MY RESPONSE TO THE KATY PLAN:

           This rather long treatise on curriculum in Katy ISD was written in 1996 just before I gave up my position and resigned!  As you will see, I had many frustrations that encompassed the whole of curriculum and methodology in the Katy public schools.  It is interesting to note, that the superintendent, Leonard Merrell took my ideas (the ones that fit into his ideology) and made them his own!  He instituted curriculum that was vertically and horizontally aligned, he created a teacher-made on line data base of lesson plans--and never mind that they were commandeered from the teachers! 

                   “We all want progress, but if you’re on

                   the wrong road, progress means doing

                   an about-turn and walking back to the

                   right road; in that case, the man who

                   turns back soonest is the most progressive.”

                                                          C. S. Lewis

The Katy Plan, as proposed by the Board two years ago, is supposed to address the curriculum as it exists and as the Board would like to see it changed.  This document represents the changes that I as an individual Board member desire.  It in no way represents anything other than that.  My concerns center around my perceptions that our current curriculum fosters a set of beliefs that I consider inappropriate for students living in America.  I also believe that students attending a Texas public school system have a right to receive a strong, basic, academic education.  After spending thirteen years in our public school system, a student should be able to read, write, do math, and gain entrance without much difficulty into one of our state's major universities.  Unfortunately, most of our graduates are not able to achieve even these simplest of accomplishments.  For me, that is a terrible "outcome" of our schools' effect on students.  As educators, we have a responsibility which we are not meeting.  I contend that our failure to achieve high expectations with our students stems from an ever increasing employment of methods and curriculum that are part and parcel of Outcome-Based Education objectives.  In ever-increasing locations, I am seeing an increased push to direct our students toward school-to-work initiatives.  Tracking of our students between the ages of 10 and 16 into a vocational curriculum in order to provide workers at the direction of the federal government and to supply the labor needs of the government and industrial businesses is NOT the purview of public schools.  We must all stand firm in stopping this socialistic movement. It is important for those concerned with this issue to not muddy the waters with an inability to understand that the old-fashioned concept of vocational training as has been provided in public schools for a great many years is in no way the same as the vocational/tech prep baloney that is being offered up as an alternative to an academic track in our high schools.  The old fashioned vocational class was an elective. The current vocational emphasis is designed to REPLACE an academic track.  It all goes to intent, and that is what the public (and most Board members) fail to grasp.

Public education in America is supposed to provide all of our citizens with a liberal arts education.  That means that we ALL become able to read, write, do basic math in elementary school, learn Algebra, geometry, American history and civics and biology, chemistry and maybe physics before graduation.  These have been the goals of our society since 1635!  To all of a sudden think that people with education "degrees" are somehow able, capable or have the right to CHANGE that goal is truly unbelievable and incredible.

There should be no other goal, intent or hidden agenda regarding the academic teaching of our students. It is subversive to do so.

If students enjoy the opportunities that public schools have provided for hundreds of years, they will then be able to pursue whatever additional goals that they have AFTER high school graduation.  A similar educational background is basic to citizenship, patriotism, liberty, and thoughtful acceptance of core American beliefs.  Those that wish to undermine such purpose are enemies of our Country!

Anyone who wishes to read another source to get an overview of Outcome Based Education/Mastery Learning which includes who initiated it, who supports it, who funds it, and how it is sweeping across America should purchase and read a copy of Outcome-Based Education:  Understanding the Truth about Education Reform.  The author, Ron Sunseri, is a legislator in the Oregon House of Representatives.  Also helpful in understanding OBE are Not With My Child You Don't by Robert Holland and Dumbing Down Our Kids  by Charles J. Sykes.

There are two parts to this document.  The first part contains Board policy that I believe allows the Board to address and formulate policies concerning curriculum.  (I am aware that Senate Bill I has changed some of these policies, but until they are approved by the KISD Board, I will not be revising this section.)  The second part is a listing of my concerns that I would like to see included in the policy revisions or additions.

Part I

The following Board policies are excerpted from the Board Policy Manual as provided to us by the Texas Association of School Baords:

(The underlining is mine.)

BBD (E)

II.  The Board member shall understand the role and responsibility of the Board, the Board President and individual Board members, and shall contribute to the development of:

a. ...

b.  Educational goals and objectives reflecting the philosophy of the Board.

c.  Program activities consistent with the educational goals and objectives established by the Board.

VII. The Board member shall accept responsibility for the adoption of high quality instructional programs, which will:

c.  Evalutate the effectiveness of instructional programs, and provide for modifications to insure maximum achievement for all studnts.

EFA (Local) (on Page i or 4)

The Board member shall provide a wide range of instructional resources for students and faculty that present varying levels of difficulty, diversity of appeal, and a variety of points of view.  Although trained professional staff are afforded the freedom to select instructional resources for their use in accordance with this policy, the ultimate authority for determining and approving the curriculum and instructional program of the District lies with the Board.

In this policy, "instructional resources" refers to textbooks, library acquisitions, supplemental materials for classroom use, and any other material used for formal or informal teaching and learning purposes.  The primary objectives of instructional resources are to deliver, support, enrich, and assist in  implementing the District's educational program.

The Board generally shall rely on its professional staff to select and acquire instructional resources that:

1.  Enrich and support the curriculum, taking into consideration students' varied interests, abilities, learning styles, and maturity levels.

2.  Stimulate growth in factual knowledge, literacy appreciation, aesthetic values, and societal standards.

EFA  (Local)  (Page 2 or 4)

Selection of materials is an ongoing process that includes the removal of resources no longer appropriate and the periodic replacement or repair of lost or worn material still of educational value.

Any parent of a District student, employee, or other resident may formally challenge an instructional resource used in the District's educational program on the basis of appropriateness.

EHAA (Page 1 of 1)

The District shall provide a well-balanced curriculum in accordance with state law and State Board of Education rules.  Effective instruction shall be delivered to all enrolled students and instruction provided in the essential elements of each subject at appropriate grade levels.  The essential elements represent core knowledge, skills, and competencies all students should learn to be effective and productive members of society.  The District may add elements at its discretion, but shall not delete or omit instruction in the essential elements.

 

Part II

My primary concern is with certain ideologies, methodologies, strategies, and other curriculum innovations that in my mind have become pervasive and are not in keeping with the overall goals of this school district and the people we serve.  In my opinion, all of these elements can be determined as useful or not by one litmus test:  does (whatever the idea, practice, etc.) increase or decrease academic accountability for the student, the teacher, the administrator, or the District?  If the answer is, "There is no academic accountability or academic accountability is decreased" then I believe we should not be engaging in that effort.  "Public education" means academic education, period.  All definitions of the word "educate" have to do with imparting knowledge.  By no stretch was education ever intended to include all of the social aspects it now encompasses.

Within the scope of this primary concern, there are six sub-areas of concern for me.  These six areas are those which I would wish to be encoded in curriculum criteria for our school district, e. g., the Katy Plan.  These areas include curriculum purposes, revision and application; teacher roles and effect on the curriculum; academic curriculum focus, accountability measures for curriculum; curriculum restructuring fads; and effective interest within the curriculum.

All areas overlap somewhat, but I have considered each separately.

1.  My concern with curriculum is that we do not have an academic curriculum in KISD that flows in a sequential order, one grade to the next, building toward some final goals of accomplishment and which develops a competence for students based upon skills' mastery.

I believe that our parents want their children to receive a sound, traditional, academic education using the direct instruction method that results in skills' mastery.  Students must be exposed to and receive instruction in the fundamental core concepts of the American culture.  They must be taught facts, and they must acquire knowledge while they are in our schools.

