Conundrum 6,875,248,312 – High test scores AND students not graduating???

November 21, 2012 at 04:57 (A Member of the 21st Century, Education Observations, Take Aways)
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http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/1-900-in-SF-class-of-14-may-not-graduate-4051222.php

Poor Jill Tucker at The San Francisco Chronicle.  She has been given the worst tasks – writing anything positive regarding education when the smoke screen and mirrors brought to us in California  via NCLB, The Bush Years, SDAIE requirements, charter schools, Proposition 13 and so forth are mind bendingly awful. These ‘fixes’ appear most awful when seen through the rear view mirror while  people such as Michelle Rhee are driving forward at 100 MPH and throwing  crap out the windows of said vehicle –  at teachers.

Apparently in all the positive accolades regarding test score improvement, some one some where was neglecting to look at the sign ahead regarding a CLIFF.    Admittedly there are problems such as those of Nina Collins which are unique and definitely different.  I can not imagine this is the story for the other 1,899 projected problem students.  How could so many students be missing units?  How could so many students be misdirected? Are the teachers going to be blamed/shamed again – for this?

None of the graduation requirements are new. In fact, these requirements have been around forever. What is new is parents and community members believing with their shallow little hearts and brains it has all been up to teachers. I am amazed the spin has not yet started for the blame game.

I really wonder if we had changed our focus just a bit from the prize of test scores to the reality of successful course completion, parents being held accountable, less drama surrounding how many charter schools can be propped up and reviling teachers if we would have made the ‘difference’ necessary for this article to never have been written.  It is about focus. When we allow charter schools and the slippery slopes of test score calculations to become our focus, we let other, blindingly obvious problems slip into the background.   No one could ever convince me they did not see this phenomenon coming – unless they were so busy following Michelle Rhee they simply lost their mind.

Teachers do not control the variables which bring about these types of conundrums – administrators control these issues. I hope people look up from what ever it is their head was buried in and recognize the problem – it is not test scores, rather, it is what we chose to focus and worship as the prize.

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And so we keep on learning…..or do we?

October 27, 2012 at 05:38 (Uncategorized)
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/my-son-is-schizophrenic-the-reforms-that-i-worked-for-have-worsened-his-life/2012/10/15/87b74a98-eadd-11e1-b811-09036bcb182b_story_3.html

I have long been troubled by what the right, correct, accurate, thought out, proper, logical and so forth  answer may be about special education.  This is based on the fact my teaching credential was obtained in a non-traditional manner (BA in speech pathology/audiology) due to my undergrad studies.  On one hand I have a better than average understanding of learning disabilities and the possible underlying basis going into the credentialing program, learned a ton being a teacher and helping to write IEP’s/504′s and being a participant of the student study team, working closely with my special ed colleagues to mainstream students into the science lab. On the other side of all the great things written in the previous sentence, I was worn down and exhausted each day from putting in all  I had for my 5-10 special needs students in each class and noticing it was never enough as well as realizing my regular ed students were not getting as much as they deserved from me. Finding a balance on this razor blade edge was never easy and there were days it felt more like a razor blade than others.

The 1980s was the decade when many of the state’s large mental hospitals were emptied. After years of neglect, the hospitals’ programs and buildings were in decay. In my new legislative role, I jumped at the opportunity to move people out of “those places.” I initiated funding for community mental health and substance abuse treatment programs for adults, returned young people from institution-based “special school districts” to schools in their home towns and provided for care coordinators to help manage the transition of people back into the community.

Every year, one in every five children and one in every four adults has a diagnosable mental illness. A quarter of all mental illnesses are considered serious.

In the case of inner city schools, this number is amplified and it is these figures which are the 5-10 students per class can be found.After all was said and done, I wonder if indeed all of us who jumped onto the mainstreaming band wagon and least restrictive environments, etc. really were on the correct train. There are many disabilities which are organic in nature and can be overcome with some routine medical and therapeutic efforts. There are substantially more disabilities which have a mental health component and require more than my professional education and experience provided, in addition to the fact there has been a gross elimination of counselors, psychologists, speech pathologists, RSP and other professionals at every school.

……….But when you look just a little more closely, what you find is a young man with a sly smile, quick wit and an inquisitive mind who — when he’s healthy — bears a striking resemblance to the youthful Muhammad Ali…………Yet it’s the policies of my generation of policymakers that put that formerly adorable toddler — now a troubled 6-foot-5 adult — on the street. And unless something changes, the policies of today’s generation of policymakers will keep him there.

And then there were the recriminations from the very people who had hoped they were enacting the best, right, correct and well thought out ideas. These thoughts could have been written by anyone in elected government, it is not specific to Connecticut.

But we legislators in Connecticut and many other states made a series of critical misjudgments.

First, we didn’t understand how poorly prepared the public schools were to educate children with serious mental illnesses.

Second, we didn’t adequately fund community agencies to meet new demands for community mental health services — ultimately forcing our county jails to fill the void.

