OUR STATE / The Real Disconnect
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Transcript of OUR STATE / The Real Disconnect
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OUR STATES CONTINUING INEFFECTIVE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
This article is especially written for our sixty-two State Legislators and
Governor as they have our State Constution's legal and moral
responsibility for efficient public schools in our state. All receiving this
information who are involved in our public schools should put priority
on understanding what's in this article. Everyone else receiving this
article should invest the time to read it because they are taxpayers.
Remember, even drop-outs spend over 10,000 hours in formal
schooling so take the time to study this important information about
public schooling in our state's future.
In this article, I will give an overview of two research-proven program
and cost effective school reform systems our state desperately needs
and our educational decision-makers need to explore, understand and
invest in their implementation. These are the Kindergarten through
Grade Three, or the very important Primary Phase of formal public
schooling developed by the National Assocition for the Education of
Young Children (NAEYC) and this reform system interwoven into the
Kindergaren through Grade Twelve Quality District Model (QDM). The
Quality District Model is the ONLY comprehensive program and cost
effective K-12 school system reform plan validated by the prestigious
Program Effectiveness Panel created by the US Department of
Education. The QDM was later re-validated in a number of adopter
school districts in our nation by the same Panel. I have copies of both
validation reports by the Program Effectiveness Panel. Here are some of
the accomplishments our state's public schools will realize if
appropriate Consultant/Trainer teams are brought in to train all school
building level program staff and parents and then empower them for
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ALL program decisions as later explained happened in the exemplary
Kentucky Education Reform Act:
. All of our students will achieve solid, continuous academic and other
personal/social developmental progress with instructional staff and
parents adapting instruction, curriculum and performance-embedded,
authentic, ongoing assessment to EACH student's RATE and STYLE of
learning with progress recorded in individual student portfolios;
. Students needing additional readiness activities and time to
transition from preschool meaningful, functional, concrete learnings to
abstract academic learnings will be given both and eliminating our
current devastating child abuse superimposed by uninformed,
detached decision-makers that causes our state's public schools to have
one of the nation's highest flunking, labeling, sorting and drugging of
students in their first grade of school;
. ALL students are served in the same educational environments,
make individualized progress and all will escape the lifetime damage
done by the superimposition of a useless, costly, detached standardizedtest driven system;
. Each grade level will experience at least a two grade level increase in
academic achievement and other school objectives as already
demonstrated by many QDM reformed school districts;
. Our Delaware public schools will graduate, as other reformed QDM
public school districts have demonstrated, approximately 94 per cent of
their students as now compared to our state's record of graduating 62per cent of all students which includes only 55 per cent of African-
American students and slightly less than 50 per cent of our Hispanic
students;
. This training and empowered decision-making given school building
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principals, teachers, other program staff and parents makes pure
common sense as these adults have one hundred per cent of the
educational interactions with our students and should be given the
decision-making respect and apreciation they deserve: and. This proven total school system reform will prepare our students for
post-high school training in college or trade schools and prepare them
for tomorrow's jobs and eliminate the school house to jail house path
and replace dope with sensible hope.
There are a large number of Delaware organizations that have
demonstrated understanding and support for the kind of public school
improvement reform presented in this article. I will cite three of them.
First, the staff and parents of the Meadowood Special School program I
administered until retirement. When I arrived at the school, I knew
what an excellent program should be like. I went to the University of
Delaware and State Department of Education seeking training help for
the many components we needed training in to implement a quality
program. They had none to offer. I found funds for a two-weekSummer staff/parent training program each year and brought best
knowledge national Consultant/Trainers in to provide needed training.
This wonderful group of staff/parents competently learned and applied
this comprehensive best knowledge and our program was cited as one
of two exemplary programs in the nation. This was in the
national/international text book titled "The Complete Local School"
authored by experts in our area of public schooling. Another example.When Dr. Billy Ross was Director of the Doctoral Program in
Educational Administration for the University of Delaware, he asked me
to teach courses on the Quality District Model to his upstate and
downstate classes. I had taught Doctorate level classes in educational
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reform at five other universities in our nation as a Visiting Professor. I
did this and was asked to help their three-day annual Summer Regional
Education Institute bring in best knowledge presenters. I did and they
gave me their first Transformational Leader award. The next Summerthey brought in Dr. Al Mamaary, Superintendent of the Johnson City,
NY public school district, who gave our nation and others the Quality
District Model. He was given their second Transformational Leader
award. While at Meadowood School, I served on five State Department
of Education Committees. On one, I wrote the staffing standards for our
state's Special Schools. On another, I got the admission age for
moderately and severely handicapped students to enter publicschooling lowered from age six to age four. For these efforts and other
considerations, the Delaware Association for the Education of Young
Children (DAEYC) honored my reform efforts by being the first School
Administrator inducted into their "Administrators Hall of Excellence." I
firmly and strongly believe the vast, vast majority of our state's school
building principals, teachers, other pogram staff, students and their
parents would welcome the opportunity to fully participate in the
development and implementation of the research-proven program and
cost effective public school reform discussed in this article. What
possible reason for not inviting them to do so can be given by our State
Legislators and Governor who have the legal and moral rsponsibility for
enabling this important reform to be realized in all of our state's public
schools. The validity and quality of public schooling is not just important
to our student's well being as children and youth, but for lare numbers
determines the qulity of life for the rest of their adult lives.
I again ask representatives of the House and Senate Education
Committees and a representative from our Governor's office to meet
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with me on a Saturday morning so I can walk through the steps State
Departments of Education and school districts throughout our nation
followed in organizing stakeholders and providing
Consultation/Training in all components within this reformed, effectivesystm. I have research information and written tetimonials from District
Leaders in five states I can give each paticipant. What morning meeting
can be more important? I've had twenty years of experience working
with these reformed public school districts.
All State Departments of Education and school districts had to bring
our Consultant/Trainer teams in to provide the training needed to
implement this continuous progress for all students reform system as
none had a team in their states capable of providing the comprehensive
training required for this systemic change. We insisted on a number of
requirements. One, a stakeholder group in their communities must be
formed and a number of awareness/understanding meetings held to
inform them about the many reform changes and how they would be
made. A communications network had to be in place so anyone couldask questions and receive answers as the reforms were implemented.
The school district had to agree to stay the course until the full reform
was accomplished. Teachers and other school building level saff and
parents were informed no change would be expected until they had
been thoroughly trained in each component interwoven into the total
system change. We informed all involved this was not a typical "Tinker
and Proclaim" peripheral project but the organizational foundation andprocess for long term program and cost effectiveness. If a school disrict
didn't follow our required guidelines we stopped working with them.
Here are some of the required components to be learned and
implemented by district leadership staff and especially school building
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level principals, teachers, other building program staff and parents.
First, training in site-based program management within and between a
district's K-12 school buildings as mandated in Kentucky; team teaching
as opposed to isolated classrooms; use of Bloom's Mastery of Learningmaterials and Guilford's Structure of the Intellect activities to enhance
student creativity and higher order thinking and problem solving
abilities; how to organize instructional groups to provide for the
diversity of student abilities for instruction, curriculum and ongoing,
embedded performance-based authentic assessment adapted to EACH
student's rate and style of learning and kept in individualized student
portfolios; student progress reported that shows the real progressthey've made and not some useless score on a detached standardized
test which has nothing to do with what is taught and learned in our
schools; a dozen Learning Centers for the Primary Phase of schooling to
facilitate self-directed and self-motivated learning all preschoolers bring
into this important phase of learning; cooperative student learning
preferably using the University of Minnesota's model; full utilization of
activities developed by the International Alliance of Invitational
Education; for children in the Primary Phase of schooling, an individual
written contract of learning to be completed each day, recorded at the
end of the day and sent home with each child so parents can see wht
was achieved each day; and full inclusion of ALL slower learning and
handicapped students in all learning settings. Implement and
orchestrate these components and our teachers and other building
level staff, students and parents will have healthier, less stressful lives
and all of our future students will learn and learn well without any life
damaging standardized test driven abuses. In these reformed school
buildings, teachers use their Faculty Rooms for enjoyable exchanges
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with their colleagues and don't use them as Recovery Rooms. After
these school building level staff and parents competently acquire and
successfuly implement all components in this effective reform system,
they are capable of helping train staff and parents in other schooldistricts.
