And then there’s the education blog…

… and Twitter, an excellent, free PR tool. If you aren’t following me on Twitter already – or using it yourself – sign up for free, check my profile and click follow. There’s always a good conversation to have or a good link to click.

That triumvirate of e-media makes it easy to do a roundup of interesting stuff I’ve read, so give a warm welcome to the world premier of the Great Links Curriculum.

The British are one baby step ahead of us in self-destruction. DailyWritingTips brings us a story from the Telegraph about banning “elitist” and “discriminatory” Latin phrases – like bona fide, vice versa and et cetera. Fancy book larnin’s a 20th century skeel, it seems.

“Why Parents Get Angry When They Learn the Truth,” from Motel Special Ed.

“Quantifying Greatness” - Greg Forster debunks an unfounded gripe about the Great Books.

Exhibit 1036a: Perfect example why normal people don’t take educrats seriously, courtesy of Salon. Really, that diagram could be drawn for just about any topic on Earth.

The Carnival of Education is up at the Core Knowledge Blog. This Carnival’s scripting took some real effort – well done.

Flypaper with some sober common sense. Want to retain great teachers? Remove the bad ones.

Obama celebrated in the World of Warcraft? Good Lord, there are so many factual errors in this testimony as to make me want to call the poor kid out. We’ll see.

Having solved every problem in New York public education, the State Education Department decided to buy a ton of fruits and vegetables.

Racial taunts in class for supporting John McCain? You betcha. This ideological intolerance happens a bit more than people realize, and sometimes – as in this case – it can get ugly.

Really, really, really, really smart to get into law school? George Leef at Phi Beta Cons drags that argument back to reality.

Head over to eMailOurMilitary and drop a quick note, even if it’s just a quick thanks.

Bill Gates?!?!? Making curriculum?!?! Relax, mouth-frothers. Ms. Jacobs and Mr. Pondiscio will calm you down.

… and another political candidate in the education world whines while laying bare her ignorance on blogs, media and technology. Advertising, too, I suppose. Well done, Ms. Gallucci of Pinellas County. Perhaps the problem isn’t your makeup or wardrobe, but the woeful inadequacy you bring to the job.

In New York State, the education budget cut spin begins. Give it a day or two, you’ll want to throw money at NYSED just to get this circus to stop.

When the National Association of Scholars’ Argus Project was announced, the usual suspects cried foul – ideological bias, “witchhunt,” another effort by that Conservative front group for God-knows-what, etc.

Tripe, tripe, tripe. I wrote this about the Project’s mission:

The idea of The Argus Project, as I understand it, is simply observation of our campuses and classrooms and the documentation of abuses on all sides of the political spectrum.

The most recent case examined by the Project is Manchester College, a private, four-year, co-ed Christian school in North Manchester, Indiana. The Project concludes that Manchester’s commitment to scholarship is weak, diluted, confusing, and faddish [and not even very good at the fads].

The case study, which I’ve pasted below, reinforces the point that a private institution is free to fulfill whatever mission it sets out – and I have no quarrel with that, either. There isn’t even One Big Thing, one trademark travesty that should cause outrage. Manchester’s curriculum is mostly unremarkable.

Consider a quote from a ’10 student on MC’s front page:

“I love being extremely active on campus because there is never a dull moment. Whether it’s watching the political returns at a professor’s house or dancing the night away in a pit full of bubbles, MC makes sure there is always something to do.”

After reading Observations at Manchester, her vague statement will make more sense. How can a student thrust in the middle of a carnival of identity politics, weak social advocacy, fringe scholarship and bizarrely-contradictory missions be expected to do any better?

I’d love to hear President Jo Young Switzer’s response to this article – and I mean a real response, not some canned, dismissive form letter typed up by a work study student. President Switzer, are you up for it?

Perhaps President Switzer could elaborate on the college’s tagline of “Find Your Place” and how it differs from their commitment to what could better be described as “Whatever.”

————–

Observations at Manchester

September 23, 2008 By Ashley Thorne

When NAS announced the launch of our Argus project, the initiative was characterized by Inside Higher Education as a big brother operation that encouraged annoying over-the-shoulder surveillance of colleges and universities. We defended ourselves in a reply article, showing that “the Argus Project is a call for volunteers to examine publicly available sources to report and document what’s happening on college campuses,” and that we are not interested in spying or attacking individuals.

