2010 Texas Democratic Platform: Education (preface)

June 28, 2010

This post is second in a series on the education planks of the 2010 Texas Democratic Party Platform.

This is an unofficial version published in advance of the final version from the Texas Democrats, but I expect very few changes.

EDUCATION

Texas Democrats strongly support our Constitution’s recognition that a free, quality public education is “essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people.” Texas Democrats believe a world class education system is a moral imperative and an economic necessity that requires parents, educators and community leaders to work together to provide our children the skills needed to compete and succeed in a global economy.

Texas Democrats believe all children should be able to attend a safe, secure school and have access to an exemplary educational program that values and encourages critical thinking and creativity, not the “drill and kill” teach-to-the-test policy Republicans have forced on students and teachers. To fulfill this commitment, Texas Democrats continue leading the fight to improve student achievement, lower dropout rates, and attract and retain well-qualified teachers.

Democrats also believe it is essential that all Texans have access to affordable, quality higher education and career education programs, with a renewed emphasis on the importance of a full four year college education, and particular attention to science, technology and engineering.

2 Comments | 2010 Elections, Education, Elections, Political conventions, Politics, Public education, Teachers, Testing, Texas | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Ravitch calls the issue: Will public education survive?

May 1, 2010

Diane Ravitch in Dallas, April 28, 2010 - IMGP3872 Copyright 2010 Ed Darrell

Diane Ravitch in Dallas, April 28, 2010 – Copyright 2010 Ed Darrell (you may use freely, with attribution)

Bill McKenzie, editorial board member and writer for the Dallas Morning News, wrote briefly about the rekindled controversy over standards a year ago — but did he listen to Diane Ravitch on Wednesday night?

He should have.

I first met Ravitch a couple of decades ago when I worked for Checker Finn at the Office of Educational Research and Improvement.   Ted Bell’s idea of a commission to look at education quality, and it’s 1983 report, saved the Reagan administration and assured Reagan’s reelection in 1984.  She was one of the most prodigious and serious thinkers behind education reform efforts, then a close friend of Finn (who was Assistant Secretary of  Education for Research) — a position that Ravitch herself held in the administration of George H. W. Bush.

Ravitch now criticizes the end result of all that turmoil and hard work, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the way it has distorted education to keep us in the crisis we were warned of in 1983.  Then, the “rising tide of mediocrity” came in part because we didn’t have a good way to compare student achievement, state to state.  Today, the mediocrity is driven by the tests that resulted from legislative efforts to solve the problem.

Conditions in education in America have changed.  We still have a crisis after 27 years of education reform (how long do we have a crisis before it becomes the norm), but for the first time, Ravitch said, “There is a real question about whether public education will survive.”  The past consensus on the value of public education and need for public schools, as I would put it, now is challenged by people who want to kill it.

“The new issue today:  Will we have a public education system bound by law to accept all children.”

Ironic, no?  The No Child Left Behind Act has instead created a system where many children could be forced to the rear.

I took an evening in the middle of a week of TAKS testing — the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.  With ninth through twelfth grades, we had four days of testing which essentially requires the shutdown of the education for the week (we had Monday to review for the test).  It was a week to reflect on just how far we have strayed from the good intentions of public education advocates who pushed the Excellence in Education Commission’s report in 1983.

Ravitch spoke for over an hour.  I’ll have more to report as I get caught up, after a month of meetings, test prep, testing, and little sleep.

Background, more:

8 Comments | Education, Education assessment, Education quality, Education reform, History, Politics, Teacher Pay, Teachers, Teaching, Testing | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

What social studies teachers will do for others

March 19, 2010

Social studies teacher Jeff Brazil gets his head shaved alongside Lars Schou - Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Social studies teacher Jeff Brazil gets his head shaved alongside Lars Schou on Thursday at Jackson Hole High School as part of St. Baldrick’s, a cancer awareness campaign and fundraiser - News&Guide Photo / Price Chambers/JACKSON HOLE DAILY

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Posted by Ed Darrell

5 things to teach – Life lessons your supervisor doesn’t want to see on your lesson plans

February 6, 2010

It’s too short to excerpt — so here’s the whole thing.

