Denise Sautters
Posted: 08/24/2011 10:57 AM
CantonRep.com

Hartford Middle School was given an ultimatum last school year — shape up or be closed.

Its task: Raise student achievement in one year or face the consequences. In its eighth year of school improvement and rated in academic emergency, Hartford faced possible closure by the state in three years if it did not improve its performance.

That all changed Wednesday.

Hartford leaped from the state’s lowest designation to the third-highest rating on the annual report cards, released by the Ohio Department of Education. The report cards grade schools on their performance based on standards set by the state and mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

“The kids were motivated. They don’t want people to think they are stupid. They aren’t,” said Sandy Womack, Hartford principal. “They wanted to show they are as capable as any other student, and that is what they did.”

Across Stark County, schools performed well on the report cards, which are based on students’ scores on the state achievement tests and the Ohio Graduation Test as well as graduation rates and attendance. The report cards also examine the performance of student subgroups, including minority, low income and special needs students.

LOCAL RESULTS

Plain Local Schools received the state’s highest rating this year — excellent with distinction — moving up from an effective rating last year. Individual schools also received the top designation, including Barr, Frazer, Middlebranch and Warstler elementary schools, as well as Oakwood Middle School.

“I am pretty excited. It is a proud day for us,” said Brent May, Plain’s superintendent. “It is our staff. It is everybody, custodians, cooks, lunch aides, teachers — everybody. Everybody contributed to our success.”

May said that last year, Plain schools took steps to improve their rating partly starting a new reading program. “We decided that, as a district, we would focus in a couple areas and improve,” he said. “That is what we did.”

Jackson Local Schools also achieved an excellent with distinction rating. Three of Jackson’s four elementary schools — Lake Cable, Sauder and Strausser — achieved the highest designation, making more than a year’s growth in a year’s time with their students.

Along with Jackson and Plain, other area school districts achieving an excellent with distinction rating are: Green and Tuscarawas Valley local schools.

Massillon City Schools’ made strong gains this year. Four of its elementary schools — Bowers, Emerson, Franklin and Gorrell — jumped to an excellent rating. Whittier and Smith elementary schools maintained their excellent ratings.

Northwest Local’s W.S. Stinson Elementary School, however, dropped from the state’s highest designation to an effective rating this year, and Alliance City Schools lost its excellent rating, also dropping to effective.

Throughout Ohio, students continue to show steady improvement in their academic performance, but will face higher expectations in coming years as learning standards increase, State Superintendent Stan Heffner said Wednesday when his department publicly released the 2010-11 report card data.

“Ohio can take great pride in this year’s statewide results,” said Heffner. “The percentage of students scoring proficient or above on state tests increased on 21 of the 26 indicators, with the strongest gains in third-grade math, eighth-grade math and

10th-grade writing.”

And while Canton City’s Hartford made big gains, the district’s Worley Elementary School dropped to effective from the excellent rating it had held for the past two years. Worley was the first Canton City school to achieve an excellent designation.

“Overall, academic achievement is up in the district,” said Superintendent Michele Evans. “We are very proud of that. We had schools that made big gains, Hartford being the biggest. Digital and Belden Elementary also had real big gains. The staffs have been working hard, and we know the kids have been working hard. We are looking forward to another year of hard work.”

HOW HARTFORD DID IT

Hartford’s Womack said he realized the odds were stacked against him when he was named principal of the school in 2008. Not only was he at the helm of a middle school — the grade levels when academic performance generally takes a nose dive — but

98 percent of his students are growing up in poverty.

His objective: Improve Hartford’s rating within three years.

“My goal was to improve one level every year,” Womack said. “When I got here, we were in academic emergency, so my goal was to get to academic watch that first year. The second year, I wanted us to get to continuous improvement, then onto effective the third year.”

Womack and his school succeeded in the first goal, but slipped back down into academic emergency, and last year it was the poorest performing school in the county. That makes this year’s rating even sweeter for him.

Womack’s plan included identifying problem areas and addressing them.

“We asked ourselves three basic questions: What is it the kids need to know, how will we know if they’ve learned it, and what to do with the kids who haven’t,” he said. “We started identifying kids throughout the year using multiple data points for kids who were not keeping up with the curriculum,” he continued, noting that, that led to individual plans for students.

“We worked hard last year, and we are going to continue working hard,” Womack said. “The teachers and the students deserve the credit. I’m just sorry not all of the teachers that were here to help us get to this point are not still here to help us celebrate.”

The Rev. Wilbur Allen III, a member of the Canton Board of Education, said the accomplishment is great.

“I salute their effort,” he said. “It is good news.”

Allen had given the school the ultimatum in May, after the board voted to keep Hartford open as a traditional middle school, establishing an Early College Academy — a middle school version of the district’s successful Early College High School — at the Smith Annex instead.

“As a board, we are elated by the results that were achieved by Hartford Middle School’s principal, staff, students and parents,” said Nadine McIlwain, board member.

“There were no doubts in our minds that students at Hartford could learn at a higher level. We just wanted to make sure they could and this proves the board was right. We want to congratulate Mr. Womack, the staff, students and parents who hung in there and made Hartford the best it can be.”

