Wednesday, June 29, 2005

You be the editor

This lead ran in a Joplin Globe story June 25. Tell me what's wrong with it:

GALENA, Kan. - A Galena police officer is no longer employed by the department after an incident where he reportedly shot and killed an injured dog three times without contacting the dog's owners.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Supreme Court decisions could affect you

The United States Supreme Court yesterday made a handful of decisions that could very easily affect your lives, including decisions about file-sharing software for music and movies, the posting of The Ten Commandments at government buildings, whether people can sue police if they do not enforce restraining orders, and whether cable companies have to allow internet providers to use their systems. The Chicago Sun-Times has separate stories on each of these items on the following link:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-ten28.html

Friday, June 24, 2005

Graduation requirements increased

Graduation requirements for Missouri students have increased. And some new requirements have been added. We talked about this briefly in communication arts last year. Check out the article from the Jefferson City News-Tribune.
http://newstribune.com/articles/2005/06/24/news_state/0062405032.txt

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Las Vegas dress code upheld

The following story was printed this week in the Las Vegas Sun.

A federal judge has thrown out a challenge to the Clark County School District's mandatory student dress code.
In an order issued Friday, U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt granted the district's motion to dismiss the case before trial, saying he found no merit in the ACLU of Nevada's claim that the policy violated students and parents' civil rights and is unconstitutional.
However Hunt did strike provisions in the dress code that allowed principals to suspend the policy for students with religious objections or on special school occasions.
Students who claimed the district dress code impeded their right to religious freedom or expression did not prove their case, Hunt said.
The district has asserted that the dress code policy "is rationally based on increasing student achievement, promoting safety and enhancing a positive school environment," the decision states. "These laws do not contemplate applying the mandatory uniform policy selectively to certain individuals on the basis of their religion or any other distinguishing factor."
"We are very pleased with the judge's decision," said Bill Hoffman, senior legal counsel for the district. "The heart of the issue was whether it was constitutional to have a dress code and that is where we've won."
Allen Lichtenstein, attorney for the Nevada ACLU, said he was disappointed by the ruling but not deterred. He said the group will appeal.
"We've said from the very beginning this is something that is going to be determined not by the district court but by the 9th (U.S.) Circuit (Court of Appeals)," Lichtenstein said. "We believe that court, based on its prior decisions, will find the School District's policy unconstitutional."
The ACLU filed the challenge after former Liberty High School student Kim Jacobs was repeatedly disciplined for wearing T-shirts bearing messages from the Book of Mormon.
Liberty, the district's first school to adopt the "campus wardrobe" policy, requires students to wear khaki bottoms and solid-colored red, white or blue shirts.
While Jacobs eventually withdrew from Liberty and moved to Northern California to live with her mother, citing the pressure that accompanied her legal battles, five other families and their children joined the ACLU suit.
In his decision, Hunt said student attire "may constitute speech on many levels" and in some situations is protected by the First Amendment. But while District Regulation 5131 "limits a student's clothing options, the regulation does allow for a range of clothing and color options," according to the decision.
"Further, students may continue to express themselves through other and traditional methods of communication throughout the school day; only their ability to communicate through their choice of clothing is incidentally restricted," the decision states."Students are free to wear what they will after school hours and elsewhere."
In his decision, Hunt struck down a provision in the regulation that allowed administrators to determine whether an exemption request on religious grounds was valid.
Hunt said the section was overly broad and left too much discretion to administrators. Additionally the exemption is unnecessary as the district's dress code policy does not violate religious freedom, he said.
The judge additionally struck down another clause allowing principals to suspend the policy for "spirit days, special occasions and/or special conditions." Additionally the clause allowing principals to suspend the dress code policy opened the door to the possibility that the policy could be unfairly applied, the judge said.
Hoffman said the district would follow the judge's instructions and remove the two exemptions from the regulation.
Hunt said the ACLU did not provide proof that Jacobs suffered lasting harm as a result of her repeated suspensions and missing weeks of classes at Liberty. In fact, the judge noted, the district's evidence showed that Jacobs' academic performance actually improved during the time that she was required to complete her assignments at home.
The judge's ruling also noted that while the district provide extensive documentation to support the argument that uniforms were improving student performance and the campus environment, the ACLU did not counter with any documentation that the dress code was causing harm.
Gary Peck, executive director of the Nevada ACLU, said his organization did not provide that evidence because it was not asked to do so by the court. Rather, Peck said, the two sides were asked by the court to limit their arguments to the constitutional questions.
Schools may adopt dress code policies more strict than the districtwide regulation provided parents are surveyed at at least 55 percent of the respondents are in favor of the change. "Standard student attire" limits the colors, styles and fabrics that are allowed. Blue jeans are banned at the high schools.
The ACLU has also taken issue with the district's procedure for surveying parents, saying the 55 percent threshold is too low. But Hunt said that is not a question for the court as the procedure complies with the state statute that allows school districts to establish uniform policies provided parents and the school community are first consulted.

