The bailout, the modest job increases, the upswing in the NASDAQ and the Dow Jones, even the rebound in the mortgage bond market are all spun to make it seem that things are actually getting better for average Americans.

The same is true for American education, and no more so than social studies—the sacrificial lamb to the altar of “interdisciplinary” or “integrative” studies.

Back in 2011, the federal budget for the fiscal year 2012 saw hatchet-like slashes across federal agencies, cracking off limbs where pruning would suffice.   In education, the ax fell on programs that were needed for its stated mission of a literate citizenry by 2014.  Suffice to say the boughs that needed most attention were left untouched (boughs with branches in Afghanistan and Iraq, for example).

The Teaching American History (TAH) Grant program, of which I am a big fan, lost its funding for FY 2012, signaling to one and all Washington’s contempt for a quality education for our citizens.  In the 2013 budget released on February 13, the program’s woes would continue—the lost funds would not return.

Furthermore, most of the 2012 cuts have remained in place for 2013.  Although the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) would receive a modest $8.2 million boost, most agencies saw a leveling off or a reduction in funding. 

The real insult, however, is how the Obama administration’s Department of Education views the role of social studies in future national plans.

Once again, the DOE proposes to scrap traditional K-12 history education and fold it into this new educational Leviathan named “Effective Teaching and Learning for a Well-Rounded Education.”  According to the National Coalition for History, the program aims to:

“support competitive grants to States, high-need LEAs, and nonprofit partners to develop and expand innovative practices to improve teaching and learning of the arts, foreign languages, history, government, economics and financial literacy, environmental education, physical education, health education, and other subjects. There would be no dedicated funding for any of the disciplines.”

To add insult to injury, this boondoggle has also felt the sharp edge of Obama’s ax: from $246 million in FY’12 to an astounding $90 million in this current budget.  Even the Administration has lost faith in their own proposal, to the tune of an over 63% reduction in funding.

If the federal government doesn’t even believe in this idea, why should educators buy into it?

In this endeavor, social studies educators should be joined with science faculty, teachers in foreign languages, physical education teachers, athletic coaches and others in common cause.  As much as integration is a valuable tool in the classroom, it is not a silver bullet for the ills of education—any teacher will tell you that. 

There are certain skills, concepts and facts that require the concentration, focus and expertise of a dedicated subject.  Thus, funding should also reflect the continued necessity of subjects/content areas by allocating monies to science, foreign languages, the arts and especially the social studies.

This program is dependent on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which governs K-12 education.  Since it’s an election year, and the ESEA is mired in Congressional deadlock, then nothing much can be done on this in the coming session.  Yet that gives that much more time to express our opinions on the matter.

Now, I’ve never been a huge fan of collective action—too much of the Beltway cynic in me.  However, this can be driven in the right direction given the right buttons are pushed. 

Here is the link to the members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.  Also included is the members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (phew, that’s a mouthful).  Take a little time to let them know that “Effective Teaching and Learning for a Well-Rounded Education” is nothing but a front to destroy our educational system.  It will make a mockery of our system, dragging us even farther behind other countries in every category.

Furthermore, even the Administration has shown its reluctance by slashing its funding—so Congress should devote those funds to more worthy educational endeavors.

Please contact your local Congressman, at any rate…and as usual, make sure to let him/know the Neighborhood sent you.

House Committee on Education and the Workforce

John Kline, Minnesota
(Chairman)
Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin
Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, California
Judy Biggert, Illinois
Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania
Joe Wilson, South Carolina
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Bob Goodlatte, Virginia
Duncan Hunter, California
David P. Roe, Tennessee
Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania
Tim Walberg, Michigan
Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee
Richard L. Hanna, New York
Todd Rokita, Indiana
Larry Bucshon, Indiana
Trey Gowdy, South Carolina
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania
Kristi L. Noem, South Dakota
Martha Roby, Alabama
Joseph J. Heck, Nevada
Dennis A. Ross, Florida
Mike Kelly, Pennsylvania

George Miller, California
(Senior Democratic Member)
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
Donald M. Payne, New Jersey
Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey
Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, Virginia
Lynn C. Woolsey, California
Rubén Hinojosa, Texas
Carolyn McCarthy, New York
John F. Tierney, Massachusetts
Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey
Susan A. Davis, California
Raúl M. Grijalva, Arizona
Timothy H. Bishop, New York
David Loebsack, Iowa
Mazie K. Hirono, Hawaii
Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania

Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

Tom Harkin (IA) - Chair
Barbara A. Mikulski (MD)
Jeff Bingaman (NM)
Patty Murray (WA)
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT)
Robert P. Casey, Jr. (PA)
Kay R. Hagan (NC)
Jeff Merkley (OR)
Al Franken (MN)
Michael F. Bennet (CO)
Sheldon Whitehouse (RI)
Richard Blumenthal (CT)

Michael B. Enzi (WY) -Ranking Republican Senator
Lamar Alexander (TN)
Richard Burr (NC)
Johnny Isakson (GA)
Rand Paul (KY)
Orrin G. Hatch (UT)
John McCain (AZ)
Pat Roberts (KS)
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
Mark Kirk (IL)

Happy New Year!

We just rang in 2012 and amazingly, the Iowa Caucuses are tonight, beginning another presidential election season. 

