Notes from Summer School

Please … if next year I start talking about teaching summer school again … if I say, "I'll be in a library, it will be fun" … do me a favor and ask me if I'm out of my mind. I just finished my 3rd straight day of working in a 97˚ library. Humidity was at 56%. I've been uncomfortable, but I make a point of staying hydrated and moving as little as possible. The kids however, are miserable which does nothing for their behavior. To me it's veered over into the realm of ludicrous. For the kids it seems criminal.

Which brings me to another point about our summer school program: MMSD thinks it's a good idea to take all of the kids who were not "proficient" in reading by spring -- who for whatever reason, were not particularly engaged in or struggled with learning during the school year -- and give them more of the same (aka MOTS) for 6 weeks in buildings without air conditioning. Recipe for success? No, I don't think so either.

It's particularly sad for me when so many kids come to the library and can't find anything to read. The most popular books are Sponge Bob, Spiderman, Pokémon, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. There are limited numbers of those books and when they are all checked out, the kids are frequently at a loss. They frequently go and search for them in the online catalog, as if the act of typing the desired book will conjure it up. They can't hear me when I say "It's not here," and they frequently get angry.

I do what a good librarian is supposed to do. I've been going to the shelves and pulling a lot of books that I know they will never look at otherwise. I give book talks. I pay attention to what they're interested in, and try to find similar titles. I look for movie tie-ins. Occasionally it works. Tintin books were flying off the shelves today, after 5 weeks of plugging them. My first class was all over Neil Gaimann and checked out Coraline, The Wolves in the Wall, and The Graveyard Book -- and proceeded to lay down on the floor and actually read them! With few exceptions my next four classes were testy and unwilling to try anything. (Maybe it was the 97˚.)

I drove home, musing on the whole summer school experience, feeling kind of frustrated. Then I remembered a situation from yesterday. I had one kid -- an upcoming 2nd grader -- who was mad that I was out of Pokémon books. After 20 minutes of a slow motion tantrum (him, not me) I finally got him to tell me that he wanted a book about "hot air" (Appropriate, right?) which I took to mean hot air balloons. We went to nonfiction. No, he didn't want that book or that one either. No, not that one. (As you can imagine, the selection is somewhat limited.) He's frustrated. I'm frustrated. He finally says, "I'll SHOW you what I want!" and goes and gets the book that I had set aside as a read aloud for the next class: Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade. (A WONDERFUL picture book biography of Tony Sarg.)

I tightened my bun, sucked in my girdled abdomen, pushed my glasses further down on my nose and hissed, "No, you can't have that one. I'm reading it aloud!" Just kidding. I said, "You want THAT ONE? COOL!!" and let him take it. There are lots of books in the library, I could always find something else to read.

I think that the educator Susan Ohanian was correct when she observed that teachers ultimately teach themselves, or to put it another way, it's a lot about the relationship that you build with kids. Why should they listen to me when I say a book is good? They don't know me. They're only just starting to know their summer school teachers.

Well, 6 hot days remaining.

What's Up With All the Teacher Bashing?

Excellent article from the editors of an excellent publication, Rethinking Schools. 

Teachers have always been devalued in the United States, but in the past months the pace and intensity of the attacks have escalated sharply. Spurred by the June 2 deadline for the second round of Race to the Top, states have raced to fire more teachers, tie pay and evaluation to student test scores, close or reconstitute more schools, and disempower teachers' unions and teaching as a profession-trampling teachers, students, and communities in the process.

What lies behind this unprecedented assault on teachers? And, even more important, what can we do about it? We believe that these attacks are part of an effort to dismantle public education and that we need an effective, collaborative strategy to combat it.

I was teaching first grade at a high poverty school back in the mid-nineties, when a lot of these so-called reforms started coming down the pike. The changes we were being asked to make at that time were distressing. We were being told to give up what I considered to be developmentally appropriate practices in the name of meeting the "standards and benchmarks." It was so distressing that I fled first grade for a Pre-K program, and even considered leaving teaching altogether.


That was 15 years ago. Since then I have taught both first grade and kindergarten (sometimes both at the same time, which is just crazy-making.) And while I am still very concerned about teaching in a developmentally appropriate way, I have also made my peace with the increased emphasis on academic achievement -- as long as it is done effectively. Over the last couple of years my district, and particularly my school, has been looking very closely at targeted interventions to give kids the basic skills they need, and I think we are slowly seeing what is known as "the achievement gap" close. And I feel good about it because  it is good for the kids and their families. I understand that some of my teaching practices from the past were good for the kids that were going to succeed anyway, but less so for the kids that struggled.


How does this relate to teacher bashing? Every teacher I know who is working in so-called failing schools is committed to seeing all of their students succeed. We work hard and are willing to partner with parents to see our schools become the best that they can be for all students. Oh yeah, and we are the teachers' union.


