God forbid we talk about God.

God forbid we talk about the bible.

God forbid we talk about politics.

God forbid we talk about homosexuals.

God forbid we talk about the war.

God forbid we talk about immigration.

God forbid we talk about pornography.

God forbid we talk about race.

God forbid we talk at all.

That way, we can all slink back into our comfy little corners self-assured that our own opinions are the right opinions and then, when people do not agree with our opinions, we can resort to violence to solve what might have been resolved through dialogue… if only we were willing to, God forbid, talk.

People baffle me.

So I have no problem with people of faith. However, I do have a problem with extremists who morally get on their high horse and quote the bible in order to defend their point of view as being entirely beyond question or reproach.

The following is a letter I wish I was clever enough to have written. This is a real tickler:

In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant person of deep faith, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and, as such cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, penned by a university professor. It’s funny, as well as informative:

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination … End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness – Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord – Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I’m confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan.
James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus, Dept. Of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education University of Virginia

(It would be a damn shame if we couldn’t own a Canadian

As I discussed yesterday, when it comes to measuring teacher effectiveness (it’s all the rage in national education policy these days), I, as an educator, want multiple measures to be used.

Yesterday I conceded the use of student test scores via bubble tests to measure my effectiveness because I know that this is a deal breaker for the policy makers in D.C. On this point they are intractable and if politics is the art of compromise, then fine — I’d rather accept multiple measures that include test scores than have no seat at the decision making table and have a host of ridiculous other stuff rammed down my throat.

And ram they will.

So what measures do I want? Yesterday, I said I wanted peer evaluations to count. Today I am going to ask for administrative evaluations.

Yep, I want them. But, the quid pro quo is that I want my administrators to be evaluated by the teaching staff as well. And I want the federal government to use whatever stick they will use to punish me for not meeting their targets to be the same stick they use to admonish admins who do not meet their targets.

Let’s level the playing field. Teacher effectiveness is related to administrative effectiveness so while we are re-inventing the “assess our school professionals wheel” let’s do it properly, huh?

We need to implement an administrative effectiveness tool side-by-side with this new teacher effectiveness tool.

It’s not biting off more than we can chew. It’s called doing it properly one time instead of perpetually re-doing it over and over and over again.

Truly, I repeat, it makes no sense not to do all of this at the same time. (Or else, let me guess, eight years from now some genius is going to look up and say, “Ya know, teacher effectiveness is related to administrative effectiveness. Maybe we should measure them, as well?”)

Suddenly, that cantankerous VP who makes every teacher’s life hell but sucks up to the Assistant Superintendent like a lap dog will not have a place to hide. Conversely, the principal that really goes to bat for their staff yet takes it on the chin from the Assistant Superintendent will have a means of not being forced into the role of subservient lap dog.

Let the admins measure my effectiveness. But theirs must be assessed as well.

And then we get to the juicy stuff… the district level measurements of effectiveness.

Why should they not also have to answer to the assessment and accountability God? I am not joking, either. A great Supe gets a lotta love from the peeps in the district. I know, I have seen it many, many times. And a bad Supe operates almost with impunity nowadays.

Tyrants in a fiefdom, unchecked and protected only by mammoth buy-out clauses.

Look, there are basically three levels to classroom education that are being funded by the state and nation: the classroom level, the administrative level and the district level. (The state level already has to answer in part to the Federal level and the state’s voters — plus, that realm of accountability is only growing these days so I don’t want to tread into that muck too much).

Admins, please feel free to measure my effectiveness. But know that your own effectiveness will be measured by me as well and whatever consequences can be meted out for my underperformance will apply to you as well should your measurements not measure up.

Justice is blind, no one is above the law, and take that, Mo Fo!

Fair is fair.

The VP who comes at 5:30 a.m., leaves at 7:45 p.m. and does the work of three distict level employees… give ‘em some love.

The bonehead principal who only has two more years to retirement and is playing out the string trying just not to cause any waves nor expend too much effort.

Meet your maker!

This game is gettin’ fun now, huh? Suddenly, everyone is accountable and teachers can’t be the only ones demonized with data.

Multiples measures for measuring teacher effectiveness will continue tomorrow… post is growing too long.

As I mentioned the other day, I am a big believer in goals. So much so that I always write them down.

