California Senate Approves Bill That Could Jail Parents if Kids are Chronically Truant
Yesterday, the California Senate approved a bill that would hold parents responsible if their children are chronically truant. The bill would let prosecutors charge parents with misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail and $2,000 fine if their kids miss too much school. Chronic truancy would be defined in a separate pending bill as missing 10 percent or more of the school year without a valid excuse.
The new law would apply only to parents or guardians of children age 6 or older in kindergarten through eighth grade. Prosecutors would have to prove the parents failed to reasonably supervise and encourage the student to attend school. Judges could delay the punishment to parents as an incentive to get their children to class.
State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), said his bill, SB 317, is a public safety measure because children who do poorly in school or drop out are more likely to commit crimes. “Three-quarters of our state inmate populations are high school dropouts,” Leno said. San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for Attorney General, sought the truancy legislation.
I strongly support parents being involved in the education of their children. I believe that it is the duty of a parent to try to instill good study habits in their kids and emphasize the importance of a good education. But I also understand reality. If a child does not want to learn, then no matter how hard the parents might try to get them to attend class and pay attention, it simply won’t work. An unmotivated child will not learn. And especially at the junior high level, a parent who is miles away at work while their child is at school will have a difficult time preventing their child from cutting class.
Putting a parent in jail for their child’s truancy will do nothing to fix the situation. If anything, it would only make things worse. With the parent in jail, who is going to watch the child? The kid will simply wind up sliding even further into the depths of society.
And for Senator Leno to equate poor school attendance with higher crime is misguided. Correlation is not the same as causation. Leno is insinuating that a lack of school attendance leads to crime. Well, I would argue that it is the poor moral character of the child that comes first. It is exactly that character defect in the child that causes them to both skip out on class and commit crimes.
Education is a privilege. The means to get an education are available and provided by the government. In order to get a proper education, it requires a willingness on the part of the student to want to learn. No matter how hard a parent tries, if the kid doesn’t want to be there, the kid will not learn anything. At that point, one has to wonder whether keeping such a student in class is even worth is. Why not allow the unmotivated student to remain separate from those who actually take their education seriously? That would mean one less distraction in the classroom for the other students and one fewer troublemaker for the teachers to have to deal with. If the parent wants to fight hard to motivate the student to turn their life around and get an education, that’s great. If not, then that’s something for that family to deal with.
The government needs to realize that not every child is cut out to be an excellent student. We need to stop wasting our energy on those who are unwilling to put forth the necessary effort to succeed in life. Instead of punishing parents for the bad decisions on the parts of their kids, we should focus on giving those who are trying their best every possible avenue to succeed.
Please visit my official campaign website at:
www.Shahab2010.com
Cal State Demnds Students Be Prepared for College
I just read an interesting newspaper article (The Argus, “Cal State demands more of students”) that sheds a lot of light on the current state of the education system in California.
All high school juniors in California are tested for English and math proficiency. Needless to say, a whole lot of the state’s high school students are not proficient in math and English. Even among students who have met the California State University system’s acceptance standards by earning at least a B average in high school, about 60 percent of Cal State’s incoming freshmen lack proficiency in either one or both of the tested subjects.
At San Jose State, 33 percent of incoming freshmen are not proficient in math; 49 percent are not proficient in English. At Cal State East Bay, 54 percent need remedial math courses; 66 percent need remedial English courses. And at San Francisco State, 43 percent need math; 45 percent need English. As a result of their lack of proficiency, many students devote much of their freshman year to remedial studies, which do not count for college credit and add cost and time to earning a degree.
Yesterday, in order to better prepare students for college-level work, leaders at the Cal State University system approved a policy that requires academically deficient students to take remedial courses before starting their freshman year. The new Early Start policy, which will take effect in 2012, demands that students who fail proficiency tests take Cal State-sponsored courses during their senior year in high school, online through the Internet before the start of their college freshman year, or in summer school. Each Cal State campus will be responsible for creating and paying for its Early Start program.
According to officials, the new program will not affect student admissions, and Cal State won’t reject students if they complete and Early Start program and still need additional help. Cal State campuses will keep remedial classes for freshmen who still need them, but many campuses aspire to downsize their remedial programs in order to cut costs.
