posted by JasperC on Apr 30
Download PDF maps related to today’s show:
Washington, D.C.
Australia
Afghanistan
Chile
Click here to access the transcript of today’s CNN Student News program.
Please note that there may be a delay between the time when the video is available and when the transcript is published.
posted by JasperC on Apr 25
Download PDF maps related to today’s show:
Connecticut, New Jersey, New York & Pennsylvania
Syria
Miami, Florida; Cuba
Click here to access the transcript of today’s CNN Student News program.
Please note that there may be a delay between the time when the video is available and when the transcript is published.
posted by JasperC on Mar 31
Story By: by The Associated Press
The last straw for 17-year-old Alton Burke was a note left on his door. The high school dropout picked up the phone and re-enrolled at South Hagerstown High.
Burke missed roughly 200 days of class, but Heather Dixon, the student intervention specialist who left the note, never gave up on him.
Aggressive efforts to prevent students such as Burke from dropping out contributed to a modest 3.5 percentage point increase nationally in the high school graduation rate from 2001 to 2009, according to research presented Monday at the Grad Nation summit in Washington. The event was organized by the children’s advocacy group America’s Promise Alliance founded by former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The graduation rate was 75 percent in 2009, meaning 1 in 4 students fails to get a diploma in four years, researchers found. That’s well below the organization’s goal of 90 percent by 2020.
Researchers found that the number of “dropout factories,” schools that fail to graduate more than 60 percent of students on time, had dropped by more than 450 between 2002 and 2010, but that 1,550 remain. The largest declines in dropout factories were in the South and in suburban communities.
“Big gains are possible if you work hard at it, and if you don’t focus on it, you’re going to go backward,” said Robert Balfanz, a report author and director of the Everyone Graduates Center at the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University.
The increase in graduation rates was primarily because of growth in 12 states, with New York and Tennessee showing double digit gains since 2002, according to the research. At the other end, 10 states had declines: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Rhode Island and Utah.
So far, only Wisconsin has met the 90 percent benchmark, although Vermont is close.
“This year’s report proves struggling schools are not destined to fail,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan. “The reality is that even one dropout factory is too many.”
The authors said there are proven strategies to tackle the problem, such as getting all students to read at grade level, raising the compulsory school attendance age to 18 and developing “early warning” systems to help identify students that might be at risk of later dropping out.
In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama encouraged states to pass laws to require students to stay in school until they graduate or they turn 18.
It’s estimated that high school graduates will earn $130,000 more over their lifetimes than dropouts, and that high school graduates will generate more than $200,000 in higher tax revenues and savings in government expenditures over their lifetime, the report said. And, the report said that if the 90 percent goal had already been met, 580,000 more students would have graduated last year, generating $1.8 billion in additional revenue because of increased economic activity.
How to track high school graduation rates has been a contentious issue for years, with states using different methods to come up with a number. Balfanz cited this as a reason why the report does not include the names of the dropout factories. He said they will be included in a future report once all states are consistently reporting data.
States are now required to use the same method to compute graduation rates based on a Bush administration rule issued in 2008.
Nevada stood out for its low graduation rate of 56 percent, a decline of more than 15 percentage points from 2002 to 2009, the largest of any state, the report said. During Nevada’s boom years, students dropped out to earn hefty paychecks parking cars, pouring concrete or serving drinks along the Las Vegas Strip.
“Today, many of Las Vegas’ dropouts are out of work and unable to jumpstart the economy because they lack the required credentials,” the report said.
But Balfanz said there are some signs that the state is “organizing itself against its big challenge.”
The Clark County School District of Las Vegas, for example, has developed a partnership with Vegas PBS for an online program designed to help students earn missing credits needed to graduate. It also started the “Reclaim Your Future” program, which sent school employees and community volunteers door to door to persuade dropouts to return to school.
Many of the strategies encouraged by the authors have been adopted in Washington County, Md. The district has a 92 percent graduation rate, up 15 percentage points from 2000. It’s made progress in recent years even as the county’s unemployment rate lingered above the national average and more students needed homelessness services.
The district offers e-learning classes for credit recovery, evening classes, and a family center where pregnant teens and student parents can attend class. Student attendance and performance data are carefully tracked to identify early any students at risk. Intervention specialists develop relationships with these students, doing everything from visiting their homes to helping them connect with community mental health services.
Clayton Wilcox, the district superintendent, said that even as they work to keep students, those who drop out are warmly welcomed back.
“It’s not easy to drop out. We’re going to hound you. Classroom teachers are going to talk to you. Principals are going to talk to you. The guidance counselor is going to talk to you. We don’t make it easy.” Wilcox said.
Dixon, the intervention specialist who works with Burke, and Amy Warrenfeltz, another intervention specialist at South Hagerstown High, said some of the kids they deal with have mental health issues or drug and alcohol problems. Others struggle because they switched schools because of financial issues in their family or had a bad experience in school with a teacher or peer, they said.
Burke said it was hard to get motivated to attend class once he “got into the routine of not getting up and it became a habit.”
“I was nervous coming back because of what people would say or how people would look at me,” Burke said. “It’s awkward when you haven’t been to school in a couple weeks or whatever and then you come back.”
He had met with Dixon multiple times at his house and at school, and after he dropped out, he said he was sure she would return to his home. He said he was happy when she left the note because he wanted an excuse to return to school. He now goes to school full time and takes evening classes four nights a week. He anticipates graduating this spring and wants to attend technical school in heating, ventilation and cooling.
“Before that, I wanted to come back, but I just didn’t know how to come about it,” Burke said.
posted by JasperC on Mar 21
Story By: by Sarah Gonzalez
A wooden paddle sits on the principal’s desk at Sneads High School in Jackson County, Fla. Almost every county in the state’s rural north has policies that allow schools to paddle students.
Holmes County High School Principal Eddie Dixson says paddling is used for minor offenses like back-talking or consistent tardiness. Students at the school are spanked only by Dixson or the assistant principal, and there is always a witness.
“I got my butt beat and I know what’s right and wrong,” he says. “And my children are going to know what’s right and wrong.”
Glover’s feelings are shared by many parents in this part of Florida. “I think the problem with society is we quit paddling,” he says.
The Sting Of The Paddle
Schools often use a wooden or fiberglass paddle for their spankings. There are no statewide regulations on what the paddles should look like, so each school district creates its own.
The paddle at Holmes County High School looks like a short rowboat paddle. It’s about 16 inches long, 5 inches wide and a 1/2 inch thick. You can’t buy it at a store, so Holmes County High asks wood-shop students to make it for them.
Senior Cole Long has never made a paddle, but he’s been on the receiving end of one.
He says he’s been paddled for things like, “throwing papers, throwing pencils, a couple times for cussing and then back-talking.”
“I used to be a really wild child,” he says.
States That Allow Corporal Punishment In Schools:
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
Colorado
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Missouri
North Carolina
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Wyoming
Source: Center for Effective Discipline
A couple months ago, Long won $7,200 at a bull-riding competition in Texas. But even to a bull rider, Long says, the paddle can sting depending on who’s doing the spanking.
“The assistant principal, he hurts,” Long says. “I’ve had it plenty of times from him and he gives it to us a little more.”
Long says he thinks all schools should paddle students because the spankings teach discipline and respect â and much of the community agrees.
Paddling Without Parental Consent
Every once in a while, parents like Tenika Jones of Levy County will object to their child getting paddled. Last year, the principal at Joyce Bullock Elementary sent home a waiver asking parents for permission to paddle students. Jones says she didn’t sign it, but her son, Geirrea Bostick, was paddled anyway.
He was 5 at the time and it was his second week of preschool. Gierrea says the principal spanked him twice for slapping another boy on the school bus. He says the principal first told him to take his jacket off. “Then [she] spank me on my booty,” Gierrea says. “I cried all the way home. It was really hard.”
Gierrea’s mom says the paddling left welts on Gierrea’s bottom, and she was outraged.
“If I would have hit my son how she hit him, I would have been in jail, I would have been on the news, I would have been messed up trying to get my children back,” Jones says. “She whipped him up and to me that’s child abuse.”
Jones is in the process of suing the Levy County School District for paddling her son without her permission. But Robert Rush, an attorney at the law firm representing Jones says state law does not require schools to get parental consent.
“If the school board and the principal specifically authorize corporal punishment, it can be administered lawfully against the parent’s wishes,” Rush says.
According to Rush, the school principal sets the policy for paddling, and if the school acts in accordance with that policy it’s very hard to sue.
“They’re immune both civilly and criminally by law,” he says.
But attorneys can argue excessive force was used.
The school’s principal, Jamie Handlin, and the school district would not comment for this story because they’re in pre-litigation, but Handlin told the Williston Pioneer newspaper, “Nothing was violated.”
“I disciplined out of love, not anger,” she said.
Does Paddling Solve The Problem?
Schools are the only public institution where hitting is allowed. It’s not allowed in prisons, hospitals, mental institutions or the military.
According to the Center for Effective Discipline, the most recent statistics show that 223,190 American students received corporal punishment in 2006. In Florida alone, 3,661 students were spanked in 2010, according to the state’s Department of Education.
Parenting is rough, grinding work. This is not news. And it’s sure as hell not an ominous new trend.
Kids who were spanked more than twice a month at age 3 were more likely to be aggressive at 5.
The Texas woman was sentenced to five years probation and told parents should never spank children.
Studies suggest that spanking can hurt mental development of kids.
But school corporal punishment in general has been on the decline. New Jersey was the first state to ban it in 1867. The next state, Massachusetts, didn’t follow until more than 100 years later, when child protection laws started popping up and paddling students starting falling out of fashion. Most recently, New Mexico banned paddling just last year.
Deborah Sendek, a clinical child psychologist with the Center for Effective Discipline, says research on corporal punishment shows paddling does not deter students from misbehaving.
“What we tend to see is the students who are paddled are paddled repeatedly throughout the course of the academic year and the following year and the following year,” Sendek says. “That’s one of the things that tells us it’s not effective.”
Sendek says paddling can also have negative short- and long-term physical and psychological consequences.
“The rule in school may be that we only hit for certain things and we only hit with a paddle,” Sendek says. “But if we have a culture where we believe it’s OK to hit, then it can be generalized.”
But supporters of school corporal punishment argue that paddling helps keeps kids in school, since the alternative would be suspending students with bad behavior.
Willie Williams, principal at Madison County Central Elementary and Middle School, agrees. The only problem is he can’t bring himself to administer the punishment. And when others do it, he says he can’t bear watch.
This story is part of the StateImpact Florida project. StateImpact is a collaboration between NPR and member stations examining the effect of state policy on people’s lives.
posted by JasperC on Mar 2
Story By: by NPR Staff
On Jan. 1, the Missouri State School Board revoked the Kansas City public school district’s accreditation. Now parents have a hard choice to make: leave or keep their children at a failed school?
“We think there’s some things here that we should fight for,” Adriana says. “Because if we all run away, we’ll never fix the problems.”
But one of the Pecina kids, high school sophomore Ximena, is more transparent about her worries. She says she has had to say goodbye to friends.
“Many students are leaving. There’s kids saying, ‘Oh, well, I’m going to this private school. I’m going. I’m actually moving out of this state; I’m going to Kansas,’ ” she says. “And it’s tragic.”
She wonders sometimes why her family is sticking with the public schools.
“I have cousins and a lot of friends that aren’t part of the district. I get jealous at times. I get asked a lot, ‘Well doesn’t your school do that? Our schools do that.’ And I get asked questions that just make me feel really sad. And they make me feel like I’m part of a school that doesn’t really have anything. Like, I feel really poor.”