Eventually, someone will ask about that 18th century enigma, the Electoral College.  This nifty video from CommonCraft.com explains the process in a straightforward way, so as to avoid those uncomfortable questions…

such as “Why the fuck do we need an Electoral College anyway?”

That’s for another class.  Enjoy.

Going to college with many of the sons and daughters of the top tier, I absorbed many of the traits, both good and bad, that go with a life of privilege. Exposure to both plenty and want gave me a window into two worlds—and allowed me to view two sides to every social issue.

On the other hand, their carefree and blasé attitude about the world also wormed into my psyche—along with a stiflingly boring Brooks Brothers wardrobe.

As the Occupy Wall Street movement ends the month as a worldwide phenomenon, my two sides are more at conflict than ever.

Usually, throngs of people camping out, chanting, beating bongos and whatnot brings out the 1%-er in me (or at least the 99%er that became a cop). I have an inherent distaste for public disorder, and enough exposure to the powers-that-be to realize that (a) many of their suggestions probably will cause more harm than good; and (b) real power, at least in the 21st Century, rarely lies in the will of the people anymore.

Those who feel that way, mostly on the right (even the Tea Party, which I personally despise) have a point.

Then again, our country was borne out of civil unrest. Disorder was the soil that bore the fruit of the American Revolution. Protest movements have affected American policy from abolition to prohibition to civil rights. Many of the protesters today see an economic situation out of control, spiraling unemployment, and an illogical degree of political power at the hands of a precious few; negating the will of the people.

Those who feel that way, mostly on the left (even the loony Left, which I also personally despise) also have a point.

Yet the headline-grabbing slogans—the ones doing the most damage to the movement—largely do not have a point. Their pointlessness is making a legitimate movement look like a proscribed series of malcontents that habitually pop up upon every bear cycle.

Sorry to burst your bubbles, both Moonbeam O’Ganja and Reverend Cletus Killjoy, but the following will not (and should not) happen:

1. The End of Capitalism – Those who advocate the end of the market system haven’t been looking around lately. Everyone is getting into the capitalist game, for obvious reasons: it is basically how goods and services were exchanged since the beginning of time.

It even goes back to the Bible. As Moses delivers his people to their Promised Land, this new piece of real estate comes with a catch: obey the wishes of a deity that sometimes gets a little too heated for his own good. You can figure out how many times the Israelites broke the contract.

Even the Bolshie stalwarts—old reds like Cuba and new ones like Venezuela—are getting in on the act. Yes, a Cuban can be as capitalist as Daddy Warbucks: simply refusing to do business with American companies does not a Communist make. The capitalist system, in its basest form, is here to say.

2. The Return of Unfettered Capitalism – Let’s get one thing straight: in our country, there never was, nor will there ever be, an absolutely free market. Even Adam Smith himself, the supposed father of modern capitalism, argued that a completely free market was not only dangerous, but theoretically impossible.

The goal is not a free market, but a fair one: a market where everyone plays by the same rules and is governed under similar regulations. If we played by the same rules—and were governed by fair and efficient referees—there would have been no speculative bubbles, no bailouts, no “too big to fail.”

What happened was that the free market forgot how free it was, and decided that it needed to be “freer.” This is a fundamental flaw of the concept: the more freedom you have, the less freedom for those around you. If I had the complete freedom to beat the shit out of someone, that invades the other guy’s right to live peaceably—even if the other son of a bitch deserved it.

Starting in the 1980s, the largest financial and commercial interests in America decided they wanted to beat the shit out of everyone in sight. Certain companies, brokerage houses and banks were allowed to skirt the rules—often by the very governing bodies that made them.

In 2008, we all paid the price. I’m still feeling sore.

3. The Redistribution of Wealth – If the 20th century has taught us anything, it’s that the redistribution of wealth is an inherently bad idea for all involved.

For the wealthy, it means picking up sticks (and Swiss bank accounts) and heading to places where butlers, monocles and teacup poodles are more appreciated (like Greenwich, Connecticut, Bermuda, or certain parts of Switzerland).

For the poor who took the wealth, it means attempting to use the wealth for “the good of all” without succumbing to the inevitable need to line ones pockets. Sure, when you leave a bag of money in a room and you tell everyone “take what you need and leave enough so we can pay the rent”, there’s bound to be problems.

Furthermore, the theft of wealth negates any need to actually create wealth from (gasp!) work. Why do we have to make a profitable business when Mendoza’s old mansion (and his liquor cabinet) sits empty for the taking.

4. The End of Corporations – Here I speak from an all-too-personal experience. My father is the head of a corporation: a corporation of one. If he didn’t incorporate his little upholstery business, my parents would fear for their lives in every down cycle. If he didn’t incorporate his business, that slow year of 2008 could have cost my parents their house and their possessions.

Not every corporation is a multinational Leviathan bent on devouring everything in its wake. In fact, most are struggling to get by along with the rest of us.

If Moonbeam thinks stopping corporate protections will finally kill off Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Brothers, she’ll also be killing off any vestige of innovation and entrepreneurship in America. The idea of a corporation, a separate entity apart from one’s personal assets, is what makes risk-taking and progressive thinking possible.

