Economists Don’t Know Crap About Education

February 19, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Common Core, Competency Based Education, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Education, Politics, privatization, Propaganda, school vouchers, Schools, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers, Technology, Value Added Measures, VAM Bryan Caplan, Budget, economics, economist, education, Politics, schools, teacher, teachers

I hate to be blunt here, but economists need to shut the heck up.

Never has there been a group more concerned about the value of everything that was more incapable of determining anything’s true worth.

They boil everything down to numbers and data and never realize that the essence has evaporated away.

I’m sorry but every human interaction isn’t reducible to a monetary transaction. Every relationship isn’t an equation.

Some things are just intrinsically valuable. And that’s not some mystical statement of faith – it’s just what it means to be human.

Take education.

Economists love to pontificate on every aspect of the student experience – what’s most effective – what kinds of schools, which methods of assessment, teaching, curriculum, technology, etc. Seen through that lens, every tiny aspect of schooling becomes a cost analysis.

And, stupid us, we listen to them as if they had some monopoly on truth.

But what do you expect from a society that worships wealth? Just as money is our god, the economists are our clergy.

How else can you explain something as monumentally stupid as Bryan Caplan’s article published in the LA Times “What Students Know That Experts Don’t: School is All About Signaling, Not Skill-Building”?

In it, Caplan, a professor of economics at George Mason University, theorizes why schooling is pointless and thus education spending is a waste of money.

It would be far better in Caplan’s view to use that money to buy things like… oh… his new book “The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money.”

His argument goes something like this: the only value of an education is getting a job after graduation.

Businesses only care about school because they think it signifies whether prospective employees will be good or bad at their jobs. And students don’t care about learning – they only care about appearing to have learned something to lure prospective employers. Once you’re hired, if you don’t have the skills, employers have an incentive to give you on the job training. Getting an education is just about getting a foot in the door. It’s all just a charade.

Therefore, we should cut education funding and put kids to work in high school where they can learn how to do the jobs they’ll need to survive.

No wonder economics is sometimes called “The Dismal Science.” Can you imagine having such a dim view of the world where THAT load of crap makes sense?

We’re all just worker drones and education is the human equivalent of a mating dance or brilliant plumage – but instead of attracting the opposite sex, we’re attracting a new boss.

Bleh! I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

This is what comes of listening to economists on a subject they know nothing about.

I’m a public school teacher. I am engaged in the act of learning on a daily basis. And let me tell you something – it’s not about merely signifying.

I teach 7^th and 8^th grade language arts. My students aren’t simply working to appear literate. They’re actually attempting to express themselves in words and language. Likewise, my students aren’t just working to appear as if they can comprehend written language. They’re actually trying to read and understand what the author is saying.

But that’s only the half of it.

Education isn’t even just the accumulation of skills. Students aren’t hard drives and we’re not simply downloading information and subroutines into their impressionable brains.

Students are engaged in the activity of becoming themselves.

Education isn’t a transaction – it’s a transformation.

When my students read “The Diary of Anne Frank” or To Kill a Mockingbird, for example, they become fundamentally different people. They gain deep understandings about what it means to be human, celebrating social differences and respecting human dignity.

When my students write poetry, short fiction and essays, they aren’t merely communicating. They’re compelled to think, to have an informed opinion, to become conscious citizens and fellow people.

They get grades – sure – but what we’re doing is about so much more than A-E, advanced, proficient, basic or below basic.

When the year is over, they KNOW they can read and understand complex novels, plays, essays and poems. The maelstrom of emotions swirling round in their heads has an outlet, can be shared, examined and changed.

Caplan is selling all of that short because he sees no value in it. He argues from the lowest common denominator – no, he argues from the lowest actions of the lowest common denominator to extrapolate a world where everything is neatly quantifiable.

It’s not hard to imagine why an economist would be seduced by such a vision. He’s turned the multi-color world into black and white hues that best suit his profession.

In a way, I can’t blame him for that. For a carpenter, I’m sure most problems look like a hammer and a nail. For a surgeon, everything looks like a scalpel and sutures.

But shame on us for letting one field’s myopia dominate the conversation.

No one seems all that interested in my economic theories about how to maximize gross domestic product. And why would they? I’m not an economist.

However, it’s just as absurd to privilege the ramblings of economists on education. They are just as ignorant – perhaps more so.

It is a symptom of our sick society.

We turn everything into numbers and pretend they can capture the reality around us.

This works great for measuring angles or determining the speed of a rocket. But it is laughably unequipped to measure interior states and statements of real human value.

That’s why standardized tests are inadequate.

It’s why value added teacher evaluations are absurd. It’s why Common Core is poppycock.

Use the right tool for the right job.

If you want to measure production and consumption or the transfer of wealth, call an economist.

If you want to understand education, call a teacher.

When Will It Happen Here?

February 15, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, capitalism, Child Predators, Civil Rights, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Florida, Gun Control, Guns, Mass Shooting, Parents, Politics, Propaganda, Republican, school violence, Schools, Shooting, Students, Teachers education, Gun Control, Gun Violence, Guns, Guns in Schools, NRA, Politics, school shootings, schools, teacher

It could happen at anytime in my classroom.

The thing we’ve all been dreading.

A hasty announcement of lock down. An unexpected fire alarm. The sounds of shouting, running feet and… gunshots.

The lights could go out. The door could burst in.

There’s really very little we could do.

My room has no windows. No closets. Nowhere to hide.

These are the thoughts going through my head as my students sit at their desks during homeroom this morning.

Jayden is taking off his hoodie before the principal catches him out of dress code.

Alaina is pestering me for a pass to the library.

Darnell is surreptitiously munching on a pixie stick stashed in his book bag.

It’s all so mundane, so subdued, so quiet.

A few kids are on the computers in the back, others at their desks reading books, writing papers, or listening to music on their iPads.

But there’s very little conversation.

The class of middle schoolers is restrained, thoughtful – which is unusual for children of 12 or 13.

I sit slumped at my desk – exhausted though I haven’t even taught my first class yet.

The news from last night still plays in my head.

Seventeen people killed by an expelled student at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

Or was it two killed in Kentucky?

How long was it since the last one?

And now here we are – back in the line of fire.

I can’t help but think about my daughter somewhere across town. She’s probably just entering her third grade classroom maybe munching on the remains of a candy heart from Valentine’s Day. Just like me and my students, she’s in the cross hairs.

But what can we do about it?

I can’t hold her out of school forever. I can’t quit my job and work from home. Even if I could, there’s absolutely nothing I can do for the twenty children quietly sitting at their desks in the room with me, abiding the rules of a society too broken to protect us.

