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

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2016 Medley #19

Public Schools, Politics, 
Priorities: Libraries or Tests,
Trauma, Read-Aloud, Poverty

WORDS MATTER

'Bailing out' schools

The "business model" of education is so pervasive among "reformers" that they are taking to using terms inappropriate to a public service like public education.

In Chicago, the Mayor's office refers to the needed funding for the city schools as a "bailout." It's as if regular and sufficient funding of public education was not the responsibility of the city...and the "education industry" needed to be "bailed out" of their fiscal problems. Keep in mind that, in Chicago, the mayor appoints the members of the school board who run the schools. If there is fiscal mismanagement, whose fault is it?

The truth is that, if there is a problem with the funding of the schools in a locality it's the fault of the city or state responsible for that funding. Illinois, like most states in the US, has a constitution that calls for the funding of a system of "common schools" for the purpose of educating the state's children. When the legislature fails to fund those schools it's their fault...not the fault of the schools.

They've obviously gone from viewing public schools as beggars to outright criminals. As in -- Let's not let these dangerous public institutions back out on the street where they can steal again from the city's most wealthy tax dodgers.

POLITICS

BREAKING NEWS – Trump goes with anti-public education running mate

We don't yet know how a Hillary Clinton administration would treat public education. As president she could easily follow the Bush/Obama plan of encouraging charters and over-testing. The Democratic party has come down on charters in its platform, much to the chagrin of the DFER crowd, but that doesn't mean that Clinton will follow the platform.

On the other hand, we know exactly where Trump stands on public schools. There are three basic points to his K-12 policy (if you can call it a policy

• locally controlled

• no common core ("A total disaster")

• spend more money than anyone and we're rated 28th

Those "points" are either vague or incorrect, but that was where Trump stood on education until recently when he chose Indiana Governor Mike Pence to be his running mate. We know Pence's education platform: privatize through charters and vouchers, test children till they drop, and destroy the teaching profession (for more information click here - PENCE).

As Indiana’s governor, Pence has driven an anti-teacher, anti-public education political and legislative agenda that has included dramatically expanding charter schools and diverting scarce public funds to voucher programs that, in turn, have allowed private individuals to use taxpayer money to send their children to religious schools.

PRIORITIES

Far more $ for tests than for libraries

There's no name associated with this post, but my guess is that it's from Stephen Krashen.

Not only do we spend more on testing than on school libraries, there are public schools across the nation with no school library at all. You can be sure that even those schools find the money to test their students annually. I am also fairly sure that individual teachers spend their own money to stock their classroom libraries.

School libraries: About $10 per student = $500 million SLJ’s 2014 Spending Survey: Savvy Librarians Are Doing More with Less

Data from 2011, 2012: I could not find more recent data.
Testing: Estimates range from 1.7 billion (J. Chingos, Brookings Institution, 2012) to 25 billion (Five reasons standardized testing isn’t likely to let up)

Add to this: test prep paid by parents: 13 billion/ (A 21st century boondoogle: high tech testing)

RESEARCH INTO TRAUMA

Teaching Traumatized Kids

Students are not widgets. Their environment has an impact on their physical and emotional health, as well as their achievement.

Neuroscience tells us that the brains of kids regularly facing significant trauma or toxic stress are wired for survival and likely to erupt at the smallest provocation. A major study of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) by the Centers for Disease Control and Kaiser Permanente found that the higher a young person’s ACEs score, the greater the risk in adulthood of chronic disease, mental illness, and premature death. These children also have a far greater future likelihood of either inflicting or being the victim of violence.

READING ALOUD

Read to them…just because…

We know reading aloud to children is important. It is the single most important activity a parent or teacher can do to help children succeed in reading.

Read alouds matter. They create opportunities for a vibrant tapestry of rich classroom discussions. They provide pathways to broader thinking and reflection about the world. The empirical research about the benefits of read aloud is abundant, but there is “heart evidence” too. Books touch our students’ hearts and minds.

Read alouds open up opportunities for gaining new perspectives or different appreciations in ways that only beautiful literature can. Teachers read aloud… because…“Strong young minds continue to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who send their books out into the world like ships on the sea. Books give a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.” (Matilda by Roald Dahl)

POVERTY

Two more from Stephen Krashen...he repeats his point again and again, whenever he can get someone to print his letters or on his own blog...

Lift kids out of poverty before expecting higher test scores

Instead of spending billions on unnecessary testing, let's invest in protecting children from the impact of poverty by expanding and improving food programs, improving healthcare and building better libraries in high-poverty areas. The best teaching in the world has little effect when children are hungry, sick and have little access to reading material.

