Teacher Watch: War, Inc. in Limited Release

Overshadowed heavily by the release of the Indiana Jones grand finale, John Cusack's War, Inc. opens today in Los Angeles at the Landmark Theater on Pico and Westwood.

Why not make it a double feature--for double discussion?

Find local showtimes for this limited release here.

Teacher Watch: Susan Ohanian's When Childhood Collides with NCLB

In his introduction to Susan Ohanian's latest, powerful book, Sid. S. Glassner writes, "The No Child Left Behind Act created an environment in our schools so counter to democracy's constructive spirit" that "[s]uch a condition cannot be permitted to persist nor should it ever be repeated."

A tale told in two voices, When Childhood Collides with NCLB (published by the Vermont Society for the Study of Education) dramatizes a sharp rift between media punditry and real life in public school. Each page literally splits down the middle as Ohanian provides two narratives, juxtaposing her own poems and meditations about classroom life with excerpts from newspaper headlines, press releases, reports, and commentaries. The result is a moving and provocative reading experience.

Her poem, "Processes and Terrors," for example, begins: "How to cross/A Piranha-infested River:/Stay out of the water/when piranhas are feeding./Swim or walk across/Quickly and quietly." This piece is printed directly across from a relevant snippet of a 2004 speech delivered by NCLB author and lobbyist for test publisher NCS Pearson, Sandy Kress: "[F]or those of you who are intimidated or threatened by NCLB, the world is actually going to become worse as we go along. I mean to say, more demanding. And it will look back at NCLB as a kind of just an initial foot in the water, if you will, to the world we're about to enter."

What multiple choice test or prep-packet asks students to consider a connection between poetry, Piranhas, and Scantron forms? Any teacher might happily use sections of Ohanian's book as a model for similar responsive creative writing exercises in their own classrooms.

A single copy of When Childhood Collides with NCLB is available for $8.95. Order copies from the author and publisher by sending a check directly to VSSE, Box 26, Charlotte VT 05445.

For $27, you can get two copies plus a year's subscription to the hard-hitting monthly Chicago teachers' newspaper, Substance.

A Framework for Understanding Ruby Payne - Volume 21 No. 2 - Winter 2006 - Rethinking Schools Online

A Framework for Understanding Ruby Payne - Volume 21 No. 2 - Winter 2006 - Rethinking Schools Online

War, Inc. and A Nation at Risk: The Martial Overtones of Ed Reform

John Cusack's new film, War, Inc., appeared in limited release on screens this past week in Toronto and will show April 28-May 4 at the Tribeca Film Festival. The movie dramatizes the outrageous marriage of violence and profiteering enabled by corporation-loyal foreign policy, and its satire doesn't come from fiction: billions of taxpayer dollars are used to employ fee-for-hire "private military" or "security" vendors (think Blackwater) in the name of supplementing our nation's poorly-compensated and poorly-outfitted armed services.

So how could the push for perpetual--and now private--warmongering get so far, so fast?

Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism offers a brilliant take, arguing that our economic system exploits moments of disaster and suffering to maximize corporate profits on an international scale. In the face of tragedy, brutality, economic losses, real and imagined fears, citizens are enticed to give up their best economic interests, their civil liberties, and their consciences while power and resources are consolidated for a mercenary few.

A longstanding tradition of educational practices in the U.S. has helped this process along, quietly evolving as support for the military-industrial--and now data-tainment-surveillance-- complex. On a parallel track to the "war and worry" economy, schools have become the true domestic front for conflicts abroad.

It's a handy coincidence that the limited release of War, Inc. coincides with the annual barrage of spring tests just beginning for students all across the country.

The publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983 may have preceded 9-11 and our "war on terror" by a generation, but it began the drumbeat of crisis-mongering which has enabled the Educational Testing Service (ETS) and other academic surveillance corporations to profit from fear-based education policy--all in the name of improving schools and making them safe for success.

It's easy to decry campus shootings, but how long will it be before some school offers a specially-designed "security services" academy track to target "at risk" or uniquely "gifted and talented" kids? Unless we actively push back, it's not an impossibility.

Military terms such as "strategy," "targets," "cohorts," and "marshaling" have become essentially natural in conversations about student achievement, school funding, and teacher training. We say "battery of tests" without blinking an eye. Even the emphasis on "raising standards" has martial overtones: "standard" also means flag.

Thus it shouldn't surprise anyone that the No Child Left Behind Act dictates for student names be provided to military recruiters--unless parents know enough to complete an "opt out" form.

It's also perfectly logical that Reed-Elsevier, one of the major corporate players in the assessment industry (think Stanford Achievement Tests), acquired Seisint Technologies in 2004. Seisint famously developed Matrix software to monitor citizens for Homeland Security and the Justice Department.

The now-constant rhythms of scantron, bubble-the-answer testing have normalized the need for social surveillance while also feeding collective and individual anxieties about failure, school funds/closures/takeovers, matriculation, college attendance and placement, scholarships, and simple economic survival. It's no wonder captains of the test industry look ahead towards a bright future, while the daily-life, real-people context of classrooms gets cast as a weary and antiquated distraction.

A new generation of students has been raised--from grade one--to expect multiple choice questions with multiple choice answers to provide the quickest and most reliable way to know whether they know anything.

