THE SUBLIME and ridiculous in education, Year of Our Lord 2002:
President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act on Elvis' birthday, Jan. 8. The 1,200-page NCLB overnight vaulted a slew of acronyms into the lexicon of American schools, most notably AYP, for adequate yearly progress. Guidebooks interpreting the new law run up to 80 pages.
The National Geographic Society surveyed the geographic literacy of adults 18 to 34 in nine countries. Only 14 percent of the Americans could find Israel on a map, but 34 percent could identify an island where the television series Survivor was filmed.
Having spent four years developing the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program, the State Department of Education came up with a new Maryland School Assessment in seven months. Noting that 28,000 students participate in English as a Second Language programs statewide, the department this month published a parent's guide to the MSA in 14 languages.
Afghanistan schools opened in March for the first time in six years. Nearly 2 million boys and girls, not quite half the number eligible, turned out.
House Bill 579, requiring soap in every public school lavatory in the state, went down the drain in the Maryland General Assembly.
The Enterprise Foundation, launched by Jim and Patty Rouse in 1982 to rebuild America's low-income communities, celebrated its 20th anniversary by donating 3,500 books to two Baltimore schools.
A report released in May found that public higher education has become less affordable for all but the wealthiest Americans. In 1980, tuition at public four-year colleges and universities consumed 13 percent of family income for low-income families; by 2000, that figure had risen to 25 percent. Tuition at less expensive, two-year colleges rose faster than family income in 34 states.
A study released in May showed illicit drug use among eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders declined for five straight years, but probably not because of drug education programs in metropolitan-area schools.
Estelle Morris resigned in October as Britain's education secretary amid a scandal over the grading of tests that determine which students get into which universities. There were allegations that examiners deliberately failed some students because of concern that the exams had become too easy.
Sin is developmental, according to a report released last month by Students Against Drunk Driving and Liberty Mutual insurance company. Drinking, the report said, increases significantly between sixth and seventh grade. Drug use increases significantly between eighth and ninth grade. And sexual activity gets its biggest kick between 10th and 11th grade.
The Christmas break came at a good time for city school officials enmeshed in a dilly of a budget crisis. Just before Christmas, they dismissed 268 part-time employees. Mark D. Smolarz, the chief operating officer, said another 250 full-time employees might get pink slips and that there could be furloughs early in the new year. Smolarz and schools chief Carmen V. Russo seemed unsure about the amount of the budget deficit or what caused it. On the Marc Steiner Show, Russo blamed the original round of layoffs on union rules.
For solace, there's always the District of Columbia. Two former top officials of the Washington Teachers Union were accused this month of diverting thousands of dollars in union funds to cars, clothing and other luxury items for their personal use. At about the same time, the libertarian Cato Institute reported that the District system has been a disaster since the 1930s. Although spending has tripled since 1980, Cato said, District students wallow near the bottom on standardized tests and in achievement levels.
Education lost many souls in 2002. Two of them:
Elisabeth Caspari, 102, died July 11 at her home in Paradise Valley, Mont. Caspari, who called herself the "Montessori Gypsy," helped revive Montessori education in America. After World War II, Caspari and her husband Charles traveled extensively, opening Montessori schools in seven states and Mexico, and training hundreds of teachers. Caspari later co-founded the Pan American Montessori Society and an international institute to recruit and train teachers in the Montessori method.
Caspari's death went unnoticed in the media. Several months later, her obituary was circulated nationally by a Montana public relations firm.
Harold Howe II, whom Southern segregationists once called the "commissioner of integration," died last month at 84. As U.S. commissioner of education in the 1960s, he championed Great Society programs and worked to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The always generous "Doc" Howe helped pull the national Education Writers Association through some rough times (and gave a beer-can collection to a friend and admirer in Baltimore).