Inside/Outside

One of my first memories of working at SF is of a happy hour. The first or second week I worked, a bunch of people who worked in the office were going out to happy hour and inviting everyone. The people "organizing" the happy hour were two people who, for some reason, seemed to think I had taken their job. I'm not sure of all the politics, but for whatever reason, they did not like me. So they proceeded to ask everyone around me if they were coming to happy hour, and not ask me.

Now, I don't think they plotted and said "We're going to ask everyone to come out but her right in front of her," but I do think it might have been sadistically fun for them to make sure I knew they were going out and that I wasn't invited.

A couple of people who work here in the office just did the same thing, I think with less malicious intent, but nonetheless, sort of "forgetting" that anyone else might be around and might appreciate an invite. Especially when one person is saying, "Oh, run after C (the boss) and ask her if she'd like to come."

I know, I'm doing a bit of whining, but it seems that a lot of my life I feel as if I'm on the outside. But this organizational situation at SF seems to encourage this kind of behavior. And other schools, too, seemed to have a need to have "insider" and "outsider" groups to define and organize themselves. I wonder if this is inherent in school politics, and how it affects the students. Because it must, and it can't be a good precedent for them.

Wow!

My blogging has been LAME, y'all! (I'm channeling my inner Britney Spears). As you probably can tell, I'm working on writing about 14 3-million page papers. Ok, ok, by my random use of numbers, you can tell that's exaggeration. Whatever. I reserve my right to exaggerate.

For the moment I'll reserve my right to silence. I'll just say that it's that point in the semester when I get sick of my ideological classmates and want to rip out all my hair. After a week of "The culture of the South is f'ed up" and "White people have no culture," I'm ready to go celebrate my lack of culture and my f'ed up culture (wait, do I not have any or is it f'ed up? I'm confused. Please, liberal know-it-alls, explain!) with my family and eat deep fried turkey an' mashed patatas an' graaavy an' some greens fried in butta. Yum. And use some improper English. Like, "she don know how to cook the turkey!" and "this ole dress? I just drug it outta the back o'my closet."

Just remember, the "culture" that waves the Confederate flag is also the one that produced Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, blues, jazz, and fried chicken. It's not one monolithic thing. I wish we could separate them and have only the beautiful things, but sometimes it seems pain and beauty are all mixed up in one. And that one would be the South.

Democrats and Higher Ed

First, a colleague of mine tipped me off to the great "Inside Higher Ed" emails you can sign up for. Since my interests are kind of K-16 (mostly centered around foreign language ed policy, as many of you know), I like to sort of scan the field and see how everything works together for or against foreign language. If you like getting little sound bites, go to Inside Higher Ed and sign up for their emails. It's cheaper than subscribing to the Chronicle of Higher Education, in any case.

In my inbox today was a comprehensive report of how Democrats in Congress will change higher education. It seems they want to make college more affordable (which the article says will be very expensive), but also will not let up on accountability for higher ed, which has university types quaking in their boots. Hey, as long as it doesn't turn into No Undergrad Left Behind, I think we might be ok. We'll see.

"Colleges and the New Congress." (Lederman, D. Inside Higher Ed. Nov. 8, 2006.)

What will they do for us?

Now that the Democrats have taken control of the house (I'm unspeakably proud of the fact that we have a woman as speaker - yeah!) and presumably the senate (um, c'mon, Burns and Allen. Just like when we knew it was over for Kerry, we know it's over for you. Conceed. Be the bigger men.), what will the dems do for education?

There's an article in EdWeek to that effect - apparently dems will work to lower interest rates on student loans in their first wave of legislation (thank God), and then eventually work on tuition tax credits. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) has said that he will work to reauthorize No Child Left Behind, but that they will examine state accountability and testing for special education and English language learners. Sounds good to me. I believe in high standards and accountability (especially fiscal accountability, which I don't think NCLB really does), but I don't know that any of that is actually happening at their schools. To me it seems that states are lowering their standards to ensure their schools recieve federal funds.

Oh, and former Dem governor of Iowa Tom Vilsack is going to run for president. I need to check out his education record before I make any decisions. I've decided to become an education voter. I abstained from voting for DC mayor because I'm inclined to dislike mayoral control of schools, which Fenty seems to want. Although I am slowly warming up to Fenty. We'll see where he takes us. I also didn't vote because I don't like not being given a real choice in the election. A Republican no one takes seriously doesn't do much for debate. And all the Republicans here run in Democrats clothing. What does it tell you that our "Democratic" mayor-elect wants to do some of the same reforms that the "Republican" mayor of New York City has done? I don't think either one of them fits party label.

How can we help immigrants learn English?

This article from the Rocky Mountain News demonstrates something many in the foreign language/ESL fields already know; teaching immigrants English is an uphill battle, and not always for the reasons one might expect. 1) There aren't enough English classes that are accessible to students (both financially, location-wise, and child-care wise). 2) Some (and please, I know immigrants are as varied as U.S. citizens) immigrants come with little education in their home language; teaching someone to read in English is infinitely harder if they can't read in their native language. Many of the immigrants who are educated speak at least some English, and therefore learning it is much easier. Imagine learning a different language if you can't even read in your native tongue.

It seems many of these articles say the same thing - immigrants want to learn English, but there aren't enough programs, they aren't easy enough to get to, given the constraints of being a member of the working poor, and it's not easy to learn English.

"Pressure to speak 'American' grows." (Quintero, F. Rocky Mountain News. Oct. 2, 2006)

HQTs

Or, to laymen, "Highly Qualified Teachers."

Case in point - for some teachers, taking a teacher qualification program in order to meet the highly qualified teaching standards of the states is degrading, expensive, takes away from their real duty of teaching, and, most importantly, is completely useless to someone who has 22 years of teaching experience. That's what professional development is for - keep up with lifelong learning, constantly improve teaching methods, etc. But being told that you're not a "real" teacher - well, that's just ridiculous.

Go to the private schools!

"EduCracy Run Amok." (The Education Wonks blog. 10/12/6.)

Cite your sources!

I cited Bennett and Page's op-ed in the Post in this blog entry last week, and this week in my History of Ed class, we discussed it (I sent it out to everyone in the class). In any case, the article cites James S. Coleman's research, stating that his research proves "that there's no reliable connection between the resources going into a school and the learning that comes out" (Bennet, W. 2006-9-21). My professor, being the dedicated scholar she is, went back to check the source. I'm not sure that the report "makes clear" that funding has no impact on outcomes; it seems that after Brown V Board, Southern schools increased their funding as a sort of noncompliance compliance with Brown (see Wikipedia, "James S. Coleman," last updated 9/19/6). I'm just citing sources from the Internet, so I would probably need to dig around a little more to get a more scholarly opinion. This isn't one of my areas of research, so I don't know if I would have time to do it... one of my problems seems to be that I'd like to research everything!

In any case, Coleman's report makes a strong case that black students do better in integrated classrooms. This seems to be the main thrust of his argument, not that funding doesn't matter. His report eventually led to busing, which I think we can agree was a bit of a disaster. I think their hearts were in the right place, but as for for actually working... not so much. I can't seem to find an actual draft of the report online, but I'll keep looking. It's interesting to look at the social and policy effects of research; like an author's novel or play being adapted to film, television, or the theatre, sometimes the author of the research has no say and orignial intent is thwarted in the reproduction.

I have to run - tons of work and not much time!

No Desk for Them

A funny article on teachers who don't use desks. I never did. I shoved mine to the back of the classroom and used it to pile up (aka "lose") student papers. Sometimes my 7th grade study hall would re-organize it for me, but I still never sat there. I ran around from the tape recorder to the dvd player to each kid to the computer too much.

But this article does show how desperate some are for school reform - at one point the article says something about how "no studies have been done to prove the effectiveness of not using a desk." Um, we have to do studies for this? I think that it depends on the teacher's style. I used to sit on top of one of the kids' desks and teach, too. In fact, my eighth graders would never sit in one desk, and when I finally asked them why, they said, "Because that's where you always sit, Ms. Cottrell." Gosh, hadn't even noticed it myself.

At the bottom of the article is a great layout of one teacher's classroom. This is my dream classroom. A rolling cart for a projector! Tables for my students so they can work together! Even if I were teaching college (which I am thinking is more and more of a possiblity, because PhD's for college instructors are mandatory, and the number of college teachers is only going to increase), I would want a set-up like this. I think it's great for students of all ages to work together.

"At the Head of Some Classes, Desks Dismissed." (It just goes to show you that when I saw this title, I thought they meant student desks. What teacher sits in front of the classroom and teaches from a desk?) (Matthews, J. The Washington Post. October 3, 2006. Page A08.)

La Fugitive

By the way, my friend has some new postings up on her blog. She works for the government. Hilarity ensures.

La Fugitive blog

100% Perfection

Several people have mentioned recently the fact that NCLB mandates that by 2014, 100% of students score at grade level or above on their reading, math, and science tests. I seem to have lost track of the liberal argument. At the (terminally boring) American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference in May, I attended a workshop which pitted Richard Rothstein against Fredrick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, a free-market conservative think tank in Washington.

Considered by many to be a "great" scholar in our field, Rothstein made an argument that reminded me of one of the last scenes in Schindler's List, where Schindler looks at his ring and says something to the effect of, "I could have saved one more person with this ring." It's a beautiful scene, one that makes you cry at how a hard-driving businessman has become more human at a time when many were becoming less so. Rothstein essentially stated that the problem with charter schools is that while some students will succeed because of innovative teaching practices and market-driven schools looking at their bottom line, some will fail. The question is, how many is acceptable? This is the question Rothstein posed to the audience with the same sort of fatalism as Schindler - the answer he thought to be acceptable is of course, none. So, 100% of our students must be succeeding in schools. And morally, it is unacceptable that we let children fall "through the cracks," or perhaps more aptly, below the bottom line.

However, unlike Schindler's List, lives are not at stake here. And as morally reprehensible or distasteful as it may be to say this, some children, people, students will not make it. Unless we have a comprehensive social welfare system, some people, for whatever reason, will not succeed in life. This is not ideal. No one wants it to be this way. But even in France, with a comprehensive social welfare system, there are street people. I don't know how or if it's possible to create a society which doesn't let people fall though the cracks completely. Maybe lives are at stake, I don't know. But there's a difference between saving someone's life from a racist, fascist death camp and not being able to get a child to read on grade level, Rothstein fatalism aside.

HOWEVER. 100% is what NCLB regulates. This blog entry on The Education Wonks makes the argument that this stipulation de-professionalizes teaching, because no one expects a doctor to be able to cure all of his patients or a lawyer to win all of his cases. Sometimes the more difficult the patient or case, the better skilled the doctor or lawyer is, but also the more likely it is he will fail. (Orshe. Got it. I know, I hate my own gender. Can we just accept that I'm using "he" as a gender neutral pronoun?)

If we're asking that 100% of students score at grade level or above on assessments, then what happens to students with learning disabilities, mentally handicapped students, and the like? Are they excluded from the 100%? (I'm reminded of President Clinton - "It depends on what the meaning of is is.") It depends on the meaning of what 100% is. Does 100% refer only to children who pass the grade prior to the grade where tests are taken? Sometimes holding children back a grade (especially in kindergarten and 1st grade, it seems) can be beneficial. Some children, because of a September birthday, are younger than their grade by almost a year. But can we hold students back merely because they might not be able to help schools make the 100% mark? I wonder if we won't just alter the tests so that 100% of students can pass them.

I agree that we should set high standards, and I agree that schools (and liberals) sometimes fall into the "soft bigotry of low expectations," to quote (gasp!) President Bush. The discussion at the Cato Institute about teacher quality and school choice reminded me of this, because the "liberal" argued that socioeconomically, racially, ethnically, whatever-ly disadvantaged families won't choose as well as advantaged families for their schools. I think the rapid exodus of DC families from public schools proves this wrong. I mean, it doesn't take a college degree to want to get your kid out of a school where the roof leaks and the teacher's lesson plans are yellowed.

I want to look into this a little more. Along with the 15 papers and 400 pages I have to read. But it's all for you, dear reader!

I know I'm a bit all over the place with this entry. I'm trying to piece my thoughts together. I hate to see a child fall through the cracks. And yet I hate the liberal idea that "everyone should just be who they are and express themselves and we should boost their self esteem and say yay you're all honors students." Because not everyone is an honors student. Not everyone should be an honors student. It's almost as if by making this "let's boost everyone's self esteem" argument, we're saying that if you're not an honors student (or a doctor, or a professional who makes $100,000 a year), your value as a person is less. I wish we could find a way to value everyone's worth as a person without everyone needing to be college-educated and reading above grade level. For some, it is simply not possible.