The Commercialization of Our Public Schools

On the commercialization of our schools, I want to be on the record as being completely against it. Commercialization permeates every facet of our society. It dumbs down our arts to the lowest common dominator. It sensationalizes our news into sound bites of “infotainment” that is neither newsworthy nor informative. It has trivialized our holidays. It also teaches that sex sells and that it is more important to be cool than it is to be intelligent. It literally makes girls die to be thin and boys kill for athletic footwear.

I was horrified to discover that Swansea has decided to allow commercial radio to be played on school busses as a source of revenue (Providence Journal, 11/21/06). This is the first misstep on a very slippery slope. If you must have some kind of electronic distraction on the buses, what is wrong with noncommercial educational entertainment and information?

During Cranston’s mayoral campaign, I heard the idea touted that advertisement and signage maybe a good way to help fund our schools. This is nuts. As parents, we fight commercials every day for our children’s attention and priorities and now they want us to allow the schools to be a vehicle for the economic exploitation of our children by greedy moneymakers?

Our elected officials must work better on funding and budgeting instead of resorting to this. Our schools are a sacred institution and they should be protected as such. Do not let the money changers into this temple.

Also printed here...

PAWTUXET

PAWTUXET ART SALE DECEMBER 9

The Fourth Annual Aspray Boat House Holiday sale will be held Saturday, December 9 from 10 to 5 on the Warwick side of Pawtuxet Village in the boat house by the park. The sale will have a selection of locally make jewelry, glass, fine art, handmade paper, wreaths and bath and body
products. Among those present will be the farmers market's Micki Whelan of Babygreens. Please consider supporting local artists by attending this sale. Mr. Peabody's will provide the food and drink.

REDUCE YOUR TRASH I

You can buy a worm compost box (The Soilsaver model) from the The R.I. Resource Recovery Corporation for about half the retail price, or $50. You have to go to Johnston (always an educational experience) to pick it up. Details are available at http://www.nerc.org/rhodeisland.html.

Every fall, I start my compost pile with the leaves from my lawn. Over the winter, I add all the vegetable scraps from my kitchen, turning it over sporadically. I continue through the summer and by fall I have a pile of good soil for my garden, just in time to start again. But a
compost box is faster, neater and more compact. Either way you will soon find yourself cringing when someone "wastes" a banana peel by putting it in the trash.

REDUCE YOUR TRASH II

The Pawtuxet Village Farmers Market has won a $1000 grant from the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund to start a berry box recycling program next year. We will be offering a 5 cent deposit for pint and quart berry boxes, but have yet to work out the details. You can help by saving your cherry tomato, blueberry or strawberry boxes.

You can always drop them off on the porch at 37 Ferncrest Avenue in Cranston (heading north on Broad Street from Pawtuxet Village, Ferncrest is the last left hand turn before Hall Library). Or you can save them and cash them when the market opens in the spring. They must
be clean and in good shape. Thanks to the ardent recyclers who regularly deposit boxes on the porch. We have stockpiled several hundred, but need hundreds more for this program to succeed.

FRIENDS OF THE PAWTUXET MEETING

The Friends of the Pawtuxet will meet Thursday December 7 from 6:30 to 8PM at the William Hall Library's program room (Broad Street in Cranston). We will plan our trips for next year, hear a presentation on the proposed concrete plant and discuss a possible winter environmental film series. We will also consider whether to join the Environment Council of Rhode Island, the environmental lobby group for $45. All interested people are welcome.

November's CEAB meeting

Cranston Educational Advisory Board Meeting

November 6, 2006

7:00 PM Cranston East Room 301

Represented: Dutemple, Orchard Farms, Park View, NEL/Charter, Hope Highlands, Glen Hills, Stone Hill, Waterman, Central Administration, Eden Park, Cranston HS West, Cranston Teachers’ Alliance (CTA), Garden City, Arlington, Peters, Edgewood Highland, Rhodes, School Committee, Woodridge

Agenda:

The CEAB was called to order by Laura Gabiger at 7:03 PM.

June minutes were approved unanimously. Copies were made available to delegates of an article from the Providence Journal of September 26, 2006 about the CEAB-Sponsored School Committee Candidates’ Forum.

