• 45 out of 50 states have been sued for the way they fund their schools.
• 24 out of 50 states spend less per pupil in low income districts than affluent ones.
• The U.S. ranks at the bottom worldwide in percentage of federal spending on education.

THE QUESTION: WHAT’S THE BEST – AND FAIREST – WAY TO FUND OUR SCHOOLS?

BIN CHE
Chinese language teacher
Belpre, Ohio

“I really worry about…some students in our school…I think they need to work hard…They need to catch up with other generations in the world – like Asia.”

Hailing from a town of more than 3 million people outside Beijing, Chinese teacher Bin Che came to the United States on a foreign language teaching program. At first, he says Belpre, Ohio – a small town on the border of West Virginia – was not what he expected. Having watched many movies featuring American cities like New York and Las Vegas, Belpre – which sits on the banks of the Ohio River – seemed sleepy. But Bin says he made a lot of friends in his year teaching in Ohio, and learned a lot about American schools. Despite the energy of his students, Bin says he thinks they need to study harder to keep up with students in the rest of the world.

ROGER LEMLEY
Graduate of Belpre High School
Belpre, Ohio

“I’m hoping to be a Chinese interpreter… that’ll be kind of cool. And then I can work down in Washington with the Chinese Ambassadors, or I can go to China and be an American Ambassador. All kinds of stuff like that.”

A recent graduate of Belpre High School, Roger was a star student in Bin Che’s Chinese class. He loved the language so much, he says, that he hoped to study it in college. But even if he attended a state school, Roger says the cost was prohibitive. So, the 18-year-old decided to join the Marines. Just two weeks after graduation, he shipped off to boot camp in Paris Island, South Carolina. After that, he’ll attend the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, where he hopes to earn a degree in Chinese. Then what? Roger says he loves life in Belpre, and might return. But career opportunities in the town, which is feeling the pinch of globalization, are scarce. Even Roger’s mother, Lisa Fought, says her son would have a better chance at success elsewhere. “The way the economy is now – if you don’t have an education, you have nothing,” she says. “You have to have a high school diploma to even work at McDonald’s nowadays. And working at McDonald’s is not going to pay rent. It’s not going to pay your utilities.”

CHERESE CLARK
Principal, Pleasant Hill Academy
Cincinnati, Ohio

“Every child deserves the opportunity to come to school and learn, and to be in an environment where they can learn. And, I think that is my biggest role here as the administrator.”

It’s been nearly two decades since Cherese began her career in the Cincinnati public school system – first as a teacher, then as an academic coach, and – finally – as Principal. When she took over Pleasant Hill Academy two years ago, the school had been labeled as an “academic emergency.” In her short tenure, Cherese has helped the school climb to “academic watch,” and hopes for even more improvement in the years to come.

ANNE KUITTINEN
Finnish exchange student, junior year
Lewis Center, Ohio

“I’ve had pretty much straight A’s since I came here, except for the first quarter I had one B, a B+. But that was just because I was just getting used to the language and speaking it.”

How did Anne Kuittinen, a student from the small town of Espoo, Finland, end up in Ohio? Call it curiosity, and a desire to learn English – which the 16-year-old calls the “language of the world.” Although she already speaks some English – in addition to Spanish, Swedish and German – Kuittinen says she loves languages and hopes to use them in her career. Living in the United States, she says, proved to be a memorable experience. Anne became close with her host family, the Kiplingers, and continues to speak with them regularly. As for her school experience, Kuittinen says it was also an easy adjustment – perhaps a little too easy. Although she earned straight A’s at Olentangy High School, which is rated as excellent, Anne is now redoing her junior year at home in Finland. Why? Because the Finnish school system, which consistently ranks at the top of international tests of math and science, doesn’t accept credits from America.

NANCY JOHNSON
Fourth-grade language arts teacher, Pleasant Hill Academy
College Hill, Cincinnati

“Right now you’re up all night thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, what did I not cover?’ So the closer it gets to testing the pressure is tough.”

A teacher for 13 years in the Cincinnati Public School System, last year marked Johnson’s first at Pleasant Hill. Although the job is challenging at times, Johnson says she loves to teach and most nights, she goes home happy. The mother of one says she applied to Pleasant Hill because of its new teacher training program – called TAP – which allows her to spend 90 minutes a week with mentors reviewing lesson plans and strategizing. Last year, her hard work paid off – with nearly all her students passing the writing portion of Ohio’s standardized test, called the OAT.

GUADALUPE MEDINA
Second-year student, Metro High School
Columbus, Ohio

“(In) most schools you just sit down and read a book, but here you’re like actually hands-on, making videos, and actually doing like real-live stuff.”

She’s only 16 years old, and Lupe Medina is already taking college-level classes at Metro, a unique public school outside Columbus. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Lupe hasn’t yet decided on a career path, but is considering biomedical engineering. Next year, she’ll be enrolled in courses at Ohio State University.

DeJANE DANIEL
First-year student, Metro High School
Columbus, Ohio

“It’s hard sometimes, though, because in a normal school you have a C, you can pass, but here you have to have an A. Sometimes that gets annoying, but at certain times, you know, you want to brag. You’re like, “I got an A in everything,” and you can literally say that because you have to.”

At Metro, she’s studying Chinese, American literature and algebra II/trigonometry. To get to and from Metro, she takes two public buses – a commute that consumes four hours of her day. DeJane says she’s not sure what career she will pursue, but that taking college classes before she finishes high school will help her to decide what’s right for her. And the earlier she decides, she says, the brighter her future looks.

