Apparently the state, using your tax dollars, believes that "developing better relationships between students" will help to bring up our dismal achievement scores.

The state has "invested" in a program from the Anti-Defamation League that is designed to make children more comfortable among themselves in school.

Recently the School Board had an orientation session on this program. All of the employees of the school district have spent a day of wages being trained in this program.

Students from Federal Way High School demonstrated some of the "activities" that a cadre of students learned as they try to propagate the themes of the ADL throughout the school. All of the secondary schools are now involved in this ADL program.

I have often said that our secondary schools have become "Juvenile Social Halls." There seems to be a belief that school cannot be successful without a "bonding" with friends! There was no mention of improving achievement. I guess that "education," if it relates to the acquisition of knowledge, is a secondary priority.

It was stated by one of the Federal Way High School teachers that "17 of 22 kids in her advisory failed at least one course in the first marking period."

In the past the number of course failures at some of our high schools has exceeded the number of students! Does anyone think that "more social bonding" is likely to solve this problem?

If so let's put in a period for "text messaging!"

Perhaps, this is an old suggestion; we should be looking at secondary schools in places that have higher achievement levels. We have done this for successes in other fields. Just look that the kind of cars that we now prefer. They were not invented in Detroit.

Someone recently suggested to me that the reason for higher achievement in Asia was that the basic source of retirement for Asian families was the successes of their children. If their children were not successful they, the parents, did not feel that their "retirement" would be very satisfactory.

In other words, the archaic word in education, "consequence" would befall upon them!

Because of this fear of adverse consequence, Asian parents were "on top" of their children to be as successful as possible.

While in the United States parents, according to a recent poll, wanted their children to be "satisfied" with school.

I have heard many times about the drudgery that parents want to avoid when it comes to homework. Kids don't want to do it, and parents eventually cease to insist on them doing it.

I don't think that either the insistence, or lack of "satisfaction" would gather a whole lot of concern with the Asians. In fact I recently heard that in some Asian countries children were taught not to "step on a teacher's shadow" as they were not that worthy!

Would ADL, or "Kumbaya", be given a priority in an Asian school? I doubt it. A "linking of arms" based on what each child "liked" just doesn't seem very likely!

"Like" may not be a word associated with education of children in some societies.

Recently a very good illustration of this dichotomy was a local article on the Cambridge Program offered in the Federal Way Schools.

Students in the middle school portion of this program were quoted as saying that they would not be continuing the program at the high school level, where it really counts, "because it was too hard!"

In another venue a recent graduate of the International Baccalaureate program was urging students to renew their efforts as this was the best training for having success in college! Yes, but I don't know how many times I have heard that the IB program is "hard!"

American educators, and many parents, seem to be searching for ways to avoid the two terms, "hard" and "consequence."

There is a rather complete belief that some way can be found to "educate" kids that will not stress the parents, or kids. There has to be a new "version" of the learning process just as there are new versions of computer programs!

Sadly this search hasn't been very successful and the consequences for this failure begin to appear in our social halls, high schools, and extend into the "extended adolescence" that finds the average age of community college students to be 28. Ten years of wasted time for those who make it through those years. But, wait, isn't that the age period of most of our drug and crime problems?

Could there be a connection between failure to do "hard time" in secondary schools, and doing "hard time" afterwards at additional taxpayer's expense? I think so!

If you believe this, you might want to wonder about "Kumbaya" training.