Education: The real problem

Instead of spreading rumors, let's make sure our students are protected from the negative impact of poverty: let's push for better food programs, more school nurses, and well-supported school libraries.

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Pence: A Negative Impact

A guest post from an anonymous Indiana public school teacher.

I’m a Hoosier with conservative values. I’m pro-life and my faith in Jesus Christ guides my decisions. But I’m not a supporter of Pence.

I’m an educator, and most Indiana educators will tell you that they, too, do not support Mike Pence. It’s one of the reasons his re-election as governor was shaky before he became the choice for Trump’s VP.

Most Americans and non-teaching Hoosiers haven’t had an opinion about Pence until he signed a bill which got the attention of the LGBT community. Because it brought bad publicity during an election year, Pence rescinded on the bill.

What the general public doesn’t know about Pence is that he and Indiana Republicans have been bedfellows with the American Legislative Exchange Council and Pearson. Together, behind closed doors, these lawmakers and corporation giants have decided which education laws will be passed each term. They’ve found a way for school funds to benefit them through vouchers, testing, teacher qualifications, and the privatization of public schools.

Pence supports corporate greed over the good of children and local communities. I’m not sure how this will make American great again.

In Indiana, Pence’s education policies have negatively impacted every aspect of education. While Mitch Daniel’s administration made sweeping changes by introducing vouchers, state-mandated teacher evaluations, salary caps, and high stakes testing, Mike Pence continued the excessive executive power, disregard of law, and hostile aggression towards educators.

Mr. Pence devalued the teaching profession by lowering requirements for qualified teachers and establishing Pearson created competency testing. He legislated how teachers are evaluated and paid, resulting in high-stakes evaluations and minuscule performance pay.

Teachers in Indiana are leaving the classroom in masses. The stress is too high and they are underpaid. Because there’s now a teacher shortage, Pence and Republican lawmakers spent time and money to study the reasons why.

In the 2012 election, the residents of Indiana voted for Democrat Glenda Ritz to be Superintendent of Public Education. It was the outcry against the Daniels/Tony Bennett administration. In response, Pence used executive power to develop his own education committee that would be at odds with the Department of Education. He also removed the Superintendent of Public Education as the chairman of the State Board of Education.

During his four years, Pence planned to create a public news media that would report the news from his administration he wanted the public to hear. Bold power and control efforts from a man labeled by outsiders as meek and mild.

As an educator, I’ve been demoralized at the lack of respect he’s shown me, my colleagues, and the children we serve. Last year, I spoke to an appointee of Pence’s to advocate for discouraged teachers and kids who are negatively affected by standardized testing. In turn, I learned that money is what speaks, and if you speak against those in power, you get black-listed and libeled by the media.

People outside of education don’t think this isn’t a big deal. It is a big deal, because when leaders let money determine what’s best for kids, then integrity always has a price.

Education with political strings attached affects every community.

In Indiana, small, rural schools are shutting down because funding has been cut, families are moving out of district, and whole communities are losing jobs where school corporations are the largest employers.

Inner-city schools, like Indianapolis Public Schools, are urban nightmares as charter schools take away public school funding, yet only meet the needs of a fraction of the population.

Cities like Indy, Detroit, and Chicago are the poster-children for big government in education. The corporate rich and politicians get the money, and the urban poor, of which have a racial bias, receive a sub-standard education.

This is what Pence brings to the Republican Party ticket if he follows the path he’s paved in Indiana. If you don’t think education effects all parts of society, then education has benefitted you. If you know what the school-to prison pipeline is, then I don’t need to explain anymore.

The only presidential candidate that will make American great again is the one who invests in and supports public education for all children. He or she is the one that honors the teaching profession, who doesn’t deal with corporate interest in education, and returns the control of schools to local communities.

Pence hasn’t done this for Indiana. The candidate who values these things is one who cares about kids, community, and isn’t bought by corporate America.

An Anonymous Teacher, 2016

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Thoughts on Tribalism and Self-Destruction

NEW VIOLENCE – JUST LIKE THE OLD VIOLENCE

I've promised myself that I would not allow myself to age into one of those old men who said things like, "those kids, today," and "the world is going to hell in a handbasket." I don't want to be someone who sits and complains about the modern world.

It's true that people have always hated, feared, and killed each other, and people in America have killed each other with guns since the European "explorers" slaughtered the natives; Since America declared its "Manifest Destiny." The Long Branch Saloon and the OK Corral in the 1880s are as much a part of our nation's violent history as the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, the Trail of Tears, and the Civil War.

I'm not talking about international wars. I'm talking about our penchant for killing ourselves – our own countrymen. It's been going on since we arrived on the continent and we haven't matured much since then. It was just as bad in the past.

