Monthly Archives: July 2014

Gifted Education Series, Part 3: A Possible Alternative

. Early childhood education, Education, Education equity .

In my last two posts, I discussed the arguments of both those for and against gifted programs in public schools. This last post in this series will explore my personal, conflicted views on this topic as well as offer a possible alternative that some are suggesting instead of the traditional gifted programs.

Personally, I still find myself torn in this debate. I myself benefitted greatly by being in Honors classes as far back as I can remember. While these weren’t a part of a specially titled “gifted” program per say, they had generally the same goal. I can’t say that I wouldn’t be where I am today without these differentiated classes, but a large part of me wants to say that there’s a chance I wouldn’t. Would I still have succeeded as well as I have if I hadn’t been pushed as hard as I was in middle and high school? Would I have been asked to teach other students who were lagging behind instead of moving forward with the curriculum? Would I have been bored in undifferentiated classes and therefore lost my interest in learning and love of going to school? The answer to all of these questions is simply, maybe. But also maybe not.

I do however clearly see the negatives of these types of programs as well. Coming from a very racially and fairly economically non-diverse area, I personally did not see the kind of perpetuated segregation in my school that results from them in others, but after having done research on this topic, it is clear that this is the unfortunate case more often than not. In that regard, I agree with those against them that they should not be in place.

There is one alternative to gifted programs that is being seriously considered in NYC and, if successful, could serve as a model for other schools around the country. Incoming New York Education Commissioner Carmen Fariña signaled at a town hall meeting that the city may dial back separate gifted programs in favor of personalized and more challenging curriculum for all kids in every class. All students should have an appropriate education. The question is how best to do so without reverting to a Jim Crow society where “separate but equal” was promised but not practiced. They are calling her school-wide enrichment model the “differentiated classroom.”

The premise of this program is a way of blending kids rather than isolating them, as well as stretching limited classroom resources. They argue that with the right structure (and that is the key part to me) one teacher can accelerate learning for the highly gifted in an integrated classroom without separating them from others or slighting those who lag behind. They want to give “gifted education for all” through academic enrichment tailored to each student’s strengths. Ms. Fariña said she was eager to bring strategies used in gifted programs, including project-based learning, to schools across the city. She said bright children outside gifted programs could be served by other means, including clubs, lunchtime programs, and science, technology, engineering, and math enrichment—“There’s a lot of other ways to reach the needs of these kids,” she said.

In an ideal differentiated classroom, curriculum is tailored to student’s skills, small group work is common, and so is individualized work. Students who move faster are given enrichment materials or pushed forward, while the teacher gives extra help to those lagging behind. The key to this program is that it will be planned as part of the curriculum coming from the school district and not just left up to the teacher to do by themselves. Fariña’s vision for New York is to give every child personalized and challenging opportunities, and she thinks the differentiated classroom can do it. They hope that this differentiated classroom will help eliminate the intense and difficult battle of getting children into gifted programs at such a young age.

This will not be easy to pull off however, and will at the very least require that teachers have more resources and smaller class sizes to do it properly. Skeptics say that if these needs are not met that gifted children will still be left to drift. Many still do not believe that a differentiated classroom can address the needs of students of all skill levels without leaving an exhausted teacher to focus on the middle segment. If not done correctly, and teachers hold up the entire class for the sake of one or a few students, every child’s learning will suffer.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide on which side of this heated debate you fall and if you think the “differentiated classroom” could be a useful alternative to please both sides. Personally, I think it has potential, but will need a lot of strong planning and resources to be executed correctly and have a positive impact on all students. Its success will remain to be seen.

Gifted Education Series, Part 2: Against Gifted Education Programs in Public Schools

. Early childhood education, Education, Education equity .

In my previous post in this series, I looked at what some of the advocates of gifted education say about the benefits of these programs. Here, I will examine what those who are against them have to say.

It is not easy to measure giftedness in the first place. Intelligence tests and achievement tests are often culturally biased and may “reflect ethnicity, socioeconomic status, exposure and experiences rather than true giftedness.” Some children just might not be good at taking tests or may be gifted in ways that tests cannot measure well—like creative thinking. When you can’t even rightly identify those students who should be placed in gifted programs, should you have them?

