Late Start
August 11, 2015
Business took me to Indianapolis for a meeting on Thursday, July 30. Of the eight other meeting participants, four lived in Indiana, three lived in Georgia and one in Montana.
I learned that school was already in session for many schools of both Indiana and Georgia, four weeks prior to the start of classes for most Montana schools ... and six weeks before state law allows public schools to commence classes for students in Michigan.
These dramatic differences undermine any seriousness or sense of urgency in this state’s efforts to improve public education.
The scene that replays in my memory is of an all-district in-service day at a Michigan school district where the staff was busy in the cafeteria, while the students lounged outside the school and milled about the school halls, bored.
“Our kids are already here and ready to be in class,” the school superintendent told me; “but state law penalizes us if we dare to begin teaching them.”
I think of this as school sports teams and marching bands and cheerleaders are already hard at work this week honing their skills in extracurricular activities. Wouldn’t it be great if lawmakers would allow our students to be doing the same in academic classrooms?
If our students are lagging behind academically, it might have something to do with the fact that they start each year two or three laps behind kids in other states.
Rush to Ridicule
February 5, 2016
Last month the statewide high school athletic association of a neighboring state sent to its member schools a reminder of its sportsmanship standards. From almost all media reports you would have thought the association did a terrible thing.
In fact, the athletic association did nothing wrong – nothing that it and similar organizations have not done many times before to point people away from declining standards of sportsmanship prevalent in other programs and point people toward behavior that is more appropriate for an educational setting – i.e., in programs sponsored and conducted by educational institutions.
Then one of that athletic association’s schools did an unsurprising thing – and what dozens of schools, perhaps hundreds of schools, have done many times before. It distributed the athletic association’s message to its students and coaches.
Where this good work went bad was an isolated incident where one student-athlete at one school posted a profane reaction on social media, criticizing the message; and the student’s school suspended the student from a few contests.
That’s the story. But it’s been mangled by most professional and social media which have rushed mindlessly to ridicule the athletic association.
The association was not wrong to promote positive cheering sections and mutual respect during athletic events. And the association is taking an amazingly high (sportsmanlike?) road to say that it will use this media fiasco as an opportunity to review its sportsmanship guidelines.
We have proven in this state through our Battle of the Fans, a contest conceived by our Student Advisory Council, that cheering sections can be larger and louder by encouraging positive behavior; fun that is also respectful. We prohibit no specific cheers, but we promote positive cheers and the schools where that is the norm.
In a society where standards of all kinds appear to be slipping, this is praiseworthy work.