I have this site reader on my blog, and it's amazing what it can pick up. You can see all the people who have come to look at your blog. There's me, obviously, but then I can see when my dad visits, and also that people from Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Weifang in China have visited, as well as people from Copenhagen, Denmark, Boston, Massachusetts, and Fairfax, Virginia.
So hello! And welcome. Leave a comment sometime!
Friday, February 9, 2007
Hoover Institute Fellow Named Asst. Secretary of Ed
Quelle surprise. Bush named Bill Evers, Hoover Institute (a conservative think-tank) to be the new assistant secretary of education for planning, evaluation, and policy development. He's well-versed in the school accountability rhetoric.
I actually have favorable feelings to the Hoover Institute; they've published some interesting work on Florida schools that I feel has merit.
One interesting note... he served in Iraq in 2003 as a senior advisor to Paul Bremer, and wrote about Iraq's "Constitutional Crossroads" in the National Review on 8/15/07. Bang up job as an education advisor, it seems, given that the University of Bagdhad is so safe and all. Maybe he was focusing on K-12 (or the Iraqi equivalent).
I actually have favorable feelings to the Hoover Institute; they've published some interesting work on Florida schools that I feel has merit.
One interesting note... he served in Iraq in 2003 as a senior advisor to Paul Bremer, and wrote about Iraq's "Constitutional Crossroads" in the National Review on 8/15/07. Bang up job as an education advisor, it seems, given that the University of Bagdhad is so safe and all. Maybe he was focusing on K-12 (or the Iraqi equivalent).
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Fighting Monolingualism
This article in the Guardian reports that the British Academy is calling for students to speak a second language as a requirement for university entry. The article points out an important idea - if we don't have language-proficient students coming out of university (and that's awfully late for them to start learning a language), then we won't have elementary and secondary teachers to teach languages. And then the problem continues.
Lord Dearing (I guess that means he's in the house of Lords... not too clear/interested about British political organization) is working on a report about languages. You can read a copy of the report... or at least the preliminary findings.
I always question what policy makers mean by "speak a second language." Everyone can agree on the general idea of speaking second languages, but the devil always lies in the details. What level? Level 2? Level 5? Does "speak" include both written and oral/aural (speaking/listening) components? Who does the testing? What about heritage speakers of language who may have lower levels of literacy but are fluent speakers? Which curriculum should be used to help students reach the desired level of fluency? And what's that desired level of fluency again?
I'm also reminded of what people generally tell me when it comes up that I was a French teacher. "Oh, I took French in high school," they say. "Can't speak a word of it now." People don't generally tell you that they took math in high school and now can't add. What's amazing is that they're often proud of their second language illiteracy.
Lord Dearing (I guess that means he's in the house of Lords... not too clear/interested about British political organization) is working on a report about languages. You can read a copy of the report... or at least the preliminary findings.
I always question what policy makers mean by "speak a second language." Everyone can agree on the general idea of speaking second languages, but the devil always lies in the details. What level? Level 2? Level 5? Does "speak" include both written and oral/aural (speaking/listening) components? Who does the testing? What about heritage speakers of language who may have lower levels of literacy but are fluent speakers? Which curriculum should be used to help students reach the desired level of fluency? And what's that desired level of fluency again?
I'm also reminded of what people generally tell me when it comes up that I was a French teacher. "Oh, I took French in high school," they say. "Can't speak a word of it now." People don't generally tell you that they took math in high school and now can't add. What's amazing is that they're often proud of their second language illiteracy.
Playing the Name Game
I received an email from my dad that was interesting and that brought me back to a class about links between foundations, funding, and activist groups I took last year. Since he reads this blog regularly :), I figured writing about it here is just as good as responding to him by email!
Emails that accompanied the video link all testified to its veracity and objectivity. So I checked it out, and immediately noticed in the intro the name of an author and an institution. So before watching the rest of the video, I looked up the organization. It's called NumbersUSA and suggests that visitors "Use this website to fight the U.S. population threat to environment, farmland, community quality of life, schools, wage fairness, and freedom." The text is on a background of snow-covered mountains (and they're based in Virginia... hmm. However, many people with the organization are from Colorado. Guess that explains the mountains.)
NumbersUSA has been around, at least according to tax records, since 2002. Now there are two organizations, NumbersUSA Action and NumbersUSA Education and Research Foundation. It's probably for a tax purpose that they have two organizations. In any case, it looks as if they paid their director Roy Beck $105,050 last year. Nobody else who works there seems to have been paid, though. That doesn't really matter, I guess, but I did find it interesting. Now, where does that money come from?
