COLLEGE GRADS ARE STUCK WITH STUDENT LOAN DEBT AND NO JOBS, by Wayne Hodges

APPLE VALLEY, Ca – Houston, we have a problem. College graduates are leaving school saddled with student loan debt, shaky futures and, most importantly, can’t find decent jobs. Scary. Very scary. Megan Thomas, contributor to MSNBC.com, wrote an excellent article that chronicles the experiences of MBA graduate Michael Barreto; who was subsequently forced to move back home with mom because he couldn’t find work. . “Right now I’m just trying to find any sort of full-time work that would allow me to live on my own and save money for the future,” said a disappointed Barreto.

Here’s more depressing news: the economic forecast calls for darker clouds, heavier thunderstorms, and hail with no sunshine in sight. Why? Job outsourcing, in addition to dwindling consumer confidence and sweat shops, practically ensures an extension of our nation’s economic downturn. A couple weeks ago, Geoffrey Heathcock (a.k.a. Professor Rock) provided some key information involving the “Consumer Confidence Indicator.” The data was not good. As of June 2010, consumer confidence dropped roughly 9.8% with unemployment remaining close to 10%. Scary. Very scary.

Ok, I know what you’re thinking. Why is he raising points about employment and consumer confidence? It’s simple. Many of us are encouraging our children to attend college directly after high school. However, there’s one teeny-weeny problem. Right now, the average grad student accumulates approximately $100,000 in student loan debt. If the trade off is a $12 per hour job at Starbucks, does it really make sense to push higher education? Employers claim college grads are inexperienced and generally unprepared to be productive inside the workplace. But I was always under the impression college provided such experience.

Let’s be frank. The system is broken.It’s time for legislators to get off their keysters and implement the repairs necessary to rejuvenate the economy. This includes curtailing job opportunities overseas, providing incentives for domestic manufacturers, and revamping the college education system to provide graduates with the experience necessary to gain top notch employment after school. Otherwise, we’re headed for a cliff like Wile E. Coyote. Somewhere, the Road Runner is laughing. “BEEP BEEP!”

Wayne Hodges, an MBA from St. Mary University, is the Editor-in-Chief of “Mass Appeal News.” He is also a candidate for Kansas Senate District #7, an adjunct professor, and legislative intern with the Kansas Senate. Wayne welcomes your comments at whodges@massappealnews.com

GENERATION Y: LOTS OF STUDENT LOANS, NO JOBS AND A GRIM FUTURE. By Megan Thomas

APPLE VALLEY, Ca (MSNBC.com) – They are perhaps the best-educated generation ever, but they can’t find jobs. Many face staggering college loans and have moved back in with their parents. Even worse, their difficulty in getting careers launched could set them back financially for years. The Millennials, broadly defined as those born in the 1980s and ’90s, are the first generation of American workers since World War II who have cloudier prospects than the generations that preceded them.

Certainly the recession has hurt young workers badly. While the overall unemployment rate was 9.5 percent in June, it was 15.3 percent for those aged 20 to 24, compared with 7.8 percent for ages 35-44, 7.5 percent for ages 45-54 and 6.9 percent for those 55 and older. Among 18-to 29-year-olds, unemployment is the highest it’s been in more than three decades, according to a recent report from Pew Research Center. The report also found that Millennials, also known as Generation Y, are less likely to be employed than Gen Xers or baby boomers were at the same age.

Millennials are generally well-educated, but they have have been cast as everything from tech savants who will work cheap to entitled narcissists. The recession has pitted these younger workers against baby boomers trying to save for retirement and Gen Xers with homes and families. Just ask Michael Barreto. Eleven months was all it took to bring him from post-graduation autonomy back to his parents’ home in Apple Valley, Calif.

Armed with an undergraduate degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine, and experience from an internship, the 23-year-old Barreto believed he had a better chance than many of his peers to find a job. But more than a year after graduation, Barreto is still struggling to find employment. “Right now I’m just trying to find any sort of full-time work that would allow me to live on my own and save money for the future,” he said. Like many of his peers, Barreto left college with roughly $21,000 in federal loans. (The 2008 average for college students was $23,000, according to the College Board.) Barreto’s parents also took out loans to help him afford college.

