America's Teachers! We're Dumb. And We Suck!

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OKAY, AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS:  Raise your hand if you've heard the self-appointed education experts howling and moaning about how you're failing. Raise your hand again if you've seen the charts and graphs they use to prove you're failing, too.

You know the statistics. The horrible graduation rates in many cities and even entire states. Worst of all, you have the poor showing U. S. students make in international academic competitions. I mean come on!

Who else could possibly be to blame?

Ask Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York and that pompous ass will set you straight. If he could have it his way, he said recently, he'd fire half the teachers in New York City and start over from scratch. But the evil unions won't let him.

In fact, in a speech at M. I. T. last November, he grumbled that the biggest problem in American education was stupid teachers. He wasn't quite that blunt; but his meaning was clear. He said we were culled "from the bottom 20 percent [of our college classes] and not of the best schools."

Well, Bloomberg did go to Johns Hopkins University. He did make $22 billion in business. So, sure, we have to listen to him. He knows everything about education. He just hasn't spent a day in a classroom in his entire life.

So:  how is Bloomberg doing, in his third term in office, after promising to make education reform the signature of his elected career. He thinks teachers are the biggest problem; but he might want to check a few statistics. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University (there's irony for you), 15% of American parents let their sons or daughters miss at least 10% of all school days, and do it every year.

Hey, stupid math teachers! I know you came from the bottom 20% and went to the crappy schools. But check my figures. (Give me a second. I'm pretty dumb, too.) If a kid misses 18 days every year, grades K-12, then won't that mean he or she missed classes 234 times. Um...if one year equals...and we divide 234...um...doesn't that mean, academically, these students should be 1.3 years behind, and not because of YOU?

Raise your hands if you have telepathic powers, stupid teachers. Anyone? You mean you can't teach kids who don't come to school?

WTF!! What's wrong with you!

Well, let me humbly offer this idea. Maybe we could notify Mayor Bloomberg. He's a smart guy. He'll get this. Someone tell him that the same study found 200,000 kids in the New York City Schools missed 10% or more of the school year.

For the love of god and learning, tell him, "Mayor, we need better doctors in this city quick! We must be culling them from the bottom 20%, and not from the best schools! There's plague in Lower Manhattan! There's an epidemic in the Bronx!"

I mean, come on stupid teachers. If U. S. kids finish 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in math, in the most recent international comparison (65 countries), we'll, let's face the Ugly Facts. We're Dumb. And We Suck.

Read 'em and weep, numbskulls. Look at the international rankings (left column) for 15-year-olds in reading! Aren't you ashamed of yourselves? It's a travesty and you must be to blame:

READING (2010)
1. South Korea                                                                      (Singapore)
2. Finland                                                                              (Italy)
3. Canada                                                                              (Australia)
4. New Zealand                                                                     (Switzerland)
5. Japan                                                                                 (Japan)
6. Australia                                                                            (Israel)
7. Netherlands                                                                       (Spain)
8. Belgium                                                                             (Netherlands)
9. Norway                                                                              (Sweden)
10. Estonia                                                                            (Germany)
11. Switzerland                                                                      (Cyprus)
12. Poland                                                                             (Austria)
13. Iceland                                                                             (France)
14. UNITED STATES                                                            (Canada)
15. Sweden                                                                            (New Zealand)
16. Germany                                                                          (Greece)
17. Ireland                                                                              (Hong Kong)
18. France                                                                              (Norway)
19. Denmark                                                                          (Ireland)
20. United Kingdom                                                               (Belgium)


NOW LOOK AT THE SECOND COLUMN. Be sure you have your hankie handy, because if U. S. schools suck, U. S. primary care offices and hospitals must be aN abomination. According to Bloomberg News. Yep. Bloomberg Bleepin' News. According to Bloomberg's own company, we don't come close to the Top 20 when we rank the "The World's Healthiest Countries."

Doctors in Singapore are crushing our medical professionals. Our medical guys can't even beat Cyprus! In fact, if you check the full list, America's health care system comes in on a stretcher, in 33rd place. We get beat by Cuba! We get beat by Slovenia! We get beat by bleepin' Kuwait!!!

(Then again, it could be a lot worse. We could live in Swaziland, which finishes dead last in 145th place.)

Well, there you have it folks. We use another simple list to "prove" another simple point. If U. S. students stink up the rankings, and the only explanation is that teachers are to blame, at least we're not pathetic losers like America's doctors and nurses.

And if you're ready for more bad news, let's face these Ugly Facts:  In an annual report, titled "F as in Fat," state rankings for adult obesity were released today. So:  Where do we find the worst dietitians?

Mississippi, where the obesity rate is 34.9%.

I'm just a dumb, retired history teacher; but if you ask me, it looks like we need Congress to act, and pronto. Let's shape up lousy, lazy medical folk. Let's pass a law and call it No Fat American Left Behind.

(Maybe No Fat American Behind Left Behind?)

If we're going to criticize teachers based on simplistic comparisons, let's not forget all the dumb people in U. S. health care professions.




What the heck? What's wrong with America's doctors and nurses?
(I'm joking, of course.)
Could it be that Mayor Bloomberg is an idiot?

I seem to keep getting right-wing, conservative and bogus charter schools advertising on my blog; it's a decision made by AdSense. Feel free to click on these links and they'll have to pay me and you can ignore their propaganda.

Paul Ryan's Tragic Love Affair with Ayn Rand

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REMEMBER WHEN GOOD-HEARTED Christians used to favor bracelets that read "WWJD," meaning:  "What Would Jesus Do?"

Well, then, what should "godless" liberals make of GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan today? Not too long ago, Ryan told anyone who cared to listen that he loved the philosophy of Ayn Rand, a notorious atheist.

(Imagine what Fox News would do with that kind of story if President Obama said he had ever read Rand.)

Now, Congressman Ryan has ditched his WWARD bracelet, because he's running for national office, and some right-wing types certainly wouldn't like it. Still, we know by his own statements that he wore it for years:

...Ryan made no bones about his philosophical influences just a few years ago. He told the Weekly Standard in 2003 that he gave his staffers copies of “Atlas Shrugged” as Christmas presents. Speaking to a group of Rand acolytes in 2005, Ryan said, “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.”

Even three years ago, Tim Mak of Politico noted, Ryan channeled Rand. “What’s unique about what’s happening today in government, in the world, in America, is that it’s as if we’re living in an Ayn Rand novel right now,” Ryan said. “I think Ayn Rand did the best job of anybody to build a moral case of capitalism, and that morality of capitalism is under assault.”

Suppose we give Congressman Ryan benefit of the doubt--unlike the far-right folk who see Vladimir Lenin behind everything President Obama does, including floss his teeth. Let's assume Ryan never fell head over heels for the atheism in Rand, and figure Rand's moral case for capitalism and against collectivism is perfectly sound.

A BIT OF FULL DISCLOSURE, FIRST. Like Ryan, I read Rand when I was young, both Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead while serving in the Marines.

To sum up her ideas simply, Rand was champion of a philosophy know as Objectivism. She was against all state interference in economic affairs, which is where Ryan would have you believe he now stands. Rand believed human rights were best safe-guarded in a free market system, which I suspect is true, and a concept, simply framed, which serves as foundation for most Tea Party thought. Rand, on her part, placed full faith in the individual, free to stand alone, arguing that each of us should rely, first, second, and third on ourselves, and not expect handouts from anyone else. I liked that idea, when I was young, and as a liberal, as far as it really goes in real life, I still do today. I took away from Rand, like Ryan (or so I suspect), the idea that we should stand on our own two feet and do all we can.

