NCLB Legislation for Corporate Fat Cats

I first proposed the following legislation in October, 2007, and it was virtually ignored by Congress. Can you believe it? And here I am, an important blogger and all, not to mention an actual teacher. I was dreadfully disappointed. It's a finely crafted bill, really!

Well, maybe Florida teachers will like it.

With a new administration soon to take the helm, now seems the perfect time to re-introduce it:

HB 2014:
No Corporate Fat Cat Left Behind

It is proposed that in keeping with the 99.9% pure, bright line principles of NCLB accountability and transparency, the nation's primary beneficiaries of NCLB and high-stakes testing be administered the newly-crafted, teacher-constructed F-CATT (Fat Cat Test). All items on the F-CATT have been designed to be able to detect disingenuous responses, deception and/or incompetence by measuring individual responses against results of the NAEP-E, National Assessment of Ethical Practices in Education, to arrive at the test-taker's UMI, or Ulterior Motives Index. Conservative estimates are that at least 90% of test-takers will fail to demonstrate AEP, Adequate Ethical Practices, in the arena of public education reform.

Sister assessments to the F-CATT are under construction for politicians as well as the leading members of a highly networked web of corporate-funded, anti-public education propaganda machines, also known as think tanks. It is anticipated that the POTTY, Politicians and Opportunists Tempted by Testing Yardstick, will be ready for administration by spring 2009. The T-TIA, Tinkle Tank Incontinence Assessment, is being developed to diagnose an irresistible urge to eliminate public education through ideology masquerading as educational research.

Test takers can relax since no sanctions will be imposed for failure to make AEP. The test results will be reward enough for our nation's besieged public schools.

Barack Obama's Safety

I hope that Barack Obama and his family will be safe. I'm sure there are many of us who have fears that someone will try to assasinate him. I hate to throw this dreadful thought out there amid all the renewed hope that his election has inspired but I just came across an article which is chilling if accurate. And sadly, it comes as no surprise.

The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs. Palin's attacks.

I'm not posting this to fuel anger at Palin. The threat will be there with or without her irresponsible and inexcusable remarks linking Obama to terrorism. I'm posting this with the hope that if you are a praying person, you'll keep Obama and his family and our entire nation in your prayers.

Liar Liar Pants On Fire

For Immediate Release
Washington, D.C

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings escaped serious injury today when the seat of her pants caught fire without any apparent source of ignition. The incident occurred in her office just minutes after she had addressed the House Committee on Labor and Education with this oft-repeated statement:

Over the last five years, NAEP testing demonstrates that 9-year-olds in the
United States have made more progress in reading than in the previous three
decades combined. Achievement gaps between white and black students in reading
and math are now the narrowest they have ever been.

Actually, average reading scores for 4th grade students have shown a 2 point gain since NCLB was implemented in 2002. Before NCLB became law, between 2000 and 2002, there was a 6 point gain. For 8th graders, scores have actually dropped a point.

An office worker immediately extinguished the flames with Spellings' custom made fire extinguisher, said to be a favorite novelty item and fixture in her office. The device was a gag gift presented to the Secretary by President Bush in 2006 after her infamous remark that NCLB is nearly perfect:

I talk about No Child Left Behind like Ivory soap: It’s 99.9 percent pure
or something. There’s not much needed in the way of change.

Emblazoned on the canister are the words "This is purity: Hold their feet to the fire until all on grade level." The message stands out in awkward disharmony with the soft Ivory soap colors and logo surrounding the device. Reportedly, the extinguisher was actually filled with Ivory soap foam and Spellings was cracking a soapy little smile as she was taken to an emergency room for treatment of minor injuries.

newsspoof by staff at This Little Blog

Challenging the Assumptions Upon Which Decades of Uninspired "Ed Reform" Are Based

Longtime educator/administrator/author/thinker Marion Brady offers a challenge to the archaic standards and accountability movement that dominates education policymaking. Check out his refreshing and mind opening ideas at his website. And he has just offered online what he sees as a rough draft of an alternative general education curriculum based on systems theory rather than fragmented academic subjects. Check it out, it's free! His vision and ideas are at the very least well worth thinking about. Could it be we've been boxed up in such narrow thinking that we haven't realized powerful alternatives exist?


Just a couple of intriguing statements from Marion:

"Covering the content" – Forget this too. It hasn’t been possible since the
Enlightenment, and the assumption that it should be done (or at least attempted)
is naive and destructive. It’s best to see it for what it is–dynamic, constantly
changing, never equally appropriate for all students, and with the possible
exception of a tiny fraction of it, not worth storing in memory. Choose from it
what helps explain and elaborate the sense-making process. That process is the
main content.

Pacing – The whole idea of a "pacing guide" is ridiculous, a futile attempt
to standardize the unstandardizable. If you’re trying to help learners
understand something really important, there’s no point in moving on to a second
idea until they understand the first, even if that takes days, weeks, months. IS
tries to lay out the whole of the "liberal education" ball of wax, so don’t rush
it. Take as long as it takes.

Just keep an open mind, ponder the possibilities of what education could be, and enjoy a breath of fresh air...

Thank you Marion.

Defying Gravity: Trickle-Down Economics

There is a good article in the Baltimore Sun on the glories of trickle-down economics. Read it here.

Now I'm diverging a bit, but if only reporters would dig deeply and connect the dots between disaster capitalism and the enormity of big business efforts to undermine and discredit public education so they may have excuse to jump in and take over with their wondrous market solutions.

Child well-being has long been neglected in this nation and a crisis has been allowed to develop. Millions of children lack health insurance and millions are abused and neglected. Millions have parents who are drug/alcohol addicted. Scores are left alone to fend for themelves after school in crime-infested neighborhoods. About 2 million have parents in prison and 13 million live in poverty. We rank 20th out of 21 wealthy nations in child well-being. As to poverty, we rank dead last among 25 wealthy nations.

How convenient for politicians and the ruling elite who control them to wag fingers of blame and ridicule at public schools and teachers because achievement gaps exist. It diverts attention from our nation's collective and exceedingly costly failure to take care of our most vulnerable children. While children's most fundamental life needs go unmet, testing and more testing and more "standards and accountability" from our schools and teachers is always the refrain. That's the ticket. More of the same. Such vision!

National Museum of The Middle Class Opens In Schaumburg, IL

from the ONION, America's Finest News Source:


SCHAUMBURG, IL—The Museum of the Middle Class, featuring historical and anthropological exhibits addressing the socioeconomic category that once existed between the upper and lower classes, opened to the public Monday.

"The splendid and intriguing middle class may be gone, but it will never be forgotten," said Harold Greeley, curator of the exhibit titled "Where The Streets Had Trees' Names." "From their weekend barbecues at homes with backyards to their outdated belief in social mobility, the middle class will forever be remembered as an important part of American history."

Museum guests expressed delight over the traditions and peculiarities of the middle class, a group once so prevalent that entire TV networks were programmed to satisfy its hunger for sitcoms.

"It's fascinating to think that these people once drove the same streets as we do today," said Natasha Ohman, a multi-millionaire whose husband's grandfather invented the trigger-safety lock on handguns. "I enjoyed learning how the middle class lived, what their customs were, and what sorts of diversions and entertainment they enjoyed. Being part of this middle class must have been fascinating!"

During the modern industrial age, the middle class grew steadily, reaching its heyday in the 1950s, when its numbers soared into the tens of millions. According to a study commissioned by the U.S. Census Bureau, middle-class people inhabited great swaths of North America, with settlements in the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Northwest, and even the nation's urban centers.

"No one predicted the disappearance of the middle class," said Dr. Bradford Elsby, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania. "The danger of eliminating workers' unions, which had protected the middle class from its natural predators for years, was severely underestimated. We believe that removal of the social safety net, combined with rapid political-climate changes, made life very difficult for the middle class, and eventually eradicated it altogether."

One of the 15 permanent exhibits, titled "Working For 'The Weekend,'" examines the routines of middle-class wage-earners, who labored for roughly eight hours a day, five days a week. In return, they were afforded leisure time on Saturdays and Sundays. According to many anthropologists, these "weekends" were often spent taking "day trips,"eating at chain family restaurants, or watching "baseball" with the nuclear family.

"Unlike members of the lower class, middle-class people earned enough money in five days to take two days off to 'hang out,'" said Benson Watercross, who took a private jet from his home in Aspen to visit the museum. "Their adequate wages provided a level of comfort and stability, and allowed them to enjoy diversions or purchase goods, thereby briefly escaping the mundanity."

Many museum visitors found the worldview of the middle class—with its reliance on education, stable employment, and ample pensions—difficult to comprehend.

Thirty-five Booker T. Washington Junior High School seventh-graders, chosen from among 5,600 students who asked to attend the school's annual field trip, visited the museum Tuesday. Rico Chavez, a 14-year-old from the inner-city Chicago school, said he was skeptical of one exhibit in particular.

"They expect us to believe this is how people lived 10 years ago?" Chavez asked. "That 'Safe, Decent Public Schools' part was total science fiction. No metal detectors, no cops or dogs, and whole classes devoted to art and music? Look, I may have flunked a couple grades, but I'm not that stupid."

Others among the 99 percent of U.S. citizens who make less than $28,000 per year shared Chavez's sense of disbelief.

"Frankly, I think they're selling us a load of baloney," said laid-off textile worker Elsie Johnson, who visited the museum Tuesday with her five asthmatic children. "They expect us to believe the government used to help pay for college? Come on. The funniest exhibit I saw was 'Visiting The Family Doctor.' Imagine being able to choose your own doctor and see him without a four-hour wait in the emergency room. Gimme a friggin' break!"

While some were incredulous, others described the Museum of the Middle Class as "a trip down memory lane." William Harrison, a retired social worker with middle-class heritage, said he was moved to tears by several of the exhibits.

"You wouldn't know it to look at me, but my parents were middle class," Harrison said. "Even though my family fell into poverty, I cherish those roots. Seeing that section on middle-class eating habits really brought it all back: the Tuna Helper, the Capri Sun, and the cookie dough in tubes. Oh, and the 2-percent milk and reduced-cholesterol butter spread! I was thankful for the chance to rediscover my past, even if the middle class is gone forever."

The Museum of the Middle Class was funded primarily by the Ford Foundation, the charitable arm of the Ford automotive company, which sold cars to the middle class for nearly 100 years.

Resurrecting "The Case Against Standardized Testing"

It never ceases to amaze me the enormously overblown credence placed in standardized testing to judge the quality of teaching and learning. It is their overuse and misuse that constitutes educational malpractice.

Please, if you are willing, read and circulate this award winning article by teacher Peter Henry, one of the founding members of the Educator Roundtable. The article won an award from the Minnesota English Journal in 2007.