A Perfect Mesh of Common Core Curriculum and New Technology in the Classroom

Look:  a Greek temple of knowledge.
Somehow Socrates, Plato and Aristotle all managed without Common Core Curriculum.

WE VISIT A TYPICAL AMERICAN CLASSROOM in the not too distant future:

April 1, 2020: Two highly paid consultants, one from Wireless Generation, a leading company in the sale of education software, the other from Pearson, a major player in the giant testing industry, are sitting in on John Galt’s seventh grade American history class. Neither one has ever taught but they are here to assess how new technology, guaranteed to boost standardized test scores, is functioning. Did we just say, “Boost test scores?”

We meant, “To enhance true learning.”

Several surveillance cameras, all set to follow Galt’s every move, are running in the room. This is part of the push to improve schools by focusing entirely on teachers. Because, let’s face it. The only person who matters in the room is the teacher.

That’s what leading education reformers say.

In this classroom every child has his or her own computer—purchased at great expense from Amplify, a division of Wireless Generation. (Corporate Philosophy of Education: No Dollar Left Behind.) Galt and all his students are hooked to electrodes. Today, the class is trying to hold a discussion about the battle for women’s rights in the 1800s.

“Mr. Galt,” a student named Dagney inquires, “I’ve been wondering. Who were the leaders in the fight for equality?”

“One would be Susan B. Anthony,” Galt responds gingerly. He consults his computer to be sure she is specifically mentioned in the Common Core Curriculum. She is. “Susan B. Anthony may be on the new standardized tests being designed right now. The other leader, who will not be on the test, would be Eliza…” Before he can finish his sentence the electrodes attached to his scalp deliver a powerful shock. The smell of singed hair fills the room.

(He was going to say: “Elizabeth Cady Stanton.”)

Every student receives a flashing red warning on their computer screen: DANGER! MATERIAL NOT INCLUDED ON STANDARDIZED TEST! DANGER! A voice similar to HAL, the deranged computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, delivers the message verbally, as well.

Joaquin, seated in the desk closest to the door, waits for Galt to recover. He raises a hand to add to the discussion. “I can’t understand why women weren’t granted equal rights when the U. S. Constitution was first written. My grandmother once told...”

That boy should have known better! A loud buzzing noise, followed by Joaquin’s spastic jerking, and another computer warning, teaches Joaquin and all his curious classmates an important lesson. If it can’t be tested…it isn’t education.

Carolyn wants to know: “What year did women finally win the right to vote?” ZAPPPPPP. Another shock for a foolish student. Again, computers flash the warning: DANGER! MATERIAL NOT INCLUDED ON STANDARDIZED TEST! DANGER!

Galt wants to answer. He wants to say “1920,” and note that his mother was in kindergarten by the time men got around to giving women the vote. He wants to say to the girls in the room, “Just think. In all the long centuries of human history the dumbest man walking the face of the earth had more rights than any female on the face of the globe.” Galt used to use this line—before Common Core—and remembers how it always riled up the ladies in class and got them interested. Now he knows if it’s not on the test it doesn’t matter. Considering that Ohio enacted laws in 2013 to tie teacher pay to test scores, maybe it’s all for the best.

Still, he’s a professional. He wants his kids to learn. “It wasn’t just women who couldn’t vote. Poor white men…”

That’s as far as he gets. Another shock is administered and Galt jumps where he stands like a fish on an electrified line.

He’s a stubborn man where learning is involved. He tries again, disguising his reply: “No vote. Pale skin. Poor…” ZAPPPPPP. The computer gets wise to what he’s doing and delivers a fresh jolt.

The consultant from Pearson makes a note: “May need to increase voltage.”

Perhaps in his confusion, Galt forgets where he is, in a modern U. S. classroom, with all the reforms of recent years welded into place. He forgets he’s expected to follow a script. He is going to tell students that in the summer of 1964, Congress debated a massive civil rights bill designed to guarantee equal treatment to people of all colors, religions, and ethnic backgrounds. He is going to explain that Representative Howard W. Smith from Virginia stepped forward to block the legislation. Smith feared a world in which blacks might win equal rights. So Smith devised a clever ruse to derail the bill. He suggested on the floor of the House that the word “sex” be added to the bill. Surely, no sane person could vote for a bill which granted equal rights to blacks and women!

Yet they did.

Galt is going to tell this story because he thinks it reveals the ludicrous nature of prejudice in all its forms. He tries to get it out by talking fast—telling the story at preternatural speed—and the cameras and electrodes and the computer are baffled for precious seconds. He gets in “summer of 1964” and “Howard W. Smith” but when he mentions the word “sex” the system catches up and gives him a stunning jolt.

When the smoke around his head finally clears he sees a brave young man in the front row put up a hand. He wants to ask a question about gay marriage and discrimination. But he decides it’s not worth the risk and lowers his hand.

Galt tells the class he needs to sit a moment and regain his wits. He consults his own materials, prepared over the course of his forty-five years in front of a class, and tries to figure out what he’s really allowed to cover. He has a lengthy reading prepared on the fight for women’s rights—but he realizes that on a standardized test there won’t be more than a single question on this topic. Should he then include extra material? If his classes learn—but what they learn isn’t tested—does that still count as learning?

IF SOMEONE ASKS A QUESTION IN THE FOREST and the tree falls on his head and no one hears the answer does it matter? Isn’t that how the riddle goes?

Maybe there’s still some way to slip this reading past the censors. He knows that students have always found it interesting. It reads in part:

The ideal woman [in the 1800s] was a wife and mother. And wives must be content within this sphere. One expert on women—a man, of course—argued that bed-making was “good exercise.” He continued: “There is more to be learned about pouring out tea and coffee than most young ladies are willing to believe.” 

“A woman is a nobody,” one newspaper commented. “A wife is everything.”

The handout continues in the same way for several pages. One writer compared men to elm trees and women to ivy vines, needing a man to lean on for support. Of course, a husband controlled all property, including a wife's paycheck (if any). Should the couple divorce he gained automatic custody of any children. Judges also upheld the right of husbands to beat their wives for nagging and various other faults. A Massachusetts judge, however, did order that the man not use a stick any bigger around than his thumb.

At this point—in an era before standardized everything, standardized tests, standardized texts, and standardized humanity—Galt would have illustrated the point by picking up his pointer and whipping it through the air. The “whooshing” noise would make it clear how much damage a rod of such thickness could do.


Now, Galt knows better. Too much depth. Depth has nothing to do with Common Core Curriculum. Depth of knowledge can’t be tested.

Then Galt thinks about all the damage the fools who claim to be fixing education have done and it makes him angry to the core. (Irony intended.) Like all good teachers, he has dedicated himself to imparting as much knowledge as he possibly can. He is determined to broaden today’s discussion. He will tell his classes how bad it was for women in this country even in the 1960s and 70s. He will explain how his old high school tried to start a girl’s track team in 1967, and how everyone thought the idea was absurd. Only two girls showed up to try out. Galt will emphasize how much attitudes—what we think we can do and what we think we cannot do—shape our lives. He believes this is a lesson he can impart to students. He feels it in his bones. He feels the lesson matters.

They will discuss the idea that women were once considered too delicate to run long distances. He will throw out the example of Paula Radcliffe, who set the record for women in 2003, running the London Marathon in 2 hours and 15 minutes, a pace of 5:10 per mile.

