Have we reached that point yet?

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Wednesday December 09, 2015 · 2:47 PM PST

2015/12/09 · 14:47

I keep thinking that soon, we’ll hit that point — that point where we say to Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, and all of the other hate-mongers of the far right that their hatred and bigotry have no place in the American culture. But every day, my illusions in this regard are shattered, as more vileness spews forth from the mouths of these people.

I read this post on FB today. . . and I drew my line. I requested that anyone who believes that we should be registering Muslims, throwing them out of America, or refusing them admittance, should unfriend me. I’m done reading that particular brand of ignorance.

FB Post

That’s all I have to say: When do we draw the line?

Enough

lmackh

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Tuesday September 29, 2015 · 3:12 PM PDT

2015/09/29 · 15:12

I first accessed Planned Parenthood at the age of 17. Like most teenage girls, I was not comfortable discussing my sexuality with my parents, and the concept of actually making my own doctor appointment with my family doctor (a man) lacked appeal. Planned Parenthood had come to our high school during Family Life class to speak about birth control, so I already knew about the services they offered.

So after a year of close calls and unprotected sex with my boyfriend (gasp) I took myself to Planned Parenthood -- luckily, just a bus ride from my house. I had my first pelvic exam and PAP smear done at Planned Parenthood, and it was Planned Parenthood that prescribed my first birth control.

I continued to access Planned Parenthood for my birth control throughout my college years. I went to Planned Parenthood when I thought I might be pregnant (back in the days before OTC pregnancy tests) and discovered in their offices that yes, indeed, you CAN get pregnant on the pill.

And it was Planned Parenthood that provided counseling and informed me of my choices. Planned Parenthood also informed me that I would need to make my decision quickly, because I was actually into the second trimester, and would need to find services before 20 weeks.

It was Planned Parenthood that gave me the list of abortion providers in the state. Unfortunately, none of those were within a manageable drive of my university, so I had to wait an additional couple of weeks until I returned to my hometown, where I could access a 2nd trimester (but pre-20-weeks) abortion.

It was Planned Parenthood that did my abortion follow-up care. It was Planned Parenthood that continued to prescribe my birth control until I got married and had a family doctor (and after I moved to Canada).

It was Planned Parenthood that diagnosed the two STIs that I've had. It was Planned Parenthood that provided me with treatment options for those STIs. It was Planned Parenthood that I visited for an exam once I had moved back to the US, was between insurance providers, and needed to access affordable care.

And it was to Planned Parenthood that I took my oldest son and later my stepdaughter when they wanted to access birth control. It was to Planned Parenthood that I took my oldest son when he and his girlfriend had an unplanned pregnancy.

Planned Parenthood has been an integral, vital part of my healthcare and subsequently my family's healthcare for over 35 years. I am an avid supporter, and do my best to educate those around me about what Planned Parenthood does. So I am offended and outraged when a small group of Republican legislators decide that -- despite all evidence to the contrary, and despite the wishes of the American public -- it would be in the best interests of our country to defund this bastion of affordable health care for men and women.

I want to collectively slap them.

I want to drag them to the poorest neighborhoods in this country and show them what the healthcare services are that people can afford.

I want to shake them out of their middle-class and upper-class complacency and show them that for the bulk of America, THIS is our reality.

And in particular, I want to shake women like Carly Fiorina and the commenter I saw on FB -- women who claim there are other affordable resources, that Planned Parenthood really doesn't provide services that women can't get elsewhere, etc. -- shake them until the few brains they apparently have left rattle something loose in their heads, in hopes that maybe it will wake them up.

I want to wake them up and ask them this: if you take away access to Planned Parenthood in rural communities, how will you identify and stop the spread of these diseases when the only affordable testing facility has closed its doors?

Years of failed economic policy has driven much of rural America to the brink. Too many people in "red" states are reliant upon whatever limited access they have to affordable healthcare to provide testing, diagnosis, and treatment. Take that away and what is left?

