“We must have hit a nerve,” sayeth one of those Tampa-area bloggers. I believe that blogger is right.

I also believe that it won’t be long before Ms. Faliero et al. try to silence Tampa education bloggers officially, or at least try to intimidate them into submission.

I might be wrong. I hope I’m wrong.

I wrote a lengthy guest piece for the UMiami Education Students blog about Hillsborough County Schools and blogging. You can read about Jennifer Faliero foaming at the mouth about misinformation and lies on blogs – and read her call for the St. Pete Times to literally employ someone to monitor blog comments “round-the-clock.”

Oh, and she wants to “force” commenters to register in a verifiable way – and one has to assume Faliero would want that information accessible to HCPS. Good Lord, it’s almost as if she’s a union boss.

Faliero puts a panicked, high-pitched, uptalk “eeee!” in the phrase “Free press.”

Here’s are a few lines from my piece titled “Hillsborough County Schools’ Blog Problem is About Communication“:

“A [growing] segment of the Hillsborough public doesn’t trust the district. That takes time to erase. But in the meantime, trust can be built by using these channels of communication rather than complaining about them.”

It’s probably true of your district, too. I suggest you read the whole thing.

And if you’re new to Twitter or aren’t sure how to get started, check out TwiTip’s 10 Easy Steps for Twitter Beginners. Give it a whirl!

Now for the Great Links… and some real stinkers that also deserve attention.

Via EIA, Andrew Sullivan and Michelle Rhee – two peas in a pod? Believe it or not, yes. I suppose even Sullivan gets to be sensible every once in a while. Blind squirrel, broken clock, etc. etc.

There aren’t too many men teaching K-12, reports Eduflack. In MA, fewer than 25% of K-12 teachers are men. And it’s everywhere, too – in April 2007 I wrote a post about male elementary teachers in NY dropping to 9%, a 40-year low. Some folks like MenTeach have been trying to raise awareness for a while now. Check them out and subscribe.

Ted Tedesco of Woodbury, Vermont is a hero. He’s worked to restore the Pledge of Allegiance in that small school district. The admins’ solution to his request is ridiculous, but at least everyone sees it. That, and a generation of kids in Woodbury knows how important it is to defend their country and their culture. As I wrote in the comments of the Core Knowledge post:

“A few months ago I attended a reunion banquet for a tiny, rural high school that closed shop during the consolidation efforts of the 1950s. Their meeting included the Pledge of Allegiance. When the Pledge came up in the agenda, all of the ~100 in attendance rose – and some with great difficulty, as they were in their 80s and 90s – to recite it.”

You know where I stand on this issue, and there’s a reason why I call the Green Mountain State “The People’s Republic of Vermont.” [Sorry, Jessie.]

Across the pond, here’s why I like the Tories. They’ve got a plan to re-introduce a bit of rigor to GCSEs and A-levels. The GCSEs in particular have been gutted – remember this physics teacher begging the government via petition to return mathematical rigor to secondary physics?

“Hot Boys”? I’d prefer that EdSector’s Quick and the Ed bloggers had a bit more self-respect. I already have trouble taking them seriously – these post titles don’t help.

Schools suing bloggers? You betcha. PRO on HCPS links to a libel case against an unhappy parent. Well, if “libel” means “a school district seething when held accountable by the public.” Guess who won? [UPDATE: PRO on HCPS gives us a better link for schools suing bloggers.]

Litigation is expensive when you’re trying to fire a teacher, administrator or school employee. In nearby Utica, NY, Craig Fehlhaber’s hearings have cost the Utica City Schools $250,000 – and counting. If Fehlhaber wins, the district will likely have to reimburse his attorney’s fees as well. We went through the same process in Cooperstown several years ago. If you ever wondered why schools tend not to dismiss bad employees, now you’ve got one reason.

