Live Long and Prosper...

Children Are Born Scientists. What If School Encouraged That? (Kristina Rizga)

Standardized tests are generally a waste of time and money, but they do show what states require schools to emphasize in daily instruction. It's no surprise that there's been an "overall decline" in the time spent teaching science...which is not tested to the extent that reading and math are.

In Indiana, for example, all children in grades three through eight are tested every year in English/Language Arts and Math. Science is tested only in grades four and six, and then not again until subject area tests in high school (Social Studies is tested only in grade five before high school). Students in grade three have an additional reading test tied to a grade-level promotion.

There are standards for science in every grade, of course, and teachers are required to teach those standards every year, but the fact that they're not tested tells the teachers and the students that they are "not important" and are often relegated to the position of "fillers" and taught "when there's time" during the school week.

Kindergartens, which have transitioned from developmentally appropriate activities to the "new first grade", rarely allow students time to study science through free play at water tables, sand tables, building blocks, and other natural explorations.

Our students should start preparing for a science and technology-based society. Carl Sagan reminded us in 1990 that we live in a society dependent upon science and technology, yet too few of us understand science and technology.

From Kristina Rizga

Studies that have looked at time dedicated to science in elementary grades since the mid-’90s, have found variation between states, but generally show an overall decline, especially in schools serving high numbers of low-income children. Meanwhile, jobs in the STEM-related fields are now projected to be among the fastest growing in America, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Political storms: Emergent partisan skepticism of hurricane risks

From Elisa F. Long, M. Keith Chen, and Ryne Rohla

That Americans don't understand or trust science is reason enough that we need to teach it. As a nation, we are ignorant of science-based problems like climate change, toxic and radioactive wastes, and ozone depletion. When someone raises an alarm about a looming scientific crisis there is widespread denial that it's happening.

A significant number of our citizens distrust scientists and science, and sadly, science distrust and denial are tied to one of our political parties. Proof of that can be seen in the study below, where people from the science-denying political party were more likely to ignore warnings about dangerous hurricane forecasts.

Exposing students to good science beginning in early childhood is a way to make sure that they grow up to be science-literate citizens.

Mistrust of scientific evidence and government-issued guidelines is increasingly correlated with political affiliation...Combining GPS data for 2.7 million smartphone users in Florida and Texas with 2016 U.S. presidential election precinct-level results, we examine how conservative-media dismissals of hurricane advisories in 2017 influenced evacuation decisions. Likely Trump-voting Florida residents were 10 to 11 percentage points less likely to evacuate Hurricane Irma than Clinton voters (34% versus 45%)...The rapid surge in media-led suspicion of hurricane forecasts—and the resulting divide in self-protective measures illustrates a large behavioral consequence of science denialism.

LET THE SCHOOLS FIX IT

‘The failures of everyone else get passed to the schools’

America's public schools have been charged with fixing societal problems for decades. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the problem in 1967 remarking that

...we are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished.

There are still those who think that "fixing" the schools will fix society despite the fact that it has never worked. Politicians, pundits, and policymakers have, for years, passed the buck to the schools. Maybe it's time for them to accept some of the responsibility. Schools can help, of course, but can't do it alone.

From Middle school teacher, Braden Bell

Whenever society has a problem and those in charge can’t resolve it, the problem gets punted to the schools, which simply must deal with it as best they can.

Hunger. Lack of reliable child care. Gun violence. Pregnancies and STDs. Students who are abused or vulnerable in any number of ways...In all these cases, society is conflicted or at an impasse. As politicians and ideologues argue, schools have to address the problems encountered by the students who show up each day. Schools can’t punt. And because this exceeds what schools were designed for, they are often not well equipped to take on these challenges.

INFINITE DIVERSITY IN INFINITE COMBINATIONS: LIVING TOGETHER IN A COMMUNITY

Gene Roddenberry Quotes That Inspire a Great Future

No matter how hard the current occupant of the White House and his followers try to deny and prevent it, the US is a diverse country. That diversity is a net positive for our growth as a nation.

From Gene Roddenberry

Diversity contains as many treasures as those waiting for us on other worlds. We will find it impossible to fear diversity and to enter the future at the same time.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg says this is the secret to living a meaningful life

From Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The myth of the American "rugged individual" has been taken to the extreme. We have become a tribal nation focused on getting benefits for ourselves only. Unfortunately, we live in a community of people...and a community of nations. We need to understand that "we all do better when we all do better." The late Justice Ginsburg understood that.

...to make life a little better for people less fortunate than you. That's what I think a meaningful life is. One lives not just for oneself, but for one's community.

Reimagine Schools after Covid-19? Bring Children Together!

Thurgood Marshall said,

...unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our people will ever learn to live together and understand each other

From Nancy Bailey

Public schools can bring us together. When children learn to care for each other with tolerance and understanding, they will grow to respect one other as adults...

Vouchers and charters divide. Private schools and charter schools segregate. Remote learning, or learning at home or anyplace anytime, does little to bring students together.

This country needs strong public schools that unite students and families.