The only contributing group I could find, through mediatransparency.org (full disclosure: generally seen as a left-leaning website) was the Sarah Scaife Foundation, a group funded by the Mellon industrial oil and banking fortune (primarily through stock holdings in Gulf oil). You can see the Media Transparency profile of the Sarah Scaife Foundation as well. Now, people are allowed to do what they will with their money, including influence legislation. And the more money you have, the more you can influence legislation. I don't always like it, but that's the way our oligarchic-capitalistic society works. And I am free to refute your research findings - it's the beauty of the First Amendment. I do think it is important to know where information comes from, though, before making an ultimate decision on it.
I do find it interesting that in their list of links, the site has a link and an essay called "No to Immigrant Bashing," and when you watch the video, the speaker emphasizes this point.
The video itself focuses on numbers - numbers of immigrants, numbers of "native" born Americans, and the growth in these populations over the next several years based on census data. Mr. Beck, author and director of the center, also does this demonstration with jawbreakers, each one representing one million people from the third world. Basically, he argues visually that even though a million people from the developing world could come to America to have a better life each year, billions more would still be in their own countries suffering.
I have no doubt that Mr. Beck used real census data to come up with his presentation. However, data and numbers have no meaning outside of the context in which they are presented. As I watched the video, I kept thinking, "What's happening to the world population during this same time period?" (roughly the next 100 years). If the world population is exploding, I have no doubt the U.S. will experience the same amount of pressure. At some point, we're all going to have to learn how to share our resources regardless.
Emails that accompanied the video link all testified to its veracity and objectivity. So I checked it out, and immediately noticed in the intro the name of an author and an institution. So before watching the rest of the video, I looked up the organization. It's called NumbersUSA and suggests that visitors "Use this website to fight the U.S. population threat to environment, farmland, community quality of life, schools, wage fairness, and freedom." The text is on a background of snow-covered mountains (and they're based in Virginia... hmm. However, many people with the organization are from Colorado. Guess that explains the mountains.)
NumbersUSA has been around, at least according to tax records, since 2002. Now there are two organizations, NumbersUSA Action and NumbersUSA Education and Research Foundation. It's probably for a tax purpose that they have two organizations. In any case, it looks as if they paid their director Roy Beck $105,050 last year. Nobody else who works there seems to have been paid, though. That doesn't really matter, I guess, but I did find it interesting. Now, where does that money come from?
The only contributing group I could find, through mediatransparency.org (full disclosure: generally seen as a left-leaning website) was the Sarah Scaife Foundation, a group funded by the Mellon industrial oil and banking fortune (primarily through stock holdings in Gulf oil). You can see the Media Transparency profile of the Sarah Scaife Foundation as well. Now, people are allowed to do what they will with their money, including influence legislation. And the more money you have, the more you can influence legislation. I don't always like it, but that's the way our oligarchic-capitalistic society works. And I am free to refute your research findings - it's the beauty of the First Amendment. I do think it is important to know where information comes from, though, before making an ultimate decision on it.
I do find it interesting that in their list of links, the site has a link and an essay called "No to Immigrant Bashing," and when you watch the video, the speaker emphasizes this point.
The video itself focuses on numbers - numbers of immigrants, numbers of "native" born Americans, and the growth in these populations over the next several years based on census data. Mr. Beck, author and director of the center, also does this demonstration with jawbreakers, each one representing one million people from the third world. Basically, he argues visually that even though a million people from the developing world could come to America to have a better life each year, billions more would still be in their own countries suffering.
I have no doubt that Mr. Beck used real census data to come up with his presentation. However, data and numbers have no meaning outside of the context in which they are presented. As I watched the video, I kept thinking, "What's happening to the world population during this same time period?" (roughly the next 100 years). If the world population is exploding, I have no doubt the U.S. will experience the same amount of pressure. At some point, we're all going to have to learn how to share our resources regardless.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Update on the Internship thing
Happy Superbowl. I'd be watching it, but I can't see through the foggy camera lenses.
I was wrong about the reasons why internships during the school year aren't allowed for our majors. Apparently, it has to do with the faculty members - since a faculty member must be the one to supervise the internship, many departments no longer allow their teachers to do it. Supervising internships takes away from the academic subjects the students need to learn during the school year. Since so many departments stopped allowing it, to not disadvantage the other majors, it became a school-wide policy.
That's the story. But try explaining it to the one guy who wants the internship during the year, because Merrill Lynch won't pay him to do cold calling but they still want free labor. It appears clear to me who the real culprit is here.
I was wrong about the reasons why internships during the school year aren't allowed for our majors. Apparently, it has to do with the faculty members - since a faculty member must be the one to supervise the internship, many departments no longer allow their teachers to do it. Supervising internships takes away from the academic subjects the students need to learn during the school year. Since so many departments stopped allowing it, to not disadvantage the other majors, it became a school-wide policy.
That's the story. But try explaining it to the one guy who wants the internship during the year, because Merrill Lynch won't pay him to do cold calling but they still want free labor. It appears clear to me who the real culprit is here.
Friday, February 2, 2007
Bureaucracy and Democracy
The problem with bureaucracy is that people create it to avoid work. Because of that, bureaucracy works for most people, most of the time, but not every person is always going to be happy, get what they want... in fact, I think there is a large chunk of people who get underserved by bureaucracy.
The word bureaucracy comes from the French "bureau" (desk/office), and the Greek "-cracy" meaning rule. Since I don't know Greek, or anything about Greece, I'll stick to the French. "Bureau" means desk. One of the quotations in the Oxford English Dictionary uses "office tyranny" to describe bureaucracy. And that's exactly what it is. It's a bunch of little people in little offices with little rules, and something about the whole process makes all people petty.
Why do bureaucracies develop? Basically, there are so many people and problems to treat, and only so many hours in the day. So a bureaucracy begins to form. It begins with a few forms that people have to fill out, and a few policies to make things run more smoothly. The problem arises when you have several bureaucratic organizations with several different, sometimes conflicting, sets of policies and paperwork.
Case in point - where I work, we only allow our majors to do internships in the summertime. I'm not actually sure why that policy developed, but I'm sure it arose out of experience. Students may have been doing internships during the school year, and it impacted their schoolwork. So they tried to drop classes after the drop/add date but appealed so they wouldn't receive a penalty in their grade. This, of course, is not an excuse to drop a course after a drop/add date (normally the only thing that counts is a death in the immediate family, extreme illness, etc). Yet if the school allows their majors to do such a thing... you see where this gets us. It's not difficult, once you get to know students and how they operate, how these policies develop.
Let's take a conflicting policy, however. A student is offered an internship at a high-power financial firm, like Morgan Stanley or Barclay's. For liability reasons, the company can not employ the student without compensation. Compensation can include pay, which costs the company money, or it can include college credit, for which the student pays and costs the company nothing.
You see where the conflict begins to develop. The student cannot do the internship unless he receives credit, yet for various policy reasons (often developed because previous students abused privilege), he cannot get credit. So he calls the front desk of the advising office (i.e. me) to complain, asks for the dean, calls the career center, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The next step (which I'm waiting for now) is for him to have his parents call us.
Bureaucracy. It's not democracy, that's for sure.
The word bureaucracy comes from the French "bureau" (desk/office), and the Greek "-cracy" meaning rule. Since I don't know Greek, or anything about Greece, I'll stick to the French. "Bureau" means desk. One of the quotations in the Oxford English Dictionary uses "office tyranny" to describe bureaucracy. And that's exactly what it is. It's a bunch of little people in little offices with little rules, and something about the whole process makes all people petty.
Why do bureaucracies develop? Basically, there are so many people and problems to treat, and only so many hours in the day. So a bureaucracy begins to form. It begins with a few forms that people have to fill out, and a few policies to make things run more smoothly. The problem arises when you have several bureaucratic organizations with several different, sometimes conflicting, sets of policies and paperwork.
Case in point - where I work, we only allow our majors to do internships in the summertime. I'm not actually sure why that policy developed, but I'm sure it arose out of experience. Students may have been doing internships during the school year, and it impacted their schoolwork. So they tried to drop classes after the drop/add date but appealed so they wouldn't receive a penalty in their grade. This, of course, is not an excuse to drop a course after a drop/add date (normally the only thing that counts is a death in the immediate family, extreme illness, etc). Yet if the school allows their majors to do such a thing... you see where this gets us. It's not difficult, once you get to know students and how they operate, how these policies develop.
Let's take a conflicting policy, however. A student is offered an internship at a high-power financial firm, like Morgan Stanley or Barclay's. For liability reasons, the company can not employ the student without compensation. Compensation can include pay, which costs the company money, or it can include college credit, for which the student pays and costs the company nothing.
You see where the conflict begins to develop. The student cannot do the internship unless he receives credit, yet for various policy reasons (often developed because previous students abused privilege), he cannot get credit. So he calls the front desk of the advising office (i.e. me) to complain, asks for the dean, calls the career center, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The next step (which I'm waiting for now) is for him to have his parents call us.
Bureaucracy. It's not democracy, that's for sure.
NCLB
I received an email this morning that a hearing for the No Child Left Behind reauthorization will take place in the Senate on Thursday, Feb. 8 in 216 Hart Building at 10am. It came from my department listserv... and I thought, wow, you guys are actually interested in something taking place inside the Beltway?
I'm catty. Oh well.
In case you wanted to attend or listen online/on CSPAN, there you go!
I'm catty. Oh well.
In case you wanted to attend or listen online/on CSPAN, there you go!
Thursday, February 1, 2007
No Chinese
Wow. I have to say that today has been just plain awful. And not even any snow to make class tonight go away.
