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

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

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.

🚌🚌🚌

Educational Mansplaining

As an American male, I'm an experienced mansplainer. My former teacher colleagues (mostly female) would surely be able to give you an example or two of my tendency to "help them understand" something that they probably understood as well or better than I did. I remember once, at a meeting discussing psychometric testing of a student, I started explaining percentiles to another teacher. With a look of pity and loathing, she said to me, "I understand what percentiles are." What she likely left unsaid was, "I have an education degree, too, you obnoxious, insulting POS!" Out loud she added, "It's ok. I'm used to you."

Now that I have established my mansplaining credentials, I'd like to comment on a thread I read on Twitter this morning. The thread consisted of women giving examples of someone like me mansplaining something that they already knew.

I must admit...while reading the thread I felt the urge to add my own tweet explaining how Twitter threads work...

...but I digress.

A FLASH OF INSIGHT

The thread that I read included a tweet from Dr. Jessica McCarty, whose Miami University (Ohio) bio reads,

Dr. McCarty has a PhD in Geography from University of Maryland at College Park. Expertise in remote sensing, GIS, data mining, natural resources, agricultural & food security, land-use/land-cover change, fire, air quality, GHG emissions, black carbon, climate, app development, and UAVs. She is a PI and/or Co-I on NASA, EPA, NSF, USDA, and UN projects that focus on using remote sensing of food security, fire, emissions, & air quality. She has presented at NASA, AGU, IIASA , WMO & UN meetings.

I have no idea what most of that bio means, so I'll assume that Dr. McCarty is a fully qualified professional. Her tweet about mansplaining...

Dr. Jessica McCarty (‪@jmccarty_geo‬)

At a NASA Earth meeting 10 years ago, a white male post doc interrupted me to tell me that I didn’t understand human drivers of fire, that I def needed to read McCarty et al.

Looked him in the eye, pulled my long hair back so he could read my name tag. “I’m McCarty et al.”

At that point, I had a blinding flash of insight...

For the last few decades, politicians in the U.S. (mostly male) have been mansplaining education to American teachers (mostly female).

Think of politicians as the "white male post doc" and think of teachers as Dr. McCarty. For years they've been telling us "what's wrong with education" and "how to fix education" but the teachers are the real experts.

MANSPLAINING EDUCATION

Let's see some examples...first, George W. Bush's "signature" education policy, No Child Left Behind.

Were there any teachers, anywhere in the country, who believed that it was possible to have all students score "proficient" on standardized tests within a dozen years?

Of course not. The politicians who wrote NCLB had absolutely no clue what proficient actually means. Nor did they realize that standardized testing was an excellent method of determining a student's family income, but not much else.

And then we had Race to the Top. Not to be outdone, the Democratic designed education plan begun eight years later included evaluating teachers using student test scores. Were there teachers anywhere in the country who didn't understand that those teachers who taught in wealthy schools would get better "evaluations" than teachers who taught in high-poverty schools?

Once again, the answer is no. Politicians didn't notice that "good" teachers (by their definition) seemed to congregate at schools with children from wealthy families while poor kids always seemed to have the "bad" teachers. They didn't understand that correlation is not causation. They didn't understand that there are out-of-school factors that have an impact on a child's school achievement and that test scores do not define quality schools or quality teachers. David Berliner explained this well in Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success. American schools are set up to reward students who come from wealthy families.

THE STATUS OF TEACHERS

By now it should be no secret why teachers are "mansplained" about education -- aka treated with less respect than other professionals. Teaching is still seen as "women's work" and those who hold control of the funding in education are mostly men.

In a field so dominated by women, it's not surprising that, in our patriarchal society, teachers are devalued and disrespected. Women still earn less than men. Women still have trouble reaching the highest levels of societal status (outliers notwithstanding). And women are still objectified in popular culture.

Money and status are still the most reliable paths to respect in our culture. The relatively low pay of the teaching profession and the fact that women make up the majority of educators, tends to lower the status of other teaching when compared to other professions.

In societies where education is more successful teachers are paid more and afforded higher status.

Now, the next time you hear a politician talk to a teacher or a group of teachers (or the general public) about "...what's wrong with education in this country" you'll know what's really going on.

And to my former colleagues (mostly female)...Thanks for reading. I really needed to explain this.

👩‍🏫💰👩‍🎓

Ten Thoughts on Teacher Appreciation

1.

~~~

2.

