Flunking the new batch of school report cards

Welcome back for another school year, dear teachers.

Along with the children who seem to be well-adjusted and ready to learn, please take those with special needs or cultural differences or from troubled homes – or all of the above – and turn them into kind, productive and intelligent members of our communities who will be poised to lead future generations.

By the way, you stink.

If that’s the message the Ohio Department of Education wanted to send to Ohio educators with the release last week of yet another revamped “report card,” it’s done a pretty good job.

Even districts that last year were deemed “excellent with distinction” are holding report cards dotted with “F’s.”

On top of that, a diminished print news media continues to give major play to the report card story, giving credibility to a process that really doesn’t make much sense.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer, in one of its printed weekday editions (which you can now count on one hand), screamed across the top of Page 1: “WHICH SCHOOLS MADE THE GRADE?”

I downloaded a few of the district and building report cards in hopes of some kind of analysis but immediately grew frustrated with the data. It lacks context. And without context it is meaningless. It’s poppycock. It’s bull.

I did come across a response to the new report cards by George Wood, superintendent of Federal Hocking Local Schools, who said the report cards lead us “down a dead-end road.”

“There is no evidence that the way the state reports on student achievement, or school performance, primarily by using standardized test scores, helps children learn or our teachers teach,” he wrote. “The ‘new’ report card simply continues this attempt to grade our schools with tools that are not up to the job.”

As Wood pointed out, Ohio’s public school districts have received little or no funding increases over the last few years. I’ll add that during the same time for-profit charter schools seem to enjoy ever-increasing ways to make their owners money, courtesy of a Legislature that is bent on giving the public schools competition.

So public schools, in efforts to make ends meet, are cutting all those plushy, cake jobs (please read sarcasm here), such as guidance counselors and specialized teachers, who used to help the lower and higher ends of the educational spectrum while encouraging and helping the middle to achieve educational success.

Now the state, in a gotchya minute, declares your district isn’t doing the job when it comes to the lower and higher ends.

Huh?

OK, if you’re within the sound of my voice, don’t worry, Mom and Dad. Your schools are good. Your kids, as long as they have your help, will get a good education. Most of your teachers are very dedicated. And our schools are turning out tomorrow’s physicians, engineers, accountants and leaders. There are numerous examples.

(Now, if we could just keep some of them here. But that’s a different subject for another time.)

Phooey on the report cards.

***

After another Lake Erie rescue attempt that ended with a fatality, a police officer was trying to offer some advice to would-be rescuers.

He was telling a television reporter that one needs adequate water skills to not only save the victim but also himself. Clearly he was trying to be diplomatic with his comments.

I think what he wanted to say was this:

“If you can’t swim, you aren’t doing anyone a favor. Stay out of the water, or you might die.”

A year ago, six Louisiana teenagers drowned while trying to conduct a water rescue. Not one could swim and their parents, who also could not swim, watched helplessly on the river bank. It was a needless tragedy.

So, Mom and Dad, not only should you assist in your child’s educational development (see above), you also should make sure he learns how to swim. After all, three-quarters of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, and there are swimming pools everywhere.

Dick Farrell writes this column weekly for the Bargain Hunter.

Back to school in the middle of the summer

It’s the middle of August, and the kids are back in school.

The middle of August used to be summer in Ohio. Now, it’s the start of fall. Remember when the kids went back to school after Labor Day?

Those were the good old days. But times change. Always have. Always will.

Our seasons are delineated by events and cultural earmarks, not necessarily the positions of the sun. Here’s how the seasons previously lined up in Ohio:

Summer – All of June, July and August and up to a week in September, ending on Labor Day. All schoolchildren returned to classes on Tuesday after Labor Day. In northeastern Ohio attention would turn to complaining about the Browns rather than the Indians.

Autumn – It started the Tuesday after Labor Day and ended on Thanksgiving. In addition to football, the “leaf rule” – no penalty stroke on golf balls obviously lost under fallen leaves – was put into effect.

Winter – This season always started the day after Thanksgiving with the early and fun period marked by the Christmas countdown in the paper. People shopped for gifts from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Christmas music would end promptly at midnight Dec. 25, replaced by Top 100 oldies countdowns, which would end promptly at midnight Jan. 1, replaced by at least two and a half months of freezing rain, snow, ice, clouds and general dreariness.

Spring – Ah, the season of rebirth would begin sometime in March when we would get a teaser day or two of temperatures in the 60s or 70s. Winter would return briefly during April and May, finally exiting Ohio on Memorial Day.

Here’s how the seasons stack up today:

Summer – With climate change, I think we can compress this season into one day: Fourth of July.

