The 2009 results of the OECD's PISA exam released in November 2010 are a clear indicator that the current state of education in the US is dismal. President Obama touched on the subject in his State of the Union address last night. A Google search using the keywords us students falling behind brings up 493,000 documents. Obviously the subject is on a lot of people's minds. Amidst all of the handwringing and angst over what is wrong with US students, it's hard to believe that at one time students in the United States were the best educated and highest achieving in the modern world. What happened? How did we fall so far behind? And most importantly...how will we ever catch back up? The change occurred when educational systems stopped looking at students as individuals with unique academic strengths and weaknesses and began to regard them as a herd that, for efficiency's sake, needed to be pushed down the educational path en masse.

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DISD administrators are mulling over the possibility of creating a middle school for students not yet prepared for high school but who are older than the average aged middle school student. The proposed plan calls for 200 8th grade students at least 15 ½ years old or who have failed the TAKS reading and math tests three times to enter the school in the fall of 2011. 7th grade students who are older than 14 ½ years would follow in 2012 and 6th grade students older than 13 ½ years would begin attending in 2013. Attendance at this school would not be voluntary with assignment dictated by the new policy. The goal of the school is to help reduce the dropout rate and to ensure that ultimately students would be entering high school at the same age as their peers.

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US News & World Report recently looked at 21,000 schools in 48 states and the District of Columbia in a search for the 100 best performing high schools. Rankings were based in part on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams. Three schools in Dallas were named to this list...two in the top ten. Congratulations to all the faculty, students, and administrators at these campuses!

• School for the Talented and Gifted at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center Dallas, TX (5)
• School of Science and Engineering Magnet Dallas, TX (8)
• Highland Park High School Dallas, TX (71)

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Based on articles found on the DISD Blog and in The Texas Tribune, it seems that school districts across the state, including the DISD, are getting tough on "crime".

In the first article it is reported that trustees will vote on a proposal that will require employees to report crimes such as misdemeanor DWIs, public intoxication, and disorderly conduct if two or more incidents occur in a 12-month period. The policy will state that these crimes involve "moral turpitude". Currently DISD employees are given three workdays to advise district administration of any arrests, indictments, charges, convictions, or if granted deferred adjudication and to report if they have pled no contest to any felony or misdemeanor involving crimes of "moral turpitude". This reporting period will not change. [So, what the heck is moral turpitude? From the book Texas Sentencing we learn that "moral turpitude is a legal term of art with no generally accepted definition. In general, "crimes of moral turpitude" cover conduct involving dishonesty, falsehood, and deliberate violence. Duncan v. Board of Disciplinary Appeals, 898 S.W.2d 759 (Tex. 1995)."]

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Recently I ran across a list of 100 books published by the BBC; their claim being that most people will have read 6 of the 100 books listed. While there seems to be some confusion about how the list was created and in fact what books were on the original list...it did raise the question in my mind about what it means to be well read and if in fact being well read is important.

When I was six years old my baby sister was born. My exhausted mom had set a seven o'clock bedtime for me in an effort to garner a few moments of quiet time for herself and my dad. The "plan" unfortunately backfired a bit as my rambunctious self was wide awake and ready to go each morning by 5:00 a.m. until...she hit upon the idea of leaving me a "present" that I could have as long as I stayed in bed and quiet until she came to get me up. That first present was a well-worn copy of Joanna Spyri's Heidi.

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