February, 2001

Zero judgment
Educators say their top priority is to teach œcritical thinking.” But how are kids supposed to learn? Not by example. Yet another example of œzero tolerance” for judgment was reported this week by Associated Press: œAn 8-year-old boy was suspended from school for 3 days after pointing a breaded chicken finger at a teacher and saying, `Pow, pow, pow.' The incident apparently violated the Jonesboro (Arkansas) School District's zero-tolerance policy against weapons.'' Weapons somewhat broadly defined.

Jonesboro is sensitive about school violence. Three years ago, two middle school students killed four classmates and a teacher. But censoring "Pow, pow, pow" and refusing to distinguish between a chicken strip and a weapon isnÃt going to make schools safer. Why not talk to the first grader? Tell him that why itÃs not OK to pretend he has a gun. Discuss acceptable ways to deal with anger, frustration or bad cafeteria food. Teach him.

A few days ago, police arrested a 19-year-old San Jose man whoÃd assembled an arsenal of bombs and shotguns, and a plan for a Columbine-style massacre at his community college. (No chicken fingers were found.) Suspect Al De Guzman filled web sites with hateful blather but apparently couldnÃt express his anger to his family and friends.

ThatÃs so common itÃs a cliche: œHe was the quiet type. He never made any trouble. He seemed like such a nice boy.ÃÃ We don't need more quiet types. -- 2/2

The 90-minute answer
JasonÃs standardized test score was 1250. Jose got 1200. Which is the more capable student? ItÃs a trick question. Jose took the test in three hours. Jason was givenfour-and-a-half hours because he claimed a œlearning disability.ÃÃ

Disabled how? DonÃt ask. And donÃt look for an asterisk by JasonÃs test score, to indicate he got extra time. To settle a disability bias lawsuit, the Educational Testing Service will stop noting who got special help on tests taken by applicants to graduate school and business school. Also included in the settlement are Praxis, a subject-matter exam for new teachers, and the Test of English as a Foreign Language. The SATs are not.

In theory, the disability affects Jason's test-taking performance, not his chances for success. The extra time is supposed to give him a fair chance to show his stuff. But there's no proof that Jason's 270 minutes are the equivalent of Jose's 180. Essentially, an extra 90 minutes is assumed to be the equalizer for all disabilities. That's absurd.

With "disability" fuzzily defined, last-minute learning disability claims -- usually from affluent white students -- are increasing rapidly. The California state auditor looked at extra time given to SAT test-takers claiming disability. The Los Angeles Times reports: œAuditing the files of 330 students in 18 public schools, it found the basis for their special treatment to be questionable in 60 cases, or 18.2%. Students at private schools are four times as likely to get extra time.ÃÃ Such help was œnearly nonexistent for poor, minority students in urban public schools.ÃÃ -- 2/10

Success is no excuse
At Bennett-Kew Elementary School in Southern California, Nancy Ichinaga's students -- half Hispanic, half black and 77 percent poor -- score in the top third on state tests. She turned around the failing school by stressing phonics and English immersion. When she retired as principal last year, Gov. Gray Davis appointed her to the state board of education.

But the California Association for Bilingual Education is lobbying legislators to reject Ichinaga's appointment. Ichinaga is "unable to objectively represent the interests of language minority students," CABE claims. She isn't knowledgeable about the "needs" of students from immigrant families. Translation: She endorsed Proposition 227, which limited bilingual education.

"In many categories, STAR scores for Bennett-Kew's limited English students are close to double the scores for limited English students statewide," writes Debra Saunders in the Feb. 11 San Francisco Chronicle. "So Ichinaga not only knows how to represent the interests of immigrant kids, more important, she knows how to educate them."

Ichinaga herself is the daughter of immigrants. She started school in Hawaii speaking Japanese and some pidgin English, she told Saunders.

CABE used to wield great political power, which it used to block reform of California's bilingual education rules. That led to Proposition 227. By opposing a fantastically successful principal, CABE shreds what's left of its credibility and its clout. -- 2/11

'P' is for patronizing the poor
If œpÃÃ was the letter of the week, Thistleberry pre-schoolers would come up with "p" words: paper, puppy, pickle, popsicle, pancake, etc. The kids at my daughterÃs pre-school came from affluent, educated, two-parent homes, with books on the shelves and alphabet wallpaper in their bedrooms. But a little extra learning never hurts.

So why all the fuss over President BushÃs plan to get Head Start teachers to teach pre-reading skills? Critics are acting as though Bush wants to replace story time with SAT drills. The tots will be traumatized if they fail at pre-reading, say child development experts quoted in the Feb. 10 New York Times. Apparently, it's OK to teach "The Itsy Bitsy Spider,'' with those tricky finger movements, but developmentally dangerous to teach "The Alphabet Song."

Head Start is supposed to prepare needy children for school, but focuses on providing access to health care and social services. The average Head Start grad starts kindergarten knowing only two letters, according to a government study. Bush wants Head Start teachers to use a curriculum developed by Texas researchers, which has proven effective at preparing low-income, minority students for reading.

Here's a lesson on syllables:

Rickety Rackety Ree, clap and say these words with me:

Mu-sic

Lis-ten

Fa-ther

Now you can say a word with two parts.

It's not exactly boot camp, is it? Nor does it take up the whole day, leaving no time for play, story time, fingerpainting or snack. If Thistleberry's three-year-olds can do the "letter of the week,'' so can Head Start kids. Before we assume they can't learn, let's try teaching them. --2/14

Safe smokes
Here's some news of the weird from a Feb. 13 Wall Street Journal story on "The race to produce a 'safer' cigarette.'' Vector, which owns Liggett, is developing tobacco with lower levels of carcinogens. According to Vector, "some of the company's bigger rivals are trying to smother one of its safe-cigarette innovations, genetically modified tobacco. In Argentina, for example, where Vector first grew the new crop, representatives of Philip Morris and British American Tobacco PLC have lobbied government officials to prohibit cultivation of the new plant.'' Rivals say they fear a consumer backlash against Argentine tobacco, which they also buy.