There are several criticisms of gifted programs, the main one being that it promotes segregation in the classroom along racial and socioeconomic lines. Many say that the practice of separating the top 2% of the population from everyone else clearly falls under the definition of segregation, which the New Oxford American Dictionary defines as “an action or state of setting someone or something apart from other people or things.” Instead of white-only water fountains, there are smart-only schools or schools within schools. If, under the mandate of equal protection, the Supreme Court struck down the idea of schools separating children based on skin color, it seems logical to assume that this should be the case for IQ as well since this is another “immutable” trait. Providing equality of opportunity also applies to publically-funded gifted programs that receive extra money and prestige.

An example of this segregation comes from New York City’s gifted and talented programs, which have a long history of exacerbating socioeconomic and racial segregation within city schools. As of 2011, roughly 70% of all New York City public school students were black and Latino, but more than 70% of kindergartners in gifted programs were white or Asian. Even if a school has nominal diversity in itself, this is undermined by segregation in the gifted program. Schools may look diverse, but the general education classrooms look very different from the gifted classrooms in terms of racial/ethnic and economic background. In one specific New York City school, 63% of the students are black or Hispanic and 33% are white or Asian. In the gifted classrooms, 62% are white or Asian. These disparities are most apparent at the lower grades.

Socioeconomic status advantages also give better-off preschoolers a testing advantage that is compounded by gifted programs. These very young children have to cram for high-stakes exams in order to get into these gifted programs. Their parents push them and might even hire test prep services to make sure their children do well. Many educators find that this practice does not sit well with them. This flawed system reinforces racial separation, negative stereotypes about class and race, and contributes to disparities in achievement. Gifted admissions standards favor middle and upper class children and create castes within schools where some children are enriched and accelerated while others are getting the bare-bones version of the material.

When looking at the gifted classrooms, one of two things must be true: either black and Hispanic children are less likely to be gifted, or there is something wrong with the way children are selected into these programs. These programs create a cycle in which students start out ahead get even further advantages from the city’s schools over their years of schooling. The number of black and Hispanic students who make it into specialized high schools in NYC has declined significantly over recent decades. Some say that if the objective is diversity, this system can never work.

Parents argue that it’s more economics than race, even though this goes hand and hand in many cities. If you were upper income and well educated, you would want your child to have a more enriched education. But when you think about it, not only are the black and Hispanic children being denied more intense education and enrichment, but those white students who are in separate gifted programs are being denied the cognitive and social benefits that socioeconomically and racially diverse classrooms are shown to offer.

In concordance with this thinking, the NYC schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña, actually completely eliminated the gifted program at the school where she was previously the principal. Many parents of the gifted students at her school were outraged, but she calmed them by promising school-wide improvement in instruction [6]. Many are urging NYC schools to take this approach that betters the whole school and incorporates mixed-ability classrooms instead of perpetuating these segregated classrooms by continuing separate gifted programs. This will be explored further in the last post in this series.

Gifted Education Series, Part 1: For Gifted Education Programs in Public Schools

. Early childhood education, Education, Education equity, Uncategorized .

Gifted education in public schools has been a highly polarizing topic of discussion, especially recently. Both sides make some compelling arguments and, in my opinion, it is hard to declare a firm winner in this debate. In this blog series I will explore this subject from both sides, as well as offer a possible alternative, and leave it up to you to decide where you land.

Many of those who are for gifted education in public schools see it as a new take on the “old American conflict between equality and opportunity.” If the goal is to make sure no child is left behind, then schools should also be helping others to get ahead. Some say that “it makes sense to at least create a haven where these kids can develop their gifts, rather than asking them to be patient in classrooms that are not geared to developing their talents.” It’s also worth noting that the students with special gifts may be those most likely to one day develop miraculous cures, produce inspiring works, invent technological marvels, and improve the lives of all Americans, so they should be pushed forward in order to get on with those future impressive tasks.

Over the last 15 years, schools have been so focused on raising the performance of the lowest achieving kids that those who move faster are taken for granted. These poorly performing students get extra help in a number of ways, but those who are advanced do not usually receive any special services, despite the fact that schools are there for all children to achieve. Gifted students can be likely to fall through the cracks if they don’t get instruction tailored to their abilities and can struggle academically or even drop out. Ann Sheldon, the executive director of the Ohio Association for Gifted Children, says that, “Because they meet the (academic) threshold, districts can ignore them.”

Many say that in order for gifted students to grow to their full potential they need to be developed and nurtured within the school system. If not pushed, gifted underachievers may decide they will only do the minimum requirements and choose easy work even though they are capable of much more. Some get bored from the easy work, some don’t develop study and organizational skills because they don’t have to, and others don’t want to look gifted because it isn’t “cool.”

Some argue that gifted students will get by on their own without any special help from the school. They say they come from wealthy families who can meet their children’s needs on their own. Gifted students require special services and programs to ensure the growth rather than the loss of their outstanding abilities. Some of the kids worst served are “at-risk, low-income kids with a lot of talent but who are stuck in schools that are doing everything they can to get kids over a minimal bar.” These poorer gifted kids will never get the advantages at home that wealthier kids have. If the school cannot push them forward, they will get lost in the flow.

One mother in Georgia, whose child attends a school where there is no gifted program, had local school officials refuse to let her son skip a grade despite his very high IQ test scores. She had to fight with teachers and administrators in order for her child to have adequately challenging work. A similar story happened in Texas where an assistant principal told a mother that “she does not support accelerating students and that [her] only option is to send [her] daughter to private school.” For many families this is just not an option for financial or other reasons and to them, public schools should be able to provide their children with an education equal to their needs, as they do with underachieving students. The average IQ score is 100 and many people argue that the further away from that mean a child is, the greater they have a need for special education, regardless of whether they fall to the left side or right side [6].

Parents who can afford to send their children to private school are doing so, however. The No Child Left Behind act is causing many families to flee public schools because it is pushing teachers to focus so much on bringing students to minimum proficiency that gifted students are forgotten about. This “benign neglect” causes them to lose interest in learning because school becomes “an endless chain of basic lessons aimed at low-performing students.” If public schools want to keep these students, they need to provide for them.

School board support of gifted programs, especially in large, diverse cities, shows parents that their kids can thrive if they remain in the city. For example, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s ambitious plan to attract 10,000 new families to Baltimore over the next 10 years depends in large part on convincing young families that its schools can offer an excellent education to their children. Gifted programs are a means of keeping middle and upper class families in the public school system.

Another refuted argument against gifted programs is that teachers can implement small changes into a gifted child’s assignments to further his/her thinking. Asking one teacher within a classroom of around 30 kids to differentiate their assignments and keep track of just one or a few students with gifted ability is asking a lot. Anyone who has watched a teacher labor to “differentiate” instruction in a classroom that encompasses both math prodigies and English language learners knows it’s unreasonable to expect most teachers to do this well, so they argue that separate programs are a necessity.

Those against also suggest that parents look into educational opportunities outside of school such as academic clubs, private tutoring, or other forms of private study that are less costly than private school, but are still engaging and effective. This seems far from practical. Even if parents can afford these extra services for their children, again, why should they be required to do so when schools exist for a reason? Would it not make more sense to just have special programs available within their child’s school that they already attend?

I find it hard to argue with parents who only want the best possible education for their children. Why shouldn’t public schools provide this for them? Stay tuned for my next post about those who are against gifted programs in public schools!

Confronting our Cognitive Dissonance

. Education, Education equity . , ,

Cognitive dissonance describes an intense emotional stress reaction experienced after an individual recognizes that they hold two or more contradictory beliefs at the same time (Festinger, 1957). This discomfort happens when realizing the logic that two things that oppose each cannot both be true. Cognitive dissonance can occur when an individual learns new information that conflicts with already held beliefs or when they perform a contradictory action to their belief. When people realize that their internal consistency is challenged, they get extremely distressed and will either do things or change their cognitions to bring that consistency back.

A simple example of cognitive dissonance is one that many of us have probably experienced. I have often told myself, “It’s time to eat healthier.” I make a pact with myself that I will cut some unhealthy foods from my diet. However, then a craving for frozen yogurt comes around, and before I know it, I’m on the way to get myself some froyo. I add all of the delicious candy toppings, and my attitude and my head tells me that my kind of frozen yogurt is unhealthy. I feel dissonance between my attitudes and my behaviors of eating it. Yet, I justify my decision to eat this unhealthy food and reduce my cognitive dissonance because “hey – at least it’s not ice cream.”

Cognitive dissonance occurs with my frozen yogurt consumption, as well as serious and systemic issues. It informs how we, as humans, deal with these things.