Yet often, when I think of goals, I think in terms of career and professional aspirations. In a way it seems as if this is the way I am wired. (As is the rest of America. We are all about “productivity”. Buncha A-type personalities in the new land, that’s for sure.)

So today I am going to begin with “personal” goals, the non-professional elements that make for a life and not simply a career.

“Be a GREAT father, husband, friend, teacher and business associate.” That’s HUGE to me. And being a writer, I choose my words carefully. It’s not an accident that I use the word “great”. Why? Cause I want to be better than merely good. Now of course, I don’t always rise to the occasion (not hardly!) but I do find that having set my intention to aspire to this level helps me a great deal over the course of a year — especially as opposed to the way I used to live, simply meandering from experience to experience, never having a core set of inner principles to guide me. (BTW, can you hear the Covey influence on my life? That stuff works I tell ya!)

Also on my personal goal list is, “Take care of my physical health.” It’s why I am working to make a greater commitment to yoga. Truth be told, yoga has changed my life (and I am so the “level 1″ student that I am not sure if I’ll ever see level 2 — and yet still, yoga treats my body, mind and spirit exceptionally well. I am just a better human being when I do it with regularity.)

Then there’s “take care of my intellectual well-being.” For me this means I must make sure I carve out time to read and write.

Uhm, hello — don’t forget my emotional sanity. I need to make sure I laugh and participate in things that I find to be joyful while recognizing the potholes — the people and things — that make me feel tense, angry, frustrated, hopeless and so on… so that I can swerve away from them at every possible juncture. Look, I ain’t no effin saint and there’s a part of me that is more than willing to lay down with dogs so that I can mix it up and good — but I always wake up with fleas when I do so.

Goal setting helps me to remember this before I ever even encounter these people. (And you know who you are!)

And finally there’s the spiritual side of matters. The key this year for me — I mean it’s a really big goal — is to be more grateful. Gratitude often feels like the antidote for much of the stuff that gets to me and it makes me feel much more deeply connected to God.

That’s right, I said it. I believe (deeply) in God and gratitude really make me feel like I have a connection to this universal spirit more so than so many other things that purport to provide that for me.

No, it’s not the biggest list in the world. (Plus, I do have some specifics to which I will not speak in such a public forum.) Yet I feel that if I aspire to these goals and earn the grade of an A for effort in seeking to reach them this year, the actual results will all take care of themselves.

Focus on the process, know your larger personal aims and put in the hard work — these are my personal goals for 2010… and I think that it’s pretty clear to see that when I attain them (it’s always good to speak in the affirmative when goal setting; nothing wrong with assuming the accomplishment of any of these aims) the tackling of my “professional” goals will not only be much easier but more rewarding as well… because they will not come at the expense of what ought to be the most meaningful to me in my actual life.

Goals: The Personal Before the Professional

God bless ETS. I mean if you know anything about me, you know how much I find the whole industry of bubble tests to be 1) an absolute cash cow for the bubble test makers and 2) an unquestionably flawed means for either student or teacher assessment.

And now, ETS, is unveiling — from behind their magic black cloak of psychometrician darkness — the all new Personal Potential Index.

PPI bay-bee! You may not know it yet but one day it’ll be yet another acronym which joins your lexicon of educational alphabet soup.

Here’s some info on PPI.

In short, the PPI will be attached to the new GRE as an insight into a prospective applicant’s non-cognitive ability. (Stay with me here… this is worth it.)

As ETS says, the PPI is an index whereby “three or four professors or supervisors — generally those who will also be writing letters of recommendation — will answer a series of questions about candidates’ non-cognitive skills in various areas, as well as a more general set of questions. Applicants will be rated on a scale of 1-5 on questions about their abilities in these six areas: knowledge and creativity, communication skills, team work, resilience, planning and organization, and ethics and integrity.”

Let me repeat that. A student’s teachers will rate the kids “knowledge and creativity, communication skills, team work, resilience, planning and organization, and ethics and integrity.”

Now, being unsure of matters, I consulted the dictionary as to a definition of cognitive. Merriam Webster defines cognitive as “relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity”

Uhm, excuse me… how are any of the “non-cognitive” skills “non-cognitive?”

Okay, forget I asked.

Uhm, excuse me… aren’t the quirky kids I am fond of “creative” and the quirky kids who annoy me “kids who demonstrate poor communication skills”?

Okay, forget I asked.

Uhm, excuse me… is this not an attempt to quantify unquantifiable things by people who might not really be best qualified to make these quantifications anyway?

Okay, forget I asked.

Uhm, excuse me… does this mean that sucking up is now mandatory instead of optional in order to advance in school?

Okay, I tease.

I guess on one hand I should tip my hat to ETS for finally acknowledging to their critics (like me) that their tests don’t give a full enough or broad enough or accurate enough picture of test takers even though they most certainly imply that their assessments do.

Because that’s really what this PPI thing is — a concession to that exact idea. I mean, by building this PPI thing-ey, they are tipping their cap to the idea that, “Ya know what… maybe their is more to a student than the ability to choose the correct bubble with a number 2 pencil in hand.”

Ya think?

The only thing I can for sure say as I watch this all unfold is that for a non-profit, ETS sure makes a lot of money.

For the price of $65.00, starting in January, you will now be able to take a Los Angeles Gang Tour for Tourists. No joke… check out this article about it in the Los Angeles Times.

My first reaction was, these people are sick. And they are crazy. And they are looking to exploit inner city L.A. for profit.

And if they do that, it seems inevitable that this is going to end badly. And violently. And fast.

But after reading the article, and seeing how the founder of this enterprise wants to paint this as a human rights issue — and seeks to try and funnel whatever profits that may be had into the community in an attempt to revitalize some aspect of a sector of Los Angeles that is grossly suffering from dire economic hardship, I am not as skeptical.

I mean I am still skeptical, don’t get me wrong. Just not as skeptical.

But think about it for a moment, what is this tour exactly going to be? Is it a bunch of rich white folks who want to go slumming for an afternoon? Is it the international crowd, say a horde of Japanese or Argentinians who get picked up from a hotel in Beverly Hills and are then chauffeured in an air-conditioned gang bus past downtown to the southeast right through cities like Lynwood where I teach? (By the way, if I ever take the tour myself and see a student I know from my high school, am I supposed to wave, duck, or boast to all the other people on the bus, “Hey, I know that kid. He’s in my third period class!”)

Boy, wouldn’t I be the stud of the bus then?

Maybe the clientele is a a bunch of effete Frenchmen who once watched the movie Colors and like to play the hard beats of NWA over their Renault’s car stereo systems?

BTW, are gangs really going to grant “safe passage” through the hood for a brightly colored bus filled with tourists? I mean, isn’t one of the easiest criminal marks a crook could ever hope to target a tourist? Think about it, they don’t know their way around, some don’t even know the language, and they always travel with cash and expensive goodies because they have to pay for things like hotels, meals, and bus rides through inner-city gangland?

Oh yeah, am I the only troubled by the voyeuristic dehumanization aspect of this tour we might potentially be seeing here?

And for sixty-five bucks, what do I get? I mean is my driver packin’ heat? Like if they start shooting at us is someone on my bus gonna be shooting back at them?

Are there pit stops so that I can experience what it’s like to score drugs off the street?

Will I have the opportunity to write my name in graffiti on the side of a public building so that I can learn how to “tag”?

If I see a cop, should I flip him off, run, or drop to my knees and thank God that someone is about to save me from the Jurassic Park aspect of this stupid tour?

And if I don’t see any menacing looking homies who mad dogg me and make me think they are going to rip off my head and kill every member of my family, will there be some sort of refund? Like I wanna feel like I am going to die — but I am also hoping that the bus will serve lemonade, too… because as a tourist, it’s nice to have lemonade.

Oh yeah, can I get a tattoo to show that I am down for the hood? Just a henna though, please. My mom would kill me if she found out I used real ink.

For years I have said that while our attention is focused on an international war, our urban communities have been mired in a domestic war that is costing our citizens more of their lives, safety and sense of prosperity than anything going on in the middle east right now.

Truly, scores of kids die each year in urban America as a result of gang violence. As a teacher in L.A. and the author of the YA novel Homeboyz, I kinda feel I know what I am talking about to a small extent.

And now, you too can see what it’s like to live on the hard streets of gangland U.S.A. Don’t forget your camera — the trip promises lots of special photo opportunities.

Especially when you see the chalk outlines of 14 year olds. Those make for great stories once you get home and share your photo album with all your friends while sipping hot chocolate by the fireplace.

I tell ya, if it was white kids dying in America at the same rate of black and brown kids, lots of people would be singing a different tune about gangs in America.

And about tours that offer the chance to gawk.

