SC Montessori Programs: Where's the Beef?

Maria Montessori, a pioneer in childhood education, took children from the Italian equivalent of housing projects and showed that they were educable. Since the recognition of her success early in the twentieth century, her methods have spread in various incarnations around the world.

My own experience with "real" (not American) Montessori was my child's enrollment in a preschool that mixed children from 3 to 5 years old with highly-educated, wealthy parents in a private school with small classes. It was a good experience for my child, although I'm not sure that a more traditional atmosphere wouldn't have been the same.

Now the SC State Department of Education is touting Montessori programs as one of the ways to improve graduation rates. According to Monday's Post and Courier, the state's coordinator of Montessori education, Ginny Riga said, "Montessori isn't for everyone. Some students need more structure or learn better through lectures, but she contends that's a small percentage. 'There's so much emphasis on the love of learning and respect of learning, instead of push, push, push for skill and drill.'" Lectures? Please, stop the straw-man arguments.

You know, until she made that last crack about "push, push, push for skill and drill" as being antithetical to "the love of learning and respect of learning," I was ready to go along with Riga. Now I want the hard statistics on South Carolina's 33 Montessori schools, adjusted, of course, for the usual socio-economic factors.

According to the article, SC's Montessori schools have been around since the mid-1990s. That's long enough to gather preliminary statistics on whether they have produced more engaged and more prepared students. Has anyone been charged with finding out? And, by the way, how many of these programs go past the sixth grade? That might have some bearing on whether graduation rates would be improved.

As they say, "Where's the beef?"

Jim Rex Confuses Buildings with Standards

Hard to believe, isn't it, that State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex is so confused that he equates buildings with academic standards. Rex revealed his confusion at a Rotary Club meeting in Columbia Monday. As reported in the State, Rex said:

"More political courage is needed by the state’s 170 lawmakers if they are to fix the state’s ailing public education system. [. . . ]

Rex said state lawmakers often tell him they want to stand up for public education but are afraid of being targeted by powerful [so powerful they cannot be named] groups in their home counties. Rex said that within an hour’s drive of Columbia, there are public schools that look like something in the “third world.”

The state’s 700,000 young people in public schools will be the dominant population in the state, so it makes sense to spend money on them, Rex said. A “tsunami” of bad consequences is rushing toward South Carolina if it does not raise public education standards, he said."

Let's follow the logic here: South Carolina's "Corridor of Shame" has "third-world" school buildings. Therefore, the state should replace and/or renovate the buildings. As a result, "public education standards" will rise. Oh, yeah. Better buildings = higher standards.

Listen, I didn't vote for him.

School Choice, Diversity Training, & Duck Death

Wednesday's diversions from the P & C:

"The push for school districts to offer more choices to students has been stopped this year by lawmakers."

Whose push is this? Oh, yes. The State Superintendent of Education. We're using the word "choice" here loosely, as in charter schools. If school districts need more charter schools, let's see elected school boards and community members organize them without the help of the legislature.

"After meeting with [Nancy] Cook about her controversial comment [see my previous blog about CCSD airheads] over the weekend, the [NAACP] said she should enroll in sensitivity and diversity training, and urged other members of the county school board to condemn her comment."

Can we require President Dot Scott to attend also? She believes anyone with a white skin must be racist [i.e., her previous remarks on organizing of the new charter high school downtown--a racist plot]. That couple could contribute so much to the class!

See Driver Charged in Accident, Duck Death

No wonder we have such a high homicide rate in North Charleston.

I know--it's not that funny when you read the article. Still.

Let's Hear from Jim Rex on This Topic

Click on picture to enlarge.

Why Is Jim Rex Hobnobbing with the NEA?

The National Education Association (NEA)? Hardly a powerhouse in South Carolina, which, after all, is a right-to-work state. I haven't seen statistics on unionized teachers in this state, but I can believe that percentage is very low. Certainly CCSD is not organized.

