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Chairman's Report
October 7, 2005 The SLC Education Committee convened on Sunday, July 31, for a program session and on Monday, August 1, for a business session during the 59th SLC Annual Meeting. The following is a summary of the speaker presentations and Committee activities from each of these programs.
Program Session
I. Making the Most of Technology
Background
Presentation In the late 1990s, Mr. Thomas continued, states began to be interested in the potential to offer high school students the opportunity to take courses online, something that was just becoming available to college students. Florida, he added, took the lead with the creation of the Florida Virtual High School (now renamed the Florida Virtual School). To understand how virtual schools work, it is necessary to understand what an online course is and what a state-sponsored virtual school is. An online course is a password-protected Web-based course featuring solid content. Students need to have access to computers and the Internet to take the course. Courses have content and may or may not have a textbook alongside digital materials. Students are given responsibilities to explore the content and study and are expected to interact with the teacher and one another regularly, albeit virtually. Virtual schools, Mr. Thomas explained, are entities to deliver online courses to students in the state. These broaden the class offerings available to every student and extend the possibilities for students to have high quality teachers in a wide range of courses, regardless of where the student lives. These courses are taught by very highly qualified teachers, who extend their expertise to students across the state. He further emphasized that virtual schools are not intended to replace brick and mortar schools. Mr. Thomas noted that the original focus of virtual courses was on higher level math and science but the concept is equally well-suited to all levels of learning. Virtual learning has been applied in several places to meet basic core requirements. As an example, West Virginia, where a legislative mandate to provide all middle school students a foreign language elective came up against the reality of the large number of small middle schools in the state that did not have the staff to offer any foreign language course. To resolve this problem, the state turned to virtual courses, with the assistance of Florida Virtual School, to provide access to all interested students to foreign language instruction online. Finally, Mr. Thomas noted that outcomes for virtual classes were often comparable or superior to those of conventional classes, again citing West Virginia’s experience with online foreign languages. Students that seek these courses out, he acknowledged, may be more motivated, but there is also a student population that needs the opportunities that virtual schools provide.
II. Stopping Bullying
Background
Presentation Dr. Paulk noted that bullying is relatively common, with nearly one in five children reporting bullying others sometimes, and one in 10 bullying others weekly, rates that are nearly identical to the percent of children who report being bullied. Boys bully more than girls, although this may not be entirely accurate because bullying behavior among girls is much harder to observe and detect. Boys are likely to be bullied by boys, whereas girls are more likely to be bullied by both boys and girls, she explained, although boys are more likely to be physically bullied than girls. Bullying tends to happen in places where there is little adult oversight, including the playground, halls, and bathrooms.
While bullying is a continuum of behavior, Dr. Paulk noted that
children for whom bullying is a chronic problem in frequency, intensity or
duration tend to get labeled as bullies or victims. They have unique sets of
circumstances, she noted. Children who bully are more likely to get into
frequent fights; be injured in a fight; steal or vandalize property; drink
alcohol; smoke; be truant or drop out of school; experience poorer academic
achievement; perceive a negative climate at school; and carry a weapon. In a
longitudinal study of children who bullied, Dr. Paulk noted, 60 percent of
middle school bullies had at least one conviction by age 24, with 40 percent
having three or more convictions. Children who were bullied had lower self
esteem, higher rates of depression, higher absenteeism rates, and considered
suicide more often. Indeed, children who were bullied report a wide range of
health problems at rates much, much higher than children who are not bullied.