~~~

3.

~~~

4.

~~~

5.

~~~

6.

~~~

7.

~~~

8.

~~~

9.

~~~

10.

~~~

👩‍🏫🚌👨‍🏫

Polis: No Privatization, Except for Public Schools

Millionaire U.S. Representative Jared Polis (D-Colorado), is running for Colorado Governor. He's concerned about the privatization of public land...

Polis: I'll be a governor for all

"One of the biggest potential risks to western Colorado is the privatization of public lands," Polis said. "Once our public lands are carved up, there's no going back to our heritage and our way of life in western Colorado."

Polis, a former member of Colorado's state board of education, isn't so worried about the privatization of public education. His private foundation supports the expansion of charter schools.

Charter Schools

The Jared Polis Foundation supports the New America Schools and the Academy of Urban Learning through providing monetary grants and technical assistance. The foundation believes strongly in the schools’ missions and the students the schools are serving.

The New America Schools and the Academy of Urban Learning are charter schools—they are public high schools that receive public funding and adhere to state academic standards.

Here is yet another politician who doesn't understand that public schools are just as much a part of America's infrastructure as any other public good. And, no Rep. Polis, charter schools are not public schools. They are private schools that take taxpayer dollars and skim students from real public schools.

🚌🚌🚌

2017 Medley #33

Republicans, Facebook, Testing, Poverty, Reading Comprehension, Vouchers, IDEA

DO REPUBLICANS HATE PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL CHILDREN?

The Republican tax bill punishes American families who use public schools

Incentives for parents who send their children to private schools, but none for public school parents.

That means that the "school tuition" that parents of public school kids are paying, in the form of state and local taxes, isn’t deductible from their federal taxes, and public schools themselves will have less money to spend on kids. But rich families who can afford private school get a brand new tax break. That’s a win for the 10%.

The Republican War on Children

No health insurance for poor children...tax incentives for wealthy children.

Let me ask you a question; take your time in answering it. Would you be willing to take health care away from a thousand children with the bad luck to have been born into low-income families so that you could give millions of extra dollars to just one wealthy heir?

You might think that this question is silly, hypothetical and has an obvious answer. But it’s not at all hypothetical, and the answer apparently isn’t obvious. For it’s a literal description of the choice Republicans in Congress seem to be making as you read this.

TOSSED OFF FACEBOOK

The False Paradise of School Privatization

Why did Facebook suspend Steven Singer's (Gadfly On The Wall Blog) Facebook account for the second time in two months?

The first time was when he published School Choice is a Lie. It Does Not Mean More Options. It Means Less. This time it's for The False Paradise of School Privatization. Could it be there's someone working for Facebook who doesn't like the politics of public education?

If you haven't had a chance to read Singer's post, The False Paradise of School Privatization, be sure to do so. Then, when you've finished that, check out Two Theories Why Facebook Keeps Blocking Me When I Write About School Privatization.

One person’s paradise is another person’s Hell.

So the idea of designing one system that fits all is essentially bound to fail.

But doesn’t that support the charter and voucher school ideal? They are marketed, after all, as “school choice.” They allegedly give parents and children a choice about which schools to attend.

Unfortunately, this is just a marketing term.

Charter and voucher schools don’t actually provide more choice. They provide less.

Think about it.

Who gets to choose whether you attend one of these schools? Not you.

Certainly you have to apply, but it’s totally up to the charter or voucher school operators whether they want to accept you.

It is the public school system that gives you choice. You decide to live in a certain community – you get to go to that community’s schools. Period.

READING: TESTING

PIRLS: The effect of phonics, poverty, and pleasure reading.

The last half of my 35 year teaching career was spent working with students who had difficulties with reading. I worked in rural schools with small, but significant numbers of low-income students. We knew then, and we know now, that child poverty is the main factor in low school achievement. We also know that factors associated with poverty, like low birth weight, poor nutrition, exposure to environmental toxins, and lack of health care, have an impact on a child's learning. These out-of-school factors are rarely discussed when politicians and policy makers blame schools and teachers for low student achievement.

You may have read about the recent release of the PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) scores along with much pearl-clutching because of the nation's poor performance. Most reporters focus on comparing scores of American students with students in other countries (We fall somewhere in the middle). Rarely is the impact of poverty noted.

Stephen Krashen continues to educate.

