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High School
Rhee's Sisyphean Rock
December 09, 2008 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I’m reading a lot about Washington, D.C. School Chancellor, Michelle Rhee, especially since Obama won the election. What do you think about her and what she is doing (or not doing)? I live in Hagerstown, Maryland, which is close to Washington. |
The Assessment: We’re in an economic period that three generations – Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y – have never experienced. Only those left from the Greatest and Silent Generations know the despair and demise that came after a lavish, freewheeling, greedy period in this nation’s history called the Roaring Twenties. It was a time characterized by over-indebtedness and institutional malfeasance among other things. I’m of course referring to the ’29 Stock Market Crash and the Great Depression. Apparently, we have we learned nothing from history.
Here we are again. Over-indebtedness and government, institutional and business malfeasance have caused today’s economic crisis. Companies now must downsize if they are to survive. The repercussions of this new reality? Plenty of Americans are unemployed; more are soon-to-be unemployed. These people have lost or are about to lose their jobs, life savings, homes, plasma TVs, cars and everything else they worked so hard for, as we face this generation’s Great Depression.
What I think about Michelle Rhee is that with a looming Great Depression 2 on our hands, politicians are likely to not listen to the need to take a wrecking ball to the current education model. That means Ms. Rhee faces a near impossible battle to win, that of “fixing” the DC public school system.
What To Do: What worked at one time in this country’s history is an education model that not only transformed the United States, but it also brought about a completely different world. That model was created for the agricultural and industrial eras, ones we are far removed from yet we continue to educate our children based on the horse-and-buggy and the Model T mentality. This is the system Ms. Rhee is trying to fix and I want to bury it.
There are few of us in the battle for our children’s minds and hearts in hopes of educating them with new paradigms of thought. Instead, our children are growing up to become adults that shortly will end up at parents’ or someone’s doorstep cloaked in a pink slip.
Society is happy educating our children in these bling schools. I am not. Children educated in these schools will live a life of thin pockets carrying deadly plastic aplenty. Bling schools cannot fulfill parents’ and children’s hopes for an education that will make them competitive in the coming synergistic era.
This current economic meltdown has driven home one basic fact: greed and the bling life is a virus sapping at the economic foundation of this country. And our children come out of schools not knowing how to make change for a dollar without a machine’s help or an understanding of the value of that money, which, by the way, doesn’t buy happiness and can’t be earned by old paradigm educated children.
Ms. Rhee will not get far trying to fix bling schools. Instead, she must be bold and demand that we take the wrecking ball to our outdated education model, which is turning us into a nation of people with bankrupt minds, a bleak prospect for our future.
We must build a new education model, not try and resuscitate the dinosaur.
President-Elect Barack Obama has a mandate, if he desires to use it, to reinvent education in America so that we are assured of developing successful adults for 2020 and beyond. Ms. Rhee should demand he do so. Until she does, she will be no more than Sisyphus with her vouchers, charter schools and other band-aids.
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Bling is no solution
December 02, 2008 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: My seventh grader started this year in a brand-new school. As parents we felt, finally, that the school system had done something to better her education. Yet it took five weeks for her to receive worn-out textbooks. The teachers made do by assigning projects. Some did close to nothing because they don’t know the subject matter. The computers are not all set up yet. The science lab teacher has asked parents to pitch in with money. Only those with means, even modest, can comply. This leaves the rest to wonder if their children will receive a seventh grade education. Now school budgets are being cut! My daughter had all As and Bs on her first report card, which is meaningless. As a concerned parent, I know she learned almost nothing. I cannot afford a private school. Will my child be left out of the American dream because the public school she attends doesn’t have the money to educate her? |
The Assessment: There was a time when our public schools were a source of pride – the bedrock of American democracy. What has happened? Most Americans are right now wondering if their dream is vanishing before their eyes.
Approximately 23% of public school parents ask themselves if their children will be left out of an education, without which the American Dream is unattainable. It is not fair to surmise that the other 77 % are all that satisfied. The current economic decline has now refocused our attention on education yet I have been saying for years that we have a pointless attachment to an old model of teaching and until we are willing to let go of this attachment, the sad truth is that American education will continue to decline, even past the current crisis it is in. Yet, the mere idea of brand-new buildings enhances our expectations – just because they are new.
What To Do: Somehow, somewhere, someone decided that the shiny shell was more important than making sure – before it was built – that staffing the school with knowledgeable teachers was more important than the bling. We are in desperate need in this country of first having teachers who actually know what children need to learn without hamstringing them to textbooks. We should curtail construction spending while allotting precious budgeted monies to purchasing what is needed to educate children in a way that prepares them for the roles they will be playing fifteen years from now. What would that require? It would require reinventing school from the inside out.
