“Speaking at a London girls’ school, Michelle Obama makes a passionate, personal case for each student to take education seriously. It is this new, brilliant generation, she says, that will close the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be.”

Ivory A. Toldson, a senior research analyst with the  Congressional Black Caucus Foundation ( CBCF ), has written a report titled Breaking Barriers, Plotting the Path to Academic Success for School-age African-American Males,” which  offers important clues to improving academic success for a group with persistent low achievement rates. Read the report by using the link below:

http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/blacknewsblackviews.html

I thought that a great deal of good could come from reading the following piece by Ms. Sommers, on the topic of the growing education gap. This piece was published in May, 2000; but, it still resonates today. As of the writing of this post, the problem has been extraordinarily exacerbated by the sexist neglect and callousness for males, that pervades our educational institutions. Currently, the number of college degrees earned by women numbers 60%, as well as them being 60% of all college students(National Center for Education Statistics). In 10 years, it is expected to be ~70%, if this problem continues to be ignored. The issue of male depression, that is touched on in this article, has only become worsened, due to increasing ignorance of men’s issues and feelings. To be sure, men need something to believe in; but, are taught not to believe in themselves. They are of no concern to educational establishments, and as a result lack self confidence and direction. Currently, men represent 80% of suicides(American Psychiatric Association); and, this surely finds its roots in society’s disdain and abject disregard for males.

The original post can be found here, and now, without further to do, please enjoy the following.

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The War Against Boys
by Christina Hoff Sommers

This we think we know: American schools favor boys and grind down girls. The truth is the very opposite. By virtually every measure, girls are thriving in school; it is boys who are the second sex.

It’s a bad time to be a boy in America. The triumphant victory of the U.S. women’s soccer team at the World Cup last summer has come to symbolize the spirit of American girls. The shooting at Columbine High last spring might be said to symbolize the spirit of American boys.

That boys are in disrepute is not accidental. For many years women’s groups have complained that boys benefit from a school system that favors them and is biased against girls. “Schools shortchange girls,” declares the American Association of University Women [http://www.aauw.org/]. Girls are “undergoing a kind of psychological foot-binding,” two prominent educational psychologists say. A stream of books and pamphlets cite research showing not only that boys are classroom favorites but also that they are given to schoolyard violence and sexual harassment.

In the view that has prevailed in American education over the past decade, boys are resented, both as the unfairly privileged sex and as obstacles on the path to gender justice for girls. This perspective is promoted in schools of education, and many a teacher now feels that girls need and deserve special indemnifying consideration. “It is really clear that boys are Number One in this society and in most of the world,” says Patricia O’Reilly [http://ucaswww.mcm.uc.edu/womens_studies/faculty/oreilly.html], a professor of education and the director of the Gender Equity Center, at the University of Cincinnati.

The idea that schools and society grind girls down has given rise to an array of laws and policies intended to curtail the advantage boys have and to redress the harm done to girls. That girls are treated as the second sex in school and consequently suffer, that boys are accorded privileges and consequently benefit — these are things everyone is presumed to know. But they are not true.

The research commonly cited to support claims of male privilege and male sinfulness is riddled with errors. Almost none of it has been published in peer-reviewed professional journals. Some of the data turn out to be mysteriously missing. A review of the facts shows boys, not girls, on the weak side of an education gender gap. The typical boy is a year and a half behind the typical girl in reading and writing; he is less committed to school and less likely to go to college. In 1997 college full-time enrollments were 45 percent male and 55 percent female. The Department of Education predicts that the proportion of boys in college classes will continue to shrink.

Data from the U.S. Department of Education and from several recent university studies show that far from being shy and demoralized, today’s girls outshine boys. They get better grades. They have higher educational aspirations. They follow more-rigorous academic programs and participate in advanced-placement classes at higher rates. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, slightly more girls than boys enroll in high-level math and science courses. Girls, allegedly timorous and lacking in confidence, now outnumber boys in student government, in honor societies, on school newspapers, and in debating clubs. Only in sports are boys ahead, and women’s groups are targeting the sports gap with a vengeance. Girls read more books. They outperform boys on tests for artistic and musical ability. More girls than boys study abroad. More join the Peace Corps. At the same time, more boys than girls are suspended from school. More are held back and more drop out. Boys are three times as likely to receive a diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. More boys than girls are involved in crime, alcohol, and drugs. Girls attempt suicide more often than boys, but it is boys who more often succeed. In 1997, a typical year, 4,483 young people aged five to twenty-four committed suicide: 701 females and 3,782 males.

In the technical language of education experts, girls are academically more “engaged.” Last year an article in The CQ Researcher about male and female academic achievement described a common parental observation: “Daughters want to please their teachers by spending extra time on projects, doing extra credit, making homework as neat as possible. Sons rush through homework assignments and run outside to play, unconcerned about how the teacher will regard the sloppy work.”

School engagement is a critical measure of student success. The U.S. Department of Education gauges student commitment by the following criteria: “How much time do students devote to homework each night?”and “Do students come to class prepared and ready to learn? (Do they bring books and pencils? Have they completed their homework?)”According to surveys of fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders, girls consistently do more homework than boys. By the twelfth grade boys are four times as likely as girls not to do homework. Similarly, more boys than girls report that they “usually” or “often” come to school without supplies or without having done their homework.

The performance gap between boys and girls in high school leads directly to the growing gap between male and female admissions to college. The Department of Education reports that in 1996 there were 8.4 million women but only 6.7 million men enrolled in college. It predicts that women will hold on to and increase their lead well into the next decade, and that by 2007 the numbers will be 9.2 million women and 6.9 million men.
Deconstructing the Test-Score Gap

Feminists cannot deny that girls get better grades, are more engaged academically, and are now the majority sex in higher education. They argue, however, that these advantages are hardly decisive. Boys, they point out, get higher scores than girls on almost every significant standardized test — especially the Scholastic Assessment Test and law school, medical school, and graduate school admissions tests.

In 1996 I wrote an article for Education Week [http://www.edweek.org/ew/1996/38sommer.h15] about the many ways in which girl students were moving ahead of boys. Seizing on the test-score data that suggest boys are doing better than girls, David Sadker, a professor of education at American University and a co-author with his wife, Myra, of Failing at Fairness: How America’s Schools Cheat Girls (1994), wrote, “If females are soaring in school, as Christina Hoff Sommers writes, then these tests are blind to their flight.” On the 1998 SAT boys were thirty-five points (out of 800) ahead of girls in math and seven points ahead in English. These results seem to run counter to all other measurements of achievement in school. In almost all other areas boys lag behind girls. Why do they test better? Is Sadker right in suggesting that this is a manifestation of boys’ privileged status?

The answer is no. A careful look at the pool of students who take the SAT and similar tests shows that the girls’ lower scores have little or nothing to do with bias or unfairness. Indeed, the scores do not even signify lower achievement by girls. First of all, according to College Bound Seniors [http://www.collegeboard.org/sat/cbsenior/yr1999/NAT/cbs1999.html], an annual report on standardized-test takers published by the College Board, many more “at risk” girls than “at risk” boys take the SAT — girls from lower-income homes or with parents who never graduated from high school or never attended college. “These characteristics,” the report says, “are associated with lower than average SAT scores.” Instead of wrongly using SAT scores as evidence of bias against girls, scholars should be concerned about the boys who never show up for the tests they need if they are to move on to higher education.

Another factor skews test results so that they appear to favor boys. Nancy Cole, the president of the Educational Testing Service [http://www.ets.org/], calls it the “spread” phenomenon. Scores on almost any intelligence or achievement test are more spread out for boys than for girls — boys include more prodigies and more students of marginal ability. Or, as the political scientist James Q. Wilson once put it, “There are more male geniuses and more male idiots.”

Boys also dominate dropout lists, failure lists, and learning-disability lists. Students in these groups rarely take college-admissions tests. On the other hand, the exceptional boys who take school seriously show up in disproportionately high numbers for standardized tests. Gender-equity activists like Sadker ought to apply their logic consistently: if the shortage of girls at the high end of the ability distribution is evidence of unfairness to girls, then the excess of boys at the low end should be deemed evidence of unfairness to boys.

Suppose we were to turn our attention away from the highly motivated, self-selected two fifths of high school students who take the SAT and consider instead a truly representative sample of American schoolchildren. How would girls and boys then compare? Well, we have the answer. The National Assessment of Educational Progress [http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/site/home.asp], started in 1969 and mandated by Congress, offers the best and most comprehensive measure of achievement among students at all levels of ability. Under the NAEP program 70,000 to 100,000 students, drawn from forty-four states, are tested in reading, writing, math, and science at ages nine, thirteen, and seventeen. In 1996, seventeen-year-old boys outperformed seventeen-year-old girls by five points in math and eight points in science, whereas the girls outperformed the boys by fourteen points in reading and seventeen points in writing. In the past few years girls have been catching up in math and science while boys have continued to lag far behind in reading and writing.

In the July, 1995, issue of Science, Larry V. Hedges and Amy Nowell, researchers at the University of Chicago, observed that girls’ deficits in math were small but not insignificant. These deficits, they noted, could adversely affect the number of women who “excel in scientific and technical occupations.”Of the deficits in boys’ writing skills they wrote, “The large sex differences in writing … are alarming…. The data imply that males are, on average, at a rather profound disadvantage in the performance of this basic skill.” They went on to warn:

The generally larger numbers of males who perform near the bottom of the distribution in reading comprehension and writing also have policy implications. It seems likely that individuals with such poor literacy skills will have difficulty finding employment in an increasingly information-driven economy. Thus, some intervention may be required to enable them to participate constructively.

Hedges and Nowell were describing a serious problem of national scope, but because the focus elsewhere has been on girls’ deficits, few Americans know much about the problem or even suspect that it exists.

Indeed, so accepted has the myth of girls in crisis become that even teachers who work daily with male and female students tend to reflexively dismiss any challenge to the myth, or any evidence pointing to the very real crisis among boys. Three years ago Scarsdale High School, in New York, held a gender-equity workshop for faculty members. It was the standard girls-are-being-shortchanged fare, with one notable difference. A male student gave a presentation in which he pointed to evidence suggesting that girls at Scarsdale High were well ahead of boys. David Greene, a social-studies teacher, thought the student must be mistaken, but when he and some colleagues analyzed department grading patterns, they discovered that the student was right. They found little or no difference in the grades of boys and girls in advanced-placement social-studies classes. But in standard classes the girls were doing a lot better.

And Greene discovered one other thing: few wanted to hear about his startling findings. Like schools everywhere, Scarsdale High has been strongly influenced by the belief that girls are systematically deprived. That belief prevails among the school’s gender-equity committee and has led the school to offer a special senior elective on gender equity. Greene has tried to broach the subject of male underperformance with his colleagues. Many of them concede that in the classes they teach, the girls seem to be doing better than the boys, but they do not see this as part of a larger pattern. After so many years of hearing about silenced, diminished girls, teachers do not take seriously the suggestion that boys are not doing as well as girls even if they see it with their own eyes in their own classrooms.
The Incredible Shrinking Girl

OW did we get to this odd place? How did we come to believe in a picture of American boys and girls that is the opposite of the truth? And why has that belief persisted, enshrined in law, encoded in governmental and school policies, despite overwhelming evidence against it? The answer has much to do with one of the American academy’s most celebrated women — Carol Gilligan, Harvard University’s first professor of gender studies.

Gilligan first came to widespread attention in 1982, with the publication of In a Different Voice, which this article will discuss shortly. In 1990 Gilligan announced that America’s adolescent girls were in crisis. In her words, “As the river of a girl’s life flows into the sea of Western culture, she is in danger of drowning or disappearing.” Gilligan offered little in the way of conventional evidence to support this alarming finding. Indeed, it is hard to imagine what sort of empirical research could establish such a large claim. But she quickly attracted powerful allies. Within a very short time the allegedly vulnerable and demoralized state of adolescent girls achieved the status of a national emergency.

Popular writers, electrified by Gilligan’s discovery, began to see evidence of the crisis everywhere. Anna Quindlen, who was then a New York Times columnist, recounted in a 1990 column how Gilligan’s research had cast an ominous shadow on the celebration of her daughter’s second birthday: “My daughter is ready to leap into the world, as though life were chicken soup and she a delighted noodle. The work of Professor Carol Gilligan of Harvard suggests that some time after the age of 11 this will change, that even this lively little girl will pull back [and] shrink.”

