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Sunday, January 31, 2010

New and Improved! Technology initiatives in education.

Time for a big-ass rant.

The Tempered Radical knows why teachers give up on Interactive White Boards. With some major snipping, and hoping I don't eliminate context:
What bothers me ... is an attitude towards teachers that I see often in conversations about school change. "Teachers all resistant to change and lazy!" the argument goes. "If they'd just be persistent and determined, our schools would be saved." ... The general belief is that teachers lack determination and commitment in almost every circumstance.
... that's a flawed assumption. ... the amount of effort that most changes take doesn't align with the corresponding benefits that change is designed to produce. ... The software wasn't designed to naturally facilitate the kinds of teaching that I believe in and limited access to the hardware required that I restructure learning time in my classroom almost every day.
I'm all over this. I think that the programmers who do this stuff should spend some time teaching to find out how the "real-world" will use it and what those teachers actually need. This is, for me, the crux of the problem. Those who write don't know what problem they are trying to solve and often do not have a clue as to how I will use it. (Sort of an educational consultant, no?)

Then, the pressures of making a sale get in the way of making my life easier. All too often, the person making the purchase isn't the one who gets to use it. Even if they asked the teachers, they're still asking someone who hasn't used it and can't really tell.

There are four major problems with technology and tech initiatives: Variety, the learning curve, Usability and Availability.

The rant is below this break.


Variety:
MS Word, OpenOffice, Google Docs; MAC vs PC; wikis, blogs, GoogleDocs, twitter, facebook, a million Web2.0 sites; GradeQuick, Powerschool, BlackBoard. This list is a tiny fraction of the options available to me. If I put everything together for PC and the Office suite, should I suddenly redo it all when the school upgrades - or when my wife's school upgrades and the home computers do or don't?

Does Scott Macleod's obsession with transformation mean that I have to transform according to his specifications? I hope not.

I am using what works for me. Your flavor might work too, but as Bill argues and I agree, the cost of conversion is often higher than I care to spend right now. And I'm one of the geeks. What actual benefit can be found in converting? Tell me that and I'll go for it.

My colleagues have a higher "benefit" threshold, though. Online gradebooks started this year (I volunteered to do the training), and I stressed the ease of printing a progress report and the chance to put things online for ill students. Had I told everyone that they had to be fully invested from the word "go", they'd have tuned me out. It would have been nice to repurpose some inservice time for it, but we managed.

Like the Highly Ineffectual Principal he is though, our HIPster didn't get it. He is now ratcheting up the "standards" before anyone is comfortable. He wants everyone to put lots of time into it but can't free us from mindnumbing inservices to do it. Pushback. Push back.

Technology isn't the magic cure-all, either. I LOVE blackboards. There really isn't much reason to eliminate the 18 feet of beautiful slate in favor of a 4 foot piece of gee-whiz. If the IWB is an addition, then "woot!" but new isn't necessarily better, it's just different.

You don't need Excel to average 20 numbers. Or even a calculator.
You don't need a spreadsheet or database to deal with your grades (but it does make things a little easier).
You don't need Blogger to tell your kids the homework. or texting, or podcasts, or wikis, or a lot of this junk. If you can, great. But you don't NEED it.

The learning curve:
This is the flip side of the "benefit" threshold - the cost of converting. You need to start small and give the faculty (and the students) the time and training to pick up the new software and make the changes to their daily lives to fit the software. If you don't give them either, they will nod and move to more pressing matters like, oh I don't know, maybe teaching?

The other thing is that you have confidentiality and sensitivity issues. Jumping right in and forcing everyone to play ball before training only makes the inevitable mistakes harder to handle.

I was called in to help another teacher fix her grades 70% of the way through the course. She hadn't weighted her terms or her categories properly and had wrong dates for terms, start dates, etc. -- and this was the computer teacher. I told the principal that unless he wanted to redo all of the transcripts for all of her students, then we shouldn't touch it because they were all going to get changed grades (a month after report cards had been sent).

We had gone too far, too fast and most faculty were barely getting it right and some, like this one, were messing up big time.

Added to this mess was that the guidance department was convinced it knew what it was doing, but was missing very important details, like making sure that global settings were done. This year, apparently, started in Aug 2008 and so all of the teachers' gradebooks thought the first day was fourth marking period. Then, the first day of 2010 was showing up as 1910 and the "out of chronological order" popups were flying everywhere -- because guidance hadn't applied the update that had come out six months earlier. BTW, the tech guy refuses to be responsible for the gradebook system because they purchased it without consulting him (or some such BS), so the guidance counselor is trying to do the administration for it, too. Not surprisingly, she doesn't get things right.

Usability:
Then, of course, you have usability, the redheaded step-child of the computer development teams. It's obvious they didn't think everything through.
  • Tell me why you need a "wizard" to add a mark to your spreadsheet.
  • Why can't I type in the date? Why do I have to use the drop down calendar?
  • Tell me why there isn't enough room in the category field for the word "classwork" or "participation" - haven't we heard of a lookup field and a normalized database?
  • Tell me why clicking on the spreadsheet adds a new student.
  • Why isn't there an UNDO feature?
  • Why does the guidance secretary need to click through 13 different menus and popups to import grades from a single course from one teacher and then print it out for verification?
  • Tell me why important settings are in four different preferences screens, accessible from different menus without rhyme or reason. The faculty ask "How do you know this stuff?" and I reply "Because I do it over and over with each of you and the repetition helps me remember. You only do this step once per year and it's something guidance should have set globally anyway -- why would you bother remembering it?"
  • Tell me why Blogger jumps me all the way to the top of my editing window if I bold-face something at the bottom?
  • Tell me why I'm ranting?
SmartBoard software is a dim cousin of, and less useful version of, PowerPoint, which is a problem all its own. The included graphics are lame, the lessons are silly and many are flawed, and the "tools" are pale versions of things found elsewhere. Any notebook gets edited by the student running it - there's no way to block those changes so the next kid can run it from the beginning. (What? Why?)

The lessons I find at TeqSmart are amazing in a "can't turn away from a trainwreck" sort of way. The learning curve on this piece of software is pretty steep and not worth the time and effort, in my mind, even though I did it.

But LOOKIE, I can TOUCH it! and wrilewrite with my finger. And it has SOUNDS! and I can ROLL a DIE! (pretty much how the 3-credit training course went) Yes, I got three credits for something learned in about 30 minutes RTFM. Sue me.

Availability
Why do I give a damn about a SmartBoard if I can't get one? I was told I could "Borrow" the one from across the hall. Anyone who has one knows how that would go. If I make every kid use Google Docs, they all have to have Google accounts. If I want everyone on Excel, I have to have a computer for at least half of them. This gets expensive. If you want to throw money away on a one-laptop-per thing, okay, I'll go along and make use of it. Otherwise, shut up and let me use my blackboard. I'll sign out the computer room when I can, but there ARE other teachers in the building.

