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Fresno: Low Scores, Great Students!

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2019 //
13

 

The boys’ volleyball team at Kepler Neighborhood School, mostly 7th and 8th graders, went for a run over a bridge near the school. They spotted a woman attempting suicide, dangling from the bridge. They raced to ask their coach what to do. He said, “Tell her that her life matters,” as he dialed 911.  The boys ran to the woman and told her again and again that her life matters, that people care about her, that she must not give up.

She pulled herself up. She did not commit suicide. The boys persuaded her to go on living.

According to the NAEP data, Fresno schools and students are among the lowest performing in the nation. Their scores are very low.

What do you think of those kids in Fresno now? Put another way, what do you think about using the scores to judge the worth of these boys?

Categories California, Character, Citizenship, Education Reform, Goodness, NAEP, Testing

Public Schools Week Starts Today! Support Our Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2019 //
17

 

Public Schools Week is March 25-29.

Download the toolkit of the Network for Public Education and do your part to support public schools! 

The forces of privatization are rising up, making promises and failing to keep any of those promises.

Public schools are the bedrock of democracy, doors open to all. Certified teachers in every classroom. Public schools strive for equality of educational opportunity, not privilege for the few.

Get involved. Do yourpart as a citizen.

Whose schools? Our schools!

Categories Citizenship, Democracy, Equity, Supporting public schools

Conservative Journal EdNext Defends Outsourcing American Public Schools to Foreign Entities

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2019 //
19

The Gülen charter schools are one of the biggest chains in the U.S. They have about 160 or more schools. They usually claim they have no connection to Imam Fethullah Gülen, but they can be identified by the unusual number of Turkish teachers in the school, many using H1B visas; by the preponderance of Turkish men on their board of directors; by their inclusion of Turkish language in their curriculum; and by their preference to award contracts to Turkish-owned contractors, even when those firms were not the low bidder.

The Gulen schools call themselves by different names, but they are all somehow connected to a reclusive imam who lives in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.

I don’t know whether the Gülen schools are good or bad schools, I just think it odd to outsource what are supposed to be American public schools to foreign nationals.

The conservative journal EdNext, funded largely by the conservative Hoover Institution, defends the Gülen charters and critiques those who would dare to criticize them. 

Should we outsource community public schools to Saudi Arabia? to Russia? to China? to North Korea? to Brazil?

Where would EdNext draw the line? Or do they think there should be no line at all? Why should America have public schools?

American public schools are supposed to teach civics, democratic values, and history. Can we turn that over to teachers who have never studied American history or civics? Is it a good idea to outsource our public schools? According to EdNext, yes.

For anyone who wants to learn more about the Gulen charter school movement, I recommend Mark Hall’s film, “Killing Ed” and parent activist Sharon Higgins’ investigative reporting about the Gulen schools. 

Some Gulen schools have been investigated by the FBI. Here is a 2012 report in the New York Times that EdNext won’t mention.

The writer was Stephanie Saul.

A group of three publicly financed charter schools in Georgia run by followers of Fethullah Gulen, a prominent Turkish imam, have come under scrutiny after they defaulted on bonds and an audit found that the schools improperly granted hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts to businesses and groups, many of them with ties to the Gulen movement.

The audit, released Tuesday by the Fulton County Schools near Atlanta, found the schools made purchases like T-shirts, teacher training and video production services from organizations with connections to school officials or Gulen followers. Those included more than $500,000 in contracts since January 2010 with the Grace Institute, a foundation whose board has included school leaders. In some cases the awards skirted bidding requirements, the audit said.

“I would just question how those vendors were selected when price in many instances wasn’t part of the decision making,” said the Fulton County superintendent, Robert Avossa, who criticized the schools for conflicts of interest. “And those are public dollars.”

Gulen followers run more than 120 charter schools nationwide, making the loosely affiliated network one of the nation’s largest public charter school operators. Despite clear connections, the schools generally deny any affiliation with the Gulen movement, a powerful religious and political force in Turkey whose leader, Mr. Gulen, views establishing schools as part of his mission. While some of the charter schools have been praised for their academic performance, their business practices have raised questions.

The New York Times reported last year that the group’s 36 Texas schools had granted millions of dollars in construction and renovation contracts to firms run by Turkish-Americans with ties to the movement, in some cases bypassing lower bids from firms with no connections to the movement. The Texas schools also awarded deals for cafeteria food, after-school programs and teacher training to organizations affiliated with Gulen followers.