I believe we need to allocate funds to create curriculum guides (not purchased, pre-packaged, or software-based) that are well thought out, that pertain to OUR students, that are logically composed, and that are useable and that can be referenced by each teacher daily when lesson plans are created.  KISD teachers should be the creators of the curriculum guides. (And they should create them in the summer and be paid for their efforts.) KISD would have spent far less over the years if it had paid KISD teachers to create the curriculum instead of buying fancy, expensive stuff from other sources that gets discarded with great regularity because it does not fit our students. Curriculum guides need to be scope and sequence oriented (not stacks of plagiarized workbook sheets or citations of educational journal articles that support Outcome-Based Education or restructured educational initiatives) which include coverage of all the essential knowledge and skills as well as particular and additional essential knowledge and skills that are devised within and peculiar to our school district.  I also believe that our school board should lobby the governor to revise the state's essential knowledge and skills, for it is in these rules and guidelines that Commissioner Meno (and now, I fear, Commissioner Moses) has established his agenda for dumbing down the education of Texas' students.

I believe that parents have the right to expect and to receive a summary of a course's curriculum (including [but not just] a list of the essential knowledge and skills) at the beginning of each course so that they will know what to expect for their child.

I am concerned that we have moved from content learning to learning only process.  Formerly students incidentally learned "process" when they acquired knowledge.  The reverse does not occur, and now that they are learning only "process," they are not acquiring knowledge.  Although there are a multitude of educational texts and monographs advocating the process, there is no conclusive research that indicates the wisdom of this movement.  This movement is an experiment (albeit a 35 year long one), and I do not wish to experiment on Katy students.  It seems not advantageous to have substituted a flawed method for one that worked.  I believe that we need to move back (and not necessarily backwards) to an emphasis on content rather than process, and yes I know what it would mean to do so!  We will have to discard almost every teaching strategy, methodology and curriculum that we now have in place.  But I also have seen over time and from my own experience as a teacher, the benefits of the direct instruction and skills' mastery technique.  The idea of "learning how to learn" being the emphasis instead of its being just a by-product is ludicrous and illogical.  By current standards, everyone who graduated from high school before 1970 is a product of a supposedly flawed education, and I do not buy that argument.  The emphasis of education in the 1960's on science and math and core academic subjects was a reaction to our diminished stature in the world in the late 1950's  Those who have a high school education from the 1960's received a much superior public education than those who received their high school education in the 1950's, or the 1970's or 1980's.  We must look for the reason why this is true.  We have again lost that stature in the world and for the same reasons history tells us were true in the 1950's.

Core curriculum areas of instruction should stress the acquisition of basic skills and the resulting mastery of these skills.  In elementary school, math students should acquire the ability to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, especially by rote memory (and certainly before they attempt to depend upon a calculator for these skills).  Memorization of facts is not a difficult task.  This activity does not require excessive brain power, but it is essential to know facts before one can begin to be a "problem solver."  One cannot think, if one does not have anything to think about!  Students should also know how to use fractions, divide using long division, and use decimals and square roots.  They should be able to demonstrate their ability without use of and dependence on a calculator. It is unthinkable that students would be taught to count on their fingers as a strategy for arriving at the answer to an addition or subtraction problem, but a parent has told me this is indeed a current KISD practice!  Is this the kind of "higher order thinking skills" we are after?

In English classes students should be taught to read using phonics first.  At the end of the first grade 95% of our students should be able to read and read with comprehension, clarity and speed.  They should be able to pick up the newspaper and read most of it with understanding. (Students at Wesley Elementary School, an inner city school in Houston ISD, can do that.) If students have not learned to read by the middle of the second grade, then other methods should be tried, but phonics should be the first method in K through the middle of the second grade.  Reading for those students who are ready should be taught (using phonetic intensive instruction) in kindergarten.  We must also remember that computers and software do not teach children to read; teachers do.  The fewer students that are in a first grade class where most children are ready to learn how to read, the easier it is to obtain the one-on-one situation that is conducive to teaching reading skills. Teachers in kindergarten and first grade should be spending most of the reading lesson time listening to students read, not reading to them.  It is also of no benefit for children to sit and read to each other. A teacher cannot know what progress has been made or what next to do if he/she does not listen to individual students read.  There are over 120 research studies that show phonics is the best reading approach.  There are none that support whole language as the best approach.  That teachers choose not to use phonics speaks to either their lack of intelligence and/or their  inability to assert themselves about the matter when administrators push whole language. Surely the differing results should speak volumes to them!  Teachers no longer receive training in colleges of education with respect to phonics instruction, thus the major cause of the shift in technique.  The same lack of intellectual ability among professors of education also applies.  Colleges of education also may be pushing the whole language  approach because they had to come up with something new in order to perpetuate themselves as state legislatures were about to terminate their existence.  No one needs an education course in order to be able to teach school.  No one needs staff development in order to continue as a capable teacher.  "Staff development" is simply a ruse to provide work for administrators and to shove bad practices on teachers that are usually better off without any of it. Students who learn to read by the use of phonics also show marked superiority over students using the whole language approach as time passes with regard to comprehension.  The use of the LOMS reading program in KISD is a buy-in to the guess and memorize (see/say, sight/sound) approach to reading.  The LOMS method was devised in the early 1970's.  If it is so successful, why can't all of our students read when they finish the first grade?  Why would anyone continue to use a method for a quarter of a century when it obviously is not successful! Forty percent of KISD students graduate from high school being functionally illiterate. There's a reason for that, and I place the blame squarely on the whole language fiasco. Separate reading classes should be maintained through the seventh grade, and reading lessons should occur every day.  Of importance, I think, is that schools all over the country are beginning to realize the mistake of using the whole language approach.  But being able to shuck it, is another matter. Getting rid of whole language involves policy matters, and policy makers are dug in because of the money involved.  If it were not so sad, I could laugh about the commonly iterated phrase "rich-literature by whole language proponents.  To advocate the use of the whole language approach because of its use of "rich-literature" is an abomination.  Just take a look at their so-called "literature," and the problem becomes obvious.  These advocates have taken leave of their senses, and they obviously do not know what constitutes "literature."  The state of California has recently directed schools to use phonics as the first method of reading instruction for its students.  (I'll believe that they have done so when I see results.  I cannot imagine that California would do anything so remarkable.)  Tyler ISD has also recently directed their elementary teachers to use phonics as THE method for reading instruction. Is Katy ISD less forward thinking than Tyler, Texas?

Spelling books should be purchased and used daily in the elementary grades.  The right for districts to buy and use spelling books was granted in November (1995). Rules of spelling should be taught.  Our schools' use of "inventive spelling" as a technique needs to be placed on the trash heap from whence it came.  Phonics taught students are able to spell better because of the way they learn to listen to sounds.  The de-emphasis on spelling by the proponents of whole language occurs because students are unable to see patterns and hear word sounds when they have merely memorized words over time.  Student's ability to learn new words as they mature is hindered by their inability to comprehend new words and is nonexistent.  Test scores decline in reading for this very reason.  On the TAAS reading test the ability of students to comprehend word meaning (a rather important skill) drops in KISD schools between 12 to as much as 42 points between the 3rd and the 5th grade.

