"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Under-qualified teachers in high-poverty schools need a No Teacher Left Behind law.

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Last week a study was released that detailed how frequently high-poverty schools employ teachers to teach a subject for which they don't have an undergraduate degree.

The Associated Press story said, "Math can be hard enough, but imagine the difficulty when a teacher is just one chapter ahead of the students. It happens, and it happens more often to poor and minority students."

It certainly happened to my students – I was one of those teachers. I taught pre-algebra, algebra 1, and algebra 2 as a bilingual teacher to low-income Spanish speakers in a north suburban high school in Illinois. Was I always "just a chapter ahead?" Heck yeah it happened – my undergrad was in journalism! But let me start back at the beginning…

In their report, CORE PROBLEMS: Out-of-Field Teaching Persists in Key Academic Courses, Especially in America's High-Poverty and High-Minority Schools, the Education Trust, a children's education advocacy group, found that "in America’s secondary schools, low-income students and students of color are about twice as likely as other students to be enrolled in core academic classes taught by out-of-field teachers… who possess neither certification in the subject they have been assigned to teach nor an academic major in that subject."

They found that in middle and high school mathematics, for example:

·         Four in ten classes in high-poverty schools are taught by an out-of-field teacher, compared with 16.9 percent in schools serving the fewest low-income students.

·         In schools with high percentages of African-American and Latino students, nearly one-third of mathematics classes are taught by out-of-field teachers, compared with 15.5 percent in schools with relatively few minority students.

Tell me about it. When I started teaching all I cared about was providing excellent teaching to the neediest of students – the poor ones who couldn't speak English. I passed the state of Illinois' exams to prove I was fluent in written and spoken Spanish and assured the principal of the school who had approached me about the position that I could definitely teach algebra.

Well, that part wasn't a complete lie – for the most part the classes were a walk in the park for two reasons: 1) I love math and found all the material covered in the state-and-federal-teaching-standard-approved text books to be super-easy and 2) the students were operating a good two full grade-levels behind their peers and needed to be taught the most basic math skills before even tackling the more abstract aspects of Algebra. It was tragic.

And why, you ask? Because many students showed up to class with no more than a Mexican fifth-grade education. Because every year for the past three years the high school had burned through yet another non-math-degreed bilingual teacher (the guy before me had been dismissed for stealing money from the soccer team). And because, generally speaking, kids in bilingual ed got promoted no matter what their grades or abilities were.

I had kids in pre-algebra who didn't have the basics of multiplication or division down pat, and kids in algebra 2 who absolutely could not maneuver the very simplest of algebraic equations. It didn't help that they were stuck with the odd, hard-core teacher who insisted on teaching mostly in English – the language of the work-force they'd be entering in a few months.

Still, I was a true-believer and felt that as long as I brushed up on all my lessons the day before – and took full advantage of tutoring from the real math teachers who were blown away by my dedication to uphold the department's math standards and get my crews up to snuff like the white kids – everything would be alright.

It was and it wasn't. There were times I fumbled a lesson and confused the kids more than I taught them, but mostly I worked my ass off and learned – then learned how to teach – complex lessons that boggled even the "regular ed" kids. Not that they are immune.

The Education Trust points out that "while out-of-field teaching is particularly acute in mathematics and in high-poverty and high-minority schools, the problem is pervasive. Nationwide, more than 17 percent of all core academic courses (English, math, social studies, and science) in grades 7-12 are taught by an out-of-field teacher. In the middle grades alone, the rate jumps to 40 percent."

How can this happen even in Illinois, which has some of the most stringent teaching requirements in the nation?

Seven years ago, Congress required all core academic classes be taught by "highly qualified" teachers and asked districts and states to assure that poor and minority children weren't taught disproportionately by inexperienced, unqualified, or out-of-field teachers.

But, the federal law gave states wide latitude to define "highly qualified," and most states used that discretion to deem nearly every teacher as "highly qualified." The U.S. Department of Education essentially looked the other way, refusing to use its authority to press states either to set high standards for teachers or to solve the equity problems.

Apparently, secondary teachers certified in one subject continue to be assigned frequently to teach classes in additional subjects for which they're often unqualified and unprepared. States may be sweeping this problem under the rug – but out of necessity, not malevolence. Frankly, there are probably one or two bilingually fluent "real" math teachers in Illinois and they are probably working for somewhere close to a zillion bucks at a "good" school. So, my students were stuck with me.

As it turns out, they started cracking down at the end of the school year – 2006 – and despite my master's degree in education, I was terminated from my math teaching gig and offered a job back in the primary grades where my undergraduate degree supposedly would have no bearing on my ability to teach well.

So when the last bell of the school year rang, the rapport and trust I'd built with the lowest achievers in my school went out the window. The phenomenal gains in math ability that almost every single one of my students made throughout the year came to a screeching halt – as did the incredible gains in English-language acquisition most of them made. There was no candidate in sight who could do the job better than me but it didn't matter: after summer break my students would be welcomed back to class by yet another new person who probably would not last.

"Conversations about the achievement gap often turn too easily to what’s not happening in students’ homes. These data make clear that we need to put much more emphasis on what’s not happening in classrooms," said Ross Wiener, vice president of The Education Trust said in the press release they sent me. "Unless we boost the overall strength of our teaching force and ensure that all young people have equal access to well-prepared teachers, other strategies to improve student achievement are unlikely to succeed." 

Hear, hear! And unless school systems across the country start making it easier for teachers who really care to teach the most underprivileged students in the toughest schools – but can't afford yet another four or five years of pricey post-secondary classes to bone up on those core classes – there will never be enough highly-qualified teachers to go around.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Boys perform badly in school because many teachers are "anti-boy"

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

It's two days before parent-teacher conference night and I had to sign this note, written to me by my 7-year-old son:

"Dear Mom and Dad, I didn't follow Mrs. S's direction. I'm sorry."

When asked what the infraction was, my darling told me – as he held back big, fat tears – that he had been tapping on his desk during quiet time.

My precocious 7-year old – the one who has a seven-piece drum kit in his room and has been taking private lessons to learn such hits as "Iron Man" and "Purple Haze" – got in trouble at school because he was tapping when he should have been quiet. I never have to wonder why he and his brother hate school.

If you're a boy, school is not just hard, it's hard time – I should know.

When I was their age I was pretty much a boy, too. Talkative, quick to raise my hand to answer an easy question – and just as likely to answer without being called on – prone to staring out the window and constantly fidgeting at my desk, I was way more like the boys in my class than the prim and proper girls who were my teachers' favorites.

I can't tell you how many times I was put in the corner – or out in the hallway – yelled at for talking too much, or otherwise snapped at for being overly boisterous. Mrs. Smith, my third grade teacher at St. Andrew's School in Chicago, once resorted to begging me to stop whistling in class, "because it makes the angel's cry." For eight years I got good grades in all subjects except for behavior. At graduation I was voted the class clown.

While you can't deny that teachers have the incredibly difficult task of teaching 20-30 kids all at once, the economics of the quiet behavior required to make sure at least some of them learn something means that boys have it tough in school.

 Every couple of years or so someone writes another book saying as much and pointing to the American school system for turning boys off of school. The latest entry is The Trouble With Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do, by Peg Tyre.

In it, she details how the most popular educational practices (sitting motionless while being lectured to, reading quietly about a topic, writing answers to questions) fly in the face of how boys' physical chemistry hardwires them to learn (by doing, if you hadn't figured it out). Of course she got attacked by militant feminists, complaining about misogyny, etc., but her book offers keen insight into why so many boys will end up in jail rather than in a corporate boardroom after a mere 13 or 14 years in the classroom.

It's a great book to read if you don't remember your school years well and want to be depressed about every single boy who is almost literally chained to his desk all day (as a special and regular ed. teacher, I saw it all, folks!).

Mostly it's a helpful tool for understanding your kid and interacting with his teacher in a way that will make him or her see your young darling as more than just the daily pain in the ass.

Read the book if you have boys, or if you ever plan on having boys, or if you remember being a boy and need to send some kind thoughts into the ether to other boys who are struggling in school, probably at this very moment!

Seriously, you'd be shocked at how differently teachers treat girls and boys. To say that the current educational system, in which women are the predominant-gendered teacher, is rigged against boys is the understatement of the year.

Let me tell you: the way female teachers talk about their students – especially the rambunctious male ones – in the teacher's lounge would make you cry. "Billy won't sit down and shut up," "That James needs drugs," "If I were Greg's mother, I'd kill myself." I spent most of my lunch periods alone in my classroom to keep away from it.

We're lucky…very lucky! My 7-year-old darling has a wonderful young teacher (in stark contrast to the old battleaxes my 10-year-old has had to deal with) who will tell us how great the kid usually is, before moving on to more pressing matters.

Don't email me; of course I don’t mean "every-single-teacher," but too many, take my word for it. Of course, that's the word coming from someone who never quite acted the way she was supposed to, even as a teacher.

As I signed the note that's to be delivered to the always-loving Mrs. S tomorrow, I told my darling "It's OK, sweetheart, I know exactly how you feel."

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

The tale of the tape: child almost gets left behind

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Two days before Columbia University Teachers College’s Campaign for Education Equity announced its soon-to-be-published research papers on the topic of poverty as the key barrier to closing U.S. education gap – I got a personal taste of how children in this country get left behind despite the massive amounts of resources being poured into education.

I was sitting in my living room Tuesday, working on the computer when my doorbell rang. Out in the cold drizzle stood a squat forty-ish Hispanic woman in a worn coat and scarf accompanied by a young, equally-damp eleven-ish girl. The woman asked me if I spoke Spanish and when I replied in the affirmative she asked for my help.

Her story – which I have no reason to doubt – was that she and her daughter had been walking the streets of my suburb all morning trying to gather materials for a school project and the girl, who’d been wearing brand new snow boots, was now suffering from bleeding feet. They wanted to know if I’d be kind enough to lend them a pair of shoes so they could complete their walk home.

Once it dawned on me that my garage door was up and my car inside was parked in front a rack piled with worn-out running shoes destined for the local Goodwill, I realized why they’d stopped at my house.

I coaxed them inside to the warmth of my home so the girl could put on my two-sizes-too-big pair of shoes, and got mom to tell me about their morning.

They’d set out that Veteran’s Day morning to gather the materials for a class project. Using the school – which services both the upper-middle class families who live in my neighborhood, as well as the low-income families that surround it – as their compass, they’d gotten lost in the tangle of cul-de-sacs and dead-ends in their search for the public library.

After two hours they headed back onto Main street and into a community center which opened a few years ago to assist the booming Latino population, looking for a computer. "But they told me to come back another day because the Internet was not working," Mom told me.

They then walked the three-quarters of a mile to Walgreens to buy colored construction paper and adhesive tape…which they ended up not being able to afford.

Stupefied by the situation, I fished out a brand new roll of tape, and offered hot chocolate – oblivious to the next request.

"She has to do a report on ‘Women in the Revolutionary War’ and we’re not going to be able to get to the library now," Mom said sheepishly as the young girl with the bloody, blistered feet literally squirmed in embarrassment, "Can she use your computer?"

What to most people would have amounted to no more than a routine annoyance – "Geez, I gotta get supplies for my kid’s school project!" – became for this family an epic odyssey that nearly ended badly.

We’re all concerned about the economy and our jobs but who among us can honestly say we don’t have nearly 24/7 access to an Internet-accessible computer? Who among us has ever not had enough money to buy a 99-cent item at Walgreens? How many times have we been so desperate to provide for our children that we literally relied on the kindness of strangers?

Billions of dollars are spent every year in researching and analyzing what keeps kids from succeeding in schools; the answer to ensuring no children get "left behind" isn’t more cash to schools, it’s more resources to people – a task lying far out of the scope of any school district and thus seemingly impossible.

According to Wednesday’s announcement, on November 17 and 18, the Campaign for Educational Equity will outline a comprehensive national plan that would deliver $15,000 to one million students whose families fall within 75 to 125 percent of the federal poverty line.