Despite landing a job at Panera Bread Co. to support himself while looking for a job as a journalist, Barreto drained most of his savings to pay for his living expenses. He was eventually forced to move home and defer his loans. The high unemployment rate among young Millennials can affect them financially and psychologically throughout their careers, according to a report by the Joint Economic Committee. “The ’scarring effects’ of prolonged unemployment can be devastating over a worker’s career,” according to the report. “Productivity, earnings and well-being can all suffer. In addition, unemployment can lead to a deterioration of skills and make securing future employment more difficult.”

Many Millennials have sought refuge back at school from the worst job market since at least the early 1980s. Yet that strategy, too, can backfire as students incur staggering amounts of debt to pay for advanced degrees that might not help them out much in the job market. Jordan Hueseman, 23, accrued roughly $100,000 in student loans at the University of Denver earning a bachelor’s degree in international business and a master’s in business administration. On the job hunt, he found his graduate degree sometimes hindered more than it helped.

“At one point, I applied to Whole Foods, hoping they might see some potential for me to move to some type of management position,” Hueseman said. “The e-mail I received from them said I was far too overqualified for any of their hourly positions and as such would not be considered for a position.” Hueseman said that after one job application, he was told he should leave his degrees off his resume. Hueseman said he was tempted to follow the advice but couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“It’s a personal thing for a couple of us and a bit prideful, but the idea we just spent five years  — and a hundred thousand dollars for some of us — obtaining two degrees, to go ahead and wipe that right back off our resume in hopes of getting a $12-an-hour job at Starbucks would really be depressing,” he said. Even if they did feel inclined to do it, they’d be competing for that job with their peers and with plenty of older jobless workers. About 15 million Americans currently are out of work, 45 percent of them for at least six months.

HIGHER EXPECTATIONS FOR ALL STUDENTS: WHY IS THAT A PROBLEM? By Hafeeza Majeed

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas – The meaning that you will grasp from my message could possibly be quite different than the meaning your friend, relative, spouse, neighbor, etc., etc., etc., grasps.  I am a highly qualified teacher, HQT, as defined by No Child Left Behind, (soon to be renamed by President Obama).  Unavoidably, my message is both timely and timeless, realizing that the researchable content of my message provides the evidence for my resounding passion for educating students who perform at below-basic and basic academic levels.

I share my passion in this message because I seek to inspire my readers – who again, will no doubt experience various reactions to my message – to embrace my message. Where do I begin?  What can I say?  I choose to teach in classrooms where the majority of the students perform at below-basic and basic – and I love it!  I am challenged by the diverse needs of my students – and I love it!  The students who come to me are the best their parents can send – and I believe that! Stay put!

Now here’s the clincher!  The challenge for my students is to rise to the high academic, intellectual and social expectations that I have established; however, not to exceed Arkansas’ Curriculum Frameworks.  Tell me, are you a parent or even a grandparent who has reservations about teachers who set high expectations for your child(ren)?”  Perhaps, a quick examination of some empirical evidence might provide a few answers.

*As a concerned teacher, I share my home telephone number with students and parents, for the sole purpose of minimizing and eliminating students’ tendencies to retell the “usual”  tales – “I did my homework at school,” or “I don’t have any homework.” Which makes more sense – believing the ”usual” tales or using my phone number to ascertain the truth? Wow!  I receive very few calls, unless I am in error, which I am from time to time.

*As a concerned teacher, I insist on communicating with every parent in the classroom daily, by expecting parents’ signatures on daily homework assignments for the entire school term. Why then, are some parents, who neglect to check and sign homework, upset when their child is penalized for incomplete and incorrect assignments?

*As a concerned teacher, I will always remain firm in my conviction that all students are learners in the classroom, thus, undesirable behavior will not be tolerated.  How can I do a better job of explaining, “not tolerated,” to students and their parents?

*As a concerned teacher, I support an “open door” policy for parental involvement in my classroom.  How should I assess the thinking of some parents who will arrive at the school’s office to pick their children up prior to dismissal, but find no reason to “peek inside the classroom?”

*As a concerned teacher, I encourage students to arrive at school daily, on time and ready to learn.  How do I define the actions of some parents who will say, “that’s my child’s responsibility to get to the bus stop on time;” “that’s my child’s responsibility to accurately complete homework”; “that’s my child’s responsibility to study, because I’m in school, too.”

Indisputably, the empirical evidence that has been generated in my classrooms for the last decade, is steeped in a growing body of research which explains an epidemic – the high school dropout rate – that President Barack Obama refers to as “unacceptable” [2010].  The report, On The Front Lines of Schools, Perspectives of Teachers and Principals on the High School Dropout Problem, Civic Enterprises, www.civicenterprises.net [2000], raises the awareness that our nation’s underperforming children even recognize the gap -  the “expectations gap.”

According to the report, “two-thirds of dropouts said they would have worked harder if more were demanded of them”  Yet, I’m frequently baffled, but never surprised, when some of my students, parents and colleagues “skirt” around the matters of accountability and responsibility.  Ironically, accountability is never foreign to educators; thus, we must shoulder our share of the guilt, also.

Civic Enterprises, www.civicenterprises.net [2000], reveals, “Teachers and administrators in public high schools recognize there is a dropout problem, know they are confronted with daunting challenges in classrooms and in schools, and express strong support for reforms to address high dropout rates.  Yet, less than one-third of teachers believe that schools should expect all students to meet high academic standards, graduate with the skills to do college-level work, and provide extra support to struggling students to help them meet those standards.” I invite the responses of the readers of my message.

Simply email me at courageousconversations10@hotmail.com.  I really do want to get to know those of you better who embrace my message – “our children don’t believe in themselves because they understand, very well, that many of us don’t believe in them.”  Consequently, they rebel in our classrooms because many parents and teachers fail to provide and expect the structure that children require and want.  We can no longer pretend to ignore reality – the children are in control!  Yes, I said it and I’m standing by it – far too many children are “in control.”

Far too many children are “in control “ in our homes; classrooms, communities, etc., etc., etc.  Mature minds will agree that responsible, caring, and mature adults have never, and will never, support such madness.  Yes, you’re scratching your head, I know, but that won’t solve anything.  The children can be “the solution,” but they need mature adults to expect them to succeed and to hold them, and ourselves, accountable until they do succeed.

Parental involvement is so important to a child’s education and development

Finally, “The gap between the attitudes of parents of students in low-performing schools and parents of students in high-performing schools was highlighted in the recent report, One Dream, Two Realities: Perspectives of Parents on America’s High Schools.  The report showed a large majority of parents with children in high-performing schools, 85 percent, said their schools were doing a good job encouraging parental involvement, while less than half, 47 percent, of their counterparts with children in low-performing schools reported the same sentiment.

Parents and children in low-performing schools were less likely to feel that their child’s high school took appropriate and timely steps to inform parents about their child’s academic performance, outline the requirements necessary for high school graduation and college admission and provide a single point of contact for school-related questions.”  If you can embrace my message, I’d like to hear from you at courageousconversations10@hotmail.com.

Hafeeza Majeed is a longtime educator and community activist. She welcomes your comments at courageousconversations10@hotmail.com. To learn more about her exciting “Courageous Conversations” webinar, please click here.

Dana Chivvis, Contributor

COURT RULES NEW YORK CAN’T CLOSE 19 SCHOOLS, by Dana Chivvis

NEW YORK – A state appellate court has ruled that New York City cannot close 19 schools it had deemed as “failing” in December. In its decision, the court agreed with a lower court ruling that the city had failed to provide adequate information to the public about the impacts of the closings on students and communities, as mandated by law.

In its ruling Thursday, the court said the city provided “nothing more than boilerplate information about seat availability” and that it abused its power “by limiting the information they provided to the obvious: that students at phased-out schools would be accommodated at other schools to be determined.” — “What it means is that there is a whole bunch of kids that at least for one year will get a terrible education that they’ll probably never recover from,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday at a news conference.

Iyanta Simon, 18, wipes away a tear as seniors from MCA attend graduation

Technically, the decision means that schools like the Metropolitan Corporate Academy, the subject of an AOL News series on school closings published last month, will graduate classes for at least the next four years. Still, MCA’s current incoming freshman class has only eight students enrolled, and the court’s decision does not preclude the city from closing the schools next year. Many of the 19 schools that were slated for closure face the same hurdle: Few eighth-graders applied to them last year because they assumed the schools would be closed.

The ruling is a major victory for the United Federation of Teachers, the city’s public school teachers union, and a check on what some believe is Bloomberg’s unfettered mayoral control of the city’s public school system. “No one is above the law, and every court that has looked at this issue has ruled decisively that the Department of Education violated the law when it tried to close these schools,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said in a statement.

Dana Chivvis is a contributing writer to AOLNews.com.

For more coverage of New York’s school closings, click the arrow.

A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE GOING TO COLLEGE UNNECESSARILY, by Karen Ditko

(Money Central MSN.com) – When I was younger, the plan for my future was pretty straightforward. You go to high school to learn, get good grades, and get into a good college. You go to college to get good grades and then get a good job. After that, just circle the mouse wheel until retirement. OK, that last part about the wheel was my own addition, but that basically was my “job” as a kid. That plan worked for me, and it’s the path many people have walked with great success. But it’s not the only path.

With the government looking at additional regulation of for-profit colleges, I started to wonder again whether college is “worth it.” In general, it is. However, recently with all these for-profit schools, a lot of people are going to college unnecessarily. They’re being promised things that the schools can’t deliver. They’re being sold something they don’t need, depending on what they want to do, and they’re only buying it because we’ve put “college” on a pedestal. In this Devil’s Advocate post, I explain why you might want to skip college.

Most colleges don’t teach skill trades. Colleges are good at teaching things best learned in a classroom or a laboratory — philosophy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, psychology and such. They are not as good at teaching skilled trades like being a mechanic or a welder or a fisherman. For skilled trades, you are better off going the route of an apprenticeship or a vocational school that specializes in that skilled trade.

If you go to college and get a degree in business, only to graduate and become a fisherman, you’re wasting money. That’s not to say a degree in business is bad for someone who is a car mechanic, but you don’t need to spend all that money and four years in a classroom when all the skills you need to learn are best learned hands-on in a shop. A fisherman should, if he or she chooses, go back to school for a business degree if it makes sense. But he or she should not go simply because everyone says he or she should go.

Not everyone finishes college. This entire post was inspired by an article in The New York Times that advocates that some people skip college. One of the scariest bits of information it shared was a projection from the U.S. Department of Education: “Perhaps no more than half of those who began a four-year bachelor’s degree program in the fall of 2006 will get that degree within six years . .  . .”

Let’s say 50% of people complete the program within six years. That means 50% of people don’t finish and are paying for something that they won’t ever receive. That also means that a percentage of the people who do finish will be overpaying, because it will take them longer than four years. What’s amazing about that statistic is that it screams one pivotal idea: Not everyone is suited for college.

The problem is, you can’t expect kids to know this because they haven’t been to college. They haven’t charted out their futures. That’s why they really need to rely on an honest and capable high school guidance counselor to help then decide what they should actually do.

Opportunity cost of four years. The average cost of college in 2009-2010 is $26,273 for tuition and fees at a private college and $7,020 at a public college, according to the College Board. That means that over four years you’ll have spent more than $100,000 at a private school and $28,000 at a public school. When you consider the opportunity cost of not working for four years, coupled with the $100k/$28k actual cost, a college graduate — depending on the level of financial aid — can be in a very deep financial hole.

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the average high school graduate makes $30,400 a year. The average bachelor’s degree recipient makes $52,200. How long does it take for the college graduate to catch up, considering he has paid $100,000-plus and hasn’t been pulling a salary for four years (totaling $121,200)? It takes a long time.

You can’t afford it. Student loan debt figures are at all-time highs. Why is it socially acceptable to tell people “you can’t afford that Maserati” or “you can’t buy a 10-bedroom home” when they can’t, but not OK to say the same about college? Why is credit card debt so bad and student loan debt good? People are graduating with $100,000 in student loan debt, which can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, and saddling themselves with multihundred-dollar monthly loan payments.

You should not go to college if you cannot afford it. It would be different if we weren’t surrounded by horror stories of student loan debt. These are stories of graduates who can’t find jobs and must meet what amounts to a small mortgage payment each month. You hear about a philosophy major with $50,000 in debt and no job prospects. The reality is that they shouldn’t have gone to that school to pursue that major. It wasn’t worth it, and they couldn’t afford it.

You don’t want to. Remember when you were a kid and your parents told you to eat your vegetables? You probably fought them, but you eventually ate them. You did it because your parents knew what was good for you and you, as a kid, didn’t.

Perhaps they’re doing the same thing with college, telling you to go because it’s the right thing to do. They want you to go to college because it does, in many cases, give you an advantage in the work force. They want you to go because they can tell their friends that you are going to college. But you should go only if you think it’s the best option for you.

You shouldn’t go to college because your parents want you to, or because your guidance counselor wants you to, or because your best friend is going and you want to be with him or her. You should go, and put yourself on the hook for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, if it’s the right decision for you.

EDITOR’S COMMENTARY

NEW YORK JOINS KANSAS CITY IN SCHOOL CLOSING PARTY, by Wayne Hodges

NEW YORK – Somebody. Please. Say it isn’t so. It appears the plague affecting the Kansas City School District has reared its ugly head on the east coast. Reports indicate New York City is in the process of closing a mind-boggling 19 public schools simply because they’re under-performing. Kansas City’s contraction plan calls for the closure of an unprecedented 26 schools due to over-extended resources accompanied by a nasty $50 million budget shortfall. The difference? Kansas City has 61 schools. New York has over 1,600. Unlike KC, the proposal in New York is being met with vicious legal opposition from teachers, city officials and the NAACP.

Word on the street is the closings, which are expected to take place inside urban communities, will hurt Black and Hispanic students the most. Nevertheless, proponents of the closings argue contraction is inevitable. And there’s certainly enough proof to support this claim. Check this out. Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Corporate Academy (MCA) lacks a library, a cafeteria, and a gymnasium; which begs the question: “Why the hell is this school open in the first place?” As a matter of fact, most of the schools on the “Hit List” are mired in a multitude of detestable conditions not conducive to productive learning.

Stephon Adams, a junior at MCA, believes apathy has already set in. “Most of (the students) have dropped out of high school because they feel people don’t care,” said Adams. “How am I gonna make it when I don’t understand what I’m doing and what is my purpose here anymore?” Although conditions must improve, I still believe students should be able to obtain quality education in the neighborhoods they live. Think about it. If we’ve come to the conclusion kids must be commuted to the suburbs in order to achieve scholastic greatness; society, as we know it, is in deep trouble.

The NAACP believes the closings will hurt Black & Hispanic students the most

The circumstances surrounding the closings are undisputed. Nobody will argue that. Charter schools, lack of parent participation and state mandated budget cuts are all partially responsible. As a byproduct, the genocide of our nation’s once proud public school system is imminent. Here’s what’s tricky: Can charter schools deliver as our nation’s primary source of urban education? The question certainly has merit. For instance, I was told by an educator a charter school in Kansas City offered free Nintendo Wii systems to new students as gifts for their enrollment. You heard me right. A Nintendo “frickin” Wii in exchange for student enrollment. Seriously, whose the genius responsible for this marketing strategy?

Folks, there’s no getting around it. The plight of our nation’s public school system has gained full momentum. How did we, the people, allow this to happen? A couple weeks ago, the Kansas City Star released an article hinting students of color are traditionally more productive in predominant white classrooms. Ouch! And that’s just the Genesis of this debacle. There’s plenty more. Teachers, regardless of tenure, are getting laid off in record numbers; many forced to fend for themselves in a scarce job market. Communities are being torn apart.

And college graduates, aspiring to become educators, are equipped with degrees that remain practically worthless in today’s declining teacher’s market. This may not be fair. But, I gotta say it. In the end, the Obama Administration could end up with a huge black eye unless the scholastic climate changes radically for the better. Who knows? Contraction might work. Massive school closings may prove successful down the stretch. Public education could rebound beyond expectations. However, as of this very moment, the future of public academics doesn’t look very promising.

The scholastic forecast calls for more thunder storms, contraction, heavy rain and lightning with no sunshine in sight; especially true for urban communities. I feel sorry for President Barack Obama. The Gulf Oil Spill, the recession, controversial immigration laws, high unemployment rates, and the impending public school crisis have made this one rocky year for our Commander-in-Chief. The price to pay to become our nation’s first African-American president appears too punitive in hindsight.

*** View this article on the Examiner by clicking here ***

Wayne Hodges, an MBA from St. Mary University, is the editor of “Mass Appeal News.” He is also a candidate for Kansas Senate District #7, an adjunct professor, and MPA at Kansas University. Wayne welcomes your comments at whodges@massappealnews.com

For more coverage of New York’s school closings, click the play arrow.

