Speaks Out on Education in America

The other night I was watching an episode of the show 20/20, in which John Stossell was exposing the dreadful situation of education in the American schools. In this episode, the host made a comparison between our schools and those in Belgium. For this comparison a test was administered to both American and Belgian students of the same age. To wit, the Belgian students clocked the Americans on this test. What stung even more for the American cause was that the American kids were from a rather decent school. Wow! How dreadful. Yet this state within American schools is something I witnessed firsthand.

You see, I was a substitute teacher for several years in several different American schools and I was also a full-time high school teacher of mathematics for two years. This experience gave me a real hard inside look at the American school system. In fact, I was an award winning teacher, former teacher of college mathematics, published author, and yet I didn't make the high school cut for the third year. In short, I didn't make tenure. Why? Gee, I still don't know the answer to that. The only thing I can think of was that I tried to do things a little differently: I tried to teach in novel ways so that students might have a chance to understand mathematics; I tried to keep the endless administrative tasks of discipline, meetings, paperwork, etc. from interfering with my basic approach to teaching; and I tried to give love and understanding to all my students regardless of such issues as race, behavior, or intelligence. In essence, I tried to bring an approach toward learning that might effect student progress rivaled by the situation in the Belgian school system. I wanted my students to be as competent as those in other European countries.

As a result of this approach, I was extremely popular with practically the entire student body. Students from other classes would come to me for extra help and often I would get greeted in the hall by students who were not in my class, but who knew me because of positive things said to them by others. I was acknowledged as an expert in my field and was even lauded for my diverse knowledge in other areas as well. I showed eclectic interests and tried to make such contagious to my students. As much as I tried to keep a low profile, I could not stem the flow of love and praise that I got from the students. Knowing how politics within an organization can work, I was a bit concerned about all the positive press I was getting in such a short time. During the end of the second year, my concerns proved well founded. Even though I did everything I could to be a dedicated teacher, in the end I still came up short, and only have the dozens of letters, cards, and well wishes to ease the pain of having been cut.

So is this the basis of the American tenure system? I was never in favor of such a system and I was willing to work on my merits from year to year. So where did I go wrong, or should I say, where did the school system go wrong? Furthermore, is mediocrity--or worse--sub par performance the standard of excellence in the American school system? Well the episode of 20/20 sort of gave me an answer to that question. From the episode it appears that this is the best case scenario. From my experience, I know this to be true. In Belgium, excellence is expected both from teachers and from students. Here we settle on mediocrity all the time. Heaven forfend should an outstanding teacher come along! All of a sudden, many tenured pros or administrators feel threatened. This is much like the situation in corporate America.

As business writer and speaker Harvey MacKay put it in his book, Beware of the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt, "It pays to be good but sometimes it pays a lot more to be bad." In other countries, excellence is sought after. In Belgium students learn to speak four of five languages. I always tried to be competent in at least four or five as well. As humans, we rise to the level of our expectations; therefore, in Belgium, the kids are brought up expected to speak several languages. If you go there and tell a local that you speak five languages, you receive no special acknowledgment. Do that here, and an American will look at you like you have two heads or something.

During another part of the show, the host takes us through several areas of the country where the educational standards are let us say, less than good. One emphasis of the show is to stress that where there is no competition in the school system, there is no excellence--just mediocrity. Charter schools don't have this problem because they sink or swim according to how well the students do and how well the students achieve. Why should public schools not be held to the same standards and be more accountable for the results they put forth? Why should great teachers be axed because they dared to be exceptional?

There are great teachers out there--both tenured and non-tenured. We need to give more praise to the great ones and see that competition weeds out the bad ones. We need to see that the non-tenured great ones are protected so that they can stay within the system...otherwise mediocrity will be the standard and excellence that rare gem you find only once in awhile. After all, when excellence becomes the standard then neither teachers nor students have anything to feel insecure about, for both are assured their proper place.