After last night, it feels like things have changed somehow.

There have been 18 school shootings so far this year. And it’s only February. Most have resulted in zero injuries.

Of those where people were hurt, the person most in danger was the shooter. But I can’t stop thinking about those cases where a hunter came to school to kill children and teachers.

As an educator, I’ve been taught how to handle just about every situation.

If one of my children acts out, or doesn’t hand in her homework, or even throws up – I know what to do.

But none of my training has prepared me to out teach a semiautomatic weapon.

I can’t differentiate past a bullet.

There is no paperwork that will invalidate the gunpowder or slow the endless rounds through whatever they come into contact.

If someone comes to school with a gun and a will to kill, I will be little more than a target.

But don’t get me wrong.

This doesn’t mean society should gift me a handgun to keep in my desk next to the chalk.

I am not a law enforcement officer or an action hero. I’m a teacher.

You don’t want me returning fire at every mindless bureaucratic hitch in the schedule. You want me assigning essays and chapter readings. You don’t want me keeping a gun out of reach of curious youngsters always at my desk and in my personal space. You want me safeguarding student assignments and – heck – my cell phone that kids keep trying to snatch and look through my camera roll.

What we need is real gun control legislation.

We need an assault weapons ban.

We need to close the gun show loophole.

We need buyback programs to get the mountains of firearms off the streets and out of the arsenals of a handful of paranoid “survivalists”.

In short, we need lawmakers willing to make laws.

We need legislators who will represent the overwhelming majority of the public and take sensible action to protect the people of this country.

What we don’t need are the trolls who hijack every conversation arguing the semantics of the term “assault rifle” or “terrorist.”

We don’t need weak politicians cautioning against “politicizing” mass shootings because the violence is too fresh.

We don’t need anyone’s thoughts and prayers.

We need action.

And we need it yesterday.

Some people are calling on teachers to take action to force our lawmakers to finally do something.

They suggest a national teachers strike on May 1^st – May Day – if Congress refuses to act.

That sounds like a good idea to me.

I’m game.

But we need more than that.

We need everyone who feels the same way to join in the fight.

Parents, children, grandparents, principals, police, firefighters, soldiers and nurses – the multitudinous faces of America must come together to fight this monstrosity as one.

I may sit in that classroom.

My students and my daughter may be in danger.

But America must be the shield.

America must rise up and protect our future.

WE must take charge.

Otherwise, it is not a case of can it happen here.

It is a case of when.

Crippled Puerto Rico Offered School Privatization as Quick Fix for Woes

February 7, 2018February 7, 2018 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, Betsy DeVos, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Predators, church and state, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Donald Trump, Education, immigration, New Orleans, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, protest, Puerto Rico, Racism, School Choice, school closings, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, Social Justice, Students, Teachers, White Allies, White Privilege Corporate Education Reform, corporate school reform, disaster capitalism, Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico, Mercedes Martines, public schools, Puerto Rico

You’re Puerto Rico’s school system.

More than five months since a devastating hurricane hit the island’s shores, some 270 schools are still without power.

Roughly 25,000 students are leaving with that number expected to swell to 54,000 in four years. And that’s after an 11-year recession already sent 78,000 students seeking refuge elsewhere.

So what do you do to stop the flow of refugees fleeing the island? What do you do to fix your storm damaged schools? What do you do to ensure all your precious children are safe and have the opportunity to learn?

If you’re Puerto Rico’s Governor Ricardo Rossello, you sell off your entire system of public education.

After an economic history of being pillaged and raped by corporate vultures from the mainland, Rossello is suggesting the U.S. Territory offer itself for another round of abuse.

He wants to close 300 more schools and change the majority of those remaining into charter and voucher schools.

That means no elected school boards.

That means no public meetings determining how these schools are run.

It means no transparency in terms of how the money is spent.

It means public funding can become private profit.

And it means fewer choices for children who will have to apply at schools all over the island and hope one accepts them. Unlike public schools, charter and voucher schools pick and choose whom to enroll.

Make no mistake. This has nothing to do with serving the needs of children. It is about selling off public property because it belongs to poor, brown people.

A district that served mostly black and poor children was swiped by private interests and turned almost exclusively into charter schools.

The results have been an abysmal academic record, the loss of black teachers, black neighborhoods, cultural heritage and in its place support for a status quo that just doesn’t care to provide the proper resources to students of color.

If the Governor and his wealthy backers have their way, Puerto Rico will be yet another ghettoized colony gobbled up by industry.

However, the people aren’t going to let this happen without a fight.

Mercedes Martinez, President of the Federacion de Maestros of Puerto Rico, an island teacher’s union, released the following statement:

“Dear comrades in the diaspora, now more than ever we need your unconditional solidarity.

Governor Roselló just announced his plan to shut down 307 schools, implement charter schools and vouchers. Disaster capitalism at its best. Added to the announcement of the privatization of PREPA. [Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority]

The way to victory is already paved, organized and militant resistance, concrete proposals to improve the public goods that we have, unity and organization. Be our voice in the states and let the world know that corporate reformers want to make PR the next New Orleans as they did after Katrina.

The hurricane has been the perfect storm and excuse for them to advance their plans. Today the so called “educational reform” will be sent to the legislature.

We will give the hardest fight of our lives, and we will triumph. Send letters and videos of support with our struggle. Teachers United, will never be defeated!

Lucha sí”

I don’t know about you, but I stand with these brave teachers, parents and their students.

I may live in Pennsylvania, my skin may be white, but I do not support the theft of Puerto Rico’s schools.

These children have just as much right as mine to a free and appropriate education. Their parents deserve the right to control their districts. They deserve transparency and self-rule.

They deserve the choice to guide their own destinies.

Teachers’ opposition to the move comes even though the Governor is proposing a $1,500 raise for all educators. Martinez says it could come to a general strike.

Their cause has hope on its side – especially in blocking the proposed school vouchers.

The Governor’s voucher proposal wouldn’t go into effect until the 2019-20 school year. However, the Puerto Rico Supreme Court struck down a similar program in 1994 when the current governor’s father, Pedro Rossello – himself a former governor – tried to push it through. The court ruled the island’s constitution forbids public money being used to fund privately run schools.

From this day forward, let us always remember what they did to New Orleans. Let us remember what they are trying to do to Puerto Rico.

Corporate school reform is not about making better schools. If it was, you would see plans like this being proposed in Beverly Hills and rich white neighborhoods across the country.

But somehow that never happens.

These schemes only show up in poor communities populated predominantly by people of color.

