You Know, the Internet Does Professional Training, Too

by Matthew K. Tabor on August 25, 2009

One of the most effective education-related facets of the internet is its ability to make available professional training/certifications. While blog after blog is discussing [in vain, usually] the merits of web/distance education vs. a traditional classroom, and arguing their electronic doctrines in cult-like fashion, some folks are taking the time to add a bit to their professional resumes.

Those who were paying attention ~12 years ago could see it in network administration and programming certifications. After that, it was multi-nationals using internet/intranet resources to deliver, speed up and reduce costs with professional development. Now, you can pretty much advance any trade or profession online.

Hoven Tax Associates’ ‘CPE on Demand’ offers CPA and CPE courses and continuing education credits through their own ‘Hoven CPE Courses and credits‘ site. It’s an easy way to keep up with changes in tax laws and is fully recognized by the NASBA:

“Hoven Tax Seminars is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy as a Quality Assurance Service (QAS) sponsor of continuing professional education…

…Hoven Tax Seminars is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors.”

They also offer a CPA and CPE resource center and an accounting course guide – their ‘tax explanations for real estate investors’ book is also worth a look if you’re interested.

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Mission High School logo

It’s no secret that if you don’t toe the philosophical line in many teacher education programs, you encounter hindrances that range from brick walls to ambushes to professional punji pits. Sometimes it’s the administration; sometimes professors; sometimes peers. And sometimes all three work together to make sure you get the message that freedom of thought is fine – as long as you think the same way as the School of Education.

It plays hell with one’s career in education.

Occasionally we hear about a student whose worldview isn’t as malleable as the EduWeenies would like.

Michele Kerr is a 40-something who applied to Stanford University’s Teacher Education Program and was admitted. After letting it be known that she wasn’t on board with every element of the Program’s ’social justice’ tenets, the problems quickly mounted. She was threatened with having her offer of admission revoked, including planning legal action to see that through. She was railroaded into being an enemy of the program, with administrators citing that students even felt uncomfortable sitting near her in classes because of her anti-progressive stances. The final straw was when the Program demanded a login and password for the blog on which she wrote anonymously about her challenges both with the program and the school environment in which she was training.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education [FIRE] – a champion of freedom in academia – stepped in. As they have so many times, they set the offenders straight and Kerr was guaranteed fair treatment. Adam Kissel of FIRE summarized the issue:

“Like STEP, too many education programs today are teaching by words and deeds that only one orthodoxy or ideology is acceptable in future teachers,” Kissel said. “This refusal to accept alternative views is no way to prepare teachers to cultivate effective citizens in our democracy. Fortunately, senior administrators stepped in to set things right for Michele Kerr.”

You can read FIRE’s press release about the case: Victory for Freedom of Speech at Stanford: Student Graduates Despite Ed School Efforts to Revoke Admission, Investigate Private Blog, and Declare Student Unfit for Teaching.

That an outfit even has to investigate an issue warranting a title like that should make you balk – and it’s more common than you think.

The Washington Post’s Jay Mathews should also be praised for swallowing that most bitter pill and highlighting Kerr’s case even though he’s on a different philosophical track. He gives a well-detailed account of Kerr’s saga in “They Messed With the Wrong Blogger.”

Too few people, both inside and outside of the education game, understand how common this is – and how pervasive social justice theories are in schools of education. But we’re not just talking about pointy-headed academics who regard 1968 as the high-water mark of American life; it shows up in everyday classes, too.

You know, like “frequently” discussing sexuality in your kid’s geometry/trigonometry class.

Taica Hsu is a 2006 alumnus of STEP. He teaches math at Mission High School, part of the San Francisco Unified School District, in the city’s Mission District. The setting:

“Mission High School has the distinction of being the first comprehensive high school in San Francisco and the first such school west of the Rocky Mountains. The first building was formally dedicated in 1897. Mission High School is proud of its rich history and we have our very own museum on campus which highlights the evolution of Mission High over the past 100+ years. Located in the heart of the Mission District in San Francisco, Mission High is proud of its ethnic diversity and we try to instill positive social values, acceptance and tolerance in our students.”

And “in [Hsu's] world, trigonometry points to justice.”

A MissionLoc@l article about Hsu’s classroom offers an inside view into how STEP students/teachers – and those in similar programs – approach education:

“On one wall, of his purple-painted classroom, posters proclaim the ills of war and social stratification. On another, algebra students’ projects statistically break down the injustices of homeless, drugs and teen pregnancy.

