two feet in.

Agents of the State vs. Teachers

I'm a big fan and frequent visitor to Susan Ohanian's website, a home for news and other issues of concern to progressive advocates for public education.  Here's a recent cartoon that she featured:

The cartoon seems to imply that all of the negative consequences of NCLB/testing/standardization etc. move teachers from a position where they can really be teachers to now merely Agents of the State.  And, as I've written many times (see here and here and here for a few examples), this is a disturbing and serious problem.

However, I think that we're kidding ourselves if at some level we don't recognize the role that we, as teachers within the American public school system, have always played as agents of the state.  That's what we are, that's the way the system was designed.  In 1924, H.L. Mencken wrote that the aim of public education is not:

to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States... and that is its aim everywhere else.

I don't think that you even necessarily need to agree with everything in Schooling in Capitalist America, or be a devotee of John Taylor Gatto, to recognize some of the fundamental forces that drove how and why our system was designed.  Having said this, I do agree that there have been times when the tensions between democratic aims of schools and  state/market driven aims have not been quite so... horrific.  But, yes, Agents of the State we are, but luckily many of us are full of agency, will, creativity, intellect, and passion.  Most of us do not necessarily implement the will of the state unquestioningly.  And at least some of us strive to nurture dissent and originality.  That is, we teach.  So, the question perhaps should not be whether or not teachers are agents of the state, but what are we going to do about it?

If You've Got LITERACY and You Know It, Clap Your Hands!

All righty, I think I've been gone from the world o'blog for long enough.  Not to say that I'm back for good.   It seems that the necessitudes of burstingly full work schedule intersecting with highly unpredictable emotional-spiritual-creative-political vicissitudes have pushed these two feet toward paths unforeseen, but hopefully not permanently away from this wee corner of cyberspace. 

Yes, I may be frustrated with the dearth of public writing that I have engaged in recently, but Thank God Almighty -- I've got LITERACY!

Or, so says George Bush at yesterday's conference on Global Literacy. (via the always laugh-provoking WIIIAI)

And just in case you wonder about the top reasons have literacy, here they are (in the order presented in the LITERACY speech (you'll have to search the speech yourself for all the literacy errors present in said speech, 'cause I'm just focusing on what's most important):  PROSPERITY! 

1. "it's pretty clear; in order to be an informed consumer you have to read"
2. "In order to be able to take advantages [sic] of jobs that may come to your country as a result of expanding economic opportunity, you've got to read"
3. "In order to be a productive worker, you have to be able to read the manual."

Then, of course, he gets on to the stuff of spreading freedom and democracy:

I also strongly believe that those of us who have the benefits of living in free society must help others realize the benefits of liberty. I believe that.  I believe that's part of America's responsibility in the world.  I realize we can't impose our vision of government, nor should we try. But we believe here in America in the universality of freedom.  We don't believe freedom belongs only to the United States of America; we believe that liberty is universal in its applications.  We also believe strongly that as the world becomes more free, we'll see peace. That's what we believe.  And we're going to act on those beliefs.  But one thing that's for certain:  It is very hard to have free societies if the citizens cannot read.

That's right -- it is very difficult to have free societies if the citizens cannot read:

The past two decades of war and sanctions have also taken a heavy toll on Iraq’s education system...  The literacy rate among those between the ages of 15 and 24 is just 74 percent, the survey reveals - a rate researchers note is only "slightly higher than the literacy rate for the population at large." But this figure is lower than literacy rates for those 25-34, "indicating that the younger generation lags behind its predecessors on educational performance." [hmm, I wonder why that could be?]  The survey also indicated that the literacy rate for women in Iraq has stagnated in the past two years.

Which, then, brings us back to PROSPERITY (for the very few).  O.peration I.raqi L.iberation has indeed been a success.  Ah the joys of capitalism, and thank god I've got literacy.

Revolution of the Penguins

Yesterday I wrote about Mexico, and now more mass mobilizations in support of education -- this time in Chile:

Chile has been overrun by high school students whose mass protests have forced the government to drop planned cuts in education spending.

Called “penguins” because of their suit-and-tie uniforms, the students have shaken the foundations of the rigid Chilean social structure, inherited from the bloody dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Now, the government of President Michelle Bachelet of the Socialist Party, which took office earlier this year, has been forced to retreat.

The last six weeks in Chile have been marked by a strike of over 1 million students; the occupation of up to 1,000 high schools and most of the country’s universities; and weekly, sometimes daily, marches. The movement has also persevered in street battles against Chile’s sophisticated repression machine -- complete with carabineros (the national police) clad in riot gear and tanks firing water cannons that shoot a mixture of water and tear acid. Students, some as young as 13, fought back with sticks, stones and Molotov cocktails.

The struggle began as a defensive fight -- stopping the Bachelet government proposals last March for an increase in  the cost of the University Entry Exam (PSU) and a restriction on student transportation passes to two trips per day.

But it has since snowballed into an offensive struggle. The movement now demands free transportation and an end to all fees for the PSU, as well as the elimination of a law (known by its initials LOCE) implementing the privatization of Chile’s education system -- the last law that Pinochet approved before stepping down.

Abajo la LOCE, roughly translated, "down with privatization." 

We've got our own LOCE here, otherwise known as NCLB, a political agenda "designed to promote privatization and market reform" of our public schools.  Stan Karp's recent Rethinking Schools piece gives a good overview of what this law has in store for public education in this country, so if you need to study up for our own mass mobilization in support of educational rights, that's a good place to start.

Deadly Repression of Teachers in Mexico

Here's a picture of the more than 400,000 people from all walks of Mexican society that marched Friday in response to the government's brutal attack on the encampment of striking teachers in the city of Oaxaca:

There is, of course, little to nothing in the mainstream media about this attack and massacre on teachers (the number of dead is unconfirmed, but there are hundreds injured, and others "disappeared").  If you've missed this story, one of the best sources for information (that I've found in English) is Narco News Bulletin.

As the site details, these events will certainly have regional, if not national, implications:

The struggle by Section 22 of the National Education Workers’ Union has not been a simple question of teachers’ salaries, nor of the pitiful level of education in this, Mexico’s second-poorest state. From the first days of the strike nearly four weeks ago, the idea of impeaching URO was mentioned. The calls to oust him gain strength even while renewed labor negotiations take place.

Since the attack on June 14, a civil movement has emerged and coalesced around Section 22’s  aggressive demand that URO [Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortíz go, an event which would break the grip of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI in its Spanish initials) in Oaxaca. The demand has united all levels of Oaxaca society.

The next presidential election (Mexico has six-year terms) takes place on July 2, and URO is best buddies with PRI presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo. According to popular accounts, URO siphoned off hundreds of millions of pesos in public funds from the extraordinary number of undesired public works undertaken in the city of Oaxaca in the past year. The funds are alleged to have gone toward the election campaign of Madrazo.

For more analyis and personal observations of the significance of these events, see here and here. 

This is also completely interrelated with so-called reforms imposed by IMF, World Bank, and NAFTA which have gradually undermined the right to a free and secular education in Mexico.  The amazing documentary, Granito de Arena, gives a moving and in-depth portrait of this struggle.  I highly recommend this film!

Here's a quote from Granito de Arena, that has been in my mind as I've watched the events from the past week unfold: 

Un maestro tenia un lugar fundamental en la sociedad y en la comunidad.  El maestro es sinonimo de lucha, de transformacion, de solidaridad, de apoyo. 

The teacher has a fundamental place in society and in the community.  The teacher is synonomous with struggle, transformation, solidarity, support.

Can we say the same thing here?

Comfortable Prisons Redux

Note: This is a rewrite and expansion of a previous posting, which I have sent out into the world beyond cozy little Two Feet In. 

The above image shows California Youth Authority students in their classroom.  The students are the ones inside the cages, and they are being taught to read.  A friend drew my attention to this photo after I shared a story about a similar kind of prison, about kids learning to read in cages, albeit ones where the bars, while not visible, are nonetheless solidly constructed.

Awhile back I was observing in a local urban elementary school classroom -- all kids of color, mostly free lunch, low test scores.  One of those schools that is mandated to use a scripted literacy curriculum for at least 90 minutes a day in order to meet federal testing requirements.  At times when I have criticized such curricula, I've been accused of having an "overly sentimental, humanistic" view of students (god forbid, humanistic) -- I have been accused of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" when I have said that "high expectations" are not necessarily being met by having kids and teachers follow a script.

This point was starkly illustrated as I was sitting in this classroom watching the teacher implement the Open Court literacy curriculum lesson-of-the-day.  Since teachers and students generally don't have much choice in how and when they do different activities, I could hear the same sentences coming out of both adult and student mouths from other classrooms up and down the school hallway.  The teacher I was watching was running a few minutes behind, so I'd hear instruction coming from other classrooms, and sure enough, several minutes later nearly the same words would be replayed in the room where I was sitting.

I thought I might be mishearing things when the kids down the hall started chanting, "It was a comfortable prison!  It was a comfortable prison!"  But no.  Moments later the students in my room were directed to chant the same sentence.  Nobody blinked an eye -- these beautiful, vibrant children who had not moved or been asked, pushed, prompted, or inspired to think an original thought for the entire hour that I'd been sitting there, were chanting "It was a comfortable prison."  Direct from the teacher's manual.

And yet, proponents of these so-called high expectation promoting programs, would claim that such instructional techniques will help prevent today’s chanting and figuratively-caged students from becoming tomorrow’s literally-caged prisoners.  After all, many states predict the number of future prison beds based upon the number of 4th graders who don’t read at grade level.  So, as this reasoning goes, if such practices help to achieve these ends, then chant they must, to the exclusion of much else that constitutes education.  I find this reasoning to be narrow and incomplete if we are to value children as more than labels, test scores, future prison beds, or dollar signs.

I pondered these cages, scripts, figurative and real prisons as I followed the execution last week of Stanley Tookie Williams.  As the debate swirled around issues of guilt or innocence, change and redemption. I couldn’t help but note the lack of attention towards the larger question -- what it means for our society that so many of us unquestioningly watch as state-sanctioned murder becomes the norm.  How much have we all bought into the script that prevents us from recognizing, much less achieving the bigger picture of a more just and moral humanity?  How do we support, through our silence and compliance, the scripts that are created and replayed to legitimate our government's imperialistic world endeavors?

What would it mean to truly have high expectations, not only for other people’s children, but also for ourselves as fellow humans, for our collective redemption and renewal?  Can this vision be scripted, packaged and sold... guaranteed?  Which are the prison walls that need to come down?

“It was a comfortable prison.”  We may never do away with the actual prisons we create for others.  However, those that we fail to acknowledge, those that we tacitly accept for ourselves, these are the scripts and prisons that can hopefully one day be read in the past tense. These cages may have indeed been comfortable, for some.  But at what price for others and for us all?

Wear Protective Clothing At All Times

Here is another anecdote from the front-line of NCLB-sponsored schooling.  This time it is not comfortable prisons, but rather radioactive books.

A teacher I work with reported that a gentleman with a Geiger counter visited his fourth grade classroom.  All was found to be clean and free of radiation, except...  the Open Court textbooks. 

Just imagine the opportunities for the school uniform industry...

Recess and dodge-ball in the tyvek suits might be cumbersome, but at least those kids will learn their phonics! 

Censorship Got Me Pregnant

Whatever you do -- Just don't write about birth control around impressionable minds!

Students at Oak Ridge High School were apparently unaware that birth control is a forbidden subject. The latest issue of the student newspaper - which featured an informative article on the subject - has been censored by school officials. All 1,800 copies of the newspaper have been seized.
The Oak Leaf, the monthly school newspaper written and produced by students at Oak Ridge High School, wasn't distributed Wednesday because of one particular article and some of its content dealing with sex and birth control methods, according to the paper's editor-in-chief. "The school administration should realize they don't have the power to censor our paper," Thomas said, while fellow students gathered around her living room late Wednesday afternoon to hand-paint T-shirts they plan to wear to school on Monday in protest. . . The article which explains birth control methods references a national survey, conducted in 2001, of high school students who were asked whether they were sexually active. Those national percentages were applied to ORHS students. The article primarily covers birth control methods, quotes Dr. Charles Darling, an obstetrician/gynecologist in Oak Ridge, and tells students where they may obtain contraceptives - including a quote from Darling that says parental consent is not needed to obtain birth control. According to the paper's Editor-in-Chief, Brittany Thomas an article placed underneath the offending story, "advises students to practice abstinence until marriage.". . .

