outlook★Voice of America’s private schools

February 2005 • Number 302

Council for American Private Education

© 2005 Council for American Private Education

For a wide swath of students across thecountry, the return to school in Janu-

ary was far from business as usual. Withpeople in SouthernAsia experiencing un-speakable suffering inthe wake of the wall ofwater that devastatedvillages and families,the response of manyAmerican school com-munities was not toresume the routine,but to extend a help-ing hand. Teachers re-vamped lesson plansto inspire students toassist those in need. Administrators pre-pared prayer services to implore God’scomfort. Students took up a series offundraising activities ranging from swim-a-thons and math-a-thons to dress-down

Schools Respond to Tsunami Tragedydays and bake sales. Whether creative ortried and true, all the projects were aimedat a simple and kindhearted purpose: to

ease the pain of thosewho survived the tsu-nami. The hope wasfor a wave of healing asswift and powerful asthe wave of ruin thatpreceded and promptedit.

One school’s reliefproject took place closeto the tsunami site it-self. Students, teach-ers, and other volun-teers from Cincinnati

Hills Christian Academy in Cincinnati,Ohio, traveled all the way to Charity City,India, where they helped an orphanageprepare for children affected by the tsu-nami. Although the trip had been

planned well before the tragedy, the tim-ing placed CHCA students in the frontlines helping the orphanage get ready toreceive hundreds of children who had losttheir homes and families in the floods.

“Seeing all this really wakes you up,”said Ashley Reno, a senior at the school.Her comments were reported in TheEnquirer by a staff writer who accompa-nied the group on the trip. “When yousee the children on the street, on the wayhere, my heart just goes out to them,” shesaid. “No one should have to live likethat.” The writer noted Reno’s eyes wereglistening when she said, “I already wantto bring all of them home with me.”

While not as close to the destruction asthe Cincinnati Hills project, other school-based efforts were just as commendable.The Blue Ridge School, a college prepara-tory school for boys in St. George, Vir-

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With President George W. Bush looking on and her hus-band, Robert, holding the Bible, Secretary of Education Mar-garet Spellings takes the oath of office at the Department ofEducation January 31, 2005. (White House Photo)

With President Bush at her side, Mar-garet Spellings was sworn in as sec-

retary of education January 31, the firstmother of school-age children to serve inthat position.

“In carrying out my duties to theAmerican people, I will be carrying outmy duties as a mom, and there’s nonemore important than to provide a qualityeducation to our children,” she said in herfirst speech as secretary. Spellings is themother of two school-age daughters, onein a public school and one in a Catholicschool.

In comments during the swearing-inceremony, both President Bush and Secre-tary Spellings touted the success of the NoChild Left Behind Act and pledged tolengthen its reach to high schools.

“In the past four years, we have madegreat strides,” said the president, citing asevidence higher scores on standardized

tests and a narrowing of the achievementgap. But he said more work must bedone, includ-ing extending“high stan-dards and ac-countabilityto America’spublic highschools.” Hecalled “unac-ceptable” thefact that onlyabout 60 per-cent of enter-ing freshmenmake it tohigh schoolgraduationfour yearslater, and he pledged to ensure that everyhigh school student graduates “with the

skills he or she needs to succeed in collegeor the workplace.”

SecretarySpellings ech-oed thepresident’s re-marks, prom-ising to intro-duce NCLBreforms tohigh schools“so that diplo-mas becometickets to suc-cess in the21st century.”She offered anequation forschool reform:“Accountabil-

ity plus high expectations plus resourcesContinued on page 3

Spellings Sworn in as Secretary; Vows to Extend NCLB to High Schools

CAPE member organizations:

American Montessori Society

Association MontessoriInternational–USA

Association of Christian SchoolsInternational

Association of Waldorf Schoolsof N.A.

Christian Schools International

Evangelical Lutheran Churchin America

Friends Council on Education

Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod

National Association ofEpiscopal Schools

National Association ofIndependent Schools

National Catholic EducationalAssociation

National Christian School Association

Oral Roberts University EducationalFellowship

Seventh-day Adventist Boardof Education

Solomon Schechter Day SchoolAssociation

Southern Baptist Association ofChristian Schools

United States Conference ofCatholic Bishops

28 Affiliated State Organizations

a coalition of national associations

serving private schools K-12

Executive Director: Joe McTighe

Outlook is published monthly

(September to June) by CAPE

using an Apple Power Mac G4.

