I went to see Diane Ravitch speak on Friday evening, which added sparks to my ever burning flame in my rally against Oprah, and was also very moved by much of what she had to say.
I think one of the most telling things she said was what is great about American public schools: we serve as the world’s model for free education. We accept all students. We do not discriminate based on ability level, handicap, gender, race, or socioeconomic status. We accept all students, and we always will. Students will never have to enter a lottery and hope that, by chance, they will receive an education. Students will never have to compete with other students to receive an education. They are always welcome at their local public schools. And when other schools have given up on them, schools that they either need to pay for or apply to or gamble their way into, our doors will be open to them. We will stand ready to educate them no matter what the challenge.
And we will stand ready to educate them no matter what the directive is from the bureaucratic machines in Washington DC or our state capitals. I know that my colleagues and I around the country will do our best no matter how much money is taken from our budgets, how many students are crammed into our classrooms (ahem, 41!), no matter how many high stakes standardized tests we must administer and cater to. We will always accept the nation’s children, and no matter how steep the uphill battle, we will always do the best we can to provide the best education for their future success.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Oprah, I will not be silenced
I’ve said it from day one: Oprah Winfrey is a phony. That’s right, a phony.
Shame on you Oprah, for berating public education and supporting a system that’s no better off than public schools are. The “amazing” charter schools you chose to highlight are as good as those “special public schools” (as Bill Gates so eloquently put it), and are as few.
How dare she try to tell us to “save our time” in responding to her show if we’re “good” teachers. As though we have no right to respond to her propaganda for the Obama administration’s blind following of the upper class, right wing educational agenda. Well, I am not going to save it. I will not be silenced by you.
Charter schools are no better than our local public schools. As Dana Goldstein of The Nation put it (and Diane Ravitch reiterated tonight when I saw her speak live in person!): “Here's what you don't see: that four out of five charters that are no better, on average, than traditional neighborhood public schools (and are sometimes much worse).” What should we say to that, Ms. Winfrey?
“Well you don’t see other than special schools, uniformly good results. You’ll see the honor students, the high track students doing quite well,” Bill Gates said as some type of educational expert on Winfrey’s show. Gates is referencing public schools, but his statement can be easily applied to charter schools. The majority of charter schools in this country track students, and the moment they find students who do not make them look good, they kick them out. And where do those students end up? In the classrooms of their local public school. The majority of charter schools in this country do not serve students who have special educational needs. The majority of charter schools in this nation do not serve the ever-growing population of homeless children. The majority of charter schools that are well performing are “special schools,” as Oprah herself even admits later in her show: “…even though many of them [charter schools] don’t work, many of them do.” Those that do work were the few “highly performing charter schools” she used as the examples in her video montage. This statement seems to cancel itself out. If many of them don’t work, how can many of them work all at the same time?
We cannot even say the same about public schools. ONE out of every five charter schools is better than a public school. Twenty-percent. As stated earlier this evening at the Ravitch speaking event I attended: “If I knew my car was going to explode 20% of the time I planned to drive it, I would rather walk.”
Shame on you Oprah, for berating public education and supporting a system that’s no better off than public schools are. The “amazing” charter schools you chose to highlight are as good as those “special public schools” (as Bill Gates so eloquently put it), and are as few.
How dare she try to tell us to “save our time” in responding to her show if we’re “good” teachers. As though we have no right to respond to her propaganda for the Obama administration’s blind following of the upper class, right wing educational agenda. Well, I am not going to save it. I will not be silenced by you.
Charter schools are no better than our local public schools. As Dana Goldstein of The Nation put it (and Diane Ravitch reiterated tonight when I saw her speak live in person!): “Here's what you don't see: that four out of five charters that are no better, on average, than traditional neighborhood public schools (and are sometimes much worse).” What should we say to that, Ms. Winfrey?
“Well you don’t see other than special schools, uniformly good results. You’ll see the honor students, the high track students doing quite well,” Bill Gates said as some type of educational expert on Winfrey’s show. Gates is referencing public schools, but his statement can be easily applied to charter schools. The majority of charter schools in this country track students, and the moment they find students who do not make them look good, they kick them out. And where do those students end up? In the classrooms of their local public school. The majority of charter schools in this country do not serve students who have special educational needs. The majority of charter schools in this nation do not serve the ever-growing population of homeless children. The majority of charter schools that are well performing are “special schools,” as Oprah herself even admits later in her show: “…even though many of them [charter schools] don’t work, many of them do.” Those that do work were the few “highly performing charter schools” she used as the examples in her video montage. This statement seems to cancel itself out. If many of them don’t work, how can many of them work all at the same time?
We cannot even say the same about public schools. ONE out of every five charter schools is better than a public school. Twenty-percent. As stated earlier this evening at the Ravitch speaking event I attended: “If I knew my car was going to explode 20% of the time I planned to drive it, I would rather walk.”
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Poop?
It was only the third day of school, and I was already dreading fourth period. “Today will be a better day,” I told myself over and over again. They were too comfy on day one. There had been no honeymoon with this bunch. But, my students had their warm-up packets, they were to come in silently and get straight to work. But, no.
Standing in the back of the room, watching my animals trickle in (that’s what I call them, not to their faces of course, but in conversation with colleagues), I felt a strange smell start to tickle my nose. Vomit? No, not quite. Really rotten cheese? No. “It smells like SHIT in here!” Ah, yes, the unmistakable smell of shit. And there went my chance at a perfect day.
