Marlin Stutzman email of 1/20/26

Below is the email I got from my U.S. Representative when I asked about the President’s Greenland policy. See my post on Substack about this topic.

https://open.substack.com/pub/bloom2/p/bullies-r-us-revised

Dear Mr. Bloom,

Thank you for contacting me regarding Greenland and for sharing your thoughts on this issue.

 

President Trump has raised the question of Greenland to spark a serious conversation about U.S. national security and long-term strategic interests, particularly in the Arctic. As global competition intensifies, it is prudent for the United States to evaluate how developments in this region affect the safety, security, and prosperity of the American people.

 

The Arctic is becoming increasingly important due to new shipping routes, military positioning, and access to critical natural resources. Russia continues to expand its Arctic military footprint, and China has made clear its intention to gain influence in the region, including through investments tied to critical minerals. These realities have direct implications for U.S. homeland security and economic resilience.

 

Greenland occupies a uniquely strategic position between North America and Europe. The United States already plays a leading role in Greenland’s defense through Pituffik Space Base, which supports missile warning, space surveillance, and early defense capabilities essential to protecting the U.S. homeland. In many respects, the United States is already the primary security partner responsible for safeguarding Greenland against modern threats.

 

In addition, Greenland possesses significant deposits of rare earth minerals and other strategic resources that are vital for defense systems, advanced manufacturing, and emerging technologies. Ensuring secure and reliable access to these materials strengthens American supply chains and reduces dependence on adversarial nations, benefiting workers, manufacturers, and consumers across the country, including in Indiana.

 

An “America First” approach means being proactive anticipating future challenges, protecting U.S. interests, and ensuring that strategic regions near our homeland do not fall under the influence of hostile powers. President Trump’s comments reflect that forward-looking mindset and the importance of thinking seriously about long-term security and economic stability.

 

Thank you again for reaching out. If you have any more questions or concerns do not hesitate to reach out to my office at (202) 225-4436 or visit my website at Stutzman.house.gov.

Sincerely,

Rep. Marlin Stutzman

Member of Congress

Washington D.C. Office

404 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515

Fort Wayne Office

6714 Pointe Inverness Way,

Suite 220,

Fort Wayne Indiana, 46804

Blogoversary Number 19 -- Time to Move

Times have changed. I had a nice long run here, but let's face it, it ended a while ago. So I've moved.

I'm not writing much any more, but when I do it will be on Substack.

You can find me at bloom2.substack.com


🖖🏼

Annual National Give-A-Kid-A-Book Day (NGKBD)

Today, July 6, 2025 is the 11th Annual National Give-A-Kid-A-Book Day (NGKBD). It was started by Russ Walsh. In 2021 he wrote:

This is the yearly celebration dedicated to getting books into children's hands over the summer. Literacy research has shown that the single best way to extend children's literacy learning beyond the school year is to get books in kids hands..

Participation in National Give-A-Kid-A-Book Day is easy. All you need do is find a child and give that child a book. The child could be your own, a neighbor's child, a student, a grandchild, one of your kid's friends, or children in a homeless shelter. Just give the child a book and say, I thought you might enjoy this." You might want to include a note with the book. This personalizes the gift (and provides another reason to read something). Some participants like to include a lollipop or other small treat with the book to send the message "Reading is sweet," but the most important thing is to give a kid a book.

National Give-A-Kid-A-Book Day is dedicated to the many hard-working people and organizations who have gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure that all children have access to books.

…such as Dolly Parton, whose Imagination Library has finally come to the Fort Wayne area. 

I recommend reading the National Give-A-Kid-A-Book Day post, his Bill of Rights for School Children blog entry (which can also be found in his excellent book, A Parents Guide to Public Education in the 21st Century).

Russ no longer posts to his reading blog, though you can still read his writing by visiting his Substack — Levittown Boy

A Note to My Yard-Waste Burning Neighbors

This post was first published on November 2, 2017. Some links have been edited/corrected.

Yard Waste

Ah...who doesn't love the nostalgic scent of burning leaves in the fall, wet leaves, or twigs during spring clean-up...

Answer: Anyone with lungs!

My woodsy neighborhood is filled with fallen leaves, leftover twigs, and fallen branches. Many of my neighbors are recycling them by mulching them into their lawns or gardens or hiring crews to pick them up. Some others are piling them up and setting them ablaze, and by doing so filling the air with poisonous toxins and choking ash.

IT'S JUST ONE LITTLE FIRE

What damage can one little fire cause?

It's not just one little fire...it's several since we live in an addition with dozens of houses and hundreds of leaf- and limb-dropping trees. The point is that "multiple fires in one geographic area can cause concentrations of air pollutants that exceed federal air quality standards" – at least until the current EPA decides that the right of citizens to breathe is just not a priority.

