Caleb’s Choice

During the last weekend in April, West Point cadet Caleb Campbell was drafted to serve in a different Army. He was selected in the seventh and final round of the National Football League (NFL) draft.

 

It is unknown whether Campbell will make the final roster of the Detroit Lions, the team that drafted him. While the Lions have conducted their off-season training activities (OTAs) in May mini-camp, the cut-down process doesn’t happen until late July or early August. The chances that a seventh round pick will make the roster and remain on the team through the end of the season are less than 40 percent.

 

Campbell will enter the NFL through an Army policy that allows highly regarded athletes to turn pro after their graduation from West Point. This policy, enacted in 2005, a year after Campbell entered the academy as a plebe, allows the athlete to serve a portion of his military service obligation as a recruiter. Cadets who do not play intercollegiate revenue sports, by comparison, have a five year service obligation in the branch they selected at graduation; the higher your rank, the more likely you get the branch you want.

 

I don’t blame Campbell for taking advantage of his opportunity. It’s not like he chose West Point expecting it to fall in his lap. If anything, Campbell chose a more difficult path to the NFL than any player in his draft class. Every West Point cadet, regardless of major, takes a rigorous engineering curriculum along with the drills and hands-on military training during the summer. Football practice, based on a great book, John Feinstein’s A Civil War, is actually a welcome break from the school routine.  

 

I understand the objections to Campbell’s decision, especially since our country is at war, but the Army has historically made special considerations for the top professional athletes. Professional baseball stars, like Joe DiMaggio served their hitches as barnstormers and fitness instructors during World War II. West Point fielded the best football teams in the nation in 1944 and 1945; back then, there was the attractive lure of being an officer versus a draftee. However, pro football did not begin to mature as a sport until after the war was over; today, its popularity is second only to NASCAR. 

 

But the Army and the NFL have to be fair to Campbell; neither wants his decision to become an embarrassment to the man or their organization.

 

If the Army wishes to use Campbell as a recruiter, they should use him to help recruit athletes to West Point; he has first-hand experience with the process that makes him invaluable to the academy and especially Army’s coaching staff.

 

The academy would not have invested alumni money—alumni fundraising pays the head coach’s salary since the federal government would not want him to earn more than the Commander-in-Chief or the Secretary of Defense—if it didn’t believe success on the gridiron was important to its image.  If Campbell succeeds as a rookie, then the NFL also has a feather in its cap: a citizen soldier who is also a fine athlete.  No doubt his team and the league will use that to full advantage.

 

But if Campbell does not make the Lions, or catch on with another team before the start of the NFL season, he should begin his service in the Army Air Defense Artillery, the branch in which he will be commissioned, but serve stateside in reserve duty until the season is over. If an NFL team calls him up that season, then good for him, he should play on.

 

However, if he is not on a roster at the start of next season, he should be placed on active duty and get on with his military career, wherever it takes him. I’m positive that the Army policy was never intended to allow an athlete to limp along on a two or three year search to find a team while being exempt from active duty. That would be unfair to the Army and those who have served.

 

 

The NFL is not like major league baseball, where a player can go down to the minors to perfect their craft; they must prove they belong in the upper echelon from the first day of camp—just as West Pointers must do from the first day of plebe year.

We the Citizens Owe Our Soldiers a New G.I Bill

I have a novel in editing, a story of a college administration in the aftermath of the murder of a U.S. Army recruiting officer. I chose as my venue a privately supported engineering school, historically friendly to the military that had relied on receiving a considerable amount of tuition revenues through ROTC and the G.I Bill. My fictional school is in trouble: its image has been compromised by the murder, and the military benefits can’t cover the full freight anymore.

 

In researching my story, I had to understand military recruiting as well as the G.I Bill. I found myself surprised that the college education benefits under the G.I Bill today are not as expansive as they were after World War II. World War II veterans received full tuition, fees, books, a monthly stipend and reimbursements for training expenses. The original legislation signed by President Roosevelt enabled 7.8 million World War II veterans to go to college, more than half of those who served. It also invigorated the growth of higher education in our country.

