Homeschooling, Tennessee politics

Public school vs. private school ACT scores

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This is a tale of 54,041 high school diplomas. That’s the number of public high school diplomas awarded in Tennessee last year (2006-2007). There are 324 public high schools in Tennessee. The public high schools are operated by 119 public school systems. There are 137 public school systems in Tennessee, but only 119 of them operate high schools.

I got curious this week about tracking down median ACT scores for Public vs. Private vs. Homeschool high school graduates. It turns out, even in the age of public data on the internet that this is not an easy question to answer. If the data to answer this question already exists somewhere on the internet, it’s extraordinarily well hidden. I spent several days searching for it… and I’m pretty handy with google. I did discover a blog in Kentucky which contained interesting articles commenting on the meaning of median ACT scores released for that state. Kentucky’s scores, released by ACT, Inc. of Iowa, give the median for ALL high school seniors, public, private, and homeschool. From the ACT data alone, you cannot tell how the public schools are performing, because ACT will not disagregate the data. Tennessee ACT scores are released in the same format as Kentucky.

But, it turns out, in Tennessee at least, there is a way to calculate median ACT score for the public schools. And if we know the number of public school students who took the ACT, and their median score, then we can calculate the median score for the remaining non-public school students.

In 2007, the median ACT for all students in Tennessee taking the test was 20.7. This is slightly below ( a half a point) the national ACT median score of 21.2. A half a point difference between two individual scores is probably not terribly significant. There are too many variables that can’t be controlled between two individual scores to ever be able to know why one student scored a half a point higher than another. BUT, comparing the median scores of two significantly sized groups IS meaningful… because all the individual variations offset and cancel each other out. 48,113 students took the ACT in Tennessee in 2007. 1,300,599 students took it nationwide. Comparing the averages for those two very large populations does tell us, with a pretty high degree of confidence, that Tennessee students did not perform quite as well as the national average.

But those 48,113 Tennessee students include public school, high school, and homeschool students. I have an inquiry in to ACT, Inc. asking them for the disaggregated data for those three groups, but they haven’t responded to me. The data would be very helpful in discussing some pretty pressing public policy questions about education. I don’t think it’s an accident that ACT doesn’t make the data readily available. I have the feeling that the data are not very flattering to public school administrators. And I suspect that’s why ACT hasn’t made them available.

But in Tennessee, there is another source of data about public school ACT scores – the Tennessee Department of Education itself. The Department has an online database that reports the number of students who took the ACT and the median composite score by school system. Actually, the online database has a great deal more information than that, but the median composite ACT scores are what I was interested in.

I don’t know whether it’s intentional or not, but the Tennessee DOE does not report the statewide median ACT score, nor does it make it easy to calculate, but all the pieces are there, on their website – they just have to be assembled.

So, I spent about four or five hours today, using the free wifi at University Pizza & Deli in Chattanooga, to pull up and copy off the median composite ACT scores for all 119 public high school systems in Tennessee. 35,725 public school students (out of 54,041 who graduate) too the ACT in 2007 – about 66.1% of the graduates. The median composite ACT score for all of them was 20.30. Since there were a total of 48,113 students who took the ACT in Tennessee, we can subtract out the public school students and the remaining 12,388 students were non-public school (private schools and home schools). And since we know the median composite ACT score for ALL students in Tennessee was 20.7 and the median for the PUBLIC school students was 20.30, we can calculate what the median composite score for the non-public schools was: that median composite ACT score in 2007 was 21.85.

So, we can now end the speculation and report with confidence that in 2007, in Tennessee, ALL students averaged a 20.7 composite ACT score, PUBLIC SCHOOL students averaged a 20.30 composite ACT score, and PRIVATE SCHOOL students averaged 21.85 composite ACT score. In other words, in 2007 private schools and home schools averaged 1.15 points higher on the ACT than the public schools. But of course, it’s the private school diplomas that the Department of Education thinks are suspect.

Since I had to compile the data for all 119 systems in a spreadsheet, I’ll post all of the data here – so that others can check my calculations, and so that the data will be available to everyone interested.

There are a number of other interesting observations about the public high schools that can be made from the data.

For example, here are the 10 public school systems in Tennessee with the HIGHEST median composite ACT scores:

TENNESSEE REGULAR % TAKING 2007 ACT Composite
SCHOOL SYSTEM DIPLOMAS ACT n median
1 Maryville City 321 76.9% 247 23.67
2 Oak Ridge City 321 68.8% 221 23.53
3 Kingsport City 400 82.8% 331 22.74
4 Greenville City 209 66.5% 139 22.68
5 Williamson Co. 1,966 80.6% 1,584 22.54
6 Tullahoma City 239 77.4% 185 22.35
7 Johnson City 398 73.1% 291 22.34
8 Pickett Co. 46 58.7% 27 22.11
9 Alcoa City 107 74.8% 80 22.01
10 Knox Co. 3,257 66.6% 2,168 21.97

And here are the 10 public school systems with the LOWEST median composite ACT scores:

TENNESSEE REGULAR % TAKING 2007 ACT Composite
SCHOOL SYSTEM DIPLOMAS ACT n median
1 Fayette Co. 187 65.2% 122 15.80
2 Memphis City 5,741 67.9% 3,898 17.56
3 Hancock Co. 62 38.7% 24 17.96
4 Haywood Co. 170 71.2% 121 17.98
5 Lake Co. 51 70.6% 36 18.11
6 Grainger Co. 241 53.1% 128 18.41
7 W. Carroll 79 54.4% 43 18.47
8 Campbell Co. 299 58.2% 174 18.63
9 Union Co. 196 53.1% 104 18.63
10 Hardeman Co. 234 56.0% 131 18.66

Here are the Here are the 10 public school systems in Tennessee with the HIGHEST percentage of graduating seniors who take the ACT:

TENNESSEE REGULAR % TAKING 2007 ACT Composite
SCHOOL SYSTEM DIPLOMAS ACT n median
1 McMinn Co. 292 92.5% 270 20.33
2 Union City 77 88.3% 68 19.93
3 Kingsport City 400 82.8% 331 22.74
4 Williamson Co. 1,966 80.6% 1,584 22.54
5 Bradford City 41 80.5% 33 19.18
6 Oneida City 83 79.5% 66 20.58
7 Shelby Co. 2,561 78.5% 2,010 21.72
8 Madison Co. 679 78.2% 531 19.27
9 Tullahoma City 239 77.4% 185 22.35
10 Huntingdon City 70 77.1% 54 20.20

And here are the Here are the 10 public school systems in Tennessee with the LOWEST percentage of graduating seniors who take the ACT:

TENNESSEE REGULAR % TAKING 2007 ACT Composite
SCHOOL SYSTEM DIPLOMAS ACT n median
1 Hancock Co. 62 38.7% 24 17.96
2 Fentress Co. 60 41.7% 25 19.92
3 Sequatchie Co. 116 44.8% 52 19.71
4 Greene Co. 488 45.7% 223 20.06
5 Trousdale Co. 91 47.3% 43 19.12
6 Johnson Co. 156 47.4% 74 19.81
7 Meigs Co. 94 48.9% 46 20.37
8 Washington Co. 656 50.8% 333 20.68
9 Bledsoe Co. 102 51.0% 52 20.73
10 Jefferson Co. 449 52.1% 234 20.52

Here are the 10 public school systems in Tennessee with the LARGEST number of graduating seniors who take the ACT:

TENNESSEE REGULAR % TAKING 2007 ACT Composite
SCHOOL SYSTEM DIPLOMAS ACT n median
1 Memphis City 5,741 67.9% 3,898 17.56
2 Davidson Co. 3,601 64.1% 2,307 19.11
3 Knox Co. 3,257 66.6% 2,168 21.97
4 Shelby Co. 2,561 78.5% 2,010 21.72
5 Rutherford Co. 2,328 66.1% 1,539 20.91
6 Hamilton Co. 2,322 68.0% 1,580 19.60
7 Williamson Co. 1,966 80.6% 1,584 22.54
8 Sumner Co. 1,691 62.9% 1,063 20.81
9 Montgomery Co. 1,644 59.9% 984 21.23
10 Wilson Co. 1,040 67.9% 706 20.70

And here are the 10 public school systems in Tennessee with the SMALLEST number of graduating seniors who take the ACT:

TENNESSEE REGULAR % TAKING 2007 ACT Composite
SCHOOL SYSTEM DIPLOMAS ACT n median
1 S. Carroll 31 58.1% 18 20.28
2 Van Buren Co. 37 62.2% 23 18.83
3 Richard City 37 70.3% 26 20.15
4 Bradford City 41 80.5% 33 19.18
5 Pickett Co. 46 58.7% 27 22.11
6 Hollow Rock-Bruceton City 47 57.4% 27 20.22
7 Lake Co. 51 70.6% 36 18.11
8 Fentress Co. 60 41.7% 25 19.92
9 Hancock Co. 62 38.7% 24 17.96
10 Huntingdon City 70 77.1% 54 20.20

The only significant sized sample of homeschoolers with ACT scores that I could find were 1997, 1998, and 2004 data released by ACT (cited on the HSLDA website). ACT reported that in 1997, 1,926 homeschoolers had a median composite ACT score of 22.5. ACT reported that in 1998, 2,610 homeschoolers had a median composite ACT score of 22.8. ACT reported that in 2004, 7,858 homeschoolers had a median composite ACT score of 22.6. These data are remarkably consistent over time AND they are significantly ABOVE the national averages. But remember, according the the Tennessee Department of Education, it is the homeschooler’s diplomas that are suspect.

Now, don’t you feel like you know the public school system in Tennessee much better?

Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves. Comments encouraged and solicited. Once again: here is the data. Or should that be, “here ARE the data…”

– Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center

Bible, book reviews, Church History

Great Pamphlets for Bible Reference and Apologetics

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bible timeline cover

bible time line inside

Rose Publishing Company has long been one of my favorites. The company was started in 1991 by a Sunday School teacher and a public school teacher and has systematically expanded their line of charts, maps, and pamphlets. While the charts and maps are marketed primarily for classrooms, the pamphlets are well designed for individual use – in fact, they’re sized just right to slip inside the cover of your Bible. Greenleaf has just added 48 of the Rose pamphlets to our website. Here are the titles:

Here are some pamphlets on Biblical concepts & themes:

In addition to the Bible reference pamphlets, there are several very nice pamphlets dealing with church history:

Finally, there are 13 pamphlets that summarize key issues in apologetics: comparing Christianity with various competing worldviews, religions, and cults:

And finally, there are two pamphlets on Abstinence & Dating that are very concise & effective in communicating with young people:

Each of these pamphlets is only $3.99, and can be ordered directly from Greenleaf Press. We’ve set up a separate category for the Rose Reference Pamphlets, as well as including many of them in our Bible section.

– Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center
Publisher, Greenleaf Press

Homeschooling, Tennessee politics

Homeschool vs. public school diplomas

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The Tennessee Department of Education has recently defended its decision not to recognize homeschool diplomas with the assertion that because they were prohibited from having anything to do with the selection of a curriculum, teachers, or textbooks in the church-related schools which “umbrella” homeschoolers they had no way to tell what a homeschool diploma represented.

So, the current status in Tennessee is that anyone from a public school (or a private accredited school) who presents a diploma in order to be hired as a daycare worker, police officer, fireman (or any other position which state law requires a high school diploma for) will be automatically accepted. Anyone who presents a homeschool diploma will be automatically rejected.

I have some news for the Department of Education officials. When a public school graduate presents a diploma, no one has any way to tell what it represents either. Did the ertswhile young graduate have an A average or a D- average? There is no minimum GPA requirement for graduation from a public high school in Tennessee. See the graduation requirements here on the Department of Education website for confirmation.