And third, we didn’t realize how important it would be to create collaborations among educators, primary-care clinicians, mental-health professionals, social-services providers, even members of the criminal justice system, to give people with serious mental illnesses a reasonable chance of living successfully in the community.

During the 25 years since, I’ve experienced firsthand the devastating consequences of these mistakes.

It is these very recriminations which make me cringe as it was that approximate 30 year time period which I taught in public schools and experienced the anguish of educating every student to the best of my ability while my elected officials were busy cutting me to my knees.  This continues to be  the same program which is in force while teachers are being subjected to merit based on test scores.

Typically, schools and parents follow exactly what the author is stating.  It is far easier to take the easy course when you have limited resources and hope for the best. It is also the worst possible time to not take immediate action, as with children who are on the autism spectrum.

When Tim entered elementary school, it took us three years to convince school officials that his symptoms weren’t caused by problems with Tim’s having been adopted, his racial identity (we’re white, he’s black) or our parenting. That by then we had three children younger than Tim who also were adopted transracially and were thriving helped make our case. The school’s evaluations suggested he had what was then called attention deficit disorder and some learning disabilities. He was admitted into special education, and the school drew up a mandated individualized education plan (IEP) for him. It focused mostly on helping with his organizational skills and, at the school’s insistence, his “self-esteem.”

Tim’s IEP clearly needed to be revised after he received his new diagnoses. But his principal told me repeatedly that “he just needs to follow the rules,” as if Tim could will away his illness. In a due-process hearing we then demanded, Tim’s special education teacher declared that Tim’s biggest problem was “overprotective parents.”

And during my teaching years in public schools, the worst I encountered was the outset of charter schools.  Wherein the following and worse was stated more often than not:

What followed were many years during which one public school after another knew it couldn’t educate my son but had nothing to offer, holding him back in one case and bumping him ahead in another.

It was this very time period, the advent of charter schools, in which I saw how education and our elected leaders failed education the most. And it was when I realized until people came ‘clean’, the Michelle Rhee’s of the world would just continue to blame the wrong folks.

More than one educator has told me that I shouldn’t blame the schools: Their purpose is to educate children, not to treat them. I understand this. But I also learned from personal experience that ignoring a child’s special needs makes meaningless the special-education concepts of “appropriate” and “least restrictive” education that are embodied in the laws we passed.

These terminologies — and the realities they represent — were things that policymakers thought about too narrowly. The word “disability,” for instance, should have covered Tim and children like him. But as a friend who worked a generation ago on drafting the regulations for the federal government’s Individuals with Disabilities Education Act told me, “Paul, we were thinking of kids in wheelchairs.”

What we really need is more people able to own up and admit to deficiencies in how funding and managing education is done so we can move forward. The blame game has long been a subtle smoke screen to demonstrate all that is wrong with education, demonize teachers and not acknowledge some of the worst possible choices in education  which have been made – NOT BY TEACHERS, RATHER, THE VERY PEOPLE WHO SHOULD HAVE HAD OPEN EARS AND EYES.

Until we have a ‘truth and reconcilliation’  about what has happened these past 30 or so years, we will never get close to filling the gap created by politicians.  We can continue to blame teachers – it will not solve the problem so clearly laid out by Paul Gionfriddo.

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In other words, test scores are misleading regarding competency of content.

October 27, 2012 at 04:14 (Uncategorized)
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http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Test-Most-students-not-proficient-in-writing-3865546.php

My original thought(s) on the above article was to point out a ,”Houston, we have a problem” moment since so few students across the U.S. seem to NOT have quality writing skills.  Of course, it goes without saying this has been true for years and no one group/organization focused on this issue as test scores have been all the rage.

Students who have access to computers at home and regularly use them for assignments are more likely to be strong writers, a national exam suggests. But it also says just a quarter of America’s eighth- and 12th-grade students have solid writing skills. (sic – this is quoted from article)

And then I took on a very part-time position reviewing test questions for a company which sub-contracts to some other company and I began to realize  (yet again) other reasons why our students have poor writing skills.  Not only is it the dilemma of dumbing things down so students need only answer multiple choice and T/F questions, the questions have become significantly more about ‘test taking strategies’ than the higher levels of knowledge – application, synthesis, etc.  Test questions are not open-ended. There is an answer embedded (1/4 = 25% and 1/5 = 20% guess rate while T/F is 50/50 crap shoot!) and students just need to learn better test taking skills which is the older legacy the SAT, ACT and GRE  provided without a writing component.  These tests demonstrated the ability to think through questions.

I realize the SAT and ACT now have a writing component, which is obviously important if only 25% of students in the U.S. can write a five paragraph essay in Grade 12 and college clearly should expect more of a student.  Unfortunately, the five paragraph essay has become so pro forma just about anyone can learn the routine and write something, whether or not it is quality, the writing can meet the proficiency standard.

Great writers come about through reading and vice versa – they go hand in hand. When the brain has to spend time thinking ‘how’ to answer a question rather than the content of the question, it is already dumbed down.  Reading and interpreting a M/C, T/F test question does not lead to good writing skills, it leads to memorization skills and ‘trick’ techniques for understanding how test questions are written.  Having a computer is great – if it is used to read material – not play games and do other tasks with are multiple choice and T/F, yet easy to grade.