 

Since the original legislation passed in 1944, there have been subsequent G.I Bills, however, according the Senator James Webb (D-Virginia) their benefits were more appropriate to a military in peacetime, not an armed forces at war. I agree, because a better benefits package will only help to recruit and retain a strong military. It will be a much easier sell for the recruiters too.

 

Webb, an ex-Marine and former Secretary of the Navy under the first President Bush, is the primary sponsor of the Post 9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act to increase educational benefits to all members of the military who have served on active duty since 9/11. Webb, a former Republican who served under President Reagan as well as the first President Bush, is a beneficiary of the G.I Bill and a more than credible leader on this issue.

 

Webb’s proposed legislation will enable eligible veterans to receive 100 percent of the tuition and fees charged by the most expensive state university in their home state. While this is not a total return to the intentions of the original post-World War II G.I Bill, it is an extremely reasonable start, and an appropriate reward to those who have served with honor. Yet, the Bush Administration opposes the bill, even though the current president’s father was himself a beneficiary of the original G.I Bill. They, along with the Defense Department, believe that it will hinder military recruitment and retention, though the bill is meant to do the opposite.

 

Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama support Webb’s bill. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is not a co-sponsor, although he has announced plans to introduce his own legislation.

 

The major obstacle to a new GI Bill is cost and the addition a new entitlement raises the federal budget deficit at wartime. However, I’d like to offer one suggestion that may make a new GI Bill more palatable: prioritize recipients by time at combat. Those who have been stop-lossed would receive priority, followed by those who have been deployed into a combat zone at least once. It’s only fair that the soldiers who have taken the greatest risk receive the greatest rewards.

 

I hope there will be a final piece of legislation that will pass with a bi-partisan, veto-proof majority—and you should too.  It’s only right that we help those who risked their lives on the way to getting their postwar lives started on the road from soldier to citizen.

Memorial for Mothers

Yesterday, May 11, 2008, marked the 100^th anniversary of the first celebration of Mother’s Day. Although Mother’s Day officially became a national holiday in 1914, it was first celebrated as memorial service in a Methodist church in Grafton, West Virginia, Anna Jarvis, credited as the founder of Mother’s Day, proposed the service as a dedication to her late mother, who had believed that it would be a nice idea to have a memorial to mothers.

 

Americans honor motherhood in other ways; we call this our mother country. I realize that we might have taken that idea from Great Britian and the Queen Mother during the late 18^th century, but our nation has kept the phrase alive, despite the fact that the United States has never been a monarchy. The Statue of Liberty, our most important symbol of freedom is also a mother figure. The interior of the statue’s pedestal is inscribed with a poem, Emma Lazarus’ New Colossus, calling the proud lady the Mother of Exiles. Our soldiers at war and our athletic gladiators on their fields have always for motherhood, although now they simply shout “Hi Mom!” to get the message across on camera.

 

The church where the first Mother’s Day service took place is considered an official shrine to motherhood, and according to Cyndi Mason, its director, it reminds us “of the issues that mothers still deal with today, trying to do the balancing act of being everything to everyone.” She expressed the perfect sentiment: mothers are our real heroes and sometimes, they have their own adventures to share. I’ve become friends with several single moms through the Internet, and I sometimes swear I don’t know how they do it all. I’ve never been a father myself, but I’d feel overwhelmed balancing work and family. My home state legislature recently passed a paid family leave bill, over the objections of the business community. Any one who has any respect for motherhood should not object to such a bill; they should look at their support as an expression of empathy.

 

I know this a little, firsthand. My father was raised through most of child life by a single mom who immigrated to the United States from Romania in search of a better life. She passed by our Mother of Exiles as she entered the country through Ellis Island. My mother entered the United States from German-occupied Austria in 1940, just before America entered World War II. Rumor was that my mother was allowed to leave Austria because her mother had red hair, a more Germanic characteristic of the day; she didn’t “look Jewish.” It’s very safe for me to say that I living in a free country because of my mom, and for that I dedicated my first novel to her. I’m sure that I also speak for some of you who are reading this post, and that you have your own stories to tell. If nothing else, share them with your family. 

 

I realize that a West Virginia church is where Mother’s Day was first observed and I don’t dare suggest that the church’s importance be diminished in any way.