On the other hand, our self-destruction in the past was accomplished with knives, swords, muskets, six-shooters and shotguns. Technologically, things were safer back then. If you wanted to kill a large number of people (i.e. more than one) you had to reload giving others a chance to stop you before you did too much damage. Today, on the other hand, mass murder is lightning quick and much deadlier.

The paranoid right in America is fanatical about the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" to the point where the first sentence of the Second Amendment is forgotten or rationalized away. We have the right to the latest in weaponry, they say, because the Declaration obliges us to overthrow the government when it becomes destructive.

In the last week seven people died public deaths. Two because they were black and in the wrong place at the wrong time and five because they were "the government." I should add that these seven were just the nationally publicized killings. There were, of course, others that weren't important enough for the national news to report.

Sadly, not one of the killings over the last few days is the least bit surprising.

Tragic. Yes.

Traumatizing. Yes.

But not surprising.

VOICES OF HATE

And neither are the voices of hate and fear which have risen in the aftermath (see HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE).

Hate in America has never been buried too far beneath the veneer of polite-civilization. It's been oozing its way out of the dark recesses of the nation's fear since we Europeans landed on our shores carrying our racial and religious bigotry with us. We're quick to try to bury it again when it shows up, but it's relentless. In the last decade...with the election of the nation's first African-American president...and with the rise to prominence of a man giving that hate a supportive voice...it has flowed openly throughout the nation.

Perhaps it's a human characteristic that we're just not able to eliminate yet...the hatred borne from the fear of the "other." Humans have always been tribal – us against them. We should be civilized enough to let it go, but perhaps it's just too inbred for us to escape its destructive force.

If we can't rein in voices of hate and fear...if we can't overcome the urge to want to kill anyone who is the "other"...if we can't retake our civilization from those who are reacting from the reptilian brain...then the destruction of our civilization will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

One expression of hope was from the man who has been subjected to much of the hate over the last 8 years.

CNN Breaking News

Frankly acknowledging a "tough week" in the United States after tense days of shootings and racial tensions, President Barack Obama said Saturday that he did not believe the United States was "as divided as some have suggested."

"As painful as this week has been, I firmly believe that America is not as divided as some have suggested," Obama said during a NATO news conference in Poland.

"Americans of all races and all backgrounds are rightly outraged by the inexcusable attacks on police, whether it's in Dallas or anywhere else. That includes protesters, that includes family members who have grave concerns about police misconduct, and they've said this is unacceptable. There's no division there."

There are reasons to hope. There are good people among us who want to stop the constant killing. We just have to be stronger, louder, and more persistent than those who are uncivilized.

THOUGHTS FROM OTHERS

This Is Why I Hate Politics

The trouble is that emotions trump reason in matters of moral indignation. The reptilian response, based on emotion, overpowers intellect most every time. Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt likens this dilemma to that of a little man (reason) strapped to the back of an elephant (emotion) and trying to control the bipolar pachyderm with a stick. This hardly ever works, the elephant wins, then we make up stories to rationalize why we act out in emotional ways. That is our human condition. We’re hard-wired for kneejerk moral responses - gut reactions, mindless outrage - leaving the little man kicking his legs and helpless to stop the beast from stampeding. We’re screaming before we realize we’re mad. Buttons we didn’t install get pushed and trounce us with their passionate intensity.

Politics is hateful because it preys on two demons: moral outrage and the lust for power. Most politicians go into the business for mostly good reasons, I’m sure, but the show must go on and their worthy intentions are compromised by the push for success because politics is a business first. It runs on the principles of business. Crushing. Maneuvering. Dissembling. Deceiving. And WINNING at most any cost (remove that word from the lexicon, and Donald Trump would collapse like a house of cards). With so much money in the system, the game has of course only grown more obscene.

So this is how we solve problems now

We’ve brought up a whole generation of people who think the appropriate response to problems is to bring out a gun and shoot them…and the bigger the problem the bigger the gun. We’re dealing with racism by shooting black people, dealing with trigger-happy cops by shooting random police officers, and presiding over it all, the gleeful NRA.

The Governing Cancer of Our Time

This isn’t just an American phenomenon. Politics is in retreat and authoritarianism is on the rise worldwide. The answer to Trump is politics. It’s acknowledging other people exist. It’s taking pleasure in that difference and hammering out workable arrangements.

The 239 People, Places and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter: A Complete List

From the New York Times

Since declaring his candidacy for president last June, Donald Trump has used Twitter to lob insults at presidential candidates, journalists, news organizations, nations, a Neil Young song and even a lectern in the Oval Office. We know this because we’ve read, tagged and quoted them all.

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