Any one who believes it’s the school’s responsibility for the success of their child is foolish. Anyone who believes it is our nation’s responsibility to insure our children are prepared for their future is irresponsible. Our nations schools are obviously under attack. It is reported that over 135,000 teachers have lost their jobs across the country. If it were not for Congress giving an additional $10 billion to keep an estimated 140,000 educators employed the number could have reached over a quarter of a million.

Throughout the country teacher layoffs mean students will have to share their classrooms. What this means is that states across the country are requesting to increase their average class size beyond the maximum allowed. For example in Modesto City Schools officials decided to raise the average class size in kindergarten through third grade to 25 students, up from 20. It doesn’t take an educator to understand this increase in class size will undermine any hope of educating all children equally. Yes, this means that some children will be left behind.

Other moves by districts include the Sylvan Union School that raised their elementary class size to 34. Many other schools have eliminated librarians, art, music, and drama teachers. The comical part about doing this is our Federal Government, through the NCLB program, demands a decrease in students dropping out of school. Don’t they understand the courses they are dropping are some of the ones that keep students in school.

Some districts have allowed their schools to combine several grades, teaching kindergarten and first graders and first and second graders together. In modern history this is the first time this has been done. Are we heading back to the one room school house? Is this the way to educate our students into the 21st century?

Elsewhere across our nation school districts have cut back on programs and services or are charging for them. An example of this is a Phoenix district that now charges parents $200,00 a month to enroll in kindergarten. I assume this means only the more affluent students will have a head start in their education.

With all these cuts across our nation beware the Philistines who are trying to take advantage of this present situation. There are companies across the nation promising to educate your children through the Internet. They state the child doesn’t even have to show up for school. Other cons include special classes that only teach state assessment tests. Even though the child would have little concept of subject they would do well on a test. In fact, the testing companies that make up the standardized tests have never been more profitable. In 1983, Measured Progress, a testing company, has increased its size and volume by evolving into 30 states and assessing more than 2.5 million children annually. Can you imagine what our local schools could do with this money being spent on literally nothing.

There are a couple of programs that promise everything and basically do nothing. In our schools there are Internet credit recovery programs making it easy to receive credit in difficult courses. There are virtual high schools that are slowly evolving into taking over the classroom. The way things are evolving the high school classroom could become a thing of the past. Of course, only the wealthy will still have this option.

The only thing parents can do to protect their child’s education is to become a part of their child’s education. First of all understand our schools are not churches. They don’t have answers to all questions about the best way to educate your children. Our schools are filled with very talented individuals whose existence depends on the success of their students but without the help and input of parents this task is literally impossible.

There are a few things parents can do before their child starts the school year. If you child is ready to start elementary school, which most districts consider grades K-5, you should schedule a meeting with their primary teacher. During this meeting you should check to see how many other children will be in their class. If this is over 20 students there is a good chance your child or or someone else in the class will fall behind. You should also check to see how many permanent aides your child’s classroom will have. You have every right to ask these questions. You should also check to see if the primary teacher is certified to teach at this level. It is also not a bad idea to check to see what experience the aides have with your child’s age level.

Ask about any unified arts your child’s school has and how they are opened to all students. Unified arts include art, music, physical education, and even drama or industrial arts. Foreign languages should be taught in elementary school. In fact, they should be taught as early as possible because the child’s brain is able to retain languages much easier when they are young. It is foolish to start the study of a second language in middle or high school.

The middle school is a bit easier. Most middle schools are set up as teams. A parent should contact their child’s team as soon as possible in order to get a feel for what their child should expect. There is a large difference between elementary and middle school education. A parent should not expect to learn about the education of their child through their child. It is my experience when you ask a child what happened in school most would state, ‘ nothing’. A parent only hopes this is not true and should check with their child’s team to see how they are doing.

Hight School can be a bit difficult. A parent should check to see what their child’s 4-year plan is. They should also inquire about what level their child is in. Most elementary and middle school classrooms are heterogeneous in that there is a mixture of aptitudes. Most high schools form homogeneous classes in order to allow the more talented students to accelerate and the more challenged students time to understand what is being taught.

Certification of teachers is critical in the secondary level. Parents should make sure all of their child’s teachers are certified to teach the subject. It is also a good idea to check on the graduation rates of your child’s school. You can ask how well the graduates do in post-secondary education. You can check how well the school does on standardized tests but understand these tests basically mean nothing. In fact, most of the students taking the test clearly understand this.