The social implications of this compulsion are far-reaching. It takes extra work to scrutinize and question who generates these assigned "multiple" choices.

All the while, billionaire business leaders, including superstars Eli Broad and Bill Gates, stand eager to "rescue" (i.e. privatize) the desperate, distracted, and panicky public education system, donating all-expenses paid makeovers in the corporate model. Euphemisms like "professional learning communities" (where consesus is "demanded") merely perpetuate increasingly well-dressed, professionalized and potentially violent forms of remote control.

Sometimes violence itself is the tie that inspires, even if we'd rather forget it. Harvard President James Bryant Conant (1893-1978), co-father of Educational Testing Service and persuasive advocate for the mid-century comprehensive, mega high school, established status as an education policy advocate because of his experiences with warfare.

As a professor, Conant helped develop chemical weapons for the Chemical Warfare Service during World War I. He subsequently chaired the National Defense Research Committee, playing a fundamental role in our development of the atomic bomb. Conant also served on the Interim Committee which decided to drop bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki without warning.

War, Inc. thankfully will provide broad audiences with an opportunity to reject easy notions of compartmentalization. In asking "how" and "why", we might remind ourselves that politics, economics and education are inextricably intertwined.

Watch for the release of the film your local area later this spring and early summer. Meanwhile, read a great live blog session with the producers and writers of the movie online at Crooks and Liars.

Exit Exam Blues: Waiver Dies for Special Ed Students

So much for special needs.

According to a settlement filed in Alameda County Superior Court on Friday April 4, high school seniors enrolled in special education classes will have to pass the California State High School Exit Exam (HSEE) in order to receive diplomas in June.

The settlement overturns a measure approved by the state Legislature for the classes of 2006 and 2007, exempting special education students from the HSEE and granting diplomas to all such students who had fulfilled other graduation requirements.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, author of the law which originally enacted the Exit Exam requirement, told the editorial board of the Press-Enterprise last week: "I don't want to have a devalued diploma for these folks."

"These folks"?

Certainly it's time for parents and schools to weigh the possibility of opting out where they can (with the state STAR testing program), and/or organizing collective boycotts of the HSEE.

There's safety and solidarity in numbers. For information on your rights and available resources, contact CalCARE at 510-496-6028 or FairTest.

Opting out of Standardized Tests: CalCARE's Push for Justice

Parents, teachers and students are all too aware that the emphasis on standardized testing has come at the expense of much "big picture" learning. In Riverside, California, junior high school teachers have a tough time convincing students to study, complete homework, attend on time, or even to behave during classes--since, as long as they squeak through trimester assessments with merely a "basic" score, students can advance to high school even if they fail core English and math courses.

Not exactly the "rigor" touted by the authors of No Child Left Behind. Not the most coherent preparation for a glorious 21st century future.

What about opting out? The California Coalition for Authentic Reform in Education (CalCARE) has renewed its awareness campaign encouraging parents (and school districts) to know their rights about opting out of the state STAR test program. CalCARE is the state affiliate of watchdog FairTest, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing.

California is one of the few states which allows parents to opt out of testing, but the movement has grown even in states where risks exist. CalCARE and FairTest provide support and technical legal information about what districts may or may not do to discourage parents from taking action. Both organizations also serve as clearing houses to connect, record, and publicize any intimidation used by districts or school sites.

The strength lies in numbers. California districts which are already designated by NCLB as hopelessly "failing" might have the most to gain by a collective opt-out. The move is especially important for parents whose students do not yet read, write or speak English fluently.

For more information and answers to questions, parents, teachers, and administrators can also contact CalCARE directly by phone, at 510-496-6028.

AP out; dual enrollment in?

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has the latest for gifted teachers (teachers of the gifted) in From feds on down, AP students are being neglected by Walt Gardner:

"Despite popular belief, not all gifted students learn by themselves. They need inspired instruction and a challenging curriculum specifically geared to their needs. When they don't get it, they become bored and drop out. In fact, gifted students drop out nationwide at the rate of about 5 percent. Unless teachers are trained to address these issues, we run the risk of losing our best young minds. That's another reason why the recent University of Virginia report needs to be taken seriously when it concluded that the district has fallen behind in educating its gifted students.

With mounting criticism from so many sides, another college-level offering known as the dual enrollment course is slowly gaining traction. These courses are taken either at college or at high school, with instruction paid or supervised by the college. A study released in October 2007 that looked at the records of 299,685 dual enrollment students in Florida found that they had higher college grade point averages and more college credits three years after high school graduation than similar students who had not been part of dual enrollment."

$20,000 annual bonus needed to attract teachers to "hard to staff" schools

Walt Gardner finds a costly need in Combat pay won't work to attract teachers to poor schools from the San Fransico Chronicle:

"The most recent evidence comes from Dallas, which had only 65 takers for its offer of $6,000 annual bonuses to lure teachers to the city's hard-to-staff schools. Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas attributed the disappointing results to the amount tendered. They estimated that bonuses would have to equal 45 percent of base pay to attract the number of teachers required. If they are correct, the amount would come to an average of $20,000 for mid-career teachers."

