We Invented the Double Standard

Yesterday, Eduwonk linked to a Palm Beach Post story that reported that 10 of the 34 schools that accept Florida's Opportunity Scholarship vouchers are (God forbid) Not Accredited.

However, the Opportunity Scholarship private schools actually have a higher accreditation rate than Florida's public schools. Three important facts that were missing from the Palm Beach Post story were reported in an Associated Press story in today's St. Petersburg Times:


1.Of 3,757 public schools in Florida, 1,500, or 40 percent, have some sort of accreditation.

2.While 10 of the voucher schools weren't accredited, the Post story was misleading because 84 percent of opportunity scholarship students were in accredited private schools.

3.Some of the unaccredited schools are currently participating in an accreditation process.

An interesting study would examine how Florida’s accredited public schools have performed on the FCAT in comparison to the unaccredited schools. If accreditation is meaningful, it should lead to higher student performance in accredited schools.

From the Public School Corruption Files, "The Case of the Missing Bus."

In this case both the principal and the assistant principal are stealing school funds.

The principal of a D.C. public school was dismissed after officials concluded that he purchased two buses with school money and that one of them might have been sold in Panama.

One bus sits unused in a school lot, but the other has not been located. A clue to its whereabouts is in a letter written by the fired principal, Enrique Watson, in which he portrays himself as a bus salesman to a potential client in his native Panama, said John M. Cashmon, the school system's director of compliance.

The assistant principal followed her boss's example.

The dismissal letter also said that the assistant principal forged Watson's signature on some checks and that the principal failed to review the bank statement and canceled checks, a violation of regulations. The assistant principal, Awilda Hernandez, was terminated in December. She could not be located for comment.

Sowell on Cosby

Thomas Sowell applauds Bill Cosby's recent remarks about the priorities of black parents and students.

Years ago, Cosby urged a group of young blacks to put more effort into their studies, the way Asian students do. "Do you know why they are called Asians?" he asked. "Because they always get A's."

The differences among all these groups are in one four-letter word that you are still not supposed to say: work.

Anyone who has taught black, white, and Asian students will know that they do not work equally. Studies show it but you don't need studies. Just go into a university library on a Saturday night and see who is there and who is not there.

In some places, you might think it was an all-Asian university, judging by the students in the library on Saturday night.

How surprised should you be when you go into a classroom on Monday morning and find out who is on top of the work and who is struggling to keep up?

What Bill Cosby said was no laughing matter. It is closer to being something to cry about.

At my kids' end-of-year awards the Cho's and the Chin's had the reading and math awards locked up. One five year old named Katie Snell did receive a reading award.

For-Profit delivers more choices for college students

Imagine being able to access all of your college textbooks online without ever having to carry heavy books for 50 percent of the cost of buying traditional textbooks. Imagine what this innovation could do for the high cost of textbooks in the K-12 sector. In the future, K-12 could combine the success of the Maine laptop program for all students with all on-line textbooks. It seems to me that every major textbook publisher should move to offer this as an alternative to heavy textbooks. it would also solve the problem of outdated text-books, as it would be much more cost-effective to update textbooks online.

And as a bonus it would bring an end to the traditional fall newspaper stories discussing student back problems, backpacks, and heavy textbooks.

Beginning this fall, students can choose to buy a print edition textbook or access the same course-critical content by subscribing to one or more of over 300 SafariX WebBooks available this year at www.SafariX.com . The WebBooks will offer all the convenience and interactive benefits of the Web, allowing students to print pages, make annotations, take notes, search the full text, and add bookmarks to organize their study, anywhere they have browser access.