In other words, people who choose to smoke are safety-conscious folks who wouldn't want to risk smoking a tobacco modified to remove carcinogens. Are smokers that stupid? Don't answer. -- 2/16

Justice delayed
A week before he left office, Bill Clinton came out against mandatory minimum sentences and for equalizing crack and powder cocaine sentences, notes William Rasperry in the Feb. 19 Washington Post. But Clinton did nothing about it when he had the power. "In federal prisons alone, more inmates were added on Clinton's watch than under former Presidents Bush and Reagan combined."

Bush, with no need to prove he's tough on crime, could do better, Raspberry believes. Then he asks: "Who would get more credit among black voters -- Bush for reforming the sentencing disparities we've been complaining about for so long? Or Clinton, for looking for office space in Harlem?''

Among Clinton's pardons were low-level, non-violent, first-time drug offenders caught by the mandatory minimum law. Now he's trying to use those acts of mercy to provide cover for the pardon of well-connected cocaine dealer Carlos Vignali, whose father made big contributions to Democratic politicians and gave $200,000 to presidential brother-in-law Hugh Rodham. Writing in the Feb. 17 New York Times, Clinton said he was pardoning little-known first offenders caught in the mandatory minimum sentencing laws. "I felt they had served long enough given the particular circumstances of the individual cases. Many of these were first-time nonviolent offenders with no previous criminal records; in some cases, codefendants had received significantly shorter sentences."

Vignali was convicted of financing an 800-pound cocaine deal; he was caught on wiretaps arranging delivery. Both the judge and prosecutor in the case say Vignali was a major player. All but one of his 30 co-defendants remain in prison. -- 2/22

Kill the messenger
If the University of California doesn’t use SAT verbal and math scores for admissions, what will happen?

a) UC will rely on SAT II scores, which measure mastery of writing, U.S. history and other subjects. These are supposed to be fairer since they measure what students have learned rather than their aptitude for future learning.
b) Affirmative action proponents will complain the SAT IIs are unfair, since Asian-American and white students outscore Hispanics and blacks.
c) Middle-class parents will send their children to SAT II prep classes.
d) UC will dump the SAT IIs for another test.
e) Asian-American and white students will outscore Hispanics and blacks on the new test.

If UC dumps all standardized tests and evaluates applicants “holistically,’’ what will happen?

a) The Legislature will have to double the admissions budget -- at least -- to get all the applications read. Currently, half to three quarters of applicants are admitted based on grades and test scores, with no need to read their essays or examine extra-curriculars.
b) Savvy, suburban kids will come up with adversity stories: an alcoholic father, a suicidal friend, a painful struggle to come out as gay, a kidney donated to a dying grandmother. Who’s to know it isn’t so? They’re already doing it on applications to private colleges, which get far fewer applications and can afford to read them.
c) Affirmative action proponents will complain it’s unfair to reward community service since low-income minority students are too busy working after school to match middle-class kids’ volunteering records.
d) They’ll also complain that awarding points for hardship favors Vietnamese-American students with poor, non-English-speaking refugee parents.
e) Looking at the rigor of the applicant’s courseload also is unfair, since high-poverty schools don’t offer the high-level courses taught at suburban schools.

UC President Richard Atkinson may be right in thinking the SAT IIs are a better, fairer way to decide who gets into Berkeley and UCLA. But he's kidding himself if he thinks changing the exam will change the fundamental problem: Too few Hispanic and black students are prepared for high-level college work. --2/23

Tree killers
Oregon eco-kooks destroyed 1,200 trees in Corvallis and Klamath Falls this week. They chopped down saplings and stripped the bark off older trees they believed were genetically engineered.

Some of the trees were transgenic; others were not, according to Oregon State forest science professor Steven Strauss. He was studying "ways to control flowering, fertility and cross pollination," reports KGW. That is, Strauss was researching ways to prevent the bogey the eco-kooks fear most: the unwanted spread of high-tech hybrids. -- 2/24

Attention must be paid
Smaller classes help students learn when they minimize the number of disruptive students, argues Edward Lazear, a Stanford business professor and Hoover economist. If students tend to be well-behaved then the high cost of class size reduction outweighs the benefits. That’s why Catholic schools (and schools in Japan) can do well with large classes. Read Virginia Postrel’s explanation of Lazear’s theory. -- 2/25

Too Nice for His Own Good?
Here's a new explanation for Bill Clinton's pardon-a-pal policy, offered by unnamed aides quoted in the LA Times: Clinton was going for a compassion legacy and needed to up his clemency numbers. So he bypassed the merciless Justice Department, setting off a feeding frenzy which his wise, anonymous aides couldn't stop. See, it wasn't about money or politics. Just excess compassion and brother-in-lawly love. I find this self-serving explanation hard to believe.

One aide said Clinton was especially worried that cases of "low-level drug offenders languishing in prison with harsh sentences weren't getting to his attention." If Clinton really wanted to pardon more of the deserving poor, he could have checked out Families Against Mandatory Minimums' list of 487 low-level, first-time offenders who received long sentences before the sentencing rules were eased. FAMM says 500 clemency applications are filed annually, more than enough to choose from. If Clinton had started this mercy thing earlier in his eight-year presidency, he might have shown compassion to an estimated 24,000 federal prisoners doing hard time for low-level drug crimes. But the little fish can't afford Hugh Rodham's legal fees. -- 2/25