Bucks
Lisa Andrejko, Bill Gates, Cathy Lewis, Charles Keenan
Dear Friends,
Good morning. Recently, I talked with the Quakertown School Superintendent after I read a story about Bill Gates who is so critical of America’s public education. Dr. Lisa Andrejko responded to the Microsoft founder’s story, which appeared in the Inquirer (July 22).
Before I do, did you read the obituary about Charles Keenan’s passing? Years ago, I met the Perkasie resident through his wife, the gregarious Nancy Keenan who writes for various newspapers and is a major advocate for seniors. I knew him through his artwork. Charles was an excellent painter.
What I didn’t know about him would fill a book. Charles Keenan was 90 when he died July 28. He was a member of the “Greatest Generation,” that group which lived through the Great Depression and World War II.
His military record was exemplary. “A veteran of the Army Air Corps, Keenan served in World War II as a radioman and instructor,” the obituary revealed. “He flew 26 missions over Germany. He was the recipient of the Air Medal with three Oak Clusters, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the European African Middle Eastern Service Medal.”
Can you imagine? Charles Keenan flew 26 combat missions and lived to tell the tale! In his early 20’s, he definitely was an American hero, but very quiet about it. Charles Keenan was a very good man.
Isn’t that always the case? Wars start because of older men’s decisions but it’s the young who do the fighting and dying.
And now to Bill Gates and Lisa Andrejko.
Bill Gates often states that America’s public education system is broken and needs a revolution to fix it. Two weeks ago, he spoke to the National Conference of State Legislatures who met in Philadelphia.
“Gates urged that states create more schools modeled on the best charter schools; hold teachers accountable for student performance; enforce nationwide standards; spread knowledge through online learning made available for free; and develop better assessment tools to evaluate individual pupils, teachers, and schools,” Michael Matza wrote for the Inquirer (July 22).
Here are a few additional paragraphs worth reviewing. “Teachers are rewarded for seniority and master’s degrees,” Gates said, “and that is not the best way to ensure educational quality.
“Critical in determining whether a student will drop out of high school is whether he or she connects with a good teacher in the fifth to eighth grades and develops a passion for lifelong learning.
“A quality teacher would boost scores by 10 percentage points in a single year,” Gates told the legislators. “What that means is that if, in the United States, for two years, our teachers were all top-quartile teachers, the differences between the U.S. and the very best scores in the world would go away.”
Gates was referring to the comparisons of student performance in language, math and science with 20 other industrialized nations. Although the U.S. spends more per student than all other countries, America ranks near the bottom in student performance.
He spoke about two other items.
Gates says that the U.S. graduation rate is about 70 percent. One of his foundation’s missions is to increase that rate to 80 percent and to double the number of low-income adults who get a degree beyond high school by age 26.
“I agree with most of what Bill Gates was saying,” Lisa Andrejko responded, “but he’s not an educator.”
The Superintendent noted that Quakertown is involved with Project 720, which is a Gates education model and funded by his philanthropy.
“We’re opening a cyber school this year where high school students can take courses on line,” Andrejko began. “We expect to add the middle schools by the end of the year.”
She spoke about teacher accountability.
“We are one of the few [schools] that bases compensation upon student performance,” she continued. Andrejko believes that the teachers’ union is gradually moving toward performance compensation. She told me that Quakertown has a teacher performance improvement plan to remedy students that are not measuring up to state standards.
Andrejko said that Quakertown’s drop out rate is significantly better than the American average (70 percent). “Our graduation rate runs between 88 and 95 percent,” she said. “And some of the drop outs are returning [to school] because of the flexibility of our cyber school.”
“Gates doesn’t have the whole picture,” Andrejko added. “In America, all kids get a compulsory public school education. Not all countries do.” She also responded to Gates’ criticism of the lack of national standards. Gates believes that America needs a national standard for students, which flies in the face of the states’ rights argument and local control.
“Pennsylvania has common core standards,” Andrejko concluded. “Forty-five states have come up with standards. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.”
I’m not convinced.
Next week, I’ll share an article written by Cathy Lewis, a principal in a small town in Maine. Mighty Betsy and I met her last year while visiting friends. Lewis turned a K through grade 8, failing school around in two years. Before her rescue work began, the Steuben, Maine school was one of 24 schools that had not met the state standards in math and reading over a three-year period. It’s a fascinating story. Stay tuned.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith