End Prey for Profit - Education "Reform" as an Example

Prey for Profit:
The exploitation, bullying, marginalization, and/or abuse of people, animals, the environment, economies, and/or countries for profit and/or power.

Example:
Education "reform" for the purpose of the privatization of public education and increase of corporate profits and power. Who is exploited and/or abused? Students and teachers.

The Story:

Some corporations, CEO's and millionaires/billionaires are using their power and money to abuse children, marginalize teachers, destroy unions, take away people's rights, and exploit democracy (Citizens United, etc.) for power and profit. First, they purposefully compare test results between the entire and extremely heterogeneous and higher rate of poverty, huge COUNTRY of the US with the more lower rate of poverty and homogeneous CITY of Shanghai and small country of Finland and in order to be able to say Education in America has Failed. Then, they use EVERY opportunity to scapegoat and demonize teachers and say they, especially the more experienced teachers, are the problem. I especially love their central propaganda piece, "Waiting for Superman," in which they come in to "rescue" our country from our horrendously incompetent teachers and school systems. Next, they lobby and create laws, policies and regulations, while they put their corporate reform minions in place as School District Superintendents, School Board Trustees and Federal and State Legislators to help usher in their reforms, budget cuts, vouchers, co-locations, merit pay, common core standards, increased testing, union and collective bargaining busting, as they erode public education and teacher's rights. Finally, they get their desired results: increased corporate profits for charter and private schools...testing and remediation companies...textbook publishers, etc.; dis-empowered or broken unions; low-salaried, at-will employed teachers who have no due-process rights and for whom they no longer have to pay much in benefits. Notice that there is not one mention of students in this scenario? Of course there isn't. Children were never really their concern. They threw teachers under the school bus while they used public-school children and education reform as the cover for their battle for power, control and profits. Shame on the corporate "reform" people for using our nation's children as human shields. End the Use of Children as Prey For Profit. 

Comment to President Obama on Remove Arne Duncan Petition

Get politicians and corporate CEO's out of education. Put those who actually educate in charge. It's that simple!

Children are not widgets, clones or copies. No two are exactly alike. Societal, economic, family, and personal factors DO impact their "performance" on test scores. The purpose of education is not for children to perform well on tests. A test score is not the final product of an education. The purpose of education is to teach children how to think critically, how to find information, how to learn, while respecting their individuality, and to do this creatively. We do this, in part, by teaching them literacy, numeracy, science, social studies, etc. These are not all that we teach. We also teach social skills, respect, integrity, taking chances in learning, persistence, etc. You can't test that!

We need to be given the autonomy, resources and time to teach. Instead, we've had to spend the last 10 or so years fighting for our profession, our jobs, our rights, our education budgets, our resources, our reputations, and most importantly...our students. Teachers should not have to waste any time on fighting for any of these things that diminish our time and energy from doing our job...teaching children.

Shame on those who are using and abusing us, taking us away from our mandate - to teach our nation's children, as they work to game us and the system to privatize education so they can simply make more profits. Shame on you, President Obama, if you allow this political and corporate circus of education "reform" to continue. Instead, why don't those politicians and CEO's do their own jobs and fix the stalemate and partisanship in Congress, produce American jobs with living wages and decent benefits, get money out of politics, and end corruption?

Oh, and if you truly do want to end bullying, perhaps leading by example would be a good start. Stop bullying educators, stop bullying each other, and start modeling respect, decency and honor. Lead by example, as children learn what they live.

Teachers in the Trenches!

When good teachers get tired of being demonized and scapegoated, their collective bargaining rights attacked or shredded, and are so adversely impacted by salary, benefit and retirement cuts they leave the profession, that negatively impacts education. Teachers can't pay their bills or live on their goodwill towards their students.

Lots of teachers in my district have retired or quit in the past few years. Many of them have left the state. Even more teachers are thinking about retiring or quitting, and many of them want to leave Nevada. Teachers have been surplused, RIF'd. The Clark County, Nevada unemployement rate is about 14%, and we are #1 in the nation in foreclosures. Teachers are a part of these statistics, too. There are teachers living on food stamps. Teachers are also now homeless.

