z47\doc\web\2001\01\bluerib.txt
Local Sovereignty Monitor, Fall 2000
School Districts Across the Country -"opt out" of Federal Blue Ribbon Program
It costs a school $100,000 [2 staff years of paperwork] or more
simply to apply for this federal award; but a new study shows that
the award is often a substitute for needed reforms. [school boards can
prohibit schools from applying]


The US Department of Education claims that schools, which receive its Blue
Ribbon Award, are "nationally recognize schools of excellence."


A Brookings Institution study of the Blue Ribbon Award, however, not only
revealed that the "Blue Ribbon" was no guarantee of educational excellence
but that the 71 page application form requires some 5000 man hours to
complete. That is equivalent to 2 full time employees working for an entire
year.


Typical of the wasted effort caused by the DOE program is Ashburton
Elementary School in Bethesda, Maryland. The Washington Post reported that
Ashburton closed its school library for 2 weeks so that "a committee of 44
Ashburton administrators, teachers and parents, led by former principal Joan
Carroll. . . could spend 12-hour days completing the 71-page application,
thick with charts and graphs and details of every facet of school life."


Perhaps a $100,000 expenditure in pursuit of a Blue Ribbon could be excused
if it led to academic excellence, but the Brooking report suggests that the
opposite is true. Too often, the blue ribbon award is sought as validation
for schools with poor performance and may be used as an excuse not to reform,
as schools can claim "We don't need to reform, we just won a Blue Ribbon
award for excellence."
For example, Brook Grove Elementary in Maryland received a Blue Ribbon from
Washington, even though half of its students were below "satisfactory" in
reading scores. The awards may often create a false sense of excellence in
the minds of parents who falsely believe that their school is doing a good
job because they have won a Blue Ribbon from the federal government.


The good news is that applying for the blue ribbon is entirely voluntary, and
many school boards prohibit individual schools from wasting time and money
applying. If your school district does not have a policy forbidding schools

from apply for a blue ribbon you may want to ask your school board to adopt
such a policy.


While there is no comprehensive list of how many school districts have
officially adopted policies of non-participation, the vast majority of
schools do not participate. Last year only 377 schools applied, and 198 or
53% received awards. The relatively low participation indicates that schools
only participate when they have some particularly strong reason to seek
outside validation. With a more than 50% acceptance rate, schools stand a
good chance of receiving a Blue Ribbon.


The percentage of schools receiving Blue Ribbons after applying has risen
dramatically in recent years, which may indicate a "dumbing down" of awards
or that schools are making wider use of "experts" who know how to work the
system.


The US Department of Education's Blue Ribbon Award is a typical bureaucratic
nightmare; it does not educate a single child, but creates mountains of
paperwork for bureaucrats to sift through. Fortunately, many school districts
have adopted policies of nonparticipation. Has yours?
In addition to being a colossal waste of money, and providing an excuse for
failing schools not to reform, the Brookings report suggests that what
influence on actually teaching the Blue Ribbon program may have is actually
counter-productive.


The report says that the DOE Blue Ribbon awards politically correct teaching
methods, which may actually be less effective than traditional methods of
teaching. In particular, the DOE rewards schools for implementing "new
technology" such as computers, even when there is no evidence to suggest that
computers actually improve early education.




-----Original Message-----
From: by way of Fred
mailto:Icemom617
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 2:14 PM
Subject: Re: Is your school a Blue Ribbon School?




The content of this article is very good.  Thanks for sending it to all of
us. Any exposing of the fallacious and bogus Blue Ribbon School Award is
always welcome.  This award was designed to be just another tool in making
public schools comply with the School to Work model.


I've said all this before, but I love repeating it!  In 1990, the principal
at my son's school asked me to do the Blue Ribbon application.  I was not an
employee, but I was a perpetual volunteer.  I undertook the assignment
spending about 5 eight hour days with the help of about five teachers.  (I
knew I couldn't do it by myself.)  The estimates in this article of 5000 man
hours have to be man hours of idiots.  The thing doesn't take that long.  Of
course the report had my stamp on it, and most of you know my take on things
educational.  That fact plus the fact that the school didn't have a geography
course (which at the time was a big deal for progressivists in education)
certified that the school didn't win the award.


Two years later the school applied again, only this time they hired, at a
cost of $1500, a consultant who as a school employee had successfully written
an application at another school to help write the one for Taylor High
School.  They won the award.


As this article attests, the award means nothing except, of course, in
bragging rights for the principal.  He gets to go to Washington with his
family, take all the suck up employees and volunteers at the school with him,
and receive the award all at taxpayer expense.


Then he gets to spend more tax dollars putting a sign on the school building,
which diminishes its exterior considerably over time.


One of my best letters to the editor, which not one of them will print, goes
something like this:  "Dear Editor,  Now that almost all the Katy ISD schools
have achieved the 'Blue Ribbon Award,' what does that mean, exactly?"


The reason they won't print it is that the answer to this rhetorical question
is, "Absolutely nothing!"


Mary McGarr