My Students Are Addicted to Screens

October 31, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Bill Gates, bloggers, Child Predators, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Compassion, Competency Based Education, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Data Mining, Education, Media, Parents, Politics, privatization, Schools, Standardized Testing, Teachers, Technology, Toxic Testing addiction, Bill Gates, Competency Based Education, Computers, Depersonalized Learning, edtech, education, personalized learning, public schools, schools, screen time, Steve Jobs, teachers, technology

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Michael sat at his desk with ear buds inserted, an iPad balanced in front of his eyes and an old fashioned paper book open on his desk.

His head was bopping and weaving. His eyes were transfixed on a YouTube video of an animated soldier blasting away bad guys. And his book was laid out in front of him, largely ignored.

This was during our class’ sustained silent reading time – a period of 15-20 minutes where my 7th grade students were supposed to read self-selected books. Eventually, they’d have to complete a project, but today all they had to do was read.

Still, many used the time the same way as Michael did – lost in cyberspace, merely pretending their eyes gloss over the page.

“And what did the teacher do?” I hear some readers say indignantly.

“If you allow this type of behavior, you’re worse than the child doing it.”

So come with me as I redirect Michael.

“Hey, buddy,” I say.

“Huh?” he responds as if awakened from a dream.

“Are you reading?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

“You’re not just watching that video and ignoring your book?”

“Nope,” he says now fully awake. And he proceeds to give me a canned summary of the text that he memorized from the Internet.

But I’m still skeptical.

“I’m going to take your iPad away just for SSR time,” I say.

“BUT WHY!? I’M READING!”

“I just want you to be able to concentrate on what you’re reading.”

And as I gently pry the iPad from his curled fists, he stands up and gives me a look of pure hatred.

This is a look from a 7th grade boy who’s considering violence.

It’s the same look you’d get trying to take away a dog’s bone, or an addict’s crack pipe.

It truly depends on the child what happens next. Some will regain control, slam down into their seats and sulk. Others will whine and cause a scene. And some will lose all control and lash out.

This is what teachers deal with every day when it comes to technology in the classroom.

In point of fact, many of our children are addicted to their devices.
iPads, laptops, Smartphones – we might as well be giving them pills, joints and syringes.

According to Merriam Webster, addiction is defined as, “compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance… [characterized] by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal.”

For most students, their devices have become just that – a compulsion, the cause of a nearly irresistible impulse to check them, access them, use them to keep themselves entertained and plugged in.

With repeated use, it becomes habit forming, and separation from the device can lead to a kind of withdrawal.

From a neuro-psychological point of view, one wonders if repeated use is clinically damaging – especially to adolescent brains that have not yet fully formed.

From an educational point of view, one wonders if relying on such devices in class is pedagogically sound.

I’m not qualified to answer the first question (though it deserves much more study than it is receiving). But from my 15 plus years of experience in the classroom, I feel qualified to answer the second – and that answer is often a resounding “NO.”

In my kids’ everyday lives, this type of constant technology reliance doesn’t make them better students. It doesn’t give them access to more information. It makes them dependent on instant gratification and sensory overload.

Their minds are submerged in a soup of constant noise and conflicting demands for their attention. Stringing together thoughts and coming to reasoned opinions becomes increasingly difficult.

This isn’t to say that technology has no place in the classroom.

There are ways to use it that can enhance learning. However, in my experience these are NOT the ways it is being used most of the time. That takes, thought, planning, intention. Instead, many well-meaning administrators or school directors prescribe technology as an end in itself regardless of the goals of an individual lesson. They want to prove their buildings, schools or districts are cutting edge, and that only takes the constant use of technology – not surgical, intentional use.

It’s not that teachers don’t know how to apply it or don’t care. It’s that technology – especially the presence of a one-to-one device in the hands of every child at all (or most) times – creates more problems than it solves.

This is why the same people who invented these technologies strictly regulate them for their own children.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, two of the biggest tech titans in the business, famously limited screen time for theirs sons and daughters.

Gates, a Microsoft co-founder, refused to let his children have personal technological devices until they were developmentally ready for them.

“We don’t have cellphones at the table when we are having a meal,” he told the Mirror. “We didn’t give our kids cellphones until they were 14 and they complained other kids got them earlier.”

Today, most children get their own cellphones at age 10. And if their schools have one-to-one initiatives like mine, they have their own iPad as early as 5th grade with less but still substantial hours of usage as early as kindergarten.

Jobs, an Apple co-founder, also limited screen time for his children.

When asked if his children liked the original iPad shortly after it was launched, Jobs said, “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”

In fact, according to Walter Isaacson, who wrote a near-definitive Jobs’ biography, technological devices were only allowed at prescribed times.

“Every evening Steve made a point of having dinner at the big long table in their kitchen, discussing books and history and a variety of things,” he said.

“No one ever pulled out an iPad or a computer. The kids did not seem addicted at all to devices.”

And this practice seems common among parents in Silicon Valley.

According to educators Joe Clement and Matt Miles, authors of “Screen Schooled: Two Veteran Teachers Expose How Technology Overuse is Making Our Kids Dumber,” those in the tech industry know the dangers of their own products on children.

A number of specialty Silicon Valley schools, say Clement and Miles, such as the Waldorf School, rely almost exclusively on low-tech tools to teach. This often means chalkboards and pencils. The emphasis is on learning interpersonal skills such as cooperation and respect – not the ins and outs of computer coding.

At Brightworks School, even the physical environment of the class is a tool to learning. Students attend class in treehouses and kids learn creativity by building things with their hands.

This is a far cry from the technological wonderland our kids are being sold by these kids’ parents.

No one really knows what effect it’s having on growing minds. However, psychologists are beginning to see alarming trends.

For instance, frequent use of social media makes an eighth-grader’s risk for depression 27% higher. Moreover, use of smart phones for at least three hours a day increases children’s risk of becoming suicidal. Some experts believe that increased use of technology has contributed to the teen suicide rate which for the first time eclipses the homicide rate.

We are jumping head first into an educational model that puts technological devices like a tablet at the center of learning.

Teachers assign lessons on the device. Students complete assignments on it. Projects are virtual as is research. Even conversations are conducted through a chat page, emails or messaging.

Why? Not necessarily because of any proven link to increased academic results. It’s because tech companies are marketing their devices to schools and students.

This is industry-driven, not pedagogically-driven.

There is an unquestioned bias that doing things with technology is somehow better simply because we’re using technology. However, an article written on a computer will not necessarily be better than one written with pen and ink. There are other factors involved.

Now Gates and company are pushing personalized learning objectives. Sometimes called competency based education, these continue to place the device in the center of what should be the student-teacher relationship.

Student learning becomes a video game and the teacher becomes a virtual avatar. Kids spend their time doing infinite standardized testing as if it were authentic education, yet it’s all on-line so it appears to be cutting edge. It isn’t.

It’s just another scam.

In my own classes, I’ve put the brakes on unquestioned technology. I only use devices, programs or applications that are (1) reliable and (2) when I know why I’m using them.

Even then, I find myself unable to even talk to students without beginning every lesson telling them to at least temporarily put their devices away so they can hear the directions.

Sure, I could give them a QR code to scan and get a written copy of the directions. I could upload a video for them to watch. But that limits direct feedback. It makes it more difficult for them to ask questions. And it makes it almost impossible for me to tell if 20-30 kids are actually doing the assignment before they turn it in for grading.

These are just kids, and like kids in any age they’ll take the path of least resistance. Often they’ll try to get through the assignment as quickly as possible so they can listen to music, or watch a video, or play a video game or chat on-line.

Lessons can be engaging or thought-provoking or spark the creative impulse. But you have to get students’ attention first.

That’s hard to do when they always have the option to crack their brains open over a virtual frying pan and watch it sizzle away.

To be fair, living in the modern world, we’re probably all somewhat addicted to technology. This blog isn’t written on papyrus and it isn’t being accessed in a hefty library volume.

I use social media – Facebook and Twitter mainly – to disperse it.

But there’s a difference between me and my students.

I’m an adult.