Dave at ‘Friends of Dave’ – a very sharp blog, subscribe with all deliberate speed – highlights some recent irony in California. The California Association of School Business Officers have a conference at which they’ll discuss our tough economic times and how their districts can cope. And that conference is at a hotel/spa/golf course in Newport Beach. Dave has a sensible take on it all, but c’mon, CASBO. He says, “It is a bit ironic that the people who are typically the ones telling their co-workers that they can’t have an extra ream of paper are the ones having a really nice time at a Hotel and Spa on the beach.” Agreed.

Victory in Iraq Day – November 22, 2008. ZombieTime has declared 11/22/08 VI Day and I’m with him 100%. Read his post to see why it’s appropriate to declare VI Day and you’ll see why I support it, too.

“Building a GREAT teaching workforce,” described by American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence’s Dave Saba. Saba/ABCTE sing the praises – rightly – of a new report on the effectiveness of alternative certification programs.

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.

Hillsborough County Schools have endured a hell of a bumpy ride – and it’s not over. More than a year ago I detailed the tension on the school board and I frequently point to Tampa-area education commentators whose knowledge, honest thought and commitment is, in my opinion, unsurpassed. NYC-area edufolks beat them with volume and vitriol, but Tampa’s got them on genuine quality. Parents, teachers, taxpayers and academic lifers lay bare their thoughts on their local schools, sometimes at significant risk. As an outside interested party, I appreciate it a great deal.

And their school board and administration largely fights them. They’ve got champions in April Griffin and Susan Valdes, but two resilient board members isn’t enough. The established, entrenched and misguided thuggery of the others is a significant hurdle for reform in Tampa.

There’s Jennifer Faliero, whose ineffective chairmanship is a parody of an iron-fisted leader – perhaps a Colonel Klink?; Superintendent Mary Ellen Elia, whose communication and leadership skills rival Lord Cardigan’s; and that series of Toadies – Jack Lamb, Doretha Edgecomb and Candy Olson – who largely fiddle while Rome burns.

But it’s Carol Kurdell who’s on the chopping block this time around. Challengers Stephen Gorham and Jason Mims showed Kurdell’s vulnerability in the primary, and now Gorham is in position to replace her tomorrow.

I’m a staunch, well-versed Conservative – change for the sake of change is unconvincing, misguided and usually detrimental. There’s a time, though, when chronic dysfunction mandates the removal of one and the installation of another.

Carol Kurdell’s tenure on the Hillsborough board has become arthritic. It’s ever-present pain and decreasing functionality that facilitates an arrogance with ignorance that has almost overcome the board.

But again, right now is an inflection point. Hillsborough can switch its direction. No more needless kerfuffles on small expenses, no more embarrassing editorials.

I’d support challenger Stephen Gorham even if he wasn’t the young, well-educated, energetic force that he is.

Kurdell can’t [and shouldn't] be blamed for most of this, but her complacency and partisan inaction – that is, unless she’s got an opportunity for partisan action – is a detrimental force on the ailing board.

That, and her third-rate dishonest politicking. That’s a turn-off, Ms. Kurdell.

If you’re in Hillsborough County, don’t get stuck voting on party affiliation in this one. The Democrats are pushing Gorham and the Republicans have approved Kurdell, but it doesn’t matter. As a registered Republican, I’m comfortable saying that Carol Kurdell is useless and that the state party has made a mistake in approving her.

And I don’t give a whit that the Dem foot soldiers are pounding pavement for Gorham. He’s the better candidate, so Godspeed.

I can’t vote in Hillsborough’s election tomorrow, but I do hope that Mr. Gorham will take his place on their school board.

I‘m really too busy to write this, but I couldn’t let this one go. At the heart of this discussion is how journalism, especially re: education, is lacking.

The issue is a Florida teacher who wrote on the whiteboard a racially-insensitive interpretation of Sen. Obama’s mantra of “Change”:

“A Marianna middle-school teacher has been suspended for 10 days without pay after he wrote a racially charged interpretation of a commonly used phrase in the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama.

While some parents and community activists were outraged by the actions of Greg Howard, Jackson County NAACP officials want to gather more facts before the group considers taking action. But some parents feel Howard should be fired.

Larry Moore, deputy superintendent for the Jackson County School District, said school officials determined Howard wrote an acronym with an explanation on a dry-erase board in his class Sept. 26 at Marianna Middle School.

It said, “C.H.A.N.G.E. — Come Help A (N-word) Get Elected.”"

Several bloggers were quick to deride Howard. Joanne Jacobs said:

“It’s hard to imagine worse judgment than using a deeply offensive word to express political views in the classroom. What was Howard thinking?”

Mr. Russo at This Week in Education called him an “idiot teacher.”

Hube calls it “Unbelievable.” He also points out that the left routinely says equally-hateful, or at least equally-distasteful, things and gets away with it – but that’s another issue.

RightWingProf calls it “reprehensible.”

As I wrote on Joanne’s site, there may be more to this story than Tallahassee.com reported.

About 3 weeks ago I was doing a little writing and my pocket buzzed. It was a cell phone text message from an unknown NYC [212] number that said, “Obama’s CHANGE: Come Help A Nigga Get Elected!” It’s a quip that’s been making rounds electronically for some weeks now.

I wrote the following comment:

“I don’t know if anyone is aware of this, but that interpretation of “CHANGE” is, and has been for many weeks, making its rounds via cell phone text messages. I received the text a few weeks ago from a NYC-based number that I’d never seen before.

“What was Howard thinking?”

I don’t know, and I’m not about to guess. I do recognize that there’s a possibility Howard was about to introduce the translation in terms of political communication/memes and thought he’d do it provocatively.

Poor judgment and outright racism/hate aren’t the same things. The article Joanne cited doesn’t provide a bit of context about the incident. Did anyone else notice that the article mentioned nothing but Howard having written the phrase on the board?

Save the vitriol until more facts are in. You might be right anyway, but it’s better to be sure your reaction is justified. Good Lord, even the NAACP is holding off until they know more.”

Things the Tallahassee.com article didn’t bother to mention:

• What subject did Howard teach?
• What was the context of the incident? Were they discussing political communication or the effects of indirect, informal political processes?
• Who brought the issue to administration and why?

I haven’t found that middle school students are appropriately knowledgeable to discuss the finer points of the political process – especially contentious, difficult things like this meme – but it’s worth knowing Howard’s intent. The article never delved into this and the blogs didn’t, either.

Like it or not, this is a message that’s getting around. It’s reality. Fruitful academic discussion includes questions like, “Why is this funny to some people?” and “To whom is this quip directed?” and “What are the risks/payoffs of these informal processes?” The meta question of “So what?” also applies.

These are questions that education journalists and bloggers of all sorts failed to ask.

I recognize that there’s a possibility that Howard was injecting this meme into class discussion. Some teachers like to be provocative; others don’t. If I had to guess, Howard failed to select something appropriate for his audience, was trying to be provocative and blew the delivery/lead-in. He failed miserably.

Think about every group we know – friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc. – and ask yourself this question: Which is more common, someone using spectacularly bad judgment or someone being an overt racist in public?

If you live in the same country I do, you’ll have seen far more of the former than the latter. Howard may be a raving racist, but it’s more likely that he’s just a moron.

The newspaper portrayed the CHANGE phrase as Howard’s interpretation, Howard’s joke, Howard The Racist. The bloggers grabbed that baton, ran like hell and never looked back. No one bothered to connect the incident to anything actually happening outside Howard’s classroom. Perhaps Howard has his fingers on the political pulse [however ugly it may be] in a way that the journalists don’t.

If you’d like to argue that the phrase has no place in a middle school classroom, or that it has no academic relevance in a class about anything other than political communication, go ahead. That’s a discussion worth having – and it’s a different topic than whether Howard is a hate-monger.

I may be wrong, but as for Howard, I’d like to get all the facts before bringing down the gavel. Remember, folks: intellectual honesty comes before the castigation.

UPDATE: Right on the Left Coast is, as usual, completely sensible.