After our salaries were frozen for the past couple of years, my school district has now decided to unilaterally cut our salaries beginning this month, going against our negotiated contract. They also want to get rid of our health trust in favor of a less-expensive (for them), lower quality of care provider. This will increase my monthly premiums to almost match my mortgage payment! I'm unable to afford this, so if they get away with this, I'll be joining the ranks of the tens of millions of medically uninsured Americans.

Teachers have to pay back tens of thousands of dollars in school loans for our education degrees. We also pay thousands of dollars to acquire the additional education credits mandated by our state in order to maintain our licenses. In addition, we pay thousands of dollars out of our own pockets for additional education in order to meet the non-funded No Child Left Behind federally-mandated requirements in order to reach Highly Qualified status. We pay thousands of our own dollars in education to move over in salary scale so that we can finally attain a living wage. We supplement the education of our state's children out of our own pockets when we buy classroom supplies, and books for our classroom libraries. Food, energy and other prices have skyrocketed around us. Yet, we found we had no choice in good conscience but to agree to freeze our own pay for the past two years, due to State and District budget constraints, so that WE could save other teachers' jobs in order to keep our students' class sizes lower. Oh, and we also pay for our students' education with our own tax dollars. Then, we get asked to "share the sacrifice?" Really?!!!

If Nevada's Governor Sandoval and state legislators really want to attract new business to our state in order to diversify and improve our economy, look at how you're negatively impacting educators and education. Your bottom line shouldn't include cutting our children's education and their future by slashing their education funds and attacking their educators.

To all educators:
When people get pushed up against a wall, and they want to survive, they'll find any way they can to get around, under, or over the wall. Hopefully, they'll be smart enough to join together, help each other, and lift each other up to find a way to survive. When we all work together, we can accomplish miracles. When we fight each other, only a few win, and we create a lot of losers. It is when there are too many losers that organizations, societies and governments fall. History tends to repeat itself. Let's work to lift each other up for ourselves, our families, and our students.

Nevada's Education Budget

It has been quite some time since I updated this blog. I hope all of you have been well. These times in our country are difficult, at best, but my hope is that things will improve.

Sometimes it seems impossible to maintain one's own sense of peace in the midst of chaos. Keeping that peaceful center has been the most challenging aspect of my life recently. I feel like I'm in the eye of a hurricane, and whichever way the wind ends up blowing, I'll still be in a world of trouble and hurt.

I'm speaking of Nevada's Education Budget. First of all, I believe the Nevada State, Clark County, and Clark County School District budgets should all be transparent and made available to unions and our citizens in order to independently confirm the true state of those budgets. People want to know if things are really as bad as those in high office say they are, before we reduce salaries and cut jobs. There may be better ways to save monies than by playing with people's lives and livelihoods.

I just spent four days of my Spring Break in my state capital, Carson City, working to advocate for education and, especially, for my students. I appreciate all the time our state legislators spared to meet with myself and my colleagues. What was so disappointing was what I learned.

There are many legislators who are blindly following in lockstep with our Governor's proposed budget plan. Many of them literally and robotically stated, "I am supporting Governor Sandoval's plan." Weren't they elected to represent their constituents? How do their constituents want them to vote on this budget? I most certainly did not hear enough evidence to convince me that they are actually working for their constituents. Following party lines is all well and good, but not when that distances them from the will of the people who elected them.

As an educator, my profession has been demonized and even scapegoated as the cause of the budget woes of my state. My colleagues and I work hard to educate children, even using some of our own monies to supplement those of our school district, to ensure a better education for our students. We did not create the budget crisis, yet the shortfalls are going to be balanced on our backs and those of our students, the children of Nevada.

My state does not have a non-volatile, dedicated revenue source to fund education, so we usually end up with education cuts as soon as there are economic problems. A large part of the education budget is in salaries. Being highly qualified is State-mandated, and personally costs each teacher tens of thousands of dollars in education to achieve that Highly Qualified status in order to maintain his or her state license to teach in Nevada. Without a highly qualified teacher in each classroom, there is no one to educate Nevada's children. Why would anyone spend tens of thousands of dollars to obtain a Master's Degree and not be compensated with some adequate combination of salary and benefits? Would you?