Caboose-ing the Inside Higher Ed piece was one person’s comment that we haven’t yet responded to:

“Odd that there was no mention of NAS monitoring private religious colleges where indoctrination and bias are mandatory. Shouldn’t someone be saving us from something so blatant?” – Brian

Good question Brian. Should NAS monitor private religious colleges as well as public taxpayer-funded non-sectarian ones?  We did recently post a comment on Yeshiva University, a private Orthodox Jewish university. Here we take a look at a private Christian college.

The main program that caught our eye was the College’s Peace Studies program, the oldest one in the nation. The Church of the Brethren is one of the three original “peace” churches to come out of the Reformation–Quakers and Mennonites are the other two. Its pacifist teachings have attracted those who would tease its doctrine into something like the Social Gospel. Founded in 1948, Manchester College’s Peace Studies program declares:

Whether in our personal lives or the international arena, we search for an alternative choice of action that does not tear down, but works to build up positive relations between adversaries. We resolve not to accept injustice, but to actively oppose it without taking life or forfeiting freedom, either our own or that of others.

A course listed under the peace studies program (PEAC 330 Analysis of War and Peace) makes a distinction between “negative peace, i.e., the absence of war, and positive peace, understood as the presence of life-affirming values and practices such as economic and social justice and environmental stewardship.” The course description continues to explain:

In short, the importance of moving beyond negative peace to an emphasis on positive peace suggests that it is not enough to simply be against something, i.e., war and other expressions of organized violence. To build a just and sustainable peace, we must also be for something, i.e., human well-being based on values such as justice and equality.

So Manchester College aims to produce students who advocate for social justice and environmentalism.

For those who haven’t come across Bierce, he was a biting critic of literature and culture in 19th- and early 20th-century America. Bierce’s short stories are singularly engaging and, in my opinion, few in American literature have demonstrated such a command of language. Bierce was introduced to me by a well-traveled writer who said, “On his worst day, maybe coming off a week-long bender, Bierce was sharper than you or I will ever be.” He was probably right.

Bierce occupies some real estate on the shelf to the right of my desk. I decided to pull a sample of the education-related definitions in his Devil’s Dictionary.

ACADEME, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.

ACADEMY, n. [from ACADEME] A modern school where football is taught.

BORE, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

GRAMMAR, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.

HISTORIAN, n. A broad-gauge gossip.

HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

LEARNING, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.

LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.

ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.

PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

PLAGIARISM, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.

PLAGIARIZE, v. To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.

I reference and sample Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary with regularity – it’s too witty to ignore. Though I use a hard copy, you can get a .txt file of the Dictionary via Project Gutenberg.

And, if you’re so inclined, peep The Ambrose Bierce Project and The Ambrose Bierce Appreciation Society.

My favorite fictional teacher is Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan.

I was thinking earlier today [as I fried 12oz. of bacon and topped it with sharp cheddar, which I write to induce "Americans are so fat" deprecation so the foreigners will feel better about what follows] if there’s any group of people, any country, any anything in the world about which my feelings oscillate so often and so quickly. I mean rapid shifts like those in sports – he’s a hero when he hits a home run and a bum when he strikes out – but about more rational subjects.

No – the Brits win the prize. I can go from thrilled and proud to eyes-closed-and-shaking-head in about 3 minutes.

Boris Johnson, the recently elected mayor of London, is a Brit I’ve loved for many years. He’s sharp, funny, too honest and too open. He wrote a piece on the BBC licence fee that Wikipedia describes:

“In the United Kingdom and the Crown dependencies, a television licence is required to receive any publicly broadcast television service, from any source. This includes the commercial channels, cable and satellite transmissions. The money from the licence fee is used to provide radio, television and Internet content for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and Welsh-language television programmes for S4C.”

I think it’s about 150 GBP right now – or about $275 USD.

Boris introduced his editorial, which advocated relaxing gripes about the fee, by saying:

“Treachery, thy name is Edmonds. After decades in which his hairy chops have been clamped about the hind teat of the BBC, Noel Edmonds has announced that he will not pay the licence fee, and I can imagine that some people will declare him a hero.”

