Archive for the 'Current Affairs' Category
September 11, 2006 @ 5:52 pm | Filed under: Current Affairs
What I remember is September 12th. Beanie had a doctor’s appointment in Queens, so I was driving west on Long Island, staring at the distant smoke that still rose in heavy plumes where the Towers had been. They were ghost towers now, made of smoke and ash. On the way out of my neighborhood I had to pass our town’s train station. On any other weekday it would have been packed full at that time of day, but on this day it was almost deserted.
Later I learned that there were thirteen cars left in the parking lot of that train station after everyone else finally made it home on that terrible day. Thirteen cars. Thirteen dads. Thirteen holes in the hearts of families like ours.
Beanie is five and a half years old now. If her dad had been one of those thirteen drivers, she would not remember him. There would be no Wonderboy and no Rilla.
I don’t know their names, any of them, but today I am thinking about those thirteen men who parked at the station one morning just like any other, and didn’t get back in their cars at the end of the day. Those men, and their families, and those thirteen empty cars.
August 10, 2006 @ 3:18 pm | Filed under: Current Affairs
Edspresso has had an ongoing debate about standardized testing all week. Dana Rapp is not a fan of testing; Richard Phelps is. I’ve been following their discussion with great interest.
Says Dana Rapp:
"Before I moved to Vermont in 2002, I lived in Ohio where standardized
tests and national frameworks created environments where recess was
eliminated, teachers’ salaries were linked to test scores, children
became ill during testing, teachers’ job satisfaction waned, and,
ironically, less appeared to be learned."
And:
"Testing is a booming market where companies like McGraw-Hill and
Harcourt-Brace are reaping record profits with the sale of the
textbooks, tests, practice tests, and improvement kits.
Schooled-to-order children force-fed on scripted curriculum also
benefit big business. As testing proceeds to earlier grades, even
kindergarten, CEO’s and industrial “leaders” can rest even more assured
that future employees will not have the skills, knowledge,
dispositions, and collective consciousness to recognize and act to
change disparities of wealth, loss of jobs, lack of health care, and
corporate corruption in the organizations in which they work."
He avers that standardized testing has "dehumanized" schools and has led to an increase in "sales of anxiety, depression, and attention drugs for children."
I am none too keen on standardized tests myself. I think the need to teach to the test can suck the joy out of learning and shift a student’s experience from connecting to cramming. Not always, not across the board, but in many, many cases. And being good at taking tests doesn’t necessarily mean you are good at thinking. Or remembering, once the test is over.
Rapp’s point about testing becoming a lucrative business is one that had never occurred to me. Interesting to contemplate.
Phelps responds with a reminder that "the U.S. Constitution grants (by deference) responsibility for education to our country’s original founding entities, the states."
"State executives and legislators have the right, and the
responsibility, to determine education policy. By implementing
high-stakes testing programs, state officials are being responsive to
their constituents, who strongly favor such programs."
Really? I’m asking seriously. I’ve never seen data on that question, it occurs to me. Are most average joes really in favor of standardized testing? Is the increase in reliance on testing REALLY a response to what the constituency desires?
You, for example. Reading this blog. Are you an advocate of standardized testing? Not all of you are homeschoolers, and I’m curious to know what you think. (I can hazard a guess as to the opinion of most home educating parents, but even there I don’t presume to KNOW.)
"The fact is," says Phelps, "standardized testing programs are an expression of
democracy. If the public was strongly opposed to them, politicians
would be, too, regardless what corporate executives might want."
Hmm. I don’t know about that. I guess it depends on what "strongly opposed" means. I don’t think this is an issue that the public spends a lot of time worrying about, and unless the public starts marching in the streets ("No more tests!"), I don’t think politicians are going to pay too much attention to what the "public" thinks.
You can read the rest of the debate as it unfolds at Edspresso.
May 17, 2006 @ 2:59 am | Filed under: Current Affairs
We like our internet. We like being able to get online and clickety click click wherever we like. We pay our monthly ISP fee and then click, the World Wide Web is world-wide open to us.
Some folks want to change that.
AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, and other telephone and cable companies would like to be able to control the flow of information on the internet. Here’s how my hubby explains it:
The government is thinking about allowing Internet Service Providers to decide what websites you can or cannot go to, and who can or cannot send you emails. In other words, if this goes through, you may not be able to link to Left of the Dial* unless I’ve paid your specific ISP a fee. Otherwise I’ll get blackballed. Kinda like legalized payola.