This issue has become most evident to me in working with foreigners who are writing test questions  abroad and want them ‘Americanized’ via grammar, etc. yet refuse to understand the quality of the questions are still poor, even when the grammar is corrected. This is based on the fact the questions do not rely on anything more than parsed out common information  and how well some student was able to memorize bits and pieces and think through testing logic.   The tests have little to do with the skills we would expect in a college classroom, workplace or even of students wishing to learn.

I have done this ‘job’ a few different times for different organizations. Each time the scenario is similar – questions are produced by foreigners and my job is to ‘grammatize’ the commodity so the business (American)  will think there is a new and better set of test questions in the question bank. Each and every time, the problems are the same, when you ask a question, making it ‘tricky’ does not make it better.  It proves the questions in the question bank are not promising.  It is the algorithms of how questions are selected and used which would make a good testing program for PRACTICE.

This is an example of what was returned to me when I could not understand what a particular question was asking, both grammatically and by material as it was asked in a convoluted manner:         “……but it’s a false question”.   My response would be (should have been), why a false question (assuming double negative) when it is testing test taking ability and logic, not content knowledge.   I was ‘dinged’ for my response by the question writers as I corrected the grammar since I made it ‘easy’.  All the process did was make me laugh about who might have the larger ego.

Obviously when we read and interpret test scores (the nefarious spring testing ritual), we are also determining how well our students can think through test logic, as opposed  to when there is/are written components.  Why is it then the spring test scores give a different visualization of what NAEP produces? It is not just the idea there are two different types of tests.

As schools (public, private and charter) have jumped further into the cesspool of test scores based on M/C and T/F, writing has diminished. We do not expect students to reason through and logic out a science experiment, do error analysis on math problems, write a fictional critical analysis or well researched scientific piece (all of which is appropriate writing across multiple genres) – we just need them to pick/choose an answer.

Even worse, there are people who would like to see teachers castigated for not teaching well unless test scores go up. How about we start rewarding teachers where writing improves – in all genres and content areas.   Just imagine if test scores remained the same or a bit higher each year AND students could write  compelling essays, papers and ideas by 8th and 12th Grade.

There are many organizations and businesses which would be better served offering services such that student work could be read and graded on a rubric for teachers (eliminating the favoritism and other issues of teacher grading in the classroom) rather than continuing to jump on the test bank bandwagon.  Until we choose to change how we ‘do business’ in the arena of testing, we are getting just what we pay for. Questions written by students abroad, which are then anglicized and made okay for the U.S. We are not changing the ‘known world’.

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Dear Ms. Rhee 29 August 2012

August 30, 2012 at 01:18 (Uncategorized)
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Dear Ms. Rhee,

I write to you often but I am not even sure you pay attention as you have never responded. If you responded, I would be shocked as it would mean you had to deal with facts which were presented. Since you are more inclined to manipulate facts, I am not expecting responses any time soon.

So, it would appear that Aspire Public Schools has taken a page, well maybe a chapter from the playbook of  regular public schools. This is not the first time I caught the problem; I have addressed this issue at other junctures. I just keep pointing out the facts so that you don’t lose track of them as you campaign against teachers.

https://rn11.ultipro.com/ASP1000/JobBoard/listjobs.aspx?Page=List&__SVRTRID=E95F1B34-D54F-4D0E-BD91-8AE59C55609E is the URL I used on 29 August 2012 to check that once again, Aspire was exceeding what a regular public school would be doing at this time in the school year as Aspire indicates IT IS SUPERIOR to what is down the street.

Here is what I found at 10:45 AM-

12 open teaching positions, including the sciences and language arts K-12 AND things such as music, Gr 9-12, journalism and so forth. This did not include the four open substitute position postings or the Dean of Educational Capacity (clearly a name for a position which is  in no way living up to its potential), two HR managers (assumedly it is their job to find the teachers to fill the classrooms), three residency campus recruiters (to find even more teachers to fill classrooms), five substitute positions-one of which was long-term, college readiness teacher (who knew that Aspire needed a teacher to do the task of a counselor….), Senior Manager of Talent (apparently also responsible for filling empty classrooms), two recruiters…. to find teachers which the residency campus recruiters could not find??, and two SPED teachers. I did not list every open position as I pretty much matched My true love gave to me (sung to the 12 Days of Christmas) chorus usually reserved for public schools.

And so I begin to ask myself the following questions, in no particular order:

(1) There is 8.5% unemployment in the U.S. (rhetorical of course as the RNC has been bandying this about for weeks).

(2) Why don’t teachers wish to work for a charter school (Aspire is not the only gig in town, just the most self promoted in CA and now TN)?

(3) How is Aspire’s problem different from regular public schools as charter schools are supposed to be better and these numbers of empty positions after school has started indicate equal to or worse than.

(4) Why are my tax dollars paying for this unacceptable level of administration of an education program and why is Aspire not shut down when it is NOT meeting its own goals?