While the rest of our public schools are celebrating Black History Month, the children of Puerto Rico are reliving the struggle for their civil rights.

They are still the victims of colonization and brutality.

But they are not alone.

I stand with the people of Puerto Rico.

Will you stand, too?

Will you speak out for Puerto Rico?

Like this post? I’ve written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

Rick Saccone Hopes to Become Trump’s New Bobble Head in Western Pennsylvania

January 29, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Campaign Donations, capitalism, church and state, Compassion, Congress, Corbett, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Election, Gerrymandering, Pennsylvania, Politics, President, protest, Republican, Saccone, School Funding, Schools, Students, Teachers, Tom Wolf, voting bobble head, Congress, Conor Lamb, Corbett, Donald Trump, Hypocrisy, Pennsylvania, Politics, puppet, Rick Saccone, sycophant, Trump

Rick Saccone hard at work for the taxpayers of Pennsylvania.

Rick Saccone’s signature achievement in the Pennsylvania House was to get “In God We Trust” posted in every public school.

Actually, he didn’t even get that.

He wrote a successful bill that merely allowed public schools to post that – if they wanted.

To my knowledge not a single school in the Commonwealth has taken him up on it.

His second greatest hit was to authorize a state day of fasting.

I’m not kidding. And it’s all down hill from there.

Now he’s running for U.S. Senate!

Oh. Wait. His fundraising was terrible.

Excuse me. He’s running for U.S. House – because that’s an easier win!

Whatever. So long as he can get to Washington, DC. He’s had enough of this small potatoes Pennsylvania politics – even though he’s one of the smallest potatoes in the patch.

If you know what I mean.

He’s running against Democrat Conor Lamb in a special election to be held March 13 to fill Republican Tim Murphy’s seat.

You may recall Murphy. He made his name voting for anti-abortion legislation until his alleged mistress got pregnant and then he allegedly pushed for her to abort their love child.

You know. Family values stuff.

Is Saccone up to that level of hypocrisy?

Donald Trump thinks he is.

The least popular President in U.S. history with only a year under his bulging golf shorts thinks Saccone is his kind of guy.

Trump even came to western Pennsylvania to support Saccone tweeting:

“Will be going to Pennsylvania today in order to give my total support to RICK SACCONE, running for Congress in a Special Election (March 13). Rick is a great guy. We need more Republicans to continue our already successful agenda!”

Of course, Trump immediately had to walk back this comment because his trip to the keystone state was being paid for with public tax dollars. He had to say that it was an official White House event and not (as he indicated in the tweet) that it was a campaign event.

You know, for once I agree with Trump.

Rick Saccone IS Trump’s kind of guy.

He has lots of experience as a Yes Man. That’s really all he’s done in Harrisburg.

We used to have our own version of Trump – a Republican Governor who had no idea how to do his job – Tom Corbett.

Of course, Corbett’s reign was short lived. Like the President, his popularity plummeted and he was voted out of office like yesterday’s garbage.

But he had his loyal bobble head Saccone backing him every step of the way.

In fact, he voted for Corbett’s initiatives 95% of the time giving him the nickname of Corbett’s “Mini-me.”

Even when Corbett proposed something deeply unpopular, like cutting almost $1 billion from the state’s poorest public schools, Saccone went out there to explain why our children, our future, just weren’t worth the investment.

The Swamp recognizes Saccone as one of their own.

That’s why big moneyed interests are pouring cash on the sycophantic lawmaker. That and the fact that the district in question went for Trump in the last election by 20 points.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has spent at least $1 million on ads for broadcast and cable TV stations to boost Saccone’s candidacy.

And that’s not all.

Congressional Leadership Fund has put aside at least $1.6 million for ads, not to mention funding from outsiders like the 45Committee and Ending Spending – a group founded by the mega-donor Ricketts family.

All this money just to serve out the remainder of Murphy’s term!

Whoever wins would be up for re-election in November to secure a full two-year term.

Moreover, now that the state Supreme Court has overturned the Commonwealth’s gerrymandered districts that unfairly favor Republicans, that November race is likely to include newly drawn legislative lines.

So this GOP wonderland that boosted Trump and Mitt Romney in 2012 will likely become more competitive.

In fact, it may already be.

SacconeFlagShirt — Saccone disrespecting the flag by wearing it as a shirt.

Some polls have Saccone up over Lamb by only a 3 point lead. This may be in part because of Trump’s steadily deflating support – even among Republicans. The President’s approval rating in the district has dropped to 49 percent – not far from the national picture where 47 percent disapprove of his job performance.

This is not good news for Saccone.

The SuperPACS supporting him are trying to paint Lamb, a former federal prosecutor, as a Nancy Pelosi puppet.

But Lamb has repeatedly criticized Pelosi, telling The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he would not support Pelosi as the Democratic leader. There is a “need [for] new leadership on both sides,” Lamb said.

Yet Saccone has done everything in his power to suck up to Trump.

Taking his cue from the Commander in Chief, Saccone took to twitter to express his feelings:

“I’m humbled that @realDonaldTrump for President, Inc, has officially endorsed my campaign for Congress!”

I’m not sure why he wrote “President, Inc.”

Perhaps Saccone thinks the office belongs to a private company.

Perhaps he doesn’t understand that a politician’s job is to serve the needs of his or her constituents.

Judging by his less than stellar performance in state government, this would seem to be the case.

He’s come a long way from earnestly trying to legislate past the establishment clause of the first amendment to fighting to starve our schools to running for a position as Trump’s favorite puppet.

Or not.

That depends on voters this March.

Full Disclosure: I am not a Saccone fan. Along with teachers, parents and students from across western Pennsylvania, I’ve picketed outside of his offices demanding he do his job and provide for students. He was deaf to our cries. Do you hear me now, Rick?

Wake Up, America! You Have a School Shooting Problem!

January 27, 2018January 29, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, capitalism, Child Safety, Compassion, Data, Democrat, Education, Gun Control, Guns, Mass Shooting, Politics, Propaganda, Republican, school violence, Schools, Shooting, Students, Teachers, Violence Against Children Democracy, education, Gun Control, Gun Violence, Guns in Schools, Kentucky, Newtown, NRA, plutocracy, Sandy Hook, school shootings, schools, Students, teachers

There have been 11 school shootings so far this year.

And January isn’t even over yet.

That makes about 50 for the academic year – roughly one a week.

Some involve no injuries. Some are suicide attempts. And some, like the latest in Kentucky, involve an active shooter hunting and killing children.

While gun violence is a problem throughout the country, it is especially virulent at educational institutions.

