that require students to check their phones at the door with the assumption that every kid has a phone.   That system seems to work.

Next up to distract, are air pods under hoodies and hair  and smartwatches.  Students might need an administrative assistant to take their calls so they can have time to learn.

There are secrets out there

 There are secrets out there

 

You might have heard of teachers sneaking a smoke outside.   Or perhaps, taking a sick day because there is an early concert that they don’t want to miss.  But have you heard of teachers hiding books so students CAN read them?  That is what’s happening in multiple classrooms in multiple states where school districts are banning books with certain subjects.  It’s even happening in bright blue Maryland.

Here is how it works.  School districts are banning books written by Black authors, written about the struggle for equality, advancing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, books about the LBGTQ community and books written either by or sympathetic to that community.  

The school districts doing banning reading materials are mostly very predominately White.  Which makes it all the more important for marginalized communities to be able to access books that speak to their personal experiences.   It is also true that while the suicide rate is rising among all teens, it is rising much more quickly among African-American and LBGTQ kids.   These youngsters feel like the “other”.  They do not fit in.  Who would care if they were gone.

Books speak to those struggles and show kids that there is a way forward and that they are not alone.  A number of teachers in communities that have banned books are establishing underground secret libraries where students can borrow books on the banned book list.  Yep, does remind you of another underground adventure.

Of course, anything that is banned by adults automatically becomes interesting to any teen.  The good news about that is it is wonderful if students from the majority community read some of these banned books too because then they, too, might gain an understanding of the marginalized communities.

Teachers with these secret libraries are building them from the books that have been removed from classrooms as well as purchasing them with their own funds and contributions from others.  Secret library books are not displayed on shelves with their covers facing out to attract readers.  They are instead packed away in boxes at the back of classrooms or in closets. Student volunteers sort and organize the selections and run the sign-out process.

Perhaps the book banning has had an unintended consequence.  More kids want to read the banned books, in both the majority and minority communities.  After all, who doesn’t want to read what you aren’t allowed to read.

Nope, you can't get that help

 Nope, you can’t get that help.

 

Kids across our country are experiencing significant mental health issues.   Some experts say this is part of the fall out of the pandemic and the years students spent out of school supposedly learning online.  States are responding differently when kids ask for help.

In some states, that help cannot be delivered without the approval of parents.  Research indicates that requiring parental permission can be a significant barrier to children getting help.  But there are differing perspectives on mental health treatment.  Some cultures just don’t approve of it especially for kids.  The attitude is she will grow out of it or “I don’t want some counselor brain-washing my child with ideas I don’t approve of”.   Access to therapy is particularly critical for children who identify as LGBTQ.   These kids are significantly more likely to attempt suicide and also more likely to have family who do not approve of their feelings.  

States are responding quite differently.  States like Colorado, California  and Maryland have lowered the age of consent for treatment to 12.   In New York teens can self-consent to treatment at age 16 and physicians can authorize that treatment for younger children if they believe it is necessary.  But there are caveats.   The consent laws are only for outpatient and do not extend to prescription medications.  Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and North Carolina have the worst records for providing access to mental health care for kids.  Everyone agrees that mental health treatment for children is much more effective if parents are in partnership with the treatment.  

There are also differences by race.  Data show that 14% of white children have had therapy at one time.  But those percentages drop dramatically for black children to 9% and 8% for Hispanic kids and only 3% for Asian children.   Distrust of therapists who are of a different race and/or bad experiences with psychotropic drugs are offered as the major reasons for failure to access therapy.

As a society we have identified a serious problem for our children.  As states we have taken two entirely different approaches.  Some states have expanded access to counseling by allowing kids to self-refer.   Other states have further limited access by requiring parental permission not just for counseling outside of school but even for seeing a school counselor for any issue at all, including academic counseling. 

We all admit kids need the help.  Some states are trying to facilitate that help.  While other states are acknowledging kids may need help,  but there are going to be some tall border walls going up.

 

You are out of here

 You are out of here!

What to do with a kid who is really getting on your nerves? Not just today but most days.  Maybe he could go home, that would be nice.