A VACCINE FOR CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Conspiracy Theories

The internet has opened the door for Americans to gain wide-ranging expanded knowledge...but, as Isaac Asimov wrote, "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

With that expanded knowledge comes expanded falsehood...conspiracy theories. Teachers are tasked with teaching students how to read critically...to sift through massive amounts of information and learn how to tell truth from falsehood. The state of the nation today would indicate that we have failed. Conspiracy theories abound.

Take the current worldwide health crisis. According to conspiracy theories...

• the virus is spread by 5G towers, 

• masks will starve your body of oxygen,

• Bill Gates is going to use the coronavirus vaccine to inject us with microchips,

• coronavirus is a Chinese bio-weapon

[For debunking information see Debunking COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories]

The National Center for Science Education offers a way to combat conspiracy theories with critical thinking...with the help of an acronym CONSPIR.

John Cook, a frequent NCSE collaborator who focuses on combating misconceptions, recently co-authored The Conspiracy Theory Handbook. During a recent conversation with Cook, he noted: “While we do not have a vaccine for COVID-19 at this time, we do have a vaccine for misinformation and conspiracy theories — critical thinking."

So how do we guide our students to critically think? Isn’t that the million-dollar question? In the case of conspiracy theories, just remember the acronym CONSPIR.

By analyzing information using these seven traits, students — or any concerned citizen — can easily pick out the red flags of conspiratorial thinking. If you can answer yes to any of the following questions when reading articles about COVID-19, chances are you have stumbled across an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory or intentional disinformation...

THE TROUBLE WITH MASKS

Palm Beach County residents express outrage over mask requirement: 'Devil's laws'

Even though medical professionals wear masks for hours at a time (think of a heart or brain surgeon performing an 8- to 10-hour surgery...as well as the doctors and nurses who assist) mask-wearing as a preventative for passing the coronavirus is being accused of "killing people" for lack of oxygen. Others claim that having a municipal ordinance requiring mask-wearing is a violation of our constitutional rights -- even though many of those folks accept the laws requiring wearing seat belts in cars, car seats for children, and protective helmets while motorcycling.

Witness...

A Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners public comment session went viral Wednesday after residents denounced mandatory masking laws as “devil’s laws” that would “throw God’s wonderful breathing system out the door.”

One attendee, Sylvia Ball, said she was “very sad to see the authorities stomping on our constitutional rights,” adding, “They want to throw God's wonderful breathing system out the door.

NO MORE TESTS?

New coronavirus spike alarms Republicans, but not Trump

Does the President's statement below mean that the U.S. Education Department will no longer require annual achievement tests for children?

"If we didn't have standardized reading tests, we wouldn't have poor readers. We only have poor readers because we test..."

“If we didn’t test, we wouldn’t have cases,” he said later at a shipyard in Marinette, Wis. “But we have cases because we test...”

TYSON ON SCIENTIFIC LITERACY

Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains Why Science Matters During COVID-19

In this episode of Star Talk, Neil deGrasse Tyson reminds us that science matters...

There comes a time when really the public needs to listen to scientists, in this case, to medical professionals...not only people in public, but people in power of legislation and policy, had the ear of scientists and elected not to take the warnings seriously.

K-12 SCHOOLS AS CHILD-CARE CENTERS

“Parents Need to Go to Work” Does Not Stop COVID at the School Door.

Side note...one of the reasons politicians are so anxious for children to return to school is for babysitting.

When I hear discussions about schools reopening in the fall, I already know what two chief reasons will be offered.

One is that students need to be educated. Of course they do, and as a career teacher, I desire to educate. I have dedicated my professional life to educating generations of children, and I miss being at school, in my classroom, with my students.

The second reason, which seems to follow quickly on the heels of the first, is that “parents need to get back to work”– the implication being that schools need to open so that parents once again have the built-in child care that the K12 school day (and its auxiliary programs) offers.

ANTI-SCIENCE AS ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

Franklin Graham Thinks Science And Religion Must Fight. As Usual, He’s Wrong

Anthony Fauci has the credentials and experience. We ought to listen to him.

“One of the problems we face in the United States is that unfortunately, there is a combination of an anti-science bias that people are – for reasons that sometimes are, you know, inconceivable and not understandable – they just don’t believe science and they don’t believe authority.”

Fauci added, “So when they see someone up in the White House, which has an air of authority to it, who’s talking about science, that there are some people who just don’t believe that, and that’s unfortunate because, you know, science is truth.”

Americans need to learn that science is a process, not a list of facts. It involves continuing observation and exploration, multiple hypotheses, and then more observation and exploration. Rarely does it end. For example, the Germ Theory of Disease (just a theory?) can be traced back to the 11th Century A.D. and was updated in the 14th, 16th, 18th and 19th centuries. We're still learning about the "germs" that infect us...today.

Scientists are the original fact-checkers. If you claim you have made a scientific discovery, dozens of your scientist colleagues will try to prove you wrong.  Sometimes, even when there's a scientific consensus, someone comes along and changes everything. The fact that scientific information changes is a feature, not a bug.

