OK enough about that….let’s talk about education.  Terri brought that to the forum as a suggestion and it seems like a good place as any to start….certainly is plenty to talk about.  So since I’m here and typing I’ll start.  Since I’m not an educator by formal training my ideas and observations are from personal experiences.  As many of you know, I had started into Culinary School before we were plucked out of our little warm, fuzzy world and moved to Bangkok, so I have observed the modern day technical college student.  I shall digress here to my high school days, to make a point and then we can talk away.

When we entered, what was termed “Jr. Hi School” back then, we got a counselor, the counselor was charged with helping us to decide “what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives”.  I’m guessing after several conversations with the counselor, the counselor and our parents, she (mine was a she) made some recommendations about a course of study she felt would best serve our graduation goals.  We basically had 3 choices…we could have a general studies tract, a business tract, or a college tract.  General meant you wanted to learn a trade..hair stylist, dental hygienist, car mechanic, etc., business was secretarial, typing, shorthand, etc, and college was well….college.  So when you got to Hi school you were sent into those particular classes and into the ‘comprehensive’ or vo-tech area if you were general and there you were taught a trade…the hair, dental, or car thing, etc, business same thing….you were put on a tract that would allow you to be employable once you left high school….that was the goal of these 2 tracts.  You were not college bound so it seemed like having a skill so you could go to work made sense.  It did to me then and it does to me now.  Obviously if you were in a college tract…well you were college bound, ‘nuf said ’bout dat!!!

Now here’s my observation…why was that not workable?  Fast forward to today…the technical colleges are essentially doing the same thing that was done at the Hi School level “back in the day”, but now these kids wind up on the door steps of these technical colleges…they have floundered around in high school, haven’t learned much, never wanted to go to college, and now here they are needing a trade so they can work.  The difference being……. they are 20 or so, frustrated, and angry about the fact they have no skills to get a job, and not much of an education from what I can see.  Basic math skills, pathetic…non existent…is my observation.  So here’s my question, why did we abandon a system that seemed to work?  Why wait until a kid is out of school, under skilled, and over frustrated, and therefore not really employable, to address the issue of giving them a skill that will allow them to go to work?  Seems to me the old “Comprehensive Hi Schools” were doing at an earlier stage in a kids development, what the tech schools are trying to do today…after the fact if you will…

Y’alls turn.

This new film, set to open next Friday the 28th, has the NYC DOE buzzing-especially following the recent teachers’ strike in Chicago. Now, whatever your stance on politics, you’d have to agree that allegations against these teachers, made by not just conservative media sources but also Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, are unjustified. I think anyone who has ever worked….a day in their life…..WOULD agree that a hard day’s effort deserves compensation. That being said, I’ve got plenty of bones to pick with the teachers’ union we have here in NYC and am in no way implying that union demands are always rational. But it’s troubling that the Chicago teachers are now being accused of not having their students’ best interests in mind. All I can think of is the sign alerting adults to put their own breathing mask on in case of an airplane emergency and then help the children with them. I’m not quite sure how teachers can be expected to give as much as they need to to their students when they aren’t adequately being taken care of themselves.

And while the film does look super cheesy, feel good, I’m prepared to spend $12 because it seems to me that the attention education has received in the last ten years should be supported.

This photo from the film is also super emotional. I like that.

• An inside look at what it means to be a “failing school.”

• Last week was the Republican National Convention in Tampa, FL. Paul Ryan gave a powerful, but incredibly misleading speech. Condoleeza Rice lectured on foreign policy. And Clint Eastwood talked to a chair. Meanwhile, President Obama took questions in a Reddit AMA.

• Also, how did Mitt Romney use debt at Bain Capitol?

• The mind-bending truth behind The Swedish Chef’s real identity.

• Bernie Miklasz with a good old-fashioned newspaper column on Rick Majerus and fear.

• Chuck Klosterman has three rule changes for the NFL.

• Paul Lukas does God’s work in ranking all 122 North American professional sports uniforms.

• David Shields on writing.

• The 20 greatest sports moments from Parks and Recreation.

• How that PSA video on the Internet supra represents 1995.

• A victory in the War on Drugs…

• Mike Birbiglia and Ira Glass talk about their new movie, Sleepwalk With Me.

At the heart of the article is an argument that standardized testing doesn’t capture the value of a school and the policy actions that chase failing test scores don’t facilitate improvement to national standards as much as they distract from meaningful efforts to progress an almost woefully uneducated base.  As my last sentence suggests, I tend to agree but the conflict I felt was towards the successful student, Maria.  She is an illegal immigrant who escaped a sad/violent situation in El Salvador to reunite with her mother.  I honestly don’t know how to think of that journey.  I think she has overcome so much just to get to safety that I don’t know how I can think of her as a single number in our border situation, but I do know that in the school system, she became a problem.

She entered a school system geared to high achieving native English speakers and she was a teenager who barely knew the language.  Her middle school system was a high scoring standardized test school and I am sure it produces more revenue than her low scoring high school.  But at her failing high school, she began to learn.  Maybe it wasn’t that she began to learn as much as she stopped being afraid to learn and I think that is the difference in schools.  Her middle school was geared to produce results because most of the students were at the point they could perform, but Maria could not because she was not ready to fit in the system.  When she went to her high school, that changed, because the school did not make her fear learning and more people were like her in demographics, so her missteps were something her peers could relate to.  In that context, she began to find her niche.

Though the article doesn’t dwell on this, I just kept thinking that Maria probably still struggled in quantitative fields partly because that wasn’t her natural strength, but her voice was just so strong that once she started to become comfortable with the language, it let her create her own path to demonstrating her value.  I don’t know if that is a “scalable” outcome, yet at the same time, I just found that so hopeful.  It made me think of the parolees I used to work with in Trenton and how they lacked the quantitative skills to be white collar professionals but as I tutored them in English, I also just appreciated the voice they gave to their experiences and how that diversity of experience is important to a dynamic society able to address its oncoming problems.

And at base, I just kept thinking that the importance of education is introducing people to struggle and how to work through it, and perhaps that is the value of a failing school like the one Maria attended: the level of learning that teachers address allows them to put time and appropriate challenges to her to help her feel comfortable approaching struggle.  Yet I grasp the difficulty in the situation.  For all that schools can do to shape our ability to struggle and find ourselves, schools rightfully have the onus of manufacturing producers of economic value for the country as well.  Do we have the resources to dedicate schools or even teachers to accommodating the differing learning curves/styles of immigrant students?  Is that investment to tailor schools like that worth it if the payoff predominantly creates contributions in soft skill spaces like law or story telling?  Definitely acknowledge not all immigrants have lower aptitudes in math and science like Maria but I do wonder if in the failing schools discussion, if that is indeed the case.

Anyways, I really appreciated the article also if only the solid journalism of Kristina Rizga.  What she did is not unlike a master’s thesis I imagine.

Yes, there are some bad teachers that need to be replaced, and, yes, the process to remove them is long and arduous.  However, the reasons the process is so difficult because while there are teachers that need to be removed, there are also good teachers who are being targeted, either by a particular administrator or by a parent.

During my career, I sometimes had to deal with a teacher who, for want of a better phrase, should not have been teaching.  It took a while, but once an arbitrator learned all of the facts, the bad teachers were usually removed.  On the other hand, I was once brought before an arbitrator by a principal who wanted to replace me with a tall well built red head, even though my performance was always excellent.  When the arbitrator heard my case, I was returned to my position, and I asked to be transferred to a different school.  The principal based his case on a technicality of notification about surgery that I had.  None of it was performance related.  The arbitrator dismissed the case as did the superintendant.  Of course, I then asked for a transfer.  I was part of the team that had gotten the school off the state list of failing schools.