Administrators late Tuesday searched through teachers' rooms and desks and seized copies, they said. The inter-school mail system delivering copies was halted, and the newspaper returned. Bundles of papers were removed from teachers' mailboxes, Grooms [the newspaper advisor] said. Grooms said she was told to retrieve "all copies that went home. I picked up one copy from one student.'' (via Undernews)

School administrators claim that the newspapers were also confiscated due to a photo of an unauthorized tattoo on an unidentified student.  The "student had not told her parents about the tattoo,"  -- implying I suppose that the school was worried they might find out?  Too bad their concern for student welfare is only skin-deep.

Should you wish to express your opinion:
Principal Becky Ervin
865-425-9601

Superintendent Thomas E. Bailey
865-425-9001

Miscellaneous Education Stuff

Various bits o' education-related news:

1.
I am now a card carrying member of the Education Advocates, a group of bloggers who are "pro public education and progressive in politics."  I have not yet gotten around to adding all of their links to the sidebar, but will do so soon.  And welcome to all my new education-related readers.  At this site I write on many issues. A friend of mine once told me that this blog reminds her of a quilt -- a bit of this and that which come together to create a unified whole.  Since I make quilts, and like to over-use the life-as-quilt metaphor, I took this as a compliment. 

2.
Here's something very telling about educational priorities, here and elsewhere:

Cuban President Fidel Castro congratulated the graduating class of more than 3,000 new art instructors as part of a program aimed at training 30,000 such professionals in the next 10 years.

It is really fabulous to see the increasing interest of our youth in the arts as our country strives to create a highly educated and cultured population, said the Cuban leader at the Sports City indoor stadium where the ceremony took place on Friday evening.

Cuba now has more than 6,000 art instructors working in schools and communities . They work at all educational levels and also support local culture movements throughout the country. This is the second large graduation of these cultural promoters in recent years.

As noted by Eli at Left i on the News noted, we certainly cannot afford such luxuries here in the richest country in the world.  Or, as Nina Shoklii Rees (Dept. of Education) said, these so-called luxuries are good for "affluent schools" -- the rest only get "the basics."  Those "basics" are in the eye of the beholder it would seem.

3.
The UK supposedly has a new reality television program, The Unteachables.  The show "set out to discover whether 16 hardened troublemakers could be tamed":

By the end of the course the nine survivors could concentrate for up to an hour and a quarter — at the start they could not focus for more than 40 minutes. And they have now lasted eight weeks of school — the first eight weeks of their GCSE years — without clocking up a single suspension.

The success has even surprised the producers, who are considering a follow-up programme tracking the children’s progress. In the final episode, broadcast last Tuesday, the children were set to work as teaching assistants in a large primary school in west London.

The idea of these kids, old hands at smoking, swearing, bunking off and creating mayhem, being left in charge of little ones seemed too grim to contemplate. But they blossomed with the challenge.

Teacher Phil Beadle wasn’t the only one with a lump in his throat when Zaak gently put his arm around the shoulder of little Hassan, grounded indoors after a fight while his assailant played in the sunshine outside. “Don’t get angry,” he said. “I know I used to get angry and it wasn’t nice.”

Zaak took two days to prepare his music lesson and organise a prize ceremony for his class in which he gave each of them some distinctly individual praise.

It might not have been politically correct to hug a Somalian girl and tell her that even if she couldn’t speak English she had a lovely personality — but watching it was, as Zaak himself would have put it: “proper fantastic”. (via Undernews)

You may be asking about the magic formula?  Imagine...  it was a good teacher.  Shocked I am, just shocked.

"High Expectations" and Comfortable Prisons

Awhile back I was observing in a local elementary school classroom -- all kids of color, mostly free lunch, low test scores.  One of those schools that is mandated to use a scripted literacy curriculum for at least 90 minutes a day.  The kind of thing I've written about here and here. 

At times when I have criticized such curricula, I've been accused of having an "overly sentimental, humanistic" view of students (god forbid, humanistic) -- I have been accused of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" when I have said that "high expectations" are not necessarily being met by having kids and teachers follow a script.

So anyway, I was sitting in this classroom watching a teacher implement the Open Court curriculum for the mandated 90 minutes a day.  Since teachers and students don't have much choice in the matter, I could hear the same sentences coming out of both adult and student mouths from other classrooms up and down the school hallway.  The teacher I was watching was running a few minutes behind, so I'd hear stuff coming from other classrooms, and sure enough, several minutes later nearly the same words would be replayed in the room where I was sitting. 

I thought I might be mishearing things when the kids down the hall started chanting, "It was a comfortable prison!  It was a comfortable prison!"  But no... Moments later the kids in my room were directed to chant the same sentence.  Nobody blinked an eye -- these beautiful, vibrant children who had not moved or been asked, pushed, prompted, or inspired to think an original thought for the entire hour that I'd been sitting there, were chanting "It was a comfortable prison."  Direct from the teacher's manual.  These are high expectations, NCLB-style.

I've been thinking about the many levels at which this little classroom vignette illustrates injustice and inequity in education and society, but for tonight I'll just ask you to think about it the next time you hear rhetoric of high expectations. 

By the way, the last time I heard Open Court classroom chanting, the sentences were:
"The boycott destroyed the toy company."
and
"The loyal employee enjoyed her bonus."

Add in "It was a comfortable prison." and then consider whose agenda is being satisfied with this so-called education.

But She's Got Good Boots!

Some of you may remember my piece awhile back about Jenna Bush and teaching.  Well, a reader has pointed me to a recent news blurb that had escaped my attention:

Everyone seems to know about Jenna Bush, the blond half of the partying first twins. But, like her sister, Barbara, who's caring for AIDS-afflicted children in Africa, the 23-year-old has shelved her dancing shoes and is following in the footsteps of her mom, Laura, the former Texas school librarian. Jenna has turned her attention to Washington's Hispanic Mount Pleasant neighborhood, coteaching second graders at the highly regarded Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School. And, we're hearing, the University of Texas English major is wowing folks at the school, which teaches English along with Spanish or French. One example: Just last month, her second-grade class dropped into the neighborhood public library, marching quietly up to the second floor where there's a sprawling children's reading room. "It was great, and very sweet," recalls a librarian. "She was just a good teacher, and the kids were hanging all over her." It was the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, and Jenna was helping the kids find books and showing them how to handle the check-out. She never raised her voice or showed frustration. Friends say she even speaks a little Spanish. "We were all really impressed. It was all very positive," says the librarian. "It made me feel hopeful that even though she's been around all that power, she's a real person. And I really liked her boots."

As I noted last January, Jenna was not actually "highly qualified" according to NCLB definitions, and a news item appeared then that indicated she wouldn't be able to be employed at the school.

But, now we hear she's a co-teacher.  So either she satisfied those NCLB requirements pretty darn quick, or...  her daddy is president!   We can take heart in the fact that she's got good boots!  And her students can march quietly up the stairs!  Two true signs of good teaching.

By the way, Jenna is apparently partial to Jimmy Choo boots (see above).  Those are the $630 model, quite affordable on a co-teacher's salary.

 

Choice? No Choice? Is it Schizophrenia, or Just Another Day in the Bush Administration?

First it was just get back to school, get back to normal.  Then, we heard about the for-profit national virtual charter school that would serve victims of the political/economic/racial/imperialistic tragedy that was Katrina.  Now, we have two more pieces to add to the perfect storm that the Bush administration would like to create wipe out public education much as the levee breaks destroyed New Orleans.

Vouchers -- if you can't make it happen one way, then there's nothing like taking advantage of a natural disaster:

Under President Bush's plan to cover most of the cost of educating students displaced by Hurricane Katrina, parents could enroll their children in a private or religious school this year at federal expense, even if they had gone to public schools back home, administration officials said yesterday.
...

The expansive eligibility for private-school payments intensified the dispute over Bush's approach to providing federal relief to people and places harmed by the hurricane. Democrats on Capitol Hill and public education advocates had begun to complain that the president was using the catastrophe to weave into legislation a version of federal funding of vouchers for private education, which the administration has sought, unsuccessfully, since 2001.

"It makes it even worse," Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, said of the idea that all displaced families could obtain money for private schools. "It is really a tone-deaf response to the crisis. It is a real grab to get an ideological position across that they haven't been able to achieve under normal circumstances."

Then, in Texas, they'd like to waive federal rules that prohibit school districts from educating "homeless students" separately from the general population:

On Capitol Hill, [there is] an effort by the Department of Education and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, to waive those federal rules. The sheer number of evacuated students needing new schools, say advocates of the change, has turned the federal homeless statute into little more than burdensome red tape. On Monday, Hutchison introduced a bill with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to allow school districts across the country to open separate schools for hurricane victims. The bill would take away the ability of evacuating parents to protest their children's placement in particular schools. It would also allow schools to issue "identification cards or other identifying insignia" for students affected by Hurricane Katrina. (link)

These two proposals may seem at odds.  On the one hand, vouchers will supposedly increase choice (though what choice you have with $7500 per year in tuition is, well, not much choice).  Then, special schools where parents have no choice about sending their kids, where the kids would have to carry identification cards or wristbands (perhaps these "special schools" can also be virtual charter schools -- how convenient!)

To me, however, these different proposals don't seem very contradictory at all.  Each speaks to the insensitivity, greed, and need for control that is so typical of the neo-con, neo-liberal agenda that would like to privatize everything, hide away anything that is not good for PR, and yet appear to be compassionately winning hearts and minds of all.  My only question is when we'll start hearing about retina scans for all those model refugees in their model schools in their spectacularly rebuilt bright and shiny model city. 

They Have Their Own Thoughts

A blogging friend of a fellow blogging friend is a high school teacher who live(d) and work(ed) in New Orleans.  I've been following her writing at They Have Their Own Thoughts for some time now, and have been anxiously checking her site daily since Katrina.  Her writing about the young people she teaches has always moved me, and taught me much. 

Yesterday, she wrote:

God, where are they now? Where's Raymond and Monique and Whitney? Where's K who is the eldest child in her family and is raising the siblings? Where is R who has two babies, whose parents live in a crack house, whose father stole her rent money to buy crack, the young woman I wrote about some months ago for whom our beautiful school found the money to pay that rent?

Yesterday, or a week ago, time has so lost relevance, some woman in some line I was standing in, said she doesn't feel sympathy for those people who ended up in the Superdome because there were buses evacuating people and they chose not to go and so they caused their own problem. That's another one of those "if those people would just pull themselves up by the bootstraps" sentiments. At the moment I was too numb to react but as I think on it, I get sicker and sicker about it. I know she's just ignorant. I know she doesn't understand that these are not people who could be leading middle class lives if only they'd do a little something for themselves. Like it's easy or something. Like maybe my student, RM, the writer I loved so much, whom I cited and quoted so often, the one who wrote about keeping things real. His mother is a crack addict. Could he have just said, come on mother, let's leave this place, and gotten his addicted mother on the bus and out of New Orleans? Leave the ONLY thing they knew? That's been the issue all along. The people who live like that, who live in those poverty stricken areas, have not only no knowledge of the rest of the world, they can't even imagine it. I was getting around to really understanding that at the end of last school year.

The story of Douglass High School that I experienced last year and the first five days of this year has taken on a new relevance. Who they were and what they were, these people I knew in the 9th ward New Orleans, these people who ended up on roofs and in sewage, walking to the Superdome. These people I knew before Katrina. The story is no longer simply about looking at the school system (though the connection between their school lives and how they ended up is obvious), it's about looking at them. I'm astonished, overwhelmed with gratitude, and in awe, that I had the chance last year to learn what I learned.

And what I know even more clearly than ever is that they, especially my children, need to have someone speak up for them.

May we all see the power, beauty, and strength in her children, in all of our children.  May we all speak up for them.

