If NCLB Applied to Football

I couldn't find the original source on a quick Google search, but I personally came across it in one of the comments on Tamara Fisher's blog "Unwrapping the Gifted".

No Child Left Behind: The Football Version

1. All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabiliites. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL.

3. Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who are not interested in football, have limited athletic ability, or whose parents don't like football.

4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th games.

5. This will create a New Age of sports where school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals.

Sexual Activity Doubles Rate of Depression in Teen Girls

A new study published in the September 2008 issue of the medical journal Journal of Health Economics has found that teen girls who are sexually active exhibit double the rate of major depression when compared to girls of similar backgrounds who remain virgins. The research team based at the University of North Carolina examined data on more than 14,000 girls aged 14-17 from across the U.S. and found that these negative feelings could be directly ascribed to sexual activity, rather than outside influences such as family difficulties.

Dr Trevor Stammers, a lecturer on sexual ethics and chairman of the British Christian Medical Fellowship, told the Daily Mail that the new study confirmed that most girls:

"retrospectively showed regret about early intercourse....[The study] also shows as closely as we have been able to show so far that there is a genuine link between increased risk of depression and adolescent females engaging in sex. My experience is that, for girls, depression, regret and shame are very common."

This is just further proof that teenage sexual activity is unhealthy, particularly for girls. Not only do teen girls face the highest risks of any age group for unplanned pregnancy and contracting sexually transmitted diseases, this new study shows that they also face significant risks to their mental well-being. Regardless of one's beliefs on the morality of teen sex, it is quite clear that from a public health standpoint, abstinence is the only way to go for teens. As a society, we need to make sure this is the message we are sending to impressionable young people.

Why Isn't There More Attention Given to Maternal Mortality?

*HALF A MILLION* women this year will die as a result of pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications. While we moms fortunate enough to live in developed countries face a lifetime risk of maternal death of around 1 in 8,000, those in developing world face a risk of 1 in 76. In the worst countries of sub-Saharan Africa, the rate is a jaw-dropping 1 in 7. The majority of these moms die because they lack access to skilled birth attendants, proper pre- and post-natal care, and emergency obstetrical care.

Noting that the global epidemics of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis now receive lots of international attention and billions of dollars in funding, UNICEF's chief of health Peter Salama called for a similar effort for reducing maternal mortality:

"The time is right. We now know exactly what to do for maternal mortality reduction to make this one of the next big issues in global health."

I can't help but wonder how much racism plays a role in the neglect of attention paid to the problem of maternal mortality. 99% of the maternal deaths occur in the Third World, with over half occurring in sub-Saharan Africa.

I don't mean to belittle breast cancer activism, but that disease claims around the same number of women annually (the World Health Organization estimates there were 548,000 deaths from breast cancer worldwide in 2007) yet it receives far more attention than maternal mortality does. When's the last time you saw a pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness? When's the last time that you heard anyone talking about all the moms dying needlessly during pregnancy or childbirth?

Read for a World Record & Help Support Early Literacy

On Thursday, October 2, 2008, the JumpStart non-profit organization is sponsoring "Read for the Record" events all over the country. For each $10 donation, an at-risk child will receive a copy of the picture book Corduroy by Don Freeman. The goals are to promote early literacy among disadvantaged children and to set a new world record for reading the same book on the same day.

On the S.F. Peninsula, the Shelter Network organization will be hosting "Read for the Record" events at its homeless shelters for families in Daly City, San Mateo, Redwood City, and Menlo Park. They are also looking for volunteers to come read to a homeless child from 6-7 P.M. More information on the Shelter Network events can be found here.

For those living elsewhere, you can find a local "Read for the Record" event here.

This is a great way for parents to teach their children the importance of giving back to the community because it's understandable even by the very young. It's good to hear the call to practice charity in our churches/synagogues on the Sabbath but we need to show our kids how to put those teachings into action.

Carnival of Homeschooling is Up!

The "Nerd Family" blog is hosting this week's edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling here. Happy reading!

And In This Corner...

The website "Opposing Views" is currently hosting a debate between the Homeschool Association of California and the California Teachers' Association about the merits of homeschooling. You can add your comments here.

What I really want to know is why the CTA doesn't worry a bit more about the quality of education received by the ~85% of California's K-12 students who attend government-run schools and less about the ~5% who are homeschooling?

A Breath of Fresh Air

Brian Crosby is a veteran high school English teacher from Southern California who has written a very interesting new book called Smart Kids, Bad Schools: 38 Ways to Save America's Future. It's a fairly quick read and many of his ideas for improving government-run schools are eminently sensible. Some of his suggestions that I fully support include:

• making schools' physical appearances and policies less like prisons
• having larger class sizes with higher quality teachers in high school classes
• having K-8 schools rather than separate middle schools or junior highs
• not selling junk food or beverages on campus
• having daily PE and a strong arts program
• having high-quality vocational education for non-college bound students
• merit pay for teachers
• eliminating tenure
• paying teachers in hard-to-staff schools and specialties more than others
  
• ending social promotion
• bringing back the teaching of basic civility, personal responsibility, respect for and consideration of others, and other virtues
• more rigorous classes for gifted students
• more field trips
• incorporating community service
• empowering teachers to actually do their jobs instead of being micromanaged by administrators and bureaucrats
• less standardized testing
• improving teacher preparation programs at the nation's colleges of education
• having a career ladder for teachers
• better fiscal management so that schools get more bang for their educational buck
• requiring parental involvement
• expelling chronically disruptive students
• ending frivolous lawsuits by parents
• placing caps on out-of-control special education spending

Other of his ideas I believe have merit for certain students but I'm not convinced should be mandatory for *EVERYONE*:

• a year-round calendar. This should be an option available to those parents who want it. Research also suggests it may be beneficial for socioeconomically disadvantaged students. But middle-class families who prefer a traditional calendar should still have that option.
  
• a longer school day. Ditto for what I said about a year-round calendar.
  
• full-day kindergarten. Ditto. 30 hours per week is a long time for young children to be in an institutionalized setting away from their families. 15 hours per week may be much more appropriate for many five year olds.
  
• charging parents for the cost of textbooks plus a flat tuition of $200 per child. I like this idea but believe it should be done as a sliding scale depending on the family's financial circumstances. Also, families should be permitted to substitute their own labor in lieu of a monetary contribution if they wish to do so.
• abolishing homework. I agree with this for the lower grades where there's no evidence that assigning homework actually raises student achievement. In high school, however, I do believe that students should be expected to complete a reasonable amount of non-busywork assignments.
  
• outlawing teachers' unions. I agree with Mr. Crosby's assertion that teachers' unions typically stymie educational reform. I'm not sure that I'd go as far as banning them outright, however. That seems a bit anti-democratic (note the very important small "d") to me. Sensible campaign finance reform would go a long way in reducing unions' role in blocking good ideas through political influence.
  

On a handful of issues, however, I feel Mr. Crosby is totally off-base. I'll discuss those in a future post.