UNIONS ARE PROTECTING THE TEACHERS AND THE CHILDREN

Randi Weingarten, the President of the American Federation of Teachers, the national teachers’ union, addresses this issue in the Washington Post in her discussion of “Won’t Back Down.”  She is very clear in making her readers understand that the film is pure fiction and has no basis in fact.

RANDI WEINGARTEN, NOT JUST AN ACTIVIST FOR TEACHERS, AN ADVOCATE FOR CHILDREN.

Ms. Weingarten, during her career as an educator and as a union leader, had always advocated as much for the students as she has for the teachers.  And she states, “After viewing this film, I can tell you that if I had taught at that school, and if I were a member of that union, I would have joined the characters played by Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis. I would have led the effort to mobilize parents and teachers to turn around that school myself.”  The problem, you see, is not the teachers and not the union.   There is no one word answer.  The filmmaker’s oversimplification – even considering the need for drama and box office revenue – is a problem.

In New York, where non-union charter schools are attempting to replace many unionized public schools, most charters do not do any better than their public counterparts.   The charters may have busted the union, but they have not solved the problems.

We are living in difficult times.  Money is tight, and there is a contingent among our politicians that believes that the way to make things better is to cut taxes for the wealthy.  To accomplish this goal, and the revenue declines that would accompany it, they have to cut services.  No government agency is immune.  Police officers and firefighters are losing their jobs.  There are approximately three hundred thousand, fewer teachers now than there were 8 years ago.

Yes, there are some issues that unions must address, but while those issues are being addressed, the educational administrators must deal with the real problems.  These include, over populated classrooms, poverty, ineffective standardized tests and more.  Union busting will not solve these problems.  Union busting makes good sound bites but hurts the children the union busters say they are fighting for.

THE CHILDREN MATTER MOST

In the end, it was unions that gave us health insurance, pensions and fair wages.  Those people who are attacking all unions, not just the teachers’ s union, seek to end these protections and create a have and have not society, a society in which 90% of the people will be the have nots.

So, the truth is, not only can’t the teachers back down.   We all can’t, indeed, we must not back down.  Not for the unions.  Not for the Tea Party.  But for the ones who count most, the children.

HELP US GET BACK INTO THE TOP TEN. VOTE TODAY AND ASK YOUR FRIENDS TO VOTE TOO!

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Condi versus Obama.

Former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice addresses the 2012 Republican National Convention.

The Republicans don’t KNOW a good thing when they have it – the black male “rock star” president vs. the black female “rock star” former Secretary of State! And NOT just any female either, this is a woman who comes from the face of segregated America: Birmingham, Alabama.

Republicans should have gone in droves to Condoleezza Rice and begged, threatened, cajoled, seduced, threatened — maybe even sent former Vice President Dick Cheney to FORCE Rice to be their nominee. They could have with one GO broken the perception that they are racist, dismissed the notion that the reason so many of them hate Obama is because he is black and just sucked in the female vote. Va-va-vroom…

But NO. They had to go with the anti-Condoleezza. Pass on spicy for bland…

Former Secretary of State, Colin Powell who served BEFORE Rice.

Can you envision a debate between Barak Obama and Condoleezza Rice? WHO would NOT watch? The WORLD would watch…

Republicans could have bagged Colin Powell. But NO. Condi and Powell DO NOT SIT WELL WITH the racist Tea Party arm now controlling the Republican Party.

Let us look at Condoleezza Rice’s speech to the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa/Florida August 29. All you’re getting is Ryan’s FLUFF shoved down your throat!

Rice starts by saying:

“We gather here at a time of significance and challenge. This young century has been a difficult one…

(She refers to 9-11 then adds) “From that day on…our sense of vulnerability and our concepts of security were never the same again.

Then, in 2008, the global financial and economic crisis would stun us. And it still reverberates as we deal with unemployment and economic uncertainty and bad policies that cast a pall over an American economy and a recovery that is
desperately needed at home and abroad.

Economy crashes – 2008, SAME year Obama takes office. It’s HIS fault.

(She goes on to refer to developments in the Middle East and what America should do about Syria and Iran) “Russia and China prevent a response, and everyone asks, where does America stand?”

So far I agree with everything she’s said.

America’s sense of vulnerability and our concepts of security will NEVER be the same again.

• The financial crisis did NOT stun me because anyone with an ounce of sense could foresee this coming. Some people were warning and urging caution. 
• YES! We are still reverberating from the massive job losses and economic uncertainty that started under Republican rule with former President George W. Bush’s wars and tax cuts…and other bad policies. These policies cast a pall over America’s economy and the recovery that is desperately needed at home and abroad.
• And yes. Russia and China are blocking American intervention.

Condi says the world is asking: “Where does America stand? Since world war II, the United States has had an answer to that question.  We stand for free peoples and free markets. We will defend and support them. We will sustain a balance of power that favors freedom.

She goes on to make the case for INTERVENTIONISM – praising the soldiers who put their lives on the line to secure American Freedom and then goes on to say the question of the hour is:

• “Where does America stand?  You see when the friends or foes alike don’t know the answer to that question, unambiguously and clearly, the world is likely to be a more dangerous and chaotic place.” There is no choice, because one of two things will happen if we don’t lead. Either no one will lead and there will be chaos, or someone will fill the vacuum who does not share our values.

I don’t agree with her there on her method. Rice subscribes to the Bush Doctrine of Preemptive strikes (the one Sarah Palin had never heard of). Rice, (like Bush, Cheney, Bush’s Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and many Republicans) believe that wherever around the world some dictator rattles his sabers, especially against “Freedom”, America should pull out her big guns and go bang, bang!

BUT, IF the rattling is coming from a huge powerhouse like China or Russia – THEN obviously we CAN’T invade THEM, so what do we do then?

NOW there is a FUNDAMENTAL question that Americans need to answer: HOW do you deal with Russia and China?

Chinese troops. How should America treat China?

Romney and Ryan say THEY will haul China before the World Trade Organization. I’m sure that will work on so many levels. Because if you earn $200-thousand-a year, then borrow 20 million dollars from your neighbor and he’s holding your house and your cars as collateral, then of course the one thing you want to do is sue your neighbor.

Would you try to talk to him, bring him cookies, offer to watch his kids, kiss his (you know) unobtrusively of course, ’cause he’s got you over a barrel? A barrel YOU allowed HIM to put you over with your run-away conspicuous consumption which you could NOT afford? If you’re a Democrat you play nice. You hate to kiss his (you know) but  you’re smart and you like your nice, big house and fancy car.

If you’re a Republican, you being the MACHO moron that you are, you tell your neighbor, the one holding your loan – “Go —- yourself!” And then sit at home and smirk as you imagine him renegotiating a new loan for you with a lower interest rate. That’s what Republicans expect. That they will step on your toes and you will be so grateful, you will still love them, because they are, well, Republicans! These people have NO concept of ACTION – REACTION. OF ACTION – CONSEQUENCE. (Naturally, they blame the consequences on someone else!)

