Blog 4 History

Recently A Newsweek study showed that more than one-third of American adults are unable to pass the U.S. citizenship test, according to their survey results. According to the result, perhaps the most astonishing find, 29% of respondents couldn’t name the current vice president of the United States; 44% were could not define the Bill of Rights; 6% had no idea what day Independence Day (the Fourth of July) took place on a calendar, and 73% couldn’t correctly say why America fought the Cold War. (Though interested to see what the correct answer was! Are we losing our history and therefore how do we know ourselves and what our “Empire of Liberty” is about?

Civic ignorance, writes Newsweek‘s Anthony Romano, is nothing new. But in today’s globalized economy, a lack of basic knowledge about basic history and public affairs is damaging America’s ability to compete with foreign countries such as China, India, and Oregon.

Read more…

The headlines recently stated: “Obama calls for less standardized testing” and “Obama says too much testing makes education boring”. Yet No Child Left Behind legislation that mandates all the standardized testing is still in place! Not sure where I am on this as I kind of agree with the President that we are so focused on teaching to tests that we take the exploratory nature of history (and learning) and throw it away. This also goes for AP Testing as well. But recently I had a discussion with my Principle who told me they no longer care about AP scores and want maximum enrollment; meaning to slow it down and reduce the work. The reasoning? The more AP students there are the higher the graduation rate. I think I am finally on board with this and am freed from the driven system of go-go-go. I am going to next year stop and, if you will, smell the roses. Allow for my student to do some deep exploring with historical topics. I have had to cover an incredible amount information and it, indeed, takes the fun out of it. Yet, I do understand those who say we need to measure learning and success.

As an educator in a public school the day Obama was elected there was much adulation that this would mean the end to NCLB (No Child Left Behind). Most teachers (and the Union), it seems, voted for him because they believed he would reverse the NCLB legislation of George W. Bush and the Republicans. According to current NCLB legislation, 100 percent of students had to be proficient in reading and math by 2014. When this first came out, pure astonishment by us public school educators. But, we hunkered down and are doing our best. From the rural communities of Colorado to the inner cities of Chicago, NCLB is not achieving the success it so promised. You can either blame the educators, the system, or the students, I guess. One article even describes it as Obama’s War on Schools.

As one journalist noted,

The theory behind NCLB was that schools would improve dramatically if every child in grades 3 to 8 were tested every year and the results made public. Texas did exactly this, and advocates claimed it had seen remarkable results: test scores went up, the achievement gap between students of different races was closing, and graduation rates rose. At the time, a few scholars questioned the claims of a “Texas miracle,” but Congress didn’t listen.

A recent study showed that 216 Vermont Schools Fail To Meet Federal Standards. The consequences could be school closings. In fact, Eighty-two percent of schools in the U.S. are not meeting the NCLB standards. Indeed, not even close, and inner-city school districts are perhaps feeling the most heat.

As 2014 nears, tens of thousands of schools have been stigmatized as failures, thousands of educators have been fired, and schools that were once the anchors of their communities are closing, replaced in many cases by privately managed schools. NCLB turns out to be a timetable for the destruction of public education.

With the economy in such dire straights and with the political gridlock in Washington, it is doubtful that anyone will have the political will to truly tackle the issue. Yes, recently, U.S. education secretary called for overhaul of No Child Left Behind. With a Republican dominated House of Representatives don’t count on any significant change to NCLB. And that disappoints me, I was one of those cheering that the Democratic Congress and President would do away with NCLB and fast. BUT, they did not!

So the question, Has Obama Betrayed Educators and Teacher Unions?, is valid but missing the mark. Frankly, I doubt there will be any serious movement on this. I don’t want to throw billions of dollars at it again, it never sticks and the test scores never really change.

Had a reader point me to the NEA (National Education Association) website this morning. (As a public school teacher I can’t tweet, blog, facebook, at all hours of the day unlike some on here! I have to teach 32+ students per class from 7:30 to 2:50, then it’s coaching and after school activities. So sorry so late on this.) I digress!

