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A;Program That WORKS      School Boards and Educational Leaders have struggled for many years with school disciplinary issues; more specifically the negative impact of disciplinary issues on student learning for the offender and the offended (Balfanz, R, byrnes, v., and Fox, J 2018). Traditionally, school discipline codes have been based on conformity and modeled on the criminal justice system. Rules (laws) are established, penalties for infractions are set, incidents investigated, students are charged and penalties are imposed. Order has been kept by punishing those that do not or will not conform, rewarding those that do, and, if the infractions continue, either pushing out or assigning the habitual offenders to an alternative setting. Disciplinary consequences in schools and classes are very often as much about allowing conforming students the opportunity to learn without disruption as about providing a consequence for the habitually disruptive student, ...

Terms of Enrichment           It would seem that Congress, almost without anyone noticing, has set themselves up over the last 60 years or so to a point where “politician” has become an acceptable, if not necessarily respected, profession. Up until the 1950’s, serving as a member of Congress was still considered, barring the occasional national emergency or world war, part time employment, and elected citizens not only kept their primary jobs they did not intend to make politics a career.  The original intent (you can look it up) was that serving was an obligation to be endured and not a career choice. “What’s wrong with politics as a career?” you might ask. “Shouldn’t we be glad that someone wants the responsibility of helping run our country effectively?” Why, yes, I answer quickly. We should indeed if that were the case. What we see instead is that Congress lives in its own world divorced completely from the realities of the c...

     Mama said that every guy that plays Little League, whether he ends his baseball career at that level or not, considers himself an authority on all things baseball from that moment on regardless of whether he was an All Star player or the perennial bench warmer.  She further noted that the ability level and accomplishments he remembers are seldom consistent with the remembrances of others that saw him play. The older you get, the better you were. I’m pretty sure she was basing her observations on my baseball experiences, but that’s purely speculative on my part.      We have been watching our grandsons play baseball for many years now, from T Ball and the amoeba defense to high school and every level in between.  We have accumulated an enormous amount of equipment that must accompany us to their games. We have a tent to provide shade, a cooler to keep drinks cold, a designated bag for peanuts, pretzels and snacks, froz...

Going Pro     I’ve given it a lot of thought lately, and I have made the decision to go pro. For a lot of kids around age 21 or so that means entering the draft for a professional sport, but I used my college eligibility a couple of years ago and, despite the fact that my backyard football, church league basketball and Little League baseball careers made a pretty interesting highlight reel in my own mind, I never received any scholarship offers for any sport beside saxophone.  That one worked out pretty well, and the $50 a semester led me to a career in music and weekend rock and roll gigs that continue even now.  No, I won’t be going pro in any professional athletic arena, but have decided that far too many people now seem to be anti something or other, and it seems to be a gigantic waste of time to spend your life always being against something rather than standing for something else.     Let me give you an example.  Rathe...

The debate in education over whether or not standardized test scores accurately measure what testing advocates say they measure continues. One question often heard by testing advocates is “if we don’t use tests what CAN we use to measure our schools?” After reading Peter Smagorinsky’s article in the AJC Get Schooled blog “What if schools focusing on improving relationships rather than test scores?” I wondered if the example he gave of the unnamed Superintendent in North Georgia might be an isolated case.  It is not. Taylor-Made Learning       Gordon County is in the northwest corner of Georgia, and the city of Calhoun, the county seat, is along the banks of the Oostanaula River where it joins Oothcalooga Creek.  Until 1835, Calhoun was part of the Cherokee Nation, and the area retains many Native American names as part of its geography.  Highway 41 passes through the center of town and I-75 on the eastern edge, leading to Chattanooga 40 ...

Hey, Johnny, what are you rebelling against? Johnny : What've you got?    Marlon Brando - Johnny in “The Wild One” 1953      Schools are, and have always been, a reflection of our society. The societal issues we face are, like the people of our society, a  wonderfully illogical mix of multiple beliefs and interests, tragic and triumphant circumstances, individually unique backgrounds and talents and seldom prone to universal  solutions.  Over the past few years I have heard - and I’m sure you have too - ideas presented as solutions to violence in schools including changes in gun laws, upgrades to mental health screenings, arming teachers, metal detectors in all schools, armed guards patrolling the entrances and halls, rapid response systems, improved background checks, requiring daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, restoring prayer (it never left, by the way...lawyers just changed who led it),  the i...