Driving past most of the schools in our area it is obvious there is a lot of activity taking place. Teachers and Administrators are getting ready for the new school year. Custodians and maintenance personnel are getting the school ready for the arrival of a new year of students. The most important group of people that should be working in their child’s school are the parents. In fact, there should be more of them than anyone else.

Jim Fabiano, a teacher and writer who lives in York, Maine and is a past recipient of the Maine Press Association’s award for Best Weekly Column. He is also the recipient of the Theodore William Richards Award for excellence in teaching chemistry and is a member of the AULA LAUDIS Society of the American Chemical Society.

241 teachers have just been fired by The District of Columbia public school system. They were fired because of poor performance under the education assessment system; IMPACT. Chancellor Michelle Rhee of the District of Columbia public school system also announced that another 76 employees will be terminated because of licensing issues. This is one part of the issue I agree with. If a teacher is not certified or certifiable in what they teach they should be given a specific amount of time to become certified.

Chancellor Rhee states, “Every child in a District of Columbia public school has a right to a highly effective teacher – in every classroom of every school, of every neighborhood or every ward, in this city.” This statement sounds almost as good as naming a program, “No Child Left Behind”. Of course looking into Chancellor Rhee’s remarks the statement is as hollow as her concepts.

I don’t understand how you can hold accountable a algebra teacher whose students can’t add or subtract. I don’t understand how you can hold accountable an American Literature teacher whose students can’t read. I don’t understand how you can hold accountable an American History teacher whose students don’t give a damn. Finally I don’t understand how you can hold accountable elementary school teachers whose students come from drug filled homes if they have a home in the first place. It is common knowledge The District of Columbia is plagued by massive drug abuse, broken homes, and extremely high unemployment.

Chancellor Rhee goes on to explain, “We have graduated a generation of Washingtonians who don’t have the skills and knowledge that they need to be a productive members of society because our schools have failed them.” Simply put Chancellor Rhee is blaming all the ills of society on teachers. She obviously doesn’t place any blame on the parents for after all why should they be given any responsibility.

So, how does a district set up their teachers for failure and thus loss of job. Under this IMPACT program, teachers were judged on five classroom observation visits by principals and outside education experts. I wonder how many education experts ever spent a moment of their time in the classroom. I also wonder how many administrators lost their jobs because of how poorly their schools performed. As far as I can see; none. The teachers are the only ones to blame.

Washington Teachers’ Union President George Parker stated, “ that even though the union has no say as to how teachers are evaluated and by contract teachers can be let go for low evaluations. The union ran a survey that clearly demonstrated that their members agree that IMPACT is a flawed instrument with many loopholes. The union also claims there needs to be clearer communication on expectations.

So, where does Chancellor Rhee go from here. She now has to hire 241 teachers. Do you thinks she will be concerned with how long the new teachers have taught or even if they have ever taught before. It is common knowledge the less experience a teacher has the lower amount of compensation they will receive. It is also common knowledge that everyone who teaches gets better with time and gets better with experience. I wonder which way Chancellor Rhee will go? By the way, Chancellor Rhee announced it has notified 737 employees that if their performance doesn’t improve , they will be terminated after the upcoming school year.

As far as I can find Chancellor Rhee taught in Baltimore, Maryland as a recruit of ‘Teach for America’ for three years. I don’t see any other experience in the classroom. Even Chancellor Rhee’s education shows little to no education background. She graduated from Cornell University in 1992 with a bachelor’s degree in government and earned a Master of Public Policy from John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. I assume if Ms. Rhee ever needs heart surgery she will find a good mechanic with outstanding references.

Chancellor Rhee is very good at firing people without regards to how well they are doing. She fired several administrators and school principals including Marta Guzman, the principal of the high-performing Oyster-Adams Bilingual Elementary School, that by the way, Chancellor Rhee’s children attend. She also fired a principal she had hired seven weeks before in Shepherd Elementary – another performing school in the upper Northwest neighborhood. I am sure her actions will stabilize one of the worse public school systems of our nation.

This is just the beginning of a failed education policy going viral. In Sommersworth, New Hampshire teachers were fired to force them to break their own contract. There are reports of multiple cities across the United States firing whole schools of teachers because, after all, they are to blame for everything that goes wrong in society. What troubles me most is the leaders of our nation’s public education system have little to no experience in the classroom. They are simply bureaucrats whose future is more important than the future of our children.

