US Airways and Reading Is Fundamental Put Children’s Books on Planes

Here’s an example of the best ideas public-private partnerships in education. We should hope for nothing less than success with this one.

US Airways (LCC) has joined with Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) to launch a new early childhood literacy campaign, “Fly with US. Read with Kids,” which features a free children’s book for passengers traveling domestically during March, the online “Read with Kids Challenge,” and support of RIF programs serving young children across the nation.

During March, US Airways, the official airline of RIF, will distribute copies of best-selling author/illustrator Lucy’s Cousins’ children’s book Come Fly with Maisy to passengers on domestic, mainline flights to take and share with a child. The organizations’ “Read with Kids Challenge” encourages Americans to read with young children during March, April, and May in an effort to log one million minutes reading. All entrants who log their time qualify for a grand prize drawing of a family vacation to Walt Disney World® Resort in Orlando as well as other prizes. Participants can enter their time online at RIF.org.

“Reading, much like travel, is an adventure and a way to explore new worlds,” said Doug Parker, US Airways Chairman and CEO. “By teaming up with RIF on this first-of-its kind campaign, US Airways is helping foster literacy skills and a lifelong love of reading in children throughout the country – a key foundation for future academic and economic success.”

US Airways’ new campaign with RIF, the nation’s oldest and largest children and families’ literacy nonprofit organization, also includes donating 80,000 books to 25,000 children in RIF programs. US Airways’ 3,300-member employee volunteer corps, the Do Crew, will participate in RIF book distributions and reading rallies in communities where the airline has large employee concentrations: Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Las Vegas; New York City; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Pittsburgh; Washington, D.C.; and Winston-Salem, N.C.

“Reading and interacting with children is fun and valuable whether at 30,000 feet or at ground level,” said Carol H. Rasco, president and CEO of RIF. “Thanks to US Airways, RIF can provide more books to children and their families and promote the value of adults reading with young children. Research has shown that reading to young children helps them build vocabulary, develop skills for reading, and better prepare for success in school.”

qubo, a TV and online entertainment service for children that champions literacy, has agreed to help promote the Read with Kids Challenge. qubo is currently broadcast on NBC Saturday mornings, ION TV network Friday afternoons and Telemundo weekend mornings and airs as a 24/7 digital broadcast channel and website.

Want to Teach Intelligent Design? Put It In a History Class

In 1980, the Reagan Revolution meant not only a reconsideration of sex education, but also a reconsideration of the theory of evolution. Back then, the alternative theory was called creationism or scientific creationism; today it’s called intelligent design.

I am no scientist, but I have issues with teaching intelligent design as science.

Intelligent design revolves around the idea of an “intelligent designer”, some unexplained force that created life, the earth or the universe. The idea of an intelligent designer is explained more thoroughly in history, philosophy and theology than in science.

I can understand why; when an unexplained force is used to explain science, the end-result is science fiction until scientists prove otherwise. That’s their job, and they’ve done it very well. There’s been considerable advancement on Darwin’s theories, since his work, The Origins of Species was first published in 1857.

Until science provides an academic explanation of an “intelligent designer,” I would consider intelligent design to be part of the history of scientific thought.

Just as societies once believed the planets in the Solar System revolved around the Earth.

Before Galileo proved otherwise, and he was tried as a heretic and placed under house arrest, because his scientific beliefs were in conflict with the Holy Scripture. The shame was that the Catholic Church did not express regret for their actions until 1992, 350 years after he died.

I do not know of a public school district in America that would not allow discussion of Galileo’s trial to take place in a high school European history or world history class. I also have no doubt that such a discussion would show a defeat for science over the popular public opinion of the 17^th century.

Just as I do not know of a public school district that would not allow discussion of the Scopes Trial in a high school American history class.

The Scopes Trial was a triumph of public opinion over science; the laws of the State of Tennessee in 1925 prevailed over the testimony of scientists’ expert on evolution. John Thomas Scopes, the biology teacher on trial, was found guilty of breaking the law. He was not fired, only fined for his actions, although he never paid the fine and he never taught high school again.