How to Make Schooling "Work Very Well" for Those Already Left Behind

We've heard how Halliburton will be cashing in on Hurricane Katrina, and now for-profit educational companies are heeding Laura Bush's call for children to get back to school as soon as possible:

Private companies that operate online courses or charter schools are urging (Margaret Spellings) to use emergency powers to authorize them to enroll displaced students at the Houston Astrodome and other shelters across the nation...

The National Council of Education Providers, which represents the nation's largest commercial school management companies, has asked the Department of Education to authorize it to enroll students housed at emergency shelters in Internet-based courses offered by its companies.

The National Council's Web site yesterday highlighted its request to the department to establish a "national virtual charter school" that would "serve evacuees wherever they are."

"Once students have access to computers and connectivity - borrowed, donated or shared - companies are standing by to waive state restrictions and log these students on," the Web site said. The restrictions in question include enrollment caps in state laws that apply to charter schools. The National Council wants the federal government to waive those laws during the emergency. (link)

One could question whether sitting in front of a computer screen in the Astrodome would constitute education.  However, Barbara Bush reassures us that all is for the best:  "Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, 'This is working very well for them.'"

While enrollment caps for charter schools may be waived, NCLB testing requirements will probably stand strong.  As long as these children are attending virtual schools in their new virtual home, we might as well test them -- because by god we've gotta keep up the federal accountability standards!  Where would we be, after all, without our proof of Adequate Yearly Progress?

I'm also wondering if these virtual charter schools could "beam the lessons of democracy into third world villages and households" at the same time as serving the Astrodome?  Just imagine the endless opportunity!  The question is, however, for whom is this all really working well?   

Don't Miss School Even Though You Have No School

Here's a short item I received via the California Resisters mailing list:

In a week of unbelievably stupid remarks, here is one that I nominate for first prize. Laura Bush said while visiting the scene of destruction (not too close of course!) said that it's very important that parents in New Orleans make sure that their children don't miss school so they don't fall too far behind!  Kids with no food, no water, no homes, much less schools---
should worry about falling behind. What planet are these people from? What world do they live in? what's wrong with them? 

A quick and cursory Google search didn't yield any concrete evidence.  However, such a statement would certainly be par for the course from the first lady who visits the women of Afghanistan and says:  “We want them to develop their education that works for them, just like we do the same thing in our country.”

UPDATE:  A reader sent me a link to the transcipt of her visit, which was not surprisingly on the White House web pages of Katrina-related propaganda.

Today's History Lesson is Brought to You By...

Good morning students!   Today we are going to  "examine relations between the United States and Mexico in the twentieth century, including key economic, political, immigration, and environmental issues,©"  courtesy of Walmart!

When the Corp. for Public Broadcasting announced in the spring the launch of an ambitious program aimed at expanding middle- and high-school students' knowledge of U.S. history and civics, it seemed to fit squarely with its traditional public service mission.

But an emphasis by corporation officials on how corporate investors could profit from the project has provoked controversy about the role commercial interests will play in the initiative and hints at new areas of conflict in public broadcasting's reliance on private-sector support.

The CPB — a private, nonprofit corporation that distributes federal funds to public broadcasters — plans to dole out $20 million in grants over the next three years as part of its American History and Civics Initiative. The money will go to projects that use websites, video games, podcasts and other new media to teach students about history and politics.

To get high-tech companies to participate in the initiative, CPB officials have urged producers to stress the profit to be made as schools across the country are exposed to their products. At briefings about the project, a CPB consultant suggested telling corporations that public television will be "a Trojan horse" to gain them entree into schools, according to attendees. (link)

Let's just take a moment to imagine what this might look like.   I perused some of the California State Content Standards for History and Social Studies.  Here are a couple of the 11th grade standards, along with their potential underwriters:

11.9 Students analyze U.S. foreign policy since World War II:  Describe U.S. Middle East policy and its strategic, political, and economic interests, including those related to the Gulf War.© 
Brought to you by Halliburton, Bechtel, and Titan!

11.10 Students analyze the development of federal civil rights and voting rights.© 
Brought to you by Diebold!

I know that this is not exactly what is implied by encouraging high-tech companies to participate in CPB's so-called "American History and Civics Initiative", but  it  is only a matter of time...  And, regardless, I don't think that A People's History of the United States will get much air-play.  No matter though, because the profit possibilities are endless, just endless!

Break a Rule? Go to Jail.

Many apologies for extended absence.  I'm back for a bit, with yet another report about the criminalization of black students in our public schools.  This time, Chicago is in the news:

Accusing an elementary school in Lawndale of "criminalizing" black students by having large numbers arrested for routine discipline infractions, a community coalition brought its protest to a heated meeting of Mason Elementary's local school council Wednesday.

In the meeting's wake, two people were arrested for disorderly conduct.

The North Lawndale Accountability Commission has been picketing Mason, at 1830 S. Keeler, since last week, citing information the coalition says it received from the local police district. That data purports more than 250 children were arrested at the school in the past few years. Chicago Public Schools officials dispute that figure.

The coalition claims Mason is representative of a larger problem identified in a national study released in March that accuses Chicago schools of funneling alarming numbers of black students into the Cook County Juvenile Court system through a zero tolerance policy that criminalizes minor misbehavior.

They're literally prosecuting these children, fingerprinting and mugshotting them and locking them up before even calling parents. What they've done is taken away parents' constitutional rights," said the Rev. M.G. Hunter, whose 12-year-old niece, an honor roll student, was arrested at Mason last month after arguing with a substitute teacher...

Their information is incorrect," an angry Mason Principal Vivian Hudson-Davis said of the coalition's claim. "The Uniform Discipline Code tells us when to call police and when not to. If a child is disruptive, if a child pushes a teacher, I have to act. I don't think CPS is criminalizing children. Until discipline is under control, learning cannot take place."

That's 250 students allegedly arrested in an elementary school -- these are children under 12 years old.  If you need an idea of what the arrest of a young child might look like, see here. 

Could it be that the problem lies not with the students, but with their schooling?  Of course not -- we never leave any children behind, at least as long as they are "under control."

They'll learn to write emails, but will they learn to breathe?

The fabulous organization, Youth Speaks, has a website where they feature a Poet of the Month.  Here is a bit of commentary by this month's featured writer, Luke Brekke-Meisner (check out his poem too):

I write because words have no contract with me. They don't wake me up at dawn prodding my lids open. They don't wield obligatory ultimatums, or guilt trip me into submission. Words let me be me. They lend themselves to me when need be, but keep to themselves when I don't have the time or energy to stop and marinate. Poetry doesn't heal me, but it lets me dress my wounds and breathe.

I started writing when I was eleven. After throwing a tantrum my mom told me to go write, and what resulted was my first poem. Needless to say, the habit stuck, and as the years have passed, I have ventured deeper into myself and the lives of others through my writing. I have become fascinated with language and am constantly striving to broaden my linguistic horizons through my growing understanding of words, the world and myself.

As I was reading this, I couldn't help but think of the writing buzz that has been in the news over the past week or so.  There was last Sunday's New York Times editorial lamenting the state of writing competence, and writing instruction.  And, many pieces about the SAT's new writing component. 

The NYT editorial called for "a revolution in writing instruction," based on a survey of Business Roundtable and "chief executives from the nation's leading corporations."  The author, Brent Staples, uses the need for students to be able to "write on demand" to justify the  importance of the new writing section of the SAT:

Long-term projects are important, but they do not cover all of the kinds of writing that students will be called upon to produce either in college or in their lives. On the contrary, substantive writing on demand for reports, correspondence and even e-mail is now a common feature of corporate life.

As someone who spends much time working with writing, and writing instruction in schools, I completely agree with the idea that teachers must devote more time to student writing development.  However, many of the best writing teachers that I know find that they are unable to do this.  They can't do it because mandated testing and reading programs are being forced upon them and their students.  They can't do it because the range of "acceptable" writing practice for students is being narrowed with each new corporate call for so-called reform.  These teachers often find that they are forced to drill and kill the five paragraph essay, and the new SAT is only going to exacerbate that pressure (as well as add about $200 million a year to the revenues of the test-prep industry).

Yes, I would like for students to be able to someday write fluent and eloquent audit reports and emails, if that is where writing figures prominently in their lives.  However, I also want them to be able to stop and marinate in their writing, to dress their wounds, breathe, and come to know themselves and the world more deeply through written language. 

None of the current corporate-driven reform will ever nurture the souls of our young writers.  But, I suppose that's not important, as long as they can write a coherent annual report in 25 minutes or less.

"hierarchical organizations which depend on people lower in the chain of command to [score] as they are told"

Here is an example of what I see as but  one form of in-the-name-of-education related violence committed against children in our schools. 

Tyler, a nine year old in Texas, didn't know how to answer the following writing prompt on the state-mandated test (WASL):

“Now children, you’re looking out the window and see your principal flying by….”   Tyler was supposed to create a fanciful story about the flying principal.

Tyler didn’t know what to write so he wrote nothing.  Six times the teacher commanded Tyler to write.  Six times Tyler sat there.  The principal summoned Tyler’s mother to the school to extract the tale. No luck. Mom told reporters that he simply didn’t know how to answer the question.  Tyler says he was trying to save face for the administration:  “I couldn’t think of what to write without making fun of the principal.”

Here is the letter from the principal detailing the action taken against Tyler:

After much thought and after carefully weighing several factors, I have reached the following decision: Tyler is suspended from attendance at school for a period of five (5) days beginning Monday, May 9, 2005 through Friday, May 13, 2005. This decision has been reached for the following reasons: Tyler refused, on six separate occasions, to comply with a reasonable request made by his teachers, myself, and even you, his parent. In schools, when a teacher or other staff member gives a direction or a request to perform, a student is expected to do so. In other instances where students have simply refused, consequences have been imposed. The fact that Tyler chose to simply refuse to work on the WASL after many reasonable requests is none other than blatant defiance and insubordination. Therefore, a reasonable consequence is a short-term suspension.

Unfortunately, the consequences of Tyler's decision do not end with this disciplinary action. Not only will his achievement be misrepresented on the highest stakes measure of academic performance he has met to date, but the scores of his classmates will also be invalid. As he chose NOT to perform, he will get a zero on that section, which will be averaged with the scores of all of the other students in his class: in this case, 10 other children. Obviously, a ‘0’, when averaged with only 10 other scores, can drastically impact the ‘average’. Thus, he has compromised the representation of what his peers know and are able to do. Their scores will be reported as a group, not as individuals. Additionally, this extends to the whole fourth grade, as our school score, the one that is reported to the state and the media, is an average of all fourth grade students. Thus, his choice impacts Tyler, his classmates, his grade mates, and his school. As we have worked so hard this year to improve our writing skills, this is a particularly egregious wound.

This nine-year old supposedly displayed "blatant defiance" and "insubordination," -- our schooling system's language of control.  And, just where does this language originate?

Insubordination is the act of a subordinate deliberately disobeying a lawful order. Insubordination is typically a punishable offence in hierarchical organizations which depend on people lower in the chain of command to do as they are told. Insubordination is not the same as foot-dragging, displaying a negative attitude, voicing complaints, or refusing to perform an action that is not safe, ethical, or legal.

The concept of insubordination is most often associated with military organizations as military organizations have a chain of command and lawful orders given by a superior officer are expected to be carried out by the person to whom the order is given.

I suppose little Tyler is learning his lessons early.

There are so many levels at which the actions taken in this case are deplorable, and yet so typical of our current educational regime.  Just who is really responsible for egregious wounds related to improved test scores?  I don't think it was Tyler.

Authentic Truthfulness of Being

As I was working today, I found the following description of the qualities of a true education (thanks, Desiree!).  It was one of those fortuitous moments when you stumble upon something that resonates in many different parts of your life.  It made me stop and think, so now I pass it on...

The Aztecs have a beautiful metaphor that describes the qualities of a “true” education.  They say that a true educational process must do four things within concentric rings of broader contexts of relationship. 

First, they believe that a true education should help individuals “find their face.”  That is simply to say that each individual should be transformed through the process of education and find that special “place” where reside one’s unique qualities of self.  For the Aztec, a key purpose of education is to help find one’s character, to help find one’s identity, to help find one’s true relationship with oneself, with one’s community, and with the natural world.  It is this process of searching for innate and important relationships that helps us define our “authentic” face. 

