Are we ready to wade into a chat about Arizona? In case you hadn’t heard, immigration has been an issue on their voters’ minds as of late.

Let’s see if I can try to at least introduce what is going on without inserting any incendiary personal opinions into the conversation at this point.

Then again, do I really need to? Look at what the Wall Street Journal tells us is going on.

Arizona Grades Teachers on Fluency
State Pushes School Districts to Reassign Instructors With Heavy Accents or Other Shortcomings in Their English

So what this means is, if I have this correct, is that (I pinched this line from the Huff Post): “the Arizona Department of Education has told schools that teachers with “heavy” or “ungrammatical” accents are no longer allowed to teach English classes.”

Can someone please define what an “ungrammatical” accent is for me?

Face it, this thing is going all the way to the Supreme Court.

The law, which makes it a misdemeanor to be in the United States without proper documents and allows law enforcement officers to stop anyone and demand proof of citizenship, was signed by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer last week.

Jan Brewer has been portrayed as a Nazi and she’s been portrayed as a governor who is right-minded about her approach to immigration policy.

All I know is, if they start going around checking English teachers for ungrammaticalisms, I be thinking me’s might have to start proofing the blog I write for for much more better grammaticalistic correctness than I already has tried to do.

America’s definition of wealth is warped. And the definition of wealth we teach our kids is skewed as well. (After all, I should know. I think the way I have been taught to think about ideas such as “worth”, “value”, “assets” and so on are exceptionally demented being that the monetary association is always my first and foremost barometer for these definitions — when I know in my heart that family, health, service to others and so on are much more meaningful to me once I slow down and count up all my chickens.)

Let’s be honest, in the United States, people use money like a scorecard. We publish the salaries of movie stars, big-name athletes and CEO’s. The higher one ranks, the “better” a person is. And come on, isn’t salary — or lack thereof — one of the prime reasons so many people treat educators in a condescending manner? I tell ya this, a lot fewer people would hit me up with the ol’ ,”Oh you’re a teacher? I really admire the work you do. It must be so challenging yet rewarding,” pity-talk I often get at holiday parties if I was banking an 8 figure salary.

Instead, they’d be schmoozing me up for hot tips like, “Yo, let’s say I was at Bloom Taxonomy level 3 preparing for a unit quiz. Got any sweet “ins” on how I could get all the way to level six without sacrificing classroom management in the process of trying to hyper-engage all the different learning styles in my classroom?”

That’ll be the day, right?

Additionally, to the uber-rich, it often feels like — at least to an outsider looking in — that no matter how much money they have, it’s never enough.

What are they still seeking, I’ve often asked myself. I mean, how big of a steak can one person eat?

Interestingly, I came across this comment from Eli Broad, a man on the Forbes List of billionaires, about what the latest financial turmoil means to the people of our country. Broad says…

It’s not any longer simply about how much money you have, what your assets are worth. The happiest people I’ve found are in science. These people have three times the IQ — maybe I’m exaggerating. They have a higher IQ than I do. They love what they’re doing, they have a good family life, they’re satisfied. People are going to take a look at how we define wealth, and not just in financial terms. They’ll ask, what am I accomplishing? What am I going to leave behind? What am I doing with my kids? How am I going to help my community? I’ve not led a balanced life. If I had it to do over again, maybe I might lead a more balanced life.

Haven’t we all been indoctrinated to believe that by reading the Forbes List of billionaires we are also reading a list of those who are the most happy and satisfied in life? Haven’t we all been served a glass of kool-aid that gets us to believe that the more we possess, the more we are fulfilled?

Are we now at the dawn of re-evaluating wealth? Does 2010 ring in a year when fulfillment is part of the equation in determining one’s “assets”?

Will the ghost of my “level of income equates to my level of value in this world” ever stop haunting me?

Cause that’s the tainted Kool-Aid I done drunk.

I wonder if I would send my child to private school if I could easily afford to do so. And I bring it up because, for the parents who can afford it in America today, private school is where they (for the most part) are generally sending their kids.

Even if the local public school is good.

And why? Because if the local public school is good, I am assuming the private school is forced to be better if they are going to be able to charge the crazy fees that they do. And if the local public school is not so good, then the choice becomes even that much more clear cut for the well-to-do parent, doesn’t it?

See, right now I send my kid to a private pre-school. But that’s because there is no public pre-school option (ah, the short-sighted shame of this in California). And this week, I had a mandatory parent’s “before school even starts” conference, discussed a host of personal things about my child with 2 teachers as well as the school’s director during a 45 minute no kids allowed meeting and walked away feeling great about the school, the educators, the class size and the overall decision to put my child in this pre-school.