Share the sacrifice is the mantra these days. We were sacrificing even during the years of prosperity by not being allowed to fully participate in the shared benefits that many of those employed in the private sector enjoyed for many years. Nevada State has been consistently on the bottom end of the list of states in per pupil expenditures for many years, including those years of prosperity. Although I absolutely agree with adequately compensating police officers and firefighters, our 4% increase over two years compared to a 26% or so increase in one year cannot exactly be called a shared benefit. We were simply "granted" minimal funding during those years of prosperity. Now in the lean times, we have not had a wage increase. Those salaries we earned through hard work and paying out of our own pockets, to further our education in order to become better teachers and earn a living wage, are now on the chopping block. The new budget actually cuts compensation for what the education our state mandates its teachers achieve. It also provides for less-than-adequate funding for the education of Nevada's children, our most precious resource. The latter is both immoral and unethical. A teacher's working conditions are our student's learning conditions.

Being an extremely lean state in the area of taxation has created a deep hole in my state's revenues. The Nevada state budget is so lean, one of the leanest in the United States, that education makes up more than 50% of our state budget, yet our per pupil expenditures are at the bottom compared to education funding in almost every other state. Those who want to drastically cut education say we've increased education spending tremendously in the past few decades. Well, of course we have. Our population also exponentially increased during that same time period. What do you expect would be required when rapid population growth creates the fifth largest school district in the country? Then, when education funding was tied to property taxes in a volatile market with so much speculation, sub-prime mortgages, mortgage fraud, and one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country, just what did people think would happen? Nevada state has been literally gambling with the education of its own children, who are the future of our state. Now, it's the teachers and our students who are paying the price of this gamble. You can't get much lower than the bottom in education spending, but Governor Sandoval and some legislators are trying to do just that. They want to redefine the very minimum of spending, justifying their cuts with whatever non-mainstream research they can find, whether or not it's actually valid.

I attempted to begin a dialogue about dedicated revenue sources for education with some legislators, so that the state doesn't have to continually play these budget games with education. They stated that we're in a budget crisis. So, I asked, why can't we deal with that AND look to the future of education in Nevada by finding multiple revenue sources to fund education so that we are never stuck in this situation again? I stated that maybe we should raise taxes, or even create a state income tax. Many legislators, mostly Republican, looked at me as if I were an alien from Area 51. They are so against any taxes, that they're willing to sacrifice the education of our children, and the future of our state along with it. Many legislators won't even touch the mining tax, which hasn't changed since the first Nevada State constitution of 1864. Nevada State is the 3rd largest producer of gold on the planet, behind the entire continents of Australia and Africa. We are the 2nd largest silver producer in the USA behind the state of Alaska. With so much of our non-renewable resources being extracted out of our state, why are we in a budget crisis? Tax revenues provide the funding for the state infrastructure, yet they don't want to raise the few taxes we have, and refuse to posit any new taxes. Some legislators in Carson City stated that they want to lower our sales tax rate to 7.75%, raise business taxes on small businesses, and to further lower taxes on big business. This will further reduce tax revenues tremendously during a budget crisis! You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

Many politicians and the corporate media who favor them also seem to believe that the public relations practice of demonizing teachers (most of whom are doing a fine job) by focusing on the few ineffective teachers will create more support from the public for broad education budget cuts. They say that few ineffective teachers are fired, which is not true. In addition, many ineffective teachers are either let go during or at the end of their probationary status or leave the profession on their own. Fifty percent of the teachers that go into teaching leave the profession within five years. How many other professions have such a high attrition rate?

They also state that our low test scores prove that most of Nevada's teachers are ineffective. Well, of course our test scores are lower. Unlike other states who test their students at the end of the school year on a full school year's worth of curriculum, Nevada State law requires we test our students at the end of the second trimester. What kind of test results would you expect?

