9-11

     It is hard to believe that ten years have passed since 9-11.  On that morning, I was an assistant principal at a school in Buncombe County.  While walking down the hallways, I saw teachers and students watching what looked like a movie on their televisions.  At first I was upset, wondering why they hadn't started their academic day.  I was a bit annoyed, so I walked into a classroom and suddenly realized it was not a movie.  Totally shocked and mesmerized, I stood there is the silence for what seemed an eternity as the two towers came down, one after the other.  

     So much has happened since then!  I often wonder what our world would like today had so many lives not been lost, had so much money not been spent on our defense, etc.  Initially the day drew us all together.  We Americans all had a shared sense of patriotism and a willingness to work side by side to pull our Country back together.  

     For a short while we all seemed in sync and in the aftermath of the terrible events of 9-11, our Country became what we people of my generation were taught we were like during the Great War.   We enthusiastically supported the hunt for Usama bin Laden.   After all, he was the enemy.  Then came Iraq, the war we should never have supported.

     During these years, under President Bush, we spent billions and billions.  We reduced taxes.  We even had a huge prescription medication plan put into place.  On the face of it, we all wanted to support our seniors.  We all wanted to fight Saddam Hussein.  We all believed the reason to go to war as presented by our President.

     For the sake of argument, let us say that there were weapons of mass destruction being hidden away in Iraq.  The question then is, if the prescriptions were that important and the war was that critical for our Country's well being, why did we not pay for them, instead of asking future generations to do so.  

     After (and during) World War II, American were asked, by purchasing bonds, to pay for the war effort.  We didn't ask foreign nations to finance our debt.  We asked that sacrifice from our fellow Americans.  Today, it is even considered by tea baggers and their Republican partners, anti-American to ask the rich to shoulder their fair share of our National debt, much of which was incurred beginning with the events of 9-11.  Instead, they ask our seniors to enter their retirement years worrying about the security of social security and the safety net of Medicare.  

     To me, that is misguided.  One can only wonder what the financial state of the United States and the world might have been had there been no terror attacks on the USA.   It must have please bin Laden and his associates to see and hear our financial struggles, and our political intransigence.  Bin Laden is dead.  Thousands of our citizens are lost.  Hundreds of thousands of our enemies and innocent bystanders are dead, too.  Our economy is struggling to find a rebirth.  Behind and beside us, all the nations that depend on the United States to be the engine of the world's economy are, at best, standing on shaky limbs.   

     Meanwhile, Al Quaeda may be falling apart, but have they achieved their goals  Did their work a decade ago permanently cripple us?  Or are we resilient enough to gather together again and work as one to rescue our economy and way of life?  I think we are!

    

Need Motivation?

If you are not outraged yet ... what will it take.  North Carolina Democrats note that some 11,000 public servants, mostly from our schools have lost their jobs thanks to the Republicans and their budget.  Running on the promise of fixing the economy here in North Carolina, they have mortally wounded the future of North Carolina's children. Along the way, they have done nothing to create jobs. 

Unemployed people do not buy cars, houses, washing machines, clothing or toys.  They draw unemployment insurance, and ... you get my meaning.  K - 12 public education, community colleges, and our State university system have suffered hits from the budget makers.  Had we simply kept the one cent sales tax in place, the legislature might actually have helped the economy.

On election day 2012, I hope all people who care about education and our State's economy remember the Apodacas, Davis', Guice's, etc.  and give them their walking papers!

Redistricting - My View

 

      As for my thoughts on the matter, I am deeply disappointed in the efforts to redistrict.  Why?  Redistricting is what a Party in power does to insure that they stay in power.  Democrats do it!  It is never totally equitable.  It is not intended to be.  But at the end of the day, it should be done with an eye toward giving fair representation to the citizens.  Here in North Carolina, it is being done with little regard for equitable representation of the people.  In fact, the NC Republican Chair of the committee on redistricting said that his greatest concern was that they (Republicans) redistrict in such a fashion as to make a court challenge impossible. 

 

That sort of comment can be taken two ways.  One could claim that Republicans want to be fair and therefore Courts would have no interest in listening to a challenge of their efforts.  OR, one could claim that Republicans are unconcerned with equitable voting districts that roughly match and run along County lines.  (To me, Republican efforts to tie Buncombe and Gaston County together is an egregious violation of ethical  boundary making!)