In summation:
I am in favor of technology and would actively use an IWB were it to appear in my room, but I get annoyed when people like Scott Macleod go all "Techno uber alles" on me.

Kids minds haven't changed much in the "mumble-mumble" years I've been doing this. They can put their toys away and learn.

Learning is hard and technology is no shortcut. "There is no Royal Road" and all that. GeeWhiz is like CheeseWhiz - kids love it, it's sorta nutritious and it holds their attention, but it isn't all that great most times.

P6: Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.
Forget that at your peril.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Hurricane Bloomberg

NYTimes: "The votes to close the schools fell along political lines, with the appointees of the Manhattan, Queens, Bronx and Brooklyn borough presidents voting against the closings while each of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s appointees approved them without question."

Kinda says it all, doesn't it?

Apocalypse Reform

From AccountableTalk:
Arne Duncan on hurricanes and education: "The best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina. That education system was a disaster. And it took Hurricane Katrina to wake up the community to say that we have to do better."
Whew. I'm glad he cleared that up. I'm sure that makes it all better. Now it's New York's turn with Major Bloomberg.

"We had to close the school in order to save it"

An update below the fold.

Update, based on RightontheleftCoast's concern that people will try to make hay out of this:
I didn't think "Searchlight Harry" Reid was out of line for using the word "negro", and I don't think Duncan is out of line for saying what he did. Anyone with an ounce of integrity has to admit that he, like Reid in the instance I mentioned, is correct.

Now, if one of President Bush's secretaries had said something similar, well, the press would have exploded; instead, with Duncan, we get a blurb on an ABC blog. This story might get a little traction, but certainly not as much as it would have under a Republican administration.

To be honest, I hope the NEA and other usual suspects do criticize Duncan for saying this. It would show, yet again, that they don't really care about education or about teachers, they just care about getting more money for their own self-aggrandizement. And if they think they can score some cool points by attacking the Secretary of Education for saying something as obvious as the nose on his face, you can bet they will.

I've got to disagree. Having the Secretary of Education posit that the hurricane was the best thing that ever happened to New Orleans education is way over the line, in my opinion. While not to the point of needing to call out Godwin's Law, it is of that nature.

Death and destruction on a massive scale is not a good thing, even if you could possibly find "fault" with the people of New Orleans for the disaster. As Arne points out, the progress in four years is unbelievable -- no kidding. When you start from scratch, there's nowhere else to go.

While "They have a long way to go" "They were not serious about education before" "desperately underserved" may be correct (and that's debatable, too, since not ALL were so) but it is nanny-state, elitist, and condescending. "That city was not serious about its education" is pretty simplistic. In their situation, I'd tell the Secretary where he could shove his opinion, and offer him my boot to help insert.

How many other areas of the country have similar educational problems - should we ask for an earthquake to solve San Francisco's problems, sea-level rise to solve New York's, and a ten-day tornado-driven basketball-hail ice-storm to solve Vermont's? (we're tough - takes a big disaster to bring us down)

Okay, I'm being extreme. Maybe Arne should have said that "Katrina wiped out a lot of good along with the bad, but that in a time of so much personal devastation, the people of New Orleans have shouldered this great burden and have taken the opportunity to completely revamp their whole system as they build from the ground up."

Just because he was appointed by a Democrat doesn't make Duncan wrong, and the NEA should speak up whenever something isn't right, Republican or no. Condemning this doesn't mean "It would show, yet again, that they don't really care about education or about teachers, they just care about getting more money for their own self-aggrandizement." That's pretty damn near a fallacy right there.

The State of the Climate Debate

Is this the best they can come up with?
Temp is -12 global warming degrees F up the mountain at Killington today. Think I'll just ski half a day, have a couple of beers and some chili, and drive back to NYC.
or:
Late Thursday evening, in the hour before midnight, I found myself driving home from the airport amidst howling winds, blowing-and-drifting snow, and rapidly-falling temperatures. Watching the temperature dropping on the display of my truck's exterior-monitoring thermometer, an interesting and possibly didactic exercise occurred to me:

Ponder the following three factoids:
o The long-term average high temperature for this time of year (at the BTV airport reporting station) is 27F;
o Monday, the temperature reached into the low 50s;
o Friday (yesterday), the temperature struggled to reach into the low single-digits.

Do the math and ponder what these things tell you about the nature of the underlying "system"....

I know that this is supposed to be a clever rebuttal of the Climate Change theory, but I just can't bring myself to do anything but laugh at it. What a pathetic attempt.

I'm glad I don't live near the ocean in one of those low-lying cities like New York or Los Angeles. Though, to be able to travel by ship through the Northwest Passage which has opened for the first time in memory would be cool ...

Monday, January 25, 2010

30 Day suspension for being photographed.

It's time for another Highly Ineffective Administration

Wow. Private, Legal, Personal. Not on School Time. No students or underage people of any kind. A bridal shower with a stripper but you're fully dressed. Posted on someone else's Facebook account.

There are so many things wrong with this suspension, I just don't know where to begin.

What is this district trying to accomplish here? Removal of a teacher by any means possible? Do they really think that this is worth the fight? I love the moonwalking: not allowing comments at the next school board meeting - which is illegal, since the public has a right to speak (calmly and appropriately) at a public meeting. The Board can hide behind the "confidentiality" shield but this will not go away easily.

Let's hope the Union will do its due diligence on this one.

Reposted below the fold since it will disappear from there.

Teacher Suspended Over Stripper Photo; No Comments Allowed
30 Days Out For Brownsville Teacher Photographed At Bridal Shower

The Brownsville Area School District issued the 30-day unpaid suspension after school administrators eventually saw the pictures. The teacher's name has not been publicly released.

"Something that was supposed to be fun and meant for a close-knit group of girlfriends turned into something that was blown way out of proportion," said Brianne Mitchell, who was invited but didn't go to the shower.

Mitchell told Channel 4 Action News reporter Ashlie Hardway that the stripper was hired as a "gift" at the shower.

"As a fun gesture, some of the people who were invited thought it would be fun to make the party a little bit more exciting," she said.

The teacher was fully clothed and was in the same frame when the pictures were taken, according to Mitchell, who called the suspension a sad situation.

"She was caught in the photograph. She was in the picture and that was it," Mitchell said. "She wasn't posing and she wasn't doing anything inappropriate. She was in the picture."

One school director, Stella Broadwater, said she thinks the suspension was appropriate because the photos were made public.

Another school director, Sandra Chan, said that the photos were posted by someone else and the teacher had no control over it, so she feels that the suspension is too harsh.