Writing should be stressed in every subject area.  Students should be required to write every day. Writing assignments should be graded by the teacher in language arts/English classes for content as well as mechanics (punctuation, grammar, spelling, syntax, capitalization, etc.) at least once a week at all grade levels.  Grammar, punctuation, and capitalization should be taught each year in language arts and English classes.  The emphasis on the "holistic" idea should be eliminated.  To suggest that writing possibly stifles creativity or that children learn to write or read the same way they learn to speak reveals an uninformed and ignorant viewpoint.  When there is a choice, classics should be given precedence over non-classical literature.  Textbooks should be selected based upon their inclusion of the classical rather than the popular or the topical or the multi-cultural.  This is America, and there is only one culture, and it is American!  There is not sufficient time in the school day/year to include some of the extraneous popular literary (?) efforts that are not being used.  If basal readers in elementary school are boring, then our district should purchase some that are not.  KISD could not spend money for anything more important.  Workbooks should be discarded in favor of more chalkboards [and in more recent times Smart Boards].  Work done on a chalkboard allows instant and correct feedback.  Workbooks reinforce incorrect answers because the student rarely has the opportunity to correct that which he missed.  Also the supplanting of  chalkboards with the more popular tack boards where permanent displays designed to impress visitors rather than enhance education should be stopped.  And covering these tack boards with illiterate student renditions causes students to believe that sloppy, incorrect work is acceptable, and it is not. Displaying ANY student work that is sub par, just for the purpose of making the student "feel good" is wrong.  The student gets the impression that he is doing well, when indeed he is not!  Also the pervasive idea that textbooks should be entirely eliminated is ill advised.  Not having an approved textbook leaves the door open for too much latitude and abuse of the curriculum standards.

Oral communication by students in elementary school should be enhanced and added to the curriculum. Students need opportunities to speak to their peers on educational matters.

An effort to start pre-school reading programs has been suggested (by me) many times.  Such an effort would take advantage of our many volunteers and our empty cafeterias in the mornings.  Parents could read to neighborhood children regularly and instill in them an appreciation for books and reading. (I am not advocating the teaching of reading of pre-schoolers, or the teaching of reading by volunteers.)

Science classes should return to being content based.  The SCISS program should be phased out, and students should be issued science textbooks in elementary school.  SCISS materials should be used to supplement factual learning from the science textbook.  If the teachers are intelligent and interesting, then the subject matter will be too.  The science curriculum does not need to address those issues. "Happy science" does not do any student any good and wastes his/her time.

A pilot program should be established in at least one elementary school, one junior high and one high school using the Saxon math text and methodology.  Test scores form schools using this math approach are far superior to any scores of KISD students.  It is of note, I think, that Texas A&M is currently teaching its math education students to teach using the Saxon textbooks and approach.  KISD's nemesis, Plano ISD, uses the Saxon math approach as do an increasing number of Texas schools, and I know of at least one recent Texas A&M graduate with a math teaching field who would not even consider teaching in KISD because of our scrambled approach to teaching mathematics.  Considering that the State will not approve these Saxon texts (and the reasons have to do with lobbying and money and politics and not the value of the instruction), and individual districts must pay for them indicates to me that these other districts are willing to spend extra money to have a program that has proven results.  I acknowledge that the Saxon books are colorless and contain lots of drill, but real mathematicians know that drill is necessary if one is to learn mathematics; color plated books have no bearing.  As evidence I submit the fact that we are offering Kumon Math after school because it offers drill! And parents are paying for this service in droves because they see that it helps their children. To ignore the Saxon math teaching philosophy is foolish and harms our students.

Social studies should be taught stressing the acquisition of knowledge rather than providing exposure to environmental and other esoteric concerns. The over-emphasis on the rain forest, the ozone layer, and such like subject matter should cease.  Our students can be environmentally conscious and responsible with considerably lass time being spent and without detracting from the time for academic curriculum.  "Fern Gully" has no place in our curriculum!  Children are being shown this movie four and five times while they are in our elementary schools.  Social studies needs to become history and government once again.  Students do not learn the lessons they need to know when their time is spent primarily on current events and the agenda of environmentalists.  We are brainwashing students with politically correct beliefs that most of the people who live in the Katy school district do not hold.

Use of the NCTM math standards, the similar science standards, the new history standards, the in-progress physical education standards, and whatever else bored education groups come up with to decrease accountability for their members, should be barred from our school district.

Students should know how to find books in the library, how to access computer information, and how to use reference materials before leaving elementary school.  They don't need drill in how to work on a computer because those skills, especially regarding the software that run them, will be outdated and useless in three years or less. They COULD use a typing class.

Fine Arts should stress the basics of each discipline.  Students should learn techniques of drawing, music theory, the proper way to sing, how to read music, and the basics of theater productions and articulate speech instead of drawing pictures, singing purely for fun, and putting on "programs" as a device to get parents to come to PTA/PTO meetings.  We as educators must constantly evaluate the purposes of what we do with students.

2.  If a direct instruction approach is adopted, then the teacher must become, once again, a teacher.

My concerns are that we have adopted the faddish ideas of "teacher as facilitator and coach" and "peer tutoring" and "cooperative learning" as substitutes for the teacher as the dispenser of knowledge.  I do not buy into the idea that the teacher is in the room to hang around and "facilitate." I also do not believe that children can teach each other anything of substance.  Or that together as a group they can accomplish more that they can as individuals. (That action is simply to make students who cannot learn or who don't want to learn, the ability to ride the coattails of smarter and more able students.)  Teamwork is sometimes useful in business, but everyone on the "team" knows who the smartest person is, who the leader is, and who is doing all the work.  It is an unfair situation, and why businesses would want to utilize the strategy when it just holds back the smart, motivated person, is a mystery to me! Students quickly figure out the senselessness of this activity as well.

I also believe that no students should be held accountable or receive credit or discredit for another student's work, and that no graded assignments should be required that represent a cumulative effort by students.  These are all ideas coming to us from social scientists with no teaching experience and who provide no research other than the anecdotal variety to support their theories. Smart school boards should DEMAND evidence of the properness and effectiveness of any new curriculum proposal or methodology and not just accept them as being great because they are new and proffered by the superintendent!  The developers of these "new" curriculum ideas have been pushing these ideas for 35 years, and they have no successes to show us.  The only identifiable "success" is their individual ability to make millions of dollars selling these ideas to unwitting school districts.  These people are experimenting on our children, and we are letting them!  Test scores have dropped in our country; the only way they continue to rise is that the tests are constantly changed and dumbed down, the test makers deliberately design the tests so that no school district is "below average," the test makers refuse to give out the names of other school districts using their tests so that no comparisons can be made, or the tests are "recentered," and points are added to "help us compare and to make students feel good about their efforts."  But actual scholastic achievement continues to decline.

The teacher must deliver specific lessons, embracing the essential elements in a specific, age appropriate order.  The teacher must of course accommodate the variety of ways in which students learn as long as that accommodation is not bogus and designed to help students of low ability to feel good about nothing, but the teacher should be recognizable at the classroom door as being the one in charge, and the one who as the most knowledge.  Teachers have always taught using a variety of methods to reach the variety of ways that students learn.  The only difference is that now some college professor is getting rich because he wrote down that fact and is selling software or some other "educational" program (that purports to help teachers by figuring out what they already knew and were already doing) to unsuspecting school districts!

Teachers must teach the material before homework is given.  Homework cannot be the lesson.  Teachers must reassess the purposes for giving homework.  It should be given primarily to enrich the lesson that has just been received by the student in the classroom.  It is not to be given as a discipline measure.  It is not to be given as busy work.  It is not to be given so that the parent must become the teacher.  It is not to be given to create junk to hang on the walls (thus giving the appearance that something of substance has been accomplished).

Teachers should be provided with staff development, but it should be appropriate, pertinent, and structured so that the optimum benefit is derived.  Most of the time, teachers (and their students) would benefit more if the teacher were just allowed to have staff development time as free time in his/her room to prepare for classes.  All requests for staff development should be reviewed by the superintendent or his designee who should decide if the training supports the objectives of the Board as stated in the Katy Plan.  Members of the KISD staff who attend conventions need to submit written reports of their training experiences to their supervisors upon their return.  Travel for these purposes (including convention attendance) as well as grant requests should also receive the same scrutiny.  I am greatly dismayed when a teacher tells me that his paper supply has been curtailed, and it is only November, and I know that the principal at his school has already attended two conventions costing thousands of dollars at school district expense!  I would advocate that the hundreds of thousands of dollars that we spend sending employees (and Board members) to conventions, seminars, etc. would be much better spent bringing recognized speakers (over whom we would have some control of the ideas being presented) to our district.  A great many more people would therefore benefit at a much lower cost.  Our school district must get its priorities in order.

