Don't Touch the Unimportant Red Button

In the spirit of the late Douglas Adams, I have an important message (see the last line of the blog). But first, I'd like to explain to whom it applies and to whom it does not apply.

The message at the end of this blog does apply to anyone who is aware of the recent decision of the Ninth District Circuit Court that because some Arizona Scholarship Tuition Organizations (STO's) are designed to serve schools of a particular faith group (Catholic, Jewish, Adventist, Lutheran, Christian) that it is unconstitutional for them to get any scholarship monies through the (legal) tax credit because Arizona families NOT from their faith group might not have enough choices of STO's for their scholarship applications (even though there are 55 STO's altogether, and fewer than half are faith-based or faith-related);

The message at the end of this blog does apply to the 2.3% of all Arizona filers (58,000 citizen taxpayers) who took the individual scholarship tax credit in 2008;

The message at the end of this blog does apply to the 28,324 students in 373 private schools (of all kinds of persuasions) who received a scholarship award fron an STO for the 2008 tax year;

The message at the end of this blog does apply to the underpaid teachers and administrators in most private schools who are determined to teach "a better way" with the freedom of conscience to guide them rather than legislation and political correctness;

The message at the end of this blog is made possible by the fact that the decision of the Ninth District Circuit Court will be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, if necesssary;

The message at the end of this blog is made possible by the fact that freedom-loving souls will find a way to avoid offering their children on the altar of Molech even if the Supreme Court decides to agree with the Ninth District Circuit Court (freedom-loving parents just aren't THAT stupid);

The message at the end of this blog does not apply to the ACLU and its lackeys, who are bent on wasting as much public and private money in court costs as possible by jousting with this windmill, in order to eliminate the dreadful possibility that some child in Arizona might be taught be SOMETHING that the ACLU does not agree with (hmmm, where's the "liberty" in ACLU?).

And here is the message at the end of the blog:

Do Not Push the Panic Button!

Death of a Vision

This will be my first real rant in this blog. If you thought I came close to ranting before, you haven't heard anything yet.

In the spring time when new life is all around us, I witnessed the death of a vision last night, and it didn't have to happen. Five years ago two families whose children could not find space in the private school of their choice, asked a young teacher from that school to tutor their children. That homeschooling cooperative effort became a campus-based day school two years later, with over twenty children. Offering an incredible quality classical Christian education, Alethia Academy has been housed for three years at Rincon Mountain Church (though not sponsored by the church) and has been supported by sacrifical parents and teachers foregoing lots of other choices of what to do with their money. But even small schools need a "critical mass" in order to survive, so last summer the Alethia school board set some reasonable enrollment goals for the 2009-2010 school year in order to maintain viability. When you only have eleven families, and three are moving out of town this summer, that's a big hit on enrollment. Last night the board made the difficult decision to let the dream, at least in its current form, die.

This is in spite of the fact that:
...it has a better than 1:5 teacher student ratio;
...its five teachers include two doctorates and two teachers who have taught internationally, for a combined teaching experience of over sixty years in both public and private schools;
...its students score very well above average on nationally normed achievement tests;
...all the students who are not moving away are very pleased with the school and want to stay there;
...its tuition is in line with other private schools in the area;
...virtually every family who has actually visited the classrooms has decided to enroll their child;
...the school is debt-free; however, the teachers receive very small salaries.

At Open House, the Christmas program, and Grandparents Day, these remarkable students have demonstrated that
...kindergarteners can be taught to read, spell, and memorize engaging poetry;
...second and third graders can recite volumes of facts from the history of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as parse (analyze) sentences grammatically, down to every part of speech and sentence function;
...fifth and sixth graders can translate difficult passages in Latin, recite facts about composers and key events in music history, and answer challenging theological questions.

In spite of all these accomplishments, Alethia will close this May. It is simply dying because of the inability to attract new enrollments, even though new forms of advertising have been budgeted for and undertaken, preschools in its vicinity have been visited, its website has been revamped, Open Houses and informational desserts have been held regularly, and there are no dissatisfied customers.

