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Show Page A7 a Thursday, September 7, 1995 The Park Record D Section A " 1 j mm f . I f: '1 m-j i , f v a? w a. an. w I ' ' I III 111. j- ' '' . ? 5ri 5 7 v. . Soviet Children's Art hosts traveling exhibition program An exhibition of paintings and drawings by Soviet Children will be on display at Parley's Park Elementary School from Sept. 5 to 22. The exhibit, "Kids on the bloc: Soviet Children's Art' is a gift from the Children's School of Arts in Chernostsi, USSR, a sister city to Salt Lake City. The art work was done by adolescents 12 to 14 years of age and reflects the Soviet youth's vision of the world around them. The exhibition is made up of work that displays a variety of techniques and styles that young artists are exploring. Traveling Exhibition Program is a statewide outreach out-reach service of the Utah Arts Council. The program is supported by a grant from the .National Endowment for the Arts. Surprise! American schools doing good job, Fielder says by DR. DON FIELDER Superintendent Almost everyday one can pick up a newspaper or listen lis-ten to the news and there will be a story on what a terrible terri-ble job American schools are doing. It seems that reports from every conceivable agency or group details a litany of how poorly our students are achieving, especially in comparison to the rest of the industrialized world. What most people have not heard or read are recent reports from some of the most prestigious think tanks in the country which document that the schools are actually performing well and that they continue to get better. One such report by the Rand Corporation is titled Student Achievement and the Changing American Family. This study concludes that test scores have actually actu-ally gone up over the last 20 years. The basis for this conclusion rests with the scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The NAEP is a test which has been given by the U.S. Department of Education since the early 1970s to nationally representative samples of students of all ability abil-ity levels. The Rand report states that the NAEP scores prove that students are getting a better education than ever and that this is particularly true for minority students stu-dents From 1971 to 1990, NAEP scores rose 19 percentile per-centile points for black students, 1 1 points for Hispanic students and three points for white students. Another study which was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy was conducted by the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM. This report was completed in 1993 and was at first suppressed by the federal government, allegedly because it was in opposition to Bush administration official positions. The Sandia report is replete with evidence it claims proves that students are actually performing equal to or better than in the past. This includes achievement on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) which is the main college col-lege entrance examination given throughout the country to high school juniors and seniors. Instead of simply comparing raw scores, the Sandia study took a different approach to comparison. They matched students in 1990 to those of 1975 according to gender and class ranking, and found that the 1990 students outperformed the 1975 students by 30 points. The report concludes that lower overall SAT scores are due strictly to the fact that 10 percent more students are taking the exam. Since the top students were already completing the SAT 20 years ago, the additional 10 percent are the lower performing students. stu-dents. What about reports comparing American students to other countries? Aren't Americans doing poorly? The news reports say we are. Once again, a number of recent reports indicate that, in fact, Americans are doing much better than previously reported. For example, a 1992 study by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement reports that American nine-year-olds ranked second out of 31 countries in reading skills while fourteen year olds ranked ninth. Other reports reveal that our best students perform well in international comparisons. One such study conducted shows that when one separates sep-arates data supplied by the National Center for Educational Statistics into various student subgroups, the following ranking of 1992 mathematics scores follows: fol-lows: (1) U.S. Asian, (2) Taiwanese, (3) Korean, (4) U.S. advantaged urban students, (5) U.S. white, and (6) Hungarian. Since whites and Asians make up over 70 of the school population, the majority of American students stu-dents score very well on such international comparisons of mathematics. In addition, such reports point out the difficulty of fairly comparing American students to those in other countries. In most other industrialized countries only the best, highest achieving students are tested. This is particularly true of older students since it becomes increasingly competitive in other countries to enter and stay in schools comparable in grades to our junior and high schools. Thus, the test scores of all American students are compared to only the best students stu-dents of many other countries, thereby creating an unfair comparison. What about dropout rates? Surely they have fallen. The news reports have said they have. Again, recent reports show that the opposite is true. Dropout rates have actually declined. We are graduating a greater percentage per-centage of students than ever before. A recent report by the National Center for Educational Statistics shows that the annual dropout rate declined from 6.7 in 1978 to 4.5 in 1993. The same report reveals that when delayed graduations and GED figures are calculated the percentage of people aged 21-22 completing a high school diploma rose from 82 in 1972 to 86 in 1993. If entrance and completion of college is an indication of the success that our elementary and secondary schools have in preparing students for higher education, we must be doing terribly if the news reports are correct. Once again, this is not the case. Almost 60 of U.S. high school graduates enter post secondary institutions and approximately 26 receive a bachelor's degree. These figures are higher than any other industrialized country in the world. Finally, there must be some truth to news reports which consistently indicate that American high school graduates are simply not adequately prepared for the work place. Businesses repeatedly cry out that high school graduates applying for jobs cannot read or perform per-form the simplest mathematical calculations. The general continued on A8 Youth will 'get down to; business' in Salt Lake Since Congress is cutting millions of dollars traditionally . used for summer jobs for; youths, Utah State University : Extension 4-H has found a ; solution. During the Western 4-H Leadership Congress in Salt Lake City, Dec. 1-5, youths will learn to invest in stock, purchase pur-chase a business, start a company compa-ny and make themselves marketable. mar-ketable. Called "Operation Free Enterprise," more than 300 young people representing thousands of 4-H youth throughout the western states, will be learning by doing. Children will use real money as they learn about selling stock in a company and purchasing business licenses. They will be required to produce financial statements snowing losses or profit. All participants will be organized orga-nized into "companies." Their leadership and decision-making skills will be tested and practiced prac-ticed as they organize their company with different officers, offi-cers, make product decisions, assign roles and complete work assignments. Simulated job interviews will be conducted where youth will submit their resumes, fill out application forms and be interviewed inter-viewed by two different "personnel "per-sonnel directors" that will include responses from each of them. The cost is $285 per participant, partici-pant, which includes all costs except travel to Salt Lake City. Sponsorships and scholarships may be available for those who need assistance. Utah applications applica-tions are due Sept. 30. For more information contact your county coun-ty USU Extension office or call Mitchell at (801) 797-2202. SM Qn A Star . . . M' , --.!; ft ' - , - " ':.;.: Star Clipper & Star Flyer. ' 6 - Si Sail back to the romantic era of the "greyhounds of the sea," on board the newest and tallest of the Tall Ships! 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