Our building principals, especially teachers, other staff and parents
are all victims along with students of the useless, irrelevant, costly
standardized tests that are superimposed on them by uninformed and
misinformed detached, layered corporate, political and bureaucratic
decision-makers. The school districts and schools I worked with for
twenty years as a part-time national Consultant/Trainer for the US
Department of Education and national/international nonprofit Partners
for Quality Learning organization accomplished research-proven best
knowledge program and cost effective TOTAL SCHOOL SYSTEM
REFORM discussed in this article. This reform was accomplished by
training all building level staff and parents to adapt instruction,
curriculum and embedded, performance-based, authentic, ongoingassesment to EACH student's RATE and STYLE of learning. The amazing
competent self-directed and self-motivated learning all of their
preschoolers bring into their public schools is facilitaed by being
incorporated and interwoven into the instructional process. These
districts empowered Program Committees in each building to make ALL
program decisions within and between the district's school buildings.
The best Program Committee arrangement I've worked with is the onethe Kentucky Education Reform Act legally mandated. It required EVERY
public school building in the state to empower a Program Committee
composed of the Bulding Principal, three Teachers elected by building
level peers and two Parent Leaders elected by building level peers.
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Many children, transitioning from successful concrete, meaningful
learning into academic abstract learning need more readiness activities
and time that standardized test driven schools don't give them. This
involves even some gifted children but especially affects children fromlow socioeconomic backgrounds. These reformed schools give them all
needed readiness activities and time needed to competently use
academic abstact letters and number symbols required in language
arts, arithmetic and other subject areas. Research shows that these
students, before exiting the third grade, or Primary Phase of schooling,
close the academic gap with faster learners and some achieve at faster
learners' level. Instead of the nation's high rate of flunking, labeling,sorting, drugging and other child abuses in the first grade, as our
standardized test driven Delaware public schools deliver, each student
experiences continuous academic and personal/social developmental
progress and are not turned off by continuous traumatic learning
experiences that cause them to drop-out as soon as they reach the
legal age to flee a toxic, hostile environment forced on all within our
public school buildings. This article discusses how we can sensibly stop
damaging our children and youth and have excellent program and cost
effective public schools.
These reformed public school districts have increased academic
scores that show at least two grade levels above previous achievemet
levels. They graduate well over ninety per cent of ALL students
compared to our state's record of approximately sixty-two per cent.They have no school house to jail house path. They have little or no
teacher time lost dealing with inappropriate or disruptive behaviors.
I've worked as a Consultant/Trainer in many of their classrooms and
buildings and not observed a single inappropriate or disruptive
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behavior. Students scurrying around highly motivated and one can't tell
the slower students from the faster learners. A real joyful experience. I
have written testimonials and research information from leaders of five
of these reformed public school districts in Michigan, New York, NorthCarolina, Texas and Utah. The New York district that developed the
Quality District Model for our nation and others is only a four hour
drive from Wilmington. I was first a Consultant/Trainer for their district
and later joined their Consultant/Trainer team for twenty years helping
other school districts learn how to implement their Quality District
Model from Hawaii to Massachusetts. What possible reason can our
State Legislators and Governor give for not investing a Saturday moringto learn about this research-proven program and cost effective total
school system reform model and then visit the New York school district
to learn first hand about what we should provide our students, building
level staff, students, parents and taxpayers. It's their State Constitution
and moral responsibility to provide effective public schools.