Friday, June 17, 2005

Results in from Schaivo autopsy

The Terri Schaivo case was one we discussed in Comm. Arts during the past school year. Her autopsy results are in. Was she in a persistent vegetative state? Find out more by checking out the following link:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-schiavo16.html

Thursday, June 16, 2005

It is a question that always faces educators. Should students receive credit for their effort even if they do not do well on the work and on tests. The following article was published in the Tuesday Washington Post.


Where Some Give Credit, Others Say It's Not DueAcross the Nation, Teachers' Views Vary on Whether Struggling Students Deserve Points Simply for Trying

By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Like most American teachers, Will Crawford includes credit for effort when he fills out the report cards of his government and history students at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax County.
"Grades from assignments indirectly measure effort," he said. "I tell students that as long as they keep up with projects and homework and make an honest effort on tests and quizzes, they won't fail," he said.
Six miles away at West Potomac High School in the same school district, chemistry and physics teacher Stephen Rezendes rejects that approach because he believes it sends the wrong message to students, and is against district policy.
"Rewarding effort and not achievement is not helping the student," he said. "It's basically assuming they can't achieve."
While tests demanded by the No Child Left Behind law measure each school's and each student's progress on the same scale, it is the report cards that students and parents care about most. And report cards are still based, as they have been for generations, on conflicting rules and personal assumptions made by individual teachers.
This is particularly true of the ticklish issue of grading effort. Teachers frequently ask themselves: If a student does all the homework, listens in class but averages a D on tests, should hard work result in at least a C? Or does that render grades meaningless and make it less likely the student will master the material?
Mel Lucas, an expert on grading who is director of research and assessment for the school board of Alachua County, Fla., said a national effort is underway to ensure that grades measure only academic achievement and keep effort out of the calculation.
This, he said, grows out of concern over "the quality of the workforce and the future of our country." Some critics, he said, say that "children are coming out of high school not as well educated as their parents" and that one of the culprits is a grading system that lets them slide through school if they do what they are told, even if they don't learn much.
Official guidelines on grading are often vague, nonexistent or ignored. Giving credit for homework, for instance, is not addressed in the Fairfax High School Teachers Guide, which says only that grades should measure achievement and "do not measure potential or social performance."
One of the most aggressive efforts to eliminate, or at least reduce, grading for effort has occurred in Montgomery County, where a new policy -- still awaiting final school board approval -- limits credit for completing homework for practice to no more than 10 percent of a final grade.
Many teachers say such a policy would rob them of a useful motivating tool.
"I do give frequent homework assignments that are not difficult that help boost their grades," said Anita Shepherd, chairman of the social studies department at Patuxent High School in Calvert County. "My purpose in giving the assignments is to motivate the students to do the necessary reading and analysis so they can master the material."
Brad Hopewell, who teaches social studies and theory of knowledge at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in the District, said: "If a student is having a difficult time but works hard and puts forth a great deal of effort, I think that real-life skill should be rewarded. I frankly do not see how struggling students will be motivated to succeed if there are not some short-term rewards for their struggles."
Jaime Escalante, the Advanced Placement calculus teacher who inspired the film "Stand and Deliver," said he also raised grades for effort when he taught at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. "If the kid put in a lot of hard work, I had to recognize that," he said by telephone from Bolivia, where he is semi-retired. "And if you put in a lot of effort, you're going to learn something."
But many teachers said their experience has been different. Better grades for showing up and turning in homework, they said, keep students from doing what is necessary to master the material.
"I think this has been a particular problem in some of the middle schools in the past," said David Stein, who teaches AP calculus and AP statistics at Montgomery Blair High School in Montgomery County. "It has resulted in some ninth-graders coming to high school expecting to pass their classes without actually learning anything."
Karen Gruner, who teacheschemistryat St. John's Literary Institute at Prospect Hall in Frederick County, said: "One of life's tough lessons is trying hard and failing. It does no kid anywhere any good to give grades based on trying hard or behaving nicely because sooner or later they hit the wall of not having the knowledge the grade implied."
Julie Greenberg, who also teaches math at Montgomery Blair High, said she, like Stein, agrees with her county's plan to reduce the effect of effort in the grading system. "My guiding principle in teaching is that telling the truth about mastery is the best thing I can do for now," she said. "We're way too new at this process of finally trying to evaluate mastery to stop in our tracks and encourage grading that blurs effort and mastery."
There is little conclusive research on grading practices, although one study by Lucas and University of Florida economist David N. Figlio indicated that Florida elementary school students showed more improvement on state tests if they had teachers who were tough graders. The researchers noted that tougher grading had no effect on students whose achievement levels were extremely low, and the study did not cover high schools.
Lucas said he thinks the solution is one grade on the report card for achievement and a separate grade for effort. This appears to be working in many elementary schools, but in high school it might bring arguments about which grades would figure into the grade-point average sent to colleges.
Clif Tramel, who teaches AP English literature at Weatherford High School in Weatherford, Tex., said he can persuade more students to stay in his challenging class if he does not grade them as harshly as some of their work deserves. That helps them, he said, because the alternative would be for them to drop down to a much easier class.
Hopewell said the same technique worked for him last year when a student who received a C for effort the first semester suddenly blossomed. "He began to build on the foundation that effort alone had built," he said. "By the third quarter, he had an A and was showing signs of real brilliance."
It just goes to show, Hopewell added, that "if students are motivated throughout the process of learning and graded for effort, you're more likely to see better end results."

