HereÂ’s a statistic for you.

Every 10 minutes, a teenager in Texas is getting pregnant, and with the nation's third-highest teen birth rate, Texas stakeholders have announced a "teen pregnancy crisis."

I guess it is no wonder that I started the school year with three mothers among my 60 ninth grade girls, and one more pregnant to the point of bursting. IÂ’m sure that there will be several more pregnancies before the year ends. And the sad thing is that IÂ’ve reached the point where IÂ’m not even surprised by the extent to which teen pregnancy happens among my students.

Posted by: Greg at 09:31 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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However will the hoity-toity liberals in HarvardÂ’s ivy-covered halls survive?

Gone are the hot breakfasts in most dorms and the pastries at Widener Library. Varsity athletes are no longer guaranteed free sweat suits, and just this week came the jarring news that professors will go without cookies at faculty meetings.

By Harvard standards, these are hard times. Not Dickensian hard times, but with the value of its endowment down by almost 30 percent, the worldÂ’s richest university is learning to live with less.

Color me unimpressed. Why donÂ’t these yahoos try to make do on what my district spends on educating a student?

Oh, the humanity!

Posted by: Greg at 09:02 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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IÂ’ve never been a fan of the notion that schools, rather than families, are responsible for all the basic needs of kids. But now one school district is making the feeding of students a criteria for evaluating schools and their administrators.

In a locally unprecedented move, the School District of Philadelphia will hold principals accountable for the number of students eating breakfast in their schools.

Breakfast participation will be part of the report card that rates principals each year, along with categories such as attendance and math and reading performance.

All 165,000 students in Philadelphia public schools, regardless of income, are eligible for free breakfasts. But just 54,000 ate breakfast last year, district figures show.

The new system, which begins this year, is expected to increase the number of students eating breakfast, said Jonathan Stein, a lawyer with Community Legal Services, whose efforts - along with those of Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY) - helped bring about the move.

Now set aside the argument that the school system should not be feeding every kid on the taxpayer dime because that is not one of the missions of a properly run system of education. But what does it say when we require a principal to discourage parents taking responsibility for the care and feeding of their own kids as a part of determining whether or not the principal (and the school) is doing his/her job? What we are encouraging in such situations is nothing less than womb-to-the-tomb dependency on government rather than self-sufficiency and personal responsibility.

What next? Feed the kids dinner before leaving school? Or perhaps turn-down and mint-on-the-pillow service provided by the district, which will ensure that all students get to bed at a reasonable hour?

Posted by: Greg at 11:15 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Isn't it sad that we have reached a point that a school would need to make a rule about this?

Dorm rooms doubling as steamy love huts have Tufts University throwing cold water on sex on campus - at least when horny students let it all hang out in front of red-faced roommates.

“You may not engage in sexual activity while your roommate is present in the room,” tuts Tufts’ 2009-10 guest policy, newly revised in response to student gripes about rambunctious roomies and their raunchy romps.

Tufts spokeswoman Kim Thurler told the Herald the 8,500-student school has fielded roughly a dozen complaints from chagrined scholars “who expressed concerns that they were experiencing uncomfortable situations" with their roommates’ sex-tracurricular activities.

The school put the rules in place because they didn't have a written policy telling students what the expectations were. One would have hoped that wasn't necessary.

Not, of course, that this is a new problem. I ran into it in college -- once. I was dating a girl who developed a serious illness., and one Saturday evening she and I fell asleep while watching television her dorm room one evening when she was feeling particularly sick. Her roommate -- who was noted for her promiscuity -- brought a guy back to the room in the middle of the night and the pair proceeded to hump like a couple of bunnies in heat, waking both my girlfriend and I (though we feigned sleep out of embarrassment). My solution -- the next morning I discretely dropped a hint to the guy in question that we had heard everything -- and my girlfriend did the same with her roommate. It was never a problem after that.

Of course, maybe morals are looser than they were in the mid-1980s. Or maybe we are just a more litigious society, and so the school feels a need to tell students to act with a little common decency.

Posted by: Greg at 10:32 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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You can get some of the funniest situations.

Take today. I was using a personal anecdote to illustrate a point, and was about to say something about my education that no ninth grader could have possibly known about me. Suddenly, one of the boys chimed in with exactly the bit of information I was about to mention – and I responded with surprise.

From there, it got really funny, with the following exchange:

Girl: How did you know that?

Boy: Easy – I’m psychotic!

Girl: I think you mean psychic.

Boy: Yeah – that, too.

Psychotic and psychic. Could be a long school year.

Posted by: Greg at 12:04 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Here's my one fear as a teacher -- the kid who is so out of control that he (or she) is perfectly prepared to take a life.

And in this case, it was the life of a teacher, for no apparent reason.

A special-education teacher who had a passion for music was fatally stabbed Wednesday morning in a Texas high school classroom, and police took a 16-year-old student into custody.

Todd R. Henry, 50, worked with students at John Tyler High School who were either emotionally or behaviorally challenged, according to his older brother, Jody Henry.

“He loved it,” the elder Henry said. “He told me it was his calling. He had never been happier than when working with these kids.”

District Superintendent Randy Reid said the male suspect approached his teacher about 8:50 a.m. and stabbed him in the neck with a sharp object. A teacherÂ’s aide and two other students were in the classroom, and the aide subdued the suspect before calling district police, Reid said.

Reid said the student had been in and out of the district “a couple of times,” but declined to provide further details, citing privacy laws.

“It is our understanding at this time that there was nothing in the classroom that incited this situation,” Reid said. “It was a random act.”

I know stuff like this happens. A friend of mine was taken out of school on a stretcher several years ago with a stab wound he received breaking up a fight between a couple of girls. I know others who have been injured, though not necessarily with weapons, by kids who targeted them.

And let me say that in this instance the "privacy laws" argument is absolute bullshit. This isn't a school disciplinary matter -- it is a criminal act about which the public has the right to full details before they allow their children back into that building.

Want to know the real irony of this situation? Mr. Henry had previously worked as a prison guard. It just boggles the mind.

My heart goes out to the family of Todd Henry -- especially to his new wife, who is also an educator. May God console them -- and Mr. Henry's students and colleagues -- at a time that is surely one of unspeakable horror.

Posted by: Greg at 11:30 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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One of the highlights of American education is state and local control of our schools and curriculum. In recent years, there has been an increase in federal intrusion into education matters as the national government has increased the number of dollars passed on for special programs. But this new development seems to go beyond that – and raises a new issue that troubles me.

Millions of Americans are marching, blogging, calling Congress, E-mailing friends, and writing to newspapers to say that President Obama and Congress are expanding government too far, too fast. We need to do more, because itÂ’s clear that theyÂ’re not getting the message. The latest example: the House of Representatives is preparing to put the Department of Education into the business of creating educational curriculum for American students.

This week the House is scheduled to approve H.R. 3221, an education lending bill that CBO reports will increase the deficit by $50 billion. The bill includes a little-known provision to give the Secretary of Education $500 million - to be provided to any entity he deems “appropriate” - to develop and disseminate free and “freely available” online courses.

Now these courses will be online, and will presumably be national in their availability. And therein lies the problem. What standards will be used in designing these courses? Who will make this determination? Will states (and their local school districts) be required to accept these courses for credit, even if the content does not match up with their state standards in the subject area? What will this do for graduation requirements in states like Texas, which is preparing to begin a new testing regime that involves “end of course” exams for core courses and mandates that students accrue a certain number of points in each core area in order to graduate? Will passing one or more of these courses enable a student to avoid meeting that requirement for graduation? Are these courses to be designed to create a de facto NATIONAL set of standards to which states will be pressured to adhere? I think these are questions that must be answered before we proceed any further down this road, so that we can have a true debate on the matter both within the education community and in the public at large.

Posted by: Greg at 12:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Man, are the liberals upset over one sentence in a fifteen page document in the proposed 11th grade social studies curriculum in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills.

Texas high school students would learn about such significant individuals and milestones of conservative politics as Newt Gingrich and the rise of the Moral Majority — but nothing about liberals — under the first draft of new standards for public school history textbooks.

And the side that got left out is very unhappy.

Now I’ll be honest with you – I don’t teach that particular class, so I hadn’t looked at that set of standards (in large part because of my recent vacation and my subsequent preparation for the upcoming school year). But as presented in the Houston Chronicle’s article, the proposal seemed to be too partisan for me – and who has EVER accused me of viewing the world through nonpartisan glasses (though I do teach my classes in a nonpartisan fashion).

So I did what I teach my students to do when confronted with such disturbing information – I went to the primary source, the website of the Texas Education Agency where the newly proposed standards are posted so that I could see the new standards for US History since Reconstruction.

Here is the entire proposed strand in which this particular proposal fits.

(10) History. The student understands the circumstances of the U.S. as it emerges into the 21st century. The student is expected to:

(A) describe U.S. involvement in world affairs including the Persian Gulf War, Balkans Crisis, 9/11, and global war on terror; and

(B) identify significant conservative advocacy organizations and individuals, such as Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly, and the Moral Majority.

(C) discuss the rise of domestic terrorism

(D) discuss the role of third party candidates, such as Ross Perot and Ralph Nader.