The final requirement on that page requiring a score of “proficient” on the three Gateway exams (Biology I, English II, Algebra I) has been altered, by the way. The Gateway exams are gone. They will be replaced with ten standard state-wide end-of-course tests that all public school students will be required to take. But the new tests won’t be high-stakes must-pass gateway exams. Instead, they will count as 25% of the student’s final grade in each of the ten designated courses.

Which only exacerbates the problem of how do you know what a public school diploma represents? Apparently it represents 20 courses, spread over four years (five per year) distributed over English, Math, Science, & Social Studies. In these four categories, only English is required to be taken in all four years of high school. So all you really know about a public school graduate with a high school diploma is that they at least passed 20 courses.

I don’t know of ANY private school, church-related school, or homeschool anywhere in Tennessee that requires LESS than 20 courses before they award a high school diploma. And yet, homeschool diplomas are automatically rejected by the Department of Education, while public school diplomas are automatically accepted.

In TN, 92% of high school graduates take the ACT test. In 2007 (the last year for which data was available) the average composite score for Tennessee high school grads was 20.7. Nationally it was 21.2.

And homeschoolers? The latest and largest study is from 1998, but since the ACT is so closely controlled statistically, it is possible to compare test scores from year to year. Here’s an excerpt from the ERIC clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation:

Home school students did quite well in 1998 on the ACT college entrance examination. They had an average ACT composite score of 22.8 which is .38 standard deviations above the national ACT average of 21.0 (ACT,1998).This places the average home school student in the 65th percentile of all ACT test takers.

The superior performance of home school students on achievement tests can easily be misinterpreted. This study does not demonstrate that home schooling is superior to public or private schools. It should not be cited as evidence that our public schools are failing. It does not indicate that children will perform better academically if they are home schooled. The design of this study and the data do not warrant such claims. All the comparisons of home school students with the general population and with the private school population in this report fail to consider a myriad of differences between home school and public school students. We have no information as to what the achievement levels of home school students would be had they been enrolled in public or private schools. This study only shows that a large group of parents choosing to make a commitment to home schooling were able to provide a very successful academic environment.

The full article is Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home School Students in 1998, by Lawrence Rudner, published in the peer-reviewed EDUCATION POLICY ANALYSIS ARCHIVES.

There are specific ACT results for homeschoolers in Tennessee for only one year:

YEAR : 2005
Homeschoolers : 20.7
All Students: 20.5
( ACT report, TN, 2005, page 17)

For some curious reason, ACT no longer reports the homeschool ACT scores separately in its reports for 2006 and 2007.

So, in summary: Homeschoolers as a group have superior performance on every nationally normed test for which data are available, significantly above the public school average. Homeschoolers in Tennessee, as a group, have average ACT scores at or above the ACT scores for all students.

AND YET… the Department of Education somehow BELIEVES that they can’t accept a homeschooling diploma because they don’t know what it represents. Given the incredibly wide variation of skills an achievement that can accompany a public school high school diploma, something about the pot, the kettle, and the color black occurs to me. Class…? Class…? Anyone…? Bueller…?

Colleges and universities across the country have faced this problem for years. What does a high school diploma mean, anyway? Their solution? Require all applicants to take the ACT.

Now, if the POST Commission on police officers and the Department of Human Services regs on daycare workers need to be revised to require ALL applicants to take an ACT test in order to validate and help agencies evaluate their high school diploma, that would be fine.

But DO NOT single out homeschool or church school graduates as if their high school diplomas were suspect, while the public school diplomas are not.

Homeschoolers have every bit as much data to substantiate the success of homeschooling as anything the public schools can point to. For the Department to automatically reject homeschooler’s diplomas is insulting. It could not possibly survive a legal challenge.

If the Department will not overturn their arbitrary and capricious policy, then homeschoolers should pursue remedies in the courts, or in the legislature.

But I am NOT willing to concede that homeschoolers should have to meet any additional testing burdens that are not also imposed on all other high school graduates. A homeschool diploma deserves every bit as much credence (I’d argue more so) than a public school diploma.

The Department of Education’s actions amount to an unsubstantiated, unprofessional, and unjustified attack on homeschooling.

The Department of Education has 1,000,000 students in public schools in Tennessee. Do they really want to pick this fight with homeschoolers?

– Rob Shearer
proud homeschooling dad
Director, Schaeffer Study Center
Vice President, Tennessee Association of Church Related Schools.

Homeschooling, Tennessee politics

HB1652 still languishing in the House Calendar & Rules Committee

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Since its favorable passage eight days ago by the House Education Committee, HB1652 (the bill to direct the Department of Education to resume recognizing homeschool and church-related school diplomas) has been languishing in the House Calendar & Rules Committee. This Committee is where all bills go when they receive committee approval. Calendar and Rules decides when to schedule floor votes on bills that have been reported out by other committees. The Calendar and Rules Committee (like all the other House committees) is appointed by Speaker Jimmy Naifeh. Here are the members:

Larry Miller, Chair D-Memphis
John Hood, Vice-Chair D-Murfreesboro
Nathan Vaughn, Secretary D-Kingsport
Joe Armstrong, D-Knoxville, Stratton Bone, D-Lebanon, Rob Briley, D-Nashville, Tommie F. Brown, D-Chattanooga, Frank Buck, D-Dowelltown, Glen Casada, R-Franklin, Charles Curtiss, D-Sparta
Lois Deberry, D-Memphis, John J. DeBerry, Jr., D-Memphis, Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley, Ulysses Jones, Jr., D-Memphis, Mike Kernell, D-Memphis, Mark Maddox, D-Dresden, Steve McDaniel, R-Parkers Crossroad
Michael McDonald, D-Portland, Jason Mumpower, R-Bristol, Jimmy Naifeh, D-Covington, Gary Odom, D-Nashville, Doug Overbey, R-Maryville, Phillip Pinion, D-Union City, Randy Rinks, D-Savannah, Les Winningham, D-Huntsville

There are 25 members of the committee, 21 Democrats and 4 Republicans. That, unfortunately, might be a fair estimate of the odds of getting HB1652 brought to a vote on the floor. The Democrats control the Tennessee House of Representatives with a 53-46 majority. But, with control and the election of the speaker, they are able to effect such oddities as the stacking of the Calendar and Rules Committee with a 21-4 Democrat majority.

