For-Profit-College Fiasco: Why a Watchdog Needs a Watchdog

This is why the "watchdog" needs a watchdog.

"Despite receiving over $150 billion in federal grant and student loan dollars every year, higher education is largely a self-regulated industry. Instead of directly determining whether colleges are good enough for federal funding, the government outsources that decision to private accreditors, which are governed and financed by colleges themselves. Accreditors set and enforce their own standards. For-profit colleges that operate nationwide can shop around to find the accreditor with the easiest" terms.

Derek Fitzhenry

Read full article HERE

Youth Baseball and Surgery for Overuse Injuries

Derek Fitizhenry here and I'd like to discuss youth sports injuries and youth strength training. It is so important to an athletes career and athletic programs across the nation. High School coaches have seen this for years. Daddies mean well and they want the best for their son however they push them in the sport of baseball to the point of breaking and this is more common than uncommon. Dad's don't understand the importance of training the body for strength and condition along with hitting, fielding and pitching. The body will respond to training at a young age but that training has to be multiple and safe. Using body lifts for kids under 12 is a great way to begin to strengthen the body. Sprint training and plyometrics can begin at 3 years old and go a long way in preventing injuries.  To many dads view strength training as a "football" thing but it's not about football it's about injury prevention and enhancing athletic ability. YOU CAN TRAIN FAST TWITCH MUSCLE. and fast twitch muscle is important in all sports.

Read article HERE

Fellowship of Christian Athletes Sent Alabama Athletes to Costa Rica

With more than two decades of experience coaching football, Derek Fitzhenry recently received a promotion to assistant head football coach at North Shore High School in Houston, Texas. Passionate about helping children, Derek Fitzhenry belongs to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA).

The idea for the FCA began in 1954 when Don McClanen sent a letter to 19 athletes, encouraging them to endorse the Lord. Its mission is to have all of its members impact the world with the help of Jesus Christ and spread this goal.

In May 2016, the FCA announced that one of its chaplains Dr. Gary “Coach” Cramer took several University of Alabama athletes to Costa Rica. Dr. Cramer is Alabama’s campus director and serves as an inspirational coach to coaches, student-athletes, and the athletic staff at the university. These athletes who went on the trip spent a week during spring break and hosted football clinics. They worked with players in Costa Rican football leagues, orphans, and at-risk boys. They also visited with Nicaraguan refugees and handed out bags of food. In addition, they shared the message of Jesus Christ through their common bond of football.

Texas Public School Enrollment Rising, Support for Teachers Urgent

Every year, the Texas Education Agency produces a report that spotlights enrollment data for students attending Texas public schools in the previous school year. It also provides updates on many 10-year trends in state enrollment.

The “Enrollment in Texas Public Schools 2014-15” report is now available on the agency website. Beyond providing a snapshot of what the student numbers looked like last school year, this report also gives an overview on the shifts we have seen in classrooms across our state. These shifts are reflective of the opportunities and challenges faced by our teachers on every public school campus.

For example, student enrollment numbers continue to grow. Just a decade ago (in the 2004-05 school year), 4.4 million students were enrolled in Texas public schools. By 2014-15, enrollment had risen to more than 5.2 million. Over that 10-year period, total enrollment increased by 18.9 percent (or 831,421 students).

According to national figures, public school enrollment in Texas increased by 19.2 percent between 2002 and 2012. This was nearly six times the increase in the United States (3.3 percent) over the same time period.

As the Texas Commissioner of Education Mike Morath has stated it's vital we use this information to make good decision for improving our schools and students performance. "Support for our teachers has taken on a greater urgency if we are to keep our commitment to educating every child in our state". The Commissioner is going to have to step up the support of teachers in many different ways. Salary is a primary for all professionals but along those lines is the everyday assault on the reputation of the public school teacher. There are many great teachers in our schools across Texas but the media focuses on the few that are not. 