Renewable Energy sources

Back to Rice:

• We must work for an open, global economy, and pursue free and fair trade, to grow our exports and our influence abroad.  If you are worried about the rise of China, just consider this — the United States has…ratified only three trade agreements in the last few years, and those were negotiated in the Bush administration. China has signed 15 free trade agreements and is in the progress of negotiating as many as 18 more.  Sadly, we are abandoning the field of free and fair trade and it will come back to haunt us. AGREE

• We must not allow the chance to attain energy independence to slip from our grasp.  We are blessed with a gift of oil and gas resources here in North America, and we must develop them. We can develop them sensitively, we can develop them securing our environment, but we must develop them. And we have the ingenuity to develop alternatives sources of energy.  AGREE

(Rice says  Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will rebuild the foundation of our strength, the American economy — stimulating private sector growth and stimulating small business entrepreneurship…BALONEY!)

• When the world looks at us today, they see an American government that cannot live within its means.  They see an American government that continues to borrow money, that will mortgage the future of generations to come.  The world knows that when a nation loses control of its finances, it eventually loses control of its destiny. That is not the America that has inspired people to follow our lead. AGREE.

Now we see here WHAT substance IS! Yes she’s got her ideology – and I don’t always agree. But by gosh she’s  got some foundations in her speech that BOTH parties can use as STARTING POINTS to a productive dialog – ASSUMING they want to?

According to Rice:

• You see, the essence of America, what really unites us, is not nationality or ethnicity or religion.  It is an idea.  And what an idea it is.  That you can come from humble circumstances and you can do great things, that it does not matter where you came from, it matters where you are going. SO TRUE!

• My fellow Americans, ours has never been a narrative of grievance and entitlement.  We have never believed that I am doing poorly because you are doing well.  We have never been jealous of one another and never envious of each others’ successes. SO TRUE!

Republicans applauded here – because they’ve bought into the silly dialog that Romney and the other Republicans put forward to mask their questionable financial practices – the one that says those of us who question the Romney’s finances do so because we are envious. I can’t speak for everybody, there may be some who envy the Romney’s for their lifestyle. But I’m not envious. Just practice what you preach.

But Rice could also be saying: Stop your silly mouthing that criticism of financial wrongdoing is “envy” because until you came up with that nonsense “ours has never been a narrative of grievance and entitlement.  We have never believed that I am doing poorly because you are doing well.  We have never been jealous of one another and never envious of each others’ successes.”

•  No…ours has been a belief in opportunity.  And it has been a constant struggle, long and hard, up and down, to try to extend the benefits of the American dream to all.  But that American ideal is indeed in danger today.  There is no country, no, not even a rising China that can do more harm to us than we can do to ourselves if we do not do the hard work before us here at home. AGAIN – SO TRUE!

Children of Illegal Immigrants line up for Temporary Legal Status under President Obama’s “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” effective August 15, 2012.

On Immigration Reform:

• More than at any other time in history, greatness is built on mobilizing human potential and ambition…People have come here from all over because they have believed our creed of opportunity and limitless horizons. They have come here from the world’s most impoverished nations just to make a decent wage.  And they have come here from advanced societies as engineers and scientists that fuel the knowledge-based revolution in the Silicon Valley of California, in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, along Route 128 in Massachusetts, in Austin, Texas, and across this great land.

• We must continue to welcome the world’s most ambitious people to be a part of us.  In that way, we stay young and optimistic and determined.  We need immigration laws that protect our borders, meet our economic needs, and yet show that we are a compassionate nation of immigrants.

•  We have been successful too because Americans have known that one’s status of birth is not a permanent condition. Americans have believed that you might not be able to control your circumstances but you can control your response to your circumstances.

STOP. RUN THAT BY ME AGAIN!!!???

• Americans have believed that you might not be able to control your circumstances but you can control your RESPONSE to your circumstances.

Oh Condoleezza – I love you. You get it. You really, really do! (Paul Ryan would follow Rice on the podium and shoot down everything Rice says here – but we know that Ryan, like Romney, do NOT GET it. )

•  And your greatest ally in controlling your response to your circumstances has been a quality education.  But today, today, when I can look at your zip code and I can tell whether you’re going to get a good education, can I honestly say it does not matter where you came from, it matters where you are going?  The crisis in K-12 education is a threat to the very fabric of who we are.

•  My mom was a teacher.  I respect the profession.  We need great teachers, not poor ones and not mediocre ones.  We have to have high standards for our kids, because self-esteem comes from achievement, not from lax standards and false praise. And we need to give parents greater choice, particularly, particularly poor parents whose kids, very often minorities, are trapped in failing neighborhood schools.  This is the civil rights issue of our day.

RUN THAT ONE BY ME AGAIN, TOO!

• “We need to give parents greater choice, particularly, particularly poor parents whose kids, very often minorities, are trapped in failing neighborhood schools.  This is the civil rights issue of our day.”

Here’s the TALENT the Republicans have at their fingertips…and see whom (or is it WHAT?) they nominated! And YOU tell ME how STUPID this party is!!!

Police use dogs against civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama – 1963

And so here is the story. The HUMANISING story we cannot manufacture to seduce voters.

• On a personal note, a little girl grows up in Jim Crow Birmingham. The segregated city of the south where her parents cannot take her to a movie theater or to restaurants, but they have convinced that even if she cannot have it hamburger at Woolworths, she can be the president of the United States if she wanted to be, and she becomes the secretary of state.

Then Tea party Boy Dahling Paul Ryan comes on…and he plays to the Party Base, spouts the juvenile nonsense you expect from HIM. I’m looking at Ryan, seeing a pretty…a very pretty empty face. Yes, he is quite good looking. 

Ryan says:

• “Obama Care comes to more than 2,000 pages of rules, mandates, taxes, fees and fines that have no place in a free country.” HUH? What has No place in a free country? Pages? Rules? Mandates – like the one Mitt Romney slapped on us here in Massachusetts for ROMNEYCARE, our state healthcare for all? Taxes? As in the Supreme Court has decided to call that MANDATE a TAX? Fees and Fines like the ones Romney RAISED on us here in Massachusetts?

According to FactCheck.org: The Massachusetts Department of Administration and Finance put the fee total at $260 million a year and the corporate tax change at $174 million a year, and the independent Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation said both fees and taxes totaled $740 million to $750 million a year (split about evenly between fees and corporate taxes).  But Romney CAN SAY HE DID NOT RAISE TAXES…because being Romney, he came up with a devious, UNDERHAND creative accounting way to do so! 

• College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.

Representative Paul Ryan (Wisconsin), chair of the House Budget Committee and Mitt Romney’s running mate.

NO Mr. Ryan, college grads should NOT have to live back home in their childhood bedrooms if you and your Republican buddies had supported the Student Loan Reform bill. 

New York Times headline: MAY 17, 2012, 5:33 AM

Republicans in Senate Block Bill on Student Loan Rates

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked consideration of a Democratic bill to prevent the doubling of some student loan interest rates, leaving the legislation in limbo less than two months before rates on subsidized federal loans are set to shoot upward.

In an awkward move Wednesday, Senate Republicans voted overwhelmingly for two GOP-written budgets that would each let student loan interest rates spike in July, even as they insist they want to avert such an outcome.

Budget measures by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) (NOTE WHOM) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) went down 41-58 and 42-57, respectively. Both let Stafford loan rates double from 3.4 to 6.8 percent, which President Obama and Democrats have been pushing to prevent. Mitt Romney and GOP leaders say they want to extend the existing rate but differ on how to pay for it. (SEE THE hypocrisy?)

The budget votes were largely a Republican effort to embarrass President Obama and Democrats for failing to coalesce around a long-term fiscal vision. 

Then Ryan deals his coup de grace.  He discounts the very point that Rice made – that some people are locked into their lot.