Ken McDaniel gave the Treasurer’s report (attached). The beginning balance in June was $412.70. There were $359.83 in expenses and $25 in income leaving a closing balance of $77.87.

It was decided that Beth Martinelli will be responsible for maintaining the CEAB contact list.

Chair’s Update: The Chair discussed how she had met with the Superintendent and would be meeting with him monthly. The Superintendent has confirmed that he will attend the December 4^th CEAB meeting. The Chair clarified the role of the CEAB and stressed that she will be working with the CEAB to focus on school and district-wide issues rather than personal grievances.

Old Business: The PTO University training was discussed. Participants were generally positive about the training which is being planned again for the Spring.

Introductions: Each delegate introduced themselves and discussed some of the issues that are important to the parents in their schools. Issues identified included;

• $ Interested in possibility of coordinating regional buying opportunities (Rhodes)
• $ Parents need guidance on how to help their kids with math investigations. (Stonehill, Dutemple)
• $ Concerns about safety of the grounds and the school building (indoor/outdoor maintenance and upkeep) (Stonehill, Glen Hills, Dutemple)
• $ Concerns about security of the schools. (Park View, Glen Hills, Peters, Woodridge, Eden Park, Chester Barrows)
• $ Interest in developing school-wide listserve for emailing bulletins (Park View, Chester Barrows)
• $ Interested in academic after school programs (Arlington)
• $ Concerned with improving NECAP scores (Arlington)
• $ Interested in getting broader representation/ input from parents (Peters, Woodridge)
• $ Ideas on raising money (Peters)
• $ Concerned about bus safety (Woodridge)
• $ Traffic concerns (Woodridge, Glen Hills, Dutemple)
• $ Is there a district-wide procedure in place for lockdowns? (NEL/CPS)
• $ Class size (CHS West)
• $ Digital portfolios (CHS West)
• $ Merging comprehensive & college prep courses (CHS West)

Given the significant interest in the issues of security, parental involvement, and communication, these issue areas were selected for further discussion. CEAB delegates were tasked with identifying some best practices for encouraging parental involvement to share at the January meeting.

It was announced that there would be an event of the Cranston Civics Education Speaker Program at Cranston West on November 14^th. This event focuses on the judicial system; additional information is available on the school department’s website, http://www.cpsed.net.

The CEAB was adjourned at 8:35 PM

SCHOOL UPDATE

SCHOOL UPDATE FROM STEVE STYCOS, 11/21/06

BOYS, BLACKS AND HISPANICS LEFT OUT OF HONORS CLASSES

At my request, the school administration prepared a report on the race and sex of high school honors students. The report indicates that boys, blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented in honors classes. Slightly less than ten percent of the high school students take honors classes. At Cranston East, only 30 percent of honors English students are boys. At West only 22 percent are boys. Blacks make up 8 percent of the student body at East, but only one black student takes honors English in all four grades. Hispanics represent 19 percent of the student population at East, or 346 children, but only 11 take honors math. Asians are ten percent of the East population and represent about ten percent of the honors students.

West has far fewer minority students (4 percent Asian, 3 percent Hispanic, 2 percent black) so the statistics are too small to indicate a trend.

I am not sure what to do to increase the number of boys and minorities in honors classes. I would welcome hearing your reactions-especially from the parents of high school boys and minorities. Perhaps we need to have a meeting at the library to discuss this. Please let me know if you would be interested in attending a meeting.

SCHOOL COMMITTEE ELECTION

Former Mayor Michael Traficante appears to have four votes to be elected the next chairman of the seven member school committee. His key supporters are Andrea Iannazzi (Ward 6), Debbie Greifer (Ward 2) and newcomer Frank Lombardi (citywide). All four received support from the New England Laborers' Union during the election.

MIDDLE SCHOOL"REFORM"

By January 1, a committee of Cranston administrators and teachers will submit a report on reforming middle schools, based upon a report by the National Association of Secondary Principals called "Breaking Ranks in the Middle." The committee is examining the role of team leaders and curriculum coordinators, devising an advisory program and looking at scheduling. The report will be considered by the school committee early next year.

