Salon.com > Education http://www.salon.com Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Cheating runs rampant http://www.salon.com/2012/05/25/cheating_runs_rampant/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/25/cheating_runs_rampant/#comments Fri, 25 May 2012 16:26:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12924194 On Thursday, Mitt Romney made a visit to a West Philadelphia charter school to tout his education platform, which, as it happens, looks pretty similar to President Obama's: more privately managed schools and a reliance on high-stakes standardized tests to evaluate teachers.

But on the 10-year anniversary of No Child Left Behind, the school-reform movement that both candidates have embraced is in crisis. Rampant and widespread cheating on high-stakes standardized tests has been uncovered in districts nationwide. The first big scandal erupted in Atlanta, where teachers and administrators are suspected of erasing wrong answers and filling in correct ones, or simply giving students the right answers, at nearly half of city schools. In Philadelphia, one in five district schools is now under investigation, including 11 of the city's top-tier Vanguard Schools. Cheating or score inflation is suspected in cities including Houston, New York, Detroit and Washington, D.C.

How did cheating become normal in America’s schools?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/05/25/cheating_runs_rampant/feed/ 59 Disabled — and handcuffed at school http://www.salon.com/2012/05/23/disabled_and_handcuffed_at_school/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/23/disabled_and_handcuffed_at_school/#comments Wed, 23 May 2012 15:05:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12925953 AlterNetThere’s a danger looming in schools today that’s putting our nation’s most vulnerable children at risk. Around the country, teachers and administrators are struggling to meet the needs of a growing population of disabled students, and they are entering school environments ill-prepared to educate these children responsibly, thanks to a lack of both adequate training and resources. This lack of preparation for handling students’ special needs is, in turn, sparking a disturbing and dangerous trend: the use of harmful “zero tolerance” policies that end in seclusion, restraint, expulsion and – too often – law enforcement intervention for the disabled children involved.

From coast to coast, the incidents are as heartbreaking as they are shocking:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/05/23/disabled_and_handcuffed_at_school/feed/ 13 Quebec students mark 100 days of tuition protests http://www.salon.com/2012/05/23/quebec_students_mark_100_days_of_tuition_protests_2/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/23/quebec_students_mark_100_days_of_tuition_protests_2/#comments Wed, 23 May 2012 11:45:00 +0000 http://http://www.dev12.salon.com/2012/05/23/quebec_students_mark_100_days_of_tuition_protests_2/ MONTREAL (AP) — Tens of thousands of students marched through the streets of Montreal to mark 100 days since the movement against higher tuition fees began. Tuesday's protest came after Quebec's provincial government passed emergency legislation intended to end Canada's most sustained student demonstrations ever.

The peaceful protest turned more violent in the evening as demonstrators set off fireworks and threw beer bottles at police. Riot police responded with pepper spray. Police spokesman Simon Delorme said at least 100 people were arrested. Two police officers were injured, and four people were taken to the hospital. The extent of their injuries was not immediately known

Since the emergency law was passed Friday, nightly protests have often turned violent, resulting in some 300 arrests Sunday alone. The new law requires that a detailed agenda be provided for protests of more than 50 people.

Police declared the Tuesday night protest illegal after no one provided an itinerary. "They didn't share the route, demonstrators were wearing masks and projectiles were thrown at police officers," the Montreal police said on their Twitter feed.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/05/23/quebec_students_mark_100_days_of_tuition_protests_2/feed/ 1 How did this parent end up in jail? http://www.salon.com/2012/05/16/how_did_this_parent_end_up_in_jail/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/16/how_did_this_parent_end_up_in_jail/#comments Wed, 16 May 2012 21:22:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12921602 Kelley Williams-Bolar is giving a speech in the dark. The Ohio mom is rattling off the standard remarks she’s delivered in public appearances since being catapulted onto the national stage last year. It’s an unseasonably warm day and the lights in the room are off, her face lit only by the glow of the computer screen in her father’s home. The address on the door outside is the one she used on her now-famous falsified documents—the ones that landed her in jail for nine days for illegally enrolling her daughters in a neighboring public school district.