I think that humans are, at the core, inherently good. Cognitive dissonance exists in large proportions because if we were always aware of how unjust society is, we would be sad and angry all of the time. To deal with some of the horrors of the real world, we resolve our dissonance by making excuses, trying to rationalize, or ignoring injustice. With that being said, no progress could ever happen if we let our cognitive dissonance rule. The purpose of these three blogs is to address and challenge our cognitive dissonance in order to raise awareness to the important issues that plague our world.

One of the ways cognitive dissonance helps humans rationalize injustice is through the idea of meritocracy. The myth of meritocracy is the notion that people work for what they have, and successful people have worked for it and earned it. Thus, people in poverty and people who have not been successful didn’t work hard enough. This ties into the idea that anyone can pick themselves up by their bootstraps and make a good life, if they try hard enough.

Although effort is incredibly important, this concept devalues the importance of systemic influences and blames victims of inequities. An individual is impacted by their overarching multilevel systems, and often, issues are stimulated by problems in the system, rather than in the individual.

In examining the myth of meritocracy and its role in cognitive dissonance, I will discuss the experience of homeless families. Typically, when someone thinks about the homeless, they automatically think of an adult man who has done something to deserve his homeless status. People in cities walk past homeless people thinking they are crazy, are on drugs, or are lazy. People’s cognitive dissonance leads them to think that the homeless person has done something to deserve their situation. Yet, people’s dissonant perception of homelessness and the myth of meritocracy are often wrong.

Although a majority of homeless people are adult men (67.5%), homeless families compose 1/3 of the homeless population in the United States (The National Center on Family Homelessness, 2011). These homeless families typically consist of a mother in her late twenties with two children. In Pennsylvania, there are approximately 43,000 homeless children (The National Center on Family Homelessness, 2011). Homeless children are more likely than other students to have mental health, physical health, and academic concerns.

Often, these homeless families are victims of circumstances that have led to their homelessness, due to systemic factors like unemployment, poverty, lack of affordable housing, and domestic violence incidents. The homeless family is just like any other family, struggling to support themselves, trying to help their children succeed in school, and caring about each other. When systemic influences put people in a compromising position, it seems impossible to get out of it. An example can be thought of in an experience of a mother who is fleeing, with her children, from an abusive partner. In this kind of emergency, this family needs to escape immediately. Often, this mother will have nowhere to go, and must stay in a shelter. Her income is dramatically lower, due to the absence of her partner, and she must work alone to support her children. In the crowded and loud shelter, she tries to maintain a normal life while balancing her lengthy job. She wonders how she can best support her children when the world has served her an unfair and grim situation.

Yet, when she begs for money on the subway, all people see is a woman trying to scam them to get money to buy drugs.

Our cognitive dissonance does not allow us to see the full picture, makes us jump to conclusions, and doesn’t allow us to think about the serious issues that impact our society. How can a school-aged child who is homeless and seeking shelter be successful at school? How can a single mother provide for her two children on one low-wage salary? How can we walk past a homeless person on the street and make judgments about their life? And, most importantly, how can I, as someone who is concerned about trying to justify my frozen yogurt consumption, stand idly by? I cannot – and therefore, by addressing and confronting my cognitive dissonance, I will fight against trying to rationalize injustice and will attempt to help others confront their cognitive dissonance as well.

 

 

References

Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

National Center on Family Homelessness. (2008). The characteristics and needs of families experiencing homelessness. Retrieved from http://www.familyhomelessness.org/media/147.pdf

Cognitive Dissonance and Charity

. Charity . , ,

A question that often plagues me is, is there true altruism, or do people do nice things to make themselves feel better? And, is doing nice things for others just another form of cognitive dissonance that helps people better realign their behaviors with their attitudes? While this might seem like a negative outlook, I think it’s important to examine the idea of charity. As I have said before, in the previous blog, I do think all humans are inherently good, so I am not trying to say that charity is anything besides people trying to be kind to others. However, thinking about what charity means, what charities we give to, and how that makes us feel is important.

Paulo Freire (1997), a revolutionary Brazilian expert in literacy, renowned thinker, and author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, explains what he thinks about charity in terms of true charity and false charity. True charity, he explains, is having complete solidarity between oppressors and the oppressed. True charity shouldn’t be needed if solidarity and equality exists and if there is an egalitarian, fair, and socially just society. Yet, alas, we live in a world of capitalism and market economy. And people say that, within that system, there will always be winners and losers. That is where Freire’s idea of false charity comes in. False charity is when individuals who are part of the oppressing group donate resources with the intentions of helping the oppressed group, but those things actually don’t help the oppressed group at all. This often happens when the source of charity actually reinforces the oppression or the charity is not what the oppressed need. One might wonder how an act of kindness and charity could possibly reinforce oppression. How can an act of kindness have these unintended consequences?

An example that we discussed in class involves fundraisers that come in the form of buying a good, and having some portion of the price of that good be donated to charity. This is seen often when the owning company or corporation donates some percentage of the value price of a good to a charity. This happens in coffee shops. A high-end coffee shop will charge $5 for a specialty coffee and say that with the purchase of this drink, they will donate $1 to children, or some form of charity organization. What the common person sees is an easy way to help out, because they happened to be buying a coffee anyway. So people will donate, believing that their $1 is aiding someone somewhere. Cognitive dissonance has happened here. The kind soul that has just donated their dollar feels an emotional reaction to the thought of needy children, while they are so lucky to be buying a specialty coffee. Therefore, by donating $1, this person is able to make their emotional reaction go away, because they have helped these children. What has really happened is that the company has taken advantage of human goodness and the human reflex to help others. They have provided an easy way for people to rid themselves of their cognitive dissonance. “If I donate $1, it’s ok that I can drink my fancy frap-chino-latte-whatever while other people can’t find water.” This money, while $1 might truly go to some people, also gives $4 to sustaining that coffee corporation. This is a corporation that probably has high stakes in making a profit and sustaining the market economy, which in turn thrives in exploiting people, sustaining injustice, and keeping the status quo, which leaves some children needy. This is false charity – where a person’s actions actually work to maintain the unjust society that is the reason why people need the help of charity in the first place.

Another form of false charity is when an oppressive group gives an oppressed group what they think they need, not what they actually do need. This aligns with the idea that the oppressors know better than the oppressed about what they need. A common example of this could be seen in programs that donate gifts to families, in which people buy things for families who might not have the resources to buy presents. When a person gives to these families what they think they need, without even stopping to consider asking what they might need, this could be false charity.

There is also false charity in people completely scamming people’s goodness and selfishly taking money. The U.S. Navy Veterans Association raised $100 million in contributions from donors who believed their money was going to needy veterans. Yet, this association was false and money went to fundraisers, the creator, and Republican lawmakers (Stern, 2013). This foundation is certainly a false charity that played on people’s cognitive dissonance and took full advantage of them.

I am not saying that giving to charity is bad. Rather, I am saying that it is worth considering why and how we give back to those less fortunate. We need to make sure that donations are actually helping others and it is not simply a way to make ourselves feel better and alleviate our cognitive dissonance. People should consider using websites like http://www.givewell.org/ that do research to ensure that charities are evidence-backed and vetted. We must always consider the unintended consequences of our actions to make sure that our intentions align with our behaviors. Our desire to decrease our cognitive dissonance and give to those less fortunate is great, as long as we address the realities of the issues and ensure that we are, in fact, doing good.

 

References

Charity Reviews and Recommendations, Retrieved from: http://www.givewell.org/

Freire, Paulo. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Herder and Herder: New York.

Stern, K. (2013). The Charity Swindle, The New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/opinion/the-charity-swindle.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0

 

Cognitive Dissonance and No Child Left Behind

. Education, Education equity, Standardized testing . , , , , ,

Students thrive in a school environment where they are able to interact with their teachers, have more individualized learning plans catered to their skills and needs, and feel safe in the school community. My best learning experiences were in community-based classes that fostered analytical thinking and asked me to challenge what I was being taught. However, we live in a nation where schooling is typically not like that. To better understand the experience in schools, I interviewed my friend who is a preschool teacher with experiences in classrooms of pre-K, kindergarten, and second-grade. She describes that, “the only time that I have had free reign to be creative with my teaching was as a preschool teacher, where there was no pressure to teach to a test because tests don’t exist at that level. Students any older than that are always preparing for some sort of test, whether that is a simple quiz, a unit test, or a state exam. The fact that schooling is so based around exams limits your freedoms as a teacher.”