We also aren't comparing apples with apples when we look at test scores. All states don't use the same number of students in subgroups in reporting their test results. Nevada State has set a much higher standard than do most other states. We use much lower numbers of students in our subgroups, which requires us to report the test results of that subgroup. When we use 25 students as the number of students in a particular subgroup, this requires a school that has at least 25 students in that subgroup to report their scores. When you compare this to states that use 200 or 300 students in a subgroup, as is the practice in many other states, they effectively never have to report the test scores of students in that subgroup. Those scores also never get factored into the reports of that school's Annual Yearly Progress report. This practice of fudging data artificially inflates the scores of that state's schools, that state's performance in testing, as well as its educational ranking among other states. Nevada does not do this, so our scores and ranking are lower than others, in comparison. If the majority of other states followed Nevada's practice of using lower subgroup numbers, I'm certain Nevada's ranking in education in the United States would skyrocket. On the other hand, that would remove the ability of some legislators to use "ineffective" teachers as an excuse to "reform" education and cut our education budget.

Earlier this week, I met with our State Treasurer Kate Marshall, who broke down the unemployment rate by level of education. Our overall state unemployment rate is 13.4%. Nevada State unemployment rates by education level are as follows:

College graduate: 4 - 4.5%
HS graduate: 10 - 10.5%
Non-HS graduate: ~ 14.5%

From the looks of it, being educated increases one's chances of employment (Unless you are a teacher in Nevada. I wonder what the unemployment rate for college graduates will look like this time next year, after they lay off between 2,000 to 6,000 employees in the Clark County School District (it's the 5th largest school district in the USA) and 200 in the Washoe School District, in addition to the layoffs in other districts statewide?). As the labor pool increases, wages go down. Low wages don't attract educated workers to our state. We do have a large number of people in our state who are uneducated or who only have a high school diploma, many of whom make relatively low wages. However, if you are a valet or a dealer for a major casino, you probably make more than do most teachers with a Master's Degree and more than ten years of experience. Good for them! They, too, deserve to make a living wage.

Nevada State competes in a global economy, yet maintains a predominantly service-based economy. If our state really wants low unemployment rates and desires to attract other types of businesses to our state to diversify our economy, we need an educated workforce to compete globally. To do this, we need an adequately funded education system, from pre-K through University. We also need to reward teachers for furthering their education. An uneducated teacher is an oxymoron. Our state will prove how much it values education, its teachers, and its students by how it funds education and pays its teachers based on their level of educational attainment. Business owners outside of Nevada are watching.

Repeatedly taking a broad sword to the education budget will NOT produce an educated workforce; rather, it may create an exodus, rather than an influx, of an educated populace who are a valuable part of the state's tax revenue, knowledge and leadership base. Honestly, if I were living elsewhere, or if I were a business owner looking to relocate my business and my family, I would not move to Nevada because I want to live in a state that values and properly funds education. As a lifelong learner, my options for college and graduate-level study are being drastically cut. If I wanted to change careers and remain in Nevada, my opportunity to retrain is being limited by these cuts, as our public universities are being forced to cut entire programs.

If I were thinking of going into teaching, as a logical choice or for monetary gain, I would find another profession. I would not choose to work in a profession that is demonized and those in it treated with contempt and disrespect. I would not go into a profession which some politicians are intent on union-busting, in order to strip a teacher's right to collectively bargain and have basic due process rights, in order to get rid of more highly-paid and experienced teachers. They want to pay lower wages so they can balance the state budget, rather than do what's right for Nevada's children by adequately funding education, as well as paying a living wage to their teachers.

If you believe that a teacher is nothing more than a glorified babysitter, PLEASE pay me the minimum wage for babysitting each student. I won't even charge you for all the work I regularly do before and after my work day or during the weekend. Let's see, that's $7.55 per hour x 7.5 hours of work in a day = $56.625 per student. Multiply that times the 28 students I "babysit" and I'd earn $1585 per day times the 184 days I work in a year. Hmmm, that's a total of $291,732. I'll gladly take that, especially with the higher class sizes my legislators will be sending me next school year! If you want to know what I make as a teacher, well, in terms of money, it is many orders of magnitude less than babysitting would pay. In terms of my students, I work hard to make a positive difference in their lives. I am proud to be their teacher and want nothing but the best for each and every one of them. I empower everyone to go into teaching, and to help remind the public, the media, and our legislators of the value of education. It's not, "Those that can't do, teach." It's more like, "Those that can do well, teach."

