Abstinence education that works

Some eye-opening thoughts in this Washington Post letter to the editor (Thursday, December 30, 2004, Page A26) fly in the face of conventional wisdom about "safe sex" education:

The ability to forgo sexual relations until marriage makes it more likely that a teenager will be able to devote the time and energy necessary to self-discovery and achievement.

For eighth-grade girls in the Best Friends program, sexual activity was 13 percent, compared with 30 percent for their peers, according to a 2003 research study. In the Best Men program, it was 30 percent, compared with 50 percent for their peers. Girls who remain in Best Friends until ninth grade have a 100 percent graduation rate from high school.

In 1987, when we began the Best Friends program through the Child Development Center at Georgetown University, the pregnancy rate for 12th-grade girls in D.C. public schools was 28 percent. In 2000, the most recent year for which statistics are available, it was less than 18 percent.

The Best Friends and Best Men curricula are based on solid research and are field-tested. Our research is peer-reviewed, and the significant results in the reduction of sexual activity in D.C. public schools and nationwide have been accepted for publication by Adolescent and Family Health, a journal of the Institute for Youth Development. Our curricula is updated annually and reviewed before it is put into print.

The Best Friends Foundation teaches more than 6,000 young people across the nation and hopes to bring this message to more than 80,000 students within 10 years. We can do this for as little as $125 per student annually.

Abstinence education was unfunded before 1999. Thankfully, the president and Congress saw the potential for abstinence programs and have been increasing funding the past several years. Yet, according to Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, for every $12 spent on contraception and contraception education, only $1 is spent on abstinence education.

ELAYNE BENNETT
Founder and President
Best Friends Foundation
Washington, D.C.

I taught a curriculum in my Sunday School class a few years ago called "True Love Waits." It's an abstinence curriculum based on Biblical principles. It's an excellent curriculum for youth with a strong faith, but I'm not sure that the less committed or less spiritually mature students in the class bought it. Best Friends and Best Men seem like very positive, practical, and proven programs with a secular approach. Anyone looking for a youth program that promotes abstinence, self-esteem, character, and achievement should check out Best Friends and Best Men.

Feinstein makes the case for vouchers

"Let D.C. Try Vouchers"
By Dianne Feinstein
Excerpted from The Washington Post
Tuesday, July 22, 2003; Page A17

Mayor Anthony Williams has proposed a five-year pilot program that would offer low-income parents a choice in where they send their children to school in the District. This proposal has the support of the president of the school board and thousands of District parents.

As a former mayor and a current member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I am inclined to support Williams's effort to experiment with this program. I believe that education is a local issue and that if the mayor wants this program, it should be given the chance to work.

I have never before supported a voucher program. For 30 years, I have advocated strongly for our public schools, because I believe that they are the cornerstone of our education system. In my view, we must continue to do everything we can to strengthen and improve our nation's public schools.

Based on the substantial amount of money pumped into the schools and the resultant test scores, I do not believe that money alone is going to solve the problem. This is why I believe the District should be allowed to try this pilot -- particularly for the sake of its low-income students.

Ultimately this issue is not about ideology or political correctness. It is about providing a new opportunity for good education, which is the key to success. Unless a youngster has learned the fundamentals of education, he or she will find it extremely difficult when older to find work in the competitive marketplace.

If supporting the mayor's proposal will help us to better understand what works and what doesn't in terms of educating our youth, then I believe Williams should be allowed to undertake this experiment.

A teachable moment

At teaching hospitals, med students are presented with real patients with real injuries and illnesses to better learn medicine. On these pages, I have tried to bring you first-person coverage of education reform issues, to enable you to become a better-informed and effective consumer of education, advocate for your child, or activist for your values.

Accordingly, get your browser over to Craig Westover's blog, ground zero for a media dustup between him and the Star Tribune's Nick Coleman. The exchange is useful for two reasons: it allows Westover to present some very well-thought out arguments for school choice (which INCLUDE government-funded and controlled PUBLIC SCHOOLS, contrary to what some would have you believe) and accountability, and it shows you all how liberals try to deflect well-reasoned, fact-based arguements with rhetorical rope-a-dope: changing the subject, name-calling, distortion, and emotion, and ignoring suggestions for mano-a-mano on-air debates.

