For those who haven’t come across Bierce, he was a biting critic of literature and culture in 19th- and early 20th-century America. Bierce’s short stories are singularly engaging and, in my opinion, few in American literature have demonstrated such a command of language. Bierce was introduced to me by a well-traveled writer who said, “On his worst day, maybe coming off a week-long bender, Bierce was sharper than you or I will ever be.” He was probably right.
Bierce occupies some real estate on the shelf to the right of my desk. I decided to pull a sample of the education-related definitions in his Devil’s Dictionary.
ACADEME, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.
ACADEMY, n. [from ACADEME] A modern school where football is taught.
BORE, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
GRAMMAR, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.
HISTORIAN, n. A broad-gauge gossip.
HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.
LEARNING, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.
ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.
PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
PLAGIARISM, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.
PLAGIARIZE, v. To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.
I reference and sample Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary with regularity - it’s too witty to ignore. Though I use a hard copy, you can get a .txt file of the Dictionary via Project Gutenberg.
And, if you’re so inclined, peep The Ambrose Bierce Project and The Ambrose Bierce Appreciation Society.
In the first part of College Application Overview for Homeschoolers, I summarized the five elements of the college application and detailed the homeschooler’s official transcript: what it is and how it matches up with a traditional applicant’s transcript. Before addressing the school profile, those five elements are:
Official Transcript
School Profile
Recommendations
Application with essays/resume
Standardized Test Scores
School Profile. When a traditional public school student submits an application, it’s usually accompanied by a school profile created by or filled out by the student’s guidance counselor. The purpose of the profile is to give an admissions committee information about the school from which the applicant is coming - this helps the committee place a student’s performance in the context of school-wide achievement from the prior academic year and/or the current graduating class.
The data usually includes:
the number of students in the graduating class;
percentage of students who continued [or plan to continue] to 2-year and/or 4-year degree programs;
percentage of students entering the workforce;
percentage of students entering military service;
description of academic options such as a listing of Advanced Placement [AP] or International Baccalaureate [IB] offerings.
Some schools provide additional information about available extra-curricular opportunities, information about the school district or results of state exams [i.e., percentage of a New York school's students who graduate with 'advanced designation' Regents diplomas].
Admissions committees depend on this context to determine the degree to which a student has challenged himself. Has he excelled in a ‘school-level’ curriculum but failed to challenge himself with available Advanced Placement courses? Is a student’s lackluster GPA a result of taking the most difficult curriculum available? Is his 4.0 GPA truly impressive or does his school suffer from grade inflation? The school profile works in conjunction with the transcript to answer these questions.
Homeschoolers, by definition, don’t have a school profile or school-wide data to reference. They’ve got to make their own to provide the detailed context that admissions committees need to evaluate an applicant properly. It’s not as overwhelming as it seems and it’s an opportunity to stand out from the applicant pool.
You can and should:
Obtain your local school district’s School Profile as early as possible in your child’s academic career; you can, should and likely already compare the district’s curriculum to your own. Highlight differences between the two, especially areas in which your home curriculum is stronger or gaps in the school’s curricula that yours has filled. This information will be useful when you…
Create a document outlining your homeschool experience. Keep in mind that an admissions committee reviews thousands of applications; the document should be clean, efficient and easily understood. Make it a snapshot.
Find ways to describe your student’s relevant experiences outside of the classroom. Has he attended summer enrichment programs? Has he furthered courses of study by engaging in the community? Though these will be detailed on the student’s resume, the school profile is about context. The committee can better understand a student’s curricula if his school profile relates his achievement to what’s around him. The transcript paints the portrait; the school profile fills in the background.
Relate to curriculum of siblings or others. If your student isn’t the first in the family to be homeschooled, you may be able to use a sibling’s achievements through the same [or similar] curriculum as evidence of your homeschooling rigor. If you homeschooled Billy’s sister and she now has a Ph.D. in biochemistry, she’s evidence that your homeschooling curriculum is adequate. And do you team-teach with any others in the community? Be creative.
An applicant’s achievements - like GPA - are often relative to many factors; the school profile eliminates some mystery. A homeschooler’s burden of proof to provide context for his education is necessarily higher than for traditional applicants.
But that doesn’t have to be a liability. Creating a substitute for the school profile allows for personalization that most traditional applicants only wish they had. Take advantage of the opportunity.
The next piece in this series will address the homeschooler’s teacher recommendations.
First, take a look at Text Savvy’s truly excellent post on the irrelevance of being a teacher to contribute to education. I’ll post a selection from his conclusion, but I promise that it won’t ruin the essay for you:
In my view, the conditions that exist in elementary and middle school education today-regardless of their exact nature or cause-serve to attract those most closely involved with it and those most directly affected by it away from inconvenient truths. So not only are non-teachers valuable to education criticism and reform, they are necessary prophets for an industry that can be frustratingly self-serving and unrepentant.