“My ultimate goal is to make students aware of the inequities in society,” he says. “I want to make them want to change their place in society.””

I’d rather they just learned math, but such trivialities are increasingly displaced by the pet projects of the education game’s social engineers.

“And in his class, where a rainbow flag hangs in the back of the room and the teacher wears a “No on 8? pin more than a week after the measure has passed, sexuality also comes up.

Gilberto [a student] had never met an openly-gay person before coming to Hsu’s class, he says. He thought homosexuality was “weird,” and he balked at the idea of having Hsu as geometry teacher.”

I’m pleased that Gilberto is more accepting and tolerant than he was on day 1 – after all, he’ll encounter people of all sorts throughout the course of his life. But Hsu’s efforts impinge on the authority of parents to address these issues at home. Simply put, I’d rather talk to my child about the merits and drawbacks of Prop 8 than have it woven into a lesson about trigonometric proofs.

Extracurricular clubs and events provide opportunities for students to go beyond rigid academic disciplines – and for Hsu to extend a social justice program that includes fostering a ‘them vs. us’ strain of victimization:

““He knows what it’s like to be discriminated against, just like us,” Gilberto says, with “us” meaning all undocumented immigrants. “He relates to us. He understands. So even though it doesn’t look like it, we both have something in common.”

Discrimination is everywhere – perhaps Mr. Hsu would allow me to come in and talk to the kids about Southwest London’s contempt for American, George W. Bush-supporting Republicans who enjoy country music and operate with a decidedly-rural panache?

It’s not all serious, thoughtful curriculum, though – sometimes he and the kids just dress up in drag:

“Hsu encourages awareness of queer issues on campus. He is the faculty sponsor of the gay-straight alliance, which hosts a drag show to honor the Day of Silence in the spring.”"

Surely Mission High School has so much time and so many resources for these forays because they’ve outperformed every other school in the SFUSD, routinely topping the charts in academic performance?

No. Mission High is one of the lowest-performing schools in the District, having received a rating of 1 out of 10 – with 1 being the lowest possible score – in the 2008 Academic Performance Index Report from the California Department of Education. The June Jordan School for Equity competes with Mission High for that last rung on the SFUSD ladder. And the problem isn’t that Mission High has a large population of non-native English speakers and English Language Learners [ELL] – Moscone Elementary, which, according to Mission Loc@l, has a majority population of ELLs, scored a 9 out of 10.

It isn’t necessarily Hsu’s fault – we have no idea how his efforts contribute to those scores. What we do know is that STEP and its graduates would do well to re-evaluate their priorities if they want to institute the fairness and commitment to academic achievement that they purport to uphold.

Or they can marginalize the Michele Kerrs of the education world, mix homosexual marriage rights with Euclidean geometry, dress in drag and retreat from abysmal test scores. Our students won’t be prepared for college, but at least they’ll be ready for the Folsom Street Fair.

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There will be an hour of talk radio dedicated to discussing the general state of public education in the US airing tonight, Wednesday, June 17th, at 10pm EST on RFCradio on Dr. Melissa Clouthier’s “The Right Doctor” show.

The Right Doctor has an exciting guest for the evening – me – and we’ll be talking about all sorts of topics related to education: a bit of legislation, some teaching, some local school administration/governance.

You can listen to the show by going to www.rfcradio.com and clicking ‘Listen.’

There will also be a live chat as the show airs – I’ll be in the room, along with the Doctor and many others, to discuss elements of the show or any related topic that comes up. You can access the chat by going to www.rfcradio.com/chat .

See you there – and if you can’t make it, I’ll link to the podcast [which includes about 15 minutes of additional content] when it’s available.

RFC Radio - Radio for Conservatives

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Enjoy!

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Scholarships for the ‘Credit Challenged’

by Matthew K. Tabor on June 4, 2009

Oh, what a charming way to put it. It’s an unfortunate reality for too many students – and now there’s a program to help out those with pocks, blemishes, and downright disasters on their credit reports.

SpendOnLife.com describes their scholarship program for the ‘credit challenged‘ as follows:

“It’s our desire that every young adult has access to higher education. Unfortunately in today’s society, students are finding it tougher to secure financing because of the credit crunch and past credit issues.

In an effort to assist students affected by the stricter lending practices for student loans, SPENDonLIFE is proud to offer our college scholarship program to those denied a student loan due to the recent credit crunch or their personal credit history.

We will award up to 10 college scholarships a year ranging from $500 to $5000. We hope this program will help to educate young adults about both the benefits and pitfalls that using credit can pose.”

