Monday, May 9, 2011

One of "Those" News Days

I'm sorry, but I'm really having trouble getting into writing about the stories and links I accumulated over the weekend. The nasty boys at the LA Times are at it again with an expanded, value-added rating of Los Angeles elementary teachers. The space shuttle Endeavour's launch has been delayed again to no sooner than May 16. (Better safe than sorry, but still disappointing.) Mitch Daniels and Tony Bennett continue to pat themselves and the state legislature on the back for their rape of public education in Indiana, even though good folks like the Terre Haute Tribune-Star's editor, Max Jones, are a bit more circumspect about the chances of Daniels and Bennett's "reforms" improving anything. And Anthony Cody has published another justified rip of Arne Duncan's letter to teachers and the Department of Education's apparent tin ear to the outcry from parents and teachers over the Obama Administration's misguided plan for school "reform."

There's just not a lot there to make someone say, "Boy, I'm glad it's Monday, and I get to teach today."

On the positive side, I did run across a relatively new, free app that might be useful in science classes, but I can't seem to make it work. And Ball State University has lured away Susan Wilczynksi, a nationally known autism expert, from her post as executive director of the National Autism Center, "to help teachers, parents and service providers weed through the maze of dietary, medical and behavioral therapies."

Maybe I just spent too much time out in the sun yesterday and cooked what little remains of my senior brain after 30+ years in the classroom. I obviously have a problem since I can't seem to agree with any of the big name folks pushing education "reform" in this country. I find myself on the wrong side of the fence from our President, his Secretary of Education, the Gates, Broad, and Walton Foundations, and many celebrities and think tank folks. Despite most of them having never taught a day, they have THE ANSWER.

Getting back to that positive side once again, I did get our brassicas mulched yesterday. I also thinned the radishes that served as a nurse crop for our carrots. I may actually title my posting tomorrow on Senior Gardening, The Radish Murders. (Hey, I eat about four radishes a year, as opposed to pounds and pounds of carrots!)

Maybe something really positive and educationally newsworthy will show up later on today. But then, I may miss it because I'm out in the garden again...possibly butchering more innocent vegetables.

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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Quick First Look

I'm still buried under home chores, gardening, and yard work, but here's a quick first look at what may prove interesting in education news today:

• The Washington Post: L.A. Times rates teachers again, unfortunately by Valerie Strauss
• The Washington Post: DCPS teachers get "excessing" notices by Bill Turque
• The New York Times: Study in Korea Puts Autism’s Prevalence at 2.6%, Surprising Experts by Claudia Wallis
• eSchool News: Schools see rising scores with iPads
• Education Week: Conservative "Manifesto" Blasts Shared Curriculum,Tests by Catherine Gewertz
• Science Nation: 3D Proteins - Getting the Big Picture
• Education Week: Early Education a Priority of New Federal Grant Pool by Michele McNeil
• Huffington Post: Microsoft Buys Skype For $8.5 Billion
• PR Newswire: Education Nation On-The-Road Comes To Los Angeles

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Another Quick Look

• Education Week: Why Won't "Reformers" Listen? by Diane Ravitch
• The Washington Post: How deceptive is this letter from Rhee’s organization? by Valerie Strauss
• Associated Press: Groups take to the airwaves to attract teachers by Dave Kolpack

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Now What Do We Do With Him?

Part of the following is a "column start" from last fall that I'd set aside to work on when I got around to it. (One of our school secretaries used to pass out wooden round2its.)

I was attending the Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA) representative assembly in 1989, just a few short months after the association had mightily helped Democrat Evan Bayh win the governorship in one of the reddest of red states. The assembly had lasted from early afternoon into the wee hours of the morning, as we had gone through several ballots to "throw the bums out" and elect a new president for the union.

The state legislature was still in session that night, wrangling over the state budget. Delegates from the assembly were being regularly dispatched to lobby legislators and the governor. But our then new governor held fast to his fiscal conservatism when it came to increased funding for schools.

Sometime after midnight, our new ISTA President took the podium and said of the new governor, "Well, we elected the son-of-a-bitch. Now what do we do with him?"

Fast forwarding to today, teachers across America should be asking themselves the same question about our President. Without support from teachers across America who believed Mr. Obama would live up to his promises of ending the craziness of No Child Left Behind, Barack Obama might now be an ex-senator who once ran for president. Instead, with the support of teachers who canvassed, advertised, and helped swell the grassroots movement for the young Senator, he became the 45th President of the United States.

The question of what to do with a Democratic President who really has betrayed the teachers across the country who helped elect him was moved center stage last week by the National Education Association's political action committee. It "issued a recommendation to its 3.2 million members that they back Obama in the 2012 campaign during representative assembly meetings that will take place this July."

I didn't get very far with my column start, as I don't really know what teachers should do. There isn't a viable Tom Harkin-like, educationally sound Democrat to challenge the President's hopes for re-nomination and re-election, or at least drive him back to policies that are not detrimental to our public schools. And the other side is still flirting with candidacies from the likes of Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who is clearly not a friend of students, parents, teachers, and public education. Daniels is for...well, for Mitch Daniels.

The articles, columns, and blogs linked below pretty well cover the issues, so I won't go over them again here. But don't look for an endorsement for the President here on Educators' News anytime soon!

• The Huffington Post: Obama's Stimulus Reaps Rewards: Major Education Union Begins 2012 Endorsement by Sam Stein
• Daily Kos: NEA moves to endorse Obama, and I react by Kenneth Bernstein
• The New York Times: N.E.A. Advances Endorsement for Obama in 2012 by Steven Greenhouse
• Education Week: NEA On Track to Endorse Obama by Stephen Sawchuk
• The Washington Post: NEA leaders opt to endorse Obama -- and get some pushback by Valerie Strauss

Update on the New York Times Subscription Service

As I wrote in March in No Thanks for Now, I opted not to participate in the new Times Digital Subscriptions. So far, I've not found myself going over the limit for reading Times' content for free, but I also follow links from search pages and other publications, use multiple computers, multiple browsers, and one browser that I clear the cache and cookies from after each use!

What I have found, though, is that I'm somewhat reluctant to follow links to stories from the Times' home page. If my browsing habits are any way indicative of the average user's habits, the Times' is going to suffer in the number of hits on articles and advertising impressions because of their new subscription model. While not as restrictive as their previous pay-for-content attempt, New York Times Select, the result may be similar. When ending TimesSelect in 2007, they wrote, "We believe offering unfettered access to New York Times reporting and analysis best serves the interest of our readers, our brand and the long-term vitality of our journalism."

How to remain a viable voice and still turn a profit continues to be a challenge for print and online news outlets. It's not something new, as I wrote about it in 2002 in The Tin Cup Syndrome as subscription models applied to Mac-specific web sites.

Odds 'n' Ends

I'm still in full, flat out gardening mode these days. The weather has cleared and the ground dried enough that I'm busy with outdoor chores to the detriment of updates to this site. As long as the weather and my aching, old bones cooperate, I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Friday, May 13, 2011

With all the gardening I'm doing these days, I still find time to take a peek at what is going on in education news. Deborah Meier's Here's Why They Don't Listen tells of the "billionaire boys club" agenda for public education and why "the issues we raise are truly not important to them."

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a statement yesterday in support of pending legislation in Illinois that was crafted by "business, unions, educators, advocates and elected officials." It appears the parties actually listened to each other and worked collaboratively to put a new education bill on the governor's desk for signature.

As expected, Cheri Daniels, speaking at a state Republican Party fundraiser in Indiana, didn't reveal anything about whether her husband will try for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

Today's editorial in the Terre Haute Tribune-Star, High praise for Terre Haute South academics, is some welcome, positive education news. Interestingly, our governor who has denigrated public schools and their teachers throughout his terms, was on hand to give the Indiana Mr. Science award. South is part of the Vigo County Schools, a corporation that has mightily resisted the gov's school "reforms."

I'm getting close to having our garden "in." Getting our melons planted yesterday was a big job, as the field we use for "space hogs" such as melons, squash, and sweet corn is heavy clay soil.

I still have the bulk of our tomatoes and peppers to get in, although I did put inb a few at the ends of the rows of melons. Our East Garden (above and left inset) is far enough away from our main garden (right inset) that I can grow open pollinated tomatoes and peppers there without fear of the plants crossing with the varieties we grow in our main garden. We offer seed each year for Moira tomatoes, Earliest Red Sweet peppers, and Japanese Long Pickling cucumbers via the Seed Savers Exchange annual yearbook.

And to add a bit more color to this page, the image at right is of a hardy little cosmos that got bitten off several times before I got busy and spread blood meal around the main garden to keep the deer away.

Have a great weekend!

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