A second goal of Aztec education is to help people “find their heart,” that is, to help individuals find that particular place within themselves where desire and motivation reside.  Simply said, it is about searching for the passion that allows us to energize those things we feel are important.  For the Aztecs, “heart” is equivalent to the song of the soul. 

The third goal is to help individuals find that kind of work, that kind of foundation, that kind of vocation, that thing that would enable them to express most fully who they are.  It is an education that helps them express their face, express their heart, and express the authentic truthfulness of their being. 

All this is aimed at achieving a fourth goal of “becoming complete”… it is in the interaction and the harmony of these ways of being human that give human life its special quality and balance.

- Gregory Cajete, “Reclaiming Biophilia:  Lessons from Indigenous Peoples

Great, you say, but that sure isn't happening in any school that I know of -- all you have to do is read yesterday's posting to feel rather hopeless about a true education happening just about anywhere in our system.  Well, actually, the above quote was used to introduce an in-depth portrait of a diverse, Oakland public school classroom (East Oakland, not in the hills).  A classroom where kids were able to express their face, their heart, the truthfulness of their being.  It reminded me once again of the power of a good teacher.  It made me think, and it made me smile.

And It Happens Again, and Again, and Again, and Again...

Benjamin, of HungryBlues (which is now added to sidebar as blog read more often than not), has a series of excellent posts about this kindergartner -- that's right, she's five years old -- handcuffed by police at her school.  The images were taken from the widely available video clip of the incident. 

Where is the outrage about this incident?  Or this one?  Or this one?  Or this one?   

Yes, for each there have been localized protests and blogging anger, but does anyone else seem to care?  Will we see nightly news analysis of the personal and institutionalized racism and violence directed at poor, children of color in our country?

As Benjamin asks:

Why is there such a rush to blame a vulnerable African American girl, who is ONLY FIVE YEARS OLD and "by reason of . . . physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care" (UNICEF Convention on the Rights of the Child)?

Why are there so few questions being asked about the role of the responsible adults who were present at the time of the incident?

Why is there so little acknowledgment of the age- and race-related power imbalances?

Why is it so little acknowledged that the only person who was ever in any genuine physical danger was Ja'eisha Scott?

Why have none of the reporters in the mainstream press bothered to seek expert opinions on the traumatic effects of such police behavior on small children?

Why have none of the news reports discussed what prevention resources are, in fact, available for children in Pinellas County, Florida?

Why have none of the news reports acknowledged the lack of funding for mental health treatment for children in Florida?

Not likely that there will be substantive examination of any of these questions, or of how we are all part of the problem, of how we are all responsible.  Rather, we'll just hear more about those "at risk" children, and what must be done to fix them. 

Love Thy Neighbor

This past week in a New York city, a school administrator chose to deal with a minor scuffle between two Haitian immigrant fourth graders in the following manner:

According to parents and students, Miller, who is white, chose to punish all 13 Haitian pupils in the school's only fourth-grade bilingual class - even though just two were involved in the March 16 incident.

She ordered all 13 to sit on the cafeteria floor, then made them use their fingers to eat their lunch of chicken and rice, while all the other students watched.

"In Haiti, they treat you like animals, and I will treat you the same way here," several students recalled Miller saying.

Some of the punished fourth-graders were so humiliated they began to cry. A few begged Miller for spoons to eat.

To read of this incident deeply saddened me, but, I am sorry to say, it did not shock me.  While an extreme example, it represents the kind of degradation and humiliation that goes on within our schools day-in and day-out.  Indeed, I have written here about many such instances that have surfaced in the media:  the fifth-grader arrested for bringing scissors to school in her backpack, and Birmingham's decision to use Tasers on the "new breed" of "criminals" that attend their schools, to name just a couple of examples.

Degradation and humiliation done in the name of zero tolerance and control.  However, even more insidiously, through the default language that we use to create a world of us versus them. 

Children are at risk or underperforming. 
Schools are persistently dangerous or failing. 
Human beings are illegal aliens. 

We, the comfortable, educated, non-immigrant, English-speaking, and usually white -- we know what is best for the rest, we're going to make them do it.

It all contributes to this:

And, yes, it all contributes to this:

Update:  We now also have degradation and humiliation of school kids in the name of  imminent threat -- see bookofdays for details on the case of the arrest and detainment of high school "would be suicide bombers".

Education as Extreme Sport

I just finished Thomas Friedman's call to educational arms around the issue of keeping up with the competition in what he calls our now "flat world" of globalization.  As I was reading, I knew it was only a matter of paragraphs before he pulled up Sputnik, and sure enough, there it was:

If this moment has any parallel in recent American history, it is the height of the cold war, around 1957, when the Soviet Union leapt ahead of America in the space race by putting up the Sputnik satellite. The main challenge then came from those who wanted to put up walls; the main challenge to America today comes from the fact that all the walls are being taken down and many other people can now compete and collaborate with us much more directly. The main challenge in that world was from those practicing extreme Communism, namely Russia, China and North Korea. The main challenge to America today is from those practicing extreme capitalism, namely China, India and South Korea. The main objective in that era was building a strong state, and the main objective in this era is building strong individuals.

He goes on in the final paragraph of the essay to say:

We need to get going immediately. It takes 15 years to train a good engineer, because, ladies and gentlemen, this really is rocket science. So parents, throw away the Game Boy, turn off the television and get your kids to work. There is no sugar-coating this: in a flat world, every individual is going to have to run a little faster if he or she wants to advance his or her standard of living. When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, ''Tom, finish your dinner -- people in China are starving.'' But after sailing to the edges of the flat world for a year, I am now telling my own daughters, ''Girls, finish your homework -- people in China and India are starving for your jobs.''

Those of you who have read past postings related to education know that the education vs. schooling divide is often on my mind.  I work in teacher education, with adults preparing to become public school teachers, and often find myself questioning how much of what I'm doing is in the service of furthering education, and how much it merely furthers the perpetuation of a schooling and schooled mentality (in spite of my best efforts against this). 

So, what does it mean to educate, to be educated?  What is education?  To read Friedman, it is all about "creating men and women who fit neatly into the economic machine" (that quote is from Body and Soul, where there are several good posts on Friedman), and he doesn't think that we're doing it very well, at least not well enough to keep up our neighbors in this flat world of his.  In order to keep up with "extreme capitialism", education must become an extreme sport:  bigger, better..  faster, faster, faster.

Others would say that our schools work perfectly in this sense -- that schooling serves to create and maintain a caste system that meshes quite well with the economic machine, and that any reforms based on evocations of Sputnik or the competition in India will only serve to perpetuate that system for those who already stand at the top.

It profoundly sickens me to read Friedman's vision of us all running a little faster, of working harder and getting "smarter" so that our worth can be measured up by how quickly we can give or take a job from China. 

I'd like us to advance our standard of living as well.  I suppose, however, that I see that happening as we work together as fellow human beings  towards reaching the full measure of our humanity.  That for me, education involves a collective effort towards a more enlightened human agency, and is all about the development of spirit and values which will guide us through life and help us to live with each other in just and humane ways.

Is there a place for this vision of education in our schools?  Certainly not in Friedman's world, and maybe not at all with schools as they now stand.  Nonetheless, I continue to work in this direction. 
Silly, silly, me.  I am just so last century.

No Third World Village or Household Left Behind

“We want them to develop their education that works for them, just like we do the same thing in our country.”

That's Laura Bush on her 5-hour trip to Afghanistan.  (via WIIIAI)

Good time to revisit an old posting of mine, where I highlighted Chester Finn's vision of the education opportunities that -we- have to look forward to in the coming years.  Much of the piece was predictable:  choice, vouchers, testing, accountability. 

Then, he gets all virtual on us.  Ah, technology...

Underwrite the spread of virtual schools and virtual charter schools, thus bringing the benefits of enriched curricula and high-quality instruction, as well as educational options and modern technology, to rural and small-town America and to home-schoolers.

What's good for us is good for them, right?  Chester went on to speculate...

There's even a foreign-policy angle here. Virtual schooling is a terrific way to beam the lessons of democracy into third-world villages and households whose governments--or mullahs--don't want them to learn such things.

Will Laura Bush bring the lessons of democracy to Afghanistan packaged in the form of a scripted curriculum?  Will the "third-world villages and households" be tested and punished if adequate yearly improvement goals are not achieved?

NTWVHLB (No Third World Village or Household Left Behind)!  As acronyms go, it's kind of clunky... But I'm sure that Bush can always sell it as his jobs program for the new world order. 

If it works for us, then I'm sure it'll work for them too.

NCLB: The Basketball Version

From Susan Ohanian, we have something that highlights the absurdities of NCLB:

1. All teams must advance to the Sweet 16, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same basketball skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in basketball, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY BASKETBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL.

3. Talented players will be asked to practice on their own, without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren't interested in basketball, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don't like basketball.

4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th and 11th games.

5. This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals. If no child gets ahead, then no child will be left behind.

I actually have a few problems with this -- mainly, point number three.  However, I am supposed to be WRITING MY DISSERTATION now.  So off I go.

Are they a new breed of criminals, or are they kids?

It looks like they'll soon be using Tasers in the Birmingham schools:

Birmingham Mayor Bernard Kincaid said Friday he is leaning toward lifting the moratorium on police use of stun guns in schools.

Kincaid shifted gears after meeting with school Superintendent Wayman B. Shiver Jr., Police Chief Annetta Nunn and other city and school officials to debate whether Taser guns are safe, and whether they're needed in the city's schools.
...
Wenonah High School Principal Regina Carr-Hunter sounded desperate in describing the situation at her school. "It's very, very serious. We're talking about criminals. Not just thugs, criminals," she said.

When a fight breaks out at a school, it becomes nearly impossible to break it up with a ring of 50 to 100 students around it. "You cannot get to a fight without having to shove or push other kids out of the way. It's like an event," Dewitt said...

"We have a new breed of children, a small number, who are not afraid of anything, including your police force," Shiver said at the meeting. "Even the male police officers are afraid of these fights." (link)

I wonder if the mayor of Birmingham is aware that Tasers kill people?  Apparently, not...

Nunn argued that stun guns save lives. She said that in the 136 times Tasers have been used in Birmingham communities, there have been no deaths. "In 20 of those occasions, deadly force would have been justified, so those lives were saved," Nunn said.

Curious logic at work here -- "saving lives" by not applying deadly force, but still using a weapon that can kill. 

So they'll have stun guns to break up fights (or to break up the circle of students surrounding the fights?).  It does not seem to matter that Tasers have frequently been linked with death when drug use is evident, with sweatiness at the time of the jolt, or when struggling is happening.  Since struggling and sweating don't often occur during school fights, I guess we don't need to be concerned.

And please, these are children and teenagers we are talking about -- not a "new breed" of "criminals."  I dunno, maybe it is a wacky idea, but perhaps the Birmingham schools could start to work towards building a safer environment by finding some labels for their students that communicate some level of respect.  When you treat them as criminals, so they may respond.

UPDATE:  I should point out that Tasers in schools are nothing new.  They've been used in Florida since 2003, sometimes on young children.  Here are a few details of specific cases:

• A 12-year-old boy at Gateway School for emotionally challenged students in Orange County, whose wrists were handcuffed behind his back and who was being restrained by deputy sheriffs when an officer fired his Taser.
• A slightly built 17-year-old boy at Colonial High who was arrested by an Orange County deputy for walking off campus without permission. Placed in the caged back seat of a patrol car, he began "banging around," and an officer who wanted him "calmed down" gave him two shots with a Taser.
• Two boys at Lakeland High who, along with more than 150 other students, ran to watch when a fight broke out after school. A Lakeland police officer pushing through the crowd of students used his Taser "to get them to move" so he could intercede in the fray.

When I first wrote this post I was kinda, sorta joking when I suggested that schools might use Tasers to break up the circle of kids that surround fights.  Just goes to show what I know.

Pro-Family Values? Not in Missouri.

Still precious little time for blogging.  There are many other things that I should be doing right now, but since I finished that dissertation chapter days ago, I figure I ought to get back to this -- if only to hold on to my beloved faithful readers.