As I’ve stated before we have to take our schools back and reinstall the concept of local control. If we don’t I am afraid there will be little public education left for our children to enjoy.

Jim Fabiano is a teacher and writer living in York, Maine
Maine Publisher’s Association Best weekly column award for 2004
Recipient of Theodore William Richards Award by the American Chemical Society for excellence in teaching secondary school chemistry for 2007.

Email Jim: james.fabiano60@gmail.com

Many would be surprised to know how many school policies are changed during the summer months. Some of these are communicated to the communities involved but most simply slide into becoming policy. How Maine schools will be calculating graduation rates is one of these policies.

The Federal Government, you remember the one that gave us a trillion dollar debt, one of the longest wars in our nation’s history, double digit unemployment, bail out packages for banks and companies that were considered to big to fail, and now education policies that have nothing to do with the education of our children. They have told the Maine Department of Education their graduation rates will be calculated in a new manner. In fact, they have told every state the means of determining graduation rates will change.

The new method will calculate the graduation rate from all students who entered the ninth grade at the same time and who graduated in no more than four years. This means that any student who takes off a year from high school will be considered a drop out even though he or she may come back to graduate in five years. This is remarkable even for our Federal Government. As educators we all recognize the fact that all students do not take the same pathway through their secondary school years. We are now being told the graduation rates only include students who follow the four-year route.

Needless to say the new formula will surely push Maine’s and New Hampshire’s graduation rate lower thus making it difficult for any school to achieve the graduation rates our Federal Government wants us to achieve. Before this new policy different states had different formulas to equate graduation rates. After 2011, the entire country will be using this new formula.

If schools across our nation have their graduation rates plummet because of this new formula and since ‘ayp’ (annual yearly progress) uses graduation rates as a means of determining whether or not a school is considered successful will our nations schools be considered failing because of a new formula that has nothing to do with the success rate of its students.

After schools begin to fail will our Federal Government begin to dismember the school districts. Will they take money away or even worse will they mandate the school go through trainings and even testing to determine why their graduation rates are declining even though it is obvious what the reason is. The concept of more testing makes me want to put a #2 pencil in my eye.

What is it going to take to get the Federal Government out of our local schools. With all their tests, formulas, policies, and theories written by people who never stepped a foot in any classroom, when are they going to let our schools succeed by concentrating on our students instead of concentrating on a line of statistics that can be altered to define what the government wants them to define.

Many would be surprised to know how many school policies are changed during the summer months. I suggest we all stay alert in order to protect our children from a bureaucracy that sustains itself by creating new formulas.

Jim Fabiano is a teacher and writer living in York, Maine
Maine Publisher’s Association Best weekly column award for 2004
Recipient of Theodore William Richards Award by the American Chemical Society for excellence in teaching secondary school chemistry for 2007.

Email Jim: james.fabiano60@gmail.com

It’s been about a decade since President Bush inaugurated his educational plan with Ted Kennedy that promised to strengthen public education. Since that time more children have left public education either by dropping out or by enrolling in private or charter schools. By doing so the parents of these children have put themselves and their families under financial duress.

The question we all should have is, “The No Child Left Behind”, program worth it. Lets take a quick peek at some of the statistics over the last decade. The Brookings Institution wrote a report on July 15, 2010, stated each state gets to be its own policeman by designing the tests its students take in order to stay accountable to the NCLB Act. There is an organization called, “The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) administered every two years with 4th and 8th grade students to representative samples of students from each state. This should serve as a check on what the states report using their own assessments.

Londonderry Assistant Superintendent Mark Blount states these tests are of little value locally because few students take the test. I believe the number is approximately 3000. Many states have a problem because of the contrast of students being reported as proficient on NAEP vs. state tests. For example, NAEP shows 28 per cent of Tennessee’s eighth graders are considered proficient in reading whereas the state of Tennessee finds more than 90 percent of its students to be proficient. The only question here is who is kidding who.

Even though it is easy to do I do not want this discussion to encompass why or why not the NCLB program is helping public education. I do want it to include the cost this program is putting on the parents of the children in public education. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and the state legislature of Connecticut brought a lawsuit in 2005, stating the state should not be forced to absorb costs required to comply with the NCLB policy. By the way, Connecticut estimates it has spent approximately $41.6 million from 2002 though 2008. Can you imagine how we could improve education with that kind of money. As for what New Hampshire or Maine pays to comply with the NCLB policies must also reach into the millions.