I know the concessions I’m making. I enter into this with eyes open. I have a lifetime of experience and knowledge with which to make such a decision.

Children don’t have that. They look to us to protect them.

We are their guardians. We’re only supposed to subject them to things that will help them learn, keep them healthy and happy.

But in our rush to be trendy and hip, we’re failing them miserably.

We’re letting business and industry take over.

It’s time to take a stand.

Our kids may be addicted, but we don’t have to be their pushers.

We need to get them clean and show them how to use this brave new tool with moderation and restraint.

Mr. and Mrs. Public School Sabotage

October 27, 2017July 22, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Arne Duncan, Betsy DeVos, Bill Gates, Budget, Campaign Donations, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Predators, church and state, Civil Rights, Common Core, Compassion, Competency Based Education, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Obama, Parents, Politics, Prejudice, President, privatization, Racism, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, segregation, Standardized Testing, Teachers, VAM Betsy DeVos, Bill and Melinda Gates, Bill Gates, charter schools, common core, Donald Trump, plutocracy, Politics, Privatize, public schools, sabotage, school vouchers

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America’s public schools are in crisis.

Because people make money when America’s public schools are in crisis.

And who sits atop this mountain of bribery and malfeasance?

Who gives the money that buys the politicians who make the laws that hurt the kids and profits the donors?

It’s none other than Mr. and Mrs. Public School Sabotage!

Systemic underfunding, laissez-faire segregation and privileging privatization – this is what our children face every day.

It’s time we as a nation stop, take a moment – and offer our hearty congratulations to this years most pernicious saboteurs.

And what a year it was for disrupting education!

Charter schools, voucher schools – no one has benefited more from chucking the public school model in the trash in favor of control by corporations and bureaucrats than Betsy DeVos.

Because she’s both a dark money influence peddler AND a government flunky!

A two-for!

She turned complete ignorance and animosity toward public schools into the highest federal government job overseeing education! Her only qualification? CA-CHING!

But coming up right behind Ms. DeVos is this year’s crowned king.

He certainly knows a thing or two about CA-CHING!

It’s Bill Gates!

Progressive philanthropist by day, by night he transforms into the largest single purveyor of palm grease in the nation. No one has turned tax avoidance into influence more than Gates, the money behind the Common Core, evaluating teachers on student test scores and a plethora of irrational, untested ideas that are only considered mainstream because they have literally trillions of dollars behind them.

So there you have it, America! Your Mr. and Mrs. Public School Sabotage!

Let’s take a closer look at these… winners.

DEVOS

As U.S. Secretary of Education, she’s proposed cutting $10 billion in public school funding, announced changes to make it harder for college students to report sexual assaults, and put struggling university students at risk of higher debt payments with changes to student loans.

But that’s child’s play for the billionaire heiress who married into even more money.

Now she’s planning to weaken the rights of students with disabilities.

That’s right – Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers, Freddy Kruger, they all went after those pesky post-graduate teenagers. But none of them had the audacity to go after kids with learning disabilities!

It’s not that DeVos is undoing any laws. She’s erasing decades of government guidance about how the laws are to be interpreted. And though she claims these 72 directives are simply “outdated unnecessary or ineffective,” she’s not replacing them with anything else. They’re just – gone.

Of the 72 guidelines, 63 affect special education and 9 affect student rehabilitation. And these aren’t simply undoing the work of the Obama administration. Some of these regulations have been in place since the 1980s.

The rescinded policies include “Satellite Centers for Independent Living,” “Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Handicap in Programs and Activities Receiving or Benefiting From Federal Financial Assistance,” and “Information on the Provision of Vocational Rehabilitation Services to Individuals With Hearing Loss (Deaf and Hard of Hearing).”

Bah! Who needs all this paperwork?

Parents and students. That’s who.

These guidelines have helped parents of disabled and special education children advocate for their young ones’ rights. Without them, it may be more difficult for parents and teachers to ensure all children are receiving a free and appropriate education.

That’s some seriously stone cold sabotage, Ms. DeVos!

But at least her motivation is obvious to anyone with eyes.

She’s not purposefully making the lives of K-12, special education and college kids more difficult. Well, she is, but she’s not doing it out of spite. She’s doing it because it helps her investment portfolio.

How can she continue to promote charter and voucher schools that don’t provide the same kinds of quality services for special education and disable students as public schools do? She needs to degrade what the public schools provide, thereby making the privatized alternatives more marketable.

How can she keep making money off predatory lenders unless she loosens the rules to allow them more freedom to gorge on student debt? And how can she keep her lucrative job bending the rules in her favor unless she throws some red meat to the racists, misogynists and anti-Semites who helped elect her boss into the Oval Office?

And if kids get hurt, well those aren’t the people she’s looking out for, are they?

She’s only out for the other rich elites like herself making a mint off of our public tax dollars!

It’s almost enough to make you miss Arne Duncan.

Almost…

(Nah. Not really.)

GATES

Bill Gates, on the other hand, is more contrite.

His Common Core initiative has kind of exploded in his face.

No one likes it. NO ONE.

In fact, it was one of the key talking points President Trump used to garner support. The public’s hatred of Democratic plutocracy made them suckers for the Republican variety.

The problem isn’t so much political. It’s economic.

It’s rich people who think they can do whatever they want with the rest of us and our children.

More than anyone else, Gates is guilty of that kind of unexamined, unrepentant hubris.

Yet to hear him talk, after a string of education policy disasters, he’s learned his lesson.

He’s sorry – like a crack addict is after hitting rock bottom. But he’ll somehow find the courage to light up again.

Gates now admits that the approximate $2 billion he spent pushing us to break up large high schools into smaller schools was a bust.

Then he spent $100 million on inBloom, a corporation he financed that would quietly steal student data and sell it to the corporate world. However, that blew up when parents found out and demanded their children be protected.

Oops. His bad?

He also quietly admits that the $80 million he spent pushing for teachers to be evaluated on student test scores was a mistake. However, state, federal and local governments often still insist on enacting it despite all the evidence against it. Teachers have literally committed suicide over these unfair evaluations, but whatever. Bill learned a lesson.

When it comes to Common Core, though, Bill refuses to take his medicine – even to mouth the words.

By any metric, these poor quality uniform academic standards are an abject failure. He spent hundreds of millions of dollars for development and promotion. He influenced trillions of taxpayer dollars to be poured down the drain on it. All to no avail.

Instead, he’s quietly backing away. No explanation. No apology. Just on to something new.

Kind of like: “That didn’t work. Let’s try something else!”

His new plan – spend $1.7 billion over five years to develop new curriculums and networks of schools, use data to drive continuous improvement, and give out grants to high needs schools to do whatever he says.

What’s so frustrating is that Gates shows glimmers of self-awareness.

“It would be great if our education stuff worked, but that we won’t know for probably a decade,” he said during a speech at Harvard in 2014.

But then when he sees it isn’t working, he just doubles down on the same crap.

While he may not be committed to any one policy, Gates is committed to the idea that he knows best. Whatever nonsense bull crap that floats through his mind deserves to be tried out on a national scale.

No asking experts. No asking teachers, parents or students. Just listen to me, Bill Gates, because I’m rich and that makes me better than you.

No, it doesn’t Bill. It makes you just like Betsy DeVos.

So there they are. Mr. and Mrs. Public School Sabotage.

Short may their reign be.

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made.”

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Stupid Ass School Voucher Bill Back for Pennsylvania Vote Tomorrow

October 23, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, church and state, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Education, Parents, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Schools, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Politics, Poverty, privatization, Propaganda, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, small class size, Students, Teachers church and state, John DiSanto, Pennsylvania, Politics, private schools, Privatize, School Choice, school vouchers, separation of church and state

Close your eyes and imagine a school like the one where I teach.

The public middle school is right next door to a Catholic middle school.

Some of the wealthiest families send their kids to the religious school. The rest send their kids to the public school.

Now imagine that the state passes a school voucher bill.

Those wealthy families can now use public tax dollars to help fund their kids’ Catholic school tuition.

A truckload of taxpayer wealth would be redistributed away from the public school and into the religious one.

