When In Doubt, Blame The Teachers

It must be the teacher's fault that little Johnnie can't perform better on tests.

Apparently, that is the battle cry of the Florida Legislature with their passage of SB 6. All of a sudden the Florida legislature decided that this (punishing teachers) is the issue to demand "accountability" on. (Heaven forbid that we have reform on Legislators' campaign financing, but I digress....)

When it comes to funding education in Florida, we must have "In Jeb We Trust Reform"--damn the torpedos-type reform, without fact-finding, and with no amendments allowed, ram-it-through "reform." (Hey, and, if they happen to rough up or bust up the Teacher's Union in the process, so much the better.)

But, in the end, don't a handful of elected officials know a helluva lot more about education than thousands of teachers and professional educators? The Legislators certainly think so.

Is it the Teacher's fault that Johnnie's parents let him skip school frequently?

Is it the Teacher's fault that Johnnie has trouble focusing because he is falling asleep in class?

Is it the Teacher's fault that Johnnie is falling asleep in class because his family is now sleeping in a car after losing their home in foreclosure?

Is it the Teacher's fault that Johnnie is distracted because he is living in a shelter with his mother and 2 sisters who had to flee their home and leave all of their belongings behind in the middle of the night to escape an abusive father or boyfriend?

Is it the Teacher's fault that Johnnie doesn't do his math homework because he prefers going baseball practice after school, and his parents encourage him to work harder on his baseball skills than his life skills?

Is it the Teacher's fault that they don't have sufficient funding to do the things in their classroom that will excite children to learn?

Is it the Teacher's fault that the Teacher must use her own funds or beg for donations from others to provide adequate materials and supplies for her classroom?

Is it the Teacher's fault that Johnnie decided on the night before the FCAT to stay up until 4 AM trying to reach the 4th level of his favorite video game?

Is it the Teacher's fault that Johnnie has discovered drugs and alcohol after school and has made new friends that tell him he doesn't need to go to school?

Is it the Teacher's fault that Johnnie is living in his 6th Foster home, while there is a Lesbian couple who both have Master's Degrees in education who are ready, willing and able to adopt Johnnie and provide a stable, supportive home for him, but cannot because Florida is the only state in the nation that prevents gay adoptions?

And yet, this "reform" will hold the Teacher responsible for Johnnie's performance--no matter what else is going on in Johnnie's life.

There is no research to show that SB 6 will improve educational learning in any way. It will, however, launch a cottage industry in test preparing and test grading. (Is Neil Bush still in that business? Just asking.....)

What continually amazes me is that the Florida legislature doesn't ever look to other states with higher national test scores for guidance. When your state is always at the bottom of the nation in educational achievement, and your state has steadily had declining test scores in the ACT and the SAT (when compared to the national average), and that decline has continued each and every year since the FCAT was instituted, you'd think that we'd copy someone else who is doing it much better.

Jeb! brought us the FCAT and a Governor-appointed Educational Commissioner and Governor-appointed State Board of Education (comprised of business leaders supportive of the Governor). He brought us vouchers that the Supreme Court struck down. He has his fingerprints all over SB 6. This law will place more authority in the Governor's appointed friends.

In Jeb We Trust? I don't think his system has worked very well over the last 10 years. If it had, our test scores would be rising. Let's look elsewhere for guidance based upon something that has a proven track record.

Don't take it out on the Teachers. We were all inspired by teachers. They deserve our support.

Write to Governor Crist TODAY and urge him to VETO SB 6! HE MUST ACT BY NEXT FRIDAY OR IT WILL BECOME LAW WITHOUT HIS SIGNATURE.

Our Words Are Dividing Our Nation

Much of the opposition to the new national health insurance law is related to the words used to describe it.

It’s been called “Obamacare” (with all the inferences to the Armageddon, the Anti-Christ and Death Panels) and a “Redistribution of Wealth” by those with political motives to undermine it—or to gain political advantage for the next election.

But, it is important to look closely at the words that are used daily in our political discourse. We need to look a lot deeper for some substance and to see if we can find some areas of agreement for a change.

Let’s start with the phrase “Redistribution of Wealth.” Conservatives like to say that the new health care plan is a Redistribution of Wealth, designed to transform the United States health care system into a socialistic system like they have in European countries.