There are thousands of children in our schools who are doing just that.  The process is called “informal removal” and if the child has a diagnosed disability it is illegal.  But like a lot of things that are illegal, a school district needs to be caught and that isn’t happening very much.

Here is how the scenario plays out.  A parent gets a call from the school.  “Mark is having a bad day, rather than have him get into trouble would you mind coming to pick him up?”  Most parents comply rather than have the child get into more trouble or perhaps even being suspended.

There are school districts that unilaterally place students on shortened school days.  Diane Smith, a lawyer with the National Disability Rights Network, has stated that “the reality is that there are children in this country who are still considered of insufficient quality to go to school”

The National Disability Rights Network, a nonprofit established by Congress more than four decades ago, found that informal removals are occurring thousands of times per year as “off the book suspensions”.  There are even students who are involuntarily transferred to programs that do not exist.

Children are placed in situations where they are required to “earn back” school time that they have a legal right to have.

Educators respond that this practice is their only recourse given the requirements of the Education of All Children with Disabilities Act (IDEA).  That legislation requires two very important elements related to informal removals.  First, a child may not be disciplined for exhibiting behaviors that are characteristic of the disability.  This process is called the Manifestation Meeting where the school’s team and the child’s family make this determination. And, secondly, if the team finds that the behavior is a manifestation of the child’s disability, then the school needs to come up with an individual education plan that mitigates against manifestation.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is up for changes.  Lawmakers have STRONGLY encouraged that informal removals be prohibited.  

Schools and principals are also under pressure to reduce the number of suspensions for children with disabilities.  The answer to that issue is to use informal removals.

Since COVID the practice has increased.  Families are now fighting back.  

There is nothing informal about removing a child from school and parents are going to prove that.

 

 

Lots of B's in the package

 Lots of B’s in the package

 

Maryland’s Blueprint for Education has lots of B’s in it.  That’s billions of dollars.  Ten billions of dollars to be exact.  This is state money and it will be matched by local contributions.  That means that taxpayers need to be prepared for their pockets to be picked for both state and local taxes.

Just what will Marylanders get for that significant investment.  Like all budget buster bills there is good news and not so good news.

First the good news.   Maryland is on track to offer free funded preschool for all children.  The services will be provided through a combination of public school programs and local school system contracts with private preschools.  Local districts are struggling with this provision because they don’t have the space or the staff.  Partnering with private providers is going slowly.  Giving preschool opportunities to all children will not only be great for the kids but will truly help the children of lower income families who cannot presently afford the cost.  With a free program, more parents of lower income families will be available to work outside the home and increase family resources.

The Blueprint is also designed to increase starting teacher salaries to $60,000 within the next few years.   Teachers in Maryland are already among the most highly paid nationally. Increasing starting salaries will further strap the resources of local districts without doing anything to increase the talents of the teacher corp.  Surveys show that salary isn’t the issue keeping young people from becoming teachers.  But that is a topic for another day.  In most districts, these increases in starting salaries are not moving up the food chain, so there is the real possibility that any teachers attracted by the starting salary will not stay when they realize the increase has not moved up the salary ladder.

The legislators that created this plan were concerned that it would not be implemented judiciously.  So, in their wisdom, they created the Accountability Implementation Board (AIB).   This Board functions over the State Board of Education in all matters pertaining to the Blueprint.  But we are all assured this new Board is not an increase in bureaucracy.  On July 1, Maryland will have a new State Superintendent of Schools.  This person will answer to the State School Board which in turn will answer to the AIB in all matters pertaining to the Blueprint.    And, of course, the AIB will also have its own collection of support staff and expenses.

There are lots of B’s in this plan.  It has barely been implemented and already there are people saying it’s not enough money.   School districts are saying the same thing.  They don’t have enough money- could be more B’s are coming to pick a pocket near you.

 

Coming to a school near you

 Coming to a school near you…

The law requires that all children in Maryland under the age of 18  attend school.  That age was recently increased from sixteen.   

