Connecting the Dots On Octoberquest and the Lost Students

Connecting the Dots on Octoberquest and the Lost Students: New Legislative Initiative to Create Accountability
In my blog Octoberquest and the Lost Students I wrote about what is described by Colorado State Representative Micheal Merrifield in “Life takes Visa”
Rep. Mike Merrifield wants to remove incentives from the ‘school-count game’
"This is a glaring loophole that needs to be closed," he says. "This law is going to apply evenly across the whole

“Educational Octoberquest and the Lost Students by Delia Armstrong Busby July 29, 2008
Is your local school district coming to you with the empty pocket pleas?

Assuring you that they have no money or that educational poverty requires that they close all the schools in the district.

No way can they hire the teachers to teach the students. No way can they continue to warm the schools or even open the cafeteria with the federally subsidized lunches.

If you are faced with the scenario identified so far

do this, look into the Educational Octoberquest.

This is when the schools are busy reaching out to the community looking for students.

This is the student count time. This is when school districts get the money that pays everyone.

Incentives are offered to get those student bodies into seats to fund the district.
Delia B Armstrong Busby
Deliabusby.blogger.com

From Adrian Stanley writer at the Colorado Springs Independent Newspaper (December 11, 2008):

Now if these school districts are asking you for this money. If the latest Colorado Student Assessment Program test results are to be believed, not all the kids in the popular Pueblo-based Cesar Chavez Academy School Network know their math. But, clearly, the administrators do.
In a Pueblo promotion, the Academy Network — a collection of charter schools in Pueblo and Colorado Springs — offered parents $100 Visa gift certificates and a chance to win a car or thousands in gift cards if they enrolled their kids in a Cesar Chavez school by Oct. 1. That just so happens to be the date of the head count that determines per-pupil state funding for schools.
Rep. Mike Merrifield wants to remove incentives from the ‘school-count game’
"This is a glaring loophole that needs to be closed," he says. "This law is going to apply evenly across the whole
This is positive leadership


More state legislators need to take the Merrifield initiative to heart and lower the dropout rate through such leadership

The Mythology of the Impoverished HIgh School Dropout and Other Misperceptions About HIgh School

The Mythology of the Impoverish High School Dropout and Other Misperceptions About High School…
Introduction
The typical high dropout is not poor.
Review the statistical report of the performance of schools statewide and review the economic status of the students who dropout and you will find that the ratio of poverty to discontinuance from school is not as highly correlated as the ratio of race/ethnicity to dropout
The typical dropout is not a minority.
Numerically, the typical high school dropout is a non minority who is not poor.
Minority governed schools do not assure that minority students will thrive there.
Some charters which are created expressly to show that minority governed schools will be more successful because of the race or ethnicity of the school leaders in relation to students have proven to be unsuccessful in student retention or academic achievement.
The truth is the unengaged student will disengage in a school environment that does not positively engage with the educational attainment of each and every student.
On the surface, minority students in predominantly white schools will attain greater levels of retention to graduation, as well, as proficient academic attainment. What would make this so? What is in the culture of some schools and districts that make the success quotient higher when the quotient is not being driven by wealth or affluence or race?
A truth
Effective Administrative and Classroom Leadership are Great Myth Busters
Clearly, there is superior educational leadership in the culture. There is a sound instructional staff. The administration and the classroom leaders facilitate the level of attainment represented in the positive statistical data. The data displaces mythology related to graduation rates, dropout rates and standardized tests performance.

