The Great Education Myth

Back in December 2006, David Sirota wrote a piece for Huffington Post entitled "Obama - Power Challenger or Power Appeaser?" in which he noted how then presidential candidate Barack Obama was a purveyer of the "Great Education Myth" - that if we only raise education levels for all Americans, raise test scores, raise graduation rates, etc. we can solve the economic problems so many working, middle and now even affluent Americans are suffering as a result of globalization - problems like outsourcing, wage depression, and health care benefit/pension cuts.

Here's how Sirota put it:

This is one of the most dishonest myths out there, as the government's own data shows that, in fact, all of the major economic indicators are plummeting for college grads. You can make everyone in America a PhD, and all you would have is more unemployed PhD's - it would do almost nothing to address the fact that the very structure of our economy - our tax system, our trade system and our corporate welfare system - is designed to help Big Money interests ship jobs offshore and lower wages/benefits here at home.

Sirota writes that so many politicians, including our current president, traffic in the Great Education Myth because it's easier to blame teachers, teachers unions, schools, and the education system for the economic ills we suffer as a result of globalization rather than take on the true creators of the problem - the Big Money multinational corporations who outsource the jobs, pressure Americans' wages downward, cancel health care/pension benefits and look to have American workers compete with workers in Sri Lanka and Thailand for a race to the bottom of the economic scale while they pay off the politicians in Washington with campaign contributions and cushy post-political jobs to look the other way.

That's exactly what the last administration did with No Child Left Behind and what the current administration is apparently going to do with its education policies. The problems of low wages, outsourcing, lay-offs, falling 401 (k)'s can all be laid at the feet of teachers and the public school system. What we need, the president says, is longer school days, a longer school year, increased testing, and an AIG-type merit pay bonus system for teachers based upon test scores to solve our economic ills (and note too how he gave this education speech to a bunch of business "leaders" at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, further underscoring just how much he and his administration trust the guidance and wisdom of business leaders to take our country out of the current financial mess these self-same business leaders created.)

Of course Obama's belief that "fixing" America's public school system will fix the economic fall-out from globalization is horse#$%^. Here's Sirota again:

This isn't to say that we should underfund America's schools, or that our education system isn't a priority. Of course it is. But it is downright destructive to peddle the idea that paying teachers more or better funding the No Child Left Behind Act will be the major key to solving the problems inherent in a globalization policy that incentivizes slave labor, sweatshops, union busting and environmental degradation. All this Tom Friedman-inspired Great Education Myth does is raise public expectations to unrealistic levels while creating a justification for continuing to sell off our country's core economic policy to K Street lobbyists.

And that's it in a nutshell - divert attention from the real culprits for America's economic problems by blaming teachers, schools and of course teachers unions, all the while propping up the current dying financial system by handing out trillions in bailout money to the financial industry in the form of TARP money, TALF money and ancillary other forms of corporate welfare. But the real problem is not teachers and schools on Main Street, the real problem is the globalization policies in Washington and Wall Street (and let us note how so many "education reformers" are also corporate raiders, con-men, crooks and hedge fund managers - no accident that the people who want to "reform" the system are the same people pillaging it.)

Obama's education policy is just another example of how the "Change You Can Believe In" promises we heard from him during the campaign were nothing but empty slogans - about the only change Obama seems to believe in was a change of his own address.

Meet the new boss, Boss Obama - busy propping up the status quo of a globalized corporate world where wages are pressured downward and Americans are told they're going to have to work longer and harder to maintain a lifestyle that their parents and grandparents took for granted.

He looks a lot like the old boss, Boss Bush.

The Suzuki Method

My poor writing students are struggling through yet another listening passage designed by NY State to bore everyone to death as quickly as possible. This time I went back to the last century, 1999 precisely, to a passage about the Suzuki method of violin instruction. The theory is kids learn the violin just as they learned to speak, but according to the passage, it doesn't work as well in America as it did in Japan.

