In a casino, the odds are stacked against gamblers; the House is going to come out on top, at the end of the day, overall. There are some winners, here and there, but there are many more losers so the casino makes the most money.

Informants are hired to look and act like regular gamblers, in an effort to keep tabs on the regular folks who are gambling. If someone regularly beats the House, and amasses a considerable amount of wealth, the casino is alerted and the goon squad is dispatched to find out why–and possibly (forcibly) eject the person from the premises. Their business model is based on the idea that the House is the only one that should be making any serious money.

It’s the same with government and politics. With electronic voting machines, scare tactics, back-pocket media and an ignorant Electorate the odds are stacked against The People.

Any time a “third” option or activist group mounts a serious challenge to the Establishment Parties (RepubliCrats), the attack-dog media outlets go to work to discredit the candidate and cast doubt in the minds of voters: “It’s a wasted vote,” “People who associate with that group must be hate-filled or racist,” or “If you don’t vote for our candidate the [other "major" Party candidate] will win!” It’s all about dividing, conquering and advancing agendas through compromise and fear–and making sure no alternative can gain any type of ground to upset the balance.

And don’t get me started on the widespread ballot access laws, reporting mandates, contribution caps, etc. that seriously hinder any “third party” upstarts, but don’t really do much to hinder the “major” Parties who are already large and powerful. To me, it’s akin to the lopsided tax on the Southern states that led to the Civil War.

Infiltrating one of the other Parties– to try and win an election, based solely on the fact that some (idiots) blindly push an “R” or “D” button at the polls, without even knowing who the candidates are–will get you nowhere, either, because those Parties carefully vet their members and candidates. If you don’t play along with the Good Ol’ Boy game, you will never even make it through the nomination process. (Ron Paul is a good example of how these groups will cannibalize their own, if their agendas are threatened.)

By now, you’ve probably heard reports and seen evidence of vote tampering on electronic voting machines–everything from vote totals being switched, artificially casting votes for one candidate based upon the votes received by the opposition, etc. There is even video footage of a chimp hacking one of the machines. To put it all in perspective, Russian dictator Josef Stalin once said, “It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.”

With all of those things stacked against you–those who want real change and real freedom–why do you continue to try and work within the system to try and change it?

I guess it’s like playing the lottery, even though a player is more likely to be struck by lightning–twice–than win the jackpot.

And the local government council meetings, where “public input” is permitted–but usually at no more than 2 or 3 minutes per person–are just dog and pony shows, too. Listening to the citizens is just a formality to most of these people, and necessary to keep you thinking that you actually have a voice in government proceedings, so you don’t rebel.

I’ve seen too many meetings where citizens packed the house, and overwhelmingly disapproved of a certain measure that was up for a vote, only to watch their local officials completely ignore the voices of the People and approve it, anyway. It was almost comical to watch these officials pay little attention to what the People had to say, knowing how they were going to vote before the first person even stepped up to the mic.

Threats to vote them out don’t work, because they know that most people don’t even know what’s going on with their government and will vote to re-elect them–and if that fails, there’s always those wonderful, programmable, electronic voting machines…

Stop putting your faith and energy into a system that is rigged to keep outsiders from succeeding. Don’t be fooled by the illusion.

It’s time to remove all compliance and support for this corrupt, freedom-destroying Establishment. Doing so is the only way we’re ever going to get things moving back in the right direction.

That’s some real “hope and change.”

(Related article: http://anarchistpov.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/reality-check/ )

By: Natalie Beamer

If you are planning on making Spain your new permanent residence and your family has children – finding the right school is always one of the major priorities.

Spanish teachers and psychologists truly believe that learning a new language up to the age of 12 is not an enormous challenge. Being engulfed in a new culture allows children to feel open to trying new words and eventually adopting the language. It can prove to be more challenging for teenagers.

If you wish to expose your children to the Spanish schooling system you will be happy to hear that the Spanish Education System is very accommodating. For more information visit the Spanish Ministry of Education’s website.

To enroll your child at a school you will have to fill out a form at the town hall and they will place your kid in the best school for them – according to their application. The success of this process is often a question of who you know…

The Spanish Education System consists of state-funded schools that are supported by a comprehensive network of private schools. This ensures the highest level of education in both the private and public sector. Many of the supportive private schools are foreign and include a vast number of British institutions.

