"To Grant or Not to Grant---That Is the Question"

While serving on an accreditation review team, I visited a school district recently in the Florida panhandle. Not only did our team spend time reviewing the operations at the district offices, we spent days evaluating individual school sites. We talked to teachers, administrators, school board members, parents, elected officials, and community members—all essential stakeholders.

As I went from school to school, I could not help but notice the impressive media centers (libraries) stocked with books. I saw classrooms filled with brand new computers and high-tech equipment. Playground equipment was sparkling new. Lots of art supplies and musical instruments were also evident at every campus.

Some sites had new parking lots installed. Other sites displayed newly purchased desks and furniture. One elementary school had a remarkable fenced-in garden center, where students worked on science projects. High schools had uniformed security personnel everywhere, maintaining a safe environment on campuses.

Teachers also reported being content; they had aides who helped with student reading and behavioral counseling. Even new carpeting in some of the faculty lounges had been installed. Parents also loved the after-school activities that were available for their kids, and the students reported how they enjoyed interesting field trips.

Our team was impressed by everything going on at this school district, which had received its “A” grade from the state in the previous year.

After gawking at what was to become a beautiful reading gazebo being built at one of the elementary schools, I had to ask the principal, “With budget cutbacks and money being so tight in this economy, how can the school district afford to pay for all of this?”

“Grant funding,” the principal replied. Apparently, every one of these things had come from millions of dollars of grant funding.

Back at the district office, I probed further and discovered that this school district not only had a prodigious grant writing department, but it encouraged all school personnel to pursue every grant opportunity that was out there. As a grant professional myself, this intrigued me even more. I was fascinated to discover their ardent practice of keeping an eye out for grant opportunities and marveled at their determination to apply for every one of them—which brings me to the general view of the grant industry.

What is a grant? It is money that’s awarded to support everything from animal welfare to community development programs, with a vast majority of it going to non-profit organizations. From small charitable foundation grants to gigantic federal government grants, it’s a billion-dollar industry.

According to Grants.gov, the online resource established in 2002 to be a governmental resource for the public, there are 26 agencies that offer over 1,000 federal grant programs. In addition, each state in the country offers its own grants through various agencies. Florida has 18 funding agencies. There are also sources at the county and city levels, along with the thousands of private foundations that fund educational programs and teacher training.

The higher the grant figure, the more complex the proposal becomes. While grant funding cutbacks have occurred in recent years, billions of dollars still do exist for organizations to pursue. Competition is fierce, often with hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants vying for the same grant opportunity. This should not discourage organizations from trying, however. I know of many that submitted proposals to federal agencies several times before actually getting its million-dollar award.

The upside, of course, is obtaining the money to implement programs that benefit many. The downside is the copious amount of paperwork involved in reporting exactly how this money is being spent.

Whether or how grant funding stimulates the economy is an issue worthy of another article, but it’s undeniable that the money certainly enables organizations—schools, in particular—to buy and build many things to serve many people.

Not Enough is Being Done for our High-Achievers

Millions of dollars in our country are being spent to help low-achieving students in public schools excel. And that’s good. But what can we say about our high-achieving students? How many programs and how much effort do we, as a state, provide to the student that has passed his FCAT? Just how much time is spent by a typical classroom teacher in our country on the needs of the top student performers?

Not much. Fewer than 25 percent of teachers surveyed (Fordham Report, 2008) reported that high-achieving students were their top priority. That means that the majority of academic support is given to low-achieving students the majority of school time. The problem with this focus is that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)—that notorious organization which ranks school systems among the industrialized countries—doesn’t even list the United States in the top ten. For several years, the U.S. has waffled between a disappointing 14th and 17th place.

More baffling news. The two-part Fordham Report also revealed that the United States produces more high-achieving students than any other OECD country—more than France, Germany, and the United Kingdom combined. It also stated that there are more high-achieving African American students in the United States than there are high-achieving students in all of Finland (Finland has always ranked in the top three of the OECD report).

In our effort to advance student achievement scores to higher heights, one cannot help but ponder on whether our resources should not be distributed equally among all students, regardless of their academic standing.

Yes, we have honors and advanced classes, but are they truly rigorous and challenging? Less than 50 percent of teachers surveyed said yes. Are teachers trained to address the needs of gifted students? 67 percent reported no.

