Politicizing
Tragedy …
We
continue to grapple with the emotions and other consequences of the tragedy in Newtown CT. As a nation we are struggling to deal with
the reality that something so horrific could happen in one of our nation's
schools. While we can all hope that
something positive and constructive can come from this event, we are facing the
sad reality that we are hearing the same recycled debates today that we've
heard after every other act of mass violence.
Events like the one in Newtown
should wake us up, spur us to action and unite us, instead they seem to serve
as an impetus to entrench ourselves in our existing beliefs and further divide
a nation that is already drifting apart.
Examples
of these divisive opinions are not difficult to find.
Opponents
of gun control are calling for us to avoid "politicizing" the tragic
events of last Friday and want us to continue ignoring the reality that guns
are a problem in our society. Instead of
engaging in an honest dialog about the issues around the 2nd Amendment they
focus on other issues that really don't have any connection with the issues at
hand.
I am particularly troubled
by the ideas advanced that somehow religion in schools could have prevented
this event. As a public school teacher I
spend a significant amount of my days working with students on their
interpersonal skills as well as building up their own feelings of
self-worth. Along the way I indirectly
teach values that most religions espouse.
Things like treating everyone fairly and kindly, respecting each other
and the space we work in, resolving conflicts without violence, sharing,
empathy and countless other values are a large part of my daily work.
Yet, as a public school
teacher I must realize that not every student in my classroom shares my specific
religious beliefs, or even has religious beliefs at all. It is my job to work to promote these values,
in a secular way. In fact I believe that
I am able to exercise my own religious beliefs without specifically mentioning
them or promoting them to my students. I
don't need to tell them that they are valuable beings who need to respect each
other by using any religious language, yet the underlying message remains
present.
Our society is a
collection of different beliefs, all working to try and exist together. If we promote any specific religion in our
schools we must, by necessity, exclude other beliefs from the discussions. Unfortunately, we are hearing from a number
of religious advocates that we should do exactly what our founders tried to
avoid. Remember that our original 13
colonies were made up of a variety of religious ideas that were often in direct
conflict with each other. The idea that
historical revisionists would have us believe, that our nation was founded
under a single set of religious ideals, is patently false. Using it in the context of Friday's events is
inappropriate at best. It diverts
attention away from debate that could serve to improve our nation's future and
potentially stop a future catastrophe.
Newtown: Firefighters Form Human Wall To Block Westboro Baptist
Church | The New Civil Rights Moveme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is2x7QTZ8AI
In addition to the
religious rhetoric that is being spread, we are also hearing the usual defense
of gun ownership. It is understandable
that people grasp at any way to feel like they have control when faced with
such a terrible event. However,
increasing the number of weapons available in our nation seems
counterproductive to me. It resembles
the arms race that our nation engaged in with the Soviet
Union. A race based on fear
(as well as a significant profit motive for a small number of people) that
drove both nations, and the entire world with them, to the edge of
destruction. The costs of the arms race
were incredibly high and in many ways unnecessary. Now, when faced with another threat we
answer, not with positive and proactive responses, but rather with fear and an
increased sense of impending catastrophe.
Walker wants more aid for mentally ill; says arming school
officials should be 'part of the discussi
I don't pretend to have
the specific answers and recognize that we can't prevent all actions by
disturbed and violent individuals.
However, I also recognize that we as a nation can do better than we have
and we need to be able to have an open, honest dialog about the role of guns,
religion, mental health, etc. in our society.
This extreme, emotional rhetoric gains us nothing and sets us up for
more tragedy.
Accountability…
There are so many
buzzwords in education that do so much to obscure what is really happening in
our schools. Instead of clarifying,
words are used to promote policies and advance agendas that may not be
accurately reflected by the words used.
Try to wade through any article, listen to any speech or read a document
about education and prepare yourself for confusion and frustration. It's easy to see why so many people have
given up trying to comprehend and instead simply trust the "experts"
(many of whom don't live and work in classrooms with students).
www.progressive.org
The unfortunate truth is
that the debate about public education at the higher levels (state, national)
is more about rhetoric and less about substance. Yet, it is this debate that shapes the
perceptions of schools at the local level.
The policies and legislation enacted at these levels directly impacts
the functioning of the schools in every neighborhood across our nation. Changes in public education are being driven
by forces that have little interest in improving public education beyond
looking at the financial costs and benefits.
blogs.edweek.org
www.journaltimes.com
Accountability is one of
the major buzzwords that "reformers" like to use. It is also one that is clearly misused by
these so called education experts. For
them, accountability means using testing and other "objective"
measures to evaluate the efforts of public educators. Schools and educators are held accountable to
their "clients" through data and publicizing the numbers that are so
prevalent in education.
It seems like this type of
accountability is another example of taking the easy way out of really
understanding what is going on in our schools.
