Evergreene Digest A Journal of Progress for the Rest of Us

By BOB HERBERT, New York Times

The world leadership qualities of the United States, once so prevalent, are fading faster than the polar ice caps.

We once set the standard for industrial might, for the advanced state of our physical infrastructure, and for the quality of our citizens’ lives. All are experiencing significant decline.

The latest dismal news on the leadership front comes from the College Board, which tells us that the U.S., once the world’s leader in the percentage of young people with college degrees, has fallen to 12th among 36 developed nations.

Read More

Leon Sullivan's teaching internship at Parkway West's Urban Education Academy has taught him many lessons.

Among them: "You've got to be patient and understanding. You can't let what they say get to you. You've got to be willing to go back over some things. (And) when kids act a certain type of way, you don't get into a confrontation, you go to the source."

Sullivan, 18, along with 64 classmates, spends two hours, four days a week in classrooms at nearby elementary schools.

The two-year-old internship program is proving a successful way to turn students on to teaching.

Read more

• If there's any question about the reasons for these massive cuts in education, read John Marion's report against the backdrop of Barack Obama's military budget for 2010 of nearly $1 Trillion. The monetary cost of the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq this year will add $200-$250 million to the $1 trillion already spent on the wars in these two countries. If that isn't enough to explain why the education of children is being sacrificed by the United States government, one only has to refer to the taxpayer bailouts of the banks and corporations. - Les Blough, Editor, Axis of Logic
• Budget Woes Hit Nation's Schools Hard and Harder

John Marion, Axis of Logic

Heather Bastio, 16, carries a sign in support of striking teachers in Aliso Viejo, Calif. The majority of the district's teachers struck after the school board slashed their pay 10.1 percent last month (June, 2009). (Orange County Register)

Brockton Public Schools last Thursday (July 29) sent out pink slips to 430 teachers, more than a third of the school system’s 1,200 teaching staff. The drastic move is the result of a budget gap of $9.7 million for next year and is closely tied to projected cuts in local aid provided by the state of Massachusetts.

• The Best and the Brightest Led America Off a Cliff
• Higher ed should aspire to higher purpose
• Teaching to Student's, Not Industry's, Needs

Jennie Rothenberg Gritz, TheAtlantic.com

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Will Shapira

Holt/Times Books

• "We should be preparing our kids for Yale, not jail." Paul López, community activist
• Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) files suit after first-grader handcuffed

Cindy Rodríguez, Denver Post | CO

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Ken Mitchell

When I think about the debate over the lack of minority students attending CU-Boulder, or most colleges for that matter, that quip from labor organizer Paul López pops into my head.    

He made that remark after the nonprofit educational justice organization Padres Unidos last year unveiled the results of a study that documented the rising number of students getting ticketed by police in Denver Public Schools because of zero-tolerance policies.    

The report, "Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track," documented a 71 percent increase in the number of tickets given to students in DPS, from 2000 to 2004, at a time when Denver police saw a 25 percent decrease in juvenile crime.    

Getting a ticket means a student has to miss school to go to juvenile court, yet the report revealed that 68 percent of the tickets issued were for minor offenses that should have been handled by school administrators and parents, not outsourced to cops.    

Ticketing kids for violating the school dress code, uttering a profane word or returning to school to retrieve something (trespassing, to police) is an extension of the same policy that politicians have adopted nationwide to lock up hundreds of thousands of people busted for carrying small amounts of drugs.