According to an FBI study that looked at incidents from 2000-2013, nearly one quarter of all U.S. shootings took place at schools. And they’re on the rise.

Yet this latest incident barely raised an eyebrow in the collective consciousness.

Hardly anyone even attempted to offer a solution.

The reason?

Since Sandy Hook, we’ve effectively given up.

In December of 2012 a gunman walked in to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed 20 children and six adults, and we did nothing.

We stood by after the murder of elementary kids and couldn’t get up the collective energy to do one damn thing to stop things like this from happening again.

No new regulations.

No assault weapons ban.

No gun buyback programs.

NOTHING.

In fact, the only thing we did do was actually weaken gun laws to INCREASE the likelihood of more kindergarten kids dying by shot and shell.

In this country we have created a false dichotomy – it’s either children or guns — and we’ve chosen GUNS!

We’re told to buy bullet-proof backpacks, arm school teachers, and have gun wielding police patrol the buildings, but don’t do anything about the firearms, themselves.

America has 4.4 percent of the world’s population, but almost half of the civilian-owned guns in the world.

It’s no wonder, then, that our citizens are so much more likely to die at end of a barrel.

Since Sandy Hook, there have been more than 1,500 mass shootings (including those done at locations other than schools).

According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been at least 1,518 mass shootings, with at least 1,715 people killed and 6,089 wounded as of October 2017.

The database defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people (not counting the shooter) were shot regardless of whether those wounds were fatal or not. And since some shootings go unreported, it’s likely only giving us the bare minimum.

But that’s just mass death and destruction.

The overwhelming majority of gun deaths are smaller scale – police brutality, domestic violence, suicides, accidents, etc. America’s total annual firearm deaths came to more than 33,000 in 2014.

This is patently absurd.

Other countries don’t have the same level of gun violence as we do, even per capita.

There are certain facts that we refuse to accept.

States with more guns have more gun deaths.

Countries with more guns likewise have more gun deaths.

Meanwhile, states with tighter gun regulations have fewer gun-related deaths.

Countries with more rigorous gun control likewise have fewer gun related deaths.

(Don’t believe me? See Florida’s “The Geography of Gun Deaths,” and a 2016 review of 130 studies in 10 countries, published in Epidemiologic Reviews.)

Yet we’re told that gun control is useless because new laws will just be pieces of paper that criminals will ignore. However, by the same logic, why have any laws at all?

Congress should just pack it in, the courts should close up and the army should just all go home. Criminals will do what they please – there’s nothing we can do about it.

This kind of thinking is the triumph of business over sense.

The gun industry is making billions of dollars off this cycle of gun violence: mass shooting, fear of regulation, increase in sales. Repeat ad infinitum.

We may never be able to stop all gun violence, but we can take steps to make it more unlikely. We can at least make it more difficult for people to die by firearm.

And this doesn’t have to mean getting rid of all guns.

It just means sensible regulations.

According to the Pew Research Center, when you ask people about specific firearm regulations, the majority is in favor of most of them – both Republicans and Democrats.

We don’t want the mentally ill to be able to buy guns. We don’t want suspected terrorists to be able to purchase guns. We don’t want convicted criminals to be able to buy guns. We want mandatory background checks for private sales at gun shows.

Yet our lawmakers stand by helpless whenever these tragedies occur because they are at the mercy of their donors.

The gun industry owns too many lawmakers.

Our continued gun violence problem is a symptom of our flagging democracy.

In a Republic like ours, our representatives are supposed to enact our will in the halls of power. Yet they don’t actually represent us. They represent business and the wealthy.

Until we regain control of our government, we will always be at the mercy of the dollar and the gun.

Our children will remain merely the most innocent victims of our heartless and unfair politics.

Gun violence is not an everyday occurrence at our schools. In fact, children are actually safer there than anywhere else. But everything is relative. Going to class to learn you’re ABC’s shouldn’t bring with it even a moderate chance of fiery death!

But that’s 2018 America. We live in a culture of death.

You need no further proof of that than the weekly report of which school got struck by the lightning of gun violence. Which children were mowed down by the consequences of an out of control plutocracy today?

Bang. Bang. Democracy is dead.

School Choice Week – Choosing Away Your Choice

January 24, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, church and state, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Education, Local Control, Parents, Politics, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, Racism, School Choice, school closings, School Funding, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, segregation, small class size, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers, Unions charter schools, church and state, Local Control, Privatize, propaganda, public schools, scam, scandal, School Choice, School Choice Week, school vouchers

School Choice Week is one of the greatest scams in American history.

It is a well-funded, thoroughly organized attempt to trick parents into signing away their right to make educational choices about their children.

Seriously.

It goes like this:

Salesman: Would you like a choice?

Parent: Sure!

Salesman: Then just agree to never have another choice again.

That’s it in a nutshell.

Choose not to choose.

When you decide to send your child to a so-called choice school – a charter or voucher institution – you lose almost every other choice about what happens at your child’s school.

Sound impossible?

Let me count the decisions you lose by signing on the dotted line.

When you send your child to a school paid for with public money but run by a private organization, you lose:

–AN ELECTED SCHOOL BOARD, so you have no say about what the school does.

–OPEN DOCUMENTS, so you have no right to see budgets, spending agreements, bids, contracts, etc.

–OPEN MEETINGS, so you have no public place to speak up to the people who run your school.

–RIGHT TO SELF-GOVERNMENT, so you have no right to run for a leadership position on the school board. Instead you’re at the mercy of appointed flunkies.

–THE RIGHT OF ENROLLMENT, so school operators get to choose whether your child gets to attend, unlike public schools which have to accept your child no matter what – so long as you live in the district.

–QUALITY SERVICES, so school operators can cut services for your child and pocket the savings as profit or use it to advertise to get more paying butts in seats.

–QUALITY TEACHERS, because most charter and voucher schools aren’t required to hire educators with 4-year degrees, and since they don’t pay as well as public schools and often refuse to let their teachers unionize, they attract less experienced and distinguished educators.

–DIVERSE CLASSMATES, because charter and voucher schools increase segregation. Your children will be educated with more kids that look just like them. That’s healthy!

And that’s merely at MOST privatized schools. But that’s not all. At some privatized schools you can lose even more! You may also lose:

–COMMON SENSE DISCIPLINE POLICIES, so your children will be held to a zero tolerance discipline policy where they may have to sit quietly, eyes forward, marching in line or else face aggressive public reprimands and harsh punishments.

–AN UNBIASED SECULAR EDUCATION, so your children will be taught religion and politics as if they were fact – all funded by public tax dollars! Hear that sound? That’s our Founders crying.

