Today, students in New Jersey public schools walked out of class to protest budget cuts:

Thousands of New Jersey high school students walked out of class Tuesday to protest budget cuts, a statewide event organized through text messages and social networking websites.

The anatomy of a protest was on full display at Englewood’s Dwight Morrow High School. It started with a small group of students who tested the waters Tuesday morning.

“Education should always be the first priority,” said junior Amber Diaz.

I’d argue that insisting on reform, which includes the defeat of bloated, unsustainable fiscal plans and the failing systems that perpetuate them, isn’t making education a lesser priority, but that argument tends to get lost when the NJEA and “for the children!” are on the other side.

What’s remarkable here is the truth behind this walkout: that not only was it misguided, but that its supporters – including the event’s organizer Michelle Ryan Lauto – aren’t all that interested in figuring out any real solutions to New Jersey’s education problems.

Derrell Bradford, Executive Director of Excellent Education for Everyone (E3) is an education reform warrior. I’m no shrinking violet, but he’s the best. If I had a child and could choose one person on the national education scene to advocate for him, I’d choose Bradford. He live-Tweeted the walkout in Newark with some salient observations:

– Students in Newark protesting budget cuts…not the terrible caliber of education they receive. Let’s get our eye on the ball folks.

– @ByronArnao Better than my view. Newark has 9 of the worst high schools in NJ. I wonder which one these kids go to http://twitpic.com/1ivmu8

– Newark student walkout just rolled past my window. Appx 40% of kids here fail exit exam…in one of America’s most expensive districts.

– Newark students protest budget cuts. Newark pays less than 10% of its school costs and has 20% of the state’s worst schools.

– Wonder if more seat time would be preferable to rallying for schools that are draining the life from our kids. Stop defending failure.

I agree with Bradford; the walkout misses the point. The protest doesn’t take into account that there are reforms that result in responsible budgeting and, believe it or not, better educational outcomes for students. One could also assume that eliminating instructional time – especially in Newark, which does an abysmal job of educating too many of its youth in even the most fundamental areas – doesn’t help achievement. Eventually Bradford got on with his day:

– At a school in Jersey City with kids learning, and not protesting. Imagine that. #edreform #njea

Amen, brother.

I took the policy discussion to Twitter myself; I was told by one New Jersey teacher that the walkout was a ‘good way to learn about the 60′s’ and by an NJ administrator that it was an ‘authentic edu experience.’

Reasons #13,984 and #13,985 why I didn’t go to ed school, but I digress.

So what of the protest’s organizer, Michelle Ryan Lauto, and her commitment to finding the best solution to a difficult problem? Mashable tells us how it went down:

“According to students who took part in the protest, it was largely organized via social networking efforts — texts, MySpace and, of course, the original Facebook Event. Lauto has been tweeting about the walkout all day, expressing her joy at the turnout and excitement about the barrage of interview requests she has received from the media. In fact, we’re currently waiting on comment from Lauto, who — last she e-mailed us — was preparing to meet a camera crew at her house.”

May God bless Lauto; the media already has.

Surely a graduate of an NJ public school, and now a college freshman, with the initiative to create a massive Facebook campaign resulting in the removal of thousands of students from class would be interested in open, intellectually honest debate about education – and her Tweets proved it:

– LONG day. I am so proud of everyone. All you courageous protesters show so much promise and hope for the future. Always speak your mind.

I disagree with Michelle’s protest, but I’m on board with “Always speak your mind.” We need to discuss solutions to New Jersey’s problems now more than ever, and there are quite a few problems and solutions to consider in this mess. I Tweeted her:

– @Michelle_Ryan  Since you’ve Tweeted “Always speak your mind,” I will – the NJ student walkout you organized was disgraceful. #njea #edreform

And that’s when this darling of political discourse – of civil disobedience, of courage, of ‘fight the power’ no matter how illogical or misguided – showed how committed she was to open debate:

Yipes. She’s learned a lot about political advocacy in less than a year at Pace; only engage on your terms, and if it doesn’t follow your narrative, shut’em up. Or run for the hills, whatever.