Granted, your brand-new school is a disappointment, yet even if it came with all the bells and whistles money could buy, you would still be giving your daughter an education that will make her fit for employment in 1980 or thereabouts. Michelle Rhee, take notice.
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Improve Reading Comp (Pt.2)
November 25, 2008 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I am a
high school counselor working with a student that
is highly capable but exhibits some deficiencies
in reading comprehension. He has recently
completed psychological testing that revealed no
significant problems. However, previous
standardized test scores show a difference in
areas specifically covering reading as compared
to other areas tested. I am helping his
parents find some resources that may identify
some specific skills he may lack and can improve
upon if given the appropriate
instruction. Is this an area that your
program may benefit him?
NOTE TO READERS: You may remember that this question’s answer was to be spread across two columns. Part 1 was answered in my November 18 column. Here’s part 2 regarding reading comprehension for the ACT: |
What To Do:
Students should also practice the scientific reasoning section, which I consider to be the easiest part of this test. Scientific Reasoning tests your ability to analyze and reason with data presented in multiple formats and whether you know how to separate useful data from useless data.
Reading comprehension is about the reader knowing the purpose for the reading. The strategy to determine in one sentence what the author wants you to remember forever is different to the purpose of reading for a quiz of matching dates to events. Textbook reading is basically a game in which you must cull from your reading the original outline that the writer started with. If you know what you are searching for then reading is simply an exercise in building strategic thinking skills. Enjoy!
Correction to my October 21, 2008 column on the PSAT: Students who take the PSAT as juniors and not sophomores are eligible for the National Merit Scholarship Competition.
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Improve Reading Comp (Pt.1)
November 18, 2008 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I am a
high school counselor working with a student that
is highly capable but exhibits some deficiencies
in reading comprehension. He has recently
completed psychological testing that revealed no
significant problems. However, previous
standardized test scores show a difference in
areas specifically covering reading as compared
to other areas tested. I am helping his
parents find some resources that may identify
some specific skills he may lack and can improve
upon if given the appropriate
instruction. Is this an area that your
program may benefit him?
NOTE TO READERS: The response to this question had to be spread across two columns so please stay tuned and read next week’s column for part two so that you have a full, complete answer to this question. |
The Assessment: The answer to this question requires some assumptions on my part, so please take these into account as you read the recommendations.
Assumptions:
What To Do: The only achievement test that matters for him at this point is his ACT. By the way, I strongly advise it over the SAT.
Not knowing what grade he is in, I am hoping he knows that learning to answer reading comprehension for the ACT is not the same as knowing how to answer reading comprehension questions for high school and college classes. If not, start by explaining this to him and why his focus in reading comprehension should on this section of the ACT.
Students preparing to go to college should begin to practice for the verbal parts of the ACT starting in the ninth grade. Taking ACT practice tests generally identify specific skills students lack in the reading comprehension section. This gives them time to take several practices tests so that they can improve reading comprehension with the appropriate instruction.
Listed below are the essential rules for any student regarding the reading comprehension portion of the ACT:
(Conclusion in next week’s column.)
Correction to my October 21, 2008 column on the PSAT: Students who take the PSAT as juniors and not sophomores are eligible for the National Merit Scholarship Competition.
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Understanding the PSAT
October 14, 2008 12:00 PM
My
son’s school recently sent a notice home saying he
would be taking the PSAT on October
15th.
What is the PSAT and what do I need to do?
Read
more...
Know the ACT game strategies
September 23, 2008 12:00 PM
My
daughter will be taking her ACT for the first time in
October. She is a tenth grader and has taken geometry
but not Algebra II. She is anxious to see how she
does to determine where she should improve. She is
aiming for a scholarship. She has already been
practicing on her own and has asked to take a course
right before the test. Should she?Read
more...
Pursuing misdiagnosis sends wrong message
July 01, 2008 12:00 PM
I
recently read your article answering a mother’s
question about her daughter's request to get tested
for ADHD prior to taking her ACT/SAT college exams.
If diagnosed, the daughter could take the college
entrance exams untimed and be prescribed ADHD
medicine. In your column, you did not recommend
getting diagnosed just for these exams. I think you
missed the daughter’s main point. I think it was
obvious the student wished to be diagnosed so she
could take the tests untimed. Students specifically
have a difficult time in the English and reading
comprehension sections because of the amount of
reading required to answer the questions. What is
wrong with giving a child more time to finish the
test?Read
more...
Sleepy in school
February 05, 2008 12:00 PM
My
son calls himself a “night owl” to justify going out
during the week or waiting until late at night to
begin his schoolwork. This battle began in ninth
grade, once he was able to drive. Is this true – are
there people who can only work at night and do just
as well with less sleep? My son barely gets three or
four hours of sleep a night. His grades have slipped
but he always has an excuse, saying that his teacher
is unfair or doesn’t like him. After a while, these
same excuses wear thin. What should I
do?Read
more...