–FREE TIME, so you’ll be required to volunteer at the school regardless of your ability to do so. Gotta’ work? Tough!

–MONEY, so you’ll have to pay tuition, buy expensive uniforms, school supplies or other amenities.

And if your children are struggling academically, you may also lose:

–ENROLLMENT, so your child is given the boot back to the public school because he or she is having difficulty learning, and thus costs too much to educate.

You lose all that if you decide to enroll your child in a charter or voucher school!

But that’s not all!

If you DON’T decide to send your child to a so-called choice school, you can still lose choice!

Why? Because of the rubes who were fooled into give up their choice. When they did that, they took some of your choices, too.

Because of them, you still lose:

-NECESSARY FUNDING, because your public school has to make up the money it lost to charter and voucher schools somewhere, and that means fewer resources and services for your child.

-LOWER CLASS SIZES, because your public school has to fire teachers and increase class size to make up for lost revenue.

-FAIR ASSESSMENTS, because the state and federal government require your child to take unfair high stakes tests to “prove” your public school is failing and thus justify replacing it with a charter or voucher school – as if those have ever been proven to be better, but whatever! CA-CHING! CA-CHING!

This is what you get from School Choice Week.

It’s a uniquely American experience – selling the loss of choice — as choice.

And all the while they try to convince you that public schools are the ones that take away your alternatives.

Yet public schools are where you get all those things you lose at privatized schools.

You get elected school boards, open documents, open meetings, the right to self-government, the right of enrollment, quality services, quality teachers, diverse classmates, common sense discipline policies, an unbiased secular education, free time and money! That’s right! You actually get all that and more money in your pocket!

I’m not saying public schools are perfect. There are many ways they need to improve, but it’s difficult to do so when many of the people tasked with improving these schools are more concerned with sabotaging them to make room for privatized systems.

These are paid employees of the charter and voucher school movement who want to kill public schools – BUT THE KILLER IS ALREADY IN THE HOUSE!

Imagine if we dedicated ourselves to making our public school system better!

Imagine if we committed to giving parents and students more choices in the system and not trying to replace that system with one that gives all the benefits and choices away to corporate vultures!

So, yeah, School Choice Week is a scam.

But, hey, enjoy those yellow scarfs.

Public Schools Best Fulfill Dr. King’s “Purpose of Education”

January 13, 2018 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, church and state, Civil Rights, Compassion, Corporate Education "Reform", Donald Trump, Education, immigration, Parents, Politics, Prejudice, President, privatization, Racism, School Choice, School Funding, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, segregation, Social Justice, Students, Teachers, White Privilege charter schools, Donald Trump, Dr. Martin Luther King, education, home school, Martin Luther King Day, Politics, prejudice, President, private schools, public schools, Purpose of Education, racism, school vouchers, schools

What is the purpose of education?

Is it to train the next generation of workers?

Or is it to empower the next generation of citizens?

Is it to give children the skills necessary to meet the needs of business and industry?

Or is it to provide them the tools to self-actualize and become the best people they can be?

In today’s world, our leaders continue to insist that the answer to the question is the former corporate training model. Knowledge is only valuable if it translates to a job and thus a salary.

But we didn’t always think that way.

As another Martin Luther King Day is about to dawn this week, I’m reminded of the man behind the myth, a person who clearly would deny this materialistic view of learning.

When we think of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we usually think of the towering figure of the Civil Rights Movement who gave the “I have a dream” speech during the March on Washington in 1963.

However, as a teacher, I find myself turning to something he wrote in 1947 when he was just an 18-year-old student at Morehouse College.

While finishing his undergraduate studies in sociology, he published an essay in the student paper called “The Purpose of Education.”

Two sections immediately jump off the page. The first is this:

“We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living.”

So for King it wasn’t enough for schools to teach facts. It wasn’t enough to teach skills, math, writing, reading, history and science. The schools are also responsible for teaching children character – how to be good people, how to get along with each other.

It’s a worthy goal.

But 2018 contains a far different educational landscape than 1947.

When King wrote, there were basically two kinds of school – public and private. Today there is a whole spectrum of public and private each with its own degree of self-governance, fiscal accountability and academic freedom.

On the one side we have traditional public schools. On the other we have fully private schools. And in the middle we have charter, voucher and home schools.

So which schools today are best equipped to meet King’s ideal?

Private schools are by their very nature exclusionary. They attract and accept only certain students. These may be those with the highest academics, parental legacies, religious beliefs, or – most often – families that can afford the high tuition. As such, their student bodies are mostly white and affluent.

That is not King’s ideal. That is not the best environment to form character, the best environment in which to learn about people who are different than you and to develop mutual understanding.

Voucher schools are the same. They are, in fact, nothing but private schools that are subsidized in part by public tax dollars.

Charter schools model themselves on private schools so they are likewise discriminatory. The businesses who run these institutions – often for a profit – don’t have to enroll whoever applies. Even though they are fully funded by public tax dollars, they can choose who to let in and who to turn away. Often this is done behind the cloak of a lottery, but with no transparency and no one checking to ensure it is done fairly, there is no reason to believe operators are doing anything but selecting the easiest (read: cheapest) students to educate.

Charter schools have been shown to increase segregation having student bodies that are more monochrome than those districts from which they cherry pick students. This is clearly not King’s ideal.

Homeschooling is hard to generalize. There is such a wide variety of experiences that can be described under this moniker. However, they often include this feature – children are taught at home by their parent or parents. They may or may not interact with their academic peers and the degree to which they meet and understand different cultures is variable to say the least. They may meet King’s ideal, but frankly the majority of them probably do not.

So we’re left with traditional public schools. Do they instill “intelligence plus character”?

Answer: it depends.

There are many public schools where children of different races, nationalities, religions, and creeds meet, interact and learn together side-by-side.

Students wearing hajibs learn next to those wearing yarmulkes. Students with black skin and white skin partner with each other to complete class projects. Students with parents who emigrated to this country as refugees become friends with those whose parents can trace their ancestors back to the Revolutionary War.

These schools are true melting pots where children learn to become adults who value each other because of their differences not fear each other due to them. These are children who not only learn their academics as well – if not often better – than those at competing kinds of schools, but they also learn the true face of America and they learn to cherish it.

This is the true purpose of education. This is the realization of King’s academic ideal and his civil rights dream.

However, this is not the case at every public school.

While there are many like this, there are too many that are increasingly segregated. In fact, in some areas our schools today are more segregated than they were at the time of Dr. King’s assassination.