This rant is not directed at any family who has children EXCEPT

...those who claim to be Christian, claim to have a Christian worldview, live anywhere in the eastern half of Tucson, are not on food stamps, are able to solicit a few relatives and friends to contribute tax credit scholarships for their child's education, and do not already homeschool or send their children to Christian school.

That would be:
...eastern half of Tucson proper, 525,529, = 262,764.5
...times percentage of school age children = 69,369.7
...times those claiming to be Evangelical Christians = 18,244.2
...minus those who homeschool or already send their children to Christian schools = 15,872.5
...times the percentage typcially receiving tution assistance = 13,135.8 potential students.

The number that would have kept Alethia Academy open was twenty-four, and only eleven have enrolled for next year.

Of the families of these 13,124.8 children who fit the demographic but have NOT enrolled at Alethia for next year, what might be the reason? (Here comes the rant).

Do they believe that government schools dedicated to non-supernatural casuality and multi-philosophical relativism really equip their children with the Christian world view they need to make Biblical life choices in the twenty-first century?

Do they believe that entertainment-based children's ministries and culturally ambiguous youth groups can compensate in a couple of hours per week for the thirty plus hours per week their child sits in the hands of strangers who, by law, must deny that the Christian faith has any relevance to the education they need?

Do they believe that the new jet skis, home entertainment system, or extensive vacation is better stewardship of what God has provided them with than Christo-classical education in the hands of trustworthy fellow believers?

I rant, but not because it will save Alethia Academy. I rant because, like all Christians, I believe in redemption and resurrection. These follow repentance. I call on Tucson Christian families to repent of willful ignorance of what their children are being taught as well as ignorance of the available alternatives, to repent of misplaced values, and to repent of gross unconcern for the next generation of the church. When this has happened, good schools like Alethia may be redeemed and resurrected.

Through another’s eyes

Ratna Konka is a high school math teacher at Desert Christian High School here in Tucson. In addition to being a teacher, she is a wife and mother. Since her immigration to the United States a few years ago she has taught in two other schools, both public: a high school and a middle school located elsewhere in Arizona.

In viewing her pre-calculus class recently, it is apparent that she is as at ease with her students as she is competent in her subject matter knowledge. The session was lively, highly engaging, made use of current technology, and students got all their questions answered.

Although my purpose in visiting her classroom was professional in nature, I couldn’t resist asking a question often posed to non-native teachers. “How are students in the U.S. different from the students you taught in India?” I queried.

Pausing to gaze out the window of her classroom on to the pleasant Desert campus, she answered thoughtfully. “Well, I would not say that the students at this school are much different from Indian students in the things that matter most to a teacher. They are serious about their education and very respectful to the teacher. The difference is between these students and the students I taught in public school.” She went on to recount some of the difficulties she faced in two different non-Tucson public schools. Most troubling was her assertion that in a typical fifty minute period, she felt fortunate to get in five to ten minutes of real teaching. Student disruptions, bureaucratic red tape, and a general indifference to learning were chief among her frustrations in those schools. She affirmed how grateful she is to be at Desert Christian, and hopes to make it a long term place of service.
What struck me here is how clearly a stranger to our culture sees the difference between the choices Americans make for their children’s schooling. It would seem that Americans (and curiously, most Christian Americans) routinely pass up great educational opportunities (at least sane educational opportunities) to settle for putting their children in classrooms that make “Welcome Back, Kotter” look like a model of efficiency, erudition, and propriety.

Ratna sees it. Why don’t we?

Public Trust and Sham Journalism

In the beginning...

I was one of those kids who grew up believing everything I read. It was disillusioning to learn that people lie in print, either intentionally or negligently. One of the goals of good schools should be to teach young people to be good “crap detectors.”

Because we can’t all be experts at everything, we do depend on other people to have done some research for us when we read items from sources generally considered to be reputable in areas that we don’t have time to get smart about for ourselves. Major newspaper used to be considered such a source.