Taken in that context, the focus on conservatism is mighty reasonable. Indeed, it parallels the sort of focus given to twentieth century movements such as the progressive movement and the civil rights movement. And while there are howls of outrage over the inclusion of Gingrich, Schlafly, and the Moral Majority, it is hard to argue that the three were not major figures in what has been a long-term shift of the political culture of the US to the right, one that has lasted some three decades and which may not be over. Indeed, I happen to think that there would be a place for Rush Limbaugh and the rise of conservative mass media in that particular standard.

But while there is outrage over the inclusion of two conservative individuals and one conservative group in the standards, let’s look at some of the other individuals and groups who are included who are pretty clearly liberal icons – and some of whom could be reasonably seen as less significant than the three conservative inclusions. These include Upton Sinclair, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Jr, Cesar Chavez, Betty Friedan, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), American Indian Movement (AIM), Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Henry B. Gonzalez, Thurgood Marshall, and Delores Huerta. Taken in that context, one might argue that conservative figures are decidedly underrepresented – where is Barry Goldwater, for example? And let’s not forget that there have been assorted proposed changes to include a contemporary liberal strand to balance the conservative strand and include additional liberal figures like Hillary Clinton and Harvey Milk elsewhere throughout the curriculum, but no significant effort to include a more extensive or balanced look at conservative figures.

And then there are the PC changes in the curriculum. For example, the standards dump Omar Bradley and George S. Patton (and have never included Chester Nimitz) from the WWII TEK while adding Benjamin O. Davis and Oveta Culp Hobby – and while I would never diminish the accomplishments of either (Davis is a particular hero of mine), I question their relative significance compared to the three excluded flag officers. Similarly excluded figures (besides Barry Goldwater, who I noted earlier) include George W. Bush and Clarence Thomas – and native Texan Barbara Jordan. I understand the need to limit the length of the standards, but surely these individuals each belong in the document somewhere.

But that also raises an additional point – as we teachers are often reminded, the TEKS are the baseline of what you must teach, not the boundary line of what you are allowed to teach. We teachers are not forbidden to teach about any excluded individual or group – or to contrast the included figures and groups with their opponents. And as I noted earlier, the curriculum does present a fairly balanced portrait of America over the last fourteen decades. So while I would certainly make changes, I don’t find what is currently written to be unreasonable.

But I am curious – would the Houston Chronicle have presented the story in such an alarmist manner if the standards included an explicitly liberal thread but not a conservative one? And would protesting conservatives be given the same sort of kid-glove treatment as the upset liberals?

UPDATE: There's an editorial on the standards in today's Houston Chronicle -- care to guess which side it takes?

Posted by: Greg at 10:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've sounded off on this point a couple of times before, but today's Houston Chronicle editorial on some proposals for revising the state's social studies curriculum leads me to bring it up again.

But first, the Chroncle's silly, error-ridden editorial.

Last week, Stephen Colbert tipped his ironic hat to the Texas State Board of Education. The board had already allowed creationism to be considered in Texas biology classes, the comedian said approvingly, and now it was pushing for more Christianity to be taught in U.S. history. But why stop there? Colbert asked. What about math? Five plus two doesn't have to equal seven — not if you're Jesus. And for that matter, what about penmanship? Why not teach students to really CROSS their T's?

There's truthiness in those jokes. Of the six people who the board appointed as “experts” to review the current curriculum, three are on record as Christian soldiers, battling to bring back a golden age of God in American government.

Evangelist David Barton founded WallBuilders, which aims to rebuild America's Christian ramparts in the way Old Testament Jews rebuilt Jerusalem's walls. Daniel Dreisbach, a professor at American University, takes a similar (if anti-wall) position: He's known for arguing that the Supreme Court misunderstood Thomas Jefferson's ideas about a “high wall” separating church and state. And then there's Peter Marshall, the head of Peter Marshall Ministries, who preaches that Watergate, the Vietnam War and Hurricane Katrina were God's wrath, ignited by the nation's sexual immorality.

Those three reviewers, in their recommendations to revamp K-12 social studies, aim to emphasize the early years of American history — the era in which the U.S. was almost entirely a Christian nation. Barton, for instance, advocates teaching kids not just about the major founding fathers, but some 250 others, such as Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Rush, John Witherspoon, and Gouverneur Morris. All three of the conservative reviewers urge intensive study of original documents such as the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the Pennsylvania Charter of Liberties and Frame of Government, and the Virginia Declaration of Rights.

But the problem is, teachers don't have enough time to teach everything intensively. And if they spend a large part of the school year parsing the fine points of the Pilgrim and Revolutionary eras, they'll have to skim lightly over the rest of American history — as in, those years when slaves were freed, when women won the right to vote, and when minorities fought for their civil rights. Those parts of American history are important, too.

Christianity undeniably influenced the European settlement of North America and the founding of the United States. That said, some of the founding fathers would have described themselves as deists rather than Christians, and thanks to the separation of church and state we've never been an officially Christian country. Though about half of our citizens are Christian, we are no longer only a Christian nation — just as we're no longer a nation run solely by white male property owners.

It would be wrong not to teach our kids about America's Christian roots. But it would be just as wrong to pretend that the rest of our history matters less. In Texas schools, five plus two should always equal seven — whether or not that answer matches the curriculum reviewers' goals.

When the Houston Chronicle cannot even get correct the percentage of Americans self-identifying as Christian (it is over 2/3 of Americans, not half), it is probably best to dismiss the piece. And the belittling comments about the three "Christian soldiers" (one a respected historian, another the former vice chairman of the Republican Party of Texas) shows a significant bias against the beliefs of a majority of Texans (I'm curious -- does the editorial board "look like Texas" in terms of the religious affiliations and beliefs of its members, or is it shockingly lacking in both the diversity of the state and its reflection of the public it serves?).

But the reports attacked by the paper are not the end of the process, and there is a long way to go in re-writing the standards, including much more input from the public and educators in the field like myself.

But where I am disturbed is that the editorial -- and the state of Texas --might once again miss the chance to deal with what I and a number of other social studies teachers see as a serious flaw with our state's sequence of courses in the field.

What, you may ask?

How about the scandalously absurd sequencing of courses from grade 6 through grade 12?

Currently, the sequence of courses from middle school to graduation looks like this:

• Grade 6 -- World Cultures
  
• Grade 7 -- Texas History
  
• Grade 8 -- US History through Reconstruction
  
• Grade 9 -- World Geography
  
• Grade 10 -- World History
  
• Grade 11 -- US History since Reconstruction
  
• Grade 12 -- US Government & Economics
  

We would do better to re-sequence the entire thing, perhaps as follows:

• Grade 6 -- Texas History
  
• Grade 7 -- World Geography
  
• Grade 8 -- World History through the Middle Ages
  
• Grade 9 -- World History since the Renaissance
  
• Grade 10 -- US History through Reconstruction
  
• Grade 11 -- US History since Reconstruction
  
• Grade 12 -- US Government & Economics
  

Texas -- we have a chance to fix our social studies curriculum so that it makes more sens in terms of scope and sequence. Let's not continue with the current sequence because "we've always done it that way". Let's instead have our classes build upon what came before, with courses that logically follow one another grouped together to increase both retention of material and the development of related concepts.

Posted by: Greg at 01:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, the proposal has been brought to the school board in one district by the high school Student Council.

A Connecticut school district is considering a proposal to close schools on two Muslim holidays.

The Region 16 Board of Education is expected to take up the Student CouncilÂ’s proposal this week.

The board represents the towns of Prospect and Beacon Falls, Conn.

The resolution asks the board not to hold classes on the day that marks the end of the fasting period of Ramadan and on the day that concludes the annual observance of the pilgrimage to Mecca.

As a teacher, I have a really simple view on school calendar issues – does the proposal help or hinder school operations. That is especially true after sitting on the district committee that designed the calendar for the upcoming school year.

Is there a significant Muslim population in the district? Does keeping the school open on those Muslim holy days so significantly increase absenteeism that it impacts the operation of the schools due to low attendance? If the answers to these questions is YES, then close the schools on those days. If not, then donÂ’t. Ditto holidays for Jews and Hindus and Buddhists. But if such changes fail to improve school efficiency, then donÂ’t make the change.

Posted by: Greg at 10:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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There may or may not be good reasons to drop the AP Latin literature exam – but this particular reason isn’t one of them.

As Jaded as I Am . . . [Roger Clegg]

. . . this really bothered me. The Washington Post had an op-ed today regarding the decision of the College Board to discontinue the AP exam for Latin literature, "which covers Cicero and four lyric poets." Buried in the penultimate paragraph, and stated not at all uncritically, is this sentence: "The College Board said this decision was related to the number of minority students taking the exam."

Now, I don't know if the exam should have been continued or not, but it is very sad if the reason it was discontinued was because the racial mix of students taking it was politically incorrect, and it is equally sad if this is considered an acceptable reason even by a teacher who is otherwise outraged at the College Board's action. O tempora, o mores!

What? The value of learning a particular field and the ability to earn credit in it is to be predicated upon the number of minority students? That is outrageous. After all, we would never accept the argument that there are too few white students taking an exam to justify continuing to give it – why accept the argument that the failure of a sufficient number of member of other racial/ethnic groups to take it renders it worthy of being discontinued?

Posted by: Greg at 01:12 PM | Comments (45) | Add Comment
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1 This is totally OT. (I'd email you but since I only use web based Email your 'email me' system doesn't work.) I saw your comment on LGF concerning Charles Johnson's outrageous standards, to wit, you are considered to be "for" any abomination you have never actively and publicly protested. I referred to it on my blog here: http://infinitemonkeyatthekeyboard.blogspot.com/2009/05/charles-johnson-farts-online-again.html Please be aware that you are indeed in likely danger of getting banned on LGF, you hater and liar, you! (Note: A 'hater and liar' is anybody who does not agree with Charles 100% of the time.)

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It is black letter law, dating back to the Clinton Administration -- states that give in-state tuition to illegal aliens must also give it to all American citizens, regardless of the state in which they reside.

California does the former, but has refused to do the latter.

Hence this suit.

Students from 19 states yesterday filed a class-action lawsuit seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from California officials for charging them significantly more than illegal aliens pay to attend state-run colleges.

The 42 plaintiffs say California state lawmakers and the University of California board of regents knowingly violated a federal law enacted in 1996 that says any state that offers discounted in-state tuition to its illegal aliens must provide the same lower rates to all U.S. citizens.

California has a "unique" statute barring discrimination on the basis of geographic origin, said lead attorney Michael J. Brady.

Some students in the University of California system could be eligible for as much as $300,000 in total damages, he said.

Damages of $300K? I'm intrigued. What is the difference in tuition?

Mr. Brady said out-of-state students are paying $20,000 more than illegal aliens per year to attend schools in the University of California system. In the California state university system, the difference is $11,000 per year.

"And in the community college system in California, which has a total of 1.5 million students, the tuition differential is $6,000 a year," he said.

I don't see how we get to that figure for damages, unless the statute allows for punitive damages significanty beyond actual damages. But the really interesting issue is that the state of California really has no defense to offer due to the history of the statute in question.

Mr. Brady said California officials knew their tuition law that took effect in 2002 was unfair and illegal.

"Former Governor Gray Davis initially vetoed it, saying it violated federal law and that it would cost California $65 million [in damages]," Mr. Brady said. "He sent it back to the state Legislature with that warning, but they re-enacted the same law," which Mr. Davis eventually signed.

Mr. Brady said administrators of the University of California system also recognized that the state law was invalid, and they refused to implement it unless they were "given immunity." As a result, he said, California lawmakers enacted an "immunity statute," which says that if the state tuition law is declared illegal or unconstitutional, schools in the University of California system would not be held liable for retroactive tuition differences.

Even after it was vetoed on the grounds it was illegal, the legislature passed the bill again. And after the schools pointed out that the law put them at risk, the legislature attempted to immunize them from liability -- something that I don't see as possible given that state law is trumped by federal law in this instance. Any court would be bound to strike down the immunity statute as well, for the state cannot ban damages from federal lawsuits.

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Here is a piece of legislation I support, and which I think ought to be quickly passed by the Texas legislature. It rectifies a situation which I and many others view as an unacceptable distinction in how our students are now permitted to compete in interscholastic activities.

For the last 14 years, a handful of private schools have been asking the Legislature for a chance to participate in the league for public school sports and academic competitions.

And each session lawmakers have sent a clear message to those private schools by killing any related legislation — in most cases while the bills were still in committee.

But lawmakers championing the proposal think this could finally be the session they force the University Interscholastic League to accept private schools for district competition. A legislative panel could vote today to send the bill to the full Senate for debate. A similar bill is being carried in the House by Frank Corte, R-San Antonio.

“The private schools are making a simple request: Let our kids compete on a broader playing field in academics and sports,” said State Sen. Dan Patrick, who authored the Senate proposal. “I think that’s perfectly reasonable.”

Currently, two Jesuit schools — one in Dallas and another in Houston — are allowed to compete in the UIL because the league they belonged to was disbanded and deemed too large for the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, or TAPPS.

I spent my high school career in Illinois. And for the record, I attended a Catholic school. My schoolÂ’s football team played in the old East Suburban Catholic Conference, and except for a couple non-conference games played exclusively Catholic schools. During basketball season, our team played a mix of public, Catholic, and private schools. For non-athletic events, we competed with everybody else. All of it was regulated by the Illinois High School Association (IHSA), which was the Illinois counterpart to TexasÂ’ University Interscholastic League (UIL). And to deal with the selectivity/recruiting issue, private schools were ranked one level higher in terms of their size classification, with 1A size private schools competing at 2A, 2A size private schools competing at 3A, etc.

Why do I think this is a good idea, other than the fact that I have seen such a system work well elsewhere? First is the fact that the UIL has already allowed two schools to join because they had nowhere else to turn because of their size, so there is no longer a legitimate basis to say that the UIL is exclusively a public school league. Second, it will enable private schools in less densely populated parts of the state (ever been to west Texas or the Panhandle?) to compete with local public schools rather than force students to endure bus trips of significantly over 100 miles EACH WAY in order to have an event with another private school. Third, a number of districts in Texas have gone to open enrollment systems in which they even accept students who do not live within the district (not to mention the question of magnet and charter schools within public school districts), negating the argument about attendance zones and unfair advantages. The only down side I see is that some perennial powerhouse schools might find themselves facing new competition that could keep them from their annual trip to the playoffs or interfere with their winning yet another championship – which isn’t really a reasonable argument at all.

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Let me say this flat out -- the decision of Chance Nalley to invite his seventh grade students to his commitment ceremony with his same-sex partner was wrong. What's more, I'll go so far as to call it unprofessional.

A self-proclaimed bisexual male teacher in New York has invited his seventh-grade students and their parents to witness his commitment ceremony to another man.

The New York Times reports 32-year-old Chance Nalley gave slips of paper to his entire seventh-grade class at Columbia Secondary School, inviting them to the upcoming ceremony to be held at St. Paul's Chapel on the campus of Columbia University on April 4. Nalley teaches math, science, and engineering at the school -- "whose mission statement includes a commitment to diversity," notes the Times. Nalley reportedly obtained his principal's support before coming out to his students in the fall of 2007, when the school opened.

It isn't the sexuality issue that I object to -- it is the question of the appropriate degree of separation that should exist between teacher and student. I've taught with any number of gay teachers over the year -- indeed, my best friend is one of them -- and I've been supportive of every one of them in their decision to be public or private about their sexuality. One of them was intensely private about his personal life, to the point that students knew nothing of his life outside of school. Another kept a framed photo of herself and her partner on her desk, and was honest about her orientation when asked by students. Others have fallen somewhere in the middle, depending with their own comfort level.

No, my concern is with issuing the invitation of the students to attend such an intimate event. Such an entanglement of the personal and professional strikes me as the blurring of the separation that needs to be maintained between teacher and student. I realize, of course, that there are times when such boundaries can and should be crossed -- after all, if a student is a neighbor or a friend of one's own child, this is unavoidable. But that isn't the case here.

I'm going to presume that Nalley was not seeking to make a political statement with the invitation, which is something I'd consider much worse. But even assuming the best of intentions, I still feel that the decision was the wrong one. On the other hand, showing pictures or even inviting his partner to meet the class would be just fine in my book -- just as it would with any straight couple.

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One can argue the exact contours of the rights of students at school, but this case before the Supreme Court really shouldnÂ’t take much time to decide.

Savana Redding still remembers the clothes she had on — black stretch pants with butterfly patches and a pink T-shirt — the day school officials here forced her to strip six years ago. She was 13 and in eighth grade.

An assistant principal, enforcing the schoolÂ’s antidrug policies, suspected her of having brought prescription-strength ibuprofen pills to school. One of the pills is as strong as two Advils.

The search by two female school employees was methodical and humiliating, Ms. Redding said. After she had stripped to her underwear, “they asked me to pull out my bra and move it from side to side,” she said. “They made me open my legs and pull out my underwear.”

Ms. Redding, an honors student, had no pills. But she had a furious mother and a lawyer, and now her case has reached the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments on April 21.

The case will require the justices to consider the thorny question of just how much leeway school officials should have in policing zero-tolerance policies for drugs and violence, and the court is likely to provide important guidance to schools around the nation.

Oh.

Come.

On.

No person with even a lick of common sense, much less an understanding of the Constitutional prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures by government officials, can believe that such conduct is permissible. There was no basis for believing that there were drugs hidden in her underwear, nor was the medication she was suspected of having anything that could be seen as posing a serious threat to the health or safety of any student. In short, there was no pressing emergency that required this extreme measure – and any properly trained administrator ought to have known that.

Now I realize that courts have ruled that the parameters of student rights at school are different than those available to adults – and I think that sometimes the courts have erred in where they have drawn the boundaries. Indeed, the very concept of in loco parentis gives schools some pretty expansive leeway in dealing with students. But this isn’t a search of a school-owned locker or a car with a parking permit – or even of a purse or backpack. This is a particularly invasive search that shocks the conscience. For the Supreme Court to rule in any other manner than that this search violated the Constitution – and that the school personnel involved should be personally liable for their actions – would be a grave miscarriage of justice.