Sunday, June 12, 2005

Should parents foot the bill for sports, activities?

Today's Kansas City Star features an article in which the prospect of parents having to pay for students participating in extracurricular activities. This is necessary, some think, in order to be able to pay for the enormous cost of education. Read the following link and tell me what you think:
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/11874029.htm

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

A letter has been written by the lawyer representing LaStaysha Myers to Webb City School District trying to clarify on whether it is ready to live up to its promise to allow her to wear t-shirts with Gay Pride messages on them during the 2005-2006 school year.
Should she and other students be allowed to wear this kind of clothing or would it be too disruptive?
The story is on the home page at www.rturner229.blogspot.com .
This kind of thing had better never happen in Joplin. A St. Louis area school had to recall its school yearbooks because of extremely inappropriate material in them. Read about it at the following link: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/education/story/8EEF1907E13360188625701900131737?OpenDocument

Sunday, June 05, 2005

Thanks to Lindsey Hamm, Brittany Harmon, and Andrew Frost for leaving comments on this new site. I look forward to hearing from more of you...and perhaps getting a little debate going on some of these issues. Let me know if there are any subjects you would like to see placed on this blog. Thanks again.

Thursday, June 02, 2005

Should student newspapers have the right to publish articles about controversial topics. High school students in Bakersfield, Calif., ran into a roadblock in their efforts to run a series of articles on a controversial subject. Check out the CNN article at the following link
http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/05/20/student.paper.lawsuit.ap/index.html
Caffeine is the last thing that students should have according to the following article from the May 24 Atlanta Journal-Constitution:


First-graders shouldn't be allowed to drink caffeinated colas during school because just a few ounces can make them rowdy and inhibit concentration, according to a study released Monday at the American Psychiatric Association's 158th annual meeting in Atlanta.
"Parents should also think about eliminating the caffeine colas at home, not to mention chocolate and other candies," said Dr. Alan R. Hirsch, a psychiatrist and neurologist who runs the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago. "Kids can't tell whether sodas have caffeine or not, so you have to wonder why it's in the drinks. It's almost the equivalent of nicotine in cigarettes."
Hirsch and colleagues let 20 Chicago-area first-graders --- 10 children of each gender --- drink either caffeine-free cola or caffeinated cola over three weeks, during which their behavior was rated by teachers who didn't know what they were drinking. The children didn't know either.
But those who quaffed caffeinated cola "manifested behavioral problems . . . suggesting that consumption of this should be minimized in this age group," Hirsch said.
The study found that the children clearly preferred caffeinated cola to cola without caffeine. Average consumption of caffeinated cola was 9.45 ounces on days the children were allowed to drink sodas, compared with 7.55 ounces of caffeine-free cola.
Behavioral problems were rated as 432 percent worse on days when the first-graders consumed caffeinated colas than when they drank caffeine-free soda, Hirsch said.
"Drinking an average of less than one can of caffeinated cola causes significant worsening of behavior amongst first-graders," he said. "Hence psychological and learning enhancement should be added to the list of dental caries [decay], sugar load in promotion of obesity and adverse affect of cola consumption on children."
Kathleen Dezio, vice president of the American Beverage Association, said the three largest soft drink manufacturers --- Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Cadbury Schweppes, which manufactures Dr. Pepper and 7-Up --- have policies prohibiting them from selling carbonated soft drinks to elementary-school-age children during school hours.
Still, Hirsch said, young children do have access to such drinks in many elementary and most middle and high schools, "and this is something parents and school administrators need to think about."
In Georgia, elementary schools aren't allowed to sell such beverages until the end of the final lunch period, spokeswoman Maribeth Brannen said. "The rules leave a lot of room for principals to put machines in hallways outside of the cafeteria. Some could have pop machines, open after lunch."
Nationally, most high schools allow the sale of carbonated beverages, even though the American Academy of Pediatrics has called for restricting the availability of such drinks.
Hundreds of studies will be presented through Thursday at the APA's annual meeting. Hirsch's, like most, has yet to be submitted to a scientific journal for peer review and publication.

All right. Now that you have read the article (if you have read the article), the question remains. Should pop machines be pulled out of schools?

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

We writing teachers were pleased when we heard that SATs would now include an essay. This columnist does not believe these essays are a good thing. Check out the column at
http://jewishworldreview.com/0605/perelman.php3