Dana Chivvis, Contributor

WAS “FAILING” NEW YORK SCHOOL FAILED BY THE SYSTEM? By Dana Chivvis

NEW YORK – The pink building that houses the Metropolitan Corporate Academy is a maze of caged stairwells and blue hallways, like many of the other 1,600 public schools in New York City. But MCA is different from most of those other schools. This high school in Brooklyn has no library, no gym, no cafeteria, no auditorium, no sports teams and no water fountains for its 385 students. The administration takes money from its beleaguered budget to buy plastic cups so the kids have something to drink from during the day. Classmates share the few textbooks they have while at school but have to leave them in the classrooms at night. School lunches are sent in from a nearby school that has a kitchen. MCA does not have one.

Stephon Adams may understand why the city wants to close his school. What he and others don’t understand is why it was never given a chance to succeed. The conditions at MCA have “caused a lot of students to give up,” said Adams, a 17-year-old junior. “Most of them have dropped out of high school because they feel people don’t care. How am I gonna make it when I don’t understand what I’m doing and what is my purpose here anymore?” Adams has flourished at MCA, despite its meager resources. The small setting allows him to have plenty of one-on-one time with his teachers and open communication with the staff. He has been a member of the school’s highly successful debate team since ninth grade. This year he and co-captain Devonte Escoffery, 18, won the inaugural New York City championship.

But success stories like theirs are not enough to keep the school open, according to the city’s Department of Education. Chancellor Joel Klein announced in December that the school would be closed, along with 18 others marked by the city as “failing.” The announcement that 19 schools would be phased out led to public outrage across New York. At numerous rallies and hearings this winter, students, parents and teachers responded angrily to the plan. They weren’t failing the system, they said; the system was failing them.

“The real reason that these schools are struggling is not because the students can’t be successful, and it’s not because the teachers and the principals can’t do their jobs,” said 35-year-old Alex Jones, an 11th-grade social studies and history teacher and coach of the school’s debate team. “The systematic truth for all 19 of the schools that are struggling is that they have been underserved by the Department of Education, and they’ve gotten less support than they need to get these kids what they want, yet they’re held to the same standard as schools citywide.”

Battle Fought Across the Country

MCA is on the front lines of a battle raging in the United States over which direction public school education should take. On one side are those who favor teacher accountability, test-based evaluations and charter schools — like Chancellor Klein, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Obama administration. On the other side are those who think their approach ignores the realities of public school education on the ground — people like MCA parents, New York City teachers and some education experts who say closing schools merely shifts the problem somewhere else.

The Education Department uses an inflexible system to determine school success. It is based on multiple factors, including graduation rates, external quality reviews and yearly progress reports. Schools aren’t compared to all other schools in the system but to a grouping of similar schools the Education Department calls a “cohort.” MCA received a D on its 2008-09 progress report and C’s the two years before that. Last year, the school’s four-year graduation rate was 47.1 percent. The six-year rate was not much higher at 63.8 percent — the same as the city’s average four-year rate.

Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Corporate Academy lacks a library, cafeteria and gym.

“If these schools are graduating less than one out of two students, then these schools aren’t serving students,” said Danny Kanner, a spokesman for the Education Department. “What you’re seeing in this school is an inability to move kids forward.” The Education Department says it will replace failing schools with better ones that will offer much more to the city’s students. Since 2002, the city has closed 91 schools and opened 417 new ones, including 82 charters. “Sending a new school there will create the type of culture and environment for the students to succeed,” Kanner said. “When we know we can do better, we have to.”

Principal Lennel George has been told that as MCA phases out, a school for 17- to 21-year-old males who are behind or have dropped out of high school will begin phasing into the small building, which already houses another school in addition to MCA. The Education Department did not respond to requests for information about what school would be phased in, citing pending litigation. One of the major problems that MCA’s administration has to deal with is how to get kids to come to school in the first place, let alone how to keep them there. Attendance rates at the school hover around 70 percent, while the city’s average in 2009-10 was 85.4 percent.

“If you want them to be in school all day, you have to make a reason for them to be there, so you have to provide some comfort, you have to provide a quality of life for them to want to be there,” said Debbie Nagel, an assistant principal at MCA. “I mean, they’re fiending for basketball; these children only want a basketball. We don’t even have a hoop.”