Here is the latest example of compassionate conservatism:

A bill that seeks to overhaul Missouri's child abuse reporting laws could require teachers, doctors, nurses and others to report sexually active teenagers and children to the state's abuse hot line.

Perhaps the most controversial provision of the bill is one that many say would require educators, medical personnel and other professionals to report "substantial evidence of sexual intercourse by an unmarried minor under the age of consent."

Critics say the language would, in essence, require child abuse reports even of cases of consensual sex between two teens. Byrd claims the bill seeks only to target sex by children under the age of 15.

Regardless of the age covered by the bill, some opponents say its consequences would be stifling for those who are required by law to report child abuse.

That list of "mandated reporters" includes educators, physicians, nurses and other professionals who come in contact with children.

Otto Fajen, a lobbyist for the Missouri chapter of the National Education Association, said the bill, as written, could stifle the ability of teachers and counselors to speak candidly to teens about sexual activity. Fajen said that by forcing teachers to always report sexual activity as abuse, the law removes sound professional judgment of what constitutes abuse. 
(Via Bitch. Ph.D.)

There are many levels at which one could respond to this ridiculous this piece of legislation, but let's just look at one of those last sentences:  "the bill, as written, could stifle the ability of teachers and counselors to speak candidly to teens about sexual activity."   Unfortunately, the ability of many teachers and counselors to speak candidly about sexual activity is already being stifled by abstinence-only legislation. 

So, as teachers we can't fully educate young people about sexuality, and then if and when they do have sex we're supposed to report their families for child abuse?  And then what?  The kid is removed from the home and sent to foster care?  Somehow I don't think that this is going to increase communication between teens and their parents, or their teachers, or any other adult who might be able to serve as a positive, guiding force in young people's lives.  Something is very, very wrong with this whole picture.

I'm sorry, but you are simply not allowed to do any homework in Berkeley.

Chester Finn, The Education Gadfly of the conservative Fordham Foundation has claimed that we're all over here in Berkeley dancing in the streets:

                            Teachers ban homework, children rejoice.

This is no April Fools item. Teachers in America's leftist heartland, Berkeley, California, have announced that they will not assign their students written homework until they receive a pay raise. The local teachers' union initiated the strike and is requiring teachers not to "volunteer" outside of their contracted hours. Already, a Black History Month event has been cancelled and stacks of papers are piling up. Meanwhile, parents have crossed the picket line—those scabs!—to staff a middle-school science fair. As the NEA says, "We teach the children." Except, of course, when we don't.

Actually, dear Chester, you don't have it quite right.  The teachers in Berkeley have not had a contract in over two years, and are currently "working to rule."  This means that they work the hours that they are paid for:  8:00 - 3:10, and not one minute more. 

Although they may not be making homework assignments and homework packets, teachers are not banning homework.  It is nearly impossible to create (and then evaluate) quality homework assignments (if there is such a thing, but that's another story), and teach the kids at the same time.  To do justice to the act of teaching requires much more time and effort than can fit in seven hours and ten minutes a day. 

Parents crossing the picket line?  There is no picket line, teachers are not (yet) on strike.  I'm not going to go into the details of the issues under mediation, but just a bit of reading up on the issue will tell you that it is a little more complicated than simply those greedy leftist teachers wanting a raise. 

Nobody is happy with this situation, Chester.  Nobody is rejoicing. 

I enjoy my soy with oysters as I loyally boycott the Business Roundtable.

For any of you who need a glimpse into the life in an NCLB scripted curriculum classroom, here's just a tiny dose:

Set 1: /oi/ spelled _oy

1. Erase the blending lines and sentences and have students take out writing paper.
2. Dictate the following words and sentences for students to write. 
3. Remember to use in a sentence any word that is a homophone so that students will know which word you want them to spell.

Line 1: loyal  decoy  oyster
Line 2: soy  enjoyment  boycott
Challenge word:  corduroy

Sentence: 
The loyal employee enjoyed her bonus.
The boycott destroyed the toy company.

Have students follow the proper steps for checking the correct spelling of the dictated words and sentence.

What you may not know is that the Business Roundtable is one of the most vigorous supporters of NCLB, to the point of sending out weekly emails to dispel anti-NCLB "myths".

What is the Business Roundtable?  So happy you asked...

The Business Roundtable is an association of chief executive officers of leading corporations with a combined workforce of more than 10 million employees in the United States and $3.7 trillion in revenues. The chief executives are committed to advocating public policies that foster vigorous economic growth and a dynamic global economy.

The boycott destroyed the toy company??!!  This is what third graders are learning in language arts?  Just what the Roundtable ordered.

Don't mess with (the kids in) Texas.

There has been much action on the part of rebellious students down in Texas.  First, there was the high school student that did the following:

Mia Kang stared at the test sheet on her desk.

It only was practice. Teachers call it a "field test" to give them an idea of how students will perform on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.

But instead of filling in the bubbles and making her teacher happy, Mia, a freshman at MacArthur High School, used her answer sheet to write an essay that challenged standardized testing and using test scores to judge children and rank schools.

"I wrote about how standardized tests are hurting and not helping schools and kids," said Mia, who looks and acts older than her 14 years. "I just couldn't participate in something that I'm completely opposed to."

Mia isn't boycotting just the practice tests. The straight-A student said she'll refuse to take the state- and federally-mandated tests Texas teachers begin administrating next week...

Mia is the latest in a growing number of students nationwide who are showing their opposition to high-stakes testing by putting down their pencils.      

Then, here is the action taken by another Texas student:

Focus on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills is encroaching on classroom learning, Gibson said. Instead of having high-level discussions, the Haltom High School junior honors student said she spends too much time taking practice tests and filling out work sheets.

So she and a few friends waged a silent protest Monday morning outside the school by handing out pre-sold green T-shirts with slogans including "Walking standardized test score," "I am not in the equation of my education" and "Total Annihilation of Knowledge and Skills."

More than 60 students planned to wear the T-shirts today and Wednesday, during TAKS testing. But the T-shirts, deemed disruptive by Principal Allen Roberts, were confiscated until the end of the day, and the students were told not to wear them to school.

I'm not quite sure how t-shirts can be disruptive during testing, but then again I am rarely in agreement with the decisions that school administrators seem to be making these days. 

These students have deservedly received much praise from those of us who are concerned about high-stakes testing, and who work to reject a schooling (rather than education) mentality.  I hope that their actions inspire many, many more.

One thing that was mentioned in each of these news pieces is that each of the profiled students is a "straight A" or "honors" student:

Mia doesn't plan to take the TAKS test ever. Like Kimberly, she doesn't intend to participate even though it means her diploma is on the line. Both girls have stellar academic records and hope colleges see beyond one test.

My guess is that colleges will indeed see beyond the one test, and that these actions will not, ultimately harm their academic future -- it could be that the protest actions and accompanying media attention may actually enhance their chances of being accepted to some colleges that value an independent spirit.

As I've been reading these pieces I've also been thinking about the other students -- the ones that are perhaps most harmed by a reductionist curriculum and standardized tests that may make or break whether or not they can graduate from high school or move on to the next grade (for the first time this year, fifth-graders in Texas must pass the reading and math portions of the test or be held back a grade, with very few exceptions).  Students that may not have the resources, savvy, or grades to participate in such actions confident that colleges will see beyond the one test.  These are the students who end up being the real walking standardized test scores -- the ones who receive the labels that stereotype and limit opportunity.  I wonder if an active boycott of high-stakes tests is a viable form of protest is for these students. 

I don't mean to discount the actions of the Texas students -- there is a recognition of the problem and discussion opening up that might not otherwise happen if they did not speak out (and, they are much smarter and braver than I ever was at that age).  But, we must recognize that the stakes involved in high stakes testing are higher for some than others, and that it will take all of us working together to tear those stakes down.

UPDATE:  Here's another Texas student - a fifth grader! - who is speaking out against the tests. 

They're tokin' it up on the playground. What other explanation could there be?

Here's a sweet love story from Missouri for your Valentine's Day:

Imagine this.  You are six years old. You love your friend, and what better way to express that love than to gather together a bit of nature and give it as a gift? 

Side note:  My three year old does this all the time.  I often empty my pockets at the end of the day of various bits of leaves, sticks, pebbles, petals, etc. that R. presents me as a "present for you, Mama."  She'll also often say that the petals (or whatever) are "science" -- a catchall word for anything that is found outside the house.

Now back to the story...
So, being six, you find yourself a little plastic bag and during recess you fill it with some clover, dirt, and a few small rocks.  You pull the purple ponytail holder from your hair and use it to close up the bag, because it looks just a little more special that way.  Then, you excitedly give it to your beloved friend, along with the grand pronouncement:  "Here's a bag of dirt!"  You both hug, and skip happily back to your classroom, arm in arm.

Somehow, this lovingly prepared bag of dirt finds its way into the hands of your loving teacher, who, because she of course believes the best of her students, immediately suspects that you've given your friend a "bag of weed."  Your first grade teacher being the loving, moral, law-abiding, zero-tolerance person that she is, turns you and the suspect bag of weed, over to the principal.

"An assessment is made," and before you know it, you -- whose only offence has been to be a six-year old, loving friend -- has a two-day, in-school detention for "making a look-alike drug." 

Have you learned your lesson?  Because, you know, by giving that bag of dirt to your friend, you are already one step along the slippery slope of drug dealing and addiction.  Good to nip it in the bud while you can.  (no pun intended)

Can you say entitlement?

More blogging of little bits of news today.  Someday I will return to real writing here... someday.

In the mean time, here's a "burning" issue that our pubic education system needs to address immediately:

The [San Francisco] Board of Education is expected to approve the school district's calendar for the 2005-06 academic year tonight -- but not before a spirited debate among parents over when classes should begin.

There have long been arguments among parents over whether school should start before or after Labor Day, with the former winning out the past several years.

This year, however, brings a new wrinkle -- the 20th anniversary of the Burning Man art festival in the wastelands of Nevada is scheduled for Aug. 29- Sept. 5. In an only-in-San Francisco argument, several parents are demanding that school start Sept. 6 so their children can attend the event.

This sense of entitlement among (usually) white and (usually) affluent parents runs rampant around these parts.  In my little section of the Bay Area, you often see it with those that slap an I send my child to Berkeley Public Schools bumpersticker on their car.  Congratulations  -- whaddya want, a medal? 

Unfortunately, all too often these bumper stickers should read:  I send my child to Berkeley Public Schools.  At least as long as things work the way that I want them to.  When they don't I'm going to threaten to pull my kid and put her/him in private school, and I'm going to use this threat as a tool to get what I want.  I guess that's a bit wordy for a bumpersticker, so maybe My Way or the Highway would work too.

Please, go ahead and choose public or private -- there's no need to advertise your decision -- the rest of us are fine either way.  Then, work to make the place you are the best it can be, both for your own child and all of the other children.  This should be a collective effort that involves more than demanding schedule changes to accommodate your family's vacation plans.  I hate to break the news, but the world does not revolve around Burning Man.

"I'm not prejudiced." Oh no, not you.

A little NCLB meets racism tale from today's SF Chronicle. 

The setting:  Oak Grove Middle School in the Bay Area suburbs.   Oak Grove "was honored as a California Distinguished School and has classes for gifted and talented students, a state-of-the-art technology program and even a psychologist on campus to support the kids."

Oak Grove also has increasingly diverse demographics, and a much higher percentage of kids who don't speak English as their first language than in the past.  Because English Language Learners are expected to "perform" at the same level on the same test as everyone else, the school does not meet "adequate yearly progress."  Test scores, those all-important test scores, go down.  The school is labeled... underperforming. 

So, "more educated" parents freak out and pull their kids -- because of course, underperforming means danger, danger, danger:

"I'm not prejudiced, (but) the school became English-as-a-second-language, " [a parent] said. "You would be taking my kids from a great environment to a ghetto environment where they're struggling with other needs ... The test scores at Oak Grove are terrible."

[The principal] has asked parents who are concerned about Oak Grove to visit and sit in on classes.