Indiana community's HIV outbreak a warning to rural America

Welcome to the Red State HIV Epidemic

Poll

67 votes Show Results

Have you or someone you know accessed Planned Parenthood in your lifetime?

67 votes Vote Now!

Have you or someone you know accessed Planned Parenthood in your lifetime?

Yes, I have

22 votes

Yes, a family member has

14 votes

Yes, to both

15 votes

No, but someone close to me has

7 votes

No, not at all

9 votes

The "Every Child Ready for College or Career Act of 2015"

lmackh

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Wednesday July 22, 2015 · 3:09 PM PDT

2015/07/22 · 15:09

Otherwise known as "How to further privatize and sell off our public school system to the highest bidder, Part _".

Those of you who have read my previous posts know that I used to be a public school teacher. I have for a long time now been concerned about the trend in our school system toward charter schools, privatization, and standardized testing. I had some transitory hope that the new reauthorization of the ESEA of 1965 would take heed of the continuing (and widening) educational gap and do more to address it. However, those hopes have been dashed.

The title of the new reauthorization sounds promising, doesn't it? It implies that the intent is to prepare our students for college or careers, right? But what it's doing is continuing the trend toward privatization and the increased involvement of corporate America in the public school system.

My concerns with this are many, and I've discussed some of them in previous posts. My main issue at this point is that the current draft of the legislation appears to open the door wider to the proliferation of charter schools, which are accompanied by a severe lack (in most states) of public oversight or accountability. There are many examples in current studies of the ways in which charter schools are failing to live up to public demands and expectations. To wit:

This study [Charter Schools in Chicago: No Model for Education Reform, Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity, University of Minnesota Law School, 2014] using comprehensive data for 2012-13, shows that, after controlling for the mix of students and challenges faced by individual schools, Chicago’s charter schools actually underperform their traditional counterparts in most measurable ways. Reading and math pass rates, reading and math growth rates, and graduation rates are lower in charters, all else equal, than in traditional neighborhood schools. This is true despite the fact that, because students self-select into the charter system, student performance should exceed what one sees in traditional schools, even if charters do no better at teaching their students.

Oversight of charter schools is nominal in many cases. Take a look at the situation in Arizona:

Arizona’s charter school law is unique in allowing charter schools to operate for 15 years before coming up for review...But our evidence also suggests that a 15-year period with little oversight of academic quality may be too long to wait to intervene and potentially close schools that are producing subpar results. A shorter authorization period accompanied by vigorous efforts to measure quality along the way may strike a better balance between autonomy to innovate and accountability for results.

Then there are the widespread financial transparency and accountability concerns revealed by several sources:

A 2014 report by two anti-education-privatization organizations, the Center for Popular Democracy and Integrity in Education, found $136 million in fraud and abuse in 15 states. A follow-up study (PDF) in Pennsylvania revealed “charter school officials have defrauded at least $30 million intended for Pennsylvania schoolchildren since 1997.” Some of the questionable dealings may not be illegal because of the intricacies of state laws, but there is little doubt that public money is being wasted.
A recent review of charter school scandals in Florida and Michigan by The Washington Post listed numerous cases of real estate flipping, in which charter schools were used as vehicles for exorbitant profits. Michigan’s largest charter operator, National Heritage Academies gets a 16 percent return on its investment in rent from the state — nearly twice what most commercial properties receive.

In Special Report: Class Struggle - How charter schools get students they want [here]

Charters are public schools, funded by taxpayers and widely promoted as open to all. But Reuters has found that across the United States, charters aggressively screen student applicants, assessing their academic records, parental support, disciplinary history, motivation, special needs and even their citizenship, sometimes in violation of state and federal law.

Further:

Set up as alternatives to traditional public schools, charter schools typically operate under private management and often boast small class sizes, innovative teaching styles or a particular academic focus. They're booming: There are now more than 6,000 in the United States, up from 2,500 a decade ago, educating a record 2.3 million children.

