PR At Its Best & Worst: Team Obama & APS

"Rank of Barack Obama's election among the 'biggest day(s) ever in the history of marketing,' according to an Ad Age columnist: 1" -- Harper's Index, Harper's, February 2009

I've said from just about the first time I remember hearing the name Barack Obama that I really like the idea of an Obama Presidency. Unlike most ideas I like, it seems a few million other folks have caught on to the idea over the past couple of years.

Now we get to the apex/culmination of the idea of Obama and begin the reality. I'm still pretty stoked, but it's going to be a bit of a transition going from the teeny-weeny bit of overzealousness in the marketing idea to the day-to-day reality that starts slamming President Obama and all of us on January 21, 2009.

But that's no reason not to be agog today. Go agog with great agogocity folks. And yes it's important. Damn important. Just remember that we're definitely going to have to work through something of a collective hangover in the next few days, weeks, months, years. Harper's Index also points out the following this month:

Year that the U.S. stock market first regained its 1929 pre-crash peak: 1954

II.

And when you're talking reality hangover, you can't get any more head-splitting than the Albuquerque Public Schools. The District announced the movement of quite few principals yesterday, including the installation of Theresa Baca at John Adams Middle School. Just so we're clear here, I don't know Ms. Baca (and if she's a "Doctor" and I should have used "Dr. Baca" I apologize), I don't know if she's a good principal or what. Making her principal at John Adams might be the very best thing all around, and I don't know any different.

All I do know/remember is that Baca was part of the larger, infamous principal shuffle of 2007. At the time, then Superintendent Beth Everitt defended the moves quoted as saying:

"We are making decisive moves in school leadership to assure that we have the best people in place for the most challenging positions at our schools."

Well, part of that "best people" idea was to have Ms. Baca moved from a principal position at Polk Middle School (and I dare you to find a more "challenging position" than principal at Polk Middle School) down to assistant principal at Highland High School. Now, about 20 months later, the principal deemed not "best people" enough to be principal at Polk goes and becomes head honcho at another very challenging school in John Adams.

Huh?

Yes, I know there is a principal shortage (or there better the Hell be a principal shortage to defend a move such as this), but how do you think the folks at John Adams feel about all this? We all know they had some kids scratch the aquariums at the BioPark some time back, but golly. If I didn't know any better, I'd say either John Adams MS is getting a lousy principal or that the District messed up big time with all that "principal shuffling" back in 2007.

Or possibly both.

Again, that is if I didn't know any better. I've always liked that expression...it's so very vague. And vague seems to be the perfect word to describe the methodology of "principal shuffling" in APS.

The MLK March and the "P" Word

When it comes down to it, I'm not one for public speeches or even standing/sitting in a crowd for long periods of time. But the short walk down the hill known as the Annual Albuquerque Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday March is one of my favorite things. Yesterday, the biggest "marching" group I've seen in my years of attendance walked, strutted, danced, drummed, drove real, real, real slow, performed, walked on stilts, held up signs and generally consumed the little stretch of road known as MLK boulevard.

I rode my bicycle to the event, taking a few trips up and down the parade line to better soak it all in. The size, friendliness and energy of the crowd in transit was enough to remind me that this annual Sunday is one of two or three days a year when I'm proud to be an American.

Phrases like "Proud to be an American" have, for some years now, been an official trademark of the xenophobic, the exclusionary and the fearful. Bad country-western songs (and yes, there is such a thing as "good" country-western songs, imho) get to use "Proud to be an American". People with those "Support Our Troops" magnetic flag-as-ribbon car bumper adornment have, for years now, been allowed to say it in a way that directly implies those not adorning their cars with magnetic flag-as-ribbons aren't "Proud to be an American" and probably shouldn't even be Americans.

And, it's true, many of us who walk, ride and strut in things like an MLK march have some problems with a phrase like "Proud to be an American". For one thing, it's been quite some time since our government did something worthy of instilling any pride in us whatsoever. Also, there's the whole "pride in country" thing which almost always seems to spill over into "my country right or wrong", "my country: love it or leave it", "special ID cards for those in our country who aren't from our country" most or all of the way down the slippery slope to things like approving torture, internment camps and beyond.

Nevertheless, alongside baseball's Opening Day (don't laugh), and any day I hear a jazz record from the year 1956, I feel that rare emotion of pride in country during the MLK march. I don't stick around for the speeches really, or even much like the series of prayers and hymns to country that start the speechifying.

But the walk is real special. In my own little Private Idaho of Pride, the crowd would walk, strut and perform its way down MLK to hear a Sonny Rollins concert at Civic Plaza, or watch a baseball game, but that's just me.

And, just me, I wouldn't go to the Mall in Washington and fight those crowds to see President Obama inaugurated. It's just not my scene. But I wouldn't mind walking to the Mall, and I think I'm gonna have to add January 20, 2009 to the list of days when I feel "Proud to be an American". No magnetic flag-as-ribbon adorned car bumper necessary.

A Few Educational Odds and Sods With a Musical Kicker

This feeling of moving through cold molasses this morning isn't because of the cold, or my still having a lingering effect of two or having a cold, but the cold shudder that results from my realization that a day of "professional development" awaits. Man do I hate these "In-Service" days. I hate them so much that I feel bad for the "facilitators" who are faced with my negativity toward them. Which makes me guilty. I hate feeling guilty.

And I'm not too fond of feeling lethargic, but here's an observation or two to go into the weekend:

• Driving home last night listening to 89.1 for the APS School Board candidate forum I had two distinct thoughts: 1. Where do these candidate people come from? Is it another planet where they talk some form of language and breathe oxygen, but have no other similarity to humans whatsoever? 2. The APS School Board has about as much to do with my teaching, classroom and school as the town council in Kiev. and, oh yeah, 3. the strongest argument for appointed school boards is listening to any school board candidate forum. Wow.
• The Governor and the teacher's union are starting to dig trenches for a battle over funding this legislative session. Thinking back, January is always the time for doom, gloom and calamity thinking when it comes to public education funding. This year will just be the doomiest, gloomiest year ever. Frankly I'd be kinda excited to get some popcorn and pull up a chair to watch the hijinks if it wasn't for the fact that the Governor might steal my popcorn, and the Union would pull the chair out from under me.
• I'm setting the early line for passage/institution of the new New Mexico education "funding formula". The morning line is: 500/1. Place your bets. Place your bets.
  
• After having suffered a long period of dislike for any "indie" record in recent years (the latest Calexico not included), I can report I liked the new A.C. Newman on first listen. I'm sure Mr. Newman and the entire music industry will be heartened/saved by this pronouncement.
• And finally back to education. With all this talk of belt-tightening, reversal of costly initiatives such as the 181st day and capping kindergarten at 20 kids, why is nobody seriously discussing the reversal of idiotic NCLB-related mandates like the institution of the America's Choice™ Math Navigator 30 minute remediation-in-a-box? I'm sorry to mention this arcane example and run (gotta get ready for the ultra-excitement of "professional development"), but why? Why not just use the Great Depression II as an excuse to say: "Hey Federal Government, we New Mexicans are gonna just use the parts of NCLB we can really afford these days and ditch the rest until the economy improves dramatically and we feel like it. And if you don't like it, we'll just sue the U.S. Department of Education to be absolved of the whole NCLB crapshow, hire a bunch of newbie lawyers to keep filing motion after motion and voila! it's 2011 and nobody gives a damn about that old, washed up No Child Left Behind anyway.

Have a good weekend, everybody. Hope to see you at the MLK march on Sunday. (and yes, the only link I could quickly find was about animal adoption at the march site...anybody gotta better link with details?)

Rio Grande High School: APS and its "Toxic Assets"

As the largely unnamed financial crisis (and why doesn't it have a catchy, "Great Depression II" kinda name yet?) has unfolded, those in charge of "solving" the crisis have changed their mind about what to do about "toxic assets" more often than a middle school girl changes best friends.

Over the years, the Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) has performed the same vacillations when it comes to its own most toxic asset: Rio Grande High School. Continually beset by high drop-out rates and low test scores (even back when nobody really gave a No Child Left Behind (NCLB) damn about test scores), Rio Grande has been a veritable Petri dish for various experiments in educational "fixing"

Over the years APS has switched principals, instituted some weird four principal system, and created and un-created so many new teaching programs I can't keep them all straight. At the same time, residents of the South Valley have thought about, talked about, threatened and urged feasibility studies around the idea of seceding Rio Grande and other SV schools from APS altogether.

It's politically easy to mess with a school like Rio Grande because RGHS is a "bad" school. And bad schools can be experimented upon with impunity. In fact, it's encouraged especially in a time of NCLB.

Superintendent Winston Brooks and the District's latest idea is to "fix" RGHS and nearby Ernie Pyle MS by changing principals, having all teachers sign a loyalty oath toward "making improvements" and possibly paying those signatory teachers $5,000 more. There's also vague mention of these schools becoming "International Baccalaureate" schools.

Will these changes make any difference? I don't know. We all do know a few things, however.

• One: There is no chance in Hell these, or any, changes at RGHS will be successfully fought. A bad school has no bullets in the gun. A bad school doesn't even have a rock to fight with. RGHS is "bad", and can be punched, kicked and scratched at will.
  
• Two: Any teacher with any sense is going to avoid teaching at RGHS like five-day, sitting in the sun potato salad. $5,000 huh. Well, if a teacher can get that much money, or more, a year just for becoming "National Board Certified", what do you think the average teacher will do? Write a bunch of seemingly important essays on their "practice" to get National Board Certified, or teach at some Petri dish high school like RGHS and get treated like a Science Fair experiment?
• Three: Any principal willing to work at RGHS deserves both cautious praise and uncautious admittance to an insane asylum. There's a bunch of reasons, but let's just close with just one. Very, very few people in education have any respect for the test scores of NCLB. Superintendent Brooks himself has derided the improvement requirements of NCLB, and has instituted smaller, realistically attainable, goals for improved student achievement. Yet when push comes to educational experiment shove, Brooks and APS end up using those same derided "poor test scores" and NCLB terms like "Restructuring 1" as the ultimate rationale for making changes at RGHS. Who among us thinks RGHS will "make scores" this year? What about next year? What about five years after that? As constructed, NCLB requires 100% student proficiency in Reading & Math by 2014. That's only five years away now. Who's gonna make that 100% goal? Nobody. And who's going to continue to play the District scapegoat for that and all the other problems of K-12 public education in Albuquerque? Rio Grande High School, that's who.
  
  
  
  
  

What I Missed While I Was Sick (Ongoing)

While trying (it would appear somewhat unsuccessfully) to sleep off a cold/flu whatever all day/night yesterday I missed all Hell breaking loose over at Democracy for New Mexico. And damn, I missed it.

In a cogent, thorough and pretty darn damning piece, Barb calls Jim Scarantino "out" over his (insert derogatory word/phrase here) views on Rep. Mimi Stewart's new bill on domestic partnerships. It's the best blog read yet this new year, and includes tons of riffing comments making it even better.

Reading it this early morning, instead of yesterday, I kinda feel like I missed my chance to jump in. Damn ultra-short-term internet topicality. But it's still good to read, go check it out.

P.S.: And speaking of Jim Scarantino, I realize at this point that almost 2/3rds of Albuquerque residents have appeared on that show, "In Focus". A question for those who have had the fortune/misfortune to do so: do you get the same creeped-out, bugs crawling up your legs feeling every time you accidentally find yourself seeing "In Focus" while surfing channels on a Friday night? Does your stomach jump as you frantically click the remote away from Channel 5 to anything other than Channel 5? Do you find it takes some minutes for the sweat on your forehead and feelings of gastro-intestinal distress to go away after accidentally watching a second or two of "In Focus"? Do even the words "Jim Scarantino" make you almost want to throw up?

Just wondering.

Bad Teachers, Part 7 of ∞ : The British Non-Solution

When it's the start of Spring Semester and the whole District, impending Standardized Testing, intransigent ossified, professionally desiccating school thing has you down, you might, perhaps, daydream of getting a teaching job in Berlin.

And to fuel the imaginative daydream fire, you might end up looking, as you perhaps do each year at about this time, through the Times Educational Supplement. It's a nice resource, and one reason it's nice is that you get to read about how screwed up other countries, other classrooms are around the world.

Here's a story about the "Greater Teaching Council for England" and the horrendous job it's done getting rid of "substandard staff" since 2001. If you like hearing stories of bureaucratic epic fail be sure to also check out the vituperative comments. All your base teachers are belong to us, whenever you are.

P.S.: And speaking of jolly old, bureaucratically incompetent England, Netflix now has the entire "Yes, Minister" series from the late 1970s on "instant viewing". I'm so stoked about this fact I think I already mentioned here some time back, but cannot seem to remember. Funny, I do remember entire stretches of dialogue between Sir Humphrey and Minister Hacker, a fact that scares me a bit while rewatching these great episodes.

Fleck on Belshaw

Like many papers, The Times is in deep trouble. To cut costs in the face of declining ad revenue, it has eliminated sections and shed about 400 positions through layoffs, buyouts and attrition over the past year.

The parent Seattle Times Co. has put some of its South Lake Union real estate and its newspapers in Maine up for sale to raise capital to pay down debt. Tentative deals were killed or delayed last fall when the credit crunch hit, Times executives said in a year-end e-mail to employees.--Eric Pryne, Seattle Times, 1.11.09

And then there's Jim Belshaw. Go read John Fleck's piece on Belshaw, if you haven't already. And you've probably already read Belshaw's column. I've got nothing to add. Or certainly nothing that can match Mr. Fleck's observations on the subject.

P.S.: I did have this daydream the other day while teaching my 8th graders about the Works Progress Administration that maybe Obama's version of the WPA could include idealistic government ownership of print journalism in the same, somewhat unfettered, way FDR hired poets, actors, graphic artists, photographers and such to do, somewhat unfettered, artist's work. But then I remembered that FDR did far too much "fettering" to constitute a truly free press. Meanwhile, we continue to slouch toward something journalistically anarchical. I used to daydream about the marvelous wonders of anarchism. It doesn't daydream quite as dreamily as it used to.

In Which Mesa del Sol is Tyra Banks and APS/ABQ is Jesse Ventura

Did you ever date or marry somebody who thought, down deep, that they were way better than you? Better looking, smarter, classier, more financially successful? But you were in love (okay, possibly lust) with this person, so you tried to impress upon them that you were smart, classy, upwardly mobile, and maybe, with some major medical procedures, capable of looking beautiful too?

And you found yourself trying really hard to do all these things, and basically talk this person into loving (okay maybe lusting) you back? For quite a long time? Even though it was pretty apparent from day one that this thing wasn't going to work out, and that, maybe, just maybe that look of condescending indifference was just never going to go away?

Well friend, if this has ever happened to you, you are just like the Albuquerque Public Schools and/or the city of Albuquerque. And that stuck-up boy/girlfriend (former spouse) you vainly tried to impress all that time is Mesa del Sol. And just like that doomed situation, you, me and everybody knows this relationship is just not going to work.

Mesa del Sol is too good for APS. It's too good for Albuquerque. Its got champagne taste and all we can afford is Pabst Blue Ribbon. It has "New Urbanism" and we've got the strip malls along Juan Tabo, and a bunch of mobile home trailers collected our falling down schools.

And Mesa del Sol, they know they are all that. They know they're hip, modern and good looking runway models. And APS/Albuquerque is just some truck driver showing their butt crack as they climb out of their rig.

But that Mesa del Sol sure is pretty. Well, actually it's just a bunch of desert with a road or two and building here or there. But they got all those signs up around their desert saying how "green" and modern and wonderful Mesa del Sol is/will be. They got those fancy airport terminal light poles with solar lights and futuristic curves leading to airport terminal looking half-constructed buildings where educationally swanky International Baccalaureate charter schools are supposedly to start up next year. Even if there isn't a school kid for miles and miles around.

In fact, you know Mesa del Sol is too good for ABQ because it ain't got no people living there. Nothing is prettier than a planned community before the community shows up. It's like the difference between a runway model wearing a suggestive Vera Wang dress and the runway model without the fancy dress. You'd think it be even better, but the dress ended up being sexier than the model.

And Mesa del Sol is that runway model. Mesa del Sol is "high maintenance", to use the crude parlance. Beyond high maintenance. It's kinda embarrassing to see truck driver APS/ABQ hanging out with Mesa del Sol. Somebody should go tell them to just give it up. That the city/District is just gonna get dumped when it's most convenient for Mesa del Sol.

But that Mesa del Sol sure is pretty. Or it will be when all those thousands and thousands of taxpayers are living there. Real pretty. Wonder what it must be like to be dating Mesa del Sol. Maybe I'll call her up when she dumps this loser.