H/T Hot Air, Just One Minute

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The worst part is that I know this guy, and helped campaign for him. Now he wants to treat me as a suspected drug user as a condition of my continued employment.

Pasadena state representative Ken Legler filed a bill on Feb. 2 that would require all current teachers, principals, counselors, school nurses and teacher's aids to submit to random, unannounced drug tests.

Additionally, any Texas public school teacher applicant would also be required to take a drug test during the hiring process.

Legler was inspired to file the bill, HB 975, after learning that drug testing was not required by state law.

Legler said feedback on the proposed bill has been largely positive from parents and former teachers -- though some teachers union officials are against the bill.

I can guess where Ken has come up with this idea. He has no doubt taken the much ballyhooed suspension of a number of HISD teachers after drug dogs hit on their cars and decided to call for drug testing. But they were a mere handful of the thousands of teachers and other district employees – under two dozen. A number of them were exonerated when they were able to prove that the drugs were prescribed to them or another user of the vehicle. It has all been a tempest in a teapot. I therefore don’t view this as a cost effective measure – just as I don’t view my district’s decision to test huge numbers of students in extracurricular activities for drug use to be worth the cost – especially since this legislation, like my district’s policy, doesn’t really spell out the consequences of failure in such a clear manner to facilitate consistent enforcement.

UPDATE: A quick note to folks from John's blog -- please note that nowhere do I mention any violation of constitutional rights. I've tried to comment to that effect at his blog, but he won't approve my comments. Is that a sign of cowardice or dishonesty? You decide.

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Looks like the teachers of the district may have a union representative forced upon them, even though this is a right-to-work state.

The leader of the Houston school districtÂ’s most powerful teachers union is flexing her muscle to force smaller employee groups out of the bargaining room with top-level administrators.

Gayle Fallon, the longtime president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, wants her union and an affiliated union for blue-collar workers to be the lone groups at the negotiating table with the Houston ISD administration.

Currently, several employee groups are guaranteed seats at private monthly meetings, where issues involving wages and working conditions are hashed out. FallonÂ’s union, because it is the biggest, has three of the five seats reserved for teachers groups at those meetings.

Yeah, that’s right – you will still be able to join any group you want, but if this proposal passes you will have no voice unless you join HFT/ That certainly goes against the spirit, if not the letter, of the law here in Texas. It also serves as a preview of the sort of thing we can expect in the future under the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act” passes in Washington.

And before you ask, I am a member (indeed, IÂ’m the building representative) of one of the major teacher organizations in this state. IÂ’m not opposed to the existence of such groups, but I do object to one being able to crowd out the competing voices in this way.

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Well, more a matter of sour grapes.

British-Indian author Salman Rushdie has attacked the plot of multiple Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" as a "patently ridiculous conceit".

Rushdie wrote in Britain's Guardian newspaper that the central feature of the film -- that a boy from the Mumbai slums manages to succeed on the Indian TV version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" -- "beggars belief."

"This is a patently ridiculous conceit, the kind of fantasy writing that gives fantasy writing a bad name," the author of "The Satanic Verses" said in the article published Saturday.

The point that Rushdie misses, of course, is that the fantasy of it all is precisely what appeals to people about the plot of both the original book (Vikas Swarup’s "Q&A") and movie is that it is an outrageous fantasy. Who does not root for the underdog (or, in this case, the underSlumdog)? We want to see the little guy win against all odds. And that is why more people will love the book and film versions of “Slumdog Millionaire” than will even like Rushdie’s novels, including the fatwa-worthy “Satanic Verses”. Reading and movies are often the way that we seek a release from our own lives and an escape from our problems, not a time of deep thought and contemplation upon the larger issues of life, the universe, and everything. That is not to say that Salman Rusdie is not an Important Author – merely that there is an appropriate place for both the serious works of Rusdie and the lighter fare of Swarup.

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And ancient myths and historical stories.

No one with any sense takes offense at the teaching of Greek and Roman mythology. After all, the stories are fundamental to so much of Western culture over the last three millennia. But out of concern for secular values and sensitivity to members of other faiths, the literature of the Bible is often overlooked in our educational system today, despite its centrality to so many of the literary, artistic, and musical works of Western civilization.

Fortunately, one Brit gets it – and is getting a lot of attention for saying so in public.

Children are being robbed of their heritage because schools are failing to cover classic Bible and history stories, the Poet Laureate warned yesterday.

Andrew Motion called for all children to study the Bible at school for its 'great' educational stories such as the temptation of Adam and Eve, the siege of Jericho and battle between David and Goliath.

He warned that traditional stories were in danger of disappearing from public knowledge because they are no longer being properly imparted to children at school.

Too many students arriving at university to study literature or history have merely a 'sketchy' knowledge of Bible stories, history stories and Greek and Roman myths, and would struggle on their courses as a result, he said.

And please remember – Motion is not a believer. He considers the bible to be nothing more than a book of myths and legends, but he recognizes the fundamental power of what it contains. So, too, the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, which too many of our children know only from video games and animated films. And as for the history – I often despair when I find that stories I took for granted as a kid are unknown to too many of my students. In our push for modernity, we are losing so much of our cultural heritage.

But then again, we have too many young people who have been saturated with a modern media culture that does not really value knowledge or deep thought – or even basic skills. In recent years I’ve been told that “books today are called movies” and “since history is in the past it doesn’t matter because I’m going to live in the future.” And just yesterday, I had a 9th grader tell me that she wasn’t sure what time it was because “I don’t understand what the pointy things on that kind of clock mean.” Will they know where we are headed in the future if they do not understand the past?

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I donÂ’t see any other way to interpret the fact that widespread physical abuse of students by faculty and staff went unreported to police and led to termination in only under 5% of documented cases while Arne Duncan ran the Chicago Public Schools.

Hundreds of students have allegedly been beaten by teachers, coaches and staff at Chicago Public Schools. 2 Investigator Dave Savini continues his ongoing investigation involving the illegal use corporal punishment.

* * *

The 2 Investigators found reports of students beaten with broomsticks, whipped with belts, yard sticks, struck with staplers, choked, stomped on and pushed down stairs. One substitute teacher even fractured a student's neck.

But even more alarming, in the vast majority of cases, teachers found guilty were only given a slap on the wrist.

CBS 2 informed former Chicago Public School CEO Arne Duncan of our investigative findings shortly before he was promoted to U.S. Secretary of Education.

"If someone hits a student, they are going to be fired. It's very, very simple," Duncan said.

Before heading to Washington, he vowed to take action.

"Any founded allegation where an adult is hitting a child, hitting a student - they're going to be gone," Duncan said.

But that's not what happened under Duncan's watch. Of the 568 verified cases, only 24 led to termination. Records show one teacher who quote "battered students for several years" was simply given a "warning" by the Board of Education.

And another student was given "100 licks with a belt." The abuse was substantiated, but the records show the teacher was not terminated.

Now I don’t have a problem with corporal punishment in schools – but it has to have proper limits and oversight. That clearly did not happen in Chicago under Arne Duncan – the man whose management and reform model is seen by Barack Obama as being just what is needed in nationwide. Most of the cases in which abuse was documented led to nothing more than a metaphorical slap on the wrist after teachers assaulted students. Not only that, but it appears that the district was remiss in failing to report these cases of child abuse (much less the mere accusations that the district decided were not credible) to the proper authorities for investigation and criminal prosecution

Now I cannot help but note that the Chicago media was all over reports that priests in the Archdiocese of Chicago sexually abused children and that they were allowed to continue serving in active ministry, usually after some sort of rehabilitation program rather than reporting them to Child Protective Services and the local police. There was lots of deeply concerned hand-wringing in the press over the “betrayal of the children by those who had a responsibility to protect them.” Will we get the same sort of rhetoric from the media over these incidents and the failure of the district to safeguard kids? Will there be the same outrage over the failure to call CPS and/or the police when a child has been abused – something that is mandated of school district employees under Illinois law? And what of Arne Duncan? Will he be the next Obama appointee – and first confirmee – to fall victim to their own scandalous illegal conduct that was not fully vetted by the Obama team?

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Here's an interesting article on why college costs have been skyrocketing in recent years.

Why has college tuition been rising so high and fast? Will college costs ever drop back to more affordable levels?

Those questions have been frustrating parents and students for years. A new report provides some surprising answers that will, unfortunately, probably only frustrate and anger them even more. At public colleges, tuition has generally been driven up by rising spending on administrators, student support services, and the need to make up for reductions in government subsidies, according to a report issued by the Delta Cost Project, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

In some cases, such as at community colleges (which educate about half of the nation's college students), tuition has risen while spending on classroom instruction has actually fallen. At public colleges especially, the current economic troubles will likely only accelerate the trend of rising prices and classroom cutbacks, says Jane Wellman, the author of the report. After analyzing income and spending statistics that nearly 2,000 colleges reported to the federal government, Wellman concludes: "Students are paying more and, arguably, getting less in the classroom."

There is one particularly interesting statistic that comes out of the article -- the one related to spending on administration. It seems that the a huge chunk of the spending is for non-classroom purposes like administration, maintenance, and "student services" -- $4000 a year, to the $8700 spent in the classroom. Knowing that colleges are like school districts, I know that there is plenty of room for cuts in one of those categories -- administration. For that matter, I wonder how much cutting could be made in "support services", much of which is fluff.