They’ve got the usual information – FAQ, Guidelines and the Application – at the links below.

Pass it along if you know someone who can use it. In this climate, we can all think of a few.

And don’t forget – there’s always someone out there willing to give money. The blue-eyed, the kid with that unique Eskimo/Botswanian heritage, the 7th best cornhole player in Western/Southwestern Iowa, etc. All you’ve really got to do is find’em and ask nicely.

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Language Help: CorrectMyText.com

by Matthew K. Tabor on June 4, 2009

I’ve written several times that foreign languages aren’t my strong point. I try to keep active a network of people I can go to when I need some sort of translation into English – or when I’m attempting to write something brief in a language other than English and I need to ensure that I’m not completely embarrassing myself.

I still manage to do that too often, though I wouldn’t be so bad if the rest of the world spoke and read Latin.

Bothering those Italian or French or Russian experts takes up valuable currency, so I use online resources – forums, translators, etc. – when I can. I came across CorrectMyText.com and bookmarked it for those non-emergency foreign language needs.

The format is quite simple. You submit your text and someone fluent in that language corrects your mistakes or affirms what you’ve written. You can do the same thing for others. Here’s an example, a passage written in English about learning at school:

“People are learning at any time when they are awake. From they are born to when they are death, people never stop learning, maybe they do not realize it. A infant learns the world by touching things he can reach or biting everything he can get. When we read book we see a world describe by the writer and it is the world that we never know.”

Not too far from accurate, and I’m sure that some of you teachers out there wish you got paragraphs that solid.

So, we’d sign up to CorrectMyText, log in and post the following correction:

“People are learning any time they are awake. From the time they are born to the time they die, people never stop learning. Maybe they don’t even realize it. An infant learns about the world by touching things he can reach or biting everything he can get. When we read a book we see a world described by the writer, and that is a world we otherwise would never know.”

There ya go, folks. Correct some text or be corrected – it’s handy either way. Very neat site.

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University of Gloucestershire

by Matthew K. Tabor on May 22, 2009

The University of Gloucestershire has been in its current organization since 2001, though its history stretches back about 200 years. The University has three campuses in Cheltenham, one in Gloucester – and what a beautiful place that is – with another in London.

Check out the video below to get a sense of the people and setting.

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NEA’s Teacher Thank You Card

by Matthew K. Tabor on May 20, 2009

I rarely speak or write of the NEA in a way that would warm the cockles of that organization’s heart. Their lobbying efforts don’t warrant it.

Individual teachers, however, shouldn’t be punished for their union’s misgivings. That’s why the NEA-sponsored Thank a Teacher website is worth a moment:

On May 4th, NEA unveiled the [teacher thanks] mural at The Cannon House, the oldest congressional office building in Washington, DC. NEA and national leaders joined hundreds of local public school students, their teachers and teachers of the year for the event.

It’s a simple thing – a mural of thank you notes and cards to our teachers, specific and general. Leave one for a teacher you know or for teachers in general.

Praise is a funny thing. I don’t think much of effusive praise for the simplest, most mundane achievements. Teachers shouldn’t be patted on the back for pulling in $60,000 + full benefits, as many middle-of-the-road teachers in my local district do, for showing up to work [summers not included, obviously] and fulfilling the obligations of their contract. As professionals, they shouldn’t want praise for doing the bare minimum. Teachers aren’t heroes for choosing the profession; they’re heroes when they do their job well.

But everyone needs a ‘thank you’ or show of appreciation now and again, no matter the profession. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a parent who thanks his kid’s teacher for communicating well or for your kid having an all-around good day, or you’re just a taxpayer who appreciates that your school taxes are paying the salary of an asset to your community. It doesn’t need to be much – just thank a teacher now and again.

And you can start ye olde thank teacher project by hopping over to the NEA’s site.

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Yes, yes – ‘education is the civil rights issue of our time.’ If the 40,000 variations on that theme didn’t sink in during the 2008 campaign season, I get 140-character reminders often enough via Twitter.

And when was the last time we saw any sort of civil rights crowd that didn’t have a well-coifed Al Sharpton at the front – or trying to muscle his way to the front – with one eye searching for the media and the other eye searching for a mirror?

Get used to Al in Education, folks. That ‘Strong Schools’ bit last year was the calm before the annoying, prolonged, ineffectual drizzle that’s a Sharpton storm.

Here’s a press release/e-mail I got the other day. I’ll parse it.