BY ROBERT HOLLAND AND DON SOIFER
Published: July 1, 2011
Modified: June 30, 2011 at 3:57 pm

The waning of U.S. history and civics as subjects taught in public schools has received little attention in education reform debates of recent years. But national report cards are littered with failing grades in basic civic knowledge, which should be cause for deep concern.

According to National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data published in June, only about one-quarter of American students scored at or above proficient in their grasp of U.S. history. Only 12 percent of high school seniors reached proficiency, or a level of solid achievement.

While eighth-grade scores have risen slightly since 2006, those at the 12th grade have remained flat and indeed have budged little since the 1994 NAEP testing.

Most striking is the proportion of students unable to reach the bare-bones level of “basic” or minimal competence in history or in civics (which NAEP tested separately and reported in May).

The average scores for minority kids are shockingly low. In civics, 47 percent of black eighth-graders and an astounding 62 percent of black 12th-graders scored below basic. For Hispanics, the corresponding numbers were 44 percent and 50 percent.

State-by-state results were not released, but factors contributing to this failure are found across the country. Ultimately solutions must correct the gradual de-emphasizing of U.S. history in public schools, slipping state history content standards, and state teacher certification requirements that often approve social studies teachers with little or no formal history training.

Meanwhile, reforms for the billion-dollar teacher professional development industry must better equip teachers to instill these facts and concepts in students. Civic organizations such as the Bill of Rights Institute offer content-rich professional development, for example constitutional seminars for social studies teachers around the nation.

Just as problematic as a lack of formal history training is the proliferation of a radical strain of “social-justice multiculturalism” prevalent in many university schools of education. Its practitioners call on future teachers to question “oppressive” American societal influences rather than teaching students a basic knowledge of their nation’s history and foundations in representative democracy.

This fall, many educators will participate in the National Association for Multicultural Education’s annual conference in Chicago. Social studies teachers will satisfy professional development requirements with seminars on “Oppression and Privilege” and “Educators Organizing for Social Justice.”

Education tax dollars will fund these radical multiculturalist agendas at the expense of substantive professional development. This is evidence of misplaced priorities, and crucial resources, needed to address a growing crisis.

The United States is relatively far removed from any constitutional crisis. But amid what seems to be spreading turbulence in a complicated world, it would be a bad idea to rely indefinitely on voters with such scant preparation in the principles of constitutionalism and their application in everyday life.

As policymakers deliberate on which school reforms are most important in preparing the nation for the coming decades, it will be critical that these vital foundational subjects remain central to the discussion.

Holland and Soifer are education analysts with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va.

Read more…

By Editorial, Published: June 17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/making-history-and-civics-a-priority/2011/06/17/AGb1tYZH_story.html

U.S. youths score lowest on U.S. history among all disciplines, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress survey released last week. A distressing 2 percent of high school seniors knew what Brown v. Board of Education was about. Civic apathy is nothing new, but the reports are increasingly dire.

Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind legislation, states and school districts have focused intensely on raising scores in math and reading, too often at the expense of social studies — something Education Secretary Arne Duncan has acknowledged. Overall, only 12 percent of this year’s tested batch were deemed proficient, while the majority of students scored at “a below basic” achievement level. Only one in 10 knew the constitutional tenets of checks and balances and separation of powers, and less than half knew why the framers designed the Bill of Rights.

Clearly, young people are not getting enough education in American history or civics. Half the states, according to the Education Commission of the States, lack any statutory civics assessments.

Two organizations in particular are trying to fight civic illiteracy. The Center for Civic Education has developed a fairly comprehensive curriculum, including activities such as congressional simulations. ICivics, former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s initiative, has launched colorful virtual games to empower students with knowledge of their government. But there’s no nationally sanctioned curricular framework, and adoption of these voluntary projects has been slow and decentralized. Some school districts, such as one in San Jose, are on the verge of losing civics because of budget cuts.

As states move forward with curriculum and testing reforms, civics should be a priority. Classroom work could be blended with practical learning, perhaps as part of existing community service requirements. While the District, Maryland and Virginia require a baseline government course for high school students, they could up the ante by demanding that every student not only pass a course with an intense written evaluation but also address a local problem with a civic intervention in his or her community.

Some teachers are pushing the envelope to include civic-oriented activities as much as exams, and we salute their experimentation. Civic education for the 21st century, as Justice O’Connor’s project proves, can be lively and no bore. More so than most imagine, we believe interactive civics can be a platform to achieve broad educational goals, including improved reading and analytic skills. In urban centers across the country, there is often a shortage of motivation because students see their real-life situations as disconnected from classroom experiences. Civics, if done right, can be a bridge to progress.

