It’s Not Broke. So the Ladue School District Wants to Fix It.

P-D :

What’s a master’s degree worth?

To a teacher, it might be worth a few extra thousand dollars a year in salary, or lead to a more specialized career as a literacy coordinator or administrator.

To a critic, it’s not worth much. Study after study shows that a teacher with a master’s degree doesn’t necessarily improve student learning.

To the Ladue School District, it’s worth their reputation, and the support of voters who may approve or deny tax increases.

Ladue, one of the top-performing districts in the state, has recently told its teachers with bachelor’s degrees that a master’s degree “will be the new standard expected” within four years. The change will ask nearly half of the district’s teachers to seek a higher degree, or see their future pay increases dwindle.

(snip)

Why so relatively few advanced degrees in Ladue? Because it’s the only district in the state — and one of few in the nation — to pay its teachers based on performance. Teachers have been paid according to points earned for how well they taught, in addition to an across-the-board raise. A master’s degree didn’t necessarily matter. If you did a good job, you were compensated

And it’s working out pretty well.  Last I looked, there was no rush in Ladue to get vouchers and/or charter schools.  And while Ladue has a few private schools, they exist because of wealth and status, not academic necessity.

The reason the Ladue School District is obsessed about their teachers having graduate degrees is that the education system is true to its own principles.  They’re in the business of education, so obviously education will obviously and instantly make their own teachers better as much as it will make their teachers’ students better.  So they want us to think.

Give Us This Year Our Yearly Superintendent

According to the local news tonight, the St. Louis City Public Schools is close to hiring a new superintendent.  Local SLPS officials and Local 420 Teachers Union representatives were saying that they hoped that a new permanent superintendent would mark the beginning of a new era in the district.

Just like we’ve heard seven times within the last five years.  Meaning that “era,” in SPLSpeak, means ten months.  When the sup’t they’ll soon hire takes control, I’ll nail some Jello to a wall and see which tenure holds up the longest.

My Heart Bleeds

AP:

Back to school: Shaky economy hits kids

WASHINGTON - Hard times and higher fuel prices will follow kids back to school this fall.

Children will walk farther to the bus stop, pay more for lunch, study from old textbooks and wear last year’s clothes. Field trips? Forget about it.

Wow, it’s surely the end of civilization then.  I’m wondering if children who started school in the Fall of 1933 would have been despondent about walking a little further, and wearing year-old clothes.

As far as this bit about “old textbooks,” it seems to me that the older books are also the less politically correct.  In fact, Phyllis Schlafly says that 1970 was pretty much a crossover year; any textbooks before them are pretty much free of leftist propaganda.

God Wants Your Children to Attend the St. Louis City Public Schools

So said many preachers of a certain hue in a certain part of the city this morning.  If that’s so, then this makes me want to give Darwin a second look.  Strangely enough, there were no sermons at churches in St. Peters this morning implying that God wants you to send your kids to the Fort Zumwalt or Francis  Howell School Districts  — if anything, those churches are suggesting just the opposite.

Nevertheless, if your children do as God wants, then they’ll get to see a concert by someone named “Lil’ Shorty” some time in the month of October.  That makes me want to give truancy a second look.

Related:  SLPS Loves ‘Dem Babydaddys

The School Can’t Win

P-D :

Family of gay boy slain in Calif. blames school

VENTURA, Calif. (AP) — The family of a gay teenager who was fatally shot in class blames the school district for allowing their son to wear makeup and feminine clothing to school — factors the family claims led to the death.

The parents and brother of 15-year-old Larry King of Oxnard filed a personal injury claim against the Hueneme school district seeking unspecified damages for not enforcing the dress code.

So, the school was at fault for letting their son dress up as a woman, because that made him a target.  If the school would not have allowed him to do that, this same family would be sueing the school for discrimination.

Is This What Formal Debating Has Come To?

H/T NPI.

Almost Doesn’t Count

P-D :

Math anxiety: How to help your child?

When it comes to helping her son with math homework, Lisa Earl is at a loss.