Education: How Summer Vacations Reinforce Performance Failure Conditioning

Even though the American economy has not been agrian based for at least 75 years, American children are still benefiting (?) from an agrian school structure. Young children still have summers off and spend on average 180 to 185 days in school. FACT: Many of these days are not full instructional days and today's students spend less time in the classroom than students of 50 or 100 years ago.

Schools are facing mandates to offer academic remediation during the summer and some parents are quite upset. This intrusion into summer vacation is viewed as denying a "right." Unfortunately, this outdated practice is only reinforcing performance failure conditioning.

When the U.S. was an agrian-based economy, being out of school during the summer was to assist the family farms. Children helped from plowing the fields to canning the produce. Summer break was a break from school and not a break from work.

Technology improvements from equipment to biochemistry has made farming far more efficient and additional manual child labor was no longer needed. Yet, summer break still remained through the industrial revolution and into the technology revolution. Children and families became conditioned to expect this time off from school and more importantly from learning.

Since information is doubling every year, today's young people need to know and learn more, not less. Losing 2.5 to 3 months each year for 12 years is only reinforcing performance failure conditioning. Educational psychologists know that students who are cognitively behind do not lose just 2.5 months each summer, but rather the loss multiplies or is exponential. This loss helps to explain why our students are not making the literacy gains necessary to be knowledge workers.

Additionally, there are several other factors why summer vacation reinforces performance failure. As a former teacher, I can personally attest that many young people begin to "shut down" after Easter or spring break because they have been conditioned to view summer vacation on the horizon. Given that our children need every minute to be engaged in the learning process, losing 4 to 6 weeks is not acceptable.

Also, with some parents not having the ability to take summer vacations due to their work commitments, these parents remove children from school for 1 to 2 weeks. In the mid-20th century, many parents would not even think about removing their children for a non-summer vacation. Even though the children are completing assignments during this time, they are losing the value of informal learning. Research suggests that up to 70% of all learning is gained informally - learning from one another.

The extended break from summer vacation also harms long term cognitive retention. Concepts that are taught shortly before the end of school may need to be re-taught in the fall because students lack the opportunities necessary for reinforcement and application. One direct outcome is the "teach to the test" behavior. Teachers must now hurriedly re-teach these previously learned objectives because these are the foundation for new concepts.

Learning is very much like a brick wall. Each row of bricks supports the next layer. When a row is missing just one or even several bricks, the entire wall is weakened and may eventually collapse. Again, our national results regarding educational performance demonstrate that we have many falling walls.

The American public education system needs to be restructured to face the 21st century. No one looks good in a bad system. We must face the reality that learning for our children must be more than 180 days and must be structured to support known cognitive research such as shorter and more frequent breaks. The archaic practice of summer vacation will only continue to reinforce performance failure conditioning and leave all of our children and our country behind.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith, President of ADVANCED SYSTEMS, works with large urban to private schools, certified staff, support staff, students and parents to improve performance in 30 to 180 days. Using proven tools, we can quickly and affordably identify the gaps in YOUR organization, provide you with an Action Plan that you can easily implement along with developmental programs from executive leadership to student leadership.

Role of School to Build a Nation

School is the alternate home of a Child. A child learns basic steps of life to grow as a man in the school. In rough terms, we can say that School is the factory to produce components of the Society. A Nation is recognized by its modern and flourished societies. The best societies are made by the contribution of well educated and intellectual people.

A man is build up with the foundation of education he got in his school. He is going to contribute the society by applying the knowledge and wisdom in appropriate place, which he acquired in his student life. The quality of education matters in this regard because he will be performing according to the level of education he got.

We can map a school as the breeding ground for the quality production of a Man. A man is born with a blank mind; School is responsible to feed the brain with quality input to help him to grow as a responsible citizen of a Nation. That's why today's parents want to educate their child in the best possible environment. To build a Great Nation the contribution of each and every responsible citizen is precious.

