Children are the key to America's future. The government wants control of that key.

 

By Laurie H. Rogers
 

Those who exert the first influence upon the mind, have the greatest power.

-- Horace Mann, Thoughts

 

The writing is on the wall. In a June 7, 2013, statement, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said President Obama is planning to "redesign" America’s high schools. This redesigning will take place through “competitive grants” (also known as “bait”). Who will pay for this redesigning? (Taxpayers will, as we always do.) How much will it cost? (The secretary and president haven’t said, as they rarely do.) Does the president have the legal or constitutional authority to “redesign” America’s high schools? (No.)

 

According to 20 USC 3403, Obama and Duncan also lack the authority to direct standards, curriculum and teaching approaches. That isn’t stopping them. They say their interventions are for our own good.

He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be? (Animal Farm)Please take note of the language in Duncan’s press release. The “redesigned” high schools will entail:

• "Student-centered" learning
• "Project- or-problem-based" learning
• "Real-world experiences” and “real-world challenges"
• "Evidence-based professional development"
• Engaging in “complex projects” and working with others to apply knowledge
• Moving “away from the traditional notion of seat time"

Uh, oh.

Math advocates will recognize that language. It typically alerts us to reform math – to fuzzy content, “discovery learning” (or constructivism), excessive group work, teachers who don’t directly teach, and lofty concepts presented before skills. That approach has not worked well for students for the last three decades.

 

It seems Duncan is a reformer, and why wouldn’t he be? Public education systems, colleges of education, curriculum developers and policy makers all have been bathed in reform philosophy and approaches since the 1980s. The president’s new mandate – excuse me, his new initiative – appears to mandate an instructional model that has completely failed children for 30 years.

 

Duncan and Obama also push the controversial Common Core initiatives, which are leading many districts to fuzzy math and weak English programs. The CC math standards contain a separate section, called the “Standards for Mathematical Practice.” Many states and districts are emphasizing the SMP, and the SMP supports a constructivist approach. Voila: more reform math.

 

It’s noteworthy that the publisher of Singapore Math – a series long praised by traditionalists – released a new “discovery” version based on the CC. Other publishers also have done so. They appear to believe the CC embraces constructivism, and they're going along with it.

 

And now we have this high-school initiative, announced with the same language used by proponents of reform math. After three decades of grim failure, reform approaches to math are unlikely to suddenly work for students just because the feds throw another trillion taxpayer dollars at them.

 

In April, Obama also announced plans to “expand” early learning programs for 4-year-olds, rolling them into the K-12 system. Initially, children will be from low-income families, but other families and toddlers are to be rolled in, too. “Preschool for All” is estimated to cost taxpayers $75 billion over 10 years.

 

This de facto federal takeover of public education is cunning and devious. Many Americans have been persuaded that the Common Core and related initiatives are “state-led” and academically better; that nothing is federally mandated; that our right to privacy is intact; and that the Standards are the key.

 

Not true.

 

Proponents say the CC initiatives are voluntary; internationally benchmarked; research-based; rigorous; proved to work; that they’ll save money; they’ll provide commonality and consistency; and that they aren’t “one-size-fits-all.”

 

Not true.

 

The CC initiatives were never internationally benchmarked or academically sufficient. They aren’t grounded in scientifically conducted, replicable research. They’re unproved, with no student data behind them. They’re a national experiment on children. They won’t save taxpayers money. A base cost estimate just to get started is $140 billion nationwide (14,000 school districts x $10 million each).

 

The CC initiatives are voluntary only in a technical sense. States and districts have been threatened with the loss of federal funds, with the loss of money for impoverished students, and (ironically) with punishments under the No Child Left Behind Act if they don’t comply.

This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half. (Animal Farm)

The CC initiatives aren’t “state-led.” The feds are pushing them very hard. They were rammed through states before they were completed, with many proponents appearing to have had a financial reason to support them. The Department of Education has yet to fulfill my FOIA request from four years ago on its role in the development of the CC, but even if the initiatives really were “state-led,” why do the organizations in charge claim to not be subject to public-disclosure laws?

The nature of the CC also is expanding rapidly. Initially, this was K-12 standards in mathematics and English/language arts, but now it’s to be a complete nationalized educational program – with standards, tests, curricula and professional development; from cradle through workforce (P-20); in all subjects, all grades and all schools; in daycares, preschools, K-12 systems and colleges.

The CC initiatives also include an intrusive national database on children and their parents and guardians. Data and information are to be collected and shipped around public agencies, corporations and organizations without our knowledge or consent. Certain state and federal laws were altered or ignored in order to allow and facilitate this sharing of private information. Citizens were not informed.
At the foot of the end wall of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces. ... [N]ear at hand there lay a lantern, a paint-brush, and an overturned pot of white paint. (Animal Farm)The CC initiatives appear to entail serious violations of the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Code. The overall deceit is so huge, few believe it. Fewer in leadership have questioned it. Legislators on all sides, media, state agencies, governors, districts, money advocates, unions, corporations and foundations have lined up at the Common Core trough, ready for a treat and a pat on the head.

The birds did not understand Snowball’s long words, but they accepted his explanation, and all the humbler animals set to work to learn the new maxim by heart. (Animal Farm)

How long will it be before the feds threaten the loss of taxpayer dollars if states don’t comply with the new high school “grant” initiative or the new early learning initiative? How long before states and districts shrug off questions from parents and taxpayers, saying they had no choice in these matters?

Considering the unproved and dictatorial nature of these federal initiatives, they can’t be about academics. I expect the feds will find it necessary to redesign middle schools to “align” with redesigned high schools. Elementary schools will have to “align” with redesigned middle schools. Preschools will have to “align” with redesigned elementary schools. Colleges are already aligning. It will be one brick at a time, each ripped from the fabric and foundation of the country. This is about control.

With this incredible taxpayer expense – and with academic programs that continue to be as weak as a White House explanation – the children and the country will sink into economic and academic dust. Education policy makers have learned nothing over three decades. Or, perhaps they’ve learned everything. Choose your poison. No doubt, Obama and Duncan will report great improvements.

Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer – except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs. Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs. (Animal Farm)The Department of Education is now dictatorial and intrusive, assisted by non-government organizations and corporations working together behind our back. Did you think fascism was just for right-wingers? Read up on “fascism” (but do look beyond Google’s definition). This is educational tyranny.