We know that all students would benefit from a great education that is catered around individual needs, but not all students receive it, due to social, political, and economic factors. Our current policies on schooling are not helping to achieve the goal of quality education for all.

The wording of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 pulls at the heartstrings, and it feels bad saying that you might disagree with “not leaving a child behind.” The act can be interpreted as a large-scale form of cognitive dissonance, an attempt to rationalize and forget why schools are failing.

The act aims to increase teacher accountability, raise standards of teaching, and ensure that students across the country are learning similarly well. It places an incredible emphasis on achievement testing, basing success of teachers and schools on students’ test scores. School funding, teacher salary, and school maintenance is all based on how students perform on tests. This places immense pressure on all people involved in schools.

Children feel pressure because they know that their teacher might get fired if they don’t score well on their test. On No Child Left Behind, this teacher says, “in theory it’s a good idea, but it was executed poorly. It’s important that all children have the opportunity to go to school and learn to the best of their ability, but it’s unfair that they’re expected to take all of these exams. There are the anxious test takers that freeze up when it comes time for an exam. It’s not right to do to the kids.”

Teachers feel like they need to base their entire curriculums around the test content, because their jobs and the students’ welfare is at stake. This teacher says, “in a large classroom setting, it’s difficult to cater to everyone’s needs because there are time pressures. The curriculums tell you specifically what questions to ask and how to teach it. In some cases, you’re pretty much given a script to read from, and that leaves no room for creativity at all.”

Administrators fear the test results because they dictate whether their schools will continue as usual or the government will take over. This act has instilled a sense of fear and tension within schools that are supposed to be safe havens.

The No Child Left Behind Act seems like an attempt at an easy fix to a system that needs be prioritized more by the federal government. It puts the education system into simple terms: if you score better, you get more funding. That ignores the systemic impacts on schools and students. It is easier for students in wealthy communities to score better on tests because those students do not have some of the same concerns as students in poorer communities.

In a case study example of schools in West Tallahatchie, Mississippi, as seen in the documentary “LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton,” LaLee’s grandchildren spent their days trying to find fresh water, taking care of their family, and seeking out school supplies that they could not afford (Dickson, Frömke, & Maysles, 2001). How could a child who is looking for fresh water have time to do their homework? They do not have the same opportunities to succeed and are at a disadvantage in school. These children should be bolstered by the government. Their schools should be given more funding to help support the children who need it the most. No Child Left Behind does the opposite. It rewards the schools that are achieving the highest, which are typically not attended by students in poverty. It punishes schools that are struggling and could use help most.

This act feeds into the myth of meritocracy, essentially saying that lower achieving schools have not worked hard enough, and therefore should not be the recipients of more funding. What the act does not consider is the extreme hardships faced by students in poverty, and the systemic reasons why students are not achieving as high as their counterparts.

A system that only rewards schools based on achievement testing actually sustains an inequitable schooling environment around the country. When high stakes testing is the most important thing, it devalues the concept of the whole student and undercuts the quality and creativity of education. However, with a name like No Child Left Behind and an attitude that is trying to rationalize why some schools fail, this policy allows people to lessen their cognitive dissonance and forget about the schools that struggle the most. This policy allows people to make sense of the fact that some students are achieving much lower than others, and that is not ok. The education system in our country should work to support children who need help, not punish them.

 

References

Dickson, D., Frömke, S., & Maysles, A. (Directors) (2001). LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton. United States: HBO.

No Child Left Behind, Retrieved from: http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml

An Educator Encouraged His Dauther to Drop out of High School?

. Education, Education opportunity, Education quality, Education Reform

The Business of Education

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/06/27/36heller.h33.html

In the interest of full disclosure, I know the author of this article personally.  His older daughter is good friends with my girlfriend, as they graduated the alternative-option The Delta Program, affiliated with State College Area High School (PA) together in 2011.  I actually got to know the Heller family quite well as I celebrated my first Hanukkah in their East Lansing home last year.  I have had only a few education-based discussions with Dr. Heller, mostly trying to convince him to apply for the Presidency at my alma mater, Penn State University.  However, I know he is a brilliant man, incredibly highly respected in the education field and is very simply, a “good guy”.

So why would the Dean of Education from Michigan State University allow his daughter who, by all accounts is incredibly smart, leave high school without earning her degree.  Is this an example of professional hypocrisy?…

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