Again, this doesn’t mean every corporation acts in our best interest. Nor do corporations always innovate for the better. Henry Ford would probably have preferred paving the streets of Dearborn with the bodies of unionized auto workers (along with some Jews, too, apparently). Always smell for brimstone when making a deal with Donald Trump, Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. This leads to the next point:

5. Complete Privatization of our Government and Society – I have many friends who are Libertarians. I also have many friends who lean towards the Tea Party. They all say the same thing: government is an inherent hindrance to the productivity of business and the entrepreneurial spirit of America. Overheated government spending has produced a debt that seems impossible to pay off. Other countries with fewer scruples than us are surpassing us in all categories. Thus, we must strip our government bare so that the borders are secure, the mail runs (only five days) and the roads are kept up (as long as construction is done on off-peak hours).

I agree that government can be a hindrance to business. The debt is, to be sure, spiraling out of control. However, the complete gutting of our government is not the answer.

Like I said before, the goal is a fair market. That fairness relies on a government that makes and maintains rules that promote growth while buttressing the general needs of society. Someone has to keep the greedier aspects of business in check, while at the same time making sure they don’t go out of business.

This requires a careful balancing act, and to be fair, neither the Tea Party nor the Occupy Wall Streeters are interested in balance. The Tea Party wants a gutted government that supposedly will allow everyone to be rich and buy a McMansion and go to a megachurch to piss away the money we make so the pastor can buy a bigger McMansion far away from us. Of course, this is done while a top-notch military (that accounts for every bullet) patrols every inch of our border while the world blows itself up.

The Occupy Wall Streeters—at least the loudest, most extreme ones—want to gut the top 1% of society to take care of a whole laundry lists of rights and wrongs, from unemployment, national health care, solving urban blight, rural blight, illiteracy, crime, immigration, migration, pollution, carbon footprints, fingerprints, handprints, and a diverse workplace. This while balancing the budget, paying down the debt and maintaining the smallest of military forces that will prop up any democratically “elected” dingdong in any putrid corner of the Third World.

A true solution to our problems—and we do have them—is (I hate to say it) a middle ground between Moonbeam O’Ganja and Reverend Cletus Killjoy. And it’ll be so middle that it pisses off the both of them.

That involves a tax code that makes sense, that makes sure everyone (including the big corporations) pay their fair share.

That involves a painstaking review of our national expenses to see exactly how we spend our money—and take it like a man when the truth isn’t pretty.

That involves regulatory agencies and rules that are fair, balanced, do not stifle the market.

That involves a government that has the balls to do all these things, plus secure our borders and maintain our missions abroad—the ones that actually matter.

If that can’t happen, we’re in for a royal clusterfuck of a future…and no amount of signs, slogans or pack of dirty hippies can stop it.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are obviously on many peoples’ minds lately.  In my scotch fog (more like cheap Bourbon, in my case) not only did I not take into account my lack of activity on this blog, but also my lack of real analysis of these protests.

So here’s some video to share with your students–hopefully with as little editorializing as possible.

The YouTube channel OccupyTVNY provides a pretty good snapshot of the various protests in New York, where the movement began (obviously…does anyone really want to occupy Wall Street in the middle of Montana?).  Furthermore, the Manchester Guardian’s Teacher Network provides a cool set of stats and classroom resources for teachers covering the protests.

Given the Guardian’s slant, its pretty even handed.

I’ll be giving my own take on these protests shortly.  If you read my reports on the Save Our Schools March in July, you probably get a sense of where I’m going with this.

We enter the world full of lofty goals, high-minded principles and some complex vocabulary. Sometimes, we even attempt to make those goals real, entering the “real world” to “inspire young minds” and “do some good in the world.”

Yet when the cold backhand of reality comes crashing across our faces, the sting often exposes a greater truth—a truth often masked behind the rhetoric.

I am not immune to this. When I began as a teacher, visions of gleaming charter schools and smiling faces with vouchers to private academies danced in my head. I couldn’t sing the praises of privatization and Teach for America loud enough—as well as shout my disdain for veteran teachers “not doing their job.”

It didn’t take long into my first year for reality to sink in. The magic bullets, the fab theories and the rhetoric of the NCLB crowd were smoke-and-mirrors in the everyday grind of an inner city classroom. The handbooks—TFA, NYC Teaching Fellows, or otherwise—had no answer for the problems I faced each day in that place. The best help I got was from (Surprise, surprise!) veteran teachers who long ago discarded the guidebooks to best educate their students.

My mind changed when I encountered the realities of public education. And I am sure I’m not alone.

At the recent Save Our Schools Conference, I had spoken with fellow blogger James Boutin about our experiences, and we got to thinking about people like us—people who “crossed the floor” as it were on public education. One workshop we attended involved two Teach for America alums. They quit the organization over their tactics and approach in regards to teacher training.

Surely, we thought, there are many others like them—and us—who also had an epiphany about education and the real problems in our public schools.

There’s a very public example of this “epiphany” in Diane Ravitch, the former assistant Secretary of Education and co-author of No Child Left Behind who saw the dangers of the monster she helped bring to life.

However, what could be even more powerful are the stories of everyday teachers—be it from TFA, Teaching Fellows, or anywhere else—who had once bought into the rhetoric of education “reform” and have been transformed by their experiences in today’s classrooms.

James and I are collecting stories of similar individuals, those with similar transformative experiences as us. If you have a story to share, please contact James or myself. Include your contact info, as we’re not sure how to best use your information, and we want to keep in touch with you.

