joannejacobs.com

My difficulty is not with the principle of patented cushioning craniophagic headwear, but with these words:
"No caring or sensible parent would send their child to play football without shin pads, hockey without a gum shield or the non-swimmer without armbands."
I always knew I wasn't sensible. Now I know I am uncaring too. I would send my child to play football without shin pads. I would send my child to play hockey without a gum shield. I would send my child to play the non-swimmer without armbands. As you no doubt know, "the non-swimmer without armbands" is a minor character in Beckett's masterly portrayal of wistful futility, Waiting for Swimming Lessons.

My father often says, "You were perfectly normal till I dropped you on your head when you were two." I like to think that's true.

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Meritorious Norwegian sex

Young Norwegians can earn a merit badge in sex from a sex education group that imports condoms. It's a written test.

A recent survey found young Norwegians aren't smart about sex.

* While 75 percent of Norwegian youngsters are positive towards condom use, only 1 in 5 actually used them when last having sex.

* Fully 90 percent of Norwegian boys believe 'no' means 'maybe'.

* Three out of four youths put the condom on incorrectly and many bite open the package, creating the danger of condom puncture.

The badge displays sperm cells swimming in waves. It will be awarded to young people who answer 10 of 13 safe sex questions correctly.

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June 18, 2004

Stepford voles

Genetic therapy can turn promiscuous meadow voles into monogamous homebodies.

Researchers in Atlanta used a virus to transfer the vasopressin receptor gene from prairie voles into their meadow cousins.

They found the formerly promiscuous rodents spent more time cuddling with their current partners rather than with new females, compared to control animals.

The experimental meadow voles also spent more time with their pups and less time grooming themselves, the researchers said in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Prairie voles are models of fidelity in the vole world.

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E is for expensive

The E-rate program, which funds school technology, is riddled with waste and fraud, says a belated New York Times story.

When the El Paso school system wanted to upgrade its Internet connections three years ago, it tapped into a federal program that offers assistance for such projects.

The program paid the International Business Machines Corporation $35 million to build a network powerful enough to serve a small city. But the network would be so sophisticated that the 90-school district could not run it without help.

Foreseeing the problem, I.B.M. charged the district an additional $27 million, paid by the federal program, to build a lavish maintenance call-in center to keep the network running. The center operated for nine months. Then, with no more money to support it, I.B.M. dismantled it and left town.

The federal effort to help poor schools connect to the Internet, the E-rate program, which collects a fee from all American phone users to distribute $2.25 billion a year to such schools and libraries, wasted enormous sums as El Paso built its extravagant network in the 2001-2 school year, according to documents and federal lawmakers.

President Bush is letting the E-rate become an national entitlement, complains Cato.

Everyone would agree that textbooks are an indispensable teaching aid. Policy makers have never suggested, however, the inclusion of a hidden tax in the cost of new novels to help lower the cost of textbooks in the classroom. Such an absurd cross-subsidy would be considered inefficient and unfair. Yet that is how the E-rate program operates. Hidden taxes on the phone bills of average Americans cross-subsidize school wiring efforts.

Cato urges the president to dump the "Gore tax" and let states decide if the benefits of school technology merit extra funding.

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Quick Ulysses

What's James Joyce's Ulysses about? BBC News posts a handy plot summary in honor of Bloomsday, June 16. Thanks to Cris Simpson for the link.

CHAPTER 14

Stephen and Bloom meet at last in a maternity hospital in a chapter whose structure is meant to represent both the nine months of pregnancy and the birth of the English language. And they say this book is hard.

CHAPTER 15

READER
(horrorstruck) Blimey, this looks like heavy going.

STEPHEN'S DEAD MOTHER
No kidding! There's over 100 pages of this stuff, all written in the style of a play script. But all you need to know is that Bloom follows Stephen to a brothel where they have lots of freaky hallucinations.

The comments are good too:

It took me two years to read this book, I had visited Dublin so I read it while following the Dublin Street map, which made it even more time consuming. "I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to speak, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late box of the general post office of human life" Bloom page 642 - blew my mind, made the difficult reading all worthwhile to have found this gem! Thanks for this opportunity.
Veronica Maher, Huddersfield

Author wakes up one morning and decides just how far he can push his luck.....quite far by the sounds of it.
S Gardner, Portsmouth

For a Joyce class in college, I wrote a long paper on Ulysses using a bunch of the styles used or parodied in the book. It was lots of fun. I got an A too.

Here's Sheila O'Malley's plot summary with references to Homer's Ulysses.

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SEED students grow

SEED, an all-minority charter boarding school in Washington, D.C. is sending its graduates to college, reports the Christian Science Monitor.

One class member is off to Boston University, another to Duke, and a third has been accepted at Princeton. Others are bound for American University, the Art Institute of Philadelphia, Georgetown, and other schools. One hundred percent of the class is going to college next year.

. . . SEED's Class of 2004, like the rest of the school's 300 Grade 7-12 students, is fairly typical of the public school population of southeast D.C.

Ninety-eight percent are African-American, 2 percent are Hispanic. Ninety percent come from homes below the poverty line; 88 percent come from single parent or no parent households, and 93 percent are the first generation in their families to go to college.

Students are selected by a lottery; 30 percent have to take an extra "growth year" before they're ready for high school. By high school, SEED students outscore other D.C. students. They are much less likely to get into fights or try drugs; they are much more likely to graduate.

A teachers' union policy analyst complains the school, which costs $24,000 per student, takes too much public and philanthropic money. It's only possible to help a few students because the cost is so high to provide room and board and round the clock supervision. Education Gadfly calls that finding the dark lining in a silver cloud.

I do think the cost matters. SEED may be cost-effective for kids who are doomed to failure if they stay in troubled homes. But not all inner-city students come from dysfunctional families. While $24,000 a year is not much compared to tuition at an elite private school, it's more than double what D.C. spends on the average student.

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June 17, 2004

Not their fault

In a speech to a black audience in Ohio, John Kerry said blacks in prison aren't to blame.

Talking about education yesterday, Mr. Kerry also told the largely black crowd at the day care center that there are more blacks in prison than in college.

"That's unacceptable," he said. "But it's not their fault."

Rather than the inmates, the former Boston prosecutor blamed poverty, poor schools, a dearth of after-school programs and "all of us as adults not doing what we need to do."

I think James Taranto is right on target with his analysis:

What do adults "need to do" to prevent youngsters from turning to crime? Surely, above all, instill in them a sense of personal responsibility. Kerry sends precisely the opposite message when he says of criminals -- and, it would seem, only of those criminals who happen to be black -- that "it's not their fault."

The Washington Times' story also reports that local Republicans blasted a Kerry speech in Columbus, Ohio with the theme song from the '60s-era TV show, Flipper. (Think Lassie only with a dolphin.)

Ê"They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning / No one, you see, is smarter than he," screamed the music set to its happy jingle.

This could catch on.

Update: Actually, Kerry is wrong: There are many more blacks in college than in prison. My Aisling has the stats: In mid-year 2002, there were 818,900 black men and 65,600 black women (total 884,500) in prison versus 802,000 black men and 1,476,000 black women (total 2,278,000) in college. Best of the Web adds:

It's true that among black men the number of prison inmates was slightly higher than the number of college students. But as the Statistical Assessment Service notes, this is a meaningless comparison, since "you can go to prison at any age, but are most likely to be in college between the ages of 18-24." A college-age black man, it turns out, is 2.5 times as likely to be in college as in prison. Also worth noting: A career criminal can easily end up spending decades of his life behind bars, while only the laziest student stays in college that long.

If black women can succeed in school, black men should be able to make it too. But they'll have to tune out people who tell them bad decisions are "not their fault."