Whether intended or not, four layers of uninformed, misinformedcorporate, political and bureaucratic public education decision-makers
continue their movement to weaken and destroy public education with
standardized test projects. The main goal of the top corporate
controlling layers is to weaken and destroy public education so it can
be privatized and use our children and youth as a huge cash cow. Just
as they' re trying to privatize other important social safety nets such as
medicare and social security. The key corporate culprits are formerGovernor Pete DuPont's misnamed Delaware Public Policy Institute
within our State Chamber of Commerce, the National Chamber of
Commerce, the heavily corporate funded and owned American
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Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and, of course, their closely aligned
corporate-owned media.
Our states Delaware Corporate Public Policy Institute controls our
political and bureaucratic decision-makers on public school decisions
and other important civic/political issues such as health care coverage.
They recently realized a cork popping victory be getting our Governor
to appoint one of their staff members as State Superintendent of Public
Education. Last time I checked, the Institute was led by a corporate
CEO and eight of its ten board members were corporate CEOs. Their
Executive Secretary is John Taylor who for years represented their
interests as Editor of the News Journals Editorial Page. Over the past
three decades, this corporate Institute has superimposed on our public
school districts and schools a series of ineffective standardized test
driven projects presented as real school system reform but actually
Tinker and Proclaim projects that have nothing to do with research-
proven program and cost effective total school system reform. These
ineffective projects have been the following: the Sizer Project; Goals2000; No Child Left Behind; Goals 2015; and now, Race to the Top while
mired near the bottom among the states with the Common Core State
Standards Initiative (CCSSI) driven, of course, by destructive
standardized tests. Our state is usually among the top ten states in
annual per student expenditure but below average on student
academic achievement and at the Thank God for Mississippi level on
students who are flunked, labeled, sorted out, drugged and flee asdrop-outs.
Key national corporate organizations contribute funds that cause our
national elected politicians to carry their educational water. The
national Chamber of Commerce and the Room Temperature IQ
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President Bush and his administration gave us the disasterous No Child
Left Behind debacle which should have been named No Child Left
with a Properly Functioning Mind nor a Healthy Behind. The corporate
funded and owned American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) isresponsible for the current Common Core State Standards Initiative
(CCSSI). Of course, again driven by standardized tests. Over the past
seven months, ALEC has sent 46 State Legislatures and Governors 136
proposed legislative acts related to their corporate friendly CCSSI
project. ALEC sends these elected decision-makers laws to enact on
every issue important to their bottom lines. Our national Governors
Association and many State Legislators are members of ALEC, thanks toALEC corporate owners huge campaign contributions.
The core interwoven weapon used to weaken and destroy our public
schools is the superimposition of standardized testing on students,
teachers and other school building level staff. Our uninformed and
misinformed Governor and our State Legislators are given by our
Delaware State Constitution the legal and moral responsibility forproviding efficient program and cost effective public schools. However,
the majority of our State Legislators, Governor and appointed
Bureaucrats continue to dutifully enact policy and other draconian
requirements on school building level staff,especially teachers, given
them by their corporate benefactors. The ONLY way this will change is
for an informed public to insist our elected State Legislators and
Governor take the time to accept the offers our Delaware Coalition hasmade to explore. understand and implement the readily available
research-proven best knowledge program and cost effective TOTAL
SCHOOL SYSTEM REFORM discussed in this article. Anyone
knowledgeable about standardized tests knows the following. They are
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costly, detached barriers to meaningful student learning, irrelevant and
useless. They are designed to create winners and losers. They represent
a narrow one-size-fits-all approach totally opposite from the variability
students bring into classrooms. They significantly reduce all studentscreative and innovation abilities many leading economists inform us are
essential for the jobs in our future. They stifle and reduce higher order
thinking and problem solving abilities. They are responsible for the
highest rate of flunking and labeling beginning in the first grade.