So I find it strange that State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex was more than happy to accept the funding of Communities for Quality Education. CQE "hosted a roundtable discussion between South Carolina Superintendent of Education Jim Rex and a group of SC high school students. The students shared their top education concerns and then submitted that concern via YouTube to the Presidential candidates in advance of the July 23rd primary debate." How sweet.

It turns out that Rex moderated a discussion that was carefully led into areas of interest to the NEA--measures such teacher tenure and curriculum reform, the No Child Left Behind Act, merit pay, school vouchers, and many accountability reforms. Communities for Quality Education is a shill for the NEA and is funded by the NEA, one of the most vocal opponents of real reform in public schools.

For shame, Jim!

Dumb and Dumber: Graduate at 16

Would someone please throw Gov. Sanford a lifeline? He's gone off the deep end again.

Beyond the occasional genius, usually a genius at math, no teenager needs to enter college early. So when I saw the headline in Sunday's P & C, Educators split on cash for early grads,
I cringed. Apparently it's not enough for Sanford that today's colleges and universities have multiple remedial classes for students who can't handle college-level curriculum, now he wants South Carolina to encourage students who are not mature enough to handle the peer pressures of college life to march happily off to Columbia or Greenville or wherever, out of sight of parental control, straight into the arms of the anything-goes cultures that roam our campuses looking for victims.

What is he thinking? Probably not much. Then, Superintendent Rex chimes in to agree, proving that brain cells have not been put to work: "Jim Rex, a Democrat, said he's on board with the governor's idea as long as minor questions are addressed, such the impact on the state's on-time graduation rate. "'On the surface, I really like it,' Rex said. 'I think the concept is a good one.'"

What a self-serving statement! "Surface" is right. Does it occur to anyone else that Rex knows nothing about education? I had seen rumors that he views the post as a stepping-stone to running for governor. Now I believe them.

CCSD Superintendent McGinley was mainly concerned with district's finances: [her] main concern . . . was whether the college scholarship money would come out of the kindergarten through 12th-grade budget." Well, that's where her priorities lie.

To give the devil his due, so to speak, at least CCSD's Janet Rose made noises about the effects of such a goal on the students themselves, saying "it's not in kids' best interest to leave high school early." And "Berkeley Assistant Superintendent for Learning Services Mike Turner said district principals are unanimous in their opposition."

Well, duh.

And the incentive to make a choice that could haunt both student and parents for the rest of their lives? A mere drop in the bucket in the sea of college expenses--either $1000 or $2000. Does Sanford think our colleges and universities still act in loco parentis? Or that all of these younger students will live at home with parents? Or that students who are mentally advanced are always more emotionally mature?

What planet is he on?

SC Schools Are Second in Something

I'm not sure the SC Department of Education should be proud of this latest statistic. Doesn't it suggest that South Carolina's public school students are among the poorest in the nation?

South Carolina school breakfast participation rates rank second in the nation, state’s efforts commended

Participation by South Carolina students in the school breakfast program last year was 101 percent, and the ratio of serving free and reduced price students at lunch and breakfast was the second highest in the nation, according to a report by the Food Research and Action Center. The School Breakfast Scorecard 2007 gives data for all states and highlights successful strategies.

The rest of the press release can be found on the SC Department of Education website.

P & C Discovers the Education Blob!

Only 20 years! That's all it took for the P & C to read the entrails of the "education blob." That sobriquet, coined by then-Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, describes non-profit organizations feeding at the public trough in the name of advancing education.

Saturday's paper finally provides coverage of the finances of Heritage Services, showing how (as I have stated previously in this blog) non-profit does not mean "non-profitable" to those involved. [SeeSex-ed nonprofit banks heavily on public funds ]

There's politics involved? Gasp!

Whether you are against abstinence-based sex education or not is immaterial here. What everyone can agree upon is that public funding of non-profits (and even for-profits) needs to have more oversight and transparency. Those who pay attention to CCSD's administration can easily rattle off the call letters of many--CEN, CEP, NTP, etc.--that remain shrouded in mystery as to effectiveness per dollar spent. Why do I suspect that Heritage is not alone in its important political connections, family business salaries, and lack of accountability to the taxpayers?