The Georgia audit, posted to the Fulton County Schools Web site Tuesday evening, focused on the Fulton Science Academy Middle School in Alpharetta, Ga., a 500-student school that was recently denied a renewal of its public charter. The school, which had received $32 million in public funds over the past 10 years, said it would operate as a private school. While the audit does not lay out all of the relationships between contractors and the movement, a chart shows connections between the people running the schools, some of the vendors and Gulen-connected groups.

Dr. Avossa said that the audit’s findings had raised concerns about the group’s two other public charter schools in his district: Fulton Science Academy High School and Fulton Sunshine Academy, an elementary school.

He said a full audit would be conducted of those schools “to gauge whether similar wrongdoing is taking place.”

The three schools have enrolled 1,200 students representing a cross section of students in the Fulton County district.

Wells Fargo Bank, trustee of a $19 million bond issue by the schools, told investors on May 15 that the three schools were in default on those bonds. The bank said the default was caused by the group’s failure to disclose in its bond offering last year that its middle school charter renewal might have been in jeopardy. “The failure to disclose the ongoing concerns with Fulton Science Academy’s charter renewal petition constituted an omission of material facts in the public statement,” Wells Fargo said.

A default gives the bondholders the right to demand immediate payment, possibly requiring a liquidation of some school assets. The bonds are trading at about 70 percent of face value.

Concerns about governance and transparency were partly behind the district’s rejection of the Fulton Science Academy Middle School’s demand for a 10-year charter renewal. The school was named a “blue-ribbon” school last year by the federal government for its performance and appealed unsuccessfully to the state.

Kenan Sener, the school’s principal, said that the audit contained significant inaccuracies and that the school would issue a statement on Wednesday, after fully reviewing the document.

Nationwide, the charter schools have pursued an aggressive expansion plan, much of it financed by public bond issues, with the Texas schools borrowing more than $200 million through bond offerings.

In Texas, the group’s spending has been the focus of investigations by the State Legislature and the Texas Education Agency. The federal Department of Education is also investigating the Texas schools, apparently focusing on allegations of discrimination against Hispanic special education students in enrollment. The schools have denied wrongdoing.

One criticism of the schools involves their reliance on teachers imported from Turkey while teacher unemployment in the United States remains high. The audit said the Fulton Science Academy Middle School had paid $75,000 in immigration-related expenses for such employees.

Although the schools are inspired by Mr. Gulen and teach Turkish language and culture, they do not teach religion.

 

Categories Accountability, Citizenship, Civics, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gulen Charter Schools, Privatization

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Explains Who Can Serve the Community Best

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2019 //
11

This wonderful quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was sent to me this morning by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

As the nation honors the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we should all ask ourselves what we are doing to help achieve King’s vision of a “Beloved Community.”

Community is what Congress had in mind in 1994 when it designated MLK Day as a national day of service.

Dr. King knew that all of us have something to contribute. He understood the power of community action – of many small acts pushing a society closer to its ideals.

“Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve,” he said. “You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. … You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.”

Categories Citizenship, Civil Rights, Courage, Love

Max Boot: Vote Against Republicans. Every Single One.

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2018 //
19

Max Boot, who recently renounced his ties to the Republican Party, urges you to vote for Democrats. He begins by quoting Joe Biden. He is sickened by the Trump dominance of his former party.

“


I am sick and tired of this administration.

“I’m sick and tired of what’s going on.

“I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I hope you are, too.” 
— Joe Biden 


[Boot writes ]

I’m sick and tired, too.


I’m sick and tired of a president who pretends that a caravan of impoverished refugees is an “invasion” by “unknown Middle Easterners” and “bad thugs” — and whose followers on Fox News pretend the refugees are bringing leprosy and smallpox to the United States. (Smallpox was eliminated about 40 years ago.)




Donald Trump has irreversibly changed the Republican Party. The upheaval might seem unusual, but as Opinion writer Robert Gebelhoff explains, political transformations crop up throughout U.S. history.

I’m sick and tired of a president who misuses his office to demagogue on immigration — by unnecessarily sending 5,200 troops [editor’s note: now upped to 15,000] to the border and by threatening to rescind by executive order the 14th Amendment guarantee of citizenship to anyone born in the United States.