I would like to see the people who bash teachers, who want to weaken the unions that represent us (and tangentially the students and families) spend a week doing my job. Just one week. I'll bet they couldn't even finish it out, much less actually teach anything. The article is correct to point out that it is patently unfair to single out teachers.

It would be nice if Newsweek were suddenly worried about how race and class affect student success. But these diatribes against teachers are not based in a commitment to equity.

No, if closing the achievement gap were the goal, we would see demands for adequate, equitable resources and funding for every student in every school-demands, for example, for quality early childhood education programs, full-time librarians, robust arts and physical education programs, mandated caps on class size, and enough time for teachers to prepare and collaborate. We would also see a renewed commitment to affirmative action in university admissions; a drive to recruit and nurture teachers of color; a commitment to ensure that students come to school ready to learn because their families have housing, food, medical care, and jobs; and an end to zero tolerance discipline policies that criminalize youth.  

But if these attacks on teachers aren't about ending the systemic racism that continues to undermine our education system, what is the goal?  With forces as seemingly disparate as the Obama administration, the Walton Foundation, the late Milton Friedman, and the New York Times all pushing the same ideas, this is a complicated question, but there are at least two major goals: destroy the power of the teachers' unions, and turn the public school system from a public trust into a new market for corporate development. From the time of Reagan, who used his "welfare queen" stories to scapegoat the poor as a basis on which to destroy the welfare system, this has been a tried-and-true approach to privatization: use visceral anecdotes to whip up hysteria that a system is "broken," argue that only market competition can fix the situation, and then sell off pieces of the public sector to private corporations. This time, teachers are the scapegoats.

What can you do? It is as easy as speaking up the next time your co-worker or ill-informed brother-in-law starts bashing teachers and public education. Ask them if maybe they'd like companies like BP, Blackwater, or Halliburton to be running their children's schools.


Read the article in its entirety here.

Left Behind?

I have been exceedingly disappointed with the Obama Administration's stance on education. Rather than reaffirming support for public education, this president -- with former "CEO" of Chicago schools Arne Duncan at his side -- has been pushing harder for so-called "school choice" and reinforcing the more punitive pieces of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, formerly No Child Left Behind.) As an educator this upsets me so much, but it is difficult to articulate all of the ways in which I find it abhorrent.

I subscribe to a listserv called Public Education Network (PEN) but I rarely make the time to look at it. Sneaking a peek this morning, I was reminded why I should be paying attention. There was a link to the Washington Post's education column "The Answer Sheet", with the headline Christian Churches Oppose Race To The Top, Obama Blueprint: 

Here is an extraordinary letter that should erase any doubt that opposition to the Obama administration's $4 billion Race to the Top is wide and deep.

Sent recently to President Obama and U.S. lawmakers by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, a community of 36 communions with a combined membership of 45 million people, this letter expresses deep concern about the education priorities of Race to the Top and of Obama's “blueprint” for education reform.

It criticizes the administration's effort to push states to increase the number of charter schools, its plan to turn some of the federal money used to help poor children into competitive grants, its punitive approach to dealing with low-performing schools, and the "ugly" demonization of public school teachers.

This Pastoral Letter is so absolutely spot-on, I wanted to stand up and cheer. I urge you to read it in its entirety. The thing is though, it came out on May 18, and this is the first I have seen it. Its content needs to be shouted from rooftops. Members of Congress need to read it. Dismantling public schools not only undermines our alleged democracy, but Obama's blueprint for education hurts the very children that everyone claims to care the most about.

Why I Teach

I am coming to the end of my 23rd year as a public school teacher. 22 of those years have been in the same school district. I've had my highs and my lows during that time. I even considered resigning at one point about 10 years ago, because it felt like I had no reserves left. My well was dry.

Yesterday I had one of those experiences that teachers live for, the kind that you usually only get when you've been teaching for a while. I responded to a friend request on Facebook -- a high school teacher in my district. And in looking at her profile page I saw a comment from a former first grade student of mine whom I had lost track of over the years. I wrote a "Hello, do you remember me?" comment and received the sweetest message in return, telling me how influential I had been to her. In fact, she is just finishing up her first year as a 5th grade teacher!

I go along day in and day out, year in and year out. Some days I am joyful, other days I am grumpy. But I absolutely must never stop remembering that what I do -- sometimes the smallest, most commonplace, and seemingly insignificant thing I do -- can make a difference to a kid.

That is why I teach.

Definitely Beautiful

I posted a couple of things about work on Facebook, which elicited a chat with my friend Dave in Ottawa. (I have lots of friends named Dave, by the way.) He gave me some nice strokes -- just the sort of thing a teacher needs to hear on a Friday afternoon -- and sent me the link to this video of poet Taylor Mali. It made me cry.

Worth Reading

Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! is devoting 2 days to an interview with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Part 1 aired yesterday. Here is the transcript. Part 2 airs on Monday.

Note: This is a far more honest interview than the one on Good Morning America yesterday. Yesterday's interviewer so badly wanted Ayers to say that he was intimate friends with Barack Obama, something that so clearly is not true.

I also want to say that Obama handled the allegations during the campaign gracefully, without throwing Ayers under the bus. I was happy to see that Ayers felt the same way.

Schools in Trouble

Wisconsin schools are in trouble, big time. Since 1993 we have attempted to function in spite of legislation that (in simplistic terms) caps the amount of revenue that school districts can raise through property taxes without going to referendum. This legislation was pushed through by former governor (and GOP presidential candidate) Tommy Thompson, under the influence of an absolutely small minded, greedy organization -- Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. What has happened is that every year the cost of educating students goes up, while school districts cannot exceed the caps. The gap gets larger every year. For example, my school district has had shortfalls of 7-10 million dollars almost every year since 1993. This has resulted in massive cuts in programming and permanent teacher lay-offs. (We are going to referendum for the third time this November, in an attempt to avoid another round of major cuts.)

Not surprisingly, the school districts that have suffered the most are the very large urban districts and the very small rural districts. Suburban districts are faring somewhat better because their tax bases are growing, largely as a result of white flight from the urban districts. (Isn't that special?)

The chickens came home to roost in a big way last week, when a majority of the Milwaukee School Board voted to explore the dissolution of the Milwaukee Public School system. In doing so, they stated that "the system is broken." This was big news, even on a national level.

Milwaukee is not the first district in Wisconsin to do this. It may not have made the national news, but the tiny school district of Wausakee in the northeast corner of Wisconsin voted in August to dissolve and send their children to a nearby district. This is significant for me, because a whole branch of my family grew up in that school district. A number of my cousins have taught in Wausakee, and one was even the superintendent of schools for a number of years. This has got to be devastating for their community.

Hard to know where this will lead. It depresses the hell out of me.

What's so bad about No Child Left Behind?

I've been meaning to do a post about this for a while ... but this isn't it. (Sorry.) Until I get to write my post, read this article from The Progressive, written by a colleague in my school district.

Yesterday we opened our school year with a kick-ass general assembly of the entire instructional staff in the district. We were addressed by our brand new superintendent, who has been getting rave reviews from everyone who has already worked with him for the last two months.

There was live music -- lots of live music, including one of the payroll secretaries singing a somewhat incongruous country song. I'm hoping against hope that this signals a new era of support for the arts in the district. (Our previous superintendent, although his name is Art, once infamously said something to the effect of, "I grew up without arts instruction and I turned out fine.")

There was a promise from the new guy -- a promise that brought tears to my eyes -- that he would work to bring 4-year-old kindergarten to our district. You see, we used to have an excellent 4-Year-Old program; I was a teacher in it, briefly. The only thing was, it wasn't universal, meaning it was not offered to every single child in the city -- a state mandate. The powers that be (in their infinite wisdom) thought that the expense of expanding the program to be in compliance with state law was too high and canned it. The truly bizarre thing is, they are very tight-lipped in talking about it. Whenever the issue of 4K comes up in the media, the program we had for 15 years is not mentioned at all. We are one of the only municipalities in the state -- including many small towns -- that doesn't have a 4K.

So my hope is that, with a commitment to 4K will come a commitment to developmentally appropriate early childhood education in general. I have made a private commitment this year to make my kindergarten classroom much more play- and language-based. I've tried what Susie Hobart refers to in her excellent Progressive article -- the heavy doses of targeted literacy instruction that are supposed to "close the achievement gap" and bring up our test scores to meet our AYP (that's "Annual Yearly Progress", a NCLB term; if you don't meet it, you are designated a "failing school" subject to increasingly harsh sanctions.) I've tried it, and you know what? It's not working, because those 5 and 6-year-olds will persist in acting like, well, 5 and 6 year-olds. Hopefully I will be teaching appropriately with the support of my administrators.

Back to yesterday's meeting. We were also addressed by the honorable John Matthews, the executive director of our teachers' union for the last 40 years. His words to us were unabashedly political: This is an election year. Pay attention. At the state level, for 15 years we have had horribly damaging anti-education laws brought to us by ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson and the Republican-majority legislature. At the national level, NCLB. Vote for the party that supports education, supports teachers, supports kids. He said, pointedly, "It's not the Republicans." Yay, John! He is as tenacious as a bull dog when it comes to standing up for Madison's educators (and children. Because in education, the old adage definitely applies: "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.")

Anyway, the whole thing was inspiring. The words rang true. I hope that this change at our local level is a harbinger of more widespread change.

Man, did this get lengthy! Read the article. That's all.

