This could be interpreted as ...

... on education Obama wants what he wants but on health care Obama wants what the Republicans and the killers of the sick and injured in the insurance industry want; that is nothing ... or worse.

Senate Using Reconciliation On Major Piece Of Obama Agenda – Not Health Care, But Education

But then again how could anyone get that impression from Obama's hot and cold behavior?

... and more Rick Warren ...

McClatchy has a commentary by Mary Sanchez, The Kansas City Star:

Rick Warren needs to evolve

Rick Warren evolve? He's as evolved as the rest of us. Neither evolution (nor the almighty and usually invisible individual or individuals monitoring or mentoring us from near and far) has seen fit to provide, or even allow for, equality of reason, logic, mental prowess, clarity. We must fight this out amongst ourselves and do the best we can ...

This can't be written off as bad judgement only ...

The US is struggling with changing mores; changing modes of social communication; regression in attempts at social fairness; and an almost complete corruption of the justice system.

Facebook leads to CMS firing

Never imagined I would, or could, enjoy a post about split infinitives ...

Both support as well as being ready

Words fail ...

[This post edited after posting.]

The US Army is going to help h.s. dropouts get their GED's so it can use them as targets in the mideast.

Holden, 18, of Medford, Ore., is racing through her first week of practice tests before taking a formal GED exam soon. She left home at 16, one of nine children of a mill worker, and wants to be a military police officer.

"There's no jobs out there, nothing. It's just horrible. And it got hard just trying to support myself and go to school at the same time," Holden said.

Send enough US jobs overseas and it becomes much easier to recruit that all 'volunteer' army.

What I don't understand is why the irrational concern about those crossing US borders looking for low paid jobs? I'm surprised the Bush administration and their think-alikes have not conscripted them into the Army.

Given the Bush administration's propensity to invent (illogical and irrational) rationales for torture, kidnapping and imprisonment without trial there should be no barriers to stop them from sweeping illegal border crossers --many of whom come to the US looking for a better life, or maybe just survival, and end up working at low-paying and dangerous jobs-- into the US Army.

Rob Christensen, just another hack writer? ...

The completion of a three year pilot program set up by John Edwards is morphed by Rob Christensen into a case to attack Edwards' reputation. Christensen writes in the second paragraph:

Edwards' presidential hopes have evaporated. And he recently informed Greene County officials that he would end the pilot program at Greene Central High School.

Funny how those two sentences are tied together neither by facts nor logic. It's not until much later in the article that we learn that this program was established as a three year pilot program. The apparent success of the program seems unimportant to Christensen. After all, providing opportunities and encouraging the education of all America's young'uns is the last thing the GOP would look forward to.

Is Rob Christensen just another good little 'staff writter' doing his imperialist GOP duty by turning the completion of a successful pilot program into a cement block aimed at John Edwards?

Plagiarism is and is not ...

Cut and paste 'not plagiarism'

HIGH-PROFILE educationalist and long-time commentator of online learning Dale Spender has accused universities of being out of touch with their students in seeking to clamp down on "cut and paste" appropriation from the internet, arguing that what is dubbed plagiarism is just part of the way students learn.

Wikipedia page on Dale Spender here. She certainly has a point that the goal of education should be to instruct and then determine what has been learned. Counting similar phrases and wording is so much easier, however. Numbers never lie. Oh my, did I plagiarize that?

From Wikipedia page on plagiarism: "... plagiarism is concerned with the unearned increment to the plagiarizing author's reputation that is achieved through false claims of authorship."

So if I state that I have a dream will I be committing plagiarism or copyright infringement or both.

For this I'm more than happy to renounce my special ability, for a girl, in math ...

Overall, the researchers found "no gender difference" in scores among children in grades two through 11. Among students with the highest test scores, the team did find that white boys outnumbered white girls by about two to one. Among Asians, however, that result was nearly reversed. Hyde says that suggests that cultural and social factors, not gender alone, influence how well students perform on tests.

Unrelated to the boy-girl-who's-the-stupidest issue:

The study's most disturbing finding, the authors say, is that neither boys nor girls get many tough math questions on state tests now required to measure a school district's progress under the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind law. Using a four-level rating scale, with level one being easiest, the authors said that they found no challenging level-three or -four questions on most state tests. The authors worry that means that teachers may start dropping harder math from their curriculums, because "more teachers are gearing their instruction to the test."

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Is this a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face? ... Sen. Barack Obama's top fundraisers have asked his campaign donors to refrain from contributing to liberal independent political organizations in hopes of controlling the tone and message of the general-election campaign. [ ... ] The McCain campaign has been less organized than Obama's in its efforts to counter the groups, but the senator from Arizona has made clear his antipathy toward them -- without much effect. ... anyone think McCain seriously cares about the swift-boating of Obama? Does Obama actually believe McCain cares or would do anything substantive to stop it? Will Democratic politicians really ignore the last eight years and get snookered again?

... As I have pleaded with you to understand, they are dishonest and cruel, they are crafty and deceptive, they aren’t stupid. Like all successful con men, they will deceive those they are robbing and destroying quite successfully. They are far from stupid.

I'd just like to say this to Clinton supporters. The spate of endorsements of Sen. Obama will continue. Every victory of Sen. Clinton's will be followed immediately by high profile endorsements to blunt the impact of that victory - it's called politics. ... Politics it may be, but I find it very disappointing that Edwards chose to endorse the least progressive candidate, the one with no real national health plan.