The difference between this plan and others I’ve seen in the past is that it funds the standard smaller class size and effective teaching initiatives but also "a full array of out-of-school assistance from in utero through age 18, including prenatal care, after-school tutoring, health care, nutrition and physical education, and family support."

According to the press release, the $15,000 investment would include federal, state and local funding but also recoup many of it’s costs "through subsequent reductions in costs for special education and compensatory educational services for older students and savings from the reduction in costs in health care, crime, and welfare that are associated with poorer educational outcomes and the increases in worker productivity and tax revenue associated with improved educational outcomes."

Most people don’t buy that line of thinking, under the guise that it isn’t their job to provide unknown schoolchildren with all the infrastructure that those kids’ parents should be providing.

If you think that’s not your job, then whose job is it? On Tuesday, it was mine, and I did it happily. Mom and girl got home armed with 12 pages of Internet research on the role of women in the Revolutionary War.

Maybe when the Campaign for Educational Equity’s full report comes out next week it’ll get national media play and shine a spotlight on those who really don’t have any of the social and financial resources most of us take for granted – those who have to ask strangers for shoes, and tape, and information just to get simple fifth-grade class reports completed.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Chicago's third-world math scores a disgrace

"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

This is why I cackle when I hear presidential candidates talk about school funding.

Because you can pour all the money you can imagine into a school system, and by the time the teacher’s unions take all of their benefits, and top non-union administrators take their six-figure salaries out, teachers-secretaries-helpers, consultants and specialists get paid, kids STILL end up getting the short end of the stick.

Get this: Chicago Public Schools total budget for 08-09 is 6.2 Billion dollars for approximately 400,000 students. The operating budget is 5.2 Billion dollars, or $13,000 per kid.

So what do you get when you pour $13,000 on a Chicago Public School students? A proficiency in math that "performs no differently than in third world nations," according to John Dossey of Illinois State University as quoted in today’s Chicago Sun-Times. The study he co-authored says just 13 percent of CPS eight-graders were proficient in math, putting them far far behind global powerhouses such as Signapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and on par with Armenia, Slovenia and Scotland.

Yesterday at the Executive’s Club of Chicago CEO Breakfast I listened to Martin Slark, Vice Chairman and CEO of Molex, Inc. talk about leading truly global companies (Chicago-based Molex does 73 percent of its 3.3 billion dollars in sales outside of the U.S.) and heard him say that China’s growing dominance in the world has less to do with cheap labor than with mind power.

"The Chinese value education, we even designed our matched savings benefits to be tied to their children’s education because they feel so strongly about it," Slark said. "People are worried about China’s cheap labor. China is now competing with Africa as a cheap labor source. If you really want to worry about China, you should be worried about all the engineers they graduate each year."

Ouch.

It’s 100 percent true though. All of the countries listed as the tops in math have, as a solid tenet of their culture, a fundamental respect for and commitment to education – something this country pays a lot of lip service to, but generally doesn’t deliver on for those who weren’t born with silver spoons in their mouths.

As for the educational institutions in this country, they are complicit in the robbing the U.S. of its American dreams. From exorbitantly-priced universities to exhorbitantly-priced neighborhood day-care centers, anyone who’s even remotely familiar with the machinations of the educational system in this country knows it’s a racket.

There’s way too much money to be made in coming up with new curricula, selling "innovative teaching" consulting services, shiny new politically correct text-books, and pricey tutoring services for kids as young as seven who can’t quite decipher the "new math" their teacher was taught in school.

And parents, well, they disengage at a verrrrry early age. "I can’t do math!" was a frequent complaint I heard during your-kid-is-failing-math conferences as both a first-grade and as a high school teacher. The clearly articulated message was always that valuing and teaching math was my job, the kid’s job was to learn it and parents shouldn’t be expected to either like or assist in the process.

So there you have it: we live in a country with a dysfunctional education system, no true commitment to general math or financial fluency, and a popular disdain for both people who are good at math ("math geeks" they call us) and, to a certain degree, the countries where that is valued.

We need to wake up to the beauty – and the dire necessity – of math. We clearly aren’t "getting" the numbers if $13,000 beans a year per kid yields such stunning underperformance. Chicago may be many things, but a third-world city it’s not.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Minority kids being "left behind" from college, too

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Is there any doubt whatsoever that the key to the United States’ prosperity is intimately tied to an innovative, highly-educated population?

Those hopes for a prosperous future are headed straight into the toilet as this country – which will become minority white and majority black and Hispanic by 2042 – lets its young people sit on the sidelines while only the affluent get a shot at a college degree.

Here’s a sobering quote from last week’s American Council on Education report Minorities in Higher Education 2008: "The tradition of young adults in the United States attaining higher levels of education than previous generations appears to have stalled, and for far too many people of color, the percentage of young adults with some type of postsecondary degree compared with older adults has actually fallen."

Using data from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, the report found several disturbing trends:

·

The percentage of young adults aged 25 to 29 and older adults aged 30 and above with at least an associate degree in 2006 was about the same, approximately 35 percent but Hispanic and American Indian young adults have even less education than previous generations

·

The postsecondary educational attainment rates of African Americans remained relatively the same for both age groups, at approximately 24 percent.

·

Asian Americans and whites were the only two groups where young adults were more educated than prior generations. Sixty-six percent of young Asian Americans had at least an associate degree compared with 54 percent of older Asian Americans. The percentages for whites were 41 percent for young adults and 37 percent for older adults. 

There are many many core problems at play here, not the least of which is that minorities often have a lower quality of K-12 education, are less able to pay skyrocketing tuition and are often financially or culturally averse to taking out huge loans to pay for the kind of education no one in their immediate families has ever enjoyed.

But the root of the problem is that minority children and their parents do not believe they can actually get accepted to and pay to go to college. What this report tells us is that their hope is dying and we need to get it on our national radar before it’s way too late.

"It appears we are at a tipping point in our nation’s history," ACE President Molly Corbett Broad said in a written statement. "One of the core tenets of the American dream is the hope that younger generations, who’ve had greater opportunities for educational advancement than their parents and grandparents, will be better off than the generations before them, yet this report shows that aspiration is at serious risk."