I don’t read fark.com anymore – I read plenty of zany stuff just following education – but when I did, I loved the little category images to the left of each post. The tags are words like “Interesting,” “Strange,” and “Unlikely.” One of their categories is “Florida.” If you read Fark with any regularity, you’ll understand why.

And it’s not much different with public education. That’s why keeping tabs on the Hillsborough County School District is a worthwhile task.

Steve Otto of the Tampa Bay Tribute writes that the Hillsborough administration has debuted Springboard:

“It is a $30 million program designed by the College Board, the same company that does the SAT and Advanced Placement courses. The new program, which is going to be in all middle and high schools, will replace the old math and language arts programs.”

There are far worse curricula than Springboard. The problem is that it came out of nowhere:

“What was a little surprising to me was that something as monumental as SpringBoard would be sprung on the system out of the blue in important subjects such as math and language arts.

There was training and there were test programs at selected schools. But with only two to four days of training in the new system, there are plenty of unhappy teachers.”

If there’s one word school officials need to learn and learn well, it’s implementation. Shoddy, haphazard, ill-conceived implementation has ruined more school initiatives – curricular, building and more – than anything else. Plus, poor implementation of any program is guaranteed to raise ire among staff.

Some teachers have reacted negatively. As I’ve pointed out before – along with many others who work for HCPS – staff are afraid of retribution:

“Another says, “Please do not use my name. I do not trust the higher-ups. In any case I am teaching a new English curriculum, SpringBoard, and my students do not have books. … Other schools are apparently in the same (sinking) boat.”"

Well, someone at HCPS is not happy that Steve Otto is only hearing the negative comments:

“Since Steve Otto is only hearing from the anti-Springboard folks, it would be nice if he also heard some of the positive aspects of the program.  If you have any teachers who have positive comments to share and are so inclined, please ask them to send him their positive thoughts.  We would like him to be inundated with the other side. Maybe things kids are saying about their English classes this year.”

Alice Wuckovich, NBCT
Springboard Coordinator
Language Arts 6-12
ROSSAC #7
813-272-4834

Emphasis mine.

There ya go, Hillsborough. HCPS might have a new motto: Don’t be honest, be positive. This initiative would make the Party History Research Centre proud. [Really, "inundated by the other side?"]

It’s necessary to beg for positive feedback when implementation has alienated staff/parents and shows little early evidence of effectiveness. Ms. Wuckovich shouldn’t shoulder blame – there’s likely enough pressure on her shoulders coming from above.

Check a couple other posts on HCPS’s Springboard initiative:

EsKay: Gone Nowhere Fast

Lee Drury de Cesare: Teachers’ Political Forum Looms and Return of the Native

PRO on HCPS: Atta Boy and an Anagram for Otto

If you’d like to follow HCPS, consider this tiny blogroll. I read every post in full [have I left any out?]:

http://soundoffandbeheard.blogspot.com

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/

http://call-in-6.blogspot.com/

http://es-kay.net/

http://specialedmotel.blogspot.com/

http://blogs.tampabay.com/schools/

I’m on a slightly political bent, so I’ll call this fairly good news.

It’s a non-partisan primary, but if a candidate gets a majority, they win. If there’s no majority selection, the top two finishers runoff in November.

With 90%+ precincts reporting, we’ve got the following results:

Susan Valdes over Schmidt. Good, she’s alright. I guess this means Faliero’s childish attacks didn’t work. Sorry, Jennifer.

Carol Kurdell doesn’t win – and thank God for that. Kurdell is the posterwoman for do-nothing, self-satisfied, status quo school board members nationwide. You can read about all 3 candidates – Gorham, Kurdell and Mims – here.

Stephen Gorham is a great choice. He’s young, well-educated, confident, experienced – good stuff all around. The thing I like least about him is that he doesn’t live in my school district. Hillsborough County Schools need him very, very badly.

Jason Mims has been a dedicated community member and hopefully isn’t too disappointed with 17%. He’s made his concerns known about minority issues in Hillsborough’s schools, and I’m sure he’s not going anywhere.