In any case, the Palo Alto school board has rejected a Chinese plan for two classrooms, mostly because it's "undemocratic" and wouldn't be offered to everyone. That most of these programs start small and grow seems beyond them. Plus, couldn't they do a lottery of everyone who is interested? It seems that's a nice compromise between democracy and starting the new program. Or, don't do the program at all. Ok, I see how that's... better?
"Palo Alto Board Rejects Classes in Mandarin." (McKinley, J. The New York Times. Feb. 1, 2007.)
In any case, the Palo Alto school board has rejected a Chinese plan for two classrooms, mostly because it's "undemocratic" and wouldn't be offered to everyone. That most of these programs start small and grow seems beyond them. Plus, couldn't they do a lottery of everyone who is interested? It seems that's a nice compromise between democracy and starting the new program. Or, don't do the program at all. Ok, I see how that's... better?
"Palo Alto Board Rejects Classes in Mandarin." (McKinley, J. The New York Times. Feb. 1, 2007.)
Barbaric Yawp
Actually, it's more like a barbaric yawn. You know, a really loud one.
So I've recently realized that I often feature opinion articles in the guise of news, and make no distinction between them and news stories. It seems that news and opinion bleed together these days anyway, but I'll try now to do a better job of distinguishing them for you.
Today in the Washington Post, conservative columnist George Will wrote about school choice at Sumner Elementary School, the historical landmark famous for rejecting Linda Brown in 1950 from enrolling, thus leading to the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Will compares the rejection of Linda Brown by Sumner then to the school board's rejection now of a charter school that wishes to use the now closed school facility.
While the comparison is obviously one designed to provoke, Will does make an interesting point that liberal activists such as the ACLU are often behind opposition to charter schools. I think the liberal view stems from two ideological points: 1) public schools which serve all should be the principle recipients of state/federal funding for education, rather than a loosely-supervised network of sectarian, non-sectarian, and other schools; and 2) the funding that might go to sectarian schools would violate the separation of church and state that while it is not in the Constitution per se, is protected as many see by the First Amendment clause that the state shall establish no religion.
What the liberal activists don't acknowledge is that minority groups underserved by the public school systems in many areas have a strong desire to have more school choice. The system as it is established now makes it so the only people who benefit from the best public schools schools are those who can afford the property taxes to live in those districts, and the upper echelon don't even bother with the public schools, regardless of the high property tax they pay. They send their kids to private schools where they can mingle with others like themselves.
My issue with charter schools and school choice at the moment is that small schools don't allow for diverse subjects to be taught, because the schools just don't have the resources. So which subjects suffer? Art, music, and foreign language. Plus the evidence is inconclusive that small schools work better; this article from Business Week about a Gates Foundation funded school outside of Denver provides an interesting case study.
That's my thought for this morning. Back to being the fall guy for professors who don't want to let students into their classes, and to being told I can't go to the bathroom by my professor. What a life. I can't wait to have a real job.
"A Tide for School Choice." (Will, G. The Washington Post. Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007. Page A15.)
So I've recently realized that I often feature opinion articles in the guise of news, and make no distinction between them and news stories. It seems that news and opinion bleed together these days anyway, but I'll try now to do a better job of distinguishing them for you.
Today in the Washington Post, conservative columnist George Will wrote about school choice at Sumner Elementary School, the historical landmark famous for rejecting Linda Brown in 1950 from enrolling, thus leading to the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Will compares the rejection of Linda Brown by Sumner then to the school board's rejection now of a charter school that wishes to use the now closed school facility.
While the comparison is obviously one designed to provoke, Will does make an interesting point that liberal activists such as the ACLU are often behind opposition to charter schools. I think the liberal view stems from two ideological points: 1) public schools which serve all should be the principle recipients of state/federal funding for education, rather than a loosely-supervised network of sectarian, non-sectarian, and other schools; and 2) the funding that might go to sectarian schools would violate the separation of church and state that while it is not in the Constitution per se, is protected as many see by the First Amendment clause that the state shall establish no religion.
What the liberal activists don't acknowledge is that minority groups underserved by the public school systems in many areas have a strong desire to have more school choice. The system as it is established now makes it so the only people who benefit from the best public schools schools are those who can afford the property taxes to live in those districts, and the upper echelon don't even bother with the public schools, regardless of the high property tax they pay. They send their kids to private schools where they can mingle with others like themselves.
My issue with charter schools and school choice at the moment is that small schools don't allow for diverse subjects to be taught, because the schools just don't have the resources. So which subjects suffer? Art, music, and foreign language. Plus the evidence is inconclusive that small schools work better; this article from Business Week about a Gates Foundation funded school outside of Denver provides an interesting case study.
That's my thought for this morning. Back to being the fall guy for professors who don't want to let students into their classes, and to being told I can't go to the bathroom by my professor. What a life. I can't wait to have a real job.
"A Tide for School Choice." (Will, G. The Washington Post. Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007. Page A15.)
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