Post-summer – This is a new season marked by back-to-school sales. It runs until mid-August when school begins.

Autumn – Mid-August to Sept. 30.

Winter – Once again, climate change rears its ugly head. Oct. 1 starts the new winter, which lasts now until May 1.

Spring – The month of May.

***

Seriously, you old folks out there who think that schools ought to “go back to the basics” and the “good old days” don’t have a clue what’s asked of today’s students. They are tested and re-tested on material that includes developments that weren’t around when their parents and grandparents went to school.

And that’s one reason they have a longer school year. So be it.

Remember when you took naps in kindergarten? Well, many of today’s kindergartners attended some sort of pre-school and many already are proficient at navigating technology. Hand a typical 5-year-old an iPad, and he’ll ask what apps are on it.

And if you need an explanation of the last sentence, you might need some remedial instruction before being qualified to be the 5-year-old’s classmate.

According to Scholastic.com, here’s a portion of the skill set successful kindergartners will acquire:

–Recognize and write all of the letters of the alphabet in upper- and lowercase forms.

–Write his first and last name.

–Learn sounds corresponding to vowels and consonants.

–Use initial consonant sounds and sound patterns to read words.

–Identify several sight words, including names of colors.

–Recognize and use rhyming words.

–Retell a story including details.

–Put events of a story in order.

–Write simple sentences using sight words and phonics skills.

–Act on instruction and repeat spoken directions.

–Engage in question-and-answer dialogue with classmates and teachers.

–Work as a team on projects or problem-solving.

–Sort and classify objects using one or more attributes.

–Recognize and write numbers to 30.

–Count orally by ones, fives and 10s.

–Name ordinal numbers first through 10^th.

–Add and subtract using manipulatives (Cheerios, candy, etc.).

–Understand spatial relationships (top/bottom, near/far, ahead/behind).

–Compare quantities by estimating, weighing and measuring.

–Use graphs to gather information.

–Recognize patterns and shapes.

–Tell time to the nearest hour.

–Count coins.

–Recite the days of the week and months of the year.

And you wonder why now we have full-day kindergarten?

This isn’t your father’s world. Nor his kindergarten.

***

As we start this school year, I offer a toast of good luck to all of our educators, who seem to be perpetually undervalued for what they do, and for their students, who are learning in a changing and difficult world.

Cheers!

Dick Farrell writes this column weekly for the Bargain Hunter.

Rocky turns 80; I turn retrospective

At some point in 1959 Look magazine published a full-page color photo of my hero, Rocky Colavito.

Colavito was posing in his Cleveland Indians uniform in Municipal Stadium, leaning on his bat.

“INDIAN IDOL” read the overlayed headline.

“When Rocky Colavito comes to bat in Cleveland the crowd roars its acclaim, a fitting salute to this great young slugger,” said the caption.

“In that roar is a unique overtone: delighted bobby-soxer squeals that are an equally fitting tribute to Rocky’s dark good looks and appealing, youthful magnetism.”

Well, I didn’t care much about the bobby-soxer thing, but I tore the picture out of the magazine. He was, after all, the greatest baseball player in my world. I was 8.

At about the same time the Look magazine photo was published, my father, God love him, ran into Colavito at one of the downtown Cleveland restaurants and secured an autograph on an envelope-sized white piece of paper.

“To Dick, Best Wishes. Rocky Colavito.”

My dad handed me the note that evening.

I was ecstatic.

My mother, God love her, fashioned a cardboard frame and married the autograph to the Look photo, covering them with a clear plastic film. The “framed” tribute took up residence in my bedroom and later my wife, who understands the importance of childhood treasures, had my mother’s arts and crafts project professionally framed. Since then, my Rocky tribute has moved from house to house, spending time recently in a basement storage room.

I searched for it after learning this month that Colavito had turned 80.

That’s right – 80.

OK, I now officially feel old.

It doesn’t bother me that lots of famous people from their heydays in the ’50s and ’60s are well into their elderly years. But Rocky Colavito turning 80? How can that be?

I wore Rocky’s number (6) on my pee wee baseball jersey, played for a team called the “Rocky Colavitos” and more or less devoted my life to securing his signature on my baseball glove.

I think a lot of folks my age who grew up rooting for one of the most frustrating sports franchises in history wonder the same thing. Rocky’s 80? How can that be?

Well, we haven’t had a lot to cheer about over the years. The Indians have never won a World Series in my lifetime and have gotten close only a couple of times.

Rocky was a bright spot. Coming off the 1959 season, during which Colavito hit four consecutive home runs in a single game and hit a league-leading 42 homers, the slugger thought he was worth more than $28,000 a year.

No kidding. Mickey Mantle was making $70,000. Darn Yankees.

