http://www.bethechangeinc.org/…

• Nine-year-olds growing up in low-income communities are already three grade levels behind their peers in high-income communities.
  Does this include children attending private schools? Stating the effect without an understanding of the cause means wasted resources treating symptoms. Could it not be that the war on drugs, which harms low-income communities more, combined with welfare and other government disincentives, combined with the general inefficiencies of government provided education are the sources of these sad statistics and therefore should be the focus?
• Only 31% of fourth graders are proficient in reading. Low-income students do half as well.
  See above. I’d also recommend reading John Taylor Gatto’s The Underground History of American Education, Mary Ruwart’s Healing our World, and Samuel Blumenfeld’s Is Public Education Necessary?
• As many as fifteen million students have no place to go after school.
  You can blame some of this on the war on drugs and the welfare state which has split apart families. On a more abstract note I would focus on the Federal Reserve System [PDF]. The federal government through the Fed through inflation taxes all users of Federal Reserve Notes without their supposed consent or knowledge. It hurts those who receive lower or no increases in their income the most. As inflation increases so do prices and do so ahead of any increases in income. Slowly wealth is stripped away requiring individuals to work more and/or longer to bring home the same amount. No longer can an average family survive on a single salary.
• Teens who do not participate in after school programs are nearly three times more likely to skip classes or use marijuana or other drugs, drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes.
  Is it that teens who participate in after school programs are less likely to do those things because they are participating or simply because those who tend to participate just don’t. Could it be that those who are not interested in after school programs are also the same ones who have issues with the school curriculum?
• The hours between 3-6 p.m. on school days (referred to by law enforcement officials as a “danger zone”) are the prime time for violent juvenile crime.
• More than 1.2 million children drop out of school each year. The cost is more than $312 billion in lost wages, taxes, and productivity over their lifetime.
• Only 70% of students in the U.S graduate from high school. In the nation’s urban schools, the dropout rate is fifteen percentage points lower. Those who do graduate high school will, on average, read and do math at the level of eighth graders in high-income communities.
• Only 1 in 10 students in low-income communities will graduate from college.

• Since its founding, 17,000 people have participated as Teach For America corps members, teaching and affecting over 2.5 million public school students.
• Since its founding in 1988, City Year’s 10,400 corps members have served 1,060,000 children, completed 16 million hours of service, and engaged more than 1,015,000 citizens in service.
• According to a study by The Urban Institute, high school students taught by TFA corps members on average performed significantly better on state-required end-of-course exams, especially in math and science, than peers taught by far more experienced instructors.
  If that’s the case why don’t they teach the “far more experienced instructors”? Wouldn’t that be more efficient? Are they teaching a general curriculum or teaching to the state-required end-of-course exams? Are they comparing general instruction to specific tutoring?
• A study by Mathematica Policy Research in 2004 randomly assigned students within the same schools to teachers both from TFA and traditional certification programs. It found that students taught by TFA teachers performed better in math and science as those taught by non-TFA novice teachers.
  Again, if the goal is helping the children why wouldn’t they be teaching those running the certification programs? Perhaps they do but it’s not something I’ve heard from them.
• One study shows that first-, second- and third-graders tutored by AmeriCorps members gained seven to fourteen percentile points in reading scores compared to their peers.
• AmeriCorps members in Education Works help inspire students to improve attendance, helping low-income schools to keep students coming to class for an average of 20 more days per year than other neighborhood schools.
  I have no doubt that showing a student more attention and giving the direct encouragement would increase attendance. But how does the Education Works members compare to Big Brother Big Sister and other organization which are private and perform effectively the same service? 20 days is huge but 20 more days to from what?
• By focusing its efforts on standardized test preparation, the AmeriCorps program Admission Possible helped students raise their ACT scores by an average of sixteen percent.
  This is a meaningless value. Teaching to tests is not education.
  
• AmeriCorps members working for College Summit help low-income students apply to and enroll in college. One study found that 80% of College Summit students got into college, compared to less than 50% of their peers. Aren’t guidance counselors and parents supposed to do this? As with above shouldn’t these College Summit members be working with counselors and parents so that the labor can be distributed?
  
• National service programs give students who did not complete high school a chance to finish their education. Since 2002, almost 5,000 AmeriCorps members in the program YouthBuild USA have earned their GED. Many of these GED recipients were previously incarcerated.
  Doesn’t the federal prison system already provide prisoners with the ability to get a GED and take college courses? Seems to me that AmeriCorps was used by these young people as an outlet from their situation at home. Likely it helped them but these programs should be provided by private institutions which would direct the participants labor toward things the community would need instead of what bureaucrats want.

I got in without any issues. Didn’t even need my FTL ID. The press packet had this as I walked in to the press room. I’m not seeing the release online.

