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NATIONAL EDUCATION GOALS PANEL
NEGP Weekly
THE UPDATE ON AMERICA'S NATIONAL EDUCATION GOALS
www.negp.gov
__________ __________
WE BELIEVE | SPOTLIGHT |
Americans polled by "Good | |
Housekeeping" magazine say they | NO IDLE THREAT |
want more control over the | |
teachers in their children's | About 14,000 families in |
public schools ("Good | L.A. County this year |
Housekeeping" press release). | received a threatening |
Eighty-four percent say | letter from the L.A. County |
teachers should be periodically | District Attorney's office: |
re-tested in order to maintain | Stop your child's truant |
their teaching licenses. | behavior, or we will lock |
Slightly over half (52%) say | you up in jail. |
giving teachers tenure is a bad | |
idea because it makes it | The D.A.'s Abolish |
difficult or extremely costly | Chronic Truancy program is |
to fire those who are | deemed effective by the |
incompetent. | L.A. TIMES. After |
Other findings: of the 42% | receiving the letter, |
who initially said they support | between 70% and 80% of |
tenure, 30% changed their minds | students improved their |
when they learned that other | attendance rates. |
American workers do not have | |
similar job protection. | While few parents have |
"We see in other polls and | been prosecuted over the |
hear from politicians that | years -- only eight cases |
education is the number one | have been filed this year - |
concern of the American | - the threat appears to be |
public," said Ellen Levine, | enough to inspire a change |
editor in chief of "Good | in attitude about |
Housekeeping." "This is | attendance. "This is a |
clearly a grassroots movement | parental responsibility |
that will eventually change the | program," declared Deputy |
way we evaluate our schools." | District Attorney John |
Survey results were published | Carols Tosello. (#2) |
in the January 1998 issue. |_____________________________|
============== QUOTE OF THE DAY ==============
"We consider it a failure for us to have to prosecute, because
that means the child is not in school. Prosecution is the last
then we want to do."
L.A. County Deputy District Attorney David Lopez, on the D.A.
office's Abolish Chronic Truancy program. (#2)
_______________________________________________________________
| (c) by the Education Policy Network, Inc. |
| 1255 22nd Street NW; Washington, D.C. 20010; 202/724-0015 |
| EPN, Inc. hereby authorizes further reproduction and |
| distribution with proper acknowledgement. |
| Publisher: Barbara A. Pape |
|_______________________________________________________________|
============== TABLE OF CONTENTS ==============
GOAL TWO: HIGH SCHOOL COMPLETION
HOLDING STEADY: Nationwide dropout rates. (#1)
IT'S HAMMER TIME: L.A.'s chronic truancy program. (#2)
GOAL FOUR: TEACHER ED/PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
TOP-NOTCH TEACHERS: Federal help. (#3)
GOAL SEVEN: SAFE, DISCIPLINED AND DRUG-FREE SCHOOLS
GLIMMER OF HOPE: Young teen drug use leveling off. (#4)
WHITE HOUSE WATCH
A BIG-CITY PLAN: Clinton contemplates urban school plan. (#5)
===== GOAL TWO: HIGH SCHOOL COMPLETION =====
*1 HOLDING STEADY: NATIONWIDE DROPOUT RATES
The percentage of students dropping out of school has
remained stable at about 5% over the past decade, according to a
recent U.S. DoEd report titled "Dropout Rates in the United
States: 1996." "This means that some 500,000 young people are
still short-changing their lives and dropping out," said Ed Sec
Richard Riley.
The report also found that Hispanic students continue to
drop out of school at rates higher than those of other groups.
In 1996, 9% of Hispanics left school before completing a high
school program, compared to 6.7% for blacks and 4.1% for whites.
Riley: "The president and I are particularly concerned
about the number of Hispanic Americans who are dropping out. I
am working with the White House and the President's Initiative on
Race to develop a series of steps that we can take to better
address this troubling problem."
Another group of students at-risk of dropping out are young
people from families with incomes in the lowest 20% of all family
incomes are five times as likely as their peers from families in
the top 20% of the income distribution to drop out of school.
The report also found that more young adults are completing
high school through alternative programs, including the GED.
According to the report, the percent of young adults who are out
of school without a high school diploma has decreased,
"indicating that although the percentage leaving has not changed,
some of the young adults who dropped out have subsequently earned
a high school credential," writes a DoEd press release.
Riley: "Alternative programs that give young people a
second chance are a growing phenomena. We need to develop more
high quality alternative programs that meet this rising demand.
Young people at risk shouldn't just be left on their own to hang
out on the street. New attention needs to be paid to finding
ways to encourage many more dropouts to drop back in to school so
that they have a real chance at living a decent life. When young
people drop out they do more than just give up their education,
they are too often giving up on themselves."
Other findings:
Five out of every 100 young adults enrolled in high school
in 1995 left school before October 1996 without successfully
completing a high school program.
Thirteen states currently have high school completion rates
of 90% or better. Connecticut showed the greatest increase
during the 1990s, from 90.9% to 96.1%
High cumulative dropout rates in the South of 13% and 13.9%
in the West are greater than the dropout rates of 8.3% in
the Northeast and 7.7% in the Midwest.
The South is the only region in which the dropout rate for
white youths exceeds the national dropout rate for white
youths (10% versus 7.3%).
"Dropout Rates in the United States: 1996" provides state
and regional data, examines high school completion rates and
provides data on how income levels affect the number of dropouts.
It is available from the National Library of Education at
800/424-1616. Copies also are available at the National Center
for Education Statistics Web site at
http://nces.ed.gov/ncespubl.html.
*2 IT'S HAMMER TIME: L.A.'S CHRONIC TRUANCY PROGRAM
A tough truancy-reduction program run by the Los Angeles
District Attorney's office has significantly cut down on the
truancy rate at many schools, but has left some parents
disgruntled (Shuit, L.A. TIMES, 12/5).
The Abolish Chronic Truancy program last year sent letter-
of-warning to 9,000 parents, with 14,000 families receiving the
letter this year. According to the paper, the letters are
intended to be "'a hammer' designed to get parents' attention.
And they have worked."
Deputy District Attorney David Lopez said that attendance
improved in between 70% and 80% of the cases in which a letter
was sent to the family. Once they receive a letter, which
threatens criminal prosecution, parents are urged to attend a
school meeting "to prevent possible court action."
Lopez: "We consider it a failure for us to have to
prosecute, because that means the child is not in school.
Prosecution is the last then we want to do." Only eight cases
have been filed this year, reports the paper.
If the child's attendance does not improve after the letter,
parents often receive a home visit by school officials before the
situation becomes a criminal case. "This is a parental
responsibility program," explained Deputy District Attorney John
Carols Tosello. "Here in Long Beach, the health department has
determined that poor attendance in school is correlated with
teenage pregnancy, with police involvement, with possible gang
involvement. There are many unforeseen negative consequences."
However, some parents, including freelance writer and film
producer Joel Weinberg, complain that they are being harassed by
the district. Weinberg recently received a letter from the
district attorney's office regarding the poor attendance record
of his 7-year-old daughter. Weinberg said his daughter is
physically handicapped, and handling her disability is the reason
she missed 40 days of kindergarten. "Why go after normal law-
abiding people like me?" questioned Weinberg. "Let them chase
the people who are committing crime in the streets."
Lopez: "No one would have a problem putting a parent in
jail if they physically abused their child -- say, broke their
arm on purpose But a parent, by not sending a child to school is
creating a broken mind. A broken arm may heal, but a broken mind
may never heal."
===== GOAL FOUR: TEACHER ED/PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT =====
*3 TOP-NOTCH TEACHERS: FEDERAL HELP
Qualified teachers are a key ingredient to turning education
reform initiatives into a classroom reality. The National Board
for Professional Teaching Standards, through its national
certification process, is one vehicle attempting to upgrade the
teaching profession.
President Clinton this past year successfully bid Congress
to increase the federal subsidy for the board to $18.5M from last
year's figure of $5M, writes the Baltimore SUN (AP, 12/30). The
board expects the injection of funds to facilitate its process to
determine what teachers should know and be able to do in 30
academic areas, reports the paper. Six standards were issued by
the board in 1994, with one added this year. The paper notes
that five more should be unveiled this fall.
However, critics cite the high cost -- about $38,000 in
federal funds per teacher, not counting additional private
foundation and business support -- coupled with an unproven track
record as reasons to be skeptical of an increased federal role.
Chester Finn, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and supporter
of the board, but not of federal funding: "I don't think we have
yet any independent confirmation fo whether these are better
teachers. What they don't do is see whether a teacher is deeply
knowledgeable about content."
Another critic, U of Missouri economist Michael Podgursky,
complains that the process removes "evaluation out of the hands
of people closest to teachers: parents and principals," writes
the paper.
The SUN also reports that some states are providing funds
for board certification: N.C. -- teachers who earn certification
will receive a 12% pay raise; Ok. -- certified teachers will earn
$5,000 more; six other states and many local districts, also pay
their certified teachers more; and thirteen states and many
school districts pay the $2,000 certification fee.
===== GOAL SEVEN: SAFE, DISCIPLINED AND DRUG-FREE SCHOOLS =====
*4 GLIMMER OF HOPE: YOUNG TEEN DRUG USE LEVELING OFF
Drug use among eighth-grade students has leveled off for the
first time in six years, according to findings from the
Monitoring the Future survey. However, older high school
students are continuing to smoke marijuana in increasing numbers,
although their "flirtation with other illegal drugs appears to be
slowing," reports the N.Y. TIMES (Wren, 12/21).
"This change in attitude represents a glimmer of hope in our
efforts to protect our children from drugs, but our work is far
from over," said President Clinton, who released the survey
results during his 20 December radio address.
According to the WASH POST, the drug epidemic that began
during the 1960s peaked in the mid-1980s (Suro, 12/21). However,
drug use among teens began to escalate again during the early
1990s. The latest survey compiled by the Survey Research Center
at the U of Michigan at Ann Arbor found that 29.4% of eighth
graders surveyed revealed that they had tried an illegal drug,
usually marijuana, at least once. In 1996, 31.2% admitted to
trying a drug, while 28.5% of those surveyed said they did in
1995.
According to the survey, eighth-grade respondents "expressed
somewhat more disapproval of drug use than predecessors did last
year," reports the TIMES. The paper notes that such attitudes
often are a "harbinger" of drug use.
Drug use trends for older students differed from their
younger colleagues. Monitoring the Future found that the
percentage of 12th-grade students acknowledging drug use in the
prior use has increased steadily from 27.1% in 1992 to 20.2% in
1996 to 42.4% in 1997. A similar trend held for 10th-grade
students. The older students also expressed less concern about
drug risks, with less than 25% of high school seniors surveyed
agreeing that occasional marijuana use posed "great risks," which
is about the same level as in 1996, but well below the 1991
survey, in which 40% of seniors surveyed noted the same concerns
about drug use.
"It is a complicated story this year because not all the
trend lines are moving in the same direction," said Lloyd
Johnston, chief researcher on the study, which has been conducted
for the past 23 years.
Mathea Falco, president of Drug Strategies, a Washington-
based think tank that reviews drug control programs: "This
survey suggests that prevention efforts really can make a
difference and that educating our children to resist drugs should
be our top policy priority and not the lowest, as it is now."
According to the TIMES, the Monitoring the Future survey,
conducted for the National Institute of Drug Abuse, one of the
National Institutes of Health, is "widely regarded as the most
accurate assessment of illegal drug use by teenagers."
Researchers distributed anonymous self-administered classroom
questionnaires to 51,000 students at 429 public and private
secondary schools from February to May 1997.
==== WHITE HOUSE WATCH ====
*5 A BIG-CITY PLAN: CLINTON CONTEMPLATES URBAN SCHOOL PLAN
On the White House's drawing board for 1998 are plans to
revitalize urban education. Clinton administrators are reviewing
plans to expand the president's education agenda with
"initiatives that target the problems in urban public schools,"
reports the WASH POST (Sanchez, 12/23).
"You've got a confluence of things starting to happen in
many urban school sites that really make the time ripe to focus
more special attention on them," explained Marshall Smith, acting
deputy secretary of education. "We want to help them move in the
right direction.
The POST notes a "growing upheaval" in the nation's inner-
city schools: "Districts are hiring business or former military
leaders to take charge of their schools, revamping what they
teach, turning to private companies for help in the classroom,
and struggling to impose strict new academic standards ..."
Vouchers for low-income families to use for private school
tuition is a main theme among many local, state and federal
politicians and educators. In Congress, vouchers are fast
becoming a popular option among Republican and some Democrat
lawmakers, reports the paper. Although legislation that called
for federal funding for a nationwide voucher program was defeated
in the House last fall, new bills are expected to surface this
new year.
While Clinton opposes vouchers that include private schools,
he supports efforts to limit school choice to public schools.
"We expect to see voucher proposals all next year [1998], in
every possible guise," said Smith. "It will be a fight."
Among the initiatives being bandied about by the Clinton
Administration are: education opportunity zones -- the
designation of a select number of urban districts as education
opportunity zones that would benefit from broad federal grants;
funds for school construction; and funds to recruit and train
teachers.
Some Clinton critics complain that the president's other
education initiatives, specifically Goals 2000 and the reading
initiative that calls for an army of volunteer reading tutors,
have not yet showed "significant effect" in schools, reports the
paper. Smith defends past White House efforts. "We think we've
been aggressive on this," he said. "We're trying to make help
for urban schools a constant refrain. Now we want to put it all
together in a new program."
His critics remain unconvinced. Jeanne Allen, president of
the Center for Education Reform: "Communities nationwide are
recognizing that schools need severe change, but Clinton is still
doing only as much as he can without offending the teacher
unions."
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