The recent events of a teacher in Aldine ISD who was engaging  in sex with a 13 year old boy is tragic and is given National and World wide coverage. This incident is a disgrace and violates the trust parents give educators with their children. However, there are also many teachers in Aldine doing an outstanding job and go beyond the call of duty to help children learn and grow and they will never be discussed in the media. The Commissioner and the leaders of Texas Public Education would do a great service by helping to regain the respect and faith parents once had for Teachers. There is going to have to be a focus placed on teachers who are successful and teachers who go well beyond the call of duty to serve their communities and children of Texas. Paying teachers the salary of a normal professional would go a long way in showing the value of teachers but there still needs to be a campaign to promote, celebrate and publicize the many great teachers in Texas.  It has to go beyond the one teacher who gets teacher of the year. There are several teachers of the year at all the schools I have been a part of and TEA and Commissioner Morath need to celebrate the efforts of these teachers. Einstein said, for every negative, you need 100,000 positives, if the Commissioner is going to support teachers he and the leaders are going to have to launch a campaign to regain the confidence parents once had in the Public Education Teacher and one way would be to show the public the many amazing teachers we have in the State of Texas.

To view the full “Enrollment in Texas Public Schools 2014-15” report (as well as view reports from previous school years), visit the Enrollment Trends page on the TEA website athttp://tea.texas.gov/acctres/enroll_index.html.

The Problem with Public Education

The title can be completed by the statement, "determining what is success"!.  Currently the politicians and experts say that comes from a test students take and how well they do as a group and subgroups. It's so ridiculously simplified into if 90=% pass the test, the teacher is doing a decent job, unless a particular subgroup makes up the majority of that 10% that didn't pass.  It's just not that simple  to define whether or not learning and success has taken place with students over a years time. There are many factors that determine success that are completely out of a teacher or a schools control. Such as druge use. NFL players want us to believe it's healthy for them to smoke. That maybe true for a pro football player but a student smoking weed the day of a test will not benefit from the medicinal qualities of THC. Other factors are teen pregnancy, difficult enough for an adult women to manage through pregnancy. Teen jobs, yes, its common for a teen to work until 10 pm  or even as late as 12 am at night. Once again, not a conducive environment for a students learning when he/she works after school from 4 pm until 10 pm at the local burger shop. Family life for teens can be very stressful today. I come in contact with many teens who will live in several different homes throughout the year due to the fact they aren't living with their parents or get kicked out of the house of a parent. Which, this leads us to the most important factor we all know but yet the politicians and experts will not factor it in, parental involvement and parent's being held accountable. 

There are many factors that affect students academic life. It would be difficult to take in all those factors but the one thought that has begun to develop within the education community that I believe is closing in on the right track and that is throwing away the testing and comparing of groups and subgroups and start looking at the "growth" of the individual student. This is how it's done in sports.  Each player is looked at based on his growth. The player and coach are held accountable for the growth of each player. I believe the quicker we move academics toward this type of determining success, we will begin to get on the right track in determining the success of teachers and administrators and fairly holding them accountable for ther job they do. .  

http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Policies/Measuring-student-growth-At-a-glance/Measuring-student-growth-A-guide-to-informed-decision-making.html

What's Next for Tom Brady?

Derek Fitzhenry serves as the strength and conditioning Coordinator and assistant head football coach at North Shore High School in Houston, Texas. When he's not coaching football on the field, Derek Fitzhenry follows, among other teams, the New England Patriots.

With no end in sight to the Deflategate saga, Tom Brady has begun to ramp up for a renewed appeal of his four game suspension. Brady has recently added a new member to his legal team—former US Solicitor General Ted Olsen. Renown for trying big cases before the Supreme Court, the hire serves as an indication that Brady is willing to take this fight as far up the legal ladder as he possibly can.

The NFLPA has a vested interest in helping Brady continue the fight as well, as the powers of the Commissioner to unilaterally hand out discipline have been a point of significant contention between NFL players and management. The issue will likely be a major sticking point during the next collective bargaining agreement negotiations.

NFLPA Spokesman George Atallah has said that he expects the fight to continue. He doesn't believe it can be avoided unless an influential owner steps in to mediate some sort of settlement between Brady and the NFL front office. In past years, however, the one who typically took on that role was Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who likely won't be inclined to do so in this case.

Derek Fitzhenry on Bryan Houston's Sports Radio Live 10 2 12