Declaration of Beliefs and Visions in Philadelphia

July 25, 2004 We're not usually fond of mission statements, especially for groups like schools where the mission should be painfully obvious without all the hype. Mission statements in the wonderland of modern education tend to focus on blather such as "all children will become life-long learners" and at least one gratuitous reference to "Diversity."

But mission statements can help to clarify an organization's direction, when its course has foundered.

The School District of Philadelphia is one such organization.

Two years ago, when the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania took over authority of the School District of Philadelphia from the city, the new folks in charge decided to do something a little different than previous management. The new School Reform Commission, helmed by James Nevels, started to focus on education, and set forth its four principles for reform (which we reprinted in December).

We noted that what was missing from the principles was the usual high-sounding rhetoric and tenets of Progressive Education, which we considered a very good sign. The School Reform Commission hired Paul Vallas as Superintendant, who promptly sacked the status quo, another good move. Our favorite Vallas quote illustrates his approach:

We accept no excuses. Excuses do children no favors. We refuse to accept that a child is too poor to learn. We refuse to accept that a parent is too detached to participate. We refuse to accept that a school system is too poor to demand high standards from its students.

It is now two years later, and scores have been slowly rising. But it's been--and will continue to be--an uphill battle. It is necessary that all the troops have the right marching orders for the campaign to be a success.

To this end, the good folks running the school district have published a "Declaration of Beliefs and Visions" which melds the pragmatism of Mr. Nevels' principles for reform with the no-nonsense approach of Mr. Vallas.

Today's Philadelphia Inquirer printed it in full, and we'll address the Declaration's five points here. We were pleasantly surprised with their frankness.

The School District of Philadelphia's Declaration of Beliefs and Visions

"1. We believe all children can learn at high levels."
While this may sound like rhetoric, there have been a great many people in the School District of Philadelphia who have not believed this simple concept. (They usually blame the parents or the neighborhood or the kid's previous schooling.) So a necessary step is simply saying all kids can learn.

"High levels" doesn't neccessarily mean everyone becoming a Rhodes Scholar, but it can mean that we're going to do a much better job than we have been. We've seen enough success stories about what can truly be done with high-poverty at-risk kids when schools set their unflinching minds on success.

They write: "The School District of Philadelphia has the responsibility to provide the quality of education and a safe environment that allows every child to learn at high levels." (Emphasis ours.) They're saying responsibility for teaching kids doesn't lie anywhere else. It lies with us. Bravo.

"2. We believe all children can reach their learning potential and that the achievement gap can be eliminated."
Eliminating the achievement gap will be hard. But they write more: "Providing equal access to high quality education for every child may require the investment of unequal resources to ensure an equitable outcome." This is very politically incorrect, but necessary if they're serious about getting the job done. You don't give everyone a defibrillator, you give it to the fellow having the heart attack.

"3. We believe schools have an enormous impact on children's lives."
Big-city schools historically never admit this simple truth. They usually hide behind some statement that "parents and schools must form a partnership," which usually means if there's failure, schools have a handy fall-guy: "It's the parents! It's the neighborhood!"

In the foreward to No Excuses: Lessons from 21 High-Performing, High Poverty Schools by Samuel Casey Carter, Adam Myerson points out a common misconception:

As the New York Times Magazine put it in a recent cover story, entitled, "What No School Can Do": "A child living in an inner city is in the school for only so many hours. It's the rest of the day--as well as the rest of the neighborhood--that's the big influence, and the big problem."

Actually, it isn't. The dirty little secret is that if Johnny can't read, it's not the parents, it's not the neighborhood. Johnny's school failed to teach him to read.

What is amazing is that here the School District of Philadelphia is going on the record and admitting this universal truth. Parents are important, but they write that "the School District is responsible for educating all children regardless of family support or involvement." Emphasis ours.

What about the children? Do they not have responsibility as well? The Declaration continues, "Children have an obligation to come to school ready to learn, but the District cannot abandon those who do not and must search for ways to reach them."