And, about those lungs...

The smoke from burning leaves contains fine dust, soot, and tiny particles that can reach deep into the lungs, causing coughing, wheezing, chest pain, shortness of breath, and long-term respiratory problems. These particles can also worsen asthma symptoms, with about one in six people having asthma triggered by burning leaves. The smoke can also irritate the eyes, nose, and throat, causing headaches and other mild short-term symptoms.

One of the most dangerous chemicals released by burning leaves is carbon monoxide, which can bind with hemoglobin in the bloodstream, reducing the amount of oxygen in the blood and lungs and potentially leading to carbon monoxide poisoning, which can be deadly in enclosed spaces. Another hazardous chemical found in leaf smoke is benzo(a)pyrene, a known carcinogen believed to be a major factor in lung cancer.

[Full disclosure: The above paragraph is about me. Burning leaves makes me sick. I have some serious lung issues and, while I hate to use the term elderly when talking about myself, I'm 76, so I'm there...assuming I last through the leaf-burning season!]

KEEP YOUR YOUNG CHILDREN INSIDE

That benzo(a)pyrene stuff is a big deal. It can negatively affect your nervous system, immune system, and reproductive system, it messes with your DNA, and it's a carcinogen. Why would anyone do that to themselves and their families...not to mention the children who live next door or two houses down...or the old folks on the corner...or everyone else in the neighborhood?

My neighborhood (Google Earth).
Note the dark green...trees.

INSTEAD OF BURNING

So, you live in the woods...what do you do with all the yard waste?

Some cities (such as Fort Wayne) provide curbside pickup of leaves. Pay attention and make sure you get them to the curb in time for pickup.

Or, instead of setting them on fire, follow the recommendations of Rosie Lerner of the Purdue Extension Service.

You could compost those leaves yourself. Dry leaves alone will break down slowly over time, but you can speed that process by mixing the leaves with green plant materials, such as grass clippings, garden discards and produce scraps. Or you could add a source of nitrogen, such as livestock manure or commercial fertilizer. Mix (turn) the pile occasionally to keep a good supply of air in the compost. A good-sized compost pile should be a minimum of 3 cubic feet. The compost will be ready to use as a soil conditioner in several weeks to several months, depending on size and management techniques.

Shredded leaves also can be used as a mulch around garden and landscape plants. Mulches provide many benefits, including weed suppression, moisture conservation and moderation of soil temperature. Leaves can be applied to dormant plants in winter to prevent young plants from heaving out of the ground. Leaf mulch can help keep soil cooler in summer. No more than a 2- to 3-inch layer of leaves should be used around actively growing plants. Chopping or shredding the leaves first will help prevent them from matting down and preventing air from reaching roots.

Directly applying the leaves to a garden or unused area of soil is another option. Try to spread the leaves over as large an area as possible, then till or plow them under. Chopping or shredding the leaves first will help them to break down faster.

My personal favorite option is to simply shred the leaves through my lawn mower until the pieces are small enough to just leave them right there on the lawn! Dry leaves are much easier to handle through the mower than moist ones. If possible, remove the bagger so all of the leaves are deposited right back onto the lawn as they shred.

Click this image for information on how to use leaves in your garden.

My lungs thank you.

🍂🍁🍂

Number 18 -- A barely-hanging-on Blogoversary

Blogoversary #18

SEPTEMBER 14, 2006

I started this blog while I was still teaching, in 2006. I had just begun my 31st year as an educator.

Just like in previous years, however, I was stressed out and irritated about the standardized testing situation in Indiana. I needed to vent.

I focused the blog on testing. 2006 was in the middle of the “No Child Left Behind” unpleasantness when schools were labeled good if they catered to wealthy, upper-middle, or middle-class students and bad if they were filled with children living in poverty. This is simply because, then as now, test scores mirror a family's economic status. Rich kids, with educated parents and well-staffed and well-supplied schools score high. Poor kids, with parents who work two or three minimum-wage jobs and understaffed and underfunded schools score low. Adding injury to insult, NCLB made punishment of the so-called bad schools part of the plan.

BAD TO WORSE

Things have gone from bad to worse in the last eighteen years. Recently, I’ve complained less on these pages, only because I’ve written less due to personal health problems (only ten posts in 2022, three in 2023, and just five so far this year -- counting this one). Still, I worry about the future of public education...

• Testing is still misused and overused.
• Politicians (mostly Republicans), Indiana's included, still use every excuse to whine about the sad state of our public schools, how awful teachers (and their unions) are, and how our children are being shortchanged.
• There is still a crisis of teacher shortages around the country.
• Children are still being murdered in their schools because the nation is too afraid of the gun lobby to stand up to gun fanatics.
  