• Listen to the way we’re already spoken to already, as if everyone is stuck in some class or station in life, victims of circumstances beyond our control, with government there to help us cope with our fate…

HE cannot get the point that Rice makes…that one might not be able to control one’s circumstances but yes, one can control one’s response to one’s circumstances.

Mr. Ryan if you’re at the bottom of a well, which would you prefer? For a fireman to come and throw you a rope — or look down at you, laugh and say: Dig yourself out. Even with broken fingernails!  Sure a determined person CAN dig him/herself out, but it’s a lot easier with that rope – or a spoon – or a shovel!

Remember HIM?

Ryan says leadership is missing from the White House – like there was an overflow of LEADERSHIP when George W. Bush was in the White House. Unless of course we factor in Bush’s egomaniacal Vice President Dick Cheney, who lived up to his name by leading Bush around by his…well, YOU know, Dick.

Maybe I’m biased…but so far, I am with Condi. 

My Dream is that: “One day…one day, politicians will speak the truth. That this nation will rise up and demand capable leaders, men and women of integrity, black, white, Hispanic, Asian and Amerindian.

I have a dream that one day, a politician’s worth will no longer be determined by how much money he can raise and spend, but by the sum of his ideas, by his or her competence and not by his/her debating ability.

I have a dream that one day politicians will be chosen, not by the color of their skin or party, but by the inclusiveness of their vision.

Yes, I have a dream that one day, on these white steps of the Capitol, we will see a Republican and a Democrat stand side by side at a table of National Interest and Unity and shout: Free at last, Free at last. Thank God – we are free at last from partisan bickering!”

First, Americans are now clearly saying that the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act has made education worse, not better. [Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll, 8-20-12] Overall, 29% of those polled said that the decade old law signed by President Bush has negatively impacted our schools, compared to 16% who thought it has improved them. But among those surveyed who said they are “very familiar” with the law, 48% said NCLB has made things worse, versus only 28% who said education is better.

No Child Left Behind has arguably been a policy fiasco. It massively expanded the federal government’s role in setting local school policy and established a national narrative of “failing public schools.” By focusing narrowly on student achievement – measured only by highly problematic standardized test scores – the law has created a highly punitive system, devalued teachers and educational professionals, villainized teachers’ unions, introduced a lucrative private system of “educational consultants” and businesses, promoted corporate-style reform anathema to the public good, and undermined the public’s faith in their schools.

What’s really interesting is how similar the responses to this recent poll were across political and class lines, and between those with and without a current K-12 child in the household. The bulk of respondents in every demographic felt that NCLB had “not made much difference.” However, with only one exception, those who feel the law has damaged education outnumber – sometimes by as much as two to one – those who feel the law has improved things. That means that Republicans, Democrats, independents, and a large swath of folks across class lines agree on public education policy. Despite a massive effort by the extreme right to polarize the issue, Americans remain largely on the same page when it comes to their schools.

The one exception was among those earning less than $30,000 who split about evenly between those saying things are worse or better under NCLB. This group has the lowest proportion (21%) of people who feel the law has been a problem, and the largest proportion (22%) who feel it has helped. This finding has important class – and probably racial – significance and reminds us that, despite its obvious flaws, NCLB has focused national attention on the most struggling students who are often poor and minorities.

Because NCLB has set the national dialogue over much of public education policy for the past decade, it is encouraging that there is generally such widespread agreement as to its results. And even more encouraging that a great many agree that it is time to dismantle the NCLB boondoggle. In fact, “[t]he results from this survey are in line with a January Gallup poll, which found that Americans tended to favor either eliminating the law or keeping it with heavy revisions. Just 21 percent of those surveyed said the law should be kept in its original form.” [Huffington Post, 8-21-12]

The PDK/Gallup poll also revealed that 48% of those surveyed gave the local schools in their communities an A or B rating – the highest in twenty years. Yet when asked about the general state of American education, only 18% gave public schools the same high grades, while 30% gave them a D or F. Education historian Diane Ravitch calls this “the real accomplishment of corporate reformers” who have been driving “an unprecedented, well-funded campaign to demonize public schools and their teachers over at least the past two year, and by some reckoning, even longer.” [Diane Ravitch, 8-22-12]

For Americans exposed to that constant drumbeat of failing-public-schools, it’s remarkable that any still show support for public education. Yet when asked about the school their oldest child attends, over three quarters – 77% – of respondents gave their school an A or B (and only 6% gave it a D or F). Again, this is the highest rating in twenty years. Ravitch points out that this question “elicit[ed] the views of informed consumers, the people who refer to a real school, not the hypothetical school system that is lambasted every other day in the national press.” [See Diane Ravitch’s excellent full analysis of the poll.]

So when you ask parents about the real schools in their own communities where their actual children go, they are overwhelmingly positive. Similarly, 71% said they have trust and confidence in their teachers, regardless of the incessant bashing they are subjected to in the national media. And perhaps the biggest news for our movement: by far the largest problem facing our schools identified by survey respondents is lack of financial support. Overall 35% identified this option, and among those parents with children in public schools, 43% chose this as the number one problem in education, far outweighing other issues (such as discipline, etc.).

Given this last statistic, it should come as no surprise that another poll last week found Governor Corbett’s approval rating continues to sink. [Franklin & Marshall poll, 8-16-12] Forty-two percent of respondents were unhappy with the governor’s performance, up three points from the last poll in June, while less than a third rated him favorably, remaining steady at 32 percent. What’s more, when asked to rank the most important problems facing Pennsylvania today, people listed education at number three, right behind “unemployment” and “government or politicians,” and right before “the economy,” and “taxes.”

In its analysis of the poll, PoliticsPa concluded “negative feelings toward the government or conceived poor handling of education (particularly with continued ire over college tuition increases and slashed spending for public schools) are likely to account for Corbett’s poor polling.” [PoliticsPA 8-16-12] Indeed. This poll also demonstrates how much Pennsylvanians care about their public schools and just how effective our grassroots movement has been in keeping the spotlight on funding for public education.

We would not see education on the number three spot of Pennsylvania’s concerns if we had not raised our collective voices. And our grassroots movement dovetails others across the country, pushing back against the narrative of failing schools, and helping people to see that our number one concern really is adequate, equitable, and sustainable public funding for our public schools. Our part in this local and national conversation is working, and we must keep it up!

The latest example of this comes courtesy of Pennsylvania’s recently expanded EITC corporate tax giveaway. The misnamed Educational Improvement Tax Credit program now has a companion called the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit program, which is premised on the notion that our public schools are failures and that students must be rescued from them. To do this, the program borrows from the federal government’s No Child Left Behind, which has been labeling schools as failures for the past decade under one of the nation’s largest policy fiascoes. Under the new EITC program, Pennsylvania has developed a list of 415 “failing schools” and created a voucher-like system allowing students living near them to take public tax-payer money to go to private schools. (Students can also go to another public school in a different district, if they will accept them – more on that later).

But the whole system rests on faulty logic. First, the list of supposedly “low achieving” schools is deeply flawed. Published at the end of July by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the list uses results from the 2010-2011 PSSAs (standardized state tests given to all public school students in grades 3 – 8 and 11) to identify the bottom 15% of schools based on reading and math scores. [PDE list of “failing” schools.] However, a full third of the schools on that list actually reached their student achievement targets set by the state and federal government.