I would STRONGLY urge all homeschooling families to call and email the members of the House Calendar and Rules Committee and respectfully request that they release HB1652 for a vote by the full House of Representatives. You might remind them that the bill is co-sponsored by a Democrat (Rep. Dennis Ferguson) and a Republican (Rep. Mike Bell). There is a good summary of the bill and its history at Kay Brooks’ TNHomeEd site.

For the prospects of the Republicans being able to achieve a majority of the House of Representatives in November 2008, I refer you to this analysis by Steve Gill.

Remember, if this bill does NOT pass, then the Department of Education will have succeeded in invalidating the high school diplomas of thousands of homeschool and church-related school graduates.

For everyone’s convenience, here are the email addresses of all 25 members of the Calendar and Rules Committee: (yawl do know how to do cut & paste, right?)

rep.larry.miller@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.john.hood@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.nathan.vaughn@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.joe.armstrong@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.stratton.bone@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.rob.briley@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.tommie.brown@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.frank.buck@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.glen.casada@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.charles.curtiss@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.lois.deberry@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.john.deberry@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.craig.fitzhugh@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.ulysses.jones@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.mike.kernell@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.mark.maddox@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.steve.mcdaniel@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.michael.mcdonald@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.jason.mumpower@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.jimmy.naifeh@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.gary.odom@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.doug.overbey@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.phillip.pinion@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.randy.rinks@legislature.state.tn.us, rep.leslie.winningham@legislature.state.tn.us

– Rob Shearer

Homeschooling, Tennessee politics

Tennessee Department of Education has declared homeschooler’s diplomas to be “worthless”

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The Department of Education has so far succeeded in declaring all homeschoolers’ high school diplomas to be invalid.

Bill Hobbs has a nice summary of what the Department has done:

Cindy Benefield, the Tennesseee Department of Education Executive Director of Field Services, who oversees the state’s homeschooling office, recently declared that a diploma from a church-related school is “not worth the paper it is written on.” That is not just the idle opinion of one uninformed bureaucrat, but has become Department policy. Bredesen’s education commissioner, Tim Webb, told four legislators in April that until the legislature passes a law stating that the diplomas given by church-related schools are acceptable, they aren’t acceptable for certain kinds of employment.

And the state is now preventing people who hold diplomas from church-related schools or home schools from holding certain jobs. For example: a police officer in Roane County, who holds a diploma from a church-related school, then graduated the police academy with perfect grades, has been demoted and prohibited from continuing to serve as a police officer – even though he also graduated from the local community college. The Rockwood police officer has been forced to take a desk job until he takes and passes the GED because the Department of Education says his 2001 diploma from a church-related school is invalid.

The fallout goes beyond that one officer. Suspects he has arrested may be set free because he can not appear as a witness in the case because the state, which regulates the profession, says his diploma is invalid.

Church-related schools (CRS) have been issuing high school diplomas since at least 1975 – and until now, they’ve always been accepted, never been challenged. The bigger irony in this is that the Tennessee university system and the Lottery scholarships continue to accept CRS diplomas. It’s a fair assumption to predict that the Department of Education would like that practice to stop as well.

Rep. Mike Bell’s bill to reverse this stunning policy change escaped the House Ed Committee without being hijacked, but it is now sitting in the Calendar & Rules Committee where it may be quietly allowed to die. If that happens, the Department will have succeeded in disenfranchising thousands of high school graduates by bureaucratic fiat. There are upwards of 40,000 homeschool students in TN. Probably 3,000 of them graduate from high school each year. The Department’s actions not only invalidate the diplomas of this year’s graduating class, they retroactively invalidate the diplomas of thousands who have graduated over the past thirty years.

What’s happening is an outrage. We have a shortage of good police officers. We have a shortage of good daycare workers – but the Department of Education can’t stand it that someone out there might be getting an education outside their control.

– Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center

Ancient history, book reviews, children's books, Middle Ages

Socrates and Marco Polo

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Wise GuyWise Guy is one of the more unusual children’s books I’ve ever run across. The illustrations and narrative are written for young people aged 8-12, but there is a deceptive depth to this book that will delight older students as well as helping the occasional adult who is reading it out loud (or to themselves). Along with the engaging illustrations – which make life in ancient Athens look quite pleasant there is a second boxed narrative in smaller type which complements the larger font story. These smaller boxed notes give a little deeper and fuller account of the ideas presented in the pictures. One of the unusual features of the book is that is based entirely on the ancient sources from classical Greece. We get a nuanced introduction to Socrates personality as well as the key ideas and outline of his thought on knowledge and ethics, as well as his attitude towards the Greek gods and mythology. His skepticism about the gods is, of course, what led to his trial and execution, presented (without being morbid or maudlin) on the last two pages of the book. The final two-page spread is a delightful caricatured rendition of Raphael’s School of Athens, with Socrates and a host of modern thinkers whom he influenced arrayed on the steps around him. Most younger readers won’t recognize them at first, but adults and older students will enjoy seeing the connections that are made. Wise Guy is a hardback, 32 pages, 9″ x 11″ color on glossy stock. $16.00 directly from Greenleaf Press.