Book Reviews: Casting a Wide Net (Part 1)

I finished 3 books this week. Sometimes I feel like a reading PacMan, gobbling up the yellow dots before the monsters get me. I have the stack of books that accumulated over the spring when I didn't have as much time for reading, and then I keep putting books on hold at the library as I find out about them. So QUIT recommending books to me, DARN IT! No, no ... I didn't really mean it. I LOVE reading. I LOVE talking about books. Here is number one (others to follow in separate posts.)

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. Billed by The Boston Globe as an "absolute must-read for parents" I have to say that I think that this book may be a must-read for anyone concerned about the state of the natural environment. This is a book about reconnecting children with the natural world -- certainly the job of parents and educators -- but it is also about accepting that kids experience the outdoors in decidedly different ways than adults do, and that has to be okay. You, the adult, might want to go quietly, binoculars in hand, down the pristine path looking for birds. Kids, on the other hand, want to run, climb, touch, poke, dig, build -- all those same things we did when we were kids. And those are the very experiences that kids are lacking these days. Consider this quote, from a fourth-grader in California: "I like to play indoors better 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are."

There are a fair number of depressing statistics in the book, but overall its message is one of hope -- that this is a trend that has developed over the last generation, and can be reversed; that there is renewal for everyone when you get outside; that it's fun, for goodness sake! I bogged down a little in the last third of the book, because it's kind of repetitive, but I'm very glad that I read it, and it certainly inspires me to institute some changes in my teaching practice come September.

I finished the book on Sunday afternoon, and Enriched Geranium and I went to the University Arboretum for a walk. Our arboretum has a large formal garden area with hundreds of crabapple trees and lilac bushes. It's heavenly in May! On a Sunday in June, threatening rain, there weren't a lot of people there, but there were two little kids sitting up in a tree. I was so thrilled to see them, although I expected someone to come up and yell at them at any moment. They weren't experiencing nature the "right" way!

This is a good book, even to read parts of it. It has some good quotes in it too.

Riled Up

I have my dander up this morning about school vouchers. It all started with an article that Quaker Dave posted about an ill-conceived safety lesson at a California high school. Dave's post generated a plethora of comments, one from a Quaker gentleman saying in effect that, this illustrates a failure of public schools and perhaps it is time for liberals to get behind school choice and vouchers.

What's so wrong with vouchers? Where do I begin? In any public school, from the wealthiest suburban school to the poorest inner city school you have a range of parents, from those with the resources and wherewithal to advocate for their children and support the school community in general, to those that can't and don't for whatever reason. When vouchers to attend private schools are made available, what happens is that a percentage of those parents who are active in a school community -- no matter what its socio-economic status -- are skimmed off the top leaving all the rest to fend for themselves. Furthermore, when they go, a chunk of money goes with them. Of course this impacts lower income schools far more profoundly than it does wealthier schools, because public school funding is absolutely not equitable.

I'm not flat-out opposed to private schools. As far as I am concerned, anyone can start their own private school for any reason. What I am opposed to and will be opposed to until the end of my days, is people who want state money for their children to attend private schools. That leaves an awful lot of children behind, in a very real sense.

I am fully aware that I am fortunate to live in a place where our public schools -- even the urban ones -- are relatively safe and kids get a good education. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I think the availability of private schools (along with a severe lack of funding for ALL public schools in this country) has contributed to the disarray that many big city public school systems are in. (And as I write this, I am thinking specifically of Philadelphia and Quaker schools. I know that I will make people uncomfortable by saying that, but it is what I believe.)

Remember also, that vouchers that are available for Quaker schools and Waldorf schools and schools modeled on Summerhill, will also have to be available for attending schools that might teach religious fundamentalism, white supremacy, etc. etc. It would be opening a regular Pandora's box.

I don't buy the argument for a minute that "a voucher system is inevitable, so liberals need to get behind it." Is fascism inevitable, so liberals should get behind that too, maybe help create a kinder, gentler form of fascism? No, thanks.

We are living in a time when every form of public works is under assault from all directions. Public schools are no exception. As in all things emanating from the Right, follow the money. There are people who stand to profit mightily from the privatization (i.e. CORPORATIZATION) of public schools. Vouchers are on that spectrum (as are charter schools, which is another concept we liberals are supposed to get behind.)

And think about this: private (and charter) schools do not have hire unionized teachers. Teachers' unions do have their warts, but I'll tell you that teachers' unions are made up of real people, teachers, who are among the best advocates for children in this country.

Okay, let me wipe the froth from my mouth and put away my soapbox. You'd think, reading this, I wasn't on summer vacation!