You will be happy to hear that public school in Spain is totally FREE all the way through to University. Free school is granted to international pupils. Parents are however expected to pay for school books (aprox. $120 per child) and uniforms.

Spanish Schooling Statistics:

By: Delana S

Many families working overseas look into the option of international schools, boarding schools, and home school programs. They have heard negative accounts of using national schools, so they do not give it any consideration. All school options have pros and cons, so before skipping over an option that may be well-suited to one or more of your children, consider all of the factors in making a wise school choice. Many reasons exist for selecting a national school. Consider these:  A.C.C.E.S.S.

Academic—Though the academic strengths and weaknesses vary from country to country and school to school, students grow up bilingual and may even study three or four languages in school from the early grades. According to Karen A. Wrobbel (Are National Schools a Viable Option?–January 2008) US students “who studied in a national school” performed academically well in college achieving “levels comparable to other TCKs without national school experience”…with achievement “well above the US population as a whole as well as above the levels of American students with higher parental education.”

Cultural—Students attending national schools often become quickly fluent in the language through total immersion, as well as developing a sense of belonging to the host culture. Students attending national schools learn the history and culture of the country, often more rapidly and deeply than students in international or home school environments. Some parents express joy in being able to walk their children to the local school just like their neighbors. Parents also are able to adapt more readily to their host country because of the adults they meet through the school experience that they otherwise might never meet.

Cost—In many countries, public education is provided at no cost. Some charge a fee for foreigners to attend but often these costs are less than the cost of private national and international schools. Even private national school costs tend to be less than private international schools.

Experiential—In some settings, families have discovered the following benefits arising from national school attendance: field trips, discounts on public transportation, and discounts on local events, such as operas, ballets, museums.

Social—According to Dr. Dellanna O’Brien, “attendance in the national school places the TCK in a position to make friends and interact with a larger segment of his new culture.” Often, students studying by means of a home school or internet program lack time and language skills for developing relationships in their neighborhood. Dr. O’Brien also believes that placing students into the local school shows those in the host country our belief in their educational system.

Spiritual—Students have the opportunity to be salt and light in their daily encounters with students and teachers. Doors are also often opened to parents to reach out to teachers, staff, and other parents because they are seen as more acceptable and less odd. Parents are also given numerous opportunities to strengthen their children’s faith by walking with them through the challenges of schooling in another culture, another language. If a local language church exists in the area where you live, your students who attend local language school will be more comfortable attending (and inviting friends) because of their language abilities and daily interactions from attending a national school.

Germany: Prosecutor to Homeschoolers: No Compromise—You’re Going to Jail

cryptogon.com
November 27, 2009

“The ‘schuhlpflicht’—the laws that require school attendance—are on the books in the German states,” he explained, “and have been traced back to the ‘Reichsculpflicht Gesetz’ [federal compulsory attendance laws] which was passed in 1938. Except for the removal of references to the Nazi party, these laws are identical or substantially the same as the laws passed by Hitler’s government, criminalizing parents who keep their children home for school.”

The Philippine education system is in shambles. This basic truth couldn’t be highlighted by anything but the recent victory of Efren Peñaflorida as CNN’s “Hero of the Year.”

Efren Peñaflorida is a simple person that initiated the “Pushcart Classrooms” to help educate street kids and out of school youths in the Philippines. Pushcart classrooms are made of pushcarts that carry all the basic necessities of a classroom: a blackboard, books, pens, notebooks and other school supplies. Efren and his group, the Dynamic Teens Co., take the pushcarts around Metro Manila and nearby provinces to reach out to street kids who are not capable to go to school. Efren’s pioneering work was a success and many people copied his initiatives. Now pushcart classrooms can be found in urban centers around the country.

Ideally, pushcart classrooms are not needed because a well-maintained education system is enough to fill the educational needs of the citizens. The problem is that our education system is dysfunctional. The Philippine educational system receives so little attention from the government. Various administrations that came and went ignored the importance of educating the youth and its benefits in nation building.