Hi Matthew,

Did you see that Al Sharpton, Mike Bloomberg, and Newt Gingrich came together today — and at the White House of all places?  The meeting was to discuss education equality and how to improve our nation’s schools.  It was a remarkable gathering and you can read about the event here: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/05/07/gingrich_bloomberg_and_sharpto.html?wprss=44

Trios are good. Sometimes individually great men combine to make something greater – like the Three Tenors, or even Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting singing “All for One [and All for Love]” on The Three Musketeers soundtrack.

This combination – unlike the two cited above – has a weak, embarrassing link. Gingrich could be a classic Kenny Rogers and Bloomberg one of those successful but ever-evolving David Bowie types. Sharpton, however, is not to be taken seriously. He’s a bit like the ukulele player Tiny Tim, God rest his soul.

Can you imagine what song we’d get from Kenny Rogers, David Bowie and Tiny Tim?

And you can see footage of the event here: http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0509/unlikely_trio_at_the_w_h_444542bd-4539-431b-abf6-f06fca3f1f77.html or here http://www.edequality.org

I’d rather hear the song.

The meeting was in advance of education equality day, which will feature thousands of people coming together to demand education equality in Washington DC on May 16th:  http://edequality.org/page/s/eepday

Let me know if you have any questions.

Here’s one: Why does anyone in education take Al Sharpton seriously? How quickly we’ve forgotten his actions in the Tawana Brawley case, his outright racism and his lifelong defense of his actions. Don’t bother Googling for Sharpton’s apologies to Stephen Pagones, the others he accused of rape, defilement and hatred, New York State or the public. He’s never uttered any.

And how spineless we’ve become, especially in public education, not to hold a man like Sharpton to account. Sharpton’s prominent involvement in education issues shows how weak the field of education leaders really is – and how badly we need some respectable, heroic leaders.

I’m getting tired of scoundrels like Al Sharpton, but I’m more tired of the milquetoasts who let it slide. I’ll pass on “Education Equality Day” in lieu of celebrating “High Standards and Integrity Day.”

Some of us celebrate that one every day. Do you?

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Western International University

by Matthew K. Tabor on May 14, 2009

Western International University is popping up in the sidebars of quite a few newsletters and websites lately. WIU is just one of that massive wave of distance education services that have become more prominent in recent years, though they’ve been around for a few decades. The opportunities for outfits like WIntU to offer both brick-and-mortar and online / distance options to working adults – who seem to be increasingly pressured to get a degree, any degree at all, as quickly as possible – have combined with a rapidly growing market to ensure that we see a great deal more of them, and with greater legitimacy, than in the past.

WIntU, like others, offers a long list of degree programs and online degrees as well as individual courses that may or may not be transferable. They’re a larger operation with campuses from Arizona to India.

As I’ve written before, whether you personally are interested in online or distance education makes no difference. It doesn’t even matter whether it’s good or bad. What matters is that as a teacher, parent, student, or generally responsible person, you understand what’s out there – and especially what’s being sold to willing consumers.

Read the ads, pitches and websites for places like WIntU, regardless of your stance, if you want to keep on top of education. Tens of thousands of consumers do – and for their sake, you need to understand what these schools/businesses are about.

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Joanne Jacobs,

Greg Lippman and Jennifer Andaluz together provided the brains, muscle and elbow grease to found Downtown College Prep, the subject of Joanne Jacobs’ “Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School That Beat the Odds”. To get the ball rolling, they created a small summer institute that would establish and test the themes that would drive DCP. From page 25:

“To connect with potential students and parents and try out their ideas, Lippman and Andaluz organized Summer Bridge, a free skill-building program for underachieving middle schoolers. Lippman’s parents donated the money for the program; San Jose State provided classroom space. Middle school counselors in San Jose recommended students, mostly Hispanic, who were struggling in school.

Expecting the usual summer snooze, Bridge students found themselves sweating through reading and math skills in an academic boot camp with Lippman and Andaluz as their drill sergeants. But, once they got over the shock, students got hooked on the attention and the sense of purpose. Their parents wanted more. Bridge parents began meeting with Lippman and Andaluz to discuss a charter high school.”

They did that without a fat, taxpayer-driven bank account. Makes you wonder what a public school with a $27,000 per-pupil budget is capable of – and why were aren’t seeing it.