SCHOOLS:

Pleasant Hill Academy
In the diverse College Hill area outside Cincinnati, Pleasant Hill Elementary is part of a federally funded pilot program to improve teacher quality, called TAP. At this high poverty school, each teacher spends 90 minutes a week with a “master teacher” to help improve his or her lesson plan. “I have seen some of my veteran teachers blossom,” says Principal Cherese Clark. Teachers are also eligible for a bonus for improving students’ outcomes. Part of the evaluation is based on test scores on the all-important yearly state test, the OAT, used for NCLB reporting. To help improve student success, Pleasant Hill also offers on-site mental health services through a program called Ready To Learn. Principal Clark says these services are important in low-income schools.

“A number of them are in foster care,” says Clark. “We have some children that are from homes where they’ve suffered abuse. There may be drug abuse going on in the home. They need assistance and guidance and support here at school.”

Belpre
Belpre High School sits in Ohio’s rural Appalachian region on the border of West Virginia. About 40 percent of the kids in the Belpre School District are economically disadvantaged, and only a quarter of its high school students go on to study at four-year colleges. Belpre has experienced the transition of globalization firsthand with factories closing and jobs moving overseas. The town faces serious financial strains because of a change in the tax structure. Remaining factories, such as two plastics manufacturers, were granted tax breaks by the state legislature, resulting in a serious shortfall for the school district. The district’s superintendent, Harry Fleming, applied for a state grant to bring in a Chinese language teacher to the school, hoping that he could give the students something that would help them get jobs. “Mandarin is the one of the most widely spoken languages in the world,” says Fleming. “We know the growing economy in China is probably going to play more and more of a role in our society. It seemed like a good thing to pursue.”

Metro
Metro High School is an alternative public high school focusing on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). It was founded by the Ohio State University, a research and development company, Batelle, and several Columbus area school districts. Interested students apply and enter a lottery from 16 school districts. The school is diverse and about 40 percent of its students are low-income. There are no bells, lockers, or blackboards at the school, which started three years ago. Each grade has about 100 students. The curriculum favors hands-on learning in all disciplines. Each student is expected to master a subject before he or she moves on, allowing the student to take as long as is needed until he or she learns the material. Students can finish their requirements and begin taking college classes while still in high school. Principal Marcy Raymond says being different, flexible and fostering collaboration is imperative to helping students learn. “Every kid can learn,” says Raymond. “I don’t think there’s anyone here that can’t do that if given the right strategies and the right amount of time. We say we are a small school with a big footprint.”

Metro has run into opposition from officials in surrounding districts who argue it should be considered a charter school, and that students who want to attend it should pay tuition. This conflict is an example of just how tough it is to innovate within the existing school system.

Olentangy
Olentangy is the fastest growing school district in the fastest growing region in the state of Ohio. It is an affluent school district whose schools are consistently rated excellent. Olentangy High School offers 15 Advanced Placement classes and many electives. More than 90 percent of its students go on to higher education. And the district has just opened a new high school, it’s third. Principal Mindy Farry is proud of the school and its students’ success. “We’ve got just a bevy of academic courses, as well as other things students can dabble in, whether it’s fine arts or performing arts, or industrial technology,” says Farry. “We have mentorship programs. We also have a special needs department and intervention specialists working with some of our special needs students. There’s a little bit of a spot for everyone here, so they can get whatever they need to get them prepared for college.”

As goes Ohio, so goes the nation.

It’s a political truism – one with evidence in more than half a century of Presidential contests. Since 1960, every elected President has won the state. But Ohio’s political history is not why we chose it as the main location for “WHERE WE STAND.” Instead, we chose it because – as much as one state can – it seemed to best represent the American educational experience. Ohio is the most densely populated state in the Midwest, and its geographic diversity – which ranges from the more affluent suburbs of Columbus to the rural, economically-strained swathes of Appalachia – makes for an extremely varied school system.

In addition, Ohio’s political and educational leaders are putting a major emphasis on improving that system. Specifically, they want to prepare Ohio’s students to compete in a global economy.

According to the Ohio Board of Education, “The future of Ohio’s economy depends on the ability to develop a world-class work force and changes are needed within the (K-12) education system to be successful in this endeavor.”

It’s an aggressive approach to education – but one that’s producing results. In the past 20 years, the state’s schools have risen from a ranking in the middle of the nation, to 7th. Student test scores have improved by 25 percent, and the number of fourth-graders who passed the state reading test has almost doubled to 80 percent.

OHIO – Quick Facts:
It has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country: 7.2%, compared to the national average 5.7% (July 2008)
Number of local school districts: 614
Number of schools: 4,012
Number of students: 1,839,683
Number of charter schools: 316

When a public school fails to meet its obligations to students, parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them. Some may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private one. Many will choose a charter school. But they will have that choice and their children will have that opportunity.” – Sen. John McCain, 9/5/08 Republican National Convention

Where Sen. John McCain Stands on the Issues:

School Choice: The issue of school choice has proven a cornerstone of McCain’s educational strategy. McCain says that he and his wife decided to send their children to parochial school, and now he wants to ensure that all parents can have the same freedom.