There are some things you can do, however:

• Help your child. Fill in academic gaps. Leave the public system if it isn’t working for your child.
• Support Alabama Representative Martha Roby’s effort to rein in the U.S. Department of Education. Ask your representatives to support H.R.5 (the Student Success Act 2013), introduced in Congress on June 6, 2013. This bill won’t undo everything, but it’s a step in the right direction.
• Say no to the intrusive data collection that comes with a district’s participation in the CC. Don’t tell them anything about your family that you don’t want Bill Gates, Pearson Education, the ED, the IRS, the Department of Justice, and other government agencies to know. Refuse questionnaires and surveys. Don’t tell them your voting status, political preference or religion.

“In a world of locked rooms, the man with the key is king...” (BBC series Sherlock). Don’t let them have the key.
 

Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is:

Rogers, L. (June 2013). "Children are the key to America's future. The government wants control of that key." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com

Public education’s “culture of power”: Small minds, thin skins, fragile egos

By Laurie H. Rogers

“Culture of Power”: That’s what a parent recently called the prevailing attitude in the local school district. It’s an apt description. Power is what people in public education know, and power is what they crave. In any culture of power, dissenters are seen as the problem and dealt with accordingly.

I’m privileged to know some teachers and staff members who care deeply about the children and who work hard to do what’s best for them. But there are many, many others whose interests begin and end with themselves and with their own economic/political/social agenda. Conversing with these self-interested people in a reasonable, intelligent way is impossible, a fruitless exercise. They want; they don’t want. It’s all they can see. Their logic is infantile and their perspective constricted and unyielding. With thin skins and fragile egos, it doesn’t take much for them to start showing teeth and claws.

Public education has been infiltrated by a willfully ignorant, bureaucratic, obscenely expensive, narcissistic, dictatorial mob. The Edu Mob is an enterprise concerned with enriching, maintaining and expanding itself -- not with accountability, responsibility or transparency. Derelict in its duty to the children and morally bankrupt, the Edu Mob blames others, attacks dissenters, and finds creative ways to get more money (such as filing lawsuits; trading private student information for grants and other payments; and training children to support the enterprise without question).

This video from Utah – just 8 ½ minutes – shows socio-emotional indoctrination in textbooks that claim to be aligned to the Common Core. If you click on no other link in my article, please click on this one. With these books, small children will learn to use inflammatory, antagonistic language to get what they want. These books actively work to develop negative feelings in the children for their parents.

Meanwhile, those in the Edu Mob tend to see what’s academically good for the children as bad, and what’s academically bad as good. The harder we argue for what’s actually good, the less successful we are. It took me years to see it and believe it. The line they draw is clear; we’re either "in" or "out," and we advocates are out. They see our focus on the children’s academics as a threat to the Edu Mob enterprise. When you read through the alarming links below, you’ll understand why I call these people what I do.

Reading the news, and seeing what’s coming from the feds and the now-rather-disturbing Bill Gates, I see the once-noble field of public education as deathly ill – infected with myriad perverted missions and corrupted tactics. Children are no longer vulnerable beings to be protected; they’re now vehicles for obtaining money and power. Involved parents are no longer the first, best educators whose wishes are respected; they’re now annoying and irrelevant, just wallets to be tolerated until they start questioning things, whereupon they’re useful for taking the blame.

The sad fact is this: The Edu Mob sees everything that must be done to save public education as bad.

Still, the truth can be told, and there is value in that. Outing the Edu Mob can change public perception, and that can affect everything. Information is power. Providing information to the people helps return power to the people, where it rightfully belongs. (This is exactly why the Edu Mob works so hard, using our money, to keep it from happening.)

These are strong words, I know, but I arrived here the hard way. I’ve often said, “Parents should see what I see every day; then they’d know.” The links below show you a glimpse of what I’ve seen – over just a few months – of the culture of power, predation and selfishness in America’s education system. The issue in these articles isn't money or academics; it's power -- over the children, over parents, and over the future of this country.

We aren’t losing control of America’s classrooms; we’ve already lost it. Here is just one place where it all leads: Last December, a California university student reportedly was suspended after asking college professors questions about a poem that was published in the university’s student newspaper. That poem began: “America the land robbed by the white savage; the land of the biggest genocide; the home of intolerance; the place where dreams come to die; the place of greed and slavery ...”

We can’t ever persuade those in the Edu Mob that their focus is misplaced, that the money is misspent, or that they’re failing the children and endangering the country. They’re getting what they want. What we can do is tell our communities what’s going on, we can save our own children and grandchildren, and we might also be able to save someone else’s child.

Read through the links below. Feel angry about what you read. Feel scared for the country and for the children. If you haven’t already done so, talk to legislators, vote for better board directors, write letters to the editor, inform others, and volunteer to tutor a child.

Do what you can. Do it today.

[Note: If you find any broken links in this article, please let me know at wlroge@comcast.net. Thank you.]

June 2013: A Maryland middle school student was suspended for 10 days for saying the word “gun” on a school bus. A deputy reportedly visited the boy’s home; threatened the boy’s father with his son’s permanent suspension if he didn’t fill out a questionnaire; and began a search of the home.

May 2013: Florida schools conducted iris scans on children, without the knowledge or consent of parents. After receiving complaints, the district said all collected data was destroyed. (Uh, huh.)

May 2013:  An Illinois high-school teacher was reprimanded for reminding students that they have a legal right to avoid self-incrimination.

 May 2013: A Milwaukee school planned a cross-dressing day, where little girls were to dress as boys, and little boys were to dress as girls.

May 2013: A 5-year-old in Maryland, who brought a toy cap gun onto a bus, was reportedly interrogated by school officials until he wet his pants, and then he was suspended for 10 days.

May 2013: A 6-year-old in Massachusetts was given detention and made to apologize for bringing a tiny toy gun (slightly larger than a quarter) onto a bus.

May 2013: In Maryland, Georgia, Maine and other states – laws were proposed or passed allowing self-identifying transgender males – or all males – to use bathrooms and showers for girls or women.

May 2013: A North Carolina high school student forgot his skeet gun in his truck. Not wanting to be late for class, he called his mother and asked her to pick up the gun. He was overheard, arrested, and charged with a felony. (An administrator who previously made a similar error was charged with a misdemeanor; reports indicate that the law doesn’t treat administrators and students the same way.)