He thinks he can plant a seed, hint to all the girls that they should take on any challenge…and Galt will make it clear the same attitude equally applies to boys.

“When I was in high school,” he begins.

ZAAAAP.

“They said girls were too weak…”

ZAAAAAAAAAAP!

“Paula Radcliffe…”

ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!

Student computers are blinking wildly:  DANGER! NON-STANDARDIZED LEARNING! EVILTEACH! BADEDUCATOR! HORRORKNOWLEDGE! ACADEMICKILL! DANGER! DANGER! LEARNING DOES NOT COMPUTE!

Galt is lying on the floor. He looks bad. He raises his head slightly and gasps:  “Women…marathon…”

ZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!

The consultants shoot each other knowing looks. The Pearson rep makes a note to include one question on the standardized test about Susan B. Anthony. After all, you want the tests to align with the Common Core Curriculum.

Oh hell, who cares! Pearson is making hundreds of millions of dollars designing more and more standardized tests.

The consultant from Amplify is happy too. Galt is out cold. Now the kids have no choice but to rely on their computers for some warm student-machine interaction.

It’s U. S. education for the future.

Somehow this image seems more fitting when we talk about
school reform today.

Index of Education Posts

MISSION STATEMENT 

IF YOU CARE ABOUT America’s public schools, you may enjoy a few older posts.

Two years ago, I said in my very first entry (“Numbers Don’t Lie: Our Teachers and Doctors Are Failing”) that I planned to stand up for good teachers in every way possible, but never for bad ones.

I hold to that principle to this day. I would also note that most of America’s teachers are good.

If you are one of the good ones and have a topic that concerns you send me an email (vilejjv@yahoo.com). I’m curious what other teachers think. When I look at current reforms in education it appears to me experts are pushing disastrous policies. I can’t imagine how most of these “bold” policies are helping.

I am also convinced that it is time for good teachers to band together and start to fight back.

Our main foes are:

A) Arrogant reformers who don’t know anything about teaching and little about the needs of real children.

B) Politicians who know less than the reformers but mistake their arrogance for wisdom.

C) Critics who bash public school teachers—as if all 3,000,000 of us are a pathetic losers—and blame us for every problem in the schools.


Finally, I promise to say what I can to defend the true purpose of education. That purpose is to enhance maximum learning and personal growth for the maximum number of students in every way humanly possible.

INDEX OF EDUCATION POSTS 

If you only read one entry, I suggest the post listed second at right. (The link also follows at the end of this paragraph). In my most popular education article yet we consider the question: “How many school reformers does it take to fix a school?” (If you’re a real teacher you probably know the answer already.)

Other topics are listed below.

ARMING TEACHERS 

After the Newtown, Connecticut massacre I shared my thoughts on arming teachers. In 1985, one of my seventh grade students brought a gun to class, intending to shoot me and at least one classmate. So I have a particular interest in the topic.

The shooting at Chardon High (February 2012) tells us something about the problems teachers and students face in the real world.

BAD PARENTS 

In the summer of 2012 Johns Hopkins University released a study on student absenteeism. Every good teacher could have predicted the results.

My friend teaches in a poor school district. What could she do to save Carl if he lived with a mother whose mind was addled by drugs? (Carl’s father was long gone from the picture, of course.)

Some kids are homeless and others live with crazy parents. Which bold idea in school reform (standardized testing, vouchers, charter schools, etc.) comes closest to addressing the critical needs of such children?

See also: June 18, 2011. July 8, 2011. November 11, 2011.

BLAMING TEACHERS—FOR EVERYTHING 

Consider the ten great myths regarding this great nation’s public schools and public school teachers. (I debunk many of them in posts below.) Of course, if you’re a teacher you may be to dimwitted to read any of these articles. No, seriously. One of those myths is that we who teach are all morons.

Like all good teachers I did what I could to beat back the problems of society. It wasn’t easy when Kara admitted she was hooked on drugs and her friend Dominique turned up pregnant later.

Sometimes a careful look at numbers proves teachers aren’t failing. Maybe the society around them has issues.

Michelle Rhee, another one of our leading education reformers, once promised to use her broom and sweep out all the bad teachers in the Washington, D. C. schools. She failed to say what she would do about the students carrying knives.

Did know that America’s failing schools are undermining national security? I didn’t until I read an article in the New York Times.

BULLIES 

I had good success in reducing bullying. In this post I lay out a few of my better ideas. I was bullied myself in seventh grade so I always understood how it felt. (My time in the U. S. Marine Corps later helped me address bullies after I became a teacher.)

CHARTER SCHOOLS 

We know what happens when business interests run for-profit colleges. Crooks abound! It’s hard to see how they’ll do better when it comes to charter schools.

Actually, we already have evidence of what happens when shysters run charter schools. As an added bonus, you have a science curriculum that teaches kids the Loch Ness monster is actually a dinosaur.

Education experts love charter schools. It’s like a charter school—a building itself—can have magical powers. So: can charter schools save every child? What good does a charter school do in cases where parents are terrible?

One way to insure your charter school makes money and to get rid of kids with discipline issues at the same time: charge $140 for discipline packets when they get in trouble, like the Noble Schools in Chicago.

Once we set up more charter schools and hand out public funds we may get more than we bargained for in the way of religion.

CORPORATE SCHOOLS

If you bring business efficiency to public schools you’ll be introducing business morality too. What happens if businesses run charter schools the same way pharmaceutical companies market harmful drugs for children?

What could go wrong if Big Business starts running the public schools? Let the record of Big Business provide examples.

See also: June 30, 2011. November 4, 2011. June 8, 2012 (The latter focuses on shady dealings involving online charter schools.)

Corporate interests now have a foot in the door and hope to shape what happens in our public schools. This may not be a positive trend where Rupert Murdoch is involved.

Conservatives claim that the big problem in America’s schools is unions. We take a look at the great work sometimes done by business heroes to form a picture of how they might run schools.

EDUCATION EXPERTS 

In this satiric post we send education experts to the doctor to get advice from car mechanics and plumbers. I mean, it could work. After all, none of our leading education reformers has ever spent much time in a classroom!

Making fun of education experts is too easy. William Shakespeare explains what school reformers miss.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a leader in school reform circles, tells audiences that dumb teachers are the biggest issue in U. S. education today. What is it that the brilliant billionaire might be missing?

Do the bureaucrats in Washington, D. C. actually help or hinder real teachers and real students? Um...it depends on how important you think it is to take a goat census.

Here in Ohio—when it comes to school reform—we’re on round ten. The ideas the experts come up with are still dumb.

Saving every child is not as easy as the education experts make it sound. After all, someone has to teach all the gang members in Salinas, California.

EDUCATION, KEY TO SUCCESS

I thought the key to my success in the classroom and the key to my students’ success was obvious.

Is the problem in education that we don’t have enough standards on paper or is the key the standards individuals set for themselves?

You can write all the education standards you want. It’s like changing the food plate standards. Individual willpower is the key to losing weight.

GOOD TEACHERS, EXISTENCE OF 

Critics forget that there are hundreds of thousands of good teachers at work every day in this country. I asked former students to talk about educators who made a difference. They fill a series of posts with heartfelt comments.

