60 YEARS AND THINGS ARE WORSE
60 years has come and gone and the least integrated school systems in the country (according to data from DC) are those in big BLUE states. So New York, New Jersey, Michigan, California etc…
These states quietly keep their minorities sequestered in inner cities with new immigrant arrivals while the high-tax-paying homogeneous communities can afford higher levels of education and achievement.
The South (according to the report, and just pick through the NYT and WP) is more integrated than the North.
Why? Because we trap minorities into complex city and city-outlays and whites move to high-income/high-tax systems that are more competitive. This happens MORE in California, New York/New Jersey and other blue states. I’m sorry, but the whole idea of “Closing the Gap” is more akin to “Closing the Door.”
Today we had a parent who was incensed that her child might not pass the summer session. She called in a fury and insisted that the teacher pass the child. After all, she paid the fee for summer tuition – her child now had to pass. The child at the center of this moment has handed in no homework, was graded poorly on class assignments and hasn’t passed a single test. But… “she paid.”
Why is it that our children are increasingly doing less? Why are we educators so tired that we might not have enough fight left for the parents who think they are buying a service rather than developing their children? One may or may not know that I teach in a low-income area. However this problem is just as looming in a more affluent world as well. Some scenarios that we know of?
Someone’s parents are friends with the president of a school board.
Someone else’s family was a school benefactor in acquiring seats in the cafeteria.
Certain parents came up with $25,000 needed for an important school trip. They want A’s? They got A’s!
But what happens when no one cares about the process of learning itself and only wants an end-result immediately? How is it that the internet is a magical place where knowledge is conveyed like the scene from the movie The Matrix where an attack helecopter can be flown seconds after a program is downloaded? Learning doesn’t work that way…yet.
Our children are lost in the business of what priorities are important, and I’m afraid we are as well. If I run a school like the hotel or “day-care/well-as-long-as-they’re-here-you-might-as-well-teach-them-something” place, I’ll break down some costs.
- If one wants paper and pencil for your child, that’s $500 for the year. 180 days? 250/180? About $1.35 per day. Not so bad.
- Text books? Well that’s about $750 for the year. Or about $4.00 per day.
- The teacher/concierge/day-care learning person: How about $30,000 to cover rent, food, transport, insurance (they are handing YOUR child after all), and once a year, a short 4-day vacation.
- If the teacher has to be in another room; another teacher. Another $30,000. Or between the two, $320 per day for 180 days. After all, families want to take vacations in November, December, February, April, and definitely the summer off.
- If one wants a child to have a quality breakfast, lunch and snack; $11.00 per day.
- Technology – that’s a capital cost of $2,000 to cover a tablet, updated applications, and maintenance. About $11.00 a day.
- Extra activities like gym, music, art, field trips. Well each of these disciplines takes a correctly-certified professional. Another $90,000. Another $490 per day in the School/Hotel/Day-care thingy place.
Let’s take a total here:
Pen/Pencil/Paper $1.35/day
Books $4.00/day
Teacher/Concierge $160.00/day
Back-up Teacher $160.00/day
The Buddy Bench
http://republicanherald.com/news/buddy-bench-makes-debut-at-blue-mountain-elementary-east-1.1682277
We could all use a “buddy bench” at school, at work, and at our houses of worship and community centers. We need to bring “nice to each other” back in style. Here’s how…
#1 – Cancel all reality series that focus on “showdowns” between rich people that the rest of us don’t need to watch week after week – nor do our kids.
#2 – Cancel all of the “TMZ/Entertainment Tonight” type of shows that follow celebrities who will most likely not bother to turn on a tv to watch our lives.
#3 – Stop paying athletes who turn out to be thugs.
#4 – Stop giving money to countries that hate us.”
#5 – Make it mandatory to graduate ALL: Middle school, high school and college, with a minimum of 10 hours of community service work.
#6 – Work only for companies that give us up to three days to a week of paid time to work at a cause sight (i.e. local or US-based disaster area, food bank, community cause) to do good.
#7 – Stop by a neighbor who we know is on his or her own (especially if he or she is an older adult or single parent) and ask if they need any errands, chores or help.
Our “leaders” and businesses are not coming to our rescue. We need to help each other, and then change the world by renewing the people in charge with better-thinking people.
It’s Just The Beginning…
This educated, and highly qualified mother, speaks to the Board of Education regarding the Common Core. The people who want to see the Common Core implemented, are the people in greatest power, who do not want to give up power. The Common Core has nothing to do with education. It is a smoke screen to steal tax-payer dollars and continue to fuel the richest few. If you don’t believe it now, especially after viewing this video, you will within only five years, when the super-rich and powerful start to leave public life, without a trace of monetary wealth or energy left for the rest of us.
H.E.L.L. (Haphazard Education Learning Lingo)
Sorry for the wait, I just got a break and have some time to sound off.
I look at acronyms taking over our educational lives, and think we’ve finally arrived at a place that’s N.U.T.S. (not unlike tyrannical servitude). In education, the systematic driving out of teachers is not by accident, and it has very little to do with M.O.N.E.Y. (motivator oblivion necessary [to] evade accuracY). To be brief, the motivating factor is power over the masses of future generations. Hence the unbearable and absolutely baffling “code” of current acronyms in education, and beyond.
If teachers can be distracted by SGO’s (student growth objectives), SGP’s (student growth percentiles), VAM’s (value-added measurements), and other ridiculous and preposterous acronyms, then the last bastion of FREE K.N.O.W.L.E.D.G.E. (kickstart new options with love every day [for the] good [of] everyone) in the general populous, is doomed. Without teachers, learners of any age will be dependent on what they attain as knowledge from an unlimited amount of limited sources. Some parents may home-school their children, but this will follow almost a full generation of their own lack of great public or even private education.
The intention is total dependency on the the people in power – whether it’s the government or the private sector wealth-holders. You can call it communism, totalitarianism, absolute power, or other frightening descriptor, however the fact of the matter is that this IS frightening. Some people are sick of hearing that education is under F.I.R.E. (forced intervention [to] rid excellence). Mark this short post as a H.E.A.D.S. U.P. (help educators avert destruction [of] students’ unlimited potentials) and to not stand by allow the few to rule the many. If history were important in the school any longer, we’d have learned that lesson by now. Just some Stern Advice.
The Future – A Sound Off
Ten years ago, when NCLB (No Child Left Behind) was enacted, there was hope for a moment, that all students had a chance to succeed. Before that, students who were academically capable went through high school, onto college, and then into either a good position with growth in a company, or had a the perseverance to start a new idea, develop it, evolve it, and succeed with it; or its prodigy.
In observing humans, when people become powerful through self-success, or a chosen position, I’ve noticed that a difficult and ugly turn is taken, so that the most important task to the person, is to hold onto that power, no matter the cost – economically, emotionally, environmentally, or humanistically.
So when the idea of controlling school funding comes into play, we have a vast wealth of money for opportunists who claim to have “rainmaking abilities” – much like snake oil salespeople in the 1800 territories, or something you’d see in the movie “The Rainmaker.”
“We’ve got a problem. If you just follow me, I’ll make all of your problems disappear. Take this elixir and you’ll live to 100!” Sound familiar? Now it’s “Your children need a new way of learning. We’re not performing to the standards that we should. We’ve got this problem. Just try this new learning system (by the way, anyone counting how many mistakes are in the answer books to Singapore Math?), and you’ll live to see college!”
It’s a show. And there’s no comedy in it, because our children are suffering greatly for it. Read the next part to learn about Acronym H.E.L.L. (Haphazard Education Learning Lingo) and other stupid and ridiculous methods.
Dear Google, You Should Have Talked to Me First
On Homework
Homework has benefits that we can capture, data and analyze. Homework also has so many profits that we won’t be able to see for years. From the website, http://www.lessonplanspage.com, 10 Benefits are:
Benefits of Homework:
1.Homework teaches students about time management.
- Homework teaches students how to setting priorities.
- Homework helps teachers determine how well the lessons are being understood by their students.
- Homework teaches students how to problem solve.
- Homework gives students another opportunity to review the class material.
- Homework gives parents a chance to see what is being learned in school.
- Homework teaches students that they may have to do things – even when they don’t want to.
- Homework teaches students how to take responsibility for their part in the educational process.
- Homework teaches students how to work independently.
- Homework teaches students the importance of planning, staying organized and taking action.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Homework-Myth-Kids-Thing/dp/0738211117
Taking home a responsibility is a meaningful action for an impressionable young mind. If you are a teacher or parent, how many times have your children wanted and have asked to help you in a task you are doing? How many ask the simplest question, “Can I help?” My own daughter used to ask me constantly each day. I let her do something meaningful, and other times I did not want her to do something I thought would be non-beneficial. Helping with the chores was my biggest mistake. Now almost a teen, getting her to clean her room is a daily day in court.
Whether we are on the side of homework or not, I see many students in my daughters school excel beyond their expectations, and homework is a no-option requirement. It is also given with purpose and intent. I think that is the most notable argument against homework. If it’s there to log practice time, then I too believe it is not with the best intention of student outcome. But I can’t imagine a teacher, who knows the lives of his or her own students, who would assign homework for “kicks.” He or she is the one who eventually has to grade all of this work, so why is it in his or her best interest to assign it in the first place if it’s just time filler?
I ask the question – if we (or our children) did not have homework to master skills? Or projects to extend learning concepts? How well might we have been in our own academics?
Does anyone here born before 1970 remember homework? Do you remember the moment you understood one math problem? Pattern in math? Vocabulary relevance? Context clue?
Adding to all of the above, when we completed and handed in our homework, we felt a distinct sense of pride and accomplishment in our own work. I keep reliving the scene from A Christmas Story, where the lead character Ralphie thinks he’s got a Pulitzer coming about his C+ essay on a bee-bee gun. This book, this revolution in revulsion of homework as non-meaningful has done more harm to a half-generation of children and their families. The Homework Myth? Now THAT’S a myth. I think the author ought to know better, seeing as he is a part of my generation.
Give your students homework that is related to the day’s lessons. Give them projects that are related to the month’s lessons. Give them EXPO’s that are related to a marking period’s lessons and units. Most crucially, give them the chance to prove their knowledge – yes daily. Give them work – they can handle it, and if they can’t, then you best think of 25 years from now, and these same students are in charge of your life as a retired senior. Just some Stern Advice.
How Much is Too Much?
There are issues that eclipse our ability to teach anything. Our students in lower income and poor areas are trapped in situations that defy learning. If you have a home where your parents are always fighting over money, and the lights have been off for a week, and there is a half a box of cereal that has to last until tomorrow for five people, and on top of that more and more…. can you really think of doing your math homework?
The state of our time dictates that the low income and poor are REALLY all poor – including some of the working class like teachers, police, firefighters and nurses. It’s not enough in the economy today to even have a $10 / hour job. It does not allow a family to survive. On top of that, an emotionally wrecked parent is going to raise an emotionally wrecked child. This is not a judgement – it’s a realistic observation. Teachers are not there to be the be-all, end-all solution to the many many many problems that wreak havoc on the public school family.
If I were corporate talking heads, that want nothing more than to raid the public school coffers for the end-result of taking money for private gain, I’d worry about what education will be in merely five years. There will be NO teachers – and therefore nothing – between the haves and a populous that will have no problem doing anything they need to get by. Teachers are not to be used as a shield for poor children and young adults going awry into chaos. It will backfire. The more teachers realize the end-game result of the want of reformers, the sooner chaos will present itself.
Unfortunately, it’s inevitable.
Wondering if Science is Important to Your Elementary School Daughter?
Classroom, Community, Conscience
I cannot stress how vital 5-8 STEM education is at this moment. In addition, our schools have to shift their assumption that science and math are ” boys’ subjects” and that writing, philosophy, psychology and other ‘ caretaker’ roles will be reserved for girls. I see this more often than not, and it’s really not nefarious – so to speak- it’s more of our norms from generations past. We are the result of our parents and grandparents, and while there is romance in old notions, they are just that…old and notions, not reality. Moreover, another reality is that if young girls do not see women advancing in the sciences, then why will they want to pursue the sciences themselves? They need to have women science teachers and women scientist role models. Some of us like getting our hands dirty and our minds challenged. When THIS becomes a norm, then inspiring girls in STEM will be easy. Just some Stern Advice. 🙂
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