May 2013: A Massachusetts student was suspended for bringing a butter knife to school so she could cut her pear.

May 2013: A Maryland 7-year-old was suspended for nibbling a Pop Tart into the shape of a gun.

May 2013: The Florida Virtual School reportedly teaches students that terrorists join groups to kill in the name of religion because of their low-self-esteem and a need to belong. A school official was quoted as saying the lesson is based on Common Core State Standards and cannot be changed.

May 2013: Commentary: Various conservative students struggle to maintain their right to free speech.

April 2013: A Wisconsin school was designated a “Mix-It-Up Model.” In one activity, students were to “help reduce bias” by discussing the difference between natural and drug-induced highs.

April 2013: A New York middle school reportedly told girls to ask other girls for a kiss, and boys to decide which girls look like “sluts.” (In an email to a reporter, the district superintendent complained about the news coverage but did not refute these specific claims.)

April 2013: Atlanta educators were indicted in a cheating scandal.

March 2013: Glenn Beck exposed CSCOPE, a controversial education program in Texas. According to Beck’s guest panel, the CSCOPE program is anti-American, anti-Christian, politically biased, and historically inaccurate. Teachers reportedly were to sign anti-disclosure contracts and not reveal lesson plans to parents. Prompted by a photo of students wearing burqas – without parental knowledge or consent – Texas legislators debated removing CSCOPE from schools. Incredibly, it isn’t gone yet.

March 2013: A Massachusetts principal reportedly said an “honors night” could be “devastating” to other students. He canceled it in favor of a “more-inclusive” assembly.

March 2013: New York and other states compile private student information and data to give to companies. The $100 million database was reportedly funded “primarily” by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Officials say student data is “protected” by FERPA. (Perhaps the new definition of “protected” is: “We’re marketing your private information without telling you.”)

March 2013: New York school videos – reportedly based on the Common Core – favor the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights over the U.S. Constitution.

March 2013: A Texas school test said 9/11 happened because of America’s actions in the world. A Texas school worksheet on the Bill of Rights lists food and medicine as “rights.”

March 2013: Georgia teachers openly advocate in their classroom for illegal immigrants.  Students who oppose this political agenda are challenged to face their undocumented classmates.

March 2013: Commentary: Rotten to the Core: The feds’ invasive student tracking database.

February 2013: A Houston school put on an assembly that sung the praises of Barack Obama.

February 2013: A Texas curriculum told students to design a flag for a “new socialist nation” and to “use symbolism to represent aspects of socialism/communism” on their new flag.

February 2013: A Colorado school offered extra tutoring to students ... unless they’re white.

January 2013: A Philadelphia 5^th grader was reportedly scolded,  searched in front of her class, and threatened with arrest – after pulling out a paper her grandfather had shaped like a gun.

January 2013: A Pennsylvania kindergartner was suspended for 10 days and labeled a terroristic threat after playfully telling a classmate she would shoot her with her “Hello Kitty” bubble gun. The kindergartner’s friend was reportedly listed as being the “victim” of the incident.

January 2013: A high school teacher stomped on the American flag in class and reportedly said the flag is just a piece of cloth that doesn’t mean anything. In May, the teacher received an $85,000 settlement.

January 2013: A Texas student refused to wear a GPS tracking badge. That student was expelled. She sued the district, but she lost the court case.

January 2013: A Wisconsin school reportedly taught in a “white privilege class” that white people are oppressors.

December 2012: The Florida State Board of Education planned to set racially based academic goals for students. This plan was met with outrage from Hispanic and black citizens.

October 2012: Minnesota schools reportedly closed for a few days so teachers could play with dolls, talk about the upcoming election, and learn how to teach about Islam to students.

October 2012: A Philadelphia student wearing a Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan T-shirt was reportedly told to leave her classroom.  The student said the teacher likened wearing that shirt to wearing a KKK shirt.

October 2012: Florida schools set up voter registration drives in schools that reportedly advocated solely for Democrats and provided pro-Barack Obama commentary.

June 2012: Bill Gates is funding wrist sensors to measure and collect data on children’s physical reactions in the classroom. “Gates officials” reportedly said they hope the sensors will become a “common classroom tool.”


I know. It’s terribly grim out there. I hope you’re motivated now to do what you can to jerk a knot in the Edu Mob’s chain. If we don’t work together on this, then this country and our children really have lost it all.

Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is: Rogers, L. (June 2013). "Public education’s 'culture of power': Small minds, thin skins, fragile egos." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com

This article was published June 12, 2013, on Education News at: http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/laurie-rogers-public-educations-culture-of-power/

 

How we could fix public education, and why it won't happen

By Laurie H. Rogers

This week, I saw a donation stand for the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). The stand was located between the in and out doors of a grocery store, and the older veteran standing there must have felt chilled. I gave him a donation, and on the way out, I offered to get him a cup of coffee. He looked like he wanted one, but he demurred, so I just went and got him a large cup with a free refill. He offered to pay me for the coffee. When I refused his money, he put it in the donation cup. This veteran was focused on his mission. He wasn’t there for himself, and he behaved with impeccable manners and integrity. I thought – what a difference between a man like that, and so many of those who run our public schools.


As an education advocate, I’m asked regularly how we fix our public schools. After six and a half years of advocacy, I’m no longer confident we can. Solutions exist, and they’re neither difficult nor expensive to implement. But most board directors and education administrators won’t do those things, and no one can make them. Absolute failure brings them more money, sympathy and power. They’re nearly immune now to any consequences, and most seem allergic to accountability or self-introspection. Naturally, this kind of power can go to one’s head.

The situation could be rectified, with proper oversight from citizens, legislators and the law. But many school districts spend much time, energy and taxpayer money cultivating uncritical friends – in the legislature, the courts, public agencies, private organizations, small businesses, large corporations and the media. They keep publicly funded lawyers on retainer, and they can spend a bottomless pit of tax dollars, suing for more in the midst of plenty. They wield their considerable power with impunity, and they answer to almost no one. In the midst of their self-interest and lack of humility, most refuse to properly educate or protect the children.

It’s quite twisted. I think of these people now as the Edu Mob. I keep asking for someone with oversight to jerk a legal knot in their chain, but it’s been years and I’m still waiting.