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Joanne Jacobs,

Chapter 1 of Joanne Jacobs’ “Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School That Beat the Odds” introduces San Jose’s Downtown College Prep, a charter school serving mostly Mexican immigrant families. DCP takes underperformers and develops them to succeed at a 4-year college or university. From page 9:

“”At DCP [Downtown College Prep], low achievers aren’t told they’re doing well; they’re told they can do better, if they work hard. The school doesn’t boost self-esteem with empty praise. Instead, Lippman and his teachers encourage what is known as “efficacious thinking,” the belief that what a person does has an effect. If you study, you’ll do better on the test than if you goof off. Work hard in school, and you can get to college. You have control over your future. So, stop making excuses and get your act together. The complete lack of sugarcoating may seem harsh to outsiders, but students seem to appreciate the honesty.”

Kids are the best fraud detectors alive. Honesty shows love and sincere concern. It’s no wonder that students at DCP – or anywhere, for that matter – prefer respectful honesty as they develop.

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Joanne Jacobs,

From the introduction [p. 2] of Joanne Jacobs’ “Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School That Beat the Odds” comes the following passage. It’s sober, honest commentary on the reality of failing schools.

“Parents who have money can exercise school choice, either by buying a home in an area with good public schools or by paying tuition.

But less-affluent parents are stuck with what they get. If the local school is led by a distant bureaucrat, staffed by inexperienced or burned-out teachers, whipsawed by education fads, and dominated by bullies, parents are told reforms are on the way: Just wait a few years, and then a few more.

If the school is just second-rate, parents are fed happy talk about how everyone’s special and those nasty test scores don’t indicate the real learning kids are doing. Why, they’re going to be lifelong learners! It doesn’t matter that they’ve learned nothing so far. They can look it up on the internet.

Nobody says: “Juan can’t read or write well enough to fill out a job application; he doesn’t have the math to qualify as an apprentice carpenter, electrician or plumber. He can go to community college, because they’ll take anybody with a pulse. But he’ll be stuck in remedial classes to learn what he was supposed to learn in elementary or middle school. The odds are he’ll get discouraged and quit.” That, they don’t say.

… and when someone does say it, the victimized cry foul. Not the truly victimized, either.

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Explaining the “Pain Fetish” to Mr. Rotherham

by Matthew K. Tabor on February 2, 2009

Dan Willingham has written a must-read piece about third-rate huckster Alfie Kohn. But we’ll get to that later.

The gall, the gall! says Andy Rotherham. In “Breaking News: Psychologist Dan Willingham has a pain fetish,” Rotherham writes:

Seriously.  Why else would he take this on?

That’s the extent of the post.

Rotherham is apparently so stunned, so shocked and so confused about why one would enter this debate that I think he deserves a brief explanation. Here goes:

Dear Mr. Rotherham,

Professor Willingham will ‘take on’ this topic because he has a commitment to intellectual honesty and a strain of courage which a great deal of education thinkers lack.

Sincerely,

Matthew K. Tabor

It’s that simple, Mr. Rotherham.

Criticizing the likes of Kohn is fairly painless. The professional blowback is a bit like being attacked by thousands of self-professed educators wielding peacock feathers. It never hurts, but occasionally it tickles so darn much that you strain a muscle or two from the laughter.

UPDATE: DW isn’t the first to deliver a few inconvenient truths to Kohn – D-Ed Reckoning weighed in on Kohn back in 2006. Read’em both.

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A teaser:

“If I thought for a second that this Forum was an objective, non-partisan opportunity to discuss problems in public education instead of an ideological pow-wow, I would likely participate.

Again, thanks for the heads up – and I look forward to any more announcements you might have. Please tell Ms. Darling-Hammond, Ms. Meier and Mr. Noguera that I said hi.”

I receive many e-mails a day with press releases, requests for exposure, requests for help/organization/administration/web design – lots of things. I can’t always oblige, but I appreciate them. They keep me informed and alert me to blips on the massive radar of public education that I might otherwise miss.

And some of these notices are garbage. Well, not the notices/press releases themselves, but the events and initiatives they describe. The PR firms almost always do an excellent job.

Consider the following from the Forum for Education & Democracy, which is introducing a campaign called “Will We Really?” My e-mail response is after the jump.

NEW NATIONAL CAMPAIGN URGES OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AND THE PUBLIC TO IMPROVE PUBLIC EDUCATION

January 6, 2009 (Washington, DC) – Just days before President-elect Barack Obama takes the oath of office, a major education group is launching a national web-based campaign that challenges all Americans to transform the optimism of the election season into the promise of collective action to improve public education.