Marco PoloThe Adventures of Marco Polo by Russell Freedman is a well-written, carefully balanced assessment of one of the most controversial writers from the Middle Ages. Marco Polo’s tales were so outlandish that they were dismissed by many at the time (and by many still today) as wildly exaggerated or even fabricated. For example, he said he had seen rocks that burned – a fantastic tale that Europeans dismissed. Of course, what he had seen was coal – which was plentiful in China, but virtually unknown in Europe in the Middle Ages. Still many of his claims remain unsubstantiated. Marco (and his cousin and his uncle) spent twenty-four years in China, learning the language, making a living as merchants, and winning the favor and confidence of The Mongol Emperor, Kublai Khan ( a descendant of Ghenghis Khan). Freedman does an excellent job of describing their journey, and the remarkable adventures they had while in China. And Freedman includes a page-long discussion of the influence that Marco Polo had on a later explorer, Christopher Columbus. Here is what Freedman has to say: “Marco’s book seems to have fired the imagination of Christopher Columbus. He used his well-thumbed Latin translation as a guidebook, scribbling notes in the margins and underlining passages about gold, jewels, and spices, when he sailed west across the Atlantic, expecting to rediscover the land described by Marco Polo. When Columbus reached Cuba, he believed that he was at the edge of the Great Khan’s realm and would soon find the Mongol kingdom of Cathay.” Freedman’s forte is young adult biography. He has twice had books finish as finalists for the Newbery Medal (The Wright Brothers and Eleanor Roosevelt) and in 1988 won the Newbery Medal itself for Lincoln: A Photobiography. He and his publisher do not neglect the visual in this book either. The full-page chapter-heading paintings by Russian painter Bagram Ibatoulline are stunning. Ibatoulline is able to adapt his style in masterful fashion as he moves from medieval illumination to Chinese silk painting. Also included in the text are dozens of archival illustrations which appeared in the numerous hand-written copies of Marco Polo’s book that circulated in the century before printing. The Adventures of Marco Polo is a hardback, 64 pages, 10″ by 10″. The text junior high to high school and adult. $17.99 direct from Greenleaf Press.

– Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center
Publisher, Greenleaf Press

book reviews, children's books, Colonial Period

Mayflower 1620, 1621 Thanksgiving, Pilgrims of Plymouth, Sailing Home, The Great Ships, Titanic

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I keep sorting and re-sorting the new books on (and around) my desk and this stack of Pilgrim and Nautical themes is the result.

Mayflower 1620 Mayflower 1620 is a remarkable photographic recreation of the voyage of the Pilgrims from Plymouth, England to Plimoth Plantation, New England. In 2001, a group of well-trained volunteers (in meticulous period costumes) from Plimoth Plantation sailed the Mayflower II from Plymouth to Boston. National Geographic sent along a team of photographers specifically to create the photographs for this book. The result is a rich photographic reproduction of what the 1620 voyage must have been like. From the loading of supplies and cargo to the sighting of land 2 months later, we get an acute sense of what shipboard life was like (very cramped and uncomfortable). There is even a mention of my unfortunate ancestor, John Howland, who was swept overboard, and then miraculously saved! Text is middle school & up. Mayflower 1620 is a paperback, 47 pages of photographs $6.95 from Greenleaf.

1621 Thanksgiving1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving is a photographic recreation of the First Thanksgiving by the same National Geographic team of photographers who did Mayflower 1620, using again, the resources of the living history museum and re-enactors of Plimoth Village, augmented by 90 Wampanoag Indian descendants. The text leans a bit towards the revisionist side in its attempt to correct the mythologies of the First Thanksgiving, but is generally factually correct. And the pictures are stunning. The First Thanksgiving, on closer examination, turns out to have been not a single meal, but three days of harvest celebration at which the Indians outnumbered the Pilgrims by 2:1. There are two pages of some pretty tempting recipes included – ironically, the Wampanoag dish is based on dried corn pounded to flour – better known to us Southerners as “grits!”

1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving is a paperback, 47 pages, full color, $7.95 from Greenleaf Press.

PilgrimsPilgrims of Plymouth is a picture book for young readers, first through third grades with a simple text and beautiful photographs of typical daily scenes from the life of the settlers in the first few years of the 1620s. There’s a simple explanation of why they left England (so they “could pray in their own way”) and also the attraction that “here, some of them would own farms for the first time.” There’s a special focus on children and a delightful concluding photograph of three children (including this cute guy from the cover), with the text, “The Pilgrims were real people, just like us!” This is definitely a K-3 book, paperback, 16 pages, $5.95 from Greenleaf Press.

Pilgrims 01 Pilgrims 03 Pilgrims 02

Sailing HomeSailing Home is a delightful story about a clipper ship and its captain and his family. It is based on the real ship, John Ena which made 44 voyages between 1896 and 1910 commanded by Captain Mads Albert Madsen who was accompanied by his wife and four children (two of whom were born aboard ship). The ship was impressively large (312 feet long and 48 feet wide), with spacious accommodations for the Captain’s family. And of course, they were homeschooled! (ship-schooled?) Lots of unusual adventures and shipboard games. “Our favorite game was sliding across the main saloon floor in cardboard boxes, crashing into one another as the ship rolled from side to side.” There is also the sobering tale of being caught in a frightening storm – but overall a very interesting read and a celebration of family life around the turn of the century. Its easy to misinterpret the title. It does not refer to sailing towards home, but rather living in a home that sails. Text is upper elementary and up, paperback, 40 pages, color throughout, $6.95 from Greenleaf Press.