I’m sick and tired of a president who is so self-absorbed that he thinks he is the real victim of mail-bomb attacks on his political opponents — and who, after visiting Pittsburgh despite being asked by local leaders to stay away, tweeted about how he was treated, not about the victims of the synagogue massacre.


I’m sick and tired of a president who cheers a congressman for his physical assault of a reporter, calls the press the “enemy of the people ” and won’t stop or apologize even after bombs were sent to CNN in the mail.


I’m sick and tired of a president who employs the language of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jewish financier George Soros and “globalists,” and won’t apologize or retract even after what is believed to be the worst attack on Jews in U.S. history.




I’m sick and tired of a president who won’t stop engaging in crazed partisanship, denouncing Democrats as “evil,” “un-American” and “treasonous” subversives who are in league with criminals.


I’m sick and tired of a president who cares so little about right-wing terrorism that, on the very day of the synagogue shooting, he proceeded with a campaign rally, telling his supporters, “Let’s have a good time.”


I’m sick and tired of a president who presides over one of the most unethical administrations in U.S. history — with three Cabinet members resigning for reported ethical infractions and the secretary of the interior the subject of at least 18 federal investigations.


I’m sick and tired of a president who flouts norms of accountability by refusing to release his tax returns or place his business holdings in a blind trust.


I’m sick and tired of a president who lies outrageously and incessantly — an average of eight times a day — claiming recently that there are riots in California and that a bill that passed the Senate 98 to 1 had “very little Democrat support.”


I’m sick and tired of a president who can’t be bothered to work hard and instead prefers to spend his time watching Fox News and acting like a Twitter troll.


And I’m sick and tired of Republicans who go along with Trump — defending, abetting and imitating his egregious excesses.
I’m sick and tired of Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) acting like a caddie for the man he once denounced as a “kook” — just this week, Graham endorsed Trump’s call for rescinding “birthright citizenship,” a kooky idea if ever there was one.




I’m sick and tired of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who got his start in politics as a protege of the “bleeding-heart conservative” Jack Kemp, refusing to call out Trump’s race-baiting.


I’m sick and tired of Republicans who once complained about the federal debt adding $113 billion to the debt just in fiscal year 2018.


I’m sick and tired of Republicans who once championed free trade refusing to stop Trump as he launches trade wars with all of our major trade partners.


I’m sick and tired of Republicans who not only refuse to investigate Trump’s alleged ethical violations but who also help him to obstruct justice by maligning the FBI, the special counsel and the Justice Department.


Most of all, I’m sick and tired of Republicans who feel that Trump’s blatant bigotry gives them license to do the same — with Rep. Pete Olson (R-Tex.) denouncing his opponent as an “Indo-American carpetbagger,” Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis warning voters not to “monkey this up” by electing his African American opponent, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.) labeling his “Palestinian Mexican” opponent a “security risk” who is “working to infiltrate Congress,” and Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) accusing his opponent, who is of Indian Tibetan heritage, of “selling out Americans” because he once worked at a law firm that settled terrorism-related cases against Libya.


If you’re sick and tired, too, here is what you can do.

Vote for Democrats on Tuesday. For every office. Regardless of who they are. And I say that as a former Republican. Some Republicans in suburban districts may claim they aren’t for Trump. Don’t believe them. Whatever their private qualms, no Republicans have consistently held Trump to account. They are too scared that doing so will hurt their chances of reelection.

If you’re as sick and tired as I am of being sick and tired about what’s going on, vote against all Republicans. Every single one.

Categories Bigotry, Citizenship, Lies, Racism, Republicans

Arthur Camins: Schools Must Teach the Duty to Vote, Which Matters More Than Test Scores

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2018 //
66

In close elections, every vote counts. Young people fought to lower the voting age from 21 to 18, but the youngest voters have low voting rates.

Arthur Camins writes that schools must encourage a sense of civic responsility in their students, this, GE says, is more important than test scores. Perhaps we should judge schools by the voting rates of their graduates in the four years after they leave school, not their scores.

He begins:


Predictably, the releases of the recent ACT and SAT scores prompted the usual alarms and cautions. Maybe these results are cause for concern. However, something else about K-12 education is more alarming: Young people who graduate and do not vote.