Immediately, I went into action mode. Inside I was frantic. How would I control the chaos that was taking place before my eyes? Outside, I was calm, collected, and in control. “Brenda, come here. We don’t speak like that in this room.” “Kevin, outside.” “Jorge, take out your warm up packet.” “Destiny, warm up packet.”
“Miss?”
“Yes?”
Oscar, nodding to the student next to him, whispered, “Can he go to the bathroom?”
And there it was: the overwhelming smell of poop wafting off the body of 15 year old Francisco.
“Yes.”
Once poor little poopy Francisco was out the door, the animals settled into their cage and got down to work. It was silent. I took role, and planned my speech. Hopefully I could get it out before the little poopster returned. No, that would make life too easy. He returned, still lightly smelling of poop. What was I supposed to do? I was not equipped to handle this situation. Drunk students? I can handle that. High students? I can handle that too. Pregnant girls? On it. Students on probation? Been there, done that. But poop? Isn’t that for elementary school teachers to figure out?
Poopy McPooperstein returned, and there was a light giggle in the back of the room. I delivered the death stare and it ceased. When it was clear that we were done with our warm up, I gave the speech. You know, the speech about transitioning from a child to an adult, how we all mature, and when there is a situation, adults learn how to move on, silently, and carry on with our work.
We worked our way through the agenda, into my relatively interactive activity about connotation (which helped me make up my mind that this class no longer needed interactive anything). There were many wisecracks and interruptions, and on each occasion we stopped until there was a deafening and uncomfortable silence. “Just make it until the final bell rings,” I told myself over and over again. We were finally under control when…
Yes, there’s more.
Outside my window, at the bus stop, there was a loud fight, the type of fight with a light shove and some of our language’s most colorful expletives. “Just don’t let any stray bullets come through my window,” was the only thought to go through my mind, until Jorge leapt out of his seat and started to bee-line towards the window. “Jorge, sit down!” I said in a voice that was as close to yelling as one can get without yelling. And then his body did the strangest thing. It was as though he was in The Matrix. His body wanted to continue to the window, but his mind was telling him to sit down. Two other bodies shot up, and I quickly got them to sit down. “But that’s my homey,” he protested. Good lord. People still say homey?! “They are uneducated fools, and we are here getting our educations so we don’t end up looking and sounding like the imbeciles outside, so sit down.” And of course, this is four minutes before the bell, and I just want to let these animals out of the cage to run loose on the world, but I can’t release them when the bell rings.
We make it through the end of our activity, after the bell rings, and they are dismissed. And I am left, still held captive in the cage.
Standing in the back of the room, watching my animals trickle in (that’s what I call them, not to their faces of course, but in conversation with colleagues), I felt a strange smell start to tickle my nose. Vomit? No, not quite. Really rotten cheese? No. “It smells like SHIT in here!” Ah, yes, the unmistakable smell of shit. And there went my chance at a perfect day.
Immediately, I went into action mode. Inside I was frantic. How would I control the chaos that was taking place before my eyes? Outside, I was calm, collected, and in control. “Brenda, come here. We don’t speak like that in this room.” “Kevin, outside.” “Jorge, take out your warm up packet.” “Destiny, warm up packet.”
“Miss?”
“Yes?”
Oscar, nodding to the student next to him, whispered, “Can he go to the bathroom?”
And there it was: the overwhelming smell of poop wafting off the body of 15 year old Francisco.
“Yes.”
Once poor little poopy Francisco was out the door, the animals settled into their cage and got down to work. It was silent. I took role, and planned my speech. Hopefully I could get it out before the little poopster returned. No, that would make life too easy. He returned, still lightly smelling of poop. What was I supposed to do? I was not equipped to handle this situation. Drunk students? I can handle that. High students? I can handle that too. Pregnant girls? On it. Students on probation? Been there, done that. But poop? Isn’t that for elementary school teachers to figure out?
Poopy McPooperstein returned, and there was a light giggle in the back of the room. I delivered the death stare and it ceased. When it was clear that we were done with our warm up, I gave the speech. You know, the speech about transitioning from a child to an adult, how we all mature, and when there is a situation, adults learn how to move on, silently, and carry on with our work.
We worked our way through the agenda, into my relatively interactive activity about connotation (which helped me make up my mind that this class no longer needed interactive anything). There were many wisecracks and interruptions, and on each occasion we stopped until there was a deafening and uncomfortable silence. “Just make it until the final bell rings,” I told myself over and over again. We were finally under control when…
Yes, there’s more.
Outside my window, at the bus stop, there was a loud fight, the type of fight with a light shove and some of our language’s most colorful expletives. “Just don’t let any stray bullets come through my window,” was the only thought to go through my mind, until Jorge leapt out of his seat and started to bee-line towards the window. “Jorge, sit down!” I said in a voice that was as close to yelling as one can get without yelling. And then his body did the strangest thing. It was as though he was in The Matrix. His body wanted to continue to the window, but his mind was telling him to sit down. Two other bodies shot up, and I quickly got them to sit down. “But that’s my homey,” he protested. Good lord. People still say homey?! “They are uneducated fools, and we are here getting our educations so we don’t end up looking and sounding like the imbeciles outside, so sit down.” And of course, this is four minutes before the bell, and I just want to let these animals out of the cage to run loose on the world, but I can’t release them when the bell rings.
We make it through the end of our activity, after the bell rings, and they are dismissed. And I am left, still held captive in the cage.
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