Colorlines.com“First, I talk about how I received my indictments, and then I give the laundry list of stipulations for my probation,” says Williams-Bolar, who is halfway through her two-year sentence. The 42-year-old single mother, with an otherwise spotless criminal record, is not allowed to drink, must submit to drug tests and reports monthly to a probation officer. She had to perform 80 hours of community service and pay $800 in restitution, as well as the cost of Summit County’s prosecution against her.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/05/16/how_did_this_parent_end_up_in_jail/feed/ 51 Debt: Not just for undergrads http://www.salon.com/2012/05/15/debt_not_just_for_undergrads/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/15/debt_not_just_for_undergrads/#comments Tue, 15 May 2012 18:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12920363 Last summer a young lawyer wrote to me about her struggles to find employment. Her story was all too familiar: After graduating with honors from a middling law school, she was unable to find a real legal job, and was reduced to taking a series of temporary, low-paying positions that did not allow her to even begin to pay off educational debts that, three years after graduation, had ballooned to nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

Rather than merely lamenting her situation, however, she explained to me she was more fortunate than many of her fellow recent graduates: “I know that I am better off than a lot of these younger lawyers. I get job interviews. I can afford the apartment I share with my friend. I have a great resume. I am an excellent researcher and writer. I rarely go to bed hungry anymore.”

That last sentence stayed with me. I have been researching what’s been happening to recent law school graduates, and it’s no exaggeration to describe the situation as a growing catastrophe. The statistics are shocking:

Approximately half of the 45,000 people who will graduate this year from ABA-accredited law schools will never find jobs as lawyers. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that over the next decade 21,000 new jobs for lawyers will become available each year, via growth and outflow from the profession.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/05/15/debt_not_just_for_undergrads/feed/ 57 Jefferson’s lifelong dream http://www.salon.com/2012/05/12/jeffersons_lifelong_dream/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/12/jeffersons_lifelong_dream/#comments Sat, 12 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12919403 “The only security of all is in a free press.”  Thomas Jefferson wrote these words to the Marquis de Lafayette at the age of 80. The reason Jefferson lauded a free press was that he wished, in tense political times, for the U.S. to function as a deliberative democracy, in which an increasingly better-educated citizenry monitored the policy decisions of its elected representatives and judged whether or not they deserved to remain in office.

A better-educated citizenry. That was Jefferson’s mantra, and it should be ours, too. Republicans in Congress have claimed Jefferson as their man, time and again quoting him as a champion of small government. One of their favorites lines is, “If it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution,” it would be “taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing.” The Jefferson they do not pay attention to is the one whose lifelong dream was a well-funded public education system -- the Jefferson who spent his post-presidential retirement years creating a beautiful public university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Jefferson asked no less a figure than U.S. Attorney General William Wirt, notably the son of a Maryland tavern-keeper, to be its president.  He understand that personal growth and national strength were best served by lifting up ordinary folks.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/05/12/jeffersons_lifelong_dream/feed/ 43 Tuition is too damn high http://www.salon.com/2012/05/11/tuition_is_too_damn_high/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/11/tuition_is_too_damn_high/#comments Fri, 11 May 2012 11:45:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12918549 College students in California received another dreary report card on Wednesday. Unless the state boosts its funding support for the public university system, warned school administrators, another 6 percent tuition hike could be on the way as soon as next year.

The officials may have been indulging in some good old-fashioned political grandstanding, hoping to whip up support for a November vote on a tax hike endorsed by Gov. Jerry Brown. But in a state where tuition fees have already doubled in just five years, another 6 percent hike is hardly unthinkable. And as a symbol of rising costs in higher education nationwide, California's example is more than apt. Since 2001, tuition fees at four-year public colleges in the United States have risen at an annual average of 5.6 percent.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/05/11/tuition_is_too_damn_high/feed/ 104 Kenneth Cole gets schooled http://www.salon.com/2012/04/30/kenneth_cole_gets_schooled/ http://www.salon.com/2012/04/30/kenneth_cole_gets_schooled/#comments Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:25:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12912159 [UPDATE BELOW]

It was always bound to go there, but few likely expected it would be so blatant. I'm talking about the ongoing campaign against organized labor; for decades deeply rooted in American political culture, the crusade has been periodically amplified in popular culture as well, from 1954's "On the Waterfront" all the way to the Sopranos' depiction of mob-controlled unions (and sometimes pop culture and political culture have even fused). So it was only a matter of time before vilifying rank-and-file union members would be commodified into a consumer brand by a company looking for an edge in the high-end retail market.