We are told by our Federal Government we have to trust them with the education of our children. Remember this is the same government that put us in a decade’s long war costing billions of dollars, allowed the almost total destruction of our Gulf Coast due to natural and very unnatural causes, literally looked the other way as our nations financial giants stole the dreams and aspirations of many, and now want to be trusted with how our children are educated?

We, as a society, have to take our schools back. In the past, our public school system was the envy of the world. We did not accomplish this by demonstrating great scores on standardized tests. We did this by having our children motivated to make their world and the world of their children a better place. Every community across this nation of ours had schools filled with children whose parents hoped their child’s world would be better than their own. These parents knew that a good education could open doors for their children. We need to get this attitude back.

About a quarter century ago their was a program entitled, “School Improvement Program”. It was a plan for each separate school to have a plan to improve how its students were to be educated. In other words, each school was a separate ‘plant’ whose sole purpose was to successfully educate its students to best survive in their local environment. The administration and teachers were accountable not to a Federal Government whose sole purpose was to increase scores on a standardized test but were accountable to the members of the community. All Federal and State monies for education were given to the schools and not to the companies who supply the tests. These tests mean nothing to our students. The amount of knowledge they can accumulate in order to better survive their futures is. Actually in a state that prides itself on independence I am shocked to watch its citizens being told what to do with their own children’s education.

It’s been about a decade since President Bush inaugurated his educational plan with Ted Kennedy promising to strengthen public education. If you look at the policy when it was first implemented to what the policy looks like today, it is easy to see there have been few changes. What the Federal and State leaders of educational reform fail to realize is the changes in the culture as a whole that affect academic achievement such as the use of the Internet and digital media by school-aged children. If our communities took back control of their schools I am confident they would not make such a mistake.

Jim Fabiano is a teacher and writer living in York, Maine
Maine Publisher’s Association Best weekly column award for 2004
Recipient of Theodore William Richards Award for excellence in teaching secondary school science for 2007.

Email Jim: james.fabiano60@gmail.com

The older your child the more meetings you’ve had with your child’s school. Most of the time these are meetings with your child’s teachers at a parent-teacher night when you get to meet your child’s new teachers and hopefully hear more about what is going on in the school. Many schools now have monthly newsletters concerned with the way the school operates.

Many of the parents have heard about the open classroom, no child left behind, teaching to the whole child, and the concept of multiple intelligences. A good number of these parents have no clue as to what these mean even though they understand these methods will determine the success of their children. I would like to spend the next few weeks discussing what these programs mean.

The idea of Multiple Intelligences or MI came from Howard Gardner’s book, “Frames of Mind” that was published in 1983. Multiple Intelligences aims to identify the child’s hidden talents. As to what these talents are, Dr. Gardner at the Harvard Graduate School of Education breaks intelligence up seven different categories:

1)Musical: Gardner states that this is the ability to discern meaning in rhythmically arranged sets of pitches and then to reproduce them.
2)Logical- Mathematical: covers the skill with numbers and a fascination with their patterns and operations, scientific ability, and formal reasoning.
3)Linguistic: concerns skill with words characterized by a sensitivity to their meaning, order, function, sound, and rhythm.
4)Spatial: is the capacity to perceive the world accurately and to manipulate these perceptions mentally.
5)Bodily: is the ability to use the body in highly differentiated and skilled ways for expressive and goal-directed purposes.
6)Intrapersonal: is the capacity to discriminate among and understand one’s own feelings and to draw upon them in guiding one’s behavior.
7)Interpersonal: is the ability to make distinctions among other individuals, especially their moods, intentions, and motivations.

Many educators and administrators believe the Theory of Multiple Intelligences should be used in all classrooms. This would mean the teacher should learn the intelligent quotient of all the students in their classroom. When classroom size is 25-30 students this would mean the teacher may have to teach a lesson using 7 different strategies. But, how are these strategies developed?

Gardner states,” The most I can hope to accomplish here is to provide a feeling for each specific intelligence. I am painfully aware that a convincing case for each candidate intelligence remains the task of other days and other volumes.” For the past 27 years those other volumes have yet to appear. In 1993, Gardner published, “Multiple Intelligences: The theory in practice. This was simply a a diffuse and unsystematic listing of projects. Gardner at that time stated, “there is plenty of anecdotal evidence in support of MI but no formal studies. Robert Siegler of Carnegie Mellon University states, “at the moment we don’t know that they work.

Gardner continues by stating that it goes against the grain of his philosophy to develop tests to measure the intelligences, a prerequisite psychologists say would be necessary to determine the validity of the theory. Remember these same school based psychologists insist there is a category called, “EH”, when dealing with children in our schools. The “EH” means emotionally handicapped. Psychologists do not have this term to describe any child’s emotional reality.

It is a fact that Gardner never laid down a detailed plan for applying his theory in schools. He insists, “that it is a waste of time to simply “exercise the intelligence muscles.” The danger of Multiple Intelligences is that it leads to wasted time, to an emphasis on less important skills and to a false sense that learning has taken place when it has not. When you participate in your child’s next meeting with administration and teachers and they bring up the concept of Multiple Intelligences ask many questions because how your child is educated is the best gift you can ever give.

Jim Fabiano is a teacher and writer living in York, Maine.
Maine Publisher’s Association Best weekly column award for 2004
Recipient of Theodore William Richards Award for excellence in teaching secondary school science for 2007.

Email Jim: james.fabiano60@gmail.com

The summer finally arrived and my students are either at the beach or at a summer job. If it is early in the afternoon many of them are probably still asleep. Educators use this time away from their students to work on how they can make the next school exceptional. This is also the time parents should get involved with their children’s education because many new policies are being developed that will directly influence the success of their children.

One of the most important programs that should be built in all schools should confront the problem of bullying. If a school does not have a clear plan to face this problem, parents should get involved to make sure the school is proactive instead of reactive. Across this nation many of our young children are being bullied to the point they contemplate suicide or even successfully do it. In the past bullying meant having a smaller child or a child that is different from the others being bullied at school. Internet programs like FACEBOOK bring bullying into their homes. Parents have to keep a watch over their children so their home remains a safe sanctuary. If you would like to read more of what cyber-bullying can do please review, http://www.ryanpatrickhalligan.org/.

Following how the schools defend their students against bullying, parents should insist their school have programs in the late elementary and early middle school years that teache the child both the correct use of these computer programs and what misuse can do. Programs like FACEBOOK will not go away. Too many organizations and people use this program to communicate with people around the world. To put one’s head in the sand by attempting to block the multiple communication programs exasperates the problem. As a teacher I know of many students who become depressed and even leave their local school because their school and even the law state there is nothing they can do.

During the summer months parents should ask their schools how its teachers are told to teach mathematics and English curricula. Too many ‘new and improved’ modern techniques are being used that eliminate basic systems that have our children memorize multiplication tables and learn how to structure a sentence by mapping out words. I see many of my students enter my chemistry class not knowing how to multiply numbers without the use of a calculator. Some administrators state these new systems eliminate the pressure on our students in mathematics and English classes. Maybe this is so but when they reach the high school the pressure is increased because of a lack of these important skills.

Parents should get involved in how their child is being evaluated. Does the school use a standard system of letters and/or numbers? Is your school evolving into a technical system that evaluates according to proficiency? If the student does not reach proficiency in a lesson is your child being asked to continue with the lesson until they become proficient? This sounds like an good plan but how will the teacher continue with their students while reviewing past lessons with students who continue to not be proficient. I am not stating this is a bad means of evaluation. I just don’t know how a teacher could follow this procedure and continue to advance their other students toward new lessons.

There are certain routines in our school systems that make little sense. As parents we all know younger children like to get up early and teenage students have a tendency to wake up late. Why do most of our school systems have the older children attend school earlier than the elementary students? I have asked this question for a long time because I see many of my high school students enter my classroom half asleep. The Department of Education states that more study on this subject should be entertained if schools are to change schedules. I wonder why they don’t ask the teachers?

It is important parents check to see if summer assignments were given to their children. Many schools have reading and mathematic programs that make it easier for their students to transition from one level to the next. The assignments are usually short and given in intervals. The problem is many of our students after the long summer break have to be re-taught what was taught before they can begin a new level. This wastes too much time. In reality summer vacations are becoming shortened every year with some warm weather districts eliminating it completely.

The summer finally arrived and my students are either at the beach or at a summer job. This is the time of year when parents should become more involved with their schools and their programs. It is an established fact students do better in school when the parent gets involved with their education. Even though the summer break has arrived parental involvement should never go on vacation.

Jim Fabiano is a teacher and writer living in York, Maine
Maine Publisher’s Association Best weekly column award for 2004
Recipient of Theodore William Richards Award for excellence in teaching secondary school science for 2007.

