Louisiana Shark Tales

     If you were out of town last week, you might have missed the biggest shark story of all. 

Governor Bobby Jindal and the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education finally admitted they threw our public schools into shark infested waters and then, they slung mud at each other while publicly arguing whether it is a good thing to push your kids in for a swim with very large hungry white sharks.

    Say what?

    On June 17^th, the US Secretary of Education (Arne Duncan) goaded our governor with the claim that Bobby Jindal is only abandoning his education baby, the Common Core, for political reasons – to gain populist support in his campaign for the U.S. presidency.  

    Instead of refusing the bait, Governor Jindal scrambled together a press conference, and did everything he could to pull Louisiana out of the Common Core Program that he himself embraced back in 2010, when he used his immense power of persuasion to convince Louisiana voters Common Core was the BE-ALL in education reform.

   

 What was the governor’s first action once he was reeled into a dysfunctional public brawl with the Louisiana Superintendent of Education?  Jindal sent a letter to The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC,) requesting that they withdraw our state from their “sole-sourced” test-preparation contract

  

  Governor Bobby Jindal DID NOT say, “We regret to inform you that we are no longer participating in these tests because your price gouging contract is bankrupting my state and we already had a rigorous education program in place that we will tweak as needed for a much lower cost to the taxpayer.”

    He couldn’t say that, because it’s the truth.  It’s hard to win presidential elections by telling the truth.

  

    In Jindal’s quest to build national support for his campaign for President of the United States, he jumped into the shark pool that is pushing the Common Core on public school systems across the country. 

    Now, years later, the governor admits that the education sharks he chose to swim with are outsiders who do not care about Louisiana’s children, but, who do have a HUGE financial stake in taking over our Louisiana public schools.

     Here’s the short list of Common Core promoters who stand to make a fortune from testing and test prep materials:

    - Bill Gates, former CEO of Microsoft pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into propaganda that would push schools to do computerized instruction and testing even though the evidence shows these trends do not produce gains in student learning. 

     -Pearson, the British company that designs one-size-fits-all tests and then, gouges the taxpayer to grade and report test results. 

     -Teach for America, the fake non-profit funded by taxpayers and by corporate stockholders who refuse to accept research-based evidence that untrained teachers may be cheap up front, but, they DO NOT turn around failing schools, if only because they churn and burn at a very fast pace.

  -Michael Bloomberg, former New York mayor bought Louisiana BESE elections to rubber stamp Bobby Jindal’s pick for superintendent – thereby quietly removing John White from Bloomberg’s New York City education system.  If John White was such a rock star, why didn’t Bloomberg keep and promote him to fix his own New York’s schools?

     Bobby Jindal also announced he suspending all PARCC contracts because they were illegal, and then, he ordered a comprehensive audit of all existing contracts relating to the PARCC tests, to determine whether any laws were violated.

     Governor Jindal must have learned this trick when he was in Congress: cancel existing contracts for services because you suspect illegal activity, and then, set up an investigation to be sure you were right.

    

    Immediately after Governor Jindal’s remarks,   John White held  a counter press conference.

   No one was surprised to hear our unqualified Superintendent of Education John White insist that HE and HE alone has the power to decide whether or not Louisiana throws hundreds of millions of tax dollars down the sewer drain that is the badly designed Common Core test-to-death program.

     As Emperor and King of the Department of Education, White claims the absolute right to control every pencil, desk, teacher, and school board on up to the governor.

    

     What are we teaching next year and what material is the state testing?  Who knows? 

      Stay Tuned for Shark Tales II.

     But in the meantime, teachers, children, and parents are all doggy paddling in deep waters, with nary a life boat in sight. And hungry sharks are circling, baring their teeth, ready to eat  lunch.
This column appeared in the Sunday Eunice News on June 29, 2014.  Copyright June 24, 2014.

Vacation Starts Now! NOT!

After one of our iLEAP tests, I monitored a group of students who finished early.  They asked if we could play cards.  I offered to teach them "500 Rummy."

At first, the game was too hard.  They wanted to play fish or war games that did not require math.  But, they stuck with it, and caught on after a few hands.  I started to reminisce about how my mother used to sit on the porch with us and play this game when it was hot and rainy - before the days of airconditioning.

They wanted to know "how far back that was" and I said, "Oh it was a long time ago, before color TVs were invented."

As shocked as they were to find that I might be older than their grandparents, I was surprised at how hard it was for these kids to do math in their head.  Where I was calculating scores by doing addition and multiplication in my head, They wanted to do "arrays" -- where you draw a visual image of the problem to tally rows and columns.

If I didn't know better, I would have guessed these kids did not have math facts in their head.  If I wasn't a trained teacher, I might have concluded that kids today are weak in math.  But, maybe because my training is recent, I do know better.  I am keenly aware that our kids have math skills that you and I know nothing about.  They think and problem solve differently today because of the different teaching methods that are used.

For one thing, our students are exposed to statistics, algebra, and geometry the minute they start the first grade. I don't know about you, but, I never had to study and interpret a data graph until I started my doctoral program.  Algebra, geometry, science were taught in high school - never in the elementary and middle schools.

All these changes have made it very intimidating for parents who want to coach their kids in math - or at least, help with the homework. How can you help when your kid speaks one math language and you were taught a completely different way?

But, that doesn't mean that parents can't do some fun play with embedded math coaching with their kids, as my parents and my aunts coached us when we were little kids.

If your kids see that you care about math skills, they will hone theirs.  Back in the day, when we sat and played "500 Rummy" all day long, each of us had to take turns keeping score to 500.  My mother would watch and check how we added, subtracted, multiplied and divided. Needless to say, we also learned how to count in our heads as we tracked cards for points.

My parents never, ever once let on that they were engaging us in study skills while they played Monopoly with us on Friday nights.  We had a blast playing that game.  It never occurred to us that we were practicing multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, skip counting, etc.

If I had money to spare, I'd set up a math coaching program for parents to help their kids do homework and play games all year round that build practical math skills.

I don't have that kind of money, but, I do have two websites that are MOST helpful for parents and teachers who want to coach their kids in mathematical thinking that I would like to share with you:

The first, aaamath.com is totally free, with lessons, practice sessions, and then, timed contests.  If it weren't for this website, I would not be a teacher today.  I was able to practice skills at every level without feeling intimidated. I started at the very beginning, and worked my way through 12th grade math skills.

The second site, http://www.ixl.com/math/ has parts that are free, and practice sessions that are free.  You can pay for more intense practice sessions.  If my kid struggled with math, and I needed to vary their online math explorations, this would be a good one to try.

It couldn't hurt.

You might get to the point where your kids start seeing math as fun - not hard work.  Because they will have learned that numbers and math magic are the most powerful toys ever invented.
Copyrighted April 24, 2014.  This article first appeared in Eunice Today on Sunday, May 11, 2014

Our Strength Depends on Our Schools

On Good Friday, I stopped by the "Eunice News" to pick up a ham that I won in a drawing at my local bank. My courage was strong that day, so I asked to see the editor.  He was friendly, and so, we discussed the possibility of me writing a column that would deal mostly with education issues.

Jim asked me to share a bit of my background.

I mentioned that I was a published author, a former army officer and chaplain, a music teacher, a minister, and a folk musician.

He wanted to know what background I had that would make it easy for me to write a regular education column. Writing is hard work, after all.

I rattled off my credentials:  Earned my education doctorate by researching factors that help our public schools thrive.  My passion for local public schools stronger goes back decades, because every where I've lived and worked our schools have been helped or hurt by policies that were well-intentioned, but not always well thought out. I've also seen communities turn their schools around by exerting as much local control as they could muster.

Whenever I meet folks from Eunice, they ask me why I chose to settle in this town. Here's my standard answer: Eunice markets itself as a "Retirement Destination."  When I came to the area to teach music, I was attracted to Eunice because I could see myself living independently well into old age.

As a lover of rural community life, I believe Eunice has everything a senior citizen could ask for: nearby grocery stores, beauty salons, live Cajun music, a symphony, a theater company, friendly church communities, a golf course, a walking park, a hospital, farms where you can buy  sweet potatoes and fresh eggs, and comfortable weather for most of the year.

Life will be good when I retire in Eunice.  I can imagine myself writing and publishing my third book: the Great American Novel.  I will spend my days playing music, gardening, baking, and maybe, swimming.

But, "I have miles to go before I sleep," as a famous poet once wrote.

For now, I want to investigate and write about education issues because the strength of our community (and the strength of my retirement) directly depends on the health of our schools.

If you haven't noticed, changes are being thrown at our schools by  the state and the federal government at the speed of light, it seems.  Lots of these changes are good. but too many of the changes are throwing us into an unnecessary tailspin that may be hurtful in the long run.

You may have noticed, for example, that the State Department of Education changed how our schools are graded.

In the 2012-13 Report Card, under the new grading system, the Eunice High School score dropped from a 'B' to a 'C.' On the other hand, the Eunice Junior High School increased from a 'D' to a 'C.'  Eunice Elementary School kept is 'A' score.

There are a lot of outside companies who get giddy when public high school scores go down - because they want to close our public schools and replace them with their brand of charter schools.

Other folks out there are fighting to end the new grading standards and the new "Common Core" curriculum.

Me, I am a devout believer that public education is a state constitutionally-mandated system that is our best chance of forming adults who can work productively, serve with good ethics, and live full lives with their family and friends.

I hope you stay with me in the months ahead, as I take a peek into every crevice and corner that affects our "school scores."  Although students and teachers are being driven to madness with "data-driven" mandates, I promise to keep my column useful, but, I will try my best to keep it interesting, too!

In the end, we may crack the code, together, and find the courage and the will to do what we have to do to make our public schools the best they can be.

If that happens, Eunice will not only be a "Retirement Destination."  It will be a family-friendly destination, not only because of its beautiful ball parks and stadiums, but, because our schools from pre-k to high school will be second to none.
  (This article first appeared in the Eunice News on May 4, 2014)