• Vouchers and charter schools still drain money from public schools at increasing rates despite the fact that they do no better than public schools.
• Teachers are still undervalued and underpaid.
• Public school libraries are being attacked by right-wing activists who want to censor our nation's history, black and LGBT+ narratives, and other books that most of them haven't read.
  

...because "reasons" -- including...

1) Teaching is a predominantly female career and women don't get the pay or respect men get.

2) We, as a nation, talk a good game but we really just don't give a damn about our children and their future.

3) The nation is in political turmoil trying to recover from COVID and its resulting economic impact. This has led to an increase of right-wing attacks on America's tax-supported institutions...including public education.

MOVING FORWARD

I regularly badger my local representatives about public education, but, being Republicans, they either are too afraid of their leadership to speak out in favor of public schools or, as I suspect is true, don’t really care about public schools. In their mind it’s “socialism” and we can’t have that, now, can we? I sometimes feel like they don't hear me either. My state representative is (or was, I can't recall) a board member for our local Lutheran schools (voucher recipients -- no conflict of interest there!), and my state senator is a doctor who introduced a bill forbidding parents from providing gender-affirming care for their children. So much for "parental rights."

I’m not giving up. I’m hopeful that the young people of the nation take charge, insist that schools are fully funded, and insist that teachers are given the credit and pay they deserve. With luck, our former superintendent of public instruction will become Indiana's new governor and things will start to change for the better. Note that this is a very red state (aka "the Mississippi of the Midwest") so, while I'm hopeful, I'm not holding my breath.

In the meantime, make sure you register to vote. Here are a couple of good posts to get your blood flowing and motivated to vote for pro-public education candidates...

Fixing Public Schools Again and Again

School reformers have a bad habit. Over the past century, they have skipped from one big policy fix to another without analyzing what happened the first time around. Or even whether the reforms succeeded or failed.

ALEC Has A New Voucher Push

...the current voucher pitch-- we're no longer trying to sell them as refuge for students stuck in "failing" schools, because we now know that the data shows that vouchers aren't better at all. And voucherites have fully adopted the goal of universal vouchers because A) it gets them closer to full privatization and B) rich, well-connected people make way better political allies than poor people.

🚌🚌🚌

Father's Day 2024: A Reminder to Read Aloud to Your Children

Father's Day is next week. Here's a Father's Day post...with updates and additions from 2021.

READING ALOUD

I read aloud to my students from the very first day I taught at an elementary school beginning in January 1976. I had caught the read-aloud bug from the late Lowell Madden, one of my Education School Professors (NOTE: when I was in Education School it was part of Indiana University at Fort Wayne). That bug was reinforced by Jim Trelease, whose Read Aloud Handbook (recently updated by Cyndi Giorgis) is a treasure of information for anyone interested in reading aloud to children. [I've referenced Jim Trelease quite a few times on this blog.]

I read aloud to all my classes because reading aloud is simply one of the best tools we have to help children learn to read. Reading is, arguably, the single most important skill a child learns in school.

In The Read-Aloud Handbook, Jim Trelease wrote... [emphasis added]

In 1985, the commission [on Reading, organized by the National Academy of Education and the National Institute of Education and funded under the U.S. Department of Education] issued its report, Becoming a Nation of Readers. Among its primary findings, two simple declarations rang loud and clear:

“The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.”

The commission found conclusive evidence to support reading aloud not only in the home but also in the classroom: “It is a practice that should continue throughout the grades.”

In its wording—“the single most important activity”—the experts were saying reading aloud was more important than worksheets, homework, assessments, book reports, and flashcards. One of the cheapest, simplest, and oldest tools of teaching was being promoted as a better teaching tool than anything else in the home or classroom. What exactly is so powerful about something so simple you don’t even need a high school diploma in order to do it and how exactly does a person get better at reading? It boils down to a simple, two-part formula:

• The more you read, the better you get at it; the better you get at it, the more you like it; and the more you like it, the more you do it.
• The more you read, the more you know; and the more you know, the smarter you grow.

Reading aloud to children is an activity that entertains...strengthens personal bonds, informs and explains...and, according to Trelease, when you read aloud to a child you also:

• Condition the child’s brain to associate reading with pleasure
• Create background knowledge
• Build vocabulary
• Provide a reading role model

Reading aloud is more beneficial than standardized tests or worksheets. It is more important than homework or flashcards. It is the single most important thing a parent can do to help their children become better readers. It is the single most important thing teachers can do to help their students become better readers.

My collection of Read-Aloud Handbook editions,
several of which have been signed by the author, Jim Trelease

FATHERS AND READ-ALOUD

In the seventh edition of his book (2013 - the last one edited by Trelease), Jim Trelease devotes an entire chapter to fathers and reading aloud. He focuses on fathers reading aloud to sons because fewer fathers than mothers read aloud to their children, and sons are the ones, according to statistics, whose academic achievement could use the read-aloud boost. Obviously, this does not mean that fathers should not read aloud to their daughters. The point is to get fathers to read aloud to their children.

