Chris O’Donnell responds to a self-congratulatory little essay, “I Am Your Public School.” Reform K-12 gets in some licks too. Oh, and Kimberly does too.

If a high school lets cheaters prosper, students will learn the lesson, writes Marianne Jennings, who was invited to speak on ethics at a Phoenix high school.

There was growing insurrection as I outlined the consequences of cheating. They booed, and then they laughed hysterically. The infomercial administrator called in security to man the aisles. I had visions of pitch forks storming the stage. They soon stopped listening. A couple in the front row needed abstinence training, most particularly its importance in public auditoriums.

. . . Last year several students at this school cheated on a math final. When the instructor proposed a penalty, the parents protested mightily. No action was taken against the students.

The school has a culture of looking the other way. These students know that you can cheat and get away with it. My message was laughable, given their life and academic experiences. They also know their parents are a safety net. Administrators back down on penalties. The honest students can’t figure out why they should care when no one else does.

Via Number 2 Pencil.

Ms Frizzle has a good post on honesty in her clasroom and out.

Update: Some New York City teachers admit to changing the scores of students who just barely failed Regents’ essay exams so they’ll get a diploma. It’s called “scrubbing”. Or cheating.

World history starts in 1500 in Georgia’s new curriculum; U.S. history starts in 1876. Writing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a veteran teacher protests.

“The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” will not be mentioned. The development of democratic government in Greece and the fall of the Roman Empire will be skipped. Jesus, Muhammad, the Buddha and Confucius are not to be found in the new curriculum. Great civilizations like ancient Egypt will no longer merit study, and the concept of feudalism will not be discussed.

The present 11th-grade U.S. history course covers the Exploration period to today. In the proposed changes, teachers will spend two or three weeks discussing the foundation of our country, with the remaining time devoted to studying events from 1876 to the present. Gone is any mention of the Louisiana Purchase or Lewis and Clark. There will be no discussion of Indian removal and the Trail of Tears.

The Civil War? Not in high school. The missing history topics are supposed to be covered, more or less, in fourth through seventh grade.

Though teachers supposedly have no time to discuss topics essential to understanding our heritage, the curriculum suggests they have their students write a 1920s radio drama. Teachers are also encouraged to assign essays about dating in the Jazz Age and to show segments from “All in the Family,” “Good Times” and “Chico and the Man.”

The state superintendent says the old curriculum tried to cover too many topics. The new standards allow deeper learning of fewer things.

Such as the role of Chico and the Man in late 20th century television.

More than one in four schools nationwide need to improve to satisfy the No Child Left Behind Act.

The law, known as No Child Left Behind, seeks to raise achievement by meting out sanctions to schools that fail to reach achievement targets on standardized tests. It has succeeded in focusing educators’ energies on closing the achievement gap between disadvantaged students and others, said the study, by the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan group.

But requirements that many educators consider unworkable are stirring resentment and could undermine commitment to the law’s goals, the study said. Among the most disputed passages are those that penalize schools whose disabled students or non-English-speaking students fail to score as highly as other students, the study found.

Actually, subgroups just have to show progress toward eventual proficiency.

One unnamed official cited in the study ridiculed the law’s tendency to label thousands of public schools as “needing improvement,” a legal euphemism for failing.

Well, maybe “needing improvement” means that some schools need to improve so that all children make progress — not just the students who are easy to educate.

While few students in needs-improvement schools are using the law’s transfer provisions, about half are receiving extra tutoring.

Update: To my surprise, the New York Times ran an excellent editorial Tuesday on No Child Left Behind, focusing on the need to include most children in special education programs.

I just deleted 214 junk messages, most of them from that damn virus that’s going around. My junk filter is now going to reject the word “test,” which means I’ll probably lose legitimate messages about school testing. At any rate, if I ignore your e-mail it’s because it got killed in the general slaughter.

Most college freshmen want to be prosperous; a minority think it’s importnat to “develop a meaningful philosophy of life.” So says the latest American Freshman Survey, which has tracked attitudes for 38 years.

Slightly less than 40 percent of current college freshmen said it was important to develop a meaningful philosophy. The absence of introspection is a far cry from the peak year of 1967, when 86 percent of freshmen said it was important to find a meaningful life philosophy.

UCLA profs blame competitive pressure to get into college. I blame a weak economy.

Far more high school students go on to college now than a generation ago. Yet grades keep rising.

Students earning A averages hit a record high of 47 percent, compared with 18 percent in 1968. That apparent grade inflation ”shows that as the A average becomes the norm, the C grade is becoming a thing of the past,” said Alexander W. Astin, the UCLA education professor who founded the survey.

Interest in politics is rising but remains much lower than in the ’60s. Students are shifting to the right. Drinking, smoking and partying continue to decline.

Howard Fuller and Eric Hanushek have won the Thomas Fordham Foundation’s 2004 prizes for Excellence in Education.

