It used to be that on my way home I would turn on WFAN and listen to the bloviating of His
Popeness, Mike Francesa. Hasn't been that way for a few months now.

I have found a new voice to listen to, that of Michelangelo Signorile on SiriusXM Progressive Channel 127. I have to tell you, I am hooked. Heck, I don't even listen to Sternthology in the afternoon.

Michelangelo has had me mesmerized with his take on the entire 2016 election and it's aftermath. The way he has deconstructed Trump's petty excuse of living has me on the edge of my seat as I drive up the Major Deegan in the afternoon. His progressive agenda, his realistic look at the world has let know that I, and others who feel the same, or not alone in the screwed up, messed up, crazy country we live in nowadays.

Michelangelo is a true defender of those who need defending. Whether they be of the LGBTQ community, African-American, Hispanic, Asian-Americans, Jews, women, or just anyone in need, and anyone being shat upon by those with the privilege to be in power. Death

Listening to him mock Steve Bannon, the Alt-Right, Trump, Christie, Palin, Guiliani, and all the other Trump hangers on and sycophants have left me in stitches so often I have almost driven off the Sprain!

But, and I say this with a heavy heart, Michelangelo has disappointed me in one regard. His silence and lack of understanding on Herr Trump's stance on education.

Right after the election I got a phone call from a friend of The Crack Team who happened to be in a panic. She was convinced that Reichsführer Trump will annihilate education in this country, sending billions of dollars away from public education and in the process putting the final nail in the coffin of teachers unions and urban education.

I did my best to reassure her that it won't happen, that Trump is all talk and he will never shut down the Department of Education and besides she, as well as myself, have just over 4 years till retirement and hopefully we'll be out before the proverbial doody hits the proverbial fan.

So back on November 10 I decided to call into Michelangelo's show and share with him what teachers are thinking and how horrible a Trump presidency will be to education in this country. I felt the need to do this due to the fact that of all the things that Trump is for not once had I heard Michelangelo bring up Trump's threat to education.

So Mike, I hope you are reading this. You took my call during the 5 o'clock hour. I told you I was Pete from White Plains and that I am a NYC teacher. I told you about Trump's plan and how teachers are scared. I told you how he will be wanting to take monies away from public education and put those monies into charter schools and vouchers for parochial and private schools as well as into homeschooling. Oh, and I shared how with being able to fill Scalia's seat teachers run the risk of Friedrich's being reheard and losing our right to organize. I will give you credit. You heard me. But you did not listen.

All I got from you Mike was, and I am paraphrasing, "Don't worry, your unions are too strong to allow this to happen." Say what? I tried to get in a word but you just kept talking over me.

Guess what? Our unions are not strong enough to fight back. Have you seen what has happened alone in New York State with education? With the testing, the BS evaluations, junk science, etc...? Who do we have to thank for this? The United Federation of Teachers. OUR UNION!!! That of course acts this way due to the directing of the AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS!!!

Have you noticed a trend across the country? In Wisconsin, North Carolina, California? Where have you been?

Where were you when Eva Moskowitz's name was being floated as Education Secretary? Do you know about Eva? Just in case you don't, check this out! Were you appalled that Princess Trump visited her Success Academy 1 School to tout her as an innovative educator  whilst ignoring the GREAT WORK of the teachers in the same building who teach our most needy students?

Where were you when Michelle Rhee was floated as Education Secretary? Yeah, that Michelle Rhee who I wrote about on the Huff Post in 2010, you know, about duct taping her student's mouths shut.

And guess who enabled the Moskowitz's, the Rhees, and the countless education deformers of the world? The DEMOCRATS! Yeah, without the Democrats, we never get NCLB and Race to the Top. If Democrats can't stop Republicans, or at the very least roll over for the Republicans, how can Trump be stopped?

How can Trump and the Republican controlled Congress be stopped when our unions have been rolling over, throwing teachers under the bus for 15 years?

Hey Mike, how about putting up that same fight for our children, the communities, our unions, and teachers that you put up for everyone else?

I know you can, and I know you are a good person that can make a change.

I'm a schmuck. I voted for Obama in 2008 and felt good about it. I had had it of 8 years of George W. Bush incompetency and lies. I wasn't voting for change, I was voting for accountability and for having a voice in my government. I truly believed that under Obama, the voices of the people if not
100% heard, will be at the very least be taken into consideration.

Gone will be the dreams of kowtowing to big money. Gone will be wasting money in two wasteful wars. Gitmo would be closed. A sensible and straightforward manner in insuring those without healthcare would finally be solved. NCLB? It will be a thing of the past, in fact there would be less federal involvement in local education matters. Guess I, along with others, have been incorrect.