I suggest reading the entire piece to see how he got there - it’s worth it.
Fresh off that wonderful read [and not wonderful just because I largely agree] I came across a brief post from the Teacher Research Blog, the blog of the New York State English Council’s Standing Committee on Teacher Inquiry, that includes one of the more haughty phrases I’ve seen in some time:
Call for teacher research
An opportunity for teacher researchers to be published in the New York State English Council’s professional journal, The English Record!
Theme: Teacher-Researcher - Bringing the Teacher Back into the Conversation
Guest Editors: NYSEC Standing Committee on Teacher Inquiry
In his annual report last year, NYSEC VP-Secondary Terry Tiernan reminded teachers of their intellectual authority in the current conversations surrounding ELA education usually dominated by politicians and the media. Teacher research and inquiry provide a format for educators to share their voices and advocate on behalf of their students and colleagues. Teacher research involves systematic and purposeful study of our practice. What have you learned about your teaching and students’ learning through reflective self-study, data collection, and analysis? How have you informed your instruction through inquiry? How have you collaborated with other educators to improve your practice? Please share your stories, your data, and your studies.
The emphasis on the phrase “intellectual authority” is mine.
There are three important things to keep in mind here:
Having been a daily practitioner or former practitioner does not guarantee relevance, expertise or authority on a subject.
Not having been a daily or former practitioner does not disqualify one from relevance, expertise or authority on a subject.
If one doesn’t believe #1 or #2, one isn’t committed to solving a problem in an efficient manner and one isn’t concerned with encouraging the richness of the debate.
I have no doubt that politicians, the media and other actors are frequently misinformed or wrong about certain issues. However, it is important to note that they’re wrong because they’re wrong, not because they’re politicians or journalists. It would be a profitable venture to invite those who, in Tiernan’s view, have been marginalizing teachers to weigh in on how they might correct that. Tiernan chooses to ignore that perspective.
The most experienced, effective hiring managers will tell you that basing authority on credentials - in this case, teaching certification - is no guarantee of a potential employee’s contributions.
Credentials are about probability. A Certified Financial Planner is far more likely to guide your retirement funds properly than John down the street who happens to subscribe to Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. This is why we generally trust our funds to a CFP and only smile and nod when John gives us a stock tip. Odds and evidence compel us to regard the CFP as an authority.
But we probably should have listened to John when he threw us a bone about that Google stock back in the day - if only our CFP had seen it coming, too.
Credentials and certification can also guarantee responsibility. If our credentialed, certified neurosurgeon decides to laser-etch “Kilroy was here” somewhere on our pre-frontal cortex after he repairs an aneurysm, we hold him responsible for both potential damage and his violation of ethics. He is held accountable for his actions; we are sure of this going into the procedure. Along with his credentials that suggest competence, we allow the neurosurgeon access to our brain instead of Neighbor John whose hobbies include, in addition to investing, amateur brain surgery [remember, he got into Google early, he can afford the special equipment].
Those are the same reasons why public schools require certification for teachers. A certified teacher is theoretically most likely to do the job well and, if he does not, he is held accountable for not living up to that standard. It does not mean or even suggest that certified teachers have a monopoly on authority regarding their duties.
I understand that NYSEC’s Terry Tiernan was reaching out to teachers and drumming up pride so they might contribute to the publication - there’s no problem with that. And Tiernan, NYSEC and the Teacher Research Blog also didn’t count on an outsider reading their literature. Despite good intentions and the likelihood of the language going unnoticed, Tiernan need not legitimize artificially the intellectual authority of teachers at the expense of non-teachers - who are equally committed to exactly the same causes - and who may also be authorities. It is snobbery and sub-optimal management.
If one wonders at times why there are often such rifts in public education between teachers, administrators and all the other stakeholders, Tiernan gives us a fine example.
That’s today’s question over at BoardBuzz - and it’s an interesting one:
“… According to this article in the Times-Tribune, “The design team chosen to oversee the Scranton School District’s $60 million construction project donated at least $21,500 to a Democratic committee supporting School Board candidates since it was named to take over the project.” Not only that, apparently the district’s CEO (i.e. superintendent) also contributed to campaigns. BoardBuzz smells a conflict of interest.
And the paper notes, “The donations from the design team have not been limited to the committee.” One school board member received $500 from one of the companies.
One concerned party, Barry Kauffman, executive director the Pennsylvania chapter of government-watchdog group Common Cause, suggested that, “It would be appropriate for the School Board to pass a code of conduct rule that would prohibit school officials from contributing to the campaigns of board members.”
BoardBuzz wonders if this has happened in other school districts. Does your district have a policy in place to prevent similar conflicts of interest? Leave a comment and tell us about it.”
As a candidate for Cooperstown Central School’s Board of Education this past year, I had to do a fair amount of research regarding the legality/ethics of partisan activity by District employees and officials. Having to deal with such activity was the unfortunate reality of running a campaign that made school officials and sitting board members both nervous and more accountable than they wanted to be.
Also, I’ve read a fair amount of New York State school law and decisions by the New York State Education Department. I have an embarrassing command of prior issues/cases that might lead one to question the depth and richness of my social life.
Thankfully, the issue here isn’t me or the state of campaign practices in Cooperstown, it’s a Superintendent’s ability to contribute to partisan campaigns involving school affairs.
I thought I’d weigh in and left the following comment:
There are two issues here: potential kickback contributions, which I won’t address, and a District employee’s right to contribute privately to a school-related campaign. I’ll treat the second issue.
There is indeed a conflict of interest, but we must balance that conflict with an individual citizen’s right to advance affairs in his private life. Just as teachers are allowed to vote for the school budget from which their salary comes [provided they live in the District], a Superintendent has every right to engage in partisan activity on his own time - as long as there is a clear delineation that it is wholly a personal stance and does not come from the school or District. Partisan activity would be much more difficult to justify if the contributor was not a taxpayer and resident of the District whose elections he was influencing.
We had a related issue here in New York State in 2004-2005. A board member used his private time [and time is a currency analogous to a monetary donation] to advocate against adopting the his school’s budget. The submitted petition was dismissed for, among others, this reason:
“Petitioner argues that respondent improperly advocated against the proposed budget and submits budget election fliers which she claims respondent was responsible for distributing. While it is improper for a board of education, as a corporate body, to be involved in partisan activity, individual board members are entitled to express their personal views about issues concerning the district and engage in partisan activity, provided school district funds or resources are not used (Appeal of Goldin, 40 Ed Dept Rep 628, Decision No. 14,572; Appeal of Allen, 39 id. 528, Decision No. 14,300).”
Readers can view the full decision by NYSED at the following URL:
While one may judge a Superintendent’s ethics negatively if they contributed funds to a school board member’s campaign, such support appears to be legal if it is understood or explicitly stated that the contribution comes from the private citizen and not from a representative of the school. The private citizen is free to contribute; the Superintendent is not free to contribute if stated contributions use district funds/resources or if the school official implicates partisan support by the school or District.
Though Common Cause and others would like to see school boards adopt a code of conduct, local school boards simply don’t have the authority to regulate an individual’s actions in this way. Watchdog groups or concerned citizens can ask candidates [or elected officials] and District administration in open meetings whether they will commit to the stance in an unofficial way - that would be perfectly appropriate. It would, however, remain unofficial.
If an individual or group tried to make such a code of conduct official, they would open themselves up to a First Amendment lawsuit and would likely find themselves on the losing end.
If we regulate a Superintendent’s ability to engage in private partisan campaigning because he is a district employee and school leader, we would also need to bar him from voting on such matters as a member of the public. That, for 101 reasons, would be a mistake.
I find the phrase “slippery slope” both inadequate and banal, but it would be very difficult to justify why we would treat a Superintendent in that way while letting every other school employee participate freely.
Though it’s unfortunate that we even have to examine this issue, I hope this opinion adds a bit of value to the debate.
The 135th Carnival of Education is up at The Wonks. This edition has a good mix of policy, teaching, stories and a few more higher education submissions than last week.
When you’re done peeping the Carnival, give some time to the video showcasing Danielle Cookson’s plight with the United Food and Commercial Workers [UFCW] union. They’re attempting to force Cookson, an employee of Albertson’s, to join and contribute union dues [$30/month and an $80 initiation fee]. She’s fighting back hard.
Why am I highlighting her story?
Danielle is 16 years old and took a part-time job at Albertson’s to save money for college. She understands the role of a union and knows that a portion of union dues goes to support collective bargaining that benefits her and others like her. When she offered to pay that portion, the UFCW said no. In short, they advised that she weigh two options: full dues vs. no job.
Danielle’s response was, “They just want my money.” She’s right, and the National Labor Relations Board will likely agree.
Watch the video of Danielle’s news coverage [RSS readers, click here to watch the video]:
Here’s one girl who won’t struggle to choose a personal statement topic come college application time.
Top tier schools, are you watching? You may want to poke the name ‘Danielle Cookson’ into your Blackberries. I sense a few leadership qualities that are a bit more impressive than ye olde Student Council credential. If her academics are even a fraction of her will, you want this girl matriculating.