No Child Left Behind: McCain believes there should be an emphasis on standards and accountability, but that the goal of standardized testing should not be group averages. Instead, the focus should be to inspire every child to strive to reach his or her potential

Teachers: McCain believes the single biggest challenge in turning around a failing school is getting quality teachers into that school. To overcome this challenge, John McCain will:

Encourage Alternative Certification Methods That Open The Door For Highly Motivated Teachers To Enter The Field. McCain will devote five percent of Title II funding to states to recruit teachers who graduate in the top 25 percent of their class or who participate in an alternative teacher recruitment program such as Teach for America, the New York City Teaching Fellowship Program, the New Teacher Project, or excellent university initiatives.

Provide Bonuses For Teachers Who Locate In Underperforming Schools And Demonstrate Strong Leadership As Measured By Student Improvement. McCain will devote 60 percent of Title II funding for incentive bonuses for high performing teachers to locate in the most challenging educational settings, for teachers to teach subjects like math and science, and for teachers who demonstrate student improvement. Payments will be made directly to teachers. Funds should also be devoted to provide performance bonuses to teachers who raise student achievement and enhance the school-wide learning environment. Principals may also consider other issues in addition to test scores such as peer evaluations, student subgroup improvements, or being removed from the state’s “in need of improvement” list.

Provide Funding For Needed Professional Teacher Development. Where federal funds are involved, teacher development money should be used to enhance the ability of teachers to perform in today’s technology driven environment. We need to provide teachers with high quality professional development opportunities with a primary focus on instructional strategies that address the academic needs of their students. The first 35 percent of Title II funding would be directed to the school level so principals and teachers could focus these resources on the specific needs of their schools.

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program: The Opportunity Scholarship program serves more than 1,900 students from families with an average income of $23,000 a year. More than 7,000 more families have applied for that program. The budget for the Opportunity Scholarships is currently $13 million. John McCain believes that this extremely successful program should expand to at least $20 million benefiting nearly a thousand more families.

High Quality Tutoring Programs: Local school districts can certify education service providers but providers can also bypass the local bureaucracy and receive direct federal certification. Education service providers can then market directly to parents. Title I money will be directed straight to the provider.

Expanding Virtual Learning: By Reforming The “Enhancing Education Through Technology Program.” John McCain will target $500 million in current federal funds to build new virtual schools and support the development of online course offerings for students. These courses may be for regular coursework, for enhancement, or for dual enrollment into college.

John McCain Will Allocate $250 Million Through A Competitive Grant Program To Support States That Commit To Expanding Online Education Opportunities. States can use these funds to build virtual math and science academies to help expand the availability of AP Math, Science, and Computer Sciences courses, online tutoring support for students in traditional schools, and foreign language courses.

John McCain Will Offer $250 Million For Digital Passport Scholarships To Help Students Pay For Online Tutors Or Enroll In Virtual Schools. Low-income students will be eligible to receive up to $4,000 to enroll in an online course, SAT/ACT prep course, credit recovery or tutoring services offered by a virtual provider. Providers could range from other public schools, virtual charter schools, home school parents utilizing virtual schooling resources or district or state sponsored virtual schools. The Department of Education would competitively award the funds to a national scholarship administrator who would manage the student applications, monitoring, and evaluation of providers.

Source: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/ issues/19ce50b5-daa8-4795-b92d-92bd0d985bca.htm ““Just as with energy independence and health care, the urgency of upgrading public education for the 21st century has been talked to death in Washington, but not much has gotten done. And that failure to act has put our nation in jeopardy. I believe the day of reckoning is here. Our — our children and our country can’t afford four more years of neglect and indifference.

The decisions our leaders make about education in the coming years will shape our future for generations to come. They will help determine not only whether our children have the chance to fulfill their God-given potential or whether our workers have the chance to build a better life for their families, but whether we as a nation will remain in the 21st century the kind of global economic leader that we were in the 20th century.” – Sen. Barack Obama, 9/8/08 in Dayton, Ohio

Where Sen. Barack Obama Stands on the Issues:

No Child Left Behind: Obama has repeatedly criticized the 2002 legislation, adopting the slogan: Left the Money Behind and Left the Students Behind. While Obama praises NCLB’s emphasis on accountability, he argues that the law was an unfunded mandate – inadequately implemented by the Education Department. Obama has pledged to reform the law – beginning with additional funding. He will also improve the assessments used to track student progress and improve NCLB’s accountability system so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them.

Zero to Five Plan: Obama’s “Zero to Five” plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents – placing key emphasis on early care and education for infants. Obama will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state “zero to five” efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school. In addition, Obama will expand early Head Start, increase Head Start funding, and improve quality for both. Finally, he pledges to provide affordable, high-quality child care for working families.

Math and Science Education: Obama plans to make math and science education a national priority. He pledges to recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession and support efforts to help these teachers learn from professionals in the field. He will also work to ensure that all children have access to a strong science curriculum at all grade levels.

Address the Dropout Crisis: Obama will pass his legislation to provide funding to school districts to invest in intervention strategies in middle school – strategies such as personal academic plans, teaching teams, parent involvement, mentoring, intensive reading and math instruction, and extended learning time.

Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities: Obama will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, to serve one million more children.

Expand Summer Learning Opportunities: Obama’s “STEP UP” plan addresses the achievement gap by supporting summer learning opportunities for disadvantaged children through partnerships between local schools and community organizations.

Support College Outreach Programs: Obama supports outreach programs like GEAR UP, TRIO and Upward Bound to encourage more young people from low-income families to consider and prepare for college.