Over at The Elementary Educator, I found this list, “Five Things You Should Teach Your Students This Week (None of which are likely to be on your standards):

This week, teach your students:

1.  To understand themselves as learners (a.k.a. metacognition)

2.  That intelligence is not innate; effort matters

3.  Compassion

4.  The excitement of creating real things for real audiences

5.  The joy of exercise, play, and healthy living

Another reminder that not all things that count can be counted.

The Elementary Educator carries interesting stuff.  You may wish to check it out.

1 Comment | Education, Learning, Learning styles, Motivation, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Global warming politics: ‘Blame the teachers first’

December 29, 2009

Note to teachers: They hate you out there global warming denial land.

Watt’s Up denizens ramble in a state of confusion about how the planet can be warming while local records fall in cold weather.  [Note to Anthony Watts:  Have you explained to your readers that seasons are not governed by CO2 levels, but instead by the tilt of the Earth?]

How to clear up the confusion? Blame it on the teachers.  No kidding.  Here’s the comment from “r”:

r (08:12:32) : [about 62 comments down]

Forget the main stream media. The real roots of this movement, strangely enough, are in grade school and collage teachers.

College teachers are out of touch with the real world. They live in the insulated bubble of academia. They go to school for so long, all they know is school. They never get any experience in the real world of any industry. Therefore, they preach the socialist agenda because it sounds good on paper. The young people they teach do not protest because they don’t know any better yet. Their parents continue to give money to these colleges because they have no idea what their children are actually learning.

Grade school teachers despite having increased course work on classroom management are not required to take many classes in science. They cannot teach science because they don’t understand it themselves. Global warming was introduced to my children through Scholastic Magazine given out at school. The magazine is used as part of the curriculum. The teachers never questioned it. The children were frightened by it and peer pressure keeps anyone from dissenting. The parents are learning about global warming from their children as in 1984.

In fact it is harder for me to protest the fraud of global warming at my own school than it is to protest in the media. I run the risk of alienating myself and my children at school.

If anybody would like to send my schools a note telling them to stop teaching the global warming fraud with reasons why, I would be grateful.

Here are the principal’s emails: Vince.DiGrandi@WappingersSchools.org
Tom.Stella@wappingersschools.org

Perhaps I can do the same for someone else.

Thanks in advance.

Here’s what I recommend:  Send an e-mail to the two people listed above, and congratulate them for offering real science to their students.  Tell them you’ve heard that there is a national campaign to stop them from teaching good science, and that you support them and hope the campaign fails.

Anyone who lies to his kids about science, about the environmental issues we face, about life in general, will indeed alienate themselves from their children, if the children are lucky.  “r” wishes his kids to be taught voodoo science.  Shame on him.

I wonder what “r” thinks of his own teachers.

5 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, Cost of Green, Education, Global warming, History, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science, Teachers, Voodoo science, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Newspaper history: “Yes, Virginia,” the most popular editorial ever vouches for Santa Claus

December 20, 2009

“Papa says, ‘If you see it in the Sun, it’s so.'”

Do we stand as witnesses to the end of newspapers in America?

It’s been a grand history.  Newspapering gave us great leaders like Benjamin Franklin.  Newspapering gave us wars, like the Spanish-American War.  Newspapering gave us Charlie Brown, Ann Landers, the Yellow Kid, Jim Murray, Red Smith, Thomas Nast (and Santa Claus), the Federalist Papers, and coupons to save money on laundry soap.

It’s been a curious history, too.  An 1897 editorial vouching for Santa Claus rates as the most popular editorial of all time, according to the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

Francis Pharcellus Church, New York Sun writer who wrote "Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" - Newseum

The man who saved Christmas, at least for Virginia O'Hanlon: Francis Pharcellus Church - Newseum image

In autumn, 1897, 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon of 115 West 59th Street in New York, wrote to the New York Sun with this simple question:

“Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?”