California dream and gleam

California schools move to the head of the class - Los Angeles Times

U.S. News and World Report: High School Rankings

NPR : Test Invalidated over Directions Goof

NPR : Test Invalidated over Directions Goof

Teachers get ready to practice your (picket) lines

LA Daily News - Brewer digs in heels on reform: "Despite union-leadership opposition to proposals including reassignment of teachers, merit pay and scripted teaching at middle and high schools, Brewer kept all of the concepts in his final plan. "

California doom and gloom

Exit exam--increasing the drop out rate--surprise, surprise.

California students are among nation's worst

Novels a No-No: Update--The Disinformation Doctrine

I remember vividly five years ago: as then-English department chair at Riverside Poly High School, I emailed the downtown district office to express department frustrations with the opaque and disingenuous mixed messages circulating about reading and instruction. In public, Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) was telling the community that "novels weren't banned, just not required." At our campus, teachers weren't allowed to check sets of books from the library to use with students.

Like a little kid, I was summoned into the principal's office. He handed me a copy of a district response to him regarding my communication. One line from that email still haunts me, and it seems particularly relevant now: "I find it interesting that Ms. Scott [sic] still refers to 'teaching novels.' Hasn't she seen the test scores yet?"

Who would have thought that a small, little-known school district in Southern California could so perfect the art of public doublespeak? Now twice in five years, the same district has distinguished itself by using disinformation to rid its English classrooms of the pesky novel.

Documents defending their latest purge are linked below:

• RUSD English 7-12 Department Chairs "Emergency" Meeting, September 7, 2007
• RUSD English 7-12 Curriculum Clarification, September 19, 2007

If you saw our first report, you learned that RUSD has a strange attitude towards reading book-length works in accelerated high school English classes. Apparently, you can read too much. Now responding to local criticism by columnist Dan Bernstein, as well as outrage from students, teachers and parents in school board and department chair meetings, RUSD landed a local headline and long article in the local newspaper, The Press-Enterprise, to dismiss the controversy as a "novel mixup" (PE, October 15, 2007, B1 and B10).

Eerily, the piece appeared just days from the five-year anniversary of an almost identical article making the same assurances when RUSD first applied its restrictive novels policy--to some public outcry--in the mainstream (i.e. non-Honors) instructional program five years ago (PE, October 13, 2002, B1.)

This year's message is exactly the same one offered in 2002. Sure, teachers are allowed to teach novels, but only after all of the standards for each month are mastered via Holt, Rhinehart & Winston assessments and district-approved materials. How one is supposed to cram this hypothetical novel into remaining instructional days is not quite clear. In the regular program, for most students in RUSD as well as surrounding districts, the novel option amounts to "up to" one book per year, unless teachers fill out a form to begin a review and approval process.

Consciously or merely by osmosis, the district has for five years now simply parroted language long cultivated by captains of the test industry. Even Bernstein has poked fun at RUSD's disingenuous explanation, writing last week that "the novel, much like a Dickens child, has become an orphan," abandoned in favor of the "McNovel" transplanted into textbooks and complete with worksheets.

RUSD officials apparently think that if they simply avoid or ridicule the word "ban," no one will notice that reading whole books has become extraneous, disposable work for English classes. RUSD also insists that as a "program improvement," or "PI," district it has no choice but to respond to demands made by financial and political forces determining success and failure under No Child Left Behind. However, RUSD was not yet a PI district five years ago when first trimming back novels from its program.

No wonder. In a report from the Book Industry Study Group released in June 2007, general publishing sales will barely expand over the next few years. The one expected area for big growth? Elementary and high school textbooks.

In a unconfirmed and poetic act of desperation and protest against RUSD's insult to student and teacher intelligence, the English department at one local high school (serving a high number of poor and minority students) gave all of their novels away--putting them directly in the hands of students.

No, no, no, whines the district, playing Prufrock. That's not what we meant at all.

Well then. Sources inside RUSD have provided copies of official internal paperwork (linked above), including meeting minutes which set off the controversy in early September, followed by the official memo two weeks later, supposedly clarifying the issues for all 7-12 Language Arts Departments.

These documents, not seen by the general public and certainly not discussed in the recent PE article, illuminate startling contradictions. Reading through, you have to wonder if despite all the hype about critical thinking for students, teachers themselves are expected not to think too hard.

A few highlights (emphases added; all caps in the originals):

1. Responding to teacher and parent concerns about scripted learning maps, the Sept. 19 document virtually shouts out a semantic distinction: "We have a CURRICULUM guide, not a pacing guide." However, both official documents use the phrase "pacing guide" over and over to describe required lesson plans and classroom structure: e.g. "Pacing guides are MONTHLY to allow teacher/site autonomy and flexibility as much as possible"; "It is IMPERATIVE that all teachers follow the new grade level pacing guides for English."
   


2. In fact, both documents reveal how teacher-designed "pacing guides" can be used as both buy-in and blackmail: if teachers do not follow the pacing guide they themselves so willingly designed (a "proactive" option provided by RUSD), they could be "mandated to follow procedures such as implementing the Holt 'red-line' pacing guide." Oooh. Lucky for those kids. But there's more: "Pacing guides may not be modified nor the order changed," and "Selections should not be moved from one month/one quarter to another," and "The curriculum guide can not be accelerated in any class so that an entire quarter, semester or year is covered in compressed period of time, so that the rest of the year can be spent on other materials." Reconcile those statements with the following: "This is a LIVING document which will continue to evolve and change over time as we see how fast we can/can't move . . ."