And that’s why I love Boris Johnson.

Then some dolt of a [retired] professor has to muck it up by suggesting we throw out spelling and apostrophe rules to improve literacy, which I wrote about over at the GlobalScholar blog.

At least it’s not as bad as the imposition of sharia courts in the UK.

You guys drive me mad.

Aw, I can’t stay mad at you.

Your assignment: Anti-Palin research. The WorldNetDaily piece didn’t explain well what the purpose of this English class was – just that the Professor Andrew Hallam, his assignments and his approach are unacceptable. The classroom environment seems to have a bit of tension, too:

“When Hallam handed out the Palin writing assignment, the students reported “he said he would give the Republicans a chance to speak about it and asked who in the class was a Republican. Five of us raised our hands. When we did, [one other student] … said ‘F*** you!’ Mr. Hallam did nothing about this. At the end of the class period, after a lot of the Republicans had voiced their side of the issue, another kid said, ‘They’re full of s***, but we let them talk anyway.’”"

I had an incident like this once – and in an English class, too. I said something, though I forget what, and a student stood up and yelled, “You’re a bastard!” The teacher did nothing.

The next day, that teacher apparently felt guilty. She announced that the following day would include a few minutes for anyone in the class to speak on the “disturbance.” A couple kids talked about how we needed to respect one another and not lash out.

I came prepared with photocopies of my birth certificate and my parents’ marriage license. I passed them around, explained the timeline, and assured the class that I was not, in fact, a bastard.

Hallam teems with professionalism, class and scholarship:

“The students had documented a series of incidents in which Hallam reportedly told his class, “Bush-bashing is one of my favorite things to do.”

In another class, the students report, Hallam said he loved swearing and the f-word was his favorite word.”

Does he mean frak? I bet he means frak.

I wrote yesterday about my dissatisfaction with the Boston University Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore’s push for voter registration. It’s a poor use of resources, it’s outside the scope of the Dean’s office, and it’s reason #52,907 why higher education is prohibitively expensive. I responded to a spirited commenter on that post and explained my reasons a bit more fully.

Today, the Dean’s Blog posted a guest editorial which makes the following claims/suggestions:

• The US is divided, unhappy, starving, and hated worldwide;
• Global warming caused Hurricane Gustav;
• Newspapers are full of suicide bombings;
• All students should vote, just not in Massachusetts;
• The last 8 years were a total disgrace.

Elmore introduces the guest post in “How Does Your Vote Really Count?”

“I often wonder if my vote is like pressing the botton [sic] on the walk signal at a street crossing — does it matter?”

Since Elmore started with a near-non sequitur, I suppose I’ll start there, too.

No, Dean Elmore, pushing those buttons probably doesn’t matter. Take New York City’s example:

“The city deactivated most of the pedestrian buttons long ago with the emergence of computer-controlled traffic signals, even as an unwitting public continued to push on, according to city Department of Transportation officials. More than 2,500 of the 3,250 walk buttons that still exist function essentially as mechanical placebos, city figures show. Any benefit from them is only imagined…

… Most of the buttons scattered through the city, mainly outside of Manhattan, are relics of the 1970′s, before computers began tightly choreographing traffic signal patterns on major arteries.”

I’d bet the situation in Boston is similar. Now that we’ve answered one of Life’s Big Questions, let’s move along to the bulk of the post, written by Dr. Margaret Ross, Boston University’s Director of Behavioral Medicine:

“I am not a particularly politically knowledgeable person …”

Eep. Admitting a lack of knowledge about a topic as an introduction to 300 words on it? I’ll let that slide. And though Dr. Ross isn’t a “particularly politically knowledgeable person,” I am – so on with the show:

“…but this election scares me more than others have.  The country is in a very vulnerable state:  people are terribly divided and angry, scared about their survival, we have been in a prolonged recession with no sign of relief, prices for basic necessities are high, healthcare is more of a mess than ever, the weather patterns show inexorable climate change (yet another storm is ravaging the Caribbean, Cuba and will travel to the southeastern United States).”