In the age of Yellow Journalism, the fiercely competitive Sun‘s editors turned the letter to Francis Pharcellus.  He responded to little Virginia on September 21, 1897:

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

Church’s brother, William Conant Church, owned and published the newspaper.  Both had followed their father into the news business.  They co-founded The Army-Navy Journal in 1863, and went on to a series of journalistic collaborations.  Francis was 58 years old when he answered Virginia’s letter. (He died at age 67, in 1906.)

The New York Sun held down the conservative corner in New York journalism at the time, versus the New York Times and the New York Herald-Tribune.  But it also had an interesting history, to a blogger intrigued by hoaxes.  In 1835 the paper published a series of six newspaper stories falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel, a well-known astronomer, claiming to describe a civilization on the Moon — the Great Moon Hoax.  The discovery was credited to a new, very powerful telescope.

In 1844 the paper published a hoax written by Edgar Allen Poe, the Balloon Hoax.  Under a pseudonym, Poe wrote that a gas balloon had crossed the Atlantic in three days.

The Sun also featured outstanding reporting.  A 1947 and 1948  series about crime on the docks of New York City won a Pulitzer Prize for writer Malcolm Johnson.  That series inspired Elia Kazan’s 1954 movie On the Waterfront starring Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden and Lee J. Cobb.

The New York Sun ceased publication in 1950.

For all of its history, the Sun and the Churches are most remembered for that defense of belief in Santa Claus.
Virginia O’Hanlon grew up, graduated from Hunter College, got a masters at Columbia, and earned a Ph.D. from Fordham.  She taught in the New York City Public School system, from which she retired in 1959.  She died in 1971.

Birth of tradition

Columbia University was Church’s alma mater, as well as O’Hanlon’s.  Her letter and his response get a reading each year at the Yule Log Ceremony at Columbia College, along with the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”  Animated, live-acting, and other television productions have been mounted in 1974, 1991, and 2009.


Is there a Santa Claus?  Did Church write a credible defense? The text of the letter and answer, below the fold.

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4 Comments | Education, History, Hoaxes, Holidays, Journalism, Museums, Newspapers, Teachers | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

A Jonathan Alter-cation: Teacher pay-for-performance? How about the same for pundits?

November 19, 2009

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter likes charter schools, and often enough writes about them and his frustration that public schools and their teachers won’t roll over and play dead while charter schools steal money from them (my characterization, not Alter’s).

At Public School Insights, Claus von Zastrow suggested that maybe pundits like Alter ought to be subject to having their pay docked when they screw up, too.  Then he went further, and specifically criticized a recent Alter column, point for point.

A few comments down, who should show up to make his case, but Jonathan Alter.

Go watch, and learn.  Among other things, the discussion is much more civil than we usually see on blogs.  It’s a lesson for Christians and creationists especially.

It’s not much of a conflict of interest, but I have dealt with Alter before, in his previous job at The New Republic (back when it was not so much a bastion of neo-conservatism).  Alter did a major profile of Sen. Orrin Hatch.  Alter strove not to be flattering, and the biggest problem was the Vint Lawrence illustration, showing Hatch draped in the American flag as a cloak.  As I recall from those now-dusty decades, the profile wasn’t exactly correlated with the illustration on any issue.  Over the years, Alter’s been closer to correct more often than he’s been wrong, in my view — his views on charter schools being in that area where I think he errs.

Public schools have never suffered from a surplus of money.  Charter school advocates should not be allowed to steal income from public schools directly.  To shore up GM, we don’t allow GM to take a share of profit from Ford for every GM car sold.  Nor do we allow Ford to take a share of GM’s income.  Competition in education is a foolish pursuit most often, but we don’t need a competitive model that bleeds education on either end, as Alter’s advocacy favors.