Certain administrators and board directors come to believe they’re invincible, that they have carte blanche to do as they please – to hide information, mislead about money and outcomes, violate open-government laws, and lie right to our face, if necessary – in order to get what they want. I doubt they see their lying as wrong. I’m sure they see it as just the cost of doing business. It isn’t honorable, of course, but only those with honor would care about that.

Here are 10 key things districts could do to fix the problems they’ve created. Match these 10 to the things they actually do.

• 1. Start telling the truth. Assess all students with well-written, at-grade-level tests (so, not with any state tests). Provide citizens with the unvarnished results. Put more effort into telling the truth about academic outcomes than they’ve put into hiding it. Give completed tests back to teachers and parents so we know how to help the children.
• 2. See the children – and the academic problem – clearly. Feel a concern for the children that transcends a concern for themselves. Recognize that students are being damaged for life by failed academic programs. Feel ashamed and embarrassed. Develop a sense of urgency about helping the children academically. Turn shame and embarrassment into immediate action.
• 3. Buy good textbooks. Buy good textbooks today. If they bought textbooks with a proven track record, they wouldn’t need to waste teacher and student time on adoption committees or pilots. Worry more about the academic quality of the textbooks than about whether they align with the unproved, arguably illegal Common Core State Standards, whether they engage in “political/social justice” themes, or whether they contain a gazillion group projects. Buy books that are sufficient, efficient, effective, and crystal clear to teachers and parents. Such books are available; they should buy them now before somebody wants to make them illegal.
• 4. Don’t put curriculum and tests online. Many children won’t do well with all-online material. Some will find that working online hurts their eyes and even damages their eyesight. Some will be distracted by online options and visuals. Children also learn by writing things down; they don’t learn by clicking a mouse. Care more about this than about pleasing the feds, Bill Gates, Apple and other tech vendors – or about pocketing their gobs of bait-money.
• 5. Allow teachers to directly teach. Stop micromanaging teachers. Allow teachers the academic freedom they need to be as good or as poor as they are. Reward effective ones, and fire ineffective ones. Ask parents for input on this. Care more about teacher quality than about pleasing unions or obtaining union support for pet projects.
• 6. Remove distractions from the school day. Stop wasting time on things like excessive testing and test prep, “training” on unnecessary technology, and assemblies where children learn how to sell stuff. Stop yanking teachers out of class for useless “professional development.” Give teachers good academic materials and then leave them alone so they can teach it.
• 7. Make class sizes manageable. If districts take in tax dollars to lower class sizes, they should actually lower the damn class sizes and stop lying about it.
• 8. Allow the community to help. Community members can and will volunteer to fill in academic gaps; administrators just need to open the door. No one needs a teaching certificate to tutor a child.
• 9. Cut back on or get rid of curriculum departments. Most administrators in public-school curriculum departments don’t teach, and they generally refuse to learn. What they do is tell everyone else what to do. Make them go away. And please, for heaven’s sake, do not put any dogmatic reformers back into the classroom.
• 10. Obey the laws. Do it because it’s right, and do it always, not just when somebody gets caught.

This is what it takes: Good textbooks, a productive learning environment and caring teachers who can actually teach. It’s why good tutors are incredibly effective. But the Edu Mob won’t do any of it. Most administrators won’t publicly tell the truth or admit there’s a problem. They won’t assess students with at-grade-level tests and make results public; won’t consistently buy or use good textbooks; won’t allow teachers to directly teach; won’t clear the school day of distractions; won’t lower class sizes to reasonable levels; and won’t solicit community help on mathematics or grammar.

What will they do? Exactly what they’re doing.

• They’ll put all curriculum and tests online, without any proof that a) this is an effective way to teach, or that b) it won’t damage the children’s eyesight.
• They’ll campaign hard for bonds and levies and sue for more money, using your tax dollars to do it.
• They’ll push for all-day kindergarten in all schools for all children, whether or not citizens like it, and whether or not all 5-year-olds are ready for this.
• They’ll apply for charter schools, which they’ll run or influence to be run in the same way as the current public schools.
• They’ll adopt the Common Core initiatives, sight unseen – blindly tagging along after this obscenely expensive national experiment.
• And, they’ll hand you a fistful of excuses as to why they can’t do anything else.

The Common Core initiatives come with a creepy data system that is trashing privacy laws regarding children and families. Remember the idea of expunging records when children turn 18, so that new adults can begin with a clean slate? That’s pretty much out the window with the Common Core. The feds want cradle-through-career data and information, which they’ll share as they please without our permission or knowledge, and which no one will be allowed to expunge.

Despite voting repeatedly to target multi-millions of taxpayer dollars for various aspects of the Common Core, Spokane Board President Bob Douthitt admitted early in 2013 at a district math forum that he doesn’t know much about the Common Core. Douthitt also has said the district had no choice but to adopt the Common Core (which is not true), and that Spokane students are graduating ready for college (which is not true for most). His assertions aren’t logical. If everything is wonderful, why is he voting to waste our money on changing everything?

Douthitt is running again for the school board. Please don’t vote for him.

I had a surreal experience this week. I went in to look at the district’s curricular materials, and they look depressingly like they did in 2007. Unbelievably, this district still uses two of the worst math programs on the planet: Investigations in Number, Data, and Space, and Connected Mathematics. The public has online access to the district’s “curriculum guides” – which are overarching concepts of what curriculum coordinators expect of teachers, but we haven’t been allowed to see the district’s "program guides" – the daily administrative dictates to teachers. Those are hidden in Blackboard, which requires a login.

Program guides are public records, however, so I stuck to my guns, and I managed to see some of them this week, along with some of the curricular materials. It’s a mound of truly awful stuff.

• If you’re a believer in civics instruction, you’ll be distressed by the social studies materials.
• If you’re a believer in direct instruction to mastery of sufficient standard algorithms, you’ll be distressed by the stubbornly crappy math materials.
• If you’re a believer in literature and in direct instruction of grammar, you’ll be distressed by the English/language arts materials.
• If you think small children should not be taught to embrace alternative lifestyles to which their parents are opposed, or before they even know what a lifestyle is – you’ll hate the “human growth and development” materials.
• Everyone should be appalled by the rampant typos, spelling and grammatical errors, incomprehensible test questions, and generally weak writing coming out of the Department of Teaching and Learning.