 

But I wonder if we need a more prominent memorial to mothers in our nation’s capital, something each and every member of Congress, and others who help govern our country, could see on their way to work.

 

It would remind each and every of one of them about who they’re really working for.

Starting May 12, Reading is Fun

Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), the nation’s oldest and largest children and families’ literacy nonprofit organization, encourages parents to celebrate Reading Is Fun Week with their children May 12–18.

 Reading Is Fun Week, started in 1979, is a time to recognize the pleasures found in books and to mark the start of summer reading. With an Olympic summer just around the corner, RIF has put together The World’s Most Athletic Booklist for children of all ages. The list contains books representing Olympic sports, and is available for free at RIF.org.

 “Experts agree that children who read during the summer gain reading skills, while those who do not often experience learning losses,” said Carol H. Rasco, president and CEO of RIF. “Reading Is Fun Week is the perfect time for parents and educators to encourage children to read for fun during their summer vacation.”

The website RIF.org provides free resources to encourage summer reading and help families celebrate Reading Is Fun Week, including a day-by-day children’s activity calendar for each day of the week. Visitors to the website can also send a children’s art e-card to spread the joy of reading, and explore RIF’s literacy activities, like Reading Is Fun bingo. RIF also provides parents with reading tips, including how to:

·         Help children start a reading journal

·         Find a fun book series for children to read

·         Relate what you are reading to outdoor activities

·         Be a reading role-model and talk about books

A Student Government Election Made for TV-The Sequel

This day, May 6, 2008, I spot a front page headline in my local New Jersey paper, The Trenton Times that reads: Ewing H.S vote is void a second time.  I had previously commented on my hometown high school’s senior class elections in a prior post, so I read on.

 

Seven students, one black and Hispanic, five black and one white, were barred from running in their senior class elections on April 23. The reason given was that the students had missed too many meetings for school activities and had not sufficiently participated in school fundraisers.

 

In a previous post, I commented that such requirements were unreasonable for a student election; we do not require adults to show prior experience in politics to run for public office. I added that a school should have the right to deny students a right to vote if there are serious blots on their records: academic probation, repeat suspensions and criminal activity being examples. But neither faculty nor administrators in Ewing stated that any of the candidates who were denied the right to run was in any academic or behavioral difficulty.

 

I stepped back after writing that post and asked myself: was it possible that some of those students were in some difficulty, but the faculty and administrators said nothing, in order to protect the privacy of the students? It would have been inappropriate, not to mention embarrassing to the students’ families to mention academic or behavioral difficulties to the media.

 

However, if this had been the case, then a responsible teacher or principal would have sent a personal letter to the student and their parents. But, based on reading the Times coverage, I have to believe the students were good standing or that the school didn’t bother to inform them that they were not. All we have from the school system is a string of “no comments.”

 

At the end of last week, Ewing High School’s principal and faculty advisors declared their senior class election a mulligan.

 

They called for a do-over; a new election where candidates who were denied an opportunity to run the first time were allowed to run for office, although they had little time to campaign. Those placed on the ballot for the first time might have achieved some recognition from the local news coverage that would have helped, but I do not know enough to say that students who could vote in this school election read the paper.

 

Then today’s Times reports that the do-over was botched; the vote was disallowed after the principal and the faculty advisors realized that approximately 60 students were not eligible to vote because they owed fines. I’d guess these were fines for overdue books, failure to return school property, or to pay for damages to school property. I can not imagine other reasons for a high school to fine students.

 

But if this was a serious concern, why didn’t the principal and faculty advisors stop these students from voting in the first election?  If they were serious about assessing fines, they should have been equally serious about collecting them. It’s not an unusual practice for a school to hold your diploma until you pay back unpaid fines and parking tickets, though I’ve never heard of a case where students in arrears were denied a right to vote in a student government election. I must add that had no one protested the first election, the votes of voters with outstanding fines would have counted.

 

I apologize, readers, if you believe that I might be beating this story to death, but it’s too amusing to ignore. This is the first time, I’m aware of an election where people who owed fines were not eligible to vote. As adults we have the opportunity to vote in all sorts of elections: local, state and presidential, and we retain the right to vote if we owe back taxes, parking tickets, and of course, library fines.