I see scheduling and the foreign language program as the key issues. All secondary teachers are required to teach five periods per day. In the middle schools, students are divided into "teams" of about 100 children. These "teams" share the same English, social studies, science and math teachers. Each team teacher instructs four classes of about 25 students. Team teachers are also responsible for a fifth period of "team time" or study skills. My experience has been that team time can be educational or a waste of time, but there is little administrative control over what teachers do. For example, during team time several years ago my son's class was told to do their homework, or silent reading-in other words it was a study hall. Our teachers should teach five periods, so this needs to be addressed.

Meanwhile, our middle school foreign language program is a disgrace. Children take a language only two days a week, which most foreign language teachers say is a poor system because the kids forget the material from one class to the next. In Cranston, in sixth and seventh grades, children take half a year of general language study, half a year of French, half a year of Spanish and half a year of Italian. Then in eighth grade they pick one language and take it two days a week. When they enter high school, however, they are placed in a level one language class.

So they spend three years and learn almost nothing and get confused by the accents of three different languages. We need a serious foreign language program that prepares students to enter high school with a full year of language. Former superintendent Catherine Ciarlo staunchly defended the existing program, but hopefully with her retirement we will be able to offer a serious language program in our middle schools. It may not be a program for everyone, but it should be available for students who want to learn a second language.

I have raised both these issues and been assured they are being addressed, but we will not know until late December.

RECYCLING

I have been working with plant operations director Joel Zisserson to increase school recycling. The Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation finally agreed to do recycling presentations with Max Man in all Cranston schools. Those are currently underway. Citizens can help by taking a peak in school dumpsters to make sure the recyclables are not being thrown away. If you see large amounts of paper in a school dumpster please contact me and/or Joel at 270-8190.

EAST REPORT ON LINE

The Cranston East accreditation report is available on line at the Cranston East web site. First go to www.cpsed.net, then use the link for Cranston East. Also check out the "Parents Connection" on the website for interesting information about East.

ADD/DELETE

If you would like to added or removed from this list of occasional updates on the Cranston schools, please reply to ch1650@pol.net.

The end.

The election is over

The election is over and as a Democrat, I am overjoyed with the “Blue Wave of 2006” and the power shift in Congress and hope that it continues into the White House. As for my own fortunes, I take it as a valuable learning experience.

I stood up for the school committee because of the closure of my daughter’s elementary school, Horton. Small community based neighborhood schools with small classes is what we need, not what we rid ourselves of. According to the US Department of Education, 90 percent of the fastest growing career fields in America require a college degree and yet less than 30 percent of the working population has the requirement. We are in a new age, a post-industrial nation in a global marketplace. College education is no longer a luxury for the privileged but a necessity for the masses. This is not liberal rhetoric but the facts as I perceive them to be.

The last great social injustice left in America is the disparity between rich and poor and this disparity is growing ever wider in our globalized reality. The economic strain of energy, healthcare and education is deteriorating the nation’s middle class. For America to compete, she must have a very well educated work force capable of exploiting future opportunities. It is our responsibility to ensure that all of the next generation is prepared in spite of socioeconomic backgrounds.

Our children need smaller classes in smaller schools intrinsically bonded to its surrounding communities for the necessary nurturing, followed by a secondary system that is preparatory for further continuation, and easier access to post secondary education. Every child entering the ninth grade today should be expected to reach a college degree and not be hampered with heavy debt because of it. Sadly, simply staying in school and acquiring a high school diploma just does not cut it anymore.

The school committee is responsible for the administration, maintenance, care, staffing and supplying of our schools. It is also the burden of the committee members to champion its schools and lobby funds from the state and federal government as well as seeking private grants. They must also shift the burden away from the local property tax payers because they will revolt if not. I encourage all, not just parents, to pay attention and be involved in our education system. Go to the meetings, write letters to editors, agitate and most of all, run for committee seats. There were three uncontested seats this year; any time that any elected office is unchallenged is unhealthy for a democracy.

Running for office is not difficult. It may seem like a daunting task but once you get into it, you realize that it is quite an easy thing to do. For an office like school committee, you need about $500 to purchase signs and cards and 2,500 voters to agree with you. Let us not shirk our responsibilities to our children and our great country.

Andre Araujo