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Eager to Learn or Not – Part 9/10

20 Jul

During the 30 years that I taught English, reading and journalism in the public schools, I worked with thousands of students from every ethnic and socioeconomic group.

My family, although of White/Caucasian heritage with roots to England, Ireland and Europe would have been placed in three of the categories that the Academic Performance Index (API) identifies.

My brother and I would have been labeled as White (Caucasian), Socioeconomically Disadvantaged and Students with (learning) Disabilities.

A student that is labeled “Socioeconomically Disadvantaged” is defined as “a student neither of whose parents have received a high school diploma or a student eligible for free or reduced-price lunch program”.

A “Student with Disabilities” is defined as student who receives special education services and has a valid disability code on the student answer document (or) a student who was previously identified as special education but who is no longer receiving special education services for two years after exiting special education. This student is not counted in determining numerical significance for the SWDs subgroup.

The API monitors and measures the schools to see if the NCLB Act’s goal of reaching an average and/or norm for all Ethnic/Racial subgroups that is 800 or better on the API is being met.  Failure for schools and teachers to reach this goal for all subgroups may lead to being fired and/or having schools shut down while students will be bussed long distances to schools that have been successful.

For 2010, in California, the norm/average for Students with Disabilities was 544; for Socioeconomically Disadvantaged that norm/average was 701 while the norm for White/Caucasian was 842.

During the thirty years I taught in a public classroom, the subgroups that (on average) resembled my brother Richard and I are found mostly in Black or African American (API 676) and Hispanic or Latino (API 706) subgroups.  Source: 2010-11 APR Glossary-Base API

Continued on July 21, 2011 in Eager to Learn or Not – Part 10 or return to Part 8

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Posted by on July 20, 2011 in American Public Schools, Education, family values, literacy, Parenting, politics

 

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Eager to Learn or Not – Part 2/10

11 Jul

After listening to the NPR.org piece about the Atlanta school scandal, I concluded that the enemies of public education (that by coincidence support the school choice voucher movement that would add billions of taxpayer dollars to the profit margins of private corporations) were at it again.

After all, the next presidential election of 2012 is starting to gather steam and the alleged failure of public education will be a topic of discussion with accusations being hurled about as if they were grenades in the hands of terrorists.

The pressure that caused these teachers and administrators in Atlanta’s public schools to cheat was due to the impossible demands set by No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which requires America’s teachers to teach as if all students are equal and eager to learn, which many are not.

An old English proverb says, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.”  This idiom means that if a teacher teaches he or she cannot force the student to learn regardless of a law written in Washington D.C. by a bunch of ignorant, elected fools.

For a child to learn, he or she must come to school motivated and ready to learn, and this is often not the case, which is the reason behind the fact that not all students are equal.

There is an equation/formula that shows what it takes for a student to learn.

This formula is as simple as 1 (teacher) + 1 (student) + 1 (parent) = 3.

1. The teacher teaches

2. The students listen/pay attention, follow directions, ask questions, study, read and learn

3, parents support both teachers and students so learning takes place

 If one or two elements of that equation are missing, the education process suffers.

Continued on July 12, 2011 in Eager to Learn or Not – Part 3 or return to Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

 
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Posted by on July 11, 2011 in American Public Schools, Education, family values, literacy, Parenting, Public School

 

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The Sexual Molestation of the Happy One – Part 6/7

17 Jun

I did not agree with the ogre idiot but the principal refused to take this incident to the next step and contact the proper authorities such as the police and child services.

The law in California is specific. Since I was a teacher and the one that reported the incident, I was the one that could lose his job if Macario was sexually molested and it went unreported to the proper authorities, and the ogre idiot would not lose his job.

I had no choice. I had to finish the job that the principal should have done.

My school days were often 11 hours or longer. I usually arrived at 6:00 AM when the gates were unlocked and seldom drove home until after 5:00 PM and sometimes stayed as late as 11:00 PM to work with my journalism students.

The time I spent at school does not count the time I spent at home correcting student work or planning lessons.  On average, I corrected at least 20 to 30 hours at home after having spend a workweek that often ran 60 to 80 hours at school.

Many people outside of education believe a teacher’s job is only the time he or she spends teaching, which is about five or six hours a day during a school week, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. To keep a credential, teachers are required to take annual classes and workshops to stay current in their field, attend staff meetings, and spend 20 to 40 hours of annual duty supervising sports outside the regular school day.

I also corrected student work before school, at lunch, after school and any time I could find during class when my students settled down and quietly worked on an assignment, which was rare.

To be continued on June 18, 2011 in The Sexual Molestation of the Happy One – Part 7 or return to Part 5

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

 
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Posted by on June 17, 2011 in American Public Schools, child abuse, family values, Parenting, student behavior, Teaching

 

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Debating about the “Educated Elite” – Part 1/2

29 May

An “old” friend, a libertarian, evangelical conservative that may agree with what  the Sovereign Citizen movement preaches ( Sixty Minutes on May 15, 2011 ), sent me two links disparaging college education failing to educate good citizens.

I did not agree with the evidence he submitted.

The video link he sent was of college students claiming to support freedom of speech but wanting to ban conservative talk-show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck from both radio & TV (the video was filmed at CSU Fresno).

How do we define the term “educated elite”?

Is being a student at a college or university enough to be considered among the “educated elite”?

I don’t think so, since many students that start college don’t finish.

Only a “fool” would call a college student that may fail all or most of his or her classes then drops out of college a member of the “educated elite”.  Attending college doesn’t automatically make someone a member of the “educated elite”.  You have to graduate first and get a job that pays well, which I will talk about in more detail in Part 2.

How many students graduate from college and have a chance to join the “educated elite”.  Remember, graduating isn’t enough to achieve the status of “educated elite”.

“At public colleges and universities only 29.0% of students graduate in the traditional four-year time frame.

“Of course, the timeframe most used to discuss graduation rates is the six-year window. This timeframe appears to be used because here graduation rates pick up substantially. At public schools the percentage of students that graduate within six years nearly doubles to 54.7%.

“One might think those more expensive private, non-profit schools would have significantly better numbers. They do in fact have better numbers but given their overall selectivity the rates continue to be extremely disappointing.

“Over the four-year timeframe, we see that private schools graduate 50.4% of their students, a number that nearly mirrors the six-years of public institutions.” Source: Open Education.net

Continued on May 30, 2011 in Debating about the “Educated Elite” – Part 2

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves

Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).

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Posted by on May 29, 2011 in Education, literacy, media, politics

 

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Putting the Blame where it Belongs — Part 6/6

20 May

Comparing the current method used to report API scores with my friend’s suggestion.

A numeric API score ranges from a low of 200 to a high of 1000. The interim statewide API performance target for all schools is 800. A school’s growth is measured by how well it is moving toward or past that goal. The target date to reach this goal is 2014. Recently, Education Secretary Arne Duncan admitted that 82 percent of public schools could be labeled “failing” under No Child Left Behind specifications as they are written at this time.

Current Academic Performance Index Growth by Student Group in California

2010 Growth API Comparison

All Students ­– 767
Black or African American – 686
American Indian or Alaska Native – 728
Asian – 890
Filipino – 851
Hispanic or Latino – 715
Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander – 753
White – 838
Two or More Races – 808
Socioeconomically Disadvantaged – 712
English Learners – 692
Students with Disabilities – 580

My Friend’s Suggested API Report
(Since this does not exist, this is a fictional representation)

900 – 1000
5% of student population, which completed 95 to 100% of homework and/or class work and participated daily in class – average student with this API score reading at or above grade level

800 – 899
15% of student population, which completed 80 to 95% of home work and/or class work and participated often in class – average student with this API score reading at or within one or two years of grade level

700 – 799
30% of student population, which completed between 70 to 82% of homework and/or class work and sometimes participated in class. – average student with this API score reading two or three years below grade level

600 to 699
30% of student population, which completed between 55 to 68% of homework and/or class work and seldom participated in class – average student with this API score reading four to five years below grade level

500 to 599
15% of student population, which completed between 45 to 60% percent of homework and/or class work and rarely participate in class – average student with this API score reading at about fourth grade level

499 or less
5% of student population, which completed less than 10% of homework, 30% of class work and never participated in class – average student with this API score reading at about second grade level

Note — There may also be percentages for each of the six levels that show each ethnic group in each API ranking. For example, 800 – 899 = African-American 10%, Asian 30%, Latino 8%, and White 52%. This way we learn that of the 15% of total students that scored in the 800 – 899 range, there are students of each ethnic group in that API ranking.