The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease: CHAPTER 9: Dad—What's the score?

In case you’ve been off the planet for the past several decades, let me bring you up-to-date on our boys and their school woes.

• In a 2008 study of reading tests in forty-five states, the girls exceeded the boys at every grade level.
• Unlike four decades ago, it is now common for girls to dominate a high school’s highest academic positions (valedictorian), class leadership positions, advanced placement spaces, and school activities. While the girls are assuming responsibilities, the boys are playing sports or video games.
• For the first time in history, women exceed their male counterparts in most collegiate achievements, from enrollment and graduation to earning advanced degrees, and the gap is widening annually. About the only significant area in which males dominate in college is “dropout,” where they lead by a 3:2 ratio.

Boys, Trelease says, need their fathers to read to them. The relationship between fathers and sons has changed over the years, and not necessarily in a good way. Over the last few decades, America's "male" culture has been dominated by politics, sports, and television, and boys watch their role models carefully. Among those men in important cultural and political positions in America are abusers, racists, and misogynists. It's more important than ever that fathers exert positive role-model influence over their sons.

The landscape of the American male’s attention span was being dramatically altered and boys were soaking up the changes.

"Is there a connection," Trelease asks, between the "decline in boys’ interest and achievement in school and the behavior of the male culture?"

Can a father play catch in the backyard after dinner and still read to the child that same evening? Can they go to a game one day and to the library the next? You betcha.

The question is...do they? Do fathers take part in their children's, and specifically their sons', intellectual development? Reading aloud to your child is an easy, fun way for fathers to have a positive academic influence on their children.

Dad—what have you done for your son’s head lately?

Make a Father's Day resolution. Read to all your kids every day.

Need more convincing? Check out the following online resources...

• Why Should Dads Read with Their Kids? I’m Glad You Asked …

• The Benefits of Fathers Reading to Their Children: Tips for Fatherhood Programs and Dads.

• The Role of Fathers in Their Child's Literacy Development (Pre-K)

• Why it’s important to read aloud with your kids, and how to make it count

• Kids and Family Reading Report

• Reading Aloud and 'Exergaming': A Roundup of Early-Years Research

📕📙📘

Wisdom from the Sage of Mount Vernon

Words of wisdom appropriate to our time.

...from George Washington, America's first President, on President's Day.

(Edited and updated from a previous post)

ON EDUCATION

“A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?”
– Eighth Annual Message, December 7, 1796

“There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.”
– First Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union, January 8, 1790


ON PATRIOTISM AND CAUTION

“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.”
– Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796


ON THE CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENT

“Associate yourself with men of good quality, if you esteem your own reputation; for ‘tis better to be alone than in bad company.”
– Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation


ON BLAMING OTHERS

While we are contending for our own liberty, we should be very cautious not to violate the rights of conscience in others, ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men, and to him only in this case they are answerable.
– letter to Benedict Arnold, Sep. 14, 1775


ON THE EXPECTATIONS OF LEADERS

Remember that it is the actions, and not the commission, that make the officer, and that there is more expected from him, than the title.
– Address to the Officers of the Virginia Regiment, Jan. 8, 1756


ON POLITICAL PARTIES

However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
– Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796


ON IMPULSIVE SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS

Think before you Speak pronounce not imperfectly nor bring out your Words too hastily but orderly and distinctly.
– Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Religious Freedom Day, 2024

Today is Religious Freedom Day, which commemorates the realization of Thomas Jefferson's vision of an end to the state-established church in Virginia.

[This is an edited version of a post originally published on January 16, 2015]

THE VIRGINIA STATUTE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

In 1993 President George H. W. Bush declared January 16 to be Religious Freedom Day. January 16 was the date in 1786 when the Virginia House of Delegates passed Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. In 1992, on that date, Virginia Governor L. Douglas Wilder signed the first proclamation to that effect for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was a revolutionary document. It ended the state-established church in Virginia and guaranteed religious liberty for all.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

In his proclamation, the first President Bush wrote:

"...we do well to acknowledge our debt to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. These two men were instrumental in establishing the American tradition of religious liberty and tolerance. Thomas Jefferson articulated the idea of religious liberty in his 1777 draft Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia...

James Madison later introduced and championed this bill in the Virginia House of Delegates, where it passed in 1786. Following the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison led the way in drafting our Bill of Rights.

THE FIRST AMENDMENT

The Virginia Statute became the basis for the First Amendment protection of religious liberty.