January 31, 2012. January 15, 2012. January 13, 2012. January 10, 2012. January 5, 2012. July 12, 2012

GOOD TEACHERS; TEACH FOR AMERICA 

If you’re a public school teacher and not yet familiar with this program you might want to pay attention. The Teach for America approach has its virtues but too many of the people who run it and support it are puffed up with arrogance. The premise of the program is simple. The teachers we have are idiots. We need to recruit more teachers from Harvard and Yale. Smarter teachers will fix all our school problems.

GRADING SCHOOLS 

When do we give up on the idea that grading schools will solve our biggest problems? Maybe we need to grade society.

MERIT PAY 

Is it a good public policy to tie teacher pay to test scores? We consider the speech therapist who reaches an autistic child and finally helps her communicate.

How do you “measure” what it means when a teacher convinces a seventh grader he has the talent to go to college eventually? Joey provides an answer in a letter he writes to his old history teacher from the University of Kentucky.

You can argue that tying pay to test scores is a good idea. You just have to ignore basic truths about learning.

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND 

We’re now spending billions of dollars annually on all kinds of school reforms. So far, SAT scores have declined every year since No Child Left Behind was enacted in 2002. Scores reached record lows in 2012.

See also: September 19, 2011.

Scores on the National Assessment of Educational Performance have flat-lined in recent years. Leading reformers are puzzled.

PRAYER IN SCHOOL

It sounds like a good idea and seems harmless to many Americans. We might not like where it leads us.

RHEE, MICHELLE 

No school reformer has done more to damage the image of public school teachers in recent years than Ms. Rhee. (Even Oprah fell for Rhee’s self-serving line of baloney.) Rhee’s claim to fame rests on raising test scores in miraculous fashion. It turns out, however, that it was all a giant Ponzi scheme.

See also: July 6, 2011 (this post includes some of the same language as the post above but goes into greater detail on the cheating.)

How come if education reformers are so smart they don’t realize that teachers can’t reach kids who don’t come to school?

SCHOOL CRISIS

The whole concept that the nation’s public schools are failing (compared to schools in Finland and Japan) is wrong. So what if American students rank 25th in math!!!! What if the same kind of lists prove that America ranks 24th in life expectancy? Are hospitals in America failing?

You can use the lists to prove that our dietitians are awful and our judges are great.

You can prove anything with simple lists. I prove that America’s cops are terrible (even though that’s not true).

If you haven’t heard the U. S. economy is collapsing because our students are unprepared to compete in a global economy. How does this argument hold up if we’re losing jobs to Bangladesh, not Finland?

How do American kids catch up with South Korean kids in international competitions if the latter are devoting fourteen hours daily to their studies?

STANDARDIZED TESTING

What happens if I bring in fourteen combat veterans to speak to 700 students at my old school? It’s not standardized education and the experiences these veterans share can’t be “measured” on any standardized test.

What did it really mean when the worst stutterer I ever had in class spoke in front of his peers for an entire period and won a standing ovation? This was the kind of learning experience that matters.

In my class students were required to read a number of books for outside reading as a part of their grade. I wanted to engage as many kids in reading as possible; so I gave them hundreds of books to choose from. Is that standardized teaching? Comments by former students help provide a critical answer.

We’ve farted around with standardized tests for two decades. So: Should I focus on Shay’s Rebellion, as the State of Ohio now insists, or will my students be more likely to hear about “The American Dream” in years to come? And, if you like standardized tests, what do you about Songhai trade?

George Stranahan (who taught for half-a-century) addresses a number of critical issues in his book, A Predicament of Innocents. He shares my disdain for standardized testing.

If the tragedy of 9/11 happened today could I cover it the story in my history class in any detail? Nothing about current events can end up on a standardized test at the end of the year—and that means testing is crazy.

I confess to my sins: I wasn’t all that interested in teaching to the test. I hope Katy and Jenab forgive me.

See also: May 31, 2011.

I loved teaching because of what students learned to do with their talents and what I was able to do to help bring those talents out. By the way, this would be the antithesis of standardized learning.

Students don’t have standardized talents. They’re talented individuals.

Stephanie’s creative thinking shows us why a focus on standardized learning is the policy of the insane.

STUDENTS, FORMER

I’m Facebook friends with hundreds of former students. They keep me posted on what they’re doing and remind me why I liked teaching so much. There’s really nothing wrong with young people today and these guys prove it.

See also: February 26, 2012. March 24, 2013. March 26, 2013.

(This series of posts will be continued soon.)

TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM

New technology opens up new possibilities in any classroom. The battle to fire students with a desire for learning remains unchanged.

UNIONS, TEACHERS’ 

Fox News hates teachers’ unions. Fox News thinks public school teachers are lazy incompetents. Suddenly, Fox News loves poor down-trodden members of teachers’ unions? This tale is a head-scratcher.

Here in Ohio, lawmakers want teachers in “failing school districts” to start proving they’re not idiots. How is it that most of the “bad” teachers seem to end up working in the poorest schools in our nation?

Frank Bruni, writing in the New York Times, lays blame for the failure of school reform on recalcitrant teachers and their unions. The humble blogger explains why Mr. Bruni is full of goose stuffings.

Ever wonder why teachers need union protection? Consider the case of Miramonte Elementary School. (Two postings.)

Here in Ohio, if you listened to right-wingers talk, you’d think most members of teachers’ unions were ax murderers. Actually, we’re not.

VOUCHERS 

We need some school reformer or education expert to explain how vouchers help if a child’s problems are severe and begin and end at home.

If we have to have vouchers let’s do it right. Make private schools that accept them operate by the same exact rules as the public schools. That means they have to take everyone. In fact, if a private school is so much better, let’s allow the public schools to send them their most troubled students.

WAITING FOR SUPERMAN 

Want to know why this movie was so stupid? Consider what director Davis Guggenheim and the critics missed. 

Education always matters.
How best do we foster learning?

What One Student Rant by Jeff Bliss Doesn't Tell Us

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE NEWS REPORT AND VIDEO of Jeff Bliss going off on the teacher in his World History class, you should check out the link.

The “in-depth analysis” by Channel WFAA fills up two minutes and forty-one seconds of valuable air time. More than 3.8 million people have watched it. Thousands have felt a strange urge to comment. The actual rant lasts only ninety seconds. You can see the original on YouTube. It’s listed under the title: “Jeff Bliss Rant against Lazy Teacher.”

And here’s what’s so cool about this story.

All you need to do is invest a snippet of time. Once you finish you know all you need to know about U.S. education. You can be a school critic! That’s what many who enjoy this brief glimpse of life into one Texas classroom decide.

On one of the videos the “top comment” was: “That teacher ought to be fired.” It had 85 “likes” and no “dislikes” at all.

I added the first.

Admittedly, as a former educator, I watched the video and perused the comments with a bit of bias. I noticed, for example, that many newly-minted experts seemed minimally grounded in logic and reality. If anything, I felt bad because maybe schools aren’t doing a good job teaching critical thinking.

When I clicked on the “Lazy Teacher” video, for example, there were already 3,300 comments. Clearly, not all those who felt compelled to start typing spent as much time cogitating as they did whacking the keyboard with abandon  (click on the picture below to enlarge):

Don’t you love the internet—a place where ignorant individuals can call other human beings “niggerdumb” and make informed judgments about all the black kids in class “there for the easy ride” and “not learning jack shit,” and you can somehow tell a teacher is a “fucking fat feminist” and not even realize who really, really, sounds dumb?