I helped a Mexican-American student write a college application essay about how he turned around his life. At the age when his friends were joining gangs, he joined a soccer team. They dropped out of school. He toughed it out at a college-prep charter school. Some of his old friends are heading for prison. He's going to San Jose State in the fall.

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No chance

Cleveland may drop a very successful YMCA-run last-chance program for students who'd otherwise be expelled; the teachers aren't union members. The Plain Dealer reports:

When teachers at Cleveland's A.B. Hart Middle School threatened to walk out in February because of serious student behavior problems, the YMCA's Phoenix program played a part in defusing the situation.

About 20 problem students were taken out of A.B. Hart and sent to various YMCA branches, where they attended classes in a last-chance program for Cleveland students called the Phoenix Alternative Program.

In a Phoenix class, there is one teacher or staff member for every seven students. Part of the day is spent in "group," a session to teach study skills and good habits. Of the 330 students who went through a Phoenix program last year instead of being expelled, 90 percent will return to regular schools in good standing.

The Cleveland Teachers Union wants unionized teachers, not YMCA employees, to run the program. The Y's chief says that wouldn't work because Phoenix teachers often work late or unconventional hours to meet with parents.

Phoenix costs no more than district-run alternative schools, but the district expects to save $60,000 to $100,000 in legal fees by giving in to the union.

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Zero tolerance for chaperones

Teen-agers who sneak a drink on a school trip get into big trouble. So did parent chaperones who ordered a beer or glass of wine with dinner while escorting sixth graders in Washington, D.C., reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, via Zero Intelligence.

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June 16, 2004

Godless government schools

Southern Baptists voted down a proposal to urge parents to pull kids out of public schools in favor of Christian schools or home-schooling.

Earlier this year, a statement denouncing "government schools" as "officially Godless" had been proposed by retired Air Force General T.C. Pinckney of Alexdandria, Va., and attorney Bruce Shortt of Spring, Texas.

The meeting's resolutions committee rejected that in favor of a broader and less pointed warning against "the cultural drift in our nation toward secularism."

Pinckney took the floor to move a briefer amendment encouraging parents to provide their children "a thoroughly Christian education" through private day schools or home schooling. That was defeated that by a show of hands after the most spirited debate of the meeting.

Public schools are officially godless, according to the ACLU.

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The first time

In the once-repressed British isles, David Vardy, a 19-year-old Bournemouth University student, is auctioning his virginity. He claims the offer has generated "eight firm offers, with the top bid at £6,114," which is about $11,172. 'Cause there are lots of women eager to pay for sex with an inexperienced 19-year-old guy.

David, who lists his interests as entertainment, the media, computers and money, says he is just hoping the winner is attractive.

He said: "I've never had a serious girlfriend and have never had sex. I have been wrapped up in multi-media projects since I was a teenager so I haven't had time. But saying that, I don't want to sound a geek.

Of course not!

Via Erin O'Connor.

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Resisting Ritalin

Some parents complain they're being pressured to put their children on medications to control Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and "social anxiety disorder," reports the Christian Science Monitor.

When Patricia Weathers's son Michael had problems in his first-grade class, a school psychologist told the New York mother he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, and needed to be medicated with stimulants. If not, he would be sent to a special education facility near his Millbrook, N.Y., school.

The mother agreed to medication, but later decided the side-effects were making her son psychotic. When she stopped medicating, school officals referred the case to Child Protective Services. The mother was charged wtih child abuse, though charges were dropped eventually. Her site, AbleChild.org, promotes Parents for Label and Drug Free Education.

The Monitor reports:

To date, according to activists who track the issue, seven states have laws prohibiting school personnel from recommending psychotropic drugs for children. Over the past few years, 46 bills in 28 states have either passed or are awaiting action.

Currently, one federal bill, the Child Safety Medication Act, prohibits schools from making medication a requirement of attendance and calls on the Government Accounting Office to track how often schools pressure parents to seek ADHD diagnoses. It passed the House in 2003 but is currently stalled in the Senate.