“I know nothing. Nothing!” Earl said. Her 14-year-old son Patrick is a freshman this year at Francis Howell Central High School, where classes started Tuesday. “I tried to help him last year and I couldn’t,” she said.

Back to school means back to homework and not just for students. Like Earl, many parents have spent frustrating nights at the kitchen table trying to help their kid make sense of equations and exponents.

And as much as mom and dad might be ready to throw their hands in the air and give up, math is more critical than ever, educators say. Advances in technology continue, and U.S. students have fallen behind their international counterparts. It’s not only important to the country’s future economy, but to a student’s success later in life.

As someone who, as a high school student, was on a committee to help choose new math textbooks, and thus was someone who used to agree with this contention, I don’t anymore.  The thing with mathematics is that, the only way you can have a high-paying career based on math ability, you have to be exceptional at it.  Otherwise, you might as well be bad at it, as virtually every other thing you can do in life only requires mastery of relatively simple algebra.  For those like me, who turned out to be pretty good but not exceptional in math, through three semesters of college level calculus (the first two completed in high school), but then got lost at differential equations, there’s no great career that comes with knowing a lot of math but not an exceptional lot.  Yes, one could teach in a middle or high school, but there are only so many of those teachers that a society needs, plus the fact that teaching isn’t a well-paid profession that can be a thankless calling.

SLPS Loves ‘Dem Babydaddys

Next Monday, August 18, might be the most confusing day in 2008.

KSDK:

St. Louis Public Schools Asks Fathers To Bring Children On First Day Of School

St. Louis Public Schools is asking all fathers to bring their children on the first day of school.

It’s part of a national Million Father March sponsored by The Black Star Project of Chicago. The march aims to engange fathers and other significant male caregivers in the education of their children. Around 300 cities are expected to take part.

The trouble is, for way too many fathers in St. Louis City, if they know their offspring, they’ll have many schools in many parts of the city to visit on Monday, and many babymamma’s cribs to get said offspring from.

Seriously, since there aren’t enough hours in a school day, if this Black Star Project thinks that fathers should be engaged as significant caregivers, this means that they’ll probably be too busy working on Monday to do anything else.

But Planned Parenthood Has Different Ideas

KSDK:

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY (AP) — A judge has ordered a 19-year-old man to write an apology to a the city of Saratoga Springs in New York for dressing in an offensive costume at a high school graduation.

Calvin Morett had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for dressing in a 6-foot penis costume at the graduation at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. A video of his visit last month has appeared on YouTube.

The judge has also ordered Morett to pay to have the apology published in a local newspaper, pay court fees and perform 24 hours of community service.

His timing was wrong.  If this were an STD prevention skit, everything would have been alright.  As it is, PP was probably looking for a six-foot long condom.

The Audacity of Nope

It’s a choice on the high school summer reading list in the Walpole, suburban Boston, People’s Republic of Massachusetts school district.  It wasn’t that long ago that most Bostonians spoke like Ron Paul, though they had to take a break from chatting in order to dispose of some tea.

Unfortunately, one of Obama’s books is on the list.  And knowing what the state has for a Governor, and that he is good friends with BHO (and a dark horse for running mate, I predict), the students might feel compelled to read that book.

Don’t Worry. Be Panicked.

The story about giving Statins to children as young as 8 is already ubiquitous, but a few versions of the story are adding that pediatricians are recommending that children with high cholesterol not be told of their predicament, because they’re worried that all the stress caused by the news would distract them from their school work.

As if their “school work” doesn’t peddle panic and paranoia about the environment and global warming.  It seems as if telling them about cholesterol would relax them by comparison.

The Bookend of Retirement

P-D :

Former SEMO worker found with ID info on students

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. — A former Southeast Missouri State University employee was recently found with university data files containing the names and Social Security numbers of about 800 students, the university said in a news release.

I have said in this medium many times before that SSNs are way overused.  Their original purpose was merely to be an account number between an individual SSN taxpayer and potential beneficiary, and the Social Security Administration, for paying in and eventually taking out.