Jefferson understood the impact of his Virginia Statute. He understood that many people were against acknowledging religious liberty for everyone. In a 2014 column about Religious Freedom Day, Frederick Clarkson wrote:

Thomas Jefferson was well aware that many did not like the Statute, just as they did not like the Constitution and the First Amendment, both of which sought to expand the rights of citizens and deflect claims of churches seeking special consideration.

So before his death, Jefferson sought to get the last word on what it meant. The Statute, he wrote, contained "within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohametan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination."

Freedom of belief was for everyone -- religious and non-religious alike -- and, with the passage of the Virginia Statute, and later the First Amendment, it was guaranteed.

Thomas Jefferson considered the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom to be one of the three great accomplishments of his life. He didn't choose to be remembered as Minister to France for the fledgling nation, or as its first Secretary of State, or as its third President. Instead, he chose as his life's three great accomplishments, the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and the founding of the University of Virginia, and it was those three things that he wished to be inscribed on his tombstone.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM DAY

Religious Freedom Day is a mostly unheralded event in the United States. It was begun through the urging of the First Freedom Center, whose mission is:

The mission of the First Freedom Center is to commemorate and educate about freedom of religion and conscience as proclaimed in Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

Each President, since the first President Bush in 1993, has issued a proclamation on the occasion of the day.

The quest for freedom of belief is as old as humankind, and it's still ongoing. Recent events have shown us that while human life might be fragile, the conviction of those who would protect the right to free belief is strong.

Americans owe a debt of gratitude to Jefferson, Madison, and all local, state, and national leaders who have worked diligently to uphold the rights protected under the First Amendment.

President Biden's A Proclamation on Religious Freedom Day, 2024 includes the following...

On this day, we recognize that the work of protecting religious freedom is never finished. In our quest to build a more perfect Union, may our faiths and beliefs help us heal divisions and bring us together to safeguard this fundamental freedom guaranteed by our Constitution and to ensure that people of all religions or no religion are treated with dignity and respect.

UPDATED: See also Separating religion and government allows us all to live freely and equally

+++

Isaac Asimov, January 2, 1920

On the occasion of Isaac Asimov's 104th birthday, I offer some quotes relevant to today's political and cultural environment.

From Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

ON SCIENTIFIC LITERACY

From Combatting U.S. Scientific Illiteracy in The Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1989

Increasingly, our leaders must deal with dangers that threaten the entire world, where an understanding of those dangers and the possible solutions depends on a good grasp of science. The ozone layer, the greenhouse effect, acid rain, questions of diet and heredity. All require scientific literacy. Can Americans choose the proper leaders and support the proper programs if they themselves are scientifically illiterate? The whole premise of democracy is that it is safe to leave important questions to the court of public opinion—but is it safe to leave them to the court of public ignorance?

ON RIGHT AND WRONG

From Foundation

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.

ON VIOLENCE

From Foundation

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

ON SCIENCE, EVIDENCE, AND TRUTH

From an Interview by Bill Moyers on Bill Moyers' World Of Ideas

Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism. It's a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match. And this works, not just for the ordinary aspects of science, but for all of life. I should think people would want to know that what they know is truly what the universe is like, or at least as close as they can get to it.

From The Roving Mind

I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.

📡📝📖

Keep your nose on

Advice from my mother, "Don't cut off your nose to spite your face."

FEEDING THE ECONOMY

We've been told that to keep society running smoothly, people should work to earn money...to fuel the economy. That's why they are always so quick to fund (or advocate for) job providers (aka the business community) through tax breaks, tax rebates, tax refunds, and lower taxes (which are, btw, mostly unavailable to the average worker).

What happens, however, when people can't work? They have to go on welfare, which is apparently bad. We shouldn't have to pay for someone who won't work -- and there are too many people who are "gaming the system" by collecting welfare without working.

Our education system should teach students to be "contributing members of society." We need to raise our children so they can take their place in the workforce and not be a burden on the rest of us by going on the aforementioned welfare. Furthermore, we need to hire competent people to teach and care for our children.

What happens then, when schools and childcare facilities haven't got enough funding to function and can't find qualified people who will do the hard work of teaching or caring for children? The pay is too low. The hours are too long. The social cost is too great. Do we "let the market decide" about keeping schools and childcare facilities open? If we do that, what happens when those privately run churches and companies need more money to operate? Do they charge more? Or do they just close?

Is the profit motive sufficient to keep us teaching and caring for our children?

Living in a civilized country (and I know that I'm making an assumption here) means that we should ensure that parents can care for their children from the moment they take their first breath.

What happens, however, when the ability to earn money conflicts with the ability to educate and care for children? What happens when a family with two parents needs two workers and there is no one else to stay home to care for the kids? What happens when there is only one parent in a family, who must work to feed, clothe, and house her children, but there is no one to watch her kids when she's at work? We saw what happened when schools struggled to stay open during the COVID-19 pandemic. Do we want that to continue?

Oh, would that we could return to the time when everyone lived in a two-parent family, with one worker (the father) and a "homemaker" (the mother) like in the "good old days."

Sadly, those "good old days" never really existed for many folks.

CHILDCARE CRISIS

You'd think that the Indiana General Assembly would do its best to ensure that everything was in place so that people who are raising young children would be able to find jobs that paid enough to feed, clothe, and house their families and that they would be able to find an affordable place, with competent staff, where their children would be cared for and helped to grow while they were at work.

You'd think that...but unfortunately, you'd be wrong, because, Indiana, like so many other states, is a place that apparently really hates it's children. It's a place that apparently doesn't care whether workers can get to work and leave their children in a safe place. It's a place that apparently isn't interested in growing the economy by making sure people have enough money to fund services, businesses, and government.

Uncertain future for providers as child care crisis looms

One national think tank estimates that 3.2 million children may lose their child care as federal grant funding expires at the end of the month. Those dollars helped many centers keep their doors open during the economic tumult of the pandemic but Congress’ stalemate on spending might mean it’s too late for some providers.

“That (funding) helped stabilize the child care program to an extent and it made it possible for these programs to stay open,” Ailen Arreaza, the executive director of ParentsTogether, said. “But it was sort of like a Band-Aid on a big, open wound. And now that Band-Aid has been taken away.”

The stakes

Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, estimates that 70,000 child care programs nationwide would be impacted, roughly one-third of all the country’s providers. The organization predicts that nearly 49,000 Hoosier children will lose child care and just over 1,000 programs will close — triggering a $132 million loss in worker productivity and $120 million in lost wages for parents.

Ok, so it's not just Indiana...it's the whole damn country. That doesn't surprise me either. As a nation, the US doesn't seem to have the inclination or the foresight to provide for its children...or to plan for the future.

A 2023 survey from Arreaza’s organization found that 59% of parents reported cutting back on hours or leaving a job because they couldn’t find reliable, affordable child care. After losing that source of income, families often cut back on other expenses. Forty-four percent of families said they reduced food costs and over half, 55%, said they couldn’t save while shouldering the cost of child care, which rivals the cost of full-time, in-state college tuition in Indiana and elsewhere. [emphasis added]

What happens when people can't find or afford childcare? Do they give up their children so they can work? No, they ration their prescription drugs or stop taking them altogether, they cut back on food and health care, they juggle bills and risk legal problems, they go without and risk their lives and health, and they don't contribute to the economy. The economy slows...and stagnates...the need for welfare increases...which hurts us all.

...even people who make our laws about public funding of education and childcare!

Do we want to have a society that functions well or do we like having citizens living in economic crisis mode? Do we want a robust economy where everyone is well cared for and happy or do we like economic stagnation and desperate citizens? Do we want to prepare our children for the future or are we going to continue to shortchange them and then let them try to repair the damage as they get older?

Are we ever going to find the will to support our children through fully funded childcare and "a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all"?

Or are we going to continue to "cut off our nose to spite our face?"

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In Case You're Listening -- Annual Blogoversary Post

SEPTEMBER 14, 2006

I started this blog while I was still teaching, in 2006. I had just begun my 31st year as an educator.

Just like in previous years, however, I was stressed out and irritated about the standardized testing situation in Indiana. I needed to vent.

This was a place where I could express my frustration about the condition of public education in Indiana and the US. I didn’t care who read it…if anyone. I just wanted to put my thoughts down and complain. I suppose I should have titled the blog “The Complaint Department” or something like that since that’s what it mostly consisted (and consists) of...complaints about how public education, and education in general, is treated in the US.

I focused the blog on testing. 2006 was in the middle of the “No Child Left Behind” unpleasantness when schools were labeled good if they catered to wealthy, upper-middle, or middle-class students and bad if they were filled with children living in poverty. This is simply because, then as now, test scores mirror a family's economic status. Rich kids, with educated parents and well-staffed and well-supplied schools score high. Poor kids, with parents who work two or three minimum-wage jobs and understaffed and underfunded schools score low. Adding injury to insult, NCLB made punishment of the so-called bad schools part of the plan.

BAD TO WORSE

Things have gone from bad to worse in the last seventeen years. I’ve complained less, only because I’ve written less due to personal health problems (only 10 posts in 2022 and just one this year).

Testing is still misused and overused. The NAEP is regularly misinterpreted by folks who know nothing about education and testing and who conflate the terms “proficiency” and “grade level.” States still force schools to test for ranking purposes...in ignorance of the real purposes of educational testing.