 

Now there will be a third senior class election this week. I wonder if that should be put on hold a little longer to allow the principal and faculty advisors more time to consider the meaning of free elections before they set the rules for a new contest.

Do Graduation Reporting Standards Mean Anything?

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings introduced new proposed regulations to help clarify how schools, districts and states implement policies and business practices under No Child Left Behind.

 

Among these proposals, Secretary Spellings has asked that high schools be required to use graduation rates that track cohorts of students as they progress through high school. Schools would be required to publish graduation rates for their total student population as well as every group tracked under No Child Left Behind: minority students, economically disadvantaged students, English as Second Language students, and students with disabilities.  

 

Tracking a cohort group means that you take one group, for example ninth graders who entered high school in 2004, and track where the people in that group went: those who stayed on to graduate, moved away, dropped out, graduated in more or less than four years and so on. This sounds easier than it looks; you have to track those who left your school, as well as those who stayed.

 

Unless the Secretary is prepared to put money behind this proposal, it’s more of a hindrance that a help to anyone. Tracking a cohort requires research and reporting the good, bad and the neutral.

 

Colleges track graduation rates; the most promoted are six year rates, the reasons being that students withdraw, but later return to school. They use a six year rate because a six year rate is needed to get complete information about a cohort group. College students may drop out for academic, family, military service or personal financial reasons.

 

High schools will need to use a six year rate as well. A cohort of ninth graders will not all graduate together from the same school four years later for many legitimate reasons. A school located in an economically depressed area will fare poorly under such reporting: parents move away for employment, students have to work to supplement a family’s income, and health is generally poorer in poorer places. Furthermore, people leave a depressed community for a nicer one when their financial situation gets better; why shouldn’t they move to places with better schools?

 

Looking at my list of reasons, I see two things: one, they have little to nothing to do with the quality of education at a particular school and two; they are family decisions over which a school had no control. It might be useful to track if a student at school A who transferred to school B graduated from school B, but is that an effective use of school A’s human resources? I don’t think so, especially in this economy.

 

If the federal government is willing to fund the data collection and tracking as they fund the Census, then fine. Parents could fill out an enrollment form and send it to the Department of Education, without involving the schools, and the schools could sort the data for their needs.

 

The primary intentions for No Child Left Behind are to close achievement gaps and achieve 100 percent proficiency in language arts and math by 2014, not to give the Department of Education a mandate to play big brother or sister—and force districts, schools and states to pay the bill for their oversight.

A New Jersey Student Government Election Made for the Screen

This day, April 29, 2008, I spot a front page headline in my local New Jersey paper, The Trenton Times that reads: Students kept off ballot: District to explore race factor while rescheduling vote. Our local races for school board took place last week, so I thought this was an aftermath.

 

I was wrong: It was a story about a high school student government election in Ewing, the town where I live. Seven students, one black and Hispanic, five black and one white, were barred from running in their senior class elections the previous week—and no one told them why. An assistant superintendent told the reporter in an e-mail that the decision to bar the candidates was based on a “procedural review” by the principal. The quote marks are from the assistant superintendent, not me.

 

Neither the principal nor the faculty advisors for the election offered comment to the paper; the reporter had to rely on an e-mail to one of the parents to get clarification on why her daughter couldn’t run for office. That e-mail from the teachers mentioned that she was ineligible to run because she had not participated in enough class meetings or fund raisers. One teacher later added, according to the mother, that her daughter used foul language when she questioned her ruling on the election.

 

This appears to be a scene from Election, a Tom Perrotta novel and movie starring Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon where an idealistic teacher deliberately tries to rig a student election and keep the “do it all” girl from winning. Only racism never entered in that movie; it has in the Ewing story, although no one knows for sure.

 

When I was in high school there were no requirements to run for student government, no need for prior participation in anything at all, only current enrollment. We don’t ask adult politicians to have prior electoral experience, why would it be asked of student leaders who must listen to their teachers?

 

It would be one thing if the individual students had some serious blots on their records: academic probations, multiple suspensions or incidents where they broke a law and law enforcement became involved. Even concerns about a platform to encourage an illegal act, such as legalization of marijuana are legitimate concerns for parents and teachers. But no evidence of misconduct was brought forward to the students, their parents and the press. That suggests either arrogance or foolishness; you, the reader can make that call.  