Finally, please send this to anyone whose life was changed by teaching in a public school classroom. Your stories are important and incredibly valuable. We look forward to hearing from you.

Matt Damon at the SOS March, July 30, 2011 - Taken with my crappy Blackberry camera

Nothing is more awkward than confronting about a thousand people with nametags…and you don’t have one.

To be honest, I didn’t get to the SOS Conference at American University until Day 2, on Friday. Careening into the AU parking lot at quarter to ten in the morning, my mind was awash with witty remarks to excuse my lateness…

(“After the trooper guffawed in laughter, I got a warning and here I am!”)

Yet I just caught the end of the opening remarks as a wall of people collided with me. A mix of earnest do-gooders, professional malcontents, old gray-haired 60’s Bolshies, young teachers confused about education, old teachers distraught about education, as well as assorted writers, journalists, bloggers and support staff.

This was my introduction to the Save Our Schools Conference and March. It was a whirlwind of a weekend, exhausting, exhilarating, exasperating all at once.

And yes…there was heavy drinking involved.

Other journalists and bloggers—many far more creative than I—have already written volumes about the weekend. To wit, take a look at James Boutin’s posts on An Urban Teacher’s Education to get a good overview of the daily flow. So, rather than go over a blow-by-blow of the happenings over the weekend, here is a summary of the good, the bad and the embarrassingly ugly of this past weekend:

The Good

Meeting New Folks (and cyber-folks in the flesh) – The great part of this weekend, for me anyway, was the people. I met so many concerned teachers and parents that my head was spinning. Although there was an overwhelming number of folks from Wisconsin (for obvious reasons), there were pretty much marchers from all over the country. In a short list, I met Floridians, Chicagoans, Californians, Ohioans, Wisconsinites, Bostonians (and other Massachusetts folks), Carolinians (North and South), Coloradoans, Washingtonians, New Jerseyans and New Yorkers.

Also, it was wonderful meeting people I only knew in the cyber world, such as Jonathan from jd2718, James Boutin (mentioned earlier) and Sabrina Stevens Shupe, who I knew only from Twitter and whose posts actually roped me into going in the first place. It was a blast meeting all of you.

Sharing reports about the state of education – In our own districts/neighborhoods/towns, we can get very insular about our issues. It was good to see that certain gripes and problems were universal across the US. Overcrowding, overtesting, micromanaging, and lack of support seem to be recurring themes from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon.

One particularly great workshop I attended (I went to only one…the drive forced me to the pool and the bar later) concerned Teach for America. It featured two former TFA-ers who left the organization due to differences between the TFA doctrine and the realities of urban education. This is the kind of information that needs to be more widespread. I even gained some sympathy for those TFA-ers struggling through their tenure while their students suffer.

Trading New Ideas – Mind you, this was an activist conference/march, not one about pedagogy. There was very little in the way of new teaching ideas, but a lot of new thought in the realm of activism and publicity about education. In particular, Boutin and I came up with an idea I will share next time—an idea that could really help the cause.

Some of the Speakers – At the march, the usual cast of characters showed up: Linda Darling-Hammond, Deborah Maier, Jonathan Kozol, and of course Diane Ravitch. They spoke with the usual verve and academic command of material. As the patron saints of the anti-NCLB movement, Kozol and Ravitch got a huge pop, even though Diane seemed a little out of place rabble-rousing—like the Duc d’Orleans inciting the Paris mob during the French Revolution. Hope she doesn’t suffer the same fate.

Yet two speakers in particular struck me. One was a superintendant of a school district in Texas (I forgot his name—I must’ve been hung over and sunburned) who railed about the need to teach all children. It was great to hear such passion from an administrator for a change. The second, funny enough, was Nancy Carlsson-Paige’s son, Matt Damon (yes, that Matt Damon). He gave a heartfelt, down-to-Earth speech rallying the troops and demonstrating support for teachers. It wasn’t completely polished (remember he started at Harvard and never finished) but it didn’t have to be. Great job.

The Bad

Some of the Other Speakers – this is where the cynical, jaded Mr. D rears his ugly gin-soaked head. As much as I appreciate music and poetry, there was a whole lot of it going around on Saturday—a little too much for this Republican. Some of the truly great poems were the topical ones: a testing rant by Jose Vilson, Taylor Mali’s ode to teachers, and Marc Naison’s rap on education “reform.” Yet the rest…well…let’s just say it wasn’t my taste.

Some of the other speakers on the docket, however, seemed to submarine the cause more than uplift it. One or two speakers in particular called for creating a new party of “workers”, the kind of talk that drives most parents in Middle America into the arms of the Tea Party. Some of the speeches kept straying from the “combating poverty” script and were creeping precariously close to the “class warfare” script.

I know the organizers wanted a variety of ideas and viewpoints, but their goal of 50,000 participants may not be reached with rhetoric like this.

The “Fringe” groups – this is a common phenomenon: whenever a demonstration is held in DC, fringe political groups swarm the outskirts peddling their wares. Socialists, anarchists, Marxists, even the LaRouche people came out of the woodwork. Now I have a trained eye and can spot (and avoid) these guys pretty easily. Yet they did a good job bombarding the other marchers with rhetoric and material, something that Fox News or Reason.com can easily use as an excuse to pigeonhole the movement as a leftist pipe dream.