Published: May 09, 2011
EDITORIAL- http://nytimes.com/

The Department of Education’s latest assessment of what young Americans know about civics shows that the light of democracy burns steadily in schools, if too dimly.The test was given last year to 27,000 children in the 4th, 8th and 12th grades. “Basic” knowledge for an eighth grader meant being able to identify a right protected by the First Amendment. A “proficient” 12th grader could define “melting pot” and argue whether or not the United States is one. An “advanced” fourth grader could “explain two ways countries can deal with shared problems.”The results show the needle stuck on mediocre. Most students had basic proficiency. But only about one-fourth in each group were “proficient,” and the tiniest percentages were “advanced.” Charles Quigley, executive director of the Center for Civic Education, says “the results confirm an alarming and continuing trend that civics in America is in decline.” We see more hope, along with huge room for improvement. Yes, more than half of eighth graders muffed a question on the purpose of the Bill of Rights. But 74 percent could identify a right protected by the First Amendment. An equal percentage knew why a trial by jury was important. Fifty-seven percent of 12th graders understood the reason Congress approved the War Powers Act. American schools certainly need to focus more on a vital mission: arming young Americans against propagandistic television and fringe activism, legislative crusades and chronic political pandering. George Carlin used to say that he didn’t joke about bad politicians because it wasn’t their fault: “Ignorant citizens elect ignorant leaders, it’s as simple as that,” he said. Well, not exactly. But he had a point.

NYS Senator Eric Adams hosted the Youth Civic Leadership Academy in Albany on Wednesday, June 9, 2010, in a hands-on effort to teach civic participation and promote involvement in social and government services.

Senator Adams’ statement:

The Youth Civic Leadership Academy is a program that empowers low income and minority Ohio youngsters to make positive changes in their own lives and in their communities through meaningful participation in local politics. I am pleased that the group will pay a visit to the New York State Legislature in Albany, enabling the young people to observe the mechanisms of New York State government at work and pass on what they observe to their peers and families back in Ohio.

True civic participation is accomplished through experience- the garnering of a knowledge that our opinions and votes matter!  Jury duty matters!  Volunteering matters!  I am excited to have members of the academy shadow me as they visit Albany and see the important work we do inside and outside the chamber.”

By Ed Balint
CantonRep.com staff writer
Posted Mar 15, 2010 @ 10:09 PM
Last update Mar 16, 2010 @ 12:03 AM

CANTON —
Four students from Hartford Middle School implored City Council to proceed with plans for a water recreation project in southeast Canton.
The eighth-graders said a water park would give children something to do and help keep them away from trouble.
After public speaks, Kashari Dove, 14, explained that a Hartford teacher told students about the water park proposal. Dove said that children are “bored” and have few activities to keep them occupied, especially in the summer.
Shootings and drug activity “are the types of things kids are getting into,” she added.
Another Hartford student, Deontaia Streeter, said that youth who live in southeast Canton now travel to North Canton or Jackson Township to swim.
Three adults also spoke in favor of water recreation. One adult spoke against it, citing the city’s financial problems.
After hearing the students’ comments, Mayor William J. Healy II said he would take a position on the much-debated project and support spending a $495,000 state grant on a water recreation project.
More recently, some council members have expressed concerns over the cost of operating a water recreation facility in the short term and long term.
YOUTH A PRIORITY
Acknowledging those issues, Healy said that youth and recreation should be a priority.
“This is more than just a water park,” he said during the meeting, asking the students to stay to hear his remarks before they departed.
The city should not miss out on the state grant, Healy said, adding that the project would be about neighborhoods, safety and youth. Healy said he hopes the operating costs can be “offset.”
“I stand with you,” Healy told the students.
In recent weeks, when asked for his opinion on the proposal, Healy has said he would support the project if council decided to support it.
Legislation related to the water recreation proposal is stuck in the Finance Committee. The legislation would authorize the service director to accept the state grant.
The administration’s current proposal calls for a spray park at the Edward L. “Peel” Coleman Community Center on Sherrick Road SE.
Discussions about a water park or swimming pool of some type began about four years ago, following the closure of Jackson Pool on Sherrick Road.

http://www.cantonrep.com/news/x99751329/Students-ask-Canton-Council-to-support-water-park

Copyright 2010 CantonRep.com. Some rights reserved

A group of Stark County students were recognized Wednesday night for their participation in a civil leadership conference in New York.

U.S. Rep. John Boccieri, D-Alliance, was among the speakers at a reception to recognize the group’s effort. Boccieri presented the group, mostly Canton City School District students, with certificates of citizenship from his office.

The group went to a civic leadership conference in New York on May 11 through 13.

From Hartford Middle School, those taking part were Brianna Brown, Miasia McElroy, Kristopher Carter, George McPherson Jr., Mija Clanagan, Tashanti Medlock, Kashari Dove, Mikayla Moore, Travante Fields, Areanna Singleton, Bree Givens, De’Ontaia’ Streeter, Lashonda Heard, Jade Swint, Jasmine Jeter, Cody Taylor, Kornell Jones, Kentrell Taylor, Abigail Lillie and Tariq Tharp.

The McKinley High School students taking part were Ch’e Richardson and Courtney Hunt.

Timken High School students Shawn Gaines, Vanessa Watts and Travis Thompson attended the conference as did Christina Culler and Keyaira Cherry from Canton South.

Copyright 2009 CantonRep.com. Some rights reserved
Posted Jul 01, 2009 @ 11:14 PM