That still doesn't mean her books are very good--or that her philosophy, or the philosophy of Paul Ryan and the extreme conservatives, stands up well in the end. I tried to read Atlas Shrugged again two or three years ago.

I couldn't do it.

First, the writing is pretty bad. Even worse, her characters, especially the villains, are caricatures. John Galt, for example, in Atlas Shrugged, is a paladin of unfettered capitalism. He asks help from no one, scorns meddling government types. Galt desires only to be free to run his business, to create, to follow his own path. Hank Rearden is the same kind of man, intent on building a great steel company and turning out the best product he can.

Eventually, Rearden falls in love with Dagny Taggert, lithe, leggy, sensual, daughter of another capitalist hero, a railroad builder, if memory serves. And all Ms. Taggert wants is to be free from government intervention, to exercise her talents, despite her sex, a character who undoubtely reflects Rand's view of herself. By Rick Santorum's or Rush Limbaugh's standards, though, Dagny's kind of a slut. She sleeps with Rearden without taking the time to marry him. Then, when she meets John Galt, she sleeps with him and they have torrid sex.

It's Fifty Shades of Gray, only with economic implications.

It's the villains, however, that make these books ridiculous, and it's this fetish for finding all kinds of villains that makes much conservative philosophy seem shallow today. In Rand's works half a century ago, and on Fox News every day, the bad guys might as well be cardboard cutouts, for all the nuance Rand or Fox display. In Atlas Shrugged, which helped Paul Ryan learn how to think, they are creepy and weak. They're craven business types, with minimal talents, who work in tandem with sleazy bureaucrats, and leach off the success of individuals like Rearden and Galt. Our only hope, Rand wants us to think, is a system free from government interference, where capitalist heroes create wealth, innovate, and, as a by-product, lift the rest of us up, carry us along, like Atlas, on their broad shoulders.

(It's Mitt Romney, working at Bain Capital, Hercules performing the Seven Job-Creating Labors. And, no, mythic heroes don't have to show us their income tax forms.)

The problem, of course, is that villains and heroes in real life are much harder to tell apart; and so simplistic logic just won't quite do. There are all kinds of crooks in business, for example, who skirt government regulations, and rig the whole system. (Did we mention that we'd like to see Mitt's tax returns, just to be sure what kind of business type he is?) And there are noble and good people serving in government, members of all parties, in all times, some on each side, some running for office today.

Take Ryan, for example. In 2009, from his comfortable seat in the U. S. House of Representatives, he blasted the "wasteful spending" of the Obama stimulus plan. He was the perfect Ayn Rand hero, standing up against all those interferring government types. Unfettered capitalism must triumph.

The true individual stands alone.

And, oh yeah, Mr. Ryan wrote to ask Obama's Secretary of Energy soon after, could you please send a little stimulus funding to the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation, in my district, while you're handing out checks?

Paul Ryan, guardian of economic truths, justice, and the American Way, wanted the federal government to give his constituents a helping hand. Suddenly, a little butting in, where business was involved, looked good:

“I was pleased [Ryan wrote] that the primary objectives of their project will allow residents and businesses in the partner cities to reduce their energy costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and stimulate the local economy by creating new jobs,” Ryan wrote to Energy Secretary Steven Chu on December 18, 2009, on behalf of the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation.

So:  there it is. Our buff, blue-eyed hero, bold defender of individualism, darling of the farthest-of-the-far-right, railed against government intrusion, stood by his values, and voted against the Obama plan.

Then he stuck out his hand and asked for a cut.

What other fiscal skeletons might we find if we looked under his Objectivist bed? Who is Paul Ryan, to put it the way Ayn Rand might? Ryan's work in Congress isn't any worse than most members of that august body; but it's not much better in the end. Like all those sleazy elected officials Rand describes, Ryan was less than noble when core values and beliefs got in his path, when not doing favors and helping grease a few constituent palms might interfere with his core purpose of getting reelected.

Remember earmarks, which conservatives railed about during the 2008 campaign? In 2005, Ryan voted for a $712 million transportation bill that included the "Bridge to Nowhere" which Sarah Palin (another conservative hero) was all for and then all against when she ran for VP. As an elected official, Ryan managed to sneak in a few of his own, small potatoes by comparison, but still govern-ment potatoes, a total of $5.4 million in taxpayer monies. "The requests included $3.28 million for bus service in Wisconsin, $1.38 million for the Ice Age National Scenic Trail, and $735,000 for the Janesville transit system."

And what do you know! Ryan voted for the auto bailout, the same bailout conservatives labeled a bold move by President Obama to move us all down the road to socialism. Ayn Rand would have freaked.

According to a report this week in the Boston Globe:

John Beckord, president of Forward Janesville, a business advocacy organization, said that Ryan’s support of the auto bailout should be considered in the context of Janesville’s devastating loss when General Motors closed its assembly plant there in 2008. An estimated 5,000 jobs were lost from the plant and supporting businesses.

That's right, far-right folks. Consider the bailout "in the context" of various towns, like Janesville, Wisconsin, Ryan's hometown, and hundreds of others across this great land. And then tell us, right-wing Ayn Rand fans, and VP candidate Ryan, and, oh yeah, Mitt "Let the Auto Industry Die" Romney, when is it wrong for government to be involved in the economy and when is it right?

Ryan solicits stimulus funds.
Fans of unfettered capitalism and Randian individualism weep.

The Big Evil in U. S. Education: Teachers' Unions?

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WHAT KIND OF DAMN FOOLS make movies about education? And what kind of damn fools review them?

Those were my thoughts when I picked up the New York Times last Sunday and saw Frank Bruni's column, "Teachers on the Defensive."

Bruni has no children and normally writes about food. Now he had decided to go all "two thumbs up" and review the forthcoming movie, "Won't Back Down." He calls it a David and Goliath story about a mother fighting to save her daughter from being required to attend a failing public elementary school. Randi Weingarten, "powerful president of the American Federation of Teachers," gets a brief mention in his column. But no practicing teacher (Weingarten last spent a day in a classroom in 1997) appears in the story. 

Bruni admits the people backing the film are sworn enemies of teachers' unions. He brushes that aside. As he sees it, teachers unions have lost their way and represent the great impediment to needed change. He's surprised to discover teachers and their unions are less than pleased with U. S. Secretary of Eucation Arne Duncan (who, if Bruni interviewed me, I might label an "insufferable ass"). He mentions "Race to the Top," Duncan's bold initiative to save America's schools. He mentions unanimous agreement, cutting across party lines, at a recent conference of mayors, endorsing "parent trigger legislation."

These trigger laws, Bruni explains:

...recently passed in only a few states but being considered in more, abet parent take-overs of underperforming schools, which may then be replaced with charter schools run by private entities. Parent trigger hasn't yet led to a new school, so no one can really know the sense or efficacy of the scenario. But it informs "Won't Back Down," which envisions [actor Maggie] Gyllenhaal's trigger-pulling parent as an Erin Brockovich in education.