When a friend of mine told me that his pejorative comment on a recent Tucson Citizen editorial on private schooling has been denied inclusion in their "Comments" section, I figured he had gone overboard. After reading the article (which you can see here: www.tucsoncitizen/altss/printhistory/113136 ), I realized he had not gone overboard.

Setting the record straight

From the article:

Public schools are held accountable…they constantly have to demonstrate student performance on many subjects in multiple grades.

The truth:

Well, yes and no. “Constantly” is a bit of a stretch there since the AIMS testing is only done once a year. And the bar is pitifully low, so low that I don’t know of any private school here in Tucson that would object to having to meet those low standards, if they thought they were relevant. Speaking for the eleven private Christian schools with which I am affiliated, there is not one which does not give high-quality, nationally-normed standardized achievement tests once per year. I am sure each would be glad to reveal their results to anyone who asks. In fact, some of them even publish the results on their web sites.

The author also assumes that the mere reporting of AIMS testing enacts some consequence against under-performing schools. As recently as last October, there are still 158 “underperforming” schools in Arizona, and twenty that are on the “failing” list (three consecutive years of “underperforming”). The only stated consequence for being on the failing list is that the State of Arizona will "take over" the school or district (whoa – that should change everything!) When asked in October if the state would be taking over the only complete district that is failing – Creighton Elementary School District in Phoenix - State Superintendent of Education Tom Horne said, “We will probably not.” Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Accountability!

Of course, this whole discussion assumes that the most important measure of any school would be test score results, but thinking parents,who research private schools and exercise their freedom to choose, actually look for much more than that, as they should. I don’t know of a test that measures hallway fornication, which is what one friend of mine witnessed in a local high school just before withdrawing his daughter to place her in private school.

From the article:

Parochial and other private schools need not divulge a thing – neither test scores or anything about staff or student behavior or misbehavior. Everything’s a secret.

The truth:

What wonderfully naïve writer for the Tucson Citizen has not heard of the "Family Rights and Privacy Act," which has been around since 1974? This repressive bit of heavy-handed Big Brotherism really has made everything about students in public schools a secret. The really amazing thing about this is that it is only binding on schools that receive federal funding – hmmm, in other words, NOT private schools. They are only governed by prudence and good judgment. What a concept!

Let’s examine a root presupposition about accountability here, while we’re at it. The writer presumes that the proper and best place for accountability is in the hands of the government. Those of us in the private educational sector have long known that a paying parent is much more demanding, and scrutinizes even more carefully the full picture of whether a school is performing adequately. The very vouchers which the article demonizes would empower even more parents to have this kind of freedom of choice. There must be a nice gulag somewhere we can ship this writer to, where he or she would be much happier with “accountability.” Or maybe no one reads 1984 in public schools anymore.

From the article:

So why should tax dollars go to clandestine, for-profit schools? They should not.

The truth:

Are you ready for this? The only for-profit schools in Arizona (other than post-secondary schools like University of Phoenix) are some (but not most) charter schools – and guess what? Charter schools are public schools and receive district money, state money, federal money – you name it. The vast majority of private schools, including all of the Christian schools in Tucson, are non-profit, 501 (c) (3) corporations. We’re really gettin’ rich out here. And we want "clandestine" use of more and more of your righteous tax dollars, sucker-citizens!

From the article:

But private schools can admit solely Catholic kids, or only Jewish kids, or only kids with certain academic achievement levels.

The truth:

Well, of course they can. That’s called “freedom.” But most don’t, at least not as exclusively as the author implies. In particular, since he or she picked on Catholic schools, the non-Catholic enrollment of Catholic schools is famously high and well-documented.

What is important, in this respect, is that, as non-profit corporations, they are bound by law not to discriminate on the basis of race, color, national, or ethnic origin. Can’t do it. Now, that’s important.

In (and about) Closing…

Well, I could go on, but you get the point. It is certainly fine for the author to hate private schools if he or she wants, and freedom of the press allows him or her to say so publicly. But printing crap is really a bad practice and some day it will catch up with someone – oh, wait! Isn’t this the newspaper that’s going to shut down soon?

Great day, come soon!