Support English Language Learners: Obama supports transitional bilingual education and will help Limited English Proficient students get ahead by holding schools accountable for making sure these students complete school.

Teachers: When it comes to teachers, Obama’s plan includes several initiatives. Among them:

Recruiting Teachers: Obama will create new Teacher Service Scholarships that will cover four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher education, including high-quality alternative programs for mid-career recruits in exchange for teaching for at least four years in a high-need field or location.

Preparing Teachers: Obama will require all schools of education to be accredited. He will also create a voluntary national performance assessment so we can be sure that every new educator is trained and ready to walk into the classroom and start teaching effectively. Obama will also create Teacher Residency Programs that will supply 30,000 exceptionally well-prepared recruits to high-need schools.

Retaining Teachers: To support our teachers, Obama’s plan will expand mentoring programs that pair experienced teachers with new recruits. He will also provide incentives to give teachers paid common planning time so they can collaborate to share best practices.

Rewarding Teachers: Obama will promote new and innovative ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them. Districts will be able to design programs that reward accomplished educators who serve as a mentor to new teachers with a salary increase. Districts can reward teachers who work in underserved places like rural areas and inner cities. And if teachers consistently excel in the classroom, that work can be valued and rewarded as well.

Higher Education: Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit: Obama will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students. Obama will also ensure that the tax credit is available to families at the time of enrollment by using prior year’s tax data to deliver the credit when tuition is due.

Financial Aid: Obama will streamline the financial aid process by eliminating the current federal financial aid application and enabling families to apply simply by checking a box on their tax form, authorizing their tax information to be used, and eliminating the need for a separate application.

Source: http://www.barackobama.com/ issues/education/
Interview with Obama Education Advisor, Linda Darling-Hammond ]]> http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wherewestand/featured/the-2008-presidential-candidates-where-do-they-stand/140/feed/ 13 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wherewestand/featured/a-nation-at-risk-are-our-schools-still-in-peril/233/ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wherewestand/featured/a-nation-at-risk-are-our-schools-still-in-peril/233/#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:11:10 +0000 lisa gray http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wherewestand/?p=233

It was exactly 25 years ago that President Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education released a report that shattered any notion that America’s schools were performing well.

The report – Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform – came to a disturbing conclusion: our education system was falling behind the rest of the world.

“Our Nation is at risk,” the report stated. “The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”

The 18 members of the Commission made 38 recommendations for reform, divided across 5 major categories: Content, Standards and Expectations, Time, Teaching, Leadership and Fiscal Support. These recommendations set off a series of efforts on a local, state and federal level.

It was not the first time, of course, that America’s schools had come under such scrutiny. In 1957 when the Soviets launched Sputnik – the first space satellite – it set off a wave of paranoia. That wave resulted in a major push to improve our schools, and a dozen years later one of our greatest accomplishments as a nation: sending a man to the moon.

How have our schools fared since these wake-up calls? And are we still a nation at risk?

Some of the facts about education in America today, many of which are presented in WHERE WE STAND, argue that in many ways, we are. While the U.S. still leads the world as an economic power and innovator, other countries are fast catching up. And when it comes to education, many of them have already surpassed us. America once had the best high school graduation rate, but it has now fallen below 15th among industrialized nations. Our 15-year-olds perform below average in math, science, and problem-solving.

Earlier this year, Education Week published its annual Report Card, which included a portion titled: “A Stagnant Nation: Why American Students are Still at Risk.” Its conclusion? The obstacle to reforms in our schools is political, and ‘vigorous national leadership’ is needed to improve education.

Today, education experts say, it’s not the race to space that threatens the status of our schools. Instead, it’s the ever-changing, increasingly competitive global marketplace.

“We’re acting like our jobs are not going to leave, and that we’re going to be able to compete in a global market with a second class education in America – and that day is over,” says Geoffrey Canada, President and Founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone. “We’ve allowed the rest of the world to get ahead of us.”

Finland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe – the majority of it covered with forests and lakes. It boasts great natural beauty, world-renowned saunas, and is home to the phone giant Nokia.

But none of these attributes are what inspires delegations from more than 50 countries to travel there annually. Instead, these international visitors head to Finland for a first-hand look at one of the things the country does best: education.

The Finns call these delegates “educational pilgrims.” Their mission? To find out the secret to the Finn’s success. Finland has always boasted first-rate schools, but the country has made headlines over the past decade for consistently performing at the top of an international test known as PISA (The Programme for International Student Assessment). Sponsored by the Organization for Economic Development (OECD), the test in reading, science and math is administered triennially to 15-year-olds in 57 developed countries, which together account for nearly 90 percent of the world’s GDP.

Of those countries, Finland placed first overall on the 2006 tests, which focused on science, compared with the U.S.’s position in the middle of the pack. Finland has maintained this lead since the test was first administered in 2000, ranking first in that year’s reading assessment. In addition, Finland has a high-school dropout rate of less than 1 percent – compared with roughly 25 percent in the U.S. And in tertiary education, the World Economic Forum ranks Finland first in the world in enrollment and quality.

When asked about their ranking, Finnish educators and experts consistently cite the country’s teachers. In Finland, they say, teaching is considered one of the most highly esteemed professions – hardly a surprise, considering the fact that all of the country’s teachers must hold master’s degrees, and the profession is highly competitive. Even though the salaries of Finnish teachers are comparable to those in the U.S., a job opening in a Finnish classroom typically attracts more than 40 applicants.