Email Jim: james.fabiano60@gmail.com

  I just participated in my 30^th graduation ceremony. Staring into the rows of graduates dressed in red and black ropes, my mind wandered into the concept of how high school graduations represent the last of the concept of a right of passage. In our technological world the idea of many rights of passage throughout a lifetime seems to have evaporated with the concept of a land-line phone.

In the past there were many times in one’s life that could be defined as a right of passage. One’s confirmation, Bar Mitzvahs, débutante balls, weddings, and retirement used to be important times in a lifetime. These times have diluted into times of memories.

Confirmation used to be important in the Christian world. At least the old Christian world. My confirmation came with a large party filled with relatives I knew most of my life, some of my life, and some I had no clue as to who they were. I remember thinking that after the ceremony at the church I would be awash in spiritual thoughts. Needless to say as soon as I got out of my white suit I found some friends and played some baseball.

In my life I’ve attended one Bar Mitzvah. In fact it was really a Bots Mitzvah, which is the female Bar Mitzvah. The ceremony was long and intricate. My niece stood in front of about 50 people in order to celebrate the concept of a girl becoming a woman. I remember the rabbi, with other rabbis, walking through the temple holding the Torah. Each person kissed the corner of the large scroll but they passed our row of people. I assume it had something to do with me having been confirmed.

As little as I knew about the Jewish traditions I know less about débutante balls. This is probably because I am not wealthy. I’ve seen movies showing what these balls are supposed to be. They are also called coming out parties. As many thing evolve the concept of coming out has little to do with a ball.

I’ve been invited to many weddings in my life. The bride’s family sat on one side of the church while the groom’s family sat on the other side. I assume this represents the fact that as soon as the wedding and reception is over few members of either family will ever see each other again. Actually the separation reminded me of a Shakespearian tragedy of feuding families. Of course, everyone hoped this ceremony would not end in a death even though over 50% end up in divorce. At the reception the men were found surrounding the bar while the women were in clusters talking about things they had already talked about days before.

Retirement use to be considered a right of passage. A man or woman would work 45 – 50 years of their lives to finally be able to retire at the age of 65. Throughout their lives they would dream about retiring around a lake or in front of an ocean contemplating nothing more important than themselves. In reality, this supposed right of passage is going the way of the 401K. Most of us have to work well into our 70’s even though it would hopefully be part-time in order to retain the life style we had before we retired. My father is still working and he is now into his 9^th decade.

Basically the only real right of passage left is a high school graduation. These young men and women have known exactly where they would be come September for 13 out of the 18 years of life. They knew exactly who their friends would be, what courses they would take, and who their teachers would be. These students would perpetually complain about these years praying that the day they left the school would happen soon. Then the day of graduation arrives and most feel a sadness of what they are about to leave. Most are either going to colleges, military, work, or even marriage. They all know they are about to leave a life that is consistent and secure. They are about to begin adventures of their future and are about to witness exactly what their futures are. So, in other words, the graduation of high school is the last of our society’s true right of passage.

Staring into the rows of graduates dressed in red and black ropes, my mind wandered into the concept of how high school graduations represented the last of their rights of passage. I simply wish them the best and hope they all have a wonderful job of becoming.

Jim Fabiano is a teacher and writer living in York, Maine
Maine Publisher’s Association Best weekly column award for 2004
Email Jim: james.fabiano60@gmail.com

When Barak Obama was elected President almost 2 years ago he promised to overhaul President’s Bush’s NCLB education program. The department of education handed the hopes and dreams of the public education community to Arne Duncan. Late last year Mr. Duncan made something very clear. Nothing of substance will change in the near future. We will still equate reform to standardized tests that do nothing more than take teaching time away from our teachers. These tests have not or will ever equate how well our students learn or how well they understand what is being taught to them. Schools that teach to the test will do well on the test while not insuring their students understand what will be important to their future. In other words, the test has become more important than the student.

Now the federal government is making school improvement grants for up to three years provided the schools agree to pursue an aggressive plan to reform the school. The school would have to agree to redesign or replace the school staff, convert the school to a charter school, transform the school through comprehensive reforms, or close the school and transfer students to higher performing schools in the district. Needless to say many low-performing schools have refused the money.