For years and years we have had an immense tardy problem on campus. Literally, the bell to start 1rst period would go BOING at 7:30 but if you stood at the front gate of school you would see hundreds — I mean HUNDREDS of students, not 10 or 20… like 300-400 — just kinda lazily sauntering in. Even at 7:38, you’d still see the same thing.

So me, I would go Draconian on my students. While the rest of the high school did whatever they did, a tardy to my class got you 1 warning and then meant 6 hours of Saturday school and 25 demerits. And if you were tardy twice within 2 weeks, I tripled the fine, 18 hours worth of Saturday School and 75 demerits. 3 seconds, 3 minutes or 30 minutes, all the same to me. Tardy is tardy.

Like I said, Draconian.

But it worked. While the rest of Lynwood High had kids who just sort of loafed without any sense of urgency to get to their classrooms, kids in my classes would literally run.

The fact is, you just can’t run a great operation if people think they can show up whenever they want. We start at the bell. And if I don’t enforce the rules, it makes folks who do show up on time look like suckers for having done so because there are no consequences.

Another reason I go so psycho on tardies is because it sets the tone for classroom management in regards to everything else I do. If they think I am a freak about being 18 seconds late to class, God only knows how bonkers he’s gonna go if we do things like tag up the walls in the room and nonsense like that, they think.

It’s the broken window theory as applied to behavior. And the truth is, it’s worked remarkably well. (NOTE: If you are not familiar with the broken window theory, read that link — it’s GREAT!)

Well, this year we have a new principal and he came to me asking about how to improve behavior during lunchtime and I told him, the problems didn’t start at lunch — they started first thing in the morning. I mean the message we are sending kids from the moment school starts is that, “Look, Lynwood High has rules but we don’t really enforce them too enthusiastically. So when it comes to behavior on campus, you get a lot of leeway. You can kinda do what you want.”

To wit, I said, look at all the tardies in the morning. Then I explained to him the broken window theory.

3 days later we started The Purple Crush. At the first bell — and each and every other tardy bell during the day — we do a huge sweep and all the kids that get caught up in it have to sit out on the bleachers for 119 minutes. (We are on block schedule.) No talking. No eating. No nothing. Just bleacher detention.

And let me tell you, it looks miserable.

The first 2 days we had scores of kids sitting in the bleachers moaning and hating life. Now, there’s but a handful. Kids stride purposefully towards class at 7:55. Teachers LOVE it! It’s changed the school. And what happens? Kids sent txt messages to the media and they do a story on The Crackdown. Check it out — IMHO, they kinda paint us as a bunch of unfair, tyrannical beasts that need to be reigned in like we are at the edge of violating The Bill of Rights.

Kids are going to class, the Purple Crush has improved our campus greatly and ABC News takes us to task. Geesh, can you ever win?

Fixing tenure is not going to fix our schools. Will it help? Yes. To what degree? I’d suggest not a great one. There are at least 3 other things I’d much rather have in my back pocket before busting tenure or giving merit pay. And in no particular order they are…

1. School readiness so that kids enter classrooms with the skills and knowledge they need to be in that room. Grouping kids by age and using social promotion as a vehicle to shuttle kids on through the educational factory that is U.S. schooling whether or not they have learned anything is an abysmal failure. How come no one rips this to shreds in the major media? Kids fail 6th grade and they go to 7th. They fail 7th and they go to 8th. They fail 8th and they come to high school without one element of merit to their being on that campus other than the year in which they were born. Ridiculous.

2. Parent accountability. Do I really need to go on here? I mean how many blog posts have I already written on the need for America’s parents to step up? This is not about race, socio-economic-status, region of the country, urban or rural, black, brown, white, yellow, or green — it’s about the crisis of parental ownership we are seeing day in and day out as it plays out in a destructive typhoon that ruins the lives of our students. Hard for me to get a kid to care about their schooling if their own parent doesn’t dive a damn about it. And giving a damn is measured in actions, not words All parents pay lip service to this idea that they care — but not enough of them are rolling up their shirt sleeves to do the work necessary to create a framework in which their children can be educationally successful. The opportunities are there. I mean I teach in Lynwood, California — spitting distance from Compton — and yet scores of kids ARE taking advantage of the opportunities available through public schooling, going to college and becoming citizens of this country which make me darn proud. And what’s almost always the driving force behind them? Parents.