NOTHING is more chronically abusive, depressing and devastating to a
young child than to be told and shown, day after week after month and
years, in verbal and written form that he/she is is an incompetentfailure. No wonder our standardized test driven Delaware public
schools have created one of the highest Attention Deficit Hyperactive
Disorder rates in the nation at fourteen percent of our psychologically
crushed young children. Many more costly outcomes are the result of
this horrendous child/youth abuse. It leads many to the school house to
jail house path. When hope is crushed, many turn to dope whether
using it or selling it on the streets accompanied by guns. Thirty-eight
per cent drop out in Delaware and most of them don't have the
educational ability to acquire the jobs projected in our future economy
and will have difficulty earning a living wage in adulthood. Teachers
have to waste time preparing for these tests and time is wasted
administering detached tests. Insanity plus is now tying teacher
performance to students' test scores on these irrelevant tests. A MUST
read for civic/political responsibility on how standardized tests are
ruining our pubic schools is the short publication "The Case Against
Standardized Tests" by Dr. Alfie Kohn. This valuable publication will be
shipped by Amazon.com for a total cost of around five dollars.
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Along with students, the equally abused group are our states public
school teachers. These uninformed top-down decision-makers impose
standardized test driven policies and requirements that are
disrespectful,unappreciative and place both strait jackets and handcuffson these most valuable public servants. They work hard and long but
under our current and continuing corporate-controlled agenda they are
stressfully and futilely coping, groping and hoping. The corporate
worlds move toward privatizing our public schools has good traction
based on the phase which sees more charter schools and voucher
systems. All one has to do to predict student scores on these
standardized tests is to check each student's postal zip code todetermine where each one lives. As mentioned above, the school
system we need gives all program decisions within and between a
district's school buildings to a Building Program Committee composed
of the building Principal, three Teachers elected by peers and two
Parent Leaders elected by peers as mandated in the Kentucky
Education Reform Act. One hundred and eighty degrees opposite from
our current superimposed standardized test driven costly, ineffective
system perpetuated by the four stratified, strangulating uninformed
layers mentioned above.
For twenty years, I worked as a member of Consultant/Trainer teams
for the US Department of Education and the nonprofit
national/international Partners for Quality Learning organization. In
that role, I helped State Departments of Education and school districtsfrom Hawaii to Maine train school building level staff and parents in
two research-proven TOTAL SCHOOL DISTRICT REFORM SYSTEMS that
are 180 degrees opposite from these top-down layers of detached,
uninformed decision-makers. These two merged reformed systems
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needed in Delaware are discussed on the School Reform page of our
Coalitions nonprofit, nonpartisan DEINFORMEDVOTERS.ORG web site.
All school districts implementing this comprehensive K-12 system
reform obtained waivers from all state and national restrictive policiesand were allowed to totally change public schooling for all of their
students.
From my twenty years of direct involvement on Consultant/Trainer
teams helping our nation and other nations State Departments and
school districts implement these two reform systems and thirty years as
Editor-in-Chief of three national/international professional education
journals publishing hundreds of articles on these reformed districts
program and cost effective results, I recommend for Delaware a
merging of the two aforementioned research-proven program and cost
effective reform systems. Consultant/Training must be brought in to
train all district program staff, especially principals, teachers and
parents at school building levels in ALL components for organizational
arrangements and a teaching/learning process which enables EVERYstudent to accomplish solid, continuous academic and other
personal/social development progress. All components of this TOTAL
SYSTEM REFORM are listed on the School Reform page of our
DEinformedvoters.org web site. In these reformed total systems, all
students learn and learn well without being flunked, labeled, sorted
and drugged which causes large numbers to eventually drop out of
school. Empowering school building Program Teams (Principal,Teachers and Parent Leaders) for all program decision-making will
easily lend itself to millions saved by creating three county school
districts and not needing many administrative and supervisory staff
now in the State Department of Education and our district offices.
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Standardized tests DO NOT drive these systems and we recommended
official burial ceremonies for standardized tests and other
wrongheaded, ineffective practices. These tragic, disrespectful
superimposed assaults on teachers are made by corporate, political andbureaucratic decision-makers who have never had one interaction with
a student and probably have to get directions to a public school
location.