An annual subscription is $15.

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(email) cape@capenet.org

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ginia, sponsored several projects to help tsunamivictims. Events included a special chapel serviceand offering, a bake sale, and a fundraisingdress-down day on which students and facultydonated funds in exchange for the right to shedthe traditional coat and tie for more casual at-tire. The school sent the American Red Cross acheck for $7,000.

Sioux Falls Christian School worked with theChristian Reformed World Relief Committee(CRWRC) to provide assistance to children af-fected by the tsunami. The school showed stu-dents a short video clip from CRWRC andasked them to “give their age” to help anotherboy or girl who had lost a family or home.

In Milford, New Jersey, students at theSolomon Schechter Day School raised over$3,000, according to the North Jersey MediaGroup. Students sold a newspaper they pro-duced about the tsunami, and raised additionalfunds through bake sales and collections takenafter morning prayer services.

Links of Love and HopeOur Lady of Mercy School in Potomac,

Maryland, has a project called “Links of Loveand Hope.” The Catholic Standard reports thatstudent council members in the school sell slipsof paper for $2, which students decorate with aprayer for victims of the tsunami. The prayerpapers are then linked together to drape theschool as a remembrance of the tragedy. Fundsfrom the project will be forwarded to CatholicRelief Services.

Lower school students at The Moses BrownSchool, a Friends school in Providence, RhodeIsland, made and sold bracelets to raise money.Upper school students will be hosting a per-forming arts festival, with the price of admissionbeing a donation towards the relief effort. Thetsunami will also be the focus of a school-widemeeting for worship this month.

The Rudolf Steiner School, a Waldorf schoolin New York City, raised over $11,000 for tsu-nami relief, the bulk coming from donations of-fered during a concert on January 13. Studentsand teachers displayed their creative and artistictalents through poetry, music, drama, chorus,and dance. Students in The Park School inSnyder, New York, were planning to follow suitwith a fundraising talent show slated for Febru-ary 15.

Pennies from HeavenNot all disaster-relief activities involved ex-

tensive planning. A number of schools raisedsignificant sums of money simply by having stu-dents and teachers deposit coins and bills infive-gallon jars or other containers placed in en-

trances, hallways, or classrooms. One schoolcalled the project “Change the World,” another,“Pennies from Heaven.”

When Kevin Dunning, executive director ofFaith Lutheran School in Las Vegas, Nevada,challenged staff and students to donate $1 a dayfor seven days for tsunami relief, he neverdreamed that the initial goal of $10,000 wouldbe surpassed nearly four times over. As of earlyFebruary, the school received more than$37,000 from students, teachers, parents, andfriends. The money will go to the AmericanRed Cross, the World Relief Fund of theLutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and BethaniaKids, an organization that assists orphaned chil-dren in India.

Perhaps the most unusual collection effort isthe one being undertaken by SouthwesternChristian School in Yuma, AZ. The Yuma Sunreports that children are saving their pennies tocollect toothbrushes for children in an orphan-age in Myanmar. A parent, John Jackson, isplanning to deliver the toothbrushes during amission trip to Myanmar. “The children in theorphanage do not own a thing,” he said. “Theyhave nothing that belongs to them, so we hopethis will help them.”

UNICEF has developed a school-in-a-box,which provides basic supplies and materials for aclass of 40 students, allowing children to receiveinstruction in emergency situations. The agencysays the kit—which includes such items asworkbooks, pencils, a wooden teaching clock,counting cubes, laminated arithmetic posters,and even a blackboard—allows teachers to “es-tablish makeshift classrooms almost anywhere.”The Hockessin Montessori School in Delawareraised about $4,200 for the school-in-a box pro-gram.

Frog Kiss and Penny WarWorking off the premise that frog-kissing is

an effective motivator, Cape Christian School inCape Girardeau, Missouri, had classes competein a penny war, with the losing class having todesignate a volunteer student to kiss a frog. Therules were quite elaborate, with each pennycounting as one positive point and all other cur-rency counting as negative points according totheir penny value (e.g., one dollar equals 100negative points). The object was to put as manypennies as possible in your own class’s jar and asmany bills as possible in the jars of other classesin order to pull down their scores. There wereso many coins involved that a bank was re-cruited to count them. The school of only 138students donated a grand total of $2,842.10 intsunami aid to Samaritan’s Purse, a nondenomi-national evangelical Christian relief agency.