Problematic Public Schools

Our public schools should serve as the place where the poor and the disadvantage members of our society can acquire a free education. The public education system should have the capacity to empower the poor youth to get an education at par with their counterparts in the private education sector. It should be a venue where we could exercise our right to be educated.

But this is not so. Every year, public schools always face the same perennial problem of lack funds from the government, which result to inadequate numbers of classrooms, chairs, books and teachers. The teachers who are employed in the public schools receive salaries that are barely enough to keep their families alive, making the teachers take other means of livelihood that sometimes make their teaching skills to suffer. Add those problems up to the continuous destruction of schools due to typhoons and landslides and the growing number of student populations every year.

Even the State Colleges and Universities were not spared by the complete ignorance of the government. Budget cuts are the usual scenario for state colleges and universities and these institutions are forced to outsource their budget. Tuition fee increases are now common in these institutions of learning and more and more of poor students drop out of their studies because they cannot afford the steep price of public education.

NGO’s to the Rescue

The inadequate action of the government on the problems of the public learning institutions made the NGO’s to act and fill the part ignored by the government. Peñaflorida’s DYT is one of the NGO’s that tried to fill these inadequacies. However, try as they might, the NGO’s could never fill the part of the government. The education sector needed a guidance from an institution as large and as organized as the government that will direct its course.

The problem with the government is that it does not care with the plight of the common tao (people). It is a shame that out of school youth had to ask the NGO’s for help.

Peñaflorida’s victory is a victory of the Filipino people and shows that there simple people around us that work without asking for media mileage to help their fellowmen. It is a mark that brands the government as a worthless institution when it comes to the task of educating the youth. May his victory inspire us to demand that education sector receive the attention it deserves so that Efren Peñaflorida’s pushcart classrooms will never be necessary to educate our out of school youths.

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Visit Ahab Reviews and Tips and read about my review of Dolor’s Sapin – Sapin.

Also visit Before the Eastern Sunset and read about my complaint on Cd -r King.

Follow me Facebook, Twitter, and Friendster.

Some information for this blog post came from The Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $335 million investment in teacher effectiveness, with major grants for experiments in tenure, evaluation, compensation, training, and mentoring in three large school systems and a cluster of public charter schools.

The winners, picked from 10 applicants, are: Hillsborough County (Fla.) schools, in the Tampa area, $100 million; Memphis schools, $90 million; Pittsburgh schools, $40 million; and five charter networks in Los Angeles (Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, Inner City Education Foundation, and Partnerships to Uplift Communities Schools), $60 million. Most of the money will go to Hillsborough County Public Schools in Florida, Memphis City Schools and Pittsburgh Public Schools.

Hillborough County alone will receive $100 million, the single biggest award ever to one district. Memphis received another $1.9 million in companion funds. This is the largest donation to Memphis City Schools in all the history of Memphis. Memphis school board president Martavius Jones said this is not just for Memphis City Schools, this is for everyone in the city of Memphis. The funds will be used on a seven-year project intended to improve teaching at Memphis public schools.

We repetitively hear from many in our society today that our schools need to be neutral in regard to religion and that prayer cannot be a part of the public schools.  The ACLU has made it their mission to secularize America and remove any influence of Christianity from the public.  What these folks need to understand is that if that influence is removed, then the morality that is going to be followed is that which is going to be seen as originating from man.  There is no foundational reason for people to follow the guidelines of others if they are based upon mere human directives of how we should conduct ourselves with regard to respect and love for each other.

Very recently, a school in Naples, Florida, has been in turmoil after it was learned that students were participating in “kick a Jew day”.  Ten students were punished for one day with in-school suspension (which is certainly not going to send a strong message against this), the school has reminded everyone of the “code of student conduct” and now the school district has decided that they will “focus the first 20 minutes of each day on character traits, beginning with respect and kindness. Homeroom teachers will speak with the students about these traits and will focus on bullying prevention…” 

That sounds a whole lot like what used to be done in the public schools when prayer was a part of the daily routine.  The difference here is that there still will be no prayer.  Trying to teach morality without an authority recognized to be the originator of it will ultimately not work.  All that this will do is reinforce the rules that other humans have decided should be followed.  The students will have no reason to follow them because they are not being taught that there is a God to whom they will answer, that government is instituted by God, and respect for authority start with an understanding of God.  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 1:7).  Unfortunately, until there is an understanding that God must be recognized again in the public schools, we will continue to see more and more results of what schools without God have become.