Apparently we don't do things quite as naturally as they do in Japan, but rather we just make kids play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star until their arms fall off. Having experienced this a little, and having seen kids who'd been in the program for years sawing away at things that didn't sound precisely like music, I can't argue with that. Of course, the results must be better at least sometimes, or why would all those folks be dragging their kids to classes so early on Saturday mornings.

One of my students, though, had an even more interesting interpretation, and I'll write it from memory, sparing you a few grammar issues:

The US is a democratic country. Parents don't want to spend time with their kids playing violin. Also, they don't want anyone telling their kids how to play or what to do. Parents want their kids to do what they want and they don't care what anyone tells them. Parents want teachers to leave them alone and leave their kids alone. The Suzuki method won't work here because no one listens to anyone and no one wants anyone to tell them what to do.

Well, I have to get back to my daily routine of letting my kid run rampant and do whatever the hell she feels like whenever she feels like doing it. And any teachers who criticize her, who try to give her any direction or reign in her reign of terror, well, I've got a knuckle sandwich for them

This is America, dammit!

It's April Fool's...

...at Miss Cellania's. Where else can you find bacon in a squeeze bottle?

Q: How Do You Get Reverend Al Sharpton to Team Up with Joel Klein?

A: Give him 500,000 dollars.

But I Can't Do It

You have to wonder what kids think and do when no circumstances follow their bad behavior. I had a kid disappear from my class for months, and then show up out of the blue. This was only because I'd discovered he was attending the class of one of my colleagues, where I went and confronted him. And having finally found a working phone number, I summoned his dad up to school.

Dad was very surprised he'd been out of class so long. Dad didn't notice he wasn't doing homework because in any case, junior spends all his time on the computer. I suggested removing the computer until his grades came up. Oh, no, that would be impossible. He'd go out all night somewhere and never come back.

So dad is pretty much convinced that junior has to be indulged, and has to do what he wants when he wants, of there will be consequences. For him, not the kid. That's precisely backwards, but I was somehow unable to get that message across. As a result, this kid, who's managed not to acquire English after four years in the country (something you really have to work at), will probably be able to continue to avoid it.

One of my colleagues had a discussion with a parent who complained about his phone bill--I don't remember how much it was, but it entailed an awful lot of texting. This phone bill indicated the kid was texting when he was in class (or at least when he was supposed to be in class), and other times, like two in the morning on school nights. She suggested they turn off the phone. Oh no, they couldn't possibly do that.

Well, then, why don't they just give it to him at times when he should be using it? Oh, no, he needs the phone.

Kids, though, need supervision. And honestly, if their parents won't provide it now, they're going to have to learn some other way in the future. Maybe it will work out for them. On the other hand, maybe it won't. Personally, with a teenager, I'd err on the side of making them learn now.

It's Torture...

...but only when other countries do it, according to the hand that feeds Jay Matthews.

Surprise, Surprise

In case you need another reason to oppose mayoral control, the NY Post has just endorsed it. If you look at the Post editorial and op-ed pages, you'll find it consists of 100% right-wing points of view. So if you happen to be a big fan of O' Reilly and Hannity, this is the place for you.

Rarely do they find anything worthwhile in anything or anyone remotely connected to the Democratic party. Notable exceptions have included the disastrous 05 NYC teacher contract, the one that set us back 20 years and failed to meet cost of living, and, of course, US Education Secretary Arne Duncan's pronouncement that mayoral control is a huge success.

"I'm looking at the data here in front of me," US Education Secretary Arne Duncan tells Post readers in an interview published today.

"Graduation rates are up. Test scores are up. Teacher salaries are up. Social promotion was eliminated. Dramatically increasing parental choice.

Clearly, though, examining the data is beyond the capacity of Mr. Duncan. Mr. Duncan has no notion of Tweed's recurrent efforts to pass everyone regardless of performance. He hasn't read Diane Ravitch and has no notion of what the NAEP scores mean, or why test scores rose most before Bloomberg's programs even kicked in.

It's pathetic that we won the election, and now have an Education Secretary who's incapable of examining data any more deeply than Rupert Murdoch's despicable one-sided rag.