Politicians, Indiana's included, still use every excuse to whine about the sad state of our public schools, how awful teachers (and their unions) are, and how our children are being shortchanged. All that public school bashing has led to a crisis of teacher shortages around the country. It turns out that it's hard to convince young people to enter a profession where they are insulted, their expertise questioned by people who don't know anything about education, underpaid, overworked, called names like "groomer," and blamed for all the ills of society.

Never mind that those same politicians are the main cause of most of the problems facing our public schools.

Never mind that the growth of vouchers and charters has sucked funding from real public schools.

Never mind that money is still inequitably spent so that the rich get richer and the poor still don't get enough.

Testing is still a problem. Teachers and schools are still judged by their test scores despite the fact that poverty is the real problem.

Vouchers and charter schools drain money from public schools at increasing rates despite the fact that their test scores also reflect the income of their students’ families.

Teachers are still undervalued and underpaid. My anecdotal reasons for this are 1) teaching is a predominantly female career and women don't get paid as well as men and 2) because we, as a nation, talk a good game but we really just don't give a damn about our children and their future.

It's almost like they (politicians, pundits, and privatizers) want to destroy public education...

MOVING FORWARD

I still regularly badger my local representatives about public education, but, being Republicans, they either are too afraid of their leadership to speak out in favor of public schools or, as I suspect is true, don’t really care about public schools. In their mind it’s “socialism” and we can’t have that, now, can we? I sometimes feel like they don't hear me either. My state representative is (or was, I can't recall) a board member for our local Lutheran schools (voucher recipients -- no conflict of interest there!), and my state senator is a doctor who introduced a bill (currently on hold pending litigation) forbidding parents from providing gender-affirming care for their children. So much for "parental rights."

Physically, I’m doing better so I’ll try to post more (I hope). And I’m not giving up. I’m hopeful that the young people of the nation take charge, insist that schools are fully funded, and insist that teachers are given the credit and pay they deserve.

With any luck, I’ll celebrate the successes of our nation’s support for public education over the next few years. In the meantime here are a couple of good posts to get your blood flowing...

Raising the Bar on Kindergartners: A Nation at Risk Lives On

Kindergarten has never been so high pressured, even after Covid, and it has been this way for years despite little proof children are born with evolved brains requiring faster instruction so they can grow up and beat their peers in other countries.

How must children feel while being made to carry the weight of the future economy, and if they don’t enter first grade learner ready, they could be marked for life!

And corporate remaking of kindergarten thus far, over forty years, with all its pressure, hasn’t produced a good enough child, or adult, for those who still worship A Nation at Risk.

Local Parents, Educators Face ‘Attack’ on Public Schools from Indiana Lawmakers - Limestone Post Magazine in Bloomington, Indiana

Republican legislators came to embrace the concept that state education funding should “follow the student.” If parents sent their child to a public school, a private school, or a privately operated charter school, that’s where the money would go.

This year, they expanded the private-school voucher program to families that make up to 400 percent of the limit for reduced-price school meals, $220,000 for a family of four; and they eliminated pathways that students had to follow to qualify. That makes it essentially a universal program, open to an estimated 97 percent of students.

“I’m excited to see Indiana once again stand behind our Hoosier families who want the ability to choose the best school that meets their child’s needs regardless of their zip code,” House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, said in a news release. “We’re now on our way to having the best school choice program in the country.”

As students leave public schools for private schools, however, state funding follows, leaving public schools with fewer resources. Instead of the “general and uniform system of common schools” prescribed by the state constitution, Indiana now funds three K-12 systems: traditional public schools; over 100 charter schools, most of them privately operated; and private schools that rely on vouchers.

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2023 Medley #1 - Shortages, Textbooks and Names

Teacher Shortage, Free Textbooks,

Student Names

THE NATIONAL TEACHER SHORTAGE

NATIONAL: Our first two articles cover the national teacher shortage. How are schools coping? What are states doing to make it easier to become a teacher? Are those plans producing well-trained teachers?

Sadly, nowhere to be found is a discussion of why there is a national teacher shortage. Why are teachers leaving the profession in large numbers?

• It could be because teachers (in Indiana, at least) no longer have the right to bargain for anything other than wages and wage-related items. Working conditions -- which are student learning conditions -- are not allowed at the table.
• It could be because the inflation-adjusted salary for teachers hasn't changed since 1996. There is a "wage penalty" for teachers compared to other, similarly educated professionals.
• It could be because legislatures are forcing teachers to teach in ways that are counter-productive or teach curriculums that are misguided or filled with misinformation.
• Maybe it's because legislatures are continuing to siphon money from public schools to pay for privatization schemes that don't work. Meanwhile, cash-strapped public schools have to do with even less.
• Maybe it's because Republican legislators have made it their business over the last few decades to make life hard for teachers...so they'll leave...so the teachers' unions will lose members...so teaching is no longer a profession...so teachers can be paid less and can be hired and fired at will...so there is no one left to advocate for students.