A choice excerpt from Coleman's December 19 column: "..his blog on the Internet shows a picture of an ancient mariner in yellow slickers, standing at the helm of a storm-tossed yacht. He looks like the guy on a box of frozen fish sticks...Fishsticks has gone back to his boat and confined his tirades to the first refuge of scoundrels, his personal Internet blog, where he is toasted by other rum-swigging hearties daily."

If you can't win by arguing the facts, mocking your critic works every time! Coleman's mixed metaphor is making me seasick. The Gorton's fisherman toasted by pirates at "the first refuge of scoundrels?" Aarrg, there be plenty of rum 'n fishsticks at Keegan's next time, mateys!

Check out the other blogs of the Northern Alliance for additional coverage, such as these comments from our friend King at SCSU Scholars. King points out that the real significance of the debate is not the media show, which Coleman would have you believe, it's accountability. Public schools get plenty of money, but how are they spending it?

Ready or not 4 K

Early Childhood/Family Education (ECFE) forces are rallying the troops for another sentimental demand for more money and more government bureaucracy.

In this morning's Star Tribune editorial "Early education/Make it a top-five priority," the newspaper claims that "About half of Minnesota 5-year-olds come to kindergarten less than fully prepared" for kindergarten. The editorial mentions a group called Ready 4 K, a political action committee whose web site begins, "WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR MINNESOTA'S KIDS: FIND out who your legislators are and contact them. Tell them you want them to invest in young minds!" It continues, "Fewer than one-half of entering kindergartners are truly proficient when they enter kindergarten, according to the Minnesota Department of Education."

What a difference a commissioner makes. If the Strib and Ready 4 K are referring to the Department of Education's second annual Minnesota School Readiness study (neither source cites the study to which it refers), it proves the old saw about lies, damn lies, and statistics. Former education commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke looked at this study and saw that "most Minnesota children enter kindergarten with the skills they need." Take a look at these numbers and tell me what you see:

	Proficient	In Process	Subtotal	Not Yet
Physical Development	57%	41%	98%	2%
Arts	47%	48%	95%	6%
Personal And Social Development	47%	44%	91%	9%
Mathematical Thinking	40%	50%	90%	11%
Language and Literacy	43%	46%	89%	12%

Source: Minnesota Department of Education, 2003 "Minnesota School Readiness."

Scholar thinks that the 10 percent in the "Not Yet" column is the "crisis," not the 90+ percent who are "proficient" or almost proficient.

In a February press release announcing the results of this study, Yecke suggested:

• Creating local task forces with schools and communities to review the results of this statewide study and take local action to involve parents, improve schools' ability to address the needs of young children, and enhance early care and education programs and outcomes for young learners;
  
• Continuing to promote and distribute information the Department has developed for parents of 4-year-olds on expectations for kindergarten and simple, everyday learning experiences that help children learn; and
  
• Continuing and expanding Minnesota's school readiness study.
  
• Providing education initiative fostering innovation grants for voluntary cooperation among school districts could help to strengthen Minnesota's pre-kindergarten programs. One option for these grants would be to coordinate the administration of Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) programs.
  

Ready 4 K proposes measures that would focus on creating a new bureaucracy to establish "universal standards" and administer "assessements," improve the infrastructure, and dole out money:

• Providing scholarships to at-risk families for quality early care and education
• Providing incentives for professional training and infrastructure improvements
• Developing a provider quality rating system to guide parent choices
• Encouraging home visits for certain struggling families
• Providing excellent parent education through improved outreach
• Establishing universal school readiness standards
• Assessing each child's progress against those standards
• Enabling providers to see more clearly the results they are getting for their kids
• Improving links to K-12 so the transition to school is smooth and encouraging

Anticipating attacks on their approach, the Ready 4 K website claims that "parents are, and should be, the most important people in the lives of their children" and that they don't want government to solve the problem, "but it can help."

There is some overlap between the two visions. Everyone, even those mean, heartless Republicans, can agree on wanting our "youngest Minnesotans" to arrive in kindergarten ready to learn. But aren't 90% of those entering kindergarten either ready or almost ready to learn already? Who will really benefit from a toddler edition of The Profile of Learning and the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs)?

And now for something completely different

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and the Minnetonka School District have something in common. They are both thinking outside the box (outside the country in the Governor's case) for ideas to improve how schools work.