Maybe because I didn't fall of the turnip truck yesterday?

The Anti-Homework Campaign Nonsense

Japanese parents are in revolt because their children get too much homework. Oh, yes. And in cities across China, too. Same goes for India, especially in the poorest suburbs.

Believe that? Of course not. Only affluent American parents would raise such a fuss. Actually, the "homework wars" debate, which recently hit the consciousness of the P & C [see "Homework: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" in last Tuesday's Family Life section], has enjoyed several years on the radar screens of the Junior League and in neighborhoods of half-a-million-dollar and more households.

The Elizabeth Moffley quoted in former CCSD board member Fran Hawk's article receives credibility for her "anti-homework bullets" from identification as having run for state superintendent of education in 2006. Never mind that she lost the Republican primary (with a whopping 4.6% of the vote) and promptly endorsed Democrat Jim Rex, nor that various news sources can't decide how to spell her last name (Moffly?) or that, at least in 2006, two of her four children were in private schools. Her "arsenal" reads like the top 10 list of a late-night talk show host:

1. Parents are not qualified or certified get judged for monitoring their children's homework; never been true
2. Family values are compromised because children are too busy with homework to spend time with their families; or on other scheduled activities like football or soccer practice
3. Homework is not in the school's jurisdiction because it's assigned for after-school hours; please!
4. The schools that are charged with teaching democracy are acting as dictators. ah, yes, the democratic classroom!
5. Children have a right to their childhoods and should be allowed time to let their minds wander. or watch television or play mindless video games
6. As a compromise, Moffley suggests that homework be assigned as extra credit, with no penalty for the students who choose to ignore it. gee, I can think of penalties assigned by the real world

I don't know about you, but my favorite from the list is #5; or, maybe it should be #6--then with all that extra credit the child could pass on to the next grade.

Jay Mathews, a Washington Post staff writer, has researched the facts. Scholarly research from the University of Michigan "says the weekday average for 15- to 17-year-olds went from 33 minutes in 1981 to 50 minutes in 2003. Those teens, crushed by such punishing assignments, were recovering their sense of self and their need for play by spending on average two-and-a-half hours a weekday watching television or doing non-study-related computer activities [italics mine]." More likely in Moffley's neighborhood, playing video games or working after-school jobs to pay the insurance on their late-model cars. In a comparable report, the weekday average for grades 1 to 3 is 22 minutes, or as Mathews puts it, "less time than it takes to watch one episode of SpongeBob SquarePants."

Yes, students who take four or five AP classes may spend hours into the night on homework--or maybe not, depending on the student's ability and concentration. Kindergarten students can benefit by practicing their handwriting, and drill on multiplication facts can't be all bad for a third grader.

If a parent really believes that his or her child's homework load is problematic, that parent needs to sit down with the teacher or teachers involved to get to the bottom of the problem, not grouse with the neighbors nor spend time reading about the "homework debate."

That'll Work: Task Force to Stop Teacher-Student Sex

"Jim Rex, the head of South Carolina schools, launched a task force Thursday aimed at stopping teachers from having sex with students," according to Channel 4 News.

My question is: If the Summerville High School teacher charged with taking female students to his home and providing alcohol to them is 43 years old and the principal says he has been employed at Summerville for "about three years," where was he teaching before?

And what recommendations did the previous schools provide?

Singing the Blues over the SAT

Yes, I'm going to be negative. There's plenty to be negative about! Despite CCSD's boast regarding the hike in its overall SAT scores for 2007, the picture remains gloomy. We aren't keeping up with the Joneses.

Should we cheer because CCSD is approaching the South Carolina state average?