 

I am new to politics, but know that elections have consequences.  (Our President said that, not me.)  Well, the Republicans have been out of power for generations in North Carolina and they seem to want to make certain that now that they are in power, they remain in power.  I know that when Democrats lost here in North Carolina, we expected that eventually redistricting would be on the table.

 

     I suspect that if the table is ever turned, Democrats will  begin redistricting straight away.

 

     The Republicans came into power promising no new taxes and special attention to creating jobs.  NCAE (North Carolina Association of Educators) estimates that State wide over two thousand teachers will lose their jobs because of the Republican budget.  Other State agencies will also lose positions.  How will that help education and how will that help the State's economy?  Moreover, how is education and the State's economy of less importance than redistricting for the next election.  I find the Republican priorities befuddling!

 

                Democrats are committed to lead our State in improving the educational lot of our students.  Since the days of Terry Sanford and Jim Hunt this State has moved education forward, making it one of the most admired educational systems in the United States.  That is why North Carolina was selected for Federal Race to the Top funds.  The Federal government believed in our progressive programs.  Instead, it is clear to me that Republicans want to lead us in the Race to the Bottom!  Per Pupil funding now places us 49th out of 50 States!  

 

     With the concerns over jobs and the economy, the Republicans seem to have cynically made the need to ensure control of the legislature more important than the day to day needs of the people, more important than jobs and more important than education!

 

     I believe deeply in the Democratic vision of tomorrow.  We believe that education, for example, is critical to the strength of our County, State, and Nation.  The business world wants educated employees.  For NC to attract industry we need to spend money on education! 

 

     I know and respect many Republicans.  I know that they are as deeply committed to their vision as I am to mine.  We all love and care about our State and Community.  We just, clearly, disagree about the priorities.

NCLB - What does it mean?

The initials NCLB stand for the No Child Left Behind legislation written into law during George the Second's presidential administration.  Its purpose was noble.  Through the study of data gathered back in those days, it was learned that some groups of children in school were performing worse on State End of Grade testing than other children.  The Federal Government determined that our country had a responsibility to close this gap in learning.  In other words, those who wrote the legislation wanted No Child Left Behind. 

Some things about this legislation were good.  It helped educators identify those groups of children who were not doing well.  Some examples of those groups of children are  African American children, Hispanic children, exceptional children (special needs children), Asian American children, and so on.  It helped State's design testing that would, in a decisive fashion, identify what children know and what they don't know.  Test results can help teachers focus on goals and objectives that need instructional strengthening.  Testing also insured that teachers teach the Standard Course of Study (SCoS).  The SCoS is 'bible' of education - what educators are supposed to teach children at every grade level and in every class as identified by each State's Board of Education.

Some things about NCLB were not so good.   Every few years the Federal government has chosen to raise the percentage of children expected to pass each of the tests.   They raise the bar.   That sounds good, doesn't it?  Well, in just a couple of years, NCLB legislation expects every child in school to be doing math and reading on grade level.  That sounds like a wonderful goal.  Only  a couple of  problems there!  That goal include children who have been speaking  English for only few years.  That goal also includes children with cognitive disabilities.  If every child had been intellectually gifted equally, then that would be a much more reasonable goal.  However, even the most cynical of us realize that we are, all of us, individuals with differences in how we learn, how fast we learn, and even our capacity to learn.  

If all we did was test the children and learn about them, and used that which we learn to improve instruction, that would be great.  BUT ... there is more tied to test results than that.  When NCLB came along the concept of high stakes testing came along, too.  Money became tied to it.  Test results became the measure of a school's success and a school system's success.  It even became the way to measure the success of individual teachers.  The stress level for children is incredible.  The stress level for their teachers is equally high.  I could go on and explain what it means to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) or to not make AYP.  I could tell you what it means to be  a 'taken over, school' or to be in School Choice.  But that would be TMI (too much information.) 

I love teaching, teachers, and children (not necessarily in that order.)  The teachers I know work hard to achieve Federal and State goals, but more importantly, they remember that school is about people and relationships.  Federal law may conspire, albeit with the best of intentions, to put the importance of the relationships that grow between teachers and their students on the back burner, but they will never succeed.  You see, teaching isn't only a science, it is also an art.

Educators know that there are more important things than testing.  When a child comes in the room hungry, or crying because mommy and daddy were arguing, or because someone has been mean on the bus, the best teachers know that teaching lessons about life come before reading, writing and 'rithmetic!  Public education is magical and miraculous.

The Time Has Come to 'Just Say No' to NCLB

NCLB legislation has been with us for a long enough time to realize that it brought some good to education.  The purpose of the legislation was to improve student performance by identifying subgroups of children to make certain that they weren't being 'left behind'.  That helped those of us in the business of educating children to realize when we were missing some children. 

When we realized that we were missing children, we (educators) were then able to develop new, highly focused instructional strategies that could help close the gap between our most successful groups and less successful groups.  Schools have made great progress toward that goal.

There is a problem though.  With each passing few years, the bar was raised for acceptable performance.  Schools made great progress reaching those goals, but this year the goal for math was that every subgroup now had to have 88.6% of its students pass math.

Imagine that!  A laudable goal, but not very realistic!  As that bar goes up, so do the expectations for passing the tests.  Children with limited cognitive ability, for example, are expected to perform at or above grade level.  

Though this is a worthy goal, it is a fact that although we need to try our best with all children, they are like we adults.  We have different talents, different intellects, and different native ability.  

Why say 'No' to NCLB?  It's simple really.  When schools fail to make adequate yearly progress, they suffer punitive actions.  I heard of a school with an African American subgroup that was targeted with special strategies to help them close the achievement gap in math.  They had great success.  But, the bar went up this year!  In spite of tremendous growth, the school will suffer punitive action.  The message to the staff and its parent community is, "Do everything right, and you can still be singled out as a failure."  

Our public schools are doing a great job.  When children don't do as well as we would like, the Federal government should offer resources to the school to build its capacity to help students even more.  Instead, the government points a finger and says, "You failed to make AYP."  The irony is that even a school that earns the honor of being a NC School of Distinction can also be on the "Watch List."  Imagine, a school that successfully grows children can still be painted with the brush of failure.

NCLB is supposed to help children, not vilify the educators who work so hard to care for their students, nor the families that work hard to support those schools.

It is Inconceivable

I find the pluck of Republican Presidential candidates to be unbelievable!  I heard on CNN today that Mitt Romney laughingly referred to himself as one of the unemployed.  How sensitive he must be to the suffering of the millions of those who are unemployed!  Poor unemployed Romney ... only about $200 million in the bank!

Thanks to North Carolina's Republicans, aided by a handful of Democrats, per pupil spending in North Carolina is now 49th in the United States.  Forget about competing with the Chinese for jobs!  Now we can see if we will be able to compete with graduates from South Carolina!  

But don't worry too much.  Senator Apodaca (R) says everything will be ok when school starts again ... as usual.

No One Goes to Bed Hungry Tonight Drive

     I don't know how it happened, but I suddenly have really figured out that as a Democratic Party Chair, I must actually be a politician.  The problem with that is that I often scoff at politicians for not really knowing what is going on in the world. The current dilemma in Raleigh is perfect evidence of that. 

     The Republicans were swept into office, I believe, because they promised a solution to the huge problem of unemployment.  As the most powerful act of their newly discovered leadership, what do they do?  They work to destroy public education and in the process put thousands of school employees out of work.  

     That brings me to the topic of concern.  Hunger.  Congressman Shuler is trying to organize a large food drive.  I am certain he means well, but it is, at the end of the day, a gesture.  Perhaps an important gesture, but still not enough in light of the suffering.

      As a school administrator, I see too many children go home at the end of their day to inadequate meals ... if any.  Long ago, I learned that on Friday some of my fourth and fifth graders would stuff their pockets with their lunches, to have food when they get home.

       My wife, Shelley, commented that a real difference in the lives of poor families would happen when we people of Transylvania County agreed that none of our families would go to bed hungry.  

       I'm not quite certain how to make that happen, but I am open to suggestions. I believe that if a bunch of us put our heads together, maybe we could make a truly long term commitment ... not just a single shot for the sake of an event.  

       Yes, we have food banks.  We even have a soup kitchen.  Why then do we still have hungry families? You see, it is not just a lack of food ... there is something more to the problem of hunger here and everywhere.  If you have some comments, perhaps we can figure out, together, how to really make a profound difference for our children, every day, all year.

       I suppose that in spite of budget battles, lost jobs for people in the education business, and, most terribly, lost opportunities for our children ... we will go on.  Ironically,   the best solution to poverty is an education.  Sadly, hungry people don't seem to advocate well for themselves.  I guess they are too busy looking for their next meal.  I suppose that is why we need politicians.  They should be protecting, solving problems, and saving people.