An Ocean is a collection of numerous number of tiny water droplets, similarly a Nation is a collection of numerous responsible citizens. To make it developed, each member of it should be well-educated and intelligent enough to fight against any kind of odd situation. School makes it possible to groom an infant child to a great man to be a part of such Society.

Education: Dynamic Classroom Management for 6th to 12th Grade Is All About Student Leadership

Within many colleges and universities that train future teachers, there is continual emphasis on classroom management. To be effective within the classroom means to provide continual learning opportunities for all the students so that annual yearly progress (AYP) will occur. Without proper classroom management or a structure for classroom discipline, this creates an obvious obstacle that prevents the desired results, measurable learning, from happening. Unfortunately, classroom management in many cases relies on the presumption that with every grade achieved the student will develop the necessary self-leadership skills necessary for academic and classroom success.

One of the more popular classroom management strategies is arranging desks into groups of 4 to 5 instead of rows. Group work is considered to be an effective learning strategy. Since classroom management and learning are partners, this is considered to be the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, such a strategy presumes that students have strong interpersonal skills including:

Communication especially non-verbal

Decision making and problem solving

Emotional intelligence specific to self-control and discipline

Mutual respect through demonstration of personal core values

Time management

Yet a review of most school curriculums would possibly reveal that these 5 interpersonal skill sets are not formally developed or taught, but are presumed to develop through the "Osmosis Factor." With that being the case, then employing this specific classroom management is potentially setting these young people up to fail and unintentionally creating additional at risk behavior.

Now consider if these sixth to twelfth grade students had been developed through a student leadership process that would infuse interpersonal skills with positive attitudes along with goal planning and goal achievement.

How much more engaged learning would happen within these classrooms?

How much more time would the teacher have to work with students who were struggling with a key concept?

What type of high performance culture could be achieved within the school?

Effective classroom management for middle and high school students must include a student leadership developmental process and curriculum. If these young people cannot lead themselves first, then how can they lead or work with anyone else? Let's stop setting these young people up to fail and begin to develop them through real world tools and processes beginning with student leadership.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith, President of ADVANCED SYSTEMS, works with large urban to private schools, certified staff, support staff, students and parents to improve performance in 30 to 180 days. Using proven tools, we can quickly and affordably identify the gaps in YOUR organization, provide you with an Action Plan that you can easily implement along with developmental programs from executive leadership to student leadership.

Education in Canada

The average earnings of the residents of Ontario are the highest in Canada. Ontario also spends the most money on post-secondary education, has the greatest number of residents of any province with post-secondary education, and the largest work force in education and related fields. Other provinces that lack the educational investment of Ontario have a lower average salary. Several factors affect the average salary, so in order to minimize variation, only Canadian provinces are compared to each- other. As such, three major factors were identified through analyzing statistical information. Therefore, spending on post-secondary education, the number of residents with a diploma or degree and the work force in the field of education directly affect the average yearly earnings of the residents of a Canadian province.

Ontario is the larges province in Canada and also the biggest spender on education. Ontario spends almost as much as Quebec and B.C. combined. However, Ontario is also the most populous province in Canada and as such, the ratio of money spent to residents is not much different than any of the other provinces. In Ontario's case, the government spends less per capita on education, yet the statistics show that it yields a greater return economically. The number of residents of a province with post-secondary education also affects the average salary because businesses are more likely to locate their corporate offices or production facilities in an area where they can easily secure highly educated employees.

Ontario's achievements in efficiency and also its ability to produce and maintain the highest number of post-secondary residents out of all of Canada's provinces is in no small part due to the educational work force, which includes support staff, teachers and professors, administration and other workers too numerous to mention.

