Sunday, July 17, 2005

DIVERSITY OF SEXES BEING SERIOUSLY PURSUED?

With child abuse accusations being what they are, I think men who go into teaching should be given a medal for heroism

When she interviews teaching candidates, principal Laurel Telfer favors the ones who show they have a heart for children, not just solid instructional skills. And if the best applicant happens to be a man? That's such a plus that Telfer says she does a "little happy dance." Only two of the 35 teachers at her school, Rossmoor Elementary in Los Alamitos, California, are men. "If you're looking at what's best for the students, it's important for them to interact with the two sexes," Telfer said. "The way men work with kids, there's a difference in style and approach. I think students really benefit from having that mix, because as they get to middle school, they're going to have a whole variety of classes. Men help bridge that."

As a new academic year approaches, school districts, education groups and universities are exploring ways to get more men into a field long dominated by women. Their goal is to provide more male role models in class and to diversify the labor pool of dedicated teachers. The proportion of men in teaching today is at its lowest level in 40 years, according to the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union. Only 21 percent of teachers in U.S. public schools are men. In early grades, the gender ratio is even more imbalanced -- just 9 percent of elementary school teachers are men. [No mystery why. That's where accusations are most likely]

"It's not just that it would be nice to have more guys. It goes deeper than that," said Bryan Nelson, founding director of MenTeach, a nonprofit that recruits men into teaching. Getting more men into classrooms, Nelson said, would help show children that society as a whole places a deep value on education and would add balance to their school life. His group aims to provide prospective male teachers with mentors, training and stipends. Men often must overcome concerns about their salaries, a perception that teaching isn't masculine, and even public fears that they pose a danger to kids, Nelson said. So he appeals to their pride: "I tell them, 'Can you imagine what you're doing for these kids? You're a pioneer. You're teaching kids how to read. You're setting up their future."'

In most cases, however, school districts are limited in how they can recruit men because federal anti-discrimination law prevents them from hiring based on gender. "Your applicant pool is going to be tainted by your recruiting techniques if there's a gender bias," said Lisa Soronen, a staff attorney for the National School Boards Association. "The real way to get teaching to be a more attractive profession is to change the societal norms and structure of the profession. But no individual principal can do that."

Telfer tries, though. She takes steps to make men feel more comfortable, such as asking female teachers to rein in their lunchroom chatter about intimate matters. And she lets male teachers serve on the committees that interest them, she said. One of Telfer's two male teachers, fifth-grade instructor Stacey De Salvo, got into the field because he enjoys working with children and discovering knowledge along with them. In some years, he's been the only male teacher in his school, which took an adjustment. "You just feel like things are out of balance when you're the only guy," De Salvo said. "You get a solitary feeling. ... Elementary school is seen as a woman's domain, and when I came in, I felt kind of isolated."

More here





GRADE-SCHOOL BLACKS CATCHING UP?

Because blacks mature earlier, a narrower intellectual gap between whites and blacks during childhood is normal. The gap widens when whites reach their (later) maturity, however, and that is also what the results below show. Black IQ "peaks" earlier and at a much lower level. The same is true of other primates. A one-year old chimpanzee (for instance) is much brighter than a one-year old human child but the chimp peaks much sooner and at a much lower level. Sorry to mention it, but those are the facts. The results below may however indicate that the school system is helping blacks to achieve closer to their genetic potential than it once did

Black and Hispanic students are catching up with their white counterparts in reading and math at the elementary-school level, but there has been little closing of that achievement gap in higher grades, according to a study released yesterday. The Bush administration cited the data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) as evidence that its educational revisions are working. But the independent body that administers the tests urged caution, saying that many of the gains could have come from changes made before the 2002 passage of the No Child Left Behind Act.

The NAEP study of long-term educational trends showed a significant improvement among white, black and Hispanic 9-year-olds in the 2003-2004 school year in math and reading, compared with results from five years earlier. But blacks and Hispanics made greater gains than whites in both subjects. "There is a lot of good news here," said Darvin Winick, chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board. "While the differences are still too large, we are happy to see that there has been some narrowing" between whites and minorities, he said.

Modest gains were registered by 13-year-olds, particularly in math, but the performance of 17-year-olds remained flat, bolstering the widespread belief that high schools are the weakest link in the American education system. NAEP, which dubs itself the "nation's report card," has been using the same standardized tests since 1971 to illuminate long-term educational trends. In that period, the achievement gap between black and white 9-year-olds narrowed from 44 points, on a 500-point scale, to 26 points. The gap narrowed by nine points in the most recent five-year period.

The study suggested that at least some of the gains can be attributed to a greater emphasis on reading, particularly in the early grades, going back to the mid-1990s. One in four 9- and 13-year-olds said they read more than 20 pages per day in school and for homework in 2004, compared with 19 percent in 1999 and 13 percent in 1984. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings hailed the report as evidence that No Child Left Behind is working, and that the achievement gap "that persisted for decades in the younger years between minorities and whites has shrunk to its smallest size in history."

Winick, by contrast, urged caution about attributing progress to No Child Left Behind and said the narrowing of the achievement gap can be traced back to at least 1999, before President Bush took office. Other analysts noted that the NAEP study was conducted during the 2003-2004 school year, in the early stages of the implementation of No Child Left Behind.

Poor performance by black and Hispanic students, as measured by standardized tests, was one of the principal inspirations for the bipartisan law, which aims to make all students in the country proficient in reading and math by 2014. But the law's main idea -- holding schools and teachers accountable for the progress of groups of students -- was being implemented at state level before 2002.

Education advocacy groups described the NAEP data as an encouraging sign of progress in elementary schools, as well as a challenge to do much better at the secondary-school level. The Education Trust, a D.C.-based group that lobbied in favor of No Child Left Behind, noted that the reading skills of black and Hispanic 17-year-olds were "nearly identical" to those of white 13-year-olds. "It's not surprising that we're making the biggest gains in elementary schools -- that's where reformers have focused the lion's share of energy and resources," said Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust. "It's time to bring that same focus, that same sense of purpose, to our high schools."

Critics of No Child Left Behind argued that the lackluster results in the higher grades cast doubt on claims by some states, such as Texas and Florida, of dramatic gains in high school exit exams. Robert Schaeffer, education director for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), which opposes high-stakes testing, said that scores on state exams were frequently inflated by practices such as "drilling test questions, narrowing the curriculum [and] pushing low scorers out of school." The NAEP study was based on a representative sample of approximately 14,000 students in public and private schools nationwide.

More here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


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