She didn't want me once she found out I was a teacher

Over at Learn Me Good Mister Teacher is not missing the dress code at his school, which requires ties for teachers. Here in Texas the temperature can often hit the 90s even before the month of May, and since he and I agree a tie with a short sleeve shirt looks too Dilbert-ish, it can make for a pretty hot day, especially if your school has a computer controlled air conditioning system that "averages" 74 degrees throughout the school. All the talk of ties reminded me of an incident that occured awhile back and a young lady I met at a local gas station.

I was only about a month into my first year at the district I currently teach in and since I was the only male teacher I hadn't quite caught on to the fact that males were not required to wear ties. At the time I had a nice collection of ties with matching suspenders. I also had a 1985 Toyota Tercel hatchback (this will be important later).

One morning on the way to school, wearing my tie and matching suspenders, I stopped at a local gas station to gas up. As I waited in line to pay an elderly gentleman, wearing a Mr. T starter kit of necklaces and the biggest gold and diamond ring I've eer seen, drove up in a jaguar, parked up front and came in to use the restroom. 30 seconds later a quite attractive lady, let's call her Daisy, comes in with her head on a swivel. After surveying the crowd (did I mention this gas station is also a truck stop?) she settles on me, saunters over and coos, "That just HAS to be your Jaguar out front". I laughed and explained to her that if it was I would sell it and pay off my house.

Daisy clearly didnt' believe. At least that is until she saw me go out and get in my 1985 Toyota Tercel (windows down b/c the A/C was broken). I do not possess the vocabulary to adequately describe the look of disgust that came upon her face.

HOWEVER, it did add to my basic fact of life's list, which now currently stands at 3.

BASIC FACT #1 - Clowns don't like it when you're funnier than they are.

BASIC FACT #2 - you can't look cool driving around in a 1985 Toyota Tercel (see story above)

BASIC FACT #3 - you can't tell people what they don't want to hear

So thank you Mister Teacher, for reminding me of one of my favorite stories. Next time I'll tell the story of a gorgeous young lady in cutoffs I met at another gas station.

The alphabet edition of the carnival

Week 72 of the carnival of education is up and running over at Why Homeschool. Be sure to check out the unique way Henry chose to organize this week's carnival.

Things Go Better with Mike

Via Joanne Jacobs I came across a website called The Advertising Slogan Generator. Of course, Joanne Jacobs used it to take a jab at public schools but I managed to have some fun with it.

Slogans it returned for my name include: The Best Mike a Man Can Get, Things Go Better with Mike, Snap! Crackle! Mike!, Go On, Get Your Mike Out, Come See the Softer Side of Mike (no man wants to have his named mentioned in the same sentence as soft so I'll pass on that one), Only Mike Has The Answer (when will the rest of the world wake up and realize this!) and my favorite, Uh-oh, Better Get Mike.

Some of the bizarre ones included, You'll Never Put A Better Bit Of Mike On Your Knife, Oh Hungry? Oh Mike, Life's Pretty Straight Without Mike (depends on how you interpret the word "straight"), Don't be an Amber Mike, and the oddest of all, There's no Wrong Way to Eat a Mike (insert your dirty comment here).

In short, this website is a complete and addictive waste of time. Enjoy!

A cool website for teachers

In a recent email from Susan O'Hanian there was a link to a story about a teacher dismissed for refusing to follow the step by step programmed curriculum mandated by his school. Instead the teacher had brought in exciting and stimulating lessons from the web, including one from a really neat website.

The website is called Instructables. It is a free site that contains many lessons and quick projects for teachers. Be sure to check out the Howtoons and learn how to make such cool things as tin can stilts and a vacuum cleaner cannon.

Hmm, I wonder if Lowe's is still open? I'm going to need some 3/4" PVC pipe for the cannon. I'm also going to try the Pop-Up 3D Words.

FairTest examines recent studies on NCLB

Over at FairTest they've come up with a new newsletter called FairTest E-Examiner.

A recent issue of the E-Examiner included brief reviews of some recent studies of NCLB. One study from The United Church of Christ's (UCC) Public Education Task Force:

criticizes the law for relying on testing and punishment without acknowledging that many schools still lack the resources they need to succeed.

The report emphasizes that NCLB ignores many realities that affect schools and students: segregation; race; poverty; school finance; civil rights; rural isolation; a child's language, culture and identity; good teaching; and respect for educators. Of course, this is nothing new, teachers have known it all along, but now someone else who studied the problem for 4 years has reached the same conclusion.

Another report, this time from a special issue on NCLB from the journal Equity and Excellence in Education reaches the conclusion:

the expense of enabling all students to reach one hundred percent proficiency will approach infinity, while the consequences of the effort will ultimately damage the quality of education as schools over-emphasize raising test scores.

In other words, people have concluded that academically and financially the goals of NCLB are impossible to reach.

The Think Twice Review Project

The education "reform" crowd is notorious for dumping dubious research about education onto the masses by duping the media into printing their findings as gospel. Often these reports are "leaked" to the press as working papers, with the statements of "Gosh, we never intended for anyone to see this version" reverberating throughout the press. A brief amount of reading the fine lines will tell you most of these "studies" come from the Hoover Institute, the Fordham Foundation or the Korat Task Force. Further investigation into these think tanks reveal no education experience or background of any of their researchers.

The Great Lakes Center for Education Reseach and Practice has decided to start monitoring

think tank research on public education issues and policies, ensuring that published work meets the quality and standards of university scholarship.

Entitled the Think Twice Review Project, it also provides links to the homepages of some of the more popular think tank homepages.

A different kind of interview hell

Last year I described myself as being in interview hell because I was constantly having to suppress my desire to jump over the table and slap some sense into some of the applicants over their poor grammar, dress and answers. This year we are having the exact problem. We have interviewed 5 people so far for 4 positions. Two of them have absolutely blown us away and the other 3 were also very good. We have 2 others coming in who are also supposed to be experienced, outstanding teachers. The problem for us is the 2 outstanding ones, and the two to come, all want the only 4th grade position available. One has even stated she wasn't interested in anything else but the 4th grade job. Usually people will only take a 4th grade job to get their foot in the door, now we make have to ask people to take something else so that they can eventually get a 4th grade job.

The 70 edition of the Carnival of Education is up and running over at the EdWonks. It seems this week I've been busier than ever and haven't had a chance to blog or read the carnival but it's on my to do list.

Probably fake but funny as heck

Watch this video and be sure to check out the action in the background. It's probably fake but it sure is funny.

My 10, 000th visitor

On June 4 I hit a milestone when I had my 10, 000th visitor, from a place called Energis in the United Kingdom.

Sitemeter has many unique features, including information about the countries of your visitors. I learned this about England by following the links.

Reading can make you smarter

I can across an article
summarizing an article called What Reading Does to Your Mind. Not surprisingly, the author makes the claim that reading:

increases vocabulary more than talking or direct teaching;


substantially boosts general knowledge while decreasing the likelihood that misinformation will be absorbed; and


helps keep our memory and reasoning abilities intact as we age.

This led me to think about the effects of reading to your child. I've seen so self-declared "experts" claim parental involvement does not have that great of an effect on school achievement. I say bullsnort. No surprise that many of the people who make that claim, and the others who pass it on as gospel, are not actually teachers.

I Speak Engrish good

I’ve been way too serious lately which isn’t like me at all, so here’s something a little fun.In the past I have taught both junior high and high school Japanese students in a summer program at a local university.  One of my favorite activities was reading their shirts that have English on them, as the words are usually combined for appearance and little regard for meaning.  

Awhile back I stumbled upon this website, Engrish.com.  I visited their store and ordered the “Just It Do” shirt (Buy them before they get sued by that overpriced shoe company!)

Carnival submissions are due by 9 P.M. central tomorrow. Please look just above the moon phase for the email address.    

Stargazers in the Hauwse!

I just got back from our annual 3rd Grade stargazing party. This year mother nature provided us with great views of Jupiter and Saturn and a tiny Mars, which is nearly across the solar system from us. We had 2 of the school telescopes and our librarian brought her reflector from home.

Our school is very fortunate to have use of a fantastic 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain Celestron reflector. Some kind soul donated to the high school several years ago, and since they don't teach any astronomy they were kind enough to lend it to me. It is always the star attraction of our star parties. It features setting circles (which I do not know how to use) and a clock drive for tracking stars with the earth's rotation. An astronomy professor at a local university was kind enough to set it up so that the only thing I need to do is make sure a certain axis it rotates on is pointed due north. Any drifting of the object in view is easily corrected.

I am constantly amazed at how many adults have never seen a planet through a telescope. About half of those who attend seem to comment that this was their first time actually seeing Jupiter/Saturn or what have you.

It's all in the family

I'm very proud to say that my niece, Ms. Deemer, has been selected as Teacher of the Year for her elementary school. Unfortunately, her school's website doesn't publish such silly things but I did manage to find this picture of her. She's the one with her back to the camera writing down information.

Needless to say I'm very proud of her. She and her husband were refugees from Hurricane Katrina, fled to Houston, nearly took jobs with Houston ISD but decided to return home and work to rebuild their schools.

Incidentally, I'm her favorite uncle, although she has repeatedly told me there's not that much competition so I shouldn't be too proud of that fact.

Exploding Science Project

From the WHAT WERE THEY THINKING??? files comes this story, courtesy of the Tyler Morning Telegraph, about a student whose science project, a homemade cannon, exploded Wednesday morning at school, causing the loss of the student's hand.

I have seen several conflicting versions of what actually happened. One local TV station, KETK 56 aired this story that claimed the project was school sanctioned and the gunpowder had been provided by the school, presumably by the Physics teacher.

One ATF officer was quoted as saying:

"From an ATF standpoint, I would personally like to see students not making gunpowder or cannons for class projects,

And to think we were worried at our district about students taking the alcohol based hand sanitizer and setting it on fire.

I once sat through a presentation by a high school science teacher from another district who went to great lengths to show off his ability to make explosions. While it was certainly entertaining, most of them were far too easily constructed and I found his admonishment, "There are some things I do but you don't" to his students would probably have done little to discourage them from trying it themselves.

Week 67 of the Carnival is up!

Week 67 of the Carnival is up and running over at the EdWonks.

Next week's carnival will be hosted over at NYC Educator.

Teachers consume alcohol during school dance!

In another shocking display of "What were they thinking?", two teachers consumed a flask of alcohol on school property and another encouraged students to raise their bottles in a toast to their teachers.

The only thing keeping this story from making the rounds of the "reform" crowd is the fact that it happened on NBC's Teachers sitcom, which has already raised the ire of The EdWonks and I have to say is one of the dumbest portrayal of teachers I've ever seen. Tuesday night's show was actually the second time in this short lived series teachers have been shown drinking on school property.

I can't decide if it was dumber than the Boston Public episode where a teacher fired a gun in class and got a stern lecture.

Baby Bush spanked

Little brother Jeb got a serious spanking today from the Florida legislature, and educators won a big victory. Baby Bush had tried to circumvent the Florida Supreme Court by trying to have an amendment put before the voters to allow charters. Not gonna happen.

Compounding the spanking Bush recieved is the fact the legislature also voted down his attempt to defy the will of the people and weaken the voter approved amendment for lower class sizes.

Suck it up and take it, or as Maggie Spellings says, "Put on your big girl panties and deal with it"

Read all about it at the St. Petersburg Times.

When did the folks at Education News.org become such right-wing hacks?

It used to be Education News.org was the internet site for education news. Lately it seems all they print is the usual anti-public school garbage the "reform" crowd spouts.

Check out the stories in favor of The 65% Solution (delusion), or how about The Customer Is Always right (pro-charter rantings from a school board member no less, whatever happened to representing the people who voted you in?)and watch them bend over backwards to kiss some KIPP ass.

At last a political science professor I agree with

Have you ever noticed how many of the "reformers" the media pays so much attention to are political science professors, history professors or economists? I have the same beef with all of their opinions, they haven't taught one day in a K-12 public school.

I've finally found a poltical science professor I can agree with. His name is Ted Reuter and he refers to the No Child Left Behind act as "Disastrous". Reuter's beefs with NCLB are:

It focuses on punishment, negative labels, and threats. It places too little emphasis on the social causes of poor school performance. It does nothing to improve the curriculum, reduce class size, decrease school size, increase parental involvement, create after-school programs, diminish school violence, lessen absenteeism, or increase funding.

Amen

Even Bill O'Reilly agrees with me, we're getting screwed

In a post entitled "You Are Being Gouged by U.S. Oil Companies: O'Reilly says:

It has nothing to do with supply and demand. It's all about exploiting fears about Iran, terrorism, what might happen down the road.

I agree the oil companies are gouging us and said so last week. I disagree with O'Reilly's assertion though that he has been pointing it out for a year. However, he is correct in saying oil and gasoline stockpiles are the highest they have been in years.

Is it a coincidence that just as prices started to stabilize and drop some last week the Bush govt. "leaks" that it is considering a military strike against Iran? Suddenly prices go through the roof again.

O'Reilly has a poll where you can indicate if you agree the oil companies are gouging us.

As for the rest of us we get to bend over and take it.

A Great Source for PowerPoints

With thanks to a fellow teacher, here is a link to a large collection of PowerPoint presentations, mostly for the elementary and primary levels. These presentations are hosted by Jefferson County Schools of Dandridge, TN. They also have an excellent section on Tech Tutorials.

A Cost Analysis For Texas Public Schools

Hosted at Round Rock ISD this cost analysis of Texas public school spending outlines how Texas schools spend their money. Some of the items over very interesting, considering Gov. Goodhair is trying to push through the 65% delusion.

Purchases that are not counted as
“instructional” are critical to the educational
process. Non-instructional purchases
include many items that directly
impact students. Some of these purchases
involve transporting students to and
from school, providing meals in school
cafeterias, maintaining school buildings,
heating and cooling classrooms, and paying
the salaries and benefits of nurses,
counselors, and school principals.

Not factored in to Gov. Goodhair's plan is the skyrocketing cost of transporting students. For myself alone the cost of traveling to school has gone up $13 a week in the last month. I can't imagine what it costs to fill a school bus.

Another interesting tidbit:

Per student spending over the past three
years has been slightly below the rate of
inflation. . .On average, basic educational spending
fell $53 per student short of keeping
pace with inflation.

In short, a classroom with 20 students has lost the equivalent of $1,060 of funding in the last 3 years, due to legislative negligence of school funding.

Jeb Bush and GOP ignoring a mandate from the people

Four years ago the voters of Florida passed an amendment to the state constitution calling for class size reductions, but Jeb and the GOP have refused to fully fund the program, claiming the state couldn't afford it. Now that the state of Florida is awash with billions of extra dollars the GOP is trying a new tactic; claiming the amendment should be changed b/c the state doesn't have enough time to comply.

Funny, the state seems to have plenty of money to fund high stakes tests but here we have a mandate from the people of the state being ignored. Specifically it states in the amendment:

"Payment of the costs associated with reducing class size to meet these requirements is the responsibility of the state and not of local school districts."

I'm not surprised the GOP wants to ignore one reform actually proven to improve student achievement and instead want to push their own agenda, forced failure of the public schools in the name of privatization.

The complete story is available from The Palm Beach Post.

Just Plain Funny

I especially like the recipe for "heckuva job brownies"

Via Susan Ohanian

Bend over and take it

Since I routinely drive at least 50 miles a day round trip to work, I pay very close attention to the price of oil and gasoline. The cost of gasoline has skyrocketed, going up nearly 40 cents a gallon in the last month while the cost of oil has risen, but not as much.

I REFUSE to believe the oil companies are not price gouging. I believe completely the oil companies are sticking it to us because they know their good ole oil buddies Cheney and Dubya are not going to do a damn thing about it.

I'm tired of listening to the oil company defenders claiming supply and demand. The US govt. has been stockpiling oil like crazy for years, a practice that just happens to keep the price high. Oil stockpiles in the US are at a 10 year high, while gasoline stockpiles are well above average. But as the oil companies reap huge profits (Exxon made more last year than any company in history and is now at the top of the Fortune 500 list, with profits up a staggering 42%), Dubya refuses to hear any talk of releasing some of the stockpiled gasoline to help ease prices for us everyday folks.

Too bad education doesn't have friends in high places like the oil companies.

Can you believe . . .

. . .there's a logical explanation for this?



Anyone care to take a guess?

Would you?

Jenny D has a couple of discussions going about teaching and the nature of teaching. Jenny usually provides thoughtful posts for her readers. Unfortunately, the same can not be said of some of the commentors. Below is some of the typical, emotion charged, factless beliefs of some members of the "reform" crowd:

Let's be honest, Ed Schools primarily appeal to those with low opportunity costs (i.e., the not very bright) in other professions.

Ed schools are necessary to help foster the illusion that K-12 teachers are professionals on par with engineers, doctors and lawyers.

Teachers are the low performers on the totem pole of college graduates. They have the worst test scores and the least competence.

It's purely and simply a lie for you to act as if teaching quality matters when the education program is an excuse to shovel illiterates through the system and pretend they graduated with some sort of ability.

Most of the kids in the LA school districts are stuck with teachers who couldn't reach 500 on an individual SAT section and almost certainly didn't pass the CBEST

experienced educators by and large are only skilled at teaching smart kids and some kids who are perhaps less smart but who get help outside of school.

All this had led me to think about my own two children and their future careers. I will not encourage them to become teachers. There is too much disrespect and downright lies about teachers being circulated by politicians and the general public to make it an attractive career choice.

Would you encourage your children to become teachers?

Dancing Administrators

From Joe Thomas over at Shut Up and Teach comes this hilarious video spoof of the cell phone commercial (can't remember which company).

Click here

As Joe Thomas said, trust me. Those of you who have administrators who seemingly have no purpose other than to annoy or keep you from actually teaching will find it especially funny. And for those of you who know what a "walkthrough" is, you have my sympathy.

Wrath of the Soccer Moms

Via the Texas Observer comes the story about the Soccer Moms, a.k.a. the Texas Parent PAC, that took down supreme public school hater Kent Grusendorf. Grusendorf was the number one target of the Texas Parent PAC, as he had treated

school superintendents and PTA members as if they were trifling little annoyances, going so far as to introduce a group of PTA members about to testify at a committee hearing as “a look behind the Iron Curtain.”

The article also contains an absolutely great cartoon, showing soccer moms and kids pulling down a statue of the grand exalted dictator the honorable Kent Grusendorf , ala Saddam.<

Grusendorf is a typical lying sack of #@$$, claiming he wants to give parents a choice when what he really wants is to line the pockets of his friends at the expense of Texas schoolchildren. Parents who disagree with him are labeled as left wing nut jobs.

Ahhhh, Spring Break

Spring Break is over and it was a very relaxing time. We spent two days at Self Creek Marina on Lake Greeson in Arkansas. We also spent two days on Lake Quachita near Hot Springs. I took a great deal of pictures, mostly of family members, but I am especially proud of the picture shown below.

I took this picture on the dock of the NorthShore Marina at Lake Quachita. I waited patiently for the fisherman and his boat to drift towards the center of the area in the background. Unfortunately, just as he reached the center the bow of his boat had drifted so that it pointed away from me. When I downloaded the pictures to my computer I found I really liked this one.

Snubbed

In the last month or so I've had my writing snubbed a couple of times. First, I noticed that Education News was looking for technology writers so I submitted a couple of samples of my work, my post on readability scores using MS Word and another on a very strange technical problem and how to solve it. I have not heard one word back. The professional thing to do was at least let someone know you weren't interested.

Just this past week I submitted a post for the 57th edition of the Carnival of Education and was snubbed for that too.

Good thing I have a Y chromosome and I think I'm the world's greatest teacher/writer/lover/rc pilot etc. etc. etc.

Grusendorf goes down!!!!

Kent Grusendorf, the anti-public school/charter crusader who is the head of the Texas House Committee on Education has lost in the Republican primary for his district. Grusendorf is almost singlehandedly responsible for making sure Texas schools are perpetually underfunded . Stories will follow later.

Over at Joanne Jacobs I managed to get in another pissing match, but this time I didn't even know I was involved! In a post entitle, "Out of Control" a group of "reformers" started hurling insults my way when I hand't even commented on the story. Ah, gotta love that "compassionate conservative" crowd!

Whatever happened to "slower traffic keep right"??

Ok, this is not an educated related topic, except for the fact it effects my morning drive, but what happened to the old traffic rule of slower traffic stays to the right?

Almost my entire trip is on a 4 lane highway and it ALWAYS seems to work out that some idiot in the left hand lane, generally doing about 5 miles per hour less than the speed limit, manages to keep perfect pace with someone in the right lane. These "obliviots" (not my term but wish I had thought of it) do not respond to flashing headlights or riding nearly up on their bumpers.

Sure, I may suffer from mild bouts of road rage, but I think most other drivers are to blame for it. If they just get their cell-phone talking, driving right next to someone, putt-putting selves out of the way I wouldn't have to get so mad about it.

Here's my solution: a constitutional amendment that allows your to ram from behind anyone doing less than the speed limit in the left hand lane. Who's with me on this one???

Whew, I feel a little better.

Presenting at a conference

Last Saturday I had to present at a regional science teacher's conference. It was the first time presenting for me, and besides being extremely nervous and having one of the wife's cats throw up on part of my presentation, everything went Ok.

I decided I would do a presentation on how to make a hovercraft. Riding around on the hovercraft, and experiencing Newton's laws firsthand, is something the kids at my school ask to do all the time.

I built a new one, taking pictures of every step along the way and I created a Powerpoint presentation on how to do it. Many of the teachers present looked at me like I was crazy when I tried to get them to ride it, but a few were brave, I gave away all my CDs with my presentation on it, and I have to email it to a few more people.

I did have one weird moment. It reminded me of when I was a first year teacher and I looked around at my classroom and realized I was the adult in the room. Presenting for the first time is very much like that.

I've posted the presentation on one of the free file hosting sites. I don't know if this will actually work or not, but if you'd like to see it you can view it here

Phases of the Moon

I found a link to the really neat Moon phase indicator on the right over at The Tech Savvy Educator's website. I followed the link he provided to Calculator Cat's Moon Phase Page, completed the free registration, and received html code to copy and paste into my template.

I don't know if I'll keep it or not, but it sure is cool.

More insults, less facts

I've gotten into quite the pissing contest with several people over this post over at Joanne Jacobs. She posted about a story where a charter school principal, Terrance Moore, claims:

Almost always, certified teachers have earned straight A's in education courses and multiple C's, D's, F's and W's (withdrawn) in academic content courses

a claim neither he nor Joanne Jacobs can back up with facts but it probably makes for a nice sound bite.

The story goes on to brag about how this person's charter school is rated the #1 high school in Colorado, so I decided to take a look at the demographics of the school. I zipped on over to Great Schools and examined the student demographics.

Luckily for Terrance Moore he's head of a pretty whitebread school, where 83% of his students are white, versus 65% for the rest of the state. The Hispanic population at his school is only 6% versus 26% for the rest of the state and the black population is 3% versus 6% for the rest of the state. Lest you think its all about race he's also lucky to only have 8% of his students on free or reduced lunch, versus 32% for the rest of the state. You can view the student demographics here. He also has the good fortune to have 23 teachers available for 123 high school students.

Checking the student demographics for nearby schools, I found this information which I summarized at Joanne Jacobs:

Schools with higher percentages of whites than the state average and a lower percentage of low SES children do better on the state's testing based accountability system. Schools with lower percentages of whites, and higher percentages of low SES kids than the state average tend to score lower, with the exception of schools that lower their teacher to student ratios below 15 (a real research based solution, not being instituted because it won't make any business cronies of powerful politicians any money).

Conclusion? The high stakes test based accountability system in Colorado most accurately measures ethnicity and socio economic status

To see how foolish accountability ratings based solely on high stakes tests are, you can view this story from RockMountainNews.com.

Colorado's #1 rate elementary school, Jamestown Elementary School, had one student take the test. The #3 elementary school had 8 students take the test.

The state's worst rated high school? Arapahoe Ridge High School, doesn't technically exist. According to the article, "The rating listed for the school reflects the scores of three eighth-graders who attend a program overseen by juvenile court Judge T.J. Cole."

Poor Judge Cole, one more year of low test scores and he's going to be out of a principal's job.

Bush targets education in budget cuts

In the age of rising federal demands for public education, the Bush administration is cutting funding of many education programs. From an MSNBC story:

The budget blueprint sharply decreases funding for supporting the arts, vocational education, parent resource centers and drug-free schools . . .

Notice the total lack of a decrease in federal AYP demands. As cynical as I've become over the last two years I wonder if purposely cutting funds while increasing demands isn't part of the overall plan to destroy public education.

Another unqualified Bush crony in trouble

This time it is NASA Inspector General Robert W. Cobb, who according to his bio, had absolutely zero qualifications for his job, other than being a loyal lieutenant to Dubya.

From the Washington Post, via MSNBC, Cobb is under investigation for failing to investigate violations of safety concerns and retaliation against whistle-blowers.

Hmm, ignoring the people who actually do the work, and retaliating against people who speak out. It's a familiar pattern, isn't it?

Blogging from the Space Exploration Educators Conference

I have pictures and a few comments as promised. I'm already having a great time. As I mentioned NASA treats teachers as royalty. I also found a very nice hobby shop within site of the SpaceCenter. In addition, there's just about nearly every kind of restaurant within a short driving distance. Unfortunately, I found at that a short driving distance in Houston traffic can take up to 10 minutes, even if you're only going a couple of city blocks. I believe you can click on each picture to view it full size.

These retired NASA T38s adorn the entrance to the Space Center. There is a park behind them, but I took this picture from the street. To the right of this picture is the Johnson Space Center.

The entrance. It doesn't look like much from the outside but the bulk of the building is cleverly hidden among the trees.


Inside the SpaceCenter is a play area with space related activities for kids. I found this young lady puffing up her hair in the high air pressure demonstrator. High air pressure toys are a favorite of mine.



A full-size mock up marks entrance to one of the theaters. The theater reviews the missions to the moons, and then you take a tour through various Apollo related memorabilia, including one of the Apollo capsules and an actual moon rock you can touch! For teachers, NASA has a program whereby teachers can check out actual moon rock samples. I have never done this because 1)I haven't taken the certification cours required to check them out and 2)my school lacks the required high security safe to store them in.

This is a Geobat. Atlanta city schools have chosen the Geobat design to teach students about aerodynamics and design. The inventor of the Geobat, Jack M. Jones, was in attendance and he is a fellow R/C Modeler. He will be featured in an upcoming show on the Discovery Channel but I don't have all the information. We built Geobat gliders, out of the same materials my friend and I build our electric planes from, and then tested them in some really high winds.

This is a Geobat glider in flight. Mine required 4 large washers in the front, as did most people's, to achieve the proper center of gravity. Jack expressed his disappointment that a fellow R/C Modeler had not been able to plan for proper CG location without the addition of extra weight, but hey, I HATE sanding.


Finally, a model I made of Saturn using a 3" styrofoam ball, an AOL CD, and waaaay too much glitter glue. It's primary purpose is to serve as a model of Saturn. It's secondary purpose seems to be that of "babe magnet", at least to Science educators. I had more women stop and talk to me about it than have talked to me in the last 3 years. I don't know if it was the handsome man holding it, or the spectacular use of the aforemention glitter glue. Or it could have been simply, as one Science teacher babe put it, "Oooo, shiny!"

Another Science teacher conference

For the 2nd time in the last 3 years, I've lucked into taking someone's spot at the 12th Annual Space Exploration
Educators Conference (techinically it was the 10th annual a couple of years ago).

Two years ago one of our 4th grade teachers was going to attend but unfortunately for him his wife was due to have their 4th child at the same time. Oh, she tried to push it out a week early, but thanks in large part to my constant urging to "Squeeze those legs together, keep it in", she didn't deliver until two days before the conference, so I went in her husband's place.

This time we have a 3rd grade teacher who can't attend and I am going in her place. Two years ago I met other Science teachers from around the country, some of whom had even paid their own way and taken personal leave to attend. There was a rumor that some teachers from China were in attendance. It was at this conference that I learned how to make a hovercraft, a skill I will be presenting at a Regional Science convention in a few weeks (with of course a few modifications).

The great thing about this conference is NASA treats the teachers as if they were royalty. SpaceCenter Houston is shut down for the 3 days of the conference and you are treated to a night of dinner and dancing, including an all astronaut band, on Friday night.

Hopefully, I'll have a better hotel experience than the last conference I went to. I'm hoping for a real internet connection in my room and a bar with some good vodka, not the rotgut the Texas Museum crowd forced me to drink at the last conference. Hopefully I'll have some pictures too.

From the genius bringing us the 65% delusion

Coming in at 97 on CNN's 100 Dumbest Business Moments of 2005 is the genius behind the 65% delusion, Overstock.com's Patrick Byrne.

According to Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Byrne spent a 61 minute conference call with investors railing about:

Miscreants; an unnamed Sith Lord he hopes the feds will bury under a prison; gay bath houses; whether he is gay, does cocaine, both, or neither; phone taps; phone lines misdirected to Mexico; arrested reporters; payoffs; conspiracies; crooks; egomaniacs; fools; paranoia; which newspapers are shills and for who; money laundering; his Irish temper; false identities; threats; intimidation; and private investigators. All in 61 minutes.

According to CNN Bryne also sent "increasingly shrill pronouncements about nefarious short-sellers driving the company's stock into the ground" After the conference call Mark Cuban short-sold 10,000 shares of Overstock.

The sad part is, he is just as qualified as Margaret Spellings on education issues.

How to do a quick and easy readability score on a document

Like most teachers I learned how to calculate the readability score of a reading sample and like most people who have been out of school for awhile I've forgotten how to do it. Luckily, MS Word has a built in readability test, a Flesch-Kinkcaid readibility score, enclosed with the Spelling and Grammar checker. However, the readability score is not part of the default settings, so you will have to tell MS-Word to perform the test.

The steps to tell MS Word to do a readability assessment are:


1. In MS Word, click on the "Tools" menu and select "Options"
2. Click on the "Spelling and Grammar" tab
3. Check the box that says "show readability statistics"




From now on whenever you do a spelling and grammar check on a document it will provide you with a report similar to this:



The picture shows the Readability Statistics for a reading sample given to 4th grade students on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). You can find it yourself at The National Center for Education Statistics website by searching for "Mir". Please note the Flesch-Kinkcaid grade level and be sure to mention it whenever someone starts bad mouthing the public schools for their NAEP scores.

The Most Important Lesson I Ever Learned

Colleges of Education are currently under attack from the "reform" groups who claim they are nothing but liberal indoctrination camps. I went through two excellent teacher training programs at LSU and the University of South Florida. I had literally hundreds of hours in the classroom by the time I graduated and knew how to run a classroom

However, the most important lesson I learned came in grad school. I had a little old retired professory (I'm sad to say I can't remember her name) who had done studies on reading disabilities and had found that 95% of all 1st graders who had trouble reading had some kind of vision problem. Of the remaining 5%, 80% had hearing problems.

Our final exam featured this question:

What's the 1st thing you do with a child with reading difficuties?

YOU GET THEIR VISION AND HEARING CHECKED!

Please share the other important lessons you learned.

My hobby

One of the things I'm trying to do this year is make time for my hobby. My buddy and I have built a couple of electric "sorta-scale" warbirds and have been flying them a great deal. They're fairly quick to build, can take a massive amount of abuse for just being foam. The all up cost is not too expensive, however the one thing we've found with electrics is you can never have enough batteries, as they typically take about 2 hours to charge.

It's kind of a tradition that I take a picture of my daughter with my new planes, however, as she becomes older she gets less happy with this tradition. The all up weight on this one is only 13 ounces, so it can only be successfully flown on relatively calm days.

A hilarious quote from Molly Ivins

I found this quote, attributed to Molly Ivin's, in Harvey Kronberg's Quorum Report Daily Buzz section. It pretty much sums up how I feel about politicians in general, and lately, Republican politicians.

The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a Courthouse is because you cannot post "Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery & Thou Shall Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.

I usually catch the latest Molly Ivins' column at The Star-Telegrams website.

Gov. Goodhair wants Texas schools to teach intelligent design

Via The Austin-American Statesman comes this story about Gov. Goodhair, a.k.a. Rick Perry. According to statements released by his office, the gov. "supports the teaching of the theory of intelligent design," and feels "intelligent design is a valid scientific theory, and he believes it should be taught as well."

The best quote regarding intelligent design comes from independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman, who says of intelligent design, "I'm agin it; there's nothing intelligent about it."

Kinky for governor!

P.S. For those of you not from Texas, agin=against

Damn you 2005

I thought my immediate family had lost enough for one year, with my mother's death in April and Hurricane Katrina later but 2005 has struck again.

This past Saturday my 16 year nephew simply died of unknown causes. He began moaning in his sleep and was not breathing. CPR efforts by us and the paramedics had no effect. I held his head in my hands as he took his last breath.

My sister and all of us are devastated. My nephew had been living in Texas with another sister and her family and was doing extremely well.

2005 will not be gone soon enough.

Colorado school district opts out of NCLB

Via Schools Matter comes this story about the folks in Kit Carson, CO who have voted to make up lost federal money so the local school district can opt out of NCLB.

Jane Urschel of the Colorado Association of School Boards said she has never heard of another Colorado district asking voters to make up for the lost aid with a tax hike.

"I think it says that the best education occurs at the community level and the best decisions are made right there," she said.

Finally, some parents are beginning to see the light and react, like this group of Texas parents.

An interesting question from Polski3

My colleague Polski has posed an intersting question? What is the oddest job you have held?

For me the answer was easy. I worked in the last single screen theater in the New Orleans area. Every Friday and Saturday night at midnight we showed "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". One of my duties was to stand guard in front of the screen when Susan Sarandon sang "Toucha Touche Touche Me" and keep people from rushing the screen and fondling the screen boobs.

Visit Polski3 and tell him about your odd jobs.

Texas cuts per student spending

In their never ending quest to make their corporate buddies rich, I mean improve education for all Texas children, the Republican controlled state govt. has actually decreased the amount of per pupil funds its sends to schools.

According to Science Daily Texas was the only state in the nation to cut per student funding. The study, done by the National Education Association, says Texas per student funding dropped by 1 percent. The study also notes that state share of funding for education has dropped to 35%, down from a high of around 60% last decade. According to the NEA, Texas is spending $7, 132 per student, compared to the national average of $8,618. A spokesperson from Gov. Goodhair’s office was quick to claim that the Texas Education Agency had reported actual per-student spending at $7,358, which if I’ve done my math correctly, shows the state only actually cut per student funding by .7%.

In a related story, the Houston Chronicle points out that:

The governor's press secretary, Kathy Walt, questioned the accuracy of the NEA figures Monday, saying they don't reflect the small funding increase that the Legislature approved for public schools for the 2004-05 school year.

They also pointed out:

Mr. Perry has cited statistics from the annual NEA survey in the past to support his claim that education spending in Texas has been more than adequate.

In short, Gov. Goodhair’s office is saying Texas didn’t cut spending on students by that much, and you can’t believe the NEA’s statistics, unless they agree with what he’s saying.

Is it any wonder?

While watching the local news yesterday there was a story about how the Lufkin ISD football team was practicing on Thanksgiving Day to get ready for their big playoff game this weekend.

Lufkin seems to have enormous amounts of money. To spend on their football team. Their stadium had an instant replay screen and an indoor practice field. All of this was added while other school districts were in court begging for extra money and relief from the demands the legislature has placed on them. Of course, since the football team has won 3 state championships money is no object. Local businesses will kick in thousands of dollars to buy state championship rings for the players. I wonder how much they'd kick in for teaching supplies?

You would think with such outstanding athletic facilities the school facilities would also be top-notch. However, I attended some Science training this summer at Coston Elementary. The cabinets in the room we did training in was that 50s era green (you older folks know what I'm talking about), and it was peeling in most places. I wonder how much lead is in that old paint?

Is it any wonder some politicians believe school districts have to be slapped down and ordered to spend their money wisely?

Texas Surpreme Court does Gov. Goodhair's bidding

Althouth the Texas Supreme Court did rule the state's funding system is unconstitutional it did rule the system if equitable when it comes to access to funds and building funds. One need only check the Highland Park ISD website to see how idiotic this is.

In another nod to Gov. Goodhair, the Supremes made sure to set a deadline for school funding reform after the March primaries. That way none of the seated Republicans will have to answer any pesky questions about school reform.

Unless of course, you are a Republican who stood up to the attempted gutting of the school systems the R's try to pull off this year. Rep. Bob Griggs, who spoke so eloquently in favor of doing what's right for schools, has decided to retire rather than take on the well funded opponents the GOP is throwing at him.

Rep. Tommy Merritt of Longview is facing the same proposition.

No Texas Teacher Left Behind meeting at Angelina College

One for the locals, the No Texas Teachers Left Behind group will have a meeting this Tuesday, November 15th at Angelina College in Lufkin, TX. The meeting will be held in the Hudgins Room beginning at 6:30 P.M. For an Angelina College map click here

Scott Elliot hijacks the carnival bus

and hosts this week's edition of the carnival of education here

Parental involvement isn't that important

According to the folks at EdSource parental involvement is not that important to student achievement.

Now before you teachers all go rolling your eyes you have to realize what a group of experts the folks at EdSource have assembled. For example, there's Executive Director Trish Williams, whose BA in English Literature qualifies her as a public education expert.

Then there's Deputy Director Mary Perry. She has a journalism degree for the University of Oregon and has been a copywriter and an editor, valuable experience for fixing all that ails the public schools.

We can't forget Brian Edwards and his experience in policy analysis, or Carol Studier who has a degree in Education Policy Analysis and Evaluation. I bet that makes Brian feel inferior at those watercooler discussions.

Scrolling through the rest of the staff qualifications finds nothing more than a bunch of policy analysts and journalists. Oddly enough, no one at EdSource, the experts who say parental involvement isn't that important and who:

Over nearly three decades have developed a solid reputation as a credible and respected source of K–12 education information, research, analysis, and data

have any teaching experience.

Who'da thunk it?


Don't take my word for it, check it out yourself at their
About Staff webpage

The Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching

I'm currently attending CAST in Houston at the Reliant Center. I am staying at the nearby Park Plaza Reliant Center Hotel, a place I recommend you avoid like the plague.

I arrived tired and cranky from the drive here, about 2 and half hours. I spent nearly 45 minutes trying to check in as 1)the hotel did not have enough people working the check in counter and 2) I had the misfortune of arriving just behind a large group of teachers from Wichita Falls ISD, who for some reason did not discuss roommate arrangements on their 8 hour drive to the convention, and had to hash it out at the front desk.

I also had the misfortune of being assigned a room two doors down from one of the Wichita Falls people who was busy screaming at a hotel employee in the hallway just outside my room. Later I saw her down in the bar screaming at the restaurant manager for something.

The hotel is the butt of running jokes among the teachers at the conference. Twice in about 3 hours last night they had to rescue people from stuck elevators. Arriving back from the conference at lunch time we found of all things, the restaurant was closed. Food was available at the bar if you were willing to wait 20 minutes to order it and eat standing up. Not to mention they were also out of Coke. How can they expect people to eat a hamburger without a cold Coke to wash it down?

I'm blogging in the hotel lobby. Their are some very nice, non-functioning high speed internet connections in the room and wireless access available in the bar or lobby.

I attended two interesting presentations this morning. One was by two 1st grade teachers from Lubbock ISD presenting a unit on the solar system they teach to their students. They provided a link to a fantastic website called Planet 10. Be sure to try the Solar System flyby as well as the Planet Builder.

Battery and caffeine levels are running low.

My son's apartment

My son is 21 years old and lives with 3 other males. Needless to say his apartment does not stay clean but last weekend I saw something I have never seen before.

Ladies and gentleman I give you:




Mold growing on a plastic shampoo bottle!

Other pictures for your viewing displeasure include:


This lovely sofa-sleeper was purchased at a garage sale for only $20. The stain in the lower left corner is ketchup. As an added bonus it came with its own set of sheets! No charge!


No swinging bachelor pad would be complete without a counter space full of empty liquor bottles. Always sure to impress the ladies!!



Another surefire way to impress the babes is with a room like this. I'm pretty sure that somewhere in there is a bed and a computer I seem to remember costing us a lot of money.

The real reason for the 65% rule

From this Austin American-Statesman story comes the real reason Gov. Goodhair is pushing for a 65% spending rule. It comes from an organization called First Class Education, which has paid for commercials to run in several states. The Statesman also obtained a copy of a First Class Education memo which states the group also hopes the rule will "create rivalries between teachers and administrators while boosting Republican credibility on education issues"

Nowhere in the memo does it say anything about actually improving education for kids. Those of you who read by blog know that I feel the Republicans don't give a damn about kids and their real purpose is to destroy public education so their friends like the McGraws and Chris Whittle can make big bucks at the public trough.

Funny how athletics are considered "instructional" when it comes to the 65% rule but librarians aren't. The Republicans know it would be political suicide to cause school districts to give up their football teams.

Help! Updated

Thanks to The Science Goddess and Allen for their help with the experiment problem I was having. One of the links Allen provided showed how the same effect can be created using a black marker and some water, while the Science Goddess' suggestions greatly cut down on the amount of time and safety gear required for this lesson.

The picture at left shows one of the early results. Although we didn't get the red I was hoping for we did get some nice orange and yellow, and it was more than we got the other way. Now if someone could show me a way to capture the results a little better. Snapping a picture of it didn't work out too well so I placed it on a flatbed scanner. This picture does not show the results as well as they really looked.

Thanks again for those who offered help.

Help!

I'm hoping someone knows the answer to this problem I am having.

I am doing an experiment with my 2nd graders where we are trying to extract the red, yellow and orange colors out of leaves. So far we've been able to get only yellows. I have tried nearly everything I can think of, and even consulted two chemistry professors, both of whom say I am doing it right.

Here are the steps we do:

1. Tear the leaf into tiny pieces
2. Using the edge of a rock, cut and rip the pieces into even smaller pieces
3. Place all pieces into a cup and add acetone, stir thorougly
4. Using a q-tip, dab the resulting green liquid onto a piece of coffee filter
5. Dip the coffee filter into rubbing alcohol, just barely gettiing into the dab of green liquid.

Variations I have tried:

- different leaves. I've used spinach, lettuce, collard greens, as well as leaves off of local trees.
- differnet strengths of rubbing alcohol, from 71% to 90%
- different strengths of acetone. While I haven't measured the mixture I have used about half acetone/half water all the way up to full strength.

Any ideas out there?

Someone at USA Today is finally seeing the light

Linked fromEducationNews.org, this USA Today story shows that finally there is an education writer out there who digs and finds out the truth.

My favorite line was this, regarding accoutability and high-stakes testing:

It's like putting a slow runner 50 yards behind at the start line and expecting her to finish with the fastest.

Here's another choice tidbit:

Researchers found the act's two key rules — identifying subgroups within student populations (such as black, Hispanic or disabled), and setting a uniform proficiency goal make it easy for large minority districts to fail. Here's why: large urban districts are more likely to be diverse. If just one subgroup doesn't reach proficiency, or if less than 95% of a subgroup take the test, the whole district fails to make adequate progress.

On a more personal note, I've been out all week from school, which needless to say is driving the wife and friends crazy. I could really have some fun if I wasn't also babysitting my daughter. I would LOVE to drive to Tyler to visit the hobby shop; I haven't flown any model airplanes in months. Having an 11 year old girl along would require we also visit the mall, a proposition I can't afford. You Dads of pre-teen and teen daughters know what I'm talking about.

DeLay Indicted

From a CNN story, Tom DeLay has been indicted and stepped down as Speaker of the House. Here is a direct quote from the article:

A grand jury in Austin charged DeLay, 58, and two associates already facing criminal charges with a single count of criminal conspiracy, accusing them of improperly funneling corporate donations to Republican candidates for the Texas legislature in 2002.

I hope this leads to more legal action in Texas. Who knows? Maybe some judge will throw out the 2002 election results since the whole process was tainted with illegal money. Sure, it's a pipe dream but a guy can hope.

Pictures of Hurricane Rita

Down the street a few houses. Some industrious soul had already cleared most of this one from the street when I took this picture.


My neighbor cattycorner from me. Luckily both trees missed their house, their cars and their camper. They also have a large tree down in their backyard.



This monster fell one block over. It could have easily killed someone but luckily it fell away from the nearby house and no one was on the road when it landed.

Hurricanes are definitely male

All of the things I expected from Hurricane Rita I did not expect her to roar through East Texas as a Category 2 hurricane.

2 days after the storm has passed our little corner of East Texas is still trying to recover. Luckily for us the eye passed about 40 miles east of us, but I understand Jasper, Tx has taken severe damage. I can tell you the power of the storm was awesome, even 100 miles inland and 40 miles east of the eye. I think you would have to be a lunatic to try and ride out a Cat 3 or 4 storm at the shore.

My neighborhood still has blocks without power. Some parts of the city have no water. We were fortunate to be without power for only 15 hours or so.

I don't know why hurricanes were named after females in the beginning. The roar of the wind was definitely a deep baritone as it came through. We lost some shingles off our roof and had the back storm door ripped frame the frame. Our neighbors across the street lost shingles and tar paper off their roof and thus had leaks. They are also without power. We had 3 friends sleep over last night b/c they also don't have power.

There have been some problems. The neighborhood rumor mill has been passing around stories about problems at local Wal-Marts, such as gas and groceries being stolen from people in the parking lots. Sadly, a two year old was run over in some kind of road rage incidents. The local papers are only reporting the story and not providing any details. Another person was killed by a falling tree limb. My family members who tried to flee Houston ended up having an easier time of it than we did.

I have pictures but for some reason they will not appear. I will try to put them up later.

In the meantime pictures from a local paper can be found here.

My turn in the barrel

The relatives I was expecting last night did not show, they couldn't get out of Houston. Looks like Houston has some work to do when it comes to evacuating people, although with 6 million people in the Houston area I don't know if its possible.

The predicted storm track may actually bring the eye of the storm, if it is still around, directly over East Texas and my town sometime late tomorrow. Of all the things I expected I didn't expect to have to prepare for possible hurricane force winds.

On a lighter note, Michael F. Shaughnessy has a commentary called Cleavage: A Commentary over at Education News. I'm not sure if he means students or teachers but I also see plenty of both.

Unbelievable!

For the 2nd time in 3 weeks a category 5 hurricane is bearing down on the homes of loved ones. This time it's the Houston area I will be getting evacuees from. We are expecting 6 tomorrow.

This will make for a total of 24 people in 4 different groups who have taken shelter at my house in the last 3 weeks.

We used to complain about never having visitors. . .

Work on Bush' campaign, get a job you are not "higly qualified" for

All the talk about FEMA director Brown's lack of qualifications has made me think about others who now have cushy govt. jobs they don't deserve.

Spellings, current Sect. of Education, has absolutely zero qualifications for her job. She is not a teacher, never has been. She worked on Bush's campaign.

Ditto, Rod Paige. Many know he was the Supt. of Houston schools (and gained the district notoriety for the miracle that wasn't). Few know, however, that he has never held a teaching job. Paige was a school board member who politicked his way into the Supt's job. He even received a special waiver from the state of Texas, since the job usually requires academic certification.

The Bush govt is filled with people with the potential to make a mess with their incompetence. Let's hope Spellings doesn't do a Brown on education. Too bad Bush doesn't insist his people be "highly qualified".

U.S. Dept. of Education paid for pro-NCLB/anti-public school ads

From the Dallas Morning News comes this article describing a report from the dept's inspector general. One Texas author, Marcela Garcini, director of parent outreach for the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options, wrote, at taxpayer expense she was "tired of hearing excuses about the lack of funding for schools, particularly under No Child Left Behind."

Ms. Garcini did not disclose the payment she received from the Dept. of Education though she did own up to it after the fact.

Dallas schools spokesman Donald Claxton said, ''It would be disappointing to find out the federal government is paying someone to write ugly things about us."

Where is the outrage from all the groups who claim schools are squandering all their money? Why aren't they furious about this waste of taxpayer money?

Energy costs and budget crunch are leading to desperation for some Texas schools

My school district is teetering on the edge of financial crisis due in part to massive increases in fuel costs and the lack of any new funding from the state. One of the ideas to ease energy bills currently being considered is removing some light bulbs from the classrooms. Another idea is "rolling blackouts" in various parts of the buildings at night, with janitors sticking to a strict schedule for cleaning.

Gov. Goodhair is standing by his 65% order. Also, although he had a press conference proclaiming he had found new money to help schools handle the influx of students from Louisiana no actual figures have been released.

"Compassionate Conservatives" denied levee funds to New Orleans

From a WWL-Tv story:

Just last year, the Army Corps of Engineers sought $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans. The White House slashed the request to about $40 million. Congress ultimately approved $42.2 million, less than half of the agency's request.

And this wonderful quote from the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert,

"It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed," the Illinois Republican said in an interview Wednesday with the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill.

More on this later.

Hurricane Katrina and my family

My blogging will be light for awhile, we have 5 family members staying with us and the computer has become the most valuable source of information for them.

My family has been very fortunate. Everyone seemed to know someone they could flee to. At this time we only have an uncle we haven't been able to account for. His children all mostly live in Pensacola, and since last year's hurricanes getting phone numbers and addresses in that area has become difficult.

As for their way of life, for most it has been totally destroyed. My niece and her husband have been offered jobs with Spring ISD near Houston. They are trying to determine their contractual duties with their schools in Gretna (if the schools even exist). Others have no idea what they will do.

Texas schools are opening their doors to refugee children.

A neat new blog feature, and its a little scary

Thanks to A Constrained Vision my blog now has a cool new feature called gVisit. Apparently its an add on feature of Google Maps that lets you see the locations of your recent visitors. My visitors can be found here.
Do I really want to know where my visitors are from??

I also recently discovered my blog is listed on a national website, a blog created by the American Federation of Teachers.

The 29th week of the Carnival of Education

The Carnival is now open.

Thanks to the Education Wonks for hosting it here

One of my favorites this week is by Janet, a New Jersey elementary school teacher, who extolls the joys of shopping at the dollar store.

Texas Speaker of the House blames supers for failures

The Texas Speaker of the House, Tom Craddick, is blaming the states' school superintendents for the failure of the Legislature to find more money for Texas schools.

Of course, the Republicans had no intention of giving the schools more money; they were much more interested in giving tax breaks to 10% of the population while sticking it to the other 90%. Between the rich and the poor, who do you think was going to get the big tax breaks?

The full story is here.

It amazes me that he is griping about superintendents while he and his buddies basically tried to rape Texas public schools. Among the many "reforms" they tried to pass were:

- no education experience needed to become a principal, only management experience (they will need scores of new principals as NCLB sanctions boot the professionals out the door in the coming years).

-NEXT year's accountability standards determine if you are successful for this year. In other words, your school would have been accountable to next year's standards for this year's scores. Principals whose schools did perfectly well on this year's test could have been removed anyway b/c of next year's standards.

- after two years of adequate (by state standards, but actually one) performance a private management company could be brought in to take over a school, if the school failed to meet federal AYP goals (100% by 2014). Guess who the people who own these management companies are friends with? I'll give you a hint; not the Democrats.

- a "raise" for teachers that would have actually amounted to only $500 a year, after the restoration of the $1000 insurance stipend (which was supposed to be restored this year anyway).

I'm proud to say my super was one of the people who led the fight against the Republican proposals.

I guess all of us teachers were supposed to just shut up and teach.

Never step on ticky-tack

Well school is back in session and last week while putting up some posters on the walls outside my lab I learned another one of life's important lessons.

NEVER STEP ON TICKY-TACK

Its worse than gum when it comes to trying to clean it off.

Other impt. life lessons I've learned.

Never run over a newspaper with a lawnmower. Unless you have an hour to kill.

You can't tell people something they don't want to hear. I wish I would remember this one the next time I get in a heated debate with some on Joanne Jacobs.

You can't look cool driving around in a 1985 Toyota Tercell. Sadly, I learned that one through personal experience.

Anyone care to add some more?

Some pictures from Minneapolis

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from Minnesota.

This is a photo of the Minnehaha Falls. Minnehaha was the Indian princess in Longfellow's famous poem about Hiawatha.




The hotel we stayed at had a food services convention going on. Whoever was putting on the convention also had a cake decorating contest. These are two of my favorites. They are both cakes, believe it or not.




The Santa Claus cake even featured wrinkles on Santa's toes, which can be seen sticking out from the bottom of the sheets.

Some thoughts on Minneapolis

I just returned from 7 days in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and thought I would share a few of my observations.

Minneapolis is expensive. For example, our rental car cost $137 dollars a week to rent but the total with tax included was $187. That works out to a tax rate of 36% if I've done the Math correctly (always a dicey prospect). We also had to pay $12 a day to park it in the hotel's parking garage, something I've never encountered before. Additionally, everywhere we went we had to pay to park the car with parking fees usually beginning at $5 for the first hour alone. A load of clothes at a self service laundrymat was $2.25 and about another dollar or so to dry. A good hamburger at the equivalent of a Bennigan's was around $9 or so.

The F word is very popular. I saw one person at the zoo wearing a shirt that had a long quote that concluded with the sentence, "How about a nice steaming cup of shut the F_ _ _ up", except all of the letters were present. I also saw a young female walking around with a shirt that said, "Too busy to F_ _ _", all letters included. I also heard in spoken aloud in several conversations, always from a young female.

Minneapolis is very clean. Having grown up in New Orleans and now living in Texas I've grown used to seeing litter strewn everywhere on public streets. Minneapolis, even downtown, is spotless. The city also has a great many beautiful public parks, especially the park containing Minnehaha Falls and Longfellow's former home.


We also saw the funniest play I think I've ever seen in my life. It was called Triple Expresso and it is currently playing in Minneapolis and San Diego. I highly recommend it if you are in either city.

I'm officially out of my funk

I've been holding quite a pit party for myself (here) lamenting the fact the end of summer vacation was approaching and it was time to go back to work.

While checking my school email I came across an email written to me by a former student. I have not had this student in my class for 8 years but she took the time to find my email and send me a nice letter. She was a student of mine back in the days when I was my school's ESL teacher. My favorite part was this:

I wish I could turn back time and sit and listen to you read one more time. That was the best time of my life, I think. I don't know If I ever told you, but when we had to take the TAAS test, I would never try because I was afraid to be taken out of your class.

I was always a firm believer that children, especially non-English speakers need to be read to and I chose the books I loved to read to them.

This same young lady also asks if I will attend her graduation, as she is a senior this year. As her former teacher I couldn't be any prouder and have already marked the date on my calendar.

I am now armed and ready for a new year of school. NOW I remember why I became a teacher.

I'm no one's child anymore

As the new school year quickly approaches I have to confess I am not looking forward to it. Besides the usual feelings of not wanting to give up sleeping late and mostly doing nothing, sitting through endless mostly time wasting meetings the first week back when I have a ton of work to do and having to learn to go to bed at a decent time, the thoughts of going back are also stirring up other feelings.

I lost my mother to cancer on April 12th of this year. She had battled it for 5 years but around this time last year it came back with a vengeance. The real problems began for her around November of last year. The cancer, which had been in her neck, began to close down around her throat. The week after Thanksgiving her doctor decided she would need a stomach feeding tube, as she was having so much difficulty swallowing. After this surgery she was terrified and needed someone with her round the clock. My siblings who still live in New Orleans were determined she would not go into a nursing home, and with none of us being rich, a schedule was developed so that someone would be with her twenty four hours a day. We also found someone who could sit with her during the day several days a week. Another sister and I each live about 6 hours away in Texas so we could not help much.

I visited the week before Christmas to give my siblings a break and was shocked at my mother's appearance. The night I arrived breathing became so difficult for her we had to take her to the emergency room. The next day we were told she would have to have a trach tube inserted to help her breathe or she would die. The surgery was done two days later. I returned home the day after her surgery and two days later returned back to New Orleans. We all had to undergo training on how to clean the trach tube but the worst part was suctioning it clean. My mother would now require additional care from her children.

My memories of the spring semester of last year are always centered around my mother's health Roaring down two lane highways late at night on the way to New Orleans, reading email updates from my sister and always wondering how long till the end came. Nights with my mother were often spent tending to her needs, many of which were more for the company she needed because she often could not sleep. When she did sleep I would watch the rise and fall of her chest, thousands of times I watched it wondering if each would be her last and not knowing what I would do if it were.

The end began on a Friday afternoon in April. I have received several emails from my sister concerning the hospice nurse's opinions that it would only be a couple weeks more. My cell phone rang during the day (no one calls me on it during the day, they all know I teach) and my sister informed me things were not going well, and the nurse said it could be any day. The next morning I made my final trip to see my mother. The cancer had actually broken the surface of her skin, her face was swollen to a degree I wouldn't have thought possible and she was barely conscious. The next 3 days we tended to her physical needs. One of my sisters was the bravest of us all and she did things I could barely stand to watch her do or help her with to ensure that my mother was not in pain. On Tuesday morning of the 12th she stopped breathing for a 5 minute period and then, just as we thought it was over, began breathing again. The rest of the day was a long vigil waiting for the end, which came around at 9 o'clock that evening. The hardest part was watching the funeral home people take her away.

Returning to school helped take my mind off of it and even provided a laugh or two. During my week's absence there had been an unbelievable storm that had flooded part of my room and the room next to it (our school building is two years old). The woman who subbed for me, also a Mom of a student, had cleaned it all up and dried out my items that had gotten wet. She could've spent that time sitting around doing nothing. A 2nd grade class had made me sympathy cards, with one child drawing a stick figure, complete with arms and legs, protruding from the casket, on his card. His teacher was mortified but it actually made me laugh.

Throughout the summer I have suppressed most of the thoughts about this time but now the arrival of a new school year is bringing them back. Many of the things I do outside of teaching require long hours of sitting at the computer and updating class lists for the educational software we use or working on the school webpage. It was those times I was always on the lookout for emails about my mother's health, or what the nurse said that morning when she visited. I'm not ready for the daily struggles the new year will bring, the rushing in the morning to have the day's experiments set up for Science lab, the daily afternoon car rider duty in the 100 degree heat and the always horrible fight of trying to teach 7 year olds how to log in to the school's network. I have for years begged for a change to this procedure without any luck (last name, first initial, middle initial); our IT dept. just doesn't understand that most 7 year olds have no clue what their middle name is.

I'm just not ready for the return of it all.

No Texas Teacher Left Behind

A grassroots organziation of Texas teachers has been founded in East Texas. Calling themselves No Texas Teacher Left Behind the group aims to:

"restore the respect owed teachers by our governor and by our legislature, secure pay increases, expand health benefits, and make retirement benefits equitable for all retirees."

A featured story in the Longview News Journal describes how the group gave Texas educators cards reminding them that a million educators live and vote in Texas, and they are not happy with the Texas Legislature.

This next Thursday, July 28th at 10:30 A.M. the group will be conducting a meeting at The Depot restaurant at 1023 Kilgore Plaza in Kilgore, Texas. Guests will include Republican candidate for governor Carole Keeton Stayhorn's campaign manager and son Brad McClellan. I may attend as this is only an hour drive from my home.

Texas lawmakers give themselves a pension raise in a cowardly no record vote

In their continuing effort to save the taxpayers of Texas money the Texas legislature has given itself a pension increase. The bill was passed by a no record voice vote, so they can't be called on it afterwards.

Via the Houston Chronicle, a representative with 12 years experience will now receive an annual pension of $34, 500. Not bad for a part time job that only requires you to work a few months every two year.

At the same time Republicans are trying to change the rules about teacher retirement. For teachers like myself this amounts to a broken promise, as when I became a Texas teacher your age and years of experience had to equal 80. Now the Republicans want to change that effectively to 90, citing fiscal problems. They fail to mention though the state has repeatedly cut back the share it pays into the program beginning in 1997.

The businessman/Republican puppet master

The Texas Observer has a great article on the so called "reform" movement in Texas and who is really pulling the strings. Turns out its a businessman named Sandy Kress who is also a Bush cronie. If you read the article it turns out that Kress is, WHO'DA THUNK IT?, a lobbyist for some of the very companies that want to take over for public schools.

To show you the Republican mindset here are some choice tidbits:

Eighteen people representing teachers, administrators, parents, and public school advocates testified against the bill. They asked for fewer testing mandates and more public school funding. The critics of the bill are part of a growing movement against the Texas education model, enshrined in the landmark federal law No Child Left Behind. Opponents say the current focus on testing degrades education and drains resources from the neediest schools.

Only one witness testified in favor of the bill. There was a small stir as Sandy Kress came to the microphone; in gatherings like this, he is something of a celebrity. Ten years ago, public school accountability was a vague, unenforceable ideal from free market enthusiasts who wanted to see schools run more like businesses. Kress, a Dallas lawyer, was serving what would be his last, tumultuous term as president of the Dallas school board. Fellow board members were calling the newspaper to denounce him as a racist and a bully. The fortunes of the reform movement and of Kress have risen together. He is one of the principal designers of No Child Left Behind, and has used his knowledge and connections to earn millions as a high-powered lobbyist for test publishers

And more:

Despite the lack of an endorsement from any major Texas education group, passage of HB 2 out of the committee was a foregone conclusion. Accountability, with its powerful allies, seems unstoppable. Its supporters are free market reformers who say test scores bring a needed dose of reality to lazy educational bureaucracies. Others are education reformers who believe that the best hope for poor and minority students lies in the public humiliation of their “low-performing” schools. And a select few enrich themselves supplying the demand public school reform has created for tests, and the tools it takes to pass them. Kress appears to be all of the above.

Bush signed No Child Left Behind into law in January 2002. Five months later, Kress registered with the U.S. Secretary of the Senate as a lobbyist for NCS Pearson. Kress specializes in helping his clients tailor themselves to the requirements of No Child Left Behind, something Pearson has done with startling success. A publishing conglomerate that owns The Financial Times and Penguin Books, Pearson had been a bit player in the education market, concentrating on the scoring of standardized tests. In 2000, however, Pearson acquired National Computer Systems, the company that held the contract for designing and scoring the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills. Since then, Pearson has built an accountability empire of sorts, becoming the third-largest testing company in the country, behind CTB McGraw-Hill and Harcourt Educational Measurement.

And the most grevious accusations against him:

black school board members saw accountability as an attempt to undermine the city’s 1974 desegregation order, which allotted extra money and resources to Dallas’s historically neglected black schools . . .Secretly taped conversations alleged to be between Kress and fellow board member and political ally Dan Peavy supported the accusations. Peavy used racial slurs when describing plans to curb the influence of black board members. Kress’s identity on the tapes was never confirmed, but soon after they came to light in 1995, he announced he would not run for another term as board president.

What a guy! I'm sure he has the best interests of Texas schoolchildren at heart over the multi-million dollar enterprises he works for.

Roy Blake named best new furniture by Texas Monthly Magazine

Texas Monthly magazine has come out with its list of the best and worst legislators of the 79th Session. My local rep, Roy Blake, was named best new furniture. The term is an insult meant to convey uselessness. I think its a tad harsh as he was a good little Republican soldier and voted the party line on everything.

The chair of the House Education committee, Kent Grusendorf, who is pretty much the arch enemy of public schools in Texas, was named one of the worst legislators, an honor he very richly deserves. I tend to have some very un-Christian thoughts about Grusendorf. In fact, I hope there is a special place in hell for people like him, who place more value on money than people.

Not very nice of me, but then again I've never claimed to be an angel.

Watch the comet impact live

The Stephen F. Austin State University Observatory is running live updates to the observatory webpage. They are hoping to capture live images of the image and display them over the web. According to their site the page will automatically update itself every 100 seconds.

You can view their webpage here

One for the Science teachers

NASA's Deep Impact is on path to smash into the comet Tempel1 in the early morning hours of July 4, according to a CNN story.

The Deep Impact spacecraft is composed of two probes mated together -- "flyby" and "impactor."

Flyby is about the size of a small car and will monitor the impact. It carries two cameras -- a high-resolution one, which will be tightly focused on the crater, and a medium-resolution camera, which will take wider views.

The impactor is an 820-pound copper-fortified probe designed to produce maximum wallop when it hits the comet. It also carries a medium-resolution camera that will record the probe's final moments before it collides with the comet.

If all goes well, at 1:52 am ET on July 4, Tempel 1 will run into impactor, busting a hole in the comet and revealing its inner core.

"It will be all over in the blink of an eye," Grammier said.

Until its death, the impactor will record images and gather data while flyby passes 310 miles (500 kilometers) away, observing the impact, the ejected material, and the structure and composition of the comet's interior. Most of the data will be stored on flyby and radioed back to Earth after the encounter.

Hopefully there will be some really cool pictures of the event from one of the space based telescopes.