It’s a tricky issue to understand because the numbers are only now shifting. Sure, according to ACE’s numbers, total minority enrollment at the nation’s colleges and universities rose by 50 percent from 3.4 million students to 5 million students between 1995 and 2005 compared to white enrollment, which increased only 8 percent from 9.9 million to 10.7 million.

Though students of color made up 29 percent of the nearly 17.5 million students on America’s campuses, and significant gains occurred in college enrollment rates for young people from all races, progress was uneven and gaps widened.

In 2006, 61 percent of Asian Americans aged 18 to 24 were enrolled in college compared with 44 percent of whites, 32 percent of African Americans, and 25 percent of Hispanics and American Indians respectively.

More sobering stats:

·

The gender gap has swung in the opposite direction and now among students aged 18 to 24, and in 2006 only thirty-six percent of young men were enrolled in college compared with 44 percent of young women.

·

Despite improving their rate of high school completion from 59 percent to 68 percent, Hispanics still had the lowest rate among all racial/ethnic groups.

·

The high school completion rate for African Americans aged 18 to 24 remained relatively flat over the past two decades at about 76 percent.

Keep in mind those are just numbers for attendance, when you look at degree completion the picture darkens further: college persistence rates declined slightly, and these declines were more pronounced for students who began at two-year institutions, especially for Hispanics. 

But wait! There are rays of hope:

·

African Americans more than doubled the number of master’s degrees earned from nearly 25,000 in 1995 to nearly 53,000 in 2005. During the same period, the number of doctoral degrees earned by African Americans increased 84 percent from nearly 1,600 to nearly 2,900.

·

Hispanics nearly doubled the number of bachelor’s degrees received over the last decade to more than 105,000. Hispanics also made dramatic gains in doctoral degrees earned, rising from 950 in 1995 to more than 1,700 in 2005, an increase of 83 percent. 

·

The number of minorities earning associate degrees between 1995 and 2005 grew 84 percent to just over 201,000. The number of minorities earning bachelor’s degrees over the same period grew 65 percent to 355,000.

·

Minorities outpaced whites in the percentage change in total degrees awarded at all levels over the past decade and minority women showed stronger gains than minority men at all degree levels. 

The moral of the story: minority kids can get in and complete college successfully, but we need to give them every possible bit of encouragement we can scrounge up. Anything from plain old role-modeling, to moral support and encouragement starting at age 12 to when they’re in that first big job, to throwing a kid a few bucks to pay for one of their books.

You don’t have to look too far to find a minority student who could use any of the above and it won’t cost you to tell them: "You’re going to make it," even if you’re not a hundred percent sure.

When the economy is bad, when jobs are scarce, when the belt gets tightened all we have to hold onto is hope. We can't afford to let that hope die for the millions of black, Latino and Native American kids who are struggling to believe that they, too, can go to college.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

A gay time will be had at The Pride Campus of Social Justice High School

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

The Chicago Public Schools unveiled a bevy of new Renaissance 2010 schools at a press conference Wednesday. Among the new schools focusing on vocational studies, studying the humanities, learning about health and loving the Chicago Bulls, one sticks out for striving to create a safe haven for gay students.

The Pride Campus of Social Justice High School doesn't have a location set, is to open in 2010 and will eventually serve 600 any-oriented students.

My initial reaction: separate but equal…why would you want that?

According to Bill Greaves, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered liaison from the City of Chicago's Commission on Human Relations, as quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times, the school will provide students with heroes and role models delivered through a standard curriculum which will be augmented with stories highlighting GLBT people.

The point is to provide a school open to kids from all parts of the city with a safe, gay-friendly atmosphere aimed at serving GLBT students who face higher rates of depression and, subsequently, tend to drop out more because of intolerance and bullying in "regular" schools.

But, isn't high school supposed to be where the gloves come off and you're forced to deal with life as it is, rather than as it should be? Does insulating kids in the warm embrace of a gay-friendly cocoon really serve them when they leave and step into college life and then into the work-world? Let's face it, unless you go into theater, it's a bit of a hard-knock life for the openly gay.

I'm not being callous to the very real and intolerable nasty treatment boys and girls who even simply appear to be GLBT are subjected to in high school, it's unacceptable – I used to freak out when any of my students even said "that's so gay" in my classroom – but I don't think "separate but equal" is the answer.

But before I get to that, doesn't such an endeavor put an eight grader in the precarious position of coming out to his or her family before he or she is even sure of themselves? How, exactly, do you tell your parents you want to attend the Pride campus rather than your neighborhood school? And what do you tell your friends?

What about the kids who don't want to or aren't ready to declare themselves? This feel-good initiative effectively leaves them stuck in the same unfriendly environment that spurred such a specialized school in the first place.

And what kind of security measures will these students have working for them? I can easily imagine their facility being the target of vicious attacks from the same sort of people who'd make life unbearable at a mainstream school. Fevered attempts to get anyone to talk to me about these concerns were fruitless.

So, am I the only one thinking that red flags would go up if CPS designed an illegal immigrant student high school, or a wheel chair-bound student school? I don't think that the distinct learning styles in males vs. females – making single-sex education a vital learning environment – quite applies here.

"I've heard those arguments over and over again, many of them are valid," Tania Unzueta, a Latina GLTB activist who works as support to "Homofrecuencia," a Latino GLTB radio show airing on Pilsen-based Radio Arte told me. "But these are the same arguments against ethnically-based schools like African-American colleges, it's just we're not used to hearing gay positive news."

"Besides what's the alternative? Do we continue to not have any resources for GLBT?" Tania asked me, making an excellent point. "From what I hear from the organizers, part of the project is to continue to do education and outreach to the rest of CPS schools, but I don't know whether that's actually going to happen or not."

I hate to be a naysayer but there are two types of people in the world: the type who, feeling marginalized by society, take their group and make a space for themselves outside the mainstream. Then there are those who dig in and work to make themselves part of the mainstream through education, exposure and integration.

Neither choice is easy, and I don't want to judgmentally say that one is better than the other, but instead of a token, I'd much rather see a tour de force effort on the part of CPS and the GLBT community to make gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students comfortable, accepted and valued in all our high schools.

There is no reason why our history and literature curricula – just two examples – shouldn't be peppered with GLBT contributions and experiences just as we struggle to do so with women and minorities in required high school courses.

And there's no reason why our city's gay students should have to be separated from the rest of the educational community to have their educational and emotional needs met.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Financially illiteracy is killing America

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

There are two types of smarts Americans value: book smarts and street smarts. But when it comes to money smarts, we're mostly stupid.

The economy is collapsing in on itself and so many people are completely clueless as to what is happening, it’s absolutely frightening.

I heard a guy say, "I don't have any damn stocks, so why should I give a ---- about the rich bastards who are losing money? They got it comin'," on my train ride home the other day. It's the sort of bravado I've been hearing nearly everywhere since the market meltdown began, and it says more about a regular Joe's lack of connection to Wall Street than it does about his sour grapes.

Nothin' against Joe, he's certainly not alone – the number of people in the United States who don't have basic knowledge of financial concepts is stunning.

That number is – drum roll, please – unknown.

That's right, folks, the ability to read, analyze, manage, and communicate about the personal financial conditions that affect one's material well-being is so ignored in this country that no one even knows what the baseline of that knowledge is! (Just last July the U.S. Treasury announced that for the first time ever they’re going to examine financial literacy among U.S. adults and how they fare in handling their finances at both state and national levels. Preliminary survey data is expected to be released to researchers and the general public in early 2009.)

And wwhhhyyyyy are adults so financially illiterate? Because we do next to nothing to teach kids about the dough they're constantly begging their parents for.

"I'm never surprised by what kids know, but I'm always shocked by what they don't know," John Stowers, a business teacher at north-suburban Mundelein High School, told me last night during a debate viewing discussion spurred by Obama's critique of the post-9/11 consumer spending binge President Bush encouraged by suggesting we go out and shop to show the terrorists they hadn't won.

"Freshmen through seniors, none of them can tell you what fiscal or monetary policy is, what the fed is, who the fed chairman is, or in what city Wall Street is located," Stowers, a third year teacher, railed. "By the time these kids get to high school they have virtually no financial literacy. Oh they can take a debit card and go out and buy things, but they can't keep track of the money in the bank – in fact they don't know the difference between a withdrawal and a deposit! If you tell them that taxes are withheld from their paycheck they don't understand what that means."

Stowers teaches kids from all different socioeconomic, ethnic and racial backgrounds and across the board he’s found that what kids don't know about money is passed down through the family.

"Moms and dads don’t sit down at the kitchen table and say 'I don’t like this president's fiscal policy but I really do like what the Fed is doing with monetary policy' because they don't understand it either," Stowers said. "Why? Because you can live your whole life without knowing that stuff – you can get a job, get and spend a paycheck and just get by… if getting by is all you want to do."

Heck, you don't even need a checking account for merely getting by, just ask the thriving currency exchange and check cashing industry. I did find one startling statistic in a 2007 Time magazine article, which said there are an estimated 40 million adults in the U.S. without bank accounts. That number is surely higher now…it's been a year of vault-busting bank runs.

But why does this all matter? Because a large part of the current crisis is a direct result of people failing to predict the volatility of the terms of home loans in the context of their financial health.

And because, worse, there is a multi-billion dollar educational industrial complex fighting for more money, money, money to spend on curriculum, teacher salaries, research, infrastructure and blahdiddy-blah-blah to educate kids in this country to become thriving, productive members of society. With almost zero effort put into teaching them how to balance a checkbook, read a credit report, or understand the employee benefits offered by a company.

Kids today are required only one consumer economics class in their entire school careers and it clearly isn't enough. "Repetition is the key to really learning something," Stowers said. "You study English for 12 years by the time you get out of high school and you still don't remember how The Great Gatsby ends and yet you only talk about your financial life for one semester."

Along with all the other causes championed for classrooms, we need to insist on teaching America’s next generation how to make, manage, and grow their money or we’re destined to repeat the current economic crisis again and again.

"Financial literacy is as important as any other skill – the stake of the whole country's economy is as important as any other class," Stowers hammered home. "You study math for twelve years, but how many people use the calculus they studied in high school? And yet how many people have a mortgage?"

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Healthy living best defense against dreaded Bisphenol A

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Medical studies drive me crazy! Rather than using collective medical expertise to enlighten a populace about living healthier, these studies are used as a weapon to induce fear – the kind that makes for great headlines but has little value in changing anyone’s quality of life.

All over the country this morning the big "medical story" is a study reported in this month's Journal of the American Medical Association which links Bisphenol A (BPA) – a chemical found in household items such as plastic baby bottles, hard water bottles, reusable plastic food containers, CDs, DVDs, cardboard pizza boxes, wine, beer, and pop cans – to heart disease and Type-2 diabetes.

A link.

Meaning there is a correlation, but no one – no one – can say it is causal correlation. For instance, the classic example: Sleeping with your shoes on is strongly correlated with waking up with a headache. But that does not mean that sleeping with your shoes on causes that headache – maybe you have no one to take your shoes off after you’ve passed out in an alcoholic stupor.

Let’s determine which came first, the chicken or the egg with today’s BPA scare stories, which document the finding that more than 90 percent of the U.S. population has traces of BPA in their bodies – no laughing matter, for sure.

· Baby bottles: it is well documented that babies who are breast fed – rather than pumped with large quantities of artificially-sweetened formula – stay lighter, are able to exercise better portion control, and stay slimmer throughout their lifetimes. Don’t blame the bottle.

· Hard water bottles: like the plastic used in sippy cups, which are usually provided to unsuspecting children filled with 3 or 4 servings of sugary juice-type substance at a pop. Don’t blame the sippy cup.

What about water bottles? Well, athletes who work out for hours a week generally don’t come down with heart disease and obesity-related diabetes but the majority of people I see with water bottles have "I’m dieting and Dr. Oprah told me to drink 85 gallons of water a day" written all over them.

· CDs? Let’s be frank, only people over 30 even have them in their house. Next.

DVD's Cardboard pizza boxes, wine, beer, and pop cans, which all go nicely together…need I say more?

Here’s a headline you won’t see scrolling in all caps under the market watch numbers on CNN or on the front page of any newspaper over a menacing picture of shiny plastic chemical-ridden bottles: "Moderate exercise and fresh foods in small servings keep people healthy!!!"

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

No brown rings and no education dollars in Chicago's Olympic bid

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Friday morning, fresh off back-to-back trips to Beijing for the Olympics and the Paralympics, Chicago Bid Chairman Patrick Ryan, a self-described insurance salesman, gave the Executives Club of Chicago a major rah-rah session, accented by a fly in the ointment.

Ryan showed a packed Fairmont Hotel ballroom, flanked by a who's-who of Chicago bid-ness two tear-jerking videos about the virtues of a completely privately-funded 2016 Summer Olympics in Chicago ("We're up against national governments, we're just little private guys, but I think the little guys can win," Ryan said).

The videos' key points?

Video one: to those who don't know our fair city, "which was built by immigrants," its full of surprises, including "the most exciting fine dining in America" and "the people in diverse neighborhoods." Stationing the proposed Olympic village "in the heart of the city," the narrator also referred to Chicago as "the heart of the nation" and, if we were to win the bid, "the focal point of the world."

Video two: our city is full of active and passive sportsters. This piece profiled 12 Chicago kids talking about how the prospect of a Chicago Olympics fuels their dreams to become star athletes.

Ryan also hammered home corporate Chicago's hand in funding the bid – big wink American Airlines! – and the "legacy" programs that will better Chicagoan's lives through sports regardless of whether we get the Games or not. He also went out of his way to press into his enthralled audience that this bid was "all about the people."

In fact, Ryan mentioned that as he and the rest of the 2016 Bid Committee have hosted 102 of the 112 International Olympics Committee members, they've often witnessed those members "be surprised by the ethnicity of our city."

You would be too, if you'd seen the videos. Aside from nice shots from Ukrainian, Chinese, Polish and Mexican parades and music fests, Chicago looked pretty white. For a Bid Committee whose web site goes out of its way to tell the story of the 1.8 million Chicagoans of Mexican-American heritage in this city, not a single Hispanic kid made it into the athlete video.

I won't harp on the fact there was also not a single Latino on the dais – because they were Executive's Club members, not strictly Bid Committee members – not that I could find any trace of Hispanic representation on the leadership team in an extensive clip search.

I wasn't the fly in the ointment, though. Me bringing the lack of Latino up to the politely surprised Ryan didn't amount to nearly the fuss the Rev. James Meeks kicked up when he confronted Ryan about Chicago's educational disparities.

"How can we have a world-class city and second-class schools? What is the 2016 committee going to do about changing the funding formula for public education in the state of Illinois?" Meeks had asked during the Q&A. Ryan responded with a nod back to the legacy programs he'd already touched on.

Out in the foyer afterwards, firmly ensconced in the video camera glare, Meeks held forth some more, asking – rhetorically, this time – why the business community and the media were not concerned about the school funding crisis and why Chicago should want the Olympics when there are murders tearing families apart.

OK, so the Rev has a point: bad schools and murders are indeed a crisis that demands immediate attention. Those facts – and little things like, oh let's say, U.S. born Hispanic residents like Salvador Contreras getting threatened with deportation by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in this "city built by immigrants" – pretty much flies in the face of Ryan's happy proclamation that this city has been "bonded across racial, social and economic boundaries" by the bid.

But what's Chicago's Olympic committee supposed to do about any of that?

I don't care how patriotic the 2016 Bid Committee members are, they're business people salivating at the economic boom that could be generated by the international spotlight an Olympics could shine on Chi-town.

I can respect Rev. Meeks' desire to clang his very worthy school reform bell anywhere it'll jar the silence but shouldn't there be some more thought to picking the battles?

I mean what's next? Is he going to block the runners from crossing the finish line at the Chicago Marathon in the name of poor students? Will he stage a hunger strike at next year's Taste of Chicago? "How can you people cook and eat food in the park when there are poor children being left behind?!"

Sure, the guy knows how to get himself on TV but I'm seeing little else emerge from his very worthwhile crusade.

Chicago is a city on the take. If it beats out Madrid, Tokyo or Rio – who President Lula proclaimed had been "created by God for the Olympics," according to Ryan – there'll be all kinds out looking to get in on the Olympic action.

Meeks is just the tip of the iceberg. A delegation from every conceivable special interest group – from angry Hispanics to ticked-off animal rights nuts to a coalition of miffed left-handers – will be breathing down the necks of the 2016 Olympic bid committee until the winner is declared on October 2, 2009 in Copenhagen, and then beyond, if Ryan gets his way.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

From Chicago to Colombia and beyond for a college dream

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

On September 12, 2007 I stood next to the Chicago river with a skinny little guy who had gotten it into his head that he was going to ride his rickety bicycle from the ‘burbs to Argentina for twenty months in order to raise money for low-income students to go to college.

He had a satchel containing a few rudimentary bike tools, some clothes, a few cans of food, a map, and a picture of his girlfriend, Danielle, he’d taped to the frame of his bike, for inspiration.

Then-25-year-old Isai Madriz, a resident of Montgomery, IL, a tiny ‘burb outside Aurora, planned on relying on hard work and the proverbial kindness of strangers for his own sustenance as he pedaled 22,500 miles to Tierra del Fuego (''Land of Fire'') at the southernmost tip of Argentina.

From there he was going to bike up to Caracas, Venezuela, all the while getting the word out to local media in order to raise money for the Jesus Guadalupe Foundation, which had helped him, back in 2004, when he needed a hand to graduate from California’s Humboldt State University.

The commitment he made seemed crazy to others – but only those others who didn’t know that the Guadalajara, Mexico native who’d arrived here when he was 16 had been so poor that he had been riding his bike everywhere. Even to college in California. This is a kid who literally would not take ‘no’ for an answer.

"I started riding for myself because after I transferred to Humboldt State University in California, I needed a way to pay for my tuition and board. Then I did a second ride in 2004 to help pay for my student loans, but 500 miles into the trip a truck drove me off the road and I fell and fractured my hand," Isai told me the morning before he left. He said there was little he could do, but that this was the one statement he could make about the crushing problem of low college enrollment and graduation for Hispanic students.

"People tell you the door is closed before you even try to open it. Most [immigrant] students that are here don't have the means or the papers to go to college once they graduate from high school," he said. "Hispanics don't have really good jobs. Mostly families don't have papers to get good jobs then don't have the means to help their kids go to college. I know a lot of really intelligent students, really gifted people who graduated from high school then went to work because they have to help their families. Then they settle in, have their own kids, and never go back to college."

So whatever happened to? The skinny guy with the rickety bike crossed into South America August 11 and he’s in Colombia right now, moving slowly, but making progress.

"Hi Esther! I’m in Popoyan, Colombia," one recent email chirped. I promised him I’d keep telling his story as long as he was on his quest so he sends me email and we talk from time to time. Never once did I doubt he’d keep going, and I’ve been so happy to receive his pictures and letters telling of incredible adventures.

A short run-down: we first checked off all the United States Isai pedaled through. On October 11 he crossed over into Mexico after having been nearly run over by semis too many times to count, been chased by toothy Rottweillers and mauled by fire ants.

After tussling with cacti, breaking a toe, and catching a terrible flu, he made it to Guadalajara where he lay sick in his uncle’s home until recuperating enough to go to the state of Tabasco to aid flood victims. Yes, all on his bike – at a rate of about 50 miles a day.

From there he made his way south of Mexico biking through Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama City, and, finally, into Colombia.

The stories are, frankly, too horrifying to repeat here but his emails are so ridiculously upbeat – accounts of nearly crashing into a truck after hurtling down a steep hill in a Colombian town called Ipiales because his brakes went out is spiced which descriptions of "glorious skies," "beautiful people" and topped with statements such as "after almost an hour of recuperating and thinking about this episode [by the side of the road] I went on my way."

Isai’s fundraising efforts, to be honest, have not been spectacular. Aside from a few local donations – and the hospitality shown to him by the people he’s touched on his quest – the fund for other low-income Hispanic students to get a helping hand through the new, bizarre, and breath-takingly expensive experience called college still needs help.

But that never enters into Isai’s equation when he’s on the hot road or under the stars in the mountains. "Education is like planting little seeds, and when those seeds grow everybody benefits."

As Isai continues on his way I’ll share his stories with you in this space. If you’d like to help you can send donations – which will go to the education fund, not Isai’s travel expenses – to: Jesus Guadalupe Foundation, 902 S. Randall Road, Suite C-322, St. Charles, IL 60174. Write "For Isai" on the check.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Field trip over: Meeks' boycott kids finally out of media glare

this column originally appeared on Huffington Post/Chicago

Anyone who cares about kids in this town getting a shot at a decent education surely looked at the Chicago Public School children who marched into Winnetka and felt the rumbling pride of civil rights crusades past.

The images were enough to make even the most cynical opponent of Meeks' guerilla techniques to get proper school funding for the poorest of Chicago's communities feel like maybe his stunt wasn't such a bad idea.

But if you happened to see the kiddies, neatly dressed in oversized orange t-shirts and splayed cross-legged across the floors of several Loop businesses Wednesday morning, you couldn't help but squirm and wonder whether the ends truly justifed the means.

Perhaps the sight turned enough people off that Meeks was pressured to stop, though his remarks at a Wednesday night press conference indicate he's calling the whole thing off to call Gov. Rod Blagojevich's bluff. He'd said he wouldn't open a school-funding dialogue until he got the kids back in school.

The children who Tuesday so cheerfully endured the heat, humidity and long bus ride to Winnetka to try to register in the New Trier school district spent their Wednesday making do on the floors of air conditioned office buildings.

I stopped by City Hall early Wednesday where a cluster of kids and chaperones hung out in front of Mayor Daley's office, then later strolled over to the James R. Thompson Building where, in advance of the Reverend and State Senator James Meeks' noon press conference, a gaggle of kids were half-heartedly taken through some language arts lessons by retired school teachers while a crowd gawked, photographers snapped pictures and reporters asked the standard "How do you feel" questions of younguns unaccustomed to being displayed like the gazelles at Lincoln Park Zoo.

After the cameras were clicked off, the children were taken away for a snack out of public view and one organizer talked to me about the day's work.

"The kids have been great," the Reverend Dearal Jordan, a full-time pastor at Meeks' Salem Baptist Church, told me as school buses were being pulled around to take some kids over to AT&T headquarters where they'd been invited for a late lunch. "They're happy, they're still energetic…they've been working on a special curriculum of reading and math so they can keep up with their classmates."

I can't speak for the students at any of the other sixteen corporate locations, but the kiddies at the Thompson center looked like their energy was flagging.

Any school teacher, as I was for a few years, can tell you that those first days of school are a tremendous struggle even under the best of circumstances. Young bodies show up to class tired from getting up early, hungry from having their meal schedule drastically changed from one day to another, and antsy about making the adjustment to their new home away from home.

The children scattered across the lobbies of the corporate power centers of this state were no different, except they didn't have the luxury of getting used to the rhythms of a new school year. Their first days were alternately a fun field trip and a boring doctors' office-type wait while people in power played a form of high-stakes chicken with each other.

Granted, the classrooms they'll finally walk into Thursday will be hot, sticky, cramped, overcrowded, and lacking in adequate materials but there will be regularity, familiar surroundings, and an adult who is single-mindedly devoted to ensuring their academic success under even the worst of circumstances. It may not be much, but even that bit of regimented continuity is essential to their health and well-being.

Wednesday night Meeks did a subdued sort of endzone dance – thankfully, with no quasi-Greek chorus of half-asleep grade-schoolers by his side – as he announced the end of his particularly powerful stunt.

Meeks told the night's media throng he and his coalition were calling on all students to get to school the next morning in hopes of sitting down with Gov. Blagojevich Thursday. "Our children have had an opportunity to see what a well-funded school looks like…this effort has been a success." CPS estimated that the boycott cost them $100,000 in state reimbursement – which would be a drop in the $120 million dollar bucket Meeks is seeking.