And this is for children who weren’t attending public school in the first place.

Imagine what an impact that would have on the two schools. At the Catholic middle school, not much would change. At most a few more kids might enroll. And wealthy parents would get to pay less in tuition.

At the public middle school, however, the results would be disastrous. It would have to survive on much less funding than it was already receiving. Services for the majority of students in the district would be degraded. Class sizes would balloon. Educational quality would take a nose dive.

So why wouldn’t more kids from the public school move to the Catholic one?

Well, first of all, few kids in the district are Catholic. Should they be forced to be indoctrinated in a faith in which they don’t believe?

Second, tuition at the Catholic school costs more than the price of the voucher. Parents would have to pay above and beyond what they’re paying now to make tuition at the Catholic school. And this is a mostly poor neighborhood. Parents simply can’t afford it.

THIS is the situation the Pennsylvania Education Committee will vote on tomorrow.

The committee will decide whether State Sen. John DiSanto’s school voucher bill should be voted on by the state Senate and House.

School vouchers are not popular at both the national and state level.

Around 70% of people across the country oppose school vouchers, according to the PDK-Gallup public opinion poll about U.S. education.

Moreover, Harrisburg wastepaper baskets are lined with school voucher bills that fail to pass despite being introduced every few years.

DiSanto’s bill is called Education Savings Accounts for Students in Underperforming Schools or SB 2.

And guess what!?

It’s almost exactly the same as a pile of similar bills offered by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

The Special Needs Scholarship Program Act, The Foster Child Scholarship Program Act, “Opportunity Scholarships,” The Smart Start Scholarship Program – all ALEC bills that do almost the same thing.

They designate some group of at risk students and say, “Hey, you know what they need? School vouchers!”

Well, my goodness. I’m sure glad DiSanto didn’t stress himself out writing something new. I’m certain his constituents wanted him to plagiarize someone else’s bill and pretend like it was his own.

And how exactly will spending public tax dollars on non-public schools help these kids succeed? That’s never explained.

Fools like DiSanto just pretend that it will help as a matter of faith. And since the overwhelming majority of school vouchers go to religious school coffers, this makes sense.

It is a blatant violation of the separation of church and state. But privatization supporters don’t give a crap about that. They don’t care about the values on which this country where founded. Their only concern is doing what their rich donors demand.

SB 2 would target students living in districts with the most underfunded schools serving the most impoverished populations. You know – “failing schools.”

If passed, kids living in these neighborhoods would have whatever the district sets aside for each student put in a savings account to be spent in almost any way parents see fit so long as they could somehow justify it as educational.

Send your kids to a private or parochial school?

Sure!

Homeschool your child?

Yep!

Go on a trip to the life-sized replica of Noah’s Ark in Williamstown, Kentucky?

You betcha!

And the best part is there is hardly any accountability built in to the law, so we probably wouldn’t even know how this money was spent.

Your tax dollars at work. Somehow. Somewhere. Out of sight.

I guess that’s what Pennsylvania Republicans like DiSanto call fiscal conservatism.

If passed, the bill would affect 800 schools – the 15% lowest performing in the state – including mine.

Take a look at the list.

Every school serves mostly poor students. Every school is severely underfunded.

Pennsylvania ranks 45^th out of 50 for school funding. There are only five states in the country where the state government pays less of the cost of educating students. The Commonwealth relies on local municipalities to make up the difference. That means local property taxes, so the richer an area you live in, the more money it can afford to pay to educate children. The poorer an area where you live, the less it can pay.

This is why Pennsylvania has the widest disparity between how much it spends on rich kids vs. poor ones. Wealthy children are cherished and coddled. Poor ones are left to fend for themselves.

This voucher bill would only exacerbate the situation.

It’s a giveaway to those who don’t need it at the expense of those who can least afford to pay.

If you live in the Commonwealth, please call and/or write your state Senator and Representative and ask them to oppose this bill.

Men Are Responsible For Stopping Sexual Assault. Not Women. MEN.

October 21, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Civil Rights, Compassion, Education, Feminism, Social Justice boys will be boys, feminism, gender roles, male, male privilege, men, patriarchy, Rape, sexism, Sexual Assault, sexual harassment, toxic masculinity

Enough bullshit.

Nearly 99% of sex offenders are men.

So stop blaming women for sexual assault.

It’s not the clothes they wear, the way they style their hair, the words they say, or how much skin they’re showing that cause men to sexually assault them.

It’s a choice made by men.

Males. Husbands. Sons. Boyfriends. Brothers. Nephews. Uncles. Co-workers. Coaches. Bosses. Total strangers with raging boners.

That’s the key factor – a penis.

So stop blaming the victim for being victimized. And stop letting men off the hook with every stupid ass excuse under the sun.

It’s time for men like me to take responsibility.

The mere possession of male genitalia does not make it impossible to resist sexual urges. Nor does enculturation as a male in a patriarchal society determine our decisions – even if it does influence them.

Sure. We live in a world of toxic masculinity. The “Boys will be boys” sentiment dominates the social landscape. But that’s not what actually does the raping and harassment.

It’s us. Individual men.

We’re responsible for our own actions.

And if seeing that in print makes you want to offer a kneejerk reaction against it, stop and take a breath.

Do you really want to argue that men aren’t responsible for themselves? Are we, as men, really such a weak, passive gender that we don’t qualify as agents in our own lives?

I’d like to propose that we’re better than that lame justification. Men are not one slim step above animals. We are thinking, feeling human beings who – when presented with an opportunity to engage in harassment or violence – have a choice in the matter.

Free will does not end with an erection.

There are lots of things we can do with it. Rape is just one of them.

I’ll let you in on a little secret.

You want to know the REAL reason so many men choose sexual violence?

Because we can.

Most sex offenders are white men – almost 6 in 10.

Most were not sexually or physically abused, themselves, as children.

They’re just guys taking advantage of a power trip that’s often consequence free.

In short, society lets us get away with it.

When men know that no one’s going to hold them accountable, some act accordingly.

The presence of alcohol and violent pornography increase the likelihood of sexual violence, but lack of repercussions is the number one consideration.

We figure victims won’t speak out, and if they do, they won’t be believed. The deck is stacked against the survivors of sexual violence and in favor of the perpetrators.

You don’t need a study by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center to prove that – but it’s there.

It just goes to show how much of a rational, reasoned action sexual violence is.

It’s not something done by an uncontrollable animal impulse. It’s the result of a cost-benefit analysis.

That’s why all these #MeToo stories are so powerful.

Women all over social media are coming forward and admitting that sexual violence has touched their lives. And we see most every woman in our lives is affected. For the first time, the scope of the problem is becoming visible.

The ground is shaking under the patriarchy. And as a man I am so fucking relieved.

It is absolutely disgusting to me that so many of my gender don’t give a shit about consent.

They act as if women’s bodies are theirs to do with as they want. Pinch them, grab them, grope them, discuss them as mere objects of our personal pleasure. It’s just a man’s right.

Fuck you, Dude.

Seriously.

I’m not a perfect person. I’ve certainly engaged in inappropriate behavior – especially as an adolescent – but I’ve always respected consent.

And if there’s any time when I’ve crossed a line, call me out on it. Hold me responsible. Treat me like a real person – not some overgrown child, an ape that can’t help but fling his own feces.

Yet we too often stop there. We dare women to name us in a venue where we have all the advantages. That needs to stop.

Stopping sexual assault can’t just be the responsibility of women anymore. In fact, it’s not their responsibility at all.

It’s ours. It’s men’s.

Moving forward, guys like me have to step out of the shadows and take our place at the forefront of this fight.

We caused this mess. It’s up to us to clean it up.

This means calling out sexism. No more yucking it up with the guys uncomfortably in public and then condemning it in private.

This means demanding equal treatment for women. Equal pay, childcare, reproductive healthcare. Easy access to contraception, mammograms, gynecologists, neo-natal care.

This means teaching our sons and daughters – but especially our sons – what consent is, why it’s important, and how to tell if you’ve got it.