The exemplary Kentucky Education Reform Act legally mandated
three very important requirements. It required a state and regional
training centers be established to provide initial and continuing
educatio for all components needed for research-proven, best
knowledge systemic reform. This was especially required for school
building level program staff and parents. Their reform law required that
the K-3 NAEYC reform system be in every elementary school. Another
very important requirement was that ALL program decisions be made
by an empowered Program Committee made up as mentioned above. I
was the first Consultant/Trainer brought in to provide initialfoundational training on the site based school building management
Program Teams and the K-3 NAEYC reform system. This was a weeklong
training program for over 1,200 State Department staff, all of
Kentuckys Public School District Superintendents, all of their
Elementary School Principals and Lead Teachers.
This research-docomented total SCHOOL SYSTEM reform will maintain
the continuous learning ALL preschoolers bring into kindergarten. All of
these preschoolers, from all backgrounds, learn some of the most
important learnings in life before they reach age five. They all learn to
communicate in the language of their culture, self-help, safety, the
skills of daily living and the social behavior of their families and
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community. We accept that some learn faster than others. We do not
crush their confidence and continuous progress learning competencies
by standardized test influenced requirements. We do not grade them A
through F, nor sort them into Blue Bird, Red Bird and Buzzardgroupings. We label jars, cans and other containers, not our preschool
kids. Their learning is primarily by self-directed and self-motivated
learning. We can't stop them from learning. They all enter kindergarten
beleiving they can continue to successfully learn whatever the public
school offers. BUT the transition from preschool concrete learning to
abstract academic learning is difficult for many children, expecially
those from lower socoeconomic homes and communities. Ourstandardized test driven school systems do not give these children the
additional readiness activities or the time needed to move into abstract
learnings. By far, our highest flunking, labeling, sorting, drugging and
establishing drop-our attitudes are all child abuse practices in the FIRST
GRADE! Then these uninformed top-down decision-makers have
programmed the majority of us to join them in pointing a finger and
blaming the failed children, their teachers, parents and even
communities with "It's her, his or their fault!" Creating psycholigically
traumatized students gives the medical and phatmaceutical industries a
profitable piece of this abusive action treating and drugging these
afflicted students. How many of us understand such outcomes as when
report cards go out, many students are so physically injured by parents
it's the time hospital emergency rooms have to treat their highest
numbers of children. These victim students are NOT the ones who
should be receiving these floggings. One purpose of this article is to
help us examine the THREE FINGERS POINTING BACK AT THESE FALSE
ACCUSERS. Let's take off our strait jackets and change what these top-
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down uninformed decision-makers are wrongfully giving students,
teachers, parents and tax payers. The school system reform briefly
discussed in this article and on the School Reform page of our
nonprofit, nonpartisan DEINFORMEDVOTERS.ORG web site willcontinue the successful learning and personal/social developmental
progress all preschoolers bring into kindergarten. EVERY line of this
needed civic/political responsibility information will hold up in any
court.
Here in Delaware where I, four of my children and six grandchildren
live, I sent informative school reform research evidence on the
comprehensive total school system reform briefly discussed in this
article and offered to meet, free of any charge, with many members of
the four abovementioned corporate, political and bureaucratic layers of
educational decision-makers in our state. Only ONE of our sixty-two
State Legislators and Governor responded! We met a number of times.
He became thoroughly knowledgeable about this school system reform
and did everything he could to try and get his fellow state electeddecision-makers to support changes needed but they turned a deaf ear
to both of us. I can understand why they want this school system
reform information to not even to be discussed as it would expose their
shameful record of perpetuating a corporate-owned agenda which is
damaging and even destroying the lives of a sizeable percentage of
OUR children and youth. One of our nation's greatest intellects aptly
informed us: "It's a form of insanity to do the same thing over and overand expect different results." One purpose of this communication is to
help all of our Delaware citizens to start taking off our strait jackets and
simply understand and help move toward implementing the readily
available comprehensive TOTAL SCHOOL SYSTEM reform discussed in
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this article and help improve the lives of thousands of our annual public
school students.