KENNEDY AND HATCH RENEW CALL FOR NATIONAL SERVICE: “SERVE AMERICA ACT” WILL INCREASE OPPORTUNITIES TO SERVE FOR AMERICANS OF ALL AGES

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Tomorrow, Senators Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) will introduce new legislation, the “Serve America Act,” to expand opportunities for service for all Americans. The Legislation will ask 175,000 more Americans to give a year to service to address specific national challenges, thereby expanding the number of national service participants to 250,000. The legislation will also increase opportunities for individuals to serve at every stage of their life and will support nonprofit organizations and social entrepreneurs with innovative solutions to our most pressing problems.

“Time and again we’ve learned that large numbers of Americans are ready, willing, able, and even eager to be involved in service, and that all we have to do is ask them to do so. The Serve America Act will ask. It will connect every generation through service, and enable them to help tackle a wide range of national challenges, from the dropout crisis that plagues our schools to the lack of health care in our neediest communities to the energy and environmental crises that threatens our planet,” said Senator Kennedy, Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which oversees existing national and community service programs. “Many Americans are already answering the call to such service, by weatherizing homes, mentoring students, or working to bring clean water and life-saving vaccines to peoples in many lands. This legislation will dramatically expand opportunities for Americans will to devote a year or more to address such challenges. It will draw the talents and skills of every age group, such as expanding opportunities for young people to improve their communities, and enabling retiring ‘baby boomers’ to transition to second careers in public service.”

Senator Hatch said, “Volunteer service is the lifeblood of our republic. It brings out the best in people and strengthens our communities. Throughout history, Americans have stepped forward and volunteered to meet every challenge. Within each of us is a desire to help and serve our neighbors the world over; and yet, the hectic lifestyle we all live often crowds out our natural ability to give service. That is why my longtime friend, Senator Kennedy, and I are introducing the Serve America Act. This historic legislation will inspire and provide opportunities for civic-minded Americans to raise the bar of service and fulfill the destiny of the immortal words of ‘America the Beautiful,’ to ‘more than self their country love. And mercy more than life!’”

“America faces more challenges today than ever before. And new challenges require a new level of commitment. By harnessing the talents and efforts of the American people, faith-based groups and nonprofit organizations, we can empower more people, improve more communities and tackle more of our nation’s greatest challenges. That is precisely the intent of this bill, and I’m pleased to be working alongside Senator Kennedy to champion this important legislation.

Read More…

I spend a decent amount of time on the streets of Trenton, mowing the grass, picking up trash, talking with neighbors, biking around, harassing squirrels etc.  I manage to collect some interesting stories and meet weirdos (probably because I am one).  Anyway here are two such stories that occured in the past three days:

I have a neighbor that walks his pitbull past my house every couple of days.  He’s a large white man who grew up not liking black people but kept it to himself mostly.  He went to prison and became an evangelical racist.  I think he may be affiliated with a prison group, such as Aryan Nation, but I’m not sure and I don’t really want to ask.  Anyway he walked past the house a proceeded to ask:

“Ready for school to start again?”

I responded, “Yeah, time to fight the good fight once more.”

His reply, “You know they keep taking my money but it seems all the kids end up behind the courthouse or under the ground.”

My reply, “Yeah, we’re undergoing an education crisis.  The kids don’t want to be there and they don’t want to learn what we’re teaching.  It’s unfortunate.”

His reply, “I know why that is.”

My reply, knowing what he thinks the problem is, “It’s systemic.  There’s tons of reasons.  The problem is you can’t just fix one and expect it to go away.  Personally I think compulsory education is stupid and the way we fund the schools is an affront to people who disagree with our schooling methods.”

His reply, “No it’s because…” <racist rant concerning evolution and certain people who “never made it out of africa”.  Also there was something in there about BET>

So hopefully my neighbor got something out of it before he launched into his rehearsed diatribe.  It’s almost as if everyone, even the most screwed up people, can clearly see the problems.  It’s the causes that people disagree about.

OK, second story.  I’m biking home from the post office when I roll up next to a car with a Ron Paul sticker.  I look in the car and yell, “Woo hoo Ron Paul”.  The guy looks me up and down, mind you I need a haircut so bad my hair sticks out of my helmet and I was wearing a T-shirt with a vomiting clown on it, and then proceeds to say, “Yo” and stare straight ahead.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/…

The Union Town Area School District in Pennsylvania is considering the use of tasers in the school district.

Homer [director of security] said the school has tried to be pro-active over the years in terms of security, and his job is to look within and outside of the school to stay ahead of trends in society, citing there was no school security 20 years ago but the ways of the world have made it commonplace.”We have to think of the future,” Homer said, adding that there had been recent incidents outside of the school where police would need Tasers, and it’s possible that similar incidents could make it into the schools.