Why No New Facilities?

When the school was founded in 1992, it was assigned its current location, an abandoned Board of Education building that was used during the Civil War as an infirmary. Nagel, who helped start the school, said she was told several times that they would be moved into a better building. When George became principal, he said he was promised the same thing. “They came with specific addresses,” Nagel said. She looked at different sets of blueprints and was even promised a parking spot. “And here’s your office and here’s this classroom, and this is gonna be a cafeteria, the library. So we’ve always hoped to move on.”

But the move never happened. The buildings were expropriated for something else, a new school, according to George. MCA remained in the cramped, rundown building with no basketball court and no fields to play on. “The kids should have a gym, they should be able to eat in a space that’s, you know, a cafeteria, a real cafeteria. A library we don’t have; these are things that I think would have made a difference,” George said. “Just having those facilities would have made a difference.” MCA’s student population is 96 percent black and Hispanic. It has Title I status, which provides extra funds to schools with the poorest student populations, with 61 percent of the students coming from low-income families. Special needs students make up 17.4 percent of the school.

“It’s not a easy population,” George said. “It’s a population that’s struggling.” School budgets are calculated based on the number of students at each school, or approximately $16,678 per student, according to a report by the city’s Independent Budget Office. With only 385 students, MCA’s budget is smaller than most, and already its budget for next year has been slashed by 4 percent. But at the same time, MCA students need more help than most, Jones said. “If students are struggling and schools are struggling, why are they not getting more support than the schools that are succeeding?”

Instead, as the 2009-10 school year comes to a close, MCA faces a possible end altogether, with the futures of its teachers and its debate team, which has provided opportunities to so many kids, hanging in the balance.

Dana Chivvis is a contributing writer to AOL.com. View this article and others by clicking here.

EDITOR’S COMMENTARY

SUMNER HAS EXCELLED IN ACADEMICS; WHAT ABOUT OTHERS? By Wayne Hodges

KANSAS CITY, Kan – On May 16, 2005, Newsweek Magazine ranked Sumner Academy 75th in its list of “100 Best High Schools in America.” In 2004, the school was listed in 99th place. In 2008, Sumner came in at a highly respectable #183. And recently, Newsweek ranked Sumner the #1 school in the entire state of Kansas; ahead of perennial powers Blue Valley Northwest and Shawnee Mission South. Outstanding! Now comes the million dollar question: why aren’t other high schools in Kansas City, Kan. held to a similar academic standard? Seriously, I don’t get it. And why haven’t more residents posed this question?

If you’re unfamiliar with the Kansas City Kan. School District, I’ll brief you. At Sumner, students must maintain a 2.5 or higher GPA to attend the academy. The institution, which first opened during the segregation era in 1905, is an active participant in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Program. Sumner offers several college prep and IB courses, and the students continue to flourish as a result. Ahh…if only the same were true for the rest of KCK’s public high schools.

Look, I’m not suggesting the other institutions are poor. But, if you pay a visit to the campuses at Wyandotte High, Harmon, Schlagle and Washington, you’ll certainly notice the difference in educational quality when compared to the mighty Sabres of Sumner Academy. And I’m just not sure it’s fair. Seriously, imagine how dominant the district would become if Sumner’s scholastic standards were considered the rule for all students; rather than the exception. Hey, it’s been done before. Why can’t it be done again?

Sumner Academy remains a juggernaut in both sports and academics

For instance, Wyandotte High School, which was designated as an historic landmark in 1985, won 20 state titles in basketball; including an undefeated national championship season in 1923. Hoops legends Lucious Allen and Larry Drew, both former NBA players, starred there. Calvin Thompson, another Wyandotte alum, played for Hall-of-Fame coach Larry Brown at the University of Kansas. Alum Reggie Jones went on to compete in the NFL with the Kansas City Chiefs and San Diego Chargers.

Heck, actor Edward Asner (known to most of us as Lou Grant from the Mary Tyler Moore Show) is also a Wyandotte High alum. Actress Dee Wallace-Stone, who played Elliot’s mother in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film classic “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” attended Wyandotte too. Hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of other former ‘Bulldogs’ have gone on to experience huge success through the years. The same can be said for Harmon, Schlagle, and Washington too.