I agree partly with Dr. Ross – I’m not scared, but I’m concerned. That said, I’m not a hyperbolic fearmonger like Dr. Ross.

We’re not all “terribly divided and angry.” I hold a very unpopular view of the political climate for my demographic, and I don’t sympathize with most of the friends I have. I’m not angry at them, and that philosophical/conceptual rift is normal when one is truly in a diverse crowd. Relax, Dr. Ross – this isn’t a civil war between Code Pink and the Westboro Baptist Church. It’s just people being people.

Also, I’m not worried that I won’t survive. Gas prices are high – it’s a serious hardship for those who don’t live in a city. Those fuel prices make food more expensive, too, but we aren’t starving. Because I’ve cut back on shrimp and clams isn’t evidence that I’m “scared about [my] survival.” It just means I eat more soup and pasta.

And this is where the Good Doctor’s hyperbole and fearmongering really comes in – recession. Things aren’t wonderful – we all know that – but Hell in a Handbasket isn’t around the corner, either. For a crash course on what a recession is, check the Wikipedia entry.

Then consider that the GDP in the second quarter grew by 3.3%, according to the Department of Commerce, that inflation is nowhere near the 12% it was in 1980, and that our civilian unemployment rate of about 6% isn’t all that bad.

It’s also news to me that “inexorable climate change” is linked directly to Hurricane Gustav. Then again, I’ve only got a BA, so she’s the expert.

“We are fighting a war that few can comprehend or believe in.”

Actually, Dr. Ross, the polls aren’t as dire as you make them out to be. About 2 in 3 Americans oppose the war in Iraq – while that’s a majority, considering 1 out of 3 to be “few” is intellectually dishonest or downright ignorant [I'll let you choose]. Feel free to look over these poll results for several questions re: the war in Iraq.

“We are not respected as the force for good that we have been in the post World War II era; quite the contrary.”

I’d dispute that assertion if it wasn’t a book-length discussion. I’ll pass.

“Newspapers are filled with suicide bombings and natural disasters and we almost have to become hardened in order to continue to function.”

I hate to sound crass, but at this point I think that Dr. Ross reads only the New York Times and never leaves Boston/Cambridge.

“So, it seems to me that this election is a turning point.  We have two strong candidates, with very different ideas about how things might be done to begin to repair the horrendous damage of the last few years.”

It should be a turning point either way. I don’t think we have two strong candidates – I think we have only one – and I don’t think that you really think there are two strong candidates, either.

“My hope is that students all over America will vote.  It usually will mean registering and often will require procuring an absentee ballot.  I also hope that students will register to vote in their home states.  In general, Massachusetts votes Democrat.  There is every reason to expect this will be the case in the 2008 election.  Therefore, the votes of the many students in school throughout Massachusetts will be more significant if they are cast in the states from which these many thousands of students have journeyed.”

Any advice for those New Yorkers at Boston University whose vote is useless, using that rational model, regardless of where they cast it?

“PLEASE register to vote, and please register in your home state.  Your vote will be crucial.  The votes of the many American students could well determine the results of what promises to be a very close election.

We have lived for many years with the results of what was a fatally flawed election in 2000.  My hope is that 2008 will bring us a new start.”

I don’t think it was “fatally flawed” at all. Oddly enough, the Supreme Court and our electoral college system both support me.

Dean Elmore takes over:

“Thanks Dr. Ross.  I’m going to take another view.

Isn’t voting in local elections more important?  Do local and state officials, and our representatives to Washington make more of a difference in the quality of our daily routines?”"

That’s an issue worth discussing.

But first, Dean Elmore might want to consider why he posted a tendentious, intellectually dishonest, ill-informed guest editorial that embarrassed his office and his University. Differing viewpoints are good and discussion is good – as long as everyone is informed, fair and honest.

Liam Goldrick at the Education Optimists gave the education portion of John McCain’s speech a yawn. After McCain said, to paraphrase, that we should encourage easier routes for talented professionals to enter teaching – and make that route out for bad teachers more quickly and easily navigated, too – Goldrick wrote:

“The education portion of McCain’s speech served up the same boring, rehashed Republicanism as the rest of his speech. Basically, it’s all about choice and competition–and firing bad teachers. You always need an enemy.”