Why I Teach

This is a scan of a letter I was given today, from a first grader in the classroom next to mine. She spends a bit of time "helping" in my room. There are a lot of things about teaching that are damned hard: it requires a tremendous amount of energy, you're "on" all the time, there are unrealistic expectations of these kids, it's a thankless profession, etc. etc. ... and then a child gives me one of these. This is why I teach, this is why I will continue to teach as long as I can.
Notice how the children are falling over backwards in astonishment at my achingly accurate recitation of the ABCs. The critics are raving!

Grrrrrr ... Charter Schools, Again

We have a free weekly alternative paper, The Isthmus, which I despise. I tend to pick it up, however, because it has a good calendar of events around town. (For example when I failed to get it a few weeks ago, I missed a concert by Eliza Gilkyson, who is one of my favorite performers.) By and large, the articles piss me off, especially the articles about education. Last week they had an article about a progressive private school, wondering whether our school district should model a charter school on it. I've written before about charter schools and my opposition to them. You can be sure that I seethed all week over this article. Tonight I finally mustered the energy to write a letter to the editor in response, for all the good it will do. Here it is:

To the editor:
I’ve spent the last week thinking about a response to Jason Shepard’s article, Rethinking How Kids Learn. Where do I begin? It continually floors me that so many people in progressive Madison have a blind spot when it comes to charter schools. Can you say “privatization?” Charter schools are back door privatization, if you will. Using public funds to run a school to which students must apply and be admitted: that sounds a lot like the voucher system, doesn’t it? Both Jonathan Kozol and Alfie Kohn -- two passionate advocates for progressive education -- speak equally passionately against school privatization, including charter schools. According to Kozol, not only do they skim resources from public schools, but they skim off the parents who have the time and wherewithal to contribute to their child’s school, leaving many children poorer. Whatever happened to working for the common good?
The dichotomy that Shepard’s article sets up between “progressive” private schools like Wingra and “traditional” public schools is false. Madison Metropolitan School District has 6,288 teachers. Philosophies of education and teaching styles run the gamut, but I would hazard a guess that many of those teachers would identify themselves as being closer to the progressive end of the spectrum. And what if they don’t? My two children have had great experiences in Madison schools, with all kinds of teachers. Furthermore, as a veteran Madison public school teacher myself, and one who believes deeply in and advocates passionately for education that is progressive and child-centered, I am insulted by that dichotomy.
Wingra School can provide things to students that Madison public schools cannot: smaller numbers that make it possible to serve organic meals from Willy Street Co-op, for example. I am also assuming a significant amount of money is available that many public schools simply do not have. Wingra trustee Patrick Sweet’s example of choosing Lombardino’s or L’Etoile [two extremely upscale restaurants] speaks volumes to that. But public schools can provide good experiences that a private school cannot replicate. Trying to compare the two, or implying that Madison is missing the boat by not modeling a school on Wingra is wrong.
The “lack of choices” in Madison that “is sending middle- and upper-class families packing” sounds like another name for white flight. “High needs kids” and kids from “unstable homes” are code words for low income and minority students. I will not deny that there are kids who can be quite disruptive in public schools. As the director of Wingra says, “The reality is, the resources just aren’t there” to adequately meet the needs of all children. However, is the answer then, to create schools which will further deplete resources, or to work together for change; doing away with the revenue caps and requiring businesses to share the property tax burden? (Ironically, the article on outsourcing immediately preceding Shepard’s, brought up the tax revenue issue which is at the heart of Wisconsin schools’ funding crisis.)
I have little quibble with the parents like the one described in the article, who choose a private school when their child is not thriving in the public school. A small number of students have always attended private schools and most seem to offer tuition aid to families that want to attend. What I object to, and will continue to object to with every last breath in my body, is the parents who make that choice, and then want the state to pay for it, either through vouchers or the establishment of charter schools.
Old progressive that I am, I am proud of many aspects of Madison public schools. I think that the fact that charter schools have not caught on here in a big way speaks well of our public schools. I wonder if some of the push for “choices” is coming from newcomers to Madison, who have come here from other cities where the expectation is simply that one’s children will go to a charter or private school. I wish that Jason Shepard would visit and write an in-depth story about a different Madison school each week, instead of going for the sensational soundbite that once again puts Madison Metropolitan School District down.

Whew, glad I got that off my chest. I feel as if I'm a caped crusader for public schools and the idea of "the common good." Destined to always be angry, I guess. And by the way, the most disruptive kid I've ever taught in 21 years was from a very well-to-do family in a very well-to-do school. And he failed to thrive at Wingra School too. Just sayin'.

What does it take to turn on a nerdy neo-schoolmarm?

Well, read this and find out:

Pediatric resident Dipesh Navsaria has a novel way of measuring his young patients' development during checkups: He puts a book in their hands and watches their reaction.

Navsaria, a resident at American Family Children's Hospital, says the child's response speaks volumes. If the patient shows interest and curiosity, he can tell if books are a natural part of their life. At a certain age, if the child holds the book right-side up, opens it and turns the pages, the doctor gets a quick read on motor skills.

And if children begin talking about what they see in the book, Navsaria can see if they are building social skills.

"This is part of the tools we use to assess children's health," he said. "We want children to grow up and set habits and methods of learning that will carry them forward their entire lives. Read more ...

Early language and literacy is one of my [many] soapboxes. It's been pretty widely talked about how reading to a child for 20 minutes a day makes a world of difference in their literacy learning, but another huge disparity that I've come across is between kids who are talked to and those who aren't. It shouldn't be any surprise that the kids who are talked to/with have a larger vocabulary, a larger bank of conceptual knowledge, better social skills, etc. etc. By the time I get my students, they are already 5 years old and some of them have a lot of language catch-up to do.

Who sees kids -- and more importantly, their parents -- from very early on? Pediatricians and family practice doctors. So it only makes sense that they actively promote reading and language development.

This is soooooo exciting!

(One aside: If you read the entire article, you will see that this guy not only is not only a doctor, but he took a break from med school to get a masters in library science, plus he holds a master's degree in public health. Oh yeah, and he's married with a couple of kids. Can you say overachiever? It exhausts me, just thinking about it. But I love him anyway.)

God help us.

From The Huffington Post:

"The No Child Left Behind Act is working," Bush said with first lady Laura Bush, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) and School Chancellor Joel Klein at his side. "I say that because the nation's report card says it's working. Scores are improving, in some instances hitting all-time highs."
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A few moments later, he added, "As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured." The official White House transcript later corrected the statement to "children." [Because it is 2nd nature to them to lie.]

Read the entire article here.

You know what I think of NCLB.

If I Wasn't a Quaker, I'd Be Spitting Bullets!

Warning: This post contains 3 or more kinds of profanity, and some sarcasm. There is a lot happening in the world that breaks my heart, and over which I have little control. When things happen close to home, due only to a kind of ignorance and group-think, that affect children -- mine and others -- it infuriates me. Here's the scoop:

My eleven year old daughter brought a fundraiser catalog home from school. You know the kind: over-priced chocolates and gift wrap, a lot of resin statuary and cheap jewelry made in China ... I looked through it, and said, "You know, honey, I think we'll just make a donation to the PTO. There isn't anything here we need." She turned away, and I could see she was crying.

Well, it turns out that they did a fundraising kick-off and made a huge deal over the fact that kids who sell X number of items get to attend "The Greatest Party Ever To Come To Your School" during the school day. With games, refreshments, music, face painting, and -- I kid you not -- Deal Or No Deal: "Just sell 15 items and you're in the drawing ... you could win up to $100.00!" There are levels of participation in the party, depending upon how many items you sell. One's level will be identified by a color-coded wrist band! (The poor suckers who did not sell enough will remain in their classrooms, presumably reading or playing "Heads Up Seven Up", woo hoo. Or maybe watching inspirational movies from Halliburton, Monsanto, and Archer Daniels Midland, so that next time, they too will be GOOD Americans, and get out there and sell shit, goddammit.)

My elementary school feeds into this middle school. I know for a fact that many of my daughter's classmates are not from families that have disposable income. Some of them are homeless and living in shelter. A lot of them are working poor. Hell, our family was one of the better off at the school for the last 6 years, and that isn't saying much.

I don't hold with reward programs of most kinds, but this is the worst. Children who are required by law to be at school will be excluded from a big fun party not because of their behavior, not because of performance, not because of anything over which they might have a modicum of control ... but because they didn't sell enough FUCKING product. What a set-up.

So I didn't only blog about it. First I wrote an email to the principal, omitting the f-word -- just in case you were worried -- laying out all my points and asking him to rethink this party. I'll see what kind of a response I get from him, before I decide how to proceed. If I am not satisfied, I will contact the school board. Our district makes a very big deal (as they should) about building relationships and community, engaging students, using positive models and being inclusive and equitable. We just had a whole day inservice on those very topics last Tuesday, as we do every year at this time. This party is a contradiction to all of those things.

I also plan to join the PTO. Maybe I can get my favorite Fair Trade Organic coffee, tea, and cheese fundraiser going there. I have nothing against fundraising: it is a necessary activity in this day and age. It's the reward and punishment I object to. The setting kids up to be hurt if their parents don't cough up the cash. That is just plain wrong.

[Tuesday update: The principal just phoned to tell me he got my message, he agrees with me 100%, and is canceling the fundraiser if he can, and definitely putting the kabash on the party. I am relieved.]

John Edwards' $7B Education Plan ...

... just pisses me off. Why? First, and foremost because Edwards -- who voted for No Child Left Behind -- makes no apologies for his vote, but says instead that he's seen over several years how it was poorly implemented and underfunded. That statement perpetuates the myth of NCLB: that the problems with it lie with implementation and funding.