It’s bad enough you get this kind of thinking from fools who comment via YouTube; but the Bliss clip has been featured on Fox News.

(Motto: We Hate Unionized Teachers—You Should Hate Them, Too!)

Again, we are dealing with ninety seconds of video, in one classroom, an incident involving one teacher and one student. We have not heard the teacher’s explanation and if we rely on Fox News we never will.

Logically, then, we can’t draw broad conclusions. Nevertheless, many of the Fox Faithful still do (although not all are sympathetic to Mr. Bliss and his predicament):

Donna Ramsey Bowen: The Unions have ruined our schools....among other things. Unions were great when they were started. Now, they hurt more than they help. Teachers are a good example of that. Teachers do not actually have to "teach" any longer and they cannot be fired because the Unions have all these regulations the school must follow first. Most Unions require someone to get in trouble at least 3 times - and it has to be for the Exact same thing - before they can be fired

Betty Shelton: Teachers have gotten lazy over the last 30 years. That is why kids can't read at grade level. And End of Grade Or End Of Course test are ignored and child is passed to the next grade or gradeuated.

Mary Long: Right ON! This is why we have nothing but Illiteracy in this country...Teachers care about their pay, not the students. Public Education needs to GO AWAY! We have a PATHETIC work force with Teachers and Unions across the board....All about the money....NO QUALITY in Education.

Debi Krupna Mielach: LOVE this kid!!! More passion in that short clip than that teacher probably showed in the entire school year. God bless you, Mr. Bliss. Don't lose your fire!


Here, I am thinking to myself. I am wondering how Debi sees through walls into other rooms and around corners, etc. I am thinking I’d like to be able to ask: “Ms. Mielach, if I have a video of you sitting on the toilet for ninety seconds does that prove you have been seated on the toilet all year?

That’s what, logically, I am thinking. Many other commentators are apparently typing as fast as they can, which is faster than they can think:

Arlene Parson: This kid has a future as a motivational speaker at a teacher's convention. Keep it up Mr. Bliss.

Josh Stringer: I hope she gets fired. She was only doing the minimum to get a paycheck. Most places I know you would get fired unless you work at mcdonalds.

Sean Denaris: Listen to the teacher sounds so bored. Likely class taught the same way. Wish more people would stand up.

Beth McKenna Wade: Kudos to this kid... Sadly "teachers" like this are common place in alot of our schools these days!!

Jason Robertson: paid leave? for get that you don't work you don't get paid. I can not stand unions they have screwed up my childhood, rrrrrr and who pays to have a teacher that is not working

(Okay, now we know that the Fox Message has been sinking in to plenty of otherwise empty heads. Unions are terrible. Union members are bums.)

I decide if I’m going to comment, I should know more. I watch several interviews. There are plenty. All feature Mr. Bliss, none let us hear from the teacher. Her name is Julie Phung.

Jeff Bliss comments on an incident at Duncanville High School in Texas.

Here’s what I notice:

1. During the original rant the rest of the class appears to be working.

2. Say what you want about the young man's message, his rant eats up ninety seconds of education for every other kid in the room.

3. Bliss is far angrier than the teacher—and if her responses seem tepid we cannot know how much she cares about teaching. (If you are a teacher you don’t want to have this sort of situation escalate. You want the student to exit the room quickly and you want the rest of the kids to remain on task.)

4. Most of the Bliss interviews cut off the last part of the rant. If Bliss sounds eloquent in spots he sounds belligerent at the end. Again, we don’t know what sentiments motivate him.

5. What precipitated this incident? At some point Phung told him to “stop bitchin’.” It’s in inelegant choice of words but in a high school not something kids and teachers don’t hear every day.

6. Apparently, Bliss wanted to know why his class hadn’t had more time to prepare for the STAR test, the Texas standardized tests. These are the kinds of tests good teachers hate, the kind most teachers feel are making education worse. Bliss is angry because his instructor keeps handing out packets—but in my final year in the classroom that’s what we were ordered to do. Keep using those packets, specially prepared by the State of Ohio in my case case, because we must raise test scores!


I HATE TO BREAK IT TO THE CRITICS, to young Bliss, or to school reformers, but you don’t measure “inspiration” with standardized testing.

I still have an abiding interest in the future of American education. So I watch several more interviews. Not a peep from Ms. Phung. I only hear what Bliss thinks. I discover that he is an 18-year-old sophomore. By admission, he has failed once, during his freshman year. Based on age, I assume he has been held back twice.

He started ninth grade a second time, lasted a semester, and dropped out.

Was Bliss previously a terrible student? Did he have attendance problems? Were there substance abuse issues or problems in the home? How is he doing now in other classes? Has he truly turned his life around? Is he working diligently? Or, is he a troublemaker and a loose cannon? From the evidence we possess we don’t know.

We do know Bliss is back in school. That speaks greatly to his credit.

I spend ten minutes watching the “Jeff Bliss’ Interview on Fox4.” I find myself liking some of what he says. His mother sounds nice and she doesn’t want the teacher fired. I notice that there is no mention of a father in any of the stories. I think that might tell us something.

I come away from this excursion into the world of YouTube and Facebook commentary still not feeling like I can make any judgments.

Well, except one.

I have noticed in recent years that bashing public school teachers and making wild claims—that America’s public schools are failing—all failing—and all failing because of unions—has now become a right-wing sport.

The only definitive statement I will make is that people who make broad generalizations based on limited evidence are ignorant. It’s like convicting someone of a murder that took place in Dallas because at the time of the crime the “suspect” was, in fact, a human being living anywhere in Texas.

I’m amazed by how many unenlightened individuals feel they can judge Ms. Phung after ninety seconds—and then compound their error by using one erroneous conclusion as foundation for another.

SOMEONE IN THIS COUNTRY NEEDS TO SPEAK UP for all the good teachers. Ms. Phung may be one.


P. S. Let us wish Mr. Bliss great success in all his future educational endeavors.

Emperor of A, B, C and D.

TO MAKE THE CASE AGAINST STANDARDIZED TESTING let me write as if I were still teaching today.

Imagine that I am in my thirty-third year in the classroom. Lately, all I hear is that my primary purpose is to “teach to the test.”

I am a veteran teacher, however. There is a right way to teach and a wrong way to teach. And I don’t want to be Emperor of A, B, C and D.

I want to teach right.

Again, I am a veteran educator. That means I tend to be skeptical because I’ve been around. When I first took a spot at the  front of the classroom there were no standardized tests. Somehow I managed. In fact, I set my own very high standards. It was not until the late 80’s that Ohio and other states implemented the first big batteries of these kinds of tests.

State tests produced limited fruit in the 90’s. (Remember:  I was there.) In 2002 those tests were replaced with new tests in response to No Child Left Behind. In Ohio one of the tests at the eighth grade level covered social studies, my area of expertise.

My colleagues and I devoted hundreds of hours of our time preparing ourselves to teach to this test. It was phased in slowly and died abruptly. When the social-studies sub-test proved hopelessly flawed the State of Ohio killed off its own child in 2009.

Now, in 2013 (for this example), my principal is harping on the idea that we must focus on a new set of standards tied to the Common Core Curriculum. I am a veteran teacher. I remain skeptical. I doubt these “core” standards will make any great difference.

NO, WORSE. I EXPECT THEM TO DO HARM.