A Lesson for Bill Maher

It's always illuminating to hear things from people who have not the remotest notion what they're talking about, and as a teacher, I get to hear things from all sorts of people. For example, you get folks like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Walmart family, who toss money about to make sure unionized employees are marginalized, all under the guise of "protecting the children. "

Never mind that when the children grow up they'll have to choose from the crappy jobs Bill, Eli, and Wally World have left them.

Then you get lower-level hedge fund guys, like Whitney Tilson, who invest heavily in companies like MacDonald's and Walmart, and want to make sure we have a ready crop of low-salaried drones to keep pumping bucks into the pockets of rich people. All together, they form odious groups like the "Democrats for Education Reform," which push non-unionized charters to exploit teachers, one of the last bastions of organized labor in the country.

It's very disappointing to find someone like Bill Maher lining up with these demagogues. Maher, as you may recall, was dismissed from his ABC show in 2002 for making controversial remarks. You'd think he'd have some empathy for teachers who could find themselves in the same situation. Maher thinks unions need to be broken, but it's pretty clear what can happen to teachers without unions. It's also clear that folks like Joel Klein and Al Sharpton are fine with working people being treated like that, but I'd think Maher would question the privatization of education, particularly given what he said about the Bushies for eight years.

Personally, I'm not much enamored of bad teachers, and I'm afraid I have little sympathy for them. On the other hand, teacher unions neither hired them nor granted them tenure. What does Maher have to say about the administrations who did? What does Maher think about Chancellor Klein going to Albany to plead for the right to retain 14,000 teachers who couldn't pass a basic competency test, some of whom had failed it dozens of times? While these tough times may allow cities the luxury of denying employment to these folks, the fact is they'll drag them back as soon as the economy looks up and they need to continue paying the lowest wage in the area.

And personally, I value tenure a great deal. A few years ago I identified two kids in my ESL classes who were fluent in English but could not read. I remember one of them had remarkable listening skills, and was very good at participating on the basis of what he'd heard, but was unable to identify words like "house" and "mother" when I wrote them out for him. I found out he'd been kicking around the city system for years, and when I called his mom, she knew about it and asked me to help him.

At the same time, I'd been communicating with a NY Times columnist who wanted to use this info. He asked if he could use my name, and said it would be OK if I had tenure. This in itself suggested without it, I couldn't have told the truth.

Nonetheless, when the writer used my name in a fax to the DoE, I got called for a marathon session in the principal's office, in which school leaders of every stripe made sure their posteriors were covered, and not one word was uttered as to the welfare or future of the kids I'd identified, both of whom had somehow stopped attending by the time things hit the fan. This was regarded as a positive thing by some, who claimed it provided additional cover. I was later told by an uninvolved administrator there were no programs available for such kids.

And I found myself unable to get textbooks for my students for over a year. Ironically, when some geniuses from Tweed came and saw my kids sharing the decrepit books I kept in my classroom, they complimented me for utilizing cooperative learning. Still, I have no question I'd have been fired if I hadn't had tenure. And lacking Mr. Maher's celebrity, I've no doubt my teaching career would have ended right then and there if that principal had half a chance.

Where I live, teachers are thoroughly interviewed before they get to set foot in a classroom. And tenure is not granted as a matter of course. But teachers who bother to question the often preposterous things that occur in places like Mr. Bloomberg's New York, teachers like me, we need tenure.

It's sad that Bill Maher has opted to join the ranks of the wealthy and ignorant, who can't be bothered with those of us who need to support our families, let alone our kids, who will need to support theirs as well.

Pole Dance

Makes you wanna get down, don't it?

Up the Academey

You gotta love the schools that visit you, but don't appear to know how to spell their own names.

Personally, I get upset when other people misspell my name. But if I were the one misspelling it, what do you suppose the teacher bashers would be saying?

Probably that I should be shucking oysters, and that we need more charter schools.