What steams me is that I have defended Obama from Right Wing nut jobs who claim he is a socialist. How can a socialist turn over education to private and corporate entities? Same with Obamacare. Who is making out? The insurance companies. The corporatists are benefiting from the extension of Gitmo and since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down, into Pakistan.

But one of the stupidest things I have heard from this administration came out of the mouth of non-educator Arne Duncan bellowed to a  group of state superintendents on Friday;

“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan said. “You’ve bet your house and where you live and everything on, ‘My child’s going to be prepared.’ That can be a punch in the gut.”

First off let me add that is not just white suburban moms that are displeased. I guess I can speak for white suburban dads and say we are displeased as well. But anyway (I will toot my horn again), as I predicted, it is now the time for the rollback or should I start saying the Revolution.

The undertones of what Arne is saying is fascinating yet revealing. I don't know if what he said comes from being racist as some have said, or just clueless as to what his policies have wrought or clueless as to the world around him.

First off, there has never been a crisis in education. In fact I'll go as far as saying Bush was much more benevolent than the Obama administration and truly wanted to help along those that truly needed the help. It has been under Obama that the push for privatization and federal intervention into education as truly accelerated and been encouraged. But I have digressed.

Arne needs to realize why there has been more silence coming from the urban core concerning education deform from the inner cities.

Parents are less informed, not only own their own volition, but more and more the urban governments of this country, and particularly in NYC, have been become more of a top down style of governance than in the suburbs. In the suburbs, in the small towns and villages, and even the cities, there is still a participatory style of government. Not only is speaking at council meetings easier, but better, still encouraged. One can still call their mayor, supervisor, trustee, or council member at home and discuss issues.What Arne is unaware of is this is democracy in action. Heck, I won't even get into New England town meetings.

The school boards are still elected by the people and for the people. More and more schools boards and school districts are being usurped and taken over my maniacal short little men with Freudian issues across the country. See the paragraph above for participatory democracy.

Many, not all, but a goodly amount of parents in the inner city are immigrants. They do not know or are afraid to speak out. There are also parents hat work multiple jobs and don't have time to complain or to be informed. There are parents that have been so beaten down by the system they can't or won't speak up. And worse, there are parents that just don't care.

But how can you as a parent, let's say in NYC, speak up for your child's education when a parent whose child goes to school in Brooklyn has a complaint and must traverse to the Bronx to deal with the school's network? How bus and/or subway lines must this parent transverse to advocate for their child's education? Even the parent that goes to each and every PEP (Panel for Eduction policy, NYC's answer to the board of ed.) is met with disdain from the panel time after time.

And let's not forget the suburbs seem to have an independent media. The Journal News in Westchester County is doing a wonderful job at exposing Common Core.

The parents in the suburbs still have and want to keep their voices in their district's decisions and their child's education. We will never abdicate that right. To have that right taken away from us, to have our local boards ability to know what is best for our children removed, is not the American way. Our schools, our communities, and our children are not part of a corporation.

But for Arne to say that, "isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were," speaks to a bigger issue of his ignorance.

Speaking only for me, I know what my son is capable of and what he can do. I do not need a test to tell me what my son does or doesn't know, what he is or isn't capable of. There is a difference between proficiency and ability. I'm tired of this proficient crud. It means NOTHING!

Thanks to Arne and Obama we are allowing our children to be mindless and clueless incapable of thinking for themselves. Oh, and please spare that we need to compete with other countries. India and China pay their employees squat. Is that what Arne wants, our children to make $5 an hour?

Arne, your time and your charade are over. The Education Revolution is just beginning.

This article was re-tweeted to me. It is too good not to share. From nevadaappeal.com:

“Not everything that matters can be measured, and not everything that can be measured matters.”

— Elliott Eisner

Over the past decade No Child Left Behind has changed the way children are forced to learn and teachers are forced to teach. Now the LEARN Act and Race to the Top threaten to do even more harm. Not only do these new initiatives legislate what should be taught, but precisely how it should be taught. Moreover they continue to give a false impression of what authentic learning looks like.

Daniel Pink, in his book, “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,” cites research showing that when we focus on short-term goals, long-term interests get crowded out and, in his words, “nasty things can happen.” For example, by focusing only on short-term goals, dieters employ dangerous crash diets, athletes take steroids, Wall Street engages in sketchy practices. In each case the short-term objective is reached at the expense and ultimate well-being of the individual or the economy.

Let's apply that same principle to schools. Today, teachers are implored to focus on test prep activities at the expense of real teaching and learning. They teach what gets tested, that narrow set of skills that can be assessed by filling in a bubble.

Yet, according to Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus at University of Southern California, there is no evidence to support this skills-based approach in teaching literacy. None. Through his review of research, Krashen found that nothing works better than real reading and real writing. Imagine that. Kids learn by doing. And doing it a lot.

Pink also states that as human beings, we find many creative and conceptual tasks enjoyable. We adults enjoy reading, doing crossword puzzles, gardening or practicing the piano. We are motivated simply by the doing. Likewise, children are wired for learning and discovery. They enjoy it. It motivates them. Nonetheless, by pushing more and more pencil and paper activities onto younger and younger children, we destroy that natural love of learning.

What we expected of first-graders 20 years ago is being required of kindergartners today. Reading. Sight vocabulary. Spelling. Writing. Yes, many 5-year-olds can learn those things, but many can't pass the stress test. They react with belly-aches, misbehavior and hating school.

That, my friends, is the unintended consequence of No Child Left Behind and any other legislation that rewards performance on multiple choice tests over authentic learning. Kids burn out. Kids drop out.

So before we all jump on the bandwagon for the next round of school reform initiatives, let's keep in mind that our ultimate goal is not a test score. Our goal is literate adults who can separate fact from opinion. Adults who can write coherently. Adults who continue to learn and grow because they simply love learning. That's the real test.

I came across this interesting blog posting through Twitter. The person who wrote it, @msprincipal62, is a principal somewhere in these vast United States of America. From what I have been able to ascertain thus far is that he is a mature principal, that believes that teachers should teach, and principals should principal. He appears to be a veteran educator who rose to his position by becoming an expert educator, and not on a lark. No five years in education, writing a check to Touro College, or even going to the Leadership Academy. I doubt very much he will write a teacher up for having a Coke in their hand.

This blog posting by @msprincipal62 is in regards to the travesty of the NCLB. For him to have his own blog shows that he is secure in herself and his profession and does not have some Freudian axe to grind against teachers.

So without further adieu, I present, @msprincipal62. Please give a big round of applause.

Time for No Child Left Behind to Be Left Behind But I’m Afraid of What They Might Come Up with Instead

When I started teaching about twenty years ago, a veteran teacher once told me when I elatedly said that I was glad our state government was changing some education regulation, “Be careful what you wish for. What they often come up with is often worse than what we have.” Twenty years later, that veteran teacher’s fear is alive and well inside my head as discussions heat up about the re-authorization of No Child Left Behind. I have long suspected that the original motivations behind the No Child Left Behind legislation was to set public schools up so that they automatically fail. Why else would you set up the totally ridiculous and impossible standard of having all students proficient by 2014. It does not take someone with the intelligence of a rocket scientist to see that having ALL students proficient by that deadline is not going to happen, ever. In fact, you could set that standard deadline for 2050 and it will never happen. I realize to some idealists that statement sounds pessimistic coming from a school administrator who should have high expectations for all students, but as the discussion about NCLB re-authorization heats up, I honestly think this country is in desperate need of a reality check.

Let’s face it, education is an extremely messy process. Contrary to what all the politicians behind NCLB or its re-authorization think or believe, education is not a business. Education is not a factory. NCLB has a basic assumption that education can be a business or a factory. The discussions about the re-authorization of the legislation and this “Race-to-the-Top” rhetoric still have the same basic assumptions at their core. For example, the discussion of national standards and national tests to measure those standards is only extension of the same factory-model view of learning. The difference now is that states like Tennessee and Texas are going to directly tie teacher performance to test score performance. That should be a frightening prospect to all educators. Not because we do not want to take responsibility for our students’ learning, but because there are so many environmental factors about learning that we do not control. For example, we do not even control our own budgets which means we ultimately do not control the resource stream into our classrooms and schools. Yet, there are those who tie student performance on tests to teacher performance. That is clearly a sign of the delusional factory-model thinking of our political establishment.

I do think we must take responsibility for our students’ learning, and I am not just making excuses by pulling the environment card. But, instead of tumbling headlong into the next standards and accountability fad, we must also back up and critically look at the entire accountability and standards movement and what is has done to education as a whole, and to our teachers and students specifically. No matter what anyone says, we have an educational system that “teaches to the test.” Some might argue that this is not a problem, but anyone who has actually worked with these high-stakes tests know their many limitations. In a sense, we are basing a child’s entire future and a teacher’s on a test. That is frightening!

Where then is this current standards and accountability push taking us? Will we have national standards and a national test that determines the fate of both students and teachers in this country? Perhaps instead of “racing to the top” we need to walk for a bit to assess our ideas. If we do not do that, I am afraid what that veteran teacher told me long ago is true. “Be careful what you wish for. What our government and educational establishment develops to replace what we have is often worse than what we had before.”