And it means acknowledging that women are just as much sexual beings as men. No more double standards, no more defining women as a reflection of men and male desire.

It won’t happen overnight.

It will require commitment and strength.

But we can do it.

Why?

Because we’re men.

And if we try, we can be just as strong, just as responsible, just as human, as women.

There Are Very Few Bad Students, Bad Parents and Bad Teachers

October 19, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Civil Rights, Compassion, Competency Based Education, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Education, Parents, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, Propaganda, School Funding, Schools, small class size, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers blame, blame the victim, class warfare, corporate school reform, parents, Politics, public schools, schools, standardized testing, Students, teachers, Value Added Measures

Maybe the problem with public schools is that people just aren’t trying hard enough.

There are too many bad students, bad parents, and bad teachers out there.

At least, that’s what the rich folks say.

They sit behind their mahogany desks, light a Cuban cigar with a thousand dollar bill and lament the kind of gumption that got them where they are today just isn’t present in the unwashed masses.

Never mind that they probably inherited their wealth. Never mind that the people they’re passing judgment on are most often poor and black. And never mind that struggling schools are almost always underfunded compared to those in wealthier neighborhoods and thus receive fewer resources and have larger class sizes.

Tax cuts feed the rich and starve the poor, but somehow the wealthy deserve all the breaks while OUR cries are always the fault of our own grumbling stomachs.

As a 15-year veteran teacher in the public school classroom, I can tell you I’ve seen very few people who aren’t trying.

I’ve seen plenty of struggling students but hardly any I’d simply write off as, “bad.” That’s a term I usually reserve for wilted fruit – not human beings.

I’ve seen plenty of parents or guardians striving to do the best with what they have, but few I’d honestly give up on. And I’ve seen lots of teachers endeavoring to do better every day, but hardly any that deserve that negative label.

In fact, if anything, I often see people trying their absolute hardest yet convinced that no matter what they do it won’t be enough.

“It’s not very good.”

That’s what I hear everyday.

Ask most students to share their writing and you’ll get that as preamble.

“I didn’t do a very good job.”

“This sucks.”

“It’s butt.”

“I can’t do this.”

“It’s grimy.”

“It’s trifling.”

Something to let you know that you should lower your expectations.

This piece of writing here is not worth your time as teacher, they imply. Why don’t you just ignore it? Ignore me.

But after all this time, I’ve learned a thing or two about student psychology.

I know that they’re really just afraid of being judged.

School probably always contained some level of labeling and sorting, distinguishing the excellent from the excreble. But that used to be a temporary state. You might not have done well today, but it was a step on the journey toward getting better.

However, these days when we allow students to be defined by their standardized test scores, the labels of Advanced, Proficient, Basic or Below are semi-permanent.

Students don’t often progress much one way or another. They’re stuck in place with a scarlet letter pinned to their chests, and we’re not even allowed to question what it really means or why we’re forced to assess them this way.

So I hear the cries of learned helplessness more often with each passing year.

And it’s my job to dispel it.

More than teaching new skills, I unteach the million lashes of an uncaring society first.

Then, sometimes, we get to grammar, reading comprehension, spelling and all that academic boogaloo.

“Mr. Singer, I don’t want you to read it. It’s not my best work.”

“Let me ask you something?” I say.

“What?”

“Did you write it?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’m sure it’s excellent.”

And sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes not.

It’s all about trust, having an honest and respectful relationship. If you can’t do that, you can’t teach.

That’s why all this computer-based learning software crap will never adequately replace real live teachers. An avatar – a simulated person in a learning game package – can pretend to be enthusiastic or caring or a multitude of human emotions. But kids are very good at spotting lies, and that’s exactly what this is.

It’s a computer graphic pretending to care.

I actually do.

Which would you rather learn from?

When a student reads a piece of their own writing aloud, I always make sure to find something to praise.

Sometimes this is rather challenging. But often it’s not.

Most of my kids come to me because they’ve failed the government-mandated test, their grades didn’t set the world on fire, and/or they have special needs.

But I’ve been privileged to see and hear some of the most marvelous writing to come out of a middle school. Colorful adventures riding insects through a rainbow world, house parties with personal play-lists and famous friends, political discourses on the relative worth of the Roman Empire vs. African culture, and more real life crime dramas than every episode of every variation of Law and Order.

It’s just a matter of showing kids what makes them so special. And giving them the space to discover the exceptional in themselves and each other.

There’s a danger in my profession, though, of becoming bitter.

We’re under so much pressure to fix everything society has done to our children, and document every course of action, all while being shackled to a test-and-punish education policy handed down from lawmakers who don’t know a thing about education. We’re constantly threatened with being fired if test scores don’t improve – even for courses of study we don’t teach, even for kids we don’t have in our classes!

It can make the whole student-teacher relationship adversarial.

You didn’t turn in your homework!? Again! Why are you doing this to me!?

But it’s the wrong attitude. It’s understandable, but it’s wrong.

Every year I have a handful of students who don’t do their work. Or they do very little of it.

Sometimes it’s because they only attend school every third or fourth day. Sometimes it’s because when they are here, they’re high. Sometimes they’re too exhausted to stay awake, they can’t focus on anything for more than 30 seconds, they’re traumatized by violence, sickness or malnutrition. And sometimes they just don’t care.

But I don’t believe any of them are bad students.

Let me define that. They are bad at being students. But they aren’t bad students.

They aren’t doing what I’ve set up for them to demonstrate they’re learning.

They might do so if they altered behavior A, B or C. However, this isn’t happening.

Why?

It’s tempting to just blame the student.

They aren’t working hard enough. They lack rigor. They don’t care. They’re an active threat to this year’s teaching evaluation. They’re going to make me look bad.

But I rarely blame the student. Not in my heart.

Let me be clear. I firmly deny the pernicious postulation that teachers are ultimately responsible for their students’ learning.

I believe that the most responsible person for any individual student’s education is that student.

However, that isn’t to say the student is solely responsible. Their actions are necessary for success, but they aren’t always sufficient.

They’re just children, and most of them are dealing with things that would crush weaker people.

When I was young, I had a fairly stable household. I lived in a good neighborhood. I never suffered from food insecurity. I never experienced gun violence or drug abuse. And my parents were actively involved.

Not to mention the fact that I’m white and didn’t have to deal with all the societal bull crap that gets heaped on students of color. Security never followed my friends and I through the shopping mall. Police never hassled us because of the color of our skin. Moreover, I’m a csis male. Young boys love calling each other gay, but it never really bothered me because I wasn’t. And, as a man, I didn’t really have to worry about someone of an opposite gender twice my size trying to pressure me into sex, double standard gender roles or misogyny – you know, every day life for teenage girls.

So, no. I don’t believe in bad students. I believe in students who are struggling to fulfill their role as students. And I think it’s my job to try to help them out.

I pride myself in frequent success, but you never really know the result of your efforts because you only have these kids in your charge for about a year or two. And even then I will admit to some obvious failures.

If I know I’ve given it my best shot, that’s all I can do.

Which brings me to parents.

You often hear people criticizing parents for the difficulties their children experience.

That kid would do better if her parents cared more about her. She’d have better grades if her parents made sure she did her homework. She’d have less social anxiety if her folks just did A, B or C.

It’s one of those difficult things that’s both absolutely true and complete and total bullshit.

Yes, when you see a struggling student, it’s usually accompanied by some major disruption at home. In my experience, this is true 90% of the time.

However, there are cases where you have stable, committed parents and children who are an absolute mess. But it’s rare.

Children are a reflection of their home lives. When things aren’t going well there, it shows.

Does that mean parents are completely responsible for their children?

Yes and no.

They should do everything they can to help their young ones. And I think most do.

But who am I to sit in judgment over other human beings whose lives I really know nothing about?

Everyone is going through a struggle that no one else is privy to. Often I find my students parents aren’t able to be home as much as they’d like. They’re working two or more minimum wage jobs just to make ends meet. Or they work the night shift. Or they’re grandparents struggling to pick up the slack left by absentee moms and dads. Or they’re foster parents giving all they can to raise a bunch of abused and struggling children. Or they’re dealing with a plethora of their own problems – incarcerations, drugs, crime.

They’re trying. I know they are.

If you believe that most parents truly love their children – and I do believe that – it means they’re trying their best.

That may not be good enough. But it’s not my place to criticize them for that. Nor is it society’s.

Instead we should be offering help. We should have more social programs to help parents meet their responsibilities.

It may feel good to call parents names, but it does no good for the children.

So I don’t believe in bad parents, either. I just believe in parents who are struggling to do their jobs as parents.

And what about people like me – the teachers?

Are we any different?

To a degree – yes.

Students can’t help but be students. They have no choice in the matter. We require them to go to school and (hopefully) learn.

Parents have more choice. No one forced adults to procreate – but given our condemnation of birth control and abortion, we’ve kind of got our fingers on the scale. It’s hard to deny the siren song of sex and – without precautions or alternatives – that often means children.

But becoming a teacher? That’s no accident. It’s purposeful.

You have to go out and choose it.

And I think that’s significant, because no one freely chooses to do something they don’t want to do.

After the first five years, teachers know whether they’re any good at it or not. That’s why so many young teachers leave the profession in that time.

What you’re left with is an overwhelming majority of teachers who really want to teach. And if they’ve stayed that long, they’re probably at least halfway decent at it.

So, no, I don’t really believe in bad teachers either.

Certainly some are better than others. And when it comes to those just entering the profession, all bets are off. But in my experience, anyone who’s lasted is usually pretty okay.

All teachers can use improvement. We can benefit from more training, resources, encouragement, and help. Cutting class size would be particularly useful letting us fully engage all of or students on a more one-on-one basis. Wrap around services would be marvelous, too. More school psychologists, special education teachers, counselors, tutors, mentors, aides, after school programs, etc.

But bad teachers? No.

Most of the time, it’s a fiction, a fantasy.

The myths of the bad student, the bad parent and the bad teacher are connected.

They’re the stories we tell to level the blame. They’re the propaganda spread by the wealthy to stop us from demanding they pay their fair share.

We know something’s wrong with our public school system just as we know something’s wrong with our society.

But instead of criticizing our policies and our leaders, we criticize ourselves.

We’ve been told for so long to pick ourselves up by our own bootstraps, that when we can’t do it, we blame the boots, the straps and the hands that grab them.

We should be blaming the idiots who think you can raise someone up without offering any help.

We should be blaming the plutocrats waging class warfare and presenting us with the bill.

There may be few bad students, parents and teachers out there, but you don’t have to go far to find plenty of the privileged elite who are miserable failures at sharing the burdens of civil society.

Will the REAL Grassroots Activists Please Stand Up – Teachers or School Privatization Lobbyists?

October 12, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Campaign Donations, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Election, Election Reform, Labor, Local Control, Network for Public Education, Politics, privatization, Propaganda, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, Social Justice, Teachers, union busting, Unions, United Opt Out American Federation of Teachers, Bill and Melinda Gates, Center for Education Reform, Charles and David Koch, charter schools, Eli Broad, grassroots, Jeanne Allen, Koch Brothers, Koch Industries, labor, National Education Association, plutocracy, Privatize, public schools, School Choice, school funding, school vouchers, teachers, unions, Walton Family

Everyone claims to be grassroots.

We’re the ordinary people – they say – the Hoi Polloi, the everyday Joes and Janes who make the world go round.

Which is to say we’re NOT the wealthy elite who get what they want simply by buying lawmakers and the political process.

You’d think the plutocrats wouldn’t even bother hiding. After all, it should be pretty obvious who is who.

One group has barrels full of cash. The other has numbers. However, our laws are written to obscure exactly how much money any one side has. And if you have money, you can use it to buy bodies to line up on your side and “prove” you have numbers.

So when it comes to the American education system, which side truly represents the grassroots – those supporting privatized schools like charter and voucher institutions or those supporting public schools?

It’s kind of a ridiculous question to ask, when you come to think of it.

One side actively lobbies for big business and huge corporations to take over local schools and districts. The other supports neighborhood schools.

One side pushes for schools to be striped of local control and instead to be managed by private equity firms and corporate officers. The other supports democratically elected school boards.

One side demands taxpayer dollars be available as profit that they can pocket and spend on mansions, yachts and jewelry. The other fights for transparency and for all taxpayer funds to be used in the service of educating children.

Which side do you THINK represents the little guy and which represents Goliath? Which side do you THINK represents the Rebel Alliance and which the Galactic Empire?

Come on now!

It’s the public school advocates who represent the common people. They are literally an extension of the masses struggle to reassert control over their lives and our society. Not those looking to raid our public services for fun and profit!

People get kind of upset when you try to do that. So when the villagers show up with torches and pitchforks, it does little good to argue that money equals speech. Better for the aristocrats to disguise themselves in peasant garb.

Enter Jeanne Allen.

She wants to convince you she’s the real underdog grassroots champion.

As Chief Executive Officer and Founder of the Center for Education Reform, she’s spent most of her career lobbying for public schools to be gobbled up by private enterprise.

So when the folks behind a new documentary about school privatization, “Backpack Full of Cash,” had the gall to cast her and her organization as the bad guy, she did what any grassroots activist would – she called the Hollywood Reporter.

Why would anyone be against charter and voucher schools, she whined. They just suck away necessary funds from the already underfunded neighborhood school so that businesspeople can play with your tax money. They just cut services for children and parents while miraculously transforming the savings into yummy profit.

I can’t imagine why anyone is calling her out. Can you?

But perhaps the most pernicious aspect of her argument is monetary.

Allen, the Center for Education Reform and the entire corporate education reform movement are the real grassroots, she says, because they are outspent by the opposition.

By which she means teachers unions. As if the overwhelming majority of parents, students, social scientists, civil rights activists and concerned citizens somehow didn’t count.

But oh well.

“The people praised in the film” (i.e. public school teachers) “get paid from taxpayer dollars,” Allen told the Hollywood Reporter, as if the people the film criticizes (charter and voucher operators) don’t also get paid from the same pot.

“The teachers unions spend $300 million a year on political races. We don’t have that kind of money.”

Is that true?

Are those pushing for corporate control of our schools really unable to match the monetary might of the big bad teachers unions?

Well, first let’s examine the number Allen bandies about as if it were fact.

$300 million. Do teachers unions actually spend that much annually on political races?

It’s doubtful. The entire operating budget for the National Education Association (NEA), the largest teachers union in the country, is only $367 million. And the union does an awful lot besides lobby lawmakers for pro-education public policy. It raises funds for scholarships, conducts professional development workshops, bargains contracts for school employees, files legal action on behalf of teachers to protect their rights, and partners with other education organizations to promote sound educational practices. Political lobbying is an important part of what unions do, but if they spent what they’re accused of spending on it – even if you include other unions like the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) – they couldn’t do the rest of what they do.

It turns out the figure Allen uses is a stale conservative talking point that Poltifact, a non-partisan fact checking Website, rated as false.

It’s based on a funding target the unions had for the 2008 election of which the unions fell short by almost a third. But now right-wingers and anti-labor trolls everywhere are married to that number and quote it as if it were fact.

In the real world, where Fox News talking points aren’t accepted without question, it’s increasingly difficult to determine exactly how much organizations spend on politics. But it’s incredibly doubtful teachers unions have the monetary might attributed to them by corporate school reformers.

And speaking of those who fight on behalf of poor beleaguered corporate America, how much do THEY have to spend fighting public schools?

Well, let’s just take two of their most famous backers – Charles and David Koch.

This duo runs one of the largest privately held companies in the United States: Koch Industries. It is involved in petroleum, chemicals, natural gas, plastics, paper and ranching. In 2013, Forbes said it had an annual revenue of $115 billion.

That’s an incredible amount of resources they can draw on every year when compared to teachers unions. The NEA would have to bring in more than three times its annual revenue to even come close to matching 1% of the Koch’s annual pay.

And do the Kochs spend on politics? You BET they do!

