Here is the NC Spin description of a recent debate in the North Carolina legislature:

There’s something exciting happening in North Carolina: Young, liberal African-American politicians are breaking away from teachers’ unions to support school choice.

“If you are able to look at a poor parent in the face, and you know that they don’t have the same opportunities as someone that lives across town, and say, ‘Yes, ma’am, I know that that school isn’t working for your child, but you live in that zip code and you must stay there’ — if you’re prepared to call that Democratic or progressive ideals, I’d like to challenge you on that,” a North Carolina legislator said recently while speaking in favor of a school voucher bill.

The speaker continued, “I will stand up here and fight for my constituents to have equal access and equal opportunity to choose their schools.”

To say the scene was stunning would be an understatement.

A Democratic member of the North Carolina General Assembly had just stared down the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) — the education establishment and the core of the Democratic Party.

This scene was truly stunning; but not because an African-American legislator “stared down the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE).” It was stunning because of the ignorance it represents:

1. Some state legislatures equalize funding, so children living in property poor districts have close to the same educational opportunities as children living in property rich districts.
2. North Carolina’s legislature does not (which he acknowledged) because of legislators like him.
3. Yes — a Democratic, progressive ideal is that state legislatures should provide EEO within a system of public, taxpayer-funded, K-12 schools.

But the most stunning part of all is the statement, “I will stand up here and fight for my constituents to have equal access and equal opportunity to choose their schools.” A state legislator, whose job is to provide EEO for all NC children, will fight for his constituents to choose from among the unequal schools he provides. I love irony.

According to former Vice President Dick Cheney:

The performance now of Barack Obama as he staffs up the national security team for the second term is dismal.

I love the irony of Dick Cheney denouncing what might happen in the future. Does he think we don’t know what happened in the past?

At the 1:45 mark of The Daily Show on February 12, we get Jon Stewart’s explanation for why we should not listen to Dick Cheney.

I love these stories about bad teachers (story available but not video).  This one is especially juicy because it involves the waste of more than $1 million over thirteen years. Teachers have the right to what lawyers call “due process.” In states with teacher bargaining rights, all the technicalities of this process are spelled out in the Master Contract, which is agreed to by the school board and the teacher union.

So, let’s be clear about who is responsible for this person receiving more than $1 million in salary. It is the school administration and the school boards that agreed to the Master Contract language.

Have we learned anything from this gross misuse of resources?  Apparently not. The last statement in the video is, “No major plans to change the policy have been announced.”

If you don’t need to know more than (1) we have this situation that needs to be changed, but (2) nothing is being done to change it, you can stop reading here. But if you want to know how we got to this point, here is the short story:

Collective bargaining involves lawyers in crafting language and strategies aimed at getting what they want for their side — either the school board or the teacher union. For many years school boards sought to hold down teacher salaries, so they gave teachers what they wanted in the “language” part of the Master Contract, which includes procedures for supervising and evaluating teachers. Board members agreed to many unwise language provisions so they could say to taxpayers, “I kept salaries low; teachers didn’t strike; re-elect me.”

So — to all who revere the democratic process, how is that working?  Do you like that we are paying this person more than $1 million to not teach? Do you like that we have no plans to change the policy? If not, why do you like the democratic governance of public education that created this situation?

Or is there somebody out there who wants to replace democratic governance with educational governance — governance that models the six virtues of the educated person? If not, we will continue to have uneducated school board members elected by uneducated citizens. Of course some of our most “uneducated” board members and citizens will have multiple college degrees. I love irony.

Why do I blog about politics here?  It’s because those who work in public schools know that education is directed and controlled by elected officials. As explained in TSVOTEP, however, that does not mean teachers and principals should wait for policy makers to steer public education in a positive direction. Whenever my graduate students say their superiors should read TSVOTEP, I remind them that, if we wait for central office administrators or politicians to define the educated person in six-virtue terms, we will wait forever.

Richard Elmore argues a similar point from a different angle.