In my native state of Georgia, in 1960, I had completed my first
Doctorate Major in Educational Ledership and was Director of two
programs for the 60,000 student DeKalb County School District located
partially in Atlanta, GA. AS Head of our county's reformed Democratric
Party, I developed a state school reform plan based on best reform
knowledge at the time and plans for Family and Children Services
Regional Centers to develop more and improved early childhood care
and development programs. Govenor Carl Sanders started
implementation of these reforms and was awarded Governor of the
Year awards by both the National Education Association and the
national Veterans of Foreign Wars organization. The state also named
Interstate 20 Highway the Carl Sanders Memorial Highway for his
leadership on these reforms. Later, Democratic Governor Zell Miller
completed the funding of all of the reform components. These reforms
led to the following: In 1971, all of Georgia's public schools provided afull day kindergarten; taxation for public schools was made more
equitable and all schools in 159 counties received equal public funds
per pupil, including African-American public schools for the first time;
Georgia later was the first state in the nation to provide a full-day
program for pre-kindergartners or four-year-olds; and the really BIG
one came the same year as the pre-kindergarten program began. This
was the Hope Scholarship program. Since it began decades ago, EVERYgraduate of a Georgia private or public high school, with an academic
average of B- (80) or above, can receive tuition, fees and a book
allowance to go as high as possible in college, university or trade school
higher education. As of 2013, ONE MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND
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young Georgians from all backgrounds have taken advantage of these
opportunities. I can show our Delaware State Legislators and Governor
how the total school system reform I've discussed in this article would
save enogh funds to provide these two lower grades Georga has andsupport for higher education like Georgia funds. Think of Delaware
families NOT having to pay for their children's higher education.
I will now discuss two events in 2013 related to the above paagraph's
information about my fortunate experiences in my native state
Georgia. When President Obama made his State of the Union address
the day before Valentine's day, he announced a federal/state initiative
for adding a pre-kindergarten and kindergarten program in all of our
nation's public elementary schools. He cited Georgia as the best
example among states as for decades both lower grades have been
available there. Next day, Valentines Day, he visited Decatur, GA, just
outside Atlanta. A short distance from my office where I developed
plans for these reforms and directed two programs for the then 60,000
student DeKalb County School District, he made another national mediaappearance praising the early childhood programs he'd visited that day.
A true miracle occured this year related to the Hope Scolarship
program. At 86, early this year, I was admitted to the Emergency Room
of the Christiana Care Hospital. A young African-American woman came
over and said she would be my Physician. We had a conversation. I
discovered she had graduated from a high school in the DeKalb County
School District I once worked in. Then she told me she would not havebeen able to attend Emory University in DeKalb County and obtain her
Physician's Degree had it not been for the Georgia Hope Scholarship
program I had in the reform plan written in 1960. I slept well that night.
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Another memorable national and Delaware Act I had a fortunate role
in helping become law relates to all handicapped children and youth in
our nation. In 1970, the State of Pennsylvania hired me, under an
independent contract I insisted on, to accomplish a comprehensiveresearch study and advise the state government on the most program
nd cost effective ways to serve their mentally deficient citizens and
their families. I formed a research team and we accomplished a two-
year research study and developed a comprehensive program and cost
effective commuity-based plan to serve these handicapped and their
families. One major recommendation was that all handicapped
children and youth in the state needed legal access to the state's publicschools for needed training and therapies. The state reneged on it's
pledge to implement our recommendations if our research proved they
were program and cost effective. Parent groups and the Public Interest
Law Center of Philadelphia (PILCOP) sued the state and counties in the
Federal Court of Philadelphia, only a few feet from Independence Hall
and the Liberty Bell. I worked with them and the evidence and best
knowledge information our research team provided were credited with
winning this monumental case. It quickly became a national class action
victory affecting every state. It led, in 1975, to our nation's first
Education of the Handicapped Act, or Public Law 94-142. As a then
Consultant/Trainer for the US Department of Education, I had input into
the national Act. Then, moving to Delaware shortly thereafter, I had the
opportunity to be the key author of our Delaware Act enabling all
handicapped children and youth in our state to attend our public
schools. At the time, I also researched and authored the Delaware
Special Schools Summer School Act which was enacted and
implemented.