H/T The Glittering Eye

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This story is the sort that produces mixed emotions for me as a teacher. On the one level, it is good to know that the criminal justice system works, even in these sorts of cases. But on the other hand, it points out the vulnerability that teachers – especially male teachers – have to these sorts of allegations. And it makes me ask the question with which I titled this piece – because I wonder if there is any way that Eric Foster will ever be able to recover his good name and his profession.

A former Conroe High School teacher has been found not guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl.

Eric Foster went to trial last month in Montgomery CountyÂ’s 410th state District Court on three counts of indecency with a child and one count of sexual assault of a child. The jury cleared him of the charges.

The alleged victim was not a student in the Conroe Independent School District.
Foster, who was an algebra teacher, resigned shortly after his February indictment. He had worked for the district since 2000, school officials said.

Some have asked why Foster would quit if he was not guilty. Simple – in this state, we don’t have tenure here in Texas and so the district could have refused to renew his contract, which would have effectively made him unemployable in education (not that this accusation does not have the same effect). This way he can at least honestly state that he was not fired. In addition, as long as he remained employed by the district but suspended, the district would have been able to restrict his movement and activities during work hours in such a way as to make it difficult to work with his attorney to prepare his own defense.

But what happens now? The article about the initial accusation and indictment was longer and more prominently placed than the news of his acquittal. Too bad the media that tore him down doesn’t feel the responsibility to help restore his name. In addition, there are all too many who insist upon presuming his guilt even in the face of the jury verdict to the contrary – would any school be able to hire him and take the heat from the local public?

And what of the girl, whose identity remains protected, who made this all too public accusation. Will there be consequences for her? And doesnÂ’t the outcome here raise the question of the disparate treatment of accuser and accused in these cases? If we are to protect accusers because of the alleged stigma attached to these crimes, do we need to consider the greater stigma attached to an unsubstantiated/unproved accusation and consider withholding the identity of the accused?

Just some questions that cross my mind as I consider how this fellow educator recovers in the wake of an all too public accusation.

Posted by: Greg at 01:40 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Or the notion that a university is supposed to be a place of intellectual ferment where competing points of view may be aired and debated.

At least if these union thugs in Canada get their way.

In their current war against Hamas, the Israelis recently bombed buildings at the Islamic University of Gaza. As reported in the Chronicle, an Israeli army spokeswoman said the facilities had been used as "a research and development center for Hamas weapons."

In response to the bombing, the Canadian Union of Public Employees in Ontario, the largest labor union representing staff members at the province's universities, announced its plan to introduce a resolution at its forthcoming conference to ban Israeli academics from all schoolarly activity at Ontario universities if they do not first condemn Israeli operations in Gaza.

There is, of course, the obligatory anti-Semitic quote from the head union thug comparing Israel’s defensive war to the policies of the Nazis, so we know what the REAL motive of the boycott is. But let’s pretend that CUPE Ontario president Sid Ryan isn’t a raving Jew-hater and apologist for terrorism for just a moment, and consider this proposal more objectively. What he is, in effect, demanding is that a political orthodoxy be imposed before scholars are permitted to engage in scholarly activity at universities in Ontario. That would appear to fly in the face of the very notions of academic freedom that are usually demanded by the faculty of institutions of higher education. Where is the outcry against this effort to undermine academic freedom – especially when this litmus test is being imposed upon academe by a non-academic and would be voted upon by a union which is composed primarily of those outside of academia?

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Pretty badly -- but not badly enough to keep Obama from appointing the head of the Chicago's public schools to the top spot at the Department of Education. And it is even worse than I have mentioned in earlier posts -- the district has received five straight failing grades under NCLB with Arne Duncan at the helm.

The Chicago Public Schools, whose superintendent, Arne Duncan, has been tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to be the next education secretary, failed to meet the Illinois state standards set under the No Child Left Behind Act for the last five years.

From 2004 to 2008, the Chicago district (District 299) failed to make “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) in key areas, according to the district’s progress report on the Illinois State Board of Education Web site.

Now I am a critic of NCLB, and think it needs serious revision to do a better job of measuring student learning. But a district in which only 60% meet the minimum standard in reading and only 20% of special needs students meet the minimum standard is clearly not up to snuff.

If he can't lead effectively at the district level, why should we believe that Arne Duncan can be an educational leader at the national level? The US Senate must reject Duncan's nomination.

Posted by: Greg at 03:59 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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For crying out loud! Did someone really make a decision to do something this absurd?

Students at St. Stephen Elementary School found out last week that Santa Claus can have the same skin color as them.

That's because two Santa Clauses — one white, one black — were invited to the rural Berkeley County school at separate times last Friday to take pictures with students of the same skin color.

Principal Willa Norton's decision to invite two Santas has drawn criticism from a few parents and from two civil rights organizations, which said the school shouldn't have divided the students by race without asking parents first.

Marguerite Lyons, who found out about the two Santas while picking up her son outside the school Thursday, said dividing the children by race smacked of prejudice. All the children should have seen one Santa, she said.

"I don't care if (Santa) was Chinese or Puerto Rican," said Lyons, who is black. "Everyone's the same."

For the record, I agree with Lyons, who seems to have adopted the philosophy of racial equality much more fully than the principal or the civil rights organizations, which were willing to concede the propriety of such racial separatism “if the parents wanted it.” There should have been only one Santa, with no racial division – and had she brought a black Santa into her school that is ¾ black, I can’t imagine having anyone object (or caring if anyone did). After all, I was not troubled when, during my two years on Guam as a kid, we had a Santa who looked just like the Pacific Islanders who made up the bulk of the non-military population there.

Now mind you, Norton was trying to do a good thing here, and I won’t attack her goal. But the execution is really problematic – and even she and her district indicate there will be a different procedure in place next year. So Merry Christmas to them all.

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And this time it is a liberal being censored!

Big Bear High School student Mariah Jimenez should be allowed to wear the "Prop. 8 Equals Hate" T-shirt she was banned from wearing on campus, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The 16-year-old sophomore, who is her class president, wore the tie-dyed T-shirt to school on Nov. 3, the day before voters approved the constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage in California.

Mariah's sixth-period teacher, Sue Reynolds, ordered her to remove the shirt during a meeting of the Associated Student Body.

When Mariah protested, Reynolds sent her to the principal's office.

"She said I shouldn't be wearing such divisive shirts, and my shirt draws a line down the school," said

Now IÂ’ve taken a pretty hard line on student speech in the past, relying on the seminal case in Tinker v. Des Moines, in which the Supreme Court ruled that students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate. However, since Jimenez lives in the Ninth Circuit, IÂ’m going to have to take a different position, because the Ninth Circuit decided to overrule that precedent from a higher court and the higher court (the US Supreme Court) punted when offered the opportunity to reassert its authority and acknowledge that student speech on important political and social issues is protected by the First Amendment.

The irony, of course, is that the decision in which the Ninth Circuit stripped students of their First Amendment rights was a speech that allowed schools to suppress the speech of students critical of homosexuality. But since the Ninth Circuit undermined the notion that students have a First Amendment right to speak on such issues, it is hard to accept the argument that this is a violation of MariahÂ’s rights in any way. After all, the Ninth Circuit has more or less indicated that it will defer to school administrators in such instances, and they did indicate that they were seeking to avoid violence and disruption, just as the school had in the case in which the Ninth Circuit implicitly dispensed with the relevant Supreme Court precedent.

Ferraud sent Mariah's mother a letter dated Dec. 3 indicating the school's decision was more about Mariah's safety than about restricting free speech. She said district officials "were concerned about the potential disruption resulting from the fact that the shirt seemed to imply that those students who supported Proposition 8 were expressing `hate."'

And since many of those students were basing their position on Prop 8 on their religious views, and since at least some of those students would have been members of minority religions (Mormons and Muslims, among others), these students had every right to be left alone and not subjected to so-called hate speech, just as the judges ruled gay students had a similar right when the student in Harper v. Poway was banned from expressing “hateful” sentiments by wearing a shirt that read “Homosexuality is Shameful”. These members of minority faiths might have their poor psyches injured by such hateful words, just like the hypothetically-harmed homosexual kids in the earlier case. And while the fact that young Mariah made it through to sixth period with no disruption of the school day might seem compelling in arguing that the shirt caused no harm, Tyler Harper had made it through a substantial portion of the day without incident before his speech was suppressed by school authorities. If such facts are irrelevant in a case involving speech on one side of the gay issue, it should be equally irrelevant on the other as a matter of applying the law and Constitution equally.

Outside the Ninth Circuit, though, I would argue that Mariah should have every right to wear her shirt unmolested – and, indeed protected if necessary – by school authorities. If we are to teach our young people to be fully-informed and active citizens in a free society, both Mariah Jimenez and Tyler Harper OUGHT to be able to walk through the hallways of a school expressing diverse views of homosexuality and gay rights with the full support of teachers and administrators. In a world where Tinker v. Des Moines were a precedent which school authorities sought to uphold rather than undermine, actions like those of Jimenez and Harper would be seen as evidence that the schools had succeed rather than problems for administrators to deal with. Of course, in such a world we would view schools as a place which encouraged critical thinking and respectful self-expression rather than institutions in which teaching to the state minimum standards implicitly requires that No Child Gets Ahead.