Every effort must be made to lower the pupil/teacher ratio in core academic courses.  The ramifications of not doing so are far more serious than eliminating courses with low enrollment or extra-curricular courses that occur during the school day.  If we can continue to "have it all," that is good, but if something must go, academic core courses must prevail. No high school teacher of a core academic course should have more than 28 students in a class.  I also believe that a lower pupil/teacher ratio in the first grade (1/15) would have long term benefits, as would the use of "transition"  classes for those in Kindergarten and First Grade who are underage or socially and/or physically immature. I also believe that second, third, fourth and fifth grades could have 28 students quite easily since the effort to listen to readers should be gone by those grades. I realize that such an increase would require a change in state law. If it's a question of funds, get rid of an administrator and hire a few teachers with the money.

The curriculum for the gifted and talented program has come far in the last ten years, but we must not stop our efforts to continue to upgrade. An old-fashioned IQ test should be administered during the second grade.  KISD's practice of generating an IQ score from an achievement test or worse, not having the ability to have an IQ score at all is mindless!  Even though IQ scores are passe', we all still have one, and knowing what it is does help teachers to understand their students. The percentage of students within the GT program should be returned to the 3% level. There aren't 7% of the students in KISD who are GT level.  Spend the money on Special Ed instead.  To include more than 3% dilutes the effectiveness of the program.  The time is ripe for implementing a GT math/science component at the middle school level.  To ignore this curriculum area for three years for these students causes many of them to turn away from these fields, and that is not a wise departure.  The results of our inattention at this level show up in the very small number of students in calculus and physics classes in the 11th and 12th grades.  We must also address the need to acquire additional and suitably trained teachers for the math/science program at all secondary levels.  Secondary students need every opportunity to receive math and science instruction at the appropriate time.  If the district is going to place students in Algebra I at the seventh grade, then the district must guarantee that a geometry course at the eighth grade will be provided and that transportation (if necessary) will be provided at district expense.  (If there are no funds for this transportation, cut one of the out of town trips from administrators or Board members.) Also if the district is beginning these academically able students on an advanced math course in the seventh grade, then the addition of differential equations must be provided (along with qualified teachers) at the twelfth grade so those students do not miss a year of math right before they start to go to college. I personally think that algebra in the 7th grade is an unwise placement considering the paucity of teachers at that level who are qualified to teach the course. Putting it back at the 8th grade, would fix our problem.

Acquiring and keeping qualified teachers should be paramount. I believe that we must hire teachers whose degrees have come from quality schools.  Colleges that require at least a thousand on the SAT (especially for those who graduated since 1979) (1100 for those who apply after 100 points are added this year and thereafter to everyone's score) should be the first place we look for new teachers.  During the hiring process, some effort should be made to ascertain the prospective teacher's philosophy of education.  A great many colleges of education are espousing Outcome-Based educational ideas that have no merit.  Teachers who embrace these ideas should not be hired in KISD.  An effort to ascertain a certain level of intellectual ability should also be part of the hiring process.  Prospective teachers should have to submit a writing sample (done on the KISD premises) and a video-tape of themselves made during their student-teaching classes or in a recently held position.  If these applicants are not capable of writing well, we cannot expect them to teach our children to be good writers.  Again, our nemesis, Plano ISD, does not as a matter of course, hire first-year teachers fresh out of college, while 40% of our newly hired teachers are fresh out of college!  Plano also has 58% of their teachers holding advanced degrees, while we have only 25% of our teachers holding advanced degrees.  I realize that our selection process is deliberately designed to keep the costs low, but at what price to the students in our district?  And when we select new graduates who are fresh from these colleges of education where all of these OBE ideas are being proliferated, what can we expect?  I think targeting these younger teachers to hire is deliberate.  I believe the true costs over time would have been much less if we had hired the mothers who live in our district who would have liked to have returned to teaching when their children entered school but were passed over (because they had experience and would have required more pay).  (I would be one of those!)  We should strive to always have secondary teachers with a major in the subject matter they are required to teach.  We should also strive to have teachers with secondary certification in our junior high schools. I realize that it is easier (and legally permissible) to stick a teacher with elementary certification in to the 6th and 7th grades in junior high schools.  Just because it is legal and cheaper, doesn't mean we should do it if we really care about the education of these students.  Thought should be given to rotating teachers with secondary certification in our middle schools.  Thought should be given to rotating teachers within a school so that they do not always teach the same grade in elementary school or that the same person has a life-time hold on being the grade level chairperson.  We should similarly allow teachers some latitude in teaching the subjects in high school that they are qualified to teach.  Longevity does not always produce the best AP teachers, and that opportunity should be rotated. Likewise the chairmanship of the department should be rotated and not become a lifetime sinecure.  Some thought should also be given to the rotation of principals and coaching staffs.  Seeing a staff member in another situation might be valuable, and if we are hiring competent staff, they should be able to perform in any local. Principals and coaches because they accept a position don't have an inherent right to remain at a certain school.  They should be happy to serve at any KISD school!  A school district such as ours which has such high quality students deserves to have the best administrative leaders, coaches and teachers.  Our students have proved over the years that when they have capable coaches and teachers, they are always winners.  Our district needs to place high priority on acquiring good math and science teachers.  We also need to advertise if necessary for good substitutes, and then treat them with respect when they come to work in our district.  An effort should also be made to require each teacher to have video-taped, meaningful  lessons that could be used when they must be absent.  We spend over a million dollars a year on substitutes, and the time lost factor for students is tremendous.  Some attention should be paid to why we have so many teacher absences and what can be done to assure that class time for students is not lost. We also need to chart when it is that teachers are ill.  If it's only on Friday, then something needs to be said to the teacher--somebody should notice the trend.  I also believe that if we truly believe in site-based management, then teachers should have a larger voice in the selection of the principal and in his/her evaluation.  No one knows better than the teachers about the quality of the principal.  We must be willing to insure that competent people are running our schools. I also must state here that I truly believe that most of our teachers are very competent and capable.  They do as they are instructed to do.  If they do not, their job or at least their preferred assignment is in jeopardy.  Privately, many of them tell me that they do not want to teach using the Outcome-Based ideas because their personal experience tells them that these strategies do not work, but they are powerless by themselves to buck the system.

Although the placement here of the use of video taped movies as an issue is questionable, I find no other place to address it.  Over the five years I have been on the Board, as well as during the time my own children were in school, the reported over use of video taped movies has been, in my mind, a serious problem in our school district.  There is no monitoring in most schools of the use of these films; there is questionable value in their use; and too often they are used as baby-sitters for teachers who do not want to teach.  Proof of their use can be found by looking for tape players and monitors on the days before any holiday.  These days are supposed to be days of instruction and should be used as such. They are not "play days."  The larger issue, of course, has to do with the content of these films. I have personally been on a guided tour of Katy High School when the principal opened the door on a classroom full of students who were eating snack foods, sitting on top of their desks, and watching an "R" rated movie.  As Board members we have also had reports of TV videos that were used that contained female frontal nudity.  I cannot see any justification for the use of this audio-visual "aid" the way it is currently being used.