Such is the intellectual depth behind her protest – that standard youthful mantra, ‘I believe what I want to believe, I won’t be bothered by any arguments against it, and gosh-darnit, we’re entitled to whatever we want, NOW!’

Now, of course, Michelle is famous – a budding Alinskyite [actually, as an article said, an actress] who’s shown Governor Chris Christie the power of New Jersey’s youth. She gushed all day about interviews with CBS, the New York Times, CBS Radio, NJN, Associated Press… she’s a pro.

I’d paste those messages, but our darling Michelle has gone from blocking me to blocking everyone – she’s protected her Tweets. Sorry, folks!

Is she interested in any real dialogue about education reform in New Jersey? Not a chance. If your narrative doesn’t match hers, she doesn’t want any part of it. Something tells me a few thousand kids in New Jersey shared that philosophy today – and that the NJEA loved every minute of it.

After all, these are the same folks who think that New Jersey is about to be ruled by the next Pol Pot, that “A–hole” is spelled “C-H-R-I-S-T-I-E” and that you should “never trust a fat f—.”

They also just used thousands of New Jersey schoolkids, whether Michelle Ryan Lauto and her teenage hordes realize it or not.

There’s a lot going around re: the 21st century global economy – part myth, part truth, part sense, part insanity. I’ve written several times on the film Two Million Minutes and responded to a few articles about education and the global economy.

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[Photo: President George W. Bush holding Monmouth's Jim Horn]

Monmouth University’s Professor Jim Horn, Educator Extraordinaire, froths at the mouth whenever the military comes up in e-conversation. And, since Master Horn must love frothing at the mouth, he brings up the military frequently.

I wrote in late January about Horn’s piece “Unending War Relies on Steady Supply of Dropouts and Pushouts,” in which he wrote:

“These youngsters today have failed to make it in the testing factories we call schools, and recruiters, armed with these kids’ school data (NCLB mandates it), have an unending supply of hot leads.

What would that recruiting poster look like–an army one group of dropouts and pushouts who can still contribute to the America’s world class military economy. Sign your body up today!” [emphasis added]

Not surprisingly, he’s at it again. In a brief treatment of the proposed changes to the GI Bill – a topic worth serious thought and discussion – Horn takes the opportunity to lambaste the American GI, who he’s classified as “undereducated”:

According to the Pentagon, which directs the spending of $3 billion every week in Iraq, this new GI Bill proposal is too expensive. And from their perspective, Webb’s bill threatens the readiness to conduct war without end (or maybe just a hundred years), which can only be carried out by underpaid, undereducated “volunteers” who do not have viable career options outside the military. (We all know that if we were drafting middle class kids to serve as IED targets in Iraq, this war would have been over a long time ago). [Bold emphasis added]

Before I parse this, remind yourself of the meaning of the word tendentious:

“… having or showing a definite tendency, bias, or purpose: a tendentious novel.”

“Marked by a strong implicit point of view; partisan: a tendentious account of the recent elections.“

Got it? Let’s hit the analysis.

First, Professor Horn wants you to look at the sheer amount of money being spent per week in Iraq:

“According to the Pentagon, which directs the spending of $3 billion every week in Iraq, this new GI Bill proposal is too expensive.”

And, he hopes, you’ll think it’s a ridiculous sum. He also hopes that you’re as agenda-driven and logically deficient as he is. That way, the argument that we’re spending tons of money per week on something unnecessary – at the opportunity cost of depriving veterans of money for education – will take root and blossom. It would have been a far stronger point if he’d compared the amount of monetary change in the proposed GI Bill to the vasts of military spending overall, but doing so wouldn’t have allowed him to poke the Iraq war with a stick and quickly run away.

“And from their perspective, Webb’s bill threatens the readiness to conduct war without end (or maybe just a hundred years)”

Well, everyone knows that John McCain wants to station nukes on every streetcorner in every foreign country for at least 100 years. Haha!

But Jim Horn, that silver-haired teenybopper, is infected with a star envy/crush that runs both deep and bold. I can’t help but remember his cutesy comment to the semi-fasting Kozol on the HuffPo:

“Thank you for your eloquent commitment to what’s right for so many years … A trusted lieutenant, should you need one. Jim Horn”

This time, too, he was likely just purposely distorting McCain’s comment by following in the footsteps of another one of his heroes.

“…which can only be carried out by underpaid, undereducated “volunteers” who do not have viable career options outside the military.”

Underpaid? Probably. I’ll give him that one.

But undereducated? This is standard Horn-fare – to pity the military for being ignorant, dumb, enslaved, stupid, unaware, backwoods cannon-fodder for Big Oil, Bu$hCo, Condoskeeza, Dick “Dr. Evil” Cheney, etc. It’s almost as charming as when Susan O’Hanian thought it was funny to sing – yes, sing, in a NCLB protest song – that NCLB was created as a way to divert attention from our wars. [She removed that line from her song, but then wrote in her newsletter that she regretted it.]

Thanks, Jim, but I don’t think they need your pity.

Not only is his claim about the mental ineptitude of the American GI rude and patently untrue, it doesn’t even make sense given the context. If our GIs are undereducated and intellectually worthless – so worthless that they “do not have viable career options outside the military” – why on earth would we pay them bucketloads of money when, as Jim suggests, we’re getting substandard production out of them?

Stick to education, Jim. You might have trouble in the private sector, despite your claim to believe in the foundations of education, which do include – to your chagrin – basic economic principles.

The scare quotes around “volunteers” can’t be ignored, either – I’ll spare you the obvious analysis, but I do ask that you remember that definition of tendentious.

“(We all know that if we were drafting middle class kids to serve as IED targets in Iraq, this war would have been over a long time ago).”

Jim is likely right. If there was a draft of any sort, the country would probably have a different approach to this war. But since we aren’t drafting anyone, it’s completely irrelevant.

Demeaning, tendentious language abounds – from calling GIs “IED targets” to referring to John McCain as “the Republican War Hero candidate” to implications of selfish, inhumane class warfare. And really, tendentious language here and there, light sparring, etc. isn’t a terrible thing. It’s not always destructive or mean-spirited, but Horn is a willing practitioner of the vile.

My disapproval has nothing to do with Horn’s politics or beliefs – public and higher education, the military and pretty much everything else can be criticized fairly. And for what it’s worth, I do hope that Jim Webb’s bill passes and increases education benefits for veterans. I am on Horn’s side entirely on this particular issue, but I condemn his reasoning and his discourse.

It has everything to do with his motivations.

Because of that, I’ve got to channel George Patton one more time:

You’re one lowlife son of a bitch, Jim.

The University that puts up with your pseudo-professional screeds is nearing that classification, too, as well as the unindicted co-conspirators who stay silent at the Education Policy Blog.

Sometimes, for better or worse, there’s just no other way to put it.

I’ll leave you with two excellent reads:

• The American GI, by Colin Powell, written on the occasion of The American GI being named to the TIME 100: The Most Important People of the [20th] Century.
• Freedom is a Little Piece of Broken Concrete by Darren.

The National Mathematics Advisory Panel released a few weeks ago its comprehensive report on the state of math education in the US. The panel recommends that algebra be treated as algebra again, among other things.

You can:

• Get the full report and read it
  
• Watch/listen to the Panel’s Chair, Dr. Larry Faulkner, discuss the highlights of the report [3 minutes, 11 seconds]
• Browse a list of topics detailed in the report
• Read the New America Foundation’s take on the implications for K-3 math

Alternatively, you can:

Pretend to read the 120page report, then select carefully a paltry 3 sentences to show your community, all of which support your political agenda and unyielding commitment to poor math education and a general lack of transparency. Although I usually find The Ridgewood Blog compelling, they’ve made a serious mistake here. They’ve assumed that Tim Brennan read the whole report to select those 3 sentences [doubtful].