The No Child Left Behind legislation was primarily designed to set high standards and establish measurable goals that would improve individual outcomes in education in our country. Standards were set in each state and Florida developed the FCAT in the process of measuring accountability. The pressure, however, has been in pulling the achievement levels of the students at the bottom of the rung. Instructional strategies were put in place to assure that these students reached a Level 3, the passing point. Lots of tax dollars have been spent in this effort.

Imagine for a moment that you are a student who passes FCAT on the first try in the third grade all the way through high school. What is happening in the classroom to spur you on to improve further? Or are you in a class where lessons are being relegated to cover and review material that you already know? With the recent emphasis on pay merit being based on test results, rest assured that most teachers will spend an inordinate amount of time targeting the lower-achieving students.

As the FCAT results come in this year, many people will be holding their breaths in anticipation of seeing how many students met the Level 3. They will breathe a sigh of relief for their students who have made it. In Florida, district and school grades are based on it. A few will bother looking at advances, if any, in the high levels. It will be deemed as a nice accomplishment, but not a crucial one.

Earlier this year, our president announced a new initiative to promote science, technology, mathematics, and engineering in our public schools. While there are those who are fighting for school reform which addresses the needs of the lower-achieving students, many believe that the time has come to meet the president’s challenge and pull those high-achievers up to the next rung.

It’s about time we champion our scholars!

View on Education - Changes with Time

When Diane Ravitch proclaimed how her philosophy on education had evolved over the years, I didn't quite understand what she meant.

As a builder of the No Child Left Behind Legislation back in early 2000, Ravitch promoted accountability through standardized testing and supported the notion that those test results would be a valid gauge on how we were doing in public education. Well, today she points out how narrow-sighted that whole notion was.

No, today Ravitch states that we're focusing too much on testing and ignoring the issue of poverty within the public school systems...and warns how we need to address those challenges in order to "fix" the system.

I mention this now because I'm going through a sort of renaissance with regard to my own philosophy of education. However, I seem to be going in the opposite direction of Dr. Ravitch's.

I used to be such a critic of the school choice trends. Coming from the public school entity, how could we think of changing the status quo? Didn't people know what teachers were going through? Don't they know that educators were trying to do their best to raise student academic achievements?

And yet, the criticisms continued. Parents were not happy with their children's education. Business owners criticized the fact that high school seniors didn't even know how to fill out a job application correctly. Students gave a thumbs down to their education and often stated they would not ever consider pursuing a teaching career. High-performing teachers nationwide murmured about their low-performing colleagues.

Worse...our country's education ranking in the world of industrialized countries stunk. Something needed to be done.

I think my views started to change when I visited charter schools as a lead accreditation evaluator. Before reaching these campuses, I had a preconceived notion that these charter schools were limited in their knowledge of what it took to run a school properly. As a public school educator, I was certain that we had the answers to proper education reform.

Wrong.


With each charter school I visited, I came away with a renewed sense of what just might work. School choice options where teachers and parents and the community have an active role in the curriculum, the school's management, and the whole academic outlook...one that is free from district micro-managing---turns out to be just the ticket.

Am I saying that charter schools are better than regular public schools? No. I found a couple of charter schools, while on my accreditation review trips, that were lacking in many areas of continuous school improvement standards. However, I've seen many regular public schools with the just the same problems.

Is one better than the other? Not necessarily. But the accomplishments, gains, and satisfaction level of students, parents, teachers, and the community are pretty substantial with charter schools. After interviewing these stakeholders, I became informed...and isn't that what it's all about?

So, I took up the slack and decided to run with this idea. I accepted an invitation to be on the board of a charter high school---the only one in our county. It's called the College Preparatory Academy of the Treasure Coast.

Of course, my public school colleagues chided me. How could I, a former high school assistant principal, question the way we've been doing things for years?
How could I, a former public school teacher and union member, turn my back on them?

I haven't. Like so many other teachers, I have merely become a part of our country's ambition to raise expectations of student performances...to be sensitive to parent concerns...and to keep learning small and intimate. Now, I read Michelle Rhee's articles and examine her claims. Once a critic of them, I now understand that it's time for a change in the way we've been educating our children.

Story Based On Real Events

The Missing Heart is a story based on real experiences. I wrote about what I, as a school administrator, had to do in order for our school to obtain higher test results. The questionable practices and policies for this to happen? The drive to attain a higher ranking (or in Florida---a higher school grade)? It's all revealed right here in this book.

