Math People

I believe the world is made up of two kinds of people, math is good people, and math is not for me people, or quite simply, Algebra People and Geometry People.

I barely passed Algebra in high school. The next year I aced Geometry with the same teacher.
Geometry is obvious. You can see it. Algebra is abstract. Algebra is a mysterious mix of letters, numbers, and functions growing into strings of symbols that defy logic.

Geometry is sequential and logical with proof building upon proof, reaching the obvious conclusion.
Algebra is a tricky balancing act with two sides of an equal sign battling it out for a possible answer.

My sister, on the other had, majored in math in college. She loved Algebra and found Geometry abstract and confusing. The words I would use to describe Algebra are the exact words she would use to describe Geometry: abstract, not visible, floating around in the mist.

Ask most adults and they will tell you which which of these two subjects they prefer and you will find the same dichotomy. If you understand Algebra you struggle with Geometry. If you understand Geometry you struggle with Algebra.

What does this tell us about how people perceive and eventually comprehend these two aspects of mathematics? I found this in a math forum on the internet:
Algebra focuses on developing in students convergent thinking patterns (simplifying and solving) and the ability to manipulate abstractions (variables).
Geometry encourages the development of divergent thinking patterns (specific example to generalization) and the visualization of abstractions (geometric modeling).

So let's acknowledge that some people will do better at some things than other things and stop trying to make all our children proficient in everything.

A Fly Went By

I enjoy reading the picture book
A Fly Went By by Mike McClintock. I long to relax barefoot in that row boat chewing on a blade of grass as the sun slowly makes it's way across the sky. Of course this idyllic scene is soon interrupted by a frantic fly. The fly ran away in fear of the frog
Who ran from the cat, who ran from the dog. The harder the boy worked to find the cause of the commotion, the more complicated the commotion became. Finally, after after talking to several terrified animals each terrified by the one coming after it, the problem is discovered. A hunter runs by. But the hunter doesn't stop to negotiate an end to the chase because he is running too. The hunter is running from a loud clanging sound. And what do you think it was? It was a lamb with a bucket stuck on it's leg.

I had a similiar feeling reading education news in my email.

I read this:

June 29, 2009 Chicago Tribune Newspaper BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter

The typical Chicago public school loses more than half of all its teachers within five years -- and about two-thirds of its new ones, a study released today by the University of Chicago indicates. Teacher churning is especially severe in high-poverty, heavily African-American schools -- about a hundred total -- where half of all teachers disappear after only three years, the study found.

"I find that really disturbing,'' said Elaine Allensworth, lead author of the study from the U. of C.'s Consortium on Chicago School Research. "I just see no way they can improve if they can't maintain a stable work force.''

And this from Florida,

By Tony Marrero, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Monday, June 29, 2009

Under a new policy up for a vote by the Hernando County School Board next month, the new grade for a missed assignment or test at the elementary level would be 40 percent.

Translation: no more zeros.

And this blog about a KIPP school teacher:

"No," he told me, shrugging. "I'm leaving teaching. I don't have a plan."

I was shocked. "Why? You're such a wonderful teacher! What happened?"

"It just got to the point that every morning I thought, 'I don't want to go in.' We start at 7:20 and go til 5pm. I wake up at 4:45 for my commute and some days don't get home til 10. I'd honestly rather work in an office at this point." I am still trying to reconcile this new image of Joe with the old one, who was so in love with teaching and seemed to be made for the job.
When Joe left my school, it was a huge loss to our students. But I understand why he wanted to go somewhere less crazy, more organized, that serves a similarly needy population. His current school has one of the highest student achievement rates in NYC, but something is wrong if it killed Joe's drive to teach. He told me that a many other teachers at his school burnt out and quit, much like him. I'm wondering if this KIPP school sees its teaching staff as expendable. Perhaps it has such a great reputation that it can easily replace good teachers who leave with other good teachers.

http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/shoulders_of_giants/2009/06/a-casualty-of-the-teaching-profession.html

And this:

June 15, 2009 Education Week

Study Casts Doubt on Charter School Results By Lesli A. Maxwell

A national study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford casts doubt on whether the academic performance of students in charter schools is any better than that of their peers in regular public schools.

Looking at 2,403 charter schools in 15 states and the District of Columbia, researchers at Stanford University found that students in more than 80 percent of charter schools either performed the same as—or worse than—students in traditional public schools on mathematics tests.

“If this study shows anything, it shows that we’ve got a two-to-one margin of bad charters to good charters,” said Margaret E. Raymond, the director of the center and the study’s lead author. “That’s a red flag.”

Mr. Henig said the Stanford report, along with others that have similarly compared charter school and traditional public school performance, is more evidence that asking which of the two types of schools is better “may be the wrong question.”

As you can see, teachers are leaving the profession in which they invested an expensive college education. School Boards are interferring in individual teachers decisions, one of the key protections of tenure. And when you look at the proposed alternatives, private and charter schools, you see the same burnout with no discernable difference in outcomes.

As more and more government intervention chases fewer and fewer resources, and judicial decisions erode en loco parentis, it is time to take stock.

Can we come to an understanding of what causes what? We know so much about education. Can we synthesize this information into a fishbone diagram in order to get a better picture of the problems and the causes?

Lets take stock of the situation. Lets begin with what exactly we as a nation want to get from our educational system. What constitutes an education? Should it be the same for everyone? Should it look the same for everyone?

When we know what education is for, we can begin to design it. I would guess that education in the future will not have traditional schoolhouses.

But I am asking you to join me in a discussion of National Goals for Education.

WE NEED A STRATEGIC PLAN FOR U.S. EDUCATION

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden; the Purpose and Promise of Special Education

Our government expects all children in public schools to achieve an arbitrary level of expertise in a select number of academic subjects. This expectation extends to children facing any and all physical, mental and emotional challenges. Special Education may have performed great deeds in the past, but it would be a mistake to waste the time and effort of Special Education students and personnel on this wild ride.

I entered Special Education about the time the first Federal Special Education Law, Public Law 94.142, (In it's current form called IDEA) had to be implemented. Public Schools had provided services for the disabled previous to the law’s implementation, but now it was mandatory across the country to provide a Free, Appropriate, Public Education to students with disabilities.

Special Education teachers were considered akin to Florence Nightingale.
We were willing to go in and work with the students that no one else wanted. Our job was to provide these children with an education. No one thought that we would cure retardation or learning disabilities. No one expected us to make the blind to see or the deaf hear. We were teachers. We were to teach the blind to read, write, and do arithmetic. We were to teach the retarded to take care of themselves, hold down a job, and live in the world. We were to assist the learning disabled in overcoming their weaknesses by using their strengths.

Over the years, we became experts in our fields. We developed new techniques and methodologies. We developed a deeper understanding of the variations in brain functioning associated with various disabilities. We found that many children were indeed “differently abled.”

Now children who were were considered “Trainable” as opposed to “Educable” (TMH and EMH respectively), were learning to read and write. Children who might have been diagnosed as retarded in the past could now be understood as learning disabled. Early Intervention and Early Childhood Education were helping children overcome developmental delays and speech problems that could have turned into learning disabilities. Parents were grateful for what we did.

Over the years the expectation of rehabilitation has become the norm for Special Educators.

At the same time that educators were improving the academic outcomes for children with disabilities, medical science was discovering ways to save people who previously would have died. Premature babies were surviving at smaller and smaller birth weights. Traumatic Brain Injuries were no longer fatal. With enough medical intervention many lives could be saved, with no consideration of the quality of life. So after all the progress we have made in improving the outcomes for children with disabilities, we are now faced with new challenges created by medical science.

In my 30 year career I have worked with two children each of whom did not have a brain. One child contracted a herpes virus at birth which destroyed his brain. He required a roomful of machines to live, but he did live for eight years. The other child was anacephalic, born without a brain. When she passed away at the age of two the doctors said no one had ever lived that long with that condition.

There is a lot we can do to overcome problems while the brain is developing. We can do a little to overcome a bad home situation. There is nothing we can do to change genetics. We can’t cure a learning disability. Children going through emotional trauma cannot be made to learn. We can’t reverse brain damage.

If you lose your arm we can teach you to do things with your other arm. We can show you how to compensate for your lost arm. We cannot give you your arm back.

If you have a learning problem, we can teach you in different ways. We can help you use your strengths to compensate for your weaknesses. We can provide a supportive environment. But we cannot make you a different person. Frankly, I think that is a good thing.

It takes all kinds of people to make a world. We need farmers and scientists, artists and mathematicians, musicians and inventors.

I cannot walk in a parent’s shoes. I see the pain, I see the grief, I see the denial, and I see the anger. What I want to see is the love.

When I see the anxiety of the parents of a child with Autism, I know what they are really thinking is, “Will these professionals with all their book knowledge, be able to see beyond the label to the wonderful child I know and love.” When a parent loves a child with all the child’s problems, when they can accept the child even if nothing gets better, then living can begin.

I have heard and experienced many poignant stories in my career. One of them is the story of a young couple expecting a second child. The child is born with the entire back of his head open. There is no bone protecting his brain and the skin is open as well. The parents are told the child will soon die and they are left to be with the child alone. Four hours later the child is still alive and the parents are unsure what to do. The doctors recommend that they care for the child and see what happens. The head is left to heal on its own. I met the child as he was approaching his third birthday. He was able to move around his environment by rolling. He could hold objects and act on them. He was considered blind but I saw him fuss and cry when he saw a favorite toy while visiting a new school. Several years later I talked to his mother. He was attending a special school and making progress. His mother was not planning for college, but she loved him just the way he was every day of his life.

Schools cannot promise you a perfect child. Schools can see each child as an individual. Children are not test scores. Children are human beings with all the success and failure that being human entails. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Special Education. So I am looking to the Special Educators of this nation to stand up and speak for the children. When it comes to standardized testing of Special Education students, just say "No."

A Federal Role in Education?

As we stand on the brink of national standards for education, perhaps we should take a step back and look at the the Federal role in education and what it has done to education so far.

The United States Constitution states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government given the power to regulate or fund elementary or secondary education. The federal role in education is a violation of the 10th amendment of the United States Constitution.

The federal government formed the Department of Education (ED) in 1979

Some politicians warned against the ED.

“No matter what anyone says, the Department of Education will not just write checks to local school boards. They will meddle in everything. I do not want that.” Representative Pat Schroeder (D-CO) 7

“A national Department may actually impede the innovation of local programs as it attempts to establish uniformity throughout the Nation.” Representative Joseph Early (D-MA) 8

“We will be minimizing the roles of local and State education officials; we recognize that the States are responsible for the education policies of the children in the is country.” Representative Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) 9

“This is a back-room deal, born out of a squalid politics. Everything we had thought we would not see happening to education is happening here.” Senator Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) 6

Every dollar parents send to Washington is a dollar they don't have to spend directly on their children's education. Most education tax dollars sent to Washington fund the federal bureaucracy; far less than half of each dollar is ever returned to local schools. More importantly, federal school dollars come with strings attached. The more money we give to education bureaucrats, the more power they have to dictate how local schools are run.

When federal spending increases, local schools are forced to do whatever it takes to get their share, even if this means adopting one size fits all policies mandated in Washington. In other words, federal money is used as a club to force schools to surrender more and more of their decision making authority to Washington.

Although statistics show that only seven percent of an average school’s budget is subsidized by the feds, local districts complain about massive paperwork and red tape required to receive these skimpy funds. A 1991 survey of Ohio school districts found that each district was required to fill out an average of 330 forms, of which 157 were from the state and 173 were from the federal government.4 The federal government, responsible for only seven percent of the budget, causes 55% of the red tape.



The List of Programs:

• Academic Competitiveness/National SMART Grants performance-based grants awarded through participating postsecondary institutions to students with financial need.

• Academies for American History and Civics

• Adult Education - Basic Grants to States

• Adult Education - National Leadership Activities

• Advanced Certification or Advanced Credentialing

• Advanced Placement Incentive Program Grants

• Advanced Placement Test Fee Program

• Advanced Rehabilitation Research Training Project

• Aid for Institutions of Higher Education Impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

• Alaska Native Education Equity

• Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions - Title III Part A Programs

• Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Models on College Campuses

• America's Career Resources Network

• American Indian Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities -Title III Part A Programs

• American Overseas Research Centers

• American Printing House for the Blind

• Appalachian Regional Commission Program

• Arts in Education

• Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions Program (CCRAA)

• Assessment for Accountability - Special Education Research

• Assistive Technology

• Autism Spectrum Disorders

• B.J Stupak Olympic Scholarships

• Braille Training

• Business and International Education Program

• Career Ladder Program

• Carol M. White Physical Education Program

• Centers for Independent Living

• Centers for International Business Education

• Charter Schools Program

• Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program

• Child Care Provider Loan Forgiveness Demonstration Program

• Client Assistance Program (CAP)