In hard economic terms, free market, gloves-off, bare-fisted capitalistic competition has never been shown to work in education.  I never could figure out Milton Friedman’s advocacy for such competition since there is no case ever to be made that competition makes better schools, nor that privately-run schools work better for educating an entire nation than public schools.  I think all relevant evidence runs the other way.

Pay for performance, but links for free:

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12 Comments | Charter schools, Economics, Education, Teacher Pay, Teachers | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Education and teaching blogs, new ones, good ones

September 12, 2009

Good teachers constantly search for good ideas and effective ways to make learning fun, efficient and thorough. So the search for new material and new ideas is constant.

Same on the web.  Where are the good blogs?  Where are the useful blogs?  (Many days readers here ask those questions repeatedly.)

You’re a teacher, parent,  or administrator?  Take a look at this open thread at Clay Burrell’s Beyond Teaching (“I hate schooliness.  I love learning.”) Clay asked for recommendations on favorite blogs about 21st century teaching.

Isn’t it astounding how many new, good teacher  blogs show up every year?  I found a dozen new sources in a few minutes.

4 Comments | Brain learning, Classroom management, Classroom technology, Education, Learning, Teachers, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Hey, parents: School’s in; do you know where your kids are?

August 30, 2009

School’s in.  Most of the students are in class.

But where are their parents?

Education success often depends on the involvement of parents; a friend in Oregon alerted me to this opposite-editorial piece by Aki Mori, a teacher in Beaverton, Oregon.  Notice the comments, too (do they just grow commenters stronger in Oregon?) and Mori’s getting into the discussion.

Inter alia, he wrote:

When I spent a high school year abroad in Japan in 1986, I found myself to be nothing but a minor leaguer trying to play in the big leagues when it came to math and science — a real blow to my pride since I’d always been a first-team all-star back home in the United States. On the other hand, not a single teacher in that highly competitive school left any impression on me in terms of his or her teaching skills.

I was equally underwhelmed last summer when I was among 50 teachers from around the world who were invited to Japan to visit Japanese schools and learn about their educational system. The shocking truth is, on the basis of pure teaching talent, American teachers are superior to those in Japan. Whereas Japanese teachers are by and large more knowledgeable and stronger generalists than American teachers, they do not possess key qualities that are essential for succeeding in the American classroom such as creativity, resourcefulness and compassion.

And,

In the famous story of the little Dutch boy, a child was able to save his country from disaster when he called upon others to help plug up leaks until sufficient repairs to the structure could be made. Our American system of education is leaking in many places — how serious you feel is the threat depends largely on your location along the dike. But it is clear to me that teachers and schools cannot fix the problem alone. For better or for worse, we will always end up exactly with the system of education that we as a society deserve. Perhaps in the future enough of us will work together to deserve better than what we have today.

Discuss (in comments).

3 Comments | Education, Parents, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

2009 Poets Forum – October 15 – 17, in New York City

August 3, 2009

This sounds like fun, actually.  I wonder if they offer Continuing Education Units?

Shouldn’t schools make sure all English teachers get to make this pilgrimage at least once every four years?  Principals, are you listening?

Poets Forum Update:
New Events and More Participants Announced for 2009
Discounted passes available for a limited time at poets.org/poetsforum

Participants include Frank Bidart, Rita Dove, Lyn Hejinian,Edward Hirsch, Haryette Mullen, Sharon Olds, Ron Padgett, Carl Phillips, Robert Pinsky, Kay Ryan, Gerald Stern, Susan Stewart, Jean Valentine, Ellen Bryant Voigt, and many more.

The Academy of American Poets invites you to join us in New York City for the annual Poets Forum, a series of events exploring the landscape of contemporary poetry in America.

This year’s Poets Forum includes new talks and discussions with an array of distinguished poets, readings, publication parties, and an expanded selection of literary walking tours, led by poets, through Manhattan and Brooklyn.

“In only three years, the Poets Forum has become the poetry event of the fall, as poets (and fans of poetry) of all aesthetics celebrate and learn about what they all have in a common: a desire to give life itself a shape through language.”
– Carl Phillips

Poets Forum Reading
Thursday, October 15
7 p.m.
Join us for an unforgettable evening as some of the most acclaimed poets of our day come together on one stage to read from their latest work. Featured readers include Frank Bidart, Rita Dove, Lyn Hejinian, Edward Hirsch, Sharon Olds, Ron Padgett, Carl Phillips, Robert Pinsky, Kay Ryan, Gerald Stern, Susan Stewart, and Ellen Bryant Voigt.
The Times Center
242 West 41st Street

Poetry Walking Tours
Friday, October 16
10:30 a.m. & 2 p.m.
Take a trip down the same streets traversed by Walt Whitman, Marianne Moore, E. E. Cummings, Langston Hughes, George Oppen, and countless other poets. Walking tours will explore the literary history of Brooklyn, Harlem, the Museum of Modern Art, the West Village, and SoHo. Tour guides include poets Anselm Berrigan, Jordan Davis, Bob Holman, Katy Lederer, Greg Pardlo, Tom Thompson, and Mónica de la Torre.
Meeting locations throughout New York City.
TOURS ARE RESERVED FOR ALL-EVENTS PASS HOLDERS ONLY

NEW: Poets & Place Talk
Friday, October 16
2 p.m.
“Show Me Your Environment, and I Will Tell You Who You Are”:  Place, Pathos, and the Problems of Identity
David Baker discusses the relationship between poets and their environment.
Philoctetes Center
247 East 82nd Street
Co-sponsored by the Philoctetes Center
RESERVED FOR ALL-EVENTS PASS HOLDERS ONLY

Poets Awards Ceremony Friday, October 15 7 p.m. Celebrate contemporary poetry and recipients of the premier collection of awards for poetry in the United States. The night will include readings and presentations by Linda Gregg, Jennifer K. Sweeney, J. Michael Martinez, Harryette Mullen, James Richardson, Avi Sharon, Jean Valentine, and many others. A reception will follow.
Tishman Auditorium
The New School
66 West 12th Street
Co-sponsored by the New School Creative Writing Program

Poets Forum Discussions Saturday, October 17 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. 6 Sessions Examine the issues central to contemporary poetry as we present a day of engaging and intimate conversations with some of the most renowned poets of our time, including Frank Bidart, Rita Dove, Lyn Hejinian, Edward Hirsch, Harryette Mullen, Sharon Olds, Ron Padgett, Carl Phillips, Robert Pinsky, Kay Ryan, Gerald Stern, Susan Stewart, Jean Valentine, Ellen Bryant Voigt and other special guests.
Tishman Auditorium
The New School
66 West 12th Street
Co-sponsored by The New School Creative Writing Program

“This public forum on American Poetry is the first of its kind for our brave, wild world of poesy. We will leave no stone unturned to address all the voices and all the thoughts that beset, overwhelm, confuse, delight, and alarm us.”
– Gerald Stern

American Poet Publication Party
Saturday, October 17
7 p.m.
Reading and reception for the new fall issue of American Poet, the journal of the Academy of American Poets. Noelle Kocot, Robert Polito, and Brian Teare will read from their work. Ico Art and Music Gallery
606 West 26th Street (at 11th Avenue)
Co-sponsored by the Ico Gallery

Ticket Information
All-Events Pass: $85 before Sept 15 / $110 after
Saturday-Only Tickets: $60
Students (with current ID): Student rates are available by by phone.
Contact: Jennifer Kronovet, (212) 274-0343, ext.10.

Purchase tickets online at poets.org/poetsforum or by phone,(212) 274-0343, ext.10.

All times are subject to change. Contact Jennifer Kronovet at jkronovet@poets.org with further questions.
Academy of American Poets
584 Broadway, Suite 604
New York, NY 10012
212-274-0343

4 Comments | Creativity, Cultural Literacy, History, History and art, Literature, Poetry, Teachers, Teaching, Travel | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

New pledge hoax slams Obama, teachers and public schools

January 29, 2009

With this blog’s occasional focus on flag etiquette and my concern for faux patriotism, I’ve been getting barbs all day on a story out of Clark County, Nevada (home of Las Vegas).

It’s a threefer of hatred, slamming President Obama, teachers, and public schools, all at once.  Plus it is rather disrespectful of the U.S. flag.

The Clark County School District calls the story “bogus!!” with the exclamation points clear.  Spokesmen for the district complain they’ve been fielding calls all day, none with details.  Their check of the district’s schools turns up nothing.

The claim is that an elementary school student wants to drop out of school after being “forced” to say the Pledge of Allegiance to a picture of President Barack Obama backed by several U.S. flags.

Bloggers fume.  “The gall!”

Press spokesmen for the district say they encourage parents to call any principal of any school in the district with any complaint.  A survey of principals finds none who knew of such a complaint.

None of the bloggers bothered to check the facts, it appears.  The story so far checks out to be a hoax.  No one can name the school, no one can name the kid, no one can corroborate the story.  

U.S.. Nevada and Clark County flags fly at Moapa Valley High School in the Clark County School District, Nevada. Wikipedia image

U.S.. Nevada and Clark County flags fly at Moapa Valley High School in the Clark County School District, Nevada. Wikipedia image

Students in Clark County schools say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning as a usual practice.  School officials were unsure whether this is done by state law, district ordinance, or tradition.  Through much of the 20th century, it was common for schools to have a picture of the sitting president in every classroom.   That tradition fell to budget cuts years ago.

What motivates people to invent such stories?  What motivates bloggers to spread stories without bothering to make the simplest check to see whether the story is accurate?  One of the things that screams “Hoax!” in this story is the complete inaction of the student and parent.  Were they worked up about it, why didn’t they bother to complain?

Here’s the wall of shame, bloggers who got suckered and repeated the story without bothering to check it out (isn’t it odd that they all seem to know exactly what photo of Obama was used, and they show it on their blogs, but they don’t know where it was used?  Isn’t it odd that they use a color photo while saying it was projected on an overhead projector, which would turn that photo into gray and white mush?):

I’ll wager that’s just the tip of a very mean-spirited iceberg of calumny.

Update, January 30 – More hate-filled spreading of the story:

Still the gullible fall, on February 1:

Nearly responsible skepticism:

I spoke again with David Roddy at the Clark County School District offices.  He confirmed that as of late this afternoon (January 30) no one had stepped forward to identify the school where the event is alleged to have occurred, nor the name of anyone involved, nor any other fact that could be corroborated to vouch for the accuracy of the story.

See “7 Signs of Bogus History.”  Notice any of these characteristics in this story’s allegations?

Update, September 5, 2009: No evidence of this event has ever been produced outside of the original two anonymous blog posts.  My investigation found no such incident in any school in or around Las Vegas, nor anywhere else.  Pure hoax.

Don’t let others be misled; spread the word:

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34 Comments | Barack Obama, Flag ceremony, Flag etiquette, Hoaxes, Pledge to the flag, President Obama, Teachers, Teaching, Urban Legend, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Should teachers blog?

January 21, 2009

Teachers are public employees (most of us).  Should we blog about education and teaching?

Interestingly, there is a good case to be made that public employees have more First Amendment protection than private employees (should teachers in KIPP, charter and parochial schools blog?).

Larry Solum at Legal Theory highlights Paul Secunda’s article:

Paul M. Secunda (Marquette University – Law School) has posted Blogging While (Publicly) Employed: Some First Amendment Implications (University of Louisville Law Review, Vol. 47, No. 4, 2009) on SSRN.

I’ll wager most teachers are not common users of SSRN, so let’s steal Solum’s posting of the abstract of the article, too:

While private-sector employees do not have First Amendment free speech protection for their blogging activities relating to the workplace, public employees may enjoy some measure of protection depending on the nature of their blogging activity. The essential difference between these types of employment stems from the presence of state action in the public employment context. Although a government employee does not have the same protection from governmental speech infringement as citizens do under the First Amendment, a long line of cases under Pickering v. Bd. of Education have established a modicum of protection, especially when the public employee blogging is off-duty and the blog post does not concern work-related matters.

Describing the legal protection for such public employee bloggers is an important project as many employers recently have ratcheted up their efforts to limit or ban employee blogging activities while blogging by employees simultaneously continues to expand. It should therefore not be surprising that the act of being fired for blogging about one’s employer has even led to a term being coined: “dooced.” So the specific question that this essay addresses is: do dooced employees have any First Amendment protection in the workplace? But the larger issue examined by implication, and the one addressed by this Symposium, is the continuing impact of technology on First Amendment free speech rights at the beginning of the 21st Century.

This contribution to the Symposium proceeds in three parts. It first examines the predicament of private-sector employees who choose to blog about their workplaces. The second section then lays out the potential First Amendment free speech implications for public employees who engage in the same types of activities. Finally, the third section briefly considers a potential future trend in this context from Kentucky involving government employers banning employee access to all blogs while at work.

I’ve been wondering where are the cases of student blogs dealing with serious First Amendment issues.  I think we’re overdue for more litigation in that area.

4 Comments | First Amendment, Free press, Free speech, U.S. Constitution, Weblogs | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

And you thought your school is a lousy place to work . . .

January 11, 2009

NYC Educator tells the story:  Teachers, denied parking permits, park on the street — legally.

School day starts.  City crews show up, post brand new “no parking signs.”

Cops show up.  Cops ticket teachers’ cars.

$150 to park for the day.

Do you love education?  Do you support teachers?  Write to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  Tell him to investigate, and to establish justice:

You may contact me directly by writing, calling, faxing or e-mailing:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
City Hall
New York, NY 10007
PHONE 311 (or 212-NEW-YORK outside NYC)

FAX (212) 788-2460

E-MAIL:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html

I hope you will visit NYC.gov regularly as we continue to update the site with information about new happenings throughout New York City.

Sincerely,

Good teachers leave education every day.  When I talk to them about it, these little insults boil up, and boil over.  The small insults add up.  These are the things that, left uncorrected, hammer away at the foundations of education.  Does New York respect teachers, and want good schools?  Let New York show it.

4 Comments | Education, Education reform, Government, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Cut off your arm, move on

October 17, 2008

It will probably be several weeks before the full effects are known. Dallas ISD is about 500 teachers lighter today than it was two weeks ago. Yesterday the forced layoff notices went out, to teachers whose positions could not be saved by another teacher’s having retired, or simply resigned.

There is great irony. The year started with a mass meeting of Dallas’s 20,000 or so teachers, with an inspirational speech from a Dallas fifth grader. After nearly a decade of shaky leadership at the district office, most people thought Dallas ISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa was close to established trim in the ship of educational state. Even Dallas Mayer Tom Leppart showed up to congratulate Hinojosa and cheer on the teachers.

News of an $84 million shortfall, the result of finance and payroll offices failing to integrate their systems, followed a couple of weeks later, and it’s been a downhill slide for teachers since then. NEA and AFT affiliates point to a lot of problems in Dallas ISD financial controls. How could they not notice an $84 million hemorrhage?

(Let me note here that I’ve been at private corporations that made errors of similar magnitude. Generally the problems were dealt with quietly. “Writeoff of bad investment” was what the annual reports usually said, or something like that.)

Originally, we heard 750 teachers would go. There are about 250 schools in the district — three teachers per school. Welcome to “Survivor, Dallas ISD.” Who gets to vote whom off the island?