Isn't every provision in the tax code (including deductions and tax credits) a "re-distribution?"

Words are important in framing opinions. In recent years, words have been carefully phrased as “talking points” to make us more divided, and in some instances more callous.

"Socialism" includes the public library, public schools, police force, military spending, Social Security, Medicare, and other "entitlement programs"--another carefully-crafted phrase.

"Welfare" is always a derogatory term attached to poor people, but not to corporations like AIG. Isn't it "socialism" to give "corporate welfare" to AIG or to Citibank? And, is it "Corporate Welfare" or "Economic Development Incentives" when State and local governments give exemptions from property tax to Walmart to open a new store, but don't give the same incentives to the small business owner who owns the local hardware store?

"Redistribution of wealth" is a think tank talking-point phrase carefully designed to convey the political message that your money is wrongfully being taken away from you (without consideration of the fact that you wouldn't be who you are or that you wouldn't have gotten where you are today without the "socialistic" things mentioned above).

Warren Buffett has said that he is willing to pay taxes on his enormous wealth because he recognizes that he would never have been able to accumulate his wealth anywhere else but in this country that provided all of the things that he couldn't ever provide for himself.

In the context of "redistribution of wealth," the question to be asked philosophically as a country and as a society is--are we going to have any government programs to assist disadvantaged people who are our fellow citizens--even those who are very different than us? (E.g. the elderly, the disabled, and those who may need a safety net.)

We seem to forget history. Before Medicare, the elderly were the largest segment of people in poverty in the country. Do we want to have no health care system available for people who are too old to work?

So, if we agree that is important in our society, let's figure out how to fund it and how to fix the parts that are broken. If we called these "Charitable Programs" instead of "Entitlement Programs" would people start to discuss them differently?

And, are we going to have any programs (like unemployment compensation) that assist people who are hard-working and pay taxes, but get laid off because of a downturn in the business cycle?

And what about the children born to an unwed teenager? As the corollary to the right to life movement, should we provide prenatal care and proper nutrition (for proper brain development) and quality health care as a basic human right until the poor child is old enough to pull herself up by her bootstraps and fend for herself (or join the military to go fight for us--which we never seem to have any objections to paying for)?

Is spending money on foreign military bases and nation building wars more important than spending it back home on the families of our wounded soldier who suffered a debilitating brain injury in Iraq and his wife has to quit her job to take care of him and their 3 kids?

And if we want to end the cycle of welfare dependency, how are we going to create enough jobs here to enable everyone who wants to work to be able to work? Are we going to enact laws that make it "advantageous" for corporations to stop sending jobs overseas? (because it is clear that corporations won't regulate themselves).

There needs to be more of a focus on reinvestment in manufacturing here--for the long term, without the focus on whether or not the company hits their quarterly earnings projections and disappoints Wall Street talking heads and pundits. There needs to be a plan to create employment for the middle class.

I was hopeful that we'd start that process by having something similar to the Apollo Project to pursue alternative forms of energy-- making solar panels and windmills, developing biofuels, (and ending Ethanol subsidies) for starters, but apparently, those are all non-starters because the oil companies control our politicians and we can't seem to agree on what day it is much less anything so bold.

Talk about real trickle-down economics, middle class factory workers spend money on haircuts at the corner barber shop and get pizza and beer at the corner restaurant, and they all spend money at the local stores, and all pay taxes, etc.).

To me, this type of investment in our future is more important than getting a cheaper shirt at Walmart that is made in China, or is more important than eliminating capital gains taxes for personal wealth building as Newt Gingrich proposed this week when I heard him speak in St. Petersburg. (How is the elimination of the capital gains tax going to make the deficit disappear or pay down the national debt?)

I increasingly see more divisiveness and less willingness to discuss these societal questions—because of the words we use.

We are close to the tipping point thanks to: "Think tanks" created only to advance the careers of politicians interested in their own personal political power (who, with more and more frequency seem to pass laws to benefit large corporations); cleaver slogans and divisive language; citizens that seem to be more interested in pop culture than our future; and 24-hour Cable TV shows and talk radio.

It's hard to choose which of these may be the death knell for our cohesiveness as a country. All I know is that it seems to get worse every day.

We need to stop talking in sound bites and need to begin to discuss what we agree upon as core values.

We need to decide soon what kind of country we will have, or whether we will have one at all.