School Discipline Study Raises Fresh Questions

When also considering less serious infractions punished by in-school suspensions, the rate climbed to nearly 60 percent, according to the study by the Council of State Governments, with one in seven students facing such disciplinary measures at least 11 times.

The study linked these disciplinary actions to lower rates of graduation and higher rates of later criminal activity and found that minority students were more likely than whites to face the more severe punishments.

“In the last 20 to 25 years, there have been dramatic increases in the number of suspensions and expulsions,” said Michael Thompson, who headed the study as director of the Justice Center at the Council of State Governments, a nonpartisan group. “This quantifies how you’re in the minority if you have not been removed from the classroom at least once. This is not just being sent to the principal’s office, and it’s not after-school detention or weekend detention or extra homework. This is in the student’s record.”

The study, which followed every incoming Texas seventh grader over three years through high school and sometimes beyond, joins a growing body of literature looking at how to balance classroom order with individual student need.

Several experts said in interviews that the data, covering nearly one million students and mapping each of their school records against any entry in the juvenile justice system, was the most comprehensive on the topic yet. The report did not identify individual districts or schools.

The findings are “very much representative of the nation as a whole,” said Russ Skiba, a professor of school psychology at Indiana University who reviewed the study along with several other prominent researchers.

Several teachers and administrators in Texas were shocked to learn of the report.

“That’s astronomical,” said Joe Erhardt, a science teacher at Kingwood Park High School in the Houston suburb of Humble, Tex. “I’m at a loss.”

Doug Otto, superintendent of the Plano Independent School District, said the data showed that “suspensions are a little too easy.”

“Once they become automatic, we’ve really hurt that child’s chances to receive a high school diploma,” he added “We’ve got to find ways to keep those kids in school. Don’t get me wrong — we have to provide safe environments for all the other kids. But you have to balance it out and cut down the suspensions and expulsions.”

Almost 15 percent of students, a vast majority of whom had extensive school disciplinary files, had at least one record in the juvenile justice system, according to the report.

Minority students facing discipline for the first time tended to be given the harsher, out-of-school suspension, rather than in-school suspension, more often than white students, the study said. (The nature of the offenses was not noted.) A disproportionate number of minority students also ended up in alternative classrooms, where some have complained that teachers are often less qualified.

“What we really need to do is go in to those districts and see if these really are choices being made,” Mr. Skiba said. “We don’t really know enough about the reasons for African-American and Latino over-representation in school discipline. We have enough data to show that it’s more than just poverty and any greater misbehavior. My guess is it’s very subtle interactional effects between some teachers and students.”

Mr. Thompson, of the Council of State Governments, said one of the study’s most important findings was how demographically similar schools disciplined students differently. Although Texas law requires suspension or expulsion for certain offenses, Mr. Thompson said that 97 percent of suspensions were discretionary, and that suspension rates might say as much about administrators’ discipline philosophy as about student behavior.

“Schools are making very different uses of school discipline,” he explained. “And they can have an impact on how often a kid repeats a grade or graduates. We need to recognize that it’s something we need to improve upon.”

While the study found links between school discipline and criminal activity, there is no way to know whether one caused the other. Educators have long complained that many students, particularly from poor families, arrive in classrooms with problems far beyond academics that they have few tools to control.

A former alternative-education teacher in Texas, Zeph Capo still remembers the eighth grader who swore at teachers, threw books and pencils, and eventually was suspended and sent into the district’s disciplinary program. Mr. Capo said he did not know whether the student straightened out or slipped further. The study made him only more concerned.

“Are suspensions the tool to improve student behavior and help them be successful? No, I don’t think that’s the case,” said Mr. Capo, now a vice president of the Houston Federation of Teachers who trains others in classroom management. “Sometimes there’s not a lot of choice left but to risk chaos and anarchy in your school. There are potential times when human beings have had it and they drop the hammer, and maybe the hammer crushes too far.”

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Online GED Courses Provide A Fresh Start At Any Age

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Online GED Courses Provide A Fresh Start At Any Age

General Education Development (also known as GED) is an accumulative diploma issued as an equivalent to a high school diploma. Known by other names like General Equivalency Diploma, Graduate Equivalency Degree or General Education Diploma, this credential is obtained by taking the GED test in person. Online GED courses are offered, however, to give you the tools, information and preparation needed for passing the test. Having a nationally recognized document in lieu of a high school diploma is not only beneficial to your career path, but to your self-esteem and confidence as well.