I am also a grumbler, especially when bureaucrats interfere with teachers. I grumble with friends at lunch. “I already know which students are meeting my high standards,” I inform colleagues seated at a table in the lounge.

“You know how I ‘measure?’”

“It’s called ‘grading,’ I think,” replies our resident staff comedian in a feigned, dimwitted tone.

We all enjoy a laugh; but inside we are dying. Unfortunately—and I use that word with clear intent—we are dedicated teachers. We want students to learn as much as possible. In an era of standardized learning that can be dangerous to any educator.

I have spent my entire career on the prowl for good material to use in my classes. This is one of my strengths as an educator, my willingness to pursue knowledge. And I feel it in my bones—that this pursuit never ends—and see it as my primary goal to fire pupils with a love of learning.

My strengths as an educator are not standardized.

Twenty-five years ago, at the dawn of The Age of the Testing Fix, I stumbled upon a collection of poems by Langston Hughes. I don’t know if other social studies teachers have read them. I doubt bureaucrats who drew up the new standards bothered.

Yet, I know one poem is especially moving. Each year I use it as part of a unit my classes are about to begin: The Era of Reconstruction in U. S. History (1865-1877).

(See poem below.)

“Merry-Go-Round” 

Colored child at carnival: 

Where is the Jim Crow section 

On this merry-go-round, 

Mister, cause I want to ride? 

Down South where I come from

White and colored 

Can’t sit side by side. 

Down South on the train 

There’s a Jim Crow car. 

On the bus we’re put in the back— 

But there ain’t no back 

To a merry-go-round! 

Where’s the horse 

For a kid that’s black? 

The question today, of course, is not whether this poem is a good one nor whether it engages students. The question is:  Will this be on the standardized test?

(Sadly, it will not.)

If I am left to my devices we don’t use this poem the first day of the new unit; but we do use it.

The day we do I will ask 150 teens to answer two questions (see below). I will do this because I know my students will fill the classroom with creative comment. I will use “Merry-Go-Round” because I know true learning comes in a thousand disguises:

1. Why do you think Hughes chose a child as focus for this poem?

2. What do you think the poet was trying to say about Jim Crow segregation by using a merry-go-round?


EVEN BEFORE WE START THIS NEW UNIT here is something else I know—because I am a veteran teacher—because I have eyes, ears and a nose. I know that adults in this country have no real knowledge of the Reconstruction Era.

To put it plainly, then, students won’t need to remember much from this era of our nation’s history. If they don’t know why President Andrew Johnson was impeached they’ll survive. (I doubt, if you read this far, you remember the reason.)

Before we start the unit I study the manual of standards the State of Ohio went to great trouble to develop. For purposes of this example, I refer to the standards from 2008, the year I retired. (Remember, this whole set of standards went into the dumpster.)

First, I know that these standards were drawn up by functionaries in Columbus, Ohio and pushed for by bureaucrats in Washington, D. C.

I know that none of these people have ever tried to engage a room filled with teens. Here is all the guidance they offer:

INDICATOR 11: Analyze the consequences of Reconstruction with emphasis on:

A. President Lincoln’s assassination and the ensuing struggle for control of Reconstruction, including the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.

B. Attempts to protect the rights of and enhance opportunities for the freedmen, including the basic provisions of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution.

C. The Ku Klux Klan and the enactment of the black codes.

That’s it for the vaunted state standards. So, what exactly do I teach? What do the bureaucrats want my students to know?

And here’s my big problem. We are expected to teach to a test that will include only fifty questions. (The social studies test used in Ohio from 2003 to 2009 covered three years of material in that many questions.) So, there’s no way a standardized test will include more than two items from the Reconstruction period. There’s a fair chance there will be none.

I don’t want to find the single question in the academic haystack. I don’t have any desire to be Emperor of A, B, C and D.

I don’t believe learning can be boiled down to a few paltry multiple-choice questions.

Yet I know—because I have been teaching for decades—that unless a person is named or a document  mentioned or a term highlighted in the standardized curriculum those names and concepts cannot be turned into questions when it’s time for the test.

I look at the crappy standards provided: Langston Hughes isn’t mentioned; nor is his poem.

What about John Wilkes Booth? His name is missing. So, should I really expect students to know who he was? Every time an assassination occurs in this country it leads to comparisons, and people bring up Booth and Abraham Lincoln (or Lee Harvey Oswald and John F. Kennedy).

So, yes, I add Booth to my own standards. And I throw in Lee Harvey, too.

I notice that the standards also fail to mention the term “Jim Crow.” This concerns be because I read history for a living and almost no one today mentions “black codes.” Instead, those who wish to discuss race use the term “Jim Crow” segregation or speak of the “Jim Crow” era in sports. For this reason, if I am left to follow own judgment—and isn’t that why we hire good teachers in the first place—I am going to ask my classes to know this term.

The danger, however, is clear. Do I risk asking students to learn useful material if they won’t be tested? If I teach more than required am I ahead when it comes to standards of learning? Or do we only care about what ends up on the test?

I happen to be a decent writer. So, for years I have created my own classroom materials. Now I have a reading about “Jim Crow” laws to give to students, one that includes more than seventy examples of unfair laws.

I understand, of course, that none of my teens will ever need to know seventy examples. But the cumulative impact of all the limitations makes a deep impression on my classes.

You can’t measure emotional impact in A’s and B’s and C’s. You can use all the letters in the alphabet. You can’t do it.

The day to begin the unit arrives—and I ask my classes to list five ways blacks and whites were once legally separated. This sparks quick interest and just about everyone throws up a hand to provide a part of the answer. I know, from spending years in a classroom, that my kids will almost always end up giving the same handful of examples. These are: SCHOOL, BUSES, RESTAURANTS, DRINKING FOUNTAINS and SPORTS.

My problem is that I want to go deeper into the subject. That is, I want to set very high standards. I want my students—almost all of whom happen to be white—to grasp the depth and breadth of the racial divide that once existed in this country. I want them to have to deal with the bitter antipathy that made “Jim Crow” laws once seem necessary.

That’s where my handout enters the picture. The title is taken from an article by I. F. Stone, “A Twilight between Liberty and Freedom.”

The story opens:

The sad era of “Jim Crow” began officially in 1887. Florida started the process by ordering the separation of black and white passengers on railroads. Mississippi copied the idea, adding “Colored” and “White Only” waiting rooms. Other Southern states fell in line. But most made one exception: if a black nursemaid was caring for a white baby. Soon states like Alabama and Georgia had separate homes for the deaf, blind, and mentally ill. The races were divided in prisons and on chain gangs. By 1890 Jackson, Mississippi had instituted “Jim Crow” rules in city cemeteries.

“Think about it,” I say to my classes. I say this every year because this gets an entire class’s attention: “You’re blind! Isn’t everyone black if you’re blind?” I close my eyes and do a pantomime of a sightless person searching for a Negro.

I always put my hands on some student’s head and ask, “Are you black, because if you are, I don’t like you!”

The absurdity guarantees a laugh.

“What about cemeteries?” I add. “Do any of you think you might care who ends up buried next to you?” The kids laugh again and I know they are laughing at the idea of segregation. I believe they are seeing inequality as a mockery of what we say we stand for in this country.