The job’s popularity can be partly attributed to the country’s liberal approach to its curriculum. In Finland, teachers are allowed to choose their own textbooks and customize their lesson plans. They aren’t required to administer standardized tests, and assign little homework.

“Teachers are very independent, and there is little cooperation between teachers,” says Maria Lisa Wahlfors, a teacher at the Tapiola School outside of Helsinki. “I think having this freedom is much better because I can choose the material I want to teach, and it can match my personality.”

In addition, the Finn’s success is due in large part to the country’s demographics. Unlike the United States, where great disparities in income and an extremely diverse population present obstacles to education, Finland enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world, is largely homogeneous, and has a strong national culture.

“Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty,”
- President Lyndon Johnson, 1965

It’s a little known fact that when it comes to the funding of our schools, the U.S. Government contributes about 10 cents to every dollar spent on K-12 education – less than the majority of countries in the world. And it wasn’t until 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as part of his War on Poverty, that the federal government created a lasting program to fund K-12 education.

So where does the bulk of the money for our 14,000 public elementary and secondary school districts schools come from? State and local governments. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, state and local funding accounts for approximately 93 percent of education expenditures.

What’s the source of these funds? In most states, it’s sales and income taxes (both corporate and personal). But on a local level, these funds usually come from property taxes, which are set by the school board, local officials or citizens. It’s this system that causes the most dramatic differences between states, and even within districts.

Depending on the property wealth of a community, its schools might boast gleaming buildings and equipment, or they might be dilapidated – struggling with the burden of outdated equipment and unpaid bills.

According to the most recent Funding Gap report by the non-profit group The Education Trust, many states still provide the least amount of funding to school districts serving students with the greatest needs.

In 1999, for example, Illinois’ funding gap was the second-largest in the nation. By 2005, the Illinois gap was still the second-largest, and had gotten worse. Illinois is joined by Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin at the top of the list of states in which the funding gap between high- and low-poverty districts grew between 1999 and 2005.

Jonathan Kozol, the education activist, teacher and author, famously described these “gaps” in his 1992 book Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools. That same year, he told an interviewer: “We need to have urban schools that are so good that they will not be abandoned by white people, and this is impossible without equitable funding. Until we have equitable funding for our urban schools, there’s no chance in the world that white people in large numbers are going to return.”

These inequities have led to court challenges in almost every state. And in the majority of them, the court has ordered the states to overhaul their system to fund public schools more equally. These challenges began in the 1970’s, with a landmark case in California – Serrano v Priest (1971). In that case, the state’s high court ruled that a child’s access to public education cannot be based on the wealth of his or her parents.

In the past decade, the debate over school finance has grown as states have adopted performance standards, enforced by No Child Left Behind. Some argue that to meet higher standards, schools need more money. Others say that spending increases don’t always translate into higher performance, and that if more money in funneled into our schools – it must be well accounted for.

“Locally, if we just work on getting more money and use it the same old way without raising expectations or professional development, then there will be only modest improvement in the schools,” says Allan Odden, Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“No Child Left Behind had ambitious goals of promoting services and educational opportunities for all children. In that sense it was a very important piece of legislation. It eliminated any sense that some children could not and should not be educated to the levels of all children. Now, the dilemma is what happened in the implementation. And we now know that we walked a very long mile between the vision and the reality.”
– Sharon Lynn Kagan, Associate Dean for Policy at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Signed into law in 2002, No Child Left Behind is President George W. Bush’s signature domestic policy initiative – a sweeping education law aimed at improving our public schools. NCLB, as the law became known, passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support. Hailed as a landmark follow-up to President Lyndon Johnson’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, NCLB strengthened Title I – the program targeting billions of federal dollars to education for poor children, with the goal of closing the “achievement gap” between rich and poor, white and black. Or, as Bush famously said, challenging the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”

In addition, the law placed an unprecedented emphasis on accountability – requiring states to develop a set of standards for what every child should know and learn in reading and math. To measure that knowledge, NCLB made the education system more reliant on testing than ever before: mandating that every student from third to eighth grade (and one high school grade) take a state test every year – a total of approximately 45 million annual tests.

Why so many tests? One of the backbones of NCLB is strict accountability – something educators and legislators agreed was lacking in America’s schools. One of its more concrete goals was lofty; by 2014, every student must be proficient in reading and math. Those schools that do not meet the standards face federal intervention.

Since its passage, NCLB has become what is arguably one of the most unpopular pieces of education legislation ever passed. A public opinion poll, conducted by Gallup and Phi Delta Kappa International (an education organization), found that nearly six out of 10 Americans who are familiar with NCLB believe it has had no effect on schools, or a negative effect.

Criticism from lawmakers and educators is widespread, and sometimes fierce. Among the most commonly echoed charges: the legislation has been underfunded, it has focused too much on standardized testing, and its most admirable goals have been bogged down in complex details.

NCLB’s defenders say that the law has pumped billions of federal dollars into America’s schools, and that rising test scores are evidence of its success. Despite this claim, there’s no concrete evidence to support the idea that NCLB has made an appreciable mark on student achievement. Why? Under the law, states are required to set their own standards. To avoid penalization, some states have been charged with deliberately setting low standards – or gaming the system.

Under NCLB, states also have little incentive to develop tests that go beyond the multiple choice format – raising the charge that our system is creating generations of “bubble kids.” A recent survey by Education Week reported that 42 percent of students are now taking state reading and math tests that are entirely multiple choice – a format that saves both time and money.

