It's a fairly complex sentence, so that might confuse some of the Teabaggers, but then, they would have been confused by clear, rational, independent thought, regardless.

With the nomination of Arne Duncan as potential Secretary of Education, the idea of “merit pay” has come to the forefront of most discussions. As someone who has been teaching since 1990, I want to point out that any argument in favor of merit pay for teachers is based on several faulty premises. First and foremost is the assumption behind all merit pay arguments—that teachers make minimal effort to help students learn, so some kind of extra financial incentive is necessary to get them to do their job. For the thousands of teachers who regularly put in 60–80 hours a week—despite being paid 15% less than comparable professionals, according to the Economic Policy Institute—this assumption is not only incorrect, it’s insulting.

The other fallacy at the root of the merit pay argument is that the educational profession is fundamentally the same as a business. This could not be further from the truth. An employee in the for-profit industry will service a handful of clients at a time, and it is a given that those clients want the product being offered. A teacher, on the other hand, must service 20–40 “clients” each hour, and may have more than 100 clients in a day. If the teacher is lucky, a majority of those clients actually wants the product enough to cooperate with the teacher.

Unfortunately, there will always be people who don’t want the product. In the business world, an employee and a disinterested party would have no further contact, but in education, unwilling clients will continue to sit in on every presentation. These clients may simply ignore the teacher, but sometime they will work to sabotage the presentation, preventing other clients from receiving service. The teacher can remove the saboteurs temporarily, but they will be back for future presentations. Not only must a teacher constantly work with the saboteurs, but he or she is also considered responsible for the education of the interested clients, the apathetic clients, and the saboteurs equally.

An even more basic difference between business and teaching involves the philosophy underlying each enterprise. The for-profit industry follows the "Me Paradigm." A business is structured hierarchically: Employees of any company are on a ladder, and the goal of each employee is to move himself closer to the top of that ladder. Fellow employees may be friends, but they are also competitors for that next rung. Ultimately, each employee looks out for himself first.

Unlike the business model, the teaching profession is based on the "We Paradigm." A school is structured communally: Teachers share the common goal of helping all students achieve their greatest potential. Unlike a business, it is not a Darwinian competition in which only the strong survive; it is a familial system in which meager resources are shared so that all may move forward, however slowly. It is not profit that motivates educators; it’s altruism.

Perhaps this altruism is what makes teaching so difficult for people living in a materialistic society like America to understand. Forcing the teaching profession into a business model will never be successful, because the foundations of the two enterprises are not just different, they are diametrically opposed. A model created for an organization whose primary focus is material gain—in the form of profit or power—will never fit an organization dedicated to helping fellow human beings.

The for-profit world needs to understand that money is not everyone’s motivation. Teachers aren’t in it for the paycheck (although it certainly comes in handy when paying the bills). We teach because we care. We love knowledge. We love learning. We love our students. No amount of flinging cash at random teachers based on arbitrary test scores is going to change that.

And does America really want teachers who are motivated by money? The recent economic debacle, brought about by money-motivated individuals, is proof positive that the Me Paradigm isn’t in our country’s best interests. Why would we want to force it on our children?

Senator Clinton's recent comments indicating her willingness to use nuclear weapons got me thinking about the first, last, and only time human beings had done such a thing to their fellow men. I dug out my dog-eared copy of John Hersey's Hiroshima and spent some time reminding myself what happens to the victims of such an attack. Thought I'd share some excerpts with folks.










There are many passages with far more gruesome descriptions of the victims, but these struck me as good examples to highlight the human cost. Hiroshima is a fantastic read, and I'd recommend it to everyone. Most libraries and bookstores carry it. Just be sure you get the newer version, with "Chapter 5: The Aftermath," which was written 25–30 years later.

I got up early this morning—4:15 a.m. PDT—so that I could watch Barack Obama's speech in its entirety before work. I must say that it impressed the Hell out of me, but not for the reasons one might expect.

Yes, Senator Obama was refreshingly blunt and straightforward about the complexity of racial issues in America. Yes, he addressed said issues equitably, from multiple sides and through the lens of history. Yes, his pinning responsibility on the media, corporate greed, and lobbyists for their divisive tactics was vindicating. Yes, his message of unity, regardless of race, was emotionally uplifting. But none of these were the factor that grabbed me as an American citizen.

What lit up my brain—literally—was the fact that the man did not talk down to us, his fellow citizens. He spoke as if those listening were intelligent, rational creatures, capable of critical thought and complex problem solving. He spoke to us as partners in a participatory democracy—which is exactly what we are. This kind of speech is the reason Jefferson and the Founding Fathers thought universal pubic education was so important to a democratic republic. They expected every citizen to be able to understand the complex issues that faced our nation in order to make rational, informed decisions when voting.