• Close Up Fellowship Program

• College Access Challenge Grant Program

• Community Technology Centers

• Comprehensive Regional Assistance Centers

• Comprehensive School Reform Program

• Comprehensive School Reform Quality Initiatives

• Cooperative Education Exchange Program

• Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities

• Demonstration and Training Programs

• Demonstration Projects to Ensure Students With Disabilities Receive a Quality Higher Education

• Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program -- Title V

• Disability and Business Technical Assistance Centers

• Disability and Rehabilitation Research and Related Projects

• Distance Education Demonstration Program

• District of Columbia School Choice Incentive Program

• Early Childhood Educator Professional Development Program

• Early Intervention Program for Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities

• Early Reading First

• Ed-Flex

• Education Finance, Leadership and Management Research

• Education for Homeless Children and Youths — Grants for State and Local Activities

• Education Research

• Education Research and Development Centers

• Educational, Cultural, Apprenticeship, and Exchange Programs for Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Whaling and Trading Partners in Massachusetts

• Educational Opportunity Centers

• Educational Resources Information Center

• Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Programs

• Elementary School Foreign Language Incentive Program

• Emergency Management for Higher Education

• Emergency Response and Crisis Management Grant Program

• English Language Acquisition State Grants

• Enhancing Education through Technology (Ed-Tech) State Program

• Erma Byrd Scholarship Program

• European Union-United States Atlantis Program

• Even Start Discretionary Grant to a Prison that Houses Women and Children

• Even Start

• Even Start Family Literacy Program Grants for Indian Tribes and Tribal Organizations

• Excellence in Economic Education Program

• Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program

• Federal Pell Grant Program

• Federal Perkins Loan Program

• Federal Real Property Assistance Program

• Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG) Program

• Federal Work-Study (FWS) Program

• Field-Initiated Projects

• Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships Program

• Foreign Language Assistance Program (LEAs)

• Foreign Language Assistance Program (SEAs)

• Foundations for Learning Grants

• Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship Program

• Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad — Bilateral Projects

• Fulbright-Hays — Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad

• Fulbright-Hays — Group Projects Abroad Program

• Full Service Community Schools Program

• Fund for the Improvement of Education-Programs of National Significance

• Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education — Comprehensive Program

• Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP)

• Gallaudet University

• Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need

• Grant Competition to Improve Public Knowledge of and Support for Democracy

• Grant Competition to Prevent High-Risk Drinking and Violent Behavior among College Students

• Grants for Coalitions to Prevent and Reduce Alcohol Abuse at Institutions of Higher Education

• Grants for Enhanced Assessment Instruments

• Grants for State Assessments

• Grants for the Integration of Schools and Mental Health Systems

• Grants to Address Youth Violence and Related Issues for Persistently Dangerous Schools

• Grants to Reduce Alcohol Abuse

• Grants to States for Workplace and Community Transition Training for Incarcerated Youth Offenders

• Grants to States to Improve Management of Drug and Violence Prevention Programs

• Helen Keller National Center Program

• High-Quality Supplemental Educational Services and After-School Partnerships Demonstration

• High School Equivalency Program

• Higher Education Disaster Relief

• Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (CCRAA)

• Historically Black College and University Capital Financing Program

• Historically Black Colleges and Universities Program (CCRAA)

• Homeless Education Disaster Assistance

• Howard University

• Hurricane Educator Assistance Program

• Immediate Aid To Restart School Operations (RESTART)

• Impact Aid Section 8002 Payments for Federal Property

• Impact Aid Section 8003 Payments for Federally Connected Children

• Impact Aid Section 8007b Discretionary Construction Grant Program

• Impact Aid Section 8008 Facilities Maintenance

• Improving Basic Programs Operated by Local Education Agencies (Title I, Part A)

• Improving Literacy Through School Libraries

• Improving Teacher Quality State Grants

• Independent Living Services for Older Individuals Who Are Blind

• Independent Living State Grants Program

• Indian Education--Demonstration Grants for Indian Children

• Indian Education--Formula Grants to Local Education Agencies

• Indian Education--National Activities

• Indian Education Professional Development Grants

• Individualized Education Programs — Special Education Research

• Innovative Programs

• Institute for International Public Policy

• International Research and Studies
  

• Jacob K. Javits Fellowships Program

• Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program

• Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program — National Research and Development Center

• Knowledge Dissemination and Utilization

• Language and Vocabulary Development Special Education Research

• Language Resource Centers

• Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership (LEAP) Program

• Life Skills for State and Local Prisoners Program

• Local Flexibility Demonstration Program

• Magnet Schools Assistance

• Martin Luther King, Jr., Scholars Program

• Mary Switzer Research Fellowships

• Master's Degree Programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities

• Master's Degree Programs at Predominantly Black Institutions

• Mathematics and Science Partnerships

• Mentoring Grants

• MEP Consortium Incentive Grants

• Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers Program

• Migrant Education-College Assistance Migrant Program

• Migrant Education Coordination Support Center

• Migrant Education Even Start

• Migrant Education Program

• Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program

• Model Development and Dissemination Grants Program Grants Program
  

• National Assessment of Educational Progress

• National Coordinator Program

• National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR)

• National Professional Development Program

• National Resource Centers

• National Technical Institute for the Deaf

• National Writing Project

• Native American and Alaska Native Children in School Program

• Native American-Serving Non-Tribal Institutions Program (CCRAA)

• Native Hawaiian Education

• No Child Left Behind — Blue Ribbon Schools Program

• Office of Postsecondary Education — Congressionally-Directed Grants
  

• Pacific Vocational Education Improvement Program

• Parent Information and Training Programs

• Parental Information and Resource Centers

• Partnerships in Character Education Project Program

• Predominantly Black Institutions Program (CCRAA)

• Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology Program (PT3)

• Preschool Grants for Children with Disabilities

• Presidential Scholars Program

• President's Education Awards Program

• Prevention and Intervention Programs for Children and Youths Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, or At Risk

• Professional Development for Arts Educators-Arts in Education

• Programs for Native Hawaiians

• Program for North American Mobility in Higher Education

• Project SERV (School Emergency Response to Violence)

• Projects With Industry Program

• Promoting Postbaccalaureate Opportunities for Hispanic Americans Program

• Protection and Advocacy for Assistive Technology

• Protection and Advocacy of Individual Rights
  

• Qualified Zone Academy Bonds

• Randolph Sheppard Vending Facility Program

• Reading and Writing Special Education Research

• Reading First

• Reading is Fundamental-Inexpensive Book Distribution Program

• Ready To Learn Television

• Ready-to-Teach Grant Program

• Recreational Programs

• Regional Educational Laboratories

• Rehabilitation Act Program Evaluation

• Rehabilitation Act Program Improvement

• Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers

• Rehabilitation Research and Training Centers

• Rehabilitation Training Program

• Research in Special Education

• Response to Intervention

• Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program

• Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program

• Rural and Low-Income School Programs

• Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities: Governors' Grants

• Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities: State Grants

• Safe Schools-Healthy Students Initiative

• School-Based Student Drug-Testing Programs

• School Dropout Prevention Program

• School Improvement Fund

• School Leadership Program

• Secondary Analysis of National Assessment of Educational Progress Data

• Secondary and Postsecondary Outcomes — Special Education Research

• Secondary and Transition Services — Special Education Research

• Serious Behavior Disorders Special Education Research

• Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program

• Small, Rural School Achievement Program

• Smaller Learning Communities

• Special Education — Grants to States

• Special Education— National Activities — Parent Information Centers

• Special Education — National Activities — Technical Assistance and Dissemination

• Special Education — National Activities — Technology and Media Services

• Special Education — Personnel Development to Improve Services and Results for Children with Disabilities

• Special Education — State Personnel Development Grants Program

• Special Education — Studies and Evaluation

• Special Education Teacher Quality Research — Mathematics and Science

• Special Education Teacher Quality Research — Reading and Writing

• Special Education — Technical Assistance on State Data Collection--IDEA General Supervision Enhancement Grant

• Special Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership (SLEAP) Program

• Special Olympics Education Programs

• Spinal Cord Injuries Model Systems Program

• Star Schools Program

• State Charter School Facilities Incentive Grants Program

• State Flexibility Demonstration Program

• State Grants under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund

• Statewide Longitudinal Data System Grants

• Striving Readers

• Student Support Services Program

• Supported Employment State Grants
  

• Talent Search Program

• Teacher Incentive Fund

• Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants

• Teacher Quality and Quality of Other Service Providers for Students with Disabilities

• Teacher Quality Partnership Grant Program

• Teachers for a Competitive Tomorrow

• Teaching Ambassador Fellowship

• Teaching American History

• Tech Prep Education

• Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access

• Technology Innovation Challenge Grant Program

• Tech-Prep Demonstration Program

• Territories and Freely Associated States Education Grant Program

• The Challenge Newsletter

• Thurgood Marshall Legal Educational Opportunity Program

• Title III Part A Programs — Strengthening Institutions Program

• Title III Part B Programs, Strengthening Historically Black Colleges and Universities Program

• Title III Part B, Strengthening Historically Black Graduate Institutions Program

• Traditionally Underserved Populations

• Training and Advisory Services — Equity Assistance Centers

• Training Program for Federal TRIO Program

• Transferability for State and Local Educational Agencies

• Transition to Teaching

• Tribally Controlled Postsecondary Vocational and Technical Institutions Program

• TRIO Dissemination Partnership Program

• Troops-to-Teachers Program

• Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program

• Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program

• United States-Russia Program: Improving Research and Educational Activities in Higher Education

• Unsolicited Grant Opportunities

• Upward Bound Math-Science

• Upward Bound Program

• US-Brazil Higher Education Consortia Program
  

• Veterans Upward Bound Program

• Vocational Education — Basic Grants to States

• Vocational Education — Grants to Native Americans and Alaska Natives

• Vocational Education National Programs

• Vocational Education - Native Hawaiians

• Vocational Rehabilitation Services Projects for American Indians with Disabilities

• Vocational Rehabilitation State Grants

• Voluntary Public School Choice

• We the People

• William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program

• Women's Educational Equity

Goodling stated, “This massive list of federal education programs clearly demonstrates what many of us had suspected for quite some time that Washington is out of control and out of touch.” Pointing out a huge stack of papers required for all the Education Department’s programs, McKeon remarked, “The Clintons say that it takes a village to raise a child, but that is only because it takes a village to fill out this paper work.”
Obviously, ever-increasing federal control over our schools has failed the nation's children and lowered educational standards.

Parents and teachers know what is best for their schools at the local level. The key to reforming public education in America is returning local control back to our public schools.

NOTES
Berthoud, Dr. John E., Who Got It Right? What Proponents and Opponents of the Creation of the Department of Education Promised & Predicted, The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, January 18, 1996, p.11.

Compassion

Developing a sense of compassion for others is a complex interplay between life experience (learned) and temperament (innate). When an infant is born and begins to experience the world it begins to determine if the world is a safe and nurturing place, or an uncomfortable scary place. A baby who is left hungry, crying and uncomfortable will learn that the world is a bad place that cannot be trusted. A well cared for baby will usually explore the world with curiosity and trust.

Take these two children and put them on the school playground.
Each falls down and scrapes a knee. Does someone help them? Does someone laugh at them? How does the child react to this?

They see a child get knocked down by a bully. How do they react?

You may think that the poorly cared for child would not have compassion and the happy child would be concerned, but that is not how it works. A happy child who has no experience of bullying or bad treatment may have no compassion. The sad child may well have compassion.

The difference lies in who the child identifies with. A child may see the bully as powerful and successful. If a child identifies with the "powerful" bully, they will likely show no compassion for the victim. On the other hand, a child may be able to relate to the victim recognizing how awful it feels to be victimized. If a child identifies with the victim they will probably be compassionate.

You can teach compassion if you can help someone to identify with the victim and recognize the pain. You can teach bullying if you make the bad guy appear powerful or rewarded for the behavior. Consider this when you think about television and movies and the messages the media is sending. Who is portrayed as powerful and successful? How are victims portrayed? Who will children identify with when watching?

When we think about ways to stop bullying in school, it is important to remember these factors. The torments of middle school and adolescence serve to provide experience, both personal and vicarious, of the bully and the victim. This is a teachable moment through which young people can develop character, empathy and compassion for others with the guidance of knowledgeable adults.

Micro Management: Further thoughts about management

Insulation at the top continues to be a problem in the workplace today. However there is another pervasive problem in the world that make even those who have jobs unhappy at work. The micro management of just about everything has become unbearable.

Lets start with an area I know very well, public education. The education of children is one of those duties not mentioned in the constitution and lies, therefore, in the domain of the states. Along comes the federal government sticking a foot in the door with programs providing money for free lunches and subsidized milk. Money is good. Food is good. Desegregation and Public Law 94-142 Education for the disabled are wonderful, they just didn't get fully funded.

Here we are in the 21st century and we have the Federal government dictating "adequate yearly progress," mandatory standardized testing, and all children at grade level by 2014. The micro management is insidious. Soon there will be national standards for public education, which, did I mention, is a function of the states.

Perhaps we can agree on some general competencies every child should have. I think high school graduates should be able to paint a realistic portrait in acrylics. They should be able to express a variety of emotions through multi media art. Graduates should be able to describe the color wheel and it's uses.

Some may think that this is not essential knowledge, but to a child with an artistic bent it is like food and water. The competencies that state standards require in the area of mathematics are unreasonable to me. Why can't I have expectations of competence in the arts? High schools in rural area teach animal husbandry. Should all high school students study agriculture? It is a pretty useful skill. Certainly more useful than calculus has ever been to me.

I truly fear national standards. Schools are already a trial for children with learning disabilities. Imagine if you couldn't graduate high school because you couldn't run the mile in under 10 minutes, or bake the perfect pastry? Does it make any sense?

So that is how I see the federal government heading toward micro managing education. Here is what I see in the workplace in general.

The people at the top are dictating every aspect of the jobs of underlings without any training or experience doing the underling's job. There is little trust in the worker. The worker has little to no input in the process. A big business is no longer a good place to work for anyone but the upper eschelon.

Again the government is also having it's say in how the worker does the job. Government regulations micro manage, executives micro manage, and quality systems measure, measure, measure. Does any of this impact the outcome?

I would argue that the best indicator of the health of a company is the morale of it's workers. When workers feel needed, trusted, and valued, they will make a good product and provide excellent service. Angry, fearful, undervalued workers have other things on their minds. quality and service come second or even third.
The belief that you can control the work you do is essential to job satisfaction. When workers are micro managed they lose that sense of control over their work.

In Beyond money: toward an economy of well-being (2004) Martin E. P. Seligman argues that job satisfaction is decreasing.

Domestic policy currently focuses heavily on economic outcomes, although economic indicators omit, and even mislead about, much of what society values. We show that economic indicators have many shortcomings, and that measures of well-being point to important conclusions that are not apparent from economic indicators alone. For example, although economic output has risen steeply over the past decades, there has been no rise in life satisfaction during this period, and there has been a substantial increase in depression and distrust.

Will the current economic situation caused by incompetent management at the top serve to further the oppressive micro management of the American worker? Will the failure of top management serve to strengthen indusry's reliance on the worker as expert on his/her job? Will workers quit working as employees and become self-employed consultants?

Stay Tuned.

Blind Leadership

Insulation at the Top: A Problem of Blindly Decisive Leadership or Will the last person out please turn off the lights.
Originally published on September 29, 2005.

I have been mulling this over for days and it came together for me when I realized that the problems I saw in the last school district I worked for are similar to the problems I see in the current Bush administration. When the person on the top keeps himself insulated from the advice and concern of the people on the front lines, all hell can break loose and he will be the last person to know. By that time, the people who know the most, who are most capable of fixing the problems, will be long gone.

When the new superintendent in the district gathered the employees to introduce himself, he made one point perfectly clear. He was a military man and he believed in the chain of command. The thing he disliked the most was an “end run.” After asking around amongst the males in the building, I discovered that he meant by-passing your boss to talk to the bosses boss. A football analogy in a female rich environment should have tipped me off to the problems to come.

Now I am from the school of “Do what you think is right, ask forgiveness later, if necessary.” I was hired to do a job. I have the training and the experience necessary to do it well. Let me do my job and trust me to know what I am doing. If you have a question about what I am doing, ask me. I was now working in an “Ask permission now, not forgiveness later” environment.

OK, I can give that a try. I dutifully wrote up action plans. I met with my “stake holders” and got consensus. I collected data. I worked with my team to assess the data and make a plan. I submitted my plan. My boss submitted it to his boss.

And there it sat.

Deadlines arrived and went.

Crises occurred and I was called on to jump in and solve them.
But still my plan to prevent problems sat on the Assistant Superintendent's desk.

I asked about it and was told that it is on the A.S.’s desk.

And here is where it gets crazy. My boss tells me that his boss (The A.S.) doesn’t want me to implement the plan. Forget the research, forget the data, forget that it is fully funded at no cost to the district, she just doesn’t think we should. “Well what does the superintendent think?” I ask.

“He hasn’t seen it.” was the reply.

As you can imagine things started to fall apart, not just in my department, but all over the place. The Social Workers were calling all over the district and rallying the teacher’s union because the A.S. changed the assignments for the coming year in clear violation of the union contract. Parents started filing for Due Process hearings, a legal proceeding over a child’s rights because the A.S. didn’t move on some things were legally mandated. Principals were frantically trying to cope with class consolidations and then splits midyear, disrupting the student’s education, straining the teachers, and annoying the parents. These are just a few of the problems that the layman can comprehend. There were multitudes of problems too technical to go into.

The superintendent had no idea about any of this. The staff all over the district had been micromanaged to death by someone with no understanding of the complexity of each individual’s role in the whole.
What is a person to do? Well, the best people left for greener pastures like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Those left behind were forced to pick up the slack.

I had many conversations with a curriculum coordinator who had a lifetime of experience in his role. He was one year away from retirement and was really struggling with the decision to stay or go. When I told him I had to leave for the sake of my health, he decided to leave administration to go back to the classroom for his final year.

Now, how does this relate to the Bush administration?
I see many people who are well trained and experienced in their respective fields, finding that their work is meaningless if it doesn’t fit into the president’s view of the world. These same people are not content to maintain the status quo. They leave, and in doing so, leave the organization weaker and less capable than before.

For example, Richard Clarke the chief of counter terrorism in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations had been predicting a major al Qaeda attack on the United States with such intensity that it is hard to comprehend that it was allowed to happen. The intelligence personnel who knew that there was no evidence of WMD’s but could only watch helplessly as our president destroyed the credibility of our intelligence agency, like Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker (May 12, 2003) quotes a former intelligence official, “One of the reasons I left was my sense that they were using the intelligence from the C.I.A. and other agencies only when it fit their agenda. They didn't like the intelligence they were getting, and so they brought in people to write the stuff.” The military veterans of Vietnam who understood the the difficulties and complexities of regime change, like Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, who told Congress that it would take hundreds of thousands of American soldiers to adequately secure postwar Iraq. Then we had the resignation of four Cabinet officials, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, Education Secretary Rod Paige, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, and most famously, Secretary of State, Colin Powell.

This looks familiar. Why did these people leave in droves?
Rand Beers resigned as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Combating Terrorism in March 2003 "I came to the conclusion that rather than being part of the problem, which I was within the administration, I wanted to be part of the solution." Paul O'Neill, who wrote in his memoir about his unsuccessful fight to get the president to take the ever increasing deficit seriously. There's Christie Todd Whitman, who appears in O'Neill's memoir recalling her own unsuccessful struggles to get the White House to acknowledge the scientific data on environmental problems. All are now gone.

Now look at the country. What do we have? A mess.

We have the possibly preventable loss of the World Trade Towers, thousands of lives, and our sense of security. We are embroiled in a no win situation in Iraq which has cost us peace and our standing in the world. We have lost our prosperity and burdened our children with an uncountable debt. We have lost a great American city and our reputation for egalitarianism. And president Bush is the last to see it.

By keeping himself insulated from reality, surrounding himself with those who agree with him, and staying away from the front lines of life, Bush has allowed the country to deteriorate. And the worst part is he has alienated those who are best able to bring the country back.

When I was struggling to maintain quality programs in the school district, I was furious with the rank and file who watched the slow rot happening all around and would not stand behind those who were fighting to prevent it.

For five years now I have raged at the obvious mismanagement of this great country’s power, our military sons and daughters, our reputation, and our natural resources. I have watched the rich grow richer while more people find themselves poorer. I watched my basic freedoms swept away in the name of preserving freedom. And I have watched others stand up and speak truth to no avail.

I find that I again feel the need to leave, only this time it is not a job that is disappointing me, it is my country. I miss America. I am looking for a new country to believe in. Any ideas?

Related Read:

Clueless at the Top: While the Rest of Us Turn Elsewhere for Life, Liberty, and Happiness
by Charlotte Childress

Added April 25, 2009:
It was a long and frustrating three years since I wrote this. Thank you USA for helping me elect Barack Obama.

Exercise

Standards - accountability - compete in the world - standardized - data driven - scores - benchmarks - stakeholders - job skills - communication - calculation - strength - endurance - talent - brain-based - average - below average - small - medium - large - class size - student:teacher ratio - theory - fact - beauty - art - science - belief - population - equality - gifted - technology - knowledge - most - all - competence - understanding - style - learning - play - work - money - pain - sorrow - people skills

1. Please use the word bank above and sort these terms into two categories, measurable and not measurable.

2. Please use the word bank above and sort these terms into two categories, important, and not important.

3. Please use the word bank above and sort these terms into two categories, school responsibility, not school responsibility.

4. Please use the word bank above and sort these terms into two categories, life, and not living.