School district superintendent Dr. Philip Savini Jr. declined to comment Thursday.

"It's a personnel and contractual matter and can only be discussed by the board in executive session," Savini said.

The school district's attorney, Jeremy Davis, also declined to comment on the suspension and said he called all of the school directors and advised them not to comment any further.

Davis said public comment on the topic won't be allowed at Thursday night's school board meeting. He said he wants the issue to go away as quickly as possible.

Still, students and other members of the Brownsville community are talking about the suspended teacher.

"She can do what she wants," said one student.

"She's supposed to be a role model to all of her students, so she shouldn't be going out and doing things like that," said another student.

"Regardless whether they're fully dressed or not, they're supposed to be setting an example for the kids," said Toni Nicholas, an aunt of Brownsville students.

"If the picture had a man in it with a female dancer, would there really be this much speculation in regard to the photo?" Mitchell said.

"As a professional educator myself, I was a leery about the picture being posted online, since everything you see online is public, but it was posted on a personal Web site," Mitchell said.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association-Brownsville sector would not comment to Channel 4 Action News on Thursday.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

An honest man, Ted Olsen.

Ted Olsen, conservative lawyer, arguing against California's Prop 8 anti gay marriage law:

reposted below the fold if it disappears from the Newsweek site.

The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage
Why same-sex marriage is an American value.

By Theodore B. Olson | NEWSWEEK
Published Jan 9, 2010

Together with my good friend and occasional courtroom adversary David Boies, I am attempting to persuade a federal court to invalidate California's Proposition 8—the voter-approved measure that overturned California's constitutional right to marry a person of the same sex.

My involvement in this case has generated a certain degree of consternation among conservatives. How could a politically active, lifelong Republican, a veteran of the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, challenge the "traditional" definition of marriage and press for an "activist" interpretation of the Constitution to create another "new" constitutional right?

My answer to this seeming conundrum rests on a lifetime of exposure to persons of different backgrounds, histories, viewpoints, and intrinsic characteristics, and on my rejection of what I see as superficially appealing but ultimately false perceptions about our Constitution and its protection of equality and fundamental rights.

Many of my fellow conservatives have an almost knee-jerk hostility toward gay marriage. This does not make sense, because same-sex unions promote the values conservatives prize. Marriage is one of the basic building blocks of our neighborhoods and our nation. At its best, it is a stable bond between two individuals who work to create a loving household and a social and economic partnership. We encourage couples to marry because the commitments they make to one another provide benefits not only to themselves but also to their families and communities. Marriage requires thinking beyond one's own needs. It transforms two individuals into a union based on shared aspirations, and in doing so establishes a formal investment in the well-being of society. The fact that individuals who happen to be gay want to share in this vital social institution is evidence that conservative ideals enjoy widespread acceptance. Conservatives should celebrate this, rather than lament it.

Legalizing same-sex marriage would also be a recognition of basic American principles, and would represent the culmination of our nation's commitment to equal rights. It is, some have said, the last major civil-rights milestone yet to be surpassed in our two-century struggle to attain the goals we set for this nation at its formation.

This bedrock American principle of equality is central to the political and legal convictions of Republicans, Democrats, liberals, and conservatives alike. The dream that became America began with the revolutionary concept expressed in the Declaration of Independence in words that are among the most noble and elegant ever written: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Sadly, our nation has taken a long time to live up to the promise of equality. In 1857, the Supreme Court held that an African-American could not be a citizen. During the ensuing Civil War, Abraham Lincoln eloquently reminded the nation of its found-ing principle: "our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

At the end of the Civil War, to make the elusive promise of equality a reality, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution added the command that "no State É shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person É the equal protection of the laws."

Subsequent laws and court decisions have made clear that equality under the law extends to persons of all races, religions, and places of origin. What better way to make this national aspiration complete than to apply the same protection to men and women who differ from others only on the basis of their sexual orientation? I cannot think of a single reason—and have not heard one since I undertook this venture—for continued discrimination against decent, hardworking members of our society on that basis.

Various federal and state laws have accorded certain rights and privileges to gay and lesbian couples, but these protections vary dramatically at the state level, and nearly universally deny true equality to gays and lesbians who wish to marry. The very idea of marriage is basic to recognition as equals in our society; any status short of that is inferior, unjust, and unconstitutional.

The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that marriage is one of the most fundamental rights that we have as Americans under our Constitution. It is an expression of our desire to create a social partnership, to live and share life's joys and burdens with the person we love, and to form a lasting bond and a social identity. The Supreme Court has said that marriage is a part of the Constitution's protections of liberty, privacy, freedom of association, and spiritual identification. In short, the right to marry helps us to define ourselves and our place in a community. Without it, there can be no true equality under the law.

It is true that marriage in this nation traditionally has been regarded as a relationship exclusively between a man and a woman, and many of our nation's multiple religions define marriage in precisely those terms. But while the Supreme Court has always previously considered marriage in that context, the underlying rights and liberties that marriage embodies are not in any way confined to heterosexuals.

Marriage is a civil bond in this country as well as, in some (but hardly all) cases, a religious sacrament. It is a relationship recognized by governments as providing a privileged and respected status, entitled to the state's support and benefits. The California Supreme Court described marriage as a "union unreservedly approved and favored by the community." Where the state has accorded official sanction to a relationship and provided special benefits to those who enter into that relationship, our courts have insisted that withholding that status requires powerful justifications and may not be arbitrarily denied.

What, then, are the justifications for California's decision in Proposition 8 to withdraw access to the institution of marriage for some of its citizens on the basis of their sexual orientation? The reasons I have heard are not very persuasive.

The explanation mentioned most often is tradition. But simply because something has always been done a certain way does not mean that it must always remain that way. Otherwise we would still have segregated schools and debtors' prisons. Gays and lesbians have always been among us, forming a part of our society, and they have lived as couples in our neighborhoods and communities. For a long time, they have experienced discrimination and even persecution; but we, as a society, are starting to become more tolerant, accepting, and understanding. California and many other states have allowed gays and lesbians to form domestic partnerships (or civil unions) with most of the rights of married heterosexuals. Thus, gay and lesbian individuals are now permitted to live together in state-sanctioned relationships. It therefore seems anomalous to cite "tradition" as a justification for withholding the status of marriage and thus to continue to label those relationships as less worthy, less sanctioned, or less legitimate.

The second argument I often hear is that traditional marriage furthers the state's interest in procreation—and that opening marriage to same-sex couples would dilute, diminish, and devalue this goal. But that is plainly not the case. Preventing lesbians and gays from marrying does not cause more heterosexuals to marry and conceive more children. Likewise, allowing gays and lesbians to marry someone of the same sex will not discourage heterosexuals from marrying a person of the opposite sex. How, then, would allowing same-sex marriages reduce the number of children that heterosexual couples conceive?