Indians general manager Frank Lane finally and reluctantly agreed to a raise Colavito’s salary to $35,000. But the contentious salary negotiations doomed the relationship. “Trader” Lane sent Colavito to the Detroit Tigers for singles hitter Harvey Kuenn during spring training 1960.

Sports writer Terry Pluto in a book many years later deemed the trade began “The Curse of Rocky Colavito.” It was the beginning of decades-long frustration for Indians fans.

In a news conference on the occasion of his 80^th birthday party in Cleveland, Colavito discussed his career in what Cleveland.com called “the best 16 minutes of your day.” The video is available online.

I watched it several times, fascinated that Rocky remembers his playing days like they were yesterday. They weren’t, of course. They were a half-century ago. Man, I feel old.

And then I dug that old treasure out of the storage room.

Have to hang it up again…

Dick Farrell writes weekly for the Bargain Hunter.

I offer a mea culpa (but we still need to save public education)

A couple of commentaries ago, I violated one of my own long-held rules of writing.

Don’t generalize.

As soon as a writer offers one or more generalizations – like I did in the piece on the state senator who wants to exempt homeschooling parents from paying school property taxes – at least one reader will rip said writer to shreds – as Jenifer Boros of Holmes County did to me.

Allow me to refresh.

I wrote that Delaware County Republican state Sen. Kris Jordan wants to give a tax break to parents who home school their children. I pretty much panned that proposal, noting that it should die a quick death. That might be an understatement. I called Jordan’s proposal “dumb.”

During my discussion of that proposal, I also took some shots at homeschooling.

I generalized that there were “a lot of parents who think they know better than the professionals.”

Jenifer killed me with exclamation points.

“Contrary to what you may think, many homeschool parents are quite educated!” she wrote. “We have degrees in nursing, engineering, elementary education, graphic arts, occupational therapy, Turf grass management and in many other fields. We are quite qualified to teach many high school courses, and for those we may need help with there are numerous resources out there! We are not afraid to learn ourselves! Many homeschooled children are motivated, independent workers who love learning and thrive even if their parents aren't experts in everything! We personally know students enrolled at the College of Wooster (our daughter), St. Vincent College (our son), OSU, Malone College, Walsh, Tri-C, and numerous others.”

Back in the commentary, I continued to dig myself a literary grave:

"Because public education benefits all of us – even home-school families and even if they won't admit it …” I wrote.

 “Who won't admit it?” she demanded.

“Of course there are thousands of young people doing great things in today's world. I cannot even fathom where you get the idea that homeschoolers won't admit it – maybe because it's simply that we haven't chosen the public school system (your system!). 

“It's unfair to conclude that since we have made a different choice that we are unable to appreciate your choice!  Many homeschoolers have friends and relatives in the public school system – we manage to get along and be friendly! The ball may be in your court – can you in turn appreciate and acknowledge that the young, homeschooled students of today benefit and enrich our society?”

I still wasn’t done. Neither was she.

“Heaven help the future generations because I can’t imagine a population that relies on Mom and Pop to teach subjects that are better left to specialists,” I theorized.

Oh boy.

“Mom and Pop can be pretty darn good teachers, and sometimes ‘specialists’ aren’t what they appear!” responded Jenifer.

“Isn’t it true that some ‘specialists’ may have only earned C’s in their college courses? Looks can be deceiving. In any case, if homeschooling is a growing trend there must be reasons that intelligent, educated people choose it! Get used to it, as my daughter says. She knows a number of classmates at the College of Wooster who were homeschooled at some point in their lives. It is not that weird anymore! The motivation to homeschool can take many forms and it might be worth the effort to ask why so many parents choose it.”

For the record, Jenifer and her husband, John, have five children. Jenifer, who says she has mixed feelings about Sen. Jordan’s bill, has a degree in elementary education, while John holds degrees in business and nursing.

If I’m doing the math right, the couple have been homeschooling their children the last 15 or so years. They began homeschooling because the local Catholic school would not admit their daughter to kindergarten because her birthday fell past the deadline and as an alternative to having their children ride a school bus for a couple of hours each day.

As for me, I still believe Jordan’s proposal is dumb; that the state is wrongly siphoning money out of public education to for-profit charter schools; and that the country’s future depends on a viable public school system for which all of us ought to pay.

As for homeschooling, I offer a mea culpa for my generalizations. But I still think those who choose homeschooling for their children pass up the opportunity for them to learn from many terrific teachers who guide and educate young minds every day in our public (and traditional private and parochial) schools.

That’s not a generalization. That’s my opinion.

Read more from Dick Farrell at TuscBargainHunter.com.