Moms gets jail time for sending kids to better school

Kelley Williams-Bolar has been sentenced to 5 years in jail, with all but 10 days suspended, for sending her children to a suburban school rather than a school in the Akron City School district in which they lived. Williams-Bolar falsely used her father's address as their address.

Copley-Fairlawn City School District hired private detectives to follow her when they suspected her daughters did not live in their district. Copley-Fairlawn claims that they were defrauded of $30,000.

Williams-Bolar is a few credits shy of getting her teaching certification from the University of Akron. A felony conviction jeopardizes her ability to teach in Ohio.

Copley-Fairlawn City Schools have a 1% dropout rate. Akron City schools have a 6% dropout rate, which is a pretty significant difference.

Her punishment clearly outweighs her crime. This case also gives me a new perspective on arguments about parent choice in schooling.

Study Habits

I am constantly flabbergasted by the number of college students who think that reading their notes three times, or even five times, is a good way to study. No flashcards, no self-testing. Just rereading. This is a terrible way to study. My sense is that I came to this conclusion on my own. However, I had an excellent preparatory education, so it's entirely possible that someone along the way told me this. In fact, it's probable.

Students are really surprised when I tell them that they have to test themselves in some way before the test. I have only once had a student who was struggling come to me and say that she had self-tested. (And I've had lots of students come to me and say they are struggling.) If I were a betting person, I'd say that self-testing as a study strategy is probably what separates the successful students from the unsuccessful ones.

Anyway, this is all to say that there is a new study out that I can now point to and say, "See? Re-reading? It's no good."

PhDs Are Not Worth Much

With few exceptions, I advise undergraduate students away from PhDs. Sometimes I do that because they don't have a background that's strong enough to get into a doctoral program, let alone finish it. However, a lot of time I do it, because the value of, say a Clinical PhD over an MSW (Masters of Social Work) is rarely worth the work that goes into it.

This article is a little depressing, given what it says about my future job prospects, but at least I know I'm not lying to my students.

Indeed, the production of PhDs has far outstripped demand for university lecturers. In a recent book, Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, an academic and a journalist, report that America produced more than 100,000 doctoral degrees between 2005 and 2009. In the same period there were just 16,000 new professorships.

UhMeriKuhns R Dumm an Fat

This is really really REALLY depressing.

A sampling:

The report by The Education Trust found that 23 percent of recent high school graduates don't get the minimum score needed on the enlistment test to join any branch of the military. Questions are often basic, such as: "If 2 plus x equals 4, what is the value of x?"

The military exam results are also worrisome because the test is given to a limited pool of people: Pentagon data shows that 75 percent of those aged 17 to 24 don't even qualify to take the test because they are physically unfit, have a criminal record or didn't graduate high school.

Glenn Beck, You are a toad.

The title for this post was going to be, "Glenn Beck wants to edumucate the masses," but my auto-fill-in feature gave me the above option. It seemed appropriate, so I went with it.

Anyhoozles, Glenn Beck is starting an online "academic experience" that will educate paying "students" about religion, American history, and economics.

Wow, I didn't know Glenn Beck had a PhD in those things. I'll have to go look at his credentials and maybe re-think my view of Beck. ..... OK, I'm back! You'll be shocked to know this, but Glenn Beck doesn't even HAVE a PhD in religion, history, and economics. Not even one! It turns out -- you might want to sit down for this one -- Glenn Beck didn't go to college! I take that back. He took a class on early christian something or another. Good enough! You go, Glenn Beck.

Texas Board of Education

A good article on the new Texas schoolbooks that print Jefferson Davis' inaugural speech next to Lincoln's.

Lordy Lordy

This ad is apparently largely funded by the Alabama Education Association through the True Republican PAC. That is just...wow.

Charter Schools

There are mixed results from the nation's charter schools. Fewer than 1/5 outperform comparable public schools, almost half offer comparable education, and over a 1/3 are significantly worse than comparable public schools. The article juxtaposes two different charter schools--one that is excelling and another that has an F rating. The question is how to package the success stories and launch them in other areas.

Texas Board of Education

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The Texas Board of Education, again.

The Constitution: Real & Imagined

The Onion has a great article whose title conveys the content: Area Man Passionate Defender of What He Imagines Constitution To Be.

"Our very way of life is under siege," said Mortensen, whose understanding of the Constitution derives not from a close reading of the document but from talk-show pundits, books by television personalities, and the limitless expanse of his own colorful imagination.

Then the New York Times Magazine has an article called How Christian Were the Founders? that is actually about the Texas State Board of Education. As it turns out, Texas is one of the most influential boards of education. They buy 48 million textbooks a year, which encourages publishers to produce books in line with Texas guidelines. They are also one of the most conservative boards in the country. The view of one of the board members:

“The underlying authority for our constitutional form of government stems directly from biblical precedents,” she writes. “Hence, the only accurate method of ascertaining the intent of the Founding Fathers at the time of our government’s inception comes from a biblical worldview.”

The article discusses the various religious views the school board has tried to inject into the public schools, some actual history about the founding of our nation, and a little bit about the Liberty Law School. A long, but interesting read.

Is this for real?

Do people listen to themselves when they speak? A group of parents in Menifee Union School District have requested that the Merriam Webster dictionary be removed from elementary classrooms. The dictionary! One of the kids looked up oral sex, and the description was too graphic. Twenty bucks the parent of that child has internet, where the child can look up things far worse. Seriously, banning the dictionary. Who does that?

South Carolina Dynasty of Stupidity

The Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina, Andre Bauer, forgot what decade / century he was in and espoused a eugenical view of charity and social support. The boiled down version is that we shouldn't give poor people things like, say, food, because they get horny and reproduce. Let's go to the actual words:

“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better." Greenville News via Wonkette

Bauer goes on to say, "You show me the school that has the highest free and reduced lunch, and I'll show you the worst test scores, folks. It's there, period." That is several shades of special. He clearly missed the correlation / causation lecture in college. I recommend that SC make itself look better by lowering test scores around the country by giving kids free food. That will be a foolproof plan.

Education Gap Continues

Given that the education gap arose over 20 years ago, shouldn't there be more women in high power positions?

"Sometimes you have to call the baby ugly."

The new Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, says that No Child Left Behind hasn't improved student proficiency--states have lowered their definitions of proficient.