3.  The primary consideration in KISD should be an academic education.  My concerns are that our district is moving to solve all of society's ills within the school day.  That is not our concern.  There are multitudinous social agencies that are much better funded and much better trained to handle these problems than are our schools and teachers.  We must stick to the business of education.  Whenever we consider institution one of these societal, personal, environmental, self-esteem, cultural or other areas of the affective domain, we must ask ourselves, "What academic pursuit are we willing to discard to make room for this effort?"  I think the answer to the question will be obvious.  We should not be dispensing with any academic pursuit in favor of these other activities.  Someone should do a time study at all instructional levels on the amount of time spent on task on academics versus the rest of the "stuff" that takes up a school day for students.  At Wesley elementary (a school situated in the lowest of economic situations) in Houston ISD (which has higher TAAS scores than many of KISD'S elementary schools) NO time is spent during the day on anything but academics, fine arts, PE, lunch and recess. Why is that such a difficult thing to achieve in KISD elementaries?

I believe that parents should be afforded the responsibility and credit for teaching their children their values and morals, their views on political correctness, their views on their own personal cultural background, their appreciation for diversity, their views on good citizenship, their views on human rights, their views on interpersonal relationships, their views on sex education, and their views on any other area of the affective domain."  Students can certainly be taught at school to get along and be respectful of each other, to respect authority, and to adhere to our behavioral moral's and value's code, but their personal beliefs are not the school's business.

I am also concerned by a growing effort to track our students into a vocational program at the junior high level.  Every effort to permit students to continue with their academic education should be made.  Tech prep as a support program to allow students to find creditable work while pursuing additional educational opportunities is commendable and worthwhile as long as it does not take away from the academic track.  No tracking of students into a vocational track should be implemented wiISout written parental approval and without parents having a clear understanding of the ramifications of this decision.  No decision to track students into a vocational program should be made based on test scores.  Our innovative and expanding vocational program should otherwise continue its present course with the clear understanding that is is not the public school's purpose to provide business and industry with "workers."  Contrary to the SCANS report, no parent wants his child to be looked upon by the public schools as a potential "worker."  The fact that our vocational program is going to double in size in the 1996-1997 school year is touted by one and all, but I have serious concerns about the increase in size of the program.  The fact that more of our students are being shunted in this direction means that fewer students have learned to read and succeed in the academic track.  Increased vocational programs indicate failure of our true purpose.  "School to work" as a slogan or policy has no place in Katy ISD.  Although it is touted otherwise, "School to Work" is an elitist effort to create a world without a middle class.  In a democracy no member of that democracy, no matter how intelligent, should believe that a society consisting solely of workers and the educated elite is desirable.  Every person in our society should have the opportunity, via public school, to receive a creditable academic education, and each individual should decide for himself the course of his life.  Our district should also buck the state trend to eliminate agricultural vocational training.  I see clear merit, especially in leadership roles and training, in the vocational agriculture programs in KISD as they are currently offered.  The German system of education is currently being heralded and pushed by Hillary Clinton and her friends, and she hopes to have it in place by this fall in our country.  Governor Bush (who apparently is a closet one-worlder) has sent Jack Christie, our elected representative on the State Board of Education and a man who himself has no college degree, to Germany at least twice in the last year so that Texas can copy what is going on there.  Parents of eighth grade students have relayed to me their concerns all this year about their children being urged by the eighth grade counselors to "consider" a vocational track. Do I know any parents in this school district who  believe that eighth grade counselors should be deciding their children's futures?  I don't believe that I do!

"Inclusion" of disabled students needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis.  There is no legal requirement for KISD to have "inclusion" in our public schools.  The impetus for the practice stems from pushy parents who, in my opinion, are NOT dealing with the disability of their child and who are NOT accepting their child's restrictions or the impact on other students within the "Inclusion" classroom.  Whenever it is determined that the use of this activity is not greatly beneficial to ALL students, it should not occur.  There should also be a limit to the number of included students in any one classroom or assigned to any one teacher.  In my opinion no more than one should be allowed.  No teacher can effectively teach a class of regular students and handle the needs of more than one "included" student.  Frankly, I do not know how any teacher can handle this situation at all.  Placing more than one included student in a classroom means none of the students are served appropriately.  There is no research to show that there is long term benefit to this activity as opposed to allowing these special education students the well-documented benefit of having their own trained special education teacher.  If we are going to have this program, then we need to allocate funds to support enough special education aides.  I believe that the Board should have had the opportunity to decide this matter, since it is not legally required, and our District is putting it in our system.  That means we are funding the program.  I also believe that since there is no research (and I cite the Houston Post article, co-authored by Beth Ann Bryan, Governor Bush's Educational Consultant, which states that there is no research which supports the benefit of this program for any children.  I also would suggest that parents of these included students need to search their hearts with regard to their buy-in to a program that may have just the opposite result with their children than the one anticipated.  I fear these parents and their children are the victims of an educational effort based solely on economics and not on the best interests of these special education students. I also suspect that for KISD this is an economic matter as it is cheaper to throw disabled students into a regular classroom than it is to properly educate them using special education teachers. Parents of these students should not stand for that.

I am additionally concerned with the influence of the business community in the "business" of our school district.  Involvement of the business community is warmly received by our school district especially if it is genuinely altruistic, but we must be cautious about the motives and agendas of these businesses and the business men/women.  There's a difference between a simple altruistic interest in the well being of students and an intellectual attempt to direct the educational policies of the District. Businesses should not be allowed to direct the course of public education.  They, like every other entity, certainly have the right to express their opinion, but public education, paid for by local taxpayers, does not exist to be a training ground for the business community.  If businessmen want to have a say in KISD children's education, they should run for a school board position, and when they do, they should be transparent enough to tell the voters what they are doing.  Over the years, KISD most always has a board member who is representative of a business that is also a member of the Business Roundtable.  If one does not understand the influence exerted by this group and the National Chamber of Commerce, then please read my articles elsewhere on this website. At the current time, Joe Kimmel, an employee at Shell Oil, is the BRT's representative on the KISD Board. He had to run twice to get elected because he was a relative unknown, having never done much volunteer work with children or students, but once elected he began quickly to direct the school district toward the interests of big business, in my opinion. It has been important in these formative years to place strategic people on school boards.  Once they have established their plan, you can bet they will disappear for it appears to me that they have no real interest in providing an academic education for students. Public education exists to provide a well-rounded liberal arts education for its students so that they can move successfully into many arenas upon graduation.  It does not exist to create "workers."  I do not know of a single parent of a first grade student who wishes his child to be trained as a "worker" while in public school.  This effort by big business is especially deleterious to minority students.  They are our most academically fragile and are the most likely to be tracked into this program of vocational education.  They are thus being denied the right to pursue an academic education when this move occurs.  I also notice the brainwashing of minorities so that they will accept this effort to move their children out of the academic realm.

4.  All entities within the district need a means by which they are held accountable.  The AEIS is one measure of accountability.  The new TAAS Report Card comparing our individual schools with other Texas schools of comparable demographics may be another meaningful measure.  This measurement will, however, be much more useful when schools are compared with each other instead of just with their own previous record.  The constant renorming of tests by the State prevents the TAAS scores from being anything but meaningless.  KISD has instituted the giving of a norm-referenced achievement test (SAT8), and it will also be helpful in this area. If its norms are truthful... (The recent results of this test show that KISD students are just average with regard to other students across our country who took the same test, which considering the quality of our students and the amount of tax dollars being spent per student on their educations, should raise some doubts for parents about what they are getting for their money.)  However I am also concerned with reports that indicate that companies who sell these tests do not tell any school district that they are doing worse than average, so perhaps we should abandon this expensive effort also.  To assure district-wide compliance and accountability, and to perhaps have a valid testing instrument, end of year testing in every academic discipline needs to be devised (by the KISD teachers who teach those subjects).

My concerns are that teachers have no end of course goal that is pre-determined and accessible.  Teachers should (as a summer-time, paid for activity) create end of year standardized tests for all academic courses.  The Spring Branch ISD MAPS would serve as a good example of a previously successful effort in this area.