The Minnetonka School District has decided to look at five different "instructional models" to see what they can learn to improve an already high-achieving suburban district. Over eighty individuals from the district, including parents, have volunteered to participate in the Instructional Models Study process. They will be studying:

1. Primary and Middle years International Baccalaureate
   
2. Language Immersion
   
3. Magnet/Specialized Programming
   
4. Study of High Potential programming models
   
5. Montessori and Continuous Progress

The first meeting of the entire group was on December 13. The groups will work through January and February with their final reports expected in March.

Scholar is disappointed that Core Knowledge, which was on the initial list of potential study models, didn't make the final cut. Our friends at EdWatch have warned us about the radical environmental, multicultural, and global governance elements of IB. But hooray for Minnetonka for inviting parents and the public at large into the process (and congratulations Skippers, from this Wayzata parent, on your state championship football team).

Meanwhile, up in the Great White North of Edmonton, Canada, Governor Pawlenty got a gander at that city's site-based management for schools, which allows spending and personnel decisions to be made at the building, rather than district level. He also got what the Strib called "cold water" thrown on his ideas about performance pay for teachers and fast-tracking professionals into teaching positions.

Kudos to Minnetonka and Governor Pawlenty for their innovative thinking to improve Minnesota's schools.

Integrated math facts

Calling all recent high school graduates, particularly from Wayzata and west metro school districts:

Did you take integrated math in elementary and secondary school? Are you currently enrolled in college and taking college-level math? If so, I would be very interested in hearing about how well integrated math prepared you for college-level math.

How are your current grades?

Would you recommend integrated math to your younger siblings or friends?

As districts like Eden Prairie and Minnetonka reject integrated math, the true believers in the Wayzata administration and faculty continue to reassure us parents that integrated math is OK, and Wayzata students are doing well. (Wayzata uses Everyday Math in elementary and Connected Math in the upper grades.) But there may be trouble in paradise. A freshman at The College of St. Benedict, who was an AP math student at Wayzata High School, is having a tough time in her math classes. A Wisconsin student and WHS 2003 grad avoided integrated math by taking math at the University of Minnesota, which was painful but he "actually learned math." A former Wayzata student, now at Minnetonka, is doing much better in traditional math classes there. One Wayzata parent decided to begin homeschooling her son with Saxon Math (a traditional math program) after elementary school rather than send him to middle school in the integrated math Wayzata district.

Based on your personal experience, does integrated math "add up" to an adequate college prepatory math program?

Pro-choice

Craig Westover is taking the Star Tribune's Nick Coleman to task over Coleman's overwrought coverage of the "plight" of the government schools. And he's not letting Coleman get away with name calling and putting the status quo over educating our kids. Check out the Westover-Coleman brawl at Westover's blog, along with some other excellent education and school choice musings.

Mitch Burg of the Northern Alliance Radio Network said that he will invite Mr. Coleman to air his views on the NARN radio show (Noon - 3:00 p.m. Saturdays on AM 1280 The Patriot). My guess is that Coleman will continue to hurl names at Westover and other pro-school choice folks -- from the cozy protection of his newspaper column, rather than mano a mano at the Eagan studios of The Patriot.

Bringing back the Profile of Learning for math

Is the Profile of Learning making a comeback?

The Minnesota Department of Education says no, but others are not so sure. Some say that the current draft test specifications for the Minnesota Comprehensvive Assessments in math are more closely aligned with the discredited Profile of Learning grad standards, rather than the new academic standards for mathematics that were drafted after much deliberation by a citizen committee in 2003. The Department of Education reassures me that a group of "content experts" are reviewing citizen comments and will prepare a final draft of the test specs for Commissioner Seagren's approval, presumably next month. The Legislature is kind of out of the loop at this point in the process.

Here's what Bert Fristedt, Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Mathematics at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities has to say about the new draft test specifications:

From: Bert Fristedt
To: "Teachers, and Others Concerned Parents"
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 16:35:53 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Minnesota draft test specifications

Dear All,

It is my opinion that the draft test specifications put out by the Minnesota Department of education on September 20, 2004 are a disaster for mathematics education in K-12 in Minnesota. I understand that they are the result of several months work. That may well be, but it is quite clear that the agenda was far different from alignment with the Spring 2003 math standards adopted into Rule by the Minnesota legislature and governor. On first glance, one might think that there is alignment because the labeling by numeral and letter of the draft test specifications does match the Spring 2003 standards and benchmarks.