Furthermore—and I know this was in the best of intentions—the decision of the organizers to allow a certain number of tables to these groups was not the wisest move. It presents the Save Our Schools movement with a big image problem. Even if the goal was to allow the most voices to be heard, the perception (and perception is EVERYTHING in DC and beyond) is that SOS is allied with the “lunatic” fringe.

The Interviews – I took a look at the taping of a few interviews by different media outlets. The CNN interviews were actually pretty refreshing, and somewhat even handed—painting the march as a lighter, festive affair. Others, like reason.tv, took a different approach. They were asking tough, often leading questions about the financial aspects of educating a child—much like a libertarian outlet would be doing.

I’m not knocking the interviewers. Reason.tv has a point of view, and they were looking at the march through their lens. Same with CNN, though they are loathe to admit it. The problem, for the most part, is the interviewees. God bless them, they really showed their passion and drive to save public education. Unfortunately, they also showed their lack of chops when confronting a camera, and it played right into the hands of the enemy.

Reason.tv’s coverage was a case in point. If you looked at their interviews, the crew made a point to find those folks with the most provocative posters (it makes for good TV, after all). Yet often the reasoned argument stopped there. When an interviewer asked an exasperated marcher how much should the government spend on a child’s education, she exclaimed “There should be no limit! A billion dollars…”

Sure, there shouldn’t be a limit on a kid’s education. But an emotional response is what these people want—to paint the Save Our Schools movement as a bunch of ideological intellectual blowhards without common sense. Matt Damon, as heated as he was, I think gave a better response to reason.tv. It was more measured and ultimately more instructive to those who will make the real decisions on education.

The Ugly

The weather – Even the Founding Fathers knew better than to stick around the malarial swamp of the District in July and August. Unfortunately, this is no fault of anyone, just a sad accident of history. Thomas Jefferson convinced (or cajoled, or hoodwinked, or bamboozled) Alexander Hamilton over dinner in 1790 to move the capital to the pestilent shores of the Potomac in exchange for Hamilton’s debt-assumption plan (always about debt).

Since most teachers can only travel in the summer, any march for education usually occurs at the worst time in DC—the true dog days of summer. It was great that the local teachers union provided fans and water for the event. True to my word, I sweated my nuts off—and some other body parts, too—along with adding an additional layer of carcinogen to my West Coast-sunkissed exterior.

The previous night’s tippling certainly didn’t help. Some advice for next year: bring water, sunscreen, and a stiff hair-of-the-dog to chase the shakes away before marching on the Mall to the White House.

Like I said, this wasn’t exhaustive. Yet it pretty much covered my thoughts and observations on the weekend. Next time, we’ll look at possible “next steps” in moving forward from here.

Whew, that was a lot. Another drink, everyone?

It’s hot and sticky, with a haze that saps you of your dignity as you drench through layers of clothing. The huge, wide boulevards leave little, if any, shade for comfort. Hilly neighborhoods outside Downtown turn a sidewalk stroll into the Bataan Death March.

And don’t look to the Metro subway system for relief; the genius who laid out the stations made it so that everything’s at least a half-mile from each station—just enough to sweat through your shorts and overpower the trains with the stench of ego mixed with misplaced ambition.

I should know: after years in college, numerous weekends, Fourths of July, and an abominable summer without air conditioning, I pretty much have DC clocked.

Which makes it even crazier that I’m heading there in late July to participate in the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action.

My colleagues think I’m nuts. My girlfriend, Future Mrs. D, is convinced I went off the deep end. My parents are convinced I’ll pass out after the first half hour sitting in the sun on the Ellipse.

Despite the naysayers, I’m going. The reasons are numerous: the Declaration of Independence, the need for an educated electorate, the systematic raping of education by pseudo-reformers that care little, if anything, about the future of our democracy.

Yet funny enough, the most important reason is Joe DiMaggio.

When the Yankee Clipper retired after the 1951 season, a Sporting News reporter had asked him the reason why he was hanging it up. DiMaggio could’ve given any number of excuses: his constant pain, the lack of pop in his legs and his bat, the years of hard fielding taking their toll.

Instead, he gave the best response I ever heard, “When baseball is no longer fun, it’s no longer a game…”

After so many years and all the headaches, baseball became a job. Like Joe D, I’m starting to feel that our game, our sport, the education of American children, is no fun anymore.

Like so many educators who will be in attendance in July, I love—absolutely love—educating children. For me, opening minds to the challenges and achievements of history, government, economics, even exploring maps gives me a rush similar to hitting a home run in Yankee Stadium.

Even with the headaches, the paperwork, the bullshit, teaching was never much of a grind—it was genuinely fun.

However, I can see the handwriting on the wall—words like, “accountability”, “data-driven instruction”, “quality reviews”, “peer assessment” and so on. These things are not terrorizing, per se. Yet when they are applied in a manner that undermines the purpose of American education, these words rob our profession of the joy, the excitement, the fun that it had.

Education is no fun anymore when meaningful debates, projects, skits and the like must be shelved for Dickensian workhouses of test preparation.

Education is no fun anymore when subjects are tossed aside in the curriculum simply because their results can’t be boiled down to numbers that fit into a nice chart or graph.

Education is no fun anymore when the tasks that measure authentic progress—reading, writing and math skills needed for college and beyond—are shunted for half-baked tests that simply measure how children digest the buzzwords du jour.