Once superintendent of schools in Milwaukee, Fuller helped found the Black Alliance for Educational Options. Hanushek pioneered the examination of the question: Does more money make schools better? The prizes are worth $25,000 apiece, which matches Hanushek’s stress on incentives.

Today’s female students resist the political readings of their professor, writes Rhonda Garelick, who teaches French and Italian at Connecticut College. It’s just like the ’50s!

Despite some reawakening of student activism via Howard Dean’s Internet-based campaign, in my experience, attempts to introduce contemporary politics into classroom discussions meet with blank stares. Even this past year, as our country began a war, I encountered mostly silence when I broached the topic of Iraq, a mix of paralysis and anxiety, plus some disgruntlement over my deviating from the syllabus.

But each year, frankly, I feel increasingly compelled to look beyond my syllabuses and to devote myself more to teaching “wakeful” political literacy: the skills needed to interrogate all cultural messages. Students need to be able to mine the implications, for example, of a “Family Time Flexibility Act” which, while claiming to help women balance home and family, might have actually decreased overtime pay. They need to look critically at a presidential address that divides the world into opposing halves labeled “with us” and “with the terrorists.”

Does it take a French professor to teach that there’s a tradeoff between flexible work hours and overtime? In my newspaper days, we wrote about these issues without thinking our readers were “interrogating” cultural messages.

Via Inkwell.

Every year, the Kappas of USC receive an e-mail telling them what to wear for rush week. A copy of the sorority’s rush note fell into the hands of a Stanford student, who posted it to a campus mailing list.

Hey there Kappa…
Not only do we hope that you are having a relaxing summer but we also hope that you are getting excited for rush shopping. We have decided this year to make a specific statement with our rush wardrobes: Klassy Kappa’s who know good style! We are looking for the konfidant, klean-kut, komfortable look that screams how put together we are as Kappa women. After a great deal of research, we have officially decided that the following options will be best for this years rush.
Attached, is a checklist that you can cut off and put in your wallets. This is to avoid any “Oh I forgot’s” or “I was confused” on what to buy….When you attend rush school, we will ! do a thorough check on the items that you have purchased. Please buy as close to the items as possible to help us get that ‘look’ we are striving for . . .

Convo Day:
The Outfit: Aqua, Turquoise, Light Pink and Fuscia sleeveless, crew neck cotton shirts and white flowy skirts with Dr. Scholl’s.
Provided: The shirts. We will match your skin color with the shirt we think will go best!
Must Buy’s:
1) Knee Length White Flowy Skirt. No A-lin! e. Think pretty and feminine. Obviously no hoochie skirts that you can buy at Contmepo. And no white denim. Only flowy, cotton/linen/eyelet pretty skirts. This item may be found at Abercrombie, J. Crew, Banana Republic, Club Monaco and French Connection (and at any of their dot-com’s).
2) Dr. Scholl’s Classic Slide. White or Nude. You know, the wooden heal ones. None of the semi-suede stuff that they are selling. Just the wood and leather. We understand that walking on wooden shoes for hours could be painful but we have ! ; tested the shoes out on a long 8 hour day filled with walking, shopping and dancing. We found that our feet only mildly hurt at the end of the day and had no blisters . . .

The note goes on to specify the outfits for House Tour Day and Slide Show Day with information on stores where the items may be purchased.

Notes for everyday:
Nude Undergarments: Nude bras and nude underwear. We prefer Calvin Klein Bra’s and Cosabella G-strings (absolutely NOOOO full butts) but anything cheap will do the job. If you have big boobs, don’t buy a bra that doesn’t fit you. If you have small boobs, stay away from awkward looking push-ups. Just make sure that you have enough G’s for everyday! Try Bloomingdales, Macy’s, or Gap.
Jewelry: Nothing but one pair of Pearl (must be simple) or Diamond (1 kt. max) earrings and your lavaliere. Oh and no watches either.

There’s more on make-up, manicures, scents, lotions, hair care and putting together a “rush box” of grooming essentials.

The Kappas may not be kareful about spelling and punctuation, but they’re certainly konscientious about kreating konformity. Seems a bit krazy to me.

This is mind-boggling. Writing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Marquis Harris, a black college graduate with excellent credentials, says he was rejected for a high school teaching job for being too articulate. He quotes from the rejection letter.

Recently, I interviewed with a school in one of the metro Atlanta counties, only to receive an e-mail from the principal stating, “Though your qualifications are quite impressive, I regret to inform you that we have selected another candidate. It was felt that your demeanor and therefore presence in the classroom would serve as an unrealistic expectation as to what high school students could strive to achieve or become. However, it is highly recommended that you seek employment at the collegiate level; there your intellectual comportment would be greatly appreciated. Good luck.”

Astounding. Via Sheila O’Malley.