Why universities need them is beyond me.  If they wouldn’t have had them, then they wouldn’t have been stolen.  If SSNs were used today like they were originally intended to be used, then the theft of one’s SSN wouldn’t have the disastrous consequences that it does.

Pompous Circumstance

I was mad at Rush Limbaugh today — the day after Flimsy Grahamnesty was able to turn back Buddy Witherspoon’s challenge, he didn’t mention it at all on his show.  In fact, after months and months and several years of (rightly) opposing Flimsy, and his quisling liberalism on immigration soft amnesty, and other things before that, and after calling him “Grahamnesty,” he couldn’t find it in his heart to make one mention of the fact that Flimsy had a primary opponent in the person of Buddy Witherspoon.

Nevertheless, he read a story from Fort Mill, S.C. that interested me.  Here is Fox News’s telling:

7 Arrested for Cheering at High School Graduations

When school officials in Rock Hill, South Carolina, tell graduation ceremony crowds to hold their applause until the end, they mean it — Police arrested seven people after they were accused of loud cheering during the ceremonies.

Six people at Fort Mill High School’s graduation were charged Saturday and a seventh at the graduation for York Comprehensive High School was charged Friday with disorderly conduct, authorities said. Police said the seven yelled after students’ names were called.

“I just thought they were going to escort me out,” Jonathan Orr told The Herald of Rock Hill. “I had no idea they were going to put andcuffs on me and take me to jail.”

Orr, 21, spent two hours in jail after he was arrested when he yelled for his cousin at York’s commencement at the Winthrop University Coliseum.

Rock Hill police began patrolling commencements several years ago at the request of school districts who complained of increasing disruption. Those attending graduations are told they can be prosecuted for bad behavior and letters are sent home with students, said Rock Hill police spokesman Lt. Jerry Waldrop.

Assuming the story at face value, I think arrests were excessive, but the story generated a contretemps between Rush and a number of callers.  It seems like high school graduation ceremonies have become more raucous in recent years, with certain audience members whooping, hollering, bouncing around beach balls, dancing around in the ailes, and so on, when their loved one receives their diploma.

It’s not that the racial taboo would be broken on Rush’s show, but it’s probably the case that most of this jocularity happens on behalf of and by blacks.  As it is, I looked up the racial demographics of York Comprehensive H.S. in Fort Mill, S.C, which is a charter school, and it is 54% white, 40% black, and 6% other.  I get the feeling that those arrested were a lot more raucous than the article suggests, and were very likely people of color.  Perhaps the fact that the gendarmes got involved is a clue that the jubilation turned physical.

Subway Admits

WND:

Subway says ’sorry’ to homeschoolers

In the wake of news coverage about its exclusion of homeschoolers from a student essay contest, the Subway restaurant chain has issued an apology and vows to include students educated at home in its next event.

Last weekend, WND broke the story of the eatery’s discrimination, as the firm made it clear on its website the campaign was not open to homeschoolers.

Written apologies are now being e-mailed to people who contacted the company to complain.

“We at Subway restaurants place a high value on education, regardless of the setting, and have initiated a number of programs and promotions aimed at educating our youth in the areas of health and fitness,” said Subway spokesman Jeremie Roche.

“We sincerely apologize to anyone who feels excluded by our current essay contest. Our intention was to provide an opportunity for traditional schools, many of which we know have trouble affording athletic equipment, to win equipment. Our intent was certainly not to exclude homeschool children from the opportunity to win prizes and benefit from better access to fitness equipment.”

“Provide an opportunity for traditional schools.”  Subway just admitted that they banned homeschoolers because they wanted to give public school students a chance to win.  It seems like homeschoolers win all the spelling bees, geography bees, and other contests where they are permitted to enter.  Like I said in this medium several days ago, who would want Olympic track athletes to participate in an elementary school field day?

By the way, does Subway think that homeschooling families aren’t interested in sports and fitness equipment?  If anything, it’s harder for them than school districts to purchase it.