"It gives parents an opportunity to weigh in," said Antonio Villaraigosa, the Los Angeles mayor, who supports it, in an interview here on Thursday. He believes that new approaches are vital and that teachers' unions are "the most powerful defenders of a broken system."

SO, WHERE DO WE STAND IN U. S. EDUCATION TODAY? Apparently, we all accept the premise that public education is failing, even when evidence is as thin as a Vogue model. Then, like assorted Chicken Littles, critics go running about, warning readers that the sky is falling, when actually it's not.

And why is the sky falling (when it's not)? Unions. Teacher seniority. Unions. Tenure. Unions. Greed for pension benefits. Unions. Even Randi Weingarten is quoted as saying unions have focused too much on fairness for members and ignored matters of quality. (To be frank, every time I hear her talk on TV or read what she says in interviews, I find myself thinking, "This poor woman couldn't defend teachers if you gave her a baseball bat.")

Bruni hammers home what he believes is the critical point--and if you're a dedicated educator his column may make you a little sick:  "Better teachers, better teachers, better teachers. That's the mantra of the moment, and implicit in it is the notion that the ones we've got aren't nearly good enough."

"Won't Back Down," he says, raises important questions. "It's ultimately about the impact of superior teaching, the need to foster more of it and the importance of school accountability. Who could quibble with any of that?"

I could, for one.

I've noticed something odd while doing research for what I hope will be my first book about American education. And I wonder why Weingarten and Bruni and all the experts never bring this up. If unions are the problem, how come unions in some places are so much more of a problem than in others.

How did Vermont graduate 83% of its students in four years, and Wisconsin 81%, and North Dakota 80%, and why did Mississippi come in at 61% in 2008? If Louisiana was at 60% and South Carolina and Georgia were at 59%, maybe it wasn't unions. Maybe it was some strange phenomenon related to flying the Confederate flag.

If that theory sounds ridiculous, what about lack of trees? Because there's a huge gap in graduation rates between suburban and urban districts within states. A study done in 2005 noted that 38% of Cleveland, Ohio high school students graduated in four years. Yet, in surrounding suburbs, the rate was 80%. It was the same all over the country. The gap for the Baltimore region was 40 percentage points, for Milwaukee 35, in New York City environs 29.

For Chicago, where Duncan was then wrapping up his fourth year at the helm of city schools, the difference was 28 points.

Here, in the Cincinnati area, you can easily uncover evidence of the same. Loveland City Schools, the suburban district where I once taught, has held onto an "excellent" rating from the State of Ohio for eleven years straight. In 2012 Loveland graduated 96.7% of seniors and 84% of the class planned to go on to college.

I could climb behind the wheel of my car this minute and drive three miles south and be in the district of the Wyoming City Schools, ranked 86th best in the nation in 2011, according to Newsweek magazine. Teachers in Wyoming, like those in Loveland, are unionized. Yet, in 2011, Wyoming graduated 100% of its senior class.

How was that possible? What variables besides union membership might apply? In Loveland, to cite just one explanation, student attendance in 2012 was 95.4%. Wyoming City did even better the year before, with 96.4%.

Still, there's no time for nuance when discussing the failure of America's public schools. The only variable is teacher quality. If we're going to win the "Race to the Top," Mr. Duncan knows all that matters is better teachers.

No questions asked.

Yet, I find myself asking questions, as I once did in the classroom. Why is it we think teachers are failing in Chicago, the district Duncan gained credit for fixing, if 258 school-age kids were shot in gang-related violence in one year, and 245 the next? Why is it we think we have a school crisis if a study shows that the 10,000 kids most at risk of being victims, or acting as perpetrators, missed an average of 71 school days per year?  I wish Mr. Bruni had considered that issue, because I'm not a food critic. I'm a retired teacher and know what almost all teachers know.

When I worked in Loveland, I certainly found most parents were supportive and committed. But when you looked at kids who struggled, it wasn't ever because I had tenure, or because, eventually I had so much seniority I couldn't have been laid off unless the district suffered a direct hit in a nuclear attack.

Back in the 90s, for example, a previous generation of Chicken Littles screamed bloody murder and said we needed to hand out vouchers to parents and let them send their kids off to "superior" private schools.We we had to "measure" how students were faring on state standardized tests (those didn't work, by the way). One day I caught an editorial in the Cincinnati Enquirer, blasting teachers because test scores were low. The writer was for vouchers, for "school choice," for parental triggers before triggers were invented. He grumbled that there was "ample time" in the school year to teach what ought to be taught. He implied (oh, that word again) that lazy teachers were the real issue. But I didn't feel lazy. I saw what Elliot was like the year I had him in class, the same year that stupid editorial came out.

I saw what it was like to try to work with a seventh grader who was absent or tardy 107 times.

One day, when Elliot fell asleep for a third time during history class, I called him back to my desk. Elliot admitted Mom allowed him to stay up till 4 a.m., the night before, playing video games. Here's how I describe the scene:

I have him take a seat on the floor, hoping cold, hard linoleum will jump start his cognitive functions. I answer several questions from classmates and then glance in his direction. His head is twisted to one side, resting against the concrete block wall. His mouth gapes wide. His history papers have slipped from his grasp and he lets out a loud snort.

Elliot comes late again Tuesday when we have a test. He doesn’t have supplies. So I waste my "ample time" to fetch him a pencil. Five minutes later Elliot is done. He just colors in answers. Then he lays down his pencil—my pencil—and lays down his head and is soon fast asleep, no doubt dreaming about what he would do if only he had a voucher. 

Unlike Bruni, in other words, unlike movie producers who make shallow films, I know what it was like to work with parents like Elliot's mom. (It almost goes without saying dad was no longer around.) I discovered what it was like when she got arrested for fighting with our school resource officer after Elliot's older brother got suspended for fighting on the bus.

I saw what happened when Elliot, by then an eighth grader, got arrested for selling drugs on school grounds. So:  I'm telling you now, you could get rid of teachers' unions tomorrow, and you wouldn't begin to touch the most serious issues in our schools.

I'm sorry to have to say this, but Mr. Bruni should stick to telling us what's wrong with how most of us eat.

Lying Scientists Claim to Have Proof of Dramatic Arctic Melting! Still Can't Find Obama Birth Certificate

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OKAY, FAR RIGHT Fox News fans. Here's what you missed, while you were cleaning your guns and hunkering down for that U. N. invasion of Lubbock, Texas.

The tree huggers are up to their tricks again, what with their science and evidence and advanced college degrees and crap. Yep:  more lying scientists have gone on record today, warning about ominous new signs of global warning.

And where do we find these lying scientists doing their lying? Smack dab in the middle of the lying New York Times. Why, Bill O'Reilly was just talking last night with Bernie Goldberg about all the liberal lying that goes on in the Times. Bill is the man. And, boy, don't we miss Glenn Beck. He'd set those scientists straight.

Used to be a radio disc jockey, you know.

What are these green freaks up to now? Well, with two months still left in the melting season, satellite photos show that only 30% of the Arctic Ocean is covered in ice. Satellites! Photographs! NASA! How low can these "libertards" go? Noah's Ark. Sure. Glenn and Bill believe in that. But where does it mention melting Arctic ice in the Bible? Tell me that, left-wing Eco-Nazis. The polar ice caps may be melting at a record rate. But you will have to pry my cold, dead fingers off my assault rifle before I give up my Second Amendment right to shoot any polar bears heading south.