The diagnosis of ADHD has skyrocketed from 150,000 children in 1970 to 6 million in 2000, representing more than 12 percent of students. Surely, not all these kids have a problem that requires medication. But some do. And if they're not medicated, they may disrupt their classrooms, taking far more than their share of the teacher's time and energy and making it hard for classmates to learn.

According to a National Institute of Mental Health study: "consistent use of stimulants mildly suppresses children's growth at an average rate of about an inch over the course of two years, in addition to weight loss in some children." On the other hand, medications work better than behavioral treatment to control symptoms.

I think parents should be able to refuse medication. But some kids may have to attend special ed classes or schools if their symptoms remain out of control.

Update: Here's a shrink who thinks George W. Bush has ADHD. Also that he's a sadistic, paranoid megalomaniac.

If a guy's president of the United States, how can you tell paranoia from common sense? I mean, people really are out to get him. Megalomania too. He is powerful.

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June 15, 2004

Teaching well for America

Eduwonk summarizes a Mathematica study of the effectiveness of Teach for America teachers, who are very bright college graduates who promise to teach for two years in high-need schools. Compared to their colleagues, including those who are certified and experienced, TFA teachers are just as good at teaching reading and better at math.

Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, observes:

The fairest "apple to apple" comparison found that new TFA teachers stacked up quite well to other new teachers in the building, so much so that the impact was about the same as if the school had reduced the class size from 23 to 15 students but a whole lot less expensive.

Less than three percent of TFA teachers in the study majored in education compared to 52 percent of non-TFA teachers.

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College for the unentitled

Writing in the Washington Post, Susan Sharpe, a community college instructor, compares her daughter's Reed education with the education of two-year college students.

A typical English teacher at NOVA has 125 to 135 students a semester, which is almost triple the number per teacher at Reed. For better and worse, we're not intellectuals actively engaged in scholarly pursuits. Our students don't get to leave home and are not isolated from the cares of the world -- they have jobs, children, parents, car trouble; they have to make their meals and pay their bills and haul out their trash. They have almost no time or opportunity for community with one another. They differ in nationality, age, educational goals.

We teach only two years of college. If you were to take one of our sophomores and look at his or her academic work, and look at the sophomore work of my daughter's classmates, the differences would be huge. The Reed students read 10 times as much, and they read original texts by thinkers and scholars, ancient and modern.

Community college students usually read magazine articles and textbooks, summaries of the works by the thinkers and scholars. The Reed students write better; not that their writing doesn't have sins, but the sins are different. They can be verbose, stuffy, sometimes disorganized. But their expression is richly textured, subtle, even occasionally original. Almost all community college students, on the other hand, have at least a few problems with grammar, which get in the way. They tend to write simple sentences in order to avoid mistakes, and thus do not express their most subtle thoughts. Their vocabularies are more limited, and their thinking strives for the dogmatically conventional. Their most earnest question about an assignment is usually, "I don't understand exactly what you want." These aren't necessarily differences in intelligence. They are the differences in the students' experiences and how they have been taught.

Most students who start community college hoping to transfer to a four-year college never make it through. They're distracted by jobs and family responsibilities; they get stuck in remedial classes. For those who persist, it's a wonderful opportunity. Sharpe writes about a grandmother, a former truck driver hoping to be a teacher, who was offered a scholarship to an elite women's college (apparently Smith), but warned she might have to work five or six hours a week.

I watched her face. Only five or six hours? In Virginia, she took care of grandchildren and a household, went to school full time, worked 30 hours as a teacher's aide. She looked at me and started to cry, and then she was embarrassed and beat her fist on the table and said: "I never in my life expected to be offered an opportunity like this one! If America isn't the greatest country in the world, I want to hear someone say it. Just come over here and try saying that to me!"

Via Amardeep Singh.