Return to Solving the Putting the Blame where it Belongs – Part 5 or start with Part 1

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

 
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Posted by on May 20, 2011 in American Public Schools, Education, family values, Parenting, politics, Public School

 

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Putting the Blame where it Belongs — Part 5/6

19 May

The last step to input this data into the new API index would be easy.  Teachers would make a digital copy of the grades on a CD or a thumb drive or attached to an e-mail sent to an administrative site where the information was fed into a database.

If the law says we cannot reveal student names, then we use student ID numbers, which are kept confidential at the school site.

The district has information on ethnicity, age and sex for every student so that information is merged using the student ID numbers.

The result would be an index that reveals which students are working and those that aren’t. Teachers would only be responsible to teach, correct student assignments and record grades, while students and their parents would be responsible to see that the work and reading is completed.

To make sure that students are learning, there would still be the standardized test to measure growth but with students actually involved instead of watching TV, playing video games or sending the average 1500 text messages a month, there would be reading outside of class, doing homework and studying instead.

This puts the responsibility where it belongs—on students and parents. If a teacher is not doing a good job teaching, students are going to complain and administration is going to observe.

Every few weeks, I printed out a progress report for each of my students that told them everything I’ve mentioned in this series of posts and I required those students to take those reports home and have their parents sign them.

However, if our society is unwilling to hold students and parents responsible to cooperate in their education and we keep placing “ALL” the blame on teachers, America has failed and nothing will solve this problem.

On May 20, 2011, in Solving the API Dilemma – Part 6, we shall see a comparison between the actual API scores in California and my friend’s suggestion of how to show results on standardized tests without being racist when showing who is responsible for the results.

Continued on May 20, 2011 in Putting the Blame where it Belongs – Part 6 or return to Part 4

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

 
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Posted by on May 19, 2011 in American Public Schools, Education, family values, literacy, Parenting, politics, Public School

 

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Putting the Blame where it Belongs — Part 4/6

18 May

To make this new Academic Index work, most if not all teachers use computer grading programs.  All teachers need do is make sure there are categories for homework, class discussion, students asking questions related to the work, class work, quizzes and tests.

I taught for thirty years and kept track of all of those categories easily.  I also fed that information into a computer-grading program. I knew who wasn’t doing homework—the same goes for class work and in many cases no matter how many phone calls I made or how many failure notices I mailed home to the parents, little changed.

For example, if the parent of a failing student came to a parent conference, I could tell them that his or her son did eight of 23 homework assignments and what the average grade earned was.  I could do the same for class work, students asking questions, quizzes, tests and for class discussions.

Since most of my tests on literature in the English textbook were open book, it was easy to see who didn’t read the story or study.  After all, I handed out study guides before each quiz and test.

For class discussions and questions related to the class work, I carried a clip board with a seating chart where I kept track of who said what by putting a mark next to the name of the student that was involved.

I transferred that information into the computer-grading program and at parent conferences, I could tell parents every facet of their child’s grade.

Students that never asked questions or took part in discussions had no marks next to his or her name for those categories and I could easily tell parents that their child never asked questions or took part in discussions.

In fact, I could tell them how many classroom assignments had been turned in and the grade for every assignment or the average grade.

Continued on May 19, 2011 in Putting the Blame where it Belongs – Part 5 or return to Part 3

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

 
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Posted by on May 18, 2011 in American Public Schools, Education, family values, literacy, Parenting, politics, Public School

 

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Putting the Blame where it Belongs — Part 1/6

15 May

It is absurd and stupid to blame teachers for students that do not do class work, homework, and study for tests or read books outside class.

Washington D.C. and the president of the United States are demanding that teachers do the impossible.

We must repeal the No Child Left Behind Act and enact into law “No Student and/or Parent Ignored” (NSPI), because that is what we are doing—ignoring the students and parents.

An old friend suggested this idea, and it is how America will resolve its problems with public education.

The reason students do not show gains on the Academic Proficiency Index is NOT because of bad or boring teachers or teacher unions.  It is because most of those students are not doing homework, studying for tests or reading outside of school and many are not reading in school.

