On student councils and international competition ...

As the K-12 education reporter, I often find myself debating with folks about the quality of American education in comparison to other countries.
I've heard dozens of anecdotes from educators and teachers who have been to China, Japan, Germany and others, and have returned with stories of factory-like students marching through a regimented 10-hour school day before coming home to enthusiastically renew their studies before dinner. And we've all read the reports of American students lagging behind their international peers in everything from reading and math to science and engineering.
I can't debate the accuracy of those reports. But what I can debate is the fact that American education includes more than education - and that's significant.
On Tuesday, the Mankato East Student Council held its fall blood drive. Council members organized a small army of nurses and cots, brought in boxes of doughnuts and cases of bottled water, and set a goal to collect 110 units of blood.
But the interesting thing is that Tuesday's blood drive is only the first of two drives the Council in sponsoring this year. Because East's National Honor Society decided to focus its service projects elsewhere this year, the Council made the decision to continue the spring blood drive themselves (which is normally sponsored by the Honor Society).
That one decision could save dozens of lives. And it illustrates a broader understanding of what's important to a community.
The point is this: In American schools, education goes beyond reading, writing and 'rithmetic. In this hyper-standardized and assessment-heavy era of education, it's important that students are taught about the world that lies within arm's reach.
We should all value a competent American student who can compete with the best and brightest on a global scale. But we should also value a student who understands the world outside a textbook.
And while a blood drive won't change the world (well, it might for the patient who needs the transfusion) - it does show that Mankato is teaching its students to value community and the role they can play within it.

Co-worker won't cough in the crook of their arm? Car won't start? Having a poor day? You need heartwarming stories of Mankato students:

- Loyola students remember a fallen friend: http://www.mankatofreepress.com/archivesearch/local_story_044174443.html
- Mankato elementary students brighten the holidays: http://www.mankatofreepress.com/archivesearch/local_story_352220315.html
- Mankato soccer jerseys travel the globe: http://www.mankatofreepress.com/archivesearch/local_story_025220340.html

Polite disagreement

The public hearing on attendance boundaries for Mankato's new Rosa Parks Elementary was an interesting place to be on Monday night.
A few observations:
- Folks are remarkably loyal to their neighborhood schools. A couple families said they built homes in the Franklin attendance area specifically for that school. A couple other families said they trust the education at their current school and are hesitant to change.
- District boundary lines are confusing. Mankato's map of boundaries looks like a jigsaw puzzle. Washington's boundary stretches across much of hilltop Mankato, but only because its own neighborhood has lost much of its residential land due to the expansions by the two hospitals and Bethany Lutheran College. Kennedy's area, however, is so concentrated with students that its boundary is little more than an island situated in the middle of Washington's area. It's confusing to district officials, not to mention parents.
- Lastly, people are exceedingly polite in this town. Parents had legitimate concerns about the effects of these changes on their children - and they brought all of them to the public hearing. One woman said her daughter is already having anxiety about changing schools; another parent was worried his child might now spend more than an hour on the bus each morning. But despite the concern and disagreement, discussion was respectful and polite throughout.

But just in case you're wondering what Mankato is missing (or what you can do to waste the next four minutes), here are a couple good fight videos from town-hall style meetings:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts5siyBYddM&feature=related
2. http://failblog.org/2009/04/02/injury-fail/
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J63nHNydOgs

Funny numbers

When it comes to education statistics, all the numbers don't always add up.
Much has already been said and written about the achievement gap in American schools. To an alarming degree, non-white students are not achieving at the same levels as their white peers. There are a number of reasons, some explored and some unexplored, but most relate to income level.
But here is where the numbers can get confusing.
Last week, The Free Press re-printed a story from the Christian Science Monitor that analyzed a report from the Center on Education Policy on the achievement gap in all 50 states. Minnesota did not compare favorably because its gap is not closing as fast as some other states.
But fast forward to Wednesday when the National Center for Education Statistics released the results from a nationwide math assessment for 4th- and 8th-graders. In it, Minnesota's students competed with those of Massachusetts, New Jersey and Vermont as the country's best performers.
But even further, the scores of Minnesota's non-white students - although still not as high their white peers - were just about the same as the national averages.
And while it's difficult to draw conclusions from any single report or batch of test data, it seems that while Minnesota continues to have a clear achievement gap - most students are still receiving a competitive education.

Dad was right.

I remember fondly many of my father's sayings. They varied in content and form, and he seemed to have dozens at his disposal.
On lazy, couchside afternoons in front of the TV, dad would say: "Couldn't get any work done today anyway - it's too wet to rain and too windy to haul rock."
I don't know either, but he'd laugh like hell every time he said it.
He told me things like "If you get into a fight you know you're going to lose, make sure you throw the first punch because it might be your last."
To him, anything disgusting was "ockey medicine." And if you spilled milk on your chin while taking too big of a gulp from the carton, then you just "slopped your dripper."
But driving down 5th street the other day, I remembered another: "Always stop at a lemonade stand."
I was going back to the Free Press office after lunch. I had just eaten two helpings of leftover beef stew and then washed it down with a glass of ice milk. I was stuffed to my shoulders and enjoying a discussion on public radio about nuclear reactors in Iran when I saw the faint outline of a lemonade stand.
As I neared the stand, I tried to quiet my father's voice inside my head. I just ate, I told myself, and dad would forgive any man for not putting lemonade on top of beef stew.
I tried not to make eye contact with the moppy haired youngster manning the stand as I drove by. But I couldn't help myself. We locked eyes and, seizing his window of opportunity, the 7 or maybe 8-year-old held up his handwritten sign.
It said: Homade Lemenade.
I bought a glass at 50 cents. I only had a $5, and he could only give me back $3, so he said I could keep the plastic cup. It was a fair deal, so we shook on it.
The lemonade was terrible, clearly lacking a mother's steady hand on the sugar, and I dumped it out three blocks away on Mulberry Street.
But it was still worth the stop - if only to get dad's voice out of my head.

More on debt ...

In Wednesday's edition of the newspaper, I reported on the United South Central School District discovering an accounting error that caused the district to fall into statutory operating debt. Now resolved, the district is out of debt and firmly in the black.

But along the way, I came across a surprising trend.

Despite the sluggish economy and a continually declining number of K-12 students statewide, the number of districts in statutory operating debt (also called "SOD") is at its lowest level in more than a decade. From 1999 to 2007, there have been at least 24 districts in SOD, with the peak coming in 2001 with 45 districts.

For all taxpayers hear about stagnant state funding and declining enrollments, this trend seems to highlight that current accountability measures (state-mandated audits, compliance laws, billing procedures, etc.) are working to some degree.

All this, of course, could change next spring when districts balance their 09-10 books with the additional challenge of delayed aid payments (one of Gov. Tim Pawlenty's solutions for balancing the state budget).

For the latest state report on districts in SOD, look here.

Kudos for tough justice

And, this time, the justice came from Edward Bearse, an Anoka County judge who is ruling in this case of teacher-student sex allegations.

The details are still being hashed out, but a veteran Stewartville third-grade teacher is accused of inappropriate sexual touching with several students. One of the allegations is that the teacher, a 63-year-old man, used a small stool to have girls sit in front of him so he could rub himself on their backs. A few of the girls passed him a note asking him to stop the behavior; later, those girls went to the principal.

But the tough justice came during the bail hearing. When the teacher's lawyer asked for leniency on the bail conditions so the teacher could continue to be near his grandchildren, the judge denied the request, citing the seriousness of the allegations.

There is no doubt that teachers have been mistakenly, and even falsely, accused of sexual abuse. And it's possible this teacher is among them. A judge's order to stay away from grandkids would be a devastating blow to an otherwise innocent man.

But what if the teacher is guilty? In that case, this teacher needs to be as far as possible from children - his own and others'.

Within the past year, there have been several teacher-student sex cases in this area that have been brought to trial. I've reported on many of them. I even received a call from one of the victims, and that 15-minute conversation remains among the toughest I've ever had - personally or professionally.

And if I've learned one thing from it all, it's that the victims are real. Students who are sexually abused by teachers and authority figures almost always have many years of emotional and psychological pain in front of them. Later, their wives and husbands will cry with them; their therapists will bill them; and the public, by and large, will forget about them.

But judges and other stewards of justice must always keep the victims in mind. And, sometimes, protecting children must come at the expense of the rights of the accused.

If the Stewartville teacher is found innocent and the charges false, he will be owed an apology. But not from the judge, who deserves kudos for erring on the side of caution and protecting children from his harm - even when his decision may be considered by some to be excessive.