It’s interesting, in both cases science lost to religion under the laws, philosophy and theology of the times. A man’s reputation suffered in the short term, past beliefs of a society remained challenged, but scientific inquiry moved forward.

That’s the main lesson; science is about investigation, not about accepting gospel as the answer for the unexplained. We live in a time when we are asking for scientific advancement and more science educators, yet we find politicians who want to see a non-scientific explanation for human development taught in public school science classes.

That’s confusing to me, is it confusing to you?

I can only hope those politicians, if elected to an executive chair, as governor or president, do not use evolutionary beliefs as a litmus test to appoint advisors or judges.

This would be a giant step backward for scientific inquiry, at a time we need it the most to provide thoughtful explanation and innovations to better manage natural resources and invigorate economies.

I have no issue with discussing intelligent design in the context of a history, philosophy or theology class; it has its place in those debates and there are many historical facts available for discussion. However, it should not be part of a science class, until it is proven as science.

I only hope the teachers fit Galileo’s trial into that curriculum too.

It provides great lessons for conservative politicians to learn–on how not to treat science and scientific inquiry.

The Cristo Rey Model is More than a Dream

Shortly after I heard about President Bush’s proposal for Pell Grants for low-income children to attend parochial schools, I finished reading More than a Dream: The Christo Rey Story, a inspirational book about the founding of the first Cristo Rey Jesuit high school in Chicago’s Pilsen/Little Village neighborhood.

More than a Dream is a history of the challenges that Jesuit leaders and Jesuit school alumni faced twelve years ago. Cristo Rey started with a focus on its neighborhood, to educate low income Hispanic high school students while charging their families little to no tuition. Instead of being charged full tuition, students would be required to work one day a week in a corporate sponsored internship program and sign their wages over to the school. In addition to the work-study arrangement, Cristo Rey taught non-language arts courses: social studies, science, religion and arts in Spanish so that students could learn these subjects in their stronger language. Cristo Rey also attempted to bridge school and work with orientations as well as experiential learning. Since 1997, the first Cristo Rey school has had tremendous success in getting low-income students into Jesuit and state supported colleges.

However, this school grew from meager beginnings. It did not admit freshman at first, as a promise not to place other Chicago-area Catholic schools at a competitive disadvantage; it also scheduled entrance examinations on different dates from the other schools. It did not admit students who had criminal records, or special needs, as public schools must do, and it had a very modest facility, a closed Catholic middle school with a roller skating rink that was later converted into the cafeteria.

Cristo Rey ran deficits in excess of $1 million for its first five years in operation, but Jesuit clerics and Jesuit school alumni from the business community stayed the course.

I doubt politicians and voters would have been equally patient with a public charter school that had an equal number of students.

Today, Cristo Rey is among 30 high schools in 19 cities run by the national Cristo Rey Network. The Nativity Miguel Network, a similar venture, has 64 members, mostly middle schools. Both are excellent models for delivering an education to low income students in cities that have a corporate community large enough to support the internship program. For instance, close to my home, the Network opened the first new Catholic school in Newark since 1964, welcoming 105 students in September 2007. Newark was the best city for the Network to open a new school in New Jersey; it has the largest corporate and university community among the state’s urban centers, and the larger corporations, especially Prudential, are stand-out contributors to social services and economic development in the city. 

One cannot help but be awed by the determination and accomplishments of the Cristo Rey Network.

It also makes me wonder why other parochial school educators have approached President Bush for fiscal relief, when there are so many lessons about fundraising, leadership and academic programming to be learned from the Cristo Rey story.

Three Sex Education Lessons from the Teen Pep Stories

One of the oft-repeated comments by characters in my novel, The Sex Ed Chronicles is that, in the absence of sex education, children learn about sex from their friends. However, the novel was based in 1980, before New Jersey high schools started to involve students in peer counseling.