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I have written about political rhetoric before.  In one blog I described the difference between liberal and conservative media this way:

The liberal media use the actual words of conservatives (sometimes out of context, sometimes not) to ridicule their ideas and philosophy. The right-wing media distorts the words (and beliefs) of liberals, and then ridicules them. . . In the language of debate competitions, they “prop up a straw man and knock it down.”

Here is the Romney campaign reaction to President Obama explaining the biggest mistake of his first term: Continue reading →

Bill Bradley’s The Journey from Here (2000), has a beautiful irony on page 96. (I am sure Bill was struck by it, too, when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa could not deny using steroids.) He wrote:

In the 1998 baseball season, we witnessed a great battle between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa for the home-run record. Each pushed the other to be better and better, and an incredible record was set.  As I watched the race, I wondered why American politics couldn’t be like that.

Dear Bill,

American politics is like that. Of all the examples you could have used to contrast with American politics, you chose one that perfectly describes American politics — both Democrats and Republicans trying to win at all costs, even if it means cheating (gerrymandering comes to mind).

I love irony — even if it’s accidental.

This morning I learned two things.

CBS Sunday Morning (May 27) reported that our interstate highways are badly in need of repair. FDR and Ike created an infrastructure that provides enormous economic benefits. Unfortunately for both businesses and customers, it has been poorly maintained since the early 1990s, the last time the federal gas tax was increased.

Second, an Asheville Citizen-Times (AC-T, May 27, p. A1) article described the city council’s process for selling the land across from the U.S. Cellular Center and St. Lawrence Basilica — an historic landmark and city treasure.  A hotel developer wants to purchase the land and so does the Diocese of Charlotte.  The first wants to build a 3-story hotel and public plaza.  The second wants to better preserve the view of the Basilica with a plaza and smaller building. The article described the complexity of the decision — explaining a timeline and a 2008 agreement with the hotel developer.

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Part 1 — Beliefs may be life’s greatest paradox.  We control them and they control us.

Part 2 — Where beliefs come from is not complicated.  They come from experience.

Part 3 — The reason we believe is simple.  Beliefs give meaning to our lives.

Part 4 — Beliefs are like rivers that cut through different terrains.  Religious beliefs are deep rivers cutting through mysterious terrain.  Political beliefs are broad, shallow rivers cutting through open, contested terrain.  And education beliefs are like either religious ones or political ones, depending on whether they are about private or public education.

My final words on beliefs come from Jonathan Swift and Cordelia Fine:

From Swift: “You cannot reason someone out of something they were not reasoned into.”

And according to Fine.

How’s this for a cynical view of science? “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

Now I know why, even though social science findings have done little to improve education, educators believe in them.  And now I know what to tell TSVOTEP readers, who ask what I am doing to help teachers and principals improve education. I am blogging, teaching, and waiting for social science believers to die.

Week of January 9, 2012

1.  Mitt Romney and I have one thing in common (CNN).  Neither of us cares about his family dog.

2. Libertarian Ron Paul and I have one thing in common (Maddow, MSNBC).  We are against the regulations we don’t like and for the ones we like.

3.  According to O’Reilly and Ben Stein on Fox, Republicans are ridiculed by talk show hosts because Hollywood is biased against Republicans, not because Republican talking points are easy to ridicule.

Democrat talking points are easy to ridicule, too; but Democrats aren’t as disciplined, unified, and uniform as Republicans.  You gotta love Republican discipline — following the orders of Rove, Cheney and Norquist for eight years, culminating in the crash of the American economy.  Republican presidential candidates are now claiming they know how to improve the economy.  I must have missed their knowledge about how to build and maintain a thriving economy, when they were in power between 2000 and 2009.

4.  Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Maher, HBO) thinks urination-gate reflects poorly on her belief that we are “the greatest country in the world.”   She condemned the Marines’ act, saying  she wants the world to know she represents many fine 18-year-olds in her Florida district.  Did she look at other countries and determine that they have fewer fine 18-year-olds or more corpse urinators?  Or is her belief that “America is the greatest country in the world” just a belief?

Just as rivers cut through different terrains, beliefs cut through different parts of our lives.  How do religious, political, and educational beliefs influence our lives?

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