A number of popular books soon materialized, including Myra and David Sadker’s Failing at Fairness and Peggy Orenstein’s Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap (1994). Elizabeth Gleick wrote in Time in 1996 on a new trend in literary victimology: “Dozens of troubled teenage girls troop across [the] pages: composite sketches of Charlottes, Whitneys and Danielles who were raped, who have bulimia, who have pierced bodies or shaved heads, who are coping with strict religious families or are felled by their parents’ bitter divorce.”

The country’s adolescent girls were both pitied and exalted. The novelist Carolyn See wrote in The Washington Post in 1994, “The most heroic, fearless, graceful, tortured human beings in this land must be girls from the ages of 12 to 15.” In the same vein, the Sadkers, in Failing at Fairness, predicted the fate of a lively six-year-old on top of a playground slide: “There she stood on her sturdy legs, with her head thrown back and her arms flung wide. As ruler of the playground, she was at the very zenith of her world.”But all would soon change: “If the camera had photographed the girl … at twelve instead of six … she would have been looking at the ground instead of the sky; her sense of self-worth would have been an accelerating downward spiral.”

A picture of confused and forlorn girls struggling to survive would be drawn again and again, with added details and increasing urgency. Mary Pipher, a clinical psychologist, wrote in Reviving Ophelia (1994), by far the most successful of the girls-in-crisis books, “Something dramatic happens to girls in early adolescence. Just as planes and ships disappear mysteriously into the Bermuda Triangle, so do the selves of girls go down in droves. They crash and burn.”

The description of America’s teenage girls as silenced, tortured, and otherwise personally diminished was (and is) indeed dismaying. But no real evidence has ever been offered to support it. Certainly neither Gilligan nor the popular writers who followed her lead produced anything like solid empirical evidence, gathered according to the conventional protocols of social-science research.

Scholars who do abide by those protocols describe adolescent girls in far more optimistic terms. Anne Petersen, a former professor of adolescent development and pediatrics at the University of Minnesota and now a senior vice-president of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, reports the consensus of researchers working in adolescent psychology: “It is now known that the majority of adolescents of both genders successfully negotiate this developmental period without any major psychological or emotional disorder, develop a positive sense of personal identity, and manage to forge adaptive peer relationships with their families.” Daniel Offer, a professor of psychiatry at Northwestern, concurs. He refers to a “new generation of studies” that find 80 percent of adolescents to be normal and well adjusted.

At the time that Gilligan was declaring her crisis, a study conducted by the University of Michigan asked a scientifically selected sample of 3,000 high school seniors, “Taking all things together, how would you say things are these days — would you say you’re very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy these days?” Nearly 86 percent of the girls and 88 percent of the boys responded that they were “pretty happy” or “very happy.” If the girls polled were caught in “an accelerating downward spiral,” they were unaware of it.

Contrary to the story told by Gilligan and her followers, American girls were flourishing in unprecedented ways by the early 1990s. To be sure, some — including many who found themselves in the offices of clinical psychologists — felt they were crashing and drowning in the sea of Western culture. But the vast majority were occupied in more-constructive ways, moving ahead of boys in the primary and secondary grades, applying to college in record numbers, filling challenging academic classes, joining sports teams, and generally enjoying more freedom and opportunities than any other young women in history.

The great discrepancy between what Gilligan says she discovered about adolescent girls and what numerous other scientists say they have learned raises obvious questions about the quality of Gilligan’s research. And these questions loom larger the more one examines Gilligan’s methods. Carol Gilligan is a much-celebrated figure. Journalists routinely cite her research on the distinctive moral psychology of women. She was Ms. magazine’s Woman of the Year in 1984, and Time put her on its short list of most-influential Americans in 1996. In 1997 she received the $250,000 Heinz Award for “transform[ing] the paradigm for what it means to be human.” Such a transformation would certainly be a feat. At the very least, it would require a great deal of empirical supporting evidence. Most of Gilligan’s published research, however, consists of anecdotes based on a small number of interviews. Her data are otherwise unavailable for review, giving rise to some reasonable doubts about their merits and persuasiveness.

In a Different Voice offered the provocative thesis that men and women have distinctly different ways of dealing with moral quandaries. Relying on data from three studies she had conducted, Gilligan found that women tend to be more caring, less competitive, and less abstract than men; they speak “in a different voice.” Women approach moral questions by applying an “ethic of care.” In contrast, men approach moral issues by applying rules and abstract principles; theirs is an “ethic of justice.” Gilligan argued further that women’s moral style had been insufficiently studied by professional psychologists. She complained that the entire fields of psychology and moral philosophy had been built on studies that excluded women.

In a Different Voice was an instant success. It sold more than 600,000 copies and was translated into nine languages. A reviewer at Vogue explained its appeal: “[Gilligan] flips old prejudices against women on their ears. She reframes qualities regarded as women’s weaknesses and shows them to be human strengths. It is impossible to consider [her] ideas without having your estimation of women rise.”

The book received a mixed reaction from feminists. Some — such as the philosophers Virginia Held and Sara Ruddick, and those in various fields who would come to be known as “difference feminists” — were tantalized by the idea that women were different from, and quite probably better than, men. But other academic feminists attacked Gilligan for reinforcing stereotypes about women as nurturers and caretakers.

Many academic psychologists, feminist and nonfeminist alike, found Gilligan’s specific claims about distinct male and female moral orientations unpersuasive and ungrounded in empirical data. Lawrence Walker, of the University of British Columbia, has reviewed 108 studies of sex differences in solving moral problems. He concluded in a 1984 review article in Child Development that “sex differences in moral reasoning in late adolescence and youth are rare.” In 1987 three psychologists at Oberlin College attempted to test Gilligan’s hypothesis: they administered a moral-reasoning test to 101 male and female students and concluded, “There were no reliable sex differences … in the directions predicted by Gilligan.” Concurring with Walker, the Oberlin researchers pointed out that “Gilligan failed to provide acceptable empirical support for her model.”

The thesis of In a Different Voice is based on three studies Gilligan conducted: the “college student study,” the “abortion decision study,” and the “rights and responsibilities study.” Here is how Gilligan described the last:

This study involved a sample of males and females matched for age, intelligence, education, occupation, and social class at nine points across the life cycle: ages 6-9, 11, 15, 19, 22, 25-27, 35, 45, and 60. From a total sample of 144 (8 males and 8 females at each age), including a more intensively interviewed subsample of 36 (2 males and 2 females at each age), data were collected on conceptions of self and morality, experiences of moral conflicts and choice, and judgments of hypothetical moral dilemmas.

This description is all we ever learn about the mechanics of the study, which seems to have no proper name; it was never published, never peer-reviewed. It was, in any case, very small in scope and in number of subjects. And the data are tantalizingly inaccessible. In September of 1998 my research assistant, Elizabeth Bowen, called Gilligan’s office and asked where she could find copies of the three studies that were the basis for In a Different Voice. Gilligan’s assistant, Tatiana Bertsch, told her that they were unavailable, and not in the public domain; because of the sensitivity of the data (especially the abortion study), the information had been kept confidential. Asked where the studies were now kept, Bertsch explained that the original data were being prepared to be placed in a Harvard library: “They are physically in the office. We are in the process of sending them to the archives at the Murray Center.”

In October of 1998 Hugh Liebert, a sophomore at Harvard who had been my research assistant the previous summer, spoke to Bertsch. She told him that the data would not be available until the end of the academic year, adding, “They have been kept secret because the issues [raised in the study] are so sensitive.” She suggested that he check back occasionally. He tried again in March. This time she informed him, “They will not be available anytime soon.”

Last September, Liebert tried one more time. He sent an email message directly to Gilligan, but Bertsch sent back the reply.

None of the In a Different Voice studies have been published. We are in the process of donating the college student study to the Murray Research Center at Radcliffe [http://www.radcliffe.edu/murray/], but that will not be completed for another year, probably. At this point Professor Gilligan has no immediate plans of donating the abortion or the rights and responsibilities studies. Sorry that none of what you are interested in is available.

Brendan Maher is a professor emeritus at Harvard University and a former chairman of the psychology department. I told him about the inaccessibility of Gilligan’s data and the explanation that their sensitive nature precluded public dissemination. He laughed and said, “It would be extraordinary to say [that one's data] are too sensitive for others to see.” He pointed out that there are standard methods for handling confidential materials in research. Names are left out but raw scores are reported, “so others can see if they can replicate your study.” A researcher must also disclose how subjects were chosen, how interviews were recorded, and the method by which meaning was derived from the data.
Politics Dressed Up as Science

Gilligan’s ideas about demoralized teenage girls had a special resonance with women’s groups that were already committed to the proposition that our society is unsympathetic to women. The interest of the venerable and politically influential American Association of University Women, in particular, was piqued. Its officers were reported to be “intrigued and alarmed” by Gilligan’s research. They wanted to know more.

In 1990 The New York Times Sunday Magazine published an admiring profile of Gilligan that heralded the discovery of a hidden crisis among the nation’s girls. Soon after, the AAUW commissioned a study from the polling firm Greenberg-Lake. The pollsters asked 3,000 children (2,400 girls and 600 boys in grades four through ten) about their self-perceptions. In 1991 the association announced the disturbing results, in a report titled Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America: “Girls aged eight and nine are confident, assertive, and feel authoritative about themselves. Yet most emerge from adolescence with a poor self-image, constrained views of their future and their place in society, and much less confidence about themselves and their abilities.” Anne Bryant, the executive director of the AAUW and an expert in public relations, organized a media campaign to spread the word that “an unacknowledged American tragedy” had been uncovered. Newspapers and magazines around the country carried reports that girls were being adversely affected by gender bias that eroded their self-esteem. Sharon Schuster, at the time the president of the AAUW, candidly explained to The New York Times why the association had undertaken the research in the first place: “We wanted to put some factual data behind our belief that girls are getting shortchanged in the classroom.”

As the AAUW’s self-esteem study was making headlines, a little-known magazine called Science News, which has been supplying information on scientific and technical developments to interested newspapers since 1922, reported the skeptical reaction of leading specialists on adolescent development. The late Roberta Simmons, a professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh (described by Science News as “director of the most ambitious longitudinal study of adolescent self-esteem to date”), said that her research showed nothing like the substantial gender gap described by the AAUW. According to Simmons, “Most kids come through the years from 10 to 20 without major problems and with an increasing sense of self-esteem.” But the doubts of Simmons and several other prominent experts were not reported in the hundreds of news stories that the Greenberg-Lake study generated.

The AAUW quickly commissioned a second study, How Schools Shortchange Girls. This one, conducted by the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women and released in 1992, focused on the alleged effects of sexism on girls’ school performance. It asserted that schools deflate girls’ self-esteem by “systematically cheating girls of classroom attention.”Such bias leads to lower aspirations and impaired academic achievement. Carol Gilligan’s crisis was being transformed into a civil-rights issue: girls were the victims of widespread sex discrimination. “The implications are clear,” the AAUW said. “The system must change.”

With great fanfare How Schools Shortchange Girls was released to the remarkably uncritical media. A 1992 article for The New York Times by Susan Chira was typical of coverage throughout the country. The headline read “Bias Against Girls is Found Rife in Schools, With Lasting Damage.” The piece was later reproduced by the AAUW and sent out as part of a fundraising package. Chira had not interviewed a single critic of the study. In March of last year I called Chira and asked about the way she had handled the AAUW study. I asked if she would write her article the same way today. No, she said, pointing out that we have since learned much more about boys’ problems in school. Why had she not canvassed dissenting opinions? She explained that she had been traveling when the AAUW study came out, and was on a short deadline. Yes, perhaps she had relied too much on the AAUW’s report. She had tried to reach Diane Ravitch, who had then been the former U.S. assistant secretary of education and was a known critic of women’s-advocacy findings, but without success. Six years after the release of How Schools Shortchange Girls, The New York Times ran a story that raised questions about its validity. This time the reporter, Tamar Lewin, did reach Diane Ravitch, who told her, “That [1992] AAUW report was just completely wrong. What was so bizarre is that it came out right at the time that girls had just overtaken boys in almost every area. It might have been the right story twenty years earlier, but coming out when it did, it was like calling a wedding a funeral…. There were all these special programs put in place for girls, and no one paid any attention to boys.”