As a classroom teacher I can talk about the numbers that supposedly
define my classroom. In fact I could
call up a graph of my students progress this year and show you just how
"successful" my students have been so far (by the way, my students as
a whole performed well on the most recent MAP testing). Yet, if you were to sit down and talk with me
about what is really going on in my students lives and how they are doing it
would take hours and hours. The same is
true if you ask me about the curriculum I'm using and the lessons I have
planned. Defining my classroom by scores
and standards only gives a miniscule picture of what is really happening
there. Now multiply my classroom by the
100's of others just in the MMSD and you see the problem that higher level
administrators and politicians face when trying to hold public educators
accountable.
www.edexcellence.net
Even when you use
objective data like test scores to define success or failure there is still
significant confusion around the results.
We keep changing the ways that we use data and in all the confusion
frequently decide that we need more information. This results in more testing, more reports
and more confusion. At the same time it
results in less time spent teaching, more student stress and less creativity
and flexibility in our efforts to reach students who don't learn in ways that
are defined by tests and standardized curriculums.
www.gainesville.com
The best way around this
aggravation for those of us who truly care about public education? To me it is simply getting involved and
participating in the discussions around public education. Involvement and participation go a long way
towards clarifying what the buzzwords mean.
It becomes clear that what is said at the administrative level and what
is proposed in political circles is very different from what happens in
specific schools and classrooms. The
family/community/staff group from my school has decided to begin our efforts to
impact Madison's
schools by attending our school board meetings and making our voices heard at
the local level.
Attending meetings as a
partnership between school and community provides an opportunity for educators
and families to see the same information presented and then discuss what is
being said. It allows educators to express
directly to families the real impacts in the classroom of what is said by board
members. It also allows families to ask
questions of educators and to increase the level of accountability that
individual educators have, but also the accountability of the larger system as
a whole. We plan on continuing to attend
board meetings and are also planning on focusing on some key committees so that
we can be a presence at their meetings as well.
I believe accountability
is a concept that has been used as a weapon directed at public educators. It is time that we revisited the real meaning
of the word and recognized that accountability extends in all directions and to
all parties. Administrators, lawmakers,
educators, families, students and the community all have a responsibility to
make our public schools better.
Board
of Ed. Meeting…
Here are a few of my
observations from the MMSD Board of Education meeting held on 12/17/12. I hope that those of you who are interested
in protecting, preserving and improving public schools in your area will take
the time to follow discussions that your local boards are having. With the changes in legislation enacted by
the GOP in Wisconsin,
local school boards have a tremendous amount of power in what policies and
procedures are implemented in our public schools.
-Maybe it's time to look
at how we "employ" our board members.
Listening to the discussions at the meeting it was clear that they have
too much information to process and as a result are relying too much on
information from others to guide their decision making. Being a board member means making decisions
that are vital to our school's futures and really should be a full time
job. Too much of the discussion reflected
a lack of direct experience with classrooms and schools.
-This lack of experience
and knowledge means that decisions rest on data and the advice of
administrators. I heard multiple
mentions of this throughout the meeting, where board members looked to
administrators and other sources of data to drive their decision making process. It seems clear that many decisions are being
made based almost exclusively on these types of information that sometimes come
from "vendors" or company representatives who are selling a product.
-Board members want
information, but also need to get out to schools and see what is really going
on. Policies and procedures may sound
great in a meeting, but what do they look like when they are implemented in
classrooms and schools? I believe that
every person who makes decisions about public education should have to spend
significant time actually working in a classroom. Not just walking through and visiting a
selected sample at a school, but really dealing with the day to day existence
of students and educators.
-Board members are just as
confused by the "objective" data as everyone else. Listening to them try and figure out what
some of the information from the latest MAP testing was enlightening for
me. They have so much information, but
it is all "spun" to them in ways that are designed to "guide"
their decisions in a certain direction.
-I don't envy school board
members. They are in a difficult
position caught between many forces that are outside of their control. I truly appreciate their efforts and their
service to our community. Unfortunately,
some of them seem to embrace the role that they have been placed in by the GOP
in Wisconsin. I don't expect them to follow the lead of
educators in all matters, but there are clearly some board members who are
excited to get a chance to exercise the power granted to them by Act 10 (if it
is upheld in court) and other legislation.
-I wonder if some of the
board members recognize what the impacts of their words and actions are on
public education. I realize that they
need to look at the district as a whole and that their perspective must reflect
this. However, our school board should
be the primary defender of our school system.
Many board members seem to understand this, but others don't appear to
realize the dangers that the "reforms" being suggested pose to the
survival of public education. They often
seem willing to entertain ideas that open the door to more invasive
"reform" efforts that could mean the eventual demise of our public
schools.
One clear example of this was the discussion about allowing 26 students to opt out of the WKCE testing through requests from parents/guardians. Instead of appreciating the rights of families to decide for their children and recognizing that testing may not be the best thing for public education, several board members talked about writing DPI to request a change in policy to allow school boards to reject parent opt out requests. No one went on record to state that standardized testing and the ways it is used to evaluate schools is wrong and harmful to education.