I asked Superintendent Shelley Redinger if the district will buy better math materials for fall 2013. She said they’ll continue to pilot materials. It’s clear that Saxon Math will not be adopted in Spokane Public Schools, not even by someone who says she understands the math problem. This, despite Saxon being one of the best elementary math series in the country. Supporting Saxon are solid research, student data, millions of happy homeschoolers, and the majority of math professionals I surveyed earlier this year.

Is Saxon Math the only math program currently available that's sufficient, efficient and effective? No. But the antagonism shown toward it by reformers is not about Saxon; it's about philosophy. Believers in reform math and student-centered learning will never want the same books as will believers in direct instruction to mastery of the most-efficient and most-effective algorithms.

Saxon Math and the kind of instruction within it have been caricaturized and demonized in Spokane by lovers of the current failed approach to math. So, now, the district is waiting for “Godot” – a math program that won’t upset those people; that hasn’t been written, properly researched or assessed; that’s “aligned” with the unproved Common Core; that 50 or so hand-picked people will collectively decide without proof is good enough; that’s supposed to make reformers and traditionalists happy; that will be mathematically sufficient; and that will get all kids on track for college. This is a fish-bicycle, an impossible thing. It can’t happen.

Whichever new materials they eventually look at will still have to go through another wasteful adoption process, and when adopted, will be yet another experiment on the children.

I expressed concern about the 20,000 students who will be forced to suffer in math for another school year. It’s a lifetime to them, I argued. Don’t you feel a sense of urgency? I asked Dr. Redinger. They’re drowning. She said she feels that urgency.

Maybe. The proof is in the pudding. There’s been no proper assessment made of all students, no truth about their struggle made public, no solid math curriculum adopted, no community tutoring program begun, no opt-out offered for all-day kindergarten, and no district push-back made public on the Common Core. Dr. Redinger has made nearly a quarter of a million dollars since July 2012, yet the children still don’t have a good math curriculum. Board directors Bob Douthitt and Sue Chapin have been on the board since 2007. Rocky Treppiedi has been there since 1996, Jeff Bierman since 2009, and Deana Brower since 2011. This school board has spent years campaigning for more dollars, and the last two furiously trying to undermine the Public Records Act for all citizens in Washington State. Yet, Spokane children still don’t have a good math curriculum.

For years, I’ve asked the school district to help me begin a free community tutoring program in math so we can get these children to grade level. It would be volunteering to help the children, an offer I've made repeatedly. Former superintendent Nancy Stowell repeatedly refused to allow it. I was publicly criticized for suggesting it.

I began asking Dr. Redinger about it in September 2012. Finally, she invited me in last week to talk about tutoring. I was wary but hopeful. Had she begun a program? Did she want me to start one? Had someone else begun a program I could promote? Nope. None of the above. She handed me a fee schedule for renting a school building. I stared at the fee schedule, as I contemplated her quarter-million-dollar salary. What should I have said? What I thought was: “Seriously? Are you kidding me??”

Apparently, the wants of the monkeys still dictate how the zoo is run. Saxon Math could help fix Spokane’s math problem, but reformers don’t want Saxon, so it’s dead in the water. Instead, the leadership will allow 20,000 children to suffer every day in math while they all wait for a textbook that’s yet to be published. Reformers also don’t want citizens tutoring in proper math, and they don’t want at-grade-level assessments, but they do want the Common Core. Clearly, dealing with their hates and wants still takes priority over the children’s needs.

There’s so much arrogance and self-interest in public education, many adults now seem money-blind and power-blind to the children. I’ve begged them: Please care about these children. In return, many of them - including members of the board - call me names. The latest pejorative, so I hear, is “gadfly.” It isn’t the worst name they’ve called me.

I don’t know how to make selfish people care more about the children than about themselves. It’s probably another fish-bicycle. They should be ashamed, but they aren’t. They do, however, want you to give them more money and to vote some of them back in. Please don't.


Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is:

Rogers, L. (May 2013). "How we could fix public education, and why it won't happen." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com

This article was published May 28, 2013, on Education News at:http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/laurie-rogers-how-we-could-fix-education-and-why-it-wont-happen/

Legislature and lawsuit help public education go in exactly the wrong direction. Again.

By Laurie H. Rogers

I was asked recently to articulate to a legislator my thoughts and concerns about public education funding and accountability. Ah, so much to say ... about funding; accountability, the Common Core initiatives, and the McCleary Decision on education funding.

Legislators love to give more of our tax dollars to K-12 education, but they aren’t good at pursuing accountability or transparency from administrators and school boards. That’s partly because they listen too much to the Edu Mob, and not enough to We, the People.

What legislators hear from the Edu Mob is usually contrary to what actually needs to be done for the children, so we advocates have little hope of ever nailing down solutions. After six+ years of advocacy, I’m profoundly tired of hearing legislators state, year after year, “Education needs more money!”

FUNDING:

Question #1: What basis do legislators have for saying that K-12 education is underfunded, or that funding has been cut, or that more money will produce a better education system?

Does anyone in the legislature know how much money is spent on K-12 education, including the school districts, the Educational Service Districts (ESDs), and the state education agency (OSPI)? Does anyone know how much is spent on capital costs and technology? Can anyone provide a comparison of how much was spent for all of K-12 education in 2002 vs. 2012? No? Then why are legislators so sure that districts need more money?

When we ask OSPI for the total costs of K-12 education in Washington State, the numbers we get likely won’t include capital costs or the costs to run OSPI. We might have to ask a few times for a total cost, and even then, we’ll probably have to dig out the truth ourselves. It's a pile of money, even accounting for inflation, and 40-50% of it does not go to the classroom.

Question #2: Does anyone in the legislature intend to find out where the money is going?

Do legislators plan to hold administrators accountable for expenditures, seek transparency for outcomes, or ensure that those who lied to the people about expenditures or outcomes are forced out, and that those who violated open-government laws (i.e. regarding public meetings, campaigning, and public records) are held legally accountable? I ask because I see very little legislative interest in any of this.

Question #3: Does anyone in the legislature care that the recent “McCleary Decision” on school funding was based on an undefined word?

The McCleary Decision resulted from a lawsuit filed against the State, which argued that the State is failing to live up to its obligation for “ample” funding of K-12 education. Driving this lawsuit was an organization called NEWS (Network for Excellence in Washington Schools). NEWS says it represents “students, parents, teachers, administrators and other citizens who are united in advocacy for public school funding.” (Obviously, the folks behind NEWS believe that increased public school funding will bring excellence in the schools.)