"I say, 'Come on down. Make a decision based on knowledge you have firsthand rather than what you heard at the supermarket,' " she said. "They very rarely take me up on it."
...
Besides the low scores, persistent rumors circulate that Oak Grove has a problem with fights. Some parents have warned others not to go on campus alone. But teachers insist it's no different from any other school and that the demographic changes, test-score labels and rumors have unfairly conspired against the school.

Call me cynical, but in this case, those "more educated" parents sound pretty darn white to me.

I believe that there are many reasons why parents might choose to send their child to one school over another.  But, to base this decision on a dubiously earned and meaningless label, as well as on the color of the children who walk through the school doors -- without even visiting -- is ignorance.  More educated?  I don't think so.

Gag me with a research-based educational objective!

Forgive me dear readers, for it  has been four whole days since my last post.  As life becomes ever more full, my writing here may become a bit more intermittent.  Please stick with me though, as maintenance of my sanity necessitates at least three blogging sessions a week.

As you may or may not remember from last time, Margaret Spellings, our new educational mouthpiece for the Bush administration, objected to Buster fraternizing with lesbians because said show did not satisfy "research-based educational objectives, content and materials." 

Today I feel the need to state that I am sick, sick, sick of hearing about "research-based" educational anything.  To me this term has become synonymous with the stripping away of all that remotely resembles "education" from kid's lives:  leaving them with compulsory schooling, plain and simple. 

Generally, one hears the term "research based" used to justify the narrow and elitist ideologies of policy-makers, bureaucrats, and politicians.  The Buster episode is but one example of this.  Sadly, the examples multiply exponentially from there (Note to any who caught my own sorry attempts at multiplication last week --  Yes, I know that 1,000 x 10 ≠ 100,000.  The error has been corrected.) 

So, in the name of "research-based" we get reductionist schooling and endless testing for other people's children.  Let's not examine or work to change the real reasons that underlie the "achievement gap" -- racism, poverty, inequality.  Instead, let's set up a system which will perpetuate The System.  Gotta keep everyone in their place. 

Luckily, there are beacons of light:  teachers and students who exhibit "creativity, boundary-pushing and questioning" day in and day out.  This weekend I went to a gathering of about 90 such teachers who are creating their own "research-based" educational objectives by doing their own inquiry into their own  practice and their own students.  Inquiry rooted in the real problems they see in their classrooms, and aimed towards increasing equity for the real children who pass through their doors.

There were no mandates, no teacher manuals, no adequate yearly progress, no standardization, and not a "research-based educational objective" in sight.  Just a bunch of teachers working hard to create some change from the bottom-up.  Margaret Spellings would do well to pay attention.  Doubtful, though, as she is too busy chasing after Buster.

What a proactive, creative, audacious world it could be...

Last night I had a rather unpleasant dream about Jenna Bush.   As there are innumerable people whom I would much prefer to populate my dreams, I decided that it is time to leave the subject of my letter behind and move on.  Plus,  the other blog categories are getting jealous of all the attention that education has been getting lately, and have threatened a revolt unless they get equal representation. 

One last education-related bit for now.  Here's a quote from The New Yorker (via Education at the Brink):

[They] had so loaded training schedules with doctrinaire requirements and standardized procedures that [the students] had no time--or need--to think for themselves. [The instructors] were encouraging "reactive instead of proactive thought, compliance instead of creativity, and adherence instead of audacity."

This could be referring to teacher "training" on scripted instruction, or to the experience of kids under almost any form of test-driven curriculum, or to the general state of compulsory schooling in our society.

But, no.  It is talking about the training of army officers, and leaves many questions knocking about in my mind.  Could Abu Ghraib have happened were these conditions reversed:  proactive instead of reactive thought, creativity instead of compliance, audacity instead of adherence?  Would there be 100,000+ dead Iraqi civilians? 

Before I get angry phone calls from teacher friends who will surely vow never to speak to me again, let me stress that I am not, repeat, NOT, equating teaching a mandated curriculum with torture or death.  And I am, admittedly, boiling complex issues down to much simpler than they should perhaps be.   

However, the fact is that it is too easy to deflect moral responsibility from oneself in such a system.  When things break down it can quickly be blamed on "the program" or "commands from military intelligence" or some other factor outside what you as a human being know to be right or best.  And so we conform, follow the program, the doctrinaire requirements, the orders.  To do otherwise is harder, riskier, and a whole lot more alienating.

Think about it:  a world based on proactive instead of reactive thought, creativity instead of compliance, audacity instead of adherence.   Education can potentially take us there, schooling cannot.

nuthin' but a sanctimonious do-gooder

For the past few days, I've been trying to respond to some of the messages I have received about my Jenna Bush letter, even and especially those that are negative.  I take seriously Robert Jensen's Citizen's Oath of Office, in this case the part that says:

I do solemnly pledge  that I will faithfully execute the office of citizen of the United  States, and that I will, to the best of my ability, help create  a truly democratic world by...
engaging fellow citizens, including  those who disagree with me, in serious discussion and debate about [important economic, political, and social] issues.

At least I try to do this, but sometimes it is hard to know just where to begin, just what to say.  Here is an example from a recent reply to my letter.  The writer is a soldier in Iraq, whose wife homeschools their children:

Dumping your kids in the local school is almost always irresponsible and often a criminal act. I do not care if you “teach to the test” or sit in a circle and chant Hare Krishna mantras, go to the politically correct vegan lunchroom and then curse white male taxpayers like me, who pay for all of the silliness you come up with. My kids will be able to think and read and fend for themselves in an increasingly competitive world. And your students will work for them and steal petty cash from the till.

Alright, so it seems pretty clear that no serious discussion or debate is going to be able to happen in the face of such anger and hatred, at least not through email. 

When I read the above message the first time, I recalled an incident last year at a political event here in Berkeley.  At the event, centered around what was going on last April in Fallujah, several members of the audience cheered when the speaker told graphic details of the death of several American soldiers.  Death of innocent Iraqis bad/death to imperialistic occupiers good.  "My" kids will fend for themselves/"your" students will steal from them.  Black/white, this/that, mine/yours, good/bad, either/or.  Dichotimization (and ignorance) happens at all points in the political spectrum.

Thinking about all of this, I go back to someone I've been reading a lot of lately, bell hooks.  She writes of the power of prophetic imagination:  "that what we cannot imagine, we cannot bring into being."  And, she advocates for moving beyond either/or, for working to make "both/and" into reality.  This, to me, is one fundamental difference between schooling and education -- that an education helps one to imagine a world of both/and, and then to find ways to bring that into being.

But, as another response said, I am a just a "sanctimonious do-gooder." who at this moment is very tired.  So, my imagining of how to engage in discussion and dialogue with my hatred-filled soldier friend will have to happen another time.

Jenna Left Behind?

The response to my letter continues to amaze me -- it seems to have touched a nerve with many people, especially you teacher-types out there.  Over the next few days I'll be posting some of the responses and my thoughts about them. 

However, it turns out that Jenna is not to be a teacher after all (at least not right away).  Here's the story:

The White House has been mum on Jenna's job search (odd since they're usually so forthcoming), but the Post believes Jenna has started work not as a teacher, but as a teacher's aide because she doesn't have the qualifications necessary to take over a classroom under the stringent requirements of No Child Left Behind.

(Who knew when dad signed it into law in 2002, the child being left behind would be his own daughter?)

The Post reported in December that Jenna was going to teach at Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School in a low-income neighborhood.

But after rumors flew that Jenna had actually started as a teaching assistant, the Post spoke to executive director Linda Moore.

"Jenna Bush is not employed as a teacher at the school," Moore said.

Asked whether Jenna was working as an assistant teacher, Moore said: "I can't confirm that."

That's when Moore mentioned No Child Left Behind.

She told the Post there are "some very strict requirements about who can be hired and what their credentials have to be, and they do apply to charter schools."

All Laura Bush's spokesman would say is "Jenna Bush has started work."

Whether or not Jenna Bush teaches was not really the point of my letter, but it is kind of amusing anyway.  As is the fact, noted by Bob Harris, that JB is making the sign of satan in the above picture.

bedrock of sanity

I've gotten much response to my Jenna Bush letter that was published here.  Ms. Bush herself has not responded yet, and I guess that I won't be holding my breath to hear her reaction. 

The following message gets to the heart of what weighs on my heart.  At the same time, it also illuminates what drives me forward in my work towards educational change:

the funny thing is that poetry is not a frill.  it is not even a challenge.  it is the bedrock of sanity.  a person who understood "the world is too much with us" by wordsworth could NOT carry out the depredations against nature that our present rulers do.  a person who understood the iliad as simone weil did could not start a war.

Another reader asked:  "When and how will your message ever penetrate?" 

Somehow I think that the answer may lie, at least in part, in the effort to nurture and build that bedrock of sanity -- through creating spaces for poetry, music, talk... through reaching out for human connection across difference.  No, this will not be enough, but it is surely a good place to start. 

"all that is exquisite"

I've sent a letter to first daughter, Jenna Bush, who is soon to become a teacher -- yes, it is true!.  Much from the letter comes from previous postings, so I'm not going to put the whole thing here on the blog (again). 

However!  You can read it, and find out about "all that is exquisite" (as well as much that is so very not-exquisite) by going HERE. 

Playground Threat Advisory: Elevated!

UPDATE!  Threat advisory now stands at HIGH!  See update below...

I've written before about NCLB and privatization -- about the manufacturing of the "perfect storm" that will show 80-99% of schools failing by the year 2014, opening the floodgates for private education companies to dig into the $500 billion annual public education budget. 

Well, the results are in for another one of those "failing" schools measures built into this law:  persistently dangerous schools...

You will all be happy to know that South Dakota is more persistently dangerous than New York, LA, DC, Chicago, or almost any other large urban area.  And, only 26 schools of persistent danger in the country.

Too bad, this could have been a whole new angle to the privatization thing.  Had there been larger numbers of persistently dangerous schools it would have of course been necessary to bring in the private military corporations to restore order!  Just think, CACI, Blackwater, and Titan, keeping our nation's schoolchildren safe.  You know, since they're doing such a bang-up job in Iraq...

Really, it would only require the smallest revisions in their PR material:

Blackwater: 

Providing a new generation of capability, skills, and people to solve the spectrum of needs in the world of [persistently dangerous schools].

Titan:

"Titan brings innovation, integration, deployment, and life cycle service to the national imperative of [combating scissor wielding fifth graders]."

CACI International Recruitment Ad:

Wanted: Interrogator
Location: [South Dakota]
Job Description: Under moderate supervision, provide intelligence support for interviewing local [playground bullies] and determining their threat to [wimps, lightweights and crybabies]. Must be able to work with [tattletales] to gather intelligence information from multiple sources. Must be able to effective interview Local [thugs] and complete the interview reports on the findings of the interview. Must be able complete mission in a field environment [that may include food fights and errant spitballs] ...

Oh just imagine what could have been.  If only our schools were just a little more persistently dangerous...

UPDATE:
The more I think about it, the more I realize that the administration has just begun to tap into the possibilities of persistently dangerous schools.  You see, states have the responsibility to self-report their level of persistent danger, and there has been a warning of  underreporting:

Since being labeled as "persistently dangerous" has serious political and administrative implications for local school administrators, principals will be pressured to underreport and/or non-report school crime and violence.

We've got to deal with this!  Now that the WMD search has been called off in Iraq, we've got to get to work where those weapons must really be hidden:

Bush has expressed disappointment that no weapons or weapons programs were found, but the White House has been reluctant to call off the hunt, holding out the possibility that weapons were moved out of Iraq before the war... [and into janitor's closets and cafeteria freezers around the nation.]

And then, we'll also need someplace to put the scissor-wielding fifth graders, as well as the dangerous seniors:

Two teenagers were arrested on charges they bombed their high school with a bucket of eggs from a low-flying airplane...

"You hate to think what might have happened -- even unintentionally," prosecutor Brian Sinnett said....

Endless, the profit-possibilites are just endless. 

 

Sorry honey, I need a few hours to prepare myself...

After yesterday's blogging you probably feel like you've read enough about how those federally-funded abstinence-until-marriage-between-a-man-and-a-woman-only programs perpetuate gender stereotypes. 

No, no!  I have a few more examples for you...

"Women gauge their happiness and judge their success  by their relationships.  Men’s happiness and success hinge on their  accomplishments.”   
 