• Should we be happy that CCSD's two magnet high schools (School of the Arts and Academic Magnet) made it into the top 15 in a state ranked 49th?
• Can we reassure ourselves that the problem suggested by the P & C, "Revised SAT stumps students for second year," has caused South Carolina to lag?
• Maybe we should be happy that only four of the lowest performing high schools in the state are in Charleston County, even if CCSD does have more low performers than any other school district in the state.
• Best of all, we can be happy that the Writing section isn't counted in the rankings since that would have put us DEAD LAST.
• I know, we can revel in beating the District of Columbia, that notoriously corrupt district that has just been taken over by its mayor!
• And, furthermore, we've slammed the great State of Maine, which did come in dead last--because ALL of its high school seniors (100%) were required to take the SAT.

Courrege and Hagen quote Jim Rex as saying, "The state is headed in the right direction, but it needs to have greater improvement at a faster rate." In the right direction? Didn't the overall scores just DROP?

While pointing to a nine-point gain in CCSD's composite score, McGinley also acknowledges that about half of the district's high schools saw their scores drop. That's with only 60 percent taking the test overall in the district, and those are from the 50% left in the schools by senior year, thanks to CCSD's massive dropout rate.

Does anyone besides Jim Rex think that a "new funding system for the state's schools" and "pay increases and a public relations campaign" improving the morale of teachers is the answer to this problem?

Butter Wouldn't Melt in Their Mouths

One by one the CCSD school board proponents of charging high rent to the Charter School for Math and Science, a public school desiring to use a vacant public school building, sweetly assure the audience that they favor charter schools--and then prove it by adding an illegal quota system to the rent issue passed on a 5 to 4 vote.

If you were not at the school board meeting of August 13th but have had the time to view the two programs broadcast of the events, you are probably as annoyed as I am by the sanctimonious and hypocritical statements of members Jordan, Douglas, and Hampton-Green as well as by the Keystone-Kops aspects of the so-called participation and voting by cell phone of Meyers and Cook. These five treat their constituents as if they fell off the turnip truck yesterday!

In his successful campaign State Superintendent Jim Rex made much of what he calls "public school choice," suggesting it as a way to get successful, appealing, competing choices to parents and students without going the school-voucher route that would send public funds into private schools. He and the majority voting on CCSD's board need to take heed. Throwing up too many roadblocks to new charter schools will backfire. If the public gets tired of waiting for those choices, it will decide to support vouchers instead.

Not that the tactics being used are unexpected. Nor were they invented here in Charleston. They're being used in various forms all over the United States to halt, slow down, and cripple the growth of public charter schools. As former New York Daily News reporter Joe Williams writes in a recent issue of Education Next, apart from the more obvious legal barriers to successful charter schools being considered in state legislatures, the "'air war,'"

". . . there is also evidence of a perhaps more damaging 'ground war.' Interviews with more than 400 charter school operators from coast to coast have revealed widespread localized combat—what one administrator called 'bureaucratic sand' that is often hurled in the faces of charter schools. Indeed, as a 2005 editorial in the Washington Post described charter school obstruction in Maryland, 'It’s guerilla turf war, with children caught in the middle. Attempts to establish public charter schools in Maryland have been thwarted at almost every turn by entrenched school boards, teachers unions and principals resistant to any competition.'
The goal appears to be to stop charter schools any way possible."

For the rest of these interesting parallels to CCSD's latest tactics and tales of the turf wars, see http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/4611587.html .

To quote Hamlet on his murdering uncle, "One may smile and smile, and be a villain."

"Bureaucratic sand," indeed.

Editors' Choices & "Letters to the Editor" on CCSD

How revealing! The lead editorial in Tuesday's Post and Courier congratulates Jim Rex for his decision to return Allendale School District to local control on the basis of unspecified "positive results." Don't you wonder what they are? Well, you're not going to find out from the P & C's editorial or any other piece in this newspaper, and I suspect the writer doesn't know either. That wasn't really the purpose.

In fact, here are some comments on progress being made in that district taken from the minutes of the Allendale School Board meeting of last November 27:

"Ms. Martin [the assistant superintendent] said principals and everyone worked hard last year and several kinds of strategies were used so all [were] disappointed with the school ratings. The numbers don’t report an accurate picture of our teachers, students or administrators. This year the number of schools rating unsatisfactory increased. The numbers scoring excellent also dropped. Science and Social Studies weighting increased from 15 to 20%, and this year the weights will increase even more. The overall State rankings continue to move 1/10%. Three schools last year were Below Average . . . . The District is not pleased and they think they can do better and have started to put the action in place. . . . We want to see the scores go up. Mr. Frazier [school board chairman] asked the Board to have further conversation about the Report Card and about funding. They are getting further and further in the hole. . . . Students are walking the street because something is going wrong. They asked for a budget last year to put people in the right places, they are headed somewhere, but not in the right direction. A lot of people are being frustrated. Over the years the District is bouncing up and down."

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

No, here in the editor's own words is the purpose of the editorial: "The fully informed decisions [taken by Jim Rex] that state intervention is no longer needed in Allendale--and that it will not be needed this year at Burke High, Morningside Middle or Colleton Middle--are welcome signs of educational progress."

Well, I'd like to think it's educational progress, but it's much more likely to be educational politics. NO failing school in the entire state will fall into the calamity of losing local control under Jim Rex--I guarantee it. Rex is carrying out promises he made to the education lobby in order to get elected.


Don't believe it? My bridge in Brooklyn is still for sale.


On another note, the editors published side-by-side under the caption, "Readers offer views on needs of Charleston County schools" letters of equal length by Sunny Rakestraw Gray, who identifies herself as a resident of District 20 (but is also the editor of Charleston's version of The Little Black Book for Every Busy Woman), and Luther W. Seabrook, a resident of Johns Island (but also a former executive assistant in curriculum and instruction for the S.C. State Department of Education).


Of interest about Gray's letter is that she appears to be unaware of the controversies surrounding the Buist lottery and waiting list (and selections from it); somehow, she probably detected (and rightly so) that raising those topics would prevent publication of her desire to duplicate Buist's excellence in other schools for the 2000 now on its waiting list. No doubt she has friends whose four-year-olds are on its 230-strong kindergarten list as she looks forward to the schooling of her own pre-school children. One wonders how she feels about address cheating.


In a less-than-admiring tone, Seabrook astutely identifies the heart of Goodloe-Johnson's strategy:

"Our past superintendent, it appears, adopted the strategy to focus on those schools that were functioning just below the 50th percentile while assigning the lowest, and often most disruptive schools, to an outside agency. The cost of this action was almost $12 million.Maybe the intent of the superintendent was to justify her salary with some winners, and then concentrate on the schools with the greatest need. We will never know."

McGinley should pay attention to this expert; the rest of his analysis is fact-based and impressive. He's worked in much larger districts than CCSD and clearly understands the education "game." He correctly hones in on McGinley's unfortunate statement that "she doesn't plan to force teachers to transfer to places where they don't want to go," rightly mentioning that persuasive power that superintendents have to put excellent teachers into schools with the greatest needs.

Let's see if she's wise enough to take his advice.

Allendale-Fairfax: Declare Victory and Get Out?

"Little more than superficial graffiti" is the phrased contempt shown by one reader of this blog for last Sunday's P & C report on a rural school district's return to local control after eight years of direct management by the State Department of Education.

All will agree that the P & C consistently misses important details in its coverage. For example, reporters frequently ask Jon Butzon to comment on education but don't say who Butzon is or why his comments would be of interest, let alone establish their context.

Yet another example of shallow reporting occurs with the economically stressed community of Allendale. Its rural location, economic conditions, and local politics all relate to the topic, but the central issue of this article should have been the specific progress made by the Allendale schools since the state takeover in 1999.

The piece provides limited information about power struggles and individual egos along with a really lame photo of a junk yard near the Allendale town limits. The unrelated photo serves as only one of many cheap shots taken by the P&C at this rural community. Don't photos need to illustrate the story they accompany? Otherwise, why not show a photo of the Bayside Manor housing project on Charleston’s East Side or an unkempt industrial lot in the Neck when doing an article on Burke's near takeover?

Once caught by this condescending photo, readers quickly realize the article has no substance. The P & C’s hook irresponsibly plays to a stereotype and arguably damages its subject. But that’s just about a poor choice of photos.