Bullshit. (Yes, you heard it from the lips of a kindergarten teacher. BULLSHIT.) NCLB was BAD POLICY from the start. Like virtually everything that has ever oozed from the Bush Whitehouse, NCLB has never been about improving schools and has always been about maximizing profit for Bush relatives and family friends. It has done more to harm schools than any other education policy I can think of. And most members of Congress (Kucinich too, sad to say) refused to listen to educators who called it out from the start, and instead went for it hook, line, and sinker.

Yet every single politician continues to talk about "revamping" NCLB, when it needs to be thrown out permanently. (Mr. Ether -- who just guessed correctly that I was posting about this topic; maybe it was the vehemence with which I was striking the keys as I typed? -- said that revamping NCLB is a little like buying fire insurance for your Ford Pinto. Ha. Good one, Mr. Ether.) Policy makers need to listen to the people who know best: professional educators.

What else? Universal preschool? It sounds nice, probably looks nice on paper too. What about universal supporting parents and other caregivers, birth to 3? Oh my God, now it's starting to sound a little too much like -- gasp -- welfare! Backpedal, backpedal ...

I am also sick to death of the assumption that education is broken and needs to be fixed. Or reformed. That somehow the "problem" is that there isn't an "excellent teacher" in every classroom. That "excellent teachers" can only come from a West Point-like academy. I'm sick of being dumped on, by the well-meaning and the not so well-meaning, alike.

Sure, Edwards makes some good points too. Read about it here, if you like. But to me, this is disingenuous grandstanding and I'm not buying it.

(By the way, in the same newspaper, the $200B more that Bush is asking for and likely to get to continue his cowboy adventures in the Middle East is pretty discouraging.)

Depressingly Inevitable/Inevitably Depressing

'Taco Bell High' may come to Canada

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I despise the selling of naming rights for public facilities. The local library board did that here a few years ago when they built a new branch, amid much controversy. In a cool turn of events, a local couple bought the rights and then proceeded to name the library after the person it should have been named after in the first place! But it doesn't always work out that way.

And selling the naming rights of public schools seems particularly distasteful. (Hey ... the biggest and most successful business in my neighborhood is a porn shop. What if they bought the naming rights to my school -- The Red Letter News Elementary School. Hmmm.)

Hell, Yes!

Some time ago I blogged about a decision our school board made to name a new elementary school General Vang Pao School, in recognition of the sizable Hmong community that exists here. This was after soliciting suggestions of suitable names from the wider community on the school district website. The decision to name the school Vang Pao caused immediate negative reaction in our community, because of his alleged drug running and summary executions carried out when he was working with the CIA to fight the Communists in Laos. While those charges are serious, I don't know enough about the man or his history to damn him on those points. But I strongly object to naming a school after him simply because of his military background; one of my friends called it when he questioned why we would name a public school after a warlord.

This is not the first time this controversy has arisen here. General Vang Pao is generally revered by Hmong people and several years ago there was a proposal to name a city park after him. It was ditched when the same allegations were brought up. Unfortunately it becomes an us/them kind of debate, with mostly Hmong people pitted against mostly white people. Very divisive and ugly.

Despite all of this, the school board staunchly stood behind their decision to name the school, and even broke ground for it 2 weeks ago using shovels emblazoned with "General Vang Pao." Fast forward to the revelations this weekend that General Vang Pao has been indicted on charges of allegedly masterminding a plot to overthrow the Communist Laotian government. Imagine the backpedaling that was going on at last night's school board meeting! (I shouldn't sound so gleeful, except that the initial decision was a perfect example of certain people bending over backward not to appear racist and making a decision without ever having done any background research, and in the process creating a huge amount of turmoil and bad feelings. Dummies.)

I took particular pleasure in this delicious little passage, taken from our morning paper:

Cher Peng Her, who spoke in defense of naming the school after Vang Pao, said later that even if the charges against Vang Pao turn out to be true, Vang Pao is simply defending his own people from a Laotian government that has sanctioned the killings, rapes and persecution of Hmong.

Her said President Bush used similar rationale for overthrowing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. "Should we bring charges against our president for doing exactly what Vang Pao is alleged?" Her asked. (To which I yelled out loud -- in the teachers' lounge -- "Hell, yes!")

Well, it's bound to get curiouser and curiouser. I'll keep you posted.

Speaking Truth to Power on NCLB

I have a joke with one of my friends, another kindergarten teacher, that I have an altar in my house dedicated to education writer Alfie Kohn, to which I bow down every day. If I do have such a thing (and I'm not saying), here is one reason why:

Published on Thursday, May 31, 2007 by USA Today

NCLB: ‘Too Destructive To Salvage’

by Alfie Kohn

It’s time to say in a national newspaper what millions of teachers, students and parents already know: No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is an appalling and unredeemable experiment that has done incalculable damage to our schools — particularly those serving poor, minority and limited-English-proficiency students.