"Just as a woman needs to feel a man’s devotion to her, a man has a  primary need to feel a woman’s admiration.  To admire a man is to regard  him with wonder, delight, and approval.  A man feels admired when his  unique characteristics and talents happily amaze her."

“While a man needs little or no  preparation for sex, a woman often needs hours of emotional and mental  preparation.”

A recent report put out by Henry Waxman found that eleven out of thirteen abstinence-only curricula contained misleading errors and distortions not only about gender stereotypes, but also about the effectiveness of contraceptives, the risks of abortion, the risks of sexual activity, and a blurring of "religion and science". 

So, what should young people be learning about sex? 

Here are some guidelines for "comprehensive sexuality education" which come from SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States) -- "a non-profit national organization founded in 1964 to affirm sexuality as a natural and healthy part of life."

Comprehensive sexuality education...includes the biological, socio-cultural, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of sexuality. It addresses sexual  development, reproductive health, interpersonal relationships, affection, intimacy, body image, and gender roles.   

I could've used this kind of education growing up, and it is certainly what I hope for my children.  There is clear evidence that comprehensive sexuality education prevents both pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.  But, under the Bush administration it may never see the light of day. 

By the way... much as we'd like to blame it all on Bush, keep in mind that "religious fundamentalists successfully pushed stealth legislation aimed at gutting sex-education curricula in 1997, during the Clinton administration." 

I suppose I've gone on long enough on this topic, but, if we are to educate fully-realized humans then we've got to educate about all dimensions of human-ness. 

Plus, I need to do something during my hours of mental and emotional preparation.

those damned aggressive "girls" are to blame

I've written before about abstinence-only sex education, and just what is actually included in the federally-funded (to the tune of $100 million dollars) curricula. 

Now, even more examples of what our young people will be learning as they are taught to just say no to premarital sex:

"Because they generally become aroused less easily, females are in a good position to help young men learn balance in relationships by keeping intimacy in perspective." Sex Respect, Student Workbook, p.6.

"A young man's natural desire for sex is already strong due to testosterone...females are becoming culturally conditioned to fantasize about sex as well." Sex Respect, Student Workbook, p. 6.

"The liberation movement has produced some aggressive girls today, and one of the tough challenges for guys who say no will be the questioning of their manliness" Sex Respect, Student Workbook, p. 85

"What if a girl came to school in a crop top, just barely covering her bra, and shorts starting three inches below her naval? What 'game' would she be playing?" WAIT Training, Workshop Manual, p. 86.

"How can girls make guys feel esteemed and admired for choosing the wise course?" Facing Reality, Student Manual, p. 30.

"The first player spins the cylinder, points the gun to his/her head, and pulls the trigger. He/she has only one in six chances of being killed. But if one continues to perform this act, the chamber with the bullet will ultimately fall into position under the hammer, and the game ends as one of the players dies. Relying on condoms is like playing Russian roulette." Me, My World, My Future, revised HIV material, p. 258.

Note too, the image above, from the cover of the "Me, My World, My Future" curriculum package.  Now I am not totally up-to-date on my military aircraft, but that is looking suspiciously like a fighter jet -- as well as a tad phallic for the cover of an "abstinence" program.   

This is a beautiful message they are sending, is it not?  Sex(with condoms!)=Death, but if you "men" just resist those temptations, then you can fly off to bomb and destroy -- because of course, it is your world.

We "girls" have to make our guys feel esteemed and admired, we have to dress properly (not too aggressive now!), and don't you know it is not natural for you to fantasize about sex?  Shame, shame for leading your "man" down the wrong path.  Something must be wrong with you!

Here's your opportunity to learn more, and speak out against more money for abstinence-until-marriage programs.  Please, we all deserve better than this.

Update: A two feet in reader more in the know than I am pointed out that the above image is very Space Shuttle like. Maybe not a fighter jet. Could be, but I still stand by my interpretation of the overall message.

race, zero tolerance and scissors

The story of the Philadelphia fourth grader who was handcuffed, arrested, and hauled off to the police station for having scissors in her backpack has been on my mind all week.  I've been meaning to write about how the story reflects on racism and intolerance as it is played out in our schools. 

Counterpunch beat me to it:

A four-letter word has been strangely  missing from the coverage of the scandal involving the arrest  and handcuffing of a 10-year-old fourth-grade elementary schoolgirl  in Philadelphia who had been found to have a pair of sharp scissors  in her schoolbag.
That word is race.
None of the articles in the  city's news coverage of this story mentioned the fact that while  little Porsche Brown, like 54 percent of her Philadelphia public  school classmates, is African-American, the teacher, who rifled  through her knapsack looking for some "good job" stickers  missing from her desk and found and then reported the scissors,  and the principal, who then authorized her arrest and incarceration  by city police-before giving her mother a chance to intervene--are  both white. (No stolen stickers were found in the girl's bag.)
(...)
"The fact that police were called in the first place, the  fact that the principal allowed her to be handcuffed and placed  into a paddy wagon, and the fact that her mother wasn't called  right away, all suggest she was being treated like a criminal..."

We can all predict what the outcome would have been had the scissors been found in the backpack of a white girl.  I'm so glad that our differentially-enforced zero tolerance policies are getting (some) of the scissor-wielding ten year olds off the street.  I feel so much safer.

Update: 
Luckily, with all those 10 year olds off the street, we can now concentrate on the young ones:

The mother of a kindergartner is outraged after hearing that her son was handcuffed by police at a St. Louis charter school. Aroni Rucker said she knows her son has had trouble adjusting to his first year of school. "But he didn't do anything to deserve to be handcuffed. He is only 5," she said. "Suspend him or do whatever, but you don't handcuff him."

Sam Morgan, the principal of Thurgood Marshall Academy, said he wanted to teach the boy a lesson to try to improve his unruly behavior. "I'm trying to scare this kid straight," he said. "I would not be doing my job if I were not trying to get him on the right path."

Right path, indeed.

Adia

Last week I wrote about children being able to take the world in their hands and run with it, and how that should be the goal of education -- but how large segments of our society don't ever get a chance to do this. 

As William Ayers writes, this kind of educational failure is built into the structure of our society:

...if one acknowledges (even tentatively) that our society.. is one of privilege and oppression, inequality, class divisions, and racial and gender stratifications, then one might view the schools as a whole as doing an adequate job both of sorting youngsters for various roles in society and convincing them that they, and they alone, deserve their various privileges and failures.  Indeed, sorting students -- curtailing choices, narrowing options -- may be the single most brutal accomplishment of some schools, even if it runs counter to the ideal of education as a process that opens possibilities, provides opportunities to challenge and change fate, and empowers people to control their own lives.

Adia was a student of mine that stood a great chance of being labeled "at risk" and sorted into an educational track that curtailed her possibilities and maintained the status quo of institutional and societal divisions (based on her skin color, her socio-economic status, and her neighborhood).  She was in my third grade class many years ago.  Her reading was not quite at "grade level," she didn't spell perfectly, and like many students, she struggled with the standardized tests that didn't reflect who she was or what she was really capable of accomplishing.

The rest of us -- her teachers, her family, her larger community of neighborhood and church -- recognized and did our best to nurture Adia's brilliance and fire.  In another context this fire may have been seen as a problem, something that must be put out in the name of conformity.  Luckily, this didn't happen with Adia.  We gave her opportunities to talk, to write, to sing.  Adia was fearless, and her voice, whether it be reciting a poem or singing solo in front of 300 people, was clear and strong and magical.

A few days ago I found out that Adia is now at Brown University.  I don't think that going to a prestigious university is the be all and end all of success, but it did make me happy to know that Adia is taking the world in her hands and running with it, that she was not ground down and spit out by the way that the system can "successfully" reproduce societal inequalities. 

I both hope and expect that we all will be touched by the magic of her voice in the years to come.

aforementioned perfect storm hits Oakland

----------------------------------------
NO SCHOOL CLOSURES - NO CHARTER SCHOOLS - NO RECONSTITUTIONS!
NO SPLITTING-APART OF SCHOOLS!

MASS MOBILIZATION to Oakland School Board Meeting
Wednesday, December 15
4:00 PM
Oakland Tech High School (Broadway at 45th Street
(AC transit's 51 line))
----------------------------------------

Randolph Ward has announced his intention to shut down five additional schools in Oakland:  Lowell, Golden Gate, King Estates, Carter, and Washington. He has also threatened to impose reconstitution, private managing companies, and the break-up of schools like McClymonds, Bunche, Brewer, Manzanita, Calvin Simmons, Havenscourt, Highland, Claremont, Allendale, Hawthorne, Stonehurst, Sobrante Park, Cox, Lockwood, Webster, Jefferson, Melrose, Whittier, Prescott, Horace Mann, Elmhurst, Manzanita, Madison, Rudsdale and Village Academy.

Ward has acknowledged that his plans are NOT largely due to declining enrollment. He is attempting to use the federal "No Child Left Behind" legislation as an excuse to bust the teachers union by trampling their seniority rights and protection from involuntary transfer. Ward fears that teachers will use their union power to stop his attacks on fairer and more competitive salaries, healthcare benefits,seniority and protection from involuntary transfer, class size maximums and counselor-to-student ratios, and elementary prep positions and programs.

If carried out, Ward's plan would substantially weaken public education in Oakland, opening the way to a union-busting contract, and to privatization and increased segregation.  Ward's plan would mean Oakland would, in practice, abandon free, public education, and the goal of realizing the promise
of Brown v Board of Education for equal, integrated education. Our struggle for quality education in Oakland would be devastated.

Ward is attempting to use his plan to intimidate the union and dupe teachers into a terrible contract settlement.

In order to win a decent contract, the students, teachers, and community of Oakland must carry out an aggressive defense of our jobs and our schools by mobilizing to defeat Ward's destructive attacks. We must answer Ward's dictatorial threats with the determination and fighting spirit of the union united together with the students and people of Oakland.

Ward intends to make a decision on this plan at the December 15 School Board meeting at Oakland Tech at 4:00 pm. We must bring out every supporter to the meeting to show Ward and the whole city that Ward stands alone, and we are united against him to defend public education in Oakland.

--------------------------------------------
MASS MOBILIZATION to Oakland School Board Meeting
Wednesday, December 15
4:00 PM
Oakland Tech High School
--------------------------------------------

Equal Opportunity Now (EON)
(510) 717-6365    
equaloppnow@aol.com

Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, &
Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality
By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)

http://www.bamn.com      
contact_bamn@uclink.berkeley.edu

manufacturing perfect privatization

There's a good piece in Dissent about NCLB and privatization -- definitely worth a read if you think that Bush's education reform program is all about making schools better and leaving no child behind.  The author, Gerald Bracey, equates the NCLB law to the Perfect Storm in that it sets up a variety of forces to come together to essentially end public education:

Imagine a law that would transfer hundreds of billions of dollars a year from the public sector to the private sector, reduce the size of government, and wound or kill a large Democratic power base. Impossible, you say. But the law exists. It is Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2001, better known as the No Child Left Behind law (NCLB).

The Bush administration has often been accused of Orwellian doublespeak in naming its programs, and NCLB is a masterpiece of a law to accomplish the opposite of what it apparently intends. While claiming to be the law that-finally!-improves public education, NCLB sets up public schools to fail, setting the stage for private education companies to move in on the $400 billion spent annually on K-12 education ($500 billion according to recent statements by Secretary of Education Rod Paige). The consequent destruction or reduction of public education would shrink government and cripple or eliminate the teachers' unions, nearly five million mostly Democratic voters. It's a law to drool over if you're Karl Rove or Grover Norquist. The Perfect Law, in fact, as in The Perfect Storm.

It doesn't look that way at first glance. Indeed, NCLB appears to fly in the face of all that the Bush administration stands for. That administration has tried to deregulate and outsource virtually everything it touches. Yet from this most deregulatory of administrations comes NCLB laying 1,100 pages of law and reams of regulations on public schools. On closer inspection, those pages are just the law's shiny surface to blind and confuse onlookers.

