Date: Fri 13-Oct-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

edink-school-profile-drugs

Full Text:

A Profile Of Our Schools

Last week the state Department of Education released what it calls "A Profile

of Our Schools," which amounts to a snapshot of Connecticut's school systems

for the 1993-94 school year. The picture was encouraging. According to Betty

Sternberg, associate commissioner of education, the profile shows statewide

improvements in student achievement on state mastery tests and the national

Scholastic Assessment Tests (SATs).

Newtown's students have done their part to advance the cause of scholarship in

the state. In SATs taken last spring, local students averaged higher scores

than the year before, and they outpaced state averages in math by more than 20

points, and in verbal skills, by 30 points.

There is also evidence that students are pushing themselves harder. The state

profile shows that more high school students than ever before are choosing to

take tougher courses, including algebra and foreign languages. And even kids

in elementary school are spending more than 80 percent of their time on core

academic subjects.

All of this hard work in the classroom, however, doesn't come without a price

outside of school. The incidence of drug and alcohol abuse among the state's

youth is on the rise. Statewide, 40 percent of high school sophomores and 25

percent of eighth graders responding said they had drunk alcohol within the 30

days of the survey. The figures for Newtown are even worse: 53 percent for the

sophomores and 34 percent for the eighth graders. Figures on the use of other

drugs including marijuana and cocaine, while not as high, are increasing and

are just as worrisome.

Researchers are finding that not all stress is bad. The stress that people

experience in their own quest for excellence quite often generates vitality

and self-fulfillment. We all have an interest in having our children

experience the invigorating rigors of intellectual, physical, and emotional

self-discipline. The persistent attraction of drug abuse to young people

indicates, however, that they are too often subject to more debilitating

stresses - some self-imposed, some imposed by others around them - that rob

them of with vitality and self-esteem. They are not the kind of stresses that

have their own rewards; they are the kind that drive people to seek an escape.

There are two lessons to be drawn from the good-news-bad-news profile of

education in Connecticut. The first is that the schools are doing something

right. Educators are now finding ways to convey to students the understanding

that the impetus for true learning is sparked from within. The second is that

some kids may need extra help from family, friends, and the community to

discover that spark in themselves. We should all be mindful of the kind of

stresses we are placing on our children and stand ready at every opportunity

to help them spark the fires of their own self-fulfillment.