I imagine for the parents that are shelling out the approximate $30,000 per year for private school at the K-12 level (that’s the average cost out where I am — and some parents have 2 and 3 kids in these schools… but pre-school is not nearly that much, though it’s certainly expensive) they leave the parent/teacher meetings feeling pretty much the same way I did today. And I liked this feeling. I want this feeling. I think I need this feeling. I mean what parent doesn’t want to feel as if their kid is not going to be getting the best of which that can be begged, borrowed and/or stolen?

This sentiment is certainly what drives so many people to immigrate illegally to the United States (i.e. a better opportunity for their children in the Land of the Free).

Is it a true statement to say that while public schools can be good, private schools are forced to be good or else they will cease to exist?

And is there a way to force public schools to be as good as private schools are apparently forced to be?

Newsweek just came out with their annual list of America’s best high schools. On one hand, I really do love this list. Why? Because year in and year out it brings education to the front page of one of America’s most popular magazines. And as the old saying goes, there ain’t no such thing as bad publicity — just no publicity — and our country sure could use some extended dialogue about our schools. Particularly our high schools.

So thumbs up… especially for giving me an inferiority complex.

Though I checked the top 10, and the top 100, and the top 1,000, my own school wasn’t listed. (As Don Adams used to say, “Missed it by that much.”) So of course, before I dared to dispute the rankings, I decided to see how these rankings were determined.

Reading this made me feel better. Essentially, it’s a multi-page document acknowledging how preposterously subjective these rankings really are. Simply put, there is no “objective science” to evaluating a school. For the Newsweek piece, which is sure to make a big splash in Dallas, Texas, they arrive at their numbers through a formula called The Challenge Index.

Read the article for their explanation/justification/rationalization of why their Challenge Index has merit. Whether one agrees or not, it’s interesting to see their perspective on what makes for a school that deserves high praise.

They do raise one other point that certainly deserve a little bit of a chat though. As the article states…

Question: How can you call these the best schools or the top schools if you are using just one narrow measure? High school is more than just AP or IB tests.

Answer: Indeed it is, and if I could quantify all those other things in a meaningful way, I would give it a try. But teacher quality, extracurricular activities and other important factors are too subjective for a ranked list. Participation in challenging courses and tests, on the other hand, can be counted, and the results expose a significant failing in most high schools—SO far less than 6 percent of the public high schools in the United States qualify for the NEWSWEEK list.

As we face questions of merit pay, sanctions against those who are under-performing, blue- ribbon honors for those who do, the impact of socio-economics and community culture on a a school’s AYP and so on and so on, it’s easy to see why people get so down about their rankings. THEY ARE JUST SO DAMN SUBJECTIVE! I mean the fact that my school has a teacher who literally save a student’s life this year by talking them down off the ledge of suicide wasn’t given any points for credit by Newsweek. Go figure.

Ultimately, what our schools are supposed to do and what they being asked to do are, in so many ways, two entirely different conversations. It’d be nice to see Newsweek devote a sidebar to that, huh?

Congratulations to the schools that are on this list. Really, I mean it. It makes no sense to pull others down — we need to be hoisting more schools up. And for those who “missed it by that much” don’t worry, the thorny stick of NCLB will be coming to demonize you soon enough.

At my school, it has already arrived.

Wow, here’s a shocker! As the NY Times so expertly points out, poor schooling leads to poor economic circumstances that negatively affect both the kids who are ill-served as well as the nation as a whole.

No duh? I mean the next thing they are going to tell us is that the iPhone has become kinda popular.

I have absolutely nothing against self-evident journalism. In a way, it’s good that the Times is drawing attention to this reality. But isn’t this just oh-so-obvious? I mean who doesn’t recognize the negative impact of poor schooling? The poorly-schooled, the well-schooled, the old-school and the new… really, who doesn’t know this!? From the homeless to Harvard, U.S. citizens understand the importance of education. We see it more and more every day.

Of course, stats like this about the dismal Achievement Gap between Latino/Black kids and Whites/Asians — straight out of the article — are great to hear…

The report concluded that if those achievement gaps were closed, the yearly gross domestic product of the United States would be trillions of dollars higher, or $3 billion to $5 billion more per day.

But they also smack a little of “No shit, Sherlock”, don’t they?

And then, of course, the politicians try to spin it as if “all we need are good teachers and everything will be honky dory.”