NEWS is largely made up of school districts and their unions (which would be happy financial beneficiaries of any decision for the plaintiffs). The president and former president of NEWS are, respectively, school superintendents Nick Brossoit, Edmonds; and Mike Blair, Chimacum.

In 2010, a Superior Court judge ruled for the plaintiffs, and in January 2012, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the decision. In an unusual move, the Supreme Court also retained jurisdiction over the case as a way to ensure that legislators would cough up the money.

The argument behind the lawsuit doesn’t paint an accurate picture of the funding situation, however. What does “ample” mean? School districts across the state have wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on layers of administration, academically useless “professional development,” never-ending purchases of unproved or deeply flawed instructional materials and supplementary materials, techno toys, contracts, legal advice, food for adults, travel, consultants, new systems and programs, new assessments, administrative raises, and a plethora of other things that don’t help academic learning one bit. And when we try to find out exactly where the money went, some of them don't want to tell us.

Just one legal firm, for example, has received millions of taxpayer dollars from Spokane Public Schools, and this district uses several legal firms. Those legal expenses aren't itemized in the publicly released budget. School districts also are allowed to report expenditures within the intended program, not as a line-item expense, so they can throw all sorts of things into program categories, and they do. Expenditures for "instruction," therefore, include non-instruction items such as professional development, administrator salaries, travel and food. I requested a list of expenditures by line item, and I was told they “don’t break it down that way.”

There is a huge amount of waste in public education, much of it hidden from the public.

ACCOUNTABILITY:

Question #4: Has anyone in the legislature attempted to hold education administrators accountable for their decades-long failure to produce well-educated students?

In education, failure begets more money. Administrators therefore have a perverse incentive to not succeed. I'm not saying they deliberately try to fail, yet there are few consequences for failure, and there are huge financial gains resulting from failure, so they have little motivation to weed out incompetent administration, eliminate bad programs and curricula, or install products, people and programs that are PROVED to succeed. They don't have to police themselves, and there is no way for the public to police them. They seem to feel no sense of urgency to get it right. They just keep failing our children, patting themselves on the back for their "hard work," while fueled by an increasing number of taxpayer dollars.

Question #5: Are any legislators well versed on what a successful academic program looks like? Or, are they all taking as gospel what they're told by administrators, unions, policy makers, pro-money groups and the federal government?

Do legislators listen to parents? Do they listen to math advocates? Do they not realize that children are NOT coming out of the K-12 system well educated, despite all of the fake numbers produced by officials every spring and fall? Do they not see the physical and emotional toll on the children from not having enough academics to progress, graduate, go to college, get a job, join the military, or even fill out a job application? Do legislators not feel a sense of urgency to fix this problem now? If they feel the same urgency I feel, they certainly don't show it.

Question #6: Does anyone in the legislature care about district accuracy in reporting, with consequences for those who don't engage in it?

In 2012, local administrators told the public (while promoting their upcoming levy) that their operating budget had been cut over 10 years by just more than $45 million, while the truth -- easily located on the OSPI Web site -- is that the operating budget had grown by about $80 million over that decade. The difference is massive. How do they get away with it?

It's hard for citizens to know where public dollars go, when expenditures are allowed to be shoved into dark recesses of the budget or hidden in the category of "instruction," and when so much money every year is hidden, not reported or misspent.

As for academics, state and local reporting on student academic outcomes is annually preposterous. Happy numbers are reported with breathless, self-congratulatory enthusiasm each year, always on the rise, always worth celebrating -- and awards are handed out for amazing improvements -- yet little of it bears any resemblance to what we see in the children’s actual levels of academic capability.

The overall deceit is so huge, most people refuse to believe it.

THE COMMON CORE INITIATIVES:

Question #7: Has anyone in the legislature initiated opposition to the prospect of spending at least a billion taxpayer dollars on the Common Core initiatives -- an arguably illegal takeover of public education by the federal government?

The Common Core initiatives are unproved. There are no student data behind them to support them; they are national pilots of unknown and politically biased products. They were adopted in Washington State under a shady process, and they will cost Washington taxpayers at least a billion dollars and the nation at least a trillion dollars. They’ve already removed much local decision-making power, pushing parents farther out of the process, while promoting a biased political agenda and still not providing students with sufficient academics. They’re already leading many districts back to more math programs that lack direct instruction or standard algorithms, and to more English programs that lack sufficient grammar or classic literature.

As everyone complains about money, why are legislators spending a billion taxpayer dollars on unproved, unnecessary and politically biased products? Sorry to be blunt, but this is not bipartisan leadership; it’s bipartisan foolishness. No successful business would operate like this.

And by the way, the coming charter schools in Washington State will be using Common Core products. How does that represent academic “choice” for parents and students?

THE MCCLEARY DECISION ON EDUCATION FUNDING:

Question #8: Do legislators realize that no one involved with the McCleary lawsuit had to explain where the previous money went, or why it failed to produce well-educated students?

I can efficiently teach my daughter algebra at the kitchen table with a used textbook, a piece of paper and a pencil. Why can’t schools do the same with $12,000 per student? No one involved in the lawsuit had to itemize district, ESD and OSPI expenditures, or explain the academic failures.

No one is to be accountable for how the new money will be spent, either, or for any new failures in academic outcomes. Instead, the McCleary Decision means many of these failed administrators will get a financial windfall. Some are already counting it, preparing to spend money on things that have little or nothing to do with the classroom.

Question #9: Did anyone in the legislature question why the Supreme Court retained jurisdiction over the funding of education, essentially replacing the role of the legislature?

Legislators now must answer to the Supreme Court on funding, and they must do what the Supreme Court has decided, rather than answer to the people and do what the people have decided. As NEWS puts it, the Supreme Court ordered the State to “make annual progress reports to the court” and allowed “NEWS to respond to each of the State’s reports to inform the Court of the accuracy of the State’s claims.”

The fox now guards the henhouse – NEWS officials advised the Supreme Court on how much more money they want. You won’t be surprised to know that – on behalf of school districts and unions – NEWS decided that education requires billions more dollars, increasing each year. Legislators were ordered to pay up.