* (Or, say, Spunky. Or FUN Books. Or even Google, if they haven’t paid up.)
Net Neutrality is the opposite of that scenario. Net Neutrality is what we’ve got now.
The telephone and cable companies are filling up congressional campaign coffers and hiring high-priced lobbyists. They’ve set up “Astroturf” groups like “Hands Off the Internet” to confuse the issue** and give the appearance of grassroots support.
Congress is now considering a major overhaul of the Telecommunications Act. The primary bill in the House is called the “Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006″ and is sponsored by Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas), Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Rep. Charles Pickering (R-Miss.) and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.).
The current version of the COPE Act (HR 5252) includes watered-down Net Neutrality provisions that are essentially meaningless. An amendment offered by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), which would have instituted real Net Neutrality requirements, was defeated in committee after intense industry lobbying against it.
**Case in point: the ad in my sidebar. What it calls the truth isn’t really.
We mustn’t ignore this issue. You can read more about it here and here.
Tags: net neutrality
March 23, 2006 @ 3:52 am | Filed under: Current Affairs
Remember that board of trustees that scratched a bunch of books from a to-purchase list drawn up by a team of parents and teachers?
Turns out the trustees hadn’t read the books they axed.
“When it came time to say which were acceptable and which ones weren’t, they picked a bloc of books that had Clifford and Disney, that they really had no problem with, but they were in the same group that they did have concerns about,” trustee Maurice Kunkel said.
Now that is something that really, really gets my goat: people who make judgments about books without having read them—that is, judgments that affect whether other people can or will read the books in question. Obviously, we all make private judgments every time we decide whether to read or not to read a particular book. But those who make public judgments, those affecting policy decisions or reader opinion, have a responsibility to make informed decisions.
Camille has more. So does Becky.
(I do still see a difference between not buying and banning. But this board of trustees had no business overriding parent/teacher choices without even troubling themselves to read the books in question.)
Tags: children’s literature, kidlit, children’s books, books, banned books
March 19, 2006 @ 7:14 am | Filed under: Current Affairs
Julie Snyder, a homeschool graduate, was 21 years old when she painted this beautiful portrait of Pope John Paul II last year. Last week, the painting accompanied a Monstrance that had been blessed by the Pope on an “Adoration for Vocations” pilgrimage to parishes, schools, and religious communities in the Boston area. Julie, who is now an art student at a Massachusetts college, completed the portrait last April, shortly after the Pope’s death.
Talent runs in Julie’s family: she is the sister of Emily Snyder, author of Niamh and the Hermit
Tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home education, John Paul II
March 6, 2006 @ 5:10 pm | Filed under: Books, Current Affairs
As a followup to my post about a school board’s decision to remove certain titles from an elementary school’s to-purchase list, here are some links worth looking at:
Becky of Farm School has thoughts both humorous and insightful about the issue. I too have considered this issue from the Charlotte Mason anti-twaddle angle…it seems to me that the school library could find a far better use for its money than Disney’s Christmas Storybook. (Becky’s suggestion, for example: much better choice.)
Roger Sutton, the editor in chief of The Horn Book, offered some fascinating behind-the-scenes information about library purchasing. (Scroll down to the comments section.) I’d like to learn more about the ALA Bill of Rights, especially in regard to how it applies to public school libraries.
The original news report about the matter gave the impression that parents were equally upset over the removal of twaddly titles and books featuring what the trustees deemed “bad role models.” Mr. Sutton’s concern is over the latter. “NOT purchasing a book ‘because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval,’ ” he writes, “is just as much censorship as removing a book for those same reasons later.”
I’d love to hear from more readers about this.
December 29, 2005 @ 10:23 am | Filed under: Current Affairs
From EdWonk:
“If you’re looking for news about the Iraq War and the conflict in Afghanistan, then this is the website for you.”
EdWonk also has a most interesting collection of posts on education (from all sorts of schoolers—public, private, home, you name it) at this week’s Carnival of Education.