And Carol Kurdell, whose hobbies seem to be rubber-stamping, bloviating and dishonesty, got what she has long-deserved. This edu-huckster is going to bed tonight without a win.

It might seem that I’m a bit hard on Kurdell. In truth, I actually feel guilty for not railing against her weeks [months?] ago because her in/actions warrant it.

Most recently, Carol Kurdell touted in campaign literature her success in cutting property taxes and fuel prices [one can only assume that her having ended the Cold War and liberating Europe in WWII wouldn't fit on the flier]. Oh, the pander, the pander! And had any of it been true, I’d have praised her.

Unfortunately for Kurdell, not everyone in the Tampa area is an idiot. The St. Pete Times cut her down in short order by pointing out that the FL legislature – not local districts – set the tax rate, and that she’d flubbed the fuel prices. Her response?

It [campaign lit] doesn’t note that she was one of seven elected officials involved in the decision.

“Well, you know. The board did it. I was part of the board,” Kurdell said.

Let’s hope that Mr. Mims’ supporters get behind Mr. Gorham in the runoff, and then “was part of the board” can stick to Kurdell. 16 years of mediocrity – including coddling, with the occasional turning of a blind eye, of an ineffective Superintendent – is enough.

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:

• A look at patriotic curricula in public schools – what we had and where we’re not;
• Grade inflation in Hillsborough County, Florida;
• Lack of accountability in New Hartford, NY and a financial boondoggle in Utica, NY.

You can play this Education for the Aughts Podcast by clicking on the triangular ‘play’ button on the player below [or at the bottom of the post if you’re reading this in RSS] – it will expand and begin streaming audio. Alternatively, you can download an mp3 file of the podcast to listen in your own media player.

And, if you like what you hear, you can subscribe to Education for the Aughts Podcast using RSS or using iTunes.

[audio:http://matthewktabor.com/audio/aughts_podcast_03_arbor_fl_utica_64kbps.mp3]

… and a partial transcript with links from the podcast is below.

I listened the other day, as I do most days, to talk radio host Dennis Prager. He lamented on this Independence Day that American children just don’t sing patriotic songs anymore – and he’s quite right.

Dennis’s point reminded me of something in my historical archives – a program of instruction for Arbor Day in New York State Schools, May 8, 1896. The program is a 16-page guide from the Dept. of Public Instruction that outlines activities and themes that schools might cover on the celebration of Arbor Day.

Near the end of that program is a list of songs that school-children could sing:

Keller’s American Hymn
Flag of the Free
Hail, Columbia
Star-Spangled Banner
Battle Hymn of the Republic
Columbia, Gem of the Ocean
Columbia, God Preserve thee Free
and America

Following that, there was an “exercise on the American Flag.”

Remember, folks, this was for *Arbor Day*. That our current celebrations of American holidays pales in comparison to what we’ve done in the past for even fairly unimportant holidays, shows how much we have, to quote Virginia Slims, come a long way, baby – and that’s not always a good thing.

The inimitable Suzie Creamcheese, who blogs at The Wall, passed on yet another tidbit about Hillsborough County.

Hillsborough County, Florida – for those of us outside the state, we can just think of this as the greater-Tampa area – has a grade inflation problem. A big one.

As The Tampa Tribune opined a few weeks ago:

“It used to be that a 4.0 grade-point average was considered a perfect “A,” but the numbers posted by some recent Hillsborough high school graduates have been positively stratospheric – including the county’s top GPA of 8.68 earned by a student at King High School who was this year’s numbers leader.

Who knew there was even such a thing as being more than doubly perfect?”

Well, Tribune editors, if you hadn’t realize by now that Superintendent Elia and her administration think *they’re* doubly-perfect, now you do. See, they’re just passing on to the students the back-patting that’s given administrators in Hillsborough County a grievous case of bursitis over the last year.

Later in the piece – and it’s a must-read – we see real evidence of grade inflation from the mouths of babes:

“As one Chamberlain High School student recently put it: “In our class, anything under a 5.0 is considered mediocre to sucky.” And here we thought a 5.0 was better than perfect.

The district would provide considerable more transparency and accountability if it ceased monkeying with the labels and scoring systems and simply made high school courses appropriately hard and fair.

Schools should give extra credit to students who push themselves the extra mile, but there’s no need to pile it on so thick.”

A sensible suggestion, no doubt.

In an absolutely useless rebuttal to the Tribune’s editorial, Superintendent Mary Ellen Elia, back-patter extraordinaire and anything but a scholar, explained to we who are so intellectually deficient, why these GPAs are so high:

“The Tribune’s June 14th editorial is yet another unnecessarily harsh jab at the public schools.”

Actually, Ms. Elia, it’s a fair treatment of a glaring problem with your terrible administration. She went on to explain to we who are ignorant dolts and the like why, exactly, these GPAs are so gosh-darn high:

“There’s a simple reason the GPAs are higher: Students take more classes and more challenging classes. Good for them.”

Yes, Superintendent Elia – and since you’ve weighted those class grades so outrageously, your students wind up with GPAs that mirror Mary Lou Retton’s scores on the floor exercise.

Your system created the problem, then you tell us that we’re dumb for not realizing how the system works. If you want to know why I don’t live in this otherwise wonderful part of Florida, there ya go.

[April Griffin's endorsement of Stephen Gorham]

On a more local note, there’s a bit of news out of New Hartford, New York regarding public information requests. The blog New Hartford, NY Online, an offshoot of the New Hartford Concerned Citizens, would like to see New Hartford Central School comply with the Freedom of Information Laws – or FOIL, for short. They say:

“That’s right; it is a law, but the New Hartford Central School just doesn’t seem to think they need to comply.

We have received emails from our readers asking us when we think we might get a copy of the Employees Union Contract that was approved by the school board in January. The clock keeps ticking…”

Hopefully their clock has a fresh battery, because it may have to tick for quite some time before the district responds. One is sometimes driven to think that FOIL, to public school administrators, is just something you make hats out of in ed school.

And on Fault Lines, the Greater Utica Blog, we learned that the Utica City Schools administration is pushing a $187 million dollar bond. Says one Ms. Bernadette Eichler in the Utica O-D:

“Over the years, I have worked with brilliant, creative and caring administrators, teachers, members of the Utica Board of Education, college staff and community members.

Their wisdom, leadership, support and ideas did indeed bring the students in the Utica district to a higher level of academic achievement. These abilities and talents also created a stimulating environment for learning, as well as provide opportunities for students to explore and try new ideas.

Now this leadership and support groups of Utica have an unbelievable opportunity to once again demonstrate their wisdom and talents by supporting the $187.6 million bond issue.”

Fault Lines mashes the nail right on the head:

“Wow. These are the same people who studied a project for months that they could not carry out, shuffled administrators like they were a deck of cards, couldn’t keep student schedules straight, ran out of textbooks, and spent a ton of money at Proctor and now want to spend more at the same school.”

And to make matters worse, a commenter on Fault Lines said that the project:

“won’t cost tax payers a dime.”

To hearken the earlier Arbor Day discussion, we’d do well to remind our kids on the next Arbor Day that money, especially tax money, doesn’t grow on trees, contrary to what their schools’ administrators seem to think.

Ms. Eichler may find this bond proposal to be an “unbelievable opportunity,” but she’s wrong – I most certainly believe it, as it’s just another in a series of local boondoggles we in Upstate New York are asked to approve. I’m reminded of one we defeated here in Cooperstown – I forget how much, probably in the trillions – about which an architect on the project explained that new windows would, “Increase learning by double digits.” I was tempted upon hearing that explanation to show him a *single* digit – and if you can’t figure out which one, pretend it’s the old SAT and go with “C.”

The only bit of sweetness here is when we read that Ms. Eichler is a retired deputy superintendent of the Utica City School District. Thank God for that.