Trends
(Most) Americans Agree: Tell It Like It Is

Educators are forever battling over how to present American history. Should we show the good with the bad, or should we strive to develop patriotism by accenting only the positive in our national story?

It turns out Americans have an unusual level of consensus on that question. The public opinion research organization Public Agenda asked a random sample of 1,500 adults: "When teaching American history to kids in middle and high school, do you think it's better to place the country in the best possible light, or do you think it's better to teach the bad and the good, warts and all?"

Ninety percent picked "warts and all."

Public Agenda didn't ask about teaching elementary school kids.

Looks like we should 'fess up about George Washington and that cherry tree.

For more, see www.publicagenda.org/aboutpa/aboutpa_press_release_detail.cfm?list=48.

Look, Ma, No Books

One in six teachers say they do not have enough texts for every child, and nearly one in three don't have enough for students to take home, according to a survey of teachers conducted by NEA and the Association of American Publishers.

Where is the book shortage most acute? No surprises here: It's twice as bad in urban areas as non-urban, and nearly twice as bad in schools with large numbers of low-income and minority students.

Of the teachers who are short on texts, 61 percent say they try to compensate by buying supplemental materials with their own money.

And 27 percent report the shortage disrupts classes. Said one, "It was chaotic having the kids share books and not having books to take home to do work."

For more, see www.publishers.org.

Robo-Readers

Several states are trying out computer programs to score student essays on state tests, reports Education Week.

A computer "doesn't need a cigarette break, doesn't need a cup of coffee, and scores the first and last essay the same," explained a software company executive.

The programs first try to figure out what's in the minds of human scorers. They read hundreds of scored essays to see what is similar about essays that got the same score. But since they can't actually think, the programs don't look for clear reasoning or gripping storylines. They stick to writing features that mechanical minds can fathom, including spelling, punctuation, syntax, and so on.

"Ultimately, it comes down to vocabulary," says the same company exec.

Uniforms Out of Fashion?

They had bipartisan support--both President Clinton and President Bush favored them. But school uniforms, just recently the rage, are already going out of style, according to a New York Times report.

It seems that many kids and parents never really liked the idea. "Parents want uniforms. They just don't want uniforms for their kid," a California principal told a reporter.

Two years ago, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that uniforms were required in about 20 percent of public and Catholic elementary and middle schools and in 10 percent of high schools. (The CDC didn't think wearing uniforms was sick. The numbers were gathered as part of a survey of school safety measures.)

Neither state nor federal authorities track these numbers so there's no way to quantify the rise or fall of uniforms, the Times says. But the reporter contacted some districts that adopted uniforms in the 1990s with high hopes to learn what went wrong.

Public school parents can't be required to dress their children in uniforms--that violates free speech--and when some children aren't forced to wear them, other children put the pressure on their parents to relent. Some parents offered uniform waivers to their offspring as rewards for good grades or stuffed them in Christmas stockings.

Still, some schools, especially in big cities, are holding the line. That includes about three-quarters of the elementary schools in the Times' hometown.

For more, see www.nytimes.com/2002/09/13/education/13UNIF.html.