 

The combination of “no comments” and ambiguous rules in a public school in New Jersey is scary. Parents and students still consider teachers authority figures, but not authoritarian and divine; there is a huge difference—and parents know it.

 

Ewing High’s principal is trying to make things right by calling for new senior class elections. However, all of the “no comments” leave this school system open to embarrassment, innuendo, investigation by a state affirmative action agency, and possibly legal action.  If an investigation found legitimate rationale for bias, then two teachers and a principal have put their careers at risk over nothing. 

 

Jon Corzine’s Compassionate Conservatism

Here in New Jersey, the Garden State, we have a governor who has just proposed to make $500 million in permanent spending cuts, refinance state debt, reduce municipal aid, eliminate two cabinet departments, and introduce tougher standards in math and science education.

 

These are proposals that you might expect from a Republican, but Jon Corzine is a fiscally conservative, moderate to liberal social issues Democrat. Corzine, a former chief executive of Goldman Sachs, one of the oldest white-shoe Wall Street investment firms, governs New Jersey as if he doesn’t need the job. He’s taken his budget on the road to the voters; for the most part the media has shown that they have a tough time swallowing the bitter pill, but they are willing to listen. New Jersey does not have the best reputation for honest politics; two journalists just came out with a book calling Jersey the Sopranos State, but Corzine may be just the man to turn that image around.

 

There is a difference between Jon Corzine and the so-called compassionate conservatives who try to sell tax and spending cuts, as well as standards, and hope things all work out before the next election.

 

The debate in New Jersey is not over what government should give up, but on what it should do well. Garden Staters north and south place a premium on environmental protection, toll roads and public transportation, given New Jersey is sandwiched between New York City and Philadelphia. We’re also a state with over 570 municipal governments and over 600 school districts; local control is sacrament in education more than any other public service.

 

Corzine is not trying to force-feed draconian cuts or impose values on others; he’s raised a debate to tell the legislature and the voters that the state can’t afford to be business as usual. His own proposals are a challenge to Democrats—who control the legislature—and Republicans to put up or shut up and come up with a plan. There are services that every state government must perform for its citizens: law enforcement and public safety, judiciary, Medicaid disbursement, K-12 and higher education, maintain state highways, negotiating compacts with other states on transportation and environmental issues, being examples. Then there’s the rest of the budget.

 

For instance, on the surface, Corzine’s proposals to eliminate the departments of Agriculture and Personnel make more sense than other cuts. Agriculture is but one sector of our state’s economy; it makes no sense to give a cabinet level position to a single industry. We don’t have a secretary of technology or pharmacy. Agriculture is but one plank on an economic development platform in any state government. There’s no need for a state department of personnel when each and every state agency has their own human resource professionals who can align their work, jobs and wages to their agency’s mission. There’s no need for another set of bureaucratic hoops.

 

When this was proposed I had to wonder: why didn’t a previous governor think of it before? This makes perfect sense.

 

It’s the kind of creative thinking we need in our state.

Should the High School Military Test Be a Mandatory Test?

High school students interested in serving in our armed forces must take an entrance examination called the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). The ASVAB is used to not only assess a recruit’s aptitude for military service, but also help identify their Military Operational Specialty—service-speak for job—if they choose to serve. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, over 722,000 high school students took the ASVAB during the past school year

 

The ASVAB is also used as a mandatory test for high school sophomores and juniors at hundreds of schools in 34 states. The schools that make the ASVAB mandatory share the results with the military and assist their students in their career development, regardless of whether they decide to enlist.

 

There are problems with this practice.

 

First, the mandatory test gives the military the opportunity to circumvent the opt-out provisions under No Child Left Behind; a student may be forced to take the test even though he’s asked to opt out of communications with the branches of the armed forces,

 

Second, school administrators have the say as to whether the ASVAB results can be shared with military recruiters, assuming they require the test for their own purposes. In effect, a school administrator is placed in the role of circumventing the wishes of students who are not interested in military service, as well as their parents. A high school principal or superintendent should not be put in this position; an exceptionally vocal group of parents could get him fired.