That's where Kenneth Cole now comes in. The clothing designer has just launched a new crusade to tie his expensive clothing and shoes line to the elite's movement du jour: the fight to demonize public schoolteachers and their unions. In a billboard and Web-based campaign, Cole's foundation portrays the national debate over education as one that supposedly pits "Teachers' Rights vs. Students' Rights."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/04/30/kenneth_cole_gets_schooled/feed/ 25 Obama’s GI Bill fight http://www.salon.com/2012/04/27/obamas_gi_bill_fight/ http://www.salon.com/2012/04/27/obamas_gi_bill_fight/#comments Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:21:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12910986 The multiple incarnations of the GI Bill are widely considered some of the most effective pieces of social welfare legislation ever passed by the U.S. Congress. Since World War II, millions of veterans have been able to attend college and graduate school via direct tuition assistance from the federal government. The education received by the initial wave of World War II veterans is believed to have played a key role in the massive economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s.

So how, then, did we get to where we are today, with GI bill education-related financial aid embroiled in the for-profit college mess?

The answer hinges on a classic case of unintended consequences. But first, cue President Obama.

On Friday, Obama continued his efforts to keep education front and center during his reelection campaign. This time around, the focus was on the military: specifically, the abusive, bordering-on-fraudulent practices employed by for-profit "diploma mill" colleges to boost military enrollment.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/04/27/obamas_gi_bill_fight/feed/ 5 High-schoolers on strike http://www.salon.com/2012/04/24/high_schoolers_on_strike/ http://www.salon.com/2012/04/24/high_schoolers_on_strike/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:08:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12908707 In a short video released last week, a group of students from New York's Paul Robeson High School stand in an unremarkable classroom: school bags slung over wooden chairs and busy pinboards in the background. Their message, however, is a radical one: at front and center of the shot, a young man holding a white sheet of paper announces a mass high school student walkout on May 1, the day of the Occupy-planned general strike.

"Dear New York City. We the students of public education are here to inform you of the injustice that is taking place in our school system," he begins, surrounded by members of the school's student leadership, some staring defiantly into the camera with arms crossed. After listing student grievances including the privatization of the public school system, budget cuts, school closures against community wishes and over-policing in schools, the young man announces the May Day walkout to nearby Fort Greene park in Brooklyn.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/04/24/high_schoolers_on_strike/feed/ 8 Schools for the corporate era http://www.salon.com/2012/04/24/school_reform_for_the_corporate_era/ http://www.salon.com/2012/04/24/school_reform_for_the_corporate_era/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 08:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12908149 Gov. Bobby Jindal has remade the Louisiana public schools system with impressive speed over the past legislative session. Last week, he signed into law a suite of landmark reform bills that will likely change the direction of public education in Louisiana forever. But not all change is good, and critics say both Jindal’s agenda and the strategy to move it come right from the playbook of conservative advocacy group ALEC, in an effort to revive Jindal’s national political profile.

Colorlines.comLouisiana is now home to the nation’s most expansive school voucher program. Charter school authorization powers have been broadened. And teacher tenure policies have been radically transformed. Louisiana already had something of a reputation as a radical-reform state, thanks to the post-Katrina educational climate in New Orleans. But not all change is good, and education advocates have deep concerns about the efficacy of Jindal’s overhaul, and the interests that have pushed it.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/04/24/school_reform_for_the_corporate_era/feed/ 24 Why is tweenhood so fraught with “drama”? http://www.salon.com/2012/04/04/why_is_tweenhood_so_fraught_with_drama/ http://www.salon.com/2012/04/04/why_is_tweenhood_so_fraught_with_drama/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12789351 They're not the carefree years. They're not the everything-is-awesome years. They are, as Haley Kilpatrick explains, the drama years. It's that uniquely turbulent time in a girl's life between childhood and adolescence, when friends become frenemies, when hormones run amok, when the pressures of school and activities ramp up, and Mom and Dad suddenly just don't get it anymore. Welcome to middle school, kid.