The District also needs to look at the results of the curriculum that is being and has been delivered from the perspective of those who are its products.  As an accountability measure, comparative students should be made of students from different junior high schools as those students enter high school and of high school students as they enter and continue their education in selected colleges (students at Texas A&M and the University of Texas should head the list of schools used in our comparison.  Students from KISD should have no trouble entering and staying in our state's two best public universities--that we apparently are not able to have that situation causes me great concern.)  We should also use the ACT post-graduation appraisal document (which we have recently cut back to an every other year activity) to verify our success or failure. The fact that we made this action tells me that administrators are not interested in the "outcome" of the education that they are providing! Results of these comparative studies should then be USED to evaluate curriculum and teaching strategies and methods.  Programs of schools (either ours or other school districts') with successful students should be used to set the standard.  An effort should be made to indentify how many of the 85% of our students who wish to attend college are able to get in and then graduate within five years.  Some studies suggest that the figure is less than 27%.

The ultimate accountability measure has to be the scores made on the SAT and the ACT by KISD students.  When compared to similar districts, KISD students are on the low end of the scale.  In a comparison with 13 Texas districts with similar demographics, KISD students rank third from the bottom on the SAT.  The significance of this low ranking is that KISD students in competing head on with students from these other districts will be also-rans when it comes to gaining admission to the college of their choice. I have been pointing out this FACT for years, and no one wants to acknowledge it or talk about it or do something about it!

Minority students' progress must receive our utmost attention.  When 55% of our Black 7th graders fail their TAAS math tests, and 48% of our sixth grade Hispanic students fail one or more of the TAAS tests, the district has a problem that needs attention.  Efforts should be made to view and assess successful programs in other school districts with the intent of emulating that which works.  KISD does not need to re-invent the wheel in this area.  Bilingual programs should stress the quick movement of non-English speaking students into the mainstream.  The discriminatory practice of separating non-English speaking students within the school should cease.  Assemblies, physical education courses, fine arts courses, lunch, home rooms, recesses, and other common activities of students should be attended together.  Bilingual students should be mainstreamed by the end of their second year in our bilingual program as it takes no longer than two years to teach someone a new language when they have total immersion.  Preferably, this movement of mainstreaming should occur even sooner (or whenever the law allows). And the law regarding bilingual education should be something that is discussed with our state legislators.  Whenever there are enough students in a grade to warrant their own bilingual teacher at their home school, they should be accommodated at the home school. I believe that Hispanic students are moved out of some of our elementary schools to other schools for reasons of politics and bias that manifests itself in the areas where they live and should rightly be educated. That practice should stop.

5.  There appear to be certain "restructuring" fads coming to us compliments of state colleges of education, the TEA and the federal government.  These fads started in our school district in the 1980's and continue to bombard us.  The Board goals, instituted in 1990 (and against which I campaigned in that year unsuccessfully) were designed to implement restructured education in KISD.  The scheme is to have so many of these restructuring initiatives that no one can possibly identify them all or stop them.  But I think we have to try.

Among my concerns are these:

The efforts currently transpiring to jump on the bandwagon of alternative scheduling or block scheduling are inappropriate.  There is no need in this school district to cut short the time on task of students to accommodate more subjects.  The 24 credit agenda of Commissioner of Education Skip Meno is optional.  I can find no majority of principals, teachers, coaches or band directors who think there is anything wrong with the scheduling that we have.  If ever there were a top-down thrust to an activity, this is it!  The hidden agenda of this activity is to eventually throw out extra-curricular activities (such as band, orchestra, choir, athletics, agricultural education, journalism, theater and speech, etc.) from the school day.  Block scheduling is being sold by those who wish to have it by saying just the opposite of their intent.  While I am not so sure cheer leading, weight lifting, or drill team need to have a class during the day for which students receive "credit," I am very much opposed to eliminating any of these other activities.  There is time for all of them right now if the student's schedule is carefully constructed.  Teachers are buying into block scheduling because they have fewer preparations, less subject matter to teach, 50% more time off during the day, and less accountability. While that might be nice for teachers, it is not productive for students.  The purpose of school centers around what is best for the students, not the teachers, and the teachers who are in this business for the right reasons will agree with me.  Alternative scheduling will also allow students to be less accountable.  Students need 55 minutes in a class period in order to adequately cover the material. That is the old-fashioned "Carnegie unit" that existed for a hundred years.  Fifty minutes or the now popular forty-five minutes, are not enough minutes to teach what needs to be taught.  And if they continue to chop off five minutes every decade, when does it stop? Teachers need 55 minutes in a class period in order to adequately cover the material.  This point is not debatable in my mind.  The argument that there is not enough time can be answered by eliminating the obviously wasteful study hall that we currently offer.  If there is no study hall offered, then students will be forced to take something of value to them educationally.  What possible value can a study hall have?  As a school district, we must commit to hiring an adequate number of teachers to teach subject matter, not study hall.  To block schedule or not to block schedule IS the purview of the district and the Board and not individual schools.  Within this area are efforts to "teach across" several disciplines and use "teams" to do that.  These ideas were tried in the 1960's and 1970's and were proved worthless.  It does not make sense for KISD to embrace ideas that did not work well and which we know do not work.  I believe what has been instituted in the junior high schools in this regard (having all the teachers meet together every day to discuss the "needs" of the students that they all share) needs to be changed back to the way it was previously instead of continuing to put it in place through the eighth grade.  We have no conclusive evidence that this concept is working for all of these students.  We are merely doing it because everyone else is doing it, and that is not a good reason.  No one can convince me that teachers are "conferencing" on their mutual students ever day for an hour, or that there is any real benefit to this idea. As a parent I also do not like the idea of six or so teachers sitting around talking about MY child!  My child should be able to make his way in each classroom without some other teacher influencing that class's teacher! This teaming has appeared to have some success in the sixth grade because it creates an "elementary" atmosphere which to me says these students should be put back at the elementary school where the protective environment is already in place and where it costs less to educate them and build schools for them. The fact that most of the teachers in the sixth grade are elementary certificated also plays into this matter. 

The idea that students should be allowed to have as much time as possible to learn any given subject matter is flawed. This is a stupid idea foisted on us by some out of work education professor somewhere who is trying to attract attention. If students are to be held accountable, then they must learn and achieve in a finite amount of time. The use of peer tutors is simply an effort to involve the smarter students in a busy work activity so that they will not  become disruptive.  While I will allow that the slower students may benefit from having the smarter students help them, it is unthinkable that the smarter students should be used and held back for this purpose!  As a parent of a smarter student, I can tell you that I did not send my child to school to teach his peers.  THAT is the job of the teacher, and MY child is short-changed when this activity occurs.  The "helping others" aspect is also baloney. These smarter students also need to be taught at the rate that they are able to accomplish mastery of material.  All allowance for retesting, and repeating instruction for the benefit of less than half of the class should cease. No student should be allowed to request a retest, and no test grade should be averaged with another test grade.  There should be no "extra-credit."  The inflation of grades should cease.  To give every child in elementary school an "A" or a "B" is a bad idea.  Parents and their children need an accurate evaluation of their work else they will not know to address the problem, and they will not try to fix the problem. Students must be given the grades that they earn and be held accountable for learning the material.  Grades for "effort" should be banned.  Material to be covered in each class should be increased, not decreased.  It is easy to "master" learning if there is not much required.   A list of ten spelling words is much easier to learn than a list of twenty-five words, and this "dumbing down" only serves to create mediocrity for students and make them and their teachers "look" like they have  accomplished something, when in reality they have not.  No student  or teacher can be fooled for long about what is transpiring, and neither of them want to receive credit when it has not been earned!  Numerical grades should be used on report cards and permanent records and should be used to determine class standing in high school, and ALL students, including special education students, should be included in determining class rank.  Special education students are indeed members of the class and MUST be included.  All grades should be weighted according to the level of difficulty of the course.  Teachers who are adequately teaching appropriate subject matter should not be penalized for failing students.  Course remediation classes should cease.  Any efforts to assist those students who are lagging behind should begin before the school year instead of after the school year.  To do otherwise tells me that there is another agenda that is being satisfied, and the welfare of the student is not part of that agenda.  Students who do not receive a passing grade should repeat the course.  Students who fail an academic course should be retained until they are able to pass.  There should be NO social promotions.