In understanding the large deviations of the test specifications from the Spring 2003 standards, it is useful to first contemplate major differences between the Spring 2003 standards and the previous standards. The Spring 2003 standards:

i) place greater emphasis on whole number arithmetic in early grades;

ii) place much greater emphasis on fractional arithemetic and handling of percentages and decimals in middle school;

iii) bring algebra back as a main high school topic after it had been pushed into the background in the previous standards in which "algebra" had been replaced by "algebraic patterns."

iv) emphasize logical reasoning as an important aspect of high school geometry

v) in its mathematical reasoning benchmarks highlights the type of precise reasoning important in mathematics; whereas the previous standards used high-sounding less precise wording that might be more appropriate for the critical type reasoning that plays such an central role, say, in the study of history or literature.

I mention these five areas, because it is these, in particular, where the test specifications makes me suspect that an agenda in their formulation was a return to the previous standards.

• An instance related to i): The Grade-4 Benchmark II.B.2 says "Add up to three whole numbers containing up to three digits each, without a calculator." The test specifications indicate 1 or 2 multiple-choice test items.
  
• Benchmark III.A.1 says "Examine and describe patterns in tables and graphs." The test specifications indicate 3-5 test items, either of multiple-choice type or "constructive response (which roughly speaking means show your work)." There is no rationale for the discrepancy in numbers of test items and moreover the addition problems are naturals for constructive response.
  
• An instance related to ii): The Grade-7 Benchmark II.B.1 says: "Add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions and mixed numbers.'' This benchmark is broad in scope because of the inclusion of four operations and both fractions and mixed numbers. The test specifications indicate only 1 or 2 items despite indicating 3-5 items for other more qualitative benchmarks. Moreover, the test specifications restrict the denominators to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 20, 25, and 100---thereby encouraging teachers to stay away from a general discussion of common denominators. It is also relevant that the standards themselves do for earlier grades take account of the difficulty that common denominators can give by restricting denominators in earlier grades---but not in Grade 7.
  
• Instance related to iii): The twelve "Algebra" benchmarks in Grades 9-11 are assigned 5 or 6 test items, whereas the five "Patterns and Functions" benchmarks are assigned 12 or 13 test items.
  
• Instance related to iv): The two benchmarks V.B.1 and V.B.2 for Grades 9-11 are the two geometry benchmarks that have the word `justify' in them. Moreover, the first of these includes congruent triangles and parallel lines and the second includes various aspects of circles and tangent lines. Thus both of these are broad in scope. Yet the test specifications indicate 0 or 1 test item for each of these two.
  
• Instance related to v): The Mathematical Reasoning Standards are not mentioned in the test specifications. While it is true that these would not be tested in isolation from other benchmarks, it is so important that they be mentioned since they signal marked differences from the previous standards.
  

I ask you to think about the teacher and/or school district that is caught between focusing on the state standards or the far different draft test specifications.

Also, think of the parent who is complaining about the lack of attention to fractions in middle school and is told the school is following the state standards. The parent sees that fractions are given nice treatment in the state standards so asks about how the school does on state tests. The parent is told fine, without realizing that fractions are heavily deemphasized on state tests, state tests that have heretofore not been made public.

If you feel as I do, I urge you to make your opinions known to Commissioner Seagren now--the sooner the better. It is best if you take a little time to look at the standards and the test specifications in some detail. Incidentally, the pdf version of the standards are the official version. The other versions on the web all have differences from the pdf version. The Department was told several months ago about the discrepancies but has not fixed them, at least they had not been fixed a week ago.

Bert Fristedt
Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Mathematics,
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Action Items:

Few of us have the expertise of a college math professor in these matters, but we can all call Governor Pawlenty, Commissioner Seagren, and our legislators to insist on a statewide assessment that is aligned to the 2003 academic standards for mathematics, NOT to the Profile of Learning.

Governor Tim Pawlenty
Phone: (651) 296-3391
Phone: (800) 657-3717
Fax: (651) 296-2089
E-mail: tim.pawlenty@state.mn.us

Commissioner of Education Alice Seagren
(651) 582-8200

Minnesota Department of Education web site: http://www.education.state.mn.us