We've complained about the bitter joke of "certification," where the only qualification needed for a position as a teacher or principal is a piece of paper called a "certificate." They write: "To improve educational outcomes for all students, a qualified teacher must be in every classroom, and every school must have a qualified principal who is an instructional leader."

We feel it very significant that they didn't use the word certified. In our experience a "teaching certificate" isn't worth the paper it's printed on. What counts is that the person be qualified, a far different matter, and good for them for knowing the difference.

"4. We believe the School District of Philadelphia can become a high performing organization."
We agree. One way that this can happen is competition. It's one thing to have a clarion call to the troops, but another thing entirely in motivating them to action. One motivating force is giving parents choices. They write, "Sustainable reforms are possible only if parents have meaningful choices." Emphasis ours.

When's the last time you heard a big-city school district admit that choice can drive public schools to reform? When have you heard a district talk about giving parents meaningful choices? Yet two more very good signs.

"5. We believe that all children should be educated in a safe and orderly environment."
Our only criticism here is that this point should be first in the list. We've taught in schools that were veritable zoos, and taught in schools which have a measure of decorum. Real teaching and learning can only happen in the latter.

As they write, "Success is the only option."

On Vacation until July 25

July 13, 2004

We're leaving the city to spend twelve glorious days in Vermont and upstate New York. Regular posting will resume on July 25. Cheers!

Meaning what we Say

July 12, 2004 One severe problem we've noticed with getting kids to behave is that we've taught them to ignore what we say, because we probably don't mean it anyway. This can be be anything from idle threats (which never make it into gear) to consequences which never materialize.

Children get the message: don't believe the hype.

We were reminded of this while watching a documentary on the making of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Janet Leigh (right) was given top billing, yet the filmmakers had a bit of a conundrum, being that their star is dispatched in the first fourth of the movie. What would happen if filmgoers walked in after "the shower scene" is they'd never see Janet Leigh.

So they came up with a crazy idea: to not permit anyone to enter the theatre after the movie began. This became quite a sensation, and probably drove up ticket sales, as theatres set up special queues for ticketed folks waiting for their screening of Psycho.

One New York newspaper wanted to see if they could get a patron into the movie after it began, so they could debunk the policy as a mere publicity stunt. So they recruited a pregnant woman, and a man to pose as her husband, and coached them what to say when trying to enter the theatre after the film started.

It didn't work.

The theatre manager was obviously sympathetic to the pregnant woman, so he offered her a seat in his office until the next showing of Psycho, but he could not, would not let her enter the theatre now, as the film was already showing.

We were very impressed by this story. How hard would it have been to let the woman in? It wouldn't have taken any effort, plus it happens all the time with all the other movies, so it really wouldn't have been a big deal, and would have cost nothing.

It would have cost nothing, except for the reputation of the theatre itself.

It would have cost nothing, except for proving that policies are meaningless if you have a good excuse.

It would have cost nothing, but would have reinforced the notion that rules are made to be broken, that we don't mean what we say, that we have not the intestinal fortitude to stand up for the little things that matter in life.

As it is with many schools today with discipline problems.

Chances are excellent that at each school with a discipline problem, there is a specific code of conduct that prohibits the very behaviors engaged in constantly within its walls. So what have the students learned?

They've learned through experience (not by words) that the code of conduct isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

There was an elementary school in Philadelphia which had a chronic problem with fights--every week there were fights at the school. Each time one would break out, the principal would broadcast over the loudspeakers, "This school has a zero-tolerance policy for fighting." Did we mention that weekly there were fights at the school?

The kids were definitely getting the message.

Unfortunately, the message wasn't the one the Principal was giving with her words, it was the one she gave with her actions, or more importantly her lack of action. And the fights continued.

If we as educators began meaning what we said, our words would become more valuable.

The children are listening.