The Great ShipsThe Great Ships is a celebration of famous, historic ships over the past thousand years. “Old sailors know that every ship on the sea has its own personality… In the swift longships of the Vikings and the massive aircraft carriers of today, in humble little caravels and mighty men-of-war, sailors have gone to sea with the urge to roam, to explore, to conquer. It is this spirit of adventure and exploration that has made the great ships great.” The artist has given us vivid illustrations of twenty ships, including: the Gokstad Viking Ship; the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria; Sir Francis Drake’s Golden Hind; the Mayflower; Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge; the Bounty; Admiral Nelson’s HMS Victory; “Old Ironsides”; the Amistad; the Monitor; the Titanic; the German battleship Bismarck; and the nuclear aircraft carrier, Enterprise. The Great Ships is paperback, 40 pages, all in color, and $7.95 from Greenleaf Press.

ironsides Monitor Enterprise

TitanicMy final book to review is this unusual retelling of the ill-fated Titanic published by Firefly Books. The “unusual” part is the inclusion of items bound into the book, including:

  • Tickets
  • Postcards
  • Newspaper clippings
  • Telegrams
  • Official technical data
  • Envelopes and letters
  • Certificate of seaworthiness

and other items as well. The narrative is told from the perspective of a journalist on board the ship. He gives us a thorough tour and introduction to the accommodations for first class, second class, and steerage passengers. The inclusion of so many reproduction artifacts makes this book come alive in a way that others don’t. It’s more than a little spooky to be looking at the illustrations and photographs while holding a ticket, or reading a telegram just sent up from the wireless room. Text is junior high and up, hardback, 26 pages, but with lots of artifacts. Titanic is $19.95 from Greenleaf Press.

It’s been a busy week in Tennessee for homeschoolers. Read the other posts on RedHatRob.wordpress.com to catch up with the antics of the Tennessee legislature.

And if you visit the Greenleaf Press website, please browse around a bit. We have over 1200 items available online now – History, Literature, Art, & Music resources for children and homeschooling families.

– Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center
Publisher, Greenleaf Press

Homeschooling, Tennessee politics

TN House Education Committee passes bill to require state agencies to accept Church-Related School’s high school diplomas as valid

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Longest blog post title ever…

The bill was HB 1652, and you can read the history of how we got here in an earlier post.

The terminology of legislative committees is QUITE confusing… apologies to all. Enacting legislation is messy… today was a little messier than most.

When the problem with the police officer and daycare worker surfaced, the deadline for introducing legislation had already passed, so Rep. Bell made a quick search for already introduced bills which dealt with the appropriate section of state law (sometimes abbreviated as TCA , stands for Tennessee Code Annotated). Rep. Ferguson had originally introduced a bill dealing with the section of state law governing Church-related schools (the so-called “caption” of the bill must state which section of state law will be amended). Rep. Bell and Rep. Ferguson agreed to use his bill to try to amend state law so that diplomas from church-related schools would be accepted by state agencies, regardless of whether the church-related school was accredited. To do that, they needed to take Rep. Ferguson’s original bill and “re-write” it by amending it and stripping out all of the original language and substituting the new draft that they wanted.

So, Rep. Bell and Rep. Ferguson were the co-sponsors of a bill before the House Education Committee today, and their first task was to seek to have the committee approve their amendment which re-wrote the bill to do what they wanted.

In the meantime, the department of Ed’s representative (Dr. Opie?)) had informally circulated an amendment to Rep. Bell’s bill. That amendment would have required CRS’s to only hire instructors with baccalaureate degrees. That amendment was never introduced, although Dr. Obee make some joking references to it having been circulated widely around the state. His logic was that if the state was going to have to accept a CRS Cat IV diploma, then the state should have some oversight over what was taught and who taught it. Topic for more discussion later.

So… Rep. Bell and Rep. Ferguson present their bill to the committee. Their first order of business is to request that the bill be amended with their agreed-on new language (which had been reviewed and recommended by a sub-committee). At that point, the Memphis delegation began their hour-long filibuster and proposal of an “amendment to the amendment” of the bill which would amend existing state law. Everybody still with me?

The Memphis amendment would have directed the State Department of Education to recognize those public school students who completed all their course work but failed the Gateway tests as having valid high school diplomas as well as recognizing category IV diplomas as valid if issued before July 1, 2008. Next year, of course, we’d be back in the same dilemma and fighting with the legislature all over again. The Memphis delegation tactic was to hijack this bill for their own purposes. Gateway tests have already been re-defined to count as only 25% of course grades, rather than being must-pass, but they are valiantly attempting to get high school diplomas for kids who have been unable to pass the Gateway tests in years past.

On the vote on the Memphis amendment, the Chairman (Rep. Les Winningham) originally called for a voice vote and then announced that the Memphis amendment had passed. Rep. Bell asked for a roll call vote. He can’t get one automatically, unless a Rep. on the committee asks for one. When one of the committee members asked for the roll call, the chairman directed the clerk to call the roll. Much to the embarrassment of the chairman, the roll call showed that the amendment had failed by a vote of 7-10.

So the Memphis amendment was defeated… now they were back to Rep. Bell and Rep. Fergusons’s original request to re-write the bill with their agreed-on language. That vote was also done by roll call and it passed, 9-7 with one voting present. It was immediately followed by a vote on the amended bill itself, reporting it out of committee (called “sending it to calendar and rules,” which is the committee which actually schedules bills for the full house of representatives). That vote, also by roll call was identical, 9-7 with one voting present.

Result: Representative Bell’s and Representative Ferguson’s bill came out of the Education Committee exactly the way they wanted it, written the way they wanted, without any amendment that they don’t want.

The Department of Ed amendment which would have required a baccalaureate degree for every instructor in grades 9-12 was never introduced or voted on. The Memphis amendment which would have dealt with prior year Gateway exam stopped public school students AND only recognized CRS diploma’s through July of 2008 was also defeated.

This is an important (and surprising) result. The bill which was reported out would require all state agencies to accept CRS diplomas as valid high school diplomas. Period. Regardless of whether the CRS was category II, III, or IV. This was the situation until just this year. In effect, it reverses the new policy of the department this year which began treating non-accredited CRS diplomas as invalid. It would require DHS to accept Cat IV diplomas as valid for work in a day care center, and it would require the Police accreditation commission to accept CRS diplomas as valid for those seeking to be police officers.

Next step: the bill must pass the full house of representatives AND a companion bill must pass the state senate AND then be signed by the Governor. None of these three steps is automatic or easy… though they may be easier than the mountain that had to be climbed today.