Yes, yes, we’re all belligerent warmongers, we stomp on the throats of the poor [how do you think they get downtrodden?], etc. etc. I sense a little bias, but I digress.

He’s right that this is “rehashed,” though I didn’t consider it boring. We have to rehash problems when we’ve failed to implement effective solutions. I considered all the 25th anniversary of A Nation at Risk hoopla to be rehashing as well because we still face many of the same issues and we’ve failed to implement properly many potential fixes.

So, I like reading solid analyses/solutions for some of the problems with our teacher corps. Enter ABCTE’s Dave Saba with a post today called “Fixing Teacher Quality”:

“There are 3.2 million teachers. Jack Welch, the brilliant CEO of GE, made his managers rank all staff so that they knew the top 20%, middle 70% and the bottom 10%. The top 20% were fast tracked into leadership positions and the bottom 10% got fired.

We would have to fire 320,000 teachers per year. That would double the number of teachers we need to hire each year and since we can’t find enough to fill our positions now, we will never have enough if we start to really push an aggressive approach towards eliminating mediocre teaching.”

Common sense stuff. Whereas it would be nice to cull the herd and instantly improve quality, it just isn’t realistic. What can we do, then?

To solve teacher quality we need to do the following:

1. Fix recruitment – have enough candidates for each position so that the principal can hire the right teacher for his/her students – we need more routes to the classroom to increase the numbers
2. Be Selective – less than 40% of our ABCTE candidates make it through the program and we are starting to see great results from our teachers
3. Train principals in hiring – ensure they know how to match the teacher to the students
4. Develop great performance evaluations for teachers – outcomes and observations based and ensure the evaluation is more than once a year
5. Train principals on evaluations – ensure they know how to develop teachers
6. Develop truly great professional development for teachers – develop efficacy measure for the professional development to ensure it meets minimum standards
7. Train principals on how to assign prescriptive professional development from performance evaluations

Once that is in place, then you can start to move teachers who do not succeed with students out of the classroom. But we have a lot of work to do learning to walk before we can start running.

I’d add two more to that list:

8. Encourage the most talented high school and undergraduate students to enter teaching. Right now, they just aren’t interested.

9. Increase standards for content knowledge in education schools. We need our teachers to know math and English, at the very least, to a reasonably high degree.

Yipes. I had no idea how irrelevant we all were. I guess there’s always the patronizing suggestion that we do some good, noble work locally or in a tiny niche – which is the equivalent of sitting the Kids’ Table at Thanksgiving.

Richard Whitmire is guestblogging over at Eduwonk:

“… where the important education reform issues of the decade get debated. I maintain, however, that these debates would be greatly diminished absent indirect contributions from the thousands of sentinels out there expending shoe leather at local schools and school board meetings. Those would be our members at EWA.”

That’s the National Education Writers Association. Take a few minutes to browse their website – what they do, some of the EWA member stories, some of their events for members. Drop your jaw in awe after about 45 seconds [I've got to instruct you because it won't happen naturally].

Whitmire gives a few nods: Jeff Solochek’s Gradebook team in Florida [I say this because Ron Matus pumps out just as much good stuff], Scott Elliott in Ohio and Cathy Grimes in Virginia. I don’t know much about Cathy Grimes’ work in the Newport News area, but I’m well familiar with the other two papers, both of which do a solid job covering their state/local education scenes.

Elliott says:

“Richard has some kind words for Get on the Bus in the course of arguing that education coverage needs traditional media sources because free-standing education blogs could not provide the depth of coverage necessary for quality commentary on the issues without relying on traditional journalism.”

Eeep. No depth, lack of quality commentary. Touche, Elliott.

But it’s partly right – the education blogosphere, like pretty much all the blog sectors, depends on traditional journalism for their material. Why? Because it’s efficient – it’s there and ripe for the picking – not because we aren’t capable of doing it ourselves.

Think of it this way: EWA writers grind the flour [and apparently see themselves as soldier-sentinels with a penchant for gumshoe lore and professional martyrdom, admittedly odd pairings for flour-grinders but perfectly appropriate for writing about teachers] while more knowledgeable folks bake with it.