December 20, 2005 @ 4:42 am | Filed under: Clippings, Current Affairs
I was a member of HSLDA for our first year as registered homeschoolers in New York. As I became more aware of what the organization advocated, however, I grew uncomfortable and did not renew the following year. Since then, I’ve watched with a nervous eye as HSLDA worked hard to promote causes that don’t seem to be in the best interests of all homeschoolers. Section 522 of H.R. 1815 is the most troubling of these “causes.” In case you haven’t been following, here’s the nutshell version: HSLDA wants to make sure that home educated students are given the same status and consideration by military recruiters as public or private school graduates. Fair enough, but in pursuit of this goal HSLDA movers & shakers have worked with congressmen to include language on the subject in a federal bill. FEDERAL, see? Right now, home education is overseen by individual states. House Resolution 1815 includes language about home school graduates. This is bound to lead to the federal government finding it necessary to define what constitutes a “home school graduate.” Suppose their definition is not the same as yours? It is entirely possible that over time, this bill will lead to infringements of our freedom as home-educating parents to choose the curriculum, courses of study, and educational methods we believe best for our children. This bill is a doorway to big government involvement in our private choices.
So I’m asking my readers to study up on the matter, think it through carefully, and make phone calls and write letters if, upon consideration, you agree that this is a cause worth fighting. Unfortunately, it may already be too late to fight the bill, but you can certainly let HSLDA know your opinions on the matter, and your senators and representatives as well.
Here’s a good summary of the problems with Section 522.
Mary McCarthy’s Open Letter to HSLDA’s Membership is helpful:
I have always felt that HSLDA has a right to exist, and if that’s what you want to spend your money on, I’m happy you have the financial means to do so. However, recent events have caused me to re-think my position. I was wrong to think that because I was not a member HSLDA did not affect me.
When HSLDA re-introduced their HoNDA legislation in the US House and Senate, they added a section related to the recruitment and enlistment of homeschool graduates to it. When it appeared HoNDA was stalled in committee they requested Senator Rick Santorum of PA to add a section that would give the Secretary of Defense the authority to identify for the purposes of recruitment and enlistment homeschool graduates to The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006.
Scott Somerville of HSLDA recently wrote, “IF we fail in our effort to get section 522 signed into law, we’ll try something else, but we won’t give up. It’s been seven years already; it may be seven more years before we feel like homeschool grads have a level path to military service.”
There is a lot to think about in those two arrogant sentences. HSLDA will not give up trying to push federal legislation into law that affects MY child. That’s personal. That has nothing to do with a Christian’s right to homeschool their children, something I would be first in line to protect. It’s an attempt to target my child for recruitment and enlistment in the United States Armed Forces by a group of self-appointed, fundamentalist Christians pursuing an agenda they have determined to be part of their personal religion. Of course, they have a right, as individual Americans and as a lobbying organization, to do so. But I also have a right - as well as a responsibility - to protect my child from overly zealous political actions. That is the reason we have ELECTED representation, so the people can decide whether they want their children targeted by military recruiters or not. In a representative government, it’s not the purview of a handful of zealots to make any decision for my family.
Section 522 does not delineate between `homeschool students’ and `homeschool students whose parents are members of HSLDA’. This is personal and oversteps the bounds of representing a paid membership by an advocacy organization. It will affect every homeschool student/family in America, HSLDA member or not. HSLDA could not operate without the dues of its membership. It is what pays the salaries, builds the buildings, and – yes - funds the lobbying. Membership dues are funding the effort to identify for purposes of recruitment and enlistment MY child. Membership dues are funding the proposal which will give the United States Secretary of Defense the authorization to define what a homeschool graduate is. The members of HSLDA are ultimately responsible for the actions HSLDA and its paid agents take.
I cannot influence HSLDA decisions because I am not a member, so I have to plead my case to the members. Therefore, I do not think it unreasonable to respectfully request HSLDA’s members accept responsibility for the actions of their paid representatives and use their checkbooks to take back the power they have ceded to HSLDA. YOU have the power. I know many of you, and I know you are good, responsible parents who will `do the right thing’. Thank you.
Mary McCarthy
Here’s the current status of H.R. 1815, from Mary Nix at HEM Support Groups:
The conference report was agreed to in House late on 2/19/05.
The Status: On agreeing to the conference report Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: 374 - 41 (Roll no. 665).
I phoned Sen. Warner’s office and they confirmed that the section pertaining to homeschoolers, 522, remained in the bill and if the senate approves the report, it will become law.
I’ll post more information as it becomes available.
October 24, 2005 @ 3:51 am | Filed under: Current Affairs
Perhaps you’ve heard that Senator Larry Craig of Idaho and Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado have recently reintroduced the “Home School Non-Discrimination Act” in Congress. HSLDA is lobbying hard for this proposal, but a lot of people (I am one of them) think HoNDA is a very, very bad idea. If the discussion hasn’t hit your radar yet, here’s a good place to start. And this article by Celeste Land does an excellent job of explaining what the darn thing actually is, without taking sides.