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When public education was started in the states approximately one
hundred years ago, a national Committee of Ten was appointed to
inform our nation about the goals and objectives of public education.
Four major goals were identified with a number of objectives undereach. The four major goals were as follows: Personal adequacy; Social
competency, Economic efficiency; and civic responsibility. I find it
interesting to note that of the 16-20 courses needed for high school
graduation, less than half of our high schools have even one course
required in civics. Political influence not to discuss controversal issues.
Those supporting this needed public school reform in our state ask that
you take the civic responsibility time to understand this reform systemneeded in our public school districts and share this information with all
Delaware adults on your email lists.
Our current and future Delaware children and youth do not deserve
to be molded by standardized test driven public school districts and
schools but successfully unfolded by the research-proven program and
cost effective public schooling discussed in this article. Our minds arelike umbrellas and parachutes. They won't work unless open.
Dr. Floyd E. McDowell, Sr. of 11 Dover Court, Bear 19701 is
Chairperson of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Delaware Citizens'
Information and Action Forum and it's DEinformedvoters.org web site.
He can be reached at (302) 832-2799 or via the email address
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected] -
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THE REAL DISCONNECT IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS
This is a response to your recent editorial about solving the
disconnect in our public schools.
The disconnect between the excellent teacher evaluation ratings on
our states teacher evaluation tests and student performance is NOT
the fault of our teachers. The huge elephant culprit in every classroom
trampling on everyone involved in public education is the continuing
standardized test driven projects our states elected and appointed
decision-makers are superimposing on school district staff, students
and parents.
All standardized tests are designed to create winners and losers. They
provide a one-size-fits-all requirement that is totally opposite from the
diversity students bring into our schools. They have nothing to do with
what should be taught and learned in our schools. They have little or no
connection to success in later life. They cause the most vicious and life-
harming child abuse in history by causing the highest flunking, labeling,
drugging, sorting, etc. in the first grade. The uninformed, restrictive,
stressful handcuffs and strait jackets these standardized tests forced on
teachers is why many require sick leave, leave the profession and dont
decide to enter the teaching field.
For twenty years, I worked part-time as a Consultant/Trainer with
cool districts and their schools who abandoned these useless tests and
use embedded, ongoing authentic student evaluation of progress kept
in individual student portfolios. This work was on behalf of the US
Department of Education and the nonprofit, national/international
Partners for Quality Learning organization. These districts graduate well
over ninety per cent of students compared with our states slightly over
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sixty per cent. Their student improvement record shows each grade
level gains at least two grade level increases in academic achievement.
These school districts provide research-proven, best knowledge training
to school building level staff and parents, then empowers a buildinglevel Program Committee to make all program decisions within and
between a districts school buildings. As in the legal mandate of the
Kentucky Education Reform Act, the best Program Committee
organizational arrangement Ive worked with is their requirement each
Kentucky public school building have a committee comprised of the
Building Principal, three Teacher elected by building level peers and
two Parent Leaders elected by their building level peers.
Our Delaware State Constitution gives the responsibility for efficient
public schools to our sixty=two State Legislators. Our Governor shares
in this responsibility with the appointments he makes. I have sent
research-proven information on why and how te reforms I worked on
from Hawaii to Maine would change our wrongheaded, destructive,
costly standardized test driven course. I offered, free of any charge, tosit down with them and walk through how we could provide this
proven reform systemic change to our state. Help arrange a visit to one
or two of these successful school districts. No response whatsoever. In
these reformed school districts and schools, flunking, labeling,
drugging, etc. are practically eliminated. Well continue the assault on
teachers, students, parents and taxpayers as we slowly weaken and
destroy public education so it can be privatized as a huge cash cow asmany of our decision-makers have as their goal.
Dr. Floyd E. McDowell, Sr. of Bear, DE is Chair of the nonprofit,
nonpartisan Delaware Citizens Information and Action Forum and its
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DEinformedvoters.org web site. He can be reached by phone at (302)
832-2799 or via email at [email protected].