These are schools that get the lion’s share of resources, that have the newest facilities, the widest curriculum, the most affluent clientele.

So, no, not even all public schools meet this ideal. But those that don’t at least contain the possibility of change.

We could integrate all public schools. We could never integrate our charter, voucher and private schools. That goes against their essential mission. They are schools made to discriminate. Public schools are meant to be all inclusive. Every one could meet King’s ideal, if we only cared enough to do it.

Which brings me to the second section of King’s early essay that pops off the page:

“The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.”

Seventy one years ago, King was warning us about the situation we suffer today.

When we allow academics to be distinct from character and understanding, we put ourselves at the mercy of leaders with “reason, but with no morals.”

We put ourselves and our posterity in the hands of those like President Donald Trump, the fruit of a fully private education.

Racism and privilege become the defining characteristics of a class without character, in King’s sense.

If we want to reclaim what it means to be an American, if we want to redefine ourselves as those who celebrate difference and defend civil rights, that begins with understanding the purpose of education.

It demands we defend public schools against privatization. And it demands that we transform our public schools into the integrated, equitable institutions we dreamed they could all be.

When You Mistreat Teachers, Beware the Unintended Lessons for Students

January 10, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Education, Local Control, Parents, Police, Politics, Poverty, privatization, protest, School Funding, school violence, school vouchers, Schools, small class size, Teachers, Violence Against Children abuse of power, education, Louisiana, police brutality, public schools, school board, teacher bashing, teacher shortage, teachers, teaching, Vermillion Parish, war on teachers

We’ve all seen the shocking video from Vermillion Parish in Louisiana this week where a teacher is tackled to the ground and arrested because she asked a question to the school board.

It’s a gross abuse of power that brings up many issues:

Public servants responding to the public with violence.

Elected representatives refusing to hear from their constituents and – in fact – taking action to silence them.

Leaders who are supposed to oversee children’s educations unconcerned with the lesson local kids will be taking home from the actions of adults who are supposed to set a better example.

The case is simple.

The eight-member board had been deadlocked 4-4 on whether or not to give Superintendent Jerome Puyau a raise. Then one of the members died. Instead of his wife filling in until a new election could be held, board president Anthony Fontana , who was in favor of the raise, appointed a like-minded replacement and tried to force a vote.

So Deyshia Hargrave, a district teacher and parent, asked why the superintendent should get a raise while the teachers haven’t had one in several years.

It was a reasonable question, asked at the proper time, in a respectful tone, when comments were directed specifically at her.

However, Reggie Hilts, the Abbeville city marshal who also serves as a school resource officer, told her she was being disruptive and asked her to leave – which she did. When she got out in the hall, he forced her to the ground, put her in handcuffs and pushed her out of the building.

It was completely unjustified, a horrific violation of Hargrave’s rights and goes counter to the very purpose of public school.

Local control is the great strength of our education system.

It is the idea that district wide decisions about our children’s learning should be made by duly-elected members of the community in the full light of day. Except where doing so would violate an individual’s personal rights, all school documents are public. They are voted on in public. And they are subject to question and comment by the public.

If the taxpayers – the people who foot the bill for the majority of the district costs – don’t approve of what their representatives are doing, they can take steps to replace them.

These are the very foundation of public schooling and one of the major reasons the public school system is superior to charter or voucher schools, which typically do not have them. Even when privatized systems retain the vestiges of democratic rule, they are optional and can be stripped away at the whim of the businesses and/or corporations that run them.

Vermillion Parish School Board would do well to remember this.

The actions taken by City Marshall Hilts were either done at the behest of the board or certainly without any public dissent among the members.

They stomped on Hargrave’s First Amendment rights and ignored their responsibility to the community they serve.

If my description of how a public school is supposed to work sounds like a lecture, that’s intentional. These representatives could do with a lesson in how democracy works.

Our actions have consequences and those consequences only become more consequential when we become public servants. The board, the superintendent and certainly Hilts may very well have opened themselves up to legal action.

But beyond putting themselves in danger from having to pay punitive damages to Hargrave – that I hope they pay out of the superintendent’s bloated salary – they have betrayed a dangerous attitude toward the very concept of self-rule.

Whether they meant to or not, they have given the children of Vermillion Parish a lesson in government and community values.

Make no mistake. The children are watching. They get the TV news and status updates on Facebook and Twitter. They have access to YouTube. Doubtless, they have seen this video countless times. They have probably played it over and over again.

They saw their teacher brutally manhandled by a supposed law enforcement officer. And they heard the deafening silence from the school board about it.

They know now that this kind of behavior is deemed acceptable in Vermillion Parish. Beware the kind of behavior adults can expect from children who are given such a disgraceful example!

Moreover, these children are well aware of the matter in dispute.

The board is fighting to give the superintendent a $38,000 raise. Yet they refuse to give another penny to teachers – all while class sizes have jumped from 21 to 29 students, according to Hargrave.

That is not what leaders do who care about the well-being of students. It is a result of backroom deals and the good ol’ boys network.

The lesson is that hard work doesn’t matter. The only thing you should worry about is making a deal no matter whom it hurts. Just look out for numero uno.

After all, the board could give the teachers something – some token of appreciation to show that they value their continued commitment to the children of the community. But they don’t. Yet they fight tooth and nail to do so for one individual who has in no way proven himself indispensable.

It is the teachers who come in every day and give their all to help students learn. Not a superintendent who demands they jump through an increasingly complex set of irrelevant hoops.

But there’s always money for the person at the top. Never anything for the people who do the real work.

Critics complain that teachers don’t deserve a raise because they already earn more money than the majority of the people who live in the community. (An argument which – by the way – would also apply to the superintendent.)

But even beyond basic logic, it’s a bogus line of reasoning!

Doctors attend patients in poor communities. They still earn high salaries – maybe not as high as they would serving the wealthy, but they have to be able to survive, to pay back the loans they took out to go through medical school, etc. So do lawyers, accountants and specialists of all kinds. That’s just capitalism. If you want someone to provide a good or service, you have to pay them a competitive wage. Otherwise, they’ll move on to greener pastures.

The kids see you pinching pennies. They know what that means – you don’t think they’re worth the investment.

The lessons of Vermillion Parish go far beyond Louisiana.

Anytime people mistreat teachers, they’re really mistreating the children those educators serve.

An attack on teachers is an attack on students.

When Hilt wrestled a woman half his size to the ground and placed her under arrest for the crime of exercising her rights, he put the entire community in jail.

When the board directed him to act – or at very least neglected to stop him – they made themselves culpable in the crime.