3. How about supplementary materials? "The practice of using outside materials such as newspapers or magazine articles 3 times a week, for example, is not appropriate . . . Teachers must be able to justify and explain how a piece is appropriate for the standard." Also: "Magazines for independent reading are not appropriate unless they are tied to such standards as technical documents, and students are given a specific criteria/task related to them."


4. The district notes a decline in Gifted and Talented (GATE) scores last year. Could it be that too much thinking and too many complicated assignments during class time hurt student performance on Scantron tests? Nevermind what that might imply about multiple choice assessments--here's how vague unease becomes big policy: "Board members have expressed concern over the depth and complexity of schools' Honors/GATE classes. Some of these students are currently not showing consistent, district-wide growth. This issue is a current RUSD board goal. GATE/Honors classes are required to follow all pacing guidelines set forth for the regular curriculum...[then] they should move on to other challenging assignments."


5. What about independent reading? "No one disputes the idea that getting students to read more will help increase their overall achievement with reading..." but "work should be reading-level appropriate, and teachers should hold students accountable." Also: "Middle schools with an independent reading period should hold site discussions to determine how to make this time the most effective..." Perhaps most importantly, teachers must not permit students to read in class too much, only a "minimal amount of time to reinforce the standards for that time period. Minimal is defined as a maximum of 30 minutes per week NOT to be done in one class period. An appropriate standards-based assignment must accompany the independent reading." (This last point is repeated verbatim in both documents.)


6. Honors and AP classes, which have traditionally required summer reading, have been viewed as a haven for students and parents seeking access to a now-privileged program of more instruction for complete primary, rather than predigested, materials. But one new Riverside high school is already being touted as an example for neither requiring (nor strongly encouraging?) Honors students to read books as summer prep. In the September 4 document, RUSD says that the whole concept of summer reading needs to be "reassessed" district-wide, "by looking at what is the purpose of reading/assignments."
   

These last two points, not discussed at all in the newspaper, perhaps reveal more about RUSD's real attitude towards curriculum and micromanagement than any spokesperson's clarifications about how and when novels "can" or "can't" be used in classrooms.

How are teachers to cope? Already used to this rhythm of disinformation, many shrug it off. One Honors teacher says she expects, maybe, to get through one novel by the end of the year. Teachers in the regular program? Maybe none at all.

Here's one irony: Brand new teachers at Poly High this year were required by their principal to read Harry K. Wong's The First Days of School: How to be an Effective Teacher within the first six weeks of classes. These teachers were required to complete "homework" and meet to discuss the first "unit" during second period of a regular instructional day.

Here's another: the RUSD main office sits right across the street from the PE (not-so-locally owned by the Belo Corporation). In 2006 RUSD hired a PE reporter, Jacquie Paul, to be "spokesperson" for the district when speaking to her former colleagues at the press. Like any good bureaucracy, RUSD knows that narratives are best controlled with a kinder, gentler turn of phrase--and that good professional connections help, too.

Riordan backs Carson charter school

Riordan backs Carson charter school

Teacher Watch: Student Race and Discipline

So much for desegregation.

At the end of September, the Chicago Tribune published an investigative report stating that, on average, black students in the U.S. are suspended at three times the rate of white students. According to analysis of senior correspondent Howard Witt, who mined through U.S. Department of Education data collected in 2004-05, there's a dramatic disparity between rates of suspension and expulsion for blacks and their total numbers of enrollment.

The study examines suspensions and expulsions only, with no distinction made for preliminary stages of intervention, such as referrals, parent conferences, or detentions (school site data which is much more difficult to get). In addition, there is no evidence yet regarding the nature of infractions by students of all races, crucial information for evaluating whether suspensions and expulsions were merited. Are we talking about fights? carrying weapons? chewing gum? selling drugs? carrying an iPod? cheating? eating Doritos in class?

Witt reports that the disparity of consequences is more extreme with African American students than with other minority groups, such as Hispanics (apparently disciplined in proportion to their overall numbers) or Asians (disciplined at lower rates). Idaho, perhaps not surprisingly, is cited as the only state where no such discrepancy exists.

In a conversation on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, Witt alludes to a backlash of defensiveness from teachers, who feel targeted by charges of racism and are eager to "explain away" the disparity. Interestingly, the Tribune report underscores the fact that 83 percent of teachers are white, but Witt and those he interviews notably ignore the equally intriguing and complicating factor that now nearly 80 percent of teachers are also female.

Witt stresses the impact of discipline unfairness on black students, implying (though never stating) that perhaps a majority of these students received suspensions or expulsions they did not deserve. However, the report does little to scrutinize how white privilege--administrative fear of connected, affluent, and/or litigious white parents whose children "can never do any wrong"--may have exaggerated the disparity in recent years. In other words: How many white students did not receive penalties they might certainly have earned?