Kevin Courtney is right about the negative influence of poverty on PIRLS tests; two of our studies confirm this. He is also right in rejecting phonics instruction as the force responsible for the recent improvement in PIRLS scores: Studies show that intensive phonics instruction only improves performance on tests in which children have to pronounce words presented in a list. Heavy phonics does not contribute to performance on tests of reading comprehension. In fact, several scholars have concluded that knowledge of phonics rules, beyond the simplest ones, is acquired from reading.

For Further Reading: 

Valerie Strauss has a guest post from James Harvey, executive director of the National Superintendents Roundtable which gives the PIRLS tests a more nuanced analysis.

Also from Valerie Strauss – Ten things you need to know about international assessments

READING: POVERTY

The Reading Achievement Gap: Why Do Poor Students Lag Behind Rich Students in Reading Development?

This article was published in 2015 by Richard Allington. Here he reinforces the need for access to books for low-income children.

Students from lower-income families experience summer reading loss because they don’t read much, if at all, during the summer months. Students from middle-class families, on the other hand, are far more likely to read during this same summer period. Low-income students don’t read during the summer months because they don’t own any books, and they live in neighborhoods where there are few, if any, places to purchase books. Middle-class students have bedroom libraries and live in neighborhoods where children’s books are readily available, even in the grocery stores where their parents shop. Middle-class kids are more likely to live in a neighborhood where one can find a child-friendly public library than is the case with children living in low-income areas. These children live in neighborhoods best described as book deserts.

Historically, low-income students relied primarily on schools as sources for the books they read. Ironically, too many high-poverty schools have small libraries, and there are too many classrooms that have no classroom library for kids to select books to read. Too many high-poverty schools ban library books (and textbooks) from leaving the building (fear of loss of the books, I’m usually told). However, even with fewer books in their schools and more restrictive book-lending policies, these kids do get most of the books they read from the schools they attend. But not during the summer months when school is not in session!

READING: COMPREHENSION

How To Get Your Mind To Read (Daniel Willingham)

Reading teachers understand that students' comprehension improves when teachers activate prior knowledge before having students read a passage (or before they read aloud). What happens, however, when students don't have the knowledge they need?

...students who score well on reading tests are those with broad knowledge; they usually know at least a little about the topics of the passages on the test. One experiment tested 11th graders’ general knowledge with questions from science (“pneumonia affects which part of the body?”), history (“which American president resigned because of the Watergate scandal?”), as well as the arts, civics, geography, athletics and literature. Scores on this general knowledge test were highly associated with reading test scores.

Current education practices show that reading comprehension is misunderstood. It’s treated like a general skill that can be applied with equal success to all texts. Rather, comprehension is intimately intertwined with knowledge. That suggests three significant changes in schooling.

VOUCHERS

Voucher Programs and the Constitutional Ethic

Acceptance of a voucher by a private school should be subject to that school’s compliance with certain basic requirements. At a minimum, school buildings should meet relevant code requirements and fire safety standards; teachers should be able to offer evidence that they are equipped to teach their subject matter; and the school should both teach and model foundational constitutional values and behaviors. Ideally, schools receiving public funds should not be permitted to discriminate on the basis of race, disability or sexual orientation (religious schools have a constitutional right to discriminate on the basis of religion in certain situations, although they do not have a right to do so on the taxpayer’s dime) and should be required to afford both students and staff at least a minimum of due process. At present, we are unaware of any voucher program that requires these commitm

GIVING UP RIGHTS FOR PROFIT

DeVos Won’t Publicize a School Voucher Downside, But It’s Leaking Out Anyway

DeVos admits that students who attend private schools lose their rights under IDEA.

DeVos seems to forget that she's the Secretary of Education for the entire United States, not just for private and privately owned schools.

There’s another key issue at stake in the conversation about vouchers for students with disabilities — one Jennifer and Joe asked DeVos about during their private conversation.

Do students with disabilities lose their rights to a fair and appropriate education — a guarantee under the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act — if they use vouchers to attend private schools?

Yes, DeVos said.

“She answered point blank,” Joe said.

🙋🏻📖👨‍🎓

The Common Knowledge is Wrong

NATIONAL "REFORM" IS BIPARTISAN

Here in Indiana we're used to blaming Republicans for the "reformist" changes to public education – changes which are ongoing! Changes which are the not-so-new status quo.