One has to wonder about the possible reasons for an increase in violence, almost always in government schools. Could it be the terrible war on drugs and other victimless crimes? Could it be a culture of welfare and entitlements? Could it be wage and business regulations? What about inflation? All these things have contributed to breaking up the family unit, or to making the family poorer.

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate and total documented prison population in the world. Ending the war on drugs and the welfare state would go surely reduce violence in the classroom by returning upbringing rights where they belong: to the parent; putting kids into the institutional environment will undoubtedly drive some of them crazy. And abolishing state schools citizen factories would allow parents to decide how best to educate their children. As usual, the government “solution” (Taser) to a government-created problem (government schooling), ends up being worse than the original “problem,” as determined by politicians (lack of sufficient education in society).

So will TPS (tases per student) be a new stat parents look at when choosing a school?

I think this is another ‘treating the symptom instead of the problem’ scenario.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-07-24-swedenschools_N.htm

Schools run by private enterprise? Free iPods and laptop computers to attract students?

It may sound out of place in Sweden, that paragon of taxpayer-funded cradle-to-grave welfare. But a sweeping reform of the school system has survived the critics and 16 years later is spreading and attracting interest abroad.

“I think most people, parents and children, appreciate the choice,” said Bertil Ostberg, from the Ministry of Education. “You can decide what school you want to attend and that appeals to people.”

Since the change was introduced in 1992 by a center-right government that briefly replaced the long-governing Social Democrats, the numbers have shot up. In 1992, 1.7% of high schoolers and 1% of elementary schoolchildren were privately educated. Now the figures are 17% and 9%.

Before the reform, most families depended on state-run schools following a uniform national curriculum. Now they can turn to the “friskolor,” or “independent schools,” which choose their own teaching methods and staff, and manage their own buildings.

They remain completely government-financed and are not allowed to charge tuition fees. The difference is that their government funding goes to private companies which then try to run the schools more cost-effectively and keep whatever taxpayer money they save.

Bure Equity, listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, is the largest private school operator in Sweden and is expanding rapidly. In the first quarter of this year, net profit for its education portfolio rose 33% to about $3 million.

Such profit-making troubles Swedes who don’t think taxpayers should be enriching corporations.

The Social Democrats strongly opposed the change as anti-egalitarian, but when they were re-elected to power in 1994, they found it was so popular that they left it in place, though they imposed a lid on fees.

People like freedom and choice?! Can’t let that stay. Gotta make everyone the same. A good army of serfs to support the oligarchy.

This system of theirs has been talked about for years by the likes of John Stossel but it’s nice to see more agencies pick it up. While it seems to be little more then corporatism it sounds like it creates more competition and therefore a more efficient education system.

As for their last component of the article where they try to show that private schools can’t do everything… it’s a pretty pathetic example. Some kid wants to be a musician. A field which pays little generally because of the large pool of laborers and relative ease of entering. Apparently he can’t find a private school that provides the education so he’s going to attend a public school. So, because he doesn’t want to really take the risk and attend a private school he’s relying on the violence of the state to do what he ‘wants’ to do instead of non-violently doing what he ‘needs’ to do to survive. Great, I hope this kid ends up as a street mime in Paris.

http://www.fortbendnow.com/…

In the face of $4 per gallon gasoline and predictions the price will rise to $7 by the end of summer, Congressman Ron Paul (R-Lake Jackson) is calling on Congress to explore how the weakened value of the dollar may be contributing to the rise in oil prices.

Paul, whose 14th Congressional District of Texas includes part of the Katy area and much of Cinco Ranch, said he wants Congress to hold hearings on the relationship between the falling value of the dollar and the recent rise of oil prices.

As ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Paul sent a letter earlier this week to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services committee, asking for the hearings.

“The price of oil is currently among the most pressing issues to American workers,” Paul said. “Congress should be examining all factors contributing to the high cost of oil, and monetary policy is one of the key factors in the run-up in price.”

Paul’s letter pointed out that the price of oil in dollars has risen 39 percent this year. Oil in Euros has only risen 30 percent, resulting in degraded purchasing power of the dollar of at least 80 cents of the increased price of a gallon of gas.

“Neither the Federal Reserve nor the Treasury Department have been willing to take responsibility for the dollar’s slide over the past several years, while American consumers have been forced to pay continually higher prices for gasoline, heating oil and numerous other imported products upon which Americans depend,” Paul noted in his letter. “American consumers cannot afford to allow continued lax Congressional oversight of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department’s duties as stewards of the dollar, especially since the dollar is a major factor in the skyrocketing price of oil.”

Besides himself, 16 other Members of Congress signed on to the letter, including ranking member of the House Committee on Financial Services Spencer Bachus, and Chairman of the Republican Study Committee, Rep. Jeb Hensarling.

Hopefully DownsizeDC will get something going on this. If anything this could be an educational tool for those who would be participating. The more congress critters who understand economics, even a little bit, the better.