“Our goal is to build on the “Yes We Can” hopefulness of the Obama campaign, address the shared anxiety about our uncertain future, and channel both sets of feelings into actions that will help support our nation’s schools,” said Sam Chaltain, National Director of the Forum for Education & Democracy, which is sponsoring the campaign.

A short web film, an homage to the “Yes We Can” will.i.am-produced video that has been viewed nearly 15 million times on YouTube, sets in motion a national petition drive, available at www.willwereally.com, in which all signers commit to work with President Obama to honor four promises that must be fulfilled if we are serious about supporting young people and public schools:

1. Every child deserves a 21st Century education.

To honor America’s ongoing commitment to a democratic way of life, we must provide all young people with a high-quality, free education in schools that are designed to help students develop the skills and abilities they need to exercise a powerful voice in shaping their own lives — and our nation’s future.

2. Every community deserves an equal chance.

To honor America’s founding promise of “liberty and justice for all,” we must provide equal access to a high-quality education to all young people, regardless of their family’s money, race or power.

3. Every child deserves a well-supported teacher.

To honor America’s commitment to its public schools, we must ensure that all young people have the same opportunity to learn from well-prepared, well-supported teachers, who are in turn empowered to exercise their professional judgment, and not just follow a script, when it comes to helping students learn.

4. Every child deserves high-quality health care.

To honor America’s responsibility to take care of its youngest citizens – and to acknowledge the myriad out-of-school forces that impact a child’s capacity to learn – we must ensure that all young people are free from want, and have access to high-quality health care.

To encourage action on the local level, the Forum provides a list of easy steps people can undertake individually and at the community level in support of each promise.

There’s more, but I’ll spare you. What I pasted above is the tofu and soy-flakes [meat and potatoes didn't seem appropriate]. Here’s my e-mail response:

Thanks for the heads-up here, I appreciate it a great deal. It’s not easy to stay in the loop – even with the internet – without being in one of those policy centers like New York City or Washington.

But I’m going to pass on this one other than posting the press release [and this e-mail] on my website. This initiative is tripe.

Please share that, along with the following opinions, with the folks at the Forum for Education and Democracy.

Here’s a bullet-point review of the initiative’s four core principles:

1. Every child deserves a 21st Century education. The rhetoric in support of that point is baseless, useless and unclear. FfE&D hasn’t a clue what a “21st Century education” is – and hot air about a “powerful voice” means even less.

Stop that.

2. Every community deserves an equal chance. That’s one we all agree on, and I’ve yet to meet a serious thinker in education, on a large or small scale, who thinks otherwise.

The bit about “power” may work well in a college freshman’s Sociology 101 paper – or perhaps in an introduction to a Teachers College Press book, if we throw in a few typos – but it’s not to be taken seriously outside of either. If you want to talk about failed pedagogy [Whole Language or 'Investigations'-style math], abysmal teacher education programs and the fiscal mismanagement that keeps so many communities from the equality we’d all like to see, I will welcome the discussion [provided that the conversation doesn't include will.i.am videos].

Not “power,” though. Take that one up with Maxine Greene, a third-rate grad student or one of the distinguished conveners.

3. Every child deserves a well-supported teacher. Agreed. Nothing in the description, however, suggests that this Forum will take a hard look at teacher preparation programs – or the realities of teacher practice. I won’t join you folks in railing against ’scripted’ curricula because some of it is very good, and some teachers desperately need it. These points are tendentious rhetoric, not critical analysis of pedagogy or administration. When the Forum cares more about objective analysis than the storybook dignity it’s invented for practitioners in public education, perhaps we can talk.

4. Every child deserves high-quality health care. Again, we agree – though points about keeping children healthy are low-hanging fruits. Unfortunately, this has almost nothing to do with education. The failures that have necessitated the Forum’s examination of points 1-3, albeit a misguided examination, don’t bode well for our ability to solve healthcare problems short of increasing already-bloated per pupil expenditure by an obscene amount.

I’d go into more detail on that point, but the fiscal responsibilities and the financial realities on which points 1-4 depend were not elements of the proposed discussions.

If I thought for a second that this Forum was an objective, non-partisan opportunity to discuss problems in public education instead of an ideological pow-wow, I would likely participate.

Again, thanks for the heads up – and I look forward to any more announcements you might have, and I hope the next one will be for a fairer, higher-quality initiative.

Please tell Ms. Darling-Hammond, Ms. Meier and Mr. Noguera that I said hi.

Best,

Matthew
mktabor@gmail.com
www.matthewktabor.com

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