Color me dumbfounded

I must confess that now I have two conundrums.

My first one had to do with the "business" of education vs the business of "education".

My second one is "education" vs "teaching".

I know there is a distinct difference between the two units of each set. I just can't figure them out.

To set out the first one:

Are only teachers responsible for running the "divisions" of education, including Administration, Business (interesting that a division has that name), Curriculum and Instruction, Facilities, Human Resources, Information and Technology and Student Services and Federal Programs?

Would those be considered the "business" of education?

Could business people run one of these divisions responsibly without being a teacher?

Is what teachers do within the classroom or any specific "arena" within a school setting be considered the business of "education"?

There would be an end result of what the teachers do, taking in to consideration all of the variables inherent within a "teaching" setting. Understandably there are many of these variables that are uncontrolled by the teacher, however in the system that we now know, would the outcomes (what the students learned) be considered what is the business of "education"?



Now to the second set.

Education: the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life


Teacher: a person who teaches or instructs, esp. as a profession; instructor.

Educator: a person or thing that educates, esp. a teacher, principal, or other person involved in planning or directing education



Does an "other person involved in planning or directing education" have to be a teacher? Or said in another way, if you are not a teacher, you cannot be involved in planning or directing education?

Can only teachers educate?

Are there teachers who do not educate?

Is this a true statement: No one who is not a teacher can educate?

Is this a true statement: Every person involved in planning or directing education is a teacher?

Since a "thing" by definition can be an educator, does that challenge the concept that only teachers can be educators?

Who, by definition, could fit the defintion of "other person"? Logically, this would mean that educators can be something other than teachers.

Who decides who these others are?

If teachers only had to teach and educators were only involved in planning or directing education and they both stayed out of each other's space, would that be the optimum educational setting?

Against the Wind

"Against the wind
We were runnin' against the wind
We were young and strong, we were runnin'
Against the wind" - Bob Seger

I used to hunt in the Everglades back in the day with my uncle. From my late 20's to mid 30's, I would spend a week or two a year with a group of older men that were learned in ways that I would never be. I did all of the grunt work around the camp and provided strength for heavy duty details. Even though I was a college graduate, there were few moments spent there that I was not keenly aware that I was ignorant and unlearned in what was necessary to "hunt" in a place that was a full swamp buggy day's ride from the big road.

My uncle was born in 1910 in Plant City. He lived through the depression. He was a miser. No light bulb in his house was over 40 watts. An electric bill of $40.00 or more was rare. He was uncomfortable with my big house, fancy cars and trucks and boats and all of the things that I had. When he died, he had stacks of Treasury bonds that shocked everyone that knew how he lived.

He was a genius in his own right. He made almost anything he wanted to make with wood or metal. He could weld the break of day or the crack of dawn. He crafted tools that others paid a lot of money for. He would crack a 5 lb bag of pecans in minutes by jacking up the rear wheel of his truck, place a contraption he had made that had a chute and "cracking pad" under the wheel, position the height of the wheel just so, put the transmission in gear and voila - cracked pecans faster than you could imagine. The complete hunting camp buildings were constructed in his back yard, marked, broken down and painstakingly taken to the Everglades and reconstructed in the swamp over a period of years.

I don't think he made it past the 6th grade in school.

What he wanted to learn and what he did learn was not in school. He could figure in a heart beat the volume flow difference of a tank that had a larger incoming valve than an outgoing valve and how to set them to be close to equal.

He learned what he did because he wanted to. While all of the teaching professionals and all of the private industry people and all of the politicians and all of the unions and every entity that wants to control education are fighting for control of the classroom because they each know best independently of each other, it may not be surprising that students and parents are left to their own.

I Am The Boss, That's Why

It seems that everyone has countless reasons of why the public school system is in disarray. It seems that everyone can find blame as to why it has difficulties. Until an outsider makes a statement about it.

I am amused at how public school insiders defend against attempts of outsiders to effect change. The knee jerk reaction is "if you aren't one of us, then don't tell us what to do."

Imagine a scenario where a consumer tells a business "what to do." For instance, if a person that purchases a car tells the dealership that it would be nice to have heated seats, does the car dealership retort with "We don't tell you how to drive. You don't tell us how to build a car!"

There used to be a successful eatery in Brandon for many, many years. There was always a waiting time at traditional eating times. My wife and I ate there frequently when time allowed. In order to conserve time, we always placed our breakfast order when the waitress asked us what we wanted to drink. This eatery was taken over by a new owner a few years ago. The first time we were there after the new ownership, instead of taking our complete order, the waitress told us she could get our beverage order and would take our order when she brought our drinks. Our statement that we already knew what we wanted did not change this process.

Upon questioning, the waitress told us that the new owner had a strict system. So, I asked to speak with him. The waitress was right. It was not the first time I had engaged the establishment and lost, so I figured I was just an isolated incident. I never went back. The eatery is now closed.

No one was going to tell him what might help his business, even though I have never owned a restaurant, nor ever worked in one.

Bless the Blind for They Can Not See

"Baby close that suitcase you've been packin'
Just sit down and talk to me a while
I know you tried to tell me what was lackin'
But I guess I must have missed it by a mile" - Travis Tritt




Finally, some one who wants to connect public school education with the real world. and here.

We malcontents and non-experts-because-we-don't-have-a-teaching-degree need a banner carrier like this person. Instead of sitting in the bleachers and booing the team, now we can move closer to the band section and at least cheer for a 3rd-and-long pass completion.

Parents who really do have an educated point of view in a given area or subject that have more than a few times (note: not isolated incidents) been discounted or summarily dismissed by "expert educators" know what I am talking about.

A frequent reader of this blog would know my feelings about the arrogance of some public educators when they exploit their position to bulldoze over reasoned challenges to their actions.

Now I have someone I can identify with and say "that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!"

Examine this statement by Sen. Don Gaetz:

"In business, we listen to the customer or we go out of business," he said. "In education, we're uncomfortable with that notion. We think we don't need to listen to parents and taxpayers and business leaders because we in education have the answer book."

Then examine this response by Kim Black, president of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association:

"I'm thrilled at the idea of embracing career education opportunities," Black said. "But you don't see teachers going to the private sector and saying, 'Here, let us tell you how to run your business."


I respectfully submit that Mr. Black's response may be the crux of why the public education system continues to find itself becoming more and more disconnected. In fact, it makes Mr. Gaetz's statement as profound as any statement could be. Reread both of them for effect.

This is the type of arrogance that I speak of. A business in the private sector recognizes when they need help because of their bottom line. If a business needs help, they either get it or they go out of business. Arrogance alone will not support them.

The argument that public education is not a business misses the point of the need for reciprocity. The fact that public funds are continuously pumped into a system thereby maintaining the system’s existence does not speak to “productivity” or effectiveness of the system. There have been and continue to be many efforts to embrace the public education system within the real world. For the public education system to continue to reject these offers of assistance reminds me of a story.

Some of you may have heard it. The story is about a person who, in times of a natural disaster, rejects offers of help from the community service people because the person believes that God will take care of them. To make a long story monotonous, let’s say it was a hurricane with flood waters. The person rejects radio warnings and advice and person to person warnings and advice. Eventually, as the waters rise, the rescue trucks come and are rejected. The rescue boats come and are rejected. The rescue helicopters come and are rejected. In the natural order of sequence, the person dies and goes to heaven. Upon meeting God, the person says: “You were supposed to save me. What happened?”

The God said: “Well, I sent the radio messages, I sent the……”

Even God can’t overcome arrogance.

Where is Dwight When You Need Him?

"Bus stop, wet day, she's there, I say
Please share my umbrella
Bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows
Under my umbrella" ...........The Hollies


Dwight D. Eisenhower had a vision that comprehended the need for adequate transportation as a function for the advancement of our society. It was called the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.

This morning a life long friend of mine called me. As a native of the south east part of my county and a business owner for over 30 years, one gets to know a few people as over a half of century goes by.

This particular person knows of my trials and tribulations with the local school system that spanned over a decade. They wanted to ask me if I had any insight into an issue for them.

This particular person every morning waits at a bus stop with a large group of kids. The bus that comes to pick up the kids is a nice bus. The driver is very pleasant. The kids are eager to get on the bus. The bus is regular. It gets there everyday. It gets there about the same time everyday. Right at 8:00. Sometimes a few minutes before. Sometimes a few minutes afterward.

The place the kids get on the bus is about ten to fifteen minutes away from the school, depending on traffic. The school bell rings at 8:00. I was told that when the kids get to school, some go get their breakfast. These kids then take their breakfast to the classroom.

Conversations with the bus driver indicate that the bus driver is doing the best job they can do, yet has a sense of failure every day. Because the intent of the function is not happening, despite the rationalizations offered by all, the bus driver may not last long because most people don't like the sense of daily failure.

I am sure that it costs a lot of money to obtain the true function of public school transportation.

I assured the person that our school system was one of the best you could find across the nation. Don't worry about it because our kids are being looked after by the best that money can buy.

What would Dwight have done?

Education Segregationist

She said it and I second it.

Until there is accountability for where the money goes, it will never matter how much money goes to any school District for a specific designation.

Districts have methodical processes to delay expenditure of money they have received for gifted kids and special education kids.

Until professional education is a priority, which means the focus of money starts in the classroom outward, the money will be spent as it is now, to the top-heavy administrations and then down. The classroom and direct classroom support is the last place that gets it.

In other words, Administrators, Supervisors and Directors limit how much is spent directly to their students because the Districts need the money to pay the Administrators, Supervisors and Directors. The Districts have well designed schemes that have a facade of sophistication, all to thwart a professional education. Speaking of well designed schemes, just check out Hillsborough's latest final exam curve.

They complain about the lack of money, but ask them to open up their books. They complain about the lack of money, but watch how they react when expenditures are questioned. They become indignant at the least and proceed to attack and disarm even those of their own who challenge the status-quo.

As the above suggests, just ask them to show you where the gifted money went. Any one ever heard of the shell game? Tom Sawyer's spoon-in-and-out-of the-drawer-trick with Aunt Polly doesn't hold a candle to what these professional protectors-of-their-existence do.

This means there is no money for trained evaluators, trained teachers, trained behavioral specialists, and trained you-name-it. The operative word being "trained". Simply giving someone a designation does not provide a professional function.

Segregation by education may follow a business model to consolidate resources and limit expense, but is this model conducive to effective education? The intent of gifted education and special education funding laws clearly state that the student is to first be placed in their least restrictive environmnent (regular class room) with individualized supports and related services that meets their educational needs provided there. Somehow, it has become common practice that if one gets a label, out the door and away from their peers they go.

They can bus all of the gifted kids to one school, and no one sees that as segregation.

Educating or Maintaining an Existence

I have often heard that the first goal of a bureaucracy is to maintain it's existence.

Understanding our Public Education System may require a multi-disciplinary approach.
I have chosen a few concepts from this article that might be germane. Who would have ever thought Karl Marx would be discussed along with a grading curve.

"It maintains the social division in order to confirm and justify its own status as a particular and privileged body in society. As real activities take place in civil society, the bureaucracy is itself condemned to formalism since it is completely occupied with preserving the frameworks in which its activities are carried out and in legitimating them."

"The bureaucrat makes the goal of the state his own private goal: "a pursuit of higher positions, the building of a career."

"Marx also shows that this materialism is accompanied by a similarly crass spiritualism: the bureaucracy wants to do all, and, in the absence of a real function, it is condemned to an unrelenting activity of selfjustification"

"This solidarity in incompetence goes quite far in tying the employee, situated on the bottom of the ladder, to the system of which he is a part. As a result, it is impossible for him to denounce this system without simultaneously denouncing the vanity of his own function, from which he derives his own material existence. Similarly, bureaucrats seek the highest positions and work itself is subordinated to the gaining or maintenance of personal status, such that the bureaucracy appears as an immense network of personal relations"




Understanding these concepts may give some understanding to why the administration did what they did with the grading curve, and why few are vocal about it.

Exam Curve Is A Formula For Student Failure

Behavior Policies To Effect Behavior May Have To Focus Elsewhere

In response to a request for thoughts on developing policies, here, and here. I am becoming aware that I have a sequence of reactions. My first reaction is to not put much faith in policies. In order for an effective policy to work, the policy makers must somehow transfer the true intent and desired outcome to the policy enforcers. This is not easily done. Just try the game where people sit in a circle, then the first person reads a sentence to the person on their left, the message is repeated around the circle until it gets back to the reader. And see what you get.


As one who used to study the teaching of rats to follow a maze. played with "Skinner Boxes", worked in a psychiatric in-patient unit and participated in a nationwide AID's research on migrant workers, when it comes to behaviors, I am all up with scientific understanding of cause and effect.

In the late 70's, I also used to conduct parenting classes using the framework of Systematic Teaching for Effective Parenting (STEP). I think it may still be around.

While I respect the need for an answer to the question to develop effective behavior policies, I struggle with how to present my belief that the real answer lies in a comprehensive understanding of various social influences that may not be readily recognized.

Perhaps what I am trying to present can be illustrated by this article I found. It is a long read, but if one is truly interested in gaining a perspective of why common practice may not be working, it might be worth the time.

I chose a few comments that I would bring out in a discussion. I would also like to say to the readers to remember not to personalize the comments and reject the content. Self critique and continued analysis of one's part of the project is a must when trying to solve an issue one who is engaged with. The few teachers/administrators that read this are probably what the writer refers to below as "swimming up stream". His comments about middle school reminded me that two of my kids were temporarily placed in private schools due to the unsatisfactory circumstances in their middle school settings. And the reason they both wanted to go back to public school: socialization preferences. Two have graduated from college or it's equivalent, (Helen Keller National Center for deaf/blind for the disabled one), and one is attending.

Why Nerds Are Unpopular

"......And popularity is not something you can do in your spare time, not in the fiercely competitive environment of an American secondary school."


"But I think the main reason other kids persecute nerds is that it's part of the mechanism of popularity. Popularity is only partially about individual attractiveness. It's much more about alliances. To become more popular, you need to be constantly doing things that bring you close to other popular people, and nothing brings people closer than a common enemy


(Can we define "the enemy" as nerds, (the focus of this article), as adults (parents, teachers, etc,)?

......"I wonder if anyone in the world works harder at anything than American school kids work at popularity. Navy SEALs and neurosurgery residents seem slackers by comparison. They occasionally take vacations; some even have hobbies. An American teenager may work at being popular every waking hour, 365 days a year............

......For example, teenage kids pay a great deal of attention to clothes. They don't consciously dress to be popular. They dress to look good. But to who? To the other kids. Other kids' opinions become their definition of right, not just for clothes, but for almost everything they do, right down to the way they walk. And so every effort they make to do things "right" is also, consciously or not, an effort to be more popular.


The writer is talking about the social influence of "being popular" effecting behaviors.
".....Around the age of eleven, though, kids seem to start treating their family as a day job. They create a new world among themselves, and standing in this world is what matters, not standing in their family. Indeed, being in trouble in their family can win them points in the world they care about."

"....If it's any consolation to the nerds, it's nothing personal. The group of kids who band together to pick on you are doing the same thing, and for the same reason, as a bunch of guys who get together to go hunting. They don't actually hate you. They just need something to chase."

"......Public school teachers are in much the same position as prison wardens. Wardens' main concern is to keep the prisoners on the premises. They also need to keep them fed, and as far as possible prevent them from killing one another. Beyond that, they want to have as little to do with the prisoners as possible, so they leave them to create whatever social organization they want. From what I've read, the society that the prisoners create is warped, savage, and pervasive, and it is no fun to be at the bottom of it.

In outline, it was the same at the schools I went to. The most important thing was to stay on the premises. While there, the authorities fed you, prevented overt violence, and made some effort to teach you something. But beyond that they didn't want to have too much to do with the kids. Like prison wardens, the teachers mostly left us to ourselves. And, like prisoners, the culture we created was barbaric."


"......In my high school French class we were supposed to read Hugo's Les Miserables. I don't think any of us knew French well enough to make our way through this enormous book. Like the rest of the class, I just skimmed the Cliff's Notes. When we were given a test on the book, I noticed that the questions sounded odd. They were full of long words that our teacher wouldn't have used. Where had these questions come from? From the Cliff's Notes, it turned out. The teacher was using them too. We were all just pretending.

There are certainly great public school teachers. The energy and imagination of my fourth grade teacher, Mr. Mihalko, made that year something his students still talk about, thirty years later. But teachers like him were individuals swimming upstream. They couldn't fix the system."

"............We have a phrase to describe what happens when rankings have to be created without any meaningful criteria. We say that the situation degenerates into a popularity contest. And that's exactly what happens in most American schools. Instead of depending on some real test, one's rank depends mostly on one's ability to increase one's rank. It's like the court of Louis XIV. There is no external opponent, so the kids become one another's opponents." Could this be a commentary on in-house hiring practices?


"...........The mediocrity of American public schools has worse consequences than just making kids unhappy for six years. It breeds a rebelliousness that actively drives kids away from the things they're supposed to be learning."

"..........I'm not claiming that bad schools are the whole reason kids get into trouble with drugs. After a while, drugs have their own momentum. No doubt some of the freaks ultimately used drugs to escape from other problems-- trouble at home, for example. But, in my school at least, the reason most kids started using drugs was rebellion. Fourteen-year-olds didn't start smoking pot because they'd heard it would help them forget their problems. They started because they wanted to join a different tribe.

Misrule breeds rebellion; this is not a new idea. And yet the authorities still for the most part act as if drugs were themselves the cause of the problem"

"..........Adults, though, are busy. Showing up for school plays is one thing. Taking on the educational bureaucracy is another. Perhaps a few will have the energy to try to change things. I suspect the hardest part is realizing that you can."

".....If life seems awful to kids, it's neither because hormones are turning you all into monsters (as your parents believe), nor because life actually is awful (as you believe). It's because the adults, who no longer have any economic use for you, have abandoned you to spend years cooped up together with nothing real to do. Any society of that type is awful to live in. You don't have to look any further to explain why teenage kids are unhappy.

I've said some harsh things in this essay, but really the thesis is an optimistic one-- that several problems we take for granted are in fact not insoluble after all. Teenage kids are not inherently unhappy monsters. That should be encouraging news to kids and adults both." Paul Graham

Bad Behaving Students Bring Out Bad Behaving Decision Makers

I write often about "behavioral issues" in school settings.

I have written about how almost impossible it is to change or overturn a school administrators' decision despite how wrong it may have been.

I have written about how administrators can use a student's behavior as an easy strategy to change the placement of the student and it is almost impossible to challenge even when this "administrative convenience" is ill founded.

I have written about how children with disabilities face these difficulties, despite the responsibility of the school system to positively address behaviors that are a manifestation of the disability.

Here is an article that speaks to these issues.

Before everyone jumps in to tell all of the stories about behavioral issues, this discussion is not about whether behavior is an issue. An interesting question to ask is how much money does our local school system allocate to real, professional behavioral specialists? I say "real, professional" because I don't count the check-mark smoke-and-mirror posturing of counting someone who sits through a three hour presentation and then be designated as a school site's "behavioral specialist". This looks good on paper, but it falls short of real function.


Try getting a police report when school based issue arises that is disputable.
Try getting a school generated incident report when the police are involved.



You can discount the message if you want, but somewhere lies the truth.


- "Florida police frequently skirt state and federal laws, or violate them outright, when questioning children at school"

- "Principals, the last line of defense for kids jeopardized by police misconduct, rarely challenge resource officers or other police who enter school to interrogate students."

-"And children are saddled with criminal records that can follow them for a lifetime."

-"But courts rarely scrutinize school interrogations."

-"In both Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, an unusually high number of kids were arrested at school and referred to court, according to the Department of Juvenile Justice. Hillsborough sent students at a rate of 21 per 1,000, while Pinellas sent 24, compared to a state average of 17"

-"In a recent study, the National Juvenile Defender Center described Florida's juvenile system as dangerously dysfunctional, with courts overloaded by low-bore school referrals"

-""We saw, in courtroom after courtroom, hundreds of school-based cases that had no business being there," said Patricia Puritz, the center's executive director. "There was no place where these kids were not being dumped into the juvenile court setting.""

-"But Florida police and principals frequently exploit loopholes in the law, said Gerard Glynn, associate professor of law and director of the juvenile law clinic at Barry University in Orlando. "




Compare and contrast these two statements:

1- -"Do principals have the right to monitor student interrogations?

Absolutely, said Tom Gonzalez, general counsel for the Hillsborough County School Board.

"If they ever get uncomfortable (with an interrogation), they should speak up and say, 'You know what, I think we should wait for that person's parent,'" he said.

Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando policies require principals to always be present in loco parentis -- legally "in the place of the parent" -- when police question students as suspects."

2 - -"In some Florida districts, principals are "completely abdicating to the police" and turning over discipline to untrained SROs, said Evans, former chairman of an advisory committee to the Department of Juvenile Justice.

**** So, if the principal abdicates to the police, what happen to the "legally in place of the parent?"

If the media accounts were correct, recently a student was suspended because the school's efforts to get the parent to contact them failed. Perhaps they should have gone to the principal if the principal is legally in the place of the parent.


Click here: When students are suspects, lines blur

Oh To Be A Fly On The Wall

Dallas school district's corruption investigators keeping busy


Rumour mills grind out the stories as consistently as ever flowing water keeps a mill turning.

The article says this operation is saving the school system lots of money.

One should read the article closely to ascertain who has the final decision to move forward on findings by the investigative group.

Education Institution a Catch All Institution?

Regarding the "Sound Off and Be Heard" post asking for input on thoughts about "Teen Birth Rates on the Rise".

Someone posted a link to this article regarding school counselors asking that teens get maternity leave from school after giving birth.

Several points can be made using this article. I will start from the top, first with a quote from the article and then my comments and questions (C&Q).

"Pregnant students in a Denver high school are asking for at least four weeks of maternity leave so they can heal, bond with their newborns and not be penalized with unexcused absences"

C&Q: Absent from class is absent from class. What other circumstances are excused?
Would the School District provide home schooling during this time?
Would the father, if a student, be afforded time to bond with his newborn?
Would the School District be compelled to compel the father to bond with his newborn?
_______________
"The request is unusual in Colorado's public schools, where districts tend to deal with pregnant students or new moms with specialized programs or individualized education plans."

C&Q: As used in this context, what student should not get an individualized education plan as each student is unique. This terminology should not be confused with Special Education Law that defines an individualized education plan. True educators know the many ingredients needed to make an IEP. Too many "educators" have a misconception of what an IEP is. My best advice is to read the definition yourself and not depend on homespun definitions of money saving convenience.

_________________________________________________

"It's critical that these young women have a chance to bond with their babies," Moss said. "Maybe we do need a policy. Clearly, as a district, we have to look at what is going on with our young women. We've got to look at the birth-control issues and teen pregnancy and how we best help them deal with it and still graduate."

C&Q: A policy. Focused on pregnant women. It takes two to have a kid. Perhaps the school system is perpetuating a significant cause of pregnancy by excluding the male partner in birth-control issues and teen pregnancy and rearing responsibilities. If the school system isn't going to develop policies for student fathers, why not?

Or, does any one ask if these teens just simply want to get pregnant? They may be saying no to please others, but what if they really want to get pregnant for what could be many reasons beyond sexual gratification. If so, will the school district be able to address that issue?

----------------------------------------
"Denver has one of the highest teen-pregnancy rates in the state."

C&Q: This is interesting. Does anyone know why this is? If the school district assumes it can change this statistic, do they know they are not a reason for it?

_________________________________________________________

"The district has a school for pregnant teens and new moms, Florence Crittenton School, but it has a waiting list. Plus, many students want to remain at the school where they started, said Head, the counselor at East.

Cherry Creek, Adams 12, Jefferson County and Douglas County school districts have policies in which students work with counselors and principals to devise plans that will keep them in school.

Several districts have special schools with child-care services for new moms. Others have programs that allow students to receive high-school credit.

"When a girl tells us she is pregnant, we advise her to work one on one with her counselor and go from there to see what they can work out," said Michelle Ancell, spokeswoman for Cherry Creek Schools.

"The counselor plays middleman between the principal and the student," said Melissa Reeves of Jefferson County Schools, who added that the district has started a computer-based credit-recovery program that students can use during evening hours.

Douglas County has had a program for 19 years called WINGS, or Winning in New Growth Situations, that offers support and instruction for the girls once a week, allowing them to earn elective credits in nutrition and parenting. The program has 20 students, said coordinator Susan Anderson.

The district has a school that begins at 4:30 p.m. for new parents that is attached to Highlands Ranch High School. Students also are able to stay in their schools, but that is not easy for many new moms...."