Well, here's what scientist claim. They say polar ice in the north has been reduced by 40% since 1979, when the first detailed photographs were taken. They say evidence points clearly to human activity and greenhouse gasses. Ignore those scientists. Let's hear what a great leader like Sarah Palin has to say:  "I can see Russia from here! I once read an entire book although it was filled with pictures. Drill, baby, drill!"

Stand up for the U. S. Constitution, patriots with teabags hanging from your hats! Tell Commie Obama, "You can take away my right to drive my Giant Land Roving Mark XII Escalade SUV when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the steering wheel." The Founding Fathers never mentioned global warming now did they?

Oh, yeah, big deal. According to the New York Times, scientists (a.k.a. "liars") predict a day is coming when the Arctic Ocean will be totally ice free in summers. More Eco-Nazi talk. The Times story goes on and on, letting scientists spew more of their stupid facts: “It’s hard even for people like me to believe, to see that climate change is actually doing what our worst fears dictated,” said Jennifer A. Francis, a Rutgers University scientist who studies the effect of sea ice on weather patterns. “It’s starting to give me chills, to tell you the truth.”

What does some college egghead with chills know? Don't you hate elitists with their knowledge and shit.

Todd Akin. Now there's my man. Knows the scoop about sperm and egg and rape.

Meanwhile, the Times absolutely spews falsehoods. Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State, says climate-change risks are greater than even most scientists feared. Elitist. Tree hugger. If he's so smart, why doesn't he show us Obama's birth certificate?

Can't find it? That's what I thought.

Mann might explain to reporters:  “In this case, the models were almost certainly too conservative in the changes they were projecting, probably because of important missing physics.” But, we don't fall for his tricks. See what he says about conservatives!  He's saying we hate physics. Mann and his fancy terms:  like "Arctic amplification." He says it has something to do with less white snow and ice to reflect sunlight back into space. Says melting, itself, is causing an increase in melting. We're way ahead of Mr. Bigshot Science, though. We know polar bears don't care about louder music.

Dr. Francis--oh, big deal, a doctor--warns that changes in climate may already be altering weather patterns farther south, including the United States. "She has published research suggesting that air circulation patterns are being altered in a way that favors more extremes, like heat waves and droughts."
 Drought? Ha. Not gonna happen.  When Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan take over we're going to win "The War on Christmas" (even if the holiday isn't as white as often as it was back in 1979). Mitt will stop global warming by offering tax cuts to billionaires. Ryan will save the planet by privatizing Medicare. If the ice sheet sitting on top of Greenland begins to melt, which scientists predict, even if we cared, even if that meant ocean levels might rise dramatically and force the abandonment of several Micronesian nations, we're going to be ready. We'll still have our guns and we'll stop those Pacific Islander refugees at the beach.       Walt Meier, a researcher at the National Snow Ice Data Center, a government-sponsored research center, might explain, “Parts of the Arctic have become like a giant Slushee this time of year.”  Well, we're way too smart to fall for that. Science. Government sponsored science isn't the solution. It's the problem. Drill, baby, drill!

And watch out for those U. N. boys, too. 

Just because evidence shows the polar ice is disappearing,
that doesn't mean Fox News viewers have to believe it.

 

A Tribute on 9-11 (And a Brief Note on Chicago's Teachers)

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NO ONE OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER will ever forget the attacks on 9/11, the terrible loss of life, the shock and horror of an entire great nation.
I was teaching a seventh grade class in American history that morning, when my principal knocked at the door. She whispered that there had been a terrorist attack in New York City. Until we knew more district leaders wanted us to keep quiet rather than scare students. The story continued to develop, of course, and I was soon spending the rest of the day and much of the following week trying to help students make sense of cataclysmic events.
Like any good teacher, I wanted them to understand the world they lived in, now so dramatically altered. It was nice to hear this morning, via Facebook, that Lynzi Engel remembers:

I will never forget this day that happened 11 years ago. At the time I was so confused but later that day I had Mr. Viall and he explained what exactly was happening. My thoughts and prayers go out to all the families that lost loved ones this morning 11 years ago and thank you to all the police, firefighters and the service men/women who are helped that morning and are still serving. This day will never be forgotten!!!

I retired from teaching in 2008. But if I was still in the classroom here's what I'd be doing on this sad anniversary. I'd be showing a compilation of short film clips I recorded in 2001, including some of the most tragic events. After all, today's seventh graders were only one or two years old on September 11. So, I'd show them a scene filled with people falling, falling, falling, from high floors of the North and South Towers. What moments of terror those must have been for trapped and desperate victims. And I'd add this detail, because I'd want the kids to have a sense of what it was like for real human beings. I'd tell them some of those who leaped from those burning buildings were holding hands, perhaps with friends, perhaps with loved ones, where they had been trapped by smoke and flames.
It's this small gesture, I think, that reminds us all who do remember, that might touch the hearts of today's kids, and give them a sense of what a loss our nation suffered.
Nearly 3,000 died eleven years ago. Who were they? What were they really like?
Steven Coakley was coming off a regular shift with Engine Company 217, in Brooklyn, just as the first plane struck. On five separate occasions, as a part of his job, he had previously helped deliver babies. This was different and Coakley and the rest of Engine 217 rushed to the scene. Sal Fiumefreddo, a telephone technician, had a one-day assignment to install equipment at the trade centers. Divorced, feeling lonely, he met Joan Chao at at a friend's backyard barbecue the summer before. Now, on a crisp day in September the couple was getting ready to celebrate a first wedding anniversary. Gary Bird was starting a new job with Marsh & McClennan. Normally, he would be working out of Phoenix. On this day, however, he was scheduled for a meeting at the World Trade Center, beginning at 8:15 a.m.
All three were killed.
Let's remember them all. Let's remember Jill Campbell, the young mother, whose son, Jake, was learning to crawl. (She didn't live long enough to be told; but he crawled for the first time that very day.) Let's remember Timothy J. Finnerty. A bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald, we can assume he was hard at work on the 105th floor of One World Trade Center on 9/11. Just three days earlier he had enjoyed himself at his cousin's wedding. His wife, Theresa, remembered him cutting up (which was his style) and doing the "Lawn Mower Dance," followed by the "Sprinkler Dance" at the reception.

He was one of 658 employees of his company who perished in the attack.

At a funeral later, Keith Wiswall spoke fondly of his father and how much he liked working in the lawn. One day, Keith looked out the window and saw Dad using a shop vac to suck up berries from a neighbor's tree, because they were falling on his grass. David Wiswall was 54 when he died at terrorist hands.

No one has vacuumed the lawn since.
Kristin Walsh remembers her mother, Nancy, bringing Carol Flyzik home and introducing her as "her girlfriend." It meant a real adjustment, but she and her two brothers came to love their stepmother. Flyzik was one of 76 regular passengers aboard American Airlines Flight 11, headed for the West Coast on a business trip. At 8:46 a. m. she perished when the aircraft crashed into the North Tower. Amy Sweeney was an attendant on the same flight, one of eleven crew members. When hijackers took over she kept calm and contacted ground supervisors, asking them to notify the F.B.I. Her grace and bravery in a time of tragedy were no surprise to those who knew her. She died without having a chance to see her children, Anna, 6, and son, Jack, 4, grow up.
(Seth McFarlane, the creator of Family Guy, was meant to be aboard but arrived at the airport too late.)
Mayra Valdes-Rodriguez, last seen alive on the 78th floor as she hustled others down the stairs of the South Tower to safety, was known for her contagious laughter. She didn't make it out alive, herself. We know Maria Benavente removed her shoes to speed her descent from the same building, because they were recovered later in the ruins. It wasn't enough. She didn't get out. Bill Biggart, a photo-journalist, rushed to the scene in Lower Manhattan to record events. After the South Tower fell he phoned his wife to say he was safe. "I'm with the firefighters," he explained. Nothing at all to worry about. When the North Tower came down he and the firefighters around him died in the collapse. Joe Maloney, a firefighter and Mets fan was killed. Assistant Fire Chief Gerard Barbara, a Yankees fan, was killed, too. Mike Carroll, a fifteen-year veteran with Ladder Co. 3, died along with hundreds of other brave firefighters. Since his remains could not be found a friend from his softball team carried a helmet down the aisle at his funeral mass.
Lincoln Quappe, another FDNY veteran, interviewed for a story in March, told a reporter, "Every fire is scary. That's the way it is. You're a damned liar if you say you're not scared." Even a little fire could get a guy killed. "It all comes down to fate," he added. Quappe was responding on 9/11, not to a little fire, but to a huge one, unlike anything he had had ever seen.

Fate caught him up and swept him away.
Steven Cafiero first "met" his girlfriend on the Internet but they were unable to speak in person until another year passed. Now, in the weeks leading up to 9/11 they were talking about marriage and planning for children. Peter Gyulavary had also been blessed by fate --years earlier, at least--having met his American wife while she was vacationing in Australia. They eventually settled down in New York City and had a daughter, Geniveve, who turned 13 around the time of the attacks. Eskedar Melaku, came to America from Ethiopia as a young woman, to attend college and build a better life. Emerita de la Pena and Judith Diaz Sierra were fast friends and co-workers, each serving as maid of honor at the other's wedding. James Martello, a former Rutgers linebacker, liked to coach his 7-year-old son's football team when he wasn't at work. Sheila Barnes was a fanatic about clipping coupons and saving money. None of them survived.
Jerrold Paskins, 57, was only in New York on 9/11 because he had to help complete an insurance audit. (His remains were identified two months later when a lucky 1976 bicentennial silver dollar he always carried turned up at Ground Zero.) Christine Egan, born in Hull, England, was visiting her brother Michael in New York. That morning he decided to take her up to the restaurant, "Windows on the World," to get a cup of coffee and a panoramic view of the city.

Moments before the North Tower collapsed, Michael Egan finally managed to reach his wife by phone. "You made it," she responded with immense relief. "No, we're stuck," he admitted. They were still on the line together when she watched in horror on her television as the building collapsed.

Orasri Liangthanasarn, a native of Thailand and a recent graduate of New York University, a new administrative assistant at "Windows on the World" also died. In fact, no one who was in the restaurant that day survived.
Peter Hanson, a huge fan of the Grateful Dead, his wife Sue Kim Hanson, a native of Korea with a degree in microbiology, and their daughter Christine Hanson, two-and-a-half years old, were aboard United Flight 175, originally scheduled to fly from Boston to Los Angeles. Paige Farley-Hackel was supposed to be aboard. She and her sister Ruth McCourt were taking Ruth's daughter, Juliana McCourt, 4, on a trip to Disneyland. At the last minute, Paige realized she could use frequent flier miles and switched to American Airlines Flight 11, instead.
They had planned to meet up in California, before both planes in a cruel twist, were taken over by Osama bin Laden's men, and sent hurtling into buildings.
Hilary Strauch, a New Jersey sixth grader, was 12 years old on the day of the attacks. And she had to watch on television at school as the tower where her Dad, George Strauch, worked, went down in dust and mangled metal and ruin. Frank Martini and Pablo Ortiz, both fathers, themselves, could easily have escaped. Instead, they stuck around and used a crowbar and other tools to help free at least fifty people who were trapped in the North Tower. Martini and Ortiz stayed around too long to survive. Beth Logler, 31, had run cross-country in high school. Now, she was planning a wedding for December 30, 2001. She wasn't quite fast enough to make it out in time. Sara Manley Harvey, a Georgetown graduate, had at least been married a month. The magenta-colored napkins at the reception had matched the roses carried by the flower girls at the wedding. Robert A. Campbell, 25, was a painter and window washer at the World Trade Center. That morning his parents think he was working on the roof. Brian P. Williams was a high school football star back in his Covington, Kentucky days, and moved later to the Big Apple to find work. Joseph J. Hasson III survived a terrible car wreck freshman year of college. Sixteen years later his time ran out in New York.
Brad Vadas found himself trapped in the smoke and ruins on the 88th floor, just above where the plane hit the South Tower. He managed to leave a phone message on his fiancee, Kris McFerren's answering machine: "Kris, there's been an explosion. We're trapped in a room. There's smoke coming in. I don't know what's going to happen. I want you to know my life has been so much better and richer because you were in it." He promised he'd try to get out, but to be safe added, "I love you. Goodbye." Ed McNally called his wife, too, and told her he was in trouble, trapped by flames on floors below. He told her where to find his life insurance papers. Then he admitted he'd been planning a surprise trip to Rome for her fortieth birthday. "I feel silly, Liz," he added, "you'll have to cancel that."
Neither man made it home that night for dinner.
Rick Rescelora survived heavy fighting in Vietnam but not a terrorist attack on this day. Mike Warchola had one shfit left until he retired from the New York Fire Department. And he died. Port Authority police officer Dominick Pezzulo was trying to free two trapped officers from the wreckage of the South Tower when the North collapsed and he was hit and killed by falling beams. John Perry was actually turning in his retirement papers to the New York Police Department when the first plane struck. He asked for his badge back and raced to the scene, ready to help others in a time of dire need. Moira Smith, a blond-haired policewoman, was last seen helping injured victims out of the lobby of the South Tower a few minutes before it came crashing to earth. Ed Nichols, for one, was bleeding from head, arm and abdomen when Smith took him gently by the elbow and led him to safety. Then she turned and reentered the lobby. About that same time, eyewitness saw melting aluminum pouring out of a gash on the 80th floor where the hijacked aircraft had hit.

In a 911 call a shortly after, an unidentified woman trapped high up in the tower reported the floor under her was collapsing. Moments later, Greg Milanowycz, trapped on the 93rd floor, called his father and reported, "The ceiling is falling, the ceiling is falling." Then the Tower collapsed.
At 9:37 that same day a third plane, a Boeing 757, carrying 57 passengers and crew, crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D. C., killing all aboard and another 125 Americans on the ground. Cheryle Sincock had already been at work inside for several hours because she liked to get an early start whenever possible. Husband Craig, a computer scientist for the United States Army, usually came to work a little later. Now, having been struck by a third hijacked aircraft, the Pentagon was billowing black smoke, and he found himself caught on the D. C. Metro, as it was shut down for security reasons. He sprinted two miles, cutting across highways and through Arlington National Cemetery. He would help with rescue attempts until 11 p. m., go home for a brief rest, and return again at 4 a. m., in hopes of locating his wife.

Cheryle didn't make it.
Todd Beamer, you may recall, was one of the passenger on United Airlines Flight 93. His widow, Lisa, would later tell reporters that Todd "really didn't do much of anything without a plan." Her husband, of course, was one of the ringleaders of a passenger revolt organized to try to regain control of the plane before the hijackers destroyed it. A phone operator heard him ask others, including big Jeremy Glick, a former high school wrestler and judo champion, and Mark Bingham, an old rugby player: "Are you guys ready? O. K. Let's roll." And roll they did, although they couldn't save themselves. They did bring down Flight 93, before it could do any additional damage.
THAT'S WHAT I'D BE TALKING ABOUT TODAY, if I was still in the classroom. I know it doesn't have anything to do with standardized testing; but I can't help believing this kind of story still matters.

(No disrespect intended to the victims of 9-11, but Chicago teachers are striking today because they don't think education is improved by tying teacher evaluations to test scores.
I agree.
We're following fools who say they know the secret to fixing schools; but few teachers believe the testing approach is wise or working.)



The body of NYFD chaplain, Father Mychal Judge, is carried away.
He was struck by a falling body and died instantly.

  

I'd want students to consider the tragedy of the moment.



America's Teachers! We're Dumb. And We Suck!

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OKAY, AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS:  Raise your hand if you've heard the self-appointed education experts howling and moaning about how you're failing. Raise your hand again if you've seen the charts and graphs they use to prove you're failing, too.

You know the statistics. The horrible graduation rates in many cities and even entire states. Worst of all, you have the poor showing U. S. students make in international academic competitions. I mean come on!

Who else could possibly be to blame?

Ask Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York and that pompous ass will set you straight. If he could have it his way, he said recently, he'd fire half the teachers in New York City and start over from scratch. But the evil unions won't let him.

In fact, in a speech at M. I. T. last November, he grumbled that the biggest problem in American education was stupid teachers. He wasn't quite that blunt; but his meaning was clear. He said we were culled "from the bottom 20 percent [of our college classes] and not of the best schools."

Well, Bloomberg did go to Johns Hopkins University. He did make $22 billion in business. So, sure, we have to listen to him. He knows everything about education. He just hasn't spent a day in a classroom in his entire life.

So:  how is Bloomberg doing, in his third term in office, after promising to make education reform the signature of his elected career. He thinks teachers are the biggest problem; but he might want to check a few statistics. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University (there's irony for you), 15% of American parents let their sons or daughters miss at least 10% of all school days, and do it every year.

Hey, stupid math teachers! I know you came from the bottom 20% and went to the crappy schools. But check my figures. (Give me a second. I'm pretty dumb, too.) If a kid misses 18 days every year, grades K-12, then won't that mean he or she missed classes 234 times. Um...if one year equals...and we divide 234...um...doesn't that mean, academically, these students should be 1.3 years behind, and not because of YOU?

Raise your hands if you have telepathic powers, stupid teachers. Anyone? You mean you can't teach kids who don't come to school?

WTF!! What's wrong with you!

Well, let me humbly offer this idea. Maybe we could notify Mayor Bloomberg. He's a smart guy. He'll get this. Someone tell him that the same study found 200,000 kids in the New York City Schools missed 10% or more of the school year.

For the love of god and learning, tell him, "Mayor, we need better doctors in this city quick! We must be culling them from the bottom 20%, and not from the best schools! There's plague in Lower Manhattan! There's an epidemic in the Bronx!"

I mean, come on stupid teachers. If U. S. kids finish 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in math, in the most recent international comparison (65 countries), we'll, let's face the Ugly Facts. We're Dumb. And We Suck.

Read 'em and weep, numbskulls. Look at the international rankings (left column) for 15-year-olds in reading! Aren't you ashamed of yourselves? It's a travesty and you must be to blame:

READING (2010)
1. South Korea                                                                      (Singapore)
2. Finland                                                                              (Italy)
3. Canada                                                                              (Australia)
4. New Zealand                                                                     (Switzerland)
5. Japan                                                                                 (Japan)
6. Australia                                                                            (Israel)
7. Netherlands                                                                       (Spain)
8. Belgium                                                                             (Netherlands)
9. Norway                                                                              (Sweden)
10. Estonia                                                                            (Germany)
11. Switzerland                                                                      (Cyprus)
12. Poland                                                                             (Austria)
13. Iceland                                                                             (France)
14. UNITED STATES                                                            (Canada)
15. Sweden                                                                            (New Zealand)
16. Germany                                                                          (Greece)
17. Ireland                                                                              (Hong Kong)
18. France                                                                              (Norway)
19. Denmark                                                                          (Ireland)
20. United Kingdom                                                               (Belgium)


NOW LOOK AT THE SECOND COLUMN. Be sure you have your hankie handy, because if U. S. schools suck, U. S. primary care offices and hospitals must be aN abomination. According to Bloomberg News. Yep. Bloomberg Bleepin' News. According to Bloomberg's own company, we don't come close to the Top 20 when we rank the "The World's Healthiest Countries."

Doctors in Singapore are crushing our medical professionals. Our medical guys can't even beat Cyprus! In fact, if you check the full list, America's health care system comes in on a stretcher, in 33rd place. We get beat by Cuba! We get beat by Slovenia! We get beat by bleepin' Kuwait!!!

(Then again, it could be a lot worse. We could live in Swaziland, which finishes dead last in 145th place.)

Well, there you have it folks. We use another simple list to "prove" another simple point. If U. S. students stink up the rankings, and the only explanation is that teachers are to blame, at least we're not pathetic losers like America's doctors and nurses.

And if you're ready for more bad news, let's face these Ugly Facts:  In an annual report, titled "F as in Fat," state rankings for adult obesity were released today. So:  Where do we find the worst dietitians?

Mississippi, where the obesity rate is 34.9%.

I'm just a dumb, retired history teacher; but if you ask me, it looks like we need Congress to act, and pronto. Let's shape up lousy, lazy medical folk. Let's pass a law and call it No Fat American Left Behind.

(Maybe No Fat American Behind Left Behind?)

If we're going to criticize teachers based on simplistic comparisons, let's not forget all the dumb people in U. S. health care professions.




What the heck? What's wrong with America's doctors and nurses?
(I'm joking, of course.)
Could it be that Mayor Bloomberg is an idiot?

I seem to keep getting right-wing, conservative and bogus charter schools advertising on my blog; it's a decision made by AdSense. Feel free to click on these links and they'll have to pay me and you can ignore their propaganda.

Paul Ryan's Tragic Love Affair with Ayn Rand

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REMEMBER WHEN GOOD-HEARTED Christians used to favor bracelets that read "WWJD," meaning:  "What Would Jesus Do?"

Well, then, what should "godless" liberals make of GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan today? Not too long ago, Ryan told anyone who cared to listen that he loved the philosophy of Ayn Rand, a notorious atheist.

(Imagine what Fox News would do with that kind of story if President Obama said he had ever read Rand.)

Now, Congressman Ryan has ditched his WWARD bracelet, because he's running for national office, and some right-wing types certainly wouldn't like it. Still, we know by his own statements that he wore it for years:

...Ryan made no bones about his philosophical influences just a few years ago. He told the Weekly Standard in 2003 that he gave his staffers copies of “Atlas Shrugged” as Christmas presents. Speaking to a group of Rand acolytes in 2005, Ryan said, “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.”