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Even Swedish kids fight

American adolescents are no more violent than youths in Sweden, Portugal, Ireland or Israel, says an international study. But U.S. kids are more likely to die as a result of violence, possibly because they have easier access to guns.

Children 11 to 16 years old were asked how frequently they fought, were injured from fighting, carried a weapon or bullied schoolmates. Occasional fighting was common in all four countries; few students were injured or carried weapons. Bullying was most common in the U.S. and Israel with more than 40 percent of students saying they'd been bullied in the last school term; only 15 percent of Swedes said they'd been bullied.

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June 14, 2004

Talented tenth

As an alternative to racial and ethnic preferences, the public universities in Texas now admit the top 10 percent of students at each high school. Racial and ethnic diversity is higher than before the court decision throwing out preferences, and many more high schools are sending students to UT. But some families are complaining bitterly: Very good students at high-achieving schools can't get into UT-Austin because so many places are taken by kids in the top 10 percent of low-achieving schools.

"Those kids are not prepared," said Douglas S. Craig, a lawyer in Houston whose son, Charles, was not accepted at the university. Charles Craig went to the University of Colorado at Boulder instead, Mr. Craig said, adding that getting into the top 10 percent at his son's selective private high school was very difficult. "His class was two-thirds National Merit scholars and semifinalists. Their scores are all very, very high."

The university's data show top 10 and non-top 10 students earn similar SAT scores (1223 vs. 1257 in 2003), and ten percenters earn higher grades in their first year (3.24 vs. 2.9). Perhaps there's a thumb on the scale here, but I can't spot it. (Click on the link to open the Report 6 pdf file.)

Florida and California are emulating the Texas model, though California only admits the top 4 percent at each high school. And eligible but marginal students may have to start their University of California education at a community college.

Here's Discriminations on the issue.

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No standing on flag case

A Flag Day non-decision: The U.S. Supreme Court has dismissed a challenge to the pledge of allegiance by ruling that the complaining father doesn't have standing to sue. The justices vote 8-0 with Antonin Scalia recusing himself.

The Supreme Court preserved the phrase "one nation, under God," in the Pledge of Allegiance, ruling Monday that a California atheist could not challenge the patriotic oath but sidestepping the broader question of separation of church and state.

. . . The court said atheist Michael Newdow could not sue to ban the pledge from his daughter's school and others because he did not have legal authority to speak for her.

The girl's mother, who has custody, has no objection to the pledge.

Jacob Levy and Eugene Volokh are happy the court ducked the constitutional issue.

Somewhere in our fair land, there are custodial, pledge-hating parents who are polishing up a lawsuit.

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June 13, 2004

Happy day

Today my daughter Allison is graduating with a BA in American Studies (minor in Creative Writing) from Stanford University. I'm proud and happy and already tired from pre-commencement celebration. So don't expect a lot of blogging.

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June 12, 2004

The teacher's T-shirt

When a high school teacher wears political slogans on her T-shirt, does that encourage students to think? Or prompt them to think like the teacher? Even the National Education Association is leery of teachers who use their classroom as a "pulpit," says a Christian Science Monitor story on Hildreth Simmons, a literature teacher at Hollywood High.

Just about every day, Ms. Simmons shows up in her southern California classroom wearing a T-shirt with a provocative message like "War Without End? Not in Our Name" or "A Woman's Place Is in Her Union."

Her goal, she says, is to get students to ponder issues like labor rights, world affairs or, nowadays, the war in Iraq. "I am trying to provoke thought, and discussion," says Simmons. "I'd like them to think."

It's hard to get students to think for themselves. It's just about impossible when the teacher is flashing "correct answer" on her shirt.

Via SCSU Scholars.

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Once an SJ Mercury News columnist, I'm now writing School Work: How Two Grumpy Optimists Built a Successful Charter School. Read the blog, click the links below for my free-lance writing and support this site by donating through PayPal or Amazon or by using my book links to buy Amazon stuff.

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