Thoughts on a summer day

especially when someone left an unscreened window open.

Nothing seems to please a fly so much as to be taken for a currant; and if it can be baked in a cake and palmed off on the unwary, it dies happy.---Mark Twain

God in his wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why
---Ogden Nash

Hope everyone has a Great Holiday.

Antietam Surges Into The Lead

In a blantant attempt to steal more headline space from Brandywine, the Antietam board raised their tax rates 9 percent and surged into the lead at 28.06 mills compared to a misery 26.5 mills for Brandywine. This should insure them the constant references in the Reading Eagle as the most heavily taxed district in the country at least for one year.

Knock Knock

Hello Justice Souter this is the government we want your house. Priceless all that it would take for it to happen is 3 N.H. city counselmen with a sense of poetic justice.

Kutztown And You

At least Brandywine is not the only area school that is in the national press. Kutztown who has now been Slashdotted (the premiere site for geek news) for their crackdown on the criminal in their midst.

Instead of promoting technology in education the Kutztown overreaction has the possibility of throwing a big monkey wrench into the process. Students that grew up with computers are going to try and tweak them to their fit their needs. The "P" in PC does stand for personal and Apple has always tried to promote the image of the computer for "the people" not the beige box of "the man". Criminal prosecuting students for what comes naturally and is the first thing done by any savvy computer user is a grave mistake . Hopefully this can be cleared up but once in the justice system the events have a tendency take on a life of their own.

This was the first year for this program. Instead of prosecuting the students in hindsight they should have had a contest to see who could modify theirs first and use the information to strengthen security. The school administration also share a good deal of blame for using an apparent readily available administrative password 50Trexler that violates basic security precautions. They might as well have posted the combination to the school safe on the front door.

There should be some punishment that fits the crime but a felony conviction has serious long range repercussions that are way beyond the reported committed offenses. Depending on the state where they will eventually reside.

• Voting - not allowed for 5 years after the completion of sentence in PA barred for life else where.
• Holding office
• Working in anyway for the government, local, state or Federal. If you run a company of your own and are a felon - your company is ineligible to bid on any project or supply any goods or services.
• Owning a gun - 10 year sentence if one even tries to. 18 USC 922(g) makes it illegal and 18 USC 924(a)(2) sets the penalty.
• Being bonded
• Getting a good job - anyone that hires a felon can have a judgment for monetary damages against them for "negligent hiring" - the courts will then take possibly all their assets and garnishee their earnings for life if the judgment is big enough. The employee would have to harm someone - but what employer will hire a felon knowing the courts could de facto bankrupt them for life if the person who once committed a felony might do something worse.
• Keeping a job - "negligent retention" law prescribes the above for failing to fire a felon.
• Travel - Canada among other countries forbids convicted felons from entering the country.

That is only a partial list. It gets better since these students are minors and can't legally enter into a binding contract their parents are responsible and legally the ones that committed the crime. There are some serious laws state and federal laws out there passed with the best intentions by politicians with no clue on how to handle matters related to technology. If Brandywine gets into the act and starts handing out laptops under these conditions just say NO. Otherwise you will be putting your child's future and your own in jeopardy.

Other Drop Out Studies

WASHINGTON -- Most states are reporting lofty high school graduation rates that far exceed reality and mislead the public about how schools are performing, a private analysis found. The majority of states - 36 of them - say 80 percent to 97 percent of their high school students graduate on time, according to state figures provided to the Education Department.

Those numbers show "rampant dishonesty," said Kati Haycock, director of The Education Trust, an advocacy organization for poor and minority students. The Trust reviewed the 2002-03 graduation rates that states had to provide this year.
A series of independent analyses shows the graduation rate across the states is closer to 70 percent, meaning almost one-third of students don't finish on time - or at all. The nation's governors have agreed, which puts their position at odds with their own state data.
...
Even President Bush and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings have said this year that only 68 of every 100 ninth-graders will graduate on time. Yet only 11 states put their graduation rate somewhere in the 60 percent or 70 percent range, the new report finds.
....
North Carolina, for example, gets its rate by measuring the percentage of graduates who finish in four years. Under that method, the state reported a whopping 97 percent graduation rate. But because only graduates are reviewed, the state doesn't count a single dropout. More

Black Day For America

WASHINGTON (AP) - A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.
The 5-4 ruling - assailed by dissenting Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled in America - was a defeat for Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.
As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue. Article
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Forget about sewage and high density housing. If your home that has been in your family for 200 years is in the way of a Grande type housing project just start house hunting.

What is in Kutztown's Water

First the Mayor is banned from talking to employees and now they call in the police because students actually took their school issued laptop and reconfigured it to reach banned web sites and download music. What in the Sam Hill did they expect would happen? Even if it is against school policy why bring in the police? Just charge the students the cost of reconfiguring the machines and any other school punishment that fits the crime. It is not like they used computers to mail in bomb threats or print out risqué pictures for distribution like in a neighboring school district.
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More than a dozen Kutztown High School students have been charged with misusing and altering district-owned computers that were part of an innovative program in the high school.
...
Kutztown Police Chief Theodore R. Cole said his department acted on a complaint from the school district.

When reached on his mobile phone Monday, he said he did not know the seriousness of the charges because he was out of the office.

But parents said the charges are felonies. They said the students ranged from freshmen to juniors.
“I don't think they were aware of what this could do to their future,” said LeAnn M. Shoemaker, the mother of a student charged.
The parents said the students obtained administrator passwords that enabled them to circumvent security software on district-issued and district-owned Apple laptop computers. They said the students were able to access banned Web sites and download music, as well as reconfigure the computers. They insisted, however, the students could not access grades or cause permanent damage to the district's computer system.
“Our network was never jeopardized,” [Superintendent ] Winkler agreed. Article

Teachers Leave Those Kids Alone

Marginal Revolution has a blog on the latest research on homework. It ain't good for ye.

LeTendre and Baker led a team of researchers who analyzed educational data collected in the fourth, eighth and 12th grades in more than 40 countries in 1994, as well as data from an identical study in 50 countries, conducted five years later.
Virtualy wherever they looked, the researchers found no correlation between the average amount of homework assigned in a country and academic achievement. For example, teachers in many countries with the highest scoring students -- such as Japan, the Czech Republic and Denmark -- gave little homework. At the other end of the spectrum, countries with very low average achievement scores -- Thailand, Greece and Iran -- have teachers who assign a great deal of homework, Baker noted.
Note that U.S. teachers have been increasing homework amounts, while Japanese teachers have been decreasing it. In neither country do general achievement levels appear to be responding.

One night changes a life, and Calif. town

The chant began late in the fourth quarter in the basketball gym at Clovis East High. The students started it first, clapping their hands in unison and pounding the bleachers with their feet. It didn't take long for the parents to pick it up, too. The noise grew until the whole gym seemed to shake. "We want Ryno. We want Ryno.

Ryan was a special education student who would do anything to fit in and worked tirelessly to make that happen. His basketball career began as a ninth grader passing out balls to the girls' team. Then he hooked on with the boys' team, getting there every morning at 6:30, helping out in drills, running the practice clock and cleaning up afterward.

Now, he sat proudly on the sideline in his own white No. 12 uniform." Article

Hawks No Match For The Bullets

Come on ladies can't you just blow somebody out and stop giving your supporters heart problems. Congratulations!!

When Brandywine loaded the bases with nobody out in the fourth inning Monday, Gina Gurgick wasn't overly concerned.''We were in a situation like that last week and got out of it,'' said Bethlehem Catholic's senior pitcher, referring to a one-out jam in the top of the 14th inning in last Tuesday's win over Lakeland.But this time there would be no great escape. Brandywine turned that opportunity into three runs — the first given up by Gurgick in two weeks — then held on in the seventh for a 3-2 victory at Patriots Park that ended Becahi's Cinderella season.

...

The Golden Hawks (15-11), who needed a late-season upset over Liberty just to clinch a playoff berth, got within a game of playing for their first PIAA Class 2A title. Instead, the Bullets (23-4) chase their first at 10 a.m. Friday at Shippensburg University against Bald Eagle Area


http://www.mcall.com/sports/all-becahijun14,0,4209127.story?coll=all-sports-hed

School Choice Program

A series of articles on the largest experiment with school choice in the country. This is the best thing about having 50 states and a multitude of indiependent school districts. New ideas can be tried without effecting all the students in the country or state. Programs can be tailored made to fit local conditions without a one size fits all national/state policy. Everyone else can see what works and make needed changes if they are appicable to their situation.

Lessons from the voucher schools
In 1990, Milwaukee began a revolutionary experiment to expand school choice for low-income students.Now 15 years old, Milwaukee's school choice program is very much like a teenager - heartwarmingly good at times, disturbingly bad at others, and the subject of myths, misunderstandings and ignorance, even by the adults entrusted with its welfare.
....
Creating a new school through the choice program is easier than most people expected. Creating a good new school is harder than most thought it would be.
....
Parental choice by itself does not assure quality. Some parents pick bad schools - and keep their children in them long after it is clear the schools are failing. This has allowed some of the weakest schools in the program to remain in business.
...
There is no evidence that voucher schools have "creamed" the best students from Milwaukee Public Schools, an early concern expressed by some critics. Except for the fact that the public schools are obligated to serve all special education students, the kids in the voucher program appear have the same backgrounds - and bring the same problems - as those in the public schools.
....
Indeed, the Journal Sentinel found that too much of the political debate over vouchers is divorced from what's going on in classrooms. With the exception of the element of religion, it's the same story that's being played out in urban classrooms across America - a story of poverty, limited resources, poor leadership and broken families. MORE

Softball Schedule

This just in from our intrepid sports reporter:
The softball team will play Bethlehem Central Catholic at 4:00 pm on Monday at Patriots (Pats Park) in Allentown. The winner from this game will compete in the state championship game on Friday at 10:00 am at Shippensburg University. So come out and support the Lady Bullets. GOOD LUCK LADIES!!

No Teacher Left Behnd

Posting this in its entirely totally without permission because this sounds like a plan and agreeing with a New York Times Editorial is something new.

Behind Every Grad...

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

You don't expect to learn much at a graduation ceremony - especially if you're the commencement speaker. But I learned about a truly important program at the Williams College graduation last Sunday.

Every year, in addition to granting honorary degrees, Williams also honors four high school teachers. But not just any high school teachers. Williams asks the 500 or so members of its senior class to nominate the high school teachers who had a profound impact on their lives. Then each year a committee goes through the roughly 50 student nominations, does its own research with the high schools involved and chooses the four most inspiring teachers.
Each of the four teachers is given $2,000, plus a $1,000 donation to his or her high school. The winners and their families are then flown to Williams, located in the lush Berkshires, and honored as part of the graduation weekend.
On the day before last Sunday's graduation, all four of the high school teachers, and the students who nominated them, sat on stage at a campuswide event, and the dean of the college talked about how and why each high school teacher had influenced the Williams student, reading from the students' nominating letters. Later, the four teachers were introduced at a dinner along with the honorary degree recipients.
"Every time we do this, one of the [high school] teachers says to me, 'This is one of the great weekends of my life,' " said Williams's president, Morton Owen Schapiro. "But it is great for us, too. ...
"When you are at a place like Williams and you are able to benefit from these wonderful kids, sometimes you take it for granted. You think we produce these kids. But as faculty members, we should always be reminded that we stand on the shoulders of great high school teachers, we get great material to work with: well educated, well trained, with a thirst for learning.
"So we have been doing our little part to recognize that. ... We take these teachers, who are not well compensated and often underappreciated, and give them a great weekend."
If you think these awards are not important for the teachers receiving them, then you don't know anything about teachers.
I hurried to get my cap and gown off so I could interview Myra Loris, an international relations teacher at Highland Park High School, north of Chicago, who specializes in preparing kids to take part in the Model U.N. program. She was nominated by Alice Brown, a Williams senior who said in her nominating letter that Ms. Loris was a "very important teacher, role model and mentor. ... Myra has inspired many students, like me, to pursue careers in law, international relations and political advocacy."
When she got the call from Williams saying she had won, Ms. Loris recalled, "I just kept saying, 'Wow.' " A teacher for 23 years, now nearing retirement, she added, "I just found it very affirming in a Zenlike way," an acknowledgement "that my days have value, my life has had some worth. Public school teachers don't get that very often," especially with No Child Left Behind restrictions, which now require teachers to teach to the tests, and push out the window "all those things that really spark kids imaginations" - like art and music.
Ms. Loris added, "A lot of my young colleagues were really excited and pleased for me, and everyone wants to hear when I get back what happened - and that is really important, because we are not getting people rushing into education. We send 90 percent of our kids on to college, but if you ask how many of them think of being teachers, you will get six kids. ...
"There are great teachers in our high school, outstanding teachers, and they don't get enough recognition. A lot of kids would not be in college without them."
We are heading into an age in which jobs are likely to be invented and made obsolete faster and faster. The chances of today's college kids working in the same jobs for the same companies for their whole careers are about zero. In such an age, the greatest survival skill you can have is the ability to learn how to learn. The best way to learn how to learn is to love to learn, and the best way to love to learn is to have great teachers who inspire.
And the best way to ensure that we have teachers who inspire their students is if we recognize and reward those who clearly have done so.
Imagine if every college in America had a program like Williams's, and every spring, across the land, thousands of great teachers were acknowledged by the students they inspired? "No Great Teachers Left Behind." How about it? Link

Almost Forgot

Congratulations to the class of 2005 who are graduating tonight. Welcome to the "real world" now it is time to start working on straightening out our mess and make one of your very own. Just be sure to work hard some of us are counting on the social security check being in the mail every month.

This is getting boring :)

This just in from our sports reporter:

The girls have won another game in the state playoffs. They defeated St. Pius X 3-2 in a nail biting game. They will continue the quest on Monday. The time and site are to be determined. It was great to see so many community members there to cheer these young ladies to victory. It means a lot to them to know that they have everyone's support. KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK GIRLS!!!! We are all very proud of your accomplishments and dedication to Brandywine Heights Softball.

Next Softball Game

The information was posted on the discussion board.

The girls softball team will continue their quest for a state championship on Thursday June 9 at 12:00. They will be playing at Patriots Park (Pats Park) in Allentown. Hope you can come cheer on these fine young ladies.

Patroit Park is at 1027 W Wyoming St, Allentown, PA 18103-3131

Junior High Sports

Good article in today's Reading Eagle on junior high sports. It concerns the foolishness of trying to pick the next All American in 7th grade. Some kids are great when they are young, others need more time to develop. Now the former burns out while the latter become discouraged and quit. There has to be a better way.

Congratulations Or Sympathy

To Demetrious Thermenos who was approved last night as the new High School Principal. Going to really miss Bill Hayes whose name was a little easier to spell.

Bullets Advance

Christy Miller picked the perfect time to pitch one of her best games.
Miller carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning Monday at Lyons before finishing with a one-hitter as Brandywine Heights defeated Loyalsock 6-0 in the opening round of the PIAA Class AA Tournament.
Miller struck out 11 and worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the fourth inning when the Bullets were clinging to a one-run lead.

...

The victory advances District 3 champion Brandywine to the state quarterfinals Thursday to face District 1 champion St. Pius X, a 16-0 winner over Girard Academic Music Program. ARTICLE

If someone knows the location of Thursday game could they please post it.

Wrestling Coaches Lose Match With Supremes

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court refused Monday to consider reinstating a lawsuit that accuses federal officials of discriminating against male athletes in enforcing equal opportunities for women.
Justices without comment rejected an appeal from the National Wrestling Coaches Association and other groups that have been fighting federal policies under the anti-discrimination law known as Title IX.
At issue for the court was whether the challengers showed that the law directly caused a reduction in men's sports, and whether they should be allowed to sue federal officials.
.....
"If unchecked, the gender quota ... will continue to cause sweeping injustices and discrimination in colleges nationwide, and is already being applied to public high schools,'' justices were told in a brief filed by the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund.
Over the past two decades, the number of wrestling teams at NCAA schools has dropped from 363 to 222, while football teams increased from 497 to 619, according to NCAA leaders. Title IX has been blamed for part of the decline.
In addition to men's wrestling team cuts, other schools have dropped outdoor track, swimming programs and ice hockey, the court was told. Article

Good News For Small Aching Backs

CA is pushing through a law limiting textbooks to 200 pages. This may sound like another whacky law out of CA but if you haven't looked at textbooks recently you should do so. For the most part they are bloated, expensive, bland and just totally lacking in readability. It has gotten so bad that the words "ice cream" have been removed because it is fattening. CA is imporant because they are one of the big states that imposse textbook control for all of the state schools. We all suffer because publishers have to spend millions of dollars to produce just a textbook proposal for approval by states like CA, FL and Texas making the selection for the other states and school districts extremely limited.

Further information with other links and solutions can be found at Marginal Revolution.

An Island Called Liberty

If you are looking for a book that combines Ayn Rand and Dr Suess, for your little free trader, Here it is. Follow the trials of bright Bridget Blodgett as she struggles to produce her widgets and wodgets in the face of increasing taxation!

Inside is the story of a right friendly land,
Where people were quick to lend a free hand.
With the best of intentions they passed many laws,
To fix what they felt were quite fixable flaws.
But the fixes, they found, were too much in the end,
For the bureaus and programs and taxes they penned.
Once the lessons were learned, here’s what they knew:
The contentment of many can’t come from the few.

Graduation Advice in NY Times

Pomp and Circumspect
By DANIEL H. PINK
Published: June 4, 2005
Washington
COMMENCEMENT speakers have long offered graduating seniors the same warm and gooey career advice: Do what you love.
And graduates have long responded the same way: They've listened carefully, nodded earnestly, and gone out and become accountants. No surprise. On every day except graduation day, young people are taught that their futures depend not on following their bliss, but on mastering dutiful (and less lovable) abilities like crunching numbers and following rules.

But this year is different. The students graduating this spring will operate in a labor market that increasingly confers an economic advantage on the activities that people do out of a sense of intrinsic satisfaction - designing cool things, telling stories and helping others. For the class of 2005, "Do what you love" is no longer a soft-hearted sentiment. It is also a hard-headed strategy.
What's going on?
Three powerful forces are converging to overturn the conventional logic of careers.
The first force is automation. Last century, machines replaced human muscle. This century, software is augmenting, if not replacing, the human brain's left hemisphere - the part that is linear, sequential and computer-like. Software can now do many tasks faster, cheaper and better than we can: processing claims, adding figures, searching data.
So accountants lose work to TurboTax. And lawyers lose work to legal Web sites that offer uncontested divorces for $249 and articles of incorporation for the price of a pizza. To cope, we'll have to rely on what's harder to replicate in the 1's and 0's of computer code - inventiveness, empathy and seeing the big picture - which also happen to be the components of satisfying work.
The second force involves jobs going overseas. As certain types of work (answering phone calls, writing basic computer code, analyzing financial statements) migrate to places like India, graduates will have to draw on abilities that are less routine. These abilities (creating new products, crafting narratives, caring for others) are more difficult to outsource. But once mastered, they're typically more engaging than simply following the steps on a spec sheet or plugging numbers into a spreadsheet.
Finally, there's prosperity. This year's graduates have always lived in a country whose standard of living - deep into the middle class - is breathtaking. While the United States still has a disgraceful level of poverty, most Americans, in material terms, are doing pretty well.
For instance, the United States has more cars and trucks than licensed drivers. American families own such a surfeit of consumer goods that they've turned self-storage into a $17 billion-a-year industry. In an overstocked marketplace, businesses can no longer crank out pallets of identical widgets. They must create customized, intriguing, even beautiful products, services and experiences. How do you do this? You need employees who possess not only technical ability but also a sense of curiosity, aesthetics and, yes, joyfulness.
In other words, to make it in the emerging economy, we will have to do things that software can't do faster and that overseas knowledge workers can't do more cheaply. In addition, what we produce must also satisfy the growing consumer demand for products and services infused with emotion, spirituality and artistry.
As the information age matures, eat-your-spinach skills are still necessary, but they are no longer sufficient. The abilities that matter more are turning out to be the abilities that are also fundamental sources of human gratification. And that's good news for many intrinsically motivated (but sometimes parentally discouraged) professions. Indeed, more Americans already work in art, entertainment and design than work as lawyers, accountants and auditors.
To be sure, this new labor market is not a land in which every person will be able to pursue a passion and instantly arrive at a fat paycheck. Still, we may finally be at the point where we can tell freshly minted graduates: Look, it's a rough world out there. There's only one way to survive. Do what you love.
Daniel H. Pink is the author of "A Whole New Mind: Moving From the Information Age to the Conceptual Age."
http://nytimes.com/2005/06/04/opinion/04pink.html

Justice Is Not Always Blind

A Montgomery County girl who made and distributed photographs of a naked male at Brandywine Heights High School has pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct.
Ashley Weber, 17, Upper Hanover Township, pleaded guilty Monday and was ordered by District Judge Ronald C. Mest of Oley to pay $276 in fines and costs and to perform 25 hours of community service.
An accomplice, Alyssa Rader, 18, of the 100 block of Landis Store Road, District Township, pleaded guilty last week and received the same sentence.
State police said Weber produced about 150, 8½-by-11 color copies of a picture of her former boyfriend, an 18-year-old Brandywine senior whose name is being withheld by the Reading Eagle.
Troopers said Weber was the male's jilted girlfriend and enlisted Rader, also a Brandywine senior, to put the photos on vehicle windshields and throughout the school May 3. http://www.readingeagle.com/WebExclusives/topstories/11.asp

Congraulations To The Softball Team

HARRISBURG One of the better softball programs in Berks County in recent years, Brandywine Heights finally has the credentials to accompany the reputation.

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With the win, the Bullets (19-4) earn District 3's top seed in the PIAA Class AA tournament. They'll face Loyalsock, the No. 2 seed from District 4, in Monday's opening round at a site and time to be determined.

http://www.readingeagle.com/re/sports/1395767.asp