It is the Republicans who, over the last decade, have authored and expanded the voucher and charter programs which divert funds from public schools to private pockets. It is the Republicans who still push to continue the test and punish policies of the Bush II and Obama administrations. It is the Republicans who worked hard to deprofessionalize the teaching profession by reducing collective bargaining options, evaluating teachers using student test scores, allowing off-the-street college grads to start teaching with no pedagogical training, and eliminating the option to pay higher salaries to teachers with more experience and training (In what other profession is experience a detriment to salary increases?).

Lest we forget, however, the Democrats nationwide have not necessarily been friends to public education. Arne Duncan did his best to coerce states into expanding charter schools while no research existed to suggest any advantage. He was not above threatening states who didn't accept the Common Core, expand charters, or continue test and punish policies.

So, nationally, the "reforms" have come from bipartisan sources. Sometimes Republicans. Sometimes Democrats. What is it about public education that makes it a target of political tampering, obstruction, and destruction? The answer is power...and most importantly, money.

Control over public education is, by definition, political. Public education is funded with public money which needs public oversight – a political activity. There is also the lure of billions of dollars of taxpayer money spent on public education every year. Privatizers of all political stripes want to get their hands on that money and they are using political means to get it. One important way has been to promote the myth that America's public education system is "broken" and schools are "failing."

TALKATHON

From noon on February 6th to noon on February 7th the Democrats in the U.S. Senate staged a "talkathon" against the nomination of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education – with the occasional interruption by a Republican Senator to speak in her favor. The event was, of course, unsuccessful, and we're now faced with the least prepared U.S. Secretary of Education since the department was created in 1980, and possibly since the creation of the Office of Education in 1867.

I listened to the "talkathon" for several hours on February 6th, and I heard Democrats decrying the inexperience, conflicts of interest, and general unpreparedness of DeVos...along with lofty and passionate calls to unite to save our public schools.

I agreed with most of what they said, but there were some who used the same arguments from the Bush/Cheney and Duncan/Obama privatization agenda. It isn't clear from their speeches (Full Disclosure: I have not listened to or read all of them) whether they are against closing schools and replacing them with charters or not. Still, there were examples of disinformation which perpetuated the myth of "failing" schools.

One example came from Colorado Senator Michael F. Bennet who quoted these statistics...

Congressional Record – Senate, February 6, 2017, p.S725

As a nation, we are falling behind the rest of the world...American 15-year-olds score lower than their peers in 14 countries in reading, 36 countries in math, and 18 in science.

Those who have studied the PISA scores, which is the "score" he is referring to, should understand that it's America's greater number of students who live in poverty that has skewed our international scores lower than those of other OECD nations.

This isn't anything new, by the way, so we're not "falling behind." American students' test scores have always been middling, since the international tests were begun in the 1960s.

The U.S. child poverty rate of over 20% compares unfavorably to most other advanced nations in the world (Finland, for example, has a child poverty rate of 5%). The fact that children in poverty don't achieve as high as their wealthier peers puts the U.S. at a disadvantage when comparing test scores. Our average test scores are lower because within that average is a larger number of scores from students who live in poverty.

Steven Krashen explains [with my emphasis]...

The secretary of education's first priority

Research consistently confirms that low academic achievement is the result of poverty. In some urban areas, the child poverty level is 80% (the national average is an unacceptable 21%; in high-scoring Finland it is 5%).

When researchers control for the effect of poverty, American students' performance on international tests is near the top of the world. This shows that low achievement is not due to poor teaching, low standards, or unions. The major cause is poverty.

Poverty means food deprivation, insufficient medical care, and little access to reading material; each of these has a strong negative impact on school performance. The best teaching in the world will not help if children are hungry, ill, and have nothing to read.

Krashen kindly cites research for his statements – See here. Check out his blog for dozens of other posts with similar conclusions and loads of research citations.

The test scores of our wealthier students show that American schools are not failing and that high rates of child poverty are causing our scores to be unremarkable. Of course there are some teachers, administrators, and schools who could do a better job of reaching their students, but on the whole, our schools do well. However, politicians, including Democrats, have a hard time assuming their share of the responsibility for the shamefully high child poverty in our nation. It's easier to talk about "failing" schools and "bad" teachers...it's easier to blame the teachers unions and even college teacher preparation programs...than to face the fact that our lowest performing schools are often under-resourced and under-supported. It's easier to blame schools and teachers than share any responsibility for schools filled with our most economically challenged children who come to school with significant disadvantages.