On Valentines Day 2008, I read about a mini-controversy involving peer counseling on a New Jersey radio news Web site. The news coverage came out of one New Jersey high school: Clearview Regional High School in Harrison Township in the southern part of the state. There, parents object to peer counselors, high school juniors and seniors, counseling freshmen on a variety of topics related to sex education. The counseling model comes from a program called Teen Pep. Designed by the Princeton Center for Leadership Training (not affiliated with Princeton University), Teen Pep has been implemented in over 50 Garden State high schools for the past eight years. Therefore, Teen Pep is not a new program and school districts have had time to investigate its merits—only now, one school has made the news.

Teen Pep trains not only students, but also faculty advisors, to work one-to-one, but also as a team in various counseling situations. Schools contracting for Teen Pep work with the Princeton Center for a minimum of two years and there are supervisory field visits by qualified professionals to help ensure the program is running smoothly. A school that engages in Teen Pep makes a considerable intellectual investment, as well as a financial investment, to make it work. Part of this investment is to explain this program to parents.

Which takes me to lesson number one: if you are not ready to take these investments seriously, don’t make them.

As I read about the incident at Clearview High, it became clear to me that the fault is not with the program, but with the school administration. It would have been easier for them to consult parents and clergy from the get-go, as they are supposed to do. I realize that teachers have objected to this—they did back in 1980 as well—but sex education is a subject where parents and clergy believe they have important opinions and knowledge.

I found it interesting to read that an advisory board would be formed after parents objected to individual aspects of the program. That should have been in place from day one.

Which takes me to lesson number two: after consulting parents, decide which topics students are qualified to discuss with peers.

Parental objections at Clearview stemmed from the idea that “kids were teaching kids to have sex.” But there had to be clear differences between the topics teen peer counselors were allowed to teach, and those that had to be covered by a qualified sex education teacher—but they didn’t make it in the press. Parents deserved to know, if they asked before school started. I realize that pro-abstinence organizations also use young speakers; their programs should be subject to the same parental review as the peer-counseling program.

Then I get to lesson number three: make sure you have qualified teachers.

 

The federal No Child Left Behind Act emphasizes a need for qualified teachers, meaning that a teacher should be certified in the subject they teach. That applies as much to sex education as any other subject. In the example of Clearview High, the program leader was an English teacher. When I reached family life education, I learned that sex education instructors were most likely to come from health education, home economics or social studies as well as nursing. I would also assume that guidance counselors could become qualified sex educators; they handle personal student issues as part of their job description.

It appears Teen Pep is working in most schools; only one school is in the news complaining, but those involved with this program should consider offering an alternative: to use degree candidates in counseling and education to counsel students.

This would not be peer counseling, but it would appease parents who worry about kids teaching kids about sex. It would also help provide professional development for sex educators.

Summit on Faith Based Schools More Powerful Than Money

During his final State of the Union Address, President Bush announced two proposals for faith-based schools; one, a grants program for low-income students similar to Pell Grants for college students, and the other a national Presidential summit on faith-based education.

The summit is more important than the grants program.

The proposed appropriate for grants is $300 million, too miserly to fill the likely demand for such grants, and it is unlikely to win the approval of a Democratic Congress.

 

However, presidents rarely use the power of their office to conduct summits on domestic policy; presidential summits are more typically used in discuss foreign relations and trade.

 

Growing up Jewish, attending public schools, I am less familiar with the merits of parochial school education over public education. However, I know that parochial schools are not subject to No Child Left Behind and do not have dealings with teacher’s unions. They can also pass on students who have special educational needs. I would also perceive the marketplace dynamic for parochial education to be similar to private colleges; the best endowed and the most-focused schools are the most selective while the rest struggle to provide scholarships or recruit students who can pay tuition.

 

But would parochial school leaders want to submit their schools to government regulations, as colleges must do, if a federal grant program were put in place? For instance, all colleges that receive Federal assistance must welcome military recruiters on campus. How would a pacifist religious order reconcile their financial need with their values in that situation? Then there is the issue of tuition. Members of Congress in both parties have proposed legislation to force colleges and universities to become accountable for tuition increases. I can understand why; the House and Senate cannot be expected to increase financial aid at the same rate as colleges raise tuition. But would Congress ask parochial schools to be equally accountable if they enroll students who receive federal assistance?