In 2012, alone, they spent at least $407 million on Mitt Romeny’s Presidential campaign! Yes, just that one campaign! They spent more on others! But even if we limit it there, that’s more than even the most absurd estimates of teacher’s unions political spending.

And they’re only two people!

We’re comparing about 3 million members of the NEA, and 1.5 million members of the AFT with two individual human beings.

Even if teachers unions spent $300 million, that only comes to less than $67 per member.

A quick look at Allen’s backers at the Center for Education Reform includes some of the richest people on Earth including: Bill and Melinda Gates, the Walton Family and Eli Broad.

And this woman has the nerve to cry poor in comparison to the big bad teachers!

Herself, she draws a six-figure salary as the organization’s President Emeritus – well more than the overwhelming majority of teachers.

But you’ll still find corporate reformers who contest this analysis with creative accounting. They’ll give you a spreadsheet with hundreds of millions of union dollars laid bare compared with a handful of poor billionaires who just can’t scrape together enough change in the couch cushions. And to do so, they’ll hide the super richs’ donations to super PACs or exclude dark money contributions, etc.

Look, I’m not saying our campaign finance system is perfect. In fact, it’s pretty messed up.

I am the first person to advocate for getting money out of politics. No more defining money as speech. One person, one vote.

But you must realize, the super wealthy don’t want that. More than anything else it would exponentially increase the power of the unions and the middle class from which they come. Not to mention their allies – the parents, students, child advocates, etc.

You really don’t need a detailed analysis of each group’s relative financial worth. You just have to look at who is in each group.

We’re talking the richest 1% of people on the planet backing charter and voucher schools versus teachers, parents, students, college professors, civil rights activists and concerned citizens backing public schools.

Which group do you think truly represents the grassroots?

Which group is an authentic demonstration of the will of the people?

And which is emblematic of the arrogant, hypocritical wealth class demanding we all bow down to the power of their pocketbooks?

You decide.

I Was Blocked From Facebook for Criticizing School Privatization

October 7, 2017 stevenmsinger Badass Teachers Association, bloggers, Charter Schools, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", Education, Journalism, Media, Opt Out, Politics, privatization, School Choice, school vouchers, Schools, Social Justice, Teach for America, Teachers, United Opt Out #FreeGadfly, bloggers, blogs, Censorship, charter schools, Competency Based Education, Education Bloggers Network, Facebook, Facebook Jail, Politics, School Choice, school vouchers, Social Media, teachers

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
-George Orwell

I have had many strange experiences as an education blogger.

People have adapted my writing into a play.

People have written to express a sincere desire for my death.

I’ve had a teacher send me pictures of essays his composition students wrote in response to one of my articles.

And I’ve had people email my workplace demanding I be fired.

I guess Internet fame is a mixed bag.

But after more than three years of blogging about education and social justice issues while teaching in the public school system, there’s one thing I’ve never experienced before: censorship.

This is social media, after all.

I’ve got no advertisers to please, no editor breathing down my neck. I can write whatever I want.

That’s the benefit of being a blogger. No one can stop you from telling the truth.

Well, no one except Facebook, apparently.

For the first time in my blogging career, I was blocked from Mark Zuckerberg’s social networking platform because I had the audacity to post my blog to it.

Now keep in mind I’ve been doing just that every week since July, 2014.

Moreover, the article I posted was in no way different from my previous work.

The article is called “School Choice is a Lie. It Does Not Mean More Options. It Means Less.” You can read it HERE

But almost as soon as I posted it to the Facebook page I keep for my blog, Gadfly on the Wall, I got a message saying I was blocked for a week for “violating community standards.”

What community, exactly, is that?

My article contains no hate speech. For once I even managed to control my own potty mouth.

This is just an examination of why charter and voucher schools reduce options for parents and students – not increase them.

It’s an argument. I lay out my reasons with reference to facts and make numerous connections to other people’s work and articles.

I don’t understand how that “violates community standards.”

A blogger friend of mine tells me that someone probably saw my article and reported it to Facebook as spam. That’s happened to him multiple times, he says, especially when he criticizes groups like Teach for America.

Perhaps that’s what’s happened here.

Some folks get so furious when I criticize their charter and voucher schools.

Maybe they saw my latest piece and just wanted to silence me.

I don’t know.

I suppose another option is that it came from Zuckerberg, himself.

He’s a big fan of school privatization. Perhaps he changed Facebook guidelines to crack down on people like me who throw shade on his pet school reforms.
Or maybe my work was targeted because I’m critical of President Donald Trump. I did, after all, write an article this week called “Donald Trump is a Pathetic Excuse For a Human Being” that includes a picture of the chief executive as a poop emoji.

Or maybe it was the National Rifle Association (NRA). The article before the school privatization piece was called “Guns and Profit – Why We’ll Do Absolutely Nothing New After This Las Vegas Shooting.” It was picked up by Commondreams.org, the LA Progressive and other left-leaning sites. Perhaps the firearms lobby had had enough.

Who knows? I’ve pissed off a lot of people in three years.

But I find it hard to believe I was actively targeted. I mean, this is still America, right?

Right?

Another option might be a rogue algorithm.

Facebook is known to use various processes or sets of rules to govern calculations about what should and should not be allowed on the site. After all, they can’t leave all these decisions to living, breathing, human beings. That would cost too much money. Better to leave it to bots and computers.

Perhaps something in my article tripped their robotic alarm bells. (ROBOT VOICE: He’s against Competency Based Education! EXTERMINATE!)

I guess I’ll probably never know.

In the meantime, Twitter is still open for my business. I can still share links in 140 characters or less – with hastags. And, the best part is that Trump might see it!

But what about friends not on the Twitterverse?

How do I even let people know what happened to me? Send a million separate emails!? Pick up the phone and – yuck – talk to people!?

I sent a note to friends through Facebook Messenger about what happened, but that soon stopped working on me. I can’t message anyone else now. Still, the story seems to have leaked.

People who know what’s happened have been kind enough to share the article. It’s being read and appreciated.

I don’t know if my Facebook imprisonment has had a major effect on its distribution. But it’s probably had some dampening effect.

I have to admit, it’s kind of frustrating.

After all this time, many of us rely on Facebook for so much. I’m a member of the Badass Teachers Association, a group of more than 64,000 members who use the social media platform to discuss, plan and engage in various actions against corporate school reform. I’m also in United Opt Out National. It’s increasingly difficult for me to help plan our protest in Washington, DC, without Facebook.

It never really hit me before how much of our lives flow through this one network.

If someone wanted to disrupt political organizations dedicated to reforming the status quo, censoring people and posts on Facebook could be very effective.

I haven’t been silenced, but I’ve been effectively muted. Most of my readers see my work through Facebook. Without it, my writing is out there, but much fewer people probably are in contact with it.

So I suppose that brings me to you, intrepid reader.

Somehow you found this article.

Assuming Zuckerberg and his bots don’t change their minds, I probably won’t be able to post this article to Facebook. So if you saw it, you found it somewhere else. Or perhaps a friendly radical took a chance and posted it on Facebook, themselves, defiant in the possibility that the social media gestapo might crash down on them.

Will you please do the same?

Share my story.

Let the world know what happened to me today.

It’s not the most important thing that’s happened this week. And hopefully it will all be settled in seven interminable days. 168 hours. 10,080 minutes. But who’s counting?

Or – who knows – perhaps I’ll be cleared of all charges, write a new article and the same thing will happen when I try to post it.

I don’t know.

In the meantime, I’m going to spend some time off the computer.

Maybe I’ll open the doors and windows, let in some natural light and see what this “outside world” is like that people used to talk about.

See you in a week.

Live from Facebook Jail,

The Gadfly on the Wall

#FreeGadfly

School Choice is a Lie. It Does Not Mean More Options. It Means Less.

October 6, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, church and state, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Education, Politics, Poverty, privatization, School Choice, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, Teachers charter schools, education, Politics, private schools, Privatize, Profit, propaganda, public schools, School Choice, school vouchers, teaching

“A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.”

-Joseph Goebbels

Neoliberals and right-wingers are very good at naming things.