This procreation argument cannot be taken seriously. We do not inquire whether heterosexual couples intend to bear children, or have the capacity to have children, before we allow them to marry. We permit marriage by the elderly, by prison inmates, and by persons who have no intention of having children. What's more, it is pernicious to think marriage should be limited to heterosexuals because of the state's desire to promote procreation. We would surely not accept as constitutional a ban on marriage if a state were to decide, as China has done, to discourage procreation.

Another argument, vaguer and even less persuasive, is that gay marriage somehow does harm to heterosexual marriage. I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me what this means. In what way would allowing same-sex partners to marry diminish the marriages of heterosexual couples? Tellingly, when the judge in our case asked our opponent to identify the ways in which same-sex marriage would harm heterosexual marriage, to his credit he answered honestly: he could not think of any.

The simple fact is that there is no good reason why we should deny marriage to same-sex partners. On the other hand, there are many reasons why we should formally recognize these relationships and embrace the rights of gays and lesbians to marry and become full and equal members of our society.

No matter what you think of homosexuality, it is a fact that gays and lesbians are members of our families, clubs, and workplaces. They are our doctors, our teachers, our soldiers (whether we admit it or not), and our friends. They yearn for acceptance, stable relationships, and success in their lives, just like the rest of us.

Conservatives and liberals alike need to come together on principles that surely unite us. Certainly, we can agree on the value of strong families, lasting domestic relationships, and communities populated by persons with recognized and sanctioned bonds to one another. Confining some of our neighbors and friends who share these same values to an outlaw or second-class status undermines their sense of belonging and weakens their ties with the rest of us and what should be our common aspirations. Even those whose religious convictions preclude endorsement of what they may perceive as an unacceptable "lifestyle" should recognize that disapproval should not warrant stigmatization and unequal treatment.

When we refuse to accord this status to gays and lesbians, we discourage them from forming the same relationships we encourage for others. And we are also telling them, those who love them, and society as a whole that their relationships are less worthy, less legitimate, less permanent, and less valued. We demean their relationships and we demean them as individuals. I cannot imagine how we benefit as a society by doing so.

I understand, but reject, certain religious teachings that denounce homosexuality as morally wrong, illegitimate, or unnatural; and I take strong exception to those who argue that same-sex relationships should be discouraged by society and law. Science has taught us, even if history has not, that gays and lesbians do not choose to be homosexual any more than the rest of us choose to be heterosexual. To a very large extent, these characteristics are immutable, like being left-handed. And, while our Constitution guarantees the freedom to exercise our individual religious convictions, it equally prohibits us from forcing our beliefs on others. I do not believe that our society can ever live up to the promise of equality, and the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, until we stop invidious discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

If we are born heterosexual, it is not unusual for us to perceive those who are born homosexual as aberrational and threatening. Many religions and much of our social culture have reinforced those impulses. Too often, that has led to prejudice, hostility, and discrimination. The antidote is understanding, and reason. We once tolerated laws throughout this nation that prohibited marriage between persons of different races. California's Supreme Court was the first to find that discrimination unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed 20 years later, in 1967, in a case called Loving v. Virginia. It seems inconceivable today that only 40 years ago there were places in this country where a black woman could not legally marry a white man. And it was only 50 years ago that 17 states mandated segregated public education—until the Supreme Court unanimously struck down that practice in Brown v. Board of Education. Most Americans are proud of these decisions and the fact that the discriminatory state laws that spawned them have been discredited. I am convinced that Americans will be equally proud when we no longer discriminate against gays and lesbians and welcome them into our society.

Reactions to our lawsuit have reinforced for me these essential truths. I have certainly heard anger, resentment, and hostility, and words like "betrayal" and other pointedly graphic criticism. But mostly I have been overwhelmed by expressions of gratitude and good will from persons in all walks of life, including, I might add, from many conservatives and libertarians whose names might surprise. I have been particularly moved by many personal renditions of how lonely and personally destructive it is to be treated as an outcast and how meaningful it will be to be respected by our laws and civil institutions as an American, entitled to equality and dignity. I have no doubt that we are on the right side of this battle, the right side of the law, and the right side of history.

Some have suggested that we have brought this case too soon, and that neither the country nor the courts are "ready" to tackle this issue and remove this stigma. We disagree. We represent real clients—two wonderful couples in California who have longtime relationships. Our lesbian clients are raising four fine children who could not ask for better parents. Our clients wish to be married. They believe that they have that constitutional right. They wish to be represented in court to seek vindication of that right by mounting a challenge under the United States Constitution to the validity of Proposition 8 under the equal-protection and due-process clauses of the 14th Amendment. In fact, the California attorney general has conceded the unconstitutionality of Proposition 8, and the city of San Francisco has joined our case to defend the rights of gays and lesbians to be married. We do not tell persons who have a legitimate claim to wait until the time is "right" and the populace is "ready" to recognize their equality and equal dignity under the law.

Citizens who have been denied equality are invariably told to "wait their turn" and to "be patient." Yet veterans of past civil-rights battles found that it was the act of insisting on equal rights that ultimately sped acceptance of those rights. As to whether the courts are "ready" for this case, just a few years ago, in Romer v. Evans, the United States Supreme Court struck down a popularly adopted Colorado constitutional amendment that withdrew the rights of gays and lesbians in that state to the protection of anti-discrimination laws. And seven years ago, in Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court struck down, as lacking any rational basis, Texas laws prohibiting private, intimate sexual practices between persons of the same sex, overruling a contrary decision just 20 years earlier.

These decisions have generated controversy, of course, but they are decisions of the nation's highest court on which our clients are entitled to rely. If all citizens have a constitutional right to marry, if state laws that withdraw legal protections of gays and lesbians as a class are unconstitutional, and if private, intimate sexual conduct between persons of the same sex is protected by the Constitution, there is very little left on which opponents of same-sex marriage can rely. As Justice Antonin Scalia, who dissented in the Lawrence case, pointed out, "[W]hat [remaining] justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising '[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution'?" He is right, of course. One might agree or not with these decisions, but even Justice Scalia has acknowledged that they lead in only one direction.

California's Proposition 8 is particularly vulnerable to constitutional challenge, because that state has now enacted a crazy-quilt of marriage regulation that makes no sense to anyone. California recognizes marriage between men and women, including persons on death row, child abusers, and wife beaters. At the same time, California prohibits marriage by loving, caring, stable partners of the same sex, but tries to make up for it by giving them the alternative of "domestic partnerships" with virtually all of the rights of married persons except the official, state-approved status of marriage. Finally, California recognizes 18,000 same-sex marriages that took place in the months between the state Supreme Court's ruling that upheld gay-marriage rights and the decision of California's citizens to withdraw those rights by enacting Proposition 8.