(5) Does anyone else know or am I the only person  who has an actual interest in education?

(6) Did Ms. Rhee or James Wilcox ever manage to read “The First Days of School” by Harry K. Wong (the supposed handbook Aspire support(s)/supported?

The list continued, however it became general reflection as to why I still believe charter schools are not an answer to what ails the American education system.

I know you like the word anomaly and use it to explain data which you are unable to manipulate to your liking so I understand you might wish to use it in this example. My problem is that something is an anomaly when it happens once or rarely  (deviation from the common rule)- not regularly so it is not appropriate this time….the problem(s) cited above are regular and ongoing.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

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Crossing the boundaries of good taste at school

July 10, 2012 at 01:42 (A Member of the 21st Century, Economy and Me, Take Aways, What might this person(s) be thinking?)
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http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201207090900

http://www.jamieoliver.com/us/foundation/jamies-food-revolution/about_jamie_oliver

http://www.cafeteriaman.com

Finally other people are rallying round the flag called parenting – not in book form, not who can do it ‘better’ or with greater results, but who can do it since it is the right thing to do and schools/teachers JUST CAN NOT DO EVERYTHING for everyone.  The school lunch program as we know it IS CHANGING in America and parents, get this, you are going to need to do your share as the schools start doing more of  their share.

Imagine anyone asking parents to take responsibility? Who knew??  Who thought it would be appropriate to have high expectations of parents?  I was beginning to think abdication was the rule and law of parenting since even Michelle Rhee fears to tread on this group of people except to ask them if they would like to crucify more teachers.

Nutrition is such a key part of a child’s education, people were talking about requesting and allowing children to have more time to eat fresh food as it takes longer.  Finally some one is taking the ball and running down field towards the goal line – children can not learn without proper nutrition and not just at school lunch.  Healthcare will soon be ‘for all’ not the few with coins in their pockets jingling about. School food programs are drastically changing (Thank You Michelle Obama and all the many who have persevered !) due to the concerted efforts of many who have said ‘enough’, we can and need to do better.

We have not crossed the junction yet of actually asking parents to ‘think’ how they will pay to feed their children before getting pregnant, but that discussion will come at some point as the excuse train left the station.

Based on what was discussed this morning with Michael Krasney, school cafeterias can no longer be the bastions of and arbiters in bad taste nor can they waste precious food budgets on crap.  While one great meal a day is better than none, it is imperative that parents start doing what they can to level the playing field nutritionally. An example is Oakland USD in CA now has farmers markets after school in some of the ‘food deserts’ in the area. There are programs where students grow their produce and this is part of the science curriculum, never mind a great opportunity to be outside and enjoy the CA sun.

Parents have the resources and the ability to use the resources (if your kid has time to watch TV or play on the computer, they can sure as hell cook) if they choose.  Having volunteered at the Alameda Food Bank in Alameda County, there is not a ton of good food, but there is some and it is better than what 98% of the world lives on.  There are church and other organizations with food pantries, there are places to access fresh instead of paying extra for processed and frozen/packaged. If you collect WIC and/ or SNAP, you get to choose how you use those resources.  Students learn best when not on sugar rushes and stomachs are filled with useable calories.

In the most impoverished nations of the world we give U.N. food drops. Here, we can grow so much we throw some away if even after exports and U.N. food drops there is extra.  We have to do better with our resources and the people most able to be in this fight are parents.

Occasionally I see billboards around town in various languages with the message, “My kitchen/house, my food choices” and it actually gives a view of what it looks like to stand up proud and tall as the adult in the relationship of the family and make different/better choices. YOU – the parent…….it is about you and how you set the example.

Teachers, we just have to deal with whatever is sent our way.  Send us students which are fed and rested and we can do just about anything.

 

 

 

Ms. Rhee?  Ms. Rhee – are you there??  I can’t hear you – is the line broken??

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When and how did The 4th of July becomes ‘ordinary’ and routine….

July 5, 2012 at 08:48 (A Member of the 21st Century, Take Aways, What might this person(s) be thinking?)
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http://m.sfgate.com/sfchron/db_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=PPoeX5mN&full=true#display

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqrBCJQcBwI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=3&islist=true&id=2&d=07-04-2012

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2012/07/03/welcome-to-obamacare/

When I awoke this morning, I saw a bright sunny day. I was able to prepare a nutritious but simple breakfast – quinoa, fruit, almonds.  There was coffee. My shower with soap was possible as there was enough water to wash the soap off (there are many places in the world where this is NOT the norm).

The birds were tweeting as I dressed and I heard a cat meow – it was that quiet!   A very nice start to my 4th of July – a day for me to REFLECT, as opposed to celebrate. I am filled with pride at American History – I am also a realist. Not all of what we do at the end of the day in this country is perfect, it is just better than any other coutnry. We are still the country which provides the dream to people all over world the possibility  of becoming a citizen.