It’s a stretch even to call the law “well-intentioned” given that its creators, including the Bush administration and the right-wing Heritage Foundation, want to privatize public education. Hence NCLB’s merciless testing, absurd timetables and reliance on threats.

Let’s be clear: This law has nothing to do with improving learning. At best, it’s about raising scores on multiple-choice exams. This law is not about discovering which schools need help; we already know. This law is not about narrowing the achievement gap; its main effect has been to sentence poor children to an endless regimen of test-preparation drills. Thus, even if the scores do rise, it’s at the expense of a quality education. Affluent schools are better able to maintain good teaching — and retain good teachers — despite NCLB, so the gap widens.

Sure, it’s senseless for Washington to impose requirements without adequate funding. But more money to implement a bad law isn’t the answer.

Indeed, according to a recent 50-state survey by Teachers Network, a non-profit education organization, exactly 3% of teachers think NCLB helps them to teach more effectively. No wonder 129 education and civil rights organizations have endorsed a letter to Congress deploring the law’s overemphasis on standardized testing and punitive sanctions. No wonder 30,000 people (so far) have signed a petition at educatorroundtable.org calling the law “too destructive to salvage.”

NCLB didn’t invent the scourge of high-stakes testing, nor is it responsible for the egregious disparity between the education received by America’s haves and have-nots. But by intensifying the former, it exacerbates the latter.

This law cannot be fixed by sanding its rough edges. It must be replaced with a policy that honors local autonomy, employs better assessments, addresses the root causes of inequity and supports a rich curriculum. The question isn’t how to save NCLB; it’s how to save our schools — and kids — from NCLB.

It was distressing, when NCLB first reared its ugly head, to see the number of politicos who signed onto it. (Even Dennis Kucinich!!) Did any one of them even think to ask a teacher what s/he thought? Because this is nothing new. The problem with NCLB has never been the fact that it is chock full of unfunded mandates, but that it is LOUSY POLICY, embraced by people who know NOTHING about children and learning.

And, like absolutely every last Bush Administration initiative, the first question should always be this: WHO PROFITS? From duct tape to war, all you have to do is follow the money.

Awwww .... Shucks

I'm feeling very loved right now. My friend Potato Prints came to visit me in my natural environment yesterday, i.e. my classroom, and blogged about it here.

I often say that I see teaching as a radical act (yup, you can read it for yourself right there in my profile) and you might think it means that I teach Kommunism for Kindergartners (I don't) or refuse to lead my students in daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegience (I do ... refuse, that is. It's my right.) What I really mean by that is the essence of my teaching, and I am so pleased that it is so easily apparent to an outsider's eye.

I believe to the core of my being that what teachers really convey to their students is themselves. My students know without any doubt that I love them and will always treat them with dignity and respect, that in my classroom we are a community of individuals who love, accept, take care of, and celebrate each other. We don't get our community out of some canned curriculum: do activities 5, 10, and 12 in the Tribes book and -- VOILA! -- instant community. We build it from day one, and it's hard work, but the results are worth every gray hair.

I'm no pushover either. My students learn that being part of a community requires them to take responsibility. And they do. Early on this year I had a student who, it quickly became apparent, was a compulsive thief. In an amazing demonstration of self-awareness for a 6 year old, he told me, "I take things and I can't help it." He moved in January, but his classmates were helping him, NOT tattling on him and NOT shunning him. And he was coming up to me all on his own and saying, "I took this. I'm really sorry" as he returned some item.

Today I had a student who -- to put it delicately -- smelled like he had not crossed paths with running water in quite some time. Not one child said a word about it. And believe me, he was fragrant!

I can't be any other way in my classroom. It is simply who I am. And year after year, my students respond to it. It is interaction on an entirely human level. And I'd like to think that they will carry some essence of it with them as they grow up. Even if they don't, it's a positive place for them right here and now.

I take great pride in what I do.

Last Saturday I went to the Madison Area Music Awards (MAMAs) -- because my husband was performing there and my school was being awarded a grant to buy new instruments ... So I walked into the pre-show party wearing my very best t-shirt and clogs, and stopped in a panic when I saw all the sparkly evening wear and "little black dresses." I felt like I should check the bottom of my shoes for cow manure -- and this is Madison! Anyway, in an effort to quell my anxiety I had to tell myself, "OK, I may feel like a fish out of water, I have NO schmoozing skills, but I'll bet 99.9% of the people in this room would feel the same way if they walked into a room full of 5 and 6 year olds. And I know how to work a room full of 5 and 6 year olds!" And after throwing a little tantrum at my husband, I had a glass of wine and it was all good.

Anyway ... I'm rambling.