So there are now three classes of Californians: heterosexual couples who can get married, divorced, and remarried, if they wish; same-sex couples who cannot get married but can live together in domestic partnerships; and same-sex couples who are now married but who, if they divorce, cannot remarry. This is an irrational system, it is discriminatory, and it cannot stand.

Americans who believe in the words of the Declaration of Independence, in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, in the 14th Amendment, and in the Constitution's guarantees of equal protection and equal dignity before the law cannot sit by while this wrong continues. This is not a conservative or liberal issue; it is an American one, and it is time that we, as Americans, embraced it.

Find this article at http://www.newsweek.com/id/229957

Game-Changing Graphics

Those of you who know me know that I love data visualization done well. I am always looking for, and hopefully finding, graphics that clarify or that bring a new perspective to data. Tables of numbers are rarely helpful. An appropriate graph or visual, on the other hand, leads everyone to the classic indicator of epiphany ... "Hummm, now that's interesting ..."
 
These are some that I consider the game changers ...

Below the fold so the graphics don't kill one-time visitors:



Snow's map of Soho, locating the source of one of the cholera outbreaks in London (the Broad Street Pump) and, for the first time, visually showing cause-effect for disease.  This led him to use a microscope on the water and see the little white blobs.

Not that they believed him, though.  It would be years before everyone accepted that the nearby septic pit had contaminated the well and was the source of the cholera.

Then we have earthquake data, geographically presented, showing clearly the Ring of Fire and giving strong evidence for tectonic plates.  From USGS ...

I love how the earthquakes outline the plates.  Students can even guess direction and speed of the plates by looking at the concentration of spots.  India is moving north, for instance

Going historical again: Minard's graph of Napoleon's March to Moscow and Back showing troop numbers by width of the line (400,000 down to 10,000) and then correlating the temperatures to the trip back.
"The Graph that made a Nation cry."

On the trip back, the vertical lines trace down to the temperature graph at the bottom.  December 6th was -38oC, -34oF.  Remember, these are men walking a thousand miles in the snow and that cold.

Of course, there's the infamous Time Magazine 'Sexual Relationships at Jefferson High' graph that freaked out a nation.:

and the kids wonder why we worry about disease and contagion ...

David Chandless of InformationIsBeautiful.com is a master at making a point visually:





Here's an interesting new one from Slashdot. This is firewall data arranged by date and attack source. The video contains a decent explanation of the characteristics.

Here's the YouTube link:



This is the kind of thing I point to when kids ask "What will we ever do with this?" 

Isn't math fun?

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Polls, Damned Polls and Statistics.

From NYCeducator, who got it from Miss Cellania, who got it from PHDComics.com.

which brings to mind this gem from The Register

Since I'm in that sort of mood, I note that Pols (politicians) and Polls (the surveys) always seem to be liars of convenience. Go figure.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Dolphin Hunting techniques have evolved

I am fascinated by these dolphins. If this isn't "tool use", then it is at least a sign of awareness and intelligence.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Conversations with a counselor

I had a short conversation with the counselor (the psychiatrist one, not the college one) about two students who had been in my classes before and were scheduled to be in my class for the new semester. Both had failed things before and neither was any more capable of being in class, working, being a student. (with editing for anonymity) I was told, "[stuff happened] and [current problems], I'm not worried about classes. I just hope I can keep the kid alive. And the second kid is a bigger mess. I don't know if [he] will make it."

Both were a PITA, but neither deserves this. Bleah.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

I expand on my views of WalMart YMMV

I have gotten some heat for my take on WalMart. It has been pointed out that it's just as the sign says and too many "locals" have gone out of business and their jobs aren't up to the standards of other parts of the country and all that. I am also keenly aware of the impact those jobs can have on a poor community where before there was only a bunch of family-owned shops (who didn't hire and had high prices) or somewhat larger shops; again with the limited opportunities and high cost of goods.


More below the fold:

When WalMart moves in, they definitely put some businesses out and aggressively so. They hire people for small wages and all of that. BUT, and this is the big fly in that complaint and in that sign, those markets were dying anyway while WM is hiring; something that the rest of the stores weren't. It's not great work, but its work.

Add to that the prices are considerably lower and there's a lot more stuff - not terribly high quality but the people that go there aren't looking for high quality. They're looking for the basics of life and a step up.

Would I rather have a Target, KMart, JCPenny, Sears, Ames, Aubuchon? I can't see the philosophical difference. Would I rather have a town full of little mom-and-pops? Absolutely, but that business model has been declining for decades - nothing to do with WalMart. When's the last time anyone went to a mom-and-pop grocery anyway? Why is the supermarket any different from WalMart?

Look at those buildings in the photographs – all those first-floor stores were closed or closing before WM opened, now they're different stores but they're all alive.

Without some other draw, the little stores die. So the towns die. The buildings stand empty and the only thing you see in the windows is your own reflection. You may not want to accept it, but there it is. WalMart is usually trying to set up shop in a depressed, empty, God-forsaken part of town where the choice is WalMart or nothing. Until that changes, don't expect the voters to rise up swinging to get rid of it.


At right, you can see the farmers market that sets up every saturday. You can also see that the parking lot is full (at 9-10am on a Saturday). What you can't see is that maybe 90% of that lot is people who are NOT dealing with WalMart. They are shopping and working in the rest of downtown - probably a third of that lot will at least walk through the farmer's market. Because of WM, the city is more vibrant and alive than it was in the fifteen years before they arrived. There's even street fairs, for crying out loud. (I didn't realize it when I chose the photo but you can see the two white tents just up the street to the left - they close it for music and partying on Fridays in the summer. Everyone parks at WalMart and walks around. Great time)

Another thing that many people seem to overlook up here is that WalMart has a pretty tough slog getting into this state. They are continually roadblocked by activists using any legal means. I don't care about that (they've got plenty of money for lawyers and architects) but it does mean that the town can have a big input into the size and style of the building and in the parking lots and surrounding areas.

So WalMart can blend in, if the town has brains enough to demand it. Here's the Rutland one (off to the right of the farmers market picture) smack in the middle of the city. If you're not looking for it, you'd miss it. They rebuilt the whole plaza and blended in with the existing architecture. The whole area has been redone and the center of the City looks amazing. The combination of WalMart and PriceChopper has probably saved downtown.

The car dealers down the street and the minimalls and the strips are MUCH more ugly and dingy. If it weren't for a gigantic Hannaford's supermarket (even bigger than the WalMart or the PriceChopper), the other end of town would still be little more than car dealers and an empty department store minimall with eight empty stores and a Staples.

