The Atlanta-based Southern Education Foundation has released an independent report indicating that federal government funding and rebuilding in the Gulf after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is sorely lacking, as reported in a recent eSchool News article. Congressman James Clyburn from South Carolina has toured the area several times and says, "I have seen firsthand that the post-hurricane response to rebuilding the public education infrastructure in the Gulf Coast has been inadequate, and improvements must be made." In defense of the federal government’s response to the devastation, Hudson La Force, senior counselor to Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said, "Over the past two years, the U.S. Department of Education has awarded more than $2 billion to K-12 and higher-education institutions impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. These federal funds are intended to supplement significant other resources, such as private insurance and state funding."

The important thing we all must remember is the kids should have a safe environment to learn, and good teachers with the necessary resources to teach. $2 billion should go a long way to accomplishing this goal, but I fear too much of that money was likely misdirected, or caught up in bureaucratic red tape. Regardless, given the devastation, I think we all can agree that if the Gulf region needs more assistance, it should be provided.

We are proud of the quick response Learning A–Z had to the Gulf hurricanes, giving away hundreds of free subscriptions to Reading A–Z in areas impacted and in schools taking in displaced students. We were able to act quickly because our books, lessons, and other resources can be accessed online. We did it because it was the right thing to do, and because we believe no child should ever be without developmentally appropriate books to read.

If one in four high-school dropouts from mid-Georgia had gone on to graduate from high school, they could have collectively made $1 billion more in wages, according to a recent Macon.com article. That is a staggering number. It not only represents a loss in income for the area, but a loss in buying power and local taxes. I can only imagine what the potential income could have been had just 10% of those students also gone on to college.

Stories like these remind me of how much better we could do as a society by placing greater value on education. In a previous blog, I talked about how illiteracy impacts life span, and now we see how it affects income. Living longer and making more money should be two great motivators to get educated, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. From reading the classics to understanding baseball statistics to being able to effectively communicate with people all over the world on this blog, none of that would be possible without an education. Too many times we take our education for granted, but I’d like to take this time to thank everyone who has ever helped me learn, and thanks to those who help me continue to learn every day. And a special thanks to all of you who are making a difference in the lives of the children you teach.

Aulden Dunipace, managing director of The Learning Partnership, a not-for-profit learning organization, says a big problem in Great Britain is that kids are not getting the required learning and attention at home before they come to school, as reported in a recent Guardian article. "Primary-school teachers will continue to face the thankless task of attempting to engage unengagable pupils. The government must address both the parenting and early-years issues seriously."

It is the same complaint we hear stateside. How are teachers supposed to teach students who are ill-prepared and often unwilling to learn?

It takes countless hours of instruction and practice for a child to learn to read. When you account for the fact that a teacher only has a child for a few hours a day, and that day includes lunch, recess, and other subjects, teachers alone cannot teach every child how to read. It takes help at home, after-school, and elsewhere. This philosophy is a guiding principle at Learning A–Z. By delivering our products over the Internet, and pricing them affordably, we give children learning resources they can take home and increase their opportunities to learn.

With the lack of professional development opportunities and low teacher salaries, it is no wonder we can’t keep good science and math teachers in the classroom. There is no systematic approach to retaining Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) teachers, which contributes to the overall shortage of STEM teachers, according to a recent eSchool News article.

The lack of STEM teachers is contributing to the erosion of the United States’ global edge in math and science. And the problem seems to be self-perpetuating. Because of the lack of qualified STEM teachers, the math and science subjects are often taught by out-of-field teachers. Studies have shown that students taught by out-of-field teachers do not excel in math and science and do not major in math or science at the college level. Students who do have well-trained math and science teachers and choose careers related to math and science are likely to enter more higher-paying fields than teaching. So goes the STEM teacher shortage cycle.

Countries without a teacher shortage have two advantages, according to the article: more competitive pay and equal resources and training for future teachers. But the countries with the edge—Finland, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and Germany—don’t necessarily have a large population base spread over a huge geographic area, as we do here in the United States, causing teacher pay and support to vary greatly from state to state, city to city, and county to county. Are lack of funding for professional development and competitive salaries causing our STEM downfall? Or do you think the U.S. student population diversity creates challenges and places the United States at an unfair disadvantage? Anybody have suggestions for solving the STEM problem?

The AYP system is flawed, casting doubt on the way No Child Left Behind money is doled out (or not), says Harvard University Professor Paul E. Peterson. Simplistically speaking, AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) is a system of grade-level testing used to determine whether schools remain eligible for NCLB monies. Peterson proposes two fixes to the process for measuring AYP. The first is to use a more accurate and fair measure of academic progress; the second is to hold not just schools but also teachers and students accountable for AYP.

It would be tough to argue against Peterson’s first point. NCLB only measures whether or not a student is proficient at a certain grade level based on inconsistent individual state standardized tests. The measurement does not give credit to students who make considerable gains but who still may not be grade-level proficient. Some kids are so far behind that credit should be given for making significant/measurable progress, even if they do not make it to proficiency at a certain level at a given time. It makes absolutely no sense to force changes on a school that makes significant year to year gains with a population of students who begin at a very low level of performance. As Peterson says, all states now have the ability to move to an A–F grading scale that focuses purely on student growth, so why not measure progress on that scale and give credit where credit is due, even if there is still more ground to make up?

Peterson’s second point centers largely around tying high-stakes testing to grade advancement or graduation and is a bit more controversial. It just doesn’t seem fair to disregard an entire year’s worth of learning and grades because a student fails one test, especially when that test differs from state to state. It may not be a popular position, but I believe there is much merit in a national assessment tool. Peterson also proposes that the high-stakes test results might be used to measure teacher effectiveness. Knowing the effectiveness of teachers is a good thing; measuring them by the results of one test, however, could be quite misleading. If we are going to fund schools based on test results, then we need to create a standardized, valid assessment lacking in bias.

Kansas last year faced its biggest teacher shortage in history, and starting teacher pay is the culprit, according to a Morning Sun article. Recent college grads going into teaching earn half as much as beginning engineers, the article states. Most would agree that the salaries of many teachers are too low. These are the people largely responsible for the education of our youth and the future of our country. But if raising salary for teachers were as simple as an opinion, we wouldn’t be discussing it. Unfortunately, teachers’ salaries involve taxes that must be voted on, and who wants to pay higher taxes? The negative public perception regarding increased taxes and the complexity of government budgets make teacher salaries a difficult problem to resolve. It should not have to be this way as an investment in top-notch educators and a top-notch educational system, in the end, saves us all money.