Investing in education has shown to improve a province, and in turn a country not only in its cultural wealth but its monetary wealth as well. By having a properly funded system with quality educators as well as creating a tradition of education, the population of a country can obtain higher wages. Introduction:

The average earnings of the residents of Ontario are the highest in Canada. Ontario also spends the most money on post-secondary education, has the greatest number of residents of any province with post-secondary education, and the largest work force in education and related fields. Other provinces that lack the educational investment of Ontario have a lower average salary. Several factors affect the average salary, so in order to minimize variation, only Canadian provinces were compared to each- other. As such, three major factors were identified through analyzing statistical information. Therefore, spending on post-secondary education, the number of residents with a diploma or degree and the work force in the field of education directly affect the average yearly earnings of the residents of a Canadian province.

America's Need for Online Tutoring & Education

Online tutoring and education has taken over as a key player in America's educational system. With the growth in student population exceeding what schools can handle, educational assistance had to take a turn. Parents and schools are beginning to partner with online tutoring companies to help educate their students.

Education in today's world is a must. No longer can the youth of today rely upon only a high school education to get them where they want to be in life. As a matter of fact, today's 4-year college degree is becoming yesterday's high school diploma. There are some specific reasons as to why this has happened. Students in America's educational system are growing at a rate that the schools are not able to keep up with. We can also look to America's involvement in globalization. America has more international students studying in the states than ever before. This has created even more competition for the youth of America. Another aspect to look at is the life of students and resources available to them by the school. So what is being done now to help students deal with all these factors that have never before been an issue?

The answer is online tutoring and education.

With the large growth in students throughout America, schools have struggled to keep with the basic needs. According to OnTheIssues, the population of students in grades K-12 is over 50 million. This number is and has been steadily rising by 1 million students per year. OnTheIssues also notes that school spending for grades K-12 is now at $260 billion per year. As the amount of students continues to increase, the amount of spending will also continue to increase. This is not the only factor that is affecting students in a negative way.

Many students today, high school and college, do not have the time to research for sources and help on-campus. Mainly because students today are working jobs while taking full-loads in school. This leaves minimal time to be able to take advantage of a school's resources. Online tutoring and education is becoming the answer to this problem. WashingtonPost author, Mike Chediak, says that according to Sloan Consortium, more than 2.6 million students studied through online tutoring and educational courses last fall. This number is up from 1.9 million back in 2003, which is about a 23% growth rate in only one year.

It's also important to look at the resources that are offered by schools. The main goal of education is to prepare students for a career path. In high school this is a general path and in college this is a much more specific path. It is estimated that only 25% of 4-year college graduates actually work in the field that they earned their degree. Since online tutoring and education is able to cover such a broad area, students are able to get the help they need, when they need it. Online tutoring and education is now offered by some programs over a 24-hour period, which completely caters to the student's needs.

While schools are not keeping up with the resources to fully help their students, online tutoring and education is able to fill the gap. Many schools are starting to partner with online tutoring service companies so they can get their students the help they need. Online tutoring and education is a service that will continue to grow and thrive in the upcoming years for America.

Students Are Gifts

At my school, students are God's gifts to me. They are already wrapped, some beautifully and others less attractively. Some have been mishandled in the mail; others come "Special Delivery." Some are loosely wrapped, and others are tightly enclosed.

But the wrapping is not the gift, and this is important. It is so easy to make a mistake in this regard, to judge the contents of the gift by the wrapping paper.

Sometimes the gift (the student) is opened very easily; sometimes the help of others is needed. And maybe it's because they are afraid to be opened. Maybe they have been opened before, and because the last person didn't value them, they don't want to be opened again. It could be that when they were opened before, they were discarded and thrown away. They may now feel more like "things" instead of human beings.

At my school, just like my students, I too am a gift to be shared. God filled me with a goodness that is only mine. And yet sometimes even I'm afraid to look inside my own wrappings. Maybe I'm afraid I would be disappointed. Maybe I don't trust my own contents. Or maybe I've never really accepted the gift that I am.

Every meeting with my students is an exchange of gifts and an

opportunity to share. I'm a gift; they are gifts. We are gifts to each other.