 

Third, the ASVAB is given to students who have not turned 18. The military should not be contacting students who are more than a year from graduating high school. Given the passage of a symbolic act such as No Child Left Behind, the military should not be recruiting high school drop outs, or asking students disinterested in school to consider dropping out. Reporting to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on January 31, General Thomas Bostick, Commanding General of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, stated that the percentage of high school graduates among military recruits had fallen to a low of 79 percent. 

 

I don’t believe we need a Congressional hearing to resolve these problems; there is nothing to be gained from such theatre. Instead, we need some solutions that are fair and easy to implement. I personally do not object to the test itself, or the idea of making it mandatory at wartime, but there should be an opt-out check box right on the front page of the exam booklet. If a student checks no, then no should be recorded in the collective database of test takers. It’s not too difficult to add one checkbox to a three hour standardized exam.

 

Second, if a school in need of improvement under No Child Left Behind uses the ASVAB as a career assessment tool, it should allowed to use it as a school assessment. Improvement in performance on the ASVAB should carry bonus credits towards a school’s efforts to take itself out of Need of Improvement status.

 

Thirdly, and I stated this in a prior column, the military should not call high school students until they have reached their 18^th birthday or three months before their graduation, whichever is earlier. If we are to leave no child left behind in the classroom and make all children proficient, we should not try to send them to the battlefield before they have had a chance to earn their high school diploma.

It Pays to Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys or Giants or Eagles or Redskins

The National Football League draft is this weekend and if you’re a pro football fan you already know about the widespread speculation about where your favorite players are going to plying their trade on Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays and, if they’re lucky, the weekends in January and February after their college seasons were over.

 

If you’re a football fan, you’ve also listened to analysts discuss the odds of players making it to the big leagues; the lower you’re drafted, the worse they get. You’ve also heard what it takes to get on the field with most teams; talent and fit are the most obvious qualities, though some franchises place a premium on character. In this sense, the NFL is no different from any other business that hires entry level workers.

 

Each college season, there are between 15 and 25 seniors, and a much smaller number of juniors who played football at 120 Division 1 schools, as well as seniors who have similar talents, but played at lower levels of competition.  A best guess is that there are 3,000 young men who played college football last season who have completed or relinquished their college eligibility and would like to play in the pros. Their resumes are their game films, statistics and workout results from a scouting combine and college pro days. Those who are serious about playing on get at least one chance to impress at a pro day and the big schools often invite athletes from smaller schools to come to their sites to try out.  

 

Those 3,000 young men compete for 256 spots in the NFL draft; there are seven rounds of 32 teams, plus 32 supplemental picks that have been awarded to teams that lost players to free agency. Each team also signs rookie free agents after the draft and invites them to a mini-camp in May along with the draftees. And I haven’t considered openings in the Canadian Football League and Arena Football. But it’s safe to say that a player who is in the upper 10 percent at their position will get at least a tryout in a pro camp if they want it.

 

I look at the numbers and I wonder if the odds of success are that bad. A good college football player who consistently plays well at a high level of competition has a better chance of getting a shot at the pros than, for instance, a business or engineering major who wants to work for the Ford Motor Company.

 

According to data collected by CollegeGrad.com, an entry-level job site, Ford expects to have 300 entry-level hires this year. No doubt they will get more than 3,000 applicants for those jobs through on-campus recruitment and their Web site. Those who have spent some time as interns at Ford will have an edge, just as those who played for the major football powers have a better chance of being invited to turn pro. But there are over 300,000 business majors, and close to 120,000 computer science and engineering majors and the most desired companies are more likely to pursue the top fraction of one percent.

 

I like the odds for the football player much better.

 

I know that NFL also stands for “Not For Long.” Every player has to hang up the helmet and cleats at some point, but that’s no different than other fields. If you’ve read this far you probably know of many people who are not working at the same profession they did after college, even if they didn’t continue their education.

 

The difference is that smart football players who stay healthy have a chance to build a nest egg at a very early age to help them move on to the next station in their working life. The smart players are the ones who don’t expect to fall back on their glory days to land the next job—and we don’t read enough about them in the sports pages. We always read about the first-round talent who hooked up with undesirables and lived beyond his means before losing it all; that makes great copy, but it hardly applies to everyone who played the game.