Thousands of charter schools don't provide subsidized lunches, putting them out of reach for families in poverty. Hundreds mandate that parents spend hours doing "volunteer" work for the school or risk losing their child's seat. In one extreme example the Cambridge Lakes Charter School in Pingree Grove, Illinois, mandates that each student's family invest in the company that built the school...

All these give me cause for concern about the health of our public school system as it's forced to compete with charter schools. My biggest concern with the current draft of the College or Career Act of 2015, however, can be found below the orange graphic. Read More

Teacher Walkout Today

lmackh

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Tuesday May 19, 2015 · 6:59 PM PDT

2015/05/19 · 18:59

Today, teachers around the state of Washington held a walkout to protest lack of funding, class.sizes, etc. But rather than take an unbiased view, this is what the Seattle Times op-ed had to say about it:

The only clear consequence of Tuesday’s walkout by Seattle teachers is that students will lose one precious day of instruction.

The op-ed went on to further fan the flames:

For all the clamor from educators about standardized tests wasting instructional days, they are choosing to waste another. And they are intentionally inconveniencing tens of thousands of parents, including those in the Mercer Island and Issaquah districts, where teachers are also walking out Tuesday.

The piece carries on to simplify the entire situation by painting it in terms of "teachers wanting more" and attributes the problems to dislike of the "details of the Republican budget proposal". It neglects to mention the 11% pay increase legislators in Washington were just granted, or the fact that teacher pay in Washington ranks about halfway down the states, well below our nearest neighbors in Oregon, with school funding overall ranking about the same in comparison with other states.

This editorial was nothing but the usual mainstream (read "corporate owned") media attempt to vilify teachers and unions as a whole. Do any members of the editorial board of the Seattle Times have children in public schools in this state? Are they totally unaware of the egregious lack of resources in many schools throughout this state? I have a friend who teaches primary in a relatively wealthy district, but at a school which has a high rate of student poverty. She shops at thrift stores throughout the year in order to provide clothes for her students who otherwise might have nothing. She pays for many of her resources out of her own pocket. She is a dedicated teacher who is nonetheless thinking of leaving the profession because she is tired of the lack of support from administrators and the government.

By far the most inflammatory statement of this piece, however, was this one:

Closing down schools to air grievances is antagonistic to students.

It is "antagonistic" to students to protest the continued decline in school funding in this state? It is "antagonistic" to expect the legislature to finally acknowledge court decisions that determined -- three separate times -- that our state legislature is violating our state constitution by inadequately funding our public schools? Another friend of mine, whose parents were actively involved in the first court case, sums it up best:

In 1976 , Judge Doran ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in what is now known as the Doran I decision. In 1978, the state Supreme Court affirmed this decision. Since then, we have had the Doran II, Doran IIB, and McCleary decisions, all of which came to the same conclusion. And the legislature has been held in contempt over their failure to comply...and throughout it all, the teachers are being blamed for speaking up about the issues they face.

Below the Orange squiggly is my response to this egregious piece of propaganda. Read More

Blueberries . . .

lmackh

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday May 05, 2015 · 3:38 PM PDT

2015/05/05 · 15:38

Today is National Teacher Day. Schools are closed for the celebrations, right? Hah. Teachers have come to accept that we are often under- (or completely un-) appreciated, misunderstood, and maligned.

A co-worker sent this article to our entire organization today. Blueberries

“If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn’t be in business very long!”

The article goes on to say:

I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the industrial age and out of step with the needs of our emerging “knowledge society”. Second, educators were a major part of the problem: they resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to business. We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! TQM! Continuous improvement!

Over and over again, teachers are told that we need to do our jobs better, that our students need to be better educated. At the same time, however, we're being told this by people who by and large have little to no experience with the education system, and who have very little functional understanding of the obstacles and barriers we face every day in the classroom, regardless of the level at which we teach. Business people preach a business model; the tech industry gurus (such as Bill Gates) think that technology is the solution. But they often forget the human component that we deal with every day, every month, every year.

I always phrased it like this: Schools cannot operate like a production line in a business. In a business, you can control the quality of the raw materials you take in. If you receive raw materials that are not up to standard, you can reject them. Schools have no control over the raw materials. We get some raw materials from the best possible producers -- from parents who are engaged with their kids (but not overly so), who have talked with them and taught them the skills they need to have before they come to school. We get raw materials from producers that seem like they should be of high quality, because they come from the best location; but these materials are sometimes flawed, too, because they've been protected from every adversity and are consequently not very strong on their own. We get the raw materials from parents who try hard, but who haven't necessarily had the tools they needed to provide a solid grounding for their child pre-school: perhaps a lack of financial resources, perhaps a lack of education, perhaps a lack of parenting skills. Their children come to school with some skills they need, but often lag behind on other crucial skills. Then we get the raw materials from situations that put the children months -- if not years -- behind their peers. Poverty, neglect, poor nutrition, homelessness, displacement, language barriers, developmental delays, attention deficit issues, substance abuse . . . the list goes on.

“Mr. Vollmer,” she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, “when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?”
In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap…. I was dead meat, but I wasn’t going to lie.

“I send them back.”

“That’s right!” she barked, “and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all! Every one! And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it’s not a business. It’s school!”

We are not only expected to educate all students regardless of where they start, we are also expected to do it with fewer and fewer resources, larger and larger classes, less support staff, and in many places, for stagnant salaries. We get told by people all around us that we're not doing our jobs, that we need to do better, that there are too many bad teachers in the system, etc. When we have the audacity to strike for better working conditions, the inevitable response runs along the lines of "What are you complaining about? You only work 9 months out of the year and get 3 months of paid vacation! You only work a 6 or 7 hour day. Teachers have it so easy!" I feel like I've spent my whole life educating the public on what we do and why we do it. I've spent my entire career defending myself to people who should actually value the fact that I care enough about how I do my job and what I have to do it with that I have been willing to go on strike -- for $40/day in strike pay -- 3 times in my career. It doesn't seem to occur to anyone that if teachers don't do their jobs properly, we end up with an undereducated populace who are unable to get jobs, manage their own lives, participate in their civic duties, etc.

To quote Diane Ravitch, from her book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System:

Schools that expect nothing more of their students than mastery of basic skills will not produce graduates who are ready for college or the modern workplace. Nor will they send forth men and women prepared to design new technologies, achieve scientific breakthroughs, or accomplish feats of engineering skill. Nor will their graduates be prepared to appreciate and add to our society's cultural achievements or to understand and strengthen its democratic heritage. Without a comprehensive liberal arts education, our students will not be prepared for the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy, nor will they be equipped to make decisions based on knowledge, thoughtful debate, and reason.

Further:

Our schools cannot be improved by those who say that money doesn't matter. Resources matter, and it matters whether they are spent wisely . . . if we are serious about narrowing and closing the achievement gap, then we will make sure that the schools attended by our neediest students have well educated teachers, small classes, beautiful facilities, and a curriculum rich in the arts and sciences.
Our schools cannot be improved if we ignore the disadvantages associated with poverty that affect children's ability to learn.

Our schools cannot be improved if we use them as society's all-purpose punching bag, blaming them for the ills of the economy, the burdens imposed on children by poverty, the dysfunction of families, and the erosion of civility. Schools must work with other institutions and cannot replace them.

Currently, the problem is that the other institutions -- the government, politicians, business leaders, religious leaders -- all want to TELL teachers how to do their jobs, without consultation. They want to mandate what gets taught, what gets spent, who does what, but with limited knowledge of how schools work, what our actual purpose is, and what the constraints are within which we operate.

And as long as there is a gap between schools in poor neighborhoods and schools in wealthy neighborhoods -- a gap in resources, a gap in facilities, a gap in staffing levels, a gap in income, a gap in accessibility, etc. -- we will continue to see some schools succeeding and some schools failing. The problems with our education system will not be fixed until we start to address the inequalities in society. That's a much bigger problem . . . and one that can't be blamed on just one group of people. We all have to take responsibility for it. Time to stop beating up the teachers . . .

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