The reading continues:

After 1915, Oklahoma required “separate phone booths for white and colored patrons [customers].” South Carolina factory workers were paid at different windows, used different stairways and could not use the same “drinking water buckets, cups, dippers or glasses.” In a move of stunning stupidity, Birmingham, Alabama made it “unlawful for a Negro and a white person to play together” at dominoes.

Checkers was also forbidden!

In a police-officer-like voice I shout, “Drop the checkers and come out with your hands up!”

To teens (who tend to be naturally fair-minded) it seems unfathomable anyone ever thought such laws were necessary.

I don’t want to blame the South only. So we turn to examples from the North where my own grandfather insisted on “Jim Crow” seating in his theaters in Akron, Ohio. I take time to relate a story once told me by an elderly black gentleman, about how black folk had to sit in the balcony, and how hard it was to resist the temptation to throw peanuts at the white folks below.

Then we keep reading:

The list of rules was as long as human imagination is twisted…Blood banks kept Negro blood on different shelves. “Public libraries” in the South denied blacks the right to check out books! Southern gas stations had three bathrooms. One was for “WHITE MEN,” one for “WHITE WOMEN.”

A third was marked “COLORED.”

During most of my career, Loveland, where I taught, had a single black teacher. I use him as an example. Both of us were born in 1949, I explain. “If Mr. Battle’s family pulled up to the same gas station as the Viall family, the Battles can’t go at the same time. Members have to take turns.”

“Think of how your mother would feel,” I add. You make it personal and every kid understands.

At this point, there are a hundred directions you can take. All involve learning. In 2013, one of the kids is sure to bring up gays when talk turns to discrimination. So we discuss that as long as it holds kids’ interest. Since the topic is controversial, I let students argue out their own ideas, adding very little input. Eventually, we spend part of a day going over the Hughes’ poem. For homework I ask students to draw a picture to show how “Jim Crow” laws made it hard for blacks to live full lives as citizens. An artistic young man in my fifth bell class draws a checkerboard seen from above. A white hand is holding a red piece, ready to jump. A black hand rests idly at the other side of the board.

Every year we discuss the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments as required. In addition, I ask students to do a reading from Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington. I believe his efforts to educate himself and other freed slaves are inspirational, even if you can’t measure inspiration on a test.

(Examples provided in an auxiliary post.)

Normally, I include a few details about discrimination directed towards Japanese-Americans after the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. My students love the story of Daniel Inouye, a Japanese-American war hero. So I tell it every year—because it works.

(See auxiliary post.)

TO BE HONEST, I HAVE NO DESIRE to be Emperor of A, B, C and D.

I want to lead students in a thousand directions. So:  we discuss the U. S. Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia. That’s the 1967 case that put an end to state laws against interracial marriage. You don’t see it in the standards, but I throw out the word “lynching” and expect my kids to know the definition. I show them several harrowing pictures. (See auxiliary post.) One victim is chained to a tree and twisted in death agonies. The poor fellow has been killed when a mob uses a blow torch to heat up the heavy chain. Another victim, neck broken, head twisted sideways, is Leo Frank, a Jew lynched for his “crimes” in Georgia in 1915.

Even in America, students should realize that discrimination based on religion has been common. That means, of course, that the subject of anti-Muslim feelings in the United States after 9/11 may come up if we choose to examine it.

Naturally, we talk about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. And because I once read Crusade for Justice, the autobiography of Ida Wells, I may throw out her story. Wells was tossed from a train in 1883 after adamantly refusing to give up a seat in the “Whites Only” car and retreat to the “Colored” car in timely fashion. She had to be pried out of her place, but put up a hell of a fight before a conductor and two white gentlemen could subdue her. In the end, however, they dragged the African American educator off the car and deposited her by the side of the tracks miles from her destination.

You see. This is how my strengths come into play—through what I bring to the classroom—why  standardized testing is crazy.

In the process of covering this topic I have managed over the years to get hundreds of students to read To Kill a Mockingbird and a significant number to read Native Son by Richard Wright, the story of a confused young black man growing up in 1920s Chicago. I read this last novel in college but I can get some teens to read it in eighth grade.

This is not how one behaves if one is content to be Emperor of A, B, C and D.

According to the State of Ohio I am supposed to focus on the Ku Klux Klan. How, exactly, and how much is the question. I know the Klan was huge, not just down South, but also in Ohio and Indiana. So I throw that out and add details, including the story of the Grand Wizard who lives on a farm not far from Loveland, and his painted barn roof along Interstate 71 (below).

Then I have students complete a reading from The Leopard’s Spots, written in 1902 by Thomas Dixon Jr. The book drips racism from every syllable and shocks modern-day students. In Dixon's world, the KKK are the heroes.

(See auxiliary post.)

Barn visible off Interstate 71, near Morrow, Ohio.
There's also a burned cross visible in the orchard.

My second year in a classroom I had three elderly Loveland women come in as guest speakers and talk about what it was like growing up in the 20s and 30s. One of the trio happened to be black and told us all about a time when she was nine and saw a cross burning high on a hill above her home. She described her terror and explained how her father and friends got shotguns and prepared to defend their families. Her pride in talking about her Dad was obvious. She spoke, too, of the old Loveland school she attended—a separate facility for black students.

You can’t measure the impact of her stories with four letters of the alphabet.

Sometimes my classes might look at the case of the Scottsboro Boys, nine young blacks (ages 13-19) who were placed on trial in 1931 after supposedly raping two white Alabama women. Their trial proved to be such a farce that their convictions were appealed all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court and overturned on two separate occasions. I am familiar with this story because I did a paper on the topic in graduate school—proof again that individual teachers add value to any learning process. In fact if I am teaching in 2013, I bring up the case because the State of Alabama admitted its mistakes in the case this past April and pardoned the boys posthumously.

I don’t know.

I might even suggest to interested students that they bring parents along and meet up with me and two or three other teachers at the theater. We could see the movie “42,” the story of Jackie Robinson. It’s not what you do if all you want is to be Emperor of A, B, C and D.

It’s what you would do if you care about learning.

I don't believe in an A, B, C, D education.
I do believe in all kinds of learning.
Standardized testing is a terrible way to try to improve schools.

Emperor of A, B, C, D (Auxiliary Post)

HERE WE HAVE A SELECTION FROM A HANDOUT TAKEN FROM THE BOOK UP FROM SLAVERY. Young Booker T. Washington has just traveled 500 miles to attend school for the first time at the Hampton Institute. At this point in his life he is only a few years removed from a childhood spent living in slavery.

After reaching school Washington went to work in more ways than one. He rose daily at 4 a.m., cleaning the school buildings to earn room and board. He was poor and remembered:

...for some time, while I was a student at Hampton, I possessed but a single pair of socks, but when I had worn these till they became soiled, I would wash them at night and hang them by the fire to dry, so that I might wear them again the next morning. 

It was at this school that he saw beds with sheets for the first time. With a touch of humor he described his confusion: 

The first night I slept under both of them, and the second night I slept on top of both of them; but by watching the other boys I learned my lesson in this, and have been trying to follow it ever since and to teach it to others. 

After finishing his education Washington began a career in teaching. This led to a job at Tuskeegee, Alabama. One of his first “school buildings” was little better than a leaky shed:

I recall that during the first months of school that I taught in this building it was in such poor repair that, whenever it rained, one of the older students would very kindly leave his lessons to hold an umbrella over me while I heard the recitations [speeches] of the others.