Bracey goes on to explain how this all works, focusing mostly on how the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirement essentially sets up schools to fail.  In order to get federal Title I money, schools must show AYP.  In order for a school must make AYP, and all 37 categories of subgroups must make AYP (i.e., gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, , special education, English Language Learners, etc., etc.).  If one of these groups fails to make progress, the school fails -- with increasingly punitive consequences with each year of failure.

Projections show that under AYP as it currently stands, 99% of California's schools and 80% of Minnesota's schools will be "failing" by the year 2014 (Minnesota being a state the "outscores virtually the entire world.").

I'm not implying that there isn't a lot that needs to be fixed in public education, but somehow hoisting a "no-win system on public schools" -- essentially working to manufacture their failure in order to usher in vouchers and corporate America -- wouldn't be my solution.  And, as Bracey notes, the cashing in has already begun:

Although private companies are not yet taking over schools, they are already cashing in on the law. The law makes provisions for "secondary providers"-private firms-to tutor low-scoring students and provide other services. The Wall Street Journal estimated that there are some 24.3 billion dollars for companies to lust after in aid to high-poverty schools, reading programs, technology improvements, and building and running charter schools. Educational Testing Service vice president Sharon Robinson is said to have called NCLB a full employment act for test publishers.

The big problem with NCLB, though, remains that its intent is the opposite of what it claims. Former assistant secretary of education, Chester E. Finn, Jr., once said, "The public education system as we know it has proved that it cannot reform itself. It is an ossified government monopoly." As the preordained casualties from NCLB mount, the Chester Finns, George W. Bushes, and the think tanks on the right will intensify their attacks on the "government monopoly" while holding vouchers as the solution. If their attacks on public schools are successful, NCLB will indeed have proved to be The Perfect Law.

It is not just education -- Think Iraq, think social security.  Seems like this administration is particularly talented at manufacturing perfect privatization storms all over the place. 

 

soft bigotry of low expectations

I've been thinking a lot lately about expectations, and just what it means to have high and low expectations for children.  I think that much of the so-called educational reform that has been mandated in the name of high expectations truly reflects very, very low expectations of the intellectual capacities and learning potential of children -- most specifically poor children in urban schools who are usually not white and who often don't speak English as their first language. 

Here's an example that illustrates what has been on my mind.  The following is a question from No Child Left Behind:  The Test, published in the most recent issue of Rethinking Schools:

5.  Examples of NCLB"s impact on classrooms include:

A. In Maine, teacher-made, classroom-based assessments are being replaced by standardized tests.

B. Philadelphia fourth graders read fewer books.

C. Maryland schools are spending 20% less time on social studies.

D. Oregon is cutting foreign-language and music classes and spending more on testing.

E. A significant reduction in arts-education programs, particularly in urban schools with large numbers of students of color.

F. All of the above.

(In case you are not well-versed in NCLB, the answer is All of the above.)

Many pro-NCLB people would read this test question and essentially respond with "So what?!"  They don't care that children are not getting arts-education, music, foreign language, social studies, etc.  because by god, the test scores are going up and the achievement gap is "narrowing."   They don't care that kids are reading fewer books, because thank god the kids are reading the sanitized, annotated, offense-less blurbs of books in their new standardized, mandated, and not-that-interesting curriculum.  They don't care that teachers are not assessing their students because they don't trust teachers to have the knowledge to accurately figure out what their students know and don't know and what they need to learn. 

They would say that "those" kids are learning to read, and until they learn to read, nothing else matters except learning to read -- because until they learn to read, "those" children are not capable of learning anything else.  And, they believe only way that "those" kids can handle learning to read is by cutting reading down to essentially a technical activity, devoid of meaning and joy.  It is incomprehensible that learning to read might come through the arts, through music, through social studies -- through the act of learning to take the world in one's hands and run with it.

Incomprehensible, unless it is their own children -- where they would never tolerate such a curriculum.  I can already hear the outcry when Open Court or any other form of test-driven instruction is mandated at Sidwell Friends or the Langley School (two "prestigious" private schools that I'm sure are popular with wonk-heads in the DC area):  "But our children are not being challenged!"  Their children can of course handle the challenge, "those" other kids cannot.

Thus, in the name of overcoming "soft bigotry" and building "high expectations", poor children are pinned with the destructive and meaningless "at-risk" label, and then communicated the lowest of expectations -- that until they can segment words into phonemes, know all the short and long vowel sounds, and can score above the 50th percentile on the test, that they don't deserve and can't handle anything more. 

This is worse than soft bigotry.  It is ignorance, discrimination, and injustice. 

Sex with a man? No suggestions or assistance allowed.

By now it is old news that Congress has allocated $130 million for abstinence-only sex education programs, which of course bar any discussion of contraceptive use for either birth control or to protect against sexually-transmitted diseases.  Okay, well I don't think that we even need to read the studies that show abstinence-only education doesn't work, because we've got common sense and we know teenagers, and we know that if they want to have sex they are probably going to have sex. 

But, what may be new to you are the details of just what will be taught to your teenager when they are learning to just say NO until they are married (to a member of the opposite sex, of course).  Here is a little snippet from one such approved curriculum package, "Choosing the Best Soulmate":

"Occasional suggestions and assistance may be alright, but too much of it will lessen a man's confidence or even turn him away from his princess."

Was this written in 1950?  No!  2004!  Is this G.W. and Laura's protocol?  Is this the relationship advice that Jenna and Barbara receive?

As a mother of both a daughter and a son, I do truly hope that they will wait until they are mature enough to explore their sexuality in a confident way.  When that does happen, I hope that they will enter into sexual relationships with full knowledge of how to do so both safely and respectfully.  Respect for themselves as well as for their partners.

In this age of "Friends with Benefits", hooking-up, and various other forms of teenage "dating" this type of mutual respect does not seem to happen often, and it is no surprise that girls are not the ones receiving the pleasure:

While many girls insist they receive sexual attention during hookups, just as many boys say hookups are mostly about pleasing the guy. Michael Milburn, professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and co-author of the book ''Sexual Intelligence,'' an examination of sexual beliefs and behaviors in America, says that the boys' take is more accurate. ''Most of the time, it's the younger girl performing fellatio on the older boy, with the boy doing very little to pleasure the girl,'' Milburn says. Some girls told me that guys think it's ''nasty'' to perform oral sex on a girl. So a lot of girls will just perform oral sex on the guy ''and not expect anything in return, because she'll know that he probably thinks it's gross,'' Irene told me. But her friend Andi pointed out that many girls are themselves insecure about receiving oral sex; they'd rather just have intercourse.

There's a firm belief among many experts on teenage sex that girls, however much they protest to the contrary, are not getting as much pleasure out of hookups as they claim. I was invited to a high school in Boston, where I met with a group of seniors who were debating this very issue. I relayed a conversation I'd had with Marline Pearson, a sociologist who has developed a school curriculum for teenagers called Love U2: Getting Smarter About Relationships, Sex, Babies and Marriage. ''In some ways,'' Pearson said, ''I think girls had more power in the 1960's, when they said: 'O.K., you want to get to first base? This is what you have to do.' Today it's: 'O.K., you want to get to third base? Come over.' I'm a feminist, but I think we've put girls back in the dark ages, with very little power.''

I guess that it is a radical notion these days to want anyone -- regardless of their gender, their marital status, or their preference of partner -- to be able to experience the full range of their sexuality in a way that is informed, healthy, confident, and powerful.  This is what teenagers, and probably many of the adults that teach them, need to learn.  Somehow, I don't think that this kind of curriculum will be on the approved list.

You wanna go to second grade? Tell me about capitalism!

There's a piece in today's Washington Post about how the approach to teaching young kids has changed due to the push for early literacy and the requirements of standardized testing.  Frankly, the classroom that the author uses as his exemplar is like a dream in terms of the autonomy that the teachers seem to have, as well as the range of activities that kids get to do:  science, social studies, music, health, and lots of writing.  Visit most schools in the flatlands of Oakland and you won't be seeing all of this.

Here's what made me roll my eyes, though:

The Virginia Standards of Learning are unusually detailed, even for first grade. Virginia's 6-year-olds have to know about George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington Carver, for instance, and also be able to "explain the difference between goods and services and . . . describe how people are both buyers and sellers of goods and services."

Can't start early enough in standardizing free enterprise now, can you? 

now is the time to start saying thank you

I was sitting around a table today with a group of teachers that I work with at a school out in East Oakland.  All are in their first few years of teaching, and all are completely dedicated, hard-working, idealistic, and willing to do just about whatever it takes -- even when they are not sure  what it takes -- to help their students succeed.  I meet with them every few weeks and we talk about their struggles, their triumphs, and the efforts that they are taking to improve their teaching and create more equitable classrooms for kids that are usually left behind in our educational system.

The conversations that we have are inspiring and hopeful.  At the end of today's meeting I kind of spontaneously thanked them for their work.  I told them just how amazing I think that they are, and what a privilege it is to be involved with teachers that care so much about their job and their students.  This is something that teachers don't often hear.  I was simply expressing what I saw as reality, and it seemed to come as a complete surprise to them.  One woman had tears in her eyes as she listened to me.

We work in a system where teachers are getting all too used to being penalized, chastised, and blamed, and it made me sad that the kind of positive recognition that I gave the teachers today should be so unique.  Certainly not all teachers deserve to be told that they are amazing, but those that do damn well better start hearing it --  from someone other than me --  if we want to have them around for much longer. 

compulsory schooling and sweatshop teaching

The November issue of Z Magazine has a powerful "rant on compulsory schooling," the essence of which is distilled here:

Compulsory schooling defines good citizens as those who play by the rules, stay in line, and do as they're told.  Learning is defined by how well we memorize and regurgitate what someone else has deemed we need to know.  Creativity is permitted within the parameters of the guidance of licensed professionals whose duty it is to make sure we don't get too wacky with our ideas or stray too far from the boundaries of normalcy.  Rather than trust people to pursue their own innate curiosities, compulsory education replaces self-exploration with the type of structure designed to reward subservience while cultivating fear.

We can all identify with that.  We have all experienced it, and some of us may have even inflicted it on our students at one point or another, in spite of best intentions -- "Everyone put your heads down, NOW!" 

I don't currently teach kids, but I do work with teachers.  Though I am part of the ongoing effort towards changing what is wrong in public education, my work more or less takes place within the institution of schooling.  The Z mag piece reminded me of all the contradictions inherent in trying to create real change from within the belly of the beast.  That'll be for another post, though.

The compulsory schooling rant also eerily echoed the words that I have recently heard coming from the mouths of teachers in recent discussions about their teaching.  These are talented teachers who strive to overcome the memorizing and regurgitating mode of education.  However, these days they have a hard time doing this because the conditions under which they must work.  As teachers they are in the middle of an educational storm that "rewards subservience and cultivates fear." 

Here's an example of what I mean.  We've all seen the scene in Fahrenheit 911 where Bush is reading to the first grade class while the Trade center is attacked.  If you need a refresher, see here.   The featured classroom used one of several scripted curriculum packages that are currently being mandated across the country in response to standardized testing and NCLB requirements.  The New Yorker interviewed the author of Direct Instruction -- the particular program in that Florida classroom:

“The whole idea is to do an efficient job with every single kid,” Engelmann, who is seventy-two and is a professor of education, said. His basic principle is that if a child isn’t learning it is always because the teacher is doing something to confuse him. Direct Instruction aims to eliminate that problem by introducing bite-size concepts that build directly on ones that have already been mastered, and by scripting every word of every lesson, including which words of encouragement teachers may and may not use. As the D.I. Web site puts it, “The popular valuing of teacher creativity and autonomy as high priorities must give way to a willingness to follow certain carefully prescribed instructional practices.”
“We don’t give a damn what the teacher thinks, what the teacher feels,” Engelmann said. “On the teachers’ own time they can hate it. We don’t care, as long as they do it.”

As one teacher I know said, teaching under these conditions is "like a sweatshop." 

There is little doubt that sweatshop teaching will produce compulsorily-schooled students:  kids getting their education in bite-sized concepts; and teachers being told which words of encouragement they can and cannot use, which bite-sized concepts they can dole out and when, and which sanctions will be slapped upon them if they don't follow the compulsory, prescribed practices.   

This model cannot be called education, and it is what I work against.