Happy to say, sales have been just fine. As a matter of fact, with the exception of going on Amazon.com and purchasing a used book of mine, you'd be hard-pressed to find a copy of it right now.

Loads of letters and email plaudits have arrived from people thanking me for being so brave as to tell it like it is. Well, remember...I was an actual high school assistant principal. I really did witness and actually did have to do those things.

Teachers and school administrators loved my book. Parents wrote accolades of how shocked they were to discover what was really being done to the lives of students and teachers in a gaming attempt to swing the numbers just so.

School officials and board members; however, were not amused. Some accused me of having an "agenda" or an "ulterior motive" for writing a tell-all book. How dare I write such awful things? How dare I even try to run for the school board to attempt to buck the system and bring changes...righting the wrong, if you will?

No matter what, I had to tell the story. Many others have told their school experience stories, but none that I'm aware of have done so from a school administrator's perspective. Are what we're doing in public schools right or wrong? I leave that for the reader to decide.

I have plans to re-releasing the book and entitle it The Missing Heart in Education. There will be additional chapters with more revelations, particularly on my interesting school board campaign run. It would be great to re-classify it as a non-fiction, too. Somebody advised it would be better received by the national publishing companies if I did just that.

Hmm, I'll have to think hard about that one.

In any case, I'm blogging right now about the original fictional copy here. Word of warning: The book has profanity (students do actually speak that way on campus) and there are some shocking situations that some may find offensive (yes, students actually do some of the things I described). So, if you're a tad sensitive to that sort of thing, you have been warned. I'm not sure The Missing Heart: Chronicles of an Educator is for you.

However, if you're a parent, educator, or taxpayer who wants to get a glimpse of real school events...if you want to know why school administrators make the decisions that they do...I strongly recommend it.

Even Tough Guys Cry

I think I made a mistake by not registering as a Republican or Democrat when I ran for the local school board in 2010. The seat is a non-partisan seat and for some reason I thought that being an Independent---what I deemed to be a person who agrees and disagrees with BOTH parties---would not be an issue in the campaign.

Wrong. I lost the race.

Another realization? Few, very few Independents get elected for public seats. But when I submitted the following article to the Scripps Tribune Newspaper, people commented, "Oh, so you really are a Republican."

Well, no. I'm still a person who agrees and disagrees with both parties...perhaps with a leaning toward Republican ideals, but certainly not committed in that direction (not yet, that is).

So when you read this article, please remember that an Independent wrote it:

"Don't be Ashamed by Boehner's Weeping"
published in Port St. Lucie Tribune
January 12, 2010

John Boehner broke down and cried in a recent Sixty Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl, as he replied that he wanted to make “sure that kids have a shot at the American Dream.” Later on, during the taping, he had to reach for his hanky as his eyes welled up again when his wife spoke about his selection to become our nation’s Speaker of the House.

Immediately, people reacted. Some were disappointed. There were those who even looked upon it as a sign of weakness, particularly in a leader. Late night show hosts proceeded to use it as fodder for the taking.

Others, however, were touched by this display of emotion. I am one of those people.

As I looked at his expressions, I empathized with Boehner. Tears come easily to many people who have suffered in the past. At certain moments, one can fight hard to hold back the waterworks, but it just gets worse the harder one tries. I saw this struggle in Boehner’s Sixty Minute interview.

I don’t believe that tears are a sign of weakness. Tears can come from all sorts of sources. They can come from abject happiness. They can come from shock. They can also spew forth when there’s a will to right what is wrong.

It is a strong emotion—wanting to right what is wrong. I, for one, have cried in public for just that. Not out of self-pity, but out of frustration for not being able to convince that something is wrong.

Public weeping has little to do with being a wimp. We must remember that Boehner strongly opposed extending unemployment benefits for the jobless. He’s also against the new health care program. He has the reputation of also being a fighter, having once been an active member of the notorious Gang of Seven who revealed unethical Congressional practices and perks in 1989.

So now we have a fighter who’s a weeper as our country’s Speaker—only second in line to the presidency after the Vice President. Somebody, hand me a tissue.

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2011/jan/11/teri-pinney-dont-be-ashamed-by-weeping-boehner-a/