Education

Recess at Landaff’s Blue School

Guest post by Jeff Woodburn

LANDAFF –   Our vast, complicated education system produced its annual results last week as high schools across the country held graduation ceremonies.  In New Hampshire some ten thousand high school seniors were handed diplomas thus finishing a 13 year process at a cost of around $135,000 per pupil. Educating children has become a costly, centralized and specialized business, and it seems no one is fully satisfied with the results. Education experts and parents worry about the quality of instruction, class size and student safety, yet school districts have become large, impersonal institutions. Over the past 70 years, the number of school districts has declined from 117,000 to around 14,000 even though the student population has almost doubled reports the American School Board Association.

So there should be no surprise that New Hampshire’s once dominant one-room or tiny schools have dwindled to just two: one being Landaff’s Blue School (the other is the Croydon Village School, near Newport).

The path of preservation is never simple. It is usually a combination of circumstances and attitudes. Landaff is defined by a rugged, inhospitable or at least inaccessible landscape—most notably because of the prominent and protected White Mountain National Forest and the Wild Ammonoosuc River. With less than 376 residents spread over its 28 square miles, Landaff has the distinction of having the second smallest numeric increase in population of the any of the smaller communities in the state.  Since 1950, the town added just 36 new residents, including Jason Cartwright, who moved here from Texas ten years ago to run the Tender Corporation in Littleton. Now as a member of the school board, he says the Blue School, much like the town, is not just an anomaly or a relic, but rather is “intentionally small.”

The Blue School sits on a small knoll of land bordered by a stream, a simple baseball field and the intersection of two country roads. There is not a house in view, and little room to park. Parking wasn’t a concern when the school was built in 1858, the year of Teddy Roosevelt’s birth; the Blue School was one of six schools that served Landaff. Over time, the schools were consolidated to one. Former one-room schools, which dotted the rural landscape, were routinely sold off as transportation became easier and were folded into the existing housing stock.

A closer view reveals the building’s antiquity – like the hard wood floors, the large double hung wood stash windows, the thimble that once served the wood stove, old coat hooks in a small ante room that lead to the two small sink-less lavatories (there is shared sink in the ante room) with old tin signs above each. A second structure, a modern, modular building sits behind the old school house.  The two buildings are carefully joined by a roofed breezeway that ensures an actual and visual transition between the two. The newer rectangular building was added a few years back when there was a jump in enrollment. The numbers didn’t hold and the space now serves as the library and lunch room.  Instruction occurs in the large main room of the school house thus protecting the school’s rare status.

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Letter To the New Hampshire State Board of Education:
 
Good afternoon.  I write to you today in opposition to the proposed implementation of the "ONE" curriculum in the New Hampshire public school system.
 
While poverty in Africa is certainly a global issue/problem deserving of attention from the citizens of the United States, I have grave concerns that adding to the curriculum would again, reduce the amount of time students spend on academic content.  One cannot expect to add anything to the curriculum without subtracting from another area. 

I’m also concerned as to how this information would be given to students.  This is a highly political issue and like any other political issue, one can certainly sway children into a political ideology adding biased information or by leaving out critical facts.  
 
Too often our classrooms are becoming an atmosphere of political indoctrination. This has real ramifications on student achievement.  
 
The article I read today referred to giving students a global competitive edge by exposing them to the "ONE" curriculum.  I beg to differ.  What gives students a competitive edge in the global economy is academic knowledge.  
 
Right now New Hampshire has some of the poorest math and science standards in the country, noted in a report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.   
 
Our current Secretary of Education is looking to implement "Common Standards" to make up for this glaring deficiency in our public school system.  He’s been quoted in the Chicago Tribune as saying:

"In too many places, including Illinois, we are lying to children now. [When] we tell a child they are meeting the state standards, the logical implication is that child’s on track to be successful. In too many places, including Illinois, if you are meeting state standards you are barely qualified to graduate from high school and you are totally unqualified to go to a university and graduate."  

This is the time for the NH School Board to look for ways to bring academic excellence to the classroom, not a political agenda.  This is a time to go back and look to the best international standards and duplicate those instead of looking to form our students into a political mindset.

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Parents are probably hearing how schools are committed to a "student-centered" approach to teaching.  But what does that mean?  In Constructivism it means that your child will be participating in "discovery learning." 
 