By the way, let me state for the record that I do not fully agree (or disagree) with either studentÂ’s message. On the other hand, IÂ’d be proud to claim either as my student or my child, because each has engaged in an act of true patriotism by exercising their legitimate First Amendment rights and attempting to defend them appropriately when challenged by government authority. Each deserves better than they were given by their respective schools.

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Is anyone else troubled by the fact that Barack Obma has appointed a new Secretary of Education whose own school district under-performs the nation on standardized tests AND is provides such a lousy education that the president-elect and his wife refused to send their children to the district's schools.

In 2007, only 17 percent of eighth graders tested at or above grade level in reading in Chicago Public Schools – the school system administered by Arne Duncan since 2001.

President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday tapped Duncan to become secretary of education in the upcoming administration.

Duncan, hailed by Obama as a reformer, said he would like to take the lessons he learned in Chicago with him when he moves to Washington. “I'm also eager to apply some of the lessons we have learned here in Chicago to help school districts all across our country," Duncan said after Obama formally named him to the job in Chicago.

By every measure, Duncan is a FAILURE as a superintendent, with his reforms having been ineffective. Can our children afford to have the lessons he learned in Chicago applied nationwide, which would presumably lower student performance? We'd be going from "No Child Moves Ahead" to "No Child Learns To Read". I therefore urge the US Senate to reject Arne Duncan's nomination to be Secretary of Education.

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We are constantly told by advocates of affirmative action that the under-representation of racial, ethnic, or gender groups in a program is evidence of a problem that must be remedied. As such, IÂ’d like to encourage colleges and universities to implement affirmative action programs to guarantee that the proportion of individuals in these study abroad programs.

In recent years, as study abroad has ballooned across the nation, fueled by growth in short-term programs and increasing diversity in participating students’ majors and destinations, a 2-to-1 female-to-male ratio has stayed remarkably stagnant. In 2006-7, the most recent year for which data are available, 65.1 percent of Americans studying abroad were women, and 34.9 percent men. A decade earlier — when the total number of study abroad students was less than half its current total — the breakdown was 64.9 percent female, 35.1 percent male, according to Institute of International Education Open Doors statistics.

I’d bet that if there would be task forces, special programs and howling by the professional victim’s groups (like AAUW) over what would appear to be a violation of Title IX if these figures were reversed. Yet somehow this disparity has been permitted to fester over the years, with women being denied the benefits of an appropriately diverse educational experience when they study abroad. Shouldn’t something be done – using the very arguments used to eliminate men’s athletic programs and establish special scholarships for women and minorities? Or does this situation serve as confirmation that the claimed goals of equality and equity are actually nothing more than excuses to engage in indefensible discrimination?

Of course it does, as illustrated by this anecdote.

The persistent gender gap is regularly described as an object of interest in the field — if not an object of intense concern compared to, for instance, the similarly stagnant and low numbers of racial minorities studying abroad. (“I’ve made myself a little unpopular occasionally when I’ve been in sessions on under-represented groups in study abroad and I bring up the issue of men in study abroad,” (William) Hoffa said).

Yeah, that’s right – only under-representation of victim classes is a problem. Daring to suggest otherwise makes one “unpopular” due to the sin of political incorrectness.

H/T NROÂ’s Phi Beta Cons

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After all, he has opposed vouchers as a repudiation of public schools and vowed not to “walk away from them.” Well, now he has a chance to prove that commitment – by following the example of Jimmy Carter by enrolling his two children in public schools in the District of Columbia.
After all, Obama did specifically criticize John McCain for trying to expand a voucher program to allow more children to leave the cityÂ’s schools.

[Time] magazine asked: “Should parents be given vouchers to enable them to send their children to any school?” Obama answered: “No: I believe that public education in America should foster innovation and provide students with varied, high-quality learning opportunities.”

Those are his words just a couple of weeks ago – words that indicate his unwillingness to help the children of the District of Columbia escape chronically failing schools. How can he and Michelle Obama then turn around and “walk away from them” by enrolling their daughters in an elite private school? Doesn’t common decency require that he give the people of the District hope for change by enrolling his own daughters in the District’s public schools – thereby making the sort of sacrifice that his policies impose upon the poor and middle class families whose children populate those schools?

And if he is unwilling to do that much, why shouldnÂ’t he support vouchers giving the families of the children in these failing schools the roughly $15,000 in taxpayer funds that are currently squandered on schools that see only 1/8 of the students performing at grade level? While that wonÂ’t allow these children to attend the same schools that the Obamas are considering for their children (which charge nearly twice that in tuition), it would let the rest of the districtÂ’s children enroll in most of the other private schools in the area.

And why not? ShouldnÂ’t the children of Washington, DC have the same sort of options that the presidentÂ’s children have? And if they donÂ’t, doesnÂ’t the choice to put the girls in private schools while leaving the rest of the DistrictÂ’s kids trapped in substandard schools speak volumes about what Barack Obama really stands for?

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Let’s be realistic here – TAKS (for high school, anyway) is going to be dead in a couple of years. The Texas Legislature has already mandated its demise and replacement with End of Course exams actually tied to the content of the course in which they are given. But that does not mean that the following idea is a bad one.

Texas students in certain grades would no longer have to pass the state achievement test to be promoted under a new school accountability plan unveiled Tuesday by leaders of the House and Senate education committees.

The proposal would scuttle a requirement originally championed by former Gov. George W. Bush as a way to curtail the widespread practice of social promotion – automatically passing students regardless of achievement.

In addition, the new accountability plan would base annual school performance ratings on three years of test scores rather than the most recent year, allowing school districts and campuses to make up for a bad year of results with a couple of positive years.

Now let’s be honest – the no promotion rule has been ineffective for years due to an exception allowing school officials and parents to agree to promote a student who failed anyway, as well as provisions for special summer programs for such students in most districts. On the high school level, the only sanction was at graduation, so the promotion issue was non-existent.

So what, then, is there to like about this proposal? It is the three-year rule for evaluating schools and districts. Such a plan would be more reasonable in many instances, allowing a school to overcome a single bad year – especially when such years are based upon the performance of a handful of students in a sub-group. I once heard of a school being rated unacceptable because three children (all new to the district) failed a single test – all were members of the same minority group and had led to the school to be deemed as failing to provide a proper education to that minority group. Similarly, I already know that many schools and districts in this area will take a hit in the wake of Hurricane Ike – the lost school days and disruption to the lives of our students will likely hurt scores. Does a one-year “snapshot” this spring REALLY reflect on the job these districts and schools are doing?

Oh, and a note to Greg at GregÂ’s Opinion: It isnÂ’t at all inconsistent to support state oversight of school districts because those districts are, in fact, a creature of the state itself and are therefore properly under such oversight. That differs from the case of federal oversight of the states, which constitutionally exist independent of and distinct from the federal government. So while one can argue about whether the current testing regime is a good one or not, it is not a case of the state intruding where it does not have any place going.

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When I was in middle school, our textbook had a bit of a memoir by Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. It was a decent piece of literature about his youth and love of the great outdoors. Since justices are appointed for life, I don’t see a problem with using the work of one as an example of a literary form. If, on the other hand, Douglas had been a politician who regularly stood for reelection, I’d argue the position differently – and I say this even though I hold Douglas in great esteem (though I would argue strongly against elements of his jurisprudence).

This brings us forward to the present day, and a choice by a textbook publisher that is rather troubling – the choice of Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father as an example of a memoir in a recently published middle school textbook.

My 8th grade son is in an advanced English class at a public middle school here in Racine, Wisconsin. I just found out that my son's new (copyright 200 Wisconsin - McDougal Littell Literature book has 15 pages covering Barack Obama.

I was shocked - No John McCain, no Hillary Clinton, no George Bush - Just Barack Obama. I'm wondering how it is that Obama's story gets put into an 8th grade literature book? It would be one thing, if it was just the tidbit about his boyhood days, but 15 pages, and they talk about his "Life of Service". Honestly, what has Obama really done to be included in this book? Not only that, but on page 847 there is a photo of Obama at the 2004 Democratic Convention with at least 8 Obama signs in the background! Front & center is an www.obama2004.com sign.

Now let’s say this up front – Dreams from My Father is a good book, and it is a good example of a memoir. Were Obama not a living politician currently seeking office (and likely to continue doing so for the life of that textbook), I’d probably agree with the choice of the excerpt – though I’d have some concern, given that the book as a whole is written at a 12th grade reading level according to one article I recently saw. But the reality is that we are in the midst of an election campaign and will likely have Obama as a major political figure for the next couple of decades, and the choice therefore raises the specter of political favoritism, whether accidental or intentional.

For the record, let me add that my objection is not about Barack Obama per se. I’d have the same objection if this were an excerpt from Faith of My Fathers by John McCain. We simply need to keep the active politicians out of the textbooks to the degree possible – with the possible exception of history and government books, I don’t see where their presence is particularly appropriate or desirable.

H/T Newsbusters, Malkin

UPDATE -- 10/17/2008: The MSM catches up with this story -- sort of.

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At a number of schools around the country, all sorts of special accommodations have been made to enable Muslims to pray on campus.

Foot baths.

Prayer rooms designed with Islamic sensibilities in mind.

But on at least one campus, Christian prayer will get you tossed out on your ear, according to a lawsuit filed in California.

Two students filed a federal lawsuit this past Monday against the publicly-funded College of Alameda alleging that school officials at the California school threatened to expel them for praying.

The events prompting the lawsuit took place in December, 2007, a press release from the Pacific Justice Institute reports.

That month, student Kandy Kyriacou visited an instructor to give her a Christmas gift. Kyriacou found the instructor alone in her shared office. When the instructor indicated she was ill, Kyriacou offered to pray for her.

The instructor bowed her head and Kyriacou began to pray. They were then interrupted by another faculty member, Derek Piazza, who entered the room and said “You can’t be doing that here!”

Kyriacou left to join her friend and fellow student Ojoma Omaga. Piazza followed Kyriacou and repeated his rebuke. The students related that they were surprised by his intimidating behavior.

Three days before Christmas, both students received letters notifying them of the college’s retroactive “intent to suspend” them. While school policy requires such letters to state factual bases for the charges, the letter only vaguely accused the students of “disruptive or insulting behavior, willful disobedience . . . persistent abuse of college employees.”

An administrative hearing reportedly found KyriacouÂ’s prayer worthy of discipline and threatened suspension or expulsion for further infractions.

Excuse me – “You can’t be doing that here”?

Why not, exactly? Since when is a public college or university a religion-free zone? Since when is voluntary prayer forbidden – especially since, it would appear, that the prayer was taking place in the instructor’s office, which would be a private (or at least semi-private) space. Even were the office shared with Piazza, that would not in any way limit the right of Kyriacou and her instructor to engage in prayer in that space, any more than it being a shared space would allow Piazza to dictate what topics of conversation the two could discuss in the space.

What’s more, Piazza’s decision to pursue the two students and engage in an ongoing religiously based harassment of the two should have resulted in disciplinary action against Piazza, not the students. Such behavior was clearly an abuse of whatever minimal authority that Piazza would have outside of a classroom or his office space. While the record here is unclear as to what interaction the two students had with Piazza during that time, I would imagine that it related to the two attempting to defend their First Amendment rights – something which should not result in disciplinary action at a public institution.

I’m curious – would the same penalty have been imposed if these had been some of the school’s “diverse” Muslims? Or would Piazza been shipped off to a sensitivity class for giving the students offense by his words and action – assuming he was not the subject of a fatwa or beheading.

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I’ll be honest with you – I’ve got no problem with teachers who are politically active. I certainly am, and am offended that there are those (mostly Harris and Fort Bend County Democrats who have twice sought to get me fired for blogging) who argue that my political activity and expression of political opinions makes me unfit to teach and should be the basis for firing me from my job.

Now it may surprise some of you, but I actually tread very carefully in terms of politics in my classroom. When my students and I discussed the election back before the hurricane, I was neutral enough that they were evenly split as to which presidential candidate I am supporting. And I certainly would never wear a campaign button in class – and don’t do bumper stickers on my car. I simply don’t believe in indoctrinating my students.

That’s why I am disturbed by this story – I think it is unethical for teachers to wear buttons like the ones below anywhere on school grounds.

Teachers at Soquel High School have agreed not to wear "Educators for Obama" buttons in the classroom after a parent complained that educators were attempting to politically influence his daughter and other students.

John Hadley, an importer of South African goods, called the school to complain Friday after his 16-year daughter Teegan returned home and reported that she had seen several teachers wearing the buttons.

Hadley said his family supports Sen. Barack Obama's rival, Sen. John McCain, but that he is opposed to teachers wearing political paraphernalia regardless of its nature.

"It doesn't matter who they are supporting," Hadley said Tuesday. "Teachers lose their free-speech rights when they go into a classroom. They are allowed to stick to the curriculum, not political views."

The law disagrees with Hadley, but does allow districts to set limits on the political activities of teachers during the school day.

Now letÂ’s address a couple of points here. I donÂ’t know that there was an attempt to influence students here, but instead believe it was an attempt to influence colleagues. But the reality is that during the school day we have an influence on our students that can be profound, and our expression can have unintended influence upon our students. So while we do not surrender our rights at the schoolhouse gate (to quote Tinker), we also assume a certain obligation to behave in an apolitical, professional manner during our class time. We do have a captive audience, after all, and have an obligation not to use that time to indoctrinate them with our political opinions. I therefore believe the school is not out of line in its actions in this case.

Please note, however, that Darren at Right on the Left Coast takes a somewhat different view on this situation.

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I'm opposed to any situation in which union membership is compulsory, especially for public employees. And while I know the law allows workers to "opt out" in many situations, the employees are often still required to pay the bulk of the union dues for "representation" that they don't want while being deprived of any voice in decision-making after exercising their right to to freely not associate with an organization that they do not feel represents their interests.

Please understand -- I've been the building representative for one of the four organizations representing teachers in my school district for the past decade, so I am not hostile to teachers voluntarily organizing to protect their own best interests. But the problem of the "union shop" model of organization is the arrogance it breeds among the leadership of the union.

A recent editorial in the Washington Post and the response of a union thug official is illustrative of what is wrong with the current model in most places.

On July 23, the Washington Post said the following in an editorial.

IT'S APPARENT that some D.C. teachers union officials don't think much of the people they represent. How else to explain their objections to Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee speaking to teachers about pending contract talks? The suggestion that simply providing information is coercive belittles the people who each day are entrusted with that very duty.

Now please realize -- these meeting were not mandatory for teachers, so no one was being forced to attend. The Chancellor (Superintendent in most districts) was going to present directly to interested teachers her vision for the city's failing schools, including information on the district's proposal for a reformist compensation plan that would allow teachers to choose either a traditional compensation package (set salary, tenure) or an incentive-based salary plan with no tenure. As noted, many of the union traditionalists want no part of the plan -- or of teachers getting their information from any source other than the union. But really, whose interests are harmed by talking and listening?

Which leads us to this response from one of the union thugs officials.

Regarding the July 23 editorial "Teachable Moment":

I dismiss the reasoning in this editorial as that of the right-wing, rich and powerful, politically connected and corporate leaders who seek to control political thought in Washington. But if I fail to respond to The Post's anti-union, anti-teacher discourse, the public just might accept your version of reality, which suggests that teachers unions oppose educational progress and have no right to advocate for teachers. I object to your comments defining me as a hardliner because I am an advocate for teachers, students and schools.

Teachers should be respected as professionals capable of discussing their contract in private without the interference of political lobbying from our bosses and newspapers. Having outsiders present at our informational sessions is totally inappropriate. Washington Teachers' Union President George Parker caused a controversy when he failed to consider input from the union's executive board and membership regarding whether we should invite Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee to our informational sessions.

The Post was simply wrong to weigh in on the decision-making processes of our members. It is time for The Post to stop putting political ideology ahead of equitable coverage of the other side of the public education reform story.

CANDI PETERSON
Member, Board of Trustees
Washington Teachers' Union
Washington

Now let's translate this letter.

PARAGRAPH 1: You fascists hate public schools and teachers. Only union thugs officials care about education.

PARAGRAPH 2: Letting anyone other than union thugs officials have access to our teachers -- whether district officials, members of the public, or the news media -- undercuts our ability to get the teachers to accept our skewed, one-sided view of the up-coming contract negotiations. Less information -- good. More information -- bad.

PARAGRAPH 3: The press has no right to weigh in on the operation of our public schools or the spending of public funds on teacher contracts -- unless they support the views of the union thugs officials who need teacher ignorance to maintain their hold on power. So shut up and butt out.

And folks like Candi Peterson wonder why unions like hers are so often seen as the biggest obstacle to education reform in this country.

UPDATE -- 8/6/2008: Union thugs officials complain that someone other than union thugs officials might talk to teachers about their contract. How awful that members of the public might have something to say on the matter!

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If you were an editor, where would you put this story in your paper?

The director general of a controversial private Catholic school in Fairfax County has been found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of failing to report child abuse and fined $500.

Abner I Alanson, head of the Vatican Catholic Academy on Route 1 in the Mount Vernon area, was arrested last month by Fairfax police, who said Alanson had been informed of the possible sexual abuse of a 5-year-old student at the school. School authorities are required by law to report alleged child abuse within 72 hours.

Alanson was charged with misdemeanor counts of failing to report child abuse and obstruction of justice. He pleaded no contest July 24 to the failure to report charge, and Fairfax prosecutors agreed to dismiss the obstruction charge, according to court records.

No brainer, right? Front page -- or at least the front page of the Local news section. After all, the story has everything you could want -- religious school covering up sex abuse and prosecutors working a plea deal to give the offending administrator a slap on the wrist, despite the fact that his actions endangered a small child.

You certainly wouldn't bury it on page B-6, would you?

Well, that's where this story got placed.

The director general of a controversial private Islamic school in Fairfax County has been found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of failing to report child abuse and fined $500.

