Arne Duncan and his fans have been hinting that he’s going to be tough on the teachers union tomorrow at its big annual confab. But will he speak these truths?
“Look, we bailed your behinds out to the tune of $100 billion. So I don’t want to hear any yapping when our No Child Left Behind proposal comes out.”
“Now, about those generous teacher pensions. We value your service, we really do. But there’s no possible way we can afford to pay 60 or 70 or 80 percent of your salary, indexed to inflation, for the rest of your lives. At least without bankrupting our schools. The other option is pushing the retirement age for teachers to 70. Did I mention how I think teaching is a wonderful lifelong career?”
“One last thing: about the teacher obesity epidemic. Come on folks, we need to set a good example here.”
(This is one reason I wasn’t selected to write speeches for the Secretary.)
After an onslaught of anger from Wisconsonites about his Green Bay Post-Gazette piece blasting the state’s testing and accountability system, our own Mike Petrilli has issued a statement saying “he never meant to offend the great people of Wisconsin” and donned the outfit pictured to the left as a sign of his sincerity. “I regret the whole episode. Go Packers!”
Yesterday I reported on the New Yorker profile of Green Dot founder Steve Barr, and speculated that it might inspire a movie version. That led one intrepid Flypaper reader to ask the obvious question: Who would play him? Here are the leading contenders; Rock the Vote below. And if you want to suggest another (or provide a rationale), leave a comment.
Ok, this really has NOTHING to do with education, other than—please, everyone, teach your children not to be like this guy! And by ‘this guy,’ I mean ousted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. In the strange, never-ending drama that is his life, Rod now reportedly wants to participate in a reality TV show where celebs are dumped off in a Costa Rican jungle and viewers vote them off. Apparently, he’ll petition the court to loosen the travel restrictions that are currently part of his bail. Um...really? There are no words...Except that, secretly, I do really want to see what his hair would look like in jungle humidity.
Ok, hmmm........so maybe we need to institute an Obama Administration Education “Cool-O-Meter.” Seems Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently jumped onstage at DC’s crowded and popular 9:30 Club (at a Neko Case concert) to plug the new administration, talk about education and encourage people to go into teaching. You can check it out here, as reported on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s news blog:
How did it all come together? Well, The New Republic explains the backstory here.
Girl Scouts badges are so 20th century. Moms as troop leaders for teenagers? Also passé. But educating young women and providing the public with yummy cookies? Well, those Do-Si-Dos and Samoas will never go out of fashion. So says the 97-year-old Girl Scouts of the USA as it freshens its image to counter an 8% slip in membership over the past 10 years. “We took a step back and asked, ‘What do girls need from us right now?’ ” said Eileen Doyle, the Girl Scouts’ senior vice president of program development. “There is consistency in our goals throughout our history, but we can maintain that while being fun, edgy and challenging for modern-day girls.” Read the full Washington Post article here.
So says Benjamin Berrafato, a fifth grader at New Lane Memorial Elementary School in Selden, New York. This young man composed an open letter to his classmates recently (reprinted by the New York Daily News, no less) urging them to resist “illegal” homework. Why, you may ask, is homework illegal? Benjamin explains:
Homework is assigned to students like me, without our permission. Teachers expect us to do homework, even though we’d rather not. It can be hard sometimes. We get punished if we don’t do it. If we do it, we get no reward; we just don’t get punished.
Simply put, if we don’t, we get punished, and if we do, our reward is ... nothing.
Thus, homework is slavery. Slavery was abolished with the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on Dec. 6, 1865.
So, every school in America has been illegally run for the past 143 YEARS. That’s something to think about.
Probably a good thing we don’t let fifth graders make education policy. He does, however, cite outside sources, abide by the rules of logical argumentation, and write with relatively good grammar. I bet you he learned how to do all that while doing his homework.
So, just a funny Friday-afternoon tidbit. Apparently last night, The Daily Show’s Jonn Stewart did a little skit called “Senate Confirmation Hearings Roast,” in which, among other nominees, he pokes fun at Arne Duncan for keeping his kids out of school that day (truancy), and having his son fetch him water during the hearing (child labor laws). It’s kind of funny....
I know driving a school bus can be tough. Screaming kids, early hours, perhaps an empty stomach... unfortunately, none of that means one should make a stop at the liquor store to buy some booze. Guess this school bus driver from Billings, Montana totally missed that memo. The bus was stopped after a bystander saw it stop at a liquor store one morning (news flash: don’t drive a huge freaking yellow bus when you want to do something on the lamb!). While no students were on board when the driver made said stop for firy sustenance, she did ask a couple middle school students to hide the booze when the cops pulled the bus over shortly thereafter. Wow. There are so many bad choices going on here I don’t even know where to start.
Yep, you read that correctly. 1892 was the last time the NEA did something the Department of Education approves of—or so the story goes in yesterday’s swan song release, “Great Expectations.” I suppose one can’t blame Margarent for at least trying to influence her legacy, although this one is a little heavy on the pictures (of adorable children of course; who doesn’t like kids, right?) and a little light on text—or anything substantive. The point is that Joel Packer, according to David Hoff over at Education Week, is going to retire from the NEA after twenty-five years; this venerable union veteran has been a frequent visitor to Fordham (braving the lion’s den so to speak) and a comrade in debate. But Packer’s a little rusty on his dates; in a conversation he had with Hoff yesterday on said retirement, his parting words were: see, the ED does like us... for work we did 117 years ago. Ah, Mr. Packer, how we will miss you.
“School” is out in Sheffield, England. The singular term has so many negative connotations that a new school there has dropped the offending noun from its name, according to a report in The Guardian. Instead, the institution will be called a “place for learning,” said headteacher Linda Kingdon.
“We decided from an early stage we didn’t want to use the word ’school’,” she told local newspaper the Sheffield Star. “This is Watercliffe Meadow, a place for learning. One reason was many of the parents of the children here had very negative connotations of school. Instead we want this to a be a place for family learning, where anyone can come.”
Surely you already know that Bethany Little was the uber-insider that first put big odds on Arne Duncan getting the spot as U.S. Secretary of Education. But we also asked you, our readers, to tell us who you thought would be the pick, and two of you got it right: Steve Glazerman, a senior researcher at Mathematica Policy Research (who surely ran a randomized field trial in order to come up with his prediction); and Gregory McGinity, The Broad Foundation’s senior director of policy (himself a onetime Washington insider before returning to California).
For their perspicacity, Glazerman and McGinity will get a special gift from Santa this year: signed copies of Checker Finn’s latest book, Troublemaker (which makes a great stocking stuffer for any dedicated education wonk).
I am particularly pleased for McGinity (and not because Broad helps to support Fordham’s work), but because, let’s face it, his Ed in ‘08 campaign had more than a little trouble this year. So here’s a toast to Gregory for ending the year on a high note!
I’m not siding with those who fear the red pen, but colors can matter – here’s a description of a study which found referees in fencing were biased toward those wearing red (rather than blue), and the same writer points to other research showing that hockey and football players wearing black uniforms act more aggressively, and are perceived as being more aggressive. But what I really want to know is, does the color of school uniforms affect test scores?
Teachers in Australia are being told to avoid using red pens to mark their students’ work, because the color can be seen as aggressive. Huh? I had to re-read that one, just to make sure I understood. Apparently the advice – given out to about 29 schools as part of a Queensland Health kit – has caused quite the brouhaha. Opposition health spokesman Mark McArdle called it a “kooky, loony, loopy, Left policy.” And Queensland Council of Parents and Citizens Associations President Margaret Black made an impassioned plea to scrap it. “We’re calling for our children to grow up normally, including their work being marked with a red pen,” she said.
The intensity of it all sounds like a debate over global warming or financial bailouts – not the use of a red writing implement.
The Courier-Mail of Brisbane and Queensland actually put together a photo gallery of “red pens in action,” warning that “images may disturb some users.”
Some see the red pen situation as no laughing matter, though. According to the courier mail article:
‘Psychologists are split on the red pen advice but Toowoomba child psychologist Paul Bramston said a softer colour could help some children with problems. “The red pen brings up association of aggression more than blue or black as red is linked more with dramatic things like stop signs,” Dr Bramston said.’
After an onslaught of anger from Wisconsonites about 
Yesterday I 
Girl Scouts badges are so 20th century. Moms as troop leaders for teenagers? Also passé. But educating young women and providing the public with yummy cookies? Well, those Do-Si-Dos and Samoas will never go out of fashion. So says the 97-year-old 
Surely you already know that 
Kevin Carey 
I’m not siding with 
Subscribe
to Flypaper via RSS