Bullying is related to school violence and, specifically, school shootings, Dr. Paulk noted, with three-quarters of attackers in targeted school violence episodes feeling persecuted and being bullied before the event. One-third of the attackers were characterized as loners, and one-quarter socialized with students who were disliked by most mainstream students. Many students don’t report being bullied to school staff, Dr. Paulk added, out of fear that it will make the behavior worse. Older children and boys are least likely to report being victimized. When bullied children do report being bullied, two-thirds respond that staff responded poorly. Adults overestimate their effectiveness in identifying bullying and intervening, she noted. Many children question the commitment of teachers and administrators to stopping bullying. Children who observe bullying are equally ineffective, however, with two-thirds responding that when they see a fellow student being bullied they either do nothing because it is not their business or want to help but do not, she added. Schools’ responses to bullying run the gamut, including awareness-raising efforts, reporting and tracking, zero tolerance, social skills training for victims, individual and group treatment for bullies and victims, mediation and conflict resolution, and curricular approaches. Dr. Paulk identified four principal misdirections in bullying prevention and intervention: zero tolerance approaches, conflict resolution, group treatment for children who bully, and simple, short-term solutions. Instead, she encouraged a change in the school climate and in norms for behavior. This requires a comprehensive, school-wide effort involving the entire school community. Dr. Paulk concluded by describing the national Stop Bullying Now campaign, the goals of which are to raise awareness, prevent and reduce bullying behaviors, identify appropriate interventions, and foster and enhance linkages among partners. The campaign draws upon existing research on bullying as well as focus groups and in-depth interviews and input from a youth expert panel to devise strategies. The campaign offers an array of resources for schools, parents, students and community members. Finally, Dr. Paulk observed that children exist in a dynamic social hierarchy that is always in flux. Because of this, children respond to threats to their status, and act to improve their status by bullying. In this context, bullying is a natural, if undesirable, behavior of establishing social status. While stopping bullying may not be a possibility, there are concrete actions states and policymakers can promote to reduce it and its impacts.
Business Session
I. Two-Year Colleges in the Spotlight
Background
Presentation Legislatures are uniquely positioned to guide this process because they have the stability to create and support long-range plans that transcend the terms of any governor. The State Board of Education in Alabama had the idea that if the two-year colleges were to be a force in economic development, they had to consolidate all of the entities doing workforce development. Each of these entities receives state and federal dollars without any coordination, he noted, so fusing these entities into a cohesive, efficient workforce delivery system became the top priority for the two-year college system, something that could not have been accomplished without the support of the Legislature. Dr. Johnson noted that low-tech jobs with low wages are going to move somewhere else in the global economy. This is an opportunity for the South to pass on to the next generation a higher technology, higher wage economy, but only if a system is in place to prepare the workforce for these jobs and leave the low-tech economy behind. This requires developing the right tools and making the right investments in the right places. Those states that do prepare their workforces and have a coherent, sensible, efficient plan will be successful in attracting new and better jobs. Dr. Johnson’s advice to the Committee was to create legislative oversight panels and good solid committees with good solid charges that could take an honest assessment of the state’s strengths and weaknesses in the workforce development system. This will help to identify how the state can focus energy on necessary skills and emerging needs not only for new industry, but to improve the services available to incumbent business and workforce. All of this begins to tilt state programs toward workforce development. There is a transformation underway for two-year colleges from academic transfer programs to an economic force to train the skilled workforce, Dr. Johnson observed. This cannot be done by maintaining the status quo in community colleges. Community colleges must change, he noted, just as the economy must change. Too many programs take too long to complete with a degree and are too costly and too slow to train the workforce. There needs to be more entry and exit points so that the person who loses their job “midcycle” need not wait for an academic schedule to start retraining. There needs to be a way to shorten the training, make it more intense, and give people the job skills to get back to work and then bring them back later for longer term programs where they see a need. To this end, Alabama created an adult skills division to serve adults who were not eligible to be admitted to college or were not interested in a degree program. Dr. Johnson noted that while there certainly were programs that would require two-year certificate-length cycles, there were other areas in which shorter-term options would serve to put people to work, or back to work, more quickly. Part of the solution is creating short-term intensive certification programs, he added, that sit alongside the academic transfer programs and more intensive certificate programs. Wherever economic activity is occurring, he emphasized, community colleges should be a part of it. Dr. Johnson concluded by noting that states cannot neglect high school vocational education programs. Many existing programs have closed because they were viewed as irrelevant and those that did exist were dumping grounds for young people who were low achievers. He noted that many of the programs at two-year colleges could be shifted to high schools, so that students can leave a vocational high school program for a skilled job.
II. Election of Officers SLC Staff Contact: Jonathan Watts Hull, phone: 404/633-1866; e-mail: jhull@csg.org
Attendance List Alabama
Arkansas
Georgia
Kentucky
Maryland
Mississippi
Tennessee
Virginia
West Virginia
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