I wanted to meditate and  thank those who made my life possible.  Except for planes from an airport or news/police helicopters, I don’t hear much sound in the sky. While I have witnessed visually (and in my lungs) layers of smog, it is not all encompassing.  There have been many droughts in my life time and yet there has been potable water I did not need to run through a filter and/or heat unless camping.  I could go on and on, but suffice it to say I live a life few outside of the western world have access to. This life was ‘given’ to me by the sweat, tears and blood of others.  These others are who I honor.

I wanted to think about the British prisoners who were first shipped here when Britain outgrew them ( No, Virginia, the Pilgrims did not settle America – it was already settled by Native Americans!).  I forced myself to think of all the wars fought against the British, against the Native Americans,  and  the wars we fought against one another over beliefs (we still fight these wars today, just not on the same mass scale as the Civil War).  I thought about the wars we have fought, right or wrongly in the hopes of providing a greater good to others.  Next, I thought about the men and women abroad on this day – far from home, far from comfort, far from their family and doing that which many of us either fear or seem to loathe and will not participate.

“Clearly, young people would prefer to be doing other things,” said Beth Asch, a senior economist at RAND Corporation who specializes in defense manpower issues.

I thought about my father who had served in the U.S. Army during the last great draft.

My life is privileged beyond what most can ever hope to attain in this lifetime.  I have a well stocked library within one mile of home, there is fresh food.  There is infrastructure and electricity. I have a cell phone.  My neighbors say good morning.  I am allowed to worship my interpretation of God and listen to the music of my choice. Just about everything in my life is attainable with some elbow grease.

Every successful business person in America “has enjoyed that success because of the sacrifice of someone else’s sons and daughters” in uniform, Garland said. The argument echoes a concern repeated often over the decade: War efforts have fallen on the shoulders of the few, while the lives of the many went largely unencumbered. Or as some troops have been fond of saying: “We went to war, America went to the mall.”

The only way I can ever say THANK YOU to all the people who made the quality of my life possible, I need to show respect, honor and demonstrate a level of deportment in line with showing deference.

What I realized as I sat on the side of the street as the local parade went by was many people see 4th of July as some sort of annual party. It is ordinary and routine. You go out and buy stuff to decorate your house.  In and of itself, it is not bad to have a party and invite friends over.

There was none of the honorable pomp for our military.  There was no dignity, save for the soldiers themselves – Army, Coast Guard, National Guard, ROTC….it was as if others thought they were merely providing entertainment for us, the parade goers.  I did not see people standing nor anyone even putting their hand over their heart. I was one of the very FEW clapping and saying ‘Thank You’.

While I know this scene and public behavior would be different in various parts of the U.S., it surprised me how insulated we were here in my immediate community. I don’t know how waylaid - we used to be a Navy town. We have Coast Guard Island and yet the tone of the parade was off – by the observers, the very ones who are supposed to be ‘celebrating’ our freedom.

Part of me wonders if it is our lack of teaching history (until a few years ago it was not ‘tested’ so of little value).  Another part of me wonders if we have become so comfortable in our little perceived world we forget what we are even about anymore.  The 4th of July is neither ordinary or routine.  It is a celebration worthy of our full attention – including different behavior.

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Is POVERTY what we think it is? The proof is in the cake mix.

June 25, 2012 at 03:28 (Economy and Me, Education Observations)
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http://insidedateline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/23/12376840-in-suburban-america-middle-class-begins-to-confront-poverty?lite

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergence

Convergence is when many thoughts/ideas come together simultaneously and have greater import then when they stand alone……..There was no one right answer when I looked it up as all the qualifiers seemed to register somehow into my thoughts. You can pick and choose for yourself accordingly. There was a convergence of thought for me in the last 24 hours.

Yesterday I wrote about the idea that bullying is inherently related to poverty of the mind.  Poverty of the mind is actually different from poverty of the wallet. It seemed many people missed the notion, so I will try again today.  I am going to use some very real ’events’ which happened in my life  which represent what I am thinking about and hope there is something which resonates with you, the reader.  The names and places are kept confidential as some details could endanger people due to very real political situations around the world.

A very dear friend of mine returned from teaching abroad in an East African country for three years. We had a weepy moment on the phone about 5 PM Pacific Time as she was still decompressing from time zones.   We talked about how our lives are in flux. She is returning to the states, I am moving to another part of CA, another dear friend of ours is visiting Russia this week (leaving from a job in S. Korea)  and another friend is in the middle east with Peace Corps.   We laughed and cried about The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and the ‘…..things we thought we needed, like cake mix……..’, how we had changed and how we observed the change in other friends.  It is something you can only truly understand by being an expatriate in a third world country -whether via Peace Corps or other situation.  We talked about our evolution of what was important and what we really needed in life and how our experiences abroad completely changed us for the better.  We realized that as difficult as our lives are, have been, may be in the future, we did not have poverty of the mind. We would just have poverty of the wallet – which is something we could deal with because we had survived some odd situations.