Yes, that’s right, a third of the schools on the state’s list made AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) or were “making progress” under the definition of No Child Left Behind. [See our annotated chart below from the Pennsylvania School Board Association’s analysis.] Those numbers hold true here in Yinzer Nation: in the ten counties of Southwest PA, 22 out of the 73 schools listed – 30% – made AYP or were showing progress. That includes both the schools identified as “failing” in Green and Butler counties, one of the two schools in Beaver county, and six of the sixteen in Fayette county. (There was one school on the list from Washington county, and no schools identified in Armstrong, Indiana, Lawrence or Westmoreland counties.)

What’s more, of the 13 supposedly “failing” schools in Allegheny county, seven of them have already closed. (Noted red on the above chart; see PPS 2012-2013 realignment plan.) Those seven schools accounted for over a quarter of the list (7/27) of Pittsburgh Public Schools. And eight of the 27 PPS schools also made AYP or were “making progress.” Again, that’s 30% of the list in the city of Pittsburgh. As the Pennsylvania School Board Association points out, “Labeling these schools as low-achieving when they have met the student achievement standards set by the state and federal government functions to create two separate and conflicting measurements for student achievement.” [PSBA 7-27-12]

If the state is really interested in rescuing students from failing schools, why didn’t it include charter schools on that list? Only two of Pennsylvania’s 12 cyber charter schools achieved Adequate Yearly Progress status last year, and seven have never made AYP at all. (For details on charter school performance, see “Dueling Rallies.”) The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University found that students in every single Pennsylvania cyber charter school performed “significantly worse” in reading and math than their peers in conventional public schools. [Stanford/CREDO report summary, 2011] Shouldn’t the state be rescuing students from these low-achieving charter schools?

The fact that the state just approved four new cyber charters suggests that this isn’t really about saving students from failing schools at all. Indeed, under the new EITC scholarship program, students need never have actually attended a failing school in order to take public money to a private institution. The law is written so that students only have to live in the attendance area for a school on the low-achieving list – they may never have even set foot in the building!

And Governor Corbett and his allies in the legislature have made sure that no one can look too closely at the results of the new EITC program. The scholarship organizations have no auditing requirements and almost no reporting requirements (despite the fact that they can take 20% of donations for their own administration), and there is no way for the public to learn if the scholarships actually help students in any way. “In fact,” the Pennsylvania School Board Association explains, “the EITC law prohibits state administrators from requesting any information related to academic achievement, making it impossible to measure the effectiveness of the program.” [PSBA 7-27-12] So students could be attending failing private schools with these scholarships – but since private schools do not have to administer the PSSAs, we would never know.

And then there’s the pesky problem that EITC diverts our public funds meant for public education – where those resources could actually address student achievement issues. But with draconian state budget cuts, school districts have been forced to cut even basic tutoring programs while continuing to be on the hook for students who leave. For example, there is no limit to how far away an EITC student can go with their publicly-subsidized “scholarship,” and the student’s home school district is legally obligated to provide transportation for up to ten miles. It’s no wonder local school districts are not buying into this program. Even those that did not appear on the state’s list – and could volunteer to receive students from “low achieving” schools – have shown little interest (only two have signed up in the whole state so far, and none in Southwest PA).

Interviewed by the Tribune-Review, Wilkinsburg School District Superintendent Archie Perrin “said the tax credit program is yet another means of siphoning needed resources from districts — particularly those with high percentages of students from low-income households — which already contend with declining state revenue.” [Tribune-Review, 7-27-12] And West Mifflin Area Superintendent Daniel Castagna explained that his district would not participate in EITC because “it’s a blatant attempt to privatize public education.” He and 23 other Allegheny County school superintendents had a conference call last week, and the majority concluded “that the opportunity scholarships would not help public school districts.” [Post-Gazette, 8-18-12]

The EITC program is clearly not about what is best for students. It is about giving corporations huge tax breaks while sending public dollars to private and religious schools, doing an end-run around our own state constitution and draining our public schools of desperately needed resources. It’s about labeling schools as failing and then using the rhetoric of failure to legitimatize the privatization of public education. Now that’s an epic failure.

That’s the report card from the Michigan Department of Education on Thursday.

(Scroll down to find where your school stands)

Vanessa Keesler, the head of evaluation research and accountability with the department, said the reward designation helps the state lift up and highlight schools that are improving.

Speaking live on WWJ Newsradio 950, Kessley said the report also draws attention to “Priority Schools,” which are the lowest-performing schools and “Focus Schools” which are the schools with the largest achievement gaps, so that they can target making sure that all Michigan schools go forward.

So, how are Michigan students doing compared to last year?

“In terms of our adequate yearly progress, we had more schools pass AYP, adequate yearly progress, this year than last year, so that’s been an improvement for Michigan,” Kessley said.

Kessley said that the 146 schools designated as “Priority Schools” will be placed under the jurisdiction of the state reform office.

“And they are required to design and implement a plan to ensure rapid turnaround in their performance over time,” she said.

Kessley said those priority schools are spread across 49 different school districts — 25 percent of those schools are in Detroit.

Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Roy Roberts said that’s down by 12 percent from 2011. He said of the 58 DPS schools on the list, action has already been taken in 21 — whether it be transfer to the Education Achievement System (EEA)  — a new statewide school system that will operate the lowest performing 5 percent of schools in Michigan — conversion to DPS-Authorized charter, or closure.

RELATED: Name Change For Michigan’s Failing Schools

“No excuses. Failure and mediocrity will no longer be accepted within Detroit Public Schools,” said Roberts, in a statement released Thursday.

“We will review very closely the specific school reports to have a fuller understanding of the specific causes for placement on this list and to ensure that the Principals have that data and tools to improve. Every school will be expected to prepare an improvement plan and must work with Wayne RESA and intervention specialists from Michigan State University.

“DPS will look closely particularly at schools that have been on this list for more than one year as we create plans moving forward to close and consolidate schools. As I have said many times, DPS will never again close a high performing school and will establish a clear practice to close programs and schools that continue to fail our children.

Our goal should be to have Detroit schools placed on the “Reward Schools” List/Category with best practices that can be replicated across this city.”

Where Do Your Neighborhood Schools Stand?

For individual school and district data, visit www.MISchoolData.org and click on Dashboard & School Report Card button located on the left.

Reward School information can be found at www.mi.gov/rewardschools; Focus School information is available at www.mi.gov/focusschools; Priority School (formerly Persistently Lowest Achieving School) information is at www.mi.gov/priorityschools; and Top to Bottom ranking information is at www.mi.gov/ttb.

If it isn’t discrimination, then it’s certainly opportunism:

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has launched an investigation into allegations that the San Mateo Union High School District is discriminating against Chinese students.

A discrimination complaint lodged against the California school system has the agency looking into claims that the district holds Chinese students to “different standards for demonstrating residency or guardianship than students of other races” and nationalities, a department spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal.

The civil rights complaint comes as at least a dozen Chinese students say they have been transferred from top-performing high schools to low-performing ones. The district says the students were transferred because they don’t reside with their parents — who, in many cases, live in China — and instead live in homes owned by relatives.

Private tutor Marian Kong filed a complaint on behalf of two students who she said fell victim to the district’s bias. Both were accepted to attend high-performing, Asian-majority Mills High School last fall, and lived with guardians whose addresses fell within zoning boundaries for the school. But just days later, they were transferred to lower-performing Capuchino High for failing to show proof of residency for Mills.

