NYC Educator managed to derail my early evening by digging up memories of some regional country/old-time albums from the late 1970’s, as well as introducing me to Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper.

I’ll try to co-opt that welcome distraction for this site’s purposes.

There is a surprising number of country songs that address education explicitly or implicitly. Though the social justice crowd would disagree with me, Hannah Arendt wouldn’t - education is inherently conservative, and a musical tradition that draws deeply from its own annals, even when describing the present and speculating about the future, is a musical tradition that is largely educational.

But fear not, social justice crowd, I’ll never leave you out - hip-hop and rap are two of the more conservative genres in recent musical history. I’ll save that argument for another day on this website, for a book deal with Teachers College Press, or, better yet, for the next time I’m sipping lattes with Mr. Ayers. [These are arranged in order of “possible” to “no chance in Hell,” by the way.]

We can look seriously at music, be it country, hip-hop or anything else, but we can also relax and have a little fun with it.

In 1968, Jeannie C. Riley topped the charts with Harper Valley PTA, the story of a single [widowed] mother dressed down by the PTA at her daughter’s school. It came in the form of a note:

Mrs. Johnson,

You’re wearing your dresses way too high. It’s reported you’ve been drinking and running around with men and going wild. We don’t believe you ought to be bringing up your little girl this way.

Secretary, Harper Valley PTA

A proud Mrs. Johnson addressed the PTA that very afternoon. They were, as the song recounts, a remarkable [and entertaining] collection of hypocrites. That mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA.

So, have fun with the video [RSS readers, click here], but don’t forget that in small/rural schools like Harper Valley’s - those in Otsego County, NY, for example - this laughable contempt for parents by school officials and their minions is still reality 40 years later.

Joanne Jacobs linked today to a post about the top 15 web searches conducted by children. The results are as follows:

1. Games
2. Dogs
3. Animals
4. Civil War
5. George Washington
6. Holocaust
7. Abraham Lincoln
8. Multiplication
9. Math Games
10. Weather
11. Frogs
12. Fractions
13. Planets
14. Sharks
15. Plants

The results were tracked by Thinkronize, the developers behind netTrekker d.i., which is a safe educational search engine.

One need not be an AERAcrat to realize that a “safe educational search engine” presents only search interests in a relatively closed system.

I’m a bit bothered that dogs have trumped cats yet again - Pia is rightly miffed - but I’ll save that for another day.

What’s most interesting is what the general population searches for regarding “school” terms.

In website consulting/design, one needs a handle on common keywords in one’s niche to craft/maintain a website that aligns, to some degree, with consumer interest. We nerdlings call this Search Engine Optimization. Several sites monitor keyword frequency in internet searches.

Below are the results for “school” from one of the sites I use frequently - keep this in mind when we read over the next few months how important schools and education are to both political candidates and the voters who support them.

The children are our future!

Keyword Suggestion Searches / month
1. high school musical 232,500
2. school 103,800
3. big tits at school 85,500
4. school girl 70,620
5. school girls 58,680
6. high school musical 2 46,890
7. high school graduation 46,170
8. school sex 44,940
9. school uniforms 36,900
10. high school 32,310
11. hentai school 32,280
12. high school girls 29,160
13. high school sex 25,560
14. school girl sex 24,810
15. High school musical 24,270

So, what are you searching for? Unfortunately, the odds dictate that it ain’t fractions or Abe Lincoln.

A thorough code-rejiggering [this is hyperbole] fixed the little javascript issue I had earlier today. All paragraph tags and line breaks are restored!

So, as I play catch up, this here’s an image of a shovel that I lifted from The New York Botanical Garden.

Or is it a spade?

What’s the difference? Do you know? Why or why not?

It’s time for a little agrarian etymology.

The rules:

1. No cheating. Googling stinks.
2. Personal vignettes about shovels and spades are encouraged.
3. Insinuations and/or protests that “calling a spade a spade” is inherently a racist phrase won’t be tolerated. It simply isn’t true. And, as Mr. Obama might say, it’s a “distraction” from a substantive discussion about digging tools.

GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOOGOGOGO! In the comments, that is.

Coventry University is one of a host of “post-1992″ Universities - also called “New Universities” - that were former polytechnic institutes that were granted University status by the government in 1992.

Coventry University has innovative programs from technical/engineering-based disciplines like automotive design to contemporary social disciplines like disaster relief. The University’s appeal to international students is notable, and Coventry increasingly finds its student population to be more diverse each year.

It doesn’t hurt that Coventry, UK is a wonderful small city in the West Midlands and is a stone’s throw from the larger Birmingham. And, of course, if you need more than Birmingham can provide, London is a scant 95 miles by train.