People don't go into teaching for the money, although teachers do expect to be paid a fair, living wage. The pay-for-performance business model works for creating widgets in a factory. How dare people treat my students as if they are nothing more than a bunch of widgets in a teaching factory with a simple set of rules to follow to reach a clear, straightforward solution! Yes, rudimentary cognitive thinking is needed to teach. In fact, teaching requires the highest level of thinking, metacognition. Watch the TEDtalk by Dan Pink on the science of motivation. The link is at the end of this post. This research illustrates why pay-for-performance incentives will not work, and will also probably harm teaching. It also shows why politicians and business-people, all of whom are outside of education and most of whom have never even taught in a classroom, are the last people to determine how to reform education. If you want effective education reform, ask the teachers who are still in the trenches. Give us the autonomy to use our mastery and intrinsic motivation towards the purpose of reforming education from the inside. Education reform is not, however, going to solve the budget crisis.

"'The SILVER Spark will...help rebuild Nevada's economy by igniting innovation and creating knowledge-based jobs that are key to the overall economic development strategy...,' said Sandoval. ...studies have pointed to knowledge-based jobs as the basis for building these economic goals." (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-silver-spark-ignites-a-more-diverse-economy-for-nevada-120306319.html)

Which comes first, providing adequate funding for education in order to expand and diversify our economy, or having a vibrant and diverse economy that provides adequate funding for education? Gutting education douses the spark before anyone can even dream of expanding the light of education. With these drastic cuts, there will never even be a spark, silver or any other color.

Here is the link to the TEDtalk by Dan Pink on the science of motivation: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html.

Response to “What Is It About 20-Somethings?”

Response to the August 18, 2010 NY Times Magazine article “What Is It About 20-Somethings?” by Robin Marantz Henig (link below).

Boomerang kids and failure to launch are trends that have been around long before we were “graced” by The Great Recession. Emerging adult is not a stage, but a trend resulting from a different parenting style than that used in the past. As an educator, I’ve seen the "failure to launch" roots sprouting even in grades 1, 2, 3 and 4. Little Jane and Johnny are allowed to blame others for situations of their own creation. Some parents excuse their own and their child's responsibility in many things, and would rather place it anywhere but themselves.

Teach and develop focus, leadership and responsibility, or get aimless wandering and dependence. There are some children and adults who may truly need extra nurturing, and their parents should provide for those needs. If society needs to change to accommodate improved parenting, then let’s advocate for that, rather than play the blame game.

I truly don’t believe that emerging adult is a viable stage. The structure of our brains hasn’t changed much in the past 50 years, yet society has changed tremendously. Although we’re rapidly learning more information about our brains and metacognition, these new findings may not necessarily mean anything is really new in how we’ve been thinking and developing physiologically.

Perhaps the emerging adult trend is a “Western” phenomenon because it’s partly driven by the luxury of a higher than average life expectancy (approximately 75-81 years, compared to 35-50 in other countries). You have more time, therefore you feel you have the luxury of more time to waste. This trend is also impacted by a larger percentage of people achieving higher levels of educational attainment than their parents and grandparents. While in the global village of 100 people, only 1 has a college education. Perhaps when higher life expectancy, education, increased access to quality health care, and attainment of adequate economic power become a part of the lives of all humans, this will truly be considered a stage in the life process of a human.

Then, there’s the question of nurturing, also known as (hopefully) parenting. Years ago, only winners received trophies. Children learned that you had to work hard, and even then, you don't always "win." Both luck and opportunities have been a part of the winning mix as well. Now, everybody gets a trophy to increase their self-esteem. What children really learn is that they are entitled to get things they haven’t earned. Then, they grow up to be the adults who run our corporations, governments and society.