Kilpatrick understands. While still in high school in her small town in Georgia, she founded the national peer mentoring organization Girl Talk, mostly as a means of helping her younger sister navigate the social minefield she herself had only just departed. With its emphasis on helping tween girls learn from teens who've survived their own drama years, Girl Talk now has chapters in 43 states and six countries.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/04/04/why_is_tweenhood_so_fraught_with_drama/feed/ 11 The disposable professor crisis http://www.salon.com/2012/04/04/the_disposable_professor_crisis/ http://www.salon.com/2012/04/04/the_disposable_professor_crisis/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12790051 Relying on cheap labor at educational institutions comes at a high price -- for educators and students alike. Since the 1970s, a radical shift has been occurring in higher education, as growing numbers of institutions turn to contingent (or adjunct) faculty to cut costs, while keeping pay as low as possible for the support staff who keep campuses running. Students suffer, as the number of available services are reduced, class sizes increase, and educators are less able to provide direct assistance and mentoring to the students they are there to teach. Now, employees in higher education are fighting back, and facing real challenges from administrations when they do.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/04/04/the_disposable_professor_crisis/feed/ 41 Can college be saved? http://www.salon.com/2012/04/01/can_college_be_saved/ http://www.salon.com/2012/04/01/can_college_be_saved/#comments Sun, 01 Apr 2012 18:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12758151 During the 20th century, the American college held a vaunted position. It was the mark of a successful upbringing, and the launching pad from a bright childhood to a promising future. In the past few years, however, the idea of college seems to have lost its way. With rising tuition, the need to attain specialized knowledge earlier and earlier, and the massive funding cuts to state institutions, college has become more precarious, isolated and marginal. While undergraduate students will exceed a record 20 million within five years, only a small fraction will experience college in the traditional sense. Most will either attend online or vocational programs, and, at most, only 40 percent will get a degree -- and, on average, a college graduate will incur more than $25,000 in student debt. In his new book, “College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be,” Columbia professor Andrew Delbanco acknowledges that the hour is late, but there’s still time to save this valuable institution.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/04/01/can_college_be_saved/feed/ 49 Charters aren’t the answer http://www.salon.com/2012/03/23/charters_arent_the_answer/ http://www.salon.com/2012/03/23/charters_arent_the_answer/#comments Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:13:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12722971 Talk K-12 education for more than five minutes, and inevitably, the conversation turns to charter schools -- those publicly funded, privately administered institutions that now educate more than 2 million American children. Parents wonder if they are better than the neighborhood public school. Politicians tout them as a silver-bullet solution to the education crisis. Education technology companies promote them for their profit potential. Opponents of organized labor like the Walton family embrace them for their ability to crush teachers unions.

But amid all the buzz, the single most important question is being ignored: Are charter schools living up to their original mission as experimental schools pioneering better education outcomes and reducing segregation? That was the vision of the late American Federation of Teachers president Albert Shanker when he proposed charters a quarter-century ago -- and according to new data, it looks like those objectives are not being realized.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/03/23/charters_arent_the_answer/feed/ 55 Rochester’s ridiculous banned book controversy http://www.salon.com/2012/03/20/rochesters_ridiculous_banned_book_controversy/ http://www.salon.com/2012/03/20/rochesters_ridiculous_banned_book_controversy/#comments Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:30:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12707801 One of the American Library Association's most challenged books of the last decade has disappeared from yet another library. It's a tome that topped the ALA's list last year, and has made waves ever since its publication. Yet the book that so concerned a Rochester-area parent that the public school system there yanked it earlier this month wasn't Lauren Myracle's gritty, haunting "Shine." It wasn't Suzanne Collins' intense, violent Mockingjay series. It was a picture book about a penguin family. Hide your kids!