Thomas Ahearne, a lawyer for NEWS, reportedly suggested that the Court could punish legislators for not coming up with the money, by “imposing fines, cutting utility service to the legislative building or docking the pay” of legislators. What’s next? Cement shoes? An “offer they can’t refuse?” Meanwhile, We the People don’t count at all. We have nowhere to go for help or recourse.

This Supreme Court decision to retain jurisdiction over funding is a bad precedent, a vast overreach, and it must be appealed. Legislators must not allow it to stand. In Tunstall v. Bergeson (2000), the Supreme Court itself expressly warned against judicial overreach into education decision-making.

Does this country still have a Constitution and a governing system of checks and balances, or doesn’t it?

Question #10: Does anyone in the legislature know that the lawsuit resulting in the McCleary Decision was funded in part by district dollars – by taxpayer dollars?

When school districts wish to become a NEWS member, NEWS asks them to "make a public statement of support by passing a resolution" and by providing "a financial contribution to NEWS." NEWS helpfully "invoices" school districts for this "contribution."

Taxpayers therefore unknowingly helped pay for a lawsuit against the state – which is publicly funded – resulting in forcing more taxpayer dollars from taxpayers. How much money did this lawsuit cost taxpayers, not including the McCleary Decision itself? Where in district budgets are these costs? That’s a true pile-on – public agencies, their unions, their money advocates, their lawyers, and their multitude of quasi-public associations ... And now the Court... Who was there to speak up for the taxpayer?

Citizens in other states have attempted to get legislation written to outlaw being able to lobby like this with taxpayer dollars. This should happen in Washington State.

Much of the leadership in K-12 public education has repeatedly proved itself to be self-serving, unsuccessful, certain it’s brilliant, mostly deaf to the public, overpaid, overfunded, not transparent and not publicly accountable. When will the legislature stop chasing after failure, wasting gobs of taxpayer dollars on those who care mostly about money, ego and power – and who don’t even produce well-educated graduates?

This is the end of my rant. Public education, structured as it is, will never result in well-educated students. The Edu Mob’s list of priorities begins and ends with money and power, and the legislature has tended to cater to those priorities every legislative session. Things will continue this way until enough of us have a) left the broken system, and b) voted for legislators who care more about student academics and district accountability than about getting more votes and donations from the Edu Mob.



Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is:
Rogers, L. (May 2013). "Legislature and lawsuit help public education go in exactly the wsrong direction. Again." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com

This article also was published May 10 at Education News at this address: http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/laurie-rogers-ten-hard-pressing-questions-for-public-education/

High school math teacher exposes the high-stakes testing myth

By Bob Dean


The belief that high-stakes testing will bring any improvement to our public schools is built on an ounce of wishful thinking, a pound of good intentions and a ton of ignorance.

Consider the recent history of high-stakes testing in the State of Washington. We spent more than a decade and a billion dollars on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) only to find that the test was deeply flawed. The WASL didn’t align with college or career readiness, and it basically tried to measure student achievement of standards that were so poorly written they were impossible to measure by any kind of assessment.

Despite these major flaws, legislators, the public, business leaders and most of the media ignorantly assumed that something meaningful was happening by requiring students to pass this bogus exam. Unfortunately, the only meaningful thing that was happening was teachers throughout our state were forced to try and teach to this test despite the fact that it didn’t align to anything that was important for students to know. The WASL was a test built around standards that de-emphasized student content knowledge and supposedly would teach students to think more deeply and become expert problem solvers. In the end, the main problem that many students now have to solve is how to go through life being mathematically illiterate.

Teachers were forced to follow this WASL nonsense even though it was against their better judgment. Even worse, despite the misgivings and resistance by many, it is the teachers who were left holding the bag when students didn’t perform well on the WASL exam. Despite the money spent by the state on this test, no more than 50% of the students ever passed the math portion, and the scores went down each year during the last few years the exam was given.

What unmasked the deep flaws of the WASL? The first year that the new End of Course (EOC) assessment was given, the state saw a 50% jump in the student scores across the state. This jump couldn’t be attributed to any improvement in what was happening in classrooms; it simply came because the EOC exams aligned more closely to what was actually being taught and the test was based on new standards which were clearer and far better defined than the old WASL standards.

So again, the legislature, the public, business leaders and most of the media hailed the passing of the EOC’s as a standard that would drive improvement in our schools and would finally hold teachers accountable to do a job they surely were not doing. Can we consider that passing the math EOC ensures that students are learning something meaningful and will be prepared to enter college or the work world? Only if you are ignorant of what is on the exams. Unfortunately that ignorance would describe the legislature, most of the public, and those in the business world and media who by “blind faith” continue to exalt these exams as the “savior” of our educational system.

The facts are that the EOC 1 doesn’t align to college readiness, and it contains numerous irrelevant topics like “box and whisker plots” and “recursive arithmetic sequences” which have no place in Algebra 1 -- while it leaves out numerous traditional topics like “simple rational expressions” and “quadratic equations” that are necessary for moving on in Algebra. The EOC 2 is even worse because the nonsensical narrow standards it measures are in a portion of Geometry that was created by unintended legislative consequences, not by any thoughtful analysis of what students should know after two years of mathematics. Despite these flaws, the passing of these exams is being used as the measure of a quality education system…….Not!

But no worries, government has come to the rescue again. The governor and the legislature decided without one shred of empirical evidence that we should discard our newly written state math standards (rated as some of the best in the nation and which cost $100 million to develop and implement) and adopt the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS), along with the much hailed national assessments that would follow. Again, they made this decision based on “blind faith” because neither the standards nor the assessments were even written when this decision was made. But don’t worry; the new assessments that Washington students will take starting next year are being created under the direction of some of the same important people who gave us the WASL.

It is ironic that all of these exams are purported to increase the depth of student thinking and problem solving even while they have been implemented, designed and sold to the public with some of the shallowest logic that is possible to imagine. It is this same shallow logic that believes that holding teachers accountable based on the student scores of these flawed examinations will have any positive impact on student learning.

It’s not that I am against accountability or having to meet a standard. It’s just that, thus far, I have not seen any evidence that the current education leadership is capable of designing an assessment system that will bring any improvement to our schools. Instead of sound education principles, these tests are being used to push agendas from both the left and the right. The truth is that as long as we try to force every kid through a one-size-fits-all system, we will never see improvement. No other country in the world is running an education system on the pretense that all students are the same, and as long as we pursue that folly, we will continue to waste precious resources and fall farther behind our competitors.