Click on the link to read Only Closed-Minded Schools Block YouTube

Click on the link to read No Place for Ambulance Chasers at our Schools

Click on the link to read Proof You Can Be Suspended for Anything

Private school pupils. London

‘You are where you went to school’. A familiar phrase, that continues to reflect the inequalities of the educational system in Britain today. Our private schools account for only a small minority of educational places, yet dominating the backgrounds of those within the ‘knowledge economy’ classes. Why the government’s myopia on education?

We have seen the effects of a sub-educated youth underclass, and can only imagine the fate of those piling onto the job market in the next few years. Their fate already sealed, as the economy continues to contract and youth opportunities promised by the current government, looking increasingly elusive.

Yet this masks a bigger and more pervasive social problem. We have been encouraged to believe by successive governments that the stigma of social class is finally being erased from our society. Replacing it, a new age of classless meritocracy and social justice. Perhaps we are finally seeing the decline of the British class system.

Unfortunately, the facts reveal a different story. The recent report published by the Sutton Trust at its Social Mobility Summit in London makes for depressing reading. Comparing the four Anglophone nations of the UK, US, Canada and Australia the report looks at a series of benchmarks for educational investment, academic achievement, university entrance patterns and correlates this against future career success.

The results show a Britain that invests significantly in failing schools, creates underperforming and poorly educated children and deprives those from poorer backgrounds a fair opportunity in the workplace. Where is it going wrong?

If the government is to be judged on its number of initiatives they should be commended on their pro-active stance on education and we should be seeing the green shoots of an educational renaissance here in Britain. We are not. It seems we are building academies, creating more OFSTED inspection hoops, adjusting teacher pay structures and the content of our national curriculum. However we are not improving the quality of our children’s state based education. Meanwhile our private schools continue to flourish turning out highly qualified children who go on to our top universities. And so the system of social inequality in Britain continues.

It appears private education in Europe is a particularly British phenomena and one to which the successful middle classes have learned to aspire and pay for. It remains expensive and highly selective and creates a social strata many of our children have to accept at an early age. Alternatives are thin on the ground. No one party is claiming to have the solution with politicians unsure of the fall-out of major structural change. Even modest initiatives such as the latest proposal for a two tier GCSE examination system seems to be causing a rapid ‘U’ turn in government circles. Meanwhile politicians and their advisors wrestle with the implications of a two speed education system.

The Sutton report needs to act as a catalyst for further research and development work to help politicians and other stakeholders understand the mitigating factors that lead to these differences in educational and career achievement. Structural, sociological, political and market forces will all need to be studied and a comparison made between highly successful nations with one tier education systems and our own less successful two tiered system.

It is only once we have gained the insights for our lack of performance in the state sector, will we be able to engage stakeholder commitment across the community and in government. With this knowledge we can start a process of change that will lead us to a fairer more effective educational system here in Britain and begin dismantling the class divide that separates our children from the first day in education.

Morph America – Educate our Kids

What happens when almost all the 11th graders in an entire school district aren’t literate or proficient in math or reading? The kids “are going to be statistics – prison bound – a lost generation.

An 8^thgrader, a victim of the illiteracy saga writes his plea… ‘My name is Quemtin and you can make the school gooder by geting people that will do the jod that is pay for get a football tame for the kinds mybe a baksball tamoe get a other jamtacher for the school get a lot of tacher’.

In the Highland Park school district, just outside of Detroit, only 10 percent of students from third to eighth grade are proficient in reading and math.In 2011, 90 percent of Highland Park students failed the reading portion of tests to see if they were college bound, 97 percent failed the math section, and 100 percent failed the social studies and science portions.

ACLU of Michigan and 8 students filed a first-of-its-kind class-action lawsuit against the state of Michigan, its agencies charged with overseeing public education, and the Highland Park School District for failing to take the necessary and effective measures to ensure students are reading at grade level. An emergency board is needed to step into the crises before we lose these kids to the lost generation, society’s throwaways deemed for failure of living a beneficial life.

“Morph America” curriculum teaches the way to a literate and healthy classroom. http://tiny.cc/ev8hhw  on Amazon.

In our April 2012 Newsletter I explored the evidence that our crumbling educational system is putting our economic future at risk. However, it seems probable that it may be putting our national security at risk as well.

Evidence of the failings of that system is found in the fact that 70% of the students entering California’s Community Colleges are not academically prepared for college work. Much of their earlier college years are consumed with taking remedial classes.

You may see a copy of that April article by directing your browser to the following link: http://www.calcomui.org/nwslttr040112.html

Recently, on Channel 6 in Sacramento, Scott Syphax interviewed Elizabeth Parker, Dean of the McGeorge School of Law. During the interview she noted that she previously had worked for the federal government and, during that time, had worked with many of the Generals and Admirals who lead this nation’s military services.

She said she found those military officers to be highly educated and very effective in managing the military. General Petraeus, for example, has a Ph.D. in International relations. He is now Director of the CIA, but previously led our military forces in Iraq and then in Afghanistan.

Parker said that our military leaders at the Pentagon have expressed concern about our failing educational system. They worry that we will be unable to find adequately educated people to run our military in the future. That could put our nation at risk in the face of a better educated military of some other nation.

There is also the issue of military technology. One reason our nation is a dominant military force in the world has been our ability to develop modern military technology, such as the drones now being used in Afghanistan. Our advanced missile defense system also provides us with a strong defense against an attack from another nation.

However, it seems likely that our now poorly educated populace may not have the skills needed to maintain our lead in military technology. In the future, some better educated enemy nation may develop better offensive weapons than we do. We may not have the technological know how to build adequate defenses to that offensive technology.

All in all, we need to do a better job in educating our young people.

Boyce Hinman

California Communities United Institute

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A free education sounds idyllic, financially and ideologically and something which every child should be entitled to but since the introduction of free schools last year and with the number of academies on the increase around the country, concerns have been raised into the quality of education in these new schools, promising to better the lives of generations to come.

What makes academies and free schools different, is primarily the way they are run and funded. Academies are funded by central government and no longer controlled by Local Education Authorities (LEAs) but by staff, governors and parents.

Similarly, free schools were set up last year by Educational Secretary Michael Gove, to provide new schools in often under privaledged areas, educational opportuinities pioneered by parents, staff and local governors. Both are really in their infancy but it is time to reflect on whether they are working or not?

League tables

St. Aldhelm’s Academy in Poole was announced as the worst scoring school in the country this year as only 3% of pupils who left last summer achieved 5 A to C GCSE grades.

On arrival to the school, I was asked to sit in the foyer and wait to speak to principal Cheryl Heron. I had made an appointment and everything seemed to run to schedule in this school.

At exactly 12 noon I was met by Cheryls’ Personal Assistant Tracy, who I’d been emailing to arrange an interview and escorted through many key coded doors and pristine corridors to Cheryls office.

As I waited I couldn’t help feeling as though I was waiting to meet the Prime Minister rather than the head of a struggling academy. I sensed that perhaps this wasn’t the only media attention they’d had since the results came out and that they quite rightfully wanted to be professional yet wary about my presence and intentions as a journalist.

I assessed my surroundings and I would clearly not be alone interviewing Cheryl, as her trusty PA stood by. I was being monitored.

Finally, this very tall, well groomed figure emerged from her office and I stood up to shake her hand as she introduced herself as the Principal. If I wasn’t intimidated already I certainly was now, as she explained she was a keen basketball player and I could see why from her towering shadow.

She sat down her body language open yet protective and began to explain to me the academies situation.

“What people have to understand is we only opened in September 2010 so our first year 11 results were with a group of year 11s we only had for eight months and although we did everything within our power we only achieved three percent five A to C’s in English and Maths.”