3. Growth model assessment. Haven’t we yet recognized that bubble sheet tests are so narrow, so off-base, so 20th century in a 21rst century world that to continue to worship at their altar is literally praying to a false God at this point. Sure, they are the most convenient and the most cost effective form of assessment. But if they suck, what’s the point? Is there a teacher in the country that feels the state tests accurately measure either their students’ most real, most authentic abilities or their own professional aptitudes as a classroom instructor working with kids on a day-to-day basis? It’s hogwash built on hogwash perpetuated by folks who are making a financial killing off of the testing industry. For all you conspiracy theorists out there… follow the money.

Hell… I can’t stop at 3 — so here’s a bonus!

4. Resources. Anytime we’re ready to join the 21rst century and actually allow our kids to use this great new invention called a cell phone that’s connected to the internet in order to participate in class, the practical, prudent, pragmatic world is ready. We can provide a kid with hundreds of pounds of textbooks which they absolutely loathe at the start of every year but the idea of giving them one tool that they will actually enjoy and eagerly use and stuffing it full of open source content in all of their subject areas, well… TOO REVOLUTIONARY!! Can you say deja vu? It’s hogwash built on hogwash perpetuated by folks who are making a financial killing off of the textbook industry. For all you conspiracy theorists out there… follow the money.

And if I suffer from a mysterious poisoned blowdart while keynoting my next conference, at least you’ll know from which direction it was fired. LOL!

Check out this story about the coming tsunami for education that was splashed today. They literally titled it, “A ‘tsunami’ of Boomer teacher retirements is on the horizon.”

Of course, just because we know about the problem, doesn’t mean we are going to do anything about it. America has turned — much to our discredit — into a nation of reaction instead of proactivity. (I blame George Bush’s short-sighted mentality about proper management of things for much of this right now. To wit, I cite the pouring ga-zillions of dollars into a red-herring chase for drummed-up charges of WMD’s in Iraq instead of recognizing that we had things at home that could have been proactively dealt with before they became a calamity like the housing crisis, banking mess, Wall Street rapaciousness, Louisiana levees, deteriorating schools, the need for green energy, and so on. Anyway…)

Right now, it seems to me that we have to find a way to get our best and brightest to actively choose the profession of education. Currently, the top — and even the middle range of college graduates — are heading into things like business and law, jobs that chase the money (and feed the rat race). I’ve said this before, but when is the last time the Harvard valedictorian stood up and said, “I am going to be a middle school English teacher for the next 35 years.” And meant it.

The crowd would groan conveying the sentiment, “But why? You could be so much more.”

This stigma is very dangerous. People view the profession of teaching as a second rate career. I, for one, will disagree to my last breath but still, how do you change the perception of a culture?

Boomers are retiring. God bless them for their service. But it’s clear that we need an infusion of new educators and I think it’s going to take a national bill — like the GI Bill or something — because American education needs an overhaul. In many ways, we are looking like GM, once the model and envy of the world, now a… well, I’ll let you fill in the blank.

Check out my sweatshirt today. It’s Spirit Day, purple and gold for the Lynwood Knights. How many folks are actually proud to be an American teacher these days? I am, but when I travel the country and speak to others, so many, many of them seem demoralized.

We have to CHANGE THE GAME, FLIP THE SCRIPT, TURN THE PAGE… and avoid cliches as we do so.

On this night, after having read this interview, I became an official Arne Duncan fan.

And I am wearing my hoodie up because I am only hoping that I don’t have to hide my head underneath a full bag at some point in the future regretting the day that I made this proclamation forevermore to be referenced by the digital literati.

But he won me over. I believe his actions will follow his intentions and American education will be better off, will turn a new leaf with this man in charge.

Besides, sitting on the fence reserving judgement is something that doesn’t suit me well. We need change, we need action, we need to re-shuffle the deck (and not view it as deck chairs on the Titanic). And so, I am staking my claim as an official supporter.

As you know, I was never a fan of Spellings and felt that she was a calamity for public education. Then again, I felt that way about Dubya as well. But Mr. Duncan has just won my support and I will now feel comfy to tell all I know that he has earned it. And why?

Well, if you read the aforementioned interview, one thing is quite clear… HE GETS IT!

Now, the question becomes, can he remediate it? Well, he’s gonna need help from teachers, from people like me, if he is gonna be successful.

So here we go. God’s speed, Arne. God’s speed.