States across the country have also joined the chorus of criticism against NCLB. Most recently Connecticut did so in court, filing suit against the federal Department of Education contending that NCLB is an unfunded mandate. More specifically, the state charges that the government has failed to fund all the tests the law requires.

Still, the Bush administration had hoped that Congress would reauthorize NCLB this year. Debate over the legislation, however, has left it floundering. And any changes to the law, which many legislators have proposed, are not likely to be considered until a new President enters the White House.

On the Presidential campaign trail, Sen. Barack Obama vows to overhaul NCLB – dubbing the law “No Child Left Behind Left the Money Behind,” and “Students Left Behind.” Obama believes that while the goals of NCLB were admirable, it’s been inadequately implemented by the Education Department, and has failed to markedly improve student achievement.

Sen. John McCain supports NCLB, but also promises to make changes. Chief among them: using growth models to measure student achievement, abandoning sanctions for underperforming schools, and moving away from the 2014 proficiency deadline.

“This is about millions of American children who have no job, who have no possibility of getting a job, and what to do with them. There is no plan. This is a national crisis that we’ve got to get serious about, and we need some real leadership in this nation on that issue. The truth of it is, this is neither a Democratic nor a Republican issue. This is an American issue.”

- Geoffrey Canada, founder and President of the Harlem Children’s Zone

Block by block. Child by child. That’s how Geoffrey Canada set out to save at-risk children in some of the most devastated neighborhoods of Central Harlem.

In 1970, he founded the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) – a non-profit organization that’s been called one of the most ambitious social experiments of the century. Canada, 56, says his goal is to offer these children all they need to succeed in an ever-changing, competitive world. It’s a lofty dream, but one Canada has devoted his life to – and one he says the public school system has so far been unable to accomplish.

“We should not have a system where, if you’re born in one place, simply because people there are poor, you get an inferior education,” he says. “That’s not the kind of America I think that the framers of our Constitution envisioned.”

Canada himself could have been a victim of this kind of America. He grew up in a poor, violent neighborhood of the South Bronx, living in a tenement home with his single mother and three siblings. His mother worked several jobs to put food on the table. She also impressed upon her kids the importance of education.

Canada listened. He was a driven student, and worked his way through Bowdoin College, then the Harvard School of Education. When he came home to the Bronx, he says he was stunned to see that in all the years of his absence, little had changed.

“If you happen to grow up like I did, and you went to a school that failed 70 to 80 percent of its kids, and you go back 50 years later, and see the same failure rate, you say to yourself, how could this be?” he says.

That’s when his work as a child advocate began. In 1983 he joined a nonprofit in Harlem called the Rheedlen Centers, and in 1998 he became its President. Instead of targeting the Center’s work on a handful of specific issues, Canada decided to cast its net wider to several blocks of Central Harlem, an area in which he promised to offer services to every child.

Today, the Harlem Children’s Zone operates on a fiscal budget of approximately $58 million – some of it donated by private sources, some corporations and a small portion from the Federal Government. True to Canada’s goal, the organization serves more than 10,000 at-risk kids – providing them with a network of social services and a high-quality education – all at no cost.

What’s more, Canada says, the Harlem Children’s Zone has diminished the societal costs of failing to provide these kids with sufficient education and healthcare.

“When you send a kid to jail for ten years, they do not come out prepared to get a job, to pay their taxes, to raise their families. You have created a crippled citizen, who is going to be on the public payroll for almost the rest of his or her life,” he explains. “The antidote to having kids in jail, is to get them into college.”

Canada also believes in intervening early through what’s called the Baby College. The workshop invites new parents to learn how to raise their kids to ensure a good education. To minimize the chances that his kids will fall victim to street crime, he keeps them off the streets – requiring after-school activities and longer school years.

So far, it seems, the formula is working – with approximately 95 percent of the kids who attend going on to college. And other cities, including Baltimore, are taking note – deliberating copycat programs in their own at-risk neighborhoods.

What will it take for more of America’s schools to produce these kids of results? According to Canada, success depends on accountability.

“No one has taken real accountability and said, ‘I’m going to fix this problem. I’m going to put politics aside, and I’m going to do what’s right for America’s children,” he says. “That’s the kind of leadership I think this nation needs.”

Welcome to the Web site for “WHERE WE STAND: America’s Schools in the 21st Century.” This 60-minute broadcast, available here in five segments (along with considerable additional footage, reporting and education news. is not aimed at condemning America’s schools or suggesting that they are getting worse. Rather, we wanted to alert the nation to the fact that other countries are investing heavily in their schools and getting better results, and that life in this new century is demanding much from schools and society. Not long ago, such a shift might not have mattered much, but in the “flat world” of the 21st Century our children and our country will be competing on a global stage that is very different. Will we be ready? Will our children be ready? Or will this generation of youth be – as some people have suggested – the first in our nation’s history to experience a lower standard of living than their parents?

The program’s title comes in part from a show CBS aired in January 1958, also titled “Where We Stand.” With that program, CBS made history – using television for the first time to inform and rally the nation. Focused on Russia’s launch of Sputnik in late 1957, the program featured a young Walter Cronkite, and from that point on not only did the country actively follow the “race for space” on television – they followed it on CBS with Cronkrite – all the way until Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon.