Education is no fun anymore when teachers must put aside the most challenging and exciting parts of their curriculum, not because they can’t do their job, but simply in fear of their jobs in order to produce higher test scores like widgets in a factory.

Education is no fun anymore when students, teachers, and administrators are left holding the bag while the corporate dunderheads, ed-policy dingdongs, and government hacks get off Scott-free when their latest half-assed silver-bullet theory of achievement falls flat on its face.

Education is no fun anymore when teachers, parents and administrators are set to fighting each other—and among each other—while the ed-reform puppet masters systematically strip public education bare.

Education is no fun when generations of students leave high school ready to do one thing: answer questions on a test.

They will not understand the meaning of why “all men are created equal.”

They will not understand the importance and fragility of our “unalienable rights” of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

They will not be able to participate in a government that is “instituted among men,” nor will they be able to adequately serve as the “consent of the governed.”

Lastly—and this makes Eli Broad, Gates, and the Koch brothers giddy—these students will not realize it when “any form of government becomes destructive of these ends.” Furthermore, no one would’ve informed them that “it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it (government), and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

If these people have their way, we will have students that can read, write, do arithmetic, bubble answers and give simple written responses on a test. You may recognize them: the well-scrubbed, scripted and compliant students in places like China and Singapore that these bozos love.

But we will not have thinkers, builders, innovators, inventors, entrepreneurs, activists, artists, writers, intellectuals, or leaders.

We will no longer have the type of people that built this country. We will no longer have the type of people that made our democracy better, stronger and more inclusive through the centuries.

In short, we will no longer have Americans.

Not only is the educrat establishment robbing American education of its fun, but also of its purpose: to create educated, thinking citizens as active members of our republic.

The current attack on education is not simply an attack on public schools, teachers and students. It is an attack on the very essence of America.

That is why I am marching—sweating and uncomfortable, but marching nonetheless. Like the Minutemen of yore, thousands of educators like me will be carrying our voices and bodies as proverbial muskets against the imperial onslaught.

Join me and others at the Ellipse this July 30. Lets make a clear message to President Obama, Arne Duncan and the rest of the “reformers” that American democracy cannot continue without a valuable public education—and their actions undermine our way of life.

Let’s make American public education meaningful, important, purposeful…and fun again.

I’m not ready to hang up my cleats anytime soon—not by a long shot.

First, it was the beginning of the year meetings that introduced us to the CCLS (then called the Common Core State Standards, or CCSS) and how they will impact our instruction. Then came the periodic meetings evaluating student work, supposedly using the CCLS (but often not).

Now, in a frantic pace to stay on the CCLS bandwagon, I’m involved with not one, but two taskforces attempting to integrate social studies instruction and museum education into the new standards.

During the whole time, I didn’t even attempt to read the standards. Maybe it’s time that I did.

The Common Core Learning Standards were part of a two-year long initiative by the National Governors’ Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). Their goal was to provide a uniform set of standards for reading and mathematics nationwide, supplementing the various state benchmarks and standards that had been implemented in the early stages of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

The CCLS was rolled out in 2010, and immediately many states jumped aboard. Washington had much to do with the enthusiasm: Race to the Top grants were determined—de facto, if not de jure—through swift and thorough adoption of the CCLS. To date, 48 of 50 states have jumped on the initative (except Texas and Alaska) and 47 of 50 have adopted the standards (Virginia chose not to).

On the surface, the CCLS is a noble idea. It would be an incredible leap for our educational system if a child were held to the same standards in any part of the country—the same way other, smaller countries handle it.

Looking at the standards themselves, however, leads me to believe they are not the silver bullet everyone makes them out to be.

I decided to see how the Common Core stacked up against the old standards used in New York City up until now. Here’s the first elementary standard for reading in the old system:

“E1a: The student reads at least twenty-five books or book equivalents each year. The quality and complexity of the materials to be read are illustrated in the sample reading list. The materials should include traditional and contemporary literature (both fiction and non-fiction) as well as magazines, newspapers, textbooks, and on-line materials. Such reading should represent a diverse collection of material from at least three different literary forms and from at least five different writers.” ~ NYC Performance Standards in ELA

It’s what we expect from standards: broad, verbose, and so cumbersome that any set of criteria could fit in here. A combination of Marvel comic books, Mad Magazines, the Onion, the history textbook and some selection from the class library should do the trick. By the way, this is what you’re expected to do once you reach sixth grade.

The CCLS addresses this standard differently, as it does with others: instead of one culminating indicator, there are benchmarks for each year from Kindergarten to 5th for elementary, and from 6th to 12th for secondary. In first grade, the similar CCLS standard for reading would read like this:

“RL.1.10. With prompting and support, read prose and poetry of appropriate complexity for grade 1.” ~ Common Core Learning Standards

By fifth grade, the same standard reads like this:

“RL.5.10. By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently.” ~ Common Core Learning Standards

It appears that the Common Core has won this round—after all; grade scaffolding seems more palatable than a one-shot deal. Yet look at the old standard compared with the one above: other than the quantity constraints of the old standard, don’t they look suspiciously similar?

