Replies to post #2546 on Liberal Free Chat Zone (NOLIB)

[ONEBGG]

Thanks for the post TH. EOM

[thepennyking]

Supreme Court To Let Out the Dogs

Looks like this sets a precedent and other states might follow suit:

Missouri Court Rules on Early Release Law

By DAVID A. LIEB, Associated Press Writer

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - The Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday a provision in a new law allowing for the early release of some prisoners applies retroactively. About 5,800 felons could seek parole, the state attorney general said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=720&e=1&u=/ap/20040331/ap_o...

[BullNBear52]

Why blame the schools, when you can just blame those 8 year olds instead. Heaven forbid they actually make an adult accountable for the failings of a child. And of course Bloomberg just may be trying to cook the books for next year's election.

From today's Times......

Schools Fail Children, Not the Other Way Around
By BRENT STAPLES

Published: April 6, 2004


The nation's largest school system was thrown into a panic recently when the mayor of New York decreed that third graders who performed poorly on a city test just weeks away could be required to repeat the grade. Mayor Michael Bloomberg actually fired education officials who disagreed with the new policy, despite data from several cities — including Chicago, Miami, Boston, Washington and New York itself — showing that children held back in the early grades fare worse academically — and are more likely to drop out — than children with similar test scores who get extra help after being promoted.

This country has long since learned the hard way that grade retention should be used sparingly — and only as a last resort in third grade or thereafter. Children who are held back without being given the intensive instruction they need to succeed often end up repeating the grade more than once.

Why did Mayor Bloomberg adopt this policy? His critics believe he is trying to manipulate next year's much-publicized fourth grade test scores — and improve his chances at re-election — by making sure that only the best students reach fourth grade.

Mr. Bloomberg, who clearly wants to jolt what he sees as a complacent system, had a different explanation. He suggested that holding back third graders — and making them take classes after school or on weekends — would teach them the value of working hard.

But the notion that young children fail academically because they are lazy passed out of fashion with platform shoes. In recent years, even Congress has grasped the idea that all but a few children can learn successfully if schools provide them with sound instruction. That concept is the cornerstone of the No Child Left Behind education act, which requires school districts to dramatically improve the quality of instruction for all children.

The bulk of the children who would be most directly affected by the Bloomberg plan are trapped in the worst-performing schools — about 40 elementary schools where one in five students performs at the lowest levels on the reading test. These children would gain nothing by being stuck in third grade in a dismal school for an additional dismal year. The administration proposes to tinker at the margins of these failing schools — with tutoring and after-school programs for the students who are held back. That's certainly better than nothing.

What these schools need, however, is an academic Marshall Plan. This means bringing in new principals, teachers, a proven new curriculum and smaller classes in the early grades.

The city had such a program, but abandoned it after Mr. Bloomberg gained control of the school system. The now-disbanded Chancellor's District, started in the mid-1990's by Chancellor Rudy Crew, grew out of a state law that gave districts the power to reshape and even close down schools that languished on the state failing list.

Mr. Crew took control of 58 elementary and middle schools. He brought in new teachers and principals and installed smaller classes, a longer school day and a rigid, high-quality curriculum — all of it driven by an infusion of money. The heart of the elementary school instructional system was an intensive reading program that lasted three hours a day — nearly twice the time available in other city schools.

Reading scores in the Chancellor's District schools were going up when the city gave up on the program last year. The city then put in place a less focused reading curriculum that the federal government later declared ineligible for federal reading grants under No Child Left Behind. Children's advocates were angry to see the Chancellor's District go but held their tongues to give the new mayor the benefit of the doubt. They worried that the city would abandon intensive whole-school reform — which depends on strong instruction and small classes in the early grades — to focus on test preparation.

This test fixation began to creep in before Mr. Bloomberg took office. But a February report by Educational Priorities Panel, a nonpartisan umbrella group representing 28 civic organizations, suggests that the trend has begun to accelerate at an alarming pace. The E.P.P. monitors have reported seeing larger classes in the first through third grades, but smaller ones in fourth grade, when students take state tests — the much-publicized results of which are taken as a barometer of whether a school system is succeeding.

The report concluded that the schools had secretly begun to focus most of their limited resources on the testing years and were "not investing enough resources in preventing students from falling behind before they get to these grades." This practice, the report said, does not improve student performance and is roughly akin to "watering crops only a month before harvest."

Mr. Bloomberg seemed to shift part of the blame for the school system's failure onto the city's 8-year-olds when he created this grade retention program. What the mayor needs to recognize, however, is that the schools are failing the children — and not the other way around. In this context, the new city program amounts to little more than blaming the victims.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/06/opinion/06TUE3.html