The distinction of poverty of the mind was further made by my friend in Peace Corps when she sent out her ‘diary’ update.  She actually got some things at the used goods stand in the capitol. She was pretty sure it came from the U.S.  Far from being poor in the part of the world where she lives as a Peace Corps Volunteer, she would rather spend her money on reading materials, travel, communication with others so the clothing is superfluous in some regard (avoiding poverty of the mind). For this friend, enduring a world without reading would be a crime against humanity.

And then this morning I read the above article about families in Colorado, USA and how the middle class has walked ever closer to the edge of poverty. I realized the author did not specify the poverty being discussed as we in America only seem to think of poverty as monetary.  We can not disengage our behavior from what we think we need, deserve, should have, the American dream and so forth from how 98% of the rest of the world lives.  In essence  ‘the cake mix’ .  I would never try to diminish poverty or the very real suffering of going to a food bank or any of the other issues surrounding the article. I am trying to reframe how we look at ourselves, our concept of poverty, our sense of entitlement, our ability to allow for dignity in other parts of the world.

So, when I hear of  families who had the dream of the nice car(s), own a house, 2.5 kids and pets, a garden with a picket fence and grass and so on being dealt the hand of a spiraling economy, I wish to ask some questions:  (1) How many computers are at your house? (2) Do you have TV and cable to go with it? (3) Do you have an X Box, Wii, etc.?  (4) How many hours a week do you spend at the public library – assuming you even have a card? (5) How often does your family eat breakfast and/or dinner together where none of you are on a cell phone or distracted in some other way? (6) How many hours a week do you and your family members do community service? (7) When was the last time you bought stuff at Goodwill, etc. rather than just donating stuff to them? (8) Is every member of your family on age/grade level for literacy? (9) Did you start saving for your kids for college when they were born?  (10) Have you or any member of your family traveled to a third world country and actually went to the third world portion, not the vacationland for Americans and other westerners? 

Questions 4-8 and 10 would be answered very differently by me and my various friends. In fact, since I have friends around the world, I would have to actually remove the first three questions,  reword 4 and 8 which in some places are not even feasible and number 7 would have to be completely the opposite/converse as would 10.   (Many of my friends have cell phones but lack the money for the calls to the states. Having a cell phone was the direct jump from no phone due to no infrastructure.)  Then I would actually be able to talk to other friends about poverty.

Notice how poverty looks very different depending upon who you speak to and what you are actually trying to get at. Many of my friends would laugh at even having health care, never mind spending money on it.  You all remember how difficult it has been to get HIV/AIDS meds to some places due to costs?

You do know the cost of shipping a paperback book abroad, correct? If you don’t, you may be shocked.  Food pantry? How about lack of rain for your field…..Car vs. foot or animal? College on loans vs. maybe getting a Grade 6 education and hoping some how to get more and be willing to do almost anything for a visa to the U.S. to study if you get past Grade 6. 

When the question is reframed, it gives us much more to think about as the concept of poverty.  It is greater than the difference between the supposed 1% and 99% in America.  In other parts of the world, poverty leads people to fight (literally) for basic food, education, and human dignity. We have to give up on some of what we think we need to function (the cake mix).

When the question is reframed, it is much easier to understand why people could hate us. We don’t even understand the concept of poverty.  This mis-understanding of poverty is what causes a lot of bullying and often leads to war.

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Bullying is nothing new under the sun, except how we choose to deal with it (or not).

June 24, 2012 at 02:58 (A Member of the 21st Century, Take Aways, What might this person(s) be thinking?)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVt-oeBx0kE&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/user/ISRAELvsIGNORANTS

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47931496/ns/technology_and_science-security/

My morning began not with anything about Karen Klein , but rather with an e-mail from a friend in Israel who survived  Auschwitz (so I am giving away her age), lives in Israel and was sharing with me a piece by Pat Condell to help me ‘feel better’ about the U.S. (it actually made me feel better by the concept of relativity).   My friend and myself  had been having a conversation of sorts on the meaning of ignorance (lack of exposure and education) vs. ignorance (stupid, feral people from foreign countries)  vs. ignorance (stupid, venal people who wish to bully others to buy into ‘their’ point of view for some psychological power play).

I am at best a secular Jew. At worst, probably more Buddhist than Jewish.  I ‘gave up’ my tribe, so to speak, when I realized at age 10 that all people migrated out of Africa and thus we were all related.  Later on I realized we were genetically related and the various environmental factors shaped us into who we are today. In graduate school, I read ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ and made even more of a connection to how we got to where we are now, in the 21st Century.

Due to my own beliefs, I chose to do Peace Corps in Namibia, SW Africa as opposed to going and living on a kibbutz in Israel (much to the di.smay of some of my more religious family members).  The most valuable thing I understood (I already knew it on some level prior to Peace Corps) and then gained tools to describe,  is ignorance is a lack of education and exposure, not anything else.  Poverty of the mind is actually more damaging than monetary poverty.

Bullying is really a lack of exposure and education. It is a behavior to establish dominance or perceived dominance. Bullying is what leads to war. It is the opposite of compromise and being wise enough to open up oneself to understand the other side and wish to reach across the chasm.  Bullying demonstrates weakness of the person doing the bullying, even though it feels awful to the person being bullied.