One of the many things about which the report was wrong was the famous “call-out” gap. According to the AAUW, “In a study conducted by the Sadkers, boys in elementary and middle school called out answers eight times more often than girls. When boys called out, teachers listened. But when girls called out, they were told ‘raise your hand if you want to speak.’”

But the Sadker study turns out to be missing — and meaningless, to boot. In 1994 Amy Saltzman, of U.S. News & World Report, asked David Sadker for a copy of the research backing up the eight-to-one call-out claim. Sadker said that he had presented the findings in an unpublished paper at a symposium sponsored by the American Educational Research Association; neither he nor the AERA had a copy. Sadker conceded to Saltzman that the ratio may have been inaccurate. Indeed, Saltzman cited an independent study by Gail Jones, an associate professor of education at the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, which found that boys called out only twice as often as girls. Whatever the accurate number is, no one has shown that permitting a student to call out answers in the classroom confers any kind of academic advantage. What does confer advantage is a student’s attentiveness. Boys are less attentive — which could explain why some teachers might call on them more or be more tolerant of call-outs.

Despite the errors, the campaign to persuade the public that girls were being diminished personally and academically was a spectacular success. The Sadkers described an exultant Anne Bryant, of the AAUW, telling her friends, “I remember going to bed the night our report was issued, totally exhilarated. When I woke up the next morning, the first thought in my mind was, ‘Oh, my God, what do we do next?’” Political action came next, and here, too, girls’ advocates were successful.

Categorizing girls as an “under-served population” on a par with other discriminated-against minorities, Congress passed the Gender Equity in Education Act in 1994. Millions of dollars in grants were awarded to study the plight of girls and to learn how to counter bias against them. At the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, in Beijing in 1995, members of the U.S. delegation presented the educational and psychological deficits of American girls as a human-rights issue.
The Myth Unraveling

By the late 1990s the myth of the downtrodden girl was showing some signs of unraveling, and concern over boys was growing. In 1997 the Public Education Network (PEN) [http://www.penpress.org/] announced at its annual conference the results of a new teacher-student survey titled The American Teacher 1997: Examining Gender Issues in Public Schools. The survey was funded by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and conducted by Louis Harris and Associates.

During a three-month period in 1997 various questions about gender equity were asked of 1,306 students and 1,035 teachers in grades seven through twelve. The MetLife study had no doctrinal ax to grind. What it found contradicted most of the findings of the AAUW, the Sadkers, and the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women: “Contrary to the commonly held view that boys are at an advantage over girls in school, girls appear to have an advantage over boys in terms of their future plans, teachers’ expectations, everyday experiences at school and interactions in the classroom.”

Some other conclusions from the MetLife study: Girls are more likely than boys to see themselves as college-bound and more likely to want a good education. Furthermore, more boys (31 percent) than girls (19 percent) feel that teachers do not listen to what they have to say.

At the PEN conference, Nancy Leffert, a child psychologist then at the Search Institute [http://www.search-institute.org/], in Minneapolis, reported the results of a survey that she and colleagues had recently completed of more than 99,000 children in grades six through twelve. The children were asked about what the researchers call “developmental assets.” The Search Institute has identified forty critical assets — “building blocks for healthy development.” Half of these are external, such as a supportive family and adult role models, and half are internal, such as motivation to achieve, a sense of purpose in life, and interpersonal confidence. Leffert explained, somewhat apologetically, that girls were ahead of boys with respect to thirty-seven out of forty assets. By almost every significant measure of well-being girls had the better of boys: they felt closer to their families; they had higher aspirations, stronger connections to school, and even superior assertiveness skills. Leffert concluded her talk by saying that in the past she had referred to girls as fragile or vulnerable, but that the survey “tells me that girls have very powerful assets.”

The Horatio Alger Association [http://www.horatioalger.com/], a fifty-year-old organization devoted to promoting and affirming individual initiative and “the American dream,” releases annual back-to-school surveys. Its survey for 1998 contrasted two groups of students: the “highly successful” (approximately 18 percent of American students) and the “disillusioned” (approximately 15 percent). The successful students work hard, choose challenging classes, make schoolwork a top priority, get good grades, participate in extracurricular activities, and feel that teachers and administrators care about them and listen to them. According to the association, the successful group in the 1998 survey is 63 percent female and 37 percent male. The disillusioned students are pessimistic about their future, get low grades, and have little contact with teachers. The disillusioned group could accurately be characterized as demoralized. According to the Alger Association, “Nearly seven out of ten are male.”

In the spring of 1998 Judith Kleinfeld, a psychologist at the University of Alaska, published a thorough critique of the research on schoolgirls titled “The Myth That Schools Shortchange Girls: Social Science in the Service of Deception.” [http://www.deltabravo.net/files/myth.pdf] Kleinfeld exposed a number of errors in the AAUW/Wellesley Center study, concluding that it was “politics dressed up as science.” Kleinfeld’s report prompted several publications, including The New York Times and Education Week, to take a second look at claims that girls were in a tragic state.

The AAUW did not adequately respond to any of Kleinfeld’s substantive objections; instead its current president, Maggie Ford, complained in the New York Times letters column that Kleinfeld was “reducing the problems of our children to this petty ‘who is worse off, boys or girls?’ [which] gets us nowhere.’” From the leader of an organization that spent nearly a decade ceaselessly promoting the proposition that American girls are being “shortchanged,” this comment is rather remarkable.
Boys and Their Mothers

Growing evidence that the scales are tipped not against girls but against boys is beginning to inspire a quiet revisionism. Some educators will admit that boys are on the wrong side of the gender gap. In 1998 I met the president of the Board of Education of Atlanta. Who is faring better in Atlanta’s schools, boys or girls? I asked. “Girls,” he replied, without hesitation. In what areas? I asked. “Just about any area you mention.” A high school principal from Pennsylvania says of his school, “Students who dominate the dropout list, the suspension list, the failure list, and other negative indices of nonachievement in school are males by a wide margin.”

Carol Gilligan, too, has begun to give boys some attention. In 1995 she and her colleagues at the Harvard University School of Education inaugurated “The Harvard Project on Women’s Psychology, Boys’ Development and the Culture of Manhood.” Within a year Gilligan was announcing the existence of a crisis among boys that was as bad as or worse than the one afflicting girls. “Girls’ psychological development in patriarchy involves a process of eclipse that is even more total for boys,”she wrote in a 1996 article titled “The Centrality of Relationship in Human Development.”

Gilligan claimed to have discovered “a startling pattern of developmental asymmetry”: girls undergo trauma as they enter adolescence, whereas for boys the period of crisis is early childhood. Boys aged three to seven are pressured to “take into themselves the structure or moral order of a patriarchal civilization: to internalize a patriarchal voice.” This masculinizing process is traumatic and damaging. “At this age,” Gilligan told The Boston Globe in 1996, “boys show a high incidence of depression, out-of-control behavior, learning disorders, even allergies and stuttering.”

One can welcome Gilligan’s acceptance of the fact that boys, too, have problems while remaining deeply skeptical of her ideas about their source. Gilligan’s theory about boys’ development includes three hypothetical claims: 1) Boys are being deformed and made sick by a traumatic, forced separation from their mothers. 2) Seemingly healthy boys are cut off from their own feelings and damaged in their capacity to develop healthy relationships. 3) The well-being of society may depend on freeing boys from “cultures that value or valorize heroism, honor, war, and competition — the culture of warriors, the economy of capitalism.” Let us consider each proposition in turn.

According to Gilligan, boys are at special risk in early childhood; they suffer “more stuttering, more bedwetting, more learning problems … when cultural norms pressure them to separate from their mothers.” (Sometimes she adds allergies, attention-deficit disorder, and attempted suicide to the list.) She does not cite any pediatric research to support her theory about the origins of these various early-childhood disorders. Does a study exist, for example, showing that boys who remain intimately bonded with their mothers are less likely to develop allergies or wet their beds?

Gilligan’s assertion that the “pressure of cultural norms” causes boys to separate from their mothers and thus generates a host of early disorders has not been tested empirically. Nor does Gilligan offer any indication of how it could be tested. She does not seem to feel that her assertions need empirical confirmation. She is confident that boys need to be protected from the culture — a culture in which manhood valorizes war and the economy of capitalism, a culture that desensitizes boys and, by submerging their humanity, is the root cause of “out-of-control and out-of-touch behavior” and is the ultimate source of war and other violence committed by men.

But are boys aggressive and violent because they are psychically separated from their mothers? Thirty years of research suggests that the absence of the male parent is more likely to be the problem. The boys who are most at risk for juvenile delinquency and violence are boys who are physically separated from their fathers. The U.S. Bureau of the Census reports that in 1960 children living with their mother but not their father numbered 5.1 million; by 1996 the number was more than 16 million. As the phenomenon of fatherlessness has increased, so has violence. As far back as 1965 Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called attention to the social dangers of raising boys without benefit of a paternal presence. He wrote in a 1965 study for the Labor Department, “A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any rational expectations about the future — that community asks for and gets chaos.”

The sociologist David Blankenhorn, in Fatherless America (1995), wrote, “Despite the difficulty of proving causation in the social sciences, the weight of evidence increasingly supports the conclusion that fatherlessness is a primary generator of violence among young men.” William Galston, a former domestic-policy adviser in the Clinton Administration who is now at the University of Maryland, and his colleague Elaine Kamarck, now at Harvard, concur. Commenting on the relationship between crime and one-parent families, they wrote in a 1990 institute report, “The relationship is so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime. This conclusion shows up time and again in the literature.”

Oblivious of all the factual evidence that paternal separation causes aberrant behavior in boys, Carol Gilligan calls for a fundamental change in child rearing that would keep boys in a more sensitive relationship with their feminine side. We need to free young men from a destructive culture of manhood that “impedes their capacity to feel their own and other people’s hurt, to know their own and other’s sadness,” she writes. Since the pathology, as she has diagnosed it, is presumably universal, the cure must be radical. We must change the very nature of childhood: we must find ways to keep boys bonded to their mothers. We must undercut the system of socialization that is so “essential to the perpetuation of patriarchal societies.”

Gilligan’s views are attractive to many of those who believe that boys could profit by being more sensitive and empathetic. But anyone thinking to enlist in Gilligan’s project of getting boys in touch with their inner nurturer would do well to note that her central thesis — that boys are being imprisoned by conventional ideas of masculinity — is not a scientific hypothesis. Nor, it seems, does Gilligan regard it in this light, for she presents no data to support it. It is, in fact, an extravagant piece of speculation of the kind that would not be taken seriously in most professional departments of psychology.

On a less academic plane Gilligan’s proposed reformation seems to challenge common sense. It is obvious that a boy wants his father to help him become a young man, and belonging to the culture of manhood is important to almost every boy. To impugn his desire to become “one of the boys” is to deny that a boy’s biology determines much of what he prefers and is attracted to. Unfortunately, by denying the nature of boys, education theorists can cause them much misery.

Gilligan talks of radically reforming “the fundamental structure of authority” by making changes that will free boys from the stereotypes that bind them. But in what sense are American boys unfree? Was the young Mark Twain or the young Teddy Roosevelt enslaved by conventional modes of boyhood? Is the average Little Leaguer or Cub Scout defective in the ways Gilligan suggests? In practice, getting boys to be more like girls means getting them to stop segregating themselves into all-male groups. That’s the darker, coercive side of the project to “free” boys from their masculine straitjackets.

It is certainly true that a small subset of male children are, as Gilligan argues, desensitized and cut off from feelings of tenderness and care. But these boys are not representative of their sex. Gilligan speaks of boys in general as “hiding their humanity,” showing a capacity to “hurt without feeling hurt.” This, she maintains, is a more or less universal condition that exists because the vast majority of boys are forced into separation from their nurturers. But the idea that boys are abnormally insensitive flies in the face of everyday experience. Boys are competitive and often aggressive, yes; but anyone in close contact with them — parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches, friends — gets daily proof of their humanity, loyalty, and compassion.

Gilligan appears to be making the same mistake with boys that she made with girls — she observes a few children and interprets their problems as indicative of a deep and general malaise caused by the way our society imposes gender stereotypes. The pressure to conform to these stereotypes, she believes, has impaired, distressed, and deformed the members of both sexes by the time they are adolescents. In fact — with the important exception of boys whose fathers are absent and who get their concept of maleness from peer groups — most boys are not violent. Most are not unfeeling or antisocial. They are just boys — and being a boy is not in itself a failing.

Does Gilligan actually understand boys? Does she empathize with them? Is she free of the misandry that infects so many gender theorists who never stop blaming the “male culture” for all social and psychological ills? Nothing we have seen or heard offers the slightest reassurance that Gilligan and her followers are wise enough or objective enough to be trusted with devising new ways of socializing boys.

Every society confronts the problem of civilizing its young males. The traditional approach is through character education: Develop the young man’s sense of honor. Help him become a considerate, conscientious human being. Turn him into a gentleman. This approach respects boys’ masculine nature; it is time-tested, and it works. Even today, despite several decades of moral confusion, most young men understand the term “gentleman”and approve of the ideals it connotes.

What Gilligan and her followers are proposing is quite different: civilize boys by diminishing their masculinity. “Raise boys like we raise girls” is Gloria Steinem’s advice. This approach is deeply disrespectful of boys. It is meddlesome, abusive, and quite beyond what educators in a free society are mandated to do.

Did anything of value come out of the manufactured crisis of diminished girls? Yes, a bit. Parents, teachers, and administrators now pay more attention to girls’ deficits in math and science, and they offer more support for girls’ participation in sports. But who is to say that these benefits outweigh the disservice done by promulgating the myth of the incredible shrinking girl or presenting boys as the unfairly favored sex?

A boy today, through no fault of his own, finds himself implicated in the social crime of shortchanging girls. Yet the allegedly silenced and neglected girl sitting next to him is likely to be the superior student. She is probably more articulate, more mature, more engaged, and more well-balanced. The boy may be aware that she is more likely to go on to college. He may believe that teachers prefer to be around girls and pay more attention to them. At the same time, he is uncomfortably aware that he is considered to be a member of the favored and dominant gender.

The widening gender gap in academic achievement is real. It threatens the future of millions of American boys. Boys do not need to be rescued from their masculinity. But they are not getting the help they need. In the climate of disapproval in which boys now exist, programs designed to aid them have a very low priority. This must change. We should repudiate the partisanship that currently clouds the issues surrounding sex differences in the schools. We should call for balance, objective information, fair treatment, and a concerted national effort to get boys back on track. That means we can no longer allow the partisans of girls to write the rules.

We certainly haven’t kept up with blogging the way that we intended. In our defense life has been BUSY!  In the next few days we’ll work on updating all of our *fans* with some pictures and anecdotes of the wonderful adventures this first year of marriage and life on the east coast has taken us on.  We’re loving every minute of this crazy and hectic life out here.  We were warned that none of it would be easy, it hasn’t, but in the midst of challenge and struggle we have found a God who has provided for us in every way.  We would not be the people that we are today without having walked through the fires that we’ve walked in these last 11 months.  Here’s a short story from Rebbeca, a brief update on life in the classroom…

Life in Room 218, what can I say?  There have been good times, and there have been bad times.  I have yet, in my 8 months as a teacher, to be surprised by something that my students were lacking.  I came to Teach for America and NVHS fully expecting the achievement gap that I have witnessed to.  That is in fact why the organization exists.  There have been plenty of surprises though.  I guess I shouldn’t have been so shocked to see the HUGE roadblocks that students and teachers alike endure in order to achieve this thing called education.  If the system were perfect, then I suppose the problem wouldn’t exists.  I guess it was just the realization and implication that those imperfections brought that has had me thinking for quite some time now.  Teach for America has this thing (I forget what it’s called, and sadly do not have a book to reference) about a teacher’s “Locus of Control”.  The idea is that we as teachers (especially in our first year), have very little control over anything that happens in our school and in our student’s lives, except what we CAN DO in OUR CLASSROOMS.  I absolutely believe in this idea.  It also drives me completely insane most days because as a teacher I have discovered that in a system with all of the imperfections that our urban districts posses, with such a small locus of control, I can really do very little to close this achievement gap that my students live with.  Now make sure you hear me on this, I AM NOT using this as an excuse to no longer work tirelessly for the achievement of my students in my classroom.  I absolutely do.  BUT, let’s be realistic.  The problem of education inequity goes WAY beyond classroom teachers.  I fully expected the lack of parental support, social/economic problems at home, broken families, and I have maintained my high student expectations amidst those things.  But in a system that is completely broken down, the problems go way beyond what students working together with their teachers can really combat.  I will continue to work tirelessly for my students in my classroom, but it is a daily struggle to keep my “locus of control” in perspective knowing that real solutions to these educational problems will not be found until the entire system is evaluated and ALL parties work together as a team with one common goal: the pursuit of excellent education for our students.

This is a pretty haunting graphic from the Economist: Education and Inequality

Alright, this is my own personal political vomit for the blogosphere. Here’s my thesis statement:

“Christians want to force others to follow God’s policies, but in reality, we don’t want to follow them either.”

There was an article posted on WorldNetDaily.com that is now circulating the Christian weblogs as a rally cry for the political evangelical. Take the time to read the article so you can properly follow along and draw your own conclusions. When you get back, we’ll take a look at the problems the church has with our country and politics. Then I’ll hypothesize why it’s all our fault in the first place.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77557#

I’d like to discuss the inevitabilities that this article touches on: death and taxes.

Our fixed inevitability: death.

Given what I’ve seen from the church, the only thing that decides who is capable of running a country is their opinion on abortion (and homosexuality, but that’s a different pile of vomit). I had a conversation with an abortion voter who told me, “When I die, I will stand alone before God and explain why I voted for who I did. I cannot in good conscience vote against the innocent lives of babies.” That is fine. I’m not going to tell you what your convictions should be. I applaud you for actually having some and sticking to them. I’m only curious if you think God will ask you to answer for the harm that elected official also caused in other arenas.

The issue of abortion is often boiled down in concept so that everyone can pick either the home or away team. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. I’m not talking about situational cases like rape, mortal danger to the mother, or retardation, that’s out of my pay-grade. Choosing to address the legality of abortion is a band-aid for a gaping wound, yet here we are, debating what type of useless band-aid to use. Rather than concern ourselves with the wound, we should first remove the knife (or attacker) and only once it’s dealt with can we properly heal the wound.

Who thought up abortion? Why do Americans think there is a need for abortion? The answer to these and other questions is as complicated as the solution to stopping genocidic abortion. Before abortion was legalized, married men used coat hangers and second-hand knowledge on their mistresses in an attempt to hide the evidence of their sins from their wives. When something, inevitably, went wrong, they panicked and left the helpless woman to bleed out on a $12 tarp in a $40 motel room. Alone, with her lifeblood gushing out from between her legs, she was resigned to her death unknowing of a better option. So far as she knew, no one could help her because no one loved her enough. Who is going to answer to God for those two deaths?

I am. You are. The Bridegroom of Christ is, but not because we didn’t do anything about the act specifically. Were I living out Jesus’ command to love people as he does, we certainly wouldn’t have this problem. So next time you are standing outside the abortion clinic, I hope your sign reads, “I will care for you and your baby in my home,” or “Let me know how I can help,” or “I will adopt your baby”. If it doesn’t, you aren’t helping, you’re just adding to the noise.

*Intermission*

Here’s the message I’m getting from the political evangelical sect. “Do not vote for Obama because if you do, life as we know it will cease to exist.”

…wow.

Anyone still wonder how everyone got the idea that Christians suck because we’re just trying to scare everyone into thinking (or voting) the way we do? On one hand, I think it’s great that our modern Body of Christ still hears so clearly through the Holy Spirit that we managed to receive the TPS memo that things would spiral out of God’s control if Obama gets elected….

On the other hand, it bothers me more than a little that a half-black man could so easily wrest control from my creator. If that’s the case, why do I even bother to worship him anymore? We should switch to the more powerful and worship Obama! …except that he isn’t more powerful, so I won’t….and if Obama isn’t more powerful then I’m not worried about life as we know it ceasing to exist.

I took quite a lot of liberty with my interpretation, but I don’t feel guilty. I think the author should be ashamed of their propaganda. The Nazi’s used fear to control the people and turn them against the Jews and Blacks too. That was less than 100 years ago. We haven’t come very far since then apparently…

In reality, the statement was in relation to taxes.

Our fluctuating inevitability, taxes.

Barack Obama wants to increase taxes in order to provide better care and circumstances for people who are unable to provide for themselves. Lots of people are very unhappy about this because they think the government taking their money and giving it to people who they feel don’t deserve it isn’t right. This is the “end of life as we know it” they were referring to.

The basis of our free enterprise system is the fact that if you work hard, you can improve your circumstances and provide a better life for yourself and your family. If you are not a Christian and you’re pissed about the government giving your hard earned money away, you are absolutely right. However, if you profess to love Jesus and desire to be like him, getting upset about being taxed to pay the poor is not a Godly attitude, nor Biblically justified by verses traditionally taken out of context in defense of pocketbooks.

Cries of “socialism” are running rampant through the land, a fact that I find very humorous given the recent actions of our intercessory-prayer-appointed president. The “economic stimulus act” and “bail out bill” are pulled right from the manifestos of Karl Marx. Our republican government has just spent $250,000,000,000.00 to purchase the stock of privately owned banking organizations. This was on the heels of a $700,000,000,000.00 package for individual households. Sounds like “one large step for mankind” in the direction of a socialist nation-state to me. Tell me why we’re crying “socialism” at forced giving money to the poor but not forced giving money to the rich?

In Summation

There are only two tasks Jesus gave us. Love God as hard as we can (everyone on the planet too), and care for the widows and orphans (which in Bible-speak means poor and needy). It’s kind of a funny logic circle because if you’re doing number one really well, shouldn’t number two happen naturally? The American body part of Jesus hasn’t really been keeping up their end of the deal with that covenant. Fortunately, Jesus has his Indian, Sudanese, and Chinese bodies working double overtime to compensate.

As Christians, it isn’t our job to decide which poor people we help. We aren’t told to help the poor people who can’t help being poor. We aren’t told to help the poor people who are poor for reasons outside of their power. If they ask for help, you give it. The oft- quoted verse is 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “Even while we were with you, we gave you this command: ‘Those unwilling to work will not get to eat.’” It’s a wonderful verse that I whole heartedly agree with. Especially when I realize what Paul is talking about. Not ALL mankind, just lazy Christians. In verse six the topic is started with, “And now dear brothers and sisters, we give you this command in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: Stay away from all believers [the original Greek reads 'from ever brother'] who live idle lives and don’t follow the tradition they received from us.” Ah! Christians shouldn’t be on welfare, but that has nothing to do with caring and loving on non-believers. Why are we so confused?

Ah yes…the pocketbook twisted my logic again…

A house divided against itself cannot stand. The problem really isn’t that Christians are against abortion, we should be. The problem isn’t that Christians shouldn’t want to be forced to take care of poor people, we shouldn’t have to be. We should be caring for the people who “need” abortions and loving them in the way Christ would. We should be caring for the poor ourselves so the government doesn’t have to. These things are not the presidents job because, frankly, there are other things he should be concerned with. That this is even on his radar is a testament to what a poor job we are doing as Christians. They are the church’s responsibility. The government only stepped in when the ball got dropped so hard for so long that they had to.

We need to take it back!

So, brothers and sisters, we need to stop trying to force legislation that forces others to follow God’s principles on abortion and we need to stop needing to be forced to take care of the poor and underprivileged. There’s nothing to be upset at except our own lack of faith in action.

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What follows are thoughts I had whilst pounding out this article. I wasn’t able to logically work them in but didn’t want you to miss out on them either. Most of them are fragmented ideas and concepts because I didn’t take time to explore them and solidify my thoughts. Please treat them as such. Enjoy.