That said, it’s painfully obvious Sumner Academy resides in a different league today when it comes to academic excellence. And, make no mistake about it, the school certainly deserves to be commended. However, if school administrators and parents are serious about improving the overall quality of education in USD #500, the sister institutions must be held to a similar academic standard. Why only Sumner Academy?

Wayne Hodges, an MBA from St. Mary University, is the editor of “Mass Appeal News.” He is also a candidate for Kansas Senate District #7, an adjunct professor, and MPA at Kansas University. Wayne welcomes your comments at whodges@massappealnews.com

*** To view the complete list of Newsweek’s best high schools, click here ***

SUMNER DOMINATES SCIENCE FAIR FOR MOST OF 1950′S, by Frank T. Manheim

KANSAS CITY, Kan – Around the time of the Topeka decision, students of Sumner High School, a segregated Negro high school in Kansas City Kansas, accomplished something not only unexpected, but improbable, considering the prevailing conditions of discrimination, low funding, as well as the lower educational and socioeconomic background of the Negro population that Sumner served. Sumner dominated all Metropolitan Kansas City high schools in awards for science presentations in the newly initiated National Science Fairs program. It was not a fluke. Sumner would dominate top science prizes for much of the 1950s.

To view Sumner vs Basehor in hoops, click the arrow.

TEACHER LOSES JOB FOR HAVING PREMARITAL SEX, by Mike Celizic MSN.com

ST. CLOUD, Fla – The couple sat close together with her right hand clasped in his left hand and her left arm cradling the 8-month-old daughter whose conception cost the woman her job. The couple’s sin, according to her former employer, Southland Christian School in St. Cloud, Fla., is fornication — having sex before they got married.

Jarretta Hamilton and her husband of 16 months, Samuel Treftz, told TODAY’s Ann Curry Monday that the termination violated federal anti-discrimination laws. In addition, they allege in a pending lawsuit, the school’s principal, Jon Ennis, invaded Hamilton’s privacy by telling other teachers and the parents of her students the exact reason she was fired.

“When they let me go, they told the entire staff in a staff meeting that I had been fired and the reason why they let me go. And then they called all of my parents to my fourth-grade students and told them as well,” Hamilton said. Ennis declined to appear on TODAY, citing a lawsuit filed by Hamilton against the school. But in a prerecorded report filed by NBC News’ Mike Taibbi, Ennis was asked if he stood by the firing. “Yes, absolutely,” he replied.

‘DIDN’T KNOW IT WOULD COST ME MY JOB’

Hamilton said her problems are all the result of her being honest. A widow with five children from her first marriage, she had gotten work as a teacher at Southland Christian School in January 2008. Meanwhile, she also met Treftz, and they planned a Feb. 20, 2009, wedding. Three weeks before the wedding, she conceived her daughter, Sarah.

In April 2009, Hamilton and Treftz went together to Ennis and told him she would be taking maternity leave in the fall. She says Ennis first complained that it was difficult for the school to cover women on maternity leave. “I was only requesting a standard six weeks maternity leave, and as the conversation progressed, he said, ‘I’m just trying to do the math here. When did you get married?’ ” Hamilton told Curry.

VIDEO CATCHES SLEEPY STUDENT AT PRESIDENT OBAMA’S SPEECH, by Mara Gay

DETROIT, Mich – President Barack Obama’s graduation speech at a Michigan high school got plenty of applause, but it didn’t prove rousing enough for one student. He dozed off. As the president told Kalamazoo Central grads that “true excellence only comes with perseverance,” a sleepy student in the choir behind him can be seen on camera yawning and struggling to stay awake. The unidentified young man is quite animated as he fights sleep, even managing to join a round of applause before closing his eyes again. It wasn’t long before the video was a YouTube hit.

Of course, the president may be forgiving. “Sometimes I had a tendency to goof off,” he acknowledged, as the student nodded off in fits and starts. Obama spoke at the school because it won the White House’s “Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge.” Not everyone slept through the speech. High school senior Thomas Groesbeck remained alert and was impressed. Groesbeck told The Kalamazoo Gazette that it was “an incredible experience” to have the president there. “When you’re sitting 20 feet away from the leader of the free world, that makes anything interesting,” he said.

Mara Gay is a contributing writer to AOL News. View this story by clicking here.