Of course, the world and especially communication media are different today. With the economy, the environment, energy, and international unrest at the top of most political agendas, many Americans don’t see the needs of our schools in the same way they saw the threat posed by Sputnik. Yet, in the end our success in meeting all current and future challenges is ultimately tied to the success of our education system and how well we develop the most important resource of all: the talent of individuals.

Visitors to this site also will be interested to know that there is a robust national outreach effort happening in the weeks following this broadcast. In more than 40 states, public television stations, in partnership with the Public Education Network, the Learning First Alliance, and others will be using this program to get the nation talking about education and “where we stand.”

My thanks to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for making the broadcast possible, and to PBS for designating it for common carriage, which means that the program airs on all 355 public television member stations nationwide. It’s the gold standard! It’s also a strong statement of how much PBS cares about teachers, students, and their parents.

I’m also grateful to Judy Woodruff, whose career as a broadcast journalist for CNN, NBC, and PBS has been second-to-none. She’s one of the hardest working people in the business, but somehow she still found time to help us with this show. Her interest in WHERE WE STAND was at least in part tied to the work she did creating the series GENERATION NEXT, an honest and bold conversation with our country’s young people, and an effort that will continue to inform all of us in the years ahead.

Finally, I want to thank producer/director/writer Rebecca Haggerty, who worked tirelessly and with great insight on this program. She cares deeply about the issues presented here, and it was a great joy to work with her and her team – especially Molly Knight Raskin and Lisa Gray (who also are the creators of this Web site) – and to learn from them. If this program speaks to you, if it succeeds in any way, it’s largely because of them and the expert guidance we all got from our station President Neal Shapiro – who served as Executive-In-Charge – and my talented colleague Stephen Segaller, Vice President for National Programming.

We hope you enjoy the program and the Web site, and we look forward to your feedback.

Sincerely,

Ronald Thorpe
Executive Producer: WHERE WE STAND
Vice President and Director of Education, Thirteen/WNET and WLIW21

Foxfire Center for Student Success – In East Central Ohio, Zanesville is representative of the many designated economically transitional and at-risk towns in the Appalachian Region. Unemployment remains above state and national rates, 8.1 percent, and the average annual household income is $27,900.

Foxfire alternative school was started in 2000 by the assistant principal and a group of teachers at Maysville High School in Maysville School District. The program was designed for those students at Maysville that were struggling to fit into the traditional school environment. “These kids weren’t coming to school because they had to work to support their families, but they’re still good students,” said Maysville superintendent Monte Bainter. “We had all kinds of programs established for kids but certain students never fit into them.”

Starting as an offshoot of Maysville High School, students were offered evening classes instead of suspension or after school programs. That first year, 12 students participated. This year’s enrollment is at 207 students aged 16-22. Students apply, or are referred, to Foxfire from the surrounding Zanesville area. The targeted students include working teenagers, dropouts, would-be dropouts, pregnant teens and teen parents (2007-2008 student population included 30 teen pregnancies and 92 with children), and youth on probation or coming from the juvenile justice system. Students come to class in shifts, with the option of choosing from three four-hour slots in the day. They are required to either work or participate in community service for 15 hours per week.

The school’s mission stems from a Core Values system: Caring, Honesty, Teamwork, Discipline, Character, Work Ethic, Accountability, Commitment, Respect and Loyalty. “Having an environment where we teach and reciprocate respect, accountability and caring with the students has had the biggest impact,” said teacher and Director of Student Services, Austin Lewellen.

In part of creating a supportive and encouraging environment, the curriculum is a Project Based Learning program. The students enter the program at different levels of learning and different credit needs for high school completion. With project based learning, each student works at her own pace. Each project is set to fulfill state standards based on the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT), so after a student has completed it she receives a grade and earns the appropriate number of credits.

Cornelius Murphy, 19, a former Foxfire student, said the project based learning is beneficial to kids’ learning process. “For English I took the Tupac Shakur project class. Having class projects on subjects you’re familiar with makes the kids interested in doing the research, following through, and writing on the topic. With the hands-on interactive learning projects, a lot of us need that kind of teaching to learn.” Murphy enrolled himself at the school when he was 17, and at a 9th grade reading and math level. He feels the flexible school schedule was vital to his graduation. “Foxfire works because it’s for kids who don’t do well in a regular environment, for whatever reason. It gives students a chance to work, pay bills, pay for childcare, and learn a trade to help after graduation.”

Since graduating last year, Murphy has been working as a State Nursing Assistant and plans to attend a community college for a degree in Radiology. He received his SNA certificate with help from Foxfire career counselors and teachers. “If I hadn’t gone to Foxfire, I’d still be at Zanesville High trying to get my diploma,” said Murphy. “I would never drop out. But, it would take me a lot longer to finish all the credits and graduate.”

The school has a comprehensive Career-Based Initiative in which the students are introduced to varied fields of work and college opportunities. Each student is required to make three college visits with a staff member. Also, each student must choose a field of interest, which may include the military, and is required to do a job shadowing in that field for a minimum of sixty hours during the semester.

In an area with few choices or jobs, many youth choose to go into construction because of its higher pay, or join the military. To help encourage young people into the workforce and post-secondary training, Foxfire’s Youth Build Grant enrolls at-risk/dropout youth at a local technical school to receive training in order to build government housing within the county. The students are paid minimum wage during their training and in the end can earn up to $17 per hour.