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I’m not saying I’m voting for Barack Obama, but I’m not saying I’m voting for John McCain either. If our founding fathers saw we have to choose from, they would start a new country and a new revolution. My ideals don’t mesh with either candidate.

Fortunately, performing my duties as a Christian has absolutely nothing to do with who is running the country. I can show everyone that I come into contact with exactly what my God looks like regardless of my nations political climate.

My innards are frequently conflicted between my upbringing in a pentecostal church, my experience as a Scout/Sniper in combat, and the Holy Spirit quietly tugging at my conscience in a way separate from the other two.

Perhaps I’ll do what every good pirate does and vote for myself! Or I’ll do what every good ninja does and wait for the pivotal moment to strike and actually make a difference with a decision and act. Most likely, I’ll do what I do best and not decide until I’m on my knees in the booth begging for God to help me make a decision…at which point he will and I’ll leave the booth with ballot unused.

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By the way, Chuck Norris is a Monday columnist for WorldNetDaily.com…They maintain a very eclectic rotating list of columnists. Some whom I deeply respect, and others not so much. http://worldnetdaily.com/WND%20Columnists

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I am commanded by my savior to love everyone just as he loves them; to view them through the eyes of Christ. Does Jesus love Barack Obama? Only as much as he loves Ellen DeGeneres…

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Speaking of life “as we know it”, it’s pretty much a state of suck anyway. What’s wrong with changing it? There is a whole sect of Christians that have locked themselves in the prayer closet to pray for the state of our country. They are an impressive spiritual body to reckon with and believe they will accomplish amazing things with their efforts. I am only hoping they are praying for God’s will to happen and not for what they think is God’s will to happen.

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Case in point, Mr. George W. Bush. There was a little reminiscing thrown into the article. If you missed it, look for the part that mentions where they prayed Mr. Bush into office. After balking at the realization people still think he was a good president, I further realized this situation we’re in now politically and economically is our (the Bride of Christ) fault.

I don’t pretend to be a wise and educated person when it comes to warfare and politics on the macro level. I realize there are more than two sides of the fence when we look at the Iraq war. Personally, I choose not to have a side. I’ve been to combat and seen the elephant and my thoughts on the benefits of Iraq are book in itself. Suffice it to say, I believe God has been able to work some good out of a situation he didn’t want to happen.

Before Mr. Bush was prayed into office, twice, there was a system called “Checks and Balances”. This political system was erected by our founding fathers to ensure that the country remains in the control of it’s people, the citizens. However, as the caliber of it’s citizens has begun to degrade, so has the effectiveness of our “Check and Balances” style system.

Who’s fault is it that American’s suck? Why, it’s my fault! It’s your fault. It’s the fault of Christians. Our church needs to start being missionaries in our every day lives so that the quality of our citizens can improve. We are called to be a royal priesthood for our God. People look to priests and religious leaders of every religion as a window to what the God of that religion looks like. Show people what your God looks like!

…by the way, passively handing them a tract doesn’t count and is a flaccid gesture.

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Links to whatever: click at your own risk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerri_Santoro

http://mattschiefelbein.blogspot.com/2007/11/welfare-reward-for-nothing.html

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/About%20WND

http://jacobsonhoppers.blogspot.com/

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Oh yeah, I’d like to thank both sets of my parents who labor tirelessly for the underpriviledged without letting their own underpriviledged status be an excuse! May you continue to inspire us all.

The truth:

After a lengthy critique of Bush administration education policies, [Sen. Joseph] Biden attempted to explain why some schools perform better than others—in Iowa, for instance, compared with the District. “There’s less than 1 percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4 or 5 percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you’re dealing with.”

And the PC bull:

The Biden campaign moved quickly to clarify the senator’s remarks in a statement: “This was not a race-based distinction, but a discussion of the problems kids face who don’t have the same socio-economic support system (and all that implies—nutrition, pre K, etc.) entering grade school and the impact of those disadvantages on outcomes.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/24/AR2007102402716.html

Almost 2 weeks ago, I wrote a post about the achievement gap between the public schools in Hartford and Simsbury. This post was an introduction to the gap, and it also examined the per pupil funding in the two districts. Feel free to re-read my initial post, but if you would prefer a quick summary, I am happy to oblige:

• This past year, 88% of Simsbury 10th graders reached the state goal for reading performance; only 11% of Hartford sophomores met this level of performance.
• While many are quick to blame inadequate funding as being the culprit, Hartford actually spends about $2,000 more per pupil than Simsbury does.

After this somewhat cursory analysis, we have been able to find that funding is certainly not the leading cause of this educational disparity.

Let us now turn to another popular talking point during political campaigns: classroom size.

Common sense leads one to believe that ceteris paribus (all other things being equal), a classroom with more students would be less effective than one with fewer students. This begs the question: How does class size in Simsbury compare to class size in Hartford?

Turning once again to the Strategic School Profiles of these districts, we can find some interesting results. Five different grade levels were profiled K, 2, 5, 7, and High School. Here is the comparison of the districts and their average class size. The district with the smaller class size will be shown in bold:

• Kindergarten: Simsbury 20.1, Hartford 17.9
• 2nd Grade: Simsbury 19.2, Hartford 18.3
• 5th Grade: Simsbury 22.7, Hartford 19.0
• 7th Grade: Simsbury 20.3, Hartford 17.6
• High School: Simsbury 20.1, Hartford 19.6

As it turns out, Hartford has smaller class sizes across all five measured grade levels!

Even though parents, voters, and politicians often focus on funding and class sizes, it becomes clear that neither of these two factors have had the effect of making Hartford schools competitive with Simsbury schools in terms of the results they produce.

Stay tuned for the next post, where more possible factors contributing to the education gap will be examined.

This past week, the results of this year’s CAPT testing was released. These tests measure the academic performance of 10th graders in reading, writing, math, and science. As reported in the Courant, Hartford did make gains for the first time in 7 years in the areas of writing, math, and science. However, the reading scores continued their decline, with only 11% of students reaching the state goal benchmark.

This is in contrast with Simsbury, where 88% of the students reached the state goal for reading, the highest level in the state. Simsbury is only 13 miles away from Hartford, but in terms of educational opportunity, these two cities are worlds apart. One can begin to speculate about the reasons for this disparity, but I should like to eschew any speculation and base my analysis in facts.

To begin my examination of this education gap, I will look at the Strategic School Profiles for the Hartford and Simsbury districts. The most recent data available was from the 04-05 school year for Hartford and the 06-07 school year for Simsbury. I realize that this will not allow for scientifically accurate analysis, but it will allow for an overview of each district that will help highlight the similarities and differences between these two districts.

Often times when people begin to grapple with the causes of the education gap, an instinctive reaction is to assume that underachieving districts are at a financial disadvantage when compared to suburban districts. This has been documented by Jonathan Kozol in Savage Inequalities to have been the case in several areas, so let’s begin there. In Simsbury, $10, 568 was spent per pupil. Hartford spent $12,873. When spending is broken down into subgroups that measure distribution between staff, administration, supplies, etc., there are no major distributions between these two districts.

From this data, we can easily draw the conclusion that there is not a major funding discrepancy between Hartford and Simsbury. In fact, Hartford spends more than $2000 more per pupil than Simsbury does. While all school districts wish they had more funding to work with, Hartford can not claim that their failure to get their students reading is based on a lack of funding.

Now that we can rule out funding as a root cause of this education gap, we shall look at classroom size…

In another post. Stay tuned.

So, I’m pretty behind on the pre-institute work. I think planning a wedding, getting married, going on my honeymoon, and preparing to move might have something to do with that. My husband has been gracious enough to take over most of the planning and packing for our move – with the exception of everything I need to bring to institute so I’ve got most of the next several days to do nothing but read for TFA. I don’t like putting it all off to the last minute but with no other choice the silver lining is that at least it will all be very fresh in my mind come next Sunday! I’m getting excited!

1. As you reflect upon the readings about big goals, in light of your own life experiences, when in your life (if ever) have you set goals as big as the goals you will set with your students? What lessons can you draw from that experience to apply to your teaching?

After reading through all of the TFA chapters on “Setting Big Goals” I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve never made goals as big as the ones that I will have to make for myself and for my students in order for them to invest in themselves and their educations to be successful. I’ve written down idea after idea of what I can implement in my life and in my classroom but I’ve never actually had to follow through on all of my ideas. I know some will work and some will not but I figure as long as I keep my students’ achievement as my main (and possibly only) priority I will stay focused and on the right track.

Because I’ve never been in the place, academically, that my students will be in, I greatly appreciated all of the reading on Diversity and Achievement. It opened my eyes to the many facets of diversity and allowed me to internalize for myself how I will be different and how I can use those differences in developing goals for my students and to help them continue to persue those goals. Understanding the potential in every student and his or her ability to reach that potential if only given the opportunity is a huge motivation to continue to work for the best education for my students. I also realized that the process of setting goals themselves is so multifaceted and involved. While I might be good in one area of setting big goals, I might really need to work on other aspects of my goals.

I strongly believe that once I’ve established the ambitious achievement goals for my students that the most important thing I can do is to be consistent, and stick with my goals! After observing classrooms, talking to teachers, and watching student’s lives, the one thing they’ve lacked is consistency – or at least the one thing they consistently have is inconsistency. If I can be a daily and constant support, encouragement and empowerment for my students, they will succeed.

2. When watching the video of Mr. Holloman’s chemistry class, what did you observe to be the “big goal”? To what extent did the goal seem ambitious? Feasible? What criteria did you apply to assess how ambitious and feasible the goal was?

In Mr. Holloman’s chemistry class, the big goal was for his students to score an A or higher on the End of Course exam. From what I could see/hear on the video the goal was very ambitious. Mr. Holloman had results from several years past from how his students did compared to other classes and the 93% average was higher than any other classes. Also, because students in the past had achieved at that high level, the goal was obviously feasible.

From Teaching as Leadership, “In the classroom, the principle of ambitiousness translates to expecting success from all students, and to define achievement at a level beyond what some people (including the students themselves) may think is possible. (32)” Mr. Holloman was very clear that chemistry was not an easy subject but that he knew that if they were in class and worked hard they together had the tools necessary to be successful in science. He even reminded them that for some of them this would be their second try at chemistry and that he knew they would be successful at it! Because of Mr. Holloman’s can do attitude and previous track record for success but also his honesty with the hard work that would be required of the students I saw his goal as ambitious and feasible.

3. How did Mr. Holloman convey high expectations to his students? In what ways were his methods of conveying expectations effective or ineffective?

Mr. Holloman conveyed his high expectations by reiterating them the first several days of classes. He explained to them, through his words, exactly how hard they were going to have to work and exactly what was expected of them and what could be the outcome (good scores on the EOC test and preparation for college courses).

What he does is obviously effective or he wouldn’t be seeing the results that he sees but I would probably try to be a little bit more creative and exciting about what the goals and expectations are in my classroom. Although I’m not sure how much more “excited” you can get about working hard, being in class, and getting your work done.

This kind of follows my previous post about community college writers, but when I got back my third 100% on an exam last night, the second in this course, I was surprised at the people around me:

“Did you pass this time?”
“Naw…you?”
“Yeah, I got 20 [out of 30] this time.”
…
“What did you get on this one?”
“Another C.”
“Yeah, me too.”
…
“Did you do better? Get a B?”
“Yeah, B minus.”
“I got a B this time, too!”
…
“Damnit!”
“What? D’you fail again?”
“Yeah! ::enter terrible words here::”

The class is Psychology 101, an introduction to the study of psychology. We have discussed the scientific method, various developmental theories, language, the senses, and therapy. I knew very little of this information entering the class, but have managed to get a 100% on both of our exams. There are probably other people in the class who are doing well, but I guess we aren’t the ones discussing our grades.

Education starts before we enter school.

I think that the fact that education begins long before school, starting from birth, is becoming more and more apparent, especially with the upcoming elections leading to some, although not nearly enough, discussion about bettering our early education system. As it stands, we have Head Start, and No Child Left Behind, but they don’t do nearly enough (or much of anything, really) and don’t start soon enough.

I’m so pleased with what Barack Obama has to say about our current state of a huge educational gap and his plans to implement an early education plan. One of his goals is to make sure that parents can read: a huge step in the right direction for children to learn properly. If your parents don’t read, there is a very slim chance that you are going to have the proper mechanisms at your disposal to learn to read at a young age.