Thanks to David Bellel and Dr. Homeslice

Nick Kristof Rides Again

Check out Mr. Kristof's column in which he posits that experts (like himself) don't actually know what they're talking about. Of course, we knew that a long time ago.

Rising College Costs?

Why not sell your virginity online?

It Takes a Classy Person...

...to buy a cup of coffee for 38 bucks.

Klepto

Vivian couldn't find her sunglasses. They were brand new, and her aunt said they were expensive. And when Juan lost his I-Pod touch, it was as though the world had ended. Not only that, but two cell phones had disappeared. Sure, they shouldn't have had them anyway, but could Mayor Bloomberg have really had them disappeared through sheer billionaire willpower?

And where is that 7-dollar chalkholder I've been boasting about all these years? What on earth would anyone want with that? Well, it could be another teacher. After all, I've been walking around telling people my 7-dollar chalkholder clearly demonstrates I'm a better teacher than they are, not to mention a better human being. As I've repeatedly told my reading classes, these things and worse come of hubris.

On the other hand, what's the deal with Steven? A kid claimed to have seen him with a Swiss army knife the other day when he was leaving the trailer. And when I went to his next class, another kid said she saw it too. And even though he'd already called it quits and left school, when we called his house his mom said she was missing her Swiss Army knife. Not having proof, though, there wasn't much we could do.

But what really took the cake was when he sat in a crowded office and slipped a box of cookies into his backpack in front of half a dozen witnesses. When an adult confronted him and opened the backpack, he said the cookies had fallen into the bag and the zipper had shut by itself. How do people even think of this stuff?

And short of becoming Governor of Illinois, Mayor of NYC, or Bernie Madoff, how can you get by acting like this?

Who Wants That Job?

One of my colleagues overheard a bunch of smart girls trying to decide who to invite to the Arista installation. That's a group that lets the smart kids know how smart they are by letting them join a whole group of smart kids.

"Someone has to invite Mr. Educator," one of them said.

"But he's a pain in the neck," said another. "You can't make him do anything."

"Last year he had an excuse. He said he was working," offered one girl, with a knowing nod.

"Do you believe him?"

"Absolutely not," one of them replied instantly.

"What about you, Linda? He won't say no to you?"

"Why not?"

"Well, I've never seen him scream at you or anything."

"Okay," said Linda. "I'll ask him. But I'm not making any promises."

And it turns out I'm not working that night, for the first time I can remember, so now I have to go. I hope they have donuts. I think smart kids deserve donuts at the very least.

Who's in Charge Here, Anyway?

Well, if you happen to be inquiring about the NY State Board of Regents, as of April 1st, that would be Meryl Tisch, from one of "the city's most philanthropic families." That's important, of course, because in Mayor Bloomberg's New York, only rich people have the insight to dictate to poor people what sort of education they need.

For just one example, last year NYC's public school parents selected smaller class sizes as their number one concern. Fortunately, chief "accountability" officer Jim Liebman was able to conflate their number two and three concerns, and let parents know that class size wasn't their number one concern after all. That's what "accountability" officers do when they aren't literally running from public school parents.

Back to Ms. Tisch, one might ask where all those "philanthropic" funds came from. Well, a good deal of them came via the sale of Newport cigarettes, which they gave up last June. Apparently, the Tisch family was uncomfortable with selling such an odious product, which explains why they flirted with the idea for a mere forty years before renouncing it. As for Ms. Tisch personally, her philosophies seem ultimately very much in sync with billionaire Mayor Mike, according to Elizabeth Green of Gotham Schools:

Though Tisch has been a strong supporter of Mayor Bloomberg, she has also occasionally criticized him and his schools chancellor, Joel Klein. She told the Times last year that she disagreed with Klein’s request for looser regulations on state funds. “Nobody appointed him czar,” she said. She also testified to a committee that mayoral control of the schools, which Bloomberg strongly supports, should be curtailed. I reported her testimony, which was originally secret, at the New York Sun

Yet Tisch’s plans for the state’s public schools, which she laid out in a long statement accepting the new position, sound many similar notes to the Bloomberg administration’s work in New York City. It also echoes the Obama administration’s plans for education.