Children learn what they live, and childhood is the best time in which to practice living and making mistakes that won’t always negatively impact their adult life with a high, long-term cost (arrest records, D’s and F’s on report cards, losing a game, rebelling against authority, etc.). Make similar mistakes as an adult, however…

There comes a time when enabling a now young adult Jane or Johnny to cool their heels, rather than encouraging and empowering them to take up the reigns, responsibility and leadership of their own life and ride out on their own, is counterproductive and, actually, hurtful both to them and to society. Maybe we simply need to exhibit more tough love and do more real parenting, rather than walking around on the eggshells of our child’s life trying to be his or her friend. It’s all in the balance of things, and the pendulum is late in its return swing back towards the center. That is when we will see less of the sociological trend of emerging adults and an improvement in education, because a child’s first, and most important teachers, are his or her parents.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?_r=1&WT.mc_id=MG-SM-E-FB-SM-LIN-WII-081810-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click

A Child Who Leads

I may be exhausted after a week of Parent/Teacher/Student Conferences. On the other hand, I'm totally blessed to have wonderful children as students. Ever since going to the Challenge Leadership weekend* and reading "The Speed of Trust,"** I decided to develop and implement a leadership program for my students. What follows is a special story about one amazing student who walked into our classroom this past Wednesday.

An 8-year-old boy got up this morning, and without any prompting or recommendations from his parents, decided he needed to shower, wash and fix his hair, and then get dressed. He walked into our classroom for his Parent/Teacher/Student Conference dressed in a suit and tie for his "important meeting." At the end of the conference, I asked him if he had any questions or concerns. He said he did, and retold all the things we'd just discussed, and that he needs to work on those things to improve his grades. He said he's doing this to become a great leader of his own life and to lead others. I cried tears of joy!

*http://www.carolreynolds.com/challenge.htm
**http://www.speedoftrust.com/

The Human Rights Paradigm Shift to End Violence, Especially Against Women and Children

All humans and the societies in which they live are different, yet they all have beauty. When all people are valued equally in thought and deed, all people benefit. The impetus for implementing cultural education to end violence against women and girls is coming from honor killings committed in Western countries. Many cultures still consider killings based upon family honor as legally legimate. Honor killings, as these are known, are the murder of women because they have been raped, had sex outside of marriage, wanted to pursue a higher level of education, or refused an arranged marriage. Honor violence and killing is usually committed by fathers and brothers, and has generally been legally categorized under the umbrella of domestic violence in Western countries.

Women from Arabic and South Asian countries are the predominant victims of this form of gender-based violence. When people from these cultures immigrate to Western countries, they also bring their long-held cultural beliefs with them. Many of these women do not have access to the social services of their host countries. They are also trafficked against their will as "brides" back to their former countries. There is a need to be culturally sensitive towards immigrants, up until the point at which another human being's basic human rights are violated. At this point, the interactive acculturation of people from these societies must become a legal and educational priority in those host countries to which they immigrate.

Violence against women is not only found in the original countries from which immigrants bring their belief in honor killings, but in their host countries, as well. All countries have a high level of violence against women and girls, and boys, including murder. As reported in the Daily Telegraph, the UK has committed to an age-appropriate K-12 education program to teach gender equality in the wake of many honor killings. Police from EU member states have recently met with women's organizations, social groups and educators at Europol at the Hague to strategize, seek solutions and crack down on those committing honor killings and the trafficking of women.* No matter the impetus, the education of all people of all countries of the equality, value and rights of all people, especially women and children, is needed. It should also extend to adults, and become a real presence in the media and conversations of all people, in all countries.

Women, children and other marginalized people are often caught between a rock and a hard place, with very little room or the basic human rights with which they may move beyond to a path of freedom to pursue their lives.

In all societies, including Western, the value of women and children is still obviously less than that of men because their very safety and lives are continuously and disproportionately jeopardized by violence, domestic or otherwise. This is also evidenced by the continued devaluing of traditional "women's jobs" and the wage gaps between men and women found in all societies. During the current US recession, many people in higher paying jobs are unemployed, and most of those are men. Yet those workers in lower paid, necessary service industries have retained their jobs, and most of them are women. Obviously society cannot exist without these jobs. So, now, we see lower-paid women supporting their families on low wages that are often not high enough to support themselves and their families. Now, the economic impact of this wage gap is finally being felt by large numbers of men, although it has long been felt by women and children for centuries, in poverty.

What all members of our society are living and grappling with right now is not just an economic, political or legal phenomenon. It is the direct result of a social phenomenon based upon cultural attitudes of the lower value of women and children, whether or not they are as extreme as those in societies that legitimize honor killings. Economic, political, health care, educational, and legal systems don't define a society's cultural and religious beliefs; a society's cultural and religious beliefs defines its economic, political, health care, educational, and legal systems. What is valued is priced high, has high political power, better health care and education, and is well-legislated; what is not valued is priced low, has little political power, health care, and education, and is inadequately legislated.