Abdalla I. Al-Shabnan, head of the Islamic Saudi Academy on Route 1 in the Mount Vernon area, was arrested last month by Fairfax police, who said Al-Shabnan had been informed of the possible sexual abuse of a 5-year-old student at the school. School authorities are required by law to report alleged child abuse within 72 hours.

Al-Shabnan was charged with misdemeanor counts of failing to report child abuse and obstruction of justice. He pleaded no contest July 24 to the failure to report charge, and Fairfax prosecutors agreed to dismiss the obstruction charge, according to court records.

Oh, I see -- it just wouldn't do to give the administrator of an Islamic school the same play that the principal of a Catholic school (or even a public school) would get in such a situation. That would be insensitive and prejudicial towards Muslims -- who as we know are all peaceful and are steadfastly opposed to sex with little children.

Never mind, of course, that the school has been embroiled in controversy for some time because it is apparently teaching religious bigotry and encouraging jihadi terrorism. Bury the story -- because we don't want to provoke the same sort of response that publishing cartoons has caused in the past.

H/T NewsBusters

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One year on, it appears that too many on the Left don't get the point on last year's Supreme Court decisions upholding Brown v. Board of Education's essential ruling that race-based school decisions on where children should attend school were a violation of the Constitution.

With its decision in Meredith, the court was forcing Louisville to rethink the way it would assign elementary-school students and, in the process, to confront some tricky questions. Is the purpose of integration simply to mix students of different colors for the sake of equity or to foster greater familiarity and comfort among the races? Should integration necessarily translate into concrete gains like greater achievement for all students? If so, is mixing students by race the most effective mechanism for attaining it?

The problem, of course, is that INTEGRATION of schools is not a requirement under the US Constitution -- ending de jure segregation is the standard which has to be met. Thus, when I go to work this fall at a school that is around 90% Hispanic, there is no Constitutional violation provided the school receives appropriate resources and the attendance zone decisions are not made on racial criteria -- the residential patterns of the district and the district and the geographic reality of an interstate highway that serves as the north/south attendance boundary between my district's high schools serve as a legitimate basis for de facto differences in the ethnic make up of the two schools.

Desegregation, properly understood in light of Brown, requires that race-based government action not result in segregation of schools. Equity requires color-blindness only. It does not mean achieving "balance" everywhere, regardless of geographic realities and parental choice. And while "familiarity" and "comfort" may be nice goals, being treated as an individual rather than a member of a group who must atone for ethnic sins (or be compensated for the ethnic sins of others) is the Constitutional standard.

And improving achievement is an entirely separate goal from the mixing of races in some bureaucratically defined proportion -- which is why the kids at the school I'm moving to performed at the same high level on my subject's TAKS test as did kids at the more ethnically diverse school where I taught last year. It comes down to how and where you focus your efforts and money in order to maximize achievement by every student -- and the expectations you set for the students to accomplish that end.

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I'm a member of one of the other teacher organizations here in Texas (we don't have unions per se, and are a right-to-work state), but I am thankful that the ATPE has filed this suit to keep the results of teacher background checks from becoming subject to release under the state's public records laws. Indeed, I'm surprised that the other groups didn't file it along with them.

The Association of Texas Professional Educators filed suit Monday against the Texas attorney general's office and Austin school district to prevent the disclosure of information about the criminal histories of school employees.

Earlier this year, Austin teachers and certain other employees were required by a new state law to submit to fingerprints for national background checks. The suit, filed in Travis County district court, is the latest legal twist in the case of media outlets gathering information under the Texas Public Information Act on what the checks found.

The district said the attorney general's office has ruled that some information that could be used to identify specific employees is public. But the educators group, which represents 112,000 members statewide, says releasing such information could violate privacy rights. The group is fighting to keep identifying information, such as dates of birth, confidential, although the district says as of yet, no media outlets have requested that sort of information.

This isn't a question of "having something to hide", folks. It is a question of having our personal privacy respected to the same degree as our fellow citizens. And the format in which the data was going to be released has the potential to reveal personal information, especially in smaller schools and districts.

And that brings up the larger question. Does the public really have a right to know that a local third grade teacher has a misdemeanor conviction for writing a bad check when she was 19? How about that the local football coach was cited for public intoxication when he was a junior in college? Or what's worse -- what about the teacher who was arrested on suspicion of something or other, but never charged or convicted because they were not guilty? These are lives and reputations we are talking about here -- and matters unrelated to the safety of children.

I hope this is enough to make you understand why so many of my colleagues leave the field with a sense that they are disrespected -- and why so many young people won't consider teaching at all. Low pay, low respect, low support from parents -- and now you want to strip us of our privacy, too? You're going to need to do a lot better in the salary and working condition departments if you are going to do that to us, my friends.

Oh, and for the record -- I've never been arrested or convicted of anything, so I really don't have anything to hide. I don't mind proving that to my district. I do, however, object to having less privacy than other members of the public at large.

Posted by: Greg at 06:53 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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This has been a rough school year for me, so I have to admit that I've been looking forward to the last day of school for a while now. There were some wonderful high points, but also a number of negative events that just made this year harder than any in the past. And given the reconfiguration of my school and the resultant reassignment of faculty, I was having problems with my enthusiasm for returning to my school next year -- but planned to do so anyway.

Until last week -- when a wonderful opportunity fell into my lap that I think is a change for the better. So next fall I'll be teaching something different in a different school -- and believe I will be refreshed by the change.

I'll be picking up my last three boxes tomorrow, turning in my keys, and preparing to begin a whole new adventure.

Posted by: Greg at 12:04 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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I always love it when students are able to figure out how to handle a situation better than the adults in charge -- and hope the adults in charge make the right choice here.

The state's governing body for high-school sports again finds itself stuck between its rules and what many consider common sense.

This time, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association faces a protest from Nicole Cochran, a senior at Bellarmine Prep of Tacoma. Cochran finished more than three seconds faster than her competition in the girls 3,200-meter run at the Class 4A state track and field meet in Pasco, but she was disqualified after an official flagged her for running on the inside lane line.

One problem: a video shows she didn't do it.

"I'm still in a little bit of shock," Cochran said Thursday afternoon. "That's pretty much all everyone can talk about."

The video — which shows that a Bellarmine Prep teammate, not Cochran, stepped on the inside lane line — was shot by flotrack.com, a track Web site. Since the event's controversial finish late Friday night, the video has circulated throughout the state's track community, triggering many to call for the WIAA to reverse the disqualification and name Cochran the winner.

That, WIAA executive director Mike Colbrese said, isn't likely to happen.

He said the WIAA must follow the rules of the National Federation of State High School Associations, which prohibits the use of unauthorized video for reviews. In addition, the race official's ruling is considered a judgment call, which Colbrese said is non-reviewable.

Fortunately, there may be a couple of factors that let them overturn the erroneous judgment call.

Cochran and Ellis list several problems with the disqualification ruling, including that the disqualification form indicates the infraction occurred on Lap 7, even though the video shows the official raised his yellow flag on the final turn of Lap 6.

At the same turn on the seventh lap, Cochran moves outside to take the lead.

"Even without looking at the video, you have a disqualification form with the wrong information," Ellis said.

Also, Ellis said the WIAA should consider that one of the two race officials watching that turn refused to sign off on the disqualification.

Sounds to me like the disqualification itself ought to be disqualified here based upon the obvious inaccuracies in it.

But even if it isn't, this shows that our kids do, in fact, know that what is right ought to trump the rules in such a case -- and those involved handled the situation themselves at the meet.

Andrea Nelson, a sophomore from Shadle Park of Spokane, was named the official winner, but she walked off the podium and hung her gold medal over Cochran's neck.

"It kind of gave me chills," Cochran said. "It was really emotional."

Then the rest of the top eight finishers passed their medals down to the person who crossed the finish line ahead of them.

As hard as these kids have worked to get to this level of competition, I can only imagine how hard it was for those eight kids to take a step down the ladder voluntarily -- especially that poor young lady with the eight-place medal who went home empty-handed as a result. I wish they had included her name in the article, because I'd argue that her sacrifice was every bit as heroic as Andrea Nelson's in giving up the gold to the girl she knew had won the race.

Now, can the adults straighten out this mess?

Posted by: Greg at 11:14 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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Speaking as a teacher, I can understand some students make you want to "vote them off the island". There are a few every year. But we don't do it, as much as we might fantasize about it.

But one teacher apparently lacked the common sense decency to keep such things in the realm of fantasy -- and led her students in the abuse and ostracism of a special needs student in her kindergarten class!

A Port St. Lucie, Fla., mother is outraged and considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.

Melissa Barton says Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo had her son's classmates say what they didn't like about 5-year-old Alex. She says the teacher then had the students vote, and voted Alex, who is being evaluated for Asperger's syndrome -- an autism spectrum disorder -- out of the class by a 14-2 margin.

What is frightening to me is that the local DA has already determined that this doesn't meet the definition of emotional abuse of a student. That may be the case, but I'd like to think the determination might take a bit longer, with the teacher left twisting in the wind.

Here's hoping that we'll at least see her teaching credentials revoked.

Posted by: Greg at 09:56 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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