The Allendale School District takeover interests Lowcountry readers, but the most important issue disappears from this end-of-the-takeover article. What initiated the state takeover of the Allendale schools in the first place? The reporter doesn’t address that at all. Was the state takeover a success for the schools or not? Did the schools improve? Courrege starts to go there when she reports that that takeover “did damage” and “left unpleasant memories,” but then she drops the ball. What about the state report card for Allendale? That’s left to readers to find out on their own.

In either case, this article shows no depth of understanding for the story or its context. This lack is what's wrong with the P & C today. Its reporting generally fails to focus on the specific issue while maintaining an eye on the context. Quotes from major players, if indeed they are major players (the jury’s still out on Jon Butzon’s credentials), are fine, but without data and analysis of the facts, the article fails in its purpose.

One point worthy of news is buried deep in the story: Jim Rex announces that "No one can predict whether the state again would chose the daunting task of taking over a school or district, but . . . that remains a possibility if the safety of students is at risk [italics mine]. Decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis, but that option should be available for schools in crisis situations, he said."

In other words, the State Department of Education will not intervene for academic sinkholes or corrupt finances--intervention will occur only if students are "in crisis" for "safety." Now, that's news!

Why tout an eight-year takeover without data to support (or belie) its effectiveness? Rex has taken a page from the late Vermont Senator George Aiken--"Declare victory and get out." The P & C hasn't the moxie or the interest to find out the conditions.

Because of statewide concerns about measuring effective public education, the Allendale School District takeover deserves more analysis than what appears here--and the Allendale garden club may be owed an apology for the photo.

Veto! Veto the High School Coaches' Dream Bill!

Do it!

The P & C reports today that Governor Sanford is considering vetoing the "school choice" bill passed by the state legislature. On its face, the bill sounds reasonable; it's the predictable effect that is monstrous.

This bill is a coach's dream. No longer will Summerville High School's coaches need to figure out surreptious ways to get players from other districts eligible to play on its football team (and we know that practice has been going on for decades). Multiply that effect all over the state.

The bill masquerades as school improvement. Yes, it will improve certain athletic teams but not academics. Does anyone believe that, say, the ordinary student from Burke or North Charleston High will be any more able to transfer in to Wando? Wando will say it's full. Will the ordinary student at Wando desire to transfer to Burke or North Charleston other than to play on their athletic teams or escape expulsion? Show me.



The bill is a cockeyed answer to growing pressure for allowing true school choice. It gets pressure off politicians but creates even more problems for students. It is also likely to encourage re-segregation of schools, just as CCSD's liberal intra-district transfer policies have done in the past.

Why would new Superintendent Jim Rex advocate its passage? When has any state school superintendent advocated REAL change?


Please, Governor, do all South Carolina's students a favor!

UPDATE: Yessss! He did it! Thanks to Gov. Sanford and, one hopes, not enough votes to override the veto, South Carolina will be spared this bill that would illustrate the law of unintended consequences!

Thanks, Jim: I Needed That

Here I was thinking that I wouldn't have any more silly comments to blog about since Inez Tenenbaum left office as State Superintendent of Education.

Silly me.

Having been in office not even a month, Jim Rex has made the following comment to the media:

"The state is 'dangerously close to having a demoralized and compromised teaching force,' partly because public schools are criticized."

Really? Well, first, I'm not really sure what he means by "compromised" here.

The Free Online Dictionary defines the word as "A term applied to classified matter, knowledge of which has, in whole or in part, passed to an unauthorized person or persons, or which has been subject to risk of such passing"

Teachers are "classified matter"? Surely not. Mr. Rex appears to need to check his diction.

That they may be "demoralized" seems more likely; however, teachers do not get that way from "public schools [being] criticized." They get that way from incompetent administrators, non-supportive principals, and non-existent discipline. Mr. Rex apparently still has much to learn, since he mentions none of these demoralizing factors.

So, does Jim Rex think the situation will improve if people stop criticizing the public schools?

Pu--leeese!