Peers influence students

Another dispatch from the front lines in the education wars from Captain Obvious, as printed by the BCCT.

Study: Peers influence students
Overall, students were nearly as likely after three years of college to call themselves “conservative” or “far-right.”
By JUSTIN POPE

On issues such as abortion, gay marriage and religion, college students shift noticeably to the left from the time they arrive on campus through their junior year, new research shows.

The reason, according to UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, isn’t indoctrination by left-leaning faculty but rather the more powerful influence of fellow students. And at most colleges, left-leaning peer groups are more common than conservative ones.

After college, students — particularly women — move somewhat back to the right politically.

The research is the latest of several efforts by academics to lend analytical rigor to an emotional debate. Overall, college faculty lean left politically, but there’s sharp disagreement on whether they impose their views on students. The UCLA researchers are among several social scientists who have tried to undermine the argument that students respond strongly to their teachers’ opinions.

Overall, students were nearly as likely after three years of college to call themselves “conservative” or “far-right,” according to findings, and only somewhat more likely to call themselves “liberal” or “far left.”

On specific policy questions, they moved to more liberal positions.

Sixty percent of the college juniors said they support legalized abortion, up from 52 percent who said so as freshmen. The percentage supporting “legal marital status” for gay couples rose from 54 to 66. The percentage supporting increased defense spending fell from 34 to 25.

“People are moving out of the center to the left during college,” said one of the researchers, Alexander Astin.

Studies dating back decades have noted the trend of college students moving to the left during their college careers. But finding a representative snapshot of overall college opinion is difficult, because colleges have such varying student bodies.

The new figures from UCLA — which has been tracking attitudes of freshmen for more than 40 years — give a fresher and, the authors contend, more valid portrait. Based on a sample of nearly 15,000 students who entered 136 colleges in 2004, the results are carefully weighted to represent the full college population. Unlike some other such surveys, UCLA was able to pose its questions to the same students when they started college and after junior year.

Among other findings:

The percentage of students who support laws prohibiting homosexual relationships fell 10 points, from 31.5 percent to 21.5 percent after three years of college.

The percentage who never attend religious services nearly doubled to 37.5 percent.

There were exceptions to the leftward trend. A majority continued to support the death penalty, though the percentage saying it should be abolished rose 5 points to about 37 percent. On taxes, the percentage strongly agreeing the wealthy should pay a larger share rose slightly, but there was otherwise little change.

A Few Bad Apples. How Much Applesauce Can They Make?

An editorial from the Santa Fe New Mexican. (No, not that Mexico...the American one. It's one of those square states at the bottom of the map, below the other square and box states.)

Kids share plenty of blame for our schools' failings-
Editorial | The New Mexican

9/12/2008 - 9/14/08
For the past few weeks, Mallard Fillmore, the conservative comic strip at the bottom of the Opinions page Monday through Saturday, has gone after our nation's schools — especially teachers, whom cartoonist Bruce Tinsley portrays as muddle-headed softies, and, by implication, the people to blame for the sad state of public education. [Moderator Note: Several of the cartoons follow at the end of the post.]

The silliness cited by Tinsley might match a few teachers — the kind John McCain rightly says should be faced with finding a new line of work. But there are far too many excellent educators out there, doing excellent work, to hang all the blame on the entire profession, or even the teachers' unions.

We've long felt that negligent parents have much more to do with poorly educated kids. Those who kiss off their kids' progress, of course, have their own excuses: Both of us have to work, or I'm a single parent, and the school systems don't do enough to baby-sit our little darlings after the last bell, so how can we supplement their schooling — especially after they've spent so many after-school hours fomenting rebellion or fermenting apathy before we/I get home from work ...

Anything but take responsibility, Mom, Dad ...

However, it's been a long time since the editorial "we" put a chunk of responsibility where it belongs: on the kids. Yes, kids; those budding people portrayed so often as victims of this failure and that.

So many of them are good students, reliable in attendance, busy with extracurricular activities and budding good students that even this leg of the public-education triangle can't be daubed with the same paint. But there are just enough louts and loutesses out there to make a mess of the process that they need to be called down.

These are the ones who cut classes; who mouth off to teachers and principals; who, when they do go to school, sit sullenly and refuse to take part in class; who treat school like a joke, and want everyone in on it.

In just a few years, they discover themselves as the butt of their joke: Job opportunities are, to put it mildly, limited. Colleges don't exactly welcome them with open arms. Even the armed services, or certain of them, say they aren't interested. So that leaves what — crime?

But try telling that to the thin layer of low-level teens impervious to urgings, warnings or matter-of-fact advice; those kids know it all ...

And that's what we grudgingly like about Gov. Bill Richardson's radical proposal of last spring: To be eligible for a driver's license, you've got to go to school — and knock down decent grades.

Ouch — right in the steering wheel!

Once the governor's program is in place, driver's-license eligibility for teens would be pegged to "near-proficient" scores on tests, and 90-percent attendance rates, or at least according to his original pitch. We'll be curious to see how it reaches the rule-books, and what kind of civil-liberties challenges it raises.

We're not so sure it will work: Many families need their kids' income — some so badly that Mom and Dad urge junior to drop out of school. But the kid will likely need a car to get to jobs. Does the state penalize poverty?

Rather than the governor and the school system riding roughshod over the kids, the parents ought to be the ones doing it; so we're back to their role in the state of public education.

Back East, meanwhile, school districts are paying kids to do well in school. Bribery! you may gasp — but maybe it's merely an incentive to learn, and, as an introduction to our capitalistic society, the pay-for-grades experiments themselves might prove educational.

Negative and positive pressure both have drawbacks — yet it's encouraging to see our leaders remembering, amid their scapegoating of educational failure, that schools are about kids — and kids play a role in the learning process.

MHS Students Working in Community

Those horrible MHS kids (you know, the ones we want to farm away?) are at it again.

Morrisville students collect sneakers to help families in Africa

Do you have some sneakers hanging around unused at home? Donate them to Morrisville High School students, who are collecting them to help families in need in Africa.
The money from refurbishing and selling the sneakers would help pay for livestock, wells and other essential resources. It would help families create a perpetually sustainable income through the tools that the sneaker money would buy.
So far, National Honors Society advisor Elizabeth Glaum-Lathbury has collected about 20 pairs in her classroom. She’s working with the middle school service advisor and said she expects the Sneakers for Africa initiative to bring in more than 600 pairs by the end of the school year.

Gym Night Participation

Last night was the 44th annual Morrisville Gym Night fought between the Gold and the Blue teams at the high school. For those of you who keep score, Gold won last night over Blue.

I'm not a fan of the "everyone is great" school of recognition. Once the fundamentals are learned and you reach a certain age of awareness and accountability, it's time to learn the stark real-life lesson that not everyone wins every time. Life doesn't award participation trophies.

This time though, it's different. If you participated in gym night, then the reality that one team will win and another will lose was clear. However, all of the participants won, and here's why.

Those sixth through twelfth graders learned real life lessons like:
** Just because I worked hard does not mean I or my team will win. I and my team may not have won, but my hard work is still meaningful.
** A team together is stronger than the individual alone, but the team fails without the individual contribution.
** I am an individual, but my contribution toward the team goal raised all of us up. I may not necessarily be good performing a cheer, acting in the skit, or playing the sports, but I do know where I can contribute, and I did.
** I can be a good winner, because the next time I could be the loser. I can be a good loser, because I could be the winner the next time.

Were you there? What other life lessons do you think our kids learned last night?

The next time someone tells you that Morrisville produces lower quality students, point to gym night and tell them that you were there and saw the high quality of our students. Ask if they saw this alleged low quality themselves. The answer will probably be "NO", because they were not there to see the reality of the schools, and the good students that are the products of the Morrisville school system. Sadly, that probably includes the school board members and their sycophants who are bent upon the destruction and eradication of this little school system. I know I did not see any of them there. If this is wrong, please feel free to send word of your school board member sighting. Take a look at that "Citizenship" theme that was included in the programs last night. The next time you hear them talking, ask yourself if they are demonstrating "good citizenship" or "poor citizenship."

Thank you to the MHS administration, teachers, staff, and especially the students, who worked together to make this a success. You deserve a lot more than a mention here for your hard work and dedication. Also, a special thank you to everyone who participated in the "Locks of Love" donations. I know the hair will grow back, but I hear several Bulldogs had a rather close shave.

Good News on a Morrisville Student

Congrats to Andrew Brake!

From The Trenton Times
Auto insurance company awards $20K scholarship
Friday, February 22, 2008

WEST WINDSOR -- A Wyncote, Pa., high school student was cho sen from 300 applicants to receive a $20,000 tuition scholarship from the New Jersey-based Citizen United Reciprocal Exchange auto insurance company that has offices in the township.

Andrew "Jordy" Freed of Cheltenham High School is the third recipient of the "Pay It Forward" Scholarship, which is based on the 2000 movie of the same name and promotes contributions to society for no personal gain.

The four other finalists were Andrew Brake of Morrisville High School; David Karas of Notre Dame High School in Lawrence; Joshua Suslak from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South and Kimberly Critelli from The College of New Jersey in Ewing.

Each of the five finalists will receive a plaque and $1,000 from CURE for textbooks as well as other gifts.

Freed focused his winning essay on organizing benefit concerts that raise money for charitable organizations such as tsunami relief.