At this time and in this moment, the most important outcome of PK-12 education is citizens who vote. We need an education system intentionally designed to engage students to understand their values, exercise sound moral judgment, learn how to evaluate evidence, and become effective citizens who vote. Over the long haul, that is what stands between the current political quagmire and an inevitable slide into further divisiveness, deeper inequity, and an authoritarian state. That, surely, is far more urgent than how well students perform on inappropriately used standardized tests.

We need classrooms designed to teach children to live together in peace and with justice in a diverse democracy. We need classrooms designed to teach students how to use democracy to change, rather than passively accept, unjust features of their society.

It will not happen in segregated schools. It will not happen in publically funded, but privately governed schools. It will not happen when educators maniacally focus on avoiding the punishment and public humiliation that comes with low-test scores. It will not happen when educators are distracted by competition with other schools for students.

That can only happen in a free public education system governed by voting citizens in local communities. It will happen when the nation systematically addresses the intentionally planned and enforced inequity and scarcity that undermines family security and tears apart the multiethnic fabric that is our core strength. It will happen when current and future citizen vote for it.

Schools in the U.S. are failing, but not in the way that advocates for test-driven accountability, charter schools, and vouchers claim. The evidence for failure is not found in the less-than-stellar average scores of U.S. students on state, or national, or international assessment measures. Such performance is not the harbinger of coming socioeconomic and social doom. The rhetoric notwithstanding, the US economic and social structure has not made room for every student to succeed. Unfortunately, schools in the U.S. do a terrific job of preparing our young people to live in and accept the world as it is.

The evidence for failure is people who do not vote and voters who accept rather than challenge the prevailing inequality, racism, hatred and environmental degradation that continues to plague the lives of far too many people. Those failures work well for the already privileged, but not so much for the rest of us. Sadly, our education system graduates far too many citizens who view themselves as people who must grudgingly accept an inequitable status quo rather than act as change agents. The result is debilitating cynicism that turns into anger and rage.

Categories Citizenship

The Fourth of July Reminds Us to Fight to Recover and Repair Our Democracy

By dianeravitch
July 4, 2018 //
12

This is what July 4, 2018, means to me.

Not hot dogs, mustard, and potato chips, but our obligation to fight for our democracy.

At the present time, we are losing it day by day.

The U.S. Supreme Court has recently approved state laws that purge voters from the voting rolls because they have not consistently voted. It is not difficult to determine whether voters have died or moved out of state. Meanwhile, a basic right is whittled away because it was not exercised.

The high court recently approved racial gerrymandering.

The high court approved a Muslim Ban disguised as a national security issue.

The high court in Janus struck a blow at labor unions, allowing free riders to collect benefits without paying any dues.

The high court will soon be dominated by five justices determined to overturn Roe V. Wade and gay rights.

The administration wants to destroy the healthcare on which millions of Americans rely.

The administration denies climate change and is repealing regulations that protect the environment, Our air, our water, our national parks.

Our president and attorney general callously initiated a policy of separating children from their parents at the Southern border, some as young as three months, and cruelly shipped them far away. More than 2,000 have not been returned to their parents. Children and families languish in cages. We have become a pariah among nations, known for our cruelty, belligerence, and stupidity.

The administration daily insults our allies and courts the friendship of dictators.

Now is the time to resist.

Now is the time to recall the brave history of dissent and protest.

The best way to demonstrate your love of country is to resist, protest, demonstrate, join with others who are committed to democracy, equal rights, and the rule of law.

We must together stop the precipitous descent into fascism and plutocracy.

We must pledge ourselves to fight for the America we love, the America put at risk by venal, malevolent, unethical, and greedy leaders.

I will post today a few of my favorite examples of patriotic resistance. You are invited to add your own.

Categories Citizenship, Democracy, Resistance

Ed Berger: Arizona Government and Dark Money

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2018 //
3

Ed Berger, retired teacher, lives in Arizona and fights for the return of honest government.

He writes:

Arizona Government Does Not Match The Decency And Will Of Its People

We live in Arizona. We are decent, law abiding, citizens. So why is Arizona considered one of the most corrupt states in America? Why is Arizona often the example of how Democracy can be subverted? Why is our state out of sync with its population? What is wrong? Arizona government does not match the values of our citizens.
What can we do to make our elected representatives reflect the decency and will of the people? We must vote to remove those who corrupt the democratic process and their elected positions by accepting Dark Money.