Right
to Work…
Labor and management have
had a stormy relationship for what essentially amounts to all of recorded human
history. In many ways the conflicts
arise out of basic human nature as those with power and wealth seek to maintain
their status, while those who have less strive to improve their status. Over time we've seen a variety of
socio-economic systems develop and many different philosophies have accompanied
them. In the end, once all of the
extraneous details are stripped away, the struggle boils down to this simple
basis for conflict. Sometimes the struggle
is quieter and other times we see the disputes flare into heated conflict.
We find ourselves in one
of those periods when the "cold war" that always simmers in labor
relations is flaring into a widespread and intense battle. In some ways it appears that humans have a
propensity for conflict and once America
"defeated" the Soviet Union we
turned inward and began to wage class warfare within our own borders. This conflict ignited in Wisconsin
during 2011 and is spreading to other states like Michigan.
It is sad to see how
quickly workers across America
have forgotten their need for the protections that unions offer. For many, the absence of "highly
visible, sweatshop" labor here means that things must be fine and they buy
into the conservative argument that hard work is all that anyone needs to get
ahead in modern America. The results have been devastating for
organized labor.
American workers are
forgetting some key points and are being fooled by conservative rhetoric that
is misleading at best and outright lies in many cases.
-Right to Work legislation
is at its core un-American and anti-capitalist.
By legislating that unions in a workplace must represent everyone, even
if they don't pay dues, conservatives force unions to give away their
"labor/product" for free. No
true capitalist would ever think of operating a business where they had to give
equal service to those who don't pay. If
capitalism is at the core of American values (as conservatives would have us
believe) than using legislation to undermine unions' abilities to conduct
business is truly problematic.
America is built on a collection of progressive
ideas. The idea of democracy and freedom
for all (while limited in scope originally) has grown in our nation and we
continue to strive towards the ideals that our founding documents
expressed. Limiting individuals ability
to participate in an organized effort to improve their conditions does little
to promote the ideals that our nation claims to value highly. In fact, it isn't difficult to argue, the
reasoning that we need to restrict the rights of individuals to collectively
bargain simply to promote business interests, or balance budgets flies in the
face of what our nation stands for. We
are being forced to confront the question of whether our nation stands for
values, or whether it is simply an organized business endeavor.
-While many Americans are
uncomfortable with Affirmative Action and other similar workplace/hiring rules,
we can't ignore that widespread discrimination still exists in our
culture. Collective bargaining
agreements, negotiated by unions provide a clear and concrete set of rules that
govern hiring, firing, promotions and wages/benefits. By unionizing a workforce we can address some
of the problems with discrimination that our culture struggles with. Of course, unions aren't perfect and
discrimination can still be a part of any institution, but a contract
negotiated with transparency is less susceptible to bias than other types of
labor agreements.
-Workers in America are
being told that they have the freedom to choose what type of employment they
want and if things aren't acceptable in one job, they should simply move to
another. The reality is that freedom to
move from one low-wage/low-benefit job to another is really a very limited form
of freedom (if it is truly any freedom at all).
While the wealthy see their options expand, the rest of America
struggles to make ends meet. A union
continues to be the only voice that seeks to represent labor in any meaningful
way.
Spend
Your Money Wisely…
Only
a few more days of holiday shopping remain.
Your dollar is your voice, and the one that businesses will listen to
most. No one who values labor, the
environment or other progressive values should be giving their money to
businesses that operate in ways that run counter to our beliefs. Make a statement and support local, worker
friendly businesses.
Walkergate
and Other Political Schenanigans…
We
continue to hope that 2013 brings justice to Wisconsin in the form of a resolution to the
"Walkergate" investigation. At
the same time we need to remind people that the conservative philosophy isn't
producing the results that were promised.
Walker
will use the media to spread a message that simply isn't true. Wisconsin's
economy is among the worst in the nation in terms of the recovery from
recession. In addition many of the
initiatives that have been proposed under the GOP's reign have had little to do
with improving employment options for Wisconsin's
workers and have instead focused on cementing power for Republicans.
While
Rush Limbaugh is a national speaker and not directly associated with Scott
Walker or Wisconsin GOP members (although he certainly has been a staunch
advocate of their efforts) I include this article because of the potential
conflict brewing between the sovereign nations in Wisconsin and our legislature
that will soon offer another mining bill.
We must not forget just how important our views of others are when we
engage in political debate. Many of our
legislators don't respect the rights of Native Americans (remember the
representative who didn't know that they were really sovereign nations during
the last mining debate) and their actions will certainly reflect this ignorance
and lack of respect.
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/mobile/article/limbaugh-‘elizabeth-warren-heap-big-squaw-i
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