Principal Todd Whiteman has worked diligently to make an environment where students can accelerate and feel like they belong to something. “The biggest challenge is to take these kids and get them well so they can learn. A lot of them have poor health, they come from environments where violence, drugs, alcohol and sex are prominent,” said Whiteman. “Ninety-percent of the kids are referred from the juvenile delinquency courts. But our hands-on learning curriculum makes the academic skills relevant and interesting to them.”

Whiteman’s Core Value system is also implemented with the teachers. In just a few years, Foxfire’s retention rate rose from 40 percent to 100 percent. The staff meets every morning for thirty minutes to assess and collaborate on curriculum mapping. “There has been a noticeable rise in respect and support among the teachers,” Whiteman said. “Wellness is an important factor in our school. The teachers need to care about themselves and the students.”

Samantha Fleming enrolled at Foxfire when she was 16, pregnant, and with only 7 high school credits. At the time she was enrolled at a vocational school but never went because of bad morning sickness. In just one year she completed 15 additional credits, passed the Ohio Graduation Test, and graduated high school last May. “I would have dropped out if it wasn’t for Foxfire,” said Fleming. “The teachers treat us as equals and with encouragement. Teachers would send cards in the mail saying ‘Sam, you’re doing a great job.’ It was always a constructive and positive environment.”

A crucial benefit to students is the Care Team initiative implemented by Superintendent Bainter. The Care Team is a collaborative of representatives from schools, mental, physical and behavioral health, child protection, juvenile court, law enforcement and child development. Foxfire has a full-time social worker and nurse on staff, as well as a part-time drug and alcohol counselor. “The Care Team initiative flags kids at the elementary age,” said Bainter. “At the beginning of each school year every staff person picks a group of kids to build a connection with. Connecting with kids is positive for the kids and for the adults. If kids think you care about them, they’ll work hard to prove successful to you and to themselves.”

Samantha Fleming took advantage of, and was grateful for, the Care Team presence. “Every Friday we had the Parenting Class. We’d meet, pregnant or teen parents, and talk about pregnancy, labor, parenting, physical and emotional needs,” said Fleming. During the school year, Samantha worked part-time at her mother’s tanning salon. This fall she plans on studying Nursing or Cosmetology at nearby Zane State College.

One of the biggest challenges of many schools is meeting state requirements and assessments. But Foxfire’s system of teaching, learning and caring has helped overcome that challenge. In just two years the number of students that passed the state 10th grade reading proficiency exams rose from 36.4 percent to 75 percent. Each tested area for the OGT increased by 60 percent -242 percent. The school was recently deemed as Best Practice and model for alternative schools by the Ohio Department of Education. It also met all requirements for the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in the state’s annual report card. And the class of 2007 had a remarkable 97.3 percent graduation rate, outpacing the state average of 86.9 percent.

Read a recent article in EdWeek, “Returning Dropouts Said to Face Too Tough a Road to Graduation.”

Ohio’s Appalachian region was once highly dependent on heavy industry, agriculture and mining. Like other states previously reliant on manufacturing and industry, the majority of jobs today are in health care, retail and service industries. Poverty remains high. While some communities have improved over the years, many are still adjusting to disappearing sectors and lack of basic infrastructure, such as water and sewer systems. Surrounding metropolitan areas have seen increases in employment opportunities with better pay and technological skills. But those jobs haven’t made it into these rural counties.

Education remains a challenge, as well. High school completion rate is around 68 percent. And those that do leave high school are often unprepared for skilled labor jobs or even community college. Rural schools are less likely than those in non-rural schools to offer programs that prepare students for current and anticipated jobs. The offerings typically reflect the differences in labor markets. Jobs that are available are usually in the nearest city, which could be up to an hour’s drive or more. Next to joining the military, vocational or technical schools can sometimes be another option for students in rural areas to advance skills and learning.

Jobs in the Appalachian area of Ohio are starting to demand a technically trained workforce in math and science-related fields, including electrical maintenance and computerized numerical control occupations. Tamra Pace, Director of Communications at Zane Sate College, sees a rise in corporate responsibility. To help accelerate an incoming workforce, companies are requiring an Associate’s degree for jobs that previously required a Bachelor’s degree. “This results in increased levels of responsibility and mobility within a corporation,” said Pace. “American Electric Power, one of the biggest corporations in the area, is hiring our graduates with a degree in Electrical Engineering Technologies to fill technical jobs previously filled with personnel with Bachelor’s degrees. And with the aging population, health-related occupations are in great demand.”

Hocking Community College is taking a different approach. The school has designed programs in order to attract businesses. Green companies and fuel cell application companies are growing in the Canton and Athens areas of Ohio. Lynn Hull, Director of Enrollment, says Hocking is taking advantage of advancing technological fields. “Hocking is trying to be on the front end of what we hope is the future of the state of Ohio,” said Hull. “We’re trying to increase the green collar job workforce, so when it happens, these young people will be the best and brightest and ready.”

But getting those young people to the starting line has proven difficult. Hocking is not alone in seeing a noticeable increase in remedial classes for students in reading and math. “These students are educationally disenfranchised from an early age and it gets worse over time,” said Hull. “Teaching to the test methods are unproductive. All learners are different, and more kids lack basic skills at an early age in impoverished areas. We need to make knowledge relevant to real world skills.” Hull’s recommendation to make reading and math seem relevant to students by making learning a hands-on experience fits the model of other successful alternative schools. “We feel hands-on training, in-field training, sensory training technical schools are what students need more of,” said Hull. “It is in these environments where students truly excel in learning.”