Catholic School Success: The Oblate Sisters of Baltimore

July 11, 2004 Via Education News we learn of a speech given by Bill Cosby's wife Camille, in honor of the Oblate nuns of Baltimore, Maryland. Gregory Kane covered the story for the Baltimore Sun:

Camille Cosby remembers when her brother, three years younger than she, entered St. Cyprian's [an elementary school in Washington] unable to read in the third grade.

"You'll forgive the exaggeration," she said, "if I say he was ready for Shakespeare by the end of his first week after our sisters began shaping him up."

Exaggeration or no, there are many learned "experts" today who honestly believe that if a child isn't reading by the third grade, he never will. Of course this may be true by default in some of our public schools that have just about given up teaching reading, but it is not a life sentence.

But where's the blame for the parents? Surely they must be the reason why a third-grader isn't reading, right? We've argued tirelessly the answer is no, because it is not the job of parents to teach their children to read, that's why they send their children to school. So the nuns have no words of blame for others.

Just because a student has been poorly taught (or not taught) in the past is no excuse to condemn him to future failure. Just roll up your sleeves, as the nuns did with Ms. Cosby's brother, and teach.

Yes, it was an exaggeration, but an instructive one about the work the Oblate Sisters continue to do to this day at St. Frances Academy [shown at right] in one of the roughest, toughest parts of East Baltimore. Contrary to the notion of those who apologize for failing public schools by saying private schools get to cream the top echelon of students, St. Frances has taken public school kids who were flunking and turned them into the 92 percent of the academy's students who go on to college.

Creaming is one of those arguments for which we've yet to see any evidence. On the other hand, we've seen plenty of evidence of reverse-creaming: private schools specifically targeting the worst-educated, the most troubled, the poorest, or the worst-behaved . . . all because they know they can do the job that public schools may not be doing.

When Marva Collins began her school in Chicago, she was challenged by critics who dismissed her amazing accomplishments with students, "oh, she gets to choose her students." That was true. She picked from the bottom of the barrel, in some cases even tackling near-feral children seemingly raised by wolves. Children with no social skills, no civilized behavior, and no hygiene.

She, too, rolled up her sleeves and focused on the hard work of teaching knowledge and skills.

"We always try to help those who are in the greatest need," Sister Mary Alice said. "However, [the students] have to work themselves up into some kind of academic performance or they can't stay."

We've said it before, but we'll say it again. Children won't develop responsibility unless you give them responsibility. The nuns will give these kids every resource they need to become a productive students, but at some point the student needs to roll up his own sleeves and help himself.

Students who do improve their academic performance at St. Frances - which teaches grades nine through 12 - are, Camille Cosby pointed out, from the same demographic that the Baltimore public school system serves. St. Frances manages to get 92 percent of its students from that demographic to attend college. (The national average is 65 percent.)

We see this a lot. Two schools, in the same neighborhood, one private, the other public. And two very different outcomes.

Baltimore's public high schools, at least since 1996 and through the school year ending in June last year, have yet to graduate 59 percent of their students, according to the Maryland Department of Education's Web site.

What's the difference? Maybe it's the leadership.

We'd say it most certainly is the leadership, plus the hard work of the teachers in the individual classrooms. But the public school statistics are even worse than that low 59% number, for blacks are typically graduated with only 8th grade skills, a charge we've never heard leveled against private schools.

"The total of students taught by them over their many years may surpass thousands," Camille Cosby said last week of the Oblate Sisters. The sisters have been doing that well, and with few resources, for 175 years.

Emphasis ours.

So, to recap, these nuns can deal with kids who are way behind in literacy, they specifically target failing public school students, develop responsibility in their charges, serve kids in the same demographic as the rest of Baltimore, send over 90% to college, with few resources.

Amen.

$10,000 per student in taxpayer dollars? Ouch.

July 09, 2004 Remember Robin Hood? He's the fellow with the nifty income redistribution scheme, stealing from the rich, and giving to the poor.

The U.S. Federal government has the idea a bit confused. It steals from taxes everyone, and gives it to the bureaucrats, all in the name of the common good.

We've never been enamored with the idea of government schools because we're convinced that they give the worst bang for the buck, being insulated from real-world competition and all. Well Education Weak noted recently that an estimated $501.3 billion in taxpayer money is spent for education in the United States.

Crunching the numbers, we found that's an average of over $10,000 per K-12 student, and that it takes four taxpayers to raise this amount. (For an exploration of where we got these numbers, see "Doing the Math" at the end of this article.)

We have a nagging feeling Americans are being overcharged.

Back in January we reported some similar annectodal data from Chris O'Donnell, who found $11,470 per student in his local school district's operating budget. And Ken Krawchuk took a similar course, reporting, "I took the Abington school district budget of $67 million and divided it by the 6,600 students, yielding a cost of over $10,000 a child."

Now we know this is true for the country as a whole.

What's interesting about Mr. Krawchuk's exploration is that he phoned each and every private school in the same geographic area as his school district and found most tuitions to be far lower than the $10,000 his school district is spending.

A 2002 report by The Independent Institute made a similar comparison:

In the 2001-2002 school year, the median private school tuition paid by ISF [Independent Scholarship Fund] recipients was $3,852—about one-third less than the $6,045 per pupil expenditure at California’s government schools for the 1998-99 school year.

The Independent Institute's ISF scholarships are for parents to help pay for K-12 private schools, thus you could call these scholarships "private vouchers." Voucher critics (who like to demand that vouchers must be "fully funded" to be of any use) should note that the ISF scholarships are only worth a maximum of 75% of the child's tuition.

(For an in-depth analysis of the "fully funded" argument--also known as "all or nothing"--see our article: "The point to vouchers: Helping parents pay for private school" from earlier this year.)

It is no mystery that money taken from the people in the form of taxes, then given directly to government schools (government monopoly schools in the poorest areas such as our cities), is money poorly spent.

Private schools, by and large, give a superior education at a lower cost. We can't help but think converting even a portion of this money to private school vouchers would improve the situation--and children's education--dramatically.

And Robin Hood can take a vacation.

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Doing the Math Here's how we came up with the numbers used in this article.

Using the data from the 2000 U.S. Census, the US population is about 281 million, with about 72 million of these under 18 (pdf). To figure about how many school-age kids there are we divided the 72.3 by 18, then multiplied by 13 to encompass the grades K-12. This gives us an estimate about 52.2 million kids in Kindergarten through 12th grade.

Interestingly, while searching for other statistics we came across this 1999 Census report on education (pdf) with all sorts of breakdowns of the student population, including how many in each category of age. We added up the columns for Kindergarten, Elementary, Middle, and High School and reached a total 52.6 million, satisfyingly close to our original estimate.

Now what about private schools? "Public Schools: Make Them Private" by Milton Friedman, and "How Members of Congress Practice School Choice" by Krista Kafer and Jonathan Butcher from the Heritage Foundation both indicate about 10% of students are enrolled in private schools. Subtracting 10% of 52.6 million for private school and another million for homeschooled kids gives us a final estimate of about 46 million public school kids. To keep the numbers user-friendly we'll call this 50 million.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, taxpayer expenditures for education this school year is over $501.3 billion. Rounding to $500 billion this gives us a ballpark estimate of $10,000 per school-age child. (Note that this is an underestimate, since the actual number of public school students is closer to 46 million, giving us an average of about $10,870 per kid in public school.)

Subtracting persons under 18 from the U.S. population, we get about 209 million folks 18 and over, which we rounded to 200 million, since some folks don't pay taxes. These 200 million citizens pay $500 billion in taxes for education, or $2,500 per taxpayer on average, per year.

Dollar-wise, this means it takes about four taxpayers to pay the government for the education of one child.

"Girl, 18, More Math-Ignorant than Governor"

July 08, 2004 James Taranto's Best of the Web got our attention with a little item highlighting some sadly typical behavior: a student not only not knowing, but not knowing how much she doesn't know.

WFTV reports that Luana Marques, a newly graduated 18-year-old, tried to stump Florida Governor Jeb Bush with a geometry problem which she and her friends remembered being on the FCAT:

"What are the angles on a three-four-five-triangle?"

The governor gave a steely grin and then stalled a bit. "The angles would be . . . if I was going to guess . . . Three-four-five. Three-four-five. I don't know, 125, 90 and whatever remains on 180?"

Marques had an answer, although it wasn't the right one: "It's 30-60-90."

The correct answer was 90 degrees, 53.1 degrees and 36.9 degrees, said Michelle Taylor, a graduate student in mathematics at the University of Florida, when told about the governor's pop quiz.

Thank goodness the WFTV reporter knew to ask someone who knew.

We have three problems with this story:

1. This problem doesn't appear on the FCAT. We have no doubt that there was some question involving either a 3-4-5 right triangle or a 30-60-90 right triangle, but not both. We will publicly eat a copy of the FCAT if anyone can prove us wrong.
   
   
2. Anyone familiar with either 3-4-5 or 30-60-90 right triangles would have seen the student's mistake. The 3-4-5 right triangle is the classic shape to use when learning the Pythagorean Theorem, for when simplifying a² + b² = c² there are no messy radicals left over. (This is, of course, assuming that students were taught to do things like factor numbers and find square roots--both skills found in middle school and earlier.)
   
   And the 30-60-90 right triangle is also a classic shape, easily derived from bisecting an equilateral triangle--which means that the short leg and the hypotenuse are always in a 1 : 2 ratio. (Plug those two numbers into the Pythagorean Theorem and you find the third side to be √3.) Once a student learns 30-60-90 triangles she should immediately recognize the ratio 1 : √3 : 2 (and its multiples).
   
   The bottom line? If a student has learned either of these triangles, they cannot be confused with each other.
   
   
3. Although neither the Governor nor the student knew the correct answer, the Governor was the only one who admitted it. Now this is the really appalling aspect of this tale. No one expects grownups in non-scientific fields to remember high-school geometry, so the Governor's ignorance is understandable. But here is not only one student, but her friends as well, who are confoundingly ignorant on basic facts from 10th grade geometry, while being convinced they know their stuff.

This reminds us of an international study of math ability, where after taking the test students were asked to grade their own confidence in their math abilities. The high schoolers from America bombed the test, significantly outperformed by the Singapore high schoolers, who fairly aced it.

But the Americans outperformed the Singapore students in the affective arena, judging their own math skills to be most excellent. Meanwhile, the students who actually knew the most math correctly recognized that there was so much more advanced math they didn't know, thus they were much more modest in describing their own abilities.

This situation is perfectly described by the title of Charles Sykes' book, Dumbing Down our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, or Add.

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So how do you find the angles in a 3-4-5 triangle? The first is easy, since 3² + 4² = 5² then it must be a right triangle, so one angle is 90°. If we call the larger acute angle "Theta" and we remember from the Princess of Trigonometry SohCahToa that the Sine of an angle is the ratio of the opposite side to the hypotenuse, then we can write:

Sin(Theta) = 4 / 5

Solving for Theta we get: Sin^-1(4 / 5) = Theta, or about 53.1°, and because all the angles of a triangle sum to 180° then the other acute angle is 36.9°.

Any questions?

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Update: Kimberly Swygert over at Number Two Pencil has more commentary on this tale, and her commenters are the most excellent ones (except for one who wrote, "You're all wrong" while being wrong herself--oops!) in this discussion.

NEA: "Defeat Bush! (oh, and vote for Kerry)"

July 07, 2004 The nation's largest teacher's union, the National Education Association (NEA) has been a politically partisan organization for some time now, and at times it seems the Democratic Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the NEA. The vast majority of their political donations go to support Democrats, and the Democratic Convention before every presidential elections has more delegates from the NEA than from any other organization.

Yet one-fourth of their rank-and-file members are Republican.

No matter, at the opening of the NEA's national convention (which ostensibly is supposed to be about education) the political rhetoric flew, mostly against President Bush and his Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, and the "No Child Left Behind" act.

They didn't mention that more Democrats voted for NCLB than Republicans.

In his speech NEA president Reg Weaver had some interesting comments:

Team NEA, we are going to begin by energizing and mobilizing our 2.7 million members to elect a pro-public education President--and to elect a pro-public education Congress--and it doesn’t matter to us if the candidates are Democrats, Republicans or Independents--what matters is that they are pro-public education.

Actually, it does matter to which party the candidate belongs. Democrats are in, Independents are out, and Republicans, heck, we won't comment on them out of consideration to the sensitivity of our readers.

And cloaking themselves in the banner of "public education" sounds very egalitarian, but actually is code for "government monopoly schools." Remember, charter schools (which provide parents with a choice where often there is none) are also public schools, but the NEA doesn't support them. The NEA, being a labor union, is all about having a captive audience.

President Weaver continued:

. . . there were folks who chose to disrespect us, but we maintained the high ground--even when they choose to be confused between teachers and terrorists. 

Um, Reg, no one is confusing teachers and terrorists. The comparison was between teacher unions and terrorist organizations.

Speaking of which, in discussing the danger of militant Islamist terrorists, it has been noted that their mindset is quite twisted, not being one of life, but rather one of death. They don't want to live, they simply want their enemies to die.

We couldn't help but be reminded of this when on the first day of the NEA convention, the tone was "Defeat Bush" even before they'd even taken a vote on who to endorse in the Presidential election. It seems their emphasis is defeating their enemies, rather than endorsing their allies.

For the record, they did endorse Kerry for president, although he was a no-show for his scheduled appearance, and Hillary Clinton filled in, but breathing not a word of education policy, interestingly enough. The Education Intelligence Agency (EIA) has been covering the story with some mighty droll commentary. Here's a bit on Hillary's speech:

Clinton gave a 15 minute stump speech in support of the Kerry-Edwards ticket, and brought roars from the crowd with such lines as “It’s an exciting day in Washington. We’re one day closer to the end of the Bush-Cheney administration.” Which, if you think about it, is undeniable.

Priceless.

As reported by Number Two Pencil and Joanne Jacobs, the NEA has spent a considerable amount of time addressing either non-educational issues, or bashing testing and legislation such as No Child Left Behind which mandates testing. They've also been getting personal. EIA reports on some of the "New Business Initiatives" that were up for discussion:

NBI 40, which called for the immediate removal of Ward Connerly from the University of California Board of Regets, was withdrawn.

NBI 41, which directed NEA President Weaver to ask Congress for censure of U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, was withdrawn.

It is interesting that they'd attack Ward Connerly, being that he has no connection whatsoever with K-12 education. He simply proposes a color-blind method for doing business (such as college admissions and hiring). This really gets the "Diversity" crowd in a lather.

Now while it's true that Rod Paige made that "terrorist" joke (which was pretty funny, although we'd prefer a Mafia analogy), the NEA clearly has no sense of humor, no thought of what would provoke Dr. Paige to make such a remark.

If the NEA were more focussed on actually improving education rather than proving itself to be just another hard-headed, radical-Left group steeped in partisan politics, then maybe folks would be able to take them seriously.

Respect must be earned.

Happy Birthday, America

July 04, 2004

I have long believed that the guiding hand of Providence did not create this new nation of America for ourselves alone, but for a higher cause: the preservation and extension of the sacred fire of human liberty.

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of these United States are covenants we have made not only with ourselves, but with all of mankind.

Our founding documents proclaim to the world that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few, they are the universal right of all God's children.

--Ronald Reagan, 1991