I never thunk to visit the NEA and peruse their recommended reading lists for EDUCATORS, just never occurred to me that there would be anything there to suggest that SOME members of the NEA MIGHT be proponents of Social Justice and also teaching the doctrines of Saul Alinsky. Who is Alinsky you say? Well he “wrote the book on American radicalism.” So why would the NEA have on their 2009 “Recommended Reading” one Saul Alinsky, and his Leftist classic: “The American Organizer”?

I know, it baffles many that this would even be an issue. The other two Recommended Readings: The Introvert Advantage and The Thin Book of Naming don’t sound or look like Conservative Classics. Now if one of them was an extreme Right Wing book by say Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity or, gasp, Glenn Beck, you could argue that the suggested readings have balance. I still would say none of these should be “Recommended Readings.” I don’t pull out Glenn Beck’s Arguing with Idiots and spout from it or quote it! Have never purchased a book or read a book by any of the three. Yes, Mr. Levin, hard to imagine. (Note they do mention so-called “conservative radical” Michael Patrick Leahy’s, Rules for Conservative Radicals. But in an off hand way and not as a recommended reading and good, sounds like more of the same, but from the Right. Don’t want that either!)

But is the NEA asking SOME educators to do just the very thing with Alinsky? I wish we just had to deal with Social Justice proponents, this guy makes them look like boy scouts.

I know. No big deal. That this has nothing to do with what is going on in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan and maybe even to a city capital near you!, is naive at best.

All the NEA is asking of its members that they: “will discern from Alinsky’s books grassroots organizing strategies that will best help us bring our members together around the common goal of improving public education.” Sounds great, all for it! Yup, improving public education!

Let’s take a look, shall we!

From the NEA website:

Alinsky, the master political agitator, tactical planner and social organizer didn’t mince words…

“Liberals in their meetings utter bold works; they strut, grimace belligerently, and then issue a weasel-worded statement ‘which has tremendous implications, if read between the lines.’ They sit calmly, dispassionately, studying the issue; judging both sides; they sit and still sit.

“The Radical does not sit frozen by cold objectivity. He sees injustice and strikes at it with hot passion. He is a man of decision and action. There is a saying that the Liberal is one who walks out of the room when the argument turns into a fight.

“Society has good reason to fear the Radical. Every shaking advance of mankind toward equality and justice has come from the Radical. He hits, he hurts, he is dangerous. Conservative interests know that while Liberals are most adept at breaking their own necks with their tongues, Radicals are most adept at breaking the necks of Conservatives.

“Radicals precipitate the social crisis by action – by using power. Liberals may then timidly follow along or else, as in most cases, be swept forward along the course set by Radicals, but all because of forces unloosed by Radical action. They are forced to positive action only in spite of their desires …

“breaking the necks of Conservatives”… hmm.

Alinsky is an admitted radical who would absolutely support SOME teachers who blatantly left their jobs, lied about being sick, and encourage their students to “Agitate” with them. I know, I know, how could anyone have such a mindset!? Clearly I have issues. Clearly I am “disgraceful.” They are just striking, er, protesting for their rights.

More from the NEA website:

Alinsky devised and proved thirteen tactical rules for use against opponents vastly superior in power and wealth.

1. “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. “Never go outside the experience of your people.
3. “Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy.
4. “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
6. “A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. “Keep the pressure on.
9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. “Major premise for tactics is development of operations that will maintain constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. “If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.
12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it

For Alinsky it is about: “Agitate + Aggravate + Educate + Organize.” Looks and sounds a lot like what I have seen on the news recently.

Great, just what we need to be recommending that our educators teach, or use or whatever it is SOME do with this great stuff!

LOTS OF QUESTIONS! Why does the NEA promote such a man and such a “radical” (their words not mine) ideology?

Look at the language in the above 13 tactical rules that the NEA is supporting: “Enemy”, “ridicule”, “pressure”, “threat”, “terrifying”!

Sounds like the new civility some people are talking about. This is not the reading that makes for better teachers or students. And is that even the goal here for SOME?

Do we want SOME (ALL, NONE?) OF our educators teaching… using…this?

Do we want SOME OF our teachers more concerned with activism than, I don’t know, proper education?

COULD THIS be PART of the reason why our education system is failing? You tell me!

I know, I know, conspiracy theorist and hate monger…. this is all simply harmless.

Mr. Levin?