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“Every child is entitled to apublic education, but public edu-cation is not entitled to everychild.” That is what Texas Gover-nor Rick Perry said in his State ofthe State address last monthwhen announcing a schoolchoice program for parents inpoor-performing schools.

Perry was one of several gov-ernors who used their state of thestate addresses or annual bud-gets to unveil school choice ini-tiatives. South Carolina GovernorMark Sanford devoted a signifi-cant portion of his address onJanuary 26 to making the case forputting parents in charge of theirchildren’s education. He notedhis state’s standing as 49th in thenation for high school dropoutsand asked how anyone could ac-cept a system where one-half ofall students never make it tograduation. Perry cited the suc-cess of the school choice pro-gram in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,where, he said, public schools gotbetter, education dollars went fur-ther, dropout rates fell, and par-ents were empowered. He calledhis school choice proposal a“gut-check vote” that could“transform people’s lives.”

A bit further north, MinnesotaGovernor Tim Pawlenty proposedin his budget a “pilot project formeasuring the effects of schoolchoice scholarships for poor andacademically challenged stu-dents.” Capped at $4 million, theinitiative would provide “tax cred-its for contributions to scholar-ship organizations that will ad-minister the program.”

Reacting to the three initia-tives, Clint Bolick, president andgeneral counsel of the Alliancefor School Choice, said, “Theseefforts demonstrate a growingrecognition that we need to con-sider all alternatives, includingprivate schools, to make good onthe promise of equal educationalopportunities.”

Three GovernorsPropose Choice

Latching on to the current bracelet craze,students in Oregon Episcopal School created athree-bead bracelet, with each bead carrying aparticular message: black for mourning thosewho died, gold for the help provided survivors,and a clear bead to symbolize hope and coop-eration. The project raised several thousanddollars in its first two days, and the hope is foran even higher yield. Enterprising students areproviding parishes throughout the EpiscopalDiocese of Western Oregon with materials tomake their own bracelets.

One of CAPE’s member organizations, theAssociation of Christian Schools International,reports that a number of its schools in Indone-sia endured extensive damage during earth-quakes prior to the tsunami. Petra VocationalHigh School in Nabire, for example, sustained

major damage to nine classrooms and severalother rooms. The reconstruction cost for eachclassroom is an estimated $6,500. ACSI is ac-cepting donations to help the damaged schools.More information is available at www.acsi.org.

Various reasons prompted people to partici-pate in what is now one of the largest humani-tarian relief missions in history. Rachel Burton,a senior at the Academy of the Holy Cross inKensington, Maryland, was motivated by a sensethat humanity is united. She told The CatholicStandard that in religion class she was remindedthat when one part of the body hurts, the entirebody hurts. “[W]hen someone in another coun-try is hurting, you feel their pain too—andthat’s why we all want to keep on helping.”

Given the extent of the tsunami’s devastation,it looks like we will all need to keep on helpingfor a long time to come.

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equals results.”The administration’s plan for high school re-

form includes the following initiatives:- an increase in funds for the Striving Read-

ers program and the Mathematics and SciencePartnerships program;

- a new program of intervention for highschool students performing below grade level;

- the consolidation of several existing pro-grams that serve high school students;

- monetary awards for teachers who bringabout dramatic increases in student perfor-mance in low-income schools;

- creation of an Adjunct Teacher Corps toenable professionals to teach high schoolcourses;

- additional funds to help more studentstake Advanced Placement and InternationalBaccalaureate courses;

- a State Scholars program to help promoterigorous courses of high school study.

CAPE believes that federal programs benefit-ing public school students and teachers shouldoffer equitable benefits to comparably situatedprivate school students and teachers while pro-tecting the autonomy and independence of pri-vate schools. In programs such as the Math-ematics and Science Partnership, such equity al-ready exists. But other current programs iden-tified for expansion under the president’s plan(e.g., Striving Readers and Advanced Place-ment) are not under a statutory obligation forequity. These, as well as any new initiatives,would require clear language to secure the equi-table participation of comparably situated stu-dents and teachers in private schools.

In her remarks at the swearing-in ceremony,Secretary Spellings called the No Child Left Be-hind law more than just a piece of legislation.