Let’s examine a recent Senate/House vote. House Bill 2153 was passed into law over the objections of community leaders and citizens of all political parties and went into effect April 2, 2018. It prohibits any local government requirement to identify contributors to local political campaigns. Seventeen Senate members and thirty-three House members approved this measure and Governor Ducey signed it into law. This runs counter to initiatives by many communities acting in the public interest to expose Dark Money and its’ use to buy and place representatives and government leaders. They want to stop the covert, negative and destructive methods of oligarchs that bypass the citizen’s right to elect representatives they have vetted and chosen.

This is a current example of how the will of the people was ignored. To clean AZ government, we can study how representatives voted on key issues like this one, share their deeds, and get the bad ones gone. What We The People now have is a list of the seventeen senators and thirty-three house members who sold us out.

Prescott is still reeling from the effect of Dark Money in recent elections. In the race for District #1, few know that DeVos money (Dark Money) went to support a candidate this community rejected. With access to DeVos money and the use of gerrymandering, the citizen’s candidate was undermined and defeated. His opponent won and now owes DeVos bigtime. The recent mayoral election in Prescott is another example of how democracy is subverted by money and power. Those elected to represent us in the legislature are too often there because they owe allegiance to those who want our government to serve them, and not the people.

When one is aware of this fact, we can begin to understand how tens of millions of our taxpayer dollars have not only been mismanaged but have gone into the pockets of privatizers and profiteers. For many years, our legislature has passed and supported laws that do not allow accounting or transparency for how taxpayer public dollars are spent by charter schools. They have also done away with conflict of interest rules that would make it a criminal offence for legislators to use public money and position for personal gain. In addition, they have done away with democratically elected schools boards in favor of private corporate boards to oversee charter schools. Real public schools have elected school boards. But those who control the legislature have eliminated the tools of transparency and accountability that protect our investment in public education from being siphoned off from the needs of children and into the pockets of privateers.

This has been done to our state. Captive and bought members of the legislature have created uncounted millionaires by directing our money to friends, family, and those they support ideologically. This has been done out of pure greed. Ideologically it is done to starve and damage our public schools because they are “government schools” and have not yet been privatized for profit, not for kids. These are our schools, the ones over 80% of AZ citizens want to support and improve.

These are two on the many examples of the subversion of the democratic process. Yavapai County is reported to be a Republican stronghold. Some say people here always voted a straight “R” ticket. That may have been true years ago. Today Yavapai County is not Republican or Democrat or Independent. The citizens of this county have learned that the state government is not GOP, but rather a Koch, Goldwater Institute, APS, ALEC assembly of people who often describe themselves a Libertarians, which roughly translated means, ‘We have the right to rape, rip, and run if it serves us. We have the right to access for our personal gain the taxes citizens pay. We believe in privatizing all public resources, including prisons, schools and government functions.’ If one votes a straight “R” ticket what they are getting is a “Koch” ticket. Times have changed and now the legislature and governor are owned by forces that serve only themselves. Too often our politicians dance with the ones who ‘brung’ them.

So how do we win back the respect of other Americans and our decency as a people?

#1 We identify the legislators and political leaders that are owned by outside forces. We do this by examining their voting records and red tag all who have voted for laws that restrict financial accountability, shield members from conflicts of interest, and favor those who profit from privatizing prisons, schools, and public services.

#2 We share our information, educate our friends and neighbors, and support candidates that, regardless of political party affiliation, represent us and our community.

#3 We vote after vetting the candidates.

 

Categories ALEC, Arizona, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Citizenship, Civics, Dark Money, Democracy, Koch Brothers

Arthur Camins: Why Should You Care About the Common Good?

By dianeravitch
March 29, 2018 //
38

 

Arthur Camins reflects here about the importance of the common good. He writes about a society in which we care about one another, as opposed to a me-first individualism that currently commands our  public discourse.

There is a play on Broadway right now and in touring companies outside New York City called “Come from Away.” It is about 9/11. It takes place in Gander, Newfoundland, when airplanes were ordered not to enter American air space, and the town of 9,000 people discovered that it had 7,000 guests for several days. They provided them with foood, places to sleep, and friendship. They asked nothing in return. Not me-first but “here is help, here is welcome and respite for the stranger.”