The Talent Track

KCNC-CBS-4 Denver:

Tancredo Jokes He Wants To Be CU Professor

Republican congressman Tom Tancredo has fired off a wisecracking press release saying he wants to be a professor of conservative politics at the University of Colorado — a school often criticized by conservatives as being too liberal.

The outspoken opponent of illegal immigration is suggesting classes in “English Only 101″ and “American Assimilation.” He’s also proposing a 20-foot-high fence around the border of the university’s Boulder campus.

This is in reaction to the news that CU is actively seeking conservative profs.

If you don’t want to think that TT is being facetious, then consider that Jim Talent left the U.S. House after several terms in 2000, taught at Wash. U. from then until 2002, and then won election to the U.S. Senate that year. If TT takes on Ken Salazar and beats him in ‘10, and teaches at CU in the interim, then the timing, along with the first letter of their last names, will be the same. But I hope Tom would last more than two-thirds of a term in the Senate.

Cameras Cameras Everywhere

Two stories.

First and locally, from the P-D:

IMPERIAL — School security cameras that can be monitored remotely by Jefferson County sheriff’s deputies are being unveiled today at the Windsor School District.

The cameras in the Imperial-based district of about 3,100 students are among the first in the metropolitan area that can be monitored from outside the schools by a police agency.

In other words, the Windsor Prison System is installing surveillance cameras in all of its penitentiaries. Of course you would want them to be monitored by local authorities.

All kidding aside, the Windsor S.D. suits are citing Columbine as a reason. Trouble is that Columbine had cameras cameras everywhere when it happened. All that did was to show us video of the tragedy. It’s not like the perps, who were losers starved for attention and eternal fame (or infamy), weren’t going to make it hard to discover who did it. The cameras only made that kind of thing easier.

Remember, YouTube didn’t exist in 1999.

Second, from Babylon-on-Potomac and in the Washington Times:

Video cameras proposed on guns for D.C. police

A D.C. Council member wants to put mini-cameras on roughly 4,000 police firearms to make officers accountable for using lethal force, but other city officials are not convinced about the value of the technology.

Council member Harry Thomas Jr., Ward 5 Democrat, is proposing a bill to equip the Metropolitan Police Department’s weapons with relatively untested PistolCams, which record video and sound when a gun is drawn.

Uh, don’t their cars already have cameras? And pray tell, which way are these cameras going to point? If they point outward, they might do no good in the dark. If the point inward, then you’ll see nothing but the cop’s body.

One More Myth

Michael Robertson, CEO of Linspire, has a blog post today where he details the five biggest myths of the education-industrial complex.  It’s worth the time, though I could add a sixth:  “You will necessarily get a job commensurate with your education if you’re white.”

Child’s Play

KSDK:

(NBC) — In an effort to battle childhood obesity and make exercise a habit for life, one Maryland school has come up with an early morning boot camp of sorts to get kids moving before classes even start.

At Scotts Branch Elementary School in Randalstown, physical education teacher Patrice Walker is like a military drill sergeant.

The difference is these students are volunteers in her workout army.

Walker created the aerobic conditioning club in February.

It’s a before school program that keeps students moving with an intense thirty minute workout.

“Six muscle and fitness stations, jump rope, jumping jacks, crunches, sit-ups, agility ladders, and agility programs,” said Walker. “Statistical information shows that kids are active in the morning and get the blood pumping to their hearts and their brain, they’re more awake and more able to learn.”.

Physical activity among elementary school students before the day of formal instruction. Hmm, I think there used to be something like that. Oh yeah. They called it RECESS. But they got rid of it because of lawsuits and fear of active boys. And they wonder why there’s a lot of obesity.

Far Apart

P-D:

Dream Weavers

ST. LOUIS — In a city often divided by black and white, north and south, dozens of students from both sides came together Saturday to meet in the middle.

On Compton Avenue, the street that separates St. Louis and Harris-Stowe State universities, students gathered for the first St. Louis Dream Keepers’ Fair, a student-driven event to recharge Martin Luther King Jr.’s message of unity 40 years after his assassination.