Since no one in Washington D.C. and/or the White House has placed blame where it should be, on students and parents, then why should students work?

Students must be held responsible to learn but they are not. Instead, many are encouraged to feel good and have fun and/or are ignored by parents.

After all, thanks to “No Child Left Behind”, parents are not responsible for their child’s education—only teachers have been held responsible. However, teachers cannot follow 150 to 200 students home and make sure they do homework, read and study each day.

A Kaiser Generation M2 – Kids/Youth/Media Survey (January 2010) said, “Total Media Exposure for all 8 to 18 year old’s average amount of time spend with each medium in a typical day was 10:45 hours

That average 10:45 hours was divided up with 4:29 hours spent watching TV; 2:31 hours listening to music; 1:29 hours on the computer; 1:13 hours playing video games; 30 minutes reading print media, and 25 minutes watching a movie.

If this is what the “average” child is doing daily in the US, when are they doing homework, reading or studying?

Continued on May 16, 2011 In Putting the Blame where it Belongs – Part 2, where we shall see my “old” friend’s solution to solve this problem.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

 
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Posted by on May 15, 2011 in American Public Schools, Education, family values, literacy, Parenting, politics, Public School

 

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Avoid the Mainstream Parent Trap – Part 5/9

08 May

Parents are a vital element of a child and teen’s education. Parents must be involved even if the children are attending public or private schools.

Teachers cannot do it all.

Students must read daily at home, do classwork, homework, and study for tests.  The job of a parent is to make sure the student does that work.  If a student fails a class while attending school, the main reason is he or she was not doing the work or studying while in class or at home and the parent failed in his or her job.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, there are about 64 million students in primary through secondary schools in America, while It has been estimated that 1.5 million students were homeschooled in the United States in 2007 (with a confidence interval of 1.3 to 1.7 million), constituting 2.9% of students.

It’s obvious that if a parent is teaching his or her children at home, the family is spending quality time together instead of watching too much TV, playing video games, sending text messages, or social networking on the Internet (see Recognizing Good Parenting – Part 2 for the average breakdown of time for each activity).

Instead, home taught students talk several hours a day with parents, and it pays off.

Academic statistics for home-taught students is impressive.

In 1997, a study of 5,402 home school students from 1,657 families was released. It was entitled, Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America. The study demonstrated that homeschoolers, on average, out-performed their counterparts in the public schools by 30 to 37 percentile points in all subjects.

This was confirmed in another study by Dr. Lawrence Rudner of 20,760 homeschooled students, which found the homeschoolers who have been home taught their entire mandatory school years had the highest academic achievement.

Another important finding of Strengths of Their Own was that the race of the student does not make any difference. There was no significant difference between minority and white homeschooled students. For example, in grades K-12, both white and minority students scored, on the average, in the 87th percentile.

The motivations for home schooling are based on a concern about the school environment (85% of parents that teach at home); a desire to provide religious or moral instruction (72% of parents); and a dissatisfaction with academic instruction at schools 68%.

There are other reasons but these three areas make up the majority.

In addition, Ordination.org reports, “For the third consecutive year, ACT college admissions test scores are higher for homeschoolers than for other students. Homeschoolers’ average composite score was 22.8, compared to the national average of 21, out of a possible 36. On the SAT, homeschoolers, who comprise less than 1 percent of test takers, earned 568 verbal and 532 in math. The national average…was 505 verbal and 514 math.”

A few more facts from Home School Resources Guide.com may clarify the picture more.

– 71% of homeschoolers actively participate in the community. Traditionally schooled students averaged only 37%.

– 76% of homeschoolers were more likely to be involved in civic affairs, compared to only 36% of their public-schooled counterparts.

– 58.9% of the homeschoolers surveyed reported they were “very happy” with life, in contrast to 27.6% of traditional students.

If you are a parent that is home teaching your children, breathe a sigh of relief, because the odds are that you do not fit the definition of the American “average” or “norm” for a parent.

Another factor that plays an important role in being a parent is peer pressure among teens, which I will deal with in Part 6.

Continued on May 9, 2011 in Avoid the Mainstream Parent Trap – Part 6 or return to Part 4

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.

His latest novel is the award winning Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to kill Americans.

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Posted by on May 8, 2011 in American Public Schools, Education, family values, Parenting, Public School

 

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