It's our choice, America

Educate 'em or incarcerate 'em:

It's our choice.

And to date, we're doing too much of the far more expensive, wasteful and even immoral and stupid incarceration.

Quote of the day--on knowledge and obedience

Quote of the day

Happy National Teacher's Day

If you had a great teacher in your life--and who hasn't?--and they're still alive, you might pick up the phone, email them, whatever you can do to thank them today.

Or maybe you have a child who has a teacher right this moment who has helped them so much. Same thing. Go to your computer today--now--and thank them.

"The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind." --Khalil Gibran

Links: http://www.nea.org/grants/1359.htm; http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/teacher.html#rrUuX8MupQ9YjYjU.99

In response to Rick Santorum's statement about college

"It is safer to have the whole people respectfully enlightened than a few in a high state of science and the many in ignorance." --Thomas Jefferson

Bill Cosby can't come to Kansas City enough

Seriously--and I'll say it again--Bill Cosby cannot come to Kansas City enough. (Link to story at bottom). The guy is great. This is a guy who came up from meager beginnings, worked hard his entire life, was bright and creative and unique (we all are, keep in mind) and made it big. What other person has a better or more appropriate story to tell the students of the Kansas City, Missouri School District? Now if only Michael Jordan, especially, but others, too, would do more of this work. Many thanks to you, Mr. Cosby, for your tours, speeches and this good work. Kudos to you. Link: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/24/3450316/bill-cosby-urges-urban-youths.html

Quote of the day

“Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.” ―Edward W. Said

When, exactly, did we decide to demonize teachers?

And for that matter, why?

And what good purpose does this serve?

We all agree we want our kids to do well.

We know our schools have to work.

Maybe it makes sense to support the people that make those institutions successful.

Yeah, that would be the teachers.

Instead of trying to crush them, singularly and as a group, what with their diabolical unions, maybe it makes sense to support them.

The following was written by Linda Darling-Hammond, who is Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University and was Founding Director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.  

The first ever International Summit on Teaching, convened last week in New York City, showed perhaps more clearly than ever that the United States has been pursuing an approach to teaching almost diametrically opposed to that pursued by the highest-achieving nations.  

In a statement rarely heard these days in the United States, the Finnish Minister of Education launched the first session of last week’s with the words: “We are very proud of our teachers.”   Her statement was so appreciative of teachers’ knowledge, skills, and commitment that one of the U.S. participants later confessed that he thought she was the teacher union president, who, it turned out, was sitting beside her agreeing with her account of their jointly-constructed profession.

There were many “firsts” in this remarkable Summit. It was the first time the United States invited other nations to our shores to learn from them about how to improve schools, taking a first step beyond the parochialism that has held us back while others have surged ahead educationally.

It was the first time that government officials and union leaders from 16 nations met together in candid conversations that found substantial consensus about how to create a well-prepared and accountable teaching profession.  
And it was, perhaps, the first time that the growing de-professionalization of teaching in America was recognized as out of step with the strategies pursued by the world’s educational leaders.

Evidence  presented at the Summit showed that, with dwindling supports, most teachers in the U.S must go into debt in order to prepare for an occupation that pays them, on average, 60% of the salaries earned by other college graduates. Those who work in poor districts will not only earn less than their colleagues in wealthy schools, but they will pay for many of their students’ books and supplies themselves.

And with states’ willingness to lower standards rather than raise salaries for the teachers of the poor, a growing number of recruits enter with little prior training, trying to learn on-the-job with the uneven mentoring provided by cash-strapped districts.  It is no wonder that a third of U.S. beginners leave within the first five years, and those with the least training leave at more than twice the rate of those who are well-prepared.  

Those who stay are likely to work in egg-crate classrooms with few opportunities to collaborate with one another.  In many districts, they will have little more than “drive-by” workshops for professional development, and – if they can find good learning opportunities, they will pay for most of it out of their own pockets.  Meanwhile, some policymakers argue that we should eliminate requirements for teacher training, stop paying teachers for gaining more education, let anyone enter teaching, and fire those later who fail to raise student test scores.  And efforts like those in Wisconsin to eliminate collective bargaining create the prospect that salaries and working conditions will sink even lower, making teaching an unattractive career for anyone with other professional options.

The contrasts to the American attitude toward teachers and teaching could not have been more stark.  Officials from countries like Finland and Singapore described how they have built a high-performing teaching profession by enabling all of their teachers to enter high-quality preparation programs, generally at the masters’ degree level, where they receive a salary while they prepare.  There they learn research-based teaching strategies and train with experts in model schools attached to their universities.  They enter a well-paid profession – in Singapore earning as much as beginning doctors -- where they are supported by mentor teachers and have 15 or more hours a week to work and learn together – engaging in shared planning, action research, lesson study, and observations in each other’s classrooms.  And they work in schools that are equitably funded and well-resourced with the latest technology and materials.  

In Singapore, based on their talents and interests, many teachers are encouraged to pursue career ladders to become master teachers, curriculum specialists, and principals, expanding their opportunities and their earnings with still more training paid for by the government.  Teacher union members in these countries talked about how they work closely with their governments to further enrich teachers’ and school leaders’ learning opportunities and to strengthen their skills.  

In these Summit discussions, there was no teacher-bashing, no discussion of removing collective bargaining rights, no proposals for reducing preparation for teaching, no discussion of closing schools or firing bad teachers, and no proposals for ranking teachers based on their students’ test scores.  The Singaporean Minister explicitly noted that his country’s well-developed teacher evaluation system does not “digitally rank or calibrate teachers,” and focuses instead on how well teachers develop the whole child and contribute to each others’ efforts and to the welfare of the whole school.