Readers may want specifics to a greater extent. The reality is that success is homegrown. The best answers are found within the environment that seeks growth and improvement for its students. It is the school staff and community that govern the success of students. Parents are as a chorus to the sermon of the school culture. They can connect with the school leadership – administrative and classroom staff and students to create the mythology busting tapestry of effective schools.
More to come---

Delia Armstrong-Busby : Delia Armstrong-Busby EducationQuest: Educational Octoberquest and the Lost Students

The Education Equality Project

The Public always has a place in our k-12 education system. I have attached a blog regarding the recent statements of the Education Equality Project. Leaders of this group include civic and organizational leaders such as Joel Klein, Al Sharpton, Corey Booker, Roy Romer and numerous others.
The issue is one of civic engagement. Civic engagement is essential to establishing the appropriate public scrutiny to enliven and strengthen the American education system.
Should we de-select the civic voices with whom we find dis-agreements? Or should we seek to incorporate all of the voices to enable the essential cultural changes to eliminate the historic mis education and under education trends of our society?
I say, now more than ever we need to attain the collective sophistication to make our schools better.



Friday, July 11, 2008
Written by: Alan Gottlieb

Coming to a press conference near you: The Education Equality Project. Led by NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, a diminutive heavyweight, the EEP rolls into Denver Sunday for a 2:30 p.m. press conference.

That’s right. A press conference. On a Sunday afternoon. In the middle of summer. Oh well, I’ll be there to cover it in my Education News Colorado reporter hat. I guess this is what we get for hosting the convention this fall. After all, this is a project of Democrats for Education Reform. Whitney Tilson calls it “the teacher unions’ worst nightmare.”

The project sounds worthy:


“…a new organization focused on transforming America’s public schools and educational outcomes for high-needs students. The Project will challenge politicians, public officials, educators, union leaders, and others to view fixing public schools as the foremost civil rights issue of the early 21st Century. It will focus America’s attention on its highest needs students, who 54 years after Brown v. Board of Education, still receive far less educational opportunity and often struggle and fail in school.”



It’s studded with big names spanning the political spectrum – among them Geoffrey Canada, Corey Booker (rising star mayor of Newark), Chicago Supt. Arne Duncan, our own Peter Groff, the Ed Trust’s Kati Haycock, Roy Romer…the list goes on and on.

And it’s co-chaired by Joel Klein and the Rev. Al Sharpton. Talk about strange bedfellows!

So is this another high-wattage political stunt, or will this group insist on cutting through the happy-talk B.S. that permeates Eduworld? Sounds like a question I’d better ask Sunday.

Around here, certainly, there’s often a lot more spin than substance, and some of the local luminaries participating in Sunday’s press conference are spinners par excellence when it comes to our local schools. Count me skeptical until EEP proves me wrong.

So head on over to the Denver School of Science and Technology (2000 Valentia St) Sunday at 2:30, and see whether there’s more hot air outside or in.



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Holding Back Young Students: Is Program a Gift or a Stigma?

Holding Back Young Students: Is Program a Gift or a Stigma?
This headline is taken from the June 26, 2008 edition of the New York Times. The answer to the question is that failure is always stigmatizing to students in school. This is true of all grade levels. The school district initiating the retention of 12% of its first graders is East Ramapo school district. If this school district is aware that twelve percent of its student population is deficient then why not have pre-first grade interventions that prevent rather than intervene? Certainly the pre-first grade prevention approach is most beneficial to all ---- especially the children being stigmatized by the choice of the district board and administration.
Points of reference on tracking
Academic Tracking the practice of grouping students according to ability and placing these students into separate curricula tracks or courses. The tracks cover distinctly different material, are binding across all academic subjects, and often lead to different destinations upon graduation from high school.
This quote is drawn from the definitions of terms phrase of a North Carolina standards document.
What federal law says?
Assignment to Classes
Schools may not segregate students on the basis of race, color, or national origin in making classroom assignments. Some schools offer courses of study that result in the assignment of students to classes with a substantially disproportionate number of minority or nonminority students. Schools must be able to demonstrate valid and nondiscriminatory reasons for such assignments. For example, valid educational reasons may exist when a class provides specially designed instruction to enable limited-English proficient students to acquire English language skills. Students may be assigned to such courses only when appropriate and nondiscriminatory evaluation, placement, and exiting criteria and procedures are followed.
This is taken from
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Prohibits Discrimination in Assigning Students to Schools, Classes or Courses of Study in Programs or Activities That Receive Federal Financial Assistance

Holding Back Young Students: Is Program a Gift or a Stigma?