Let’s try a writing standard now. In the old standards, we have:

“E2a: The student produces a report that:

• engages the reader by establishing a context, creating a persona, and otherwise developing reader interest;

• develops a controlling idea that conveys a perspective on the subject;

• creates an organizing structure appropriate to a specific purpose, audience, and context;

• includes appropriate facts and details;

• excludes extraneous and inappropriate information;

• uses a range of appropriate strategies, such as providing facts and details, describing or analyzing the subject, and narrating a relevant anecdote;

• provides a sense of closure to the writing.” ~ NYC Performance Standards in ELA

The fifth grade standard in the CCLS for report writing is as follows:

“W.5.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.

Introduce a topic clearly, provide a general observation and focus, and group related information logically; include formatting (e.g., headings), illustrations, and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.

Develop the topic with facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples related to the topic.

Link ideas within and across categories of information using words, phrases, and clauses (e.g., in contrast, especially).

Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.

Provide a concluding statement or section related to the information or explanation presented.” ~ Common Core Learning Standards

Again, apart from a difference in vocabulary, these two standards bear a striking resemblance.

The Mathematics standards, on the other hand, seem to be a real improvement. Here’s the old standard for 5th grade for using base ten number systems:

“5.N.3 Understand the place value structure of the base ten number system” ~ NYS State Education Department Mathematics Standards

We could all agree that’s pretty lame, even by the already-low standards (no pun intended) of the authors of these standards. The CCLS version gives much more detail:

“5.NBT.1. Recognize that in a multi-digit number, a digit in one place represents 10 times as much as it represents in the place to its right and 1/10 of what it represents in the place to its left.

5.NBT.2. Explain patterns in the number of zeros of the product when multiplying a number by powers of 10, and explain patterns in the placement of the decimal point when a decimal is multiplied or divided by a power of 10. Use whole-number exponents to denote powers of 10.

5.NBT.3. Read, write, and compare decimals to thousandths.

• Read and write decimals to thousandths using base-ten numerals, number names, and expanded form, e.g., 347.392 = 3 × 100 + 4 × 10 + 7 × 1 + 3 × (1/10) + 9 × (1/100) + 2 × (1/1000).

• Compare two decimals to thousandths based on meanings of the digits in each place, using >, =, and < symbols to record the results of comparisons.

5.NBT.4. Use place value understanding to round decimals to any place.” ~ Common Core Learning Standards

So the new standards are pretty hit-and-miss. There’s a lot of good stuff to get out of them, but also plenty of pitfalls along the way to implementation—and especially assessing them.

First, realize that, especially in English, the CCLS is largely a re-packaging of the standards we have already used—standards that lack much substance to begin with. So for all the hoopla of newness and scaffolding, in the end the final benchmarks will not be so radically different from before.

Second, the “Common” in Common Core is a real misnomer. Many states, including New York, are allowed to tweak or alter the standards to meet the needs of their particular groups of students. This is important, to be sure, but then it no longer makes these standards very “common” anymore. How is this any different from the old state standards?

Furthermore, don’t expect to see a massive overhaul of the standardized testing situation because of these standards—at least not yet. It is claimed that full implementation of the standards, with new assessments, curricula, etc., will be in place by 2015 the latest. I’m guessing we’ll see the new assessments sooner than that, because there will be little new about them. If the CCLS is a re-packaging of the old, then wouldn’t the new tests be a re-packaging of the old, as well?

Besides, if you fuck with those tests too much, Pearson and McGraw-Hill will have a serious chat with you.

Finally, the CCLS does not even address content areas, science and social studies, until the 6th grade, and then it is merely a test of “Literacy in Science/Social Studies.” Those standards are a re-packaging of the re-packaging: a reformation of the English standards to make them more content-specific. Yet no actual content standards are addressed: what actual stuff do kids need to know?

It’s nice how we focus on the process, the skills, the strategies, but without the actual stuff of learning the CCLS—like any set of standards—is really meaningless.

So what can we get from this new initiative foisted on most of us in this country?

Not much, but that’s okay.

To those who are getting their shorts in a knot over the CCLS…relax. It’s not as big a deal as even they think it is. These standards are no more rigorous than the personal set of standards any good teacher uses throughout his/her day. It’s simply a new paper trail for what you already do.

Hopefully it’ll lead to changes for the better. Probably, it won’t.

Just grin and bear through the workshops, lectures, symposia and focus groups—knowing that the next “silver bullet” is coming right around the corner…

…and it’ll be just as effective as the last one.

Image via Wikipedia

Those more observant members of the Neighborhood may have noticed a large new yellow button to the right.  Its funny-looking, I know, but its there for an important reason.

The Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action will be coming up at the end of July.  The conference covers July 28-29 and 31 and feature many well-known speakers on education like Diane Ravitch, Jonathan Kozol, Valerie Strauss from the Washington Post, our good friend Sabrina Stevens Shupe and many others.  The workshops offer activism techniques, curriculum strategies and other useful tools in advocacy in education.

The march will take place July 30, where we will meet at the Ellipse on the Mall at noon, followed by a march to the Department of Education at 2 pm.  It should be a raucous time, especially in that roasting DC heat of late July–of which I am painfully familiar.

Of course, besides the obvious reasons involving educational fairness, true accountability and general saving of the public school system, you should be heading to DC that weekend to meet me!  I’ll be at a bloggers’ event the evening of the 29th, where we’ll watch The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman (hopefully in Rocky Horror mode).  Also, I’ll be at the march myself, and hopefully gathering a cadre of the Neighborhood to march along.