Bullying is not helpful in changing behaviors – it makes things worse. Bullying does not make some one respected or respectful – it makes them feared and hated.  When we allow children to bully, we are in effect raising up people without the capacity to reason, think and or have feelings.  The word for this is feral.

We as adults get to choose how we deal with bullying. We can (A) ignore it until something horrible happens (Karen Klein, Matthew Shepard, Pat Condell,  Joseph Kony,  Pol Pot, Hitler…..just to name a very few of the bullied and bullies - you can put in whomever you wish ) and claim to be lacking in the knowledge of the issues OR we can (B) choose to do something on the front end which takes a ton of work but is less costly.  (B) is called parenting. (B) is called having community and expectations and a threshold on behavior. (B) is never allowing children to act out just because or use the excuse of their self-esteem.

When we ignore the behavior of children, we lead them to the false belief that what they are doing is okay, correct, acceptable and sadly, legitimate. In the mind of a child, not getting a NO is really the same as you outright saying YES!

There is not enough money in the world to ‘repair’ what happened to Karen Klein any more than there is enough money to repair what happened to slaves in the U.S. Money does not compensate – it is a legal manipulative for everyone to reach a ‘fair and supposed just balance to pain, suffering and damage’.

What we need to do is educate – educate parents on what their job is as parents.  We need to educate teachers and administrators to stand firm on bullying issues and take it to task the very first time – even if some parents feel upset.  It is imperative that we teach character – http://charactercounts.org/.  General and PARENT Colin Powell just wrote a new book as well, “It Worked for Me’. The time for making excuses was when we wished bullying was not a bad thing and it was a rite of passage.

Bullying is only a rite of passage for those who lack education and exposure.  The group lacking in education and exposure becomes more evident every day. The ’lacking group’ likes to throw blame around and manipulate reality to bully others to believe they manner that they do.  We don’t need to worry about the various differences of our beliefs in religion as we do about worrying about our beliefs of human dignity.

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While you were all looking at test scores and Michelle Rhee was blaming teachers……..

June 9, 2012 at 23:15 (Economy and Me, Education Observations)
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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fitch-downgrades-aspire-public-schools-194000754.html

The above item would have flown right under the radar had some one not pointed it out to me. It would not have even occurred to me that this would be an Aspire Public Schools issue.  Of course, I gave Aspire the benefit of the doubt and looked at http://www.aspirepublicschools.org/?q=financials. and http://www.aspirepublicschools.org/?q=pressroom as I believe all parties should have an opportunity to weigh in on the subject.

From what I can gather, Fitch sees Aspire as being not transparent enough. From what I read about (written by others), Aspire refuses to be honest http://acsa.org/MainMenuCategories/Advocacy/Issues-and-Actions/Success-for-ELSF.aspx, which has nothing to do with tenure or all the other rigamarow Ms. Rhee constantly complains about.  Aspire seems to be anti-competitive, which is anti-Michelle Rhee and anti-Jeffrey Canada. This all makes for some interesting conversation.  I can find no mention of the bond issue nor the lawsuit issue.  No where can I find Michelle Rhee’s commentary………so I will leave the interpretation of all of this to the reader.

This demonstrates to me once again that charter schools have been so busy marketing and touting themselves that reality never had a chance. Aspire is a not for profit CORPORATION. By reasonable standards, people should be flinching about the lack of competitiveness Aspire Public Schools operates under.  The message may well be that test scores really do not tell the whole story, even though Aspire and Michelle Rhee would have us believe otherwise with propaganda.

This is Aspire 15 years out. I have to wonder if this is what Don Shalvey, James Wilcox, Wayne Hilty and Elise Darwish prepared for in advance and escaping to Tennessee is not the entire answer. It would seem that abandoning  part or all they sought to change in CA is definitely not a good answer for students, investors and  public education.  With Wall St. having brought down the economy,  limited and insufficient disclosure to Fitch does not seem to be in line with what the public would like to know.

LIMITED AND INSUFFICIENT DISCLOSURE

Under the bonds’ continuing disclosure agreement, the lawsuit does not       appear to qualify as a ‘significant event.’ However, given Aspire’s significant concerns regarding the lawsuit, Fitch views the lack of       communication until after the proposed statement of decision negatively.       In addition, the March 21, 2012 disclosure statement made no reference   to the serious risks, including possible default, cited by management in       its declarations to the court.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for June 8. Fitch will   continue to monitor developments in the lawsuit and their potential   ramifications for bondholders.

Of course the real concern is how did these people NOT have an appropriate long term business plan in place knowing CA politics?  What are the board of directors http://www.aspirepublicschools.org/?q=board thinking? I have to wonder if even Superman can make this better considering charter schools have touted that their composition is based on their ability to do it better for less.  Jeffrey Canada, are you paying attention?

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Devil’s Advocate for the day…….