It is a very common requirement to have a GED before entering college. There are a few exceptions, like having scored high on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (or SAT) or American College Testing (also known as ACT) which would grant you the option to participate in an early entrance program. However, for whatever reason you are without your high school diploma, it is generally needed for admittance into a higher learning institute. With help from online GED courses, you can gain the knowledge found in high schools and be prepared for not only taking and passing the GED, but for entering college as well.

There are several important factors to consider when choosing an online GED institution. While many may claim to be licensed, this is not the same as being an accredited institution. There is no regulation of schools that claim to be licensed. Truly accredited schools are recognized by the United States Department of Education. These institutions offer a substantial curriculum to facilitate your understanding and preparation for the GED test.

Another determinant of the online GED courses you choose is the promise of the institution. If they claim that you are able to earn a GED or high school equivalency in a short period of time (like days or weeks) or that there is little actual "homework" involved, these are false promises. Institutions known as Diploma Mills turn out worthless certificates to those who essentially believe they are purchasing a degree. To avoid being the victim of one of these scams, look for institutions with legitimate contact information, like a phone number and a physical address, and that they have authentic credentials.

The reason why you do not have you high school diploma is unimportant as the GED is viewed as a complete equivalent in the eyes of not only higher learning institutions, but employers as well. Through accredited institutes offering online GED courses, you will have the tools to learn and foster the understanding required to pass the GED test.

Alexander Sutton knows all too well how hard it can be to get started in the corporate world. But now that he's established himself in the professional world he'd like to help others enjoy the most efficient route to success. For more information, please visit Online GED Courses.

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Utilities Seek Fresh Talent for Smart Grids

“He’d be amazed,” offered one student, mentioning that his cellphone can play music, display movies and send text messages.

And if Thomas Edison, the pioneer of power distribution, were to return?

“He’d probably go, ‘Wow, everything is still the same,’?” said Ms. Magnuson, the director of marketing for Silver Spring Networks, which produces hardware and software to make the electric grid as smart as the phone network.

To pull off the modernization, Ms. Magnuson and others are trying to persuade this generation of fidgety teenagers to put their creativity to work in the power industry once they graduate. “We want to help make utilities cool again,” she said.

The power companies desperately need a jolt of youthful energy. The industry and the creaky distribution system it manages are on the cusp of a major technological overhaul just as about half of electric utility employees are expected to retire in the next 5 to 10 years.

At the same time, the federal government and utilities are spending billions of dollars to upgrade the electric grid with intelligent digital technology so they can vary a customer’s price for power based on the time of day and more seamlessly integrate electricity from a variety of sources like wind and solar.

The upgrade would give the power generation and distribution network the sort of nervous system it has lacked since Edison first conceived it in the late 19th century. By some estimates, the smart grid could help reduce electricity use by more than 4 percent a year by 2030 and save $20 billion a year for utilities and their customers.

To push along the transformation, educators and government officials, often in partnership with utilities, are drawing up smart grid curriculums for elementary classrooms, vocational schools and university laboratories. In addition to educating youngsters about electricity, the goal is to lure some of the technologically inclined away from Silicon Valley and toward a profession that, in the popular mind, long ago became the province of Homer Simpson drones.

Last spring, the energy secretary, Steven Chu, awarded $100 million in stimulus money to 54 training programs in the smart grid aimed at high school and college students around the country. “Building and operating smart grid infrastructure will put tens of thousands of Americans to work,” Mr. Chu said at the time. “Today’s investment will help ensure that we have the work force in place to meet this need.”

The Energy Department estimated that some 30,000 workers would be trained because of the grants, which range from $87,000 for the Preparing Occupations for Lineman Education, or Pole, program at the Austin Community College District to $5 million to Florida Power & Light to develop its Gateway to Power Program, which aims to bring industry and academia together to develop power system and smart grid education.

And just as Reddy Kilowatt, a cartoon character created by a utility company, was used to promote the benefits of nuclear power to previous generations of students, the electric industry aims to use the new curriculums to promote its vision of the future.

“How will the smart grid change your life or your future career?” students are asked in one of the six lessons that Silver Spring Networks, based in California, helped to develop, and which were part of a pilot program this month in Ohio and in Oakland, Calif. “Write a journal entry in which you imagine how life or work will change after the smart grid is ready to go.”

Part of the coursework is aimed at preparing young consumers for the arrival of dynamic pricing — the ability to vary the price of electricity throughout the day, based on overall demand, rather than charge one rate all day, as is the norm now. Dynamic pricing is an oft-promoted benefit of the smart grid, although it has proved contentious in some of the early markets where it has been proposed, particularly among ratepayers at home during the day, when the electricity cost is higher.

Here in central Ohio, American Electric Power, the big regional utility, was awarded $75 million in stimulus money last year for a $150 million smart-grid pilot project now in development.

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