If you don't believe these are trying times in public education, you owe it to yourself to sit in on a local district presentation of the California Healthy Kids Survey.
The state-funded survey, which asks a battery of questions of fifth-, seventh-, ninth- and 11th-grade students every two years, is described as a comprehensive collection of "youth risk behavior and resilience data," but it's more of a peek-behind-the-curtains at everything parents don't want to know and were afraid to ask about their children.
It asks students if they have been bullied in school; if they feel safe on campus; if they have been harassed online; if they have had property stolen, been pushed and shoved or involved in fist fights. But that's just the tip of a large, imposing iceberg. Have they smoked? Consumed alcohol? Tried drugs? Been wasted?
Every school district in California must participate in the survey to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, Title IV, but what recently brought the biennial event into the spotlight was the Berkeley school district's airing of its 2012 results at a board meeting.
It was difficult to know whether to be more surprised at the findings or at officials' reactions to them.
"I was totally shocked, to be honest, to see the results because I did not think we would see that much improvement so