Even three years ago, Tim Mak of Politico noted, Ryan channeled Rand. “What’s unique about what’s happening today in government, in the world, in America, is that it’s as if we’re living in an Ayn Rand novel right now,” Ryan said. “I think Ayn Rand did the best job of anybody to build a moral case of capitalism, and that morality of capitalism is under assault.”

Suppose we give Congressman Ryan benefit of the doubt--unlike the far-right folk who see Vladimir Lenin behind everything President Obama does, including floss his teeth. Let's assume Ryan never fell head over heels for the atheism in Rand, and figure Rand's moral case for capitalism and against collectivism is perfectly sound.

A BIT OF FULL DISCLOSURE, FIRST. Like Ryan, I read Rand when I was young, both Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead while serving in the Marines.

To sum up her ideas simply, Rand was champion of a philosophy know as Objectivism. She was against all state interference in economic affairs, which is where Ryan would have you believe he now stands. Rand believed human rights were best safe-guarded in a free market system, which I suspect is true, and a concept, simply framed, which serves as foundation for most Tea Party thought. Rand, on her part, placed full faith in the individual, free to stand alone, arguing that each of us should rely, first, second, and third on ourselves, and not expect handouts from anyone else. I liked that idea, when I was young, and as a liberal, as far as it really goes in real life, I still do today. I took away from Rand, like Ryan (or so I suspect), the idea that we should stand on our own two feet and do all we can.

That still doesn't mean her books are very good--or that her philosophy, or the philosophy of Paul Ryan and the extreme conservatives, stands up well in the end. I tried to read Atlas Shrugged again two or three years ago.

I couldn't do it.

First, the writing is pretty bad. Even worse, her characters, especially the villains, are caricatures. John Galt, for example, in Atlas Shrugged, is a paladin of unfettered capitalism. He asks help from no one, scorns meddling government types. Galt desires only to be free to run his business, to create, to follow his own path. Hank Rearden is the same kind of man, intent on building a great steel company and turning out the best product he can.

Eventually, Rearden falls in love with Dagny Taggert, lithe, leggy, sensual, daughter of another capitalist hero, a railroad builder, if memory serves. And all Ms. Taggert wants is to be free from government intervention, to exercise her talents, despite her sex, a character who undoubtely reflects Rand's view of herself. By Rick Santorum's or Rush Limbaugh's standards, though, Dagny's kind of a slut. She sleeps with Rearden without taking the time to marry him. Then, when she meets John Galt, she sleeps with him and they have torrid sex.

It's Fifty Shades of Gray, only with economic implications.

It's the villains, however, that make these books ridiculous, and it's this fetish for finding all kinds of villains that makes much conservative philosophy seem shallow today. In Rand's works half a century ago, and on Fox News every day, the bad guys might as well be cardboard cutouts, for all the nuance Rand or Fox display. In Atlas Shrugged, which helped Paul Ryan learn how to think, they are creepy and weak. They're craven business types, with minimal talents, who work in tandem with sleazy bureaucrats, and leach off the success of individuals like Rearden and Galt. Our only hope, Rand wants us to think, is a system free from government interference, where capitalist heroes create wealth, innovate, and, as a by-product, lift the rest of us up, carry us along, like Atlas, on their broad shoulders.

(It's Mitt Romney, working at Bain Capital, Hercules performing the Seven Job-Creating Labors. And, no, mythic heroes don't have to show us their income tax forms.)

The problem, of course, is that villains and heroes in real life are much harder to tell apart; and so simplistic logic just won't quite do. There are all kinds of crooks in business, for example, who skirt government regulations, and rig the whole system. (Did we mention that we'd like to see Mitt's tax returns, just to be sure what kind of business type he is?) And there are noble and good people serving in government, members of all parties, in all times, some on each side, some running for office today.

Take Ryan, for example. In 2009, from his comfortable seat in the U. S. House of Representatives, he blasted the "wasteful spending" of the Obama stimulus plan. He was the perfect Ayn Rand hero, standing up against all those interferring government types. Unfettered capitalism must triumph.

The true individual stands alone.

And, oh yeah, Mr. Ryan wrote to ask Obama's Secretary of Energy soon after, could you please send a little stimulus funding to the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation, in my district, while you're handing out checks?

Paul Ryan, guardian of economic truths, justice, and the American Way, wanted the federal government to give his constituents a helping hand. Suddenly, a little butting in, where business was involved, looked good:

“I was pleased [Ryan wrote] that the primary objectives of their project will allow residents and businesses in the partner cities to reduce their energy costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and stimulate the local economy by creating new jobs,” Ryan wrote to Energy Secretary Steven Chu on December 18, 2009, on behalf of the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation.

So:  there it is. Our buff, blue-eyed hero, bold defender of individualism, darling of the farthest-of-the-far-right, railed against government intrusion, stood by his values, and voted against the Obama plan.

Then he stuck out his hand and asked for a cut.

What other fiscal skeletons might we find if we looked under his Objectivist bed? Who is Paul Ryan, to put it the way Ayn Rand might? Ryan's work in Congress isn't any worse than most members of that august body; but it's not much better in the end. Like all those sleazy elected officials Rand describes, Ryan was less than noble when core values and beliefs got in his path, when not doing favors and helping grease a few constituent palms might interfere with his core purpose of getting reelected.

Remember earmarks, which conservatives railed about during the 2008 campaign? In 2005, Ryan voted for a $712 million transportation bill that included the "Bridge to Nowhere" which Sarah Palin (another conservative hero) was all for and then all against when she ran for VP. As an elected official, Ryan managed to sneak in a few of his own, small potatoes by comparison, but still govern-ment potatoes, a total of $5.4 million in taxpayer monies. "The requests included $3.28 million for bus service in Wisconsin, $1.38 million for the Ice Age National Scenic Trail, and $735,000 for the Janesville transit system."

And what do you know! Ryan voted for the auto bailout, the same bailout conservatives labeled a bold move by President Obama to move us all down the road to socialism. Ayn Rand would have freaked.

According to a report this week in the Boston Globe:

John Beckord, president of Forward Janesville, a business advocacy organization, said that Ryan’s support of the auto bailout should be considered in the context of Janesville’s devastating loss when General Motors closed its assembly plant there in 2008. An estimated 5,000 jobs were lost from the plant and supporting businesses.

That's right, far-right folks. Consider the bailout "in the context" of various towns, like Janesville, Wisconsin, Ryan's hometown, and hundreds of others across this great land. And then tell us, right-wing Ayn Rand fans, and VP candidate Ryan, and, oh yeah, Mitt "Let the Auto Industry Die" Romney, when is it wrong for government to be involved in the economy and when is it right?

Ryan solicits stimulus funds.
Fans of unfettered capitalism and Randian individualism weep.

The Big Evil in U. S. Education: Teachers' Unions?

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WHAT KIND OF DAMN FOOLS make movies about education? And what kind of damn fools review them?

Those were my thoughts when I picked up the New York Times last Sunday and saw Frank Bruni's column, "Teachers on the Defensive."