THE COMMON KNOWLEDGE IS WRONG

Senator Bennet is not the only one, of course, and it's even possible that his reference to test scores was only to make a political point and he actually understands that poverty plays a significant role in student achievement. But his quote reinforces the idea that American schools are "failing." It's common knowledge.

Well, the common knowledge is wrong.

Steven Singer, blogger at gadflyonthewallblog, recently posted an article about this subject (I used a quote from his article in a previous post) which also ran on the Huffington Post.

U.S. Public Schools Are NOT Failing. They’re Among the Best in the World

Let me repeat that in no uncertain terms – America’s public schools are NOT failing. They are among the best in the world. Really!

Here’s why: the United States educates everyone. Most other countries do not.

We have made a commitment to every single child regardless of what their parents can afford to pay, regardless of their access to transportation, regardless of whether they can afford uniforms, lunch or even if they have a home. Heck! We even provide education to children who are here illegally.

That can’t be said of many countries with which we’re often compared – especially countries comparable to the U.S. in size or diversity. So from the get-go, we have an advantage over most of the world.

We define education differently. Though our laws are woefully backward, in practice we look at it as a right, not a privilege. And for a full 13 years (counting kindergarten) it’s a right for every child, not just some.

But that’s not all! We also provide some of the highest quality education you can get in the world! We teach more, help more, achieve more and yet we are criticized more than any system in any country in the world.

We don't exclude economically disadvantaged students from our schools. We don't exclude students with special needs from our schools. We don't exclude students with behavioral challenges [added later, h/t Joe V]. America's public schools, unlike private and privately run schools, must accept everyone.

Instead of blaming schools for societal problems...instead of privatizing...we ought to spend our time, energy, and resources on improving the schools we have. All of us, politicians included, should accept responsibility for the national shame that is our high child poverty rate.

The challenge that faces us is to teach our fellow citizens the truth. The truth is that our schools have not failed, our teachers are not incompetent, teachers unions are not responsible for low achievement, and test scores should not define the success or failure of a child or a school.

With the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as U.S. Secretary of Education, that challenge just got a lot harder.

🎓🎓🎓

This is what it looks like...

Thanks to GF Brandenburg's Blog for this comprehensive list of actions President Trump is going to take to make America Great Again...

To recap: This is what Making America Great Again looks like.

• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the DOJ’s Violence Against Women programs.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Minority Business Development Agency.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Economic Development Administration.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the International Trade Administration.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Legal Services Corporation.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the DOJ.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Electricity Deliverability and Energy Reliability.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
• On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Fossil Energy.
• On January 20th, 2017, DT ordered all regulatory powers of all federal agencies frozen.
• On January 20th, 2017, DT ordered the National Parks Service to stop using social media after RTing factual, side by side photos of the crowds for the 2009 and 2017 inaugurations.
• On January 20th, 2017, roughly 230 protestors were arrested in DC and face unprecedented felony riot charges. Among them were legal observers, journalists, and medics.
• On January 20th, 2017, a member of the International Workers of the World was shot in the stomach at an anti-fascist protest in Seattle. He remains in critical condition.
• On January 21st, 2017, DT brought a group of 40 cheerleaders to a meeting with the CIA to cheer for him during a speech that consisted almost entirely of framing himself as the victim of dishonest press.
• On January 21st, 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held a press conference largely to attack the press for accurately reporting the size of attendance at the inaugural festivities, saying that the inauguration had the largest audience of any in history, “period.”
• On January 22nd, 2017, White House advisor Kellyann Conway defended Spicer’s lies as “alternative facts” on national television news.
• On January 22nd, 2017, DT appeared to blow a kiss to director James Comey during a meeting with the FBI, and then opened his arms in a gesture of strange, paternal affection, before hugging him with a pat on the back.
• On January 23rd, 2017, DT reinstated the global gag order, which defunds international organizations that even mention abortion as a medical option.
• On January 23rd, 2017, Spicer said that the US will not tolerate China’s expansion onto islands in the South China Sea, essentially threatening war with China.
• On January 23rd, 2017, DT repeated the lie that 3-5 million people voted “illegally” thus costing him the popular vote.
• On January 23rd, 2017, it was announced that the man who shot the anti-fascist protester in Seattle was released without charges, despite turning himself in.
• On January 24th, 2017, Spicer reiterated the lie that 3-5 million people voted “illegally” thus costing DT the popular vote.
• On January 24th, 2017, DT tweeted a picture from his personal Twitter account of a photo he says depicts the crowd at his inauguration and will hang in the White House press room. The photo is curiously dated January 21st, 2017, the day AFTER the inauguration and the day of the Women’s March, the largest inauguration related protest in history.
• On January 24th, 2017, the EPA was ordered to stop communicating with the public through social media or the press and to freeze all grants and contracts.
• On January 24th, 2017, the USDA was ordered to stop communicating with the public through social media or the press and to stop publishing any papers or research. All communication with the press would also have to be authorized and vetted by the White House.
• On January 24th, 2017, HR7, a bill that would prohibit federal funding not only to abortion service providers, but to any insurance coverage, including Medicaid, that provides abortion coverage, went to the floor of the House for a vote.
• On January 24th, 2017, Director of the Department of Health and Human Service nominee Tom Price characterized federal guidelines on transgender equality as “absurd.”
• On January 24th, 2017, DT ordered the resumption of construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline, while the North Dakota state congress considers a bill that would legalize hitting and killing protestors with cars if they are on roadways.
• On January 24th, 2017, it was discovered that police officers had used confiscated cell phones to search the emails and messages of the 230 demonstrators now facing felony riot charges for protesting on January 20th, including lawyers and journalists whose email accounts contain privileged information of clients and sources.
• And today: the wall and a Muslim ban.

🗽🗽🗽

Random Quotes – July, 2016

THE LIE OF "REFORM"

Contrary to many "reformers," I believe that:

• American public education isn't failing.

• Most teachers aren't bad.

• Unions don't make schools worse.

• Testing isn't teaching.

• Test scores don't define good teaching or a good school.

• Experience and education (additional hours and degrees) matters for teachers.

• Poverty negatively affects achievement.

Unlike many "reformers" I have actually spent time working as a professional educator in public schools (from 1976 through 2010, and then as a volunteer through 2016).

Public education in America can improve, but the "test and punish" methods of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top is not the way to do it. Public schools, and public school teachers, need support, not derision.

The number one problem facing public education in the United States is the fact that more than half of America's public school students live in poverty. We have one of the highest levels of child poverty of any advanced nation on Earth. Solving the poverty problem would go a long way towards ending low student achievement.

From Stephen Krashen

Forget fancy evaluation schemes

Forget fancy evaluation schemes. Work on the cause, not the effect: feed the animal, don't waste time and money designing fancier ways of weighing it.

Open Letter to Fellow NC Public School Teachers – What We Do Cannot Really Be Measured

From Stu Egan

...you cannot simply measure students and teachers by numbers and random variables. You measure them by their personal success and growth, and much of that cannot be ascertained by impersonal assessments.

Nor can a teacher’s effectiveness truly be measured by “student achievement”. There is more, so much more, working within the student/teacher dynamic.

From Russ Walsh

Don't Look Behind the Curtain: The Education Reform Switcheroo

...the true motivation of corporate education reform: to try to get people to focus on schools as the problem, so that they won't look behind the curtain at the real problem facing the country - income inequity.

America's Not-So-Broken Education System

From Jack Schneider in The Atlantic

Can the schools do more to realize national ideals around equity and inclusion? Without question. But none of these aims will be achieved by ripping the system apart. That’s a ruinous fiction. The struggle to create great schools for all young people demands swift justice and steady effort, not melodrama and magical thinking.

More on Income Inequality by John Oliver from Last Week Tonight (Warning: NSFW!)

NO EXCUSES

The poisoning of America's (poor) children continues...

From Mike Klonsky

Wishing I could disrupt a conversation about lead in the water

Wait! You mean that all those tens of thousands of Chicago children who have been drinking leaded water from school drinking fountains and home sinks -- mostly poor and children of color -- have been disadvantaged by high-stakes PARCC and ISAT testing? Held back from promotion and graduation? College entrance? Their schools facing loss of funding or even closure because of lower test scores in comparison to wealthier, newer schools? Their teachers having their evaluations lowered and merit-pay-based salaries diminished, in large part because their students are exposed to leaded water?

And to top it off, told "no excuses" when they object?