Surprisingly to me, some people are pushing back against the Early Start program. Some claim that participation may force some students to quit after-school or summer jobs and seek Pell grants or other financial aid for support. Others feel that such a program would be ineffectual. And many professors seem to feel that students, even if they are unprepared for college-level work, will somehow become good students if they are allowed to be on a college campus and in classes with college-level students.
You have got be kidding me, right? Some people think the Early Start program goes too far; I don’t think it goes far enough. Why are we admitting students who are not prepared for college-level work into the Cal State University system? Clearly, if 60 percent of the incoming freshmen are not proficient in both math and English, then the standards to get in to Cal State school are far too low. How is it possible that students with B averages in high school are not proficient in math and English? It boggles the mind. Perhaps we need to start holding teachers more accountable for the grades that they are handing out to students.
Everyone talks about the costs of higher education and how both the University of California system and the Cal State system need more funding. Well, if we stopped admitting all of those unprepared students into those schools, then those systems wouldn’t need anywhere near as much funding. I do not feel it is the proper role of higher education to accept any and all students. The better way of doing things would be to reserve admission spots at U.C. and Cal State schools for students who are actually prepared to do college-level work and who are likely to be able to succeed when faced with a more rigorous course load. Sending unprepared students to these institutions of higher education only serves to place a higher financial burden on the system and drain valuable university resources. And it isn’t necessarily the best move for the unprepared students either, as it will cost the students more time and money while they take classes to catch up with their fellow students.
Ideally, students would have worked hard while in high school in order to prepare themselves for college-level work upon graduation. But in reality, many students simply do not put forth that necessary effort while they are in high school. Or if they are not being sufficiently challenged in high school in order to become prepared for college, many students, instead of speaking up and demanding higher standards of education, simply cruise along until graduation day. So, some of the blame falls on the shoulders of the students for not being prepared for college by the end of high school. Students who are not prepared for higher education can go to a community college to get the remedial education that they need before applying to enter a four-year university. Only after they are properly prepared for an institution of higher education should these students be accepted into a U.C. or Cal State school.
And on a final note, college professors insinuating that unprepared students should be accepted into four-year universities because they will somehow flourish once they are there is yet another example of how out of touch with reality many of our educators are. By that line of reasoning, all students should automatically be accepted into four-year universities upon graduation from high school because the magic learning bug will miraculously strike them once they get there. That idea is ludicrous. Only students who are prepared for college-level work should be admitted to a university. A student must be qualified before they get accepted. Why is that concept so difficult for some people to comprehend? If you aren’t prepared, then you don’t deserve to be there. If a student wants to get into a university, that student should put in the required work to be able to get in to that school. Without that motivation to succeed, many students will continue to graduate from high school completely unprepared to step foot on the grounds of a university campus.
Please visit my official campaign website at:
www.Shahab2010.com
High School Graduates Not Prepared for College
The front page of yesterday’s edition of my local newspaper, The Argus, featured two stories emphasizing the reality that many California high school students who graduate with excellent grades eventually get to a university campus and find out they are not prepared for college-level work.
One of the stories opened up by following an 18-year-old high school student named Wesley Sims. In a science class, Sims’ teacher has the students spend the entire period drawing a crayfish, which was pulled from a tub, from different angles. The teacer says the exercise is meant to “sharpen their observational skills.” Other teachers might even tout it as a creative, hands-on lesson. Sims tells the truth to the reporter by emphasizing that such “easy work” does not really do anything to prepare him for college.
At an Oakland school board meeting last months, Sims spoke out by saying, “I woke up to take my SAT, and me being a 4.4-GPA student, I’m like, ‘All right, SATs, let’s go, I’m ready. I opened my book and knew, let’s say 25 percent of the things that were going on in the book.” Sims has been accepted to Cal State Northridge, which was his first-choice school. He will be taking his college placement test next month. That same test resulted in some of Sims’ friends, many of them honor roll students, being placed in remedial college courses.
The other article noted that many students who graduate at the top of their high school class find that they are not ready to succeed in college. “About 20 percent of the freshmen who enter Cal State East Bay with a 4.0 GPA need at least some remediation in math, English, or both.” And when you include all first-time freshmen in the California State University system, that number approaches 60 percent. “Most of the 25,000 Cal State students placed in remedial classes each year held at least a B average in high school and completed a long list of university-approved college preparatory courses, as the admissions system requires.”
