Talk to You Later-Notes to My Son: Last Day of School
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Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Podcast 54: Last Day of School
Sunday, June 27th, 2010The Problem We All Live With
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
I was waiting for my son’s transition IEP (Individual Education Program) meeting in the office of his new school (he will be leaving a pre-school special ed program next week and entering a general ed kindergarten class in August) when I saw hanging from the wall the Norman Rockwell illustration of a girl with a black eye sitting outside the principal’s office. She looked dazed and happy, like she probably won the fight. My wife and I were also about to fight, having disagreed with the school district’s original offer of FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education) and written a letter to the Special Ed Director explaining our concerns. We had recently won in a fair hearing versus Regional Center (our son had been denied services there and a judge overturned their decision) so we were feeling pretty scrappy. We knew that we could prevail. Part of that confidence was due to the excellent legal representation we were able to secure, but more important was the fact that we could fight at all, that the system allowed for appeal.
If our son’s new school were a charter it could lock us out. So long. Don’t let the door hit you in the behind. There would be no recourse because, though funded by public money, charters can pick and choose who they serve. Although Secretary of Education Arne Duncan claims that charters are a guarantee of civil rights, they are the exact opposite. They deny what federal law requires, that all public schools treat all students equally regardless of race, belief or disability. Imagine how the public would react today if a privatized school turned away the little girl in another Rockwell illustration, The Problem We All Live With. The parents of six-year-old Ruby Bridges volunteered their daughter to test the new integration laws in 1960. She became the first black child to attend an all-white public school. From Wikipedia:
The court-ordered first day of integrated schools in New Orleans, November 14, 1960, was commemorated by Norman Rockwell in the painting The Problem We All Live With. As Bridges describes it, “Driving up I could see the crowd, but living in New Orleans, I actually thought it was Mardi Gras. There was a large crowd of people outside of the school. They were throwing things and shouting, and that sort of goes on in New Orleans at Mardi Gras.” Former marshal Charles Burks later recalled, “She showed a lot of courage. She never cried. She didn’t whimper. She just marched along like a little soldier, and we’re all very proud of her.”
Can you imagine what would happen today if a charter school turned her away? How is turning away children with disabilities any different? The problem we live with is inequality, a problem that Secretary Duncan will doubtless rectify, because in this country we defend the rights of children.
Or do we?
Getting Better All the Time
Monday, May 24th, 2010
This is noteworthy: Congresswoman Chu’s alternative to the test/punish educational plan favored by the administration.
“Congresswoman Chu has developed an excellent framework for redefining the federal role in K-12 education. Her proposals recognize that the path to school improvement is through positive, not punitive, measures. She understands that teachers do their best in atmosphere of respect and encouragement, rather than incentives and sanctions,” said Diane Ravitch, education historian and former Assistant Secretary of Education. “The federal role should be to support school improvement, not to mandate closings and firings. She is a breath of fresh air in a stale and nonproductive discussion.”
Signs like this plan and the overwhelming response to Diane Ravitch’s new book make me optimistic that the public has started to see through the Race To the Top rhetoric and is now seeking alternatives to its dangerous agenda. Kudos to Ravitch, Chu, and all the other voices in the wilderness.
Podcast 50: Day 149 of School
Sunday, May 16th, 2010Oppose SB 955
Saturday, May 15th, 2010Came across this great op-ed about SB 955 and the damage it will do to California public education. Give it a read!
Reject Huff’s bill
State Sen. Huff’s bill to repeal public school teacher seniority from district and county employment contracts is disappointing for many reasons. Here are three of them:
First, this bill seeks to pacify newly credentialed interns who are angry about the paucity of entry level teaching jobs in this economic recession of 2009-10. The real agenda of SB 955, however, is an attack on California’s tenure laws in the education code.
Teachers currently serve the longest probation period of any profession in California, three years. Teacher performance evaluations are the responsibility of school site principals. Probationary and tenured teachers are employed individually by collective bargaining contracts, the terms and conditions of which are defined by local board policies and state statutes. Could it be that SB 955 also seeks to undermine public contracts?
Second, where students and learning are concerned, there is no substitute for an experienced, well-trained teacher who possesses an institutional memory for policies, practices, and methods that work.
Now, despite their energy and optimism, “rookie” professionals tend to depend on trial and error, which is, in itself, a learning process. The NCLB fraud, however, permits no room for trial and error of anything in the classroom. Standardized tests have become the God!
Further, few wise observers would doubt that the most qualified, experienced teachers should be assigned to instruct slow learners, and so-called “underachievers.”
Finally, if the premise of Sen. Huff’s bill were applied to our armed service branches, then buck privates, corporals and first class airmen would be running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sounds absurd doesn’t it? Maybe Sen. Huff needs to resign and apply for a job at Wal-Mart.
JEFFERY GRIFFITH
Fontana
Podcast 49: Day 139 of School
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010Podcast 48: Day 135 of School
Sunday, April 25th, 2010Podcast 47: Day 128 of School
Sunday, April 18th, 2010Okay, All You Slacker Teachers in Hooper Bay, Alaska, You’re Fired!
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010But if they were who would replace them?
Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, reminded Mr. Duncan of that visit in asking about his school-turnaround strategies, given that the Hooper Bay school has been on the federal list of failing schools for years, she said.
Three of the administration’s four strategies would involve firing educators, which Ms. Murkowski said would be impractical in Hooper Bay.
“There’s no place to live, there’s no running water,” she said. “These are not conditions most teachers will be able to handle.”
“We already can’t keep good people there,” she added.
Concerns echoed in the Washington Post today by a ranking Republican Mike Enzi:
“I am very concerned that requiring school districts to use one of the four school turnaround models for schools identified for school improvement will adversely affect rural and frontier schools,” Enzi, ranking Republican on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said at a hearing. He added: “Let me be clear that I am not proposing to give rural and frontier schools a free pass. Strategies mandated from Washington will simply not solve the problems facing these schools.”
Are you listening, President Obama?
Larry (No Relation to Mark) Cuban on DC’s Rhee
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010Teachers need to believe that those at the top understand the situation they face each day and are supportive, even as they push and prod. But teachers are also jumpy, irascible, and feisty agents in their own right — a fact that too many superintendents come to understand too late.
Larry Cuban is another powerful voice in the education reform debate. Like Diane Ravitch, he is an historian who knows how ethereal and damaging reform efforts can be.