Camins writes:

“Without one another we are diminished. The more we have others around us, the stronger we can become. That is the idea of the common good.

“It’s not a uniquely American idea, but it is one with which many of us identify.

“Republicans in Congress have a different idea. It applies to guns, health care, retirement, and education.

“Their value is a strain of individualism that stands in opposition to the common good. Their strategies are: Promote fear and undermine public confidence in government as a vehicle to keep people safe. The goal is the further enrichment of the already privileged.

“The Second Amendment was written to address maintenance of state militias (albeit, in part, to capture escaped slaves), not individuals with rifles. Fomenting fear of rampant crime and with it, the incompetence of government to protect people has become the go-to strategy to increase gun sales. It has been remarkably successful.

“Similarly, conservative efforts to replace Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and public education with individual vouchers appeal to the value of individualism that is in opposition to common-good collective solutions that depend on honest, effective government. Once again, the conservative strategy has been to undermine confidence in government by defunding it and thereby making it appear incompetent. Then, fear and just-worry-about-me individualism kick in as self-preservation.

“Conservatives have been remarkably successful, as Republicans are now dominant across federal and state governments and public confidence in government has declined…

”Progressives, need not shame individualism, but rather reframe it. That is, we become our best selves through others. We can only become our best selves when we are all safe, healthy, well-fed, and well-housed. We can only learn to be our best selves when we are educated with the benefits of diversity and equity. Hopeful, but hard.”

 

Categories Citizenship, Education Reform

Joanne Yatvin: The Purpose of Public Schools

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2018 //
20

Joanne Yatvin is a former teacher, principal, superintendent, and president of the National Council of Teachers of English.

 

Far too many politicians and ordinary citizens have forgotten that the purpose of American education is as much to support a democratic society, as it is to prepare students to be active citizens, in charge of themselves and their communities. They have also forgotten that the proof of the pudding is not how well our students’ test scores compare with those of other countries but the proportion of American citizens who are leading intelligent, productive, and caring lives.

Ideally, civic learning begins and continues for children at home, mostly by watching, listening, and imitating what good parents do. But not all homes are wise and harmonious, and even the best ones cannot offer the full range of experiences that civic maturity requires.

Traditionally, schools were expected to reinforce civic actions as children grew older, such as developing friendships with students of different backgrounds and taking responsibility for their own behavior. But now the pressure to raise test scores and increase graduation rates has forced most schools to abandon those responsibilities. In enacting harsh discipline policies and expecting academic achievement beyond what is normal, the demands for better test scores have all but wiped out the opportunities for teachers to teach and students to learn the basics of good citizenship. In addition, schools have been forced to reduce or eliminate recesses, and cut back on classes such as art, music, and physical education, where students are most likely to interact positively.

Although teachers do not have the power to change the school curricula or the emphasis on testing, they can eliminate some of the harsh practices that have come with them.  Teachers may still set up processes in the classroom that allow students to have power and work together, such as selecting books to read, planning projects, and developing classroom rules. When students feel that “this is our classroom” rather than the teacher’s personal domain, they will learn how to be responsible citizens in their own school community.

At the school-wide level it is up to administrators to establish policies that respect students’ rights and personal dignity, even when they have broken the rules. One common practice should be giving students a fair hearing before setting any punishment. That means a private meeting with the adults involved after everyone’s temper has cooled. In really serious matters, a hearing before a committee made up of the principal, a few teachers, and one or two community members is the best choice. As for consequences, schools should reconsider suspensions and expulsions for minor offenses by older students and any errors  by young children.

The next step in civic education is having students share decision making with adults in ways that are age-appropriate.  For instance, elementary grade students can work with teachers to choose new playground games and set the rules of participation, while high school students should serve on groups that make decisions about what is best for them, such as curriculum committees and even the local School Board.

In their free time students of all ages should be encouraged to join with adults on local projects such as planting a community garden, adopting a road, or building a playground in a neighborhood that has none.

Once more, I remind you that giving all this attention to student citizenship is not an unreasonable expectation. Until high stakes testing took over our schools, demanding that every school day and every bit of student and teacher effort be dedicated to raising test scores, public support for character building in schools was common. But now, the legislators concerned about school “accountability” have no interest in how students treat each other or how schools treat their students.

Concern for the growth of responsibility and humanity in our children should never be out of style.

 

Categories Character, Citizenship
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