Lead Exposure in Children

POLITICS

Indiana's Governor, Mike ("smoking doesn't kill") Pence, has been blatantly favoring private and privately owned charter schools since his election in 2012. Now that he, along with his supermajority legislature, and his personally appointed state Board of Education, has done what he can to destroy public education in Indiana, he's ready to move on to bigger and better things. Indiana's gain is the nation's loss.

How Gov. Mike Pence worked to undermine the will of Indiana’s voters

From the Glenda Ritz Campaign

“Indiana’s teachers, parents and students can rest a little easier knowing that Mike Pence will now be absent from Indiana and soon be unable to force his political agenda on our classrooms,” said Annie Mansfield, campaign manager.

“In his time as Governor, Mike Pence has consistently put politics before Hoosier students. He created a duplicate education agency through executive order. He turned down tens of millions of dollars in desperately needed pre-K funding because of his extreme political ideology. And he removed the elected Superintendent of Public Instruction as Chair of the State Board of Education, disenfranchising 1.3 million Hoosier voters.

Sing a song of Trumpence

From Fred Klonsky

###

Report From The Democratic Debate – October 2015

What did the Democrats who took part in the first Democratic Debate last night (October 13, 2015) have to say about important issues in K-12 Education? How did they address...

• charter school accountability
• vouchers
• standardized testing obsession
• No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top and the reauthorization of ESEA
• evaluating teachers using student test scores
• grading schools using student test scores
• loss of collective bargaining rights for teachers
• loss of due process (often called tenure) for teachers
• the national teacher shortage

CLICK HERE to hear the entire conversation covering everything each candidate said about the issues in K-12 education...

###

What's the Choice for Public Education?

If NEA expects its teachers to support President Obama in 2012, then he needs to be held accountable. Here's what he said in the last campaign...



V.P. Biden also told us what we wanted to hear.



(btw, when Biden talks about "the President" in this speech, remember, he's talking about George W. Bush.)

On the other hand, if you think, "maybe we should support the other guy" take a look at this...

What’s missing in the Romney agenda is any reference to early childhood education, which is research-based; no reference to asking Congress to pay the long-promised share of the costs of special education; nothing about equity issues; nothing about professional preparation or professional development...All of these issues–and others–will be left to the workings of the free market, which is not known for producing equality of educational opportunity.

Most consequentially, there is not a word of support for America’s public schools. Not one.

[Emphasis mine]

So which do we vote for? More of the same, or an even worse scenario?

Try these:

• Dump Duncan.Org
• Parents Across America
• Grassroots Education Movement
• National Resolution on High Stakes Testing

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~

Presidential Candidates' Education Grades: F, F and F

With Mitt Romney coming out of Florida with a commanding lead in the primaries it seems likely that he will be the Republican candidate for President. Newt Gingrich is still alive...but barely. Nevertheless, it's a high probability that one of these three men (including President Obama) will occupy the White House for the next four years.

Unfortunately for schools, children and teachers, all three candidates earn an "F" in their education plan and platform.

The Democratic Candidate

Alan Singer, a social studies educator in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Hofstra University in Long Island, editor of Social Science Docket (a joint publication of the New York and New Jersey Councils for Social Studies), author and former public school teacher, gives President Obama an "F". I concur.

Obama's Educational Report Card Grade Is F

..Obama could have studied harder; he could have been more creative; he could have played better with teachers, parents, children, and public schools; and he could have offered onto other people's children the kind of education he demanded for his own. He could have resisted turning the keys to the Treasury over to well-connected edu-companies. Based on his first three years in office, the Obama Educational Report Card Grade is a very disappointing "F" for failure.

Singer continues with details...

On March 28, 2011, the president told a town hall meeting at Bell Multicultural High School in Washington DC that when schools are "just teaching the test... you're not learning about the world, you're not learning about different cultures, you're not learning about science, you're not learning about math. All you're learning about is how to fill out a little bubble on an exam and little tricks that you need to do in order to take a test and that's not going to make education interesting." At least according to this statement, Obama values an education that promotes historical, cultural, scientific, and mathematical literacy, an education that examines the world, rather than one that just prepares students to perform on high-stakes standardized multiple choice tests.

I commented on that back in March of last year.

If President Obama is serious about other criteria being used then we'll see fewer tests, not more...we'll see more time dedicated to instruction and learning rather than test-prep and testing. We'll see teachers using professional judgment and developmentally sound activities. We'll see teacher evaluations based on teaching, learning, professional development and the ability to reach students...

But it never happened.

Another voice against the President's Education policies is Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of Education at Stanford who was one of President Obama's campaign and transition advisors. Singer writes,

In a recent op-ed piece in The New York Times that she co-authored, Hammond protested against No Child Left Behind mandates still being enforced by the Obama Administration...Educators end up caught in a morass of prescriptions and prohibitions, bled of the initiative and energy that characterize effective schools." Hammond believes that "voluntary, competitive federal grants that support innovation" such as Race to the Top promised might have promoted school reform, however "it ended up demanding that winning states hire consultants to comply with a 19-point federal agenda, rather than truly innovate."

The fact is that President Obama is not a friend to education, educators, students and public schools. Singer:

[Obama caved] to private companies misusing educational programs to maximize profits. Essentially these companies are recruiting unqualified students and using their eligibility for federal student loans to steal tax payer money. The Obama administration vowed to stop the for-profit edu-companies from luring students with false promises about the quality of their programs and the potential for future employment. The Education Department threatened to cut off student aid funds that feed the 30 billion dollar industry. However, after a massive lobbying effort, the teeth were pulled from the new regulations.

According to The New York Times, the for-profit edu-companies "spent more than $16 million on an all-star list of prominent figures, particularly Democrats with close ties to the White House, to plot strategy, mend their battered image and plead their case..."

Another recent New York Times article documented the way the for-profit edu-companies, including the massive Pearson publishing concern, go unregulated by federal education officials. These companies operate online charter schools that offer substandard education to desperate families at public expense. One online program, Agora, made $72 million this school year for its parent company K12, the biggest player in the online-school business.

NEA also gets an F, by the way. In their comparison of candidates they use the President's words, not his actions, as proof that he deserves our support. In the Candidate Platform Comparison (click here for references) Obama says this about NCLB:

“I want to take us in a new and better direction...This agenda starts with education... We cannot be satisfied until every child in America--and I mean every child--has the same chances for a good education that we want for our own children.”1

The Obama administration, under the educational "leadership" of Arne Duncan has worked hard to make sure that the public schools fail.

On Worker's rights:

President Obama believes “collective bargaining is a ‘fundamental American value.’” He has said that “...making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally seems like more of an assault on unions...”4

Where was the President in Wisconsin last year? Where was he in Ohio, and Michigan, and Indiana? Where was he this year in Indiana when our legislature made us the 23rd Right to Work state in the nation? These are empty words.

There are good reasons for progressives to vote for the President, however. The Supreme Court comes to mind. "Citizens United" is reason enough to keep the High Court from getting a stronger conservative majority and President Obama is much more likely to appoint progressive candidates than either Republican candidate. However, on Education the President gets a failing grade.

The Republican Candidates

The NEA's Candidate Platform Comparison gives us information about Gingrich and Romney as well. Both would continue the de-professionalization of public school teachers and the privatization of public schools.

Gingrich on NCLB:

Gingrich would “...insist that federal funds only go to school systems which require teacher competency and accountability.”1

Romney on NCLB:

“We had a No Child Left Behind...in our state a number of years ago... And it's had a big impact here. It's improved schools.”1

Gingrich on Worker's Rights:

Gingrich publicly sided with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker against teachers and public employees.4

Romney on Worker's Rights:

Romney publicly sided with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker against teachers and public employees.4

Gingrich on Vouchers:

Gingrich strongly supports school vouchers, suggests calling them Pell Grants for kids.3

Romney on Vouchers:

Romney has previously stated support for means-tested school voucher programs.3

~~~

So...maybe this will help...

Click here to sign the Dump Duncan Petition

...teachers throughout the nation have become discouraged and demoralized, undermining your own stated goals of improving teacher quality, upgrading the nation’s educational performance, and encouraging creative pedagogy rather than “teaching to the test.”

We therefore submit the following measures to put your administration’s education policy back on the right track and to bring teachers in as full partners in this effort:

1. The removal of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education and his replacement by a lifetime educator who has the confidence of the nation’s teachers.
2. The incorporation of parents, teachers, and school administrators in all policy discussion taking place in your administration, inside and outside the Department of Education.
3. An immediate end to the use of incentives or penalties to compel states and municipalities to use student test scores as a basis for evaluating teachers, preferring charter schools to existing public schools, and requiring closure of low performing schools.
4. Create a National Commission, in which teachers and parent representatives play a primary role, which explores how to best improve the quality of America’s schools.