Size matters. WalMart has it. Hannafords has it. The market is changing and mom-and-pops aren't.

I'm not up-to-date with the hiring practices around the country, but I do know that the place here is always full and is always hiring people - which many feel is a strike against them - but then you realize that the people who are cycling through are not particularly good workers. (Like one of my students who couldn't understand why they fired her. I asked what happened. She worked two days, then skipped work four of the next five and had a "doctors excuse" for the sixth. They asked to explain herself and she told them to f&#^$ off and walked out. Then they fired her.) The ones that stay are better workers who wouldn't stay if it weren't a good decision for them.

A lack of health care is a knock against them until people think about how many other jobs and businesses don't bother either. It isn't ideal and it's why I think that health care should be treated like education - a basic option provided by the government for any of its citizens - if they want more, they can spend more if they want. WalMart has made the decision to not have it. Right or wrong. Although I'd like to see them have insurance for their people, I can't dictate their policy. (If only the CEOs would stop trying to run education ...)

I won't argue company politics because I think it's irrelevant but I will argue that WalMart, in its current configuration, is a better citizen in those towns than the companies it drove out. Look at those companies that were "driven out" – they were, by and large, going anyway. They paid as little as WalMart and they were a failed business model. People just aren't interested in paying full cost for low-to-average quality and that's what they were getting from the losers.


The companies who weren't driven out? They adapted and changed. They moved to better service or made a better product or slid into a niche. They can take business away from the WalMart if they do it right. True fact - the shops around the WalMarts up here have been doing very well because Walmart brings in business. They'll all tell you they'd much rather be within walking distance of WalMart than anywhere else in town, including the mall. Okay, the Book King is gone, but Amazon killed that cat. I had occasion to go to a small appliances store near the WM in mid-NH and got the same story. Business skyrocketed when WalMart came in. One near Brattleboro has brought a noticeable difference to that community as well.

I admit, I don't like the place, and I rarely go in because it creeps me out, but I can't deny the changes it made here.

Finally, I get irritated by the opponents who I've come into contact with up here (and your mileage may and probably will vary). It seems that the Vermonters against WM are wealthier, activist types who could afford to pay more or drive 30 miles to get groceries. They have this idealized sense of what Vermont "should be", totally at odds with the facts of life. Most of them moved in from out-of-state and are trying to keep their "farmer's paradise" and "more cows than people" fantasies alive. The ones who bitch the loudest come off as racist and classist. "WalMart's anti-union" is the call. Maybe so, but the minute one finally does open, it's staffed fully within a week.


My brother is a typical greenie-type: anti-WalMart and all it stood for … until one finally came to the town across the border in NH. Now, he says nothing and shops.

I paint what I see.

Supreme Court and First Amendment

from NYTimes:
"The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether the First Amendment requires that the names of people who sign ballot-initiative petitions be kept secret." and "The Ninth Circuit panel said it was unclear whether petition signatures were speech protected by the First Amendment. In any event, it said, the signatures were gathered in public with no promise of confidentiality and collected on sheets with space for 20 signatures each."
James Bopp Jr., a lawyer for Protect Marriage Washington, said in a statement that the Ninth Circuit’s decision infringed “the rights of citizens who support a traditional definition of marriage to speak freely and without fear.”
Wow.

If I sign a petition with 20 spaces on it, I can read who those people are and they can see mine. It’s public.

Read more below the fold:

More important is the nature of gathering signatures. 1. the petition is promoted by people with a point of view who are “sorting out” unwanted opinion. 2. there is no oversight and accountability. 3. the signatures are rarely verified as they are being taken (sometimes it’s a clipboard on the counter “Please sign”) 4. people lie and sign more than once with other names. 5. People sign without reading or they’ll sign a different sheet of paper with a different petition or they’ll take the interpretation with question.

No, I need to KNOW that all those signatures are really people living in my town and that they have had the same presentation, read the same text, and did support the measure. I have seen petitions thrown out because the people who “signed” weren’t in state at the time and were against the proposal. Can’t do that if it’s all hush-hush.

An election is different because it is done under supervision of all parties, with strict rules of confidentiality. I have to present ID to prove I have registered and that I am I, etc. Even then, there are problems but I at least feel confident that the results reflect what the majority of the people in my town want, rather than a biased subslice of activists.

The lawyer is confusing the issue with ““the rights of citizens who support a traditional definition of marriage to speak freely and without fear.” If harassment’s a problem, then deal with the harassment.

You have the right to speak freely. That implies “in public” as well. Anyone who needs to speak freely while incognito can get a blog.

I can't wait for this decision to coincide with that law granting petitioners the ability to close schools.

Can you imagine a petition in which you can't challenge the signatures and but that you must take action for: you must close the school or change the administration? What an incredible mess that would be.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Bashing Walmart is ultimately pointless.

It's Saturday and I'm feeling cranky.

In another blog, this sign popped up. The comments were the usual "Right on" and "We need more of this." My favorite was "Yes, we certainly do need to draw attention to vanishing local economies and signs like this would definitely do the trick".

I find this sign silly. It reflects antipathy toward one company that built itself up in a classic sense, just like every small but somehow more worthy company wants to.

It should read "On this site stood a dinosaur which couldn't adapt to the reality around it."

If we were talking about a car company, bigger and foreign-built would apparently be fine. Who wants to buy a car made completely in East Podunk, Vermont? Even if such a company existed, its costs would be prohibitive. If it still made a decent product, people would pay more for it - it's called "custom car."

More below the break:

If we were talking about a grocery store, bigger and cheaper would absolutely be fine. A small mom-and-pop store with 200 square feet of space wouldn't work for anyone - that's why they've all gone out of business. You can still have a small store, but you have to be better than the big one. Whole Foods succeeds because it provided more "holy" food than PriceChopper - but at a premium price. Surprisingly it grew and became a chain. It paid well and doesn't need unions. Neither did UPS, or Costco. (and the "Organic" tag is a complete joke - mostly an indicator of massive agricultural operations that have eliminated thousands of small farmers - oops.)

Being non-union is not a crime. Being out-of-business is stupid.

The local hardware store around here was Aubuchon's, a large chain with high prices and lousy service. It got replaced with a Home Depot with low prices and good service. The computer guy - Office Depot. The bookstore - B&N or WaldenBooks, which are now losing to Amazon.com and e-books. The Florist with a greenhouse is replaced by one with global shipments coming in daily from Columbia and other, warmer places.

Adapt and live, people.

Whine and go bankrupt.

The world doesn't owe you a living just because you are white and graduated from the local school to open a tiny store with too-high prices, a limited inventory and an unlimited attitude, selling things that you purchased wholesale from a company in Indiana who contracted out to Pakistan or Mexico or China ... "Assembled in the USA!"

WalMart succeeds because people go there. These people aren't making a political or ideological point, they are making a purchase. If your store goes out of business to the big box, it is your customers who are doing you in. Read the tea leaves and change accordingly.

Into town: Hannafords, Bed Bath Beyond, Dicks, Home Depot, CVS, Walgreens, Verizon Wireless, 99, Holiday Inn (et al), the freaking Malls, what seems like a million car dealers and chain dollar stores. Most are big, monopolistic chains and most have non-union staff, but some are union. It makes no difference.
Out of Business: Grand Union, Ames, P&C, porno shop, Aubuchon, three local hardware stores, Book Store, travel agents, clothing store, the Catholic School.

Who lives: the Pharmacy provides home delivery, the restaurants are good, the stores fill a niche need, the schools do a good job, the lumber yard allows contractors an account.

Adaptation wins. Price wins. Service wins. Quality wins.
Union or non-union doesn't matter. Local or Chain doesn't matter. Size doesn't matter (don't make that joke -ed.) Monopolistic tendencies don't matter - especially when it comes to gas.

Think about where you bought your last book, camera, rose, can of paint, chocolate, clock, linens. All little, local stores with no branches? Who holds your mortgage, the local bank providing local jobs or one in Delaware screwing over the country? Do you have a credit card? Have you ever purchased gas from Citgo, Shell, BP or do you stick with Exxon or Irving? Do you have any idea whether these are local, unionized, even if they are US companies? Are these businesses making money while streamlining the logistics to lower prices and still be a decent wage for most of its staff? Do you have a local insurance agent or did you go non-union and cheap with Progressive or GEICO? How about a local travel agent? or a local butcher?

Didn't think so.

Monday, January 11, 2010

The Bill of No Rights

I don't agree with V (Public Health), but the rest is interesting enough. In regards to the "free public health care" thing, I have a different interpretation. Maybe I'll expand on it but for now:

The Bill of No Rights

Read More:

We, the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid any more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt-ridden, deluded, and other bed-wetters.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim that they require a Bill of No Rights.

ARTICLE I:
You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II:
You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone — not just you! You may leave the room, change the channel, or express a different opinion, but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

ARTICLE III:
You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV:
You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.

ARTICLE V:
You do not have the right to free health care That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we’re just not interested in public health care.

ARTICLE VI:
You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don’t be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

ARTICLE VII:
You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don’t be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won’t have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII:
You don’t have the right to demand that our children risk their lives in foreign wars to soothe your aching conscience. We hate oppressive governments and won’t lift a finger to stop you from going to fight if you’d like. However, we do not enjoy parenting the entire world and do not want to spend so much of our time battling each and every little tyrant with a military uniform and a funny hat.

ARTICLE IX:
You don’t have the right to a job. Sure, all of us want all of you to have one, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

ARTICLE X:
You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to pursue happiness — which, by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an overabundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

If you agree, we strongly urge you to forward this to as many people as you can. No, you don’t have to, and nothing tragic will befall you should you not forward it. We just think it is about time common sense is allowed to flourish — call it the age of reason revisited.

(Copyright 1992 – Lewis W. Napper. All Rights Reserved by Author. Restored and reprinted without permission.) (We hope that’s okay with Mr. Napper.)

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Closing Schools and the Law of Averages.

Pissed Off Teacher has it right.

When you try to raise scores by closing schools, you don't eliminate the problem, you sweep it under someone else's rug. You can pretend that the bump in the middle of the new rug isn't there and you can safely ignore for a while but sooner or later, like a Ponzi scheme spirally out of control, you have to address it.

Unfortunately, the rug in question isn't on Bloomberg's head, it's another school.

In some ways, it's like debtor's prison - your problem is your fault and you deserve punishment for having it, even if it's not your fault and you had no control over any of the decisions leading up to it. You still get punished even though the punishment makes the whole situation worse.

Closing School A does not teach it's students any lesson other than "Money talks and you have no voice." NCLB, vouchers, and many of Bloomberg's policies might not have been INTENDED for the purpose of closing public schools and replacing them with private schools, but the effect is shaping up that way.

What a sorry country this would be if all the public schools closed. The charters could ignore all those students who don't "meet the criteria."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: If the solution is "Schools without Restrictions" then lighten those restrictions. Don't eliminate the schools, unless you don't want THOSE people's kids to get an education.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

CFT and the Lynch-Mob Quote.

The Interwebs are a-buzzing with EIAonline's news from the great state of California.
Marty Hittelman, president of the California Federation of Teachers, discovered that California’s Race to the Top legislation had a school-change provision. His words:
"Under the parent trigger (or lynch mob provision) if 50% of the parents at a school or feeder schools of a low performing school sign a petition, the school board must hold a hearing to accept that petition or provide an alternative governance change, which could include closing the school, turning it into a charter school, or reconstituting the school."
Everyone is, of course, focusing on the "lynch mob" terminology and screaming for justice and a remedy for terribly hurt feelings, missing what seems like an important point.

Read More:

Getting 50% of the parents to sign a petition is a trigger for required action. That seems an incredibly low action threshold to me. "Just sign here and we'll be able to make improvements." -- what parent would say no?
"must hold a hearing to accept that petition or provide an alternative governance change, which could include closing the school, turning it into a charter school, or reconstituting the school."
Forgive my insouciance, but is there a clause for ignoring the petition because the problems with this school won't be helped by closing it or turning it into a charter?

Parents always want the best for their children but don't always know what that is, don't always know or care what's best for other kids and definitely don't always know the best education methods and situations. Those who sign such a document are usually doing so for different reasons and in search of different outcomes -- outcomes that are driven by very different needs and wishes. A very tangential example of this is the interplay between a football coach, the nationally- televised parent of a concussed athlete and the rest of the parents and fans at Texas.

"Teachers always try to cut and run from this issue! Parents are not fools. You can't ignore us." I hear you cry. Sure I can ... and many times I must because what you want for your kid may not be what's best for them all. You are perfectly free to homeschool if you want, but you can't force that choice or other choices on anyone else.

Whimsical change is not the way to run a school (or any business or organization, for that matter).

Don't tell me how to run my classroom if your expertise is in dental hygeine or auto mechanics or software development or horticulture. When you make the analogy between gardening and raising kids, your argument sounds deep to anyone who doesn't teach. To us, its just mental fertilizer. The day that I am called up to provide advice or an override on installing an HVAC system in a 34 floor building is the day that I will blindly accept the installer's advice on teaching.

If you are a stay-at-home parent whose sole work experience has been hourly work 15 years ago during a four-year college degree in the liberal arts, your advice on flashcards in AP Calculus is interesting but useless. Likewise for the opinions from the CEO who tells me that I need to focus on the basics more so he doesn't have to spend money on training and that I should buy more of his product licenses for my students so they can spend more class time on everything but those basics.

In closing, I would note that this is California, the state that runs by referendum, bouncing from pro to con and back with the whims of a populace that can't make up its mind. They referendum a budget cut but don't say how. They decide/reject new laws with every voting season -- gay marriage anyone? If you follow the various links and get to the actual bill, we see it currently is on version 97 and nearly 90% of the text has been struck out and changed. Not what I would call a reasoned approach to school reform. Oh, and it refers to itself as the "Open Enrollment Act." I didn't try to read it all - I may have mischaracterized some of it and I'll apologize for that in advance.

It's unfortunate that CFT used the phrase "lynch mob" because of it's terrible connotations.

What he really meant was "a whirling dervish of a crowd, pinballing from from whim to whim as the fad takes them, a band of well-intentioned people who can't agree on anything save their certainty that 'We just can't take it anymore!' -- not that they have a clue as to what 'it' is."

also at Coach Brown's website.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

The Merit Pay Joyride

I have been teaching for more than 25 years. I have taught students from at least 30 different countries (and every continent save Antarctica), every socio-economic level (and some from levels so high that Mike Bloomberg would get a stiff neck looking up at) and nearly 40 different religious backgrounds. Their abilities have ranged from the dyslexic boy lucky to finish consumer math to the kid who got 5s on every AP test he took and is now working on his PhD. in mathematics.

I spend all year teaching and assessing.
  • Grades are based on agreed upon points.
  • Tests are meticulously broken down to assure myself and the students that partial credits are done fairly, that everything they do that is correct and given an appropriate number of points.
  • Progress reports ensure that every student can keep track of his own work and make up missing assignments, and know fairly accurately what his grade is and how he’s doing. If anything is amiss, the kids are instructed to bring it to my attention first. “I not infallible. Let's get it right” Students know that finding my error gets them points.
  • Every mark or measurement has a paper trail and a justification.

That's how grades work. Everyone understands that they are not given but earned.  They know what they got and why and agree that its fair because they'd give themselves the same thing. Though maybe not happy, they'll still says things like "I'm not very good at math but I sure learned a lot." "I enjoy your class, but I hate math." (Then later, the same kid says "My college statistics course was an easy A.") Depending on the course, there are scores of grades of varying weight.

Consider Merit Pay, on the other hand, and it's basis.
  • At the end of the year, students are given a survey on the last, hottest day of school when absolutely NONE of them want to be there.
  • In a few minutes, they rush through questions that ask them to judge on a scale of 1 to 10, my use of classroom time, and 12 other vague metrics. (using their vast experience with 10th grade math teaching methods and pedagogy)
  • Add in the results from the 11th grade NECAP test which this grade hasn’t taken yet and doesn't have any incentive to do well on.  Mix in the 8th grade exam from two years ago - somehow this is my responsibility?
  • Add an administrative evaluation from three years ago (because we're doing the fad of the moment: peer coaching)
What you got? Nothing. Nada. Bupkus. Zero. Zilch.
You don't have a clue as to my value as a teacher.


You want to base my merit pay on that?

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Is it too much to expect?

I was floating around the Teacher College website, specifically "Curriculum and Teaching", when I came across a true gem of an article in a group of articles about the program (I guess).
For starters, I reproduce the list of articles:
Program News
* Does Science Proves Some Things Taught Were False? (2006)
* T.C. Takes Second in U.S. News Rankings (2006)
* Quiet Students Can Speak Volumes Through Actions (2005)
* Cathy Benedict (Obit from 2005)
* Enrichment Program Plagued By Flaws (2004)
(Parenthetical additions mine)
Yeah, it jumped out at me, too. Aren't you impressed by this Teachers College Program? How about that first article?
"Does Science Proves Some Things Taught Were False?
Published: 10/21/2006

"When I try to help my son with his homework I see a lot of things that are different from when I was in school," said Marietta parent Matt Reed, 39. "Math is so different I can't even help him most of the time." Whether it's facts that have been disproved or courses that have simply gone out of style, there are a plethora of things that used to be part of any student's curriculum and are no longer taught in schools.

Some boards of education, including the Texas State Board of Education have recommended replacing textbooks with laptop computers and say a nationwide move in that direction is only a few keystrokes away.

"I think conventional textbooks -'" they're pretty much dead," Peter Cookson, director of educational outreach at Columbia University's Teachers College told the Associated Press. "Not this year, but in the next decade."

This article appeared in the October 21, 2006 edition of the Marietta Times.
http://www.mariettatimes.com/news/story/new55_1021200615356.asp.
To be fair, this article told me a great deal about the Curriculum and Teaching Program at Teachers' College.
  • It told me that nothing good has been written about them in over 3 years.
  • It told me that the College can't be bothered to check the grammar on its website.
  • It told me that an article that it considered important and relevant was disjointed and bizarre -- is it discussing science proving things false as the title would indicate, curricula changes confusing parents as the first paragraph has it, or the "fact" that textbooks are dead because Texas thinks they should replace them with Laptops?
  • It told me that its Director is an idiot and it made it clear why TC should be regarded as the last refuge of the Incompetents.
By the way, that Texas thing about laptops? That fad was sooooo three years ago. We're doing 21st Century Skills now. You know, technology and communication skills.

College studies.

I can't resist reposting this from Maggie's Farm. It makes no sense to me that parents will actually spend their hard-earned money for this kind of stuff. They should make a deal with the kid: "We'll help with a practical major. If you want to waste your time and your money studying garbage, we won't stop you."

Boo-hoo Studies

Why don't colleges just collect all of the grievance study groups and put them in one department. Fat Studies, Anorexia Studies, Queer Studies, Women's Studies, Hispanic Studies, Black Studies, Indian Studies, Transexual Studies, Lesbian Studies, Klutz Studies, Oppressed Studies, Ugly Studies, Not-Too-Smart Studies, Too-Short Studies, etc.

You could call it Boo Hoo Studies, and in it you could sequester everyone who expects college to cater to their narcissism instead of teaching them about bigger, better, and more important things than themselves. Baby bottles in the coke machine, over in that department.

Eventually, they will need to include one more increasingly marginalized and disenfranchised minority in Boo Hoo Studies - Regular People Living Without Grievance. RPLWG just can't get a break these days, can they?
I figure that you could include all the Education Majors who don't actually get a degree in anything except "Bulletin Boards and Presentation Techniques."

Friday, January 1, 2010

Winter Classic in a few Hours


The folks who run hockey got it right two years ago and they're keeping the new tradition alive. It's just special.

Happy New Year!


Bruins win!