Take a gander at Coventry’s summary video - it’s worth a look. [RSS readers, click here]

Oh, the ebb and flow of schedules and obligations. Regrettably, I’ve got to pass on the Ed in ‘08 Summit.

Don’t forget to vote in the Blogger Poll even if Mr. Downes is convinced that the whole thing is rigged.

I’m eager to follow the discussion that will come from the group’s viewing of Two Million Minutes - hopefully many in attendance will be our eyes and ears and give us some fresh reactions to the film and its implications.

They might see, as Fordham’s Coby Loup didn’t, that it isn’t a film that warns of economic damnation, or, as Loup put it, “armageddon.”

He points us to Jay Mathews’ piece about the film and thanks Mathews for the deliverance:

“Thank you, Jay, for injecting some badly needed sanity into this discussion. This is one of those articles you want to bookmark or print out so it’s easily accessible when education or globalization comes up at your dinner party.”

I’d treat the cheap marginalization of our argument [insanity], but I know that deep down Loup knows the meaning of “tendentious.” Hopefully I’ll get around to a full dissection of Mathews’ article - either the one he originally wrote for his Post column a while back or the rehashed, resale version that appears in The Wilson Quarterly.

Really, folks, Two Million Minutes is a look at the lives of students in the United States, India and China. It’s not a case for impending doom and it’s not prescriptive. There are mild, common-sense intimations about the long-term effects of our approach to education - a laundry list of credible interviewees draw these conclusions - but it’s nothing outlandish. It’s simple, basic reality - not paranoia.

Mathews’ piece isn’t as bad as the National Association of Secondary School Principals’ reaction - for which they were fisked soundly - but it ain’t good, either.

I’m left wondering whether Loup, who seems to have missed the point of Two Million Minutes quite badly, spent 60 minutes of his own watching the film in the first place.

I suppose he’ll get a glimpse on Wednesday night.

I first wrote about Irvington’s Paul Mandel in Public School Arrogance on New York State Taxes: Irvington Union Free Edition - I detailed the problem with Mandel’s assertion that state EXCEL Aid costs taxypayers nothing.

Of course, state funds come from taxpayers, so any state-funded project is funded by taxpayers. Having an intermediary in the process doesn’t negate the source.

Mandel’s claim is easily made honest by explaining that buildings/grounds work funded by EXCEL Aid create no additional hardship for the taxpayer - after all, they’ve already paid the money. The distinction is important.

Mandel and the board called upon their arrogance once more. In Irvington’s Pismire Strikes Again: Lesson 2 in New York State Taxes, I reproduced Mandel’s mailing in which he claimed that the building projects were “100% funded by New York State” - again, New York State is, one presumes, made up of taxpaying New Yorkers and their businesses - and stresses that there is “almost no cost to taxpayers for these important projects.”

Almost no cost? Well, he cites the debt service that may accrue but never the taxes paid in the first place. The subtle-but-tendentious language - “these important projects” - didn’t go unnoticed.

That’s when I wrote a brief note to the Board about the language they used to describe EXCEL Aid. I wrote:

To the Board:

I hope that you will regard my comments about Irvington’s billing of EXCEL Aid as “absolutely no cost to taxpayers” and as “almost no cost to taxpayers” with the sobriety they warrant. All districts - in New York State and nationwide - must treat their constituents with the respect they deserve and must communicate honestly. Twice your e-mails have failed to clear this relatively low moral and governmental hurdle - I’m confident, for the sake of Irvington’s citizens and those who contribute from other parts of the state, that it won’t happen a third time.

Many thanks,

Matthew K. Tabor
mktabor@gmail.com
www.matthewktabor.com
607.821.1752

The following days brought a rash of views from Westchester BOCES servers and since has been a mainstay of daily Google searches. Popular searches include variations on “Paul Mandel Irvington,” for which these posts occupy the top two slots in Google results, and variations on “Irvington union free budget.” Top two slots on the that one as well.

There was no response to my messages, nor was there an acknowledgment of its receipt. Classy folks, those ones.

The kicker? They’ve done it again.

In “Budget FAQs,” Mandel writes:

What will Irvington get and what will these projects cost taxpayers?

Irvington is eligible for up to $627,781 and 100% of the project costs will be covered by the state. So the projects do not cost the Irvington taxpayers anything, unless we need to borrow to fund the projects before receiving the aid payment (the borrowing may cost us about $20,000 in 2009-2010).

The emphasis here is mine.

Mandel et al. truly don’t give a whit about New Yorkers who have already paid the taxmoney that will fund Irvington’s projects. Like I said before, we’re happy to do so - but we don’t like being held in such contempt.

I thought that Mandel and the grisly gang who work his wicked will - or is he the one being worked? - would change their language after one pointed out to them how dishonest and disdainful it was. After all, I do understand that subtlety is often missed and that Mandel/etc. must be shocked that someone outside Irvington reads their newsletter - but at this point there’s no excuse for not being honest.

Mandel has been informed. He has decided that pandering to citizens who are concerned [rightly] about their annual tax levy is more important that honesty.

The tragedy here is that Mandel and the board don’t realize that they can be forthcoming, honest and still garner the support of taxpayers - and maybe even more than they’re getting right now.

The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right Has Framed the Debate on America’s Schools

From the back cover:

“Timely, accessible, and thoroughly researched, The Seduction of Common Sense exposes the insidious nature of current educational reforms and offers promising directions for anti-oppressive change.”

Kevin K. Kumashiro is an associate professor of policy studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago, College of Education, and the founding director of the Center for Anti-Oppressive Education.

Series Foreword: William C. Ayers, University of Illinois-Chicago; Therese Quinn, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Foreword: Herbert Kohl

Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way

From the back cover:

What happens when a teacher resists the pressures of “teaching to the test” and creates a curriculum based on student needs, wants and desires? Brian Schultz did just that when he challenged his students from a housing project in Chicago to name a problem in their community that they wanted to solve. When the students unanimously focus on replacing their dilapidated school building, an unforgettable journey is put into motion. As his students examine the conditions of their blighted school and research the deeper causes of decay, they set off on a mission of remedy and repair. It is finally their own questions and activities that power their profound self-transformations. This moving story is a tribute to what determined teachers can achieve in the current stifling environment of high-stakes testing and standardization. Anyone who has faith in creativity, commitment, and the deep potential of inner-city children and youth will want to read this book.

Brian D. Schultz is an assistant professor of education and honors faculty at Northeastern Illinois University [NEIU] in Chicago. He also taught in the Chicago Public Schools and in 2005 received the Educator of the Year award from the Illinois Computing Educators.

Foreword: Carl A. Grant

In the latest issue of Education Next, Paul Peterson and Rick Hess analyze and rank state standards - and find that only three states [Massachusetts, Missouri and South Carolina] have rigorous standards.:

As the debate over the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) makes its murky way through the political swamp, one thing has become crystal clear: Though NCLB requires that virtually all children become proficient by the year 2014, states disagree on the level of accomplishment in math and reading a proficient child should possess. A few states have been setting world-class standards, but most are well off that mark—in some cases to a laughable degree.

How’d New York fare?

4th Grade Math: C-
4th Grade Reading: B-
8th Grade Math: C
8th Grade Reading: B

In 2003 and 2005, NYS received an overall grade of C.

Now, in 2008, we’re up to a C+!

Cue the celebration!

This little scamp may have multiple littermates pursuing college degrees. It gets expensive, it really does.

Three of the organizations that consistently uphold only our best values in higher education have redesigned their websites - they’re worth a look, whether it’s your first time or your fiftieth.

I’ll start with NAS - what they do, who they are, and why they matter.

National Association of Scholars

NAS describes their mission on their website:

NAS was founded in 1987, soon after Allan Bloom’s surprise best-seller, The Closing of the American Mind, alerted Americans to the ravages wrought by illiberal ideologies on campus. The founders of NAS summoned faculty members from across the political spectrum to help defend the core values of liberal education.

The NAS today is higher education’s most vigilant watchdog. We stand for intellectual integrity in the curriculum, in the classroom, and across the campus—and we respond when colleges and universities fall short of the mark. We uphold the principle of individual merit and oppose racial, gender, and other group preferences. And we regard the Western intellectual heritage as the indispensable foundation of American higher education.

The 2007 NAS report titled “The Scandal of Social Work Education” describes the politicization and intellectual conformity that has been systematically imposed on an important discipline in public life. Social work programs have become a vehicle for doctrine-based social engineering instead of remedy.

They’ve begun to raise awareness about “Little Delawares,” K-12 programs that, while less intrusive than the University of Delaware’s infamous Residence Life program, border on indoctrination - sometimes blatantly crossing that border - and betray even our most sacred liberal, Western values.

The NAS strolls purposefully and confidently where angels fear - and that often comes with a price. In response to, “Is it dangerous to join?” the NAS advises:

“It can be. We recognize that graduate students and untenured faculty members run a risk if they join an organization that is famous for challenging campus orthodoxies. So we won’t tell your colleagues — or your dean, and we’ll mail Academic Questions to your home if you wish.

Is joining NAS worth the risk? That’s a decision you must make for yourself — and something you should consider the next time you bite your tongue in a department meeting for fear of the consequences of expressing what you really think.”

I’m a member of the NAS. Even if you’d rather not join, you’d do well to stay abreast of their sober takes on contemporary issues in higher education.