Holding Back Young Students: Is Program a Gift or a Stigma?
This headline is taken from the June 26, 2008 edition of the New York Times. The answer to the question is that failure is always stigmatizing to students in school. This is true of all grade levels. The school district initiating the retention of 12% of its first graders is East Ramapo school district. If this school district is aware that twelve percent of its student population is deficient then why not have pre-first grade interventions that prevent rather than intervene? Certainly the pre-first grade prevention approach is most beneficial to all ---- especially the children being stigmatized by the choice of the district board and administration.
Points of reference on tracking
Academic Tracking the practice of grouping students according to ability and placing these students into separate curricula tracks or courses. The tracks cover distinctly different material, are binding across all academic subjects, and often lead to different destinations upon graduation from high school.
This quote is drawn from the definitions of terms phrase of a North Carolina standards document.
What federal law says?
Assignment to Classes
Schools may not segregate students on the basis of race, color, or national origin in making classroom assignments. Some schools offer courses of study that result in the assignment of students to classes with a substantially disproportionate number of minority or nonminority students. Schools must be able to demonstrate valid and nondiscriminatory reasons for such assignments. For example, valid educational reasons may exist when a class provides specially designed instruction to enable limited-English proficient students to acquire English language skills. Students may be assigned to such courses only when appropriate and nondiscriminatory evaluation, placement, and exiting criteria and procedures are followed.
This is taken from
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Prohibits Discrimination in Assigning Students to Schools, Classes or Courses of Study in Programs or Activities That Receive Federal Financial Assistance

The Magic of the Absence Addiction Approach

The Magic of the Absence Addiction Approach: A proven response to student engagement and retention

The Absence Addiction Approach is a proven response to meeting the needs for secondary student engagement. With the proper commitment of all in the school setting, all students can be linked to the pathways of their life journey. The teaching of readin and writing and rithmatic is conducted in a school context that can be enriched by adding school cultural adjustments that enhance the success factor of the students and the staff.

It is my deep belief that the biggest factor in the assisted completion of the high school curriculum or course of study is the affective relationship of the student intra-personally and extra -personally. My next deeply held belief is that every secondary school in the United States has the potential to assist the graduation of every student who enters its doors. Any high school staff or concerned parent group or central office staff that wants more “kids” to graduate has all of the ingredients for attaining that outcome already. Each school setting must create the culture essential to the student outcomes it professes for all of its children.

“The Absence Addiction Approach (AAA) is a proven response to meeting the needs for secondary student engagement. “ This statement is repeated to bridge to the creation of an award winning conceptualization for the purpose of empowering students to take control of their success factor in the school setting. Using this process for student re-engagement, the measurable retention rate for students at risk of discontinuing from the high school setting rose to one of the highest reported in the state of Colorado. This retention growth was verified by the Colorado Department of Education and Denver Post reporter Bernie Morrison.

The content for the change in the curricular instruction for targeted students is driven by de-briefing students about their school behavior patterns in ways that permitted them to objectify rather than personalize past successes or failures in the school setting.
Next, brief lessons in the repetition of behavioral patterns are given as information. This imparting of information about personal choice assists the eagle’s view or balcony approach. This is energizing because it frees the energy being sapped by the student remaining equal to her least effective school performance. Next of course is the goal-setting. It is impossible for students to set meaningful goals with inhibiting barriers intruding on the success tract. Inherent in this educational approach is that both the staff and student can change to create new academic outcomes.
The third significant step in the AAA is the establishment of means to support the students and staff in managing change. In one case, this may mean some type of weekly or daily re-enforcement for change in the academic achievement gulf for targeted students. It may also mean some type of initially frequent re-enforcement for appropriate staff members. It is important that the majority of the staff involved is certificated elders in the instructional village also known as a school.
The fourth step is frequent assessment of the attainment of staff and student change goals. And in between practice, practice, practice.

The process above assisted in my selection for the National Educational Leadership Award given by the Milken Foundation and the Colorado Governor’s Award as Outstanding Individual

Has No Child Left Behind Failed?

An educator's response to Claudia Wallis.
Ms. Wallis, I recently read your article on Time.com regarding Dr. Neuman and No Child Left Behind.
I am most drawn to the article statement which shares that the "Economic Policy Institute,... is releasing a document entitled "A Broader Bolder Approach to Education" which "lays out an expansive vision for leveling the
playing for low income kids, one that looks toward new policies in
child health and support for parents and communities."
To me, the crux of the statement by the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank, is the approximately 25 billion dollar budget allocation to
Title One. The figure regarding the budgetary allocation is sourced by the Democratic staff committee on Education and Labor, US House of Representatives, February 5, 2007.
The Economic Policy Institute statement -proposal is intended to influence the dollars currently allocated to instruction under the current Title One parameters.
Under the current title one guidelines additional vendors
outside of the instructional realm are not the primary recipients of these monies.
Title One dollars do not necessarily flow directly into the hands of social interventionists or developmental theorists.
Yet, if the representatives of the Broader,Bolder, Approach attain political leverage, then the amended allocation guidelines can reflect their political influence.

Why Small High Schools Movement Alone Will Not Improve Student Achievement

David H. Hoff writes in Ed Week that high schools funded for "smaller learning communities" cannot definitively say that ,to paraphrase, student achievement is improving in the funded small high school setting
The report, released by the US Department of Education, finds "no significant trends
in achievement on state tests or college entrance exams"
In my mind, growth in student achievement and assessment is driven by instructional competence and quality. Engaged students learn best. Heightened assessment performance is driven by leveraging the quality of instruction and maximum student focus on the learning task at hand.
In closing, one on one instruction fails if the quality of instructional competence and student engagement is low. So no, a smaller high school is not guarantee of greater student achievement.

The Robin Hood Effect of NCLB?

Sam Dillon, writer for the New York Times, writes the following in Wednesday's New York Times, June 18, 2008
" A new study argues that the nation's focus on helping students who are furtherest behind may have provided a Robin Hood Effect, yielding steady academic gain for low achieving students in recent years at the expense of top students"
What? One wonders why the research dots are connected so that the above conclusion might be reached?
On one level, lets take the high schools. Top students tend to have highly qualified teachers. These teachers meet the standards in some cases for teaching advanced placement classes. Such teachers, because of their qualifications, may not maintain a teaching schedule that includes academically underachieving students.
On another level, lets look at lesson planning. Are we saying that classroom teachers do no planning for any students but the low achieving? Thus, the improvement in scores for that demographic? Really? My reality is such that the high achieving student requires the most extensive planning to address the depth of curriculum content that their intellect and cumulative knowledge requires.
Hmmmmmm-more to come on this topic

Educational Octoberquest and the Lost Students

Is your local school district coming to you with the empty pocket pleas? Is your local school district assuring you that they have no money or that educational poverty requires that they close all the schools in the school district? Stating to you "no way can [they] hire the teachers to teach the students. No way can they continue to warm the schools or even open the cafeteria with the federally subsidized lunches."

If you are faced with the scenario identified so, do this, look into the Educational Octoberquest. This is when the schools are busy reaching out to the community looking for students. This is the student count time. This is when school districts get the money that pays everyone. Incentives are offered to get those student bodies into seats to fund the district.

Now if these school districts are asking you for this money. ask them how many secondary students are lost from the high schools each month after Octoberquest student body hunt. Each student lost was worth money to the school district in October, but lose value after the moneyquest is fulfilled.

Aren't the school district responsible for educating the students for whom they are funded? What is the ultimate loss in money and human capital when as many as 1500 to 2000 students will leave a mid sized school district in the first semester?

And this number will increase incrementally by the end of the first semester. Don't fall victim to the we are poor scenario while not holding school districts accountable for the loss of the student body after the count. Ultimately the loss of the student body after the count is worth millions of dollars both short term and long term.