Continued from page 1 “It was an attitude,” she said. “An attitude thatsays it’s right to measure our children’s progressfrom year to year so we can help them before it’stoo late; an attitude that says expecting studentsto read and do math at grade level or better isnot too much to ask.” She described the law’seffect this way: “Across the nation, test scores inreading and math are rising, with disadvantagedand minority students leading the way. Yes, afterlong decades, the pernicious achievement gap isbeginning to close.”

In his State of the Union address February 2,the president repeated the twin themes of theNCLB’s success and its extension to high school:“Under the No Child Left Behind Act, stan-dards are higher, test scores are on the rise, andwe’re closing the achievement gap for minoritystudents. Now we must demand better resultsfrom our high schools, so every high school di-ploma is a ticket to success.”

Close to the PresidentSecretary Spellings is a close associate of

President Bush, having served as his domesticpolicy advisor for the past four years and as hissenior advisor for education when he was gover-nor of Texas. Her connection with the WhiteHouse inner circle was reflected in the audienceat her swearing-in ceremony. Attendees in-cluded Karl Rove, senior advisor to the presi-dent; Andrew Card, White House chief of staff;Jim Towey, director of the Office of Faith-Basedand Community Initiatives, and AlbertoGonzales, counsel to the president. Otherguests included Senators Mike Enzi (R-WY) andTed Kennedy (D-MA), chairman and rankingmember of the Senate Committee on Health,Education, Labor, and Pensions, and Rep. JohnBoehner (R-OH), chairman of the House Edu-cation and the Workforce Committee.

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★ Fast Fact About Private Schools:Private school students from low socioeco-nomic backgrounds are more than threetimes more likely than comparable publicschool students to attain a bachelor’s de-gree by their mid-20s. (Source: NationalCenter for Education Statistics, PrivateSchools: A Brief Portrait (NCES 2002-013), table 13.) The above-average col-lege-going rate for low-income studentsshows how private schools contribute tobreaking the cycle of poverty for their stu-dents.

★ Private school students, home schoolstudents, and public school students inGeorgia would be able to take up to sixstate-funded online courses per year if abill passed by the state Senate on January27 makes it through the House. The billwould establish the Georgia VirtualSchool, a distance-learning program deliv-ering instruction via the Internet or “anyother manner not involving on-site inter-action with a teacher.” The state wouldcover the cost of tuition, materials, andfees related to the courses. One catch,however, for students not attending publicschools is the bill’s provision that when itcomes to enrolling for the online courses,“public school students shall be given pri-ority.”

★ Shauna Fleming, a sophomore atLutheran High School in Orange, Califor-nia, came to Washington last month to at-

tend the presidential inauguration. It wasnot her first visit to D.C. Last Novembershe met with PresidentBush to present himthe millionth messagecollected by a programshe founded called AMillion Thanks.

Started in the springof 2004, when Shaunawas a freshman, A Mil-lion Thanks is a na-tional campaign to col-lect and distribute let-ters of appreciation tomembers of the U.S.military. The originalgoal of one million let-ters, cards, and e-mailmessages was met inOctober, an event cel-ebrated when Shaunagave the framed goal-reaching letter to thepresident in the OvalOffice. “Meeting thepresident, it really waslike a dream come true,” she said.

With the original goal realized, theproject now wants to collect 1.4 millionthank you’s, representing the number ofmen and women currently in the armedforces.

Lutheran High students participate inthe project by opening, sorting, and pack-aging the letters for distribution to mili-

In this March 2004 photo, ShaunaFleming displays the first of a million let-ters of appreciation she received. (NateWisely/Lutheran High School via U.S.Newswire)

tary bases, USOs, and VA hospitals. GreggPinick, principal of the school, welcomes

the program. “I can’tthink of a better wayfor students to expressthemselves for the sac-rifices made by themen and women inour military, than totry to collect and dis-tribute letters of loveand appreciation. Thestudents are not askingpeople to support anymilitary cause, but totake time and write aspecial thank you letterto our service membersfor the work they doand for their sacrificesto maintain the free-dom we enjoy in thiscountry,” said Pinick.

The school is wellon its way to collectingand distributing theadditional 400,000

thank you’s. With enough support, thegoal could be reached by May 2005, Na-tional Military Appreciation Month, forwhich Shauna is now the spokesperson.

For more information about A MillionThanks, including information on howyour school or organization can partici-pate in the program, visit www.amillionthanks.org.