I don’t understand the concept of replacing an entire school staff. When the 3^rd grade tests are administered is it the fault of the 3^rd grade teacher that their students do not do well. If an 11^th grade math teacher has his students do well in the algebra based part of the exam but do poorly on the geometry based part of the exam is it the teacher’s fault? How can anyone lump an entire administration and teaching staff as a cause of poor performance on a state based exam? Since New Hampshire and Maine are known for their independence I can’t believe they would give all their control over their schools to an outside source that will do anything to improve test scores. What happens when a district has only one school or that school is  located a long distance away from any other school? How can this system work in this type of environment?

For the past few weeks I’ve been talking with many educators over how we can improve our schools without having to rely on state testing and the federal government. One means was having poorly performing students take remedial courses with their regular English and mathematics courses. This would of course eliminate their elective courses that include music, art, physical education, industrial arts, or even a foreign language. I argued against this because there are some low performing students who only stay in school because of their love for music, art, or language. If you took these away I believe our drop-out rate would increase dramatically.

Another means to improve our schools would be to adopt the systems technical schools use. Many of these schools do not grade their students in the form of percentages or letters. These schools use a cut point system to evaluate their students. If a student earns a ‘0′ they would receive a comment of not meeting the standards. If a student earns a 2.0 or 2.5 he or she partially meets the standards. If a student earns a 3.0 or 3.5 it would show they meet the standard. Finally if a student earns a 4.0 or 4.5, that would designate an honors option, they would exceed the standard. Using this system is said to promote individual student ability and progress.

This program goes on to explain that if a student does not meet the standard they would have to go back to the subject at hand in order to earn a 3.0. I are not talking about an end of year grading system. I am talking about different sections of a particular subject. I am a chemistry teacher so I will describe what I know. If one of my students does not achieve a 3.0 in atomic structure he or she would have to go back to achieve proficiency in this section before he or she would be allowed to continue with the rest of the class. Now lets say many of my students do well in certain sections but have trouble in others. I would literally have to section off my classes into different subject areas all going on at the same time. Being human, this would exhaust me and force me to designate more of my students into the context of meeting the standard. The amount of time I would have to motivate all of my students would be dramatically shortened.

The tech schools argue that the standards reinforce the changing roles of the schools. They state the A-F system sorts students while the 0-4 system educates all students. They explain that the A-F system emphasizes what is taught instead of what is learned. They finally argue that school success should not predict life-long learning by using the A-F system but would accomplish this goal by converting to the 0-4 system.

After a few moments of ingesting their argument I could not understand the difference between giving a student a 4 instead of an A or an F instead of a 0. I was then told I was too old to understand of which I agreed, for after-all I am a dinosaur of education. There was one concept very clear in my mind after discussing different reform systems for our schools. Parents of students of Maine and New Hampshire had better become involved in reform because what their schools looked like in their high school years will not be the same for their children. I just pray it will be for the better.

Ever since the late 1800’s people have known that our public education system needed reform. Harvard president Charles Eliot was part of a movement to establish high standards for secondary schools. These standards grew out of a concern that our schools were failing. Even after Mr. Eliot’s work the Douglas Commission in 1905, reported that, “80% of our public school pupils drop out of the schools before attending high school and 97 % of all public schools drop out before graduating from high school.

Since the late 19^th century, we have attempted to reform our schools. Every attempt seemed to have failed because graduation rates still failed our children and our society. We argue about low student achievement, achievement gaps and the impotence of our public school system. Paul Thomas said it best, “The message we do not hear, but should hear instead, is this: The picture we see in our schools is a mirror of the society we have created and now tolerate.”

Dr. Thomas continues by stating, “Student failure in schools is a stark reflection of how our society fails children. Between 70 and 80 per cent of student achievement is directly linked to the homes and communities of schools – yet we spend rhetoric, time and money on school reform while ignoring this reality.” He goes on to state that President Obama is continuing down the fruitless road of high standards and accountability. This is a mirror of what we tried and failed in the past.

Finally Dr. Thomas states, “NCLB cannot and should not be salvaged, because it is trapped in tired assumptions about educating children.” He basically states that the test mania of our past can’t be the central engine to reform our schools. It simply does not work.

But what does work? ‘Time’ magazine, back in October of 1998, asked, “What does it take to make an excellent student? The encouragement of parents and the respect and friendship of teachers and peers make the difference. In other words, the parent has to get involved with the education of their children. Everyone in education knows this as a fact. The question I have is why we aren’t we establishing a system that has all parents to take part in public education.