Honor rolls should be reassessed and designed to reflect true scholarship.  Only grades earned in academic courses should be counted in determining honor roll status and class standing. No more that 20% of the students should be on the "honor rolls," and no more than 5% of the students should be on the "high honor roll."  To put more than half the school on these rolls does not build self-esteem, it merely makes the rolls meaningless and stresses mediocrity among our students.  As they currently exist, honor rolls are a joke.  When students with a 4. earned in regular classes are placed on the high honor roll over students who take the more difficult honors and AP courses and make more than a 4. but have "B's" and therefore lose standing, there is something definitely wrong with our thinking!  Of the 115 students who graduated in may 1995 with high honors (a 4. or above), only 70 (60%) made a 1200 on the SAT!  Among other things that means that 40% of KISD's high honor graduates could not get in to Texas A&M or the University of Texas based on their SAT scores. There also should be an effort made to have similar levels of course work at all our high schools, and if the student body in not capable taking AP courses or making high grades in other courses, that fact should not be considered when grades are given.  There HAS to be a standard that is met, and it must be the same across high schools.

We should also spend class time wisely which includes eliminating the activity of teaching to the TAAS test or whatever other test down the road is foisted upon our students and teachers.  If we have the proper curriculum in place with qualified teachers teaching it, then we do not need to waste our students' and our teachers' time on this worthless activity.  Our students will excel on the TAAS test.  Teaching to the test should be forbidden.  The existence of TAAS spelling lists and TAAS writing prompts and all other such TAAS nonsense raises serious questions about our schools' ability to accomplish their true purpose.  Someone should investigate the total cost to taxpayers for material that is purchased by the District so that teachers may teach to the TAAS test.

Grouping of students according to their ability is and has been over time a worthwhile activity.  Tremendous research, currently being ignored, exists to verify the viability of grouping.  Reinstatement of honors classes and homogeneous grouping should occur at all grade levels.  A significant number of students are quietly submitting to the dumbed-down curriculum that is currently being presented to them since "basic" classes were eliminated.  The elimination of honors classes has been a great disservice to a majority of our students.  Many students are not intellectually capable of doing AP work in every subject area, but they are totally bored by "regular" classes.  We need to provide them with appropriate levels of instruction and curriculum since this group (the one between regular and AP levels) constitutes the majority of the student population in Katy ISD. We cannot continue to accommodate the needs of everyone else while ignoring the needs of a majority of our students.  We are bound by law to provide an appropriate education for all of our students. As it is, our schools have been dumbed down from top to bottom!

Competition in Katy ISD has been virtually eliminated in every area except athletics.  Coaches appear to be among the few who have maintained their objectivity.  Competition should be re-instated.  There obviously should be increasing competition as students mature.  Secondary schools should have more competitive activities than elementary schools.  Egalitarianism is alive and well in KISD, but the artificial concept that is often embraced within our schools to make everyone equal is not realistic.  Even if the teacher stands before the class and professes equalitarianism, all one has to do is ask any student which student in the room is the smartest or most able in any arena and which one is the slowest or least able and the answer will be forthcoming!  We are not fooling the students.  Such events as science fairs, history fairs, math contests, number sense, art contests, writing contests, spelling bees, etc. should be returned as essential parts of the curriculum.  Competition reflects real life, and for us to suggest to students that competition is bad (which is the message we are sending) is bogus and wrong. Life is full of winners and losers, and the sooner students learn that, the sooner they will work to be winners!  Our emphasis  on outside activities that stress teamwork instead of competition need to be balanced by some that stress competition.  competition with one's self (as is our current practice) does not bring improved self-esteem.  At an early age it allows students to learn a skill without pressure, but after the skills are leaned, lack of competition only breeds mediocrity. To eliminate "winners" seems counter productive to me and can only be a detriment to our society as a whole.  In the real "real world" (that's as opposed to Commissioner Skip Meno's "real world"), competition is very much a part of "real" life.  Just ask anyone who has a "real" job or who is trying to sell a "real" product.

"Portfolio assessment" should cease.  The accumulation of a student's work in a folder is a viable activity.  Using this folder to demonstrate accomplishment is not viable.  Testing instruments should be primarily objective in nature, based on the acquisition of knowledge, and should be returned to the students upon completion promptly and for them to keep.  Portfolio assessment is another OBE activity that reduces accountability for the student and the teacher (if the teacher does not have to objectively grade anything, then the student does not have to learn anything, and everyone feels good!)  It is also unthinkable that an electronic portfolio is being assembled on our students, but that appears to be a component of OBE that parents should refuse to allow.  I am aware, however, of an Internet activity by some opponents of portfolio assessment where educators who are advocates of portfolio assessment are being identified and tracked in their educational positions over time.  This identification is out there for anyone nationwide to see!  Perhaps when the shoe is on the other foot, some sense in the matter will return.

Problem solving (as opposed to the perennial activity of solving problems) as an activity should occur AFTER students have acquired a basic, fundamental academic education.  This methodology should probably not be used until the end of the year in grades 8 through 10 and as it is useful in grades 11 and 12.  As a learning strategy, it should not occur in elementary school unless a teacher is absolutely certain that students have mastered the skills necessary in order for them to engage in this activity.  Intuitive thinking occurs legitimately only when students are properly prepared by acquiring considerable amounts of knowledge.  Used prematurely, problem solving becomes a useless activity and wastes students' time.  Students cannot think critically if they know nothing about which to think.  Benjamin Bloom, the originator of Outcome Based Education and the proponent of "higher order thinking skills," has done more to decrease the ability of students to "think" than anyone on the planet. Watching some teachers as they are supposed to be engaging in "intuitive thinking" has been humorous for me.  None of them have any sense at all of what "intuitive thinking" really is.

The idea that "learning must be fun" should be discarded.  Learning CAN be fun, but that element is not a necessary requirement.  All schools need to reassess their daily activities and ask, "Why are we doing ....?"  If there is not an academic reason in the answer, the activity should be stopped.  (I am not suggesting that there not be adequate time in the day, especially for elementary children, to stop and rest.  They should certainly be getting sufficient time for recess and an uninterrupted lunch where they can talk and visit.  In that regard, I think elementary students should have twenty-five minutes of recess in the morning and twenty-five  minutes after their lunch. When students of that age are unruly and troublesome, it is because they have pent up energy.  Any mother knows that!  So let them have some supervised play time.  And supervised means supervised.  Just because it's recess doesn't mean they should be sent outside without their teachers, and the teachers should be watching the students and not visiting with each other. With regard to lunch time, anyone who does not let students talk to each other during lunch should be fired for being oppressive and dumb. I am suggesting that during the rest of the day, their activities be academic in nature and that they have considerable time on task in every class.)  An eye-opening activity for any principal (or parent!) would be to observe a class of students for one full day with a stop watch in hand.  My experience has been, especially in elementary school, that as little as 45 minutes within the school day is spent "on task." I also believe that elementary children need less homework, which in most instances at this level is pure busy work and meaningless.  Children need to have time after school to just be children and to have the opportunity to play outside when they get home.  When I first moved to this neighborhood, I was absolutely struck by the fact (as were my children) that one hardly ever sees any children playing outside.  As soon as my children were enrolled in school, I understood why. They did not ever have time to play because they constantly had one school assigned "project" after another to do after school.