Finally, the fact that scientists sometimes disagree about a certain topic is a sign of health and vitality in that discipline, not a weakness. Eventually, the scientific method, including the use of double-blind experiments, leads to a consensus. It’s all right for a scientist to challenge a prevailing theory, but he or she had better be able to produce some research and back it up with experiments that can be replicated by others under the same conditions – or those ideas will fall by the wayside.

Fauci is right about resistance to science being an undercurrent in American society...

SAGAN: WE'VE BEEN BAMBOOZLED

I don't understand how people who drive cars, fly in airplanes, cook meals, use clocks, talk on telephones, trust that their tap water is clean, smell flowers, watch TV, and take their medicines can deny science when it doesn't suit their biases.

As a voter, as a citizen, scientific issues will come before you...Isn't it worth it to say, "Let me at least become scientifically literate so that I can think about these issues and act intelligently upon them"?

So...


THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

In case you've forgotten, here's a quick reminder...



THOSE ARROGANT SCIENTISTS

The same people who trust a plumber with their pipes and gas lines, a mechanic with their cars, and a doctor with their health, choose to believe politicians over 97% of the world's climate scientists when it comes to the fate of life on Earth.




DON'T CONFUSE YOUR GOOGLE SEARCH WITH MY PROFESSIONAL DEGREES

This is how I feel when the Indiana General Assembly starts passing laws about education.



CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION

Just because there's a correlation between the divorce rate in Maine and the per capita consumption of margarine doesn't mean that they necessarily relate to each other.



A VACCINE AGAINST CHARLATANS

Scientific literacy is a vaccine against the charlatans of the world who would exploit our ignorance. Without it, we are unprotected...

"When you have an established, scientific, emergent truth, it is true whether or not you believe in it, and the sooner you understand that, the faster we can get on with the political conversations about how to solve the problems that face us."

I've been thinking about the state of science education in the United States. A while back I wrote about improving our science education, and since that time nothing has changed. At least not as far as our federal government's (and in Indiana, the state government's) attitude towards science is concerned. For example, the U.S. is now the only country in the world which has officially denied climate change by our attempted withdrawal from the Paris Accords...A coal lobbyist is running the EPA...and the Department of the Interior is working to sell off land it's supposed to protect.

Sadly, the state of science literacy in the United States has allowed many Americans to be unaware of what's happening. Many Americans don't really understand why they should be concerned.

It's important that we improve science literacy in the U.S. But how?


TEACH THE COMMUNITY

How can we help improve science education in the community, state, and nation? Here are some ideas for parents, teachers, and concerned voters...

1. End the waste of our time and money on standardized tests and use the savings to pay for professional development for teachers teaching science, and for equipment and supplies to help them. Use the savings to pay for professional development and supplies for all teachers.

2. Make sure children come to school ready to learn. To that end, we need to spend dollars on countering the effects of poverty beginning with good prenatal care for every pregnant woman in the country. The U.S.A. is 56th in infant mortality rates behind countries like Latvia, Cuba, Canada, South Korea, and the U.K. Science has taught us what to do...we need to see to it that there is carry-over of scientific knowledge into the real world.

3. Work to counter the effects of poverty by investing in early childhood education in which children can explore themselves and the world. Our enrollment rates and expenditures on Early Childhood programs lag well below the OECD average.

4. Provide every child with a full and balanced curriculum,

...including the arts, science, history, literature, civics, foreign languages, mathematics, and physical education.

5. Support students by lowering class sizes.


6. End the diversion of tax dollars to unaccountable and unregulated charter schools, or vouchers for private and parochial schools.

7. The relationship between poverty and achievement is well established, but instructional innovations, improvements, and support can't overcome the effects of poverty alone. Students need support services to help ameliorate the effects of poverty. Services such as nurses, social workers, counselors, after-school programs, and transportation, should be available. The Chicago Teachers Union has developed a program, specific to Chicago schools, titles The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve 2.0. Many of the plans in this document are worth considering for other school systems.

8. Ensure that every school is staffed with fully-trained, professional educators and support staff.

9. Public schools should be controlled by elected school boards. Lack of transparency should not be an option.

10. The privatization of public education has increased school segregation. We know from research that desegregated schools narrowed racial and economic achievement gaps. It's time to fulfill the requirement of Brown vs. Board of Education.


A PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITY

"...public education is a public responsibility, not a consumer good."

The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the expense of the people themselves. -- John Adams

The preceding suggestions will cost money, and you might ask, "How can we afford that?" Ending the overuse and misuse of standardized testing will provide one source of income for schools to use. Ending the diversion of tax dollars for privatization will provide more, but that won't cover everything. We have to choose to spend more money on our future citizens.

Instead of asking, "Can we afford that?" we should state, "We cannot afford not to fully fund public education." The public schools quite literally, hold our future. For the well-being of our children and grandchildren, we must fully fund our schools.


FOR SCIENCE TEACHERS

Science teachers at all grades need to keep up with current information, especially in today's anti-science atmosphere. The following are some ideas to help keep science teachers up to date on science topics. Others interested in science education can also benefit from these.

• Check out the Science Education Checklist on the National Science Teachers Association website. Compare what's on that list with what's available in your classroom or school.