A parent should be responsible to work with their child before they attend public schools. Every town in our nation should be supplying the means to do this. The means I am talking about is giving the parents the texts and support they need in order to set their child up for public education. These books would be recycled throughout the community and returned once the child reached a certain age. We do this now with our students allowing them to take home books and then return them in good condition at the end of the school year.

This system of making the parents an important part in the education process should not stop when the child goes into the public classroom. The parents should continue to get texts or even on-line assignments in order to work with the teacher in the classroom. This will not take a lot of time. I am talking about maybe a half-hour in order to become a more pro-active part in their child’s education. If the parent needs support it is the communities responsibility to provide such support.

Since the early days of public education we clearly understood the value of having the parent get involved in the education of their children yet we are afraid to tell them to do so. We would rather make up program after program of failed strategies that think a standardized test is the end-all to the problems public education faces. We need a bit of courage in order to save our public education system and thus the future of our children.

It is also important to establish a joy of learning. We can’t do this by teaching our children subjects and forcing policies they feel are not a part of their generation. We continue to ban technologies their society is based on. We continue to teach subjects that have little relevance as to what they want to learn. Finally we even change grading systems that go from ‘A’s to competent. It means the same so why do we continue to try and fool our children, our parents, and our teachers.

Our public school have to start and fuel the passions of their students. They want it and yearn for it. We seem to ignore this fact and let what is outside the schools fill their need. For example, we could mold a student’s passion for cars into a means of teaching mathematics and computer technology. We could use a student’s passion for history into a means of becoming more interested in civics and the study of law. There are so many ways of using their passion into making them realize what education should mean to them.

Finally we have to stop messing around with the dynamics of the system and spend more time working with the dynamics of our children.

Jim Fabiano is a teacher and writer living in York, Maine

Maine Publisher’s Association Best weekly column award for 2004

Recipient of Theodore William Richards Award for excellence in teaching secondary school science for 2007.
Email Jim: james.fabiano60@gmail.com

  I am not a cynic. I still believe one of the most important areas of our society are our public schools. They represent everyone’s future. Over the past few decades there have been many strategies to strengthen our schools. These were done by people who have a passion for public education. The problem I have is with the process.

When a new strategy is introduced it is hailed as being the key to improving our children’s performance and thus their futures. After all the celebrations and having everyone buy into the program it goes through a system of committees, sub-committees, reports, district wide meetings, and public forums until the heart and soul of the program whithers away. I understand the teaching profession is famous for its massive bureaucracy but we are in a time when actions are more important than plans. We are in a time when we must assure our children they will be able to compete with anyone, no matter what nation they come from.

In order to do this we have to explore new systems, even if they are way out of the box, in order to motivate our children into becoming life-long learners. Oops, this was one of the call words of strategies past.

I, and most educators, agree that in order for any school system to succeed they must have the support of the community and thus the parents of the students. Today, we have a lot of support meaning many parents help after school, help with fund-raisers, and generally help when their child does something wrong or falls behind in their studies. I believe this cooperation should go farther.

When a student enters kindergarten, the parents should be given a literacy book they are told to read to their child during their first year at school. The parents and teachers should align and structure their strategy in order to insure their child’s success. The sticky part is the parent will not be asked to do this but will be told that the curricula their child will follow will follow the work the parents have with their child.

This strategy will follow their child’s progress through their middle school years. This would promote the importance of an education in both the school and at home. The parents that buy into this system will see their children succeed. The parents that do not buy into this system will have no one to blame but themselves if their student does not do well at school.

The districts may object to this strategy by saying the cost of the books would be too high. Remember we give all of our students a minimum of five text books to use during their years in school. At the end of the year we ask our students to return the books in good order. If they do not do this the student or parent has to pay for the book. Why couldn’t we run the same system with the book or books the parents use throughout the school year?

This strategy would also produce a parent-teacher means of educating the child. Having the student read with the parent and then display what they learned at home could only produce success. Literacy is an obvious problem with today’s students. Working this strategy could only eliminate this problem.

The entire country does not have to do this. Each community should be able to make their own decisions as to how to educate their children. If a community would follow this design the system and it is successful it could spread throughout our nation.

Our schools and communities should work together to promote success in their schools. Maybe this type of re-design with many other strategies would eliminate the concept that we have to redesign our public schools…..again

Jim Fabiano is a teacher and writer living in York, Maine

Maine Publisher’s Association Best weekly column award for 2004

Recipient of Theodore William Richards Award for excellence in teaching secondary school science for 2007.

Email Jim: james.fabiano60@gmail.com