Washington borrowed money to fix up a hen house and other farm buildings to provide for a growing enrollment.[1]

One day an old black woman came to offer the young teacher help.

She hobbled into the room where I was, leaning on a cane. She was clad [dressed] in rags; but they were clean. She said, “Mr. Washin’ton, God knows I spent de bes’ days of my life in slavery. God knows I’s ignorant an’ poor; but,” she added, “I knows what you an’ Miss Davidson [an- other teacher] is tryin’ to do. I knows you is tryin’ to make better men an’ women for de coloured race. I ain’t got no money, but I wants you to take dese six eggs, what I’s been savin’ up, an’ I wants you to put dese six eggs into the eddication of dese boys an’ gals.” 

From such small beginnings, Washington built his own college, the famous Tuskeegee Institute.

Even after he became famous Mr. Washington had to walk a racial tightrope. By the time Tuskeegee was well established most Southern states had created a system of strict segregation. On a rail trip through Georgia two northern white ladies invited the college president to sit with them and talk.

Said Washington:

These good ladies were perfectly ignorant [unaware], it seems, of the customs of the South and in the goodness of their hearts insisted that I take a seat with them in their section.[2] After some hesitation I consented [agreed]. I had been there but a few minutes when one of them, without my knowledge, ordered supper to be served to the three of us. This embarrassed me still further. The car was full of white southern men most of whom had their eyes on our party. When I found that supper had been ordered, I tried to contrive [invent] some excuse that would permit me to leave the section, but the ladies insisted that I must eat with them. I finally settled back in my seat with a sigh, and said to myself, “I am in for it now, sure.”
...The meal...seemed the longest one I had ever eaten.

__________

[1] About this time Washington remembered talking to an ex-slave, about sixty years old. He asked about his past: “He said that he had been born in Virginia, and sold into Alabama in 1845. I asked him how many were sold at the time. He said, ‘There were five of us; myself and brother and three mules.’”
[2] That is: the “white” section of the passenger car.
____________________________________________________________


SOMETIMES WE WOULD TALK ABOUT what happened to Japanese-Americans during World War II. After Pearl Harbor was bombed more than a hundred thousand were sent to relocation camps. Almost three quarters were citizens.

I would remind students, “They had the same rights as you and me.”

Given a chance, thousands of young Japanese-American men later fought under the Stars and Stripes, winning praise for their courage. I felt the story of one soldier summed it up:

Daniel Inoyue was fighting in Italy when he and his men received orders to charge a German position. Inoyue led the way forward, was shot in the stomach, and kept going. A grenade almost blew off his right arm (which was later amputated). Inoyue cut down the German who tossed the grenade, by throwing one of his own left-handed! Then a bullet hit him in the right leg. Still, he kept going, personally destroying two enemy machine guns. Twenty-five German soldiers died in the action—and Inoyue received the Distinguished Service Cross for his courage.

On his way home after the war, however, Captain Inoyue was denied a haircut in a San Francisco barbershop. In uniform, with his battle ribbons and medals clearly displayed—and his empty sleeve pinned up—he was told: WE DON’T SERVE JAPS HERE!

JAPS!

Inoyue was no JAP.

Neither were thousands of others imprisoned during World War II. Sadly, they were Americans, even if others refused to treat them as such.
_____________________________________________________________

HERE IS A TYPICAL SCENE FROM THE READING BASED ON The Leopard's Spots. Here a poor white girl is visiting Tim Shelby. (Dixon calls him “an animal in human disguise.”) We quote from the novel:

Shelby, a former slave, now [in an era of Reconstruction] controls employment in the local schools. The unfortunate young lady desperately needs money. With rising fear she enters Shelby’s office to discuss a teaching position. Finally, she asks: 
“May I have the place [job] then?”

“Well, now, you know it depends really altogether on my fancy [wishes]. [Tim replies] I'll tell you what I'll do. You’re still full of silly prejudices. I can see that. But if you will overcome them enough to do one thing for me as a test...I’ll give you the place...Will you do it?”

“What is it?” the girl asked, with pale, quivering lips.

“Let me kiss you--once!” he whispered.

With a scream, she sprang past him out of the door, ran like a deer across the lawn, and fell sobbing in her mother’s arms when she reached her home.

In Dixon’s story, it is time for the Ku Klux Klan to ride the following night:

At twelve o’clock two hundred white-robed horses assembled around the old home...where Tim was sleeping. The moon was full and flooded the lawn with silver glory. On those horses sat two hundred white-robed silent men whose close-fitting hood disguises looked like the... helmets of ancient knights.

It was the work of a moment to seize [take hold of] Tim and bind him across a horse’s back. Slowly the grim procession moved to the court-house square.

When the sun rose the next morning the lifeless body of Tim Shelby was dangling from a rope tied to the iron rail of the balcony of the courthouse. His neck was broken and his body was hanging low—scarcely three feet from the ground. His thick lips had been split with a sharp knife, and from his teeth hung this placard [sign]:

THE ANSWER OF THE ANGLO-SAXON [WHITE] RACE TO NEGRO LIPS THAT DARE TO POLLUTE WITH WORDS THE WOMENHOOD OF THE SOUTH. K. K. K. 

This execution does not trouble Dixon. Nor does it seem to him extreme. He applauds such action and any steps necessary to guard against “race-mixing.” Any attempt to place blacks and whites on the same level, he once claimed, was “social dynamite.”

It was race suicide.

____________________________________________________________

IF A GOOD TEACHER DESIRED he or she might compare Dixon's ideas with a selection from a reading on Adolf Hitler. To put this together I had to wade through all the sick pages of Hitler's Mein Kampf.

A sample:

The more Adolf studied the problem the worse the “truth” seemed to be. The Jews were more than a religious group: “They are a race, and what a race!” Jews were “the great masters of the lie,” a “spider...slowly beginning to suck the blood out of the [German] people’s pores.”

Hitler came to believe they were at the root of all social problems. “If you cut even cautiously into...an abscess [boil or infection], you found, like a maggot in a rotting body...a kike [Jew].” The Jews were “incurable tumors,” “as dangerous as the Black Death.”

Given the opportunity “repulsive Jew b------s” would mix with pure German women. They would marry, he warned, and destroy “the racial foundations of our [national] existence and...[ruin] our people for all time.” Hitler insisted that the German people must not allow this. By defending their race from the Jews, he argued, the Germans would be “doing the work of the Lord.” 
___________________________________________________________

IF I WANT STUDENTS TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IMPEACHMENT is about I can have them complete a reading on Watergate.

Here's how my story begins:

If you ask people today what they remember about Nixon’s time in office, any good he did is probably forgotten. The Watergate Affair is what Americans remember. Nixon is the only president ever driven from the White House before his term was over. His downfall began with a botched burglary at “The Watergate” office building in Washington, D. C. It was there, on June 17, 1972 that a night watchman with a flashlight noticed something out of the ordinary. The locks on several doors leading into the building and into the headquarters of the National Democratic Party were taped open. Police were called to the scene and five burglars were soon rounded up.

Burglary doesn’t usually make the national news; but this was no ordinary break-in. First, the suspects were carrying $1,754 cash, cameras, and film. They also had sophisticated equipment for tapping telephones and recording conversations. One of the five, James McCord, had worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, the U. S. spy bureau. Stranger still, police found this notation in McCord’s address book: “Howard E. Hunt, W. House.”