UNLESS this bill is passed, the state dept of ed will apparently continue to treat Cat IV diplomas as “worthless.” We need this bill to pass. Ironically, its not so important for homeschooled students who go on to college. Colleges and universities both in TN and nationwide have had NO problems with Cat IV diplomas. They have the ACT/SAT and other criteria to go with them. It’s the jobs that do not require a college degree but DO require a high school diploma where the problems have arisen. You don’t have to have a college degree to be a police officer – but you do have to have a high school diploma. You don’t have to have a college degree to work in a day care center – but you do have to have a high school diploma. It is in precisely those two situations where the problem has arisen. Please stay in touch with your homeschool community over the next two weeks. There is much work still to do in order to get this bill passed.

Footnote: Though the Dept spokesman today did say that they were going to internally review individual cases and would attempt to handle exceptions( like the police officer who had completed the police training academy but was then told he could no longer serve as an officer because his Cat IV high school diploma was not acceptable), I do not find that reassuring. The old homeschool law required a college degree to be able to homeschool your high school student unless you had a waiver from the Commissioner of Education. In 10+ years, despite a number of well-documented and reasonable requests, no Commissioner ever granted a waiver.

– Rob Shearer
Publisher, Greenleaf Press
Director, Schaeffer Study Center

book reviews, children's books, World War Two

Escaping the Nazi’s on bicycle

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No, it’s not a story of a brave young dutch boy… it’s the story of Hans Augusto Reyersbach, a German Jew. He was born in Hamburg in 1898. He loved visiting the zoo with his brother and two sisters. And he loved to draw pictures and paint. And he was good at it. He turned 18 in 1916 and so he joined the German army and fought in Russia. After the war, times were tough in Hamburg. Hans packed up his sketchbooks and paintbrushes and moved to Rio de Janeiro where he managed to make a comfortable living as a commercial artist. While there, he married another German emigre from Hamburg, Margarete.

In 1936, Hans and Margret returned to Europe, and settled in Paris. Margret was a commercial photographer, and her skills complemented Hans’. But their commercial work together wasn’t completely satisfying. They wanted to tell stories. And so, they began writing and drawing illustrations for a children’s book. By 1939, They had several finished stories and several publishers showed interest. In September of that year, World War Two began when the Germans invaded Poland. France and England declared war on Germany, but other than the fighting in Poland, not much happened.

curious george mapIn the spring of 1940, Hans and Margret made a trip to the beaches of Normandy and continued to work on their children’s books. In May, suddenly, things changed. The German army invaded Belgium and the Netherlands and headed for France. Hans and Margret hurried back to Paris and quickly decided they must leave France. They would head first for Brazil (via Portugal), and then perhaps on to the United States. But Paris was in an uproar. By the time Hans had secured the necessary visas, the trains were no longer running from Paris. Hans and Margret didn’t have a car, and besides, the roads were clogged as more than two million Parisians attempted to flee the advancing German armies. Hans managed to find two bicycles, and he and Margret started south. Three days later, they reached Orleans and managed to get on a train headed south. That same day, German troops entered Paris and raised the Nazi flag from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Hans and Margret managed to cross the border into Spain on a train headed for Portugal. Because the military dictator of Spain, Franco had been friendly with Germany, they were uneasy until they crossed the border into Portugal three days later. After two weeks frantic travel, they finally made it to Lisbon, Portugal. A month later, they were on a ship for Rio de Janeiro. Two more months of waiting and they managed to get passage on a ship to the United States. October 14, 1940 – four months after they left Paris – they sailed past the Statue of Liberty into New York harbor.

All along the way, Hans had taken great care to make sure that the children’s books they had been working on were kept safe. A year after arriving in New York, Houghton Mifflin published their book. Hans and Margret had titled it The Adventures of Fi-Fi. It was about a monkey and an explorer in a yellow hat who brings him from the jungle to the city. Of course the book needed a new title. Just as Hans and Margret Reyersbach had needed a new name. Reyersbach took too much space on a painting and was too hard for their clients in Rio to remember. And so Hans Reyersbach had taken to signing his artwork as “H.A. Rey.” And their book – well, the editors at Houghton Mifflin had a better name for it, too – Curious George.

And (shamelessly ripping off Paul Harvey), now you know the rest of the story!

Escape of Curious GeorgeThe details of the Rey’s amazing escape across wartime France is told in a delightful book published in December, 2005 by Houghton Mifflin, titled: The Journey That Saved Curious George – The True Wartime Escape of Margret and H.A. Rey. Here’s how the publisher describes it:

The Journey That Saved Curious George introduces elementary and middle school students to a major event of the twentieth century: World War II. Students will learn about the time period from the many primary sources throughout the book, including photographs, passports, and diary pages.

Louise Borden’s text captures the tension in Paris in 1940 and the urgency to escape, the uprooting of lives, and the difficulty of leaving a place you love. At the same time, this story is about the creative process — the inspiration, joy, and constant work that went into creating the curious, lovable monkey.

Houghton-Mifflin also has an online lesson plan to help teachers use the book.

The book is a 72 pages hardback in full color. The price is $17.00 and it can be ordered directly from Greenleaf Press.

– Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center
Publisher, Greenleaf Press

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TN Department of Education declares church-related schools’ diplomas to be “worthless”

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Kay Brooks has a great post summarizing the story so far: Good enough for UT, Vandy, Harvard...

The Tennessee Department of Education seems intent on picking a fight with church-related schools in general and homeschoolers in particular. They’ve been “educating” other state agencies for some time now about the fact that so-called “Category IV Schools” in Tennessee are unaccredited and that their diplomas are “worthless.” This has led to the demotion of a police officer who had completed the police academy with a 4.0 average and the forced firing of a daycare worker (from a daycare run by her grandmother!), lest the daycare lose its state license for hiring a child-care worker without a “valid” high school diploma.

One of the good guys, Rep. Mike Bell, is attempting to reassert legislative control over education policy decisions. He’s co-sponsoring a bill, HB1652, that would require the state to recognize Category IV high school diplomas as valid. Alas, he’s meeting resistance from the Department of Education. They’ve countered with an amendment to the bill that would prohibit private, church-related schools from hiring ANY instructor for grades 9-12 who did not have a baccaluareate degree recognized by the State Board of Education.