"And Tango Makes Three" is the gentle tale of Roy and Silo, two penguins from the Central Park Zoo who "built a nest of stones" and "every night they slept there together, just like the other penguin couples." Soon, the narrative finds Roy and Silo taking turns sitting on an egg provided by a helpful zookeeper, and hatching and raising their baby Tango. It's a story of love and family and adoption. Oh, and there's just one other thing. As authors Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell explain it, those "two penguins in the penguin house were a little bit different. Roy and Silo were both boys."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/03/20/rochesters_ridiculous_banned_book_controversy/feed/ 40 The wrong literacy plan http://www.salon.com/2012/03/19/the_wrong_literacy_plan/ http://www.salon.com/2012/03/19/the_wrong_literacy_plan/#comments Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12698221 If Einstein’s definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” then it stands to reason that the politics of education have gone completely mad. That’s a logical conclusion as states now consider retention legislation to force young children to repeat a grade if they don’t meet state literacy standards. The legislation, in other words, would put students through the very same curriculum they just experienced -- with the expectation of different results.

As much as that meets Einstein’s definition of crazy, the idea does, at first glance, sound somewhat reasonable. Considering the Dexter Manley cautionary tale and horror stories about skyrocketing college remediation rates, there are legitimate reasons to be worried about grade inflation and “social promotion” -- and there’s an understandable desire for the graduation process to mean something. A seeming cure-all is retention -- that is, denying promotion to students who don’t meet certain standards.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/03/19/the_wrong_literacy_plan/feed/ 37 Who hires a hate group to lead a school assembly? http://www.salon.com/2012/03/16/who_hires_a_hate_group_to_lead_a_school_assembly/ http://www.salon.com/2012/03/16/who_hires_a_hate_group_to_lead_a_school_assembly/#comments Fri, 16 Mar 2012 15:45:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12683191 In the annals of horrible school assemblies, what happened last week at Iowa's Dunkerton High School may go down as the all-time champ. How bad was the presentation by Bradlee Dean and his Junkyard Prophet band? It was "oops, we hired a hate group" bad.

The ill-fated presentation made headlines around the country this week after it was revealed that Dean peppered his motivational speech with warnings that girls who aren't virgins will have "mud on their wedding dresses," called homosexuality "sexual deviancy," and showed the kids pictures of aborted fetuses and AIDS patients. Four faculty members allegedly walked out during the presentation – though, unfortunately, none appear to have had the wisdom to take the students with them. Adding to the disgust over the event was the news that Dean was given free rein to gas on to the students for a stunning three and a half hours. Wow, that sounds just like something Rick Santorum would call attempted indoctrination.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/03/16/who_hires_a_hate_group_to_lead_a_school_assembly/feed/ 121 Home-schooled and illiterate http://www.salon.com/2012/03/15/homeschooled_and_illiterate/ http://www.salon.com/2012/03/15/homeschooled_and_illiterate/#comments Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:30:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12678881 In recent weeks, home schooling has received nationwide attention because of Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s home-schooling family. Though Santorum paints a rosy picture of home schooling in the United States, and calls attention to the “responsibility” all parents have to take their children’s education into their own hands, he fails to acknowledge the very real potential for educational neglect among some home-schooling families – neglect that has been taking place for decades, and continues to this day.

AlterNetWhile the practice of home schooling is new to many people, my own interest in it was sparked nearly 20 years ago. I was a socially awkward adolescent with a chaotic family life, and became close to a conservative Christian home-schooling family that seemed perfect in every way. Through my connection to this family, I was introduced to a whole world of conservative Christian home-schoolers, some of whom we would now consider “Quiverfull” families: home-schooling conservatives who eschew any form of family planning and choose instead to “trust God” with matters related to procreation.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/03/15/homeschooled_and_illiterate/feed/ 744 Kids today still screwed http://www.salon.com/2012/03/12/kids_today_still_screwed/ http://www.salon.com/2012/03/12/kids_today_still_screwed/#comments Mon, 12 Mar 2012 22:07:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12670601 Just in case anyone decided to "scam" themselves some free higher education by going to college and then declaring bankruptcy, Congress decided in 1998 to make sure that student loan debt had no statute of limitations and could not be discharged except in the event of extreme (and effectively unprovable) hardship. Then tuition began skyrocketing, players like Goldman Sachs got into the student lending business, and middle-class job opportunities for people without college degrees disappeared. The result, naturally, has been extremely profitable for certain people (Lally Weymouth) and basically awful for everyone else in America. Now, Eric Pianin is in Lally Weymouth's Washington Post saying that student loan debt might be "the next debt bomb."

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