Is anybody really surprised about any of this? I have long held the belief that the vast majority of public school education is nothing more that government-sanctioned babysitting. Many of our students are not being taught the facts and skills that they will need to succeed in life. Far too often, self-aggrandizing teachers will say how important it is to stroke the egos of students and not push them too hard. They feel that if they expect too much out of them, the students will simply quit trying and possibly drop out of school.
I witnessed all of this firsthand. I graduated as valedictorian of my high school in 1996. There were some wonderful teachers at my school who worked hard to teach us valuable lessons. And then there were some teachers who weren’t even good as babysitters. Some students, the ones who took their education seriously, found a way to learn and managed to graduate with a real education. Other students simply slid by until graduation. And when I got to U.C. Berkeley, I saw many students who were severely lacking in knowledge of basic concepts and who had absolutely no personal discipline or experience at working hard in order to learn. Quite frankly, many of these students should not only have never been anywhere near the campus of a prestigious university such as U.C. Berkeley, but they should not have been on any university campus anywhere in the United States.
The question then arises as to how we fix this situation where the education system is failing to adequately educate the students. There are some who seem to believe that the answer lies in providing more money to schools and education. Well, I hate to burst their bubble, but simply throwing more money at the problem is not going to fix it. This is especially true when many of those on the front lines of the education system, the teachers, are not doing their jobs properly. Instead of these touchy-feely notions of making kids feel proud of their sub-par performances, we need to demand that teachers actually instruct students with a vigorous courseload of essential skills. Instead of wasting valuable resources on peripheral skills that sound good in concept but yield questionable real-life results, we should get back to teaching the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic, science, history, and government. These are the skills that the youth of America are going to need if they want to grow up and become the next generation of leaders in the global marketplace.
Sure, there will be students who will not be able to pass the more rigorous classes that I am suggesting need to be implemented. That’s fine. Not everyone is suited to move on to higher education. There will always be room in society for those who are not willing to work hard in order to succeed. But that’s part of the beauty of America. Those who are willing to put in the extra effort will be able to distinguish themselves from their peers. They will be able to separate themselves from the pack and carve a path for success for themselves. But the important thing is to not dumb down the entire learning experience for everyone in order to spare some from failing. Those who are going to fail should simply get used to it. They need to learn, at an early age, that they must exert themselves if they want to succeed in life. That is how the real world works. In the real world, if you don’t perform up to par, you will fail. And those who work hard and succeed will be rewarded.
We also need to be able to replace teachers who are not doing their part to educate our children. Instead of unions refusing to allow less than adequate teachers from being fired, we need to adopt a policy where great teachers are rewarded for their work with higher pay and lousy teachers are dismissed. After all, if the real goal is to educate, then the emphasis should not be on protecting the teaching careers of bad teachers. The emphasis should be on providing the best possible education for the children. If certain teachers are failing to teach the kids, they need to be removed from the classroom and should find another line of work. Once again, successful teacher should be rewarded and failure on the part of teachers should result in them losing their jobs. Why is that such a difficult concept for some people to understand?
But not all of the blame can simply be placed on the shoulders of the teachers. The ultimate responsibility for the education of a child is placed on both the child and the child’s parents. A child who is not motivated to learn will not learn. Ideally, the drive to succeed will come from within the child. But if that child does not inherently have such a drive, then it is the duty of the parent to nurture the child to want to succeed.
Once both the parent and the child have a clear goal of wanting to learn, then the child can tell the parent exactly what is going on in the classroom. Not only am I personally not too far removed from school to remember it, but I have talked to many young people about what goes on from the opening bell until the bell rings to end the school day. If parents knew exactly what went on in class on a daily basis, it would blow their minds. Sure, a good teacher would take it upon him or herself to communicate with parents. But, in reality, that doesn’t happen. (Even more so when it’s a bad teacher who does not want parents to exactly what kind of poor education is being delivered to the students.) A child who cares about his or her education and who feels that they are not receiving the education that they desire can communicate this to their parents. The parents can then take their concerns to the teacher, principal, and/or school board. And, at the end of the day, if the school district does not deliver the kind of education that the child deserves, then the parent should be able to pull their child out of that failing school and move them to either another public school or to a private school of their choosing.