And, yes, I said it – more knowledgeable. The biggest problem in education writing is the biggest problem in education. It isn’t the budget, it’s the lack of practitioner knowledge.

The irony here is that the dismal state of education writing is evidenced by the lack of depth in education stories. Most education writers – yes, even some of the darlings at the EWA! – haven’t a clue about the curricula they write about. If you want surface-only, uncritical, simplistic coverage, pick up a newspaper and flip around until you find the education stories.

Now that I’m thinking of it, how would your local education reporter fare in the Third World Challenge? And would he/she report his results candidly in the local paper?

It’s the unique depth that I appreciate from the blogosphere – and it’s that depth I don’t get from the bulk of the education media. The content in the education blogosphere simply has more relevance both nationally and on your block than the weekly updates on bus fuel prices and lawsuits/bickering amongst school officials.

Solochek says:

“Could bloggers take up the slack as papers cut education reporters? Not unless the bloggers are education reporters themselves.”

I want to understand that line better than I do right now – I’ve got to be missing something – so if anyone, including Mr. Solochek, can elaborate,  it’s most welcome. He goes on:

“But more mainstream readers like the ones we write for want to know about the local schools and the state’s policy directives, and these reports don’t just materialize out of thin air. That’s what we as education reporters provide, and blog about.”

I’m a little puzzled. Help me understand?

UPDATE: 08.20.08, 6:23pm:

Still waiting… will anyone address this? If there’s something I don’t understand here, lay it out for me.

The travel debate in Hillsborough County, Florida [St. Pete Times].

The travel expenses are in – board member Susan Valdes spent a lot, no doubt. But $50k over 4 years isn’t all that much if the travel/conferences were worthwhile. Her unfriendlier colleagues on the Board point to the gaudy number and never once address what she actually did with the funds.

There’s no evidence of impropriety, just frequent professional development. The horror!

And cue the gall from Jennifer Faliero:

Board Chairwoman Jennifer Faliero, who requested the four-year analysis of travel by elected officials, agreed. She led the call for a temporary halt on out-of-county travel at the last meeting.

She doesn’t think travel should continue during a time of budget cuts, but acknowledged that other board members don’t agree. She is pushing for oversight and budgeting that would equalize travel among officials.

“We didn’t have a policy, so you leave yourself open to all kinds of abuses,” said Faliero, whose own expenses totaled $13,000. “Even though you hope people will use common sense, that hasn’t happened here.”

Golly gee, it’s almost as if Ms. Faliero doesn’t want Ms. Valdes to win re-election!

Of course, everyone will remember that Ms. Faliero didn’t see it fit to live in the district she was actually representing [she moved back after public pressure]. If anyone is to criticize a board member about using common sense, it isn’t Faliero.

In the tradition of Ann Landers, I’ll issue a Confidential to Jennifer Faliero:

Grow up, you partisan hack. Or at least be politically savvy enough to conceal your motives more effectively.

Getting Real About Race in School [Eduwonkette].

This is old news, but it’s worth revisiting. Eduwonkette featured as a guest blogger Harvard’s Mica Pollack, author of Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real about Race in School.

And to think, I’ve only been committed to anti-racism on Tuesdays, Thursdays and every other Saturday!

Pollock’s guest post is another in a series of Eduwonkette’s reminders that you [or me, or anyone, I guess] should know Pollock’s name. May 21st’s summer reading list suggestion and May 30th’s “Cool People You Should Know” nod apparently weren’t enough. Perhaps a hidden tenet of “Everyday Antiracism” is that we need to be reminded of it every day.

But Pollock’s debate is what warrants attention here. After repeating the 4 bullet points that explain the core of “Everyday Antiracism” – I’d bother linking to them if they weren’t repeated in half of Pollock’s posts – some commenters engaged Pollock in rigorous, sensible debate.

And you know how it goes. When the going gets tough, some just get going. Not everyone thought Pollock’s Kool-Aid tasted sweet, so she huffed, puffed, took her ball and went home.

I came late to the party [and the commenters raised all the issues I wanted to address, so I was content with just reading], but I’ll reprint my comment here: