A "Lights and Sirens" Report From Your Grammar Police

"Athletic programs will not be effected."
--"Teachers Get Creative Under Budget Cuts", KOB.com, October 8, 2008

I'm slightly sorry to get all Literature teacher on KOB's grammatical posterior, but the quoted sentence above seems to capture so much of today's educational environment in so few words. It's like haiku or something. If only I could do so much with six little words. Basho has nothing on these KOB folks.

Okay, I'm not that sorry.

P.S.: Research continues on "America's Choice". I didn't intend it, but I can already tell that implementation of "America's Choice" has everything to do with keeping bad teachers and getting rid of good ones. Everything.

More news as it becomes available. We now return you to your regularly scheduled, grammatically sketchy, unaffected football game/"reality" show already in progress.

America's Do We Really Have A Choice™? A Non-Math Teacher's Uninformed Non-Report

This blogpost should really be written on a napkin, coffee-stain circles surrounding illegible scribbling and little arrows going in all directions. In several places the napkin has ripped up from the sharpness of the pen. To say "work in progress" is giving it too much credit.

I'm not a Math teacher. I'm one of those teachers who thinks interdisciplinary learning is essential (there should even be a law), but when it comes down to it I have accepted the shackles of "Humanities" versus the mid/high school shackles labeled "Science", "Math", "Music", etc. So in researching "America's Choice" I not-so-proudly claim almost zero skills of critical analysis. I do not know whether "America's Choice Navigator® is "good" or not, and in my research I'm leaving that to the Math folks.

Moreover, as I start doing a little research I realize how fluid a situation we're in here. A commenter to yesterday's post, Abuelita2, asks whether my school has "accepted" America's Choice Navigator™. Great question, but from talking to my Math folks it's not apparent that "acceptance" is an option. The only word we're hearing is "mandated". At the same time, it's not clear (in fact, it's a word meaning the complete, utter opposite of "clear", beyond "unclear" to some new word we "Humanities" folks can invent...let's call it "mudunclear") just how my school is supposed to implement America's Choice Navigator™ (btw, I made a mistake yesterday and we're not "mandated" to use Ramp-Up, but instead are being vaguely "mandated" to use Navigator™).

Confused yet? Well get in a line longer than at your typical Great Depression soup kitchen because everybody I've talked to so far mentions just how mudunclear this is right now (or would if they knew about this newly invented "mudunclear" word we Humanities teachers have invented).

And all I got on top of that so far is a link or two:

Some guy named Bill Quirk has a critique of NCEE (the non-profit organization that spun off a for-profit arm to sell America's Choice products) that looks to be worth reading, especially by Math teacher types.

Prince George County Schools in Virginia is a district of about equal size to APS. They evidently received a full-blown dog & pony show from NCEE presenting a plan to fully implement America's Choice throughout the district. Here's the .pdf of that dog & pony show. Costs of implementation included. No idea on whether they bought the dog, the pony or both.

That's all I got at this point. Clear as mud. More mud to follow...more clarity requested from you guys out there.

P.S.: Abuelita2...how about you write a "guest" post on the subject? I'd love to read it, and you know far, far more about the subject that I ever will. Which, I admit, ain't saying much.

Welcoming Our New Educational Insect Overlords

In between the 9.4 million things I have to edit/grade these days, I'm trying to do a little research on "America's Choice" the highly trademarked, ultra-glossy curriculum that is evidently being mandated to my school's Math Department. I say "evidently" because I like the word too much, but also because the way news & information works in a public school isn't a smooth system of teacher newsletters, staff meetings and emails.

No, information is passed via a haphazard set of teachers bumping into each other in the halls, secret conversations held in closed classroom after school, and acrimonious department meetings where Math teachers rant and rave while passing out slick, ultra-glossy packets from highly trademarked curriculum "providers".

So all I know is that "they" (and "they" can be everyone from George W. Bush, to the District, to some obscure bureaucrat in the APS "twin towers", to the janitor) have decided Math must use this "America's Choice" curriculum, in particular the "Ramp-Up Mathematics" (trademark, copyright, sanitized for your protection) program designed for students 2+ years behind in the subject.

On top of that, some obscure "they" dictates are being gossiped about involving a required 30 minutes a day of computer-based, continuous-loop math testing, a move to block schedules for Math (90 minutes) and Language Arts/Literature. The genesis for these changes is believe to be either from: 1. the fact my school is now on Restructuring Double Secret Probation IV, Part II, Subsection B; 2. Winston Brooks is a sinister Dick Cheney type who goes around obsequiously demanding things like "central control" and "highly marketed solutions to long-standing problems"; 3. the janitor likes the "America's Choice" logo.

I dunno.

All I've found so far is the "America's Choice" website, a 2003 New York Times article doing the old "on the one hand, on the other hand" thing about the program being implemented in NYC schools, and something from "Literacy Matters" (whatever that is) that includes costs of the "Ramp-Up Literacy" as copy/pasted below:

The set-up cost is $90K for up to 30 teachers. The cost of curriculum materials for the individual classrooms is $2,000-4,000. In order for the school to be accepted in the larger school reform program, 80 percent of the faculty must accept it. America’s Choice has partnered with over 650 schools, including charter schools, in 16 states.

If anyone from a school that has already been on Restructuring Double Secret Probation for a while has more information, I'd be keen to hear about it. You can either comment here, or bump into me in the halls at my school between class periods, while we both eat lunch standing up, and talk with our mouths full in hushed whispers.

Somehow Reading the OED Online For Free

After hearing an interview with Ammon Shea, author of Reading the OED, on the Bob Edwards Show a few days ago (and still thinking somewhat obsessively of the life/death of OED-obsessed David Foster Wallace), I went to the Oxford English Dictionary website this cloudy afternoon.

Expecting to find out how much it costs to subscribe online (and seeing that the OED is going for a special low, low 80th Anniversary price of $895), I plugged in a word (I think it was "thyroid") and was given a definition. For free. I plugged in another, got another luxuriously long, captivatingly cost-free definition, and noticed at the bottom a note that read "Subscriber: College of Santa Fe".

My IP address via Comcast is obviously being confused for one used by The College of Santa Fe. I plan on never shutting my computer down again. I also think this explains why the College of Santa Fe is just about bankrupt.

I'd be interested for others to try out the OED site as well. Any fabulously free definitions?

P.S.: I now know that "faamafu" is a Samoan home-brewed liquor, and "facinorous" means: "Extremely wicked, grossly criminal, atrocious, infamous, vile. Said both of persons and their actions. Very common in 17th c." As in "my facinorous purloinment of OED definitions sans proper remuneration reeks of outre outrageousty." Cue word-lusting drool sequence now....

Ten Reasons I Hate the Balloon Fiesta: 2008 Edition

The past few years I've celebrated the onset of Balloon Fiesta with a little ditty reciting the "10 Reasons I Hate the Balloon Fiesta". I was going to pass on such a post this year, but the cancellation of a bike ride this morning (my bike just doesn't have the proper flotation devices needed for a ride through all the standing water down here in the South Valley) has left me sleeping in, watching the morning clouds and sprinkles, and drinking far too much coffee. Hence a nice relaxing rant is in order.

How dogs, horses, all other animals
and your humble blogster see the Balloon Fiesta

10 Reasons I Hate The Balloon Fiesta, 2008 Edition:

10. Local TV interviews with old people in green lawn chairs talking about how much gasoline costs in front of their aircraft-carrier sized RVs.

9. Local TV "breaking news" reports about the cancellation of "tonight's special shapes glodeo", with added comments that "there will still be activities going on at the Park tonight" as if the reporter is some carnival barker shill for the Balloon Fiesta and the City of Albuquerque.

8. Local TV coverage of the balloon fiesta, period. It's good to see, I guess, that local media is capable of covering more than just murders, traffic accidents and animal abusing scum who should be murdered by standing in the middle of an orchestrated traffic accident as thousands watch, but the Chamber of Commerce prostitution coverage added to the quite obvious desire by certain TV reporters to finally get the *&%$ out of Albuquerque by being seen by some out of town visitor looking to recruit TV talent in Minneapolis or Portland is disgusting. It's more than disgusting. It's even more disgusting than your typical day's local TV news. And that's saying something.

7. Out-of-towners. Sucking up to out-of-towners. Putting up with their aircraft-carrier sized RVs, green lawn chairs and inability to have a entertained retirement involving less than 5,000 gallons of gasoline and the disruption of a Southwestern city.

6. Some balloonist landing his (and yes it's always a guy) "craft" out in the alfalfa field behind our suburban ranchette, walking up to the locked ditch gate and then trying to find us to unlock it so he can get his off-course stupid balloon out of the alfalfa fields. It's hard to ignore knocks on your door with three dogs, but we can manage. Also irritating is the "I should be treated like a movie star" swagger of these incompetent balloonists. It's almost like they expect you to not only hand them the keys to the ditch gate, but ask for an autograph. You crash-landed a balloon far from where you were supposed to, dude...what's the "movie star value" in that?

5. As mentioned in previous years, the effect balloons flying low/landing have on all animals, particularly horses. I've often wondered if horses believe in some religion in which the "end times" feature aliens in large poly-colored objects landing around them while the sound of propane gas whooshes devilishly. Hmmm...sounds about as realistic as any other religion, now that I think about it.

4. The decision to hold this event during a well-documented transitional meteorological period for Albuquerque, one that leads to "breaking news" TV reports of cancelled "glodeos" with a level of seriousness and disappointment usually reserved for failed space missions and Category 5 hurricanes. Why is this event held in early October? Is it a twisted attempt to celebrate Columbus Day by giving us APS types a day off called "Fall Break"? Are we having "Fall Break" on Friday the 10th instead of Monday the 13th because to take the actual Columbus Day off is politically untenable? And given that we APS types have a lousy, stinking one day "Break" this year, shouldn't we all suddenly convert to Judaism, take off Yom Kippur this Thursday the 9th and just take a four-day weekend? And how about we just add Columbus Day, and make it a five-dayer? A five-day weekend might actually allow those who like the Fiesta to see a show or two without it being cancelled due to the bad weather naturally caused when scheduling an event during a well-documented meteorological transition.

3. Duke City Fix during Balloon Fiesta. This event is just perfect for a site largely designed to convince everybody that they live in a town worth living in. I can usually put up with the Fix's "social network" of civically insecure folks trying to rah-rah their way to some sort of communal positivism, but when the Fiesta comes around it gets way, way out of hand. This is most probably attributable to the fact that "out of towners" might be reading the postings, and we wouldn't want to disappoint them, now would we? Golly no, that wouldn't help our real estate values, now would it?

2. Stories like this one reporting on how the Fiesta represses election campaigning. You see, the Balloon Fiesta is supposed to exist in some sort of "Pleasantville" where there is no dissent, no free expression, just worshipful praying to the fact that a little heat and a little engineering can get some folks in a basket off the ground. Besides, this country isn't about elections, government or free expression! It's about marketing, tourism and having the God-given right to buy an aircraft-carrier sized RV, go through 5,000 gallons of gas driving it from Montevideo, Minnesota to Albuquerque and sit in green lawn chairs talking to local TV "reporters"!

1. My wife has just informed me that this year's list of "10 Reasons" looks even more cynical than in previous years. As my wife is not only an excellent writer/editor, but also a good critic, I think I will dispense with a #1 Reason why I hate the Fiesta, and instead focus on a small list of what I really, honestly like about Albuquerque:

Ten Reasons I Like Albuquerque, Really:

A. The 50 weeks of the year in which the Balloon Fiesta is not held.
B. The River Bike Path
C. The weather during the two-weeks of the Balloon Fiesta, especially the rare cloudy, rainy Sunday morning.
D. That newish bike path along I-40 going from the Big-I area uphill. It's fantastic.
E. The Chama River Taproom on 2nd between Central and Gold.
F. That a bus driver let me carry my bike into the bus recently when the bus-front rack was full.
G. The Sandias.
H. The fact that very few people hike in the Sandias, especially given how close they are to a rather sizable urban area.
I. My life down here in the South Valley, even when the wife and I are hiding out in our home to avoid opening the door to balloonist guy who is stuck in the alfalfa field behind our house.
J. The Phở at Cafe Trang, followed by a grocery visit to Talin Market.

There, that should even up the cynical negativity/positivism quotient...well, at least a little. Enjoy the Fiesta Period everyone as best you can. It will be over soon.

Bad Teachers, Part 5 of ∞ : Ask Not For Whom The Scripted Teaching Bell Tolls...

I have almost no details, just that I ran across two of our best math teachers late yesterday frantically waving a slick folder from some outfit called "American Schools" (or something...all I know is the logo was quite American, quite Red, White & Blue, and quite corporate), and saying something about district mandated scripted math instruction.

I didn't learn much detail in the ten seconds I heard the two teachers wailing about this development, but I'm pretty sure I did learn this: good teaching is being killed because of bad teaching.

Just as No Child Left Behind has disregarded high-achieving students in order to focus all energy and funding on the academically weak, scripted teaching is all about discouraging the creative work of good teachers while trying to crudely prop up the bad. It is like performing brain surgery with a rusty shovel. It is exactly like death.

There are a ton of scary phrases and acronyms in public school education, but I can think of none that compare with the death knell finality of "scripted teaching". You might as well just drop a one-page memo in every teacher's mailbox that reads in 92 pt. Comic Sans:

GOOD TEACHERS! THANKS FOR YOUR YEARS OF SERVICE, NOW PLEASE FIND ANOTHER LINE OF WORK

Done the "American Schools" way, of course, scripted teaching also means the privatization of K-12 public schools by Blackwater-type firms whose sole purpose is to maximize profits while meeting meaningless academic criteria developed by their lobbyist and paid-off legislators. It means vouchers without the vouchers, cookie-cutter intellectual banality and a firm kick in the butt out the door to any student/parent who values accelerated learning.

Put more simply, it's an intellectual death sentence. I was in the hall outside my classroom late yesterday hearing that something had died. That something almost already dead had finally been killed.

As I learn more about the cause of death and the results of the autopsy, I'll pass them on. Meanwhile, Happy Friday everyone!

P.S.: I realize (and have heard from several folks) that this "year in the life of a teacher" theme has become quite morose over the last few weeks. Well, maybe I'm a depressive personality, but honestly I think we've caught my school, school district, profession, country, world in a particularly downer period here. Maybe things will pick up, but for now it's nothing but solid bleak stretching out well past the horizon. Sorry.

Palin v. Cubs (with Biden & Dodgers only present due to necessity)

There hasn't been this much hype about a new TV comedy since "All in the Family".

There haven't been sports fans this whiny since....well, there's never been sports fans this whiny.

Sarah Palin.

The Chicago Cubs.

Tonight.

Feel feel to print out the linescore below and fill in as needed:

Inning: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R* H* E* W*
Palin:
Cubs:

*R: For the Cubs this is "Runs Scored"; For Sarah Palin this is "Riffs including the phrase 'Hockey Mom'"
*H: For the Cubs this is "Hits"; For Sarah Palin this is "Howlingly funny Admiral Stockdale moments that are really not funny, but you can't stop laughing at"
*E: For the Cubs this is "Errors", as in "it is a big error to have fans throw home run balls AT opposing players"; For Sarah Palin this is "Easily answerable questions that all Palin-haters will despise and be pissed off at the ease in which she easily handles them"
W* For the Cubs this is "Whiny moments captured in the stands filled with drunken Cub fans who seem to feel a World Series is owed them just because 'they' haven't won one since they were minus-78 years old"; For Sarah Palin this number represents "number of glasses of wine needed to endure Palin/Biden debate"

Happy scoring, everyone!

P.S.: I'm setting the line as follows (and I'm serious):

Biden/Palin: Palin wins easily, because a tie is a massive, earth-shifting victory. Heck even anything close to a tie is a win.
Dodgers/Cubs: Billingsley v. Zambrano. Hard not to give this one to the Cubs, but if Sabathia can biff so can "big Z". The look on a down 0-2 Cubs crowd after nine innings and fifteen beers would be just as priceless as the for-certain look on all the Palin-Haters when she pulls out tonight's massively unexpected tie. I'll take the Cubs and have to imagine that down 0-2 look.

Senators: Remember Promo Code BAILOUT And Act By Midnight Tonight!

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Remember that Promo Code: BAILOUT! Senators, this is your chance, maybe your final chance, to undo years of irresponsible financial speculation while also receiving fabulous gifts for you, your family, friends and financial industry lobbyists! It's a deal you can't pass up, and you get it all for only $699,999,999,999.95! Remember, the deal is guaranteed in writing for up to....well, until we do this all again in a few years.

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