It hurts me to see the NRA making public policy & politicians blaming teachers for failed schools while they (those same policy making people) are ignoring the screaming need for early childhood programs that could stem the poverty and mental health tsunami that has attacked our inner cities (Detroit, Flint, Houston, Compton, Baltimore…giant swaths of a new and dangerous America )
18% return on investment (without siblings, children of the children, education success) Could Be 20%. Dr Bruce Perry “25% of Americans will be special needs people by the end of this generation if this investment is not made. Prenatal care, Empower Parents, Bring it to scale.
The foundation of democracy is an educated citizenry; not an incarcerated citizenry – the U.S. has 5% of the world’s population & 25% of the world’s prison population (Minneapolis MN arrested 44% of its adult black men in 2001, no duplicate arrests).
Politicians making political hay by berating teachers for failing schools instead of identifying and solving the problems should be forced into a course on what the student body looks like today and required to make sensible statements about programs and solutions that might work.
What we do to our children they will do to our society (Pliny 2500 years ago – explain this to your neighbors)
Average reading level of America’s Senior High Students; 5th grade proficiency
Math questions for Georgia grade school children;
“Each tree had 56 oranges,” the first question starts. “If 8 slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”
The next question went a step further, referencing violence. “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in 1 week?”
Hiding the truth about Georgia’s terrible test results (teaching teachers to lie)
Science in Tennessee public schools (soon Indiana, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, & Missouri) GOD Made It All
Not one third of Kansas City’s elementary students read at grade level.
As a longtime volunteer (CASA) guardian ad-Litem, I observed how really troubled children behave in school & understand just how impossible they can be in a classroom. Suicidal behavior, sex in school, stabbing, biting, & other violence were common among them.
The blaming of teachers for poor student performance or failing schools is working directly against the possible fixing of the problem. Just like social workers, they are attacked from all sides, provided inadequate resources to do the job & expected to manage the unmanageable.
The largest public subsidy in Minnesota history was the Northwest Airlines subsidy in the mid 1990s. The NWA subsidy amounted to around $600 million. In 1992, NWA employed around 11,000 people in the state; average salary of $40,000 a year.
The Vikings directly employ fewer than 130 people, only a handful of which work year-round, and 53 of whom are athletes.
The Metrodome employs 19 full-time workers.
If there is a core meaning to all religious teaching, it is being seen this week at Cretin Durham High School in St Paul. Thank you from Kids At Risk Action
Is it possible that the only way we can have help with day care is to put the boys into a police car and make them live in a group home or with a strange family?
This does not seem right.
The U.S. has been sliding for years from a leadership role in education & other quality of life indices to falling off the charts behind almost all other industrialized nations. Today we compare ourselves to the “emerging” nations so that we can be 32nd out of 64 instead of 32nd out of 24 industrialized nations.…
Daycare workers in the U.S. are paid about as much as food service workers (the lowest paid profession in the nation). American daycare is underfunded, under-trained, and misunderstood.
For years now, politicians have made political hay by blaming “civil servants” for a multitude of institutional failures that they themselves are directly responsible for due to the poor understanding of underlying issues and lack of concern for the children and poor families that need help.
The cost to my community of each child failing to procure the tools to learn & become a productive citizen is far greater than just the drain on schools, crime & institutionalization. Consider the generational impact of their children having families just like the one that brought them into the world. The average number of children born to mothers incarcerated in Cook County Illinois jails has grown from 2 to 4 over the last ten years.
The need for strong education programs should be a primary concern for state and local governments. In addition to improving students’ chances for success in college and their subsequent careers, effective education programs can help keep juveniles from engaging in delinquent activities. This, in turn reduces costs to taxpayers for funding court proceedings and, if necessary, housing juvenile offenders.
This child’s traumatic and fearful entry into an unprepared and under-resourced public school system is the tip of the iceberg.
The Prozac, Ritalin, and other psychotropic medications being prescribed to very young children is terrifically overused in many child protection systems. Judge Heidi Schellhas shared with me the pages and pages of very five, seven, and nine year old children that passed through her courtroom that were heavily medicated on antipsychotic drugs.
As a guardian ad-Litem, I have seen plenty of cases where unsavory family members and other questionable practices become the only available answer to a family that cannot find daycare.
No nation can achieve its potential for greatness without investing in its human capital. The extent to which children successfully negotiate the treacherous passage to adulthood depends on the earliest years of brain and emotional development. That explains why early childhood education is crucial to society.
The list of inner city schools struggling to educate the children of those who could not get to (or for reasons of loyalty, love, or ethics) decided not to, escape to the suburbs where the schools still function is long.
My old high school, Edison, graduates less than 50% of its students, its sister school across town has graduated less than 30% of its students for five years.
“It’s unfortunate, because this day care is used by working families, for the most part single-parent families and they’re low income,” he said, adding, “If this place is shut down, it would really be a shame.”
a href=”http://www.startribune.com/nation/84190787.html?elr=KArks:DCiUMEaPc:UiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr”>Georgia’s hiding of hard truths is a terrifying trend in our nation. Here’s why;
Today, many states are increasing their percentage of spending on juvenile justice and criminal justice while maintaining or reducing spending on education. New York and California have been spending about $250,000 per year per juvenile in their juvenile justice systems. MN has reached the half a billion dollar mark for maintaining its prison system this year after five years of double digit growth.
To not support children that are unable to read or function well in the classroom is to insure continued failing schools and more and bigger prisons.
America is already the largest criminal nation in the world in per capita and in gross prison numbers – and that is expensive in financial and quality of life measurements.
The author, Nancy Folbre points out that , full-time, year-round child care for young children costs more than public university tuition in 44 states.
Minnesota Reading Corps is a statewide initiative to help every Minnesota child become a successful reader by the end of 3rd grade.
Education is the engine of progress and prosperity. No nation can achieve its potential for greatness without investing in its human capital. The extent to which children successfully negotiate the treacherous passage to adulthood depends on the earliest years of brain and emotional development. That explains why early childhood education is crucial to society.
America’s public policy regarding at-risk children is an economic and moral failure:
My mission in life and in this cause is moral, but my arguments begin with the practical. Public education is the real world for 90 percent of your children, and America’s. The wisest path to public education reform in our country is to deliver the children in far better shape to formal school. That is what early investment is all about. It is neither socialism…nor the creation of a “nanny state,” but rather simple decency and wisdom and what our country is about when we are at our best.
A few weeks ago I listened to Larry Rosenstock from High Tech High in San Diego talk about his inner city high schools that send one hundred percent of their graduates onto college. It is real, it is achievable, and it is simple in how it works. Educators and students are given ample…
Because the waiting list for subsidized daycare is one year into the future for the father of the children I represent (as a county guardian ad-Litem) there is a good chance that his two small children will be taken from him by the county and adopted by someone he has never met.
It is also possible that he may not be able to visit his children if they are adopted.
State must make early childhood investments a priority KELLY DORAN During a speech in Hong Kong near the end of his China trade mission late last year, Gov. Tim Pawlenty expressed his amazement at the “scope” of China’s rise to economic superpower status. Then, in an apparent moment of sober revelation, Pawlenty reportedly proclaimed that…
Retired teacher Carolyn Light Bell’s Star Tribune article today has brought me to reflect on the rich Minneapolis Public School education I received and how it helped me to build a terrific life. Without my public school education, I would have been one more low-skilled worker in a nation with a $6/hour minimum wage and…
There is a myth about our public education system that has the potential of bringing down our nation. The myth is that the lack of funds does not plague America’s schools.
It’s just that our policy makers don’t appear to appreciate the failed history of punishing abused and neglected children.
Most lawmakers ask, “where is the money going to come from?” when they should be asking, “where is the money going?”
There is no safety net for many of the poor neglected and abused children they care for. There is no child psychiatrist for a sexually abused seven-year old, or for the starved and tortured six-year old. Go to school. Get well. Take these pills. We just don’t have a budget for the services you need.