I’ll be easy to spot in my Hawaiian shirt and straw hat

The conference costs $80 to register for Thursday’s and Friday’s events.  But make sure to register before June 15th, otherwise the price jumps to $100 a head.  Click here for registration info.

The march is free…bring as many people as you want!  However, it’s nice if we have a head count of how many people are coming.  Its no obligation to go, but even if you plan on coming please RSVP here.

Remember, the other guys like to fudge numbers–we want to be honest.

Lastly, if you plan on going and would like to join me as a contingent of the Neighborhood, especially for social studies advocacy, please e-mail me so we can coordinate a meeting spot.  The Ellipse is big, so plan on being there around 10 am so we can meet, greet and get our chanting voices ready.

Hope to see you all there.

Image via Wikipedia

I don’t know if it was Sabrina’s shaming or my call to Homeland Security, but Arne Duncan just wrote about (gasp!) social studies.

Our bud, the Secretary of Education, wrote an article in the recent May/June 2011 issue of Social Education extolling the essential role of social studies in the classroom. Other present and past presidents of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), of which I am a member, also commented on Arne’s writing.

We all tend to be in agreement: Even though he seems well meaning, Arne has a bad tendency to cry alligator tears and blame everyone but himself.

He begins by acknowledging what we have been screaming about for years: that No Child Left Behind has created an environment where English, mathematics and science were given massive emphasis at the expense of history, geography, government and other social sciences. Yet even this admission is half-hearted. A particularly galling statement begins thus:

“Principals, particularly those at elementary schools, tell me that though they would like to allow ample time for social studies education, they feel constrained by pressures to meet adequate yearly progress (AYP). By sacrificing civics, economics, and history, these leaders have felt forced to neglect the long-term benefits of a well-rounded education, instead allowing less important, short-term goals to take over.”

Instead of a mea culpa for the narrow AYP standards, he blames administrators and districts for not allowing enough time—all the while pushing these same districts to standards that require all of their time (and then some). Apparently the AYP is such a sacred cow that any attempt to corral it is seen as a trip to the NEA/AFT slaughterhouse.

Furthermore, his praise of social studies is clearly tongue-in-cheek. While pushing for social studies to be elevated to its rightful place as an essential subject, he still harps on the importance of reading and math. Arne does this for almost a paragraph before he finally declares that marginalizing social studies “is not only misguided, it is educational neglect.”

To me, this is tantamount to thinking about that hot new office assistant at work while having sex with your wife. Sure, it gets the job done—it may even feel pretty good—but deep down, you know what you did was dishonest.

Not only does Arne pass the buck on the problem, but it seems that solutions are also hard to come by. He mentions the need to “fix NCLB so that school leaders do not feel forced to ignore the vital components of a good education.” No specifics.

He stresses President Obama’s plan to focus more on at-risk schools than in micromanaging good schools in the new version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). No specifics.

New assessments that track for college and career readiness—no specifics.

More allowance for well-balanced curricula for districts—no specifics.

Where Arne does get specific are the very things that get his melon-head so excited: testing and giving teachers more work. He goes ga-ga, as he always does, for data-driven planning that targets strengths and weaknesses, especially with alignment to the Common Core standards in English and Math (kill me now). Yet he still has the nerve to call multiple-choice tests “mediocre” without questioning the data derived from said tests.

So who should fix this mess? According to Arne, we should.

Apparently, the Department of Education has a full plate pulling education dollars from children, creating ridiculous targets, adoring China like Mao in heat, all the while satisfying the needs of Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Koch brothers, McGraw-Hill and Pearson like a veteran Thai call girl. There’s just no time to force states and school districts to create rigorous curricula and assessments that measure success in social studies.

Arne is urging us, the social studies teachers, to push local and state governments to create high social studies standards. He wants us to push for data-driven accountability in social studies. He wants us to reform assessments to make them authentic enough to base instruction. He wants us to test kids on a full range of social studies skills and strategies.

We do a lot of this already. We bust our ass creating meaningful and rich curricula and assessments for our children. The problem is the states don’t listen to us—and neither does Arne.

When social studies testing at the elementary level fell to only 10 states, he said nothing.

When social studies standards became a political hot potato in Texas, he said nothing.

When high school tests in New York are threatened with extinction, he said nothing.

A recent House bill threatening to cut 43 educational programs was introduced—including Teaching American History, a grant program that serves as the very incubator of innovation in social studies education that Arne seeks. The Education and the Workforce Committee found “no demonstrated results from the program…” Really. Tell that to the hundreds of students in New York City that benefit from trained TAH teacher-historians. Yet I have not heard a peep from our secretary.

That’s the problem.

Arne Duncan plays lip service to the social studies crowd using tried and true platitudes and pithy remarks. All the while, we see right through his game—to placate us while his dismantling of American education is complete.

If Arne is truly serious about establishing social studies’ rightful place in American education, he should be the one—NOT us—who is pushing the states and districts to make AYP contingent on social studies success, to make meaningful and rich social studies curricula and assessments, to hold schools accountable for success in history, geography, economics, government and social sciences.

We have been advocating this—for years. It is time the Secretary of Education to stop fence-sitting and finally get in the game of saving social studies in America.

Otherwise, his words are as authentic as the assessments he loves.