It is something we have been guilty of in nearly every state of the union. We have neglected our children, abused our teachers and injured the democratic principles on which our country was founded.

Class dismissed.

Dear Donald Trump, Please Try to Block Publication of My Book, Too

January 7, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, bloggers, capitalism, Censorship, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Donald Trump, Journalism, Media, Obama, Politics, President, privatization, Propaganda, Racism, Republican, satire, School Choice, school vouchers, Schools, Sexism, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers books, Censorship, Donald Trump, Fire and Fury, Gadfly on the Wall, Garn Press, Michael Wolff, Politics, publishers, satire

Dear Donald Trump,

May I just say, Wow, Sir? You are really very impressive.

I know some people say you’re a stupid overgrown man child, but you really had an amazing comeback when you tweeted you were actually a “very stable genius.”

I mean “very stable genius”!

Well done, sir.

How could anyone ever come back from that devastating response?

Oh, and your answer to Michael Wolff was likewise inspiring.

He is such an ingrate.

You invited this guy, this reporter, into the White House – the Summer Mar-a-Lago – so he could conduct candid interviews and observe you and your staff for the express purpose of writing a book. Now that the book, “Fire and Fury,” is coming out, you see that it paints an unflattering picture of you. So you have your lawyers send Wolff a cease and desist letter attempting to stop its publication.

That is ballsy, sir.

Obama wouldn’t have done that. Neither would either of the Bushes, or Reagan or even your hero Andrew Jackson. They had too much respect for the First Amendment – whatever that is.

I hear it won’t work though. Wolff’s book was released early and it’s already a best seller, but I’ve got to take my hat off to you, sir, for your sheer bigly courage.

Wolff’s book’s already sold more than 250,000 copies and the author attributes much of that to your attempts to block publication.

But what does he know? He’s not President. You are, sir. And as you once said, “I’m like a smart person.”

That you are, sir. Not actually smart, but very much LIKE a smart person.

You know you’re so smart that I think you might want to consider blocking the publication of some other books, too.

Why should someone as YUGE and important as you focus all your energy on people like Wolff… and Kim Jong-un?

You know the other day I was walking by my local book store – yes, they still exist. Believe me! – and I saw another book you should really think about coming down on.

It’s called “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform.”

It’s by this total nerd Steven Singer. He’s one of those liberal elites, an educator spending his whole day with little children most of whom are poor, black and brown.

Disgusting, right?

And his book’s all about how racism drives the movement to destroy public education through high stakes standardized testing, charter and voucher schools.

Wait. Did I just lose you there? I haven’t mentioned you in a few paragraphs.

Hold on.

Trump! Trump! TRUMP!

Is that better?

Good.

Anyway, you might not think his book has anything to do with you, sir, but if you take a look inside, you’ll see he slams you and your administration again and again.

The introduction, alone, contains these disrespectful zingers:

“…behold the glass menagerie of fools Trump has assembled to populate his administration…”

“…the tired rhetoric of Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South coming out of his [Trump’s] mouth…”

“…Trump is a monster and he’s assembled a cabinet of monstrosities to back him up. But that doesn’t make him scary. The best way to fight monsters is to turn on the light. And we have the brightest light of all – the light of knowledge, experience and wisdom.”

“We can take Tiny Hands, the Bankruptcy King any day! This is a guy who couldn’t make a profit running casinos – you know, a business where the house always wins! You expect us to cower in fear that he’s going to take away our schools. Son, we’ve fought better than you!”

“Trump represents a clear and present danger to our nation, our people and our schools. But we represent a clear and present danger to him. He hasn’t even been sworn in yet and the clock is already ticking. He’ll be lucky to last four years in the ring with us.”

Ah! Such a nasty man!

It probably makes you want to grab this guy by his pussy!

Could you imagine the look on this dude’s face if you were to send him a cease and desist letter? If you offered a criticism of his failing school at a press conference? Even if you just sent out a withering tweet about this sad loser?

Can you imagine how something like that might affect the sale of his book?

It’s selling pretty well for a book about education, but a comment from you would have a huge effect.

It would sell like hotcakes – by which I mean sell badly because who eats hotcakes, anymore, just McDonalds and KFC and well done steak with ketchup, Am-I-Right?

When you say something, people listen.

When you said, “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I noticed,” you boosted sales of his 1845 “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave” through the roof. It’s almost like people wanted to check to see if you really mentioned someone who died in 1895 like he was a contemporary figure walking around, going on TV and giving interviews.

Since you took office, you got the cash registers ringing with increased sales of “1984” by George Orwell, “March: Book One” by John Lewis, “It Can’t Happen Here” by Sinclair Lewis, and “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood.

Everything you touch just turns to gold!

Or perhaps it already was gold, since you take your morning constitutional on a gold throne.

Take out your smart phone, sir, and give this Steven Singer and his book a good spanking.

Call your lawyers into the bathroom and have them draft a letter.

The book is called “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform.”

You want to make sure to include that in the tweet or letter.

It’s available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Books-A-Million and as an E-book on Amazon.

Make sure everyone can see that is the book you’re criticizing.

You’ll have an incredible impact on the author.

After a smack from you, his life – and pocketbook – will never be the same.

So get out your tweeter, sir. And let’s sell some books!

I mean teach this guy a lesson. Then enjoy a steaming cup of covfefe.

Please.

Hidden Gadfly – Top 5 Stories (By Me) You May Have Missed in 2017

December 30, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, bloggers, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Predators, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Education, LGBT, Media, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, Racism, School Choice, School Funding, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, Sexism, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers, voter suppression, voting, White Allies, White Privilege education, New Year, Politics, prejudice, public schools, racism, School Choice, school vouchers, teachers, year in review

So that was 2017.

It was a year that frankly I wasn’t sure I’d survive.

But I did. We did. Together.

I think if there’s any lesson from the last 365 days, it’s that: We can endure anything if we stay united.

We’ve taken down titans of industry simply by acts of belief. When women came forward with credible tales of abuse, for the first time we – as a society – actually believed them.

We’ve taken down the most morally repugnant child abusers with designs on national office simply by supporting the black vote. And no matter how much power tried to disenfranchise our brothers and sisters of color, we stood by them and made sure their voices were heard.

We’ve taken down the authors of some of the most backward legislation in the country by supporting the very people who were targeted – I’m talking about Danica Roem the first transgender state legislator in the country taking down the author of Virginia’s bigoted bathroom bill! Absolutely amazing!

These are the kinds of things we need more of in the New Year.

If you take all the “minorities” in this country – minorities of gender, race, sexuality, creed, religion, etc. – if you add us all together, we actually are the majority!

When you add white people of conscience with black people, Latinos and Hispanics, LGBTs, women, Muslims, and every other historically disenfranchised group, we have the upper hand. And when you compare economic disparities of the 99% vs the 1% or poor vs rich, it’s not even close!

And I’m not talking about some time in the future. I’m talking about right now!

All we need to do is stand together and fight for each other.

Our democracy is in tatters, but not much needs to remain to empower our overwhelming supermajority.

So as 2018 is about to dawn, I am filled with hope for the future. A truly amazing year may be about to dawn. It’s all up to us.

In the meantime, I take my last look over my shoulder at the year that was.

As an education blogger, I write an awful lot of articles, 119 articles so far this year. In fact, this piece – which will probably be my last of the year – brings me to 120!

I’ve already published a countdown of my most popular articles. If you missed it, you can still read it here.

However, as is my custom, I like to do one final sweep of my annual output counting down honorable mentions. These are the top five articles that maybe didn’t get as many readers, but that I think deserve a second look.

I hope you enjoy my top 5 hidden gems before I place them in the Gadfly vault and begin the hard work of making 2018 a better tomorrow:

5) Standardized Testing Creates Captive Markets

Published: April 8

Views: 4,301

Description: Standardized testing is often championed by people who claim to be free market capitalists. Yet it struck me that there was nothing free about the market being perpetrated on public schools when it comes to high stakes tests. Schools don’t give these tests because anyone in these districts actually thinks they help students learn. We do it because we’re forced by federal and state governments. It’s a racket, and in this article I explain exactly how and why.

Fun Fact: This article was well received, but I thought it might deserve to be even more so. Education writer and classroom teacher Frank Stepnowski wrote about it in his most recent book “RETRIBUTION: A scathing story of mandatory minutiae, softening students, pretentious parents, too much testing, common core conundrums, and the slow death of a noble profession.” He was so taken by it he even taught my piece to his high school composition students. In addition, education historian Diane Ravitch probably liked this article more than any single work I’ve ever written. She positively beamed on her blog calling it, “One of the best articles you will ever read about standardized testing.” I guess it’s no wonder that I included it in my first book published just a few months ago, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform.” In particular, Ravitch wrote:

“When I read this post by Steven Singer, I was so excited that I thought about devoting an entire day to it. Like posting it and posting nothing else for the entire day. Or posting this piece over and over all day to make sure you read it. It is that important.

Steven’s post explains two different phenomena. First, why is standardized testing so ubiquitous? What does it have a death grip on public education?

Second, in the late 1990s, when I was often in D.C., I noticed that the big testing companies had ever-present lobbyists to represent their interests. Why? Wasn’t the adoption of tests a state and local matter? NCLB changed all that, Race to the Top made testing even more consequential, and the new ESSA keeps up the mandate to test every child every year from grades 3-8. No other country does this? Why do we?”

4) I Am Not A Hero Teacher

Published: Aug. 1

Views: 2,137

Description: According to landmark research by Dan Goldhaber and James Coleman, only about 9 percent of student achievement is attributable to teachers. The entire school experience only accounts for 20%. By far, the largest variable is out of school factors, which accounts for 60% of a student’s success. Yet we insist on holding teachers accountable for nearly 100% of it. We demand our teachers be superhuman, give them next to zero support, and then get indignant when they can’t do it all alone. Sorry, folks, I’m just a human being.

Fun Fact: Our expectations for teachers are ridiculous. We want them to do everything and then we blame them for acting like saviors. I think it’s vital that people acknowledge this impossible situation we put educators in and start to take more social responsibility. Your schools won’t get better until you do something about it. Stop complaining and get to work. That means voting for lawmakers who support public education. That means attending school board meetings. That means holding the decision makers responsible. Not just taking advantage of an easy scapegoat.

3) A Teacher’s Dilemma: Take a Stand Against Testing or Keep Abusing Children

Published: Sept 8

Views: 1,262

Description: What does a teacher think about when he or she is forced to give a standardized test? This article is my attempt to capture the no-win situation that our society forces on teachers every year. Apparently we must choose between doing things that we know are harmful to our students or taking a stand and possibly losing our jobs. You become a teacher to help children and then find that harming them is in the job description. Is this really what society wants of us?

Fun Fact: This article resonated deeply with some readers. In fact, a theater group in Ithaca, NY, Civic Ensemble, was so inspired by it that they used my article as the basis for a scene in a play made up of teacher’s real life stories about the profession. The play was called “The Class Divide.” You can watch a video of a practice performance of my scene here.

2) Top 10 Reasons Public Schools are the BEST Choice for Children, Parents & Communities

Published: Sept. 15

Views: 734:

Description: A lot has been written about why charter and voucher schools are bad for parents, students and society. Less has been written about the ways that public schools do better than privatized education. This was my attempt to illuminate the ways public schools are better. They attract better teachers, have a more robust sense of community, have more educational options, have greater diversity, are more fiscally responsible – and that’s just the first five!

Fun Fact: When you list all the ways public schools are better than privatized ones, it becomes hard to imagine why they’re struggling. Public schools are clearly the best choice. The fact that they are being sabotaged by the privatization industry and their creatures in government is inescapable.

1) Black Progress Does Not Come At White Expense

Published: Nov. 14

Views: 219

Description: When you ask racists why they oppose racial equity, the number one reason they give is the feeling that equity is a zero sum game. If black people are put on an equal footing with white people, then white people will ultimately lose out. This is patently untrue. White people will lose supremacy over other races, but they need not become subservient or lose their own rights. We can champion fairness for all without doing ourselves harm.

Fun Fact: This article kind of died on the vine, but I’m still proud of it. I think it is one of my best this year expressing my own thoughts and feelings about antiracism. I just wish more people had read it, because it sounds like this is an idea that more white people need to hear. We can only build a better world hand-in-hand.

NOTE: Special thanks to my fellow education blogger, Russ Walsh, who originally gave me the idea to write a countdown of under-read articles. He does it, himself, every year at his own excellent blog. If you’re new to the fight against corporate education reform, Russ has written an excellent primer on the subject – A Parent’s Guide to Public Education in the 21st Century: Navigating Education Reform to Get the Best Education for My Child.

Gadfly’s Other Year End Round Ups

This wasn’t the first year I’ve done a countdown of the year’s greatest hits. I usually write one counting down my most popular articles (like the one you just read from 2017) and one listing articles that I thought deserved a second look. Here are all my end of the year articles since I began this crazy journey in 2014: