clair073

I just came back from a jazz festival at Katy High School in Texas that show-cased student stage bands from ten schools mostly near Houston, but some as far away as Beaumont and Brownsville (the latter band stole the show). The festival was also a teaching event, with each band or ensemble performing for 30 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of critique from six professional jazz musicians (two of whom were music professors at universities). The critiques were shared with the small audience consisting almost exclusively of family and friends, even though this festival was advertised for the general public. Performances were staggered so that if you didn’t want to hear a critique you could go hear a student combo and vice versa. The facilities were magnificent, highlighted by the presence of a natatorium, impressive athletic fields and stadium, and a Performing Arts Center where the festival took place. If Texas schools are hurting for funds, it certainly wasn’t evident at Katy High School...

For the last 15 years, official data indicate there have been almost no increase in reading scores, despite the fact that the main purpose of No Child Left Behind. Look at these data: The graph data, which came from the U.S. Dept. of Education, also shows the gap between reading scores of whites and blacks. There is no change in the gap.We can argue all day on the causes of this lack of improvement, but it is hard to defend all the increased government spending for education or for NCLB programs. These data were presented by Mark Seidenberg at the University of Wisconsin at the Neuro-Education conference in Aspen, Co. that I attended. His talk aimed to explain the lack of change in the gap, which he attributed to incompatibilities between African-American English with traditional English. To me, the real issue that neither whites nor blacks are improving. Whatever the government is doing, it is not working! And the answer is MORE federal intervention?