In this day and age of sound bite media and the politics of fear and anger, the expectations of the Founding Fathers have been gradually degraded. The televised news media insults the intelligence of American citizens by appealing to their instincts and emotions, rather than their intellect. Far too many politicians go along with this emotional manipulation, aiding and abetting in the degradation of our participatory democracy. From a neurological perspective, these "ooga booga" tactics are designed to appeal to the amygdala, the brain's seat of instinct and emotional response. Very little in politics is designed to appeal to the frontal cortex, the brain region responsible for logic, rational thought, and problem solving.

Obama's speech was a welcome reversal of this destructive trend. I can only hope it is only the first of more such "frontal cortex" politicking.



In the interest of full disclosure, I support neither Obama nor Clinton at this time. My first two choices have dropped out, and I am currently debating writing in one or the other of them when Oregon finally has its primary in May.

One of the mandates of the so-called No Child Left Behind Act is regular testing of all students, regardless of background, and punative consequences for the individual schools and districts whose numbers “don’t add up.” The basis for the testing is the argument of “accountability.” According to politicians, most of whom have not been in a classroom since they themselves were students, repeatedly testing students is the best way to determine which teachers are doing their jobs and which are not.

Most teachers revile the test score approach, because it ignores the numerous factors in a child’s life that can affect test scores far more than the relatively small amount of time he sees his teacher. Has he had breakfast? Is English spoken at home? Does the family read regularly? Does the child actually have a home? Do his parents give a damn about education? Or do they see schools as free daycare? Despite the myriad factors which can undermine all a teacher’s hard work in the classroom, proponents of testing are adamant that “numbers don’t lie,” and that testing is the only way to “hold teachers accountable.” Any teacher who dares to argue against it is dismissed as a mediocre civil servant who fears to lose the gravy train of an easy government job.

Hysterical laughter is my first reaction to the sadly all-too-common belief that teachers are a bunch of slackers who chose the profession because it’s an easy way to make a living. My second reaction is to give such ignoramuses a rude hand gesture and a quote worthy of Tony Soprano: “Yeah, I got yer cushy job right heah.” My third reaction is to say, “Spend a year teaching in a public school classroom and then say that to my face.”

Unfortunately, none of these arguments would work, because none of them address the beloved numbers so adored by the “accountability” set. (I suspect an inappropriate love of money has created in them a fetish for numbers, but that’s just me. It could be that they were frightened by a complex situation as a child and turned to numbers as a concrete source of comfort.) Since these people are so fascinated with test scores and data, here are a few more numbers they might get off on.

The average school year includes 180 student-contact days. Secondary-level teachers see their students for about an hour a day. So assuming there will be no absences, no passes to the bathroom or the nurse’s office, no fire drills, no lock-out drills, no lock-down drills, no earthquake drills, no assemblies, etc., that’s 180 hours per year. A non-leap year of 365 days is 8,760 hours long, so 2% of every year is dedicated to teaching a child a specific subject, such as science or math or history.

Even if one computes using only a child’s waking hours—say 16 out of 24 —the percentage of secondary teacher-influence time per year is still only 3%. By NCLB’s philosophy, the teacher alone is responsible for a child’s success or failure to learn the subject matter in that 3% of contact time per year, regardless of what persons, places, things, or ideas influence said child the other 97% of the year. If test scores condemn students as “underperforming,” then the teacher and the school will be “held accountable,” which can mean anything from individual job loss, to school restructuring, to denial of federal funds.

Of course, the 3% scenario doesn’t take into account class size. A teacher has 3% of a year to influence not just one child, but usually 20–30. In a 60 minute period, that averages out to 2–3 minutes per child per day, which calculates to 360–540 minutes per year. So far from 180 hours of influence per year, suddenly the teacher is down to 6–9 hours of influence per student per year. This means teachers are being “held accountable” based on .10–.15% of student-contact time per year, regardless of who or what influences the children the other 99% of the year.

Now elementary teachers see their students about six hours a day, but the numbers still don’t add up. Even if we don’t divide out per student per day, an elementary teacher is still interacting with his or her students only 19.7% of any given year. That means an “underperforming” elementary teacher stands to be reprimanded or lose her job because she has no control over what the child is doing, hearing, seeing, or saying the 80.3% he or she is not in the classroom.

Given these numbers, my question is: When is that 80% going to step up and agree to be held accountable? Why are teachers shouldering 100% of the responsibility for our nation’s children? In retrospect, the Tony Soprano response actually does seem appropriate.

Hey, America. I got yer accountability right heah.

The following is a LTTE I sent to my local paper. I know it will offend some, but what can you do?



I think if supporters of the different candidates look at themselves honestly, they might admit the possibility of adolescent behavior in some of their own words and actions. It seems that a great deal of the bad feeling stems from the media working in the "tale-bearer" capacity, and that people are allowing themselves to be emotionally manipulated, rather than taking a step back and looking things dispassionately. Obviously everyone has a preference, but if we can discuss things based on the issues rather than whose "clique" an individual is a part of, things would be a lot more productive, both here at DU and in our lives outside the Internets.

Just my .02. Flame away if you must. I work with 13-year-olds all day, so my skin is thick.

The middle school at which I teach is currently in the midst of a dust-up over prep time during parent conferences. Many years ago, we had to teach a full day, then stick around for four more hours for evening conferences, then show up bright and early the next morning for another full day of conferences. Our union fought to change this so that we would not have to teach on the day of conferences. As it is now, we have prep time until noon, then have conferences until 8:00. We come back the next morning and have conferences until noon. It still makes for a long day, but at least we aren't being required to converse intelligently with parents after a day of corralling their kids!

Now they want to change the schedule so that we have two evening conference periods, in order to accommodate parents who work during the day. To do so would once again require us to give up the hard-won prep time.

Our union reps have pointed out the history of our current schedule and the potential hazards involved with willingly giving up plan time. One of our teachers sent out a staff-wide email that such an argument was a "red herring," and that the plan time was unnecessary and was only implemented for the benefit of "teacher convenience," rather than willingness to accommodate the parents. The entire gist of his message was that if we really cared about the job, we would be willing to put up with a little inconvenience.

I'm not sure how others reacted, but I took great offense to his email. To me, it implied that those who wanted the plan time were somehow less dedicated than those who were willing to give it up. It perfectly illustrates one of the primary problems with public education in America: Many teachers are willing to give up their professional skill and time for little or no compensation, which sends society the message that what we do has little value, monetary or otherwise.

The best analogy, to me, seems to be that of a co-dependent relationship. As long as one party is willing to put up with ill-treatment and disrespect, the other party will never change for the better. The abuse will continue, and the system will stay broken.

Am I overreacting here?

Every year I teach a unit on the Holocaust to my eighth graders, and every year I, like the kids, learn something new. This year, in encouraging them to seek out and read other sources about Anne Frank, I discovered Anne Frank Remembered, a memoir by Miep Gies, who was integral in hiding the members of the Secret Annex. Miep’s words struck me, not so much for the obvious comparisons between the Bush Administration and the Nazi occupiers of Holland, but because of the eerie parallels between the official and unofficial dissemination of information, both then and now.

According to Miep, soon after the Nazis conquered Holland, “The official radio now played nothing but German music all day. The movie theaters showed only German films, so naturally we stopped going to the movies.” (58) How similar to our own predicament today! The mainstream media, for the most part, broadcasts little but pap and propaganda. Is it any wonder than fewer Americans than ever are watching news programs, or that journalists are currently held in lower esteem than in nearly any other point in American history?

For the occupied Dutch, however, there was a ray of hope—Radio Orange:



Like the Dutch who got their real news—and the hope that came with it—from the BBC and Radio Orange, many of today’s citizens get real news from the Internet. All those stories that should be headline news, but aren’t—the stolen 2000 election, faked intelligence leading to war, antiwar protests, the stolen 2004 election, the Abramoff scandal, the Plame scandal, etc.—all the information that could lead American citizens to rebel against their oppressors, as the Nazis feared the Dutch would, can be found on the Internet, as it is rarely found in the mainstream news media.

The Nazi occupiers knew their propaganda was useless if the Dutch had access to alternate sources of news, and so had it “decreed against the law to listen to the BBC.” (58–59) Today’s news media and government, while not outlawing the Internet, certainly do their level best to discount and discredit it. Scarcely a day goes by without a television program or newspaper somewhere questioning the merit and validity of news taken from the Internet. And just as the Nazis eventually began confiscating Dutch radios, the U. S. government, in attempting to sell Internet neutrality to the highest bidder, seeks to similarly curb the influence of this independent source of information.

Despite all the obstacles created to limit access to detailed information, those of us who are tuned in to the Internet have our own Radio Orange, full of information and hope. We have access to all the stories that the mainstream media, for whatever reason, chooses to ignore. We know that the Brooks Brothers Riot in Florida during the 2000 election was perpetrated and carried out by Republican congressional staffers flown in for the occasion. We know that most, if not all, of the intelligence that led our country to attack Iraq was incorrect or faked. We know that millions of people in America and around the world protested against the war. We know that Ken Blackwell and other Republicans worked to steal the 2004 election via Ohio.

Access to a few facts may seem like a trivial thing, but people in power know that ignorance of the masses is their best weapon, their best means of controlling a populace. Conversely, those who would be oppressed understand that knowledge is the real power. The hope that comes with knowledge and truth and unity of purpose was deemed so important that even those hiding in the Secret Annex took the risk of leaving their hiding place every evening in order to listen to the forbidden newscasts:



Like Miep Gies and the stalwart Dutch before us, we who listen to the Internet “Radio Orange” are filled with information and hope, because we have a connection to the “still-free outside world.” We are not trapped in a cage of blissful ignorance. We know the truth. We know that there is an active resistance against the occupying forces. We know that the resistance movement is growing, and its momentum is increasing. We know that the occupiers on on the verge of defeat, however hysterically they may screech otherwise.

Because we have real information, we have hope. And because we have hope, we can outlast and overcome these people who are destroying our country.


Quotations from:

Gies, Miep, with Alison Leslie Gold. Anne Frank Remembered. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.

Every year I teach an extensive unit on the Holocaust. My students not only read Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel, but are immersed in a great deal of background information about an historical era of which many of them are, shockingly, ignorant. One depressing constant in my yearly teaching of this unit is that there is nearly always some current, real world parallel. This year it is Darfur.

Now, I always attempt to present the parallels to my students in as hopeful a manner as possible: “People are speaking out against this.” “They’re standing up for others.” “You can make a difference.” The recent arrest of five U.S. Congresspersons at the Sudanese embassy seemed tailor-made to send this message. Yet when I Googled the incident, I came up with a paltry handful of articles. Most were from foreign news services or regional media sources serving the constituency of the Congresspersons involved. No New York Times. No Wall Street Journal. No CNN.

It was appalling.

And more than that, it was disheartening. Could the 20th century’s most earthshaking revolutions have occurred in today’s media environment? Would India have shaken the British yoke if Mohandas K. Gandhi’s nonviolent efforts had not been covered by newspapers worldwide? Would the Civil Rights Movement have succeeded without sound clips of Dr. King’s moving speeches, or news footage of Bull Connor brutalizing peaceful protesters?

Social movements rely on public knowledge of inequities, atrocities, and the consequent campaigns to prevent or stop such things from happening. In order to effect real change, public outrage is an absolute necessity. But how can the public be outraged when they are uninformed and ignorant of what is going on in the world? When the media doesn’t cover the atrocity in depth or detail—as is the case in the often back-paged Darfur genocide—or when it fails to mention widespread opposition to government policies and actions—as the dearth of coverage given to the enormous antiwar rally in New York City illustrates—then can peaceful protest succeed?

I would never, ever advocate violence. Please do not read this as a call for such an un-evolved reaction to our current circumstances.

But how can the voice of the people change anything, if no one can hear it?

I swear quite a bit, but never in the classroom, and I don't let the kids get away with it, either. I tell them to think of it as a vocabulary exercise. There are half a million words in the English language, and they'll never get any more eloquent if they use the same five or six all the time!

That being said, I think some of the concern and/or outrage over profanity is appallingly hypocritical, and not just because Cheney and Bush pretend to be saintly while simultaneously dropping f-bombs here and there. Whenever I hear politicians waxing sanctimonious about profanity, vulgarity, and such, it reminds me of the following exchange from the movie Fat Man and Little Boy, which told of the race to build the first atomic bomb.

General Leslie Graves (Paul Newman) comes to the Oppenheimer home in search of his pet physicist. Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz) is mourning the death (by suicide) of his mistress. Oppenheimer's wife (Bonnie Bedelia) greets the general at the door and tells him that her husband is sitting in the back yard with a blanket over his lap. Then she comments:

Kitty Oppenheimer: Nursing a guilty dick, no doubt.

Gen. Graves: It is not necessary to be vulgar.

Kitty Oppenheimer: Nothing I say could approach the vulgarity of what you're building in your back yard.

This scene has always illustrated to me the hypocrisy of conservatives. How can a few words (or Janet Jackson's nipple) be more vulgar than killing thousands of innocent people? These people get all worked up over a few cuss words, but they have no problem making decisions that will result in widespread death and destruction.

Fuck 'em, I say. And the horse they rode in on!

Try the questions before you scroll down and peek at the answers!




I don't mean to trivialize all the crap that's going on in our country, but a recent re-reading of Wiseman's book smacked me upside the head with some really creepy similarities between girl cliques and how the Bush Administration maintains control with the help of the mainstream media and the cowardice of too many Democrats.