Then there is No Child Left Behind with its reporting policies and “qualified teacher” requirements. Today, parochial schools cannot offer salary and benefits packages competitive with public schools. They would be in a less competitive position if they were mandated to seek qualified teachers.

I realize that some readers will find these arguments silly, but it seems hypocritical to me that a presidential administration that has demanded greater accountability from public schools would ask Congress to fund grants to help students attend parochial schools—then not subject the parochial schools to the same accountability.

It would be akin to saying that parochial school education is superior to public education without asking the parochial schools to prove it.

Leading parochial school educators and graduates have every right to say that a parochial school education is superior—they have delivered and received benefits from parochial schools—but a President cannot take that position public, as Bush has done by a proposing a summit.

Reading is Fundamental Does Not Deserve a Reduction In Force

Yesterday, February 12, the true Lincoln’s Birthday, I read in USA Today that the Bush Administration proposes to eliminate Federal funding for Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), a non-profit program that has distributed 325 million new books to more than 30 million children over the past 42 years.

RIF has been a popular program on both sides of the political aisle. RIF’s founder was Margaret Craig McNamara, then-wife of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara who served in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations; she was a former teacher and reading tutor who started the program by delivering used books to three Washington D.C public schools. More recently, First Lady Laura Bush, and her mother-in-law, former First Lady Barbara Bush have served in very visible roles.

I wonder what a self-educated man like President Lincoln would have said about closing down a reading program, so I did a little checking to find out: is RIF succeeding, or failing, in its mission?

While the USA Today article mentions that RIF has not been on the chopping block since 2001, the truth is that its budget has been approximately $25 million for the past five years, this according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Web site (see: http://www.ed.gov/programs/rif/funding.html). Funding for RIF increased from $23 million in FY 2001, the last Clinton budget, to $24 and $25 million in FY 2002 and 2003, the first Bush budgets. After 2003, the funding was essentially frozen at $25 million each year.

However, in government budget-speak, a freeze is the same as a cut; salaries, administrative expenses and the costs of books have gone up. The need for books, however, has not gone down.

Yet I go to www.expectmore.gov, a site co-developed by his agency to rate federal programs by their effectiveness—and RIF is not listed in the program database!

So, the American people don’t even know why the White House considers RIF to be ineffective.

It’s only proper to find out what RIF did wrong, and why the White House to take it out of the budget. The USA Today article mentions a preference for a merit-based competitive bid, over an automatic grant to RIF, but why, when a non-profit has done this successfully for 42 years? Is it because they’d prefer not to fund an organization run by a former Clinton appointee? Cronyism has been part of every political administration since there have been politicians. However, RIF’s board is a mix of public and private members; more than 140 publishers participate. This is hardly an organization of political patronage and “no show” jobs.

I’d prefer to think that the Bush White House would like to cut out RIF because of poor performance, as would those who are supposed to receive books.

So, I looked at the Performance Plan for RIF. It’s posted on the U.S. Department of Education’s Web site (see: http://www.ed.gov/programs/rif/performance.html). It lists a baseline, the number of low-income children that RIF was expected to provide books, as well as the actual total.

I might have thought that RIF could not distribute as many books in 2004 and later years, because it had less money to buy books. In 2003, RIF had a baseline of 3.7 million children to receive books, later raised to 3.9 and 4 million for 2004 and 2005. RIF distributed books to no fewer than 3.6 million children each year. RIF didn’t meet the baseline in 2004 and 2005, but it’s hardly a failure to distribute the same number of books—which cost more each year—with less money.

Then in 2006, the last year that federal data is available, RIF distributed books to nearly 4.5 million children—using less federal money than the year before.

That’s hardly an example of a failing program; in fact, one would have to wonder what RIF could have accomplished with an extra million or two.

The USA Today article has a comment by Clay Johnson, deputy director of the federal office of Management and Budget. Citing him directly from the article, Johnson says that “we are calling out as ineffective some sacred cows. It’s not enough to say ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ We want it to be a lovely program that works.”