First of all, charter schools are a form of public education. This union guy wants nothing to do with them because they take money from public schools. Whenever these charter critics talk about them siphoning money off of the public school fund, they make it sound like the dough is being diverted to some nefarious group of capitalist pigs or something. The money goes to charter schools, which are public schools that serve public school students. Framing it as an us against them battle is disengenuous at best, and at worst it exposes fraudulent union claims of “standing up for kids/standing up for schools/doing what’s best for students.”

Which schools and which students, is the question to ask. Students and schools affiliated with the unions. Screw the rest of them.

Via Intercepts.

Here is a link to download the audio directly: Episode #44

Episode Overview-

Hey everyone,

Episode #44 is up for your listening pleasure and boy is it a doozy! It clocks in at just under 42 minutes!  Yikes! Episode #44 is kind of a unique episode because it features a recording of a live event. Back on November 14th I was lucky enough to attend the Powering Up with Technology Conference in Prince George’s County Maryland.  At that conference I presented a session called Alternative Professional Development.  I use the term “presented” loosely because, although I was listed as the presenter, the session was more of an integrated brainstorming session.  I was more of the moderator for the discussion than a presenter.  During the session we tried to outline some of the common problems with staff development happening in public schools and then try to come up with some solutions.  During the course of the discussion a bunch of great ideas were mentioned about how to address some of the problems with the typical professional development model.  Furthermore, a number of concrete resources are mentioned that can be used to assist students.  You can access the entire presentation as generated by the audience here:  Alternative Professional Development Presentation from PUWT09.

The episode also features a bumper from Robin Lesht who is a speech-language pathologist from Mount Prospect, Illinois. I met Robin at ATIA 09 where we shared different experiences working in the field of speech-language pathology.

A.T.TIPS In This Episode-

A.T.TIP #67: Document Holder from Inverted CD case and Alligator Clip

Many a student has strained their neck transposing a handwritten assignment onto the computer because the paper was flat on the desk.  To alleviate the neck strain people started to use document holders so that they didn’t have to constantly shift their field of vision from the paper to the screen and back again.  Sure, you could go out and spend money on a fancy, commercial document holder or you could take an unused CD case that you probably have lying around, flip it over so the hinged cover is upright and then fasten the paper to it with an alligator clip.  Done and done, instant document holder.                   

A.T.TIP #68: www.educatus.com

This website provides over 1000 pre-made lessons/presentations on a wide variety of curricular topics.  The media-rich presentations are similar to a PowerPoint presentation and each one is available to be viewed online via your web browser.  Each presentation is useful as a pre-learning activity where students could be asked to independently review content before a class discussion, as an alternative source of content to complement or supplement another lesson, or as a follow-up/review activity at the end of a lesson.

A.T.TIP #69: www.voki.com

This website allows you to create an animated talking head.  Use text-to-speech or record a voice to have the voki speak the message.  Vokis could be used by a teacher to introduce a lesson, give verbal instructions for an assignment, record reminders to students, provide feedback and more!  Vokis could be used by a student as an alternative means of expression for presentations, practicing conversations, or demonstrating knowledge.  Check out these ideas on how to use Voki in your classroom from The Edublogger.

Check out a Voki I created.

A.T.TIP #70: www.blabberize.com

This website allows you to upload a picture, select a portion of that picture that will move (usually a mouth), and then record a message.  When the message is played back, the selected area will move in time with the message.  Blabberize can be used in similar ways as Vokis.  It could be used by a teacher to introduce a lesson, give verbal instructions for an assignment, record reminders to students, provide feedback and more!  It could be used by a student as an alternative means of expression for presentations, practicing conversations, or demonstrating knowledge.   

Check out a video I made in Blabberize

Additional Resources Mentioned-

1. Loudoun County Public Schools’ Assistive Technology Video Archive

2. Evidence that high-speed Internet access is not ubiquitous.

3. More evidence that high-speed Internet access is not ubiquitous.

4. www.delicious.com – Social Bookmarking Site.  Note that the A.T.TIPSCAST uses delicious to share resources on the left side of the page.

5. www.Prezi.com – A new and interesting way to create a presentation.  Information is presented on one large canvas and you zoom into different areas of the canvas to view the information.

6. www.tinyurl.com – A useful way of making long URLs shorter.  Shortened URLs are easier for users to remember (like www.tinyurl.com/nlsstories) and easier for people to type in if entering a URL from a piece of paper.

7. Tonyvincent.info – A link library of useful educational resources created by the keynote speaker of the conference, Tony Vincent.  **Corrected from original post- Tony made a comment below sharing that the site he used to present at the conference was http://tonysite.info ***

8. Radio WillowWeb Podcast - Radio WillowWeb is a podcast for kids
and by kids from the students at Willowdale Elementary School in Omaha, Nebraska.
Each new show is called a Willowcast. Each Willowcast can be heard on WillowWeb
as an mp3 digital audio file.

9. ASHA Podcast - The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s podcast features interviews with different individuals making strides in the field of speech-language pathology and audiology

10. Quick Access Toolbar in Word 07 – Microsoft Word 07 features a quick access toolbar that can be customized, allowing for favorite tools to be shown and less used tools to be hidden.  This feature helps to reduce clutter on the screen while highlighting to students some key/important features they could be using in Word.

Upcoming Presentations-

Alternative Professional Development – Assistive Technology Industry Association Conference 2010 – Orlando, Florida – January 28 – 2:45pm – 3:45pm EST

UDL 2.0 presented with Beth Poss – Assistive Technology Industry Association Conference 2010 – Orlando, Florida – January 29 – 9:15pm-10:15pm EST

Contact Information-

If I don’t get to see you at NECC we can still connect virtually. Join the A.T.TIPPERS group on Facebook and/or Classroom 2.0 ! You can also follow me on twitter.com.

Leave a comment down below or drop me a line at attipscast@gmail.com. Let me know what you think of the show! You can access the podcast and register as a fan of the show from here:

Thanks everyone and happy listening!

Because of the poor economy schools are dealing with budget dilemmas. Music and art programs are usually among the first to go.

childrensmusicworkshop.com says it best:

Music helps the creative aspect of your child’s mind grow, instill discipline, provides a sense of pride, self-esteem, and accomplishment.

These attributes not only help students do better academically, but do better in their adult life, with their career, their new family, and their emotional well being.

Arts education exposes children to the incomparable!

This article is from Michelle Mitchell’s blog Scribbit. Check it out. It has a lot of interesting items.

My daughter came home from high school on Friday.

“How was your day?” I asked.

“Fine. We had another substitute so we didn’t do anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whenever we have a substitute we usually don’t do anything, we just watch movies. This time the sub spent the whole time online giving us internet quizzes.”

“Quizzes about the subject matter?”

“No, personality quizzes, that kind of thing.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, once we had a guy who spent the whole time going through his text messages and last year in P.E. the teacher–not the sub–would make us lay down on the gym floor and take naps sometimes. He’d force us to close our eyes and if he thought we weren’t actually sleeping he’d say he was going to dock our grade.”

“So, let me get this straight–you were being graded for sleeping in Physical Education class? Not for running or exercising or playing a sport but sleeping?

“Yea, and in English class today the teacher said we’d been working hard this week so we were going to take a break so we finished up Enchanted.”

“You watched Enchanted?”

“Yea, we’ve been watching it for a couple weeks now, we’ll see a bit and then watch other video clips.”

“Why are you watching Enchanted? What does that have to do with English?”

“They speak English in the movie? I don’t know. Because we watch a lot of movies in German class: Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Ice Age, Finding Nemo–plus a bunch of German movies.”

“Because they’re speaking German?”

“I guess. We don’t really pay much attention to the German part.”

“How many movies do you watch a week?”

She thought a bit, counting up on her fingers and trying to remember. “Oh–I don’t know–five or six, maybe more. We watch T.V. pretty much every day in at least one class and any time we have a sub they put in movies or something. We watch stuff like Mythbusters a lot and call it chemistry.”

She paused a moment then said, “At least it’s not like my history teacher who flirts with girls in the class then shows us pictures of himself without his shirt on and talks about his tattoos.”

“He showed you pictures of himself without his shirt?“

“Yea, he was trying to show us how big his muscles were and was pointing out his tattoo and saying that we could tell the picture hadn’t been fixed because you could still see his tattoo.”

“Apparently working six hours a day with three months off in the summer and another month off throughout the school year isn’t enough, those teachers must be exhausted. And these are your honors classes?”

“Yea, I’ve talked to people in the AP classes and they say it’s not much different there. Sometimes the stuff we do that’s supposed to be real work doesn’t make any sense either. Like last year in English we were supposed to be studying the Renaissance so we read The Crystal Caves by Mary Stewart.”

“Sure, because why read anything like Marlowe, Spenser, Jonson or Shakespeare when you’ve got cheap 1970s fantasy fiction at your fingertips? It’s not even set in the Renaissance.”

“I know. The projects we did had nothing to do with the Renaissance either–we do a lot of projects, especially group projects. I think it’s because the teacher doesn’t have to do anything to grade it like they would have to do if we actually wrote a paper or took a test. Some kid built a throne out of hockey pucks and hockey sticks and got an A.”

“A hockey stick throne? How does that relate to the Renaissance?”

“It doesn’t But it was cool.”

“And this is public education. Run by the government. If that’s not the biggest strike against a government-run health care system I don’t know what is.”

http://scribbit.blogspot.com/2009/11/no-child-left-behind-because-they-all.html

Governor Timothy M. Kaine has asked the Virginia Department of Education to examine claims of racial disparities among students in the gifted education programs in Virginia.  The reason for this query – only 12 percent of students identified as gifted are black despite the fact that African-Americans make up 26 percent of Virginia’s student population.  The disparity, however, does not seem to exist in other minority groups.  Hispanics for example make up 9 percent of the student population in Virginia and 5 percent of students identified as gifted are Hispanic.  Similarly, while Asians make up 5.5 percent of the statewide student population, 11 percent of the students identified as gifted are Asian.  So why is there such a huge gap?  Are African-American students not qualified for these “elite” gifted programs or is it merely evidence of a pattern of discrimination against African-American students?  The study, which is scheduled to be done in Spring 2010, will seek to answer these questions.  The analysis will try to determine best practices for identifying talented and gifted students so that students of all backgrounds have the opportunity to participate in these programs. 

Tier One Tutoring believes in providing educational opportunities to individuals of all ethnic and racial backgrounds.   For information on the services that Tier One Tutoring provides, go to www.tier-one-tutoring.com.

A few months ago I wrote a post about netbooks (“THE CURRENT BUZZWORD-NETBOOKS “). At that time, my district was considering purchasing these miniscule notebook computers for our Elementary students.  The reasoning behind this was that the small design fits with their small hands, that are purchasing power is increased, and that this would increase the computer usage of our younger grades.  Well, we bought the machines-64 of them to be exact.  And I must say, they do look nice.  But, the problem from a tech standpoint, is getting these machines ready to roll out to the Elementary.

Unlike a home machine, when I get a new computer system in my district, I sit down and start removing the junk that OEM’s put on the computer.  I then go about installing programs that the user will need, as well as installing our anti-virus and other security features.  Once this is done, I then pull an image of this machine so that if anything happens to it, or if I need to configure more than one computer, I can do it relatively easy.  This is exactly what I needed to do with our netbooks…all 64!

I began this process by wiping the first netbook’s hard drive, and installing a new OS (basically, I went from WinXP Home to WinXP Pro) and then reinstalling the drivers for all of this machines hardware.  Once I had that done, I went to use a system called FOG, however it would not work.  Even after emailing back and forth with the systems developer, we could not get this to image.  It appears that it is something to do with the hardware and drivers on the netbook.  I then wanted to use Ghost (which we own).  I attempted to use a Network Boot Disk I had, but the driver for the network card was not on there.  I then had to scour the web looking for a driver.  Fortunately, a member of an email list I belong to had a copy of the dos drivers, and gave them to me.  I slipped them into the NetBootDisk files, and created a new network boot disk, and have successfully Ghosted an image of the netbook, and am now trying to copy that image to another netbook.

What this all boils down to is that I have had 64 netbooks for about 3 weeks now, and no one has been able to use them simply because they could not be quickly and easily be configured for use in my network.  I am hopefull that now that I have a workable image, I can now move through the remaining netbooks quickly and get them into the hands of our Elementary staff and students.  Once I have this project completed, I will have to write a simply step by step so that anyone else who is thinking of buying some netbooks for their school can read my experience and plan accordingy.

Thanks for reading.

Oh wow am I relieved. Obviously doing his job to protect and serve, police Sgt. Robert Bettencourt said that it is not against the law to send meep in an e-mail. Click the link to see the full story:

http://www.salemnews.com/punews/local_story_323224437.html

Thanks for clarifying our constitutional rights, Sgt Bettencourt!

****DISCLAIMER:  Given recent developments where the anti-meeping school is apparently reporting non-student meepers to the police, I felt it necearry to state for the record that I am not a part of any meeping movement, meeping conspiracy or whatever the anti-meeping public school believes is going on. As a rather elderly grown woman, I do not get involved in any type of high school goings-on. Under the rights of the U.S. Constitution, I am simply exercising my right to state my opinion and to say “meep” if I want to–until there is some clarification as to when I am allowed to say ‘meep.’****

I just returned from the Friday session of the Illinois Education and Technology Conference. I love this conference. As the tech leader (and teacher) at my school, I try not to be gone from the district too often. I do not attend every “Tech Conference” that comes down the pike. But this is one that I do attend. It is the one time of the year that I get to hear what other educators are doing in their classrooms with technology, and what other tech folks are implementing in their districts. What always impresses me the most is that schools that are successful with technology are using it to enhance their classrooms and districts, instead of adding items just to add them. I always come away from this conference with some great ideas or a justification of something that we are already doing at our school.

I cannot wait until Monday so that I can tell others about these ideas, and see if we can do them.

Thanks for reading.

Hello from Portland!

I am writing this on my laptop in my room at Portland International Hostel (fantastically located between the Northwest Shopping and Pearl Districts) which is most definitely the cleanest hostel at which I have stayed. I can think of some supremely grotesque hostels I’ve been in, I think in Rome and maybe Ireland (Hann can probably recall the hair on shower walls). I’ve not been living up to my party-girl plans for Portland, much to my disappointment. While the real reason of coming here was to attend the doctoral advising session for Portland State, I had a big notion of living it up. I planned on going to a electro-pop concert tonight and tomorrow evening, but my fatigue overtook me. I actually did go to the concert tonight at Mississippi Studios, but left after twenty minutes because I could barely keep the olde eyes open.

Getting to Portland was a bit rough.

I stayed up until almost four in the morning on Tuesday composing my personal statement. I was determined to finish it and send it of along with more information to all of my recommenders before leaving, so I stayed up uber-late to write in all of the transitional phrases and beef up the remaining paragraphs. Wednesday was especially crazed. I taught three consecutive periods without a prep, all new lesson plans, for an hour and half apiece. After school, I had to rush out to buy BART tickets for a San Francisco field trip the week after the Thanksgiving holday, then hurried back for the tail end of a senior-level meeting. I dashed out of that meeting on writing assessments (my head was burning) and made tons of copies for the two days that I was going to be out, and then went to my classroom in a daze to tidy up the personal statements, compose a cover memo, print out labels, etc. for my recommenders.

I slid into the Post Office just in time to mail off both info packages for the letter writers (phew).

Then it was back to school again for a two-hour parent night during which time parents pick up their child’s report card and have conferences with the teachers. I had the usual ridiculous conversations about “Why is my child getting a B and not an A in Accelerated” (to which I alway s want to reply: “My god! A B is good for Christ sakes!”). I had a surprising amount of energy from the coca-cola I purchased on my way back to school.

My classroom was a mess for the sub, so I was there until 10:30pm writing sub plans for two days, locking up electronics, and writing clear instructions for two days on the board.

I came home, dropped off a key for Jenn and Ja so that they could check in on my kitty, cleaned my apartment so that it would not be disgusting for visitors (my dishes! my dishes!), and then packed for Portland. I went to sleep around 3:40am and woke up at 6:00 to make it to the airport.

I see it in my face: I have massive eye bags. It was no surprise that I couldn’t make it through a single band tonight. I am especially irritated as of this moment because I checked my school email (why do I do this to myself?) and a parent who I talked to last night about her son’s F in Accelerated wanted me to “change his grade before lunchtime to reflect his new improved grade so that he could be eligible to play in that afternoon’s soccer game.” It’s so frustrating because I already told both her and her husband that we cannot change quarter grades to reflect new progress just so that students can play sports. I told her, “The grade will not change, this is clear, right?” and then I get this damned request from her to change the grade, “before lunchtime.”

Arg!

I cannot escape from work even when I am many, many miles away. I just want to get away, away.

More on Portland Food Carts and Portland State tomorrow and the Ghosts of Relationships Past here. Am falling asleep.

Our public education system has been criticized for many things, but today, I want to pause to think about what a remarkable system it is.

This year, a record number of 49.8 million students will be attending about 99,000 public elementary and secondary schools.  Altogether, our public school systems employ 3.3 million teachers and spend $543 billion annually.  We have a teacher to student ration of 15.2 to 1, down from 16:1 from 10 years ago, and we are expected to spend $10,844 per student this year, up from $9,683 from two years ago.

Education is not the only business of the schools.  Students must be transported somehow from their homes to schools. In 2005-2006, 55.1% of students were transported at public expense, to the tune of $18.87 billion.  Students must eat lunch in school.  The National School Lunch Program, run by the Department of Agriculture, feeds more than 30.5 million children each school day with a total expenditure of $9.3 billion in 2008.

To be sure, the quality of our education system lags behind that of other developed nations.  Our schools suffer from grave problems of inequality and inefficiency.  Only 72% of our students in our public education system are deemed “on track” academically for their age and grade level.  Only 98% of our adults are literate, compared to 100% in other developed nations.

Nonetheless, we have come a long way.  The scale and complexity of our education system is breathtaking when you consider how young our nation is, and how differently we conceived of education merely two centuries ago.  At the founding of our nation, access to education was by and large only open to the wealthy and the nobility.  When Thomas Paine advocated free universal education, his idea was considered radical and unattainable.  Neither the U.S. Constitution nor the Amendments mention school or education, and the power to regulate education was reserved for the states via the Tenth Amendment.

But sometime around mid-1800s, the idea took hold that the state should take responsibility in educating its citizenry.  By 1918, 150 short years after Paine advocated his “radical” idea, mandatory school attendance laws existed in all states.  By 1919, all states have laws providing for the transportation of children to schools.

Massachusetts bears special mentioning as a constant champion of public education. When it was still a colony, it established the first grammar school, and was also the first one among colonies to require every town that has at least 50 families to establish schools.  In 1827, it became the first state to require the establishment of a public high school open to all students in every town.  In 1852, it was the first state to enact laws that required school attendance.

The idea of public education is not a new one.  Plato’s Republic advocated compulsory education for all children in the polis so they could learn virtue and the state could sort them into different classes and professions.  The Aztecs, too, established mandatory schools for their male children where they received religious instructions and learned how to read and write.  Protestant clergymen advocated compulsory education to enable their congregation to read the Bible themselves.

But there is something new in the magnitude of the project that we have undertaken.  What is also new is our reasoning for why people should be educated.  Plato, the Aztecs, and Protestant clergymen wanted universal education because they saw education as a tool for the state or the church to instill desirable values into its students.  Their conception of education sometimes smacked disturbingly of brainwashing.  It is no surprise that communist countries were also zealous in establishing free and universal education for their children.

But we in a free and democratic society have no such narrow requirements for our students and no such strictly-defined goals of what schools ought to teach.  As a society, we provide this service to our children, not only because we believe that it would make them better citizens and more useful for our country.

We provide it because education and the chance to succeed should not be restricted to those with means to enjoy it, but be open for all who have the desire and the capacity.  We believe in a basic equality and the human potential to excel.  And yes, we also believe that when all children are given this opportunity, we will be a better society as a result.

Let us give thanks to our public schools.  Let us give thanks to our idea of public education.