Please visit my official campaign website at:
www.Shahab2010.com
Change in UC’s Freshman Admissions Policy
Considering the decision earlier today by the University of California Board of Regents to increase undergraduate student fees by 32 percent, it is no surprise that that is the UC story that everyone is talking about at the moment. Arguments can be made that this is not a huge deal because students can basically carry out a cost-benefit analysis and determine whether the benefits of a UC education are worth the cost. If students believe that a UC education is worth the cost, then they can find a way to get the money to pay for their education.
But earlier this evening, I was given information that causes me to believe that there is a more pressing issue concerning the UC system these days. (I am not sure whether the information that I was given is meant for the public viewing yet. As a result, for the moment, I will not disclose my source for the information.) In February 2009, the UC Board of Regents adopted a new freshman admissions policy that would significantly increase the applicant pool and reduce the historic guarantee of freshman admission for UC–eligible high school students from the top 12.5 percent of California’s graduating seniors down to only the top 10 percent. The stated goal of the change in admission policy is to increase the diversity of the student population at UC campuses, and the new policy is scheduled to take effect for freshman entering the UC system in Fall 2012.
Before I go any further, and in the spirit of full disclosure, I want to clearly state that I attended the University of California at Berkeley from August 1996 to May 2000, graduating at the top of my undergraduate class at the Haas School of Business. As valedictorian of Washington High School’s class of 1996, I got into UC Berkeley based on merit.
I have always been a proponent of students being accepted into the UC system based on merit, regardless of the color of their skin. I publicly stated this position back during the days of Proposition 209 when I was still in high school. I have always felt that, in a perfect world, we would not feel any sort of need to fill racial quotas. I believe that affirmative action is a form of reverse discrimination that should not be tolerated in public life. Accordingly, I believe the stated goal for the Fall 2012 change in UC admissions policy is flawed from the beginning.
But even if you disagree with my position on affirmative action, the data that I was given today should still cause the public to reject the new admissions policy. In response to a request, the UC Office of the President has conducted a simulation of what the effects of the new admissions policy would have been for each of the nine UC campuses if it had been applied to 2007 high school graduates. The simulation study looked at two possible scenarios: a small applicant pool increase and a large applicant pool increase. According to the simulation:
- The percentage of African American admissions would have decreased at eight UC undergraduate campuses under both scenarios. At UC Davis, the percentage of African Americans would have dropped under the small applicant pool increase, but increase under the large pool increase scenario.
- The percentage of Asian American admissions would have decreased at eight UC campuses under both scenarios. At UC Riverside, the percentage of Asian Americans would have decreased under the large applicant pool scenario, but increase under the large one.
- The percentage of white admissions would have increased significantly at eight UC campuses under both scenarios. At UC Merced, the percentage of whites would have declined under both scenarios.
- The percentage of Latino admissions would have declined at Berkeley, Irvine, Santa Barbara, and Riverside under both scenarios and dropped at Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Cruz under one of two scenarios. The percentage of Latino admissions would have increased at Davis and Merced under both scenarios.
- System-wide, the overall percentage of African American and Asian American admissions would have declined under both scenarios. In fact, African American admission would have been 27 percent lower than what actually occurred had the new admissions policy been in place in 2007. The percentage of white admissions would have increased significantly under both scenarios. The overall percentage of Latino admissions would have increased. But the Latino data is questionable, largely due to cautions by UC officials about interpreting the data for UC Merced, where the percentage of Latino admissions jumped wildly upward. (On a side note, somebody should address the fact that the UC system seems to be using UC Merced as a campus to dump Latino students who do not qualify for admission at the more competitive schools.)
In summary, if the stated goal of the new admissions policy is to increase diversity in the UC system, the simulation conducted by the UC Office of the President demonstrates that it fails miserably. It appears the only thing that is certain is that the new policy does nothing more than to increase the admission of undergraduate white students to UC campuses. Whether one feels that affirmative action is good or not, the data shows that the new UC admissions policy does nothing to increase diversity. Consequently, there is absolutely no reason to implement it.
I believe we need to pressure the UC Board of Regents to rescind their change in undergraduate admissions policy. In addition to pressure from the public, I call on members of the California State Legislature to ask the Board of Regents to prevent the new admissions policy from ever going into effect.