With respect to RIF, the Bush White House picked the wrong sacred cow to slaughter.

 

Freedom of Religion Sells Abstinence Message, and Saves Sex Ed

During the first week of the New Year, the Austin American Statesmen published an opinion by Ken Lambrecht, president of Texas Planned Parenthood, which cites these statistics:

• Texas is No. 1 in the nation for repeat teen births
• More than 80,000 teenagers in Texas become pregnant every year
• In a 2004 poll, ninety percent of Texans agreed that public schools should educate students with age-appropriate, medically accurate sex education

These statistics come from the state that brought us George W. Bush, the Abstinence President.

On the day after Christmas, USA Today’s main column cited teenage pregnancy statistics from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The column reported that the teen pregnancy rate, which had declined from 1991 to 2005, increased by three percent in 2006. Three percent might not sound like much, but there are over 750,000 children born to teens in the United States, and 8 in 10 of those are unintended, according the Guttmacher Institute, a New York and Washington-based non-profit reproductive health policy research organization.

This is the record of the Abstinence President.

Under his watch, 16 states have refused to accept federal funding for abstinence-until-marriage sex education programs in their public schools.

I happen to live in one of those states: New Jersey. The Garden State is always the butt of mob-boss and exit jokes, but it is also a national leader in comprehensive sex education policies. Our state was the first to mandate age-appropriate, medically accurate, sex education in all grades—28 years ago! We have gone slightly backward, policy-wise; stress-abstinence has been the law since 1999. However, rejecting abstinence-until-marriage funding was a step in the right direction.

I’m also a Sopranos fan, and as a long-time Jersey resident, I look for landmarks of my youth on the show. I’m addicted to the re-runs In one of the first episodes, mob boss Tony Soprano sounds like the best spokesperson for abstinence-only, or abstinence-until-marriage while lecturing his son and daughter at the breakfast counter.

Tony sums up sex education at home in one line: Out there, it’s the 1990’s, in here, it’s 1954.

I’d love to have heard Tony discuss birds and bees with his kids; it would have been the most awkward moment of his life. It might have caused another panic attack.

Not that Tony set the best example, but he wanted his daughter to turn out better than he did.

That’s one of the major reasons parents, as opposed to clergy and politicians, support abstinence programs. They want their kids to avoid their mistakes—and they want the church and the schools to take them off the hook.

So, I’d like to propose a better way for abstinence advocates to carry their banner.

 

The Bush Administration budgeted $50 million for abstinence-until-marriage for 2007, and the same for 2008. This is the money that goes to the state governments, as opposed to faith-based, or pro-life non-profit groups who carry out the same message.

Why not take that money, and the dollars given to faith-based organizations, and use it to celebrate religious freedom?

Every faith needs a congregation, and we should all, as a nation, be opposed to hate crimes against faith.

The abstinence advocates would see better results, while public schools would be free to deliver the sex education their community needs or wants.

Here’s why: while it’s very easy for political advocates make health-related arguments for abstinence money, they’re not very effective at carrying the message to a teen audience. Nor are they effective at getting public institutions to do it. Public school sex educators can effectively convey that abstinence is a choice, and tell students to respect choice. However, it’s unrealistic to make it their job to take a position. High schools listen to teachers who get them to question and think; the stern lecture never works.

The clergy do a better job of delivering the abstinence message, and providing abstinence counseling. Every religion has its own customs and rules, and some are taken quite seriously by the devout.

Almost everything I’ve read in favor of abstinence-only education shows that it works within faith, because clergy, unlike public school teachers, have the luxury of taking a position; they have written works and religious scholars to back them up. Clergy also enjoy more loyalty, and probably more respect in most communities, than public school teachers do.

That’s not meant to be an insult to teachers, but there is a reason we have a presidency that has put forth faith-based programs and No Child Left Behind: America gave it the votes.

Americans take pride in living in a free and diverse nation; freedom of worship is most sacred . I don’t believe anyone, conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, would disagree.

We don’t need the federal government to impose religious based values on public schools and services.

However, we need the federal government to protect the freedoms we enjoy.