Educational Standards Depart From Reality

Oh what a week it’s been. Last weekend’s storm managed to knock out school for Norwalk’s students for an entire week. And Thursday and Friday turned out to be pretty nice days, Friday especially with temperatures hitting into the 70s. I kinda remember the 70s too, when I was in school, and any day that featured unexpected warm sunny weather was a challenge to anything that was going on inside a classroom.

Smart teachers then, realized this, and lesson plans were shelved in favor of taking advantage of the climate. Of course they didn’t have to deal with administrators who spend their days filling out forms to explain just how much education was happening with them thar tax dollars. And there were no parental release forms for any excursion outside of the hallway without a hallway pass.

Such impromptu lessons are some of my fondest memories. Like Mrs. O’Leary’s cow tipping over the lantern in the wood barn. My first elementary school was a red brick building because wood buildings were lost in the great Chicago Fire. My second elementary school had it’s entire third floor closed off because of a fire. No cows were involved, but the mysterious third floor featured prominently in stories of lost homework and book reports. You have to like those 70s priorities though, no money to repair the floor, so just close it off and keep the school running, by increasing class sizes.

These days, things are a wee bit more complicated. No school means that state educational mandates must be dealt with. Such as the 900 hours/180 day rule which was enacted in 1981. Those 80s were the start of really bad educational decisions weren’t they? Which Norwalk has to meet, unless the State Board of Education waives the requirement.

According to Mayor Moccia, he has talked with interim Superintendent Michael Nast about doing just that, asking for the state to waive the minimum days required to hold school. The financial implications of keeping school open longer affect not just the City but the parents and programs who will have to adjust schedules to work around an extended school year.

How Norwalk got to closing schools on Friday is a story in itself. Each day an assessment was made by DPW, CL &P and the school bus company about the status of the roads. According to Hal Alvord, no trees blocked any roads to teh schools by Wednesday. According to the Mayor, there were some roads still blocked by trees on school bus routes. The bus drivers reported that too many roads were still blocked preventing them for hitting all bus stops. Apparently having school kids walk to another spot was just too difficult.

“Not so fast,” explained the Mayor in response to my ninny school bus driver assessment question. “There were wires down in the roads, and while most were telephone wires, we didn’t want parents or children to be alarmed that they were near downed wires. You can’t tell telephone from electrical wires.”  Then there was some concern about opening some schools versus others, like Kendall and Silvermine, where wires were down near the schools themselves. Nast decided to keep them all closed rather than pick and choose which could open and which should stay closed. Meeting those state mandates is a school district versus individual school kinda thing.

State mandates certainly lead to odd situations. In New York, the Department of Education ahs come up with another mandate, sure to be on its way to Connecticut about banning home made goods at bake sales. The reason? The lack of nutrional information on home baked brownies, pumpkin pie or cup cakes. So it’s okay to sell low fat pop-tarts, but not organic pop corn balls. The LATimes reports:

The Department of Education says the regulations are aimed at combating obesity among the city’s more than 1.1 million public school children, about 40% of whom are overweight. By restricting bake sale offerings to goods limited in calories and wrapped in packaging that lists nutritional information, schools will help children reduce their intake of unhealthy snacks, officials say.

Among the approved items: Glenny’s Brown Rice Marshmallow Treats, baked cheddar and sour cream chips and a variety of granola bars, popcorn clusters and cookies. None has more than 200 calories or 200 milligrams of sodium per serving. The Pop-Tarts weigh in at 200 calories each.

But critics say the numbers are beside the point because the rule discourages home-baking practices that teach children to value fresh food and give people a reason to go to a bake sale, which can bring in several hundred dollars to pay for extras such as field trips and school supplies.

“Why would you go to a bake sale to buy baked potato chips?” said Mitzi Dulan, a nutritionist and registered dietitian whose clients include the Kansas City Chiefs football team and the Royals baseball team. A better plan would be to offer parents recipes for healthier snacks to sell, she said.

David Cantor, the education department’s spokesman, said the city was simply in line with a nationwide effort to combat childhood obesity, which First Lady Michelle Obama has made one of her priorities.

“We restrict sales of homemade food because we cannot monitor its nutritional value,” Cantor said, adding that “homemade is not synonymous with healthful.” A recent photo of items at a bake sale showed a sign for bacon chocolate-chip cookies, he said.

In Connecticut 25% of children between 10 and 17 are obese. It’s insane right? Since the 80s all those mandates of educational standards have led to putting fat kids on school busses to haul them to 180 days of classroom instruction because walking to school is too dangerous and missing a day of curriculum mandate might lead to lower test scores.