Well, yes, we do need good teachers. (I, for one, will never defend a lame educator.) But we also need good tools, strong support, wide-ranging involvement and a more fiercely concerted effort to improve things on a variety of fronts. I mean when a kid ditches class, gets no encouragement from home, hangs out with the wrong crowd and on and on, this is self-evident to the front line teacher. But really, how much can they/we/I do? I face it all the time. Yes, I sweat this stuff!! I, contrary to what you are supposed to do, take this stuff home with me. For example it’s Saturday and I am really concerned about a girl named — I’ll change her name — Ree because she is on her way to just becoming another drop out stat. Ditching, hanging with the wrong crowd, Boys, Boys, Boys on her brain, thinks she smarter than any kid who has ever walked the halls of Lynwood High and all the “schemes” aren’t going to catch up to her. I mean, I hate to say it, but unless she turns her ship around and fast, I give her 18 months before she’s just another inner-city statistic.

She’s smart enough not to have this happen to herself but she ain’t acting that way. She ain’t acting that way at all and as the old saying going, “If you play with fire long enough, you are going to get burned.”

Ree, you have no idea. None at all.

And I’ve told her this to her face. Many times. I’ve tried being nice, overextending myself, flipping out, bringing in counselors, contacting parents — and nothing has worked. And right now, I feel all alone in my quest to “save” Ree from herself.

So when Mr. Klein says all we need is a good teacher, I say, well, I try to be a good teacher but hey, what more can I do? Those stats you are using to demonize the members of my profession kinda hurt when circumstances like this are such a big part of the equation for the front line teacher.

Yes, good teachers are SUPREMELY important. But there’s more to it… a lot more.

Wow, what a shocker.

Spring Break was exceptionally rejuvenating for me this year because I worked so hard and so long and travelled so many miles across the United States speaking, signing books and the such in the weeks prior to my time off from Lynwood that the first few days were a virtual collapse of the mind, body, and spirit. And while the alarm clock was kinda jarring today (first buzz at 5:17 am) I drove to school feeling excited. Things to do, books to read, minds to stretch, and so on.

And then I was hit with the worksheets.

State standardized tests are coming and I was literally given hundreds of pages of worksheets to prepare for the days and days of bubble tests coming up in May less than 8 minutes into my first day back on campus.

I immediately became despondent, angry and frustrated. (Pretty much morphing into the stereotypical demeanor of most teachers in our country today, right?)

Then I looked at the worksheets. (Much to my credit, mind you. Usually, I just dump them in a cabinet til the year is over with before looking for a recycling bin. After all, hundreds of pages of material as taken straight from the website of the State Dept. of Ed is rarely, if ever, something worth taking notice of. True tree killing to the worst degree. Come to think of it, our school photocopier must have been groaning for hours to get all the English teachers in our department sets of this mess. No rest for the weary, Mr. Machine. We gotz bubbles to serve!)

Anyway, I looked at the worksheets to see with an open eye what they were all about. And what did I see, mind you? Was I wrong? Was I falsely assuming a reality which was not there? Nope. I saw absolutely what I expected to see, that using worksheets to teach any sort of material in this day and age is simply a terrible approach to education. The state wants us to teach dialogue so Worksheet A has practice bubbles on discerning the tone, meaning and impact of dialogue.

Mr. Alan has kids actually speaking to one another in different tones and tongues in order for everyone to see, live, breathe, hear, feel and taste how dialogue truly can impact the meaning of text.

Do you know how fun it is to do this with a group of kids?

Can you please pass the salt?
CAN YOU PLEASE PASS THE SALT?
Can you PLEASE pass the salt?

Do all three mean the same thing? With teens, it’s way more exciting, real, practical and academically effective to teach the impact of dialogue my way — so into the cabinet went the worksheets and out came the real art of teaching.

And until they put me in a cabinet, that’s the way it’s gonna be.

Today I went to work inspired and energized, with a proverbial bounce in my step. And why? Well, it’s simple.

Our new president, Barack Obama. It was his first day of work in the White House and the fact is, in my opinion, it feels like it’s the first real day of honest, noble, best-interests of America work that has been done in that building in a heck of a long time. I am not sure any of us realized how numb we had become to the idea of a total buffoon leading our country for so long. With Calamity George gone, it feels as if we can now get back to doing what Americans do quite well once in a while… make history in a positive way that shines a light on the highest ideals of what mankind can ultimately be.

It’s also clear that this ning inspires me. I mean it’s pretty unreal the amount of smarts, passion and genuine insight which has already assembled here in the Jamdom. I guess invitations started rolling out in earnest about 2-3 days ago and already we are have a host of truly wise people — people with opinions I greatly respect and admire, if not always agree with — assembled at this online expresso bar chatting up everything from books like The Burn Journals to videos starring 1rst graders imploring Obama to really step up for education.

I guess I am gonna have to get off of the bashing George Bush bus. However, there is still a part of me that thinks/fears he’s gonna come back. Like Obama’s inauguration will be revoked, Karl Rove will pull a Karl Rove and Dubya is gonna end up with the power to manage the financial crisis, Iran, Iraq, green energy and NCLB for the next 4 years while Sarah Palin preps her run for 2012.