“We have pressure on us to do better which we will do – that’s why we’ve become a sponsored Academy but everything takes time, it doesn’t happen overnight.”

Cheryls point was to not criticise the academy for the results that were achieved last year under this new status as the school was still working under an old system, with the same curriculum and old classrooms, waiting for an £11 million renovation to take place in August.

Money, money money

So in spite of the different way academies are funded, is it a case of pouring money into academies and free schools to help them recover or upgrade their status to academies if they are doing well. Does this create unfair competition between state schools and new academies as other colleges may not have the same budget to compete with the education an academy can offer children?

Time and co-operation

Academies and free schools are still subject to Ofsted inspections and so can still be held to account.

Attendance and standards of behaviour have both improved remarkably since St. Aldhelm’s became an academy, according to a recent Ofsted report and David Ball, Vice Chair of Governors at St. Aldhelm’s and head of academic development at Bournemouth University, said: “The principal and staff at St. Aldhelm’s are dedicated and fully committed to improving the educational attainment at all levels of young people in the community.

Ball believes there are strategies in place to improve achievement and has noticed a difference in the attitudes of the young people since the school became an academy. He said: “They take pride in the academy and recognise the value of education.”

The borough of Poole said it had no involvement in the running of the school since it became an academy, which controls it’s own budget and curriculum, and that the responsibility lay with the school’s private sponsors.

Ball added: “As a co-sponsor, the university fully supports, and has a complete confidence in the principal and her staff. The proof will be seen in future years as new cohorts move through the academy, benefit from its pupil centered educational ethos and fulfil their potential.”

Critics of academies question their ethos and ‘innovative’ teaching methods, asking whether they are working or eroding traditional teaching disciplines and replacing core subjects with vocational qualifications. Principal Heron explained that there will be a large focus on vocational studies at St. Aldhelm’s and her freedom with the curriculum allows this.

“I have to do English and Maths, but then I can do whatever I want and there is more emphasis placed on vocational qualifications and apprenticeships nowadays.”

The Wolf report seems to put a spanner in the works however as professor Wolf recommended last year that only some vocational qualifications should count towards GCSE league tables whilst criticising that many vocational qualifications were not leading to higher education or a job for graduating pupils. How will St. Aldhelm’s fair in future years in the league tables?

Success stories

Some better established academies are however coming out on top. The Bishop of Winchester Academy on Mallard Road, was five years ago a school with special measures and is now facing being over subscribed for the coming September cohort 2012-13.

Hayleigh Edwards, Key stage 4 progress leader at the academy believes academies can be beneficial. She said: “Extra funding has been an enormous help, particularly for KS4 where I am able to reward trips and put incentives in place. Without the additional budget, I would struggle to do this.”

Other plans to improve Bournemouth include a £10million  investment to extend and refurbish The Bourne Academy.

Barry Goldbart, Cabinet member for Education and Childrens services, said: “Bournemouth has been very fortunate in receiving such a large investment for two of our academies.

“Academies are a good thing and a trend that I think will continue.”

He added: “The only loss is of the high quality officers within the council who deal with education and with losing them we lose the experience to make those tough decisions.”

The coalition government wants schools considered ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted to convert to academies. It also wants those successful schools to mentor others in the areas that are more disadvantaged.

Free school plans

Plans to open a free school in Bournemouth are going ahead for September 2012. The new school, called Parkfield school will be offering a alternative education to the children of Bouremouth and Poole.

It will be offering an international curriculum and combining the Montessori method into the classroom which follows a ‘freedom within limits’ ethos.

The new headteacher could not be contacted for comment.

Although no locality has succeeded in passing such a law, some have tried, and this positive commitment from the nation’s mayors seems to weigh heavily toward it.

What are Parent Trigger Laws?

If a school is failing (and we assume this means test scores), this law would allow parents to take over the school and run it themselves or turn it over to private entities to run. Parents in two California cities, Compton and Adelanto, both low-income areas with real problems to face, have tried to implement this law. They had enough signatures to do it, too, but teacher’s unions have fought back and the whole process is stalled in court.

At first blush, at first glance, this whole movement may seem like a good thing. Maybe it is! For schools bombarded with budget cuts on the one hand and striking community problems on the other, it might be a good thing for parents to try to take on the problem.

On the other hand, I’ve seen firsthand the results of parent leadership in a nearby charter school. The school charter included a heavy amount of parent input. In reality, what happened was that few decisions could be made clearly and cleanly. Moreover, when there was a conflict between unfortunate student behavior and a teacher, the teacher always got the short end of the stick because the parents had the clout to weigh in and rescue the student.

Failing schools? Perhaps there are not as many as we think, although of course our hearts go out to those families in impoverished areas like Compton where it’s hard to know justwhat to do.

However, it’s sort of a mantra that our schools are failing and we need to call in the reinforcements (read the private sector, commercial entities) to save them. And of course, in many cases, this goes right to test scores, which I’ve long insisted are a dismal measurement of whether a school is good or not. Scamper back through my blogs this year to see why.

I imagine that these parent trigger laws won’t come into our schools without a fight, given teacher unions. I would hope that devoted parents in desperate areas would have enough of a voice to help their kids’ schools, but I would also bet that it would be an unusual group of parents that could really hold it together and create an educational institution better than the one that’s already failing in their neighborhood.

That eye-popping number comes to $365 MILLION wasted dollars every year. And a nice chunk of that money is going to line the pockets of wealthy, for-profit school owners who just happen to be some of Governor Corbett’s largest campaign donors. (See “Soaking the Public” for stomach-turning details.) This latest report echoes testimony Deputy Auditor General Thomas Marks gave the House Education Committee back in March when he told them cyber charters in particular were being drastically overpaid. He noted that taxpayers and school districts could have saved approximately $86 million in 2009-2010 alone if cyber charter schools had received funding based on what they actually spent per student. (See “Trouble Seeing the Money.”)

Representative Mike Fleck, a Republican from Dauphin County, has introduced a bill (HB 2364) that would start to fix this problem. It has received bi-partisan support and been endorsed by both the Pennsylvania School Boards Association and the Pennsylvania School Employees Association, which is saying something. Auditor General Wagner calls this a “good first step” though he would still like to see legislation setting average payments for charter and cyber charter schools. He targeted cyber charter schools in particular, which are spending large amounts of money on billboards and other advertising, and often wind up with large cash reserves. [Philadelphia Inquirer, 6-21-12]

That $365 million would save a lot of Kindergarten programs, tutoring, and librarians in our public schools. Instead, our legislators are ready to hand over even more of our taxpayer money to private and parochial schools. The latest voucher-in-disguise effort comes from Rep. Jim Christiana right here in Southwest PA, who has proposed expanding the current educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program. Right now EITC gives away $75 in revenues from corporations that would otherwise be supporting the public good, and legislators have reached a “tentative agreement” to give away another $25 million in the current budget plan. [Post-Gazette, 6-22-12] Where are lawmakers finding millions of taxpayer dollars to send to private schools when our public schools are cutting Kindergarten?

But it gets worse. Playing right into the national narrative of “failing public schools,” our legislators are also planning to give away an additional $50 million that would be available to students attending the state’s bottom fifteen percent of schools. I wonder if they realize that some of the lowest-achieving schools are actually charter and private schools?