It's unfortunate that Ms. Tisch is so profoundly unaware of what's going on with public school kids that she'd dally with such preposterous and counterproductive "reforms." In her favor, it appears that unlike Chancellor Klein, Bill Gates, Jay Matthews, Randi Weingarten, and the other "experts," Ms. Tisch has actually spent several years working as a teacher. So perhaps there's a glimmer of hope somewhere.

If I could ask Ms. Tisch one thing, I'd ask her to stop requiring kids who arrived in the USA five minutes ago to take the English Regents. That way, folks like me could get back to the business of teaching them English, which personally, I've found very useful.

What would you ask Ms. Tisch?

Thanks to Greg D.

This Old Bag

No, I'm not talking about some idiotic remark from Andy Capp or The Lockhorns. I have this great bag that's functioned pretty much as my office for the last seven or eight years. It's been dragged through every nook and cranny of our building, every half-room, every trailer and every office I've been through. I leave it in back of my car almost all the time, and I depend on it absolutely.

It's full of Dr. Grip pens and pencils faithfully purchased through Teacher's Choice, and every thing is in its place. There are erasers, there's a legal pad, and best of all, there are three rings right there so I don't have to shlep around a Delaney Book. This saves Mayor Bloomberg thirty bucks right there, as NYC is way too smart to buy 99-cent binders from Staples.

But from a corner, it came. The remark. "You need a new bag, Meester."

Oh no. Could it be true? I asked a girl on the side of the room who looked objective.

"You have to get rid of that thing," she said. "It's old."

What could be worse in her eyes? Sure, it's got two compartments, with two zippers on each, and one zips only to the right, while the other zips only to the left. I guess I could get them fixed for thirty bucks at the luggage store that fixed it last time. But then I'll be without it for days.

Or I could go to Staples and look for a new one. But I'll miss that old bag if I do.

Should I listen to the kids and replace that dilapidated piece of junk? Or should I respect tradition and preserve this valuable antique?

Target Practice

I've been following education news for years now. I'm consistently amazed at how teachers are such a convenient scapegoat. The same people who make sure city kids are taught in oversized classes in trailers and bathrooms and hallways are all over the press, crying about the terrible things teachers are doing. It's an easy sell, too, if you don't look at the whole picture, which not even the President bothers to do.

If AIG weren't so prominently in the news, maybe we'd be the ones ducking the press. One difference, of course, is AIG's leadership at least issues instructions to survive angry mobs. Here in the city, part-time UFT President Randi Weingarten can't wait to get on the anti-labor bandwagon, saying everything but vouchers is on the table. Oddly, she says that in the context of DC schools, where there's already a voucher program. So what is sacrosanct?

Meanwhile, Ms. Weingarten couldn't wait to bring Green Dot to NYC, with its phony union that offers neither tenure nor seniority rights, and its "just cause" provision that, for all I can tell, has never been tested, let alone protected a teacher job. Still, its hapless teachers pay dues, as will their replacements, so honestly, who cares? Plus, the embrace of charters makes Ms. Weingarten a "reformer."

The news media is awash with coverage of charter schools, which cover a very small percentage of real live kids. Protecting or improving public schools is beside the point, and not even Ms. Weingarten, who moonlights as part-time AFT Prez, will stand up and state the obvious.

It's pathetic that the United States, particularly at this point, can persist in the outrageous fiction that unionized working people are responsible for our decline. But if you want an alternate point of view, you'll have to look to those of us dodging the slings and arrows.

You know where to find us. The truth is, though, most people don't.

AIG Sues Us

We've given them 200 billion, and own 80% of their company, such as it is. But apparently, we didn't allow deductions for its deals in "offshore tax havens," so AIG is suing us for 306 million it paid in taxes.

No wonder its executives have to issue instructions on how to survive an angry mob.

Help Promote Literacacy

Stolen from Miss Cellania