In this setting the students work in groups or with other students, and the teacher takes on the role of "facilitator" rather than "instructor."  The goal is to get the students to come up with their own solution to the math problems (although this approach is used in other subjects too); and if the students have problems, they would turn to another student before asking the teacher.
 
This is exactly what is going on in many of the New Hampshire classrooms.
 
Reform/Fuzzy/New Math programs are generally built around a Constructivist methodology.  In 1989 the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) called for this approach to be used in the classrooms. 
 
Supporters of Constructivism will often say that this approach gives the students a "deeper understanding" of the concepts.  Yet the critics argue that students become frustrated and that it actually can hinder the learning process.

An organization called Mathematically Correct provides an amusing explanation of constructivism:

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Guest post by Jane Aitken…

UNESCO says that the International Baccalaureate curriculum promotes "human rights, social justice, sustainable development, population, health, environmental, and immigration concerns."

But are parents being told about this political agenda?

Missing from the presentation on IB on the MVRSD’s website (http://fc.mvsd.k12.nh.us/ibpresentation) is the fact that taxpayers would be supporting the agenda of UNESCO. In fact, there’s a lot missing from both the website, and from last Wednesday’s article on the subject in the Concord Monitor. Allow me to clue you in on the rest of the story…

The International Baccalaureate Organization is one of many education "industry" groups of consultants and reformers. The industry recognizes our extreme desire to improve education and competes for the large amounts of taxpayer money we put toward that cause in NH. Promoters from the IBO (www.ibo.org) a Switzerland-based group in partnership with UNESCO (www.unesco.org) use words such as "rigorous," "prestigious" and "competitive" to sell the purported eliteness of it’s program. This self-laudatory language is suggestive of academic success, even when no track record exists to support such a claim.

After a school is authorized by IBO to use IB program(s) and pays the "annual fee," it can be accepted as an "IB World School." IBO charges for using their "programs" (curriculum, teacher training, instructional methods, assessments done outside the USA, coordinator, etc.) in our schools in the U.S.A., which are then referred to as their schools.

The 2008-09 Diploma Program "annual fee" has increased from $8,850 to $9,150 per school this year.

The various individual "per candidate" costs (covering registration with IB, per subject fees, exam registration fee, per exams costs, etc.) have also risen. Schools are also required to have an IB Coordinator. What is even more concerning than the extra inflated cost is that the school and its teachers must all adopt the IBO’s "mission."

In New Hampshire, the bulk of our local property tax bill goes to support public education and it’s assumed that we have some "local control".  If the MVRSD already employs the most qualified staff they can find, why would they need to buy a program that is run from another country to provide "rigor"?  Tests are sent to any number of places abroad to be graded by the IBO. How does a student appeal a grade and how is this local control?

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Bedford High School offers the International Baccalaureate program for Juniors and Seniors.  Other schools in NH are also considering adopting this program into their curriculum. 

Bedford school administrators and board members have given their approval of this program but what always seems to be missing is, the controversial baggage that comes with IB.
 
How will teachers deliver a program containing such extreme political overtones?  The IBO makes it clear that the Administration must be on board with the philosophy of the IB program.

Looking at the IB web site raises many concerns.  For instance at the 21st IB Asia-Pacific Annual Regional Conference (http://www.ibo.org/ibap/conference/2006regionalconf.cfm) members of the IB community gathered to present topics on "values education".  
 
American students lack the competitive edge in areas like math and science.   How does "values education" address lack of math and science skills?  Who’s values are they assessing and more importantly, what are the values of the IBO?

The conference included a presentation on "Values education and Becoming Fully Human".  Absent in the presentation is a focus on students achieving academic excellence.  What you will note is the reference to the increase of relativism and fundamentalism and the IBO’s need to address this problem.
 
On page 10, the IBO criticizes religious fundamentalists by mocking their religious beliefs, "The assertion that we alone have the truth about morality and religion and everyone else is wrong."
 
There is a definite implication, that fundamentalism is a problem that the IBO needs to address.  Address where?  In the NH classrooms?  Do the fundamentalist Christians know that the IBO sees them as a problem that needs to be addressed in the classroom?
 
On page 29 it states that

"fundamentalism is as much alive in the west as in the east". 

Oh really?  In what way?  Because I’m missing the American Christians committed to suicide bombings.
 
In the next paragraph it goes on to say:

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That seems to be the consensus among educators whenever someone addresses the problems in education.  The standard response always seems to be: education is under funded.  What many people do not know is, in one school district, this theory was put to a test. 

The Kansas City experiment is well known in the education circles however many outside probably never heard of it.  [Money And School Performance: Lessons from the Kansas City Desegregation Experiment]
 
A judge in Kansas City suggested that the school district come up with a "cost is no object" education plan then turned to state and local politicians to fund it.  This would be the big test to either prove spending more money works, or it would disprove the theory that so many critics had discounted as a real solution.
 
Kansas City spared no expenses and did just what they were ordered to do.  They increased teacher salaries, opened several new schools, and even built an Olympic sized swimming pool.  They lowered the student/teacher ratio to 13 to 1 which was the lowest of any large school district in the county. 
 
When all was said and done, the amount spent was 2 billion dollars. 

One would think after doing all that "needed" to be done, there would be significant improvement.  Unfortunately that was not the case.  The results were dismal. 
 
This experiment ended up being a costly embarrassment to those who once spouted the NEED for an increase in spending to improve education.  Scores did not improve and the racial divide did not diminish.  This was a set back for those who believed money would solve these problems. 
 
Now one would think that this issue would be put to rest given the glaring results that showed education did not improve when spending was drastically increased.  Unfortunately that is not the case.  Even today politicians and school administrators continually cite money as the main source of their problems. 
 
I would suggest that much of the problems in education boil down to a few major issues.  Sure there are others, but when you look past the "lack of funding" excuse, what you find are, curriculum problems, lack of discipline in the schools, and the loss of local control as some of the main problems.
 

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Families and companies all around the country are cutting expenses in these tough economic times.  Surprisingly, many state governments are doing the same.  I guess they figured out that spending like there’s no tomorrow gets us in a financial mess. 
 
I’m wondering if our New Hampshire schools will be doing the same? 

Taxes have increased in many towns and now many residents are cutting their expenses.  It would only be reasonable for our school districts to do the same. 
 
Next year Bedford implements a new program in the high school called The International Baccalaureate Program (IB).  Other schools in New Hampshire are also considering the adoption of this program too.  IB comes at an extremely high cost to the tax payers and may benefit a small number of students.
 
Some schools report an annual expenditure of over $100,000 for this program while other schools have reported over $500,000 as their annual expense which includes hiring additional staff like an IB Coordinator. 
 
The Bow school district is considering this program right now, and hosted a meeting with the parents and taxpayers to determine whether or not they should go forward and adopt the program.  The community was invited and many expressed genuine concerns on whether or not this program was a good idea for the students given it’s high cost and controversial political nature.  
 
The Concord Monitor reported in April that Bow had suspended the application after hearing from the "outraged" community.
 
Outside New Hampshire at www.Cherryhill.com in the article titled Debate Heats Up, the Superintendent is recommending phasing out the expensive program. Their annual expense is over $500,000.00 per year. The article goes on to report only 19% of the residents support it. 
 
In an article titled "Broughton’s IB program to end soon",  the Wake County School district in North Carolina voted to also phase out the $500,000 plus program citing they could offer a quality education without the extravagant price tag.
 

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Should students be able to graduate after completing 10th grade?  That is now being discussed in the New Hampshire Dept of Ed, as reported by some of the NH papers.  I sit here amazed that anyone would ask that question.  What’s more bothersome is that we have adults, paid by NH residents, who think this is a good idea. 

NH Education Commissioner Lionel Tracy is now floating the idea of graduating some students upon completion of 10th grade.  He says that the test, which has not been produced yet, would be a difficult test modeled after the AP or IB tests and that 10th graders would have to pass this exam in order to graduate early.  Isn’t the NH Education Department the same branch of government that thinks the NECAP is a good indicator of proficiency in math and science?  Yet we have some of the top mathematicians and scientists who have given their expert analysis indicating our standards are some of the worst in the country.  How can we trust the validity of this test when our own standards lack substance? Thomas B. Fordham Institute – Publication Detail

The article goes on to say that those who want to go on to prestigious universities can still graduate after 12th grade and take an even tougher exam.  That translates to lower expectations and standards for the graduating 10th graders.  On one hand Tracy says these 10th grade students who graduate would be held to high standards and have to pass a rigorous exam.  Then he goes on to say that the bar is higher for those graduating 12th grade.  If the bar is set higher for 12th graders with a more difficult test, logic dictates it’s lowered for 10th graders because less would be required of them.

Why would parents want to subject their child to missing out on two years of education?  Especially since it is their taxes that have paid for it?  I did not notice anything about Tracy saying taxpayers would get a refund on those tax dollars saved.

This sounds like a cost cutting measure that once again, does nothing to help the students of NH.  It does sound wonderful for companies out there looking for full-time, unskilled workers making one wonder who Governor Lynch is working for:  the New Hampshire students and parents or simply trying to meet the needs of a global workforce.

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Democrat Parking Only?

Guest post by Ann Marie Banfield
 
I have been supporting the Republican party since turning 18 about three decades ago.  Over those years I’ve watched this party go through some changes.  Some of those changes have occurred over the past 8 years and unfortunately I think it’s led to the self-destruction.

20+ years ago, we could go into a voting booth, vote straight Republican and know that we were getting, conservatives.  Today that is not the case.  We are now supposed to be a big tent where everyone is welcome, yet that didn’t appeal at all to the voters yesterday.  In fact, it has just about pushed me out of the party all together.
 
We now have pro-choice Republicans.  Republican big spenders and Republicans who support big government handouts.  We have Republicans who dismiss their Constitutional obligations for Congress to vote on declaring war.  We have Republicans who support a United Nations influenced public education system.  Some embrace and promote the radical environmental extremism instead of gathering up facts and cautioning against legislation that cripples a company’s ability to compete in a global marketplace.  Illegal immigration?  More support for a policy that is draining us financially. 
 
What has this done for this party??  Divide and conquer us.
 
It would be easy to blame this win on Obama lying about his record, or the liberal media who supported him.  But that would mean we would be missing an opportunity to learn from these disastrous mistakes.
 
As we try to play catch up to the Democrats, one area that continues to fly under the radar screen is our public education system.  This is a system that continually indoctrinates children into the ideals of liberalism.  This is a system that Republicans have virtually washed their hands of.  Yet this is the most pressing issue we face. 
 
It is hard to run behind this indoctrination program and do repair work.  It is best avoided when the indoctrination is not allowed to be conducted in the classrooms. 
 
Where are these strong Republican leaders?  Are they at school board meetings each week?  Running for school board??  Forming a relationship with board members to give their input?  Supporting a Superintendent that supports an apolitical atmosphere rather than a liberal indoctrination camp?  I bet they are meeting for their weekly or monthly Republican meetings.  All the while, the school board is voting in more programs that completely undermine the family, and every other conservative principle. 

Where are Republicans on education?  Many have checked out of the public school system and washed their hands of the mess.  Yet they send them a hefty check each year, paying for the rest of those kids to be indoctrinated into liberalism and globalism at their expense without one word of criticism.  How many of you would send $10,000/year to a company for  nothing in return?   Not only NOTHING, but to do a job you completely hate?  Yet that is exactly what is happening when they steal your tax dollars and dictate liberal curriculum in the classrooms.

Democrats play on the offense, and we try to win on the defense.  Until we figure out we need to be on the offense, I’m not seeing how things will improve.
 
Those who make it to Washington D.C. or their State Legislative offices cannot forget the core values of this party.  Those who get to D.C. and remain in their office, while thousands of their constituents march in the street for Pro-Life, haven’t figured out who their foot soldiers are when it comes to running a campaign effectively.
 
Those who think they need to move in a liberal direction didn’t pay close attention to the political races this year.  Many of the Democrats ran on Conservative principles like, tax cuts in the Obama campaign.  Or fiscal restraint in the Shea – Porter campaign.  We know they have no intention of following these principles, but that’s what they sold to the voters in their campaigns.   In the liberal state of CA, gay marriage was rejected.   Sarah Palin drew more crowds than Barack Obama in New Hampshire!  These ideals are not dead.  They simply need to be re-embraced and communicated! 

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