Discard the report’s merits entirely. Even the Constructivists, who could embrace this report and align it with their calls for relevance, have chosen instead to be defensive and reactionary.

Friend/foe Gary Stager dropkicks the report:

“It’s easy to see how someone might think that several years worth of fraction study prepares a child for Algebra. Fractions have numerators over denominators, separated by a horizontal line. Many algebraic equations have something over something else, also separated by a line. That’s all you need to know. Right?”

He goes on:

“Children who struggle to manipulate fractions do so because the skills are taught absent a meaningful context in a culture where fractions are rarely ever used.”

Remember, Gary – fractions aren’t just numbers separated by lines, though it’s a convenient straw man. Fractions are ratios, which are, at the most basic level, comparisons of one thing in terms of another. Then we assign meaning to that comparison of values. Then we can apply it to context, if necessary.

We all do this a hundred times a day [not just in cooking recipes] – and the Constructivists should be the first to admit that.

Threaten to kill your teachers [and yourself] if they fail. It’s science, not math, but that’s ok. The issue is the same: do we meet the challenge, do we admit that we aren’t trained to meet the challenge, or do we just freak out and draw national attention? Well, someone chose that third option:

NEW BRAUNFELS — A middle school principal threatened to kill a group of science teachers if their students did not improve their standardized test scores, according to a complaint filed with the New Braunfels Police Department. [Hat Tip: Intercepts]

Lament that your students will use math. One thing schools of education don’t want its graduates to do is to make cannon fodder for that most evil institution: the United States Military!

“Patriotic or not, I feel like the Army is snatching my student away. College funding or not, I feel like the happy and prosperous life I wish for my students is somehow incompatible with conscription. Maybe it has something to do with the sentiment expressed by Kurt Vonnegut, who fought in the Second World War, that the US military today is “being treated, as [he] never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.”” [snip]

“There’s an email in my inbox from the Conference on Math Education and Social Justice. It says teaching math in New York City helps create balance in an unjust world. It doesn’t know that it might actually send Stephanie into harm’s way.”

Please, dear diarist, if you care about Stephanie, don’t teacher her math. Keep her safe instead. Might our diarist be a former student of Monmouth’s Jim Horn?

Edwize is starting to be a daily source of black comedy. I’d enjoy it more if I didn’t know it was real and anything but uncommon.

And some just say to Heck with it! Is Algebra Even Necessary?

O math, why must ye causeth such deth and stryfe?

That triad of Blondie, Angel Eyes and Tuco is an awfully fitting taxonomy for the weekly goings-on in the education blogosphere…

• Ed in ’08 has finally progressed from their ineffectual “Rock the Vote!”-style participation rhetoric by highlighting the documentary 2 Million Minutes on their homepage. As I’ve written in the past, 2MM is a serious look at how we go about secondary education – and education in general – in the United States as compared to India and China. If you haven’t yet seen the trailer, there’s a link right on the Ed in ’08 homepage – I encourage every education blogger to look into 2MM and request a screening in your area.

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• The Online Education Database [OEDb] has released their rankings of online education programs. They factored in acceptance rate, financial aid, graduation rate, peer Web citations, retention rate, scholarly citations, student-faculty ratio, and years accredited. The overall score is used to rank each college by its average ranking for each metric for which data was available. In their words, “We think more transparency is a good thing; a set of objective, quantitative rankings — however imperfect — should help shed some light on the relative attractiveness of the most popular accredited online colleges.” This is an excellent first step toward separating the legitimate opportunities for online degrees from the pretenders – and worse, the diploma mills – that weigh down the industry.

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• The Carnivals are Live! You can check out the 155th Edition of the Carnival of Education over at The Median Sib and the Carnival of Homeschooling at Alasandra’s.

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• Congratulations to Darren of Right on the Left Coast for his 3rd year blogging anniversary. Congratulations are also in order for D-Ed Reckoning, who not only relayed some fine anecdotes about his 15-year history with the internet [$22/hour for CompuServe use?] but also managed to draw ire from Alexander Russo. How dare you suggest that you’ve been reading a seminal education blog longer than that Perez Hilton of the education blogosphere, Mr. DeRosa? You should know your place.

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• Dr. McLeod at Dangerously Irrelevant has an excellent list of School Law blogs.

• The Houston Chronical’s School Zone blog is usually fairly good, but they really blew it this week when they posted, “Fried Chicken for MLK?” HISD’s menu, in tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., included fried chicken. School Zone presented the situation as if a lineup of mammies in blackface gleefully slopped the stereotypical food on the tykes’ plates – but that isn’t even close to the truth. A look at the menu shows that not only was the fried chicken served along with hamburgers and a rancher salad, it wasn’t even headlining the list. Also, the MLK, Jr. Center of Atlanta confirmed that fried chicken was his favorite meal [along with General Lee and many, many others, I might add]. School Zone’s source for internal commentary on the issue? Gayle Fallon, President of the Houston Federation of Teachers. Grow up, School Zone – and specifically the author of this post, Jennifer Radcliffe. Leading with tendentious headlines – then burying the relevant facts in paragraph 4 – is shoddy, race-baiting journalism.

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• The Hillsborough County School District [Florida] has embraced grade inflation of the highest order – it’s all a curve on the District-level exams. One of the most harmful effects is that the curve essentially pits classes from one school against others. You don’t have to know everything, you just have to beat those dummies over at [insert underperforming school's name]. This is quite likely to mask troubles with this year’s scheduling change that forces teachers to instruct in 6 out of 7 periods – no more planning. Not only has HCSD emasculated the purpose of an exam – an exam being the certification of knowledge – but it’s succeeded in clouding real analysis of its personnel decisions. The Wall sums up the relevant concerns.

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• The Education schools fail. It’s old hat by now, but Jay P. Greene and Catherine Shock’s pithy City Journal article on the prevelance of “multicultural” courses in education schools relative to math courses is worth a read. From the text: “The average ed school, we found, has a multiculturalism-to-math ratio of 1.82, meaning that it offers 82 percent more courses featuring social goals than featuring math.” Skoolboy’s got it wrong and Sherman Dorn misses the point.

• Jim Horn, Assistant Professor of Education at Monmouth University and prolific copy-and-paste blogger at Schools Matter, is a wonderful resource for those who want to keep their fingers on the pulse of everything that’s wrong with education reform, the education blogosphere and, periodically, political dialogue in the United States.

Horn’s latest post, “Unending War Relies on Steady Supply of Dropouts and Pushouts,” plays that tired, offensive reel that our armed forces are populated by hopeless, talentless, dumber-than-dirt dropouts who have chosen the military in lieu of a life in the gutter:

“These youngsters today have failed to make it in the testing factories we call schools, and recruiters, armed with these kids’ school data (NCLB mandates it), have an unending supply of hot leads.

What would that recruiting poster look like–an army one group of dropouts and pushouts who can still contribute to the America’s world class military economy. Sign your body up today!” [emphasis added]

Sign your body up today, you mindless, ignorant rubes! Horn thinks you’re only good for stopping bullets in Chimpy McHalliburton’s never-ending quest to trade Blood for Oil.

I asked one of those animalistic, Morlockian subhumans currently serving in the Army about Horn’s post. After all, he fits Horn’s stereotype well: after graduating from a rural public school in the US, he went to college in Canada [that cesspool of Re-thug-lican, flag-waving, Toby Keith-loving trash, correct?] where he graduated in just 3 years with a double major in international relations and history. A year after earning that degree, he joined up with the US Army – not that he had a choice, being one of those dropout/pushout sacks of garbage that Horn so pities.

He says about Horn’s piece:

Horn’s post is not only factually wrong but deeply offensive. I invite him to visit any major military post and converse with those whom he terms, “poor, brown and black” soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen. He will find young men and women who are passionate about their country, concerned with what is morally right and who seek to improve themselves through their service. - A 2nd Lieutenant, United States Army Infantry

He’d likely decline that invitation, Lieutenant – unless, of course, you asked him to come and enlighten you.

Almost as charming is Sunday’s post that pays tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy. Well, for a sentence – then he takes a shot at George W. Bush. Titled “Tomorrow”:

we can celebrate the life and contributions of a great man, Dr. King

and

we can mark the first day in the last year of the worst President in all of our American history.

Sheesh, and Mr. Downes thought I abused Edmund Hillary’s legacy to make a “cheap political point.”

Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that Horn wrote one of today’s Onion Radio pieces, “Uneducated Outbreeding Intelligentsia Two-to-One” unaware that it’s a satire publication?

Monmouth University should be ashamed of itself for employing Horn, though they surely aren’t. And to Horn, I’ll say what George Patton would say if he were alive today:

You’re one lowlife son of a bitch, Jim.

The edublogging technocheerleaders say ad nauseam that the most important part of not just blogging but Web 2.0 as a whole is the “conversation.”

One of the many delights I’ve experienced with this site is coming into contact and corresponding with people I’d otherwise never find. I have to assume this is the “conversation” about which I read literally hundreds of articles a month.

Gary Stager of District Administration is largely the black to my white, but I’ve found that fewer – if any – education professionals are more willing to engage in real debate. And the absolute best part is that he’s secure enough to disagree completely in a blog thread or e-mail and not take it personally. After all, education isn’t about us.

Sometimes we match up philosophically – he raised an eyebrow at the Ed in ’08 Kanye Kampaign, too – but in many matters he’s the Douglas to my Lincoln [I couldn't help but choose the better side].

But we’re at philosophical odds again. This time the issue is the value of vocational/technology education.

In “I’m Worried About America,” Stager comments on three current news stories:

1. Yesterday’s Cleveland school shooting;
2. Racism and the Jena 6 crimes;
3. The debate surrounding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program [SCHIP].

I’m not going to comment on 1, 2 or 3 – plenty of other sites address those issues adequately. I’m going to address Stager’s criticism of vocational education.

The shooting in Cleveland took place at SuccessTech Academy, a school in the Cleveland Municipal system that offers technology and vocational training. Stager said:

I do not wish to disparage the SuccessTech Academy where today’s shooting occurred, but it’s a safe bet that few affluent parents in Shaker Heights would choose to send their children there. Many urban schools are being turned into “specialized” career academies where students are “trained” for trades and low-paying jobs never contemplated for children in the suburbs. How many SuccessTech students do you imagine go on to Ivy League universities? (Note: USA Today reports that the school has a 94% graduation rate.)

Affluent parents tend not to choose vocational tracks for their children. That affluent parents insist on a wholly academic track – or that they don’t contemplate the option in the suburbs – does not legitimize it as a better option; it’s simply what they prefer for their kids.

Career academies are on the rise for many reasons, one of which is a failure of urban schools to deliver academic tracks through the 12th grade successfully. Vocational programs build on a curriculum of basic skills to offer a student expertise that guarantees them gainful employment after high school graduation.

I’m not sure why Gary put “trained” in scare quotes as if there is a difference between trained and trained. There’s nothing to suggest that SuccessTech Academy’s vocational education programs are illegitimate or substandard. As far as we can tell, a student leaves SuccessTech prepared to develop that trade further once he graduates. A 94% graduation rate is certainly not low, especially in an urban setting.

Stager’s characterization of trade skills as leading to “low-paying jobs” is also grossly inaccurate – I’ll get to that shortly.

After pointing to the school’s typically-vague mission statement, Stager continues:

A slideshow of images is prominently featured on the home page. The following photos represent one-fourth of the images presented. One shows a student welding and other depicts two African American students grooming a dog. DOG GROOMING! That sure is one ambitious educational objective.

Vocational education? An ambitious educational objective indeed.

Dog grooming is a bit suspect, but as Boris Johnson told the world weeks ago, the market has deemed seemingly-odd tracks both economically viable and worthy of study. I’d like to focus on welding.

I received training in welding in high school beginning in the 10th grade. It was one of the most valuable skills I learned in my public K-12 education and it was not training to which I had access or could otherwise afford outside of school. I spent weekends learning fine woodworking and during the week augmented that with metalworking in my school’s technology department. I was able to begin working/teaching welding literally within 48 hours after my high school graduation because of those classes.

I graduated on June 25th, relaxed on my 18th birthday on the 26th and was on a plane to Northern California on the 27th to work. Again, I got that job based on the metalworking education I received in high school.

Stager and others may or may not believe this, but it’s possible to mix technical/vocational education programs like welding with a wildly varied and rigorous academic program.

With students aged 8-16, I used welding as a means to look at everything from chemistry/physics, geometry/trigonometry, principles of design, basic principles of engineering and basic concepts in intellectual property [yes, all of these can be introduced properly to a child as young as 8]. I do wish that Stager and others had the opportunity to sit in on one of the sessions where I explained to 10-year olds the chemical differences between MIG welding and arc welding and its consequences on designing the project we were working on.

Educators are keen on assessment, so it’s important to note that after the design phase of the lesson, not a tyke put forth a proposal for an iron candle-holder that wouldn’t tolerate the weaker joints of a MIG weld. Might that be a 100% success rate using authentic assessment? The Ridgewood administration would approve.

And yes, that came from vocational training in welding, that “low-paying,” shoddy, non-rigorous discipline that a Shaker Heights parent wouldn’t be caught dead suggesting their child explore.

As I developed my skills in high school, I saw with the aid of two solid teachers that welding played quite well with the New York State Regents chemistry curriculum. The connections between that trade and academics somehow managed to penetrate my grimy blue collar and seep upward to mix with the knowledge that one receives as he earns a Regents diploma. I realize only now with Stager’s help that it was nothing short of a miracle.

Though Stager seems to think that a student putting time into vocational study hasn’t a notion of the Ivy League, I stumbled on that, too. After a year of welding one period a day and 3 hours a week afterschool in the Technology Club, I spent a semester studying history and economics at Harvard. If Stager needs an example of one who has sprinkled the salt of the earth on the forbidden fruit that is an Ivy, he need look only as far as the photo on the right sidebar of this site.

Oddly enough, Stager’s argument reminds me quite well of the attitude I encountered time and again on that campus that semester. The other residents of Winthrop House called me “Rube.”

Again: Ambitious educational objective indeed.

Snark aside, the truth is that many trades position those without a college education to earn an excellent wage as they contribute to their communities and the economy as a whole. The average urban high school graduate is, as Stager says, relegated to low-paying positions. There’s simply too much competition for better jobs that require skills many high school graduates don’t have. Trades are an avenue to contributing meaningful, sought-after labor that yields good compensation.

Take a look at this thread on the American Welding Society’s forum – it discusses the pay scale for welders. Although pay varies regionally, this discussion shows the range of wages a welder is likely to earn based on his skills. A quick glance at the discussion shows that a certified welder starts around $12-14/hr. – a solid gain from a minimum wage, “low-paying” job – and a skilled, experienced independent welder pulls ~$70/hr. Shops can charge a bit more and, of course, safety incentives come into play for more demanding jobs.

I’m not sure how much Stager makes, but I’ll freely admit that a welder with as many years of professional experience as I’ve been out of high school makes quite a bit more per hour than I do.

There’s no reason to discount vocational education, consider it a replacement for an adequate high school curriculum or to unfairly categorize trade skills as inferior. It does a disservice to education and ignores the practical application of much of the curricula in which those in Shaker Heights and the suburbs place their unwavering trust.

Those who practice a trade won’t mind if you do, though. They make a good living striking arcs, fixing plumbing and repairing the cars of the pointy-headed. Who did you think pays those $70/hr. bills?

Welders may not be Kant scholars, but they understand that a snob’s dollar spends the same as any other. Then again, they might just be Kant scholars.

This question pops up often.

Can an interested party record a school board or school committee meeting in New York State? [NJ and PA are touched upon as well.]

The short answer: Absolutely, provided that the recording process and its devices don’t disrupt the proceedings.

Remember, a public meeting constitutes quorum gathering to discuss issues. This means that you’re free to record regular school board meetings, budget hearings, committee meetings, etc. – any time there’s quorum/over half the official body in attendance with the intent to conduct public business, go ahead.

But school boards aren’t always into public records and accountability. When your New York State school district denies that you’re allowed to tape a meeting, cite the following precedents:

• Mitchell v. Board of Education of Garden City UFSD, 113 A.D.2d 924 (2nd Dept. 1985). This established that unobtrusive, handheld tape recording devices were acceptable.
• People v. Ystueta, 99 Misc.2d 1105 (District Court, Suffolk County, 1979). Established that prohibiting recording devices violated public policy.
• NYS Dept. of State Committee on Open Government OML-AO-3037, June 18, 1999. Backs up People v. Ystueta.
• Feldman v. Town of Bethel, 106 A.D.2d 695 (3rd Dep’t 1984). Use of recording device may not cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or disturb the meeting.

Then there’s Csorny, et al. v. Shoreham-Wading River Central School District, et al. (Index No. 31583/00) which not only upholds the above rulings, but cites supporting precedent in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey:

The overwhelming weight of authority from other states likewise supports our holding herein. In Hain v Board of Directors of Reading School Dist. (163 Pa Commw 479, 641 A2d 661), the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania struck a school board rule prohibiting the videotape recording of public meetings as violative of Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act. In Maurice River Tp. Bd. of Educ. v Maurice River Tp. Teachers Assn. (193 NJ Super 488, 475 A2d 59, affg 455 A2d 563), the New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division, similarly held that a school board could not enact a blanket prohibition against videotaping of public meetings, as such a rule violated New Jersey’s Open Public Meetings Act (NJSA 10:4-6 et seq; see also Sudol v Borough of North Arlington, 137 NJ Super 149, 348 A2d 216 [NJ Super]).

There ya go, kids. Record at will.

And when the Board members freak out, hand them a sheet of paper citing these precedents and make it very clear that their ignorance of the law in no way supersedes either statute or precedent.

[cross-posted at KitchenTableMath]

Teacher Magazine tells us that only 58% of candidates for teacher certification in the state of New Jersey passed the required math exam. Login may be required.

Prospective teachers in New Jersey have to master reading, writing, and—what was that third thing again?

The arithmetic is not good when it comes to new teacher candidates in the Garden State. Only 58 percent who took the required licensing exam in math in 2005-06 passed it, according to the state Department of Education.

They did better in other areas; 64 percent passed the social studies test and 71 percent passed the English exam.

Now the state Board of Education is considering raising the minimum passing score on tests for new teachers, despite knowing it might cause even more to fail, The Press of Atlantic City reported in Thursday’s newspapers.

“I’ve got to confess, I’m a little uncomfortable,” board member Arnold Hyndman said.

The state requires teacher candidates to pass a standardized test in their subject area before they can be licensed. The Praxis tests can be adapted to each state’s own needs.

“Our goal is to strengthen the content knowledge of our teachers,” assistant education commissioner Jay Doolan said. “Math especially is a concern, and we want input.”

Math has been one of the areas where there is still a teacher shortage in the state. The poor performance of minority teaching candidates on that test, with results indicating less than a third passed, was also a concern as the state looks to recruit more minority teachers.

Robert Higgins, acting director of the Office of Licensure and Credentials, said the passing rates in New Jersey among the minority teaching groups are similar to national trends.

They’re nervous about raising the bar? I’m going to think about this for a little while.