This report on student discipline, like most others, also fails to interrogate the complex attitudes directed towards women in positions of authority. Perhaps school institutions, like the larger milieu, tolerate white male disrespect of white female teachers more indulgently (consider the recent Carl's Jr. ad, which attempted to sell burgers by valorizing white male sexual aggression towards a "hot" female teacher). Perhaps white female teachers themselves learn to have higher thresholds of tolerance for misbehavior in white males. (Not a good thing, by the way.)

It's unfortunately not unthinkable that school officials would be more righteous in policing perceived aggression directed by black students at white female teachers, and teachers therefore may learn to be more confident about soliciting backup from administration when dealing with black males.

There's another angle here as well. Because the Tribune report only documents statistics of suspension and expulsion, we have no way of comparing rates of lower-level interventions that sometimes prevent or delay escalation: student and/or parent conferences, referrals, detention. While white teachers may initially bend over backwards to engage this process with white students and their parents, some may indulge "white guilt" about facing black students honestly and frankly at early stages of trouble, actively involving parents in discussions about behavior. One logical result would be that no intervention takes place with black students until something really drastic happens--going from zero to sixty in ten seconds on the discipline meter--giving a reasonable appearance of unfair haste. Another, more ironic result could be that white students gain some immunity from regular forays into the principal's office ("we're working with him; let's not suspend him yet...")

Reversing this trend of apparent unfairness requires more than a patronizing acknowledgment that racism still exists in America. (Duh...) It also requires that we ask whether white students are really "behaving better" by avoiding suspensions and/or expulsions, or whether schools are more afraid of following through when their detentions and referrals stack up. That means scrutinizing invisible privilege, not simply visible punishment.

Novels a No-No

Southern California's Riverside Unified School District (RUSD), which at the beginning of the 2002-03 academic year instituted a "no novels" policy for lower level English classes grades 7-12, has now upped the stakes. As of Fall 2007-08, even Honors courses are bound by the policy, demanding that teachers stick to the letter of the Holt, Rhinehart & Winston textbook and curriculum planning map and avoid primary sources of literature.

Now, as then, district officials deny in public that there is an official ban, while telling teachers through meetings and memos about the need for uniformity and consensus on the subject of "no novels" and curriculum maps for classes. The dissonance is migraine inducing.

While there was some limited outcry and public discussion in 2002, district officials had little trouble containing the opposition because the most vocal cohort of students and parents were apparently exempt from the ban. Nevermind the groundwork laid by the district with its stance that reading whole novels, or for that matter any genre of complete, unadulterated text (a former colleague was chided two years ago for using a nonfiction book) was detrimental and distracting in an English class.

At the heart of this, of course, lies concern about test scores. Superintendent Susan Rainey currently reasons that novels are "based on literature" rather than "based on the standards." Perfectly consistent with the 2002 view.

The current shock of parents, Honors teachers, and students unfortunately comes five years too late. Coverage in the local press, along with indignant presentations to the school board, have as yet made no mention of the history and precedent already in place. I'd like to cheer for the protesters, but the disconnect remains a depressing commentary on the amnesia fostered by disinformation in school districts.

The current outcry also smacks, however unintentionally, of elitism: The lower-level students may not need literature, but we at the top deserve it.

Ironically, the most accelerated levels of students in RUSD tend to purchase their own books anyway, and no one can stop them from continuing to do that on their own. Even if the district does relent on the ban for Honors students, there will be no remedy for the majority of kids whose main opportunity and motivation for getting access to books remains through school resources. The ban for them was set five years ago.

I've already heard that the "wiggle room" allowed by the district for Honors courses (to pacify instructors) will go something like this: Once you finish covering everything on the planning map, go ahead and use real literature; just make sure you teach the novels using materials provided by the Holt standardized curriculum. (Several teachers report that this is a step forward, a victory....) The same "compromise" was vetted five years ago for non-accelerated, non-Honors courses and guess what? There's little real whole-book reading going on in those classes anymore.

Which is more Orwellian: that RUSD decided books have nothing to do with learning, or that people are shocked after five years to discover that the district really does mean it, and thinks this principle should apply to all students?

Attacking isn't thinking - Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times in Filing isn't learning attacks teachers and fails to look for the root cause of the perceived problem.

Here are is a quick list of issues the Times glosses over or forgets altogether.

1. Too many students never get the opportunity to take an elective because they are languishing in "intervention" programs.

2. Electives such as wood shop, chorus, music, journalism, metal, cooking, computer technology, art, etc. are disappearing from our schools--especially middle schools.

3. If a student "elects" to be a teacher assistant for a semester, the student and the teacher both value the experience. It is one of the only ways left in the system to be a one-on-one mentor to a student. Don't forget students are required to take core classes(math, science, social studies, English) every semester and most teachers who have assistants help to make sure their assistants are successful in their core classes.

If there are too many student-assistants at a school, the problem is that there are not enough elective choices for students at the school.

Fund elective programs, encourage student-choice in their education, and stop berating teachers and schools.

Deliver My Children

AllHipHop.com reports:

The pioneering rapper announced today (September 12) that he is producing a follow-up documentary titled DMC: Deliver My Children, aimed at shedding light on the ills of the foster care system, which houses over 800,000 children annually.

"The foster care system is totally obsolete. Kids are being killed, abused and even experimented on. I was fortunate. I got adopted," DMC said. "There's a half a million kids here every year here that don't get adopted."

My Adoption Journey explained the legendary rapper's search for his biological mother, who game him up for adoption in 1964.

DMC was not aware he was adopted until his mother told him as an adult in 2000 when he was 35-years-old and gathering information for his autobiography King of Rock: Respect, Responsibility, and My Life with Run-DMC.

It was then that he set out on a spiritual and personal journey to find his biological mother.

Not for Teacher

When a teacher named Janis Adams approached her site administration for--um, help?--when she discovered a kid masturbating during class when her back was turned, the dude in charge of discipline gave her a lecture on hormones and girls with big breasts, telling her "Little Lady, you got to get used to it."

That was almost ten years ago, but the comment and its underlying attitudes set the stage for a series of other, more personal incidents targeting Adams and other teachers at her site. Adams finally decided she'd had enough, and sued Los Angeles Unified School District for failures to maintain a safe and civil workplace, free of hostile environment sexual harassment. An appeals court ruled last year that her case can be indeed retried under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), and that new trial is pending.

LAUSD has already spent nearly two million dollars in legal fees to characterize Adams' complaint as an overreaction. Should other teachers consider this water under the bridge? Ancient history? We've come a long way, Baby, so don't get your shorts in a wad?

Um, no.

Just in time for Fall classes, Carl's Jr. has rolled out a new ad campaign for its "patty melt," complete with a booty-slapping, pelvic-tilting Mary Kay Letourneau lookalike in a tight skirt (mostly a sad ripoff of--or homage to--Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher" vid). Two white boys rap and sneer about their "bun" preferences, draw and then erase part of the teacher's naked backside on the chalkboard, even flash brass knuckles at the end.

"Get used to it," indeed. You don't have to be a piece of meat. View--and rate--the ad yourself here.

Life Prep

The latest intervention strategy identifies students languishing in "test prep" and enrolls them into "life prep." This innovative curriculum requires the students to produce something and perfect it. Read about it in Their 'final' is a beginning for young authors - Los Angeles Times.

A Culture of Discipline: Guiding Principles for the School Community

Let's start with the title. "A Culture of Discipline" conjures images of two wooden paddles hanging on the wall behind the assistant principal. One altered for better stinging and faster swinging, having 1/8" holes drilled through at every half inch. The other still could be used up a creek in a canoe. But enough of my repressed childhood memories and back to LAUSD's new discipline policy which was partially unveiled to teachers today in the Daily Breeze.

You'd think a teacher would like to hear of a new policy before the newspapers, but really that is not necessary. Now the teachers know more than the administrators and we all know that nothing will happen except the laminating and posting of "A Culture of Discipline" posters in every office and classroom--which is in perfect keeping with our true "Culture of Posters." Nevertheless, you'd think that in our fifty-plus years of poster culture we could come up with better catch phrases. Instead of "A Culture of Discipline: Guiding Principles for the School Community," how about:

A Joyous Culture of Learning: Guiding Principles of Mutual Respect for the School Community.

(I'm sorry. If you still have visions of paddle swats or ruler whacks, it must have something to do with the "L" word. I almost went with "enlightenment.")

About the new policy, a district administrator told the Daily Breeze, "Teachers are going to be challenged to try some other strategies than suspension."

Yeah, and the deans won't be able to use their paddles either. She must have been misquoted. Teachers don't have the power to suspend students in LAUSD. In fact, when students are referred to a dean, teachers typically relinquish all input on further disciplinary action to the dean.

Board member Richard Vladovic's chief of staff David Kooper, perhaps recognizing that the newspaper isn't the best way to roll out new policy, said,"This is a top-down approach to the behavior problems. It needs to have teacher buy-in. If you look at the policy, there isn't too much to disagree with."

He is right. It is benign, but I have some implementation advice on the excerpted policy edicts--thank you very much.

The school administrator is responsible for issuing a written invitation to all stakeholders (including parents, teachers, classified administrators, and students) to participate in a school-wide discipline leadership team...

Sorry, a poster won't suffice and a new "team" is not necessary. Invite the stakeholders to the existing discipline committee. Use the opportunity to consolidate all discipline-related committees into one "team."

[Teachers utilize] data in collaboration with administration and support personnel to monitor misconduct.

Currently "data" consists of standardized test scores and a "YES" or a "YES!" by students' names on a roll sheet if the student has a history of violent discipline issues. This mysterious demarcation means nothing when half of your class is blessed with one of the "yes" classifications. By contrast, Deans' office records, home history, and the (newly-rediscovered to be most important) past report cards would be the "data" to have in hand at the start of a school year.

Besides utilizing data, the policy also requires teachers to teach.

Defining, teaching, reviewing and modeling Culture of Discipline: Guiding Principles for the School Community and Culture of Discipline: Student Expectations and school rules.

--AND--

Teaching the district or state-approved violence prevention curriculum that teaches social-emotional skills (as required by federal and state guidelines) in elementary and middle schools. May be augmented by other approved programs selected by the School Leadership Council...

This is easy enough to teach in homeroom except for the minor detail that I have never seen the "district or state-approved violence prevention curriculum." It must be on a poster or in a newspaper somewhere.

News: Opponents of Anaheim trustees turn in 5,000 signatures

We did it!

News: Opponents of Anaheim trustees turn in 5,000 signatures - OCRegister.com

Two vice presidential hopefuls got it right on education

In this morning's debate Governor Bill Richardson distinguished himself from all the presidential hopefuls with his "one-point" plan on NCLB.

I also have a one-point plan, like I do on Iraq, on No Child Left Behind: Scrap it. It's a mess; it's a disaster. (APPLAUSE)

All the candidates would do well to adopt Richardson's "one-point plan" and listen to Senator Joe Biden's wife on merit pay for teachers.

Tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock, my wife will walk into a classroom and teach for the 30th year in a row. And the one thing any teacher can tell you is that the last person you want to base your performance on, judge your performance, is the administrator of the school. That's the first thing everybody figures out if you teach.

You can read the entire debate transcript here. It is an unwieldy format. You can go forward by clicking "next." However, in order to go backwards you'll have to type the page number at the end of the URL in the address bar.

Los Amigos PAC to Unseat Harald Martin Has Over 4,000 Signatures!

Community leaders will submit to OCDE over 4,000 signatures collected to overturn Anaheim Union High School District Board of Trustees' decision to appoint Harald Martin on July 19th, 2007. They will make their triumphant delivery 1:30 PM on Monday, August 20, 2007 at Orange County Department of Education on 200 Kalmus Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.

The Los Amigos press release echos the experience of us signature gatherers who found during precinct walks that virtually every voter was outraged at the appalling appointment of Harald Martin.

Harald Martin's recent appointment to the AUHSD Board of Trustees is an affront to the democratic process and to the citizens who reside in the district. The AUHSD board appointed Mr. Martin despite opposition from parents, students, neighborhood leaders, elected officials and despite being overwhelmingly rejected by voters. He came in seventh out of eight candidates in the most recent election and lost by a landslide as an incumbent in 2002.

Petitioner Leonard Lahtinen states, "I have personally gone door to door in several neighborhoods and found voters outraged by the actions of the current board. This is really about accountability and ensuring that citizens' voices are heard. We are very pleased to announce that we have greatly surpassed the required 2300 signatures to unseat Mr. Martin."

Petitioner Carol Reinbolt adds, "Somebody needs to speak for children. As a retired school teacher, I felt morally driven to make sure all children are taught in a safe and secure environment. I am very proud to be part of this coalition which has brought people from throughout this district together for a very good cause."

Standardized test based interventions--a cycle of futility

Ninth-grade grades are the best indicator of future graduation rates. This according to recent findings by Chicago Consortium on School Research.

Dr. Elaine Allensworth presented her research report What Matters for Staying On-Track and Graduating in Chicago Public High Schools--A Close Look at Course Grades, Failures, and Attendance in the Freshman Year at a forum shown recently on CSPAN2. This is from the the "interpretive summary."

Current discussion about improving student achievement focuses on two broad areas: course rigor and accountability through high school testing...the effectiveness of these approaches may be limited.

...standardized testing in the high schools has shown little academic benefit for students... Students who receive higher marks in their courses show higher gains on corresponding standardized tests. The strategies that are being proposed most strongly for high school reform must be accompanied with efforts to improve course performance (i.e., grades). By themselves, rigorous requirements and standardized tests are unlikely to substantially raise student achievement.

Also during the Washington D.C. forum, Improving Under performing High Schools, Dr. Robert Balfanz, Research Scientist at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University, said he found that academic success in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades are excellent indicators of future graduation rates as well. See it for yourself on CSPAN2.

Many of us will start the school year with professional development days that will no doubt include looking at "student data." That data will be test scores not course grades. That same test data will be used for identifying students for intervention programs. And those intervention programs will be preparation for standardized tests--a futile cycle.

Meanwhile 1.2 million students who would have been identified earlier and served better with intervention programs that centered around classroom success are dropping out of school. Thank you CST, CAT6, STAR, and CAHSEE!

Martin Watch

The petitions will be turned in to the OCDE on Monday. We need more signatures. Please join us on the last major door knocking expedition of the campaign.

Here are the details:

Date: Saturday, August 18, 2007
Time:9:00 a.m.
Location: 5315 Yorkshire Drive in Cypress (off of Ball between Walker and Grindlay)

Refreshments will be provided

Here's the latest from the prolific Martin chronicler, GUSTAVO ARELLANO, in the OC Weekly.

School Peformance Anxiety--No More Gimmicks!

Okay, maybe it was cute to see the occasional principal pledge to shave his head if student test scores improved at his school for the year. But some of the stunts to rah-rah rally kids at scantron time have become more irrelevant, protracted, and bizarre. We should probably expect these to get weirder with the buzz over NCLB renewal and as test scores hit plateaus.

At one Title I Elementary School in Riverside, California, a principal pledged to spend a whole day on the school roof. In a memo to staff, the administrator wrote, "Following the [school] assembly I will climb a ladder to the top of the annex roof and set up my office for the day. While this event may take some time away from regular activities it can certainly provide you with fodder for some other very meaningful lessons."

Fodder for lessons? Now that's a real educator talking!

The memo enumerated eleven "ideas" for lesson plans related to her day spent on the roof, including:

"Students can write friendly letters to me about the event. I will have a mail 'basket' hanging off the side of the roof in which students can put messages to me."

"Teachers can read other picture books aloud in which the main character is a principal."

"Have students draw pictures of me on the roof, and then write stories to go with the pictures, or orally tell about the pictures during Language Development time."

My favorite suggestions were that teachers should tell their students about "not trying this at home" and asking them to read classes a passage from a book titled What Principals Do When No One Is Looking. The principal also included a song about the event she wrote to the tune of "Up on the Housetop" which teachers were encouraged to sing with their students. (Call me crazy, but I wouldn't turn loose lyrics at a school with "ho, ho, ho, there she goes" in the refrain.)

How revealing is it that gimmicks can end up being more about administrative ego than about celebrating real campus achievement in a meaningful way? The image of any principal sitting on top of his or her school is, ironically, simply another powerful metaphor for disconnections we're all expected to ignore.

The scores are in. We lose again.

"There's something at Dodson that we can replicate," LAUSD Superintendent said discussing test results in today's Daily Breeze.

Was he referring to the household income in the Rancho Palos Verdes school?

Here is Andrew Carnegie Middle School's test scores with comparison data and an unfriendly gov. link to Carnegie's scores.

(New) Teacher Watch: What BTSA Won't Tell You (A Fiction)

Call it a rude awakening.

You have a student in class who's constantly disruptive, let's say personally hostile from the get-go--something about you sets him off. He's physically intimidating. He's given you the finger. He's cursed you across the classroom. You've found notes in the margin of his homework about how much he hates you, maybe a stick drawing of you hanging from a noose, maybe you having sex with a co-worker or an animal. You've tried "understanding," humor, and ignoring it; you've tried firmness, negotiation, a behavior contract. You've tried moving his seat. Other students perceive in a general way how much attention this person seems to be stealing from them. Even they resent you a little for it. God knows you have to hide the details from them.

Not exactly the perfect scenario for teaching quadratic equations or Shakespeare. But you don't want to be paranoid. That's you--the good sport with a stiff upper lip.

Along the way, you've phoned the kid's mom and dad at work and at home, and on the cellphone at the mall. You've held conferences on campus during your off-time, documented details with administration, even pulled in a counselor--every step along the expected Pyramid of Interventions. Each time, the boy shrugs and apologizes, but returns to the behavior again. Accelerates. It's been months now.

He really wants to be in the class, says mom. Maybe you should try more creative teaching strategies, says the dean of discipline. You're making the valiant effort to deny how bad this is, how impossible even breathing seems during the drive to school, you don't like leaving your classroom during the day, how can you fix this? how can you make him stop? But the more you try to be valiant, the less you feel safe in the place where you work. This job everyone says you have to love. It must be me, it must be me. Finally, someone--your union rep? your spouse? a friend looking over her own shoulder?--says you've got to stop letting this go. To hell with zen and the art of classroom management. It's not you. You're not a bad person to say "no."

He's dropped from your class. This, you think, will end it. But he approaches you on campus, says he plans to "get even." He says his parents hate you. You find your car windshield smashed in a few days later. You have no proof who did it. You feel no safer. His friends stand in line in front of your classroom door, stare in at you. There are calls to your house. Someone is circulating written rumors in a newsletter--you were a porn star, you wear diapers, you must've performed sexual favors to get this teaching job. Other teachers are targeted too, in the same vein. Somebody makes a video and leaves you a copy--an effigy of you is decapitated and burned. One of your colleagues actually tells you to have a sense of humor--not like anyone has physically attacked you yet.

Maybe you are going crazy. Some part of you feels this is your own fault--if you had been a better teacher, a better person, a smarter person...When you talk to your principal, he says there's nothing he can do, must suck to be you, maybe you're a little oversensitive these days?

You decide you might have a legal claim here. What is this, the Land of the Lotus Eaters? Why should you feel unsafe and bullied in your workplace--and at these wages? You know a judge, Judge Kenneth R. Freeman, who has made rulings in at least one teacher workplace case. He'll have some words of comfort, surely, a wise balance between the letter and spirit of the law. You don't want to sue anyone, you don't want anyone hurt, you just want to know how to feel right driving to school again. You want to be able to leave your classroom to take a bathroom break in peace. You want a clue how the system works. Judge Freeman should know--he was married to a teacher in Los Angeles Unified. There's hope.

Judge Freeman goes to the file cabinet where he keeps copies of documents from previous cases. He pulls out the order granting a new trial for a teacher who had been in a similar situation to yours--a ruling from June of 2002, Case No. BC 235667.

For a new trial? you wonder, Hmmmm... But then you think: What a coincidence! This is great! and you cut yourself an extra piece of cake.

Well, says the judge, I'll skip right to the good parts: (ahem) Hostile acts may be committed by children. Schools are fundamentally unlike an adult workplace in many ways, including that children may regularly interact with each other and others in a manner that would be unacceptable among adults....

Yeah, you say. That's how we got here. And?

Okay, says the judge, yadah yadah yadah...here we are: A teacher voluntarily elects to teach in the challenging high school environment, to some extent trading protection against offensive conduct for the professional challenge and stimulation of that unique marketplace of ideas...

Suddenly, cake looks unappetizing. You put down your plate. Wait, you say. Wait a minute. Trading protection for the professional challenge? Professional challenge? A unique marketplac