Organizers hope the fair, the first of its kind in the city, will prompt St. Louisans and their leaders to start seriously addressing race-related problems in the city.

“Our schools are only divided by this one street,” said Fallon Dupard, the incoming student body president at Harris-Stowe.

And by a world of difference in standards.  SLU is only behind Wash. U. in Missouri for prestige and admissions standards, while Harris-Stowe has the lowest admissions standards in the state among schools that have admissions standards (i.e. are not open-enrollment).  SLU has highly advanced mathematics courses that fill up quite easily, while Harris-Stowe often doesn’t enough registrants for second-semester Calculus to make it worth the Prof’s time, such that it is shelved, as this writer discovered when he tried to take such a course as a high school senior, a way back in the olden days of 1994 when I would have had to dodge dinosaurs just to attend class.  When I got the call from a H-S administrator about the cancellation, she told me that I was the only student who signed up for the class.  Not one single regular full-time student at H-S thought they needed or wanted to take Calculus II.  (Harris-Stowe turns out a high percentage of the teachers in the St. Louis City Public Schools.)  I wound up taking the course that same semester at one of St. Louis’s two-year colleges.

Options Dwindling

CBS:

School Principal Bans Tag From Playground

The principal of Kent Gardens Elementary School in McLean told students this month that they are not allowed to play the game of chasing and yelling “You’re it!” at recess after determining the playground pastime had gotten out of hand.

Principal Robyn Hooker said she noticed that tag was sending too many students to the nurse’s office. She hopes to restore tag - as well as touch football, which also is on hold - after administrators review recess policies.

(snip)

Fairfax County public schools’ office of risk management has a list of activities that are prohibited at any school-sponsored events. Besides bungee-jumping and scuba diving, students are not permitted to break dance or play dodge ball or tug-of-war. Restrictions on tag are less common.

So, no tag, touch footbal, dodgeball, tug-of-war, or breakdance? What’s left, Yoga? Actually, yes.

Remember, this is probably the same kind of school that bans soda machines and sugary snacks, because the students are getting too obese.

I Like Barbecue Alright

But I don’t think that it’s going to make the St. Louis City Public Schools any better.  However, the Special Administrative Board seems to be pinning all its hopes on BBQ, because it’s the only solution that seemed to have been discussed yesterday in the latest “Save the SLPS” attempt.

Operation Chaos Opportunities

French:

Teacher Activism Discussion Tonight

Teachers can be activists too!

Or at least the point teachers Jeanine Molloff and Cris Mann of St. Louis Public Schools are making. They’ll be hosting a chat tonight on “In What Ways Can Teachers Be Political?” It’s happening tonight from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Adult Learning Center, 5078 Kensington Ave.

The event will be hosted by the Literacy for Social Justice Teacher Research Group, a grassroots, teacher-led organization committed to literacy education and advocacy for social justice in classrooms and communities.

Which is a good thing, because you have to know how to read first before you can be a good left-wing agitator.

The discussion will feature other teachers and parent activists sharing their stories about trying to change educational systems for the better while being mired in politics. They will also talk about the “complexities of teacher-activism” including topics like getting involved in Independent political parties, balancing teaching and activism and advocating for educational issues.

Teachers’ Unions leaving the Democrat Party?  Talk about Operation Chaos possibilities…

They will also host Millie Phillips, a parent in the San Francisco Public School system. She played an active role in anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan’s Congressional campaign.

And the SLPS Teachers’ Union can also have a hand in similar successful political movements.

Fight Club

Now when the teachers get into it, you know something is amiss.

His Name Is Earl

World Net Daily:

Students have their say about California homeschooling

Thousands of students from across the nation have weighed into the arguments over the recent court ruling in California that announced there was no legal provision to allowing homeschooling in the state.

“The court cannot ‘make’ something illegal – that’s the legislature’s job. Sheesh!” wrote Jon Chi Lou, of Heritage Christian High School. And Hye-Sung F. Gehring added, “This is ridiculous. California is retarded. Always has been.”