Below is the message I just sent to the members of the House Education Committee.

Rep. Bell’s bill is scheduled to be heard by the full Education Committee today at 3:15pm central time.

– Rob Shearer

************************************************************

‘rep.leslie.winningham@legislature.state.tn.us’; ‘rep.tommie.brown@legislature.state.tn.us’; ‘rep.joe.towns@legislature.state.tn.us’; ‘rep.barbara.cooper@legislature.state.tn.us’; ‘rep.john.hood@legislature.state.tn.us’; ‘rep.ulysses.jones@legislature.state.tn.us’; ‘rep.mark.maddox@legislature.state.tn.us’; ‘rep.michael.mcdonald@legislature.state.tn.us’; ‘rep.larry.turner@legislature.state.tn.us’; ‘rep.john.windle@legislature.state.tn.us’

To: the honorable members of the House Education Committee

cc: Claiborne Thornton, President of THEA, Doug Fraley, President of MTHEA, and other interested parties:

As the Vice President of the Tennessee Association of Church Related Schools (TACRS), I have a few thoughts on the current controversy around Category IV non-accredited privates schools, their diplomas, and the amendment proposed by the Department of Education to HB1652.

This crisis is the result of the Tennessee Department of Education’s decision to arbitrarily treat category IV high school diplomas as “not worth the paper they are printed on.” The decision by the Department to declare thousands of high school diplomas issued over the past sixteen years as invalid for employment or certification is without precedent, without legal foundation, and without any evidence of any problem associated with those diplomas. When a police department and a day care center are told they must discharge good employees, with excellent records and qualifications, because the Department of Education does not deem their diplomas to be valid, we have a real problem.

This outrageous decision by the Department of Education MUST be (and can only be) overturned by the legislature. The legislature has a duty to correct foolish, capricious, and wicked policy decisions. Make no mistake, the Department has engaged in a raw bureaucratic power grab. There was no act by the legislature adopting this policy. The legislature must act to rein in the Department and reassert its role as the proper policy maker.

For all these reasons, the amended version of HB1652 proposed by Rep. Mike Bell deserves swift passage by the legislature. If the legislature does not act, then a gross injustice will continue to be done to thousands of Tennesseans. The legislature must act to reassert the principle that the department does not make education policy, the legislature does.

As to the draft amendment which has been circulated by the Department of Education, which seeks to impose departmental oversight over teacher hiring by Category IV schools – it too is a raw bureaucratic power grab. There is no crisis. But the Department is suddenly and unilaterally seeking to assert oversight over who can be hired by church-related schools.

The Department, in its proposed amendment, asserts that ALL instructors for grades 9-12 should have a baccalaureate degree from a college recognized by the State Board of Education. Leaving aside the bureaucratic nightmare of the State Board of Education reviewing college diplomas from schools around the country, this assertion is also bad public policy.

Why should ALL teachers instructing grades 9-12 have to possess a college diploma?

Does the Department have statistical, anecdotal, or research evidence to support this policy change?

What evidence does the Department have of any problems which have arisen as a result of instruction in grades 9-12 by private school teachers without a college degree?

A) Is there a problem? If so, can it be defined?

B) Is their proposed solution the right one? Will it fix the problem? How do they know?

If questions A and B above cannot be answered in some detail, then the Department’s amendment is suspect for being arbitrary and capricious.

I can think of dozens of examples of excellent high school instruction which has been and is being given to high school students by teachers who do not have a college degree.

What about a shop class by a skilled artisan/mechanic who does not have a college degree?

What about an art class given by a gifted and accomplished artist who does not have a college degree?

What about a creative writing class being taught by a published author who does not have a college degree?

What about a home economics class being taught by a master chef who does not have a college degree?

What about a computer programming class being taught by a highly skilled and highly paid programmer who does not have a college degree?

What about a course in personal finance being taught by a successful local business owner / entrepreneur who does not have a college degree?

What about a course in military history being taught by a military veteran (also a published military historian) who does not have a college degree?

What about a course in a foreign language being taught by a bilingual instructor, whose native tongue is the language being taught, but who does not have a college degree?

I could go on, but I think you get my drift…

Parents who choose a category IV school for their children’s education know what they are choosing. The legislature has rightly separated private church-related schools from the oversight of the state Department of Education. The Department is prohibited by state law from regulating church-related schools with respect to “the selection of faculty or textbooks or the establishment of a curriculum.” I see no reason to breach that separation, especially on this issue.

If passed, the Department’s amendment would entail a requirement for reporting to and inspection by the Department of all church-related schools. The Department of Education will necessarily want to see detailed records of all classes and all instructors at all private schools in Tennessee to insure that no one without an approved baccalaureate degree has done any instruction. It does not take much imagination to think of the many points of contention and conflict which will result.

On behalf of TACRS, let me state unequivocally that we are strongly opposed to the amendment proposed by the Department of Education.

And, on behalf of TACRS, let me state unequivocally that we strongly urge the legislature to reverse the Department’s arrogant stance that Category IV high school diplomas are “not worth the paper they are written on.” I urge you to pass Rep. Bell’s amended version of HB 1652.

Please feel free to forward this email to anyone you choose. I ask only that the email be sent in its entirety and unedited.

I am willing to meet with any member of the Department of Education or the Legislature and/or testify before the House Education Committee, if you think it would be helpful.

– Rob Shearer

Vice President, Tennessee Association of Church Related Schools

Director, Schaeffer Study Center
www.schaefferstudycenter.org
1000 Woodridge Place
Mt. Juliet, TN 37122

“There is only one good reason to be a Christian – because it’s true.” – Francis Schaeffer

The Director's Blog – Rob Shearer, Francis Schaeffer Study Center, Mt. Juliet, TN