I took an introductory sociology course at Smith my final semester there, and one of the topics was the divide that occurs in the first three years of a child’s life. This divide has been attributed, in part, to the number of words that are spoken to a child. It’s simple, really: the more words that were spoken to a child, the higher the child’s IQ and the better they were able to do in school. Unfortunately, and for numerous reasons, children of parents of low-socioeconomic status do not hear nearly as many words throughout their first three years of life. I cannot find the article, but I remember being absolutely shocked at the difference in the number of words that a child of low socio-economic status heard in comparison to a child of a higher socio-economic status.

Now, with all that said, I fully understand why my psychology course is so easy for me while most of the other people in the class are struggling. This course is at a community college, where, for the most part, the people attending have gone to public schools, come from less wealthy families, and have been brought up with all of the conditions that come with those things. From the beginning I had a “head start”–my mother is not only literate, but also she has a PhD and is extremely intellectual. She read to me from a young age, and, maybe even more importantly, talked to me. She used “big” words, helped me improve my grammar and vocabulary at a young age (and no, I’m certainly not a perfect example of proper grammar and using an excellent vocabulary) and made sure that I did my homework, challenging me to actually learn, not just memorize.

I’m lucky, and because of that I don’t struggle with certain types of college courses, or understanding a lot of the things that are around me. When we discussed projection, I already knew what the word meant, so I didn’t have to learn that. When we started studying child development, I already could comprehend a lot of it because I grew up paying attention to children. Our discussion of various types of therapy was completely new material, yet I could think of numerous examples to compound that knowledge. Things that I had heard discussed by the people around me, or things that I had discussed during conversations with friends and family, all were able to attribute to my understanding of the course material. It is only by being around intellectual people, or being an intellectual yourself, that you are given the opportunity to learn outside of course work.

If everyone in that class had been given the real head start that I was given, I’m sure that a far smaller number of them would be struggling. There is, no doubt, a level of born intelligence that helps, but that born intelligence must be nurtured. I am not a highly intelligent person. I am smarter than average (some days I don’t believe that!), but have just been given the right opportunities to thrive.

I hope that I give Alexander the right opportunities, and that he is able to thrive with whatever level of intelligence he has been born with.

Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org

George W. Bush loves photo ops with black people, especially kids. Here he is in St. Louis promoting the discredited No Child Left Behind act. The slogan was stolen from the Children’s Defense Fund and to add insult to injury, the act is leaving every child behind.
(Photo and caption credited to Freedom Writer)

By Emily Spence

9/3/04

Part Two: Down in the Trenches, Anecdotal Evidence from the Classroom:

The first day that I substitute taught for the “T” * school district, it was in a special education school during the winter. I was elated to have been selected for a position on the day after I completed my paperwork!

All considered, I could barely wait to meet my class of eight and nine year olds who had severe dyslexia compounded by other problems, such as legal blindness, ADD and other afflictions.

Indeed, all was going fairly well with them except during rest hour before which I had placed the children on the floor around my chair. Suddenly, after settling them down, one of the boys abruptly arose from his blanket and stomped on the head of a smaller boy whose glasses then shattered while his face got all bloodied from the glass and the blows.

After checking the hurt boy, I told the children to keep lying still, grabbed the aggressive boy with one hand and the victim with the other after which I quickly moved to the intercom button where I asked for immediate medical assistance from the nurse. At the end of the school day while I was filling out the accident report, the principal kindly told me that I had handled everything perfectly and that this sort of incident frequently happens. Therefore, I shouldn’t view it as an inadequacy on my part.

At the same time, he invited me back to his school the next day to substitute for five days in a classroom for emotionally disturbed teenagers. I replied that I would be glad to do so and returned the next day to find that the room’s educational supplies and attendance book had been locked in a closet. Meanwhile, as I was checking the storeroom’s locked door, a thirteen year old, who had been raped during while her parents were being killed, was trying to climb through the second story window to commit suicide (an action which she frequently tried, I was later told). Simultaneously, two boys larger than I am were trying to stab each other’s eyes with pencils. What should I do under the circumstances?

I grabbed the girl with one hand and, with her in tow, I physically placed my body between the boys while, in the most officious tone of voice, I commanded them because I forbid such behavior and to sit down immediately at their desks so that we can sort out their argument. To my relief, they obeyed.

Other than a few further potentially perilous incidents, the week went fairly smoothly as I managed, despite the lack of unavailable educational materials, to engage the students in a project involving writing instructional booklets about various subjects that they were learning. Then I encouraged them to take turns teaching each other about these topics that they’d been studying during the week before my arrival. It all was slated as a review of sorts.

In addition, I had, on the first day, brought my own educational supplies and lesson plans, which I also used with the students. As such, my class time went so well that the principal told me that he hated to see me go. He said he had to tell the school district scheduler that I was one of the best teachers whom he’d ever seen and I, therefore, should be given a permanent assignment.

Subsequently, the next morning I was offered a long-term post to teach a combined fifth and sixth grade class in X school. Thus, I discovered that the building in which the class was housed was modern and, to save money in its construction, it was an “open space” institution, meaning that there were no walls between classrooms. Moreover, all of these were located on the second floor except for mine, which was on the first and had originally been slated to serve as an art center.

Initially, I wondered about this arrangement of my having a separated class and the assistant principal staying in the room most of the first day that I taught. However, I figured that the school had run out of classroom space and he was just being overly conscientious. Besides, he spent increasingly less time in my company as the week wore on. By then, though, I’d pretty much figured out (supplemented by information from other teachers) about the overall arrangements concerning this particular group of youngsters.

They went like this:

All of the fifth and sixth students who were deemed unmanageable were put in the isolated room. This was in lieu of administrators sending them to a special education division in that the city managers had run out of funding for special education and were even sending some children out of the city to other public and private special education schools. This was due to a lack of sufficient accommodations in “T.” In addition, the backlog for evaluating students in dire need was two years + as there were only two psychologists for the whole district evaluating a student body comprised of over 20,000 students.

At the same time, all of the teachers preceding me had abruptly quit the class (so that the youth had had no steady teacher for the whole school year except, occasionally, the assistant principal). Meanwhile, the last two had walked out due to quite unfortunate circumstances.

The first, when the whole class had run out of the building, decided to chase them and she got buried by them in a snowbank. (Luckily she was uncovered before there was a need for an ambulance crew). The second was duct taped to a chair that the children dragged to a broom closet in which a janitor discovered him well after the school had closed for the day… Deeply ashamed of the whole affair, he helped the custodian clean his urine puddle before leaving the school for good.

My own defining moment, during which I decided that I would not continue with this class, occurred after I got a contact “high” upon leaving the bathroom attached to the “art room” at the end of the day. (I had gone in it to make sure that the facets were turned off and the stalls were not trashed.)

Afterwards, I floated down the hall to the principal to tell her that I was sure that I knew about which boy had smoked in the bathroom and explained my evidence. I also asked whether I could wait on school grounds until I felt normal as I didn’t want to drive under the influence. Likewise, I asked whether I should call or visit the boy’s parents to discuss his bringing marijuana to school.

In reply, she stated that she’d once met the boy’s mother and, in an uncontrollable rage over a non-confrontational comment by the principal, the mother swore and threw a chair at her. In addition, the boy’s older brother had thrown Molotov Cocktails out of the apartment that he’d shared with the boy and his mother. This had occurred during a police raid two weeks previously due to a prostitution and drug dealing ring operating out of the household.

Molotov Cocktails aside, the officers, eventually, broke down the apartment’s door and overwhelmed the brother by force. (He was currently in jail awaiting trial.). So now the boy only lived with his mother. Therefore, all looked pretty good, the principal suggested, if the boy were only using marijuana. Besides, it would be dangerous to tangle with his mother. Therefore, I should just let the incident go.

Besides, she continued, I couldn’t definitely prove that it was him anyway and she could positively guarantee that I did not want to get on the mother’s bad side since she could hunt me down using the telephone directory. Then my life would be in utter havoc. Therefore, she emphatically repeated, I should just let the whole affair go.

Indeed, I did. I let it all go because the class was just too tough to manage on top of which I didn’t need any possible altercations with violent parents.

I gave a two day resignation and after my final day of teaching I bid farewell to the whole class, which had been so hard to teach that I had a stomachache each day while driving to work. I also wished the two pregnant girls good luck and sent two other children to the nurse due to evidence of ringworm and head lice (both of which are highly contagious). Then I, literally, washed my hands of the whole matter.

The day after leaving, I was again called by a “T” department of education official and asked to become a long term substitute in (I was guaranteed) a far easier class. The assignment had come up, she added, due to a teacher’s death.

So, this new position was for a fourth grade in a different setting. I decided to try out the next offering as the staff member was so adamant about the new group of children being a breeze to handle.

After arriving at the new school, I found that my class had thirty-two students. In addition, I immediately discovered that two thirds of them had remedial classes outside of my classroom at various points during the day, which made it hard for me to teach a lesson to the whole group. However, I was assured by the other fourth grade teacher that this was the brighter fourth grade class of the two in existence at the school.

She remarked to me concerning their intelligence that they may seem smarter than her children and they are. All the same, they are really quite stupid and cannot learn. Therefore, don’t bother to teach much. It’s a waste of your and their time. Instead, simply let them play most of the day and then you’ll have only few disciplinary problems in your class.

She went on to recommend that I just write up my lesson plans as stating that the value of some games are that they teach problem solving, strategy in competition and so on. Then I would have a soft time on the job and could easily stick it out, as she was until she retired and got a pension.

Another teacher, a sixth grade teacher, had a contrary plan to hers about his own future. Indeed, he told me that he had had too much of “T” teaching and was totally burned out. On account, he was planning to leave instruction forever at the end of the current school year despite the fact that he had been an educator for almost fifteen year. At the same time, he hadn’t a clue about whatever he would do for work instead.

Then he went on to relate his reasons for choosing to leave. They were as follows:

He was tired of constantly having to keep his eyes on the students at the back windows. Since they didn’t have screens and these pupils always stole scissors from the supply closet, there was a constant problem involving their shooting the implements like arrows out of the windows whenever anyone was going into the school building. (His room’s windows were directly above the entrance door, although several stories above.)

Likewise, he felt terrible that he had a seventeen year old in his class, a slow minded boy who’d been retained for many years in grade after grade. Although papers had been filed for four years to track him toward special education, the boy was rejected for special education provision. So he remained in “regular” classes despite the fact that he didn’t, in terms of his emotional and physical maturity, fit in with eleven and twelve year olds. All in mind, the teacher suspected that the boy was not removed from regular education because he was mild mannered and easily handled.

Lastly, he felt that he really couldn’t make a difference in the lives of his students given the lack of teaching materials, the difficulty of controlling aversive behavior and other factors. Demoralized and anxious much of the time, he simply was waiting it out until the end of the year when he could be done of this madness, as he called it, once and for all. Enough was simply enough, he concluded.

He certainly did make some valid points, I thought, while surveying my classroom. Let’s see — my twelve history books, the ones I was supposed to use to teach that subject, were from 1953, were not age appropriate (i.e., were made for high school students), were missing pages and parts of pages, were written upon and were supposed to be sufficient for a class of thirty-two students, of whom thirty read below grade level.

These books existed on broken down shelving with a few other well-worn ones ranging in reading level from preschool (i.e., the inexpensive types that one sees in supermarkets and buys for toddlers) to college level, including an esoteric tome on a botany topic written in the 1930’s. (The information in it was technically written and way out of date.)

At the same time, these books were supplemented by a few others — teacher’s texts and a supply of overly used ditto masters — that were kept in the supply closet with scissors, paper, busted crayons, chalk and glue. In addition to these, I had one stapler and two erasers, forms for accidents and other needs, as well as a bunch of pencils in a cup on my desk.

The pencils were ones that I bought for the class myself and collected at the end of each day as I quickly learned that the writing tools, a seemingly treasured item, would disappear homeward never to return if I didn’t gather them before the children left the school grounds.

At the same time, there was no school library. That fit in with the fact that there was no gymnasium either, as the building only consisted of a cafetorium (a combination of cafeteria and auditorium space with folding lunch tables and no stage), an administrative office, one bathroom per floor, a small teacher’s lounge, classrooms and a small play yard covered in asphalt and divisional metal fences.

The latter location is where physical education classes took place after lunch — during recess period at which time I tried to involve any willing participants in games. (This seemed necessary since the state had on the law books that the only class necessary to be taught in the state was PE. I’ll add that this state was in the Northeastern US.) Consequently, I earnestly tried to teach PE and felt bad that the only teachers supplemental to the regular classroom ones were the remedial aides to whom I sent children in batches each day. In other words, there were no music teachers (nor instruments), no art teachers (nor art supplies besides the notorious scissors, paper, crayons and glue), no class trips except to picnic spots within walking distance, and no special all-school programs for enlightenment and a change of pace.

Meanwhile, the students, themselves, were varied and problematic. For example, there was John, the twelve year old. Held back two consecutive grades in a row, he was small for his age as he had lacked adequate nutrition at an earlier point in childhood. In addition, he had lived in five foster homes (including two group homes) and had been in five different school districts during the past two years.

Separated from his mother and siblings (the latter of whom were also in various homes), he’d only learned of his father’s identity two months previously. In addition, he was legally blind and had to have his nasal passages cleaned out from cancer at a children’s hospital in another state every two months… This history was imparted to me by his social worker, who also asked that I “cut him some slack” on account of his dire hardships.

Unfortunately, John couldn’t adjust to classroom routines and often spent the day at the principal’s office in lieu of his racing around the classroom screaming or sitting in the supply closet methodically rocking and sucking his thumb (all of which I documented for the school records and his social worker, whose case load was far too large to pay adequate attention to the boy). How sad it all was!

Eventually, though, he was removed from my classroom by three husky policemen. It took all three as he was so wild and strong during the moment that he was trying to bust his head open on the corner of a desk during which time blood was splattering everywhere, including on my clothes as I tried to single handedly stop him prior to the police arrival…

One can only imagine the mayhem that resulted for the rest of the children during this incident for which, I was told the next day, John blamed me in his police report, stating that I was pounding his head into the desk. Meanwhile, I was relieved to learn that no one believed him and, therefore, I would not be charged and brought to court.

Then there was Ronald. Ronald was an obese boy impelled to deeply daydream and draw doodles all day. So I had to remember throughout the day to loudly say “Ronald” every five minutes to get his attention and bring him mentally back into class. In addition, he occasionally smelled of liquor and I was not surprised when his father stumbled into the classroom one day, while rip-roaring drunk, during which time he declared in thunderous, slurred yells, “I love my son, Ronald” and “that’s my boy” over and over.

Of course, Ronald was all huffed up with pride with these public declarations! How important he felt in front of his peers to whom he kept repeating over and over, “That’s my dad! He loves me!”

In addition, there was Anna. She seemed to be afflicted with some sort of pronounced autistic problem. As such, she barely spoke except to mimic others in a singsong voice while copying their behaviors. She also would spend the day making spitballs and eating them, as well as chewing up pencils. I constantly tried to stop her and had to protect her from the other children as they detested her and mercilessly tormented her.

Furthermore, there was Reg. Reg liked to lift up the skirts and dresses of some girls and grab their chests. Therefore, I had to be sure when I had them in line to go to the cafetorium for lunch that he was not near Mary, Sue or Lynn, as these three liked his touching their bodies and would wiggle their hips provocatively when he did so.

Then there was Dave. He’d seemed like one of the more responsible boys until the time that his mother brought him to me during recess while relating that he had run home a few minutes before and had recently been moved to this school based on a psychological evaluation.

I apologized to her for his leaving the grounds, but mentioned that while I counted all of the thirty-two children frequently, it was hard to keep track of them dashing about amongst the approximately two hundred and fifty other children also milling about the playground. This task was made more difficult by my trying to run a PE class for anyone interested in it.

In response, she indicated that she certainly understood my dilemma and told me that it was an impossible task to keep track of each child during every single minute. I appreciated her understanding.

However, not all the parents were so supportive. Reg’s mother certainly wasn’t so, as I soon discovered.

I found out because one day I’d ask Reg to get back to his seat during a math lesson that I was teaching. He was trying to sneak up behind Lynn’s desk to, I presume, try to raise her dress yet another time.

Then, instead of doing as he was requested, he flipped over three desks and started erasing the entire chalkboard. As a result, I sent him to the principal with Ronald escorting him, along with a note stating the actions that Reg had undertaken. In addition, I wrote a note to Reg’s parents for him to take home in which I again summarized his behavior in the classroom and my wish that they would talk to him about expected classroom standards.

All considered, I was elated the next day when his mother showed up shortly before the children. I thought that she must really care about her son and wanted to share with me what she had told him regarding his misbehavior.

However, she simply said this, “I don’t want you ever sending my son to the principal again. I don’t want the mark on his school record about him having to visit the principal. It is your job, not the principal’s, to make him behave. Therefore, if you ever send him again to the office, I am coming into this classroom and see that second story window over there? I am going to shove you, butt first, through it. And I really will! I mean it.”

The next day, four girls refused to leave the classroom at the end of class, went to the supply cabinet, for which there was no key, took all of the scissors and started out the door. I said for them to put the scissors back and one of them said, “Make me” and made a very threatening gesture with one of the pairs when I blocked the room’s one exit door. The other girls surrounded me and did the same, but eventually put the scissors back. Meanwhile, I was trembling.

Despite these incidents, I always felt fairly safe as I thought that the principal, a towering man, would always help me in the end if I ever got in an impossibly bad situation. That is, I thought so until the day that, during recess, I saw him being chased by running adults of which some were smoking something while screaming, “We’re going to get you, you bas%#&*!” They were, at the same time, swinging chains, bats and plumbing pipes.

As my students hadn’t noticed the scene, I immediately asked Lynn, the child closest to me, to do me a favor and go to the principal’s office and tell his secretary that I said for her to look out of the window. Then I quickly assembled all of the children while yelling after Lynn to meet us all back in the classroom.

Then I told my class to hurry up as I had a big surprise back in the room and, consequently, I wanted to cut recess short.

The replies were predictable: “Please, we want to stay outside.” “Aw, do we have to?” “You’re mean!” “Boy, the surprise had better be really good.” Meanwhile, I was racking my brain so as to try to figure out some surprise that I could give them for obeying me in lining up so I could get them out of any harm’s way.

I learned later that the incident was all about the principal facing retaliation for shoving a twelve year old up against a brick wall by her neck while yelling at her that he would kick his black shoe up her black assh*%# if she ever were to misbehave again… Apparently, her parents and their friends didn’t take too kindly to his blatant threat.

(For him to act so extreme, the girl must have done something really awful — whatever it was. Maybe she was the student who’d clogged every toilet on all the floors except for one in the building. I didn’t know. It was not my business to inquire about the details. However, the day that he was chased and his secretary called the police yet another time, I no longer felt safe at all. All the same, I managed to make it to the end of the school year.)

At its close, I had forms that I could fill out to recommend children for psychological evaluation. Furthermore, I really wanted to fill out the papers for around twenty of my thirty-two. However, I’d been told that I’d have a better chance of having any evaluated (within a two year + time span that is) if I only were to pick one or two children. So I selected Anna, as she had gotten more disassociative as the school year had worn on, and a boy who’d acted very sadistic — so much so that he scared everyone in class, even the tough bully-boys. All the same, it was hard to choose amongst the many children who needed and deserved psychological assessment as I felt that I let down every single one not selected.

In review, my experiences while teaching in the “T” schools weren’t a total disaster. Indeed, I had a few very fine moments, such as the time that the mother of one of my students, a lunchroom aide, had meekly asked if she could see me during my lunch break for which she would get someone to cover her in the lunch room.

I’d replied in the affirmative and upon meeting with me, she asked me to explain multiplication and division to her on account of my having sent a note home in which I’d requested that parents assist their children with memorizing the tables. She had no idea as to what this meant even thought she was a US public high school graduate. All of this in mind she told me she wanted very much to help her daughter learn about the subject, but had no idea where to start.

So I lined up pencils from the pencil cup in sets and showed her graphically. The amazed and joyous look on her face was something to behold when the whole matter dawned on her for single digit by single digit multiplication and division. It was all quite new to her and I was deeply pleased over her happiness and sense of success!

While this outcome and some others brought me much satisfaction, they also made me upset. Why had I come across an adult, educated in the US, who didn’t know of simple math processes? Why have I, at other times, come across classroom aides who can neither read, nor write, except for a few simple words? Likewise, why have I come across parents who don’t know that the Civil War and the Revolutionary War are not one and the same? Further, why have I met others who think that London is in the country of Paris and suppose all sorts of other wildly erroneous notions?

In the end, I gave up my “dream” of helping disadvantaged youth in a school setting. Instead, I decided to apply for a position to teach at a private school. I thought that I’d likely be a better match for its student body. By and large, I simply no longer wanted to face the types of troubles that the special ed students, the children in the art room, the fourth graders and their parents could bring my way. Most of all, I felt helpless to fix an educational program that had gone terribly wrong.

All the same, I could still “make a difference” in the lives of children. Yet, I, like the sixth grade teacher, had simply had enough of grueling schools for now; I firmly decided. I felt ineffectual and overwhelmed by them. After all, I cannot be responsible for everyone everywhere despite that, in many locations, the need for dedicated teachers is critical, especially in settings such as I just described.

Yes, across the American landscape, there are countless villages, towns and cities with dreadful schools. These are not places where much learning can occur unless one considers learning new models of deviant behavior as instructional.

That many of the children feel like running away from the school’s grounds, inflict harm on themselves to avoid attendance, prefer to daydream in lieu of paying attention (passively running away in their minds) and haven’t the bare minimum of adequate curriculum supplies is indicative that, even if they were to want to learn in school, it can impossible to do so. This is clear.

In addition, many of these schools are breeding grounds for dysfunctional activities (such as drug use, promiscuous behavior and criminal acts such as scissor tossing). On top of this, other children and adults teach that the children are not worthwhile, like my companion fourth grade teacher. They also teach that violence is an acceptable way to deal with rule breaking, such as the principal who threatened the student.

In the final reckoning, these tragic schools teach that it is perfectly acceptable to have a two-tiered educational system — one for the wealthy and another for the poor. That this largely takes place along racial lines is equally lamentable and all but ensures that the lower class will remain mired in its misery generation after generation and, thus be retained as a source for cheap labor.

As stated by management at Mindfully.org:

“We see the actions and policies of everyone from the President on down to Endicott [of the US Department of Education], and further down to the individual citizen who allows the actions and policies to pass without challenge as the enemies of the state. For the purposes of this comment — the state is any and all people who are citizens, and for simplification, excluding noncitizens.

“All people are due equal education and everything else that goes along with maintaining a healthy society. All must have equal health-care, food, water and environments to live in.

“In short, nothing less than a paradigm shift is required to facilitate the well-being of society in the USA. All must be free or none will be free.

“This may not agree with the reader’s opinion, but as we see it, the inequality that exists presently must end if this country is to survive.

“It really does come down to that — if the rich continue to hoard wealth and abuse the other 95% of society, then they continually make themselves superfluous. By doing so, they receive the same treatment that they dole out to the less fortunate. This effect is clearly seen throughout the US presently, as life as we know it is disintegrating before our eyes and chaos increasingly rules.

“Those to blame are everyone from the President on down to individual citizens who allow these actions and policies to pass without challenge [1.]“

“You’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.” — Eldridge Cleaver, Speech in San Francisco, 1968

While educational standards worldwide are deplorable (i.e., approximately 70 % of humanity cannot read and write) [2], one would expect, from the wealthiest country in the world, that there would exist a high universal interest in preparing future citizens to be well equipped to benefit the country and reap rewards from citizenship status. One would think that this issue would be of paramount concern.

That it clearly is not is outrageous and alarming. The loss, on both the personal and the national level, is thoroughly appalling and unconscionable. As Jonathan Kozol puts it, this is truly “the shame of the nation.”