They shouldn’t, but they can.  Haven’t they heard of the Warren Court?  Sheesh!

Beyond that, these two students are demonstrating the effectiveness of homeschooling.  Out of the box, so to speak, they intimately know the difference between legislative and judicial power.  Too bad Earl Warren didn’t.

I Can’t Say I’m That Upset

So, four far-left ELFs have been hauled in for arsonizing an agricultural research facility on the campus of Michigan State University on December 31, 1999.  Remember, this is the same Michigan State University that wanted to run its Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter out on a rail, and to tar and feather is campus leader, Kyle Bristow.

Also, I remember watching a lot of TV on December 31, 1999, watching 2000 arrive through the time zones, and waiting to see if there was anything to the Y2K hysteria.  I know that Russian President Boris Yeltsin resigned on that day, leaving the job to Vladimir Putin.  If there was any other significant news reported that day, I would have remembered it.  I don’t remember any news about a suspicious fire at MSU.

To Each According To His Prophylactic Needs

The good news is that the Mizzou campus student government, funded by per-semester fees paid by the students themselves, and not the University itself, will be funding the communal condom bowls that will soon exist in every dorm.

However, I still can’t countenance the idea that condoms are a civil right for and a collective responsibility among the University of Missouri’s undergraduate student body. Virtually all of Mizzou’s undergrads are at least 17 years of age, and are thus legal adults in this state when it comes to sexual relations and criminal responsibility. As such, those adults, like most adults in Columbia, Missouri, and elsewhere, should head to the drug store and plop down the six bucks and change for a box like the rest of us. If they don’t have the six bucks, or the ambition to go do a drug store, then they really have no business having sex. If they have no need for condoms, then they shouldn’t be made to pay for such needs of others.

As it is, Mizzou gives out condoms at several locations on the campus, that distribution paid for by the University itself.  But the bright idea behind distributing them in the dorms is that actually leaving the dorm and heading to the Student Health Center is too inconvenient and too embarrassing for some students — taking condoms in public view is supposedly embarrassing, but the sex that the condoms imply isn’t embarrassing.  I suppose that there are a few students left who think that there is some sort of prudish moral atmosphere at Mizzou (consistently rated one of the country’s biggest party schools) that will ridicule their sex lives.

Look on the Bright Side

P-D:

Lindenwood shooting range irritates farmers

ST. CHARLES COUNTY — An out-of-the-way stretch of Missouri River bottomland eyed by Lindenwood University for a new shooting range isn’t remote enough, say some area farmers.

Worried that the proposed facility would cause noise and road congestion and otherwise spoil the area’s rustic nature, they recently convinced the county Planning and Zoning Commission to oppose the idea. The County Council, however, will have the final say on the issue.

“We don’t want all the commotion and traffic it’s going to entail,” said Cliff Steinmann Sr., whose sons operate his family’s farm nearby. “It’s way out there in the middle of nowhere.”

Lindenwood officials say that’s why they chose the 65-acre site north of Wiedey Road and east of Highway 94, a few miles northeast of the school’s St. Charles campus.

The range would be the home base for the school’s national championship shooting team, which now travels five days a week to practice in Pacific.

You’re telling me that an educational institution has an official shooting team, that uses firearms?  Not only that, since they are national champions, this must mean that other schools do, too, and they compete with each other.

Chief Illiniwek’s Victory

Almost four-in-five students at the University of Illinois want to bring him back.

If You Think the Cost of Ignorance Is High, Try the Cost of Education

Linspire’s Michael Robertson crunched some numbers, and calculated that a college education will decrease the earning power of the average student by some $421,000 in his or her lifetime.  And even that analysis is leaving out some important economic and social factors, such as deindustrialization, white-collar outsourcing, and affirmative action.

Smoking Iron

It’s worse than we (and the RFT) thought — he essentially paid the living expenses of two of the Alton, Illinois players he illegally recruited for awhile.  The apartment that Irons rented was in a complex owned by a firm that has a former Vashon principal as an officer.