C&Q: All of these services. Some for 19 years. Might give some credence to the previous question.

------------------------------------------

And last but not least, the question arises:

"If there are young mothers asking for maternity leave, the board should listen to them," said Lori Casillas, executive director of the Colorado Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Parenting, and Prevention. "If they think it is a barrier to graduation, the board should look at that."

Her organization advocates that schools provide child-care services for new moms. Too many girls drop out after giving birth, and schools must do something to keep them, Casillas said.

Students at one high school in southern Colorado wanted to set up a child-care center, but the principal forbade it, saying it would encourage teen pregnancy, she said.

"There is no evidence that has ever happened," Casillas said. "I don't think schools have been proactive at creating policies that encourage young mothers to remain in school. Schools need to say, 'What if you do come back, then what?'

"Schools need to say, 'This is what we do to support your learning.' That's not happening."

_____________________________

C&Q: Which side of this issue is the principal who thinks setting up a child-care center would encourage teen pregnancy come down on? Could this be the same argument used by those who say that teaching birth control encourages sexual activity which leads to pregnancy? Is teen pregnancy related to moral upbringing and other factors that public education systems shy away from? Or does any of these issues have any effect on the real reason that teen pregnancy is increasing?

Whats that young Spears girl's name? You know, the one that has a TV show and has the famous sister that can't afford underwear.

Sex - Can the Classroom overcome off campus Influences?

I am all for education. I am sure we have all heard the different myths that different cultures have about how girls get pregnant, home spun beliefs that certain positions and actions will prevent pregnancy and the same mis-guided beliefs to keep from getting STD's. Educated people recognize these false premises and think that proper education of these uneducated groups of people will have a significant effect on their sexual behavior.

I am all for education. But, from my understanding of history and when I continue to hear about current human sexual behavior that continues to occur even with strong outside influence to curb it, I must ask why.


I read this today: China Communists sacked for having too many children: state media

See article below.

While this article does not directly speak to the level of education of the people effected, one would think that in a group that contained "seven national and local lawmakers or political advisors" and "More party members, celebrities and well-off people", there would be a cursory level of sex knowledge.


But it does speak to a 30 year plus, "harsh punishments and brutal methods to enforce it", policy that for some reason "has been routinely ignored in recent years in rural areas, while increasing numbers of China's urban new rich have been able to afford the requisite fines for violating the rules."

When one looks at sexual behavior of groups of people, cultural, social and economic factors may have more influence than sex education.

Are we to believe that if these people that violated the government policy had more sex education, they would not have had more than one child?

Is one to believe that these parents were not educated in the policy? And, since education didn't work, harsher consequences and polices will follow.

Understanding true influences on sexual behavior may be a key on how to effectively address changing it.



Article in full:
"Authorities in a central China province have expelled hundreds of people from the Communist Party or their government posts for having more than one child, state media said Monday.
At least 93,084 people in Hubei province last year had more children than they were allowed under the policy of one per family, Xinhua news agency said quoting the provincial family planning commission.

They included 1,678 officials or party members, it added, saying about 500 had been expelled from the party and 395 stripped of their official posts.

Previous reports said the officials had also been fined.

The violators included seven national and local lawmakers or political advisors, Xinhua added.

"More party members, celebrities and well-off people are violating the policies... which has undermined social equality," commission director Yang Youwang was quoted as saying.

No information was given as to the punishments meted out to the more than 90,000 other people in Hubei who violated the "one-child" policy last year.

China's family planning policy began in the late 1970s as a way to control the world's largest population, now at 1.3 billion people.

Generally, urban families can have one child and rural families can have two if the first is a girl. About 400 million births have been averted thanks to the policy, the government has said.

But in recent years the policy has been routinely ignored in rural areas, while increasing numbers of China's urban new rich have been able to afford the requisite fines for violating the rules.

Chinese parents have traditionally favoured large families -- and sons, in particular -- to support them in their old age.

The policy has been notorious from the start for the harsh punishments and brutal methods used to enforce it, such as forced late-term abortions and the sterilisation of women.

Several areas of the poor southern province of Guangxi erupted in riots last year after officials launched a harsh crackdown to enforce the policy, with residents saying forced abortions were among the methods used by authorities.