Moreover, in that our society and government not only allows this to occur, but purposefully ratifies such an unjust, pernicious educational system as exists is unbelievable. The damage to individuals, the lack of development in human potential and the injury to society at large are tremendous. That so many impaired lives (and, ultimately, impairment to whole communities) result is unacceptable while the harm, itself, is simply incalculable. All considered, all of the pathetic and poorly run educational programs across the US must immediately be radically revamped! There is absolutely no other choice than this!

* “T” is a capital of one of our US States. I did not want to single it out as being especially bad, as I am certain that conditions in other capitals are just as bad as those in “T”. So, “T” should not be given any sort of notorious prominence. As such, it should be considered as just a capital city — any capital city across our country.

[1] This quotation is from the first page of: Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Aparthe… (http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/American-Apartheid-Education1sep05.htm).

[2] Please see this, originating from a teacher at Stanford School of Medicine, to obtain an overview of humanity’s present circumstances: [thelist] OT: “As the World Turns” URL lost (http://lists.evolt.org/archive/Week-of-Mon-20020218/104164.html.

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By Emily Spence

8/26/07

Part One: The Overview

For years liberals have pointed out the huge gap between funding for military ventures and US public education. Indeed, a motto floating around for a decade or more sums it up well: “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.”

While it’s a bit overstated, the saying gets the point across and no one can dispute that our federal government spends an inordinate sum for our armed forces, armaments and other military provisions while many needs back in the US get short shrift. Aside from New Orleans never being put back together right, there are the problems of the worn out US infrastructure, the low income housing deficit, the high rate of homelessness and the migration of jobs overseas such that one in seven is expected to disappear over the next ten years. At the same time, there exist many other serious problems needing an immediate infusion of cash and workers (for which returned US military troops could be employed) to provide national relief. Moreover, education is woefully under funded and could certainly use any help available for its improvement.

All of the above in mind, the cost of the War in Iraq, alone has been close to half a trillion dollars [1]. The overall military budget for 2008 is 51 % ($1,228 billion) of US governmental revenue whereas ALL other expenditures amount to 49 % ($1,159 billion). Meanwhile, Human Resources provisions (from which education receives a modest amount) are set at $748 billion while General Government spending is set at $295 billion from which interest on the government debt commandeers 20 % of funds and Homeland Security another 17 %. Furthermore, Physical Resources (out of which transportation related and environmental needs are funded) receives $116 billion from which another 17 % goes to the physical needs (such as buildings, etc.) for Homeland Security [2].

When the above funding decisions are assessed all together, it is no wonder that the US Department of Education received only $68,084,800 in 2007. It is also not surprising that President Bush wants this amount pared down to $60,220,138 for 2008 [3]. At the same time, this spending is being requested to be all together removed from the US Budget in order to try to help balance the huge debt load, almost nine trillion dollars (approximately $30,000 per US citizen), that our government has driven into place [4]. The totality certainly staggers the imagination [5].

Is it any revelation then that the quality of education varies vastly from community to community based on the relative wealth that each has? Likewise, is it incredulous that the breach is widening?

All considered, there is no equality in educational provision. For example, current per pupil annual cost in Greenwich, CT is $15,166. In 2004, the average amount spent annually per student in the US was $8,287, with the low at $5,008 (Utah) and the high at $12,930 (New York). In other words, the range is amazing and one can expect that ghetto schools in each state receive less than the average sum whereas more affluent communities get more than ample funding. With property tax valuations as the primary measure to assess the amount of money that school districts obtain, there is bound to be a wide range of highly significant disparities [6].

Furthermore, local school boards further compound this problem by having a large say over the curriculum used in schools. This too impacts the quality of education capable of being delivered.

For instance, we can have intelligent design theory taught along side of evolution, no trigonometry or foreign language classes offered, or no computers available (as they are too costly to provide when assessed along side other needs such as books on the history of the evangelical movement to the exclusion of one focused on the history of minority group contributions to society). Yet, how much more agreeable would education be as delivered in Canada wherein every teacher in every school uses the same materials (supplemented by ones of local choice) for its core curriculum and every student is on the same page with the same academic expectations regardless of whether they live in British Columbia or Montreal?!

All of these factors considered, education is poorly delivered in the US. This has been well documented by innumerable educational watchdogs, such as Jonathan Kozol and John Gatto, whose conclusions are both highly alarming and disgraceful.

For example, Jonathan Kozol has construed (after countless studies conducted at a large number of diverse schools) that our educational system creates extreme discrimination based on economic class. On account, those who are advantaged (to receive quality public education) are afforded an unfair advantage in terms of obtaining of money, power, privilege, class status, along with other tangible and intangible benefits [7].

As a result, many students throughout the United States have no chance of succeeding through no fault of their own. Under the circumstances, the loss to the individual and the society at large is staggering. For a nation that supposedly treasures equal opportunity, this is nothing short of intolerable.

In relation, John Gatto elucidates on the findings of a 1990’s ETS conducted national literacy survey:

“Ninety-six and a half percent of the American population is mediocre to illiterate where deciphering print is concerned. This is no commentary on their intelligence, but without ability to take in primary information from print and to interpret it they are at the mercy of commentators who tell them what things mean. A working definition of immaturity might include an excessive need for other people to interpret information for us.“Certainly it’s possible to argue that bad readers aren’t victims at all but perpetrators, cursed by inferior biology to possess only shadows of intellect. That’s what bell-curve theory, evolutionary theory, aristocratic social theory, eugenics theory, strong-state political theory, and some kinds of theology are about. All agree most of us are inferior, if not downright dangerous. The integrity of such theoretical outlooks— at least where reading was concerned—took a stiff shot on the chin from America. Here, democratic practice allowed a revolutionary generation to learn how to read. Those granted the opportunity took advantage of it brilliantly.” (To have access to more of this assessment, please go to the eighth “[8]” citation below.)

The ramifications of both Kozol’s and Gatto’s findings are multifold. For example, the general workforce derived from many HS and college graduates is ill prepared to do much beyond almost thoughtless, menial labor. The disparity between those who’ve been provided a sound education and those who have not will be huge in terms of mental and many other kinds of capabilities. The value of a HS or a college degree, in and of itself, will hold no meaning as the bottom line involves from where the degree originated. The income disparity between those who have sufficient funds and those who do not will increase. Even more awful than these other factors is that the next generation will be poorly prepared to lead America into the next century in any meaningful fashion.

An equally disturbing fact is that thinking is thus curtailed to the most rudimentary types for a large number of Americans. In short, many individuals simply are not able to understand whatever they are not trained to comprehend. In this sense, the lack of knowledge concerning science (i.e., the facts of evolution) and rudimentary mathematics (necessary to balance a check book), language usage (needed to communicate basic information on the job) and much more is predictable.

Indeed, obvious educational shortfalls in the US appear responsible for many people’s inability to grapple with the more complex ethical issues, diminished capacity for critical analysis (i.e., to undertake synthesis and extrapolation to generate clarifications and accurate models of “reality” as, for instance, are the ones posed by transitional frames of reference) limited hermeneutical understandings, incapacity to differentiate logical VS. illogical patterns, etc. Meanwhile TV shows are one of the most popular methods to gain information on the parts of many, it would seem, and simply aren’t set up to impart much of value beyond a fleeting entertainment factor and superficial news coverage of selective topics.

All told, John Gatto, Jonathan Kozol and other critics repeatedly and disparagingly point out that public education (in the US and elsewhere across the globe) is guaranteed to keep economic classes in their relative placement and trapped in a basic inability to apply higher level cognitive skill sets. Thus, many individuals absolutely have to rely on commentators (i.e., authority figures for the most part) to form their understandings of events. Alternately put, students in many school districts are not taught to think independently nor question the opinions provided by the status quo. How convenient for those in powerful leadership positions! How easy then it becomes to keep corrupt systems in operation as many people cannot even conceive of alternatives let alone figure out ways to put them in place!

The results, then, are clear. For example, one in five American adults do not know who the US VP is. Mainstream news commentators and governmental leaders seem credible even when spouting the most audacious lies, and so on [9]. Stanley Milgram carried out some interesting studies, which indicate that it is easy to influence people to conform to the attitudes and commands of those in power even when these involve injuring or killing another person.[10] How much easier such outcomes must be to achieve when people lack some essential mental skills to form autonomous conclusions. Lastly, it is hard for people to stand against the underlying norms (i.e., that you will be contented if you just buy this X product that you deserve to have and on which your self-esteem depends) as they cannot see through the propaganda.

All in all, it is easy to quell any discontent with “the way things are” when people cannot conceive of better alternatives nor question the currently prevalent standards and practices. Thus, the current inequities in schools and society at large will likely continue unchallenged and uncorrected.

At the same time, the current income disparity amongst classes is all but assured to continue such that most members of the lower and upper economic classes will keep in their relative positions, as will their children. After all, who can afford to pay ~ $140,000 dollars for an undergraduate education and ~ $180,000 for four years of graduate school except for the relatively wealthy? Who can even meet minimal standards for studies at a school of higher education after learning at one of the glaringly inferior schools?

Moreover, taking on this cost as a student loan is particularly ludicrous in many circumstances in that the Federal minimum wage (currently set at $5.85/ hour) all but assures that many jobs available to new graduates will not be able to be provide sufficient income for them to pay back borrowed money (which, nonetheless, keep accruing interest over time). All considered, is it any wonder that the default rate on student loans is over ten percent, while amounting to many millions of dollars? Is it not assured that myriad related problems for former students, who were unable to repay loans, will subsequently transpire — such as inability to take out a mortgage due to a bad credit rating or, even worse, bankruptcy [11]?

At the same time, the jobs available to the graduates are disappearing. One in seven US jobs will disappear over the next ten years on account of industrial globalization. The majority of the ones that will be left will be the types that are impossible to outsource — types like food service delivery at fast food chains, construction jobs, clerk positions at mega-malls, health care provision, teaching and the likes.

A further consideration concerns the sort of quality in educators that can be expected with the salaries that many teachers command. For instance, someone with a Ph D in education can expect a starting salary of $22,000 in some public school systems. Even if someone with a doctoral degree were to consider accepting such a low income, what sort of person would he be?

It would likely to be someone who is either highly dedicated to humanitarian service or, due to some sort of serious flaw, were unable to “make it” in the business world. After all, what other rationale could explain someone willingly taking such a pitiful salary? Who could consider supporting a family or even renting a home with such a ridiculous wage?

All in all, we are a land that supposedly supports “liberty and justice for all” (or so our Pledge of Allegiance that school children recite every day states). In practice, though, we have an educational caste system of the worst sort imaginable. It is just one more scandal (along with the treatment of the victims from Hurricane Katrina, our military invasion of Iraq without sufficient provocation and evidence of myriad other woes) plaguing our so-called great country.

[1] To see the total cost for the War in Iraq, please refer to information provided at: http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182.

[2] To review US budgetary figures, please see: The Federal Pie Chart (http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm).

[3] This data derives from: U.S. Department of Education Budget News
(www.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/news.html).

[4] An overview can be obtained at: Cutting the Federal Budget to Prevent U.S. Bankruptcy: Part …
(http://www.lewrockwell.com/grichar/grichar38.html).

[5] Debt figures and similar provisions are located at: U.S. National Debt Clock (http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/).

[6] This and related information is reviewed at: US Census Press Releases.

[7] A summation of Kozol’s findings can be found at: Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Aparthe… (http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/American-Apartheid-Education1sep05.htm).

[8] Please refer to: The National Adult Literacy Survey – John Taylor Gatto (http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/3j.htm).

[9] At these sites, the ease with which this trickery can be executed is shown: Bill Moyers Journal . Buying the War . Watch the Show | PBS (www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html) and Bill Moyers’ “Buying the War” Exposes the Media’s Failure to… (www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/24/730/).

[10] To learn more, please go to: Stanley Milgram – The Stanley Milgram Website (www.stanleymilgram.com/references.html) and, for an extensive analysis, Obedience to Authority (1960-63) (www.humanresearch.msu.edu/training/Milgram_Paper_by_H).

[11] Please check information at these links to see definitions of business and personal bankruptcy, as well as number of cases in US for 2005: Bankruptcy – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy) and http://www.uscourts.gov/bnkrpctystats/bankrupt_f2table_dec2006.xls.

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