Doing so allows them to frame the narrative, and control the debate.

Nowhere is this more obvious than with “school choice” – a term that has nothing to do with choice and everything to do with privatization.

It literally means taking public educational institutions and turning them over to private companies for management and profit.

A FAKE DIFFERENCE AND A BIG DIFFERENCE

There are two main types: charter and voucher schools.

Charter schools are run by private interests but paid for exclusively by tax dollars. Voucher schools are run by private businesses and paid for at least in part by tax dollars.

Certainly each state has different laws and different legal definitions of these terms so there is some variability of what these schools are in practice. However, the general description holds in most cases. Voucher schools are privately run at (at least partial) public expense. Charter schools are privately run but pretend to be public. In both cases, they’re private – no matter what their lobbyists or marketing campaigns say to the contrary.

For instance, some charter schools claim to be run by duly elected school boards just like public schools. Yet the elected body is a proxy that gives over all management decisions to an appointed private board of company officers and a CEO. That’s not really the same thing as what you get at public schools. It’s a way of claiming that you’re the same without actually being it.

Likewise, voucher schools are subject to almost no regulations on how they spend their money – even the portion made up by tax dollars – but charter schools are subject to more state and federal oversight. This is why voucher schools can violate the separation of church and state – teaching creationism as fact – while charter schools cannot.

Yet, in practice, state and federal laws often allow charters much more flexibility than public schools and the state and federal government rarely checks up on them to see if they’re following the regulations. In fact, in many states, auditors are not even allowed to check up on charter school compliance unless specific complaints have been filed or long intervals of leaving them to their own devices have passed. So charters can also teach things like creationism as fact only more clandestinely.

In short, the differences between public and privatized schools is significant. Yet the difference between the two types of privatized education is more political and rhetorical than practical.

Despite these facts, when we talk about privatized schools, we ignore the real distinctions and focus on the fake ones. We overlook the salient features and instead describe privatized schools as vehicles for choice.

They’re not.

FAKE CHOICE

School choice.

Got choice?

Parents should have the freedom to choose the school their children attend.

But using “choice” as the ultimate descriptor of what privatized schools are and what they offer is at best misleading and at worst an outright lie.

They are essentially private businesses existing for the sole purpose of making a profit.

Yes, parents choose if they want their children to enroll in these schools. But they also choose if their children enroll in the neighborhood public school.

Critics say the public school option is not a choice because there is only one public school district in a given neighborhood. Yet isn’t it the parents who decide the neighborhood where they live? In most cases, even the wealthiest district has rental properties where people can move to take advantage of an exceptional school system.

Certainly the quality of a school shouldn’t be determined by a zip code. But this is an argument for funding equity, for providing each district with the resources necessary to educate the children in their charge, not an argument for privatization.

In BOTH cases, public and privatized schools, parents exercise choice. But the propagandists choose to call only one of them by that name.

And it is a misnomer.

Privatized schools – both charters and voucher schools – are under no obligation to accept all students who seek enrollment. Public schools are.

If a student lives in a public school’s service area, the district must accept that student. It doesn’t matter if educating that child will cost more than the average per pupil expenditure. It doesn’t matter if she is easy or difficult to educate, if she has a record of behavior or discipline problems, if she has special needs, if she has low test scores. The public school must accept her and give her the best education possible.

Privatized schools are legally allowed to be selective. They can deny enrollment based on whatever reasons they choose. Charter schools may have to be more careful about their explicit reasoning than voucher schools, but that’s just a restriction on what they say, not on what they do. The results are the same. If they want to deny your child entry because of her race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, whatever – they can. They just have to put something more creative down as the reason why.

Vouchers schools don’t even have to give you a reason at all.

And charters have a multitude of ways to avoid accountability. They can simply pretend to have conducted a lottery. Or they can include an onerous series of demands for enrollment such as expensive uniforms, school supplies and parental volunteering at the school, to discourage difficult students from applying.

Moreover, even if they let your child enroll, they can kick her out at any time if she proves to be too expensive or it appears she’ll make the school look bad. This is why every year charter schools send a stream of struggling students back to the public schools just before standardized test time – they don’t want the students low test scores to reflect badly on the school – yet they’ll use the fact that they enrolled difficult students at the beginning of the school year to “prove” they aren’t selective!

That’s not choice. It’s marketing.

At best, it’s not choice for the parents or students. It’s choice for the operators of privatized schools.

WALMARTIZATION OF SCHOOLS

Critics will argue that these problems are a feature of the limited scope of so-called school choice programs. If there were more of them, the market would self-correct and many of these irresponsible practices would disappear.

Yet such a belief shows a complete ignorance of how business works in America.

The free market has not lead to more choice. It has led to consolidation.

When WalMart moves into an area, it doesn’t help boost the local mom and pop stores. It devours them. It’s a principle best described as the bigger fish eat the little ones.

Our system is designed to hide this fact by preserving separate companies with individual names and brands but that are all owned and operated by huge conglomerates. For instance, there are multiple newspapers and TV stations across the country all owned by a handful of huge corporations. The same with airlines, banks, pharmaceuticals, you name it.

That’s not choice. It’s the illusion of choice. And if privatization were given free reign over our public schools, we should expect nothing less.

If all or most of our public schools became privatized, after a short time we would have a handful of huge corporations dominating the field with near monopolies. Schools would be large charter and voucher chains, possibly with a variety of names and brands marketed differently, but providing pretty much the same generic services. It would be the WalMartiztion of education.

That goal is not the expansion of choice. It is the reduction of it.

MUSICAL CHAIRS

And what of those critics who claim school choice isn’t about privatization but about allowing students to attend even neighboring public districts?

First, this is rarely what so-called “school choice” programs do. And there is a very good reason for that.

It’s a terrible idea.

Let’s say you have three districts in your part of the state, one of which is exceptional and the other two struggle. If we allow students at the struggling districts to attend the exceptional one, what happens? You have a mass exodus to the exceptional district while the other two close due to lack of funding.

Now what? The one exceptional district has to somehow service more students than it can house and somehow create an instant infrastructure to meet their needs. Even under the best of circumstances, this is impossible. It would take years to do so, and in the meantime all students – even those who originally lived in the exceptional school’s immediate coverage area – will suffer.

Moreover, it ignores the realities on the ground. Why were there two struggling districts and one exceptional one? Almost always this is because of the wealth disparity between the three districts. The exceptional district probably serviced wealthier children. They have fewer needs than poor children. They have books in the home, less food uncertainty, less exposure to violence, racism and trauma.

Yet the rich district has an overabundance of resources to meet whatever needs its students have. It can levy higher taxes and thus spend more per pupil than the other struggling districts.

So when you combine the three districts, you end up being unable to continue spending the same amount per pupil. You probably have to decrease that spending and thus all students receive fewer services. However, at the same time, student needs for services increase because now you’re also trying to educate the more impoverished and racially diverse students from the two previously struggling districts.

No, even this kind of school choice doesn’t improve the quality of education. It degrades it.

The only solution is to provide each district with the funding necessary to meet students’ needs – whatever they are. That is the only way to increase the quality of education – not playing musical chairs with where students physically go to school.

SCHOOL CHOICE IS A LIE

At every level, so-called “school choice” is a lie.

It’s about preserving the status quo for the wealthy while providing substandard services for the poor and middle class.

It’s a power grab by the business community to profitize public funds set aside to educate children.

And perhaps the easiest way to combat it is the simplest: stop calling it school choice.

Call it what it is – school privatization.

Guns and Profit – Why We’ll Do Absolutely Nothing New After This Las Vegas Shooting

October 2, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, capitalism, Charter Schools, Gun Control, Guns, Hate Crimes, Mass Shooting, Media, Politics, privatization, School Choice, Shooting Big Business, corporate, Donald Trump, Gun Control, Gun Violence, Guns, Las Vegas, Mass Shooting, NRA, plutocracy, Profit, second amendment, Stephen Paddock, Trump

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Wake up, America.

We are not the land of the brave or the home of the free.

We are the land of the gun and the home of the free market.