Bruni has no children and normally writes about food. Now he had decided to go all "two thumbs up" and review the forthcoming movie, "Won't Back Down." He calls it a David and Goliath story about a mother fighting to save her daughter from being required to attend a failing public elementary school. Randi Weingarten, "powerful president of the American Federation of Teachers," gets a brief mention in his column. But no practicing teacher (Weingarten last spent a day in a classroom in 1997) appears in the story. 

Bruni admits the people backing the film are sworn enemies of teachers' unions. He brushes that aside. As he sees it, teachers unions have lost their way and represent the great impediment to needed change. He's surprised to discover teachers and their unions are less than pleased with U. S. Secretary of Eucation Arne Duncan (who, if Bruni interviewed me, I might label an "insufferable ass"). He mentions "Race to the Top," Duncan's bold initiative to save America's schools. He mentions unanimous agreement, cutting across party lines, at a recent conference of mayors, endorsing "parent trigger legislation."

These trigger laws, Bruni explains:

...recently passed in only a few states but being considered in more, abet parent take-overs of underperforming schools, which may then be replaced with charter schools run by private entities. Parent trigger hasn't yet led to a new school, so no one can really know the sense or efficacy of the scenario. But it informs "Won't Back Down," which envisions [actor Maggie] Gyllenhaal's trigger-pulling parent as an Erin Brockovich in education.

"It gives parents an opportunity to weigh in," said Antonio Villaraigosa, the Los Angeles mayor, who supports it, in an interview here on Thursday. He believes that new approaches are vital and that teachers' unions are "the most powerful defenders of a broken system."

SO, WHERE DO WE STAND IN U. S. EDUCATION TODAY? Apparently, we all accept the premise that public education is failing, even when evidence is as thin as a Vogue model. Then, like assorted Chicken Littles, critics go running about, warning readers that the sky is falling, when actually it's not.

And why is the sky falling (when it's not)? Unions. Teacher seniority. Unions. Tenure. Unions. Greed for pension benefits. Unions. Even Randi Weingarten is quoted as saying unions have focused too much on fairness for members and ignored matters of quality. (To be frank, every time I hear her talk on TV or read what she says in interviews, I find myself thinking, "This poor woman couldn't defend teachers if you gave her a baseball bat.")

Bruni hammers home what he believes is the critical point--and if you're a dedicated educator his column may make you a little sick:  "Better teachers, better teachers, better teachers. That's the mantra of the moment, and implicit in it is the notion that the ones we've got aren't nearly good enough."

"Won't Back Down," he says, raises important questions. "It's ultimately about the impact of superior teaching, the need to foster more of it and the importance of school accountability. Who could quibble with any of that?"

I could, for one.

I've noticed something odd while doing research for what I hope will be my first book about American education. And I wonder why Weingarten and Bruni and all the experts never bring this up. If unions are the problem, how come unions in some places are so much more of a problem than in others.

How did Vermont graduate 83% of its students in four years, and Wisconsin 81%, and North Dakota 80%, and why did Mississippi come in at 61% in 2008? If Louisiana was at 60% and South Carolina and Georgia were at 59%, maybe it wasn't unions. Maybe it was some strange phenomenon related to flying the Confederate flag.

If that theory sounds ridiculous, what about lack of trees? Because there's a huge gap in graduation rates between suburban and urban districts within states. A study done in 2005 noted that 38% of Cleveland, Ohio high school students graduated in four years. Yet, in surrounding suburbs, the rate was 80%. It was the same all over the country. The gap for the Baltimore region was 40 percentage points, for Milwaukee 35, in New York City environs 29.

For Chicago, where Duncan was then wrapping up his fourth year at the helm of city schools, the difference was 28 points.

Here, in the Cincinnati area, you can easily uncover evidence of the same. Loveland City Schools, the suburban district where I once taught, has held onto an "excellent" rating from the State of Ohio for eleven years straight. In 2012 Loveland graduated 96.7% of seniors and 84% of the class planned to go on to college.

I could climb behind the wheel of my car this minute and drive three miles south and be in the district of the Wyoming City Schools, ranked 86th best in the nation in 2011, according to Newsweek magazine. Teachers in Wyoming, like those in Loveland, are unionized. Yet, in 2011, Wyoming graduated 100% of its senior class.

How was that possible? What variables besides union membership might apply? In Loveland, to cite just one explanation, student attendance in 2012 was 95.4%. Wyoming City did even better the year before, with 96.4%.

Still, there's no time for nuance when discussing the failure of America's public schools. The only variable is teacher quality. If we're going to win the "Race to the Top," Mr. Duncan knows all that matters is better teachers.

No questions asked.

Yet, I find myself asking questions, as I once did in the classroom. Why is it we think teachers are failing in Chicago, the district Duncan gained credit for fixing, if 258 school-age kids were shot in gang-related violence in one year, and 245 the next? Why is it we think we have a school crisis if a study shows that the 10,000 kids most at risk of being victims, or acting as perpetrators, missed an average of 71 school days per year?  I wish Mr. Bruni had considered that issue, because I'm not a food critic. I'm a retired teacher and know what almost all teachers know.

When I worked in Loveland, I certainly found most parents were supportive and committed. But when you looked at kids who struggled, it wasn't ever because I had tenure, or because, eventually I had so much seniority I couldn't have been laid off unless the district suffered a direct hit in a nuclear attack.

Back in the 90s, for example, a previous generation of Chicken Littles screamed bloody murder and said we needed to hand out vouchers to parents and let them send their kids off to "superior" private schools.We we had to "measure" how students were faring on state standardized tests (those didn't work, by the way). One day I caught an editorial in the Cincinnati Enquirer, blasting teachers because test scores were low. The writer was for vouchers, for "school choice," for parental triggers before triggers were invented. He grumbled that there was "ample time" in the school year to teach what ought to be taught. He implied (oh, that word again) that lazy teachers were the real issue. But I didn't feel lazy. I saw what Elliot was like the year I had him in class, the same year that stupid editorial came out.

I saw what it was like to try to work with a seventh grader who was absent or tardy 107 times.

One day, when Elliot fell asleep for a third time during history class, I called him back to my desk. Elliot admitted Mom allowed him to stay up till 4 a.m., the night before, playing video games. Here's how I describe the scene:

I have him take a seat on the floor, hoping cold, hard linoleum will jump start his cognitive functions. I answer several questions from classmates and then glance in his direction. His head is twisted to one side, resting against the concrete block wall. His mouth gapes wide. His history papers have slipped from his grasp and he lets out a loud snort.

Elliot comes late again Tuesday when we have a test. He doesn’t have supplies. So I waste my "ample time" to fetch him a pencil. Five minutes later Elliot is done. He just colors in answers. Then he lays down his pencil—my pencil—and lays down his head and is soon fast asleep, no doubt dreaming about what he would do if only he had a voucher. 

Unlike Bruni, in other words, unlike movie producers who make shallow films, I know what it was like to work with parents like Elliot's mom. (It almost goes without saying dad was no longer around.) I discovered what it was like when she got arrested for fighting with our school resource officer after Elliot's older brother got suspended for fighting on the bus.

I saw what happened when Elliot, by then an eighth grader, got arrested for selling drugs on school grounds. So:  I'm telling you now, you could get rid of teachers' unions tomorrow, and you wouldn't begin to touch the most serious issues in our schools.

I'm sorry to have to say this, but Mr. Bruni should stick to telling us what's wrong with how most of us eat.