An embarrassing problem for the Bush Administration

In this piece of fluff about Jenna Bush leaving teaching to go to South America, Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts gush all themselves describing the new and mature Jenna Bush, and to my total disgust referring to her as "America's most famous public school teacher".

Puuuleaz! She taught in a charter school that had absolutely no requirements for teachers and if you think the local administrator's or coach's wife gets special treatment can you imagine what the president's daughter got?

Apparently her job wasn't too taxing. According to the article:

. . .Jenna and a fellow instructor oversaw a class of third-graders being taught in both English and Spanish.

In other words, there was an experienced teacher doing the REAL work while Jenna played at being "teacher".

Of course, one only need search the internet a bit to find the REAL reason for Jenna's departure from the DC public school scene, her school has been rated in need of improvement for the past school year. Since her school was not required to provide any specifics about its test scores and state standards, you'll have to scroll WAAAAAY down to find out the federal govt. is on its case.

Of course, the mainstream media is totally ignoring this story. It would probably be too much of an embarrassment for the Feds.

Another gas station, another beautiful woman

Last week I wrote about a beautiful young lady who convinced herself I was a Jaguar owner and who was deeply disappointed to discover I drove a 1985 Toyota Tercel. Writing about her reminded me of another beautiful woman I encountered in a gas station, and since there's not much education news for me to write about I'll share this story.

In the late 80s/early 90s I was attending a branch of the University of South Florida, at Ft. Myers, Florida. It was a junior/senior college that shared space with Edison Junior College (although I believe that name has changed). The branch of USF only offered two degree programs at the time, business or education. The education program was outstanding, so much so that I'm having a difficult time believing so much of the press being written about colleges of education and what a poor job they are doing. Sadly, this branch of USF does not seem to exist anymore or was absorbed when Edison junior College became Edison College.

Besides classes we also had to do 3 levels of student teaching. Only it was NEVER called student teaching, it was ALWAYS referred to as internships. Level I was for the first semester you were officially in the program and it required you to spend 6 hours a week at an elementary school to make sure you knew exactly what you were getting into. Level II internship was for the semester you graduated and it required 12 hours a week teaching under the supervision of an experienced teacher. We were required to teach whole class, small group and individual lessons. Level III was for your final semester but it was more than what most people get in a typical program. For starters, we were required to begin work when our supervising teachers did. For those taking it in the fall semester that meant beginning the week before school started, an incredible opportunity for a future teacher to see. I took it in the Spring semester, so I was required to report on January 2nd, even though the university's semester didn't start till two weeks later. We were also required to spend two months running the class completely, while most student teachers are lucky to get 3 weeks of doing so.

In the fall of 1989 I was a Level II intern at an elementary school in Punta Gorda, Fl, about a 30 minute drive from the university. One afternoon, on my way to class, I happened to stop at a gas station for some snackage to hold me over to dinner. We were required to wear ties and a nametag that declared us as USF interns, so I was dressed nicely. Actually, we had been told we were expected to be the best dressed people in the building.

While waiting in line to pay, a gorgeous young lady in Daisy Dukes (an old pair of jeans cut EXTREMELY short) came in, squinted at my nametag and asked, "Intern? That's like a doctor, isn't it?" Now let me just say that I'm a very ordinary looking guy, most gorgeous women don't pay the slightest bit of attention to me, so when this beautiful young lady asked me if an intern was like a doctor I did the honorable thing.

I stood up straight, straightened my tie, sucked in my stomach as far as it would go, and told her the God's honest truth. Yes, an intern IS like a doctor.

And NO, I didn't have to blow it by getting into a 1985 Toyota Tercel to drive off. This was my pre-Tercel days. I drove a 1975 Plymouth Gran Fury. It had a 318 cubic inch V8 and could go from zero to thirty in a few seconds and still get 24 mpg on the highway.

Hopefully, she didn't see me drive off in it.

Are things really THAT bad?

That this sign would really be necessary?

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.