Last year, Lawrence Feinberg of the Keystone State Education Coalition used student reading and math data from the PSSAs (the state’s standardized tests), and found 30 charter schools in the bottom fifteen percent. Religious schools may optionally administer and report their PSSA scores, but he also found 7 of them at the bottom. [KSEC, “Questions About 144 Failing Schools.”] And there are surely many more. Only two of twelve Pennsylvania cyber charter schools made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) last year, and seven have never made AYP at all. (For more on charter school performance, see “Dueling Rallies.”) Should we be giving EITC “scholarships” (which are really vouchers) so that students can attend these failing charter and private schools?

Maybe we should be giving vouchers to send students from failing charter and private schools back to public schools. Oh wait. That would mean funding public schools. Well that one-million-per-day would sure help.

I’m watching it as I read this, so it might take a turn for the worst, but it’s so good.  The War on Kids.  Oh, so good.  I’m biased, because of the work I do and my love for the work I do and my little soapbox, that I try to keep myself off of, because I know how annoying soapboxes can be.

(http://www.thewaronkids.com/)

The doc briefly covers a number of topics, (so many and so briefly that I would like to see the doc turned into a series) including Zero Tolerance Policies (for violence and drugs), the School to Prison Pipeline (http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/school-prison-pipeline-talking-points), the psychological effects of school surveillance, education and corporate curriculum, diagnosis/psychiatric medication for children, teacher/faculty bullying of children, and several more.  The doc interviews individuals from various child-centered professions, including teachers, pediatricians, and school board members.

The doc is pretty low quality, but the people interviewed are very passionate and make a lot of good points.  In one section, various teachers and school officials are talking about how their curriculum is given to them by the state, rather than individually created.  This means, that freedom is taken away from teachers as well as students to think for themselves, to find creative solutions, and to ask difficulty questions.  To me, this answers the questions “Why are kids so complicit and so lazy?  Why can’t kids think for themselves?”  Well, because we never teach them to, and even that natural impulse to think creatively is squelched as soon as it begins to develop.  Those neural connections are never made and therefore the skill is never developed.  Soapbox time:  teaching to standardized tests, corporate curricula (sold by Scholastic, or whatever other company has a contact with the school district and state), pushing children through lessons without checking for comprehension, disallowing or shaming students that question what they are being taught are all what make children hate school.  They are not allowed to be creative, to think “outside the box,” to stop the teacher when they don’t understand, to ask about something they learned somewhere else, to point out when things are either inconsistent or flat out lies.

For a brief section, they talk about how this type of education impacts adult lives and the ability to participate in democracy.  One of the individuals in the doc points out how junior and high school school papers, newspapers, and other writings are so highly censored. What they can and cannot say, the opinions expressed are completely regulated.  So, when they get out of school, when they become adults, why would they think this kind of censorship is wrong?  Why wouldn’t they think being told what to think is normal?  In one of the schools I worked with at one point, the Government class was assigned to write a letter to their congressman about a bill that was being presented.  The students were told exactly what side to support and what points to include in the letter.  What the FUUUUCCKKKK!!!!!!! That’s so fucking insulting to these students!!!! That is a horrible assignment!!!!!! Writing a letter to your congressman? Yes, good.  More people should.  But telling them what to say?  Dear teachers, that is brainwashing.  That is not encouraging free thought or critical thinking.  Several students reported they did not feel comfortable with this assignment, but were forced to do it anyway.

In the past, I have encouraged students to question what their teachers taught them, and even pointed them to things that they might find interesting (Howard Zinn, anyone?  Writings on Disobedience is a good primer for teens, and less intimidating than A People’s History).

Main point: every system in place for kids and adolescents is broken.  They are too over controlled.  They’re not allowed to make mistakes because they’re too over-surveilled.  Their curriculum is written by corporations and states, with no wiggle room for individuation or creativity or accommodation for learning styles.   They’re over-medicated and sedated within an inch of their lives.  Bah.  I would hate to be a kid today.  Because they’re not allowed to be people.  They’re forced to be automatons.  And then we, as adults, complain and wonder why they suck at life.  Well, because they’re not taught how to live or how to be individuals.

The folks at JCPS along with their braindead megaphone, the Crapola-Journal, tell us, “The problem is poverty!  And uninvolved parents!”   “There’s just nothing we can do about poverty!”  Or we hear,  ”These parents are horrible, they never volunteer!”  Well, let me fill you in on a weird little secret.  There is a pretty good chunk of solidly middle-class, college-educated parents who are pathological volunteers and their kids are as dumb as a box of rocks.  Somebody needs to explain that one because that punches all kinds of holes in the poverty excuse.

Anyway.  Back to the real subject.

Below is a quick peek at the kind of financial and academic shenanigans that our school district is pulling.  You have to do some mental exercises with the numbers I’m giving you – I KNOW YOU CAN HANDLE IT!  There is a direct correlation between teachers’ salaries and experience.  Higher pay = more experience.  Pretty simple stuff, right?  And I’m giving you a manageable set of data – fifteen data points for teachers’ salaries – and only teachers’ salaries.  So, you can nitpick the method but my point is – there is an direct correlation here and it isn’t a good one…

Total salary of the fifteen highest-paid teachers at Greathouse Traditional Elementary:  $1,096,703 

Total salary of the fifteen highest-paid teachers at Lincoln Elementary: $817,307

Difference in totals: $279,402

Difference stated in percent: Greathouse receives 134% more than Lincoln

Average salary of the top fifteen at Greathouse: $73,000

Average salary of the top fifteen at Lincoln: $55,000

Ranking of Greathouse Traditional Elementary (Louisville, KY) out of Kentucky’s 704 elementary schools: 21

Ranking of Lincoln Elementary: 704

Percentage of black students at Greathouse: 17.7%

Percentage of black students at Lincoln: 64.9%

Did you spot the correlation?  Sure you did!  Funding at other low-performing schools is just as dismal and in a few cases, much worse.

And, yes, yes,yes, I am absolutely aware of the millions that JCPS invested in the performing arts program at Lincoln.  Honestly, I find that so crazy that it makes my head spin.  If the kids can’t read or perform math at grade level and their school is ranked dead-last in one of the crummiest states in the country, sinking a bundle into performing arts is like putting pricey, Z-rated tires on a girly, little Mini-Cooper; it just doesn’t make sense.  JCPS already has a well-documented track record for a magnet school with an arts-heavy curriculum and it’s called Byck Elementary.  Look it up on schooldigger.com and get back with me.

Better yet, I’ll look it up for you:

Oh, FYI!  Twenty-four elementary schools in Louisville are in the bottom thirty – none of the 24 are in the East End.  Pee-yoo and go figure!

Here’s another gruesome snapshot from schooldigger.com that will scar your eyeballs.  Note that the four lowest-ranked schools are right here in the Derby City and none are in the East End.

I’m rambling!  I’ll wrap it up!

The Jefferson County Board of Education and JCPS  appear to promote and encourage an education system that results in inequitable funding and staffing of low-income schools.  Schools with the highest percentage of low-income students receive less funding and less-experienced teachers even though low-income students generate more “revenue” for the school system through Title I funds, grants for failing schools and subsidies for free- and reduced-fee lunches.   If the low-income students are JCPS’ cash cows, why are they getting deliberately shortchanged?   If the additional revenue is solely intended for low-income and low-performing students, why is the money being diverted?

Hey, I don’t have any answers.  I just want to know why JCPS is allowed to do this – it’s like a creepy version of state-sponsored economic segregation.  It sure would be nice if the schools in the poorest neighborhoods could receive all the same funding and staffing that the East End schools get, wouldn’t it?

I know.  Dream on.