What Do You Have to Lose? Maybe Not as Much as You Fear

covered wallsCovering the walls for test #2,520?

(Readers, please pass this post on, an offering of hope to the stunned.)

I thought many people were underestimating Trump’s appeal, but I am surprised* that he won. Considering that he easily got the votes he needed, despite almost universally negative press coverage, I’d have to say that the electorate just screamed. My father regards Trump as our last, best hope, his version of an Earthly Jedi Knight who might start unravelling the mess around him, and now I guess we will see.

To my many teacher readers, I’d like to say, “Take a deep breath, go out with family or friends for a delicious dinner, and don’t let doomsayers pull you down.” I expect a lot of doomsayers to be wailing in the teacher’s lounges this week. I belong to a number of teacher’s groups and they have been — at least on the surface — strongly for Hillary and the democrats. In one group, I watch hostile teachers rudely and nastily push a woman out of the group for supporting Trump.

But before we decide some ax has fallen, let’s take a few moments to view the current situation.

Unions are being gutted across America. Job security for older teachers has become a thing of the past in many areas. I talked a few weeks ago with a woman in her sixties who had once been teacher of the year in her district, but who had been let go with everyone over fifty in a purge. She is in her third year in a new district that plans to close schools and she is scared. What if this job goes away?

Crime has gone up dramatically in some inner-city areas, with case closure rates falling. Unemployment for youth in some areas is running over 50%. While trying to nail down the exact numbers becomes another adventure in fuzzy, social science statistics, I can safely say that young black men suffer from lower graduation rates, higher unemployment, and higher incarceration rates than other racial, age or gender group in this country. They are angry. Unsurprisingly, they can be hell-on-wheels in the classroom.

In the meantime, teachers are losing countless hours to meetings and professional developments meant to instruct them in learning new standards, and government data demands. These teachers are trying to teach angry young African-American men and other students who somehow missed the bus to the well-supplied, wealthy zip code less than twenty miles away. No Child Left Behind data demands have done enormous damage to education across the nation, leaving glutted Departments of Education in all 50 states, departments that had to ramp up hiring to supervise NCLB, but never had to ramp down. Instead, we see the creation of new laws and standards that will ensure continuing employment in these Departments of Education.

Eduhonesty: Departments of Education are not teacher’s friends. Lately, they sometimes join in the witch hunts for those “underperforming” teachers who are virtually always found in poor, struggling districts. The best way to avoid being an underperforming teacher? Go to work in the zip code with money, support and, most importantly, college-bound kids from motivated families, families who started the college fund for little Anne-Marie before she was born.

So let me offer a possible olive-branch of hope: Those Departments of Education would never have gone away or possibly even seen lay-offs under Hillary. Those new laws and standards would have kept coming. More power would have been concentrated above, rather than in the hands of teachers. Hillary believed government should fix our problems. That view tends to translate into more and greater government intervention in the classroom.

But maybe government should get the hell out of the way instead and just let teachers teach.

We don’t know what’s coming but, to parrot what Trump said to African-Americans who cannot even safely let their children walk to school in many areas, what do we have to lose?

Will continuing the educational bureaucracy of 2016 be to teachers’ advantages? Ask yourself the next time you spend an afternoon learning how to do a new math that your children’s parents can’t do either, the next week you spend 10 hours in meetings that suck away all your planning time, the next Saturday when you can’t prepare lessons because you have to make data spreadsheets showing student benchmark test progress results for another meeting that will suck up half- or a full-day of professional development — a day which a decade ago might have been given to you as time to help get your report cards finished and room spruced up for the next season. Ask yourself, did we really need more of the same, a continuation of the big-government legacy and oversight that led us into this mess?

We don’t know where we are going right now. But suppose Trump starts peeling back the layers of bureaucracy that have been slowly strangling education. That’s possible. Try to hope.

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*I am not shocked by the election results. I always thought the polls were wrong. They did not jive with my conversations and I was clear that many Trump supporters were avoiding expressing their support to duck fights.

 

 

But the Pension Fund Was Just Sitting There

Readers, thank you for joining me. Sometimes, I feel a bit mystified by you. For one thing, this blog lacks a central theme other than education, and education has become a sprawling beast, its tentacles wrapped around so many topics that my own blog can make me dizzy. I am not preparing a reliable series of delicious or not-so-delicious crock-pot meals here.

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Today, I am straying into finances. I’ve been here before. Sometimes I think I ought to dedicate this blog to finances, but finances bore me. Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a corporate and municipal bonds analyst looking at a portfolio of municipal bonds that added up to about $500,000,000. I prefer writing. I prefer teaching. Heck, I’d prefer being a barista. Still, I have to stray into finances today.

The following chart offers a potent example of the problem. Admittedly, Chicago has become a financial black hole, but the same can be said of Detroit, with Los Angeles is not running far behind. Many school districts are digging holes by floating bonds and surviving with the aid of loans that will eventually have to be repaid. Parts of Michigan have become genuine financial wastelands. From the CPS article, “Chicago Public Schools Fiscal Year 2015 Budget” at http://cps.edu/FY15Budget/Pages/debtmanagement.aspx: \

DebtManagement_1(Click on graph for better view.)

The above graph shows debt service payments for outstanding CPS bonds, money owed to bondholders. The graph does not include any impact from future bonds issued to further support future capital budgets, such as the $800,000,000 bond that CPS wants to issue next year to cover the next year’s financial challenges. General State Aid and PPRT (Personal Property Replacement Taxes) are among the revenues used to pay bondholders. GSA and PPRT revenues needed to fund debt will increase significantly – from $247 million in FY15 to $434 million by FY17, staying at approximately the same level through 2030. Money used to pay off debt holders is directly taken away from possible instructional and other immediate uses.

For this year, Heather Gillers, Chicago Tribune, reported that on February 3, 2016,

Chicago Public Schools managed to borrow $725 million Wednesday by promising investors extraordinarily high interest rates.

Bonds issued by taxing bodies like CPS are normally considered sound investments, but that’s not the case with a school district weighed down by debt, labor uncertainty and political tumult, one market analyst said.

“This is not a typical municipal bond,” said Matt Fabian, a partner at Concord, Mass.-based Municipal Market Analytics. “You can’t go into it assuming that you know what’s going to happen or that you will almost surely get your money back. There is a large degree of speculation.”

Documents released early Wednesday afternoon show CPS sold 28-year bonds at yields of 8.5 percent. Before the district pulled its bond issue last week, it was offering 25-year bonds at 7.75 percent. By comparison, when the state of Illinois sold bonds earlier this month, yields were 4.27 percent for 25-year bonds.

Bond issues are made up of individual bonds that mature at different times. Borrowers pay higher rates on bonds that mature in later years.

Moody’s Investors Service rated this bond issue four levels below junk bond status. That’s why the interest rate has to be so high. When risk is high, return has to be high or people do not invest. What is the risk? CPS may have to default on these bond payments to bondholders. The Chicago Public Schools are broke, broker, brokest — and have been for some time, which is what these bond issues are about. Another risk that Chicagoans are running — and many do not know about the landmine underneath their schools — is that law requires large tax increases if CPS cannot meet its obligations with funds available.

Using debt to fund schools will not solve CPS’ long-term financial crisis. The district is only digging itself into a deeper hole, spending money to borrow money. Millions of dollars are slated to pay for borrowed money — millions that cannot pay for teachers, schools and educational supplies.

Eduhonesty: As the election comes near its close, I thought I would take today to emphasize that politicians promising to provide all the services to all the people are simply lying. Bills come due, even for governments.

 

 

 

Another Reason Not to Blame Teachers

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Or maybe we should stop trying to figure out who to blame. Pointing fingers helps no one. We are spending too much time on accountability and not enough on helping children. Our homes and families are changing. We need to figure out how to adapt to the families and children of 2016.

Eduhonesty: If our old models are not working, how can we intelligently improve those models? I’ll start with just one suggestion: Maybe 900 hours at school are no longer enough.

When the Walking Dead Invade their Sleep

(Spoiler alert for The Walking Dead.)

 

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The pot’s about to call the kettle black. I am hardly the person to protest zombie shows. I watched The Walking Dead until a few screaming nightmares made me decide to find viewing alternatives. I am watching Fear the Walking Dead because I got sucked in by the first few episodes. I am waiting for the return of Colony, too. Post-apocalyptic, end-of-the-world drama happens to be a favorite genre of mine.

So I’ll confess to feeling hypocritical as I write this post. But I am concerned at the number of students who seem to be watching with me. As I tried to explain a lesson while substituting for a drama teacher, I needed a common reference point. I tried a few current shows. Nope. Then I went straight to Fear the Walking Dead. I know from experience that if a teacher wants to share TV viewing moments with students, The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead are great launch points — or gangplanks if you choose. Connect! My student and I discussed character motivation. What did Victor see in Nick? Why? What was Victor’s motivation in saving the Clarks? Why as actors would we want to know these background details? How might the backstory affect our performance?

But I am talking with 7th graders here. I was talking with 8th graders about the same show last year, lamenting with a favorite student the probable death of a prescient bit character. Within the middle school demographic, these are popular shows.

Are parents watching these shows with their children? Are they aware that the romantic, heroic and popular Glenn was just graphically beaten to death with a barbed-wire-covered baseball bat, while his beloved Maggie watched in helpless horror? TV shows shape children’s worlds. What visions of the present and future are we sharing with our children? Or worse, not sharing with our children?

Eduhonesty: How many children in America watched Glenn die? I shudder to think. The Walking Dead is the No. 1 series on TV among 18-to-49-year-olds.  Over 12,400,000 people viewed the episode shown during the last week in October, many of them younger than 18. Among other sources, Walmart and Amazon sell “Lucille,” the barbed-wire covered bat pictured above.