Perhaps most stunning was the detailed statement of the Chinese Minister of Education who described how – in the poor states which lag behind the star provinces of Hong Kong and Shanghai – billions of yuen are being spent on a fast-paced plan to improve millions of teachers’ preparation and professional development, salaries, working conditions and living conditions (including building special teachers’ housing)  The initial efforts to improve teachers’ knowledge and skills and stem attrition are being rapidly scaled up as their success is proved.

How poignant for Americans to listen to this account while nearly every successful program developed to support teachers’ learning in the United States is proposed for termination by the Administration or the Congress: Among these, the TEACH Grants that subsidize preparation for those who will teach in high-need schools; the Teacher Quality Partnership grants that support innovative pre-service programs in high-need communities; the National Writing Project and the Striving Readers programs that have supported professional development for the teaching of reading and writing all across the country, and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, which certifies accomplished teachers and provides what teachers have long called some of the most powerful professional development they ever experience in their careers.

These small programs total less than $1 billion dollars annually, the cost of half a week in Afghanistan.  They are not nearly enough to constitute a national policy; yet they are among the few supports America now provides to improve the quality of teaching.  
Clearly, another first is called for if we are ever to regain our educational standing in the world:  A first step toward finally taking teaching seriously in America.  Will our leaders be willing to take that step? Or will we devolve into a third class power because we have neglected our most important resource for creating a first-class system of education?

Want good students?

Help create and keep good teachers.

It's not that complicated.

Links:  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/23/959413/-An-incredibly-important-piece-on-teaching-and-education

http://store.tcpress.com/0807749621.shtml

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet

the day begins

I've thought for a long time that I wanted to put something "out there" There's so much to say, so much to notice, so much to be aware of। It seems like not enough people are paying attention (can you say "subprime meltdown"?) But at the same time, it should be a place for some fun। If you can't laugh while the house is burning, what fun it that?

So here goes.

It seems that there's a hell of a lot out there in the world that's really insane, doesn't it? Really crazy? Zany? The guy in the White House, for starters. How does someone with so obviously little imagination get into a place like that? (Oh, yeah, wealthy multinational corporations and lunatic-fringe right wing fundamentalist Christians put him there).

Talk about "1984". Orwell couldn't believe this guy. A "Consumer Products Protection Agency" that doesn't protect the consumers. An "Environmental Protection Agency" that doesn't protect the environment. A President who can barely talk. Sheesh. It goes on and on.

But at the same time, while all this stuff is being done in our name, not only is the media not investigating or writing about much of it, hell, not that many people are having the kind of fun with it you might expect. Other than Bill Maher--who isn't as funny as he is poignant--and Lewis Black--now that's funny--with all this material, you'd think someone would be makin' a bloody mint, writing hilarious stuff, based on our real lives. SNL is lame when it should be rippin' somebody.

I think the corporations are holding stuff back, at least on the tube. Thank God (if there were one) for the 'net. The really good stuff can come from there.

Did anyone notice the other day that this Administration is going to let a British company, of all things, explore outside Grand Canyon National Park for bloody uranium? You gotta' be kiddin' me. For real? The British? Why them? Why there? Why now? Is there ANYTHING we won't sell? It's unbelievable. Holy cow. What is NOT for sale in this country? God knows our kids are.

Do you know there are school districts that have MULTIPLE "Picture Days" at their schools, just so they can raise more money? It's like the now old saying goes, we should spend as much on education as we do on defense and have the military have bake sales. (Not literally, but you get the meaning).

It would be nice if we gave a hoot about education in this country. We really don't. Get real. We cut Physical Education. We cut the arts. We cut Music. We're cutting History and Civics. If you don't know this, check it out. Maybe not all school districts but too many. And then we wonder why people end up in jails and prisons. Hell, people, it's because we don't educate them and WE DON'T WANT TO. Everyone is supposed to totally, completely pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

And that includes their health.

Everyone is just supposed to stay healthy. That's all there is to it. And if you don't? Then go to the doctor and/or the hospital. Can't afford it? To quote the song from "Avenue Q", "It Sucks To Be You." That's the way it goes. You're done. Pull yourself up, man. No support from yer fellow man. Yer done.

And taxes? We don't pay no stinking taxes! We want things done for us like roads and schools and bridges and infrastructure but we don't wanna pay no stinking taxes! People who pay taxes are suckers. Check it out. If you pay taxes, you get no respect. Leona Helmsley was speaking for most of this nation when she said==paraphrased--"Only the little people pay taxes."

We don't respect the nations around the world who have national health care. They're suckers. They pay high taxes. They're stupid. Yeah? Well, they also have much lower mortality rates than the United States, too. They have much lower costs for health care. And do you know why? Because they've taken the profit motive out of health care, the way it ought to be. Once you take the profit motive out of health care--like you do for utilities, etc.--the doctors, lawyers, insurance agencies, pharmaceuticals, hospitals and all the other agencies involved with draining the system, it is, then, what it ought to be, and that is, a system set up to help us stay healthy. It's not what it is now, today, in the United States. The health care system in the United States today is a place people go to get and stay wealthy. It's for rich doctors. It's for rich attorneys. It's for corporations to get rich.

Face it, the corporations are in charge. Ralph Nader has always been right. And the American people are letting the corporations clean their collective clocks.

Suckers.

More later..........................................Scroll to pictures below.