• Do your part to help students (and their parents) understand the scientific method, to see science in everyday life, and to dispel myths and misconceptions about science (e.g. "evolution is just a 'theory'").

• Work with your colleagues to develop multi-disciplinary projects. Science can be found in history, geography, philosophy, physical education, the arts, and other subject areas.

• Invite scientists from local industry and academia into your classroom to explore ideas with your students.

• Be an advocate for science. Teach so that your students become as excited about science as you are. At a minimum, ensure that they are scientifically literate when they leave your class.

• Join scientific organizations to advocate for science education and to keep up with the latest news in your field...groups like

○ The National Science Teachers Association
○ The American Association for the Advancement of Science
○ The National Science Foundation
○ The Association for Science Teacher Education
○ The Association for Science Education

• Read about ways to improve science education in the U.S.

○ The Improving science education in America
○ The Ideas for Improving Science Education in the U.S.
○ The How can we reform science education?

CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE

Reversing the anti-science direction of the country will take time and won't be easy. We can do it if we focus on today's students...tomorrow's leaders.

"When you have an established, scientific, emergent truth, it is true whether or not you believe in it, and the sooner you understand that, the faster we can get on with the political conversations about how to solve the problems that face us."

IGNORANCE OR PROFIT

Is it just ignorance, or the quest for profit, that has made the Trump White House (with help from the Republican Congress) one of the most anti-science administrations ever?

Just this past week, the United States was the only one of the world's 20 wealthiest nations to reject the Paris Climate Accords. Even the worlds largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, and the world's largest natural gas producer, Russia, supported the Accords.

The Energy 202: Trump stands alone at G-20 on Paris climate accords

But at the end of what observers deemed the "G-19 1" summit, the balance of that equation stayed the same. Nineteen of the 20 attendee nations at the annual Group of 20 meeting reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris accord. The United States stood alone in abandoning it.

The U.S. stands – almost – alone.

The only other nations who have refused to sign on to the Accords are Nicaragua, because the accords aren't strong enough to fight the danger of climate change, and Syria, which is in the midst of its civil war.

The President, however, has made it clear that he sides with the "science-deniers" and against the rest of the world.

DISSING EDUCATION

The assault on science is felt in education, too. Aside from the cuts to education programming proposed by the U.S. Education Department under school privatizer, billionaire Betsy DeVos, there is growing antagonism – even more than before – towards those who are educated.

The Pew Research Center recently released results of a survey showing that a majority of Republicans think post-secondary education (colleges and universities) has a negative effect on the country.

Sharp Partisan Divisions in Views of National Institutions

While a majority of the public (55%) continues to say that colleges and universities have a positive effect on the way things are going in the country these days, Republicans express increasingly negative views.

A majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (58%) now say that colleges and universities have a negative effect on the country, up from 45% last year. By contrast, most Democrats and Democratic leaners (72%) say colleges and universities have a positive effect, which is little changed from recent years.

Furthermore, the number of foreign students entering our colleges and universities has dropped, possibly due to more stringent restrictions on visas, or perhaps a more derisive attitude towards intellectuals.

The rise of Trump has given renewed power to this anti-intellectual attitude, under the encouragement of the anti-science blathering of someone who claims to be a "really smart person" (See Dunning Kruger Effect).

Know Nothings: On the Road to Taliban

Two years ago, 54 percent of Republicans said colleges had a positive impact on the country’s direction, with 37 percent rating higher education negatively. That ratio shifted to 43 percent positive and 45 percent negative last year.

IN THE SWAMP WITH THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY

Perhaps the issue is one of greed, after all. Trump has given power to the denial of science by appointing unqualified, pro-energy industry people to head the science-based cabinet departments...people like Rex Tillerson, former head of Exxon-Mobile, who was appointed Secretary of State with zero government or diplomatic experience. There's Scott Pruitt at the EPA, for example, who has sued the EPA 13 times and has 8 cases still pending because they dared to fight his pro industry policies in Oklahoma. And Rick Perry, who, when he began as Energy Secretary, thought that his job required him to be a

...global ambassador for the American oil and gas industry.

Other members of the administration's teams are equally ignorant, inexperienced, or entangled with the fossil-fuel industry.

The Deep Industry Ties of Trump’s Deregulation Teams

One such appointee [to Trump's Deregulation teams] is Samantha Dravis, the chairwoman of the deregulation team at the E.P.A., who was a top official at the Republican Attorneys General Association. Ms. Dravis was also president of the Rule of Law Defense Fund, which brought together energy companies and Republican attorneys general to file lawsuits against the federal government over Obama-era environmental regulations.

The Republican association’s work has been criticized as a vehicle for corporate donors to gain the credibility and expertise of state attorneys general in fighting federal regulations. Donors include the American Petroleum Institute, the energy company ConocoPhillips and the coal giant Alpha Natural Resources.

The Republican association also received funding from Freedom Partners, backed by the conservative billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch. Ms. Dravis worked for that group as well, which recently identified regulations it wants eliminated. Among them are E.P.A. rules relating to clean-water protections and restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions. [emphasis added]

The anti-science crowd has been waiting patiently for someone like Trump and his followers to welcome them into power and reverse the progress we have made against climate change. The current administration is not the first to fuel resentment and suspicion of education among those who have not had advanced training. The U.S. has always had a strong anti-intellectual undercurrent. Trump is just the most recent of a long line of manipulators bent on dividing the people.

Manufactured Illiteracy and Miseducation: A Long Process of Decline Led to President Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s ascendancy in American politics has made visible a plague of deep-seated civic illiteracy, a corrupt political system and a contempt for reason that has been decades in the making. It also points to the withering of civic attachments, the undoing of civic culture, the decline of public life and the erosion of any sense of shared citizenship.

TIME TO CHANGE DIRECTION

Is there any way to reverse this trend, short of waiting until the next election? What can we, as educators do? There are no easy answers, but I'll share some thoughts next time.

In the meantime, spend the next 5 minutes listening to Neil deGrasse Tyson tell why science, and truth, are important...

When you have an established, scientific, emergent truth, it is true whether or not you believe in it, and the sooner you understand that, the faster we can get on with the political conversations about how to solve the problems that face us.

PRE-SCHOOL

Building a Better Pre-School: Finding the Right Balance

Russ Walsh looks at two recent studies of preschool instruction, one focusing on academics in preschools, the other on social and emotional learning. The unsurprising results of the research? Developmentally appropriate instruction. [emphasis added]

From Russ Walsh

"In order to ensure that our pre-schools are finding the right balance between academics and play, we need to be sure that we are employing the best teachers available and we need to make sure that these teachers are getting the finest, best informed professional development possible. No program, no research, no policy can come close to matching what the well-informed, well-prepared teacher can provide for children in the classroom.We cannot do pre-school on the cheap just because the children are small. We cannot run pre-school, as is often the case now, with poorly trained, poorly compensated para-professionals. The answer, ultimately, is not in the false dichotomy between academics and play, but in the will of our policy makers to make sure that every child has access to teachers who are prepared to do the job well and who are compensated appropriately for it.

AMERICA'S SCHOOLS ARE NOT FAILING

The purported failure of America’s schools, and ways to make them better by David C. Berliner

I posted twice in the last couple of months about the lie promoted by politicians, privatizers, and "reformers" which claims that America's schools are "failing."

• The Myth of America's Failing Public Schools

• The Myth of America's Failing Public Schools - Part 2

David C. Berliner, Education Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University, writes that real improvement will cost money. He wrote, paraphrasing Dewey –“What the best and wisest (among the wealthiest) parents want for their children, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy.” [emphasis added]

From David C. Berliner

...“fixing” the schools, about which so many of our editorialists and political leaders talk, needs deeper thinking than a knee-jerk reaction to our mean score on any international test. That mean score hides the diversity of our scores by social class and housing tract, and easily misleads us about what solutions might exist. When our leaders say teachers are not good, we need to point out to them how well some of our students are doing, and that a recent Mathematica report for the U.S. Department of Education states that the quality of teachers working in low-income schools is about the same as the quality of teachers working in high income schools. So blaming teachers won’t fix schools that need fixing!

A PLACE TO VENT

Angry (tl;dr)

During the second half of my teaching career one of my roles was that of (co-) test coordinator for my school. It didn't take long for me to realize that classroom teachers were being forced to spend more and more time "teaching to the test," a practice which had previously been avoided.

Each year more tests were added, taking up more and more instructional time, with less and less diagnostic information returned to the teachers. Each year it took longer and longer for the information to be returned to the classroom so that, by the time the results came back, the students had moved on.

I complained loudly...bitterly...obnoxiously. Other teachers agreed with me...even the principal agreed with me, but there was nothing to be done. I complained to the administration, who passed the buck to the State Department of Education...who passed the buck to the State Legislature...who passed the buck to No Child Left Behind.

In 2006 I decided that I needed a place to vent, so I started this blog.

If I were a better writer I could have written this post by Peter Greene.

From Peter Greene

My colleagues at school were, by and large, not interested. They complained when we were gored by the tip of the iceberg that passed by us, but they had no particular interest in finding out what the tip was attached to, or how big and wide the iceberg really was. And I was turning into the staff crank. So I turned to the outlet that has always served me in the past-- writing-- and for a number of reasons (mostly admiration of the bloggers already out there) I turned to blogging.

It did not occur to me that anybody would read my stuff. My goal was to vent, to rail about policies and articles that struck me as foolish, destructive, blind, ignorant.

POLITICS

Trump dumps Paris climate deal: reaction

The first two quotes need no comment...

From Dave Reay, chair in Carbon Management and Education at the University of Edinburgh

“The United States will come to rue this day,” said Dave Reay, chair in Carbon Management and Education at the University of Edinburgh, in a statement. “President Trump has argued that his decision puts economic interests first, that it will cut out interference from foreign bureaucrats and help U.S. business. In fact this move puts all business and economic interests at much greater risk. Climate change knows no borders, its impacts are blind to national flags. If global efforts to limit warming fail then we are all in trouble. From climate change, Mr. President, you can run but you can't hide.”

We Aren’t Number One…Not Even Close

From Sheila Kennedy

It’s enough to make you think American policymakers put a higher priority on the bottom lines of Big Pharma and Big Insurance than they do on the health of average citizens.

But then, what do we expect when we elect people so corrupt and self-serving they don’t even care about the health of the planet their children and grandchildren will inherit?

MIKE PENCE – OBTUSE AND IGNORANT

Mike Pence: ‘For Some Reason’ Liberals Care About Climate Change

Is Vice President Pence really this obtuse?

From Mike Pence

“For some reason or another, this issue of climate change has emerged as a paramount issue for the left in this country and around the world.”

It seems that Vice President Pence hasn't heard anything about climate change. He doesn't seem to know why it's an issue for "the left," which in this case means anyone who wants to prevent the catastrophic destruction of the earth's ecosystem by global warming. He hasn't heard that, with the rise of greenhouse gasses,

• the earth gets warmer,
• the oceans get warmer,
• the ice at the poles melts,
• the life in the ocean is at-risk,
• the sea-level rises threatening coastal cities,
• more moisture is in the air making storms wetter and stronger,
• causing flooding and more...

The Vice President has apparently not talked to the Secretary of Defense who believes global warming is a threat to national security...or the former Secretary of the Navy...or the U.S. Army...See also, the planet Venus.

Yet we really shouldn't be surprised. This is the same person who said...

..."2 out of every three smokers does not die from a smoking related illness and 9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer."

and

"The truth is, [evolution] always was a theory, Mr. Speaker."

A few years ago, when he was in the House of Representatives, Pence was scientifically ignorant about smoking...or maybe he was getting money from the tobacco companies.

His ignorance also showed in his use of the word theory when talking about Evolution. In science, a theory is an explanation of a natural process which encompasses facts, laws, inferences, and hypotheses. Pence, like so many other ignorant creationists, confuses the popular meaning of the word theory with its scientific meaning. For an explanation of why theory is not "just a guess" see, Definitions of Fact, Theory, and Law in Scientific Work.

THIS JUST IN: REPUBLICANS STILL HATE TEACHERS...

Republicans' deep hatred for teachers can't be denied and they're not trying
from Steven Thrasher

If you've been listening to the Republican candidates you've probably heard some nasty things about teachers. Thrasher tells us why.

Teachers’ unions are made up of groups Republicans always love to bash: government workers with lady parts.

Just to be fair, the author also wrote about Democrats...

Republicans have always hated teachers’ unions for obvious reasons. They reliably support the Democratic party, even though Democrats routinely go to war against teachers as well, particularly alumni from the Obama administration.

...AND DEMOCRATS ARE NOT MUCH BETTER

Teacher evaluations at the schools that Obama, Duncan picked for their kids
from Valerie Strauss

Democrats are just quieter about it. All states have to comply with Arne Duncan's proclamations about VAM...they could lose their federal funds or get stuck having to deal with No Child Left Behind. If using test scores to evaluate teachers was such a good idea you'd think that the Secretary of Education, and his boss, would send their precious children to a school run by "reformers."

Think again...

These comments were delivered when Duncan sent his children to Arlington public schools. They are now going to attend the University of Chicago Lab School...which is full of unionized teachers and devoid of "reformer" education. When they lived in Chicago, the Obamas sent their daughters to the Lab School. They now attend Sidwell Friends.

“What did the president and the secretary seek and obtain for their own kids, where the important issue of teacher evaluation was concerned? The answers recently arrived in two e-mails:

“Arlington school district teacher, March 31, 2011: ‘We do not tie teacher evaluations to scores in the Arlington public school system.’

“Sidwell Friends faculty member, April 1, 2011:

“ ‘We don’t tie teacher pay to test scores because we don’t believe them to be a reliable indicator of teacher effectiveness.’ ”

IT'S THE "OTHER" SCHOOLS THAT ARE "FAILING"

Groundhog Day: Parents Again Rate Local Schools Higher than Schools of the Nation
from Stephen Krashen

Year after year parents rate their own children's schools high...but it's "those other public schools" that are bad.

Seventy percent of parents said they would give the public schools their oldest child attended a grade or A or B, but only 19% would give public schools in the nation an A or B.

An obvious explanation: Parents have direct information about the school their children attend, but their opinion of American education comes from the media. For decades, the media has been presenting a biased view. 

WHERE DOES THE BUCK STOP?
from a teacher friend

Contrary to "reformer's" beliefs, teachers don't like to make excuses. The charge of "making excuses" gives "reformers an "out." When teachers cry "poverty" "reformers" and their legislator friends can claim "excuses" instead of actually dealing with a very real problem. As the late Gerald Bracey said,

Poverty is not an excuse. It's a condition. It's like gravity. Gravity affects everything you do on the planet. So does poverty.

The school administration blames the central office...who blames the state DOE...who blames the legislature...who are only doing what their donors demand.

Teachers must speak out!

Part of the problem is that teachers are caught in the proverbial “Rock and a Hard Place’ scenario. We can’t really turn to the public because in many cases they really don’t want to hear about it, and the state and administration simply blame someone else for the current state of affairs.

One of the things I remind my coworkers who aren’t outspoken...that if we remain entirely submissive and say yes, yes, yes to everything without defending students and teachers, we are just signing up for more of the same treatment.

TEACHER SHORTAGE

Blackmon: In Georgia, 'reform' aims to destroy public schools
from Myra Blackmon

Here is a pretty good summary of what "education reform" is all about...

This is how the self-selected “education reformers” operate. Their motive is profit and personal advancement. They love the idea of schools run by private organizations, staffed with uncertified teachers, cherry-picking the easy students and leaving the most vulnerable students behind. Unproven, invalid standardized tests drive every decision.

It is disgusting. It is immoral. It is repugnant to every American ideal of community, mutual support and benefit and democratic rule. It defies the values of local control in favor of centralized, easily managed power — all the while claiming “it’s for the children.”

It’s high time we kicked them all out and made them earn an honest living — as far from our schools as we can get them.

Education Roars Back
from Bob Grundfest

If you keep telling the nation that teachers are to blame for everything bad in our society...and you continue to cut salaries and benefits...and you close schools, cut staff, and, in general, trash public schools in favor of private charters and private parochial schools...and if you publicize all of this so high school and college students see how poorly teachers, and public schools are treated...

...why would a young adult, right out of high school, choose to make education his or her career...and why would anyone think that young adults would want to go into teaching?

Given the years of blame and economic hardship that teachers have had to endure, it's no wonder that there's a shortage. And given the attitude that many national and state leaders have about teachers, it's no wonder that qualified students are looking at other fields of endeavor. The truth is that we pay a great deal of lip service to wanting a highly qualified, well-trained teaching staff at every school, but the best and brightest are not stupid; they see what's going on in education and are increasingly turned off to it. And since we don't have the best and brightest going into government, the solutions will be doubly difficult to come by.

MONEY FOR EDUCATION OUGHT TO GO TO EDUCATION

It's common for legislators to complain that so much money is spent on education, but an important question is how it is spent. We use billions of tax dollars nationally to support testing and test prep and that's money that should be going to instruction, materials, and student support.

...and what about all the money diverted from public schools to for-profit charters and voucher accepting parochial schools?

@TCBGP



TEACHERS ARE MORE THAN JUST TEST-JOCKEYS

'Teachers want to change the world'
from John Kuhn

Relationships are greater than pedagogy. If you deliver flawless instruction but haven't nurtured relationships with your students — even the challenging ones — then you might as well teach to an empty room.

DREAMS OF THE FUTURE

Neil DeGrasse Tyson quoted a young man in his book, Space Chronicles

There are lots of things I have to do to be an astronaut. But first I have to go to kindergarten -- Cyrus Corey, age four.

The narrow pursuit of test results has sidelined education issues of enduring importance such as poverty, equity in school funding, school segregation, health and physical education, science, the arts, access to early childhood education, class size, and curriculum development. We have witnessed the erosion of teachers’ professional autonomy, a narrowing of curriculum, and classrooms saturated with “test score-raising” instructional practices that betray our understandings of child development and our commitment to educating for artistry and critical thinking. And so now we are faced with “a crisis of pedagogy”–teaching in a system that no longer resembles the democratic ideals or tolerates the critical thinking and critical decision-making that we hope to impart on the students we teach.

ISTEP OBSESSION

Indiana's big education news this week has been the release of the 2014 ISTEP scores. No surprises here...

Carmel-Clay and Zionsville public school corporations (Free and Reduced lunch populations under 10% and LEP under 5%) scored the highest.

Indianapolis Public Schools (Free and Reduced over 80% and LEP over 10%) and Gary (Free and Reduced over 80%) didn't fare so well.

The articles below (and most of the others I've seen) focus on the test scores, old standards, new standards, higher scores, lower scores, charter school scores, private school scores, and all are written with the underlining assumption that standardized tests are adequate measures of student achievement. They equate learning with test scores.

The insane focus on standardized test scores in the U.S. hasn't changed a bit since President Bush II signed No Child Left Behind into law surrounded by smiling suits filled with both Democrats and Republicans -- but no teachers.

In 2002 Alfie Kohn wrote about the mind-numbing, child-punishing testing regimen which permeates American education...

Standardized Testing: Separating Wheat Children from Chaff Children

Of all the chasms that separate one world from another, none is greater than the gap between the people who make policy and the people who suffer the consequences. There are those who reside comfortably on Mount Olympus, issuing edicts and rhetoric, and then there are those down on the ground who come to know the concrete reality behind the words...it’s the difference between important grown-ups who piously exhort us to hold our educational system “accountable” and a nine-year-old who has come to detest school because the days are now full of practice tests in place of projects and puzzles. Up there: people pounding the pulpits about the need for World-Class Standards. Down here: little kids weeping, big kids denied diplomas on the basis of a single exam score, wonderful teachers reduced to poring over the want ads...

And once you realize that the tests are unreliable indicators of quality, then what possible reason would there be to subject kids – usually African American and Latino kids -- to those mind-numbing, spirit-killing, regimented instructional programs that were designed principally to raise test scores? If your only argument in favor of such a program is that it improves results on deeply flawed tests, you haven’t offered any real argument at all. Knock out the artificial supports propping up “Success for All,” “Open Court,” “Reading Mastery,” and other prefabricated exercises in drilling kids to produce right answers (often without any understanding), and these programs will then collapse of their own dead weight.

ISTEP scores released, final year for old test

Carmel-Clay Schools once again scored the highest among school corporations...

Indianapolis Public Schools...51.6% of students passed both portions of the test

State releases ISTEP-Plus scores

The scores at EdisonLearning's Gary Roosevelt continue to falter. EdisonLearning is a private management company appointed by the state to operate the high school. The Indiana Department of Education graded the school an F in 2013.

IDOE releases 2013-14 ISTEP results

ISTEPs bring 'mixed bag' for Ind. charter schools

Carmel, Zionsville top Indiana's ISTEP scores

Middle schools at center of IPS testing woes


PRIVATIZATION

Privatization Watch is a great blog to watch. Public education isn't the only target of privatizers.

Here are some items from the last few weeks of Privatization Watch...

Fixing something that isn't working right makes sense. If public schools are "broken" (an assumption which I don't believe is true to the extent that privatizers do), then they should be fixed...not closed or sold to private corporations.

Rather than privatize, fix public schools

The solution should not be to outsource our children's education to institutions that care more about the bottom line or resist accountability. The solution should be to address and fix our problems, many of which were created by individuals and politicians who seek to privatize our schools and profit off our children.

Defend public schools.

The Public School Counterinsurgency Field Manual

A public school defender's tactics should certainly include conventional weapons, such as union organizing, protests, civil disobedience, legislative, electoral and judicial processes. But conventional weaponry alone cannot beat back an insurgency. School-based educators especially must focus on non-combative, ally-building approaches: tactics that foster personal connections between the local populous and their public schools.

Hedge fund managers, corporate shills, ALEC, and other private sources don't want the public to know that they are fostering the destruction of America's public education. "Corporations are people, too, my friends" is making it easy for billionaires and tax-freeloading corporations to buy up America's infrastructure.

Campbell Brown Won’t Say Who Is Funding Her School Privatizing Group

Using Brown’s logic no political contributions should be made public for fear that people will be criticized for funding candidates and initiatives others find objectionable. The rich and powerful should be able to buy elections and candidates freely – that’s none of the public’s business.

Rarely is the backwardness and venality of the movement to privatize public education made so obvious.

Private companies running charter schools is wrong. The idea behind public schools and public school boards is that public accountability is important. Luckily this group is being investigated.

FBI raided local charter school

FBI agents raided a Bond Hill charter school in June as part of an ongoing federal investigation into whether Horizon Science Academy Cincinnati, its sister schools in Ohio and two other states, and its management company outside Chicago had improper relationships with several technology vendors.

TEXAS TEXTBOOKS c. 2002

Textbook publishers don't publish different books for every state. Instead, they focus on the states with the largest markets and publish books that will sell there. Texas is one of the nation's biggest markets and the right wing faction of the state school board always makes it difficult for the rest of us.

In 2002, these folks decided that a free, public education is an entitlement, and is therefore unacceptable. One wonders if these folks want to start charging admission to public parks or libraries. The rabid anti-taxers don't believe that government has any purpose whatsoever...It's a selfish, anti-community attitude. According to them we're not "all in this together." Instead, it's "every man for himself." The social studies text books are up for revision this year. I don't doubt that the same sort of lunacy will prevail (Think I'm wrong? Take a gander at the Texas GOP platform for this year).

Ten Outrageous Changes Publishers Agreed to Make to Texas Social Studies Textbooks in 2002

A publisher agreed to delete “In the United States, everyone has a right to free public education” from a textbook after a critic argued that the sentence suggested education is an entitlement.

TIME TO DREAM AGAIN

Neil deGrasse Tyson...

Do You Know The Silly Reason Why America Put A Man On The Moon? Do You Know Why We Stopped Going?

"The NASA budget is four-tenths of one penny on a tax dollar." If I held up the tax dollar and I cut - horizontally into it - four tenths of one percent of it's width, it doesn't even get you into the ink. So I will not accept a statement that says, "we can't afford it."

Do you realize that the $850 billion dollar bank bailout - that sum of money is greater than the entire 50 year running budget of NASA? And so, when someone says, "We don't have enough money for this space probe." I'm asking, "No. It's not that you don't have enough money." It's that the distribution of money that you're spending is warped in some way that you are removing the only thing that gives people something to dream about tomorrow.

The home of tomorrow. The city of tomorrow. The transportation of tomorrow. All that ended in the 1970's. After we stopped going to the Moon, it all ended - We stopped dreaming.

All who envision a more just, progressive and fair society cannot ignore the battle for our nation’s educational future. Principals fighting for better schools, teachers fighting for better classrooms, students fighting for greater opportunities, parents fighting for a future worthy of their child’s promise: their fight is our fight. We must all join in.