The result is that schools are struggling to find qualified educators...and states are coming up with ways to lower standards for teachers.

Teacher shortages have gotten worse. Here’s how schools are coping.

Evidence suggests that more teachers are leaving the profession. In the suburbs of Washington, many large suburban districts in Maryland and Virginia saw teacher turnover above pre-pandemic levels. An analysis of teacher retention data by the education news outlet Chalkbeat found that turnover rates were the highest they had been in at least five years in eight different states. Nguyen’s team, examining teacher turnover data from 34 states with the help of the National Center on Teacher Quality, found that it rose to a historic 14 percent during the 2021-2022 school year.

Nearly a quarter of teachers surveyed by the RAND Corporation in January said they planned to leave by the end of last school year, citing stress, low pay and long hours. The survey also showed that their well-being had improved from 2021 and 2022 levels.

Plagued by Teacher Shortages, Some States Turn to Fast-Track Credentialing

The American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s largest teachers union, in a 2022 report called for more rigor in teacher training, not less, criticizing state efforts to lower the qualifications needed to be a teacher.

“[T]here are more alternative and nontraditional ways to become a teacher in the U.S. than ever before, and unfortunately many of them are low quality,” the report said.

The teachers union stressed methods that are reflected in traditional training, saying aspiring teachers should get “extensive” classroom experiences “alongside a skilled practitioner over a significant period,” and “a strong foundation in subject-area content.”

“We cannot put a bandage on the teacher and school staff shortage by cutting corners and lowering the bar for entry,” the report said.

FREE TEXTBOOKS FOR INDIANA PARENTS

No more school textbook bills for Indiana parents — but what other fees can still be charged?

INDIANA: A well-thought-out piece of legislation should contain details and cover all situations. This one doesn't.

The law in Indiana now provides for school districts to cover textbook costs, something that parents used to pay for. This is a good idea, but the Republicans, in their stupidity lack of foresight, have neglected to fully fund the program so schools are scrambling to find money to cover books, supplies, and all the other things they need to continue to function.

Will the legislature fully fund public schools? Not likely considering that nearly everyone in the state is now eligible for a private school voucher...and the fact that at least one candidate for Governor has called for cutting Indiana's income tax.

Indiana hasn't been all that generous with tax dollars for public education, passing a huge increase for private school vouchers (72% increase) and a smaller, but large increase for charter schools (16% increase), while actual public schools were lucky enough to garner a 5% increase. Where will the state get the money to fund three school systems (only one of which -- the public schools -- is mandated in the state constitution) without an income tax?

While the new law was championed by state officials, school districts are left trying to figure out what they have to cover and what they don’t — especially when it comes to advanced classes and career development courses.

There’s no consensus yet for what types of fees are still being charged by individual Indiana schools and districts. Some contacted by the Indiana Capital Chronicle said they had totally eliminated all education-related fees — at least for the current school year.

Other district officials said they interpreted the new curriculum law differently and will continue to bill parents for certain college-level course materials and school management software...

The law itself is somewhat vague...

A CHILD BY ANY OTHER NAME...

Indiana law on student names and pronouns leaves tough decisions to families and schools

INDIANA: The law (as of July 1) now requires schools to get parental permission to address students by a name other than what appears on their birth certificate. Does this mean that Andrew can't be called Andy? Or Susan can't be called Susie? Sadly, the law is vague and schools are confused about what can and cannot be allowed.

The idea behind the law, according to Todd Rokita (Indiana Attorney General) is that parents have the right to be involved in the upbringing of their children. This law would prohibit a child from deciding on a name (or pronoun) that doesn't traditionally identify with their birth gender. It's all about parental rights...or perhaps it's about making it harder for trans kids to be recognized in the classroom.

The same group of legislators (the super-majority of Republicans) also voted to usurp parental rights by banning gender-affirming care for children under 18, even if parents want it.

Is the legislature interested in "fighting for the right of parents to handle the upbringing of their children," or are they interested in making life difficult for trans kids and their families? The answer is obvious.

HEA 1608 was one of several laws Indiana legislators passed this year aimed at restricting how and when transgender youth could transition socially and medically. Proponents say it gives parents more information about their children at school — part of an argument for increased parental oversight in education that has swept conservative states.

“We’re going to fight for the right of parents to handle the upbringing of their children,” said Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita at a recent press conference in reference to such laws.

But opponents of the new law said outing transgender students to their parents could put some at risk of physical harm or homelessness if their families aren’t supportive. (The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana challenged HEA 1608 in court by focusing on another aspect of the law that prohibits teaching human sexuality in grades K-3.)

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