Although I have addressed some aspects of the business community's involvement in our schools earlier, there are two more activities by this group that need attention.  They include the practice of having volunteer mentors from the business community and the establishment of an educational foundation.  My concern in the first area is that I believe parents have the right to know who these people are (by name) and should have the opportunity to talk to them before these businessmen/women become mentors to their children and should have the right of rejection if they have concerns.  (And the Attorney General has recently indicated that they have this right by virtue of the Open Records Law.)  This activity should be totally voluntary on both sides.  Parents also have the right to know the topics of discussion that will transpire between these mentors and their children.  My concern with the establishment of an educational foundation has to do with the undermining of Board of Trustee control of the school district.  As elected officials who serve the public it is not proper for the Board to allow the fundamental and legally binding agreement between the Board and the public to be undermined.  These educational foundations which collect and spend money within the public schools do not have to answer to the public or the Board and may dictate the use of private funds within the public schools in a manner which may or may not be in keeping with the beliefs and wishes of the public and/or the Board.  I would not wish to be a part of such an effort to exclude the public.  I have successfully kept foundations out of KISD as long as I have been on the Board.

I am also concerned with the Goals 2000 funding that Skip Meno has applied for from the federal government. I calculate that the money being offered averages out to be about fifty cents per Texas student, and I believe that the cost for the strings attached to this money far outweigh any benefit we would derive from accepting it.  I would hope the dependence on these funds would not be part of our future.  The federal government is targeting at-risk students and at-risk schools for implementation of their restructuring agenda.  They ostensibly are tying funding to control over the curriculum.  That is an effort that states and local school districts should reject categorically.

6.  As stated earlier, I do not  believe that public schools should concern themselves with areas within the affective domain.  There are other entities that are far more qualified and better funded than our school district is to undertake society's problems.  Our business is education.  Chilrden have always had problems at home.  The idea that we can change that fact or that we should alter our program to accommodate their problems is amazing to me.  We must take them as they enter the school house door and insist that they are accountable for learning and that they behave while they are in our schools.  Our teachers must stop accepting excuses from students who wish to blame everyone but themselves for their failures.  If one tallies the number of hours over a thirteen year period that a child spends in school, it becomes obvious who has the time and opportunity to educate that child.  To blame poor parenting or society or TV is a cop out.  The idea currently being espoused everywhere that "it takes a whole village to raise a child" is an erroneous thought when applied to education; no one is responsible for a child except himself and his or her parent, and no one is responsible for the child's education at school except his teachers.  As one parent said in a letter to me, "If other children are responsible for teaching my child, which one of them do I hold accountable if my child doesn't learn anything?"  Public schools are responsible for providing the opportunity for a good education and that is all.  Public schools are not responsible for rearing other people's children.

KISD must make adherence to our discipline code primary.  We must be intolerant of poor behavior.  If the law dictates that the school district has to accommodate poorly behaved students, and KISD must spend money building places for them away from the motivated students, then I suggest that we spend it.  We must have administrators in place who will back up our teachers, and we must establish some means of determining who is not being supportive.  And if, for example, there are central administrators who are not backing up the school principal when he/she asks for help, then some way needs to be devised to allow for whistle blowers and to protect them from retribution.

I am concerned that such programs as the "conflict resolution" teaching/counseling strategy are growing and increasing in number.  The positive effect of this strategy is questionable and needs re-assessment.  In the mean time our district should stop using it, and we should certainly stop offering staff development sessions that advocate it as a solution to problems.

I strongly question the continued use of the Dare Program.  The Dare Program's use of situational ethics is an OBE strategy that does a disservice to our students and undermines our recently adopted values' and morals' resolution.  I maintain that when the Board adopts policy in this area, the Dare Program will be in direct conflict with that policy.  I also question taking time away from the academic program for this activity.  If anyone can show me that we have fewer students in our school district using drugs than there were before we adopted the use of the Dare program, I will change my mind. The indication is that our students  are doing more drugs than they were before KISD had this program, and as was predicted the night the Board approved the program, there are now gangs in our area that were not there before. The Dare program just teaches students about things they didn't need to know about, piques their interest in things they wouldn't have even thought about, and mostly serves to open up a can of worms for our students.

If our school district moves to institute true accountability-based activities, then I maintain that our students will move quickly toward superiority.  As a school district, we have a rare opportunity to be extraordinarily "different" from the masses around us, who, in my opinion, are bogged down in a morass of mediocrity that can only get worse if the status quo is maintained.  If any of the "stuff" that has been proffered by educational gurus as being "new" or "innovative" were of any value, why has it failed to make any difference?  The system was not broken, and it did not need fixing.

I am becoming increasingly agitated by those who act as though they do not know what they are doing and that they are innocent of the effects of Outcome Based Education upon our school children.  Just for the record I offer this definition and assessment of this movement by one of my friends.  "Outcome Based Education is an unproved model for delivery of instruction in our schools.  The word 'outcomes' means expected behaviors, attitudes, values, and beliefs which replace concrete, factual knowledge.  OBE's actual 'outcome' is the creation of a conforming worker class.  Resignation to authority and compromise replace individuality and competition.  According to the 1992 OBE Conference, 'outcomes' include:  communicator, creative producer, concerned citizen, self-directed learner, collaborator, and critical thinker. (A list rife with educatorese expressions!) The term OBE is synonymous with the business world's TQM [Total Quality Management' and with "Mastery Learning.")  To reach these outcomes, schools replace phonics with sight reading, rote arithmetic computation with calculators, American history with current events, grammar-spelling-proper sentence structure with holistic expressionism, ability grouping with cooperative group learning by diverse learners, and objective grading with effort and participation assessment.  A student goes at his/her own pace, no matter how long it takes, engaging in retesting, remediating, and peer tutoring.  The teacher becomes the "facilitator;" the students teach each other; and the books go out the window.  The goal is to learn "how to learn," (process) not to learn any subject matter with lifelong "learning" (whatever that means) as the ultimate target. Forty one percent of the school day is spent on non-academics such as drug education, peer counseling, group diversity, students as teachers, situational ethics to resolve conflicts, sex education, and programs to encourage self-esteem instead of real and true achievement.  OBE seeks to ultimately usurp parental rights."

Anyone who can not understand the implication of this definition or what it means to our country is probably the product themselves of an OBE school system.  I can only wonder, given the intent of this movement, why people who purport to "love children" can be leading such a cause.  I cannot in good conscience hold the position I hold and be a part of such nonsense.  OBE is an un-American movement in my opinion. It is subversive and undermines everything that I was taught in my schools as a child or by my parents or that I currently believe.  I know too much about this movement to believe that it is innocent.  It is funded by huge, well endowed and untaxed foundations whose board members are known liberal thinkers, by large corporations that have a hidden agenda to acquire "workers," and by the federal government whose leaders, in order to perpetuate themselves in office, must have a dependent electorate.  There are those in our country who have taken advantage of a number of efforts and are tying them together to accomplish some rather questionable goals, in my opinion.  I realize that most people do not understand the grandiose nature of this plan, but I am certain that it exists, and I want no part of it. 

[In retrospect, it appears that this treatise that I wrote in the Spring of 1996 expresses my dismay regarding the Katy Independent School District, the superintendent, Leonard Merrell,  and the Board of Trustees and quantifies the frustration that I had at every Board meeting.  My resignation after the May 1996 Board meeting was precipitated by all of these matters. Ask yourself if you know any other Board member, ever, who cared as much as I did about students and their teachers, knew as much about their issues as I did, and who had a grasp of those issues and saw through the falsity of many of them.  I think you don't.]