Morale is low. It’s been interesting to see who used the turmoil as just an excuse to get out. It’s been interesting to see how many teachers had illnesses suddenly flare up. Requests for information or work from the central offices get a lot more sneers from teachers. In the teacher’s work areas, in meetings in the hallways, cynicism rose to all time highs.

Our department of about 20 people lost two — one position that was not yet filled, and one retirement. That’s a 10% hit. Overall, our school lost just under a dozen teachers. So much for the “three per school” hope. It’s still unclear how some classes will be covered come Monday. Some schools will have to shuffle their student/class assignments completely. We’re starting over on the year, eight weeks in.

Some of the effects are predictable, some are not.

  • Special education teachers laid off complain that they are paid from federal funds. At least one will sue.
  • Students whisper to other teachers, wondering whether their favorites will go (why don’t they as the teacher?); sometimes the students hope a teacher will be terminated.
  • Already noted, illnesses appear to be up.
  • Several teachers with offers from other districts resigned, collecting a double paycheck for the next few months. Many of the teachers leaving Dallas are among the best. One we lost had just started what promised to be a brilliant career teaching math.
  • Parents are confused. We had report card/parent-teacher conferences last Monday. One family asked me whether schools would open at all come next Monday.
  • Class reshufflings yield gaps in education, when a student moves from one class where subject A had not been covered, to another class where subject A was taught in a project three weeks ago.

So, damage is done that cannot be undone. Teachers who had spirited devotion to their jobs and the district less than two months ago, hunker down.

Remember that rock climber who got his arm stuck under a falling rock? In 2003, Aron Alston amputated his own arm to get to freedom after a few days with his arm stuck.

That’s a good metaphor for Dallas schools right now. We’ve amputated most of an arm. No time to mourn. Move on. Except, there was no rock, and there was no chance to make such a clear calculation.

Ask not for whom the bells toll.

Tally from the Dallas Morning News:

The cuts

About 375: Teachers laid off Thursday, representing 3 percent of the district’s 11,500 teachers

40: Assistant principals and counselors released Thursday

152: Number of noncontract employees laid off last week, including clerks, office managers and teacher’s assistants

About 100: Number of unfilled, noncontract positions eliminated last week

62: Central office members laid off

About 100: Number of vacant central office positions eliminated

More than 200: Number of employees who have voluntarily resigned

Total: More than 1,000 total positions eliminated

Projected savings

$30 million: Expected savings from job cuts and unfilled vacancies

$38 million: Expected savings from cutting various programs throughout the district

Total: $68 million

Resources:

1 Comment | Business, Business Ethics, Education, History, Politics, Teacher Pay, Teaching, Texas, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Should a teacher let students know her voting preferences?

October 14, 2008

Law professor Stanley Fish tackled the issues around teachers wearing campaign buttons in the classroom, at his blog with the New York Times.

Fish says teachers don’t have a free speech right to wear buttons supporting their favorite candidates.

My point is made for me by William Van Alstyne, past President of the AAUP and one of the world’s leading authorities on the first amendment. In a letter to current president Nelson, Van Alstyne corrects his view that faculty “have a first amendment right” to wear campaign buttons. “I have no doubt at all,” he declares, “that a university rule disallowing faculty members from exhibiting politically-partisan buttons in the classroom is not only not forbidden by the first amendment; rather, it is a perfectly well-justified policy that would easily be sustained against a faculty member who disregards the policy.”

Right! It’s no big deal. It’s a policy matter, not a moral or philosophical matter, and as long as the policy is reasonably related to the institution’s purposes, it raises no constitutional issues at all. On Oct. 10, the United Federation of Teachers filed suit to reverse the button ban, claiming that the free speech rights of teachers had been violated. If that’s their case, they’ll lose.

I think he’s right — check out his post, and tell us what you think.

4 Comments | Campaigns, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Classroom management, First Amendment, Free speech, Freedom - Political, Politics, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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