Stephen Paddock’s killing spree last night in Las Vegas will not change anything – except the bottom line for numerous gun manufacturers.

Ca-ching, people!

Scores of American companies are going to clean up over this!

That’s what happens every time we get a high profile mass shooting.

Not new gun regulation. Not additional services for the mentally ill. Not stricter guidelines against fake news on social media.

Just tons of money pouring into gun manufacturers pockets as firearm aficionados rush to buy as many additional pieces as they can in the fear that tomorrow the government will come for their guns.

You think this has anything to do with the Second Amendment or the right to bear arms?

Wrong.

It’s about putting business over humanity. It’s about our culture of death overtaking everything else.

Look at the facts.

A 64-year-old retiree used a cache of almost 20 guns to spray bullets on a crowd of concertgoers. He killed at least 58 people and wounded more than 500 others.
To do so, police say he had at least one fully-automatic rifle, an AR-15-style and AK-47-style rifle, more than a dozen additional firearms, and a ton of ammunition.

Any sane society that values human life would do something to stop things like this from happening again.

It is almost impossible to inflict this kind of death toll in such a short time without these types of firearms.

It’s the guns, stupid!

Yeah, I know they didn’t pull their own triggers. That was done by a human being, but by all accounts so far there were no warnings that Paddock was unstable. He was just another privileged white male with a gambling habit and an armory full of guns.

We will never be able to accurately and adequately predict when someone will snap. I’m not saying there isn’t more we can do to keep firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill, but it will never be enough.

No one should have the power to inflict this kind of death on others.

Does that mean all guns should be illegal? Maybe. Maybe not. Does it mean they should be highly regulated. Absolutely! But no matter what you’re preconceptions, it’s a discussion we should be having.

However, we never will because our government is owned by big business, and guns are one of the biggest businesses out there.

Gunmakers made millions of dollars after the mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut; San Bernardino, California; and Orlando, Florida. Profits also skyrocket under Democratic Presidents. I wonder how many sprawling estates and mega-yachts were bought off the backs of “Obama’s coming for your guns!”

But ever since Donald Trump took office, profits have tapered off. Everyone knows he’s not going to do anything about gun violence. No reason to rush out and buy that new Glock.

The market has noticed. Vista Outdoor’s stock dropped by 40 percent since the election, while Sturm, Ruger & Co.’s stock fell 20 percent and American Outdoor’s stock has fallen by a whooping 46 percent!

But now! Woo-wee! This Las Vegas shooting is just what the industry needed!

And THAT’S why we aren’t ever going to do anything to prevent future massacres.

In America, the bottom line is all that matters.

We are a country of charlatans and prostitutes. Anything for a buck: for-profit healthcare, privatized education, and gun sales over all.

But don’t worry. The right wing media machine will be all over this, distracting you with alternative motivations for the killing spree.

Since Paddock killed fans at a country music concert, they’ll say he must have been targeting conservatives. Or it’s a false flag operation to stop NRA-backed legislation easing regulations on silencers. And various other B.S. conspiracy theories Facebook and other social media platforms allow to jump from profile-to-profile without regard to facts or evidence.

It’ll all just be another distraction.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, people.

It’s just big business getting richer off of your partisanship and credulity.

If only saving lives was where the money is.

If only preventing death was as profitable as causing it.

If only we cared more about each other than making a buck…

But no – instead we are one nation, under God, with guns and ammo for all.

Donald Trump is a Pathetic Excuse For a Human Being

October 1, 2017October 1, 2017 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Donald Trump, Feminism, Politics, President, protest, Racism, Republican, satire, Social Justice, Uncategorized, voting, White Privilege Donald Trump, pathetic, Politics, racism, satire, sexism

I’m not going to pull any punches here.

Donald Trump is not just a bad President.

He’s a bad person.

No. That doesn’t go far enough.

He’s one of the worst people ever to hold public office in this country.

He’s a pathetic excuse for a person. A narcissistic and incurious fool.

Donald Trump is what happens when you spoil a child and he never has to prove his own worth.

He is the fruit of our worship of wealth and the ruling class. He is the lie of trickledown economics. He is what happens when you give someone all the rewards our society has to offer – just for showing up.

But he’s not a racist.

Not really. Not in the strictest sense. That would require some kind of commitment.

Nor is he a sexist. That would require ideology.

Trump doesn’t hate anyone. He doesn’t divide people up into categories. He just loves himself so much that his regard for anyone else seems lacking.

In Trumpland, there are only two personas – himself and everyone else.

And make no mistake – he sees the world as containing only one important personality – Donald J. Trump. Everyone else is subordinate. Even his own family is important only in so much as they reflect him and meet his expectations. (Tiffany Trump, anyone?)

Trump is the sole practitioner of a solitary religion where one individual can serve as both penitent and deity. He writes his own hymns and sings them to himself every morning during golden thrown Twitter church services.

And anyone who dares to deny the fact of his own exceptionality is not good. They’re Bad. Sad.

They get low ratings. Such low ratings. Fake news. Or whatever other nearly monosyllabic criticism his atrophied brain can defecate out of his sloppy mouth.

Other people’s suffering just doesn’t matter. Puerto Rico, NFL players, people of color unjustly targeted by police, the middle class – none of us matter to him.

Not black people.

Not Hispanics.

Not women.

No one. Literally no lives matter to Trump.

This is a fact borne out by his actions over decades in public life.

It’s no accident that Bret Easton Ellis made Trump the role model of Patrick Bateman, his fictional unhinged everyman businessman protagonist in “American Psycho.”

Trump may not be psychopathic, but he is clearly a solipsist, a sociopath. The outside world is not real to him, and we are not ends in ourselves. We are illusions who only merit if we increase his own self-worth.

Even from a conservative heteronormative viewpoint, men do not represent the possibility of friendship or camaraderie to Trump. They are pawns to be used or adversaries to be avoided.

Women do not represent the possibility of intimacy or understanding. They are pure shape, status and physicality – objects to be ordered, groped, controlled and tabulated.

Likewise, his constituents are important only to the degree that they support him. He has no reciprocal responsibilities toward them. He may have promised to “Make America Great Again,” but to this stunted individual, America, itself, is best represented by one thing – Trump.

He is the poster boy for all that is wrong with our society.

He is petty, unintelligent, and mean. Everything he has was handed to him. In fact, he’d have more if he just held onto it, but he had to try to prove he deserved this stuff so he lost more than what he was given.

And he doesn’t even know how to enjoy what he has.

His wife is a product he bought and modified to his liking. His children are indentured servants made to reflect his brand. He doesn’t even understand how to extract the best flavors from the expensive foods he eats.

He spends most of his time obsessively playing a game that requires wealth as a prerequisite, that isn’t particularly athletic but bestows a certain image on its practitioners. And somehow he must think hitting a little ball with a hooked stick proves – what? Something about him? Maybe it proves his physical prowess, his identity as a man of wealth and privilege?

He is the illusion Gatsby tried to portray to win Daisy – but the only love Trump covets is his own.

He both demonstrates the lie at the heart of the American Dream – that it is possible anymore for any of us to achieve – and that the dream has any inherent value.

Wealth does not make one happy. Look at Trump. He is a miserable son of a bitch. And he would be the first to tell you so if he had even a smidgen of self-reflection.

You can see it on his face in those candid moments when he isn’t talking and talking and talking.

This is a man begging to be told he is doing a good job, but the only opinion he trusts is his own, and that one not even so much.

He is a lost soul telling himself lies he only half believes. He’s an apparition, a ghost, a zombie that never was really alive in the first place.

And we, the people of the United States of America, are gathered here around him in an ever closing circle watching this tin pot dictator getting ever smaller by the hour.

One fine day he will simply disappear. And we’ll all be left staring at the space he left behind.

Perhaps this vanishing act will be accompanied by a “pop,” a “hiss” or just a silence deeper than background static.

And the only question that will remain will be if we’ll all be sucked into the maelstrom of his leaving.

Or if we’ll all shake our heads and wonder…

What the Hell had we just been looking at?

gadflyonthewallblog

"To sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth."

Month: October 2017