... The oppressor may inflict unimaginable cruelties on innocent victims -- but the victims may only protest in ways which the oppressor deems "acceptable." The profound injustice is obvious, but not in itself remarkable or unexpected: this is how oppression operates. ...

The media deserves a large share of the blame ... All this might be quite funny if one doesn’t consider the consequences for the Republic. When historians try to figure out how the most powerful nation on earth managed to end up under the control of someone as unfit as George W. Bush for eight years, they will have to take note of this media phenomenon. ... and their destructive role has not been accidental.

It’s an example of how American law enforcement tends to marginalize black discontent by attributing it to more organized external forces. This is a tendency rooted in U.S. tradition: black radicals and civil rights activists of past eras were often linked to communists and other “outside agitators” — as if the progeny of enslaved Africans needed Karl Marx to detail their gripes about life in America. Now, apparently, the government claims the link is with Osama bin Laden.

... now that it's clear Hillary's presidential campaign is all but over, the right is proceeding apace with its attempt to Hillary-ize Michelle Obama. ... [...] ... We know what the right did to Hillary, and we can expect them to do a lot of the same things to Michelle. How do we combat this?

Moyers: “ ... We’re not going to have a discourse in this campaign over the fact that the great American wealth machine is benefiting only those at the top. We’re not going to get to the fact that 10% of the people own 60% of the wealth and 70% of the people have no net worth. We’re not going to get to the issues of how do we rebuild the infrastructure, the sewer, the water, the highways, all that. We’re just going to be constantly in this battle of bumper stickers.”

More destruction of the ideals that made this country strong ...

Public Libraries For Profit by Akito Yoshikane

At some future time, as access to the Internet grows, and assuming that the Internet does not end up in the absolute control of the corporate mafia, perhaps, turning libraries into profit centers for the greedy will not matter.

Down, down, down ...

Cynical NCLB causes crisis in TUSD

In 2002, Congress reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, dubbed "No Child Left Behind" by President Bush.

Sold as public school reform, with phony standards, false accountability and an unfilled promise of millions more federal dollars, NCLB creates a moral dilemma for leaders of school districts across the nation.

Do they enforce this amoral law dutifully - even if it sets statistically unattainable benchmarks that ultimately will embarrass and perhaps destroy the public schools?

Or will they take a stand out of higher principles?

Unfortunately, leaders of Tucson Unified School District, like their counterparts across the country, have embraced the NCLB agenda.

Districts' compliance with NCLB diverts funds intended for teacher compensation, creates unnecessary budgetary pressures and promotes bureaucracy rather than educational excellence.

What gets lost in all the rhetoric is that all public schools will be deemed "failing" by 2014, no matter what they do to comply with NCLB.

As the list of "failing" schools grows, and as media attention legitimizes NCLB standards and student test scores in the eyes of the taxpayers, public opinion will more and more turn against the public schools.

Why do TUSD and other districts play a game they cannot possibly win? Because it is easier to conform to an amoral law than to challenge it.

Bush sold NCLB as a deterrent to "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

Is opposition to NCLB also opposition to high standards and equality? Is NCLB protecting children from teachers with low expectations?

By intervening with uniform standards to protect students, NCLB proponents claim they will bring accountability to public schools.

This cynical policy has serious flaws. It assumes that all children learn at the same rate, and it sets standards that are naturally exclusive.

When "Adequate Yearly Progress" is among the 144 standards, some students will not pass.

If a 100 percent passing rate is the benchmark for a school to avoid "failing," one must conclude that the NCLB agenda is not to improve public schools but to embarrass them.

For years, professional educators have realized that standards do not ensure quality schools.

Good education is relative; it is based upon the child's individual needs.

Because local teachers and their professional organization, the Tucson Education Association (TEA), are resistant to NCLB, they become an easy target when students do not meet the standards.

In TUSD's case, over the past year, the diversion of dollars from Proposition 301, passed in 2000 primarily for teacher pay; the taking of the governor's money intended for teacher compensation; and the blaming of the budget crisis on a recent 3 percent raise for teachers all have roots in the hidden cost of NCLB compliance.

NCLB compliance also has led large districts such as TUSD to adopt one-size-fits-all remedial programs that actually push out high-performing students.

At many schools, remedial classes have replaced advanced courses, and bureaucrats enforce districtwide curriculum regimentation.

As a result, parents take their higher-performing students out of TUSD. They do not want their kids subjected to the remedial program.

And if TUSD achieves unitary status, the number of high-performing students leaving will likely increase as more options become available to parents.

The integrity of any individual or institution is the ability to do the right thing even when it is most difficult to do.

School district leadership consists of good people who, by dutifully enforcing an unjust law, are hurting the schools.

Public criticism of NCLB, especially at a time when it is up for reauthorization in Congress, is necessary to maintain professional and institutional integrity.

It is time for TUSD leadership to join with TEA in publicizing NCLB's damaging impact.

Paul Karlowicz is a history and political science teacher at University High School. He was president of the Tucson Education Association from 2003-2005.

Wrong directions ...

The Talking Dog: Gitmo Leaner, Meaner

TPM Media: Israel and Bush conspire against Pelosi?

Associated Press: Let's beat someone up' – Unprovoked beatings of the homeless soaring

The trend in the diciplining of school children by policemen: 6-Year-Olds Under Arrest

... but Bush insists Iraq is improving --again! Just trust him as his administration Iraqifies the US.