Jewish World Review August 30, 2004 / 13 Elul, 5764

Joanne Jacobs

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Grading Games, Recess Restrictions


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Purple is replacing red as the color of correction, according to this Boston Globe story.

Red is too associated with wrongness. Green and yellow don't offer enough contrast. Orange is too close to red. Purple is "friendlier." So pen makers are boosting production of purple pens and office supply stores are thinking purple.

A mix of red and blue, the color purple embodies red's sense of authority but also blue's association with serenity, making it a less negative and more constructive color for correcting student papers, color psychologists said. Purple calls attention to itself without being too aggressive. And because the color is linked to creativity and royalty, it is also more encouraging to students.

"The concept of purple as a replacement for red is a pretty good idea," said Leatrice Eiseman, director of the Pantone Color Institute in Carlstadt, N.J., and author of five books on color. "You soften the blow of red. Red is a bit over-the-top in its aggression."

The Globe quotes an immigrant mother who's taking English classes. Victoria Nedruban stands up for red.

"I hate red," she said. "But because I hate it, I want to work harder to make sure there isn't any red on my papers."

Apparently, she hasn't assimilated 21st century American values.


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C for Effort

Benedict College, a historically black college in South Carolina, has fired two science professors for refusing to go along with "effort-based grading." From The State:

Benedict College has fired two professors who refused to go along with a policy that says freshmen are awarded 60 percent of their grades based on effort and the rest on their work's academic quality.

Benedict President David Swinton says the Success Equals Effort policy gives struggling freshmen a chance to adapt to college academics. He expects students to improve — the formula drops to 50-50 in the sophomore year and isn't used in the junior or senior year. But he says he's "interested in where they are at when they graduate, not where they are when they get here."

Students "have to get an A in effort to guarantee that if they fail the subject matter, they can get the minimum passing grade," Swinton said. "I don't think that's a bad thing."

Professors Milwood Motley and Larry Williams were fired for rejecting the policy. Neither had tenure.

Eventually, effort leads to success, but not necessarily in the first year of college for students who start without basic skills and knowledge. And how did students get so far behind? They've been passed through school without learning the subject matter. It's the Low Standards Equals Failure plan.

KIPP Works Harder

Wednesday was opening day for KIPP Heartwood Academy, a middle school in East San Jose.

In the Washington Post, Jay Mathews describes how novice teachers Mike Feinberg and David Levin founded KIPP, a national network of charters targeting very disadvantaged minority communities. The results are impressive.

One hundred percent of eighth-graders at KIPP Academy Houston passed the Texas state tests last year. KIPP Academy New York ranks in the top 10 percent of all New York city schools. Students at KIPP schools opened since 2001 averaged score increases last year of 39 percent in mathematics and 20 percent in reading. About 80 percent of KIPP students in 15 states and the District have family incomes low enough to qualify for federal lunch subsidies, and they are all of the hormone-addled middle school age that makes even teachers at wealthy private schools tremble. (KIPP is starting an elementary and a high school in Houston this year.)

Feinberg and Levin say they want discipline, attention and steady, measurable progress that supplants the distractions of their students' homes and neighborhoods.

KIPP students go to school for as much as nine and a half hours a day, come in regularly on Saturdays and attend a mandatory summer school. They get a lot more time to learn. Discipline is enforced consistently so distractions are minimized. Despite paying teachers more to work longer hours, KIPP spends only about 13 percent more than the national average.

"In some expensive cities like New York, however, KIPP is still spending less per student than regular public schools are," Mathews writes.

Regulating Recess

Child's play is too dangerous for recess, school administrators are deciding. Josh Cohen links to a Sacramento Bee story:

Concerned about safety and injuries and worried about bullying, violence, self-esteem and lawsuits, school officials have clamped down on the traditional games from years past.

Gone from many blacktops are tag, dodgeball and any game involving bodily contact. In are organized relay races and adult-supervised activities.

At one school, children aren't allowed to push each other on the swings. Administrators worry about "bullying and potential lawsuits from parents."

Many see the recess restrictions as part of larger cultural shifts. Schools now must craft lesson plans on responsibility, honesty and violence prevention, Maeola Beitzel Principal Judy Hunt-Brown said. And those lessons, among other things, fit neatly into the structured, organized play so prevalent on today's schoolyard.

"To some degree, the school has needed to take a larger role in teaching children how to play with each other — the whole taking turns, how to deal with conflict," Hunt-Brown said.

When I was a kid — OK, I'm about the same age as Beaver Cleaver — children worked these things out for ourselves. Of course, we had competent parents who'd taught us self-control and basic good manners.

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JWR contributor Joanne Jacobs, a former Knight-Ridder columnist and San Jose Mercury News editorial writer, blogs daily at ReadJacobs.com. She is currently finishing a book, Start-Up High, about a San Jose charter school. Comment by clicking here.


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