Grrrrgghh!

I know it’s irrational, yet still I worry about it much in the way that a person wakes up from a nightmare, realizes they were just dreaming and then is still concerned to go back to sleep since they have no desire whatsoever to go back to bed with the beast they just slept with in their head again. And this is not a red state/blue state thing. It’s not republican bashing or any of that. It’s simply my opinion that George Herbert Walker Bush just finished his marathon tour of being the worst president in the history of the United States and our entire nation is worse off for having him.

Seeing Barack reclining in the Oval Office today well, it made me feel as if we have authentic stewardship once again. And now I want to do my best to help — by applying best efforts towards the area of remaking and reshaping America’s schools. It is do-able. And necessary. And when I think of the folks who are already stepping up to join this cause, it makes me feel good.

Now is our time. This is our part.

Go ahead. Chime in on the ning-thing. Love to hear from ya!

Authoring the Book Jam has been an immense undertaking for me. After penning a book a year for the past 6 years in a row, I decided to take some time off and build a curriculum that came straight out of my private filing cabinet as a high school teacher in inner-city Los Angeles. Being that so many people have asked me over the years how I achieve the results I do with my kids, I decided once and for all to publish them in a format which would abide by a few simple rules.

It would have to be affordable, user-friendly, sizzling with energy, effective, intelligently constructed, and progressive in a way that empowered educators to meet the needs of the next generation of learner while returning the classroom teacher to a position of strength.

More than a few people thought I was bonkers to put aside a very healthy and lucrative book writing career (in the arms of Disney, nonetheless) to a pen a standards-based literacy curriculum aimed at reluctant reading 6-12th graders who had an overt disinterest in school.

BO-RING, right?

Well, no, I thought. Matter of fact, I found the idea electric.

The fact is, America’s classrooms are long overdue for change. Everyone agrees on this. Sure, we might not agree on how they should change or what this change will look like, but I meet very, very few people who look at the state of America’s classrooms as we draw to a close of the first decade of a new millennium and think, “You know, this whole school thing we got goin’ here in this country… it’s kinda firing on all cylinders. We need more status quo. Serve up more of what ya already got.”

So I asked myself, “How can I best contribute to creating the change I hope to see?” (instead of bitching about the problems, that is. See, so many people are complainers in the world of education, it drives me nuts. I say, quit moaning, pick up a shovel, a pen, a pile of books, a lesson plan — something — and GO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!! Just quit yapping. We need problem solvers, not problem pointer-outers. Geesh!)

So this is my attempt to re-invent the wheel I so dearly love. I mean face it… I’m a dork. I love school, books, writing, teaching, and homework. If I can’t be honest about my doofy-hood than I certainly don’t have a chance of breaking through to today’s kids.

But I’ve had a pretty good go these past few years breaking through to today’s kids by making connections, building bridges of relevance and accessibility and (yep, here comes the dorkiness) changing lives. It’s just what I love to do.

And Book Jams are how I now hope to empower others to be able to do the same.

Of course, as I type this, it’s late on Saturday night during a three day weekend from school that will see me working 16 hour days to bring the best that I can possibly offer to the Book Jam table. It’s a sick level of commitment which I have invested in these things but the fact is, I deeply enjoy the sickness. (I think if you look that up, it’s called addiction. Yep, I need Teachers Anonymous.)

Yet, I can honestly say that Book Jams are the best teaching I have ever done. Without a doubt. This, I’ll say it again, is the best work I have ever done. Unequivocally.

I can’t say where Book Jams will lead or what doors it will open but I do know that everyone behind the scenes who is working on this project feels a special energy emanating from the potential of that which we have thus far endeavored to craft. Truly, some of the best and brightest have come together to bring Book Jams to the light of day. I am literally amazed at how fortunate I am to work with so many talented people. And when I saw the very first piece of official literature on Book Jams, a simple poster/mailer thing that has everyone who has seen it abuzz, I decided to do a little chronicling.

We stand at the doorstep of unprecedented opportunity to revolutionize America’s classrooms. Book Jams are my attempt to step up to the plate with the biggest swing of the educational bat I have in my teaching bag.

And I am letting it rip.

Onward and upward, I say. America’s kids simply can’t wait

I should also mention that it is but a few days before Barack Obama gets inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States. He enters office riding a mandate for change. It’s incredible to me just how many ripples a man of optimism and intelligence and faith and vision might make in the waters of mankind. Sure, some people are despondent when they look on the educational horizon. Me, I don’t see our problems… I see our opportunities.

I hope you’ll join me in your own special way.

Go ‘head. Chime in on the ning. We need you.