From the start, the police were suspicious. Why would burglars want to break into the office of the Democrat Party? And could McCord’s note mean “the” White House? Could these suspects be spying on Democrats because 1972 was an election year?

Who had hired them and turned them loose?

The next day White House staff members spoke to reporters. No one who worked for the president, the said, knew anything about the Watergate break-in. President Nixon shrugged off the matter as a “third-rate burglary.” Then he assured reporters there was no reason to be concerned.

Everyone, from the president down, seemed surprised.

Almost all were lying.

____________________________________________________________


FINALLY, IN MY HISTORY CLASS WE HAMMERED on the principles set down in the Declaration of Independence. 

I required all my students to memorize the section below and be able to answer the six questions on the unit test for the American Revolution as well as the final.

(We had to start by defining all the words in bold.)

The Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.

                                                  Thomas Jefferson

                                                  July 4, 1776

  

WHAT IT MEANS:

1. Government gets its power from ____________.

2. If government does not work we have the right to ____________________________.

3. Governments are set up to ______________________.

4. If government works as it should everyone will be treated __________.

5. Certain basic rights cannot be taken away from you by _____________.

6. Government should leave you alone to enjoy ________________________________.

NONE OF THIS WOULD BE STANDARDIZED EDUCATION.

My students were amazed that none of the people in this crowd seemed to be horrified.

Ten Myths about America’s Public Schools

I’ve been researching a book about American public school education. In the process, I’ve had the privilege of reading hundreds of articles on the current state of our nation’s public schools.

Certain trends in coverage are impossible to miss, including the glaring fact that almost no one ever bothers to ask teachers what they think.

As a result, absolute nonsense spewed by ill-informed critics and repeated without challenge becomes accepted gospel and, finally, myth.

Below are ten examples:

Myth of the Failing Public Schools: How do we know schools are failing? Look at what happens in international competitions! U. S. kids can barely sharpen their pencils without sticking themselves in their eyes or getting writing devices stuck up their noses. In 2010 our fifteen-year-olds finished 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math compared to kids from around the world. We got our asses kicked by Liechtenstein!

And how about all the dropouts! At the rate we’re going the last high school graduate the United States will ever produce will don cap and gown c. 2050. This catastrophic dropout rate is entirely the fault of idiot teachers


Saga of the Idiot Teacher: The main reason public schools are failing is because teachers are stupid. According to critics the men and women at the front the classrooms are a “collection of warm bodies.” (Maybe even a few dead ones; they just haven’t reached an advanced stage of decomposition.) These sods are “chosen from the bottom 20% of their college classes, and not of the best schools.” Teachers are “union thugs” who care only about fat pay checks.

(Sources—Brent Staples in the New York Times—Michael R. Bloomberg in a speech at M.I.T.—pretty much any Fox News commentator.)

This is what a stupid teacher looks like.
He probably didn't even read all those books.

The Helsinki Myth (aka: The Tokyo or Vaduz Myth): We need to follow the lead of Finland or Japan because students from those nations score higher in international competitions. Finland—wow—Finland has awesome teachers. The same is true for Japan. And Liechtenstein! That little postage stamp of a nation has kick-ass educators.

We should send the Navy Seals to grab some of their teachers and bring them back to replace the losers we’re stuck with presently.


Ghost of the Middle Class Job: The failure of our public schools totally explains our nation’s declining position in a competitive global economy. All the good jobs are disappearing—to Liechtenstein!—because our schools produce graduates who can’t understand math or science or read ordinary street signs. Typical American job candidate on the way to an interview: “Does that sign say ‘Stop’ or ‘One Way?’ Never mind, I think it’s a mailbox.”


Fable of the Ivy-Covered Wall: Thank god for all the brilliant reformers—each armed with his or her plan to save the children. These people are really smart, especially compared to the brain-dead rejects manning our classrooms. U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan graduated from Harvard; so he must be correct in every syllable he utters. Michelle Rhee graduated from Cornell. She would run Students First and give speeches about how to fix education for free if only fans would stop paying her five-figure speaker’s fees.

Michael R. Bloomberg, Joel I. Klein and Wendy Kopp all graduated from Ivy-League institutions. So they will save us stupid people.

And let’s face it. Lawyers like Klein love children way more than regular teachers.


Test it and They Will Come: According to our greatest reformers if we do enough testing and “measuring” American schools can be great again. We test first graders in long division and third graders in physics and measure what every child does in gym. If some lard-ass boy or girl can’t run a 7:00 mile by the end of eighth grade we fire the lousy gym teacher. By god, we blame speech therapists every time a six-year-old says “wabbit!”


The Voucher that Wouldn’t Die: Let’s say that standardized testing doesn’t work, even though brilliant reformers insist it will. Well then, we save every child by opening up more charter schools and passing out more vouchers so parents can send sons and daughters to good private schools. Public schools are the problem.

In fact the real cure for what’s wrong with the nation's public schools is probably exorcism.


The Teacher Who Walked on Water: If every child had an excellent teacher every year then every child would excel in school. In fact, every child would live happily ever after. All the girls would marry princes. Brilliant reformers will not rest until they put an excellent teacher into every classroom and even a few coat closets. Not themselves, of course. Oh no. Oh no. They are far too valuable—and well paid—serving as leaders.

These heroes will never stop until Teach for America, founded by Kopp on the principle that we need to replace our idiot teachers with smart ones, puts 3,000,000 Harvard and Stanford and Yale graduates into classrooms across the nation. Out go the dumb shits we have. In go the smart people. Okay, sure. Since 1990, the organization has trained only 28,000 teachers; and no one can tell us how many have remained in the classrooms. (They commit to only two years. But not to worry, because the really smart people will save us.) We are going to demand excellence in the teaching profession, just like we do in Congress. While we are at it every child is going to get a puppy or kitten.

Maybe a bunny.


Myth of the Malevolent Thugs: Teachers’ unions are the reason school reforms fail. The plans can’t be messed up because the planners are brilliant. If standardized testing doesn’t work the failure has to be tied to unions. Every union member is a sloth with the scruples of a purse-snatcher. These thugs entered the profession only because teaching is a cushy job, especially in inner city schools, and particularly for those men and women who make it past the five-year mark by which time half of all educators quit and find different employment.


Parable of the Adoring Mother: All parents will do right by their children if only we pass the right laws. If we hand out vouchers, as just one example, then every mom and every dad will sit down and start studying their “school choice” options. Every girl and every boy will suddenly have a parent (maybe two!!!) backing them up, working tirelessly to get them into the best schools. Before you can utter the words “Horace Mann” and click your ruby red slippers three times, poor kids will find elite private schools swinging doors wide to admit them. Religious schools will start taking kids with severe behavior disorders because that’s what Jesus would do.

Parental drug and alcohol use, physical and mental abuse of children, homelessness and gang violence, will vanish from the land.


There you have it—the mythical path to educational perfection. Get rid of idiot teachers and hire smart ones. Give all good parents—that’s the only kind there are—plenty of choices and that’s all you need, baby. All the jobs in America will be saved—except maybe the job of “education reformer,” since education will finally be perfected.

On some glorious future day, when students are tested internationally, America’s kids will finally finish 1st in reading, 1st in science, and 1st in math.

Then we will be able to say, as proud American’s, “Suck it, Liechtenstein.”

Some Hindu myth. The author was too dumb to check it.