Bob Dean is a high-school math teacher in Vancouver, WA. He has served as math department chairman of Evergreen High School, as a State Board of Education Math Advisory Panel Member, as a member of the OSPI Standards Revision Team, and as a member of the Where's the Math Executive Committee. This article was previously published on Bob Dean's blog.
Comment from Laurie Rogers: If you would like to submit a guest column on public education, please write to me at wlroge@comcast.net . Please limit columns to about 1,000 words, give or take a few. Columns might be edited for length, content or grammar. You may remain anonymous to the public, however I must know who you are. All decisions on guest columns are the sole right and responsibility of Laurie Rogers.

Are grading trends hurting socially awkward children?

By Katharine Beals

[This article was originally posted on The Atlantic. It is reprinted here with permission from the author.]

Eccentric children -- including those on the autism spectrum -- often have unique academic abilities. But today's teaching philosophies are making it hard for them to shine.

Children have long been graded not just for academics, but also for elements of "character" -- particularly behavior and emotional maturity. However, in the last few decades, socially eccentric children have seen their awkwardness or aloofness factored into their grades in math, language arts, and social studies. Ironically, this trend has coincided with a rise in diagnoses of autistic spectrum disorders.

For children on the autism spectrum, new social studies curricula pose a particular challenge. Once restricted to readings, worksheets, and essays on history, government, and politics, the subject increasingly requires students to reflect on their connections within their local communities. They are asked to present projects to their classmates (even in primary school), spend much of class time working in groups, and evaluate scenarios such as this one, from a worksheet for 3rd graders:

Fulfilling this assignment means reading the characters' faces, deducing the social dynamics, and assuming multiple perspectives -- tasks that amount to an informal screening test for the core social deficit of autistic spectrum disorders. Fail this assignment, and chances are you're somewhere on the spectrum.

Language arts classes, meanwhile, tend to favor books by authors like Judy Blume and Jerry Spinelli: realistic fiction starring recognizable school-aged peers in social settings. To the socially adept, these books are highly accessible. But the socially oblivious might find themselves unable to answer the reading comprehension questions, many of which require social inferences similar to those in the social studies sheet.

In writing assignments as well, today's language arts classes favor realistic fiction (often explicitly disallowing fantasy) along with personal accounts of everyday life. For the autistic child, written expression might already be difficult; assignments that presuppose an ability to articulate personal feelings or create psychologically realistic characters, dialogue, and social interactions, can be tremendously bewildering and frustrating.

Some of these writing challenges extend to today's math classes. To earn full credit on math problems, students often must verbally explain the thought processes behind their mathematical solutions. But one common characteristic among people on the autism spectrum is a nonverbal approach to mathematics, Many autistic children have mathematical skills that far exceed their verbal skills. But even when their verbal skills are on par with their math skills, they tend to solve problems nonverbally, performing much of the work rapidly and automatically in their heads. When they're asked to explain their answers, they not only might struggle to put their thoughts into words, they might have actually bypassed the thought processes that could be verbalized by their peers.

For the same reason, autistic children struggle with the kind of group work required at many schools, particularly those with smaller classrooms, better-behaved students, and better reputations. As in other subjects, math teachers assess students, in part, on their ability to cooperate with their peers. But working in math groups is challenging for autistic children, not only because of their deficient social skills, but because they can often do the math tasks entirely on their own -- and faster than their group mates can. When they're expected to help their peers, or at least to wait for them to finish, they might become impatient and irritable, or bored and tuned out. Either way, they will lose points for cooperation.

Meanwhile, the kind of challenging solo work in which mildly autistic students have excelled is becoming less and less common. Across the curriculum, the traditional essay or problem set has been upstaged by group projects and multimedia presentations. Consider, for example, how many points in this popular science evaluation rubric come from skills in oral presentation:

One might argue that the new emphasis on sociability is precisely what autistic spectrum students require. Don't they, more than anyone else, need to develop their communication and collaborative skills? And in our increasingly social 21st century, aren't these skills more important than ever before -- both for life in general, and for jobs in particular?

The problem is that the kinds of jobs that autistic students aspire to -- for example, computer programming, engineering, writing, and the visual arts -- tend not to involve the sorts of group dynamics that occur in K-12 classrooms. And the social skills training that they do indeed require are best left to trained professionals. Well-run social skills groups for children on the autism spectrum are out there -- just not in most K-12 schools.

By traditional academic standards, children with the mild form of autism currently known as Asperger's syndrome are often exceptionally gifted. They tend to have unusual numerical and spatial reasoning skills that lead to superior achievement in math and science. Many also have large vocabularies, encyclopedic knowledge, and strong analytical abilities, making them exceptional writers of social studies essays. Some have imaginations that lead to unusual creativity in fantasy or science fiction writing.

A generation ago, before current trends in K-12 education took hold, many Asperger's children would have sailed through school without being downgraded for their social deficiencies. Nowadays, even in subjects where they used to excel, their grades are declining. And so are their prospects for appropriately challenging and rewarding education -- and careers -- in the future.

Thanks to the official Asperger's diagnosis, some parents of these students have managed to secure accommodations that exempted them from many of these new requirements. But in May, when the 5th edition of America's official manual of the psychiatric disorders comes out, the syndrome won't be there. Instead of receiving an Asperger's diagnosis, those with milder symptoms will simply be classified as having an autism spectrum disorder. Some studies have suggested that under the new system, the milder cases may go unidentified -- a result that could further impede those students' ability to thrive in today's classrooms.

Either way, brightening the prospects of our official or unofficial "Aspies" isn't difficult. It means restoring traditional, academic pathways through school, and allowing them, wherever possible, to work independently. And it means leaving the social skills training -- along with the autistic spectrum screening tests -- to the professionals.


Katharine Beals is a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and an adjunct professor at the Drexel University School of Education. She is the author of Raising a Left-Brain Child in a Right-Brain World: Strategies for Helping Bright, Quirky, Socially Awkward Children to Thrive at Home and at School.


Comment from Laurie Rogers: If you would like to submit a guest column on public education, please write to me at wlroge@comcast.net . Please limit columns to about 1,000 words, give or take a few. Columns might be edited for length, content or grammar. You may remain anonymous to the public, however I must know who you are. All decisions on guest columns are the sole right and responsibility of Laurie Rogers.