Only time will tell whether this living, breathing display of the intersection between childhood potential and the broken promise of equal and unseparate education for all will succeed in bringing about meaningful and appropriately-funded reform to Chicago Public Schools but, at last, Thursday morning while Illinois' power-brokers get to work on figuring the money out, the children Meeks used to prove his point will finally get the opportunity to crack open their new boxes of crayons and learn their teachers' name.

For better or worse, they're already behind their peers whose parents opted to send them to school. The question is: how far will their efforts go or how far behind will this two-day field trip have left them?

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

It's Father's Day: A Million Fathers to March on first day of school

"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

When you stop to look at the array of organizations trying to address the crushing problem of poor children being left behind in U.S. schools there are the wonk strategizers, the conscientious objectors, and then there are those out there with kids and parents, just getting stuff done – like Chicago's Black Star Project.

Sure in their hometown they've never grabbed splashy headlines like the Rev. and State Senator James Meeks who has proposed boycotting the first day of school, busing kids to Winnetka for a symbolic registration attempt, then planting kids in lobbies of Loop businesses to bring attention to the dire inequities in how kids get schooled in this state.

They've never gotten the sort of "play" that Cheryle R. Jackson and the Chicago Urban League got last week when they announced a lawsuit against the State of Illinois and Illinois State Board of Education calling for the state's current school funding design be declared unconstitutional and in violation of the Illinois Civil Rights Act of 2003. But it doesn't matter to the Black Star Project staff, under the direction of its fearless leader Phillip Jackson, they don’t think about headlines they're just out there doing.

"We went to Cook Country jail today, marched around the jail chanting 'Educate or Die!' and spoke to 1,000 men in division four, asking them to write letters to their family to have them take their children to school next Tuesday," Phillip told me late Wednesday night. "Last week we took a letter to Tom Dart and asked him to provide paper, envelopes, and stamps and he did saying 'Yes! That's exactly what we're looking for!'" I told those men that the one thing that should never be taken away from a man is the right to be a good father."

That was just one of about a million things BSP has been doing leading up to Tuesday's first day of school, and only a few of them have happened here in Chicago. You see the MFM has been around awhile. “The media here pretty much ignored the Million Father March for 5 years,” Phillip said. “The MFM is all over the country in New York is huge. We're in 475 cities; including Chicago we're expecting 600,000 fathers across the country to take their kids to school – and those are just the cities who are registered with us.”

Phillip says he can’t really estimate how many will be living the spirit of the March and showing their kids that their education takes precedence over everything else by escorting them to school on the first day but he says, “Every day I hear about cities we have no connection to doing Million Father March and that's what we want, we don't control the MFM anymore, its something that every community controls.”

And when he says every community, he means EVERY community, even in towns where Da Mayor and the Guv haven’t declared September 2 Million Father March Day.

“We’re not leaving anybody behind, I had a white man from Traverse City, MI call me and ask ‘Can white people participate in the Million Father March?’ I said yes …if you have children.’ He went out and recruited 25 other small cities in central Michigan where the total minority population is less than 2 percent to participate.”

And Phillip’s hoping for a bump here as well. Despite being overlooked for years because parent mentoring, student tutoring and good old-fashioned hard work in getting kids through school isn’t sexy, his phones have been ringing these days as a result of pleasant unintended consequences.

“The Rev. Meeks brought up this boycott and now people are giving me the opportunity to talk about MFM and things I think we need to do to educate poor black, poor Latino, poor rural white children,” he said. “But we are going to depart with him on the first day. In fact we're going to door to door in low attendance communities to make sure the kids come to school – we even have teachers out doing it!”

“See we’re doing it all; we we're going to keep working for the money to equalize educational opportunities and we’re going to keep talking about fathers and mothers becoming involved in children’s educations, how that leads to a better education, higher test scores, higher graduation rates, less drop outs, less drugs, less school suspensions and less pregnancies. That's what we should be doing,” Phillip said. “This is not ‘Wellll…it’s Sept 2^nd, the kids are back. No, we’ll keep working.”

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Lower the drinking age to 18

“600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda”

I don’t drink. At all. No beer, no wine, no champagne. It weirds some people out, but I don’t care, it’s just who I am.

That said, enough with this “21 to drink” business.

Monday the presidents of one hundred colleges and universities announced an initiative to lower the legal drinking age to 18. According to them, the change in the law – set to 21 in 1984 and which has supposedly “saved 25,000 lives” according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving – will reduce "a culture of dangerous, clandestine 'binge drinking'" on their campuses.

I agree.

I’ve been, as far back as I can remember, the designated driver. Yes, even when I started driving at 16.

And as far as I can remember, kids have been saying that it’s unfair for them to have the privilege and right to vote and to join the military and die for their country but not to drink a beer.

That sounded like all sorts of BS back in the day, but now – after thousands of young soldiers have been killed in the Middle East wars since 2001 and while the country is captivated by November’s historic presidential election – it doesn’t sound quite so self serving.

The real reason most people don’t want the drinking age to be reduced to 18 is because then parents would have to deal with it.

Yes, a 21 minimum drinking age means that parents can wash their hands of the uncomfortable task of talking to their kids about responsible drinking. Forget actually modeling responsible behavior – imagine that! – and forget about discussing the role alcohol plays in family life. As it stands today, parents are free to simply cross their arms across their chests and refuse to talk about drinking unless it’s the standard “don’t you dare drink!” admonitions.

They get ignored, just in case no one noticed, as do the “21” laws. MADD’s numbers speak for themselves:

• In 2006, the average age at first alcohol use among [those] aged 12 to 49 was 16.6 years, earlier than any other drug except inhalants
• It’s been found that family factors, such as parent-child relationships, discipline methods, communication, monitoring and supervision, and parental involvement, also exert a significant influence on youthful alcohol use
• In a survey, 33 percent of 6th to 12th graders said their parents never, seldom, or sometimes set clear rules for them and almost half said their parents never, seldom, or sometimes discipline them when they break the rules
• Between 1985 and 1996, there were 5,555 child passenger deaths involving a drinking driver. Of these deaths, 3,556 or 64 percent occurred while the child was riding with a drinking driver