Who are the children in your child’s school?  The Juvenile Courts of Maryland regularly release students to attend public school with hours of community service as a consequence of a variety of bad behaviors.   These behaviors range from something like shoplifting all the way up to what would be felonies in the adult system.  

Those felonies include the use of a weapon in the commission of a crime, murder and sexual offenses such a rape.

School systems are not notifying families of the other students because that would be an obvious violation of the juvenile’s privacy.  However, if that person were a couple of years older, he or she would be listed on a sex offenders list to which the community would have access.

Let’s take the case of a teenager who cornered a girl student in the stairwell of a public middle school.  The girl, who was in a special education class, was pushed up against the wall and the boy touched her inappropriately under her sweater and rubbed his pelvis against her.  The girl was not even sure what was happening.  The consequence of that behavior was that after a 2-day suspension, the boy was transferred to another county middle school.  End of story.  None of the famiies at the receiving school were aware of the disciplinary situation.

In a Baltimore City high school there is a boy who has been convicted of second- degree rape of a 3-year old cousin.  He is currently in the 9^th grade at the school.  As part of the disposition of the case, the juvenile magistrate said that he could not be around any child younger than 15 unless there was close supervision.  In a ninth grade there are lots of kids that are not yet 15.  It is next to impossible for any student in a large comprehensive high school to have constant supervision unless there is a dedicated aide.  Neither boy in these two examples has a dedicated aide.

Both school districts have refused to discuss the particular cases because they are protecting the privacy of the juvenile offenders.  In each instance, the districts have offered the legal and constitutional right of the boys to a public education.  That is totally true.  What they do not say is that there are non-public state approved schools that have closer supervision and programs to deal with students who have been sexually aggressive.   Of course, that would mean the school district had to pay that tuition.  But they do that for lots of students for different reasons.

Who are the kids in your child’s school?   Do parents have a right to know?

Yep, Yep, We all know that.

 Yep, Yep, We know all about that

 

Really old news.  Kids (and adults) are spending too much time on their screens and social media.  But, well, you know how folks are about their technology.

Now the dangers of social media are attracting the attention of the U.S. Surgeon General.  Remember this was the office that long ago warned us about the dangers of nicotine and smoking.  Last year this same office took a stand on the dangers of social media for developing brains.  Important stuff when even young elementary kids are carting around smartphones.

Federal and state legislatures have also weighed in to regulate the use of social media.   Lots of political districts and school districts have taken to the courts to sue major social media platforms like Facebook.  These groups are accusing the social media platforms of being unsafe for a child’s mental health.

There are lots of opinions floating around.  Now there is also some empirical data to add to the discussion.  A longitudinal and empirical research analysis found that more frequent use of smartphones and social media is associated with higher rates of mental distress, self-harming behaviors and suicide among teenagers. Children's brains are slower to develop.  Kids do not realize the long term impact of these behaviors, not only on their mental health but also on their digital reputations.  They are bullied into sending sexually explicit images of themselves to peers without realizing how long this digital image is going to be around and/or shared with others.  A youngster’s brain is not fully developed.  They lack the capacity to make judgements based on long term harm. Too often families and schools just throw up their proverbial hands and say, “there isn’t anything we can do, the phones are everywhere”.

That’s the easy way out.  It’s too late to ban the phone after the damage has been done.

Authors of the study strongly recommend that the damage from too much social media needs to be controlled.  They recommend students and families engage in nonjudgmental and developmentally appropriate discussions and problem-solving around ways to limit social media.  But what can schools and families do when these logical, mature approaches don’t deliver?  That may be the time to remind kids who pays the cell phone bill and who is in charge.  In the old days, the advice was, “if your friend jumped off the bridge, would you do that too?”.   If your kid answers yes or maybe to this question when the bridge is cell phone usage, maybe it’s time to be the grown up in the room.

Do Something!

 Do Something!

 

Yesterday we celebrated Martin Luther King Day.   Many people had the day off.  It is doubtful that they used the day off from work to do anything that honored the work of Dr. King.  Baltimore City even cancelled the parade in his honor and that of the community because of some snow flurries.

Of the many Dr. King quotations, one of my most favorite is:

            “If you can’t fly then run,

            If you can’t run then walk,

            If you can’t walk then crawl

                But whatever you  do

                   Keep moving”

Sadly the vast majority of us sit on the sideline with the expectation that “someone else” will do the deed.  Unfortunately, “someone else” is expecting another “someone else” so very little gets done or what gets done is done by the folks on either extreme.

Almost fifty years ago, the Education of All Handicapped Children Act (EHA, 1975)was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Ford.  At the signing, President Ford who signed under pressure, made the statement that he doubted its provisions could ever be fulfilled.

For the most part he was wrong.  By far, the vast majority of children with disabilities are being provided a free public education, but is that education appropriate to meet the needs of the individual child-the answer is – sometimes.

EHA was replaced by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which embodied all of the provisions of EHA and added a few extras.  In many ways, IDEA made children with disabilities as special class. But the public is very skilled at “work arounds”. Class size was restricted so that children with learning challenges could get more attention.  Today, the vast majority of children with disabilities are taught in co-taught classes meaning there is a special education trained teacher and a general ed teacher.  But the class size is in the mid-20’s.   IDEA requires that each child have an IEP- an individual learning program.  These plans specify the extent of related services the child will receive.  School districts regularly disregard the amount of service by saying they can’t find occupational or speech therapists or other providers.  No one enforces the IEP, unless the parents do.  When the parents try to enforce the IEP, school districts have highly paid trained attorneys to protect the interests of the school system, not the child’s.  If parents prevail at a due process hearing they get reimbursed for attorney’s fees, but only if they can afford the upfront cost of the long fight and if they prevail.  All of the decisions are supposed to be made by a child’s IEP team consisting of the school system staff and the child’s parents but some school districts hold preliminary meetings to make sure all of the school staff know the party line and stick together.

Today school systems do not have the programming options they had 40 years ago.   Self-contained classes ensured that families knew each other and could compare note and/or have belong to parent organizations.  In numbers there is strength.  We are returning to many of the ploys of old.  Conservative pundits are blaming the budget shortages on providing special ed services for kids as prescribed by law. 

The days of flying to meet the needs of children with disabilities are over.   It’s not even clear if advocates for children with disabilities are even moving anymore.

Algebra 2 vs social studies 1

 Algebra 2 vs. Social Studies 1

 

Our students are learning lots of algebra which only a fraction of them will ever use and next to nothing about history and civics which as a citizen in a democracy they should be using every day.

A recent Economist/YouGov poll found that one in five 18-29 year olds believe the Holocaust is a myth.  Another 30% said they are not sure!  Nearly 20% of Americans think the moon landing was faked. Half of Americans cannot name the three branches of government, yet we are reluctant to let immigrants gain citizenship through rigorous testing.

Most of this historical ignorance is among the young people.  So the question remains, where are we failing kids in our provision of an education?

Our young people are great consumers of social media.  They grab onto issues they really don’t understand and we, as educators, are not doing our job to help them.  The University of California-Berkeley recently conducted a pole.  Most students (86%) supported the popular media chant, “from the river, to the sea, Palestine will be free”.  But nearly half (47%) couldn’t name the river or the sea!  Maybe it’s the Mississippi River or the Mediterranean Sea.  Ten percent of these same COLLEGE students named Yassir Arafat as the first prime minister of Israel.   When the professor conducting the survey explained to students exactly what river and sea were in the chant, over half changed their views.

Only about 1/4^th of young adults subscribe to a print newspaper.  The rest get their news online or by watching TV with its 30 second reports.  

We are still teaching US history in one year, even though the history or our country increases every year. Our kids know more about the Pilgrims and the first thanksgiving than they do about the Gulf War.  We do not teach civics so young adults all get to vote but are hardly informed citizens and many are not voting at all.   We live in a capitalistic economy but don’t teach economics.  Many people think employers can increase employee salaries without increasing costs passed on to the consumer.

Educators need to grab back the curriculum from the politicians.  We need to decide what young adults need to know to be contributing citizens in a democracy.  That should be our basic curriculum plus reading and basic math skills.  That’s the cake, we can add the icing after that.