What are our children and students watching? With all the electronics scattered throughout houses today, parents must remain especially alert. If fifteen-year-old Aidan is babysitting nine-year-old Trent, I would not want them both viewing Glenn’s horrific death. I loved Preacher last season but, readers, if your child or your students are watching the show, I suggest you take in a few episodes. Or go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preacher_(TV_series) and read the content of those episodes. “Gore, glee and guile,” as Rotten Tomatoes says, captures this clever, funny series in a few words.*

At a certain point, we all have to let go and let our children immerse themselves in Criminal Minds if they choose to do so, but I wrote this post because I think the sheer volume of content out there sometimes overwhelms efforts to select viewing choices for children. I also think teachers might sometimes want to step into the gap during conferences or phone calls to say, “Mike certainly does talk about The Walking Dead a lot.” Mike may be watching his favorite shows privately to avoid upsetting his parents, for one thing, streaming content onto his laptop in his room.

The “What are your favorite shows?” conversation should happen regularly today, at home and even in classrooms. At home, the “You have to make sure your little brother does not see that show. It’s too scary!” conversation may have to follow. I have had too many students ask me, “Do you think zombies are real, Ms. Q?”, followed by the question, “But what if the virus got loose. Then could there be zombies?”

Young kids don’t understand chemistry and medical limitations, but they are aware that zombies have been proliferating on large and small screens across the globe. Classrooms will erupt into disputes as students take sides on the possibility of zombies. In these times, brain-eating viruses that can leave animated corpses have become perfectly plausible to many students.

I remember spending elementary-school years terrified that I would be attacked by sudden lightening in my bedroom, lightening that would make me disappear forever. I kept looking toward — or trying not to look toward — the corners of my room. The source of my irrational fear was a mediocre, black and white Outer Limits episode starring Donald Pleasance. But small children believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. They cannot separate fictions from reality easily. They may not talk about their fears. I do not know if I ever asked my mom or dad about the lightening. I just kept peeking at corners of the ceiling, hoping not to see flashes of light.

Project Runway, anyone? I believe we need to rein in the apocalypse. The death and mayhem have gotten out of hand. If I were a small child today, I’d probably be stacking heavy items on a chair in front of my bedroom door to stop the dead from walking in while I slept, tearing out my throat, and then leaving me to reanimate as a shambling horror of blood and teeth.

Children’s imaginations should not be underestimated.

*I already said I had dubious taste in entertainment. But I also bought Disney movies for my kids when they were little. What’s good for the eccentric, retired teacher may not be good for elementary or middle school boys and girls.

 

 

One Common Core Test Does Not Fit All- Especially “Marlena”

 

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(Click on the pic for a better view.)

She gave it a shot, this pretty, young Hispanic girl with her long dark hair and friendly smile. She worked through the hour while I subbed. Others in the class completed this paper. One boy did not even try the more difficult side. “I don’t know how,” he said.

The girl is in 10th grade. The boy is in 11th grade. I passed out that paper throughout the day. Most of these bilingual high school students could not do the more difficult side. I’ll grant that a few may have been getting out of work by dishonestly claiming ignorance of a process that looked like too much effort for them.

I’ll also grant that readers who wonder why high school students should be doing this multiplication worksheet have grasped a serious issue. Was this the best use of students’ time? But a sub is supposed to deliver the lesson plan handed to her and pass out the worksheets the teacher has prepared. I did exactly that.

It’s worth pausing to think about the fact that we keep adding more and more outside responsibilities to our teachers’ workloads, more meetings, professional development, and committee work that result in subs in classrooms. The best that will happen with any substitute will be that no learning time gets lost, thanks to thoughtful advance planning combined with strong efforts by a capable substitute. That’s the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is a wasted hour, possibly even a mistaught hour, as the sub blows off the lesson plan or tries to do math he or she does not understand.

I would call this lesson a loss of instructional opportunity. I talked with a few classes as students worked on multiplication sheets. Apparently these students are taught multiplication regularly. (Sigh.) But I cannot solve any underlying problems in my one day in the classroom and I was expected to make students work on this sheet, and I was expected to turn in all student worksheets at the end of the day.

I would argue that this example could be added to the list of reasons why we ought to stop sending teachers out of the classroom for data meetings, curriculum meetings, Common Core standard meetings, etc. during the school year. The classroom teacher in this example may be doing a better job than I suspect from the worksheet. He may have chosen this activity because he was sure that all of his students could at least do the easy side, which required multiplying large numbers by single digits. He may have been trying to keep all students occupied to prevent disciplinary issues and help me out. I don’t know.

I do know I wasted the time of many students — both those who could do the worksheet and therefore did not need to do the worksheet, and those who could not do the worksheet and therefore needed instruction rather than a worksheet.

Teachers should be in the classroom. I taught this multiplication to some of the students in that day’s classes, but those students deserved better. They deserved to be taught math in incremental steps by a teacher who could focus on their individual needs.

Eduhonesty: I like to sub for half-day assignments and all these meetings and professional development seminars are making life easy. Click. Click. I tell the software I want an assignment. Today, I started at 11:00 and ended at 2:30 on a warm, bright, sunny day. I stopped for squash soup, walked the dog, and went to the movies to see Dr. Strange.

With a few rare exceptions, though, those proliferating meetings and seminars are not helping America’s students learn math.