May 15, 2012 at 04:30 (Economy and Me, Education Observations, What might this person(s) be thinking?)
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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/eighth-graders-show-improvement-in-science-achievement-on-the-nations-report-card-2012-05-10

http://lhsfoss.org/introduction/index.html

Unlike being principal for a day, being the devil’s advocate for a day allows one to really ask some tough questions. I don’t know that I can solve the problems noted from tough questions even though I know some of the places to begin the research.

Based on scores released by NAEP (National Assessment for Educational Progress or ‘The Nation’s Reportcard’) for science results in Grade 8 of school year 2011, there is little to cheer about. In fact, if one were to actually read between the lines of the below analysis by NAEP, people should be frightened.

….. those at the 90th percentile, which showed no significant change.

A five-point gain from 2009 to 2011 by Hispanic students was larger than the one-point gain for White students, an improvement that narrowed the score gap between those two groups.  (this translates to a total 4 point gain net)

Black students scored three points higher in 2011 than in 2009, narrowing the achievement gap with White students.

By contrast, the gender gap reflected in the 2009 science assessment remained essentially unchanged

Average scores for both girls and boys were higher in 2011 than in 2009; male students scored five points higher on average than female students in 2011.

Let me explain what I mean. If the entire test is worth 300 points, as noted below, a one, two or five point gain is almost worthless in merit. Another way to look at this is as follows:

The results are reported as average scores on a scale of 0 to 300 and also by three achievement levels: Basic, which denotes partial mastery of the knowledge and skills needed for proficient work; Proficient, which represents solid academic performance; and Advanced, which represents superior work. The percentages of students scoring at or above the Basic and Proficient levels were higher in 2011 than in 2009. In 2011, 65 percent of students performed at or above Basic; 32 percent performed at or above Proficient; and 2 percent performed at Advanced.

Categories are below basic (not listed here however basic is only a baseline of competency), basic, proficient and advanced. If basic denotes partial mastery, less than basic is not even mastered. All students should be at basic as a baseline with proficient and advanced as the categories which show who the real from fake science students are in Grade 8.

The stats are reported in a most confounding way as they are so depressing. Let me break it down for you.

In 2011, 65% performed at or above basic. This means 35% of students, a full one-third of Grade 8 students in the U.S. could not hit the ‘basic’ mark, in Grade 8…..we are not even talking college. 32% performed at or above proficient. This means that of the 65% at or above basic, 32% of the 65% were proficient. Another 33% of students (65-32) is only basic. 2% performed at advanced levels. So, (65-2) 63% were not advanced, in fact only 2% of all students were advanced.

I don’t know about the rest of you but 33% below basic and 33% at basic means 66% or 2/3 of our Grade 8 students are not learning much in science. This is FRIGHTENING, not something to state ‘encouragement’ over.

“The gains are encouraging, but the racial and gender gaps show a cause for concern,” said David P. Driscoll, chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for NAEP. “In order to compete in globally competitive and expanding fields like technology and medicine, we must make sure we give our students the tools necessary to excel in an important subject area.”

So, for today, some tough questions I wish to ask are the following:

(1) What percentage of schools in the U.S. use FOSS up to and including Gr 8?

(2) What are the other ‘line leaders’ for science education text books/packages/kits?  I believe the others to be Mcdougal Littell, Glencoe/McGraw-hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcout. 

(3) If FOSS states their kit is

FOSS is a research-based science curriculum for grades K–8 developed at the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California at Berkeley. The FOSS project began over 20 years ago during a time of growing concern that our nation was not providing young students with an adequate science education. The FOSS program materials are designed to meet the challenge of providing meaningful science education for all students in diverse American classrooms and to prepare them for life in the 21st century. Development of the FOSS program was, and continues to be, guided by advances in the understanding of how youngsters think and learn.

Science is an active enterprise, made active by our human capacity to think. Scientific knowledge advances when scientists observe objects and events, think about how they relate to what is known, test their ideas in logical ways, and generate explanations that integrate the new information into the established order. Thus the scientific enterprise is both what we know (content) and how we come to know it (process). The best way for students to appreciate the scientific enterprise, learn important scientific concepts, and develop the ability to think critically is to actively construct ideas through their own inquiries, investigations, and analyses. The FOSS program was created to engage students in these processes as they explore the natural world.

What does this mean in the way of test scores? And to that end, what is FOSS doing to shore up the achievement gap?

(4) What do other competitive programs say about their science text books/package/kits and what are they doing to shore up the achievement gap?

Since FOSS has been around 20 years, I would think the research based part of the program would start paying off some dividends in test scores.

It is impossible to blame science teachers as this issue is based in part or wholly on three factors.  NCLB did not start testing science until five years ago. The first year was to obtain a baseline for states. Teachers prior to NCLB and currently do not need a science background to teach science in middle school unless a particular district adopted the higher standards of credentialing.  Most teachers are terrified of teaching science unless they have a science education background. Last, but by far the least of problems is the shoddy text books and materials teachers are expected to use to provide a full, rich, exciting science curriculum.

I am guessing by now that many of you can follow the line of reasoning I am using. The devil is in the details and the details to our science success as a nation sucks.

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