Economic, political, health care, legal, and educational reform must take place to ensure the equal value of all people, including women and children, as equal members of human society. Legal reform must use a zero-tolerance approach to the marginalization of and violence against any human, especially women and children, in the laws and courts of all countries. Economic reform must also highly value those jobs that perform direct service to individual members of society and society in general, even though the results of that service are not directly and rapidly felt in the economy. This must include such jobs as home health aides and teachers. Political power must be equal for all, and seen and felt in political representation, rather than the marginalization currently found. Educational reform must include teaching all people, and must teach the value and rights of all, to all. This educational reform must also include mediation and conflict resolution training, so all members of humanity can learn more effective ways to solve any problem, rather than resort to violence. Health care reform must grant all people a high basic level of health care, especially women, whose ability to bear and birth healthy children is necessary for the very existence of the human species.

Research has shown it takes three generations to make such major changes in a society. The very lives of billions of women and children are at risk, as well as the basic well-being and rights of all members of humanity, so the current generation must quickly implement these changes now. When all people are highly valued members of humanity, the myriad benefits of this reform will create a win-win situation. This will lessen the need for violence to demand basic human rights and social services. People will abhor the use of violence by one group of people against another, which will decrease violence, war and genocide. When people realize all humans are of value and utilize mediation and conflict resolution to resolve differences, we will see increased political and economic stability because we will work together to find win-win solutions, rather than compete for resources and power. When all governments adjust their legal, political, economic, health care, and educational systems to honor in thought and deed the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they will respect the value and equality of people, while at the same time, retain what is unique and beautiful within all of their independent cultures. Empowerment creates positive change through cooperation, rather than the will to compete, which creates violence and war. This is a win-win solution to a win-lose problem. When all people are valued equally in thought and deed, all people benefit. All we have to do is step into the light of human rights.



*http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6655561/Honour-based-violence-is-biggest-problem-facing-women.html

A Response to a Comment That Inept Students Learn from Stupid Teachers

The educational system in America does not live in a vacuum containing only schools, teachers and students; it requires the support of a strong foundation of individual parents, extended family, culture, society, the economy, government, corporations, textbook publishers, health care, and politics. Therefore, when the educational system falls short of a passing grade, focusing solely on "fixing" schools by "holding teachers accountable" will not solve the problem, although it does provide a convenient scapegoat. All components of the foundation must be addressed and strengthened if we want our nation's children, teachers and schools to be high achieving. Children learn what they live while growing up in the world village, whose entire population is responsible for providing exceptional life experiences and education to its children. Finally, and most importantly, the children themselves must also be held accountable by the entire village to work hard, behave and learn in school.

What follows is my response to someone who commented on Facebook that students, who can't count/make change/face money or read/write in cursive, learn all they know from their stupid teachers. So this comment was about the apple from the teacher: Unfortunately, apples don't fall far from the tree, and when the trees don't value or support education, neither will their apples. Apples learn what they live, and many trees often spend little time with their apples, getting them ready for kindergarten and teaching their little apples the manners and life skills they need to acquire even an adequate education. The trees sit apples in front of tv's and video games, don't provide experiental learning opportunities for them, or teach them manners or respect. The cute little apples come to school years behind in both intellectual and social development, and the trees expect "stupid" teachers to make up the difference in care, teaching and responsible parenting that was sole responsibility of the trees. If trees expected their apples to be successful in school and life, they'd actively parent their apples and set high expectations for their apples to work hard, behave in school, and take responsibility for their own learning.

Teachers Should Not Be Held Accountable for Society's Problems

I believe that we need to get children into school earlier for pre-K and full-day Kindergarten. Many parents work 2 jobs just to make ends meet, so they don't have enough time to work with their children. Many students are coming to school without knowledge of the alphabet, letter sounds, basic number sense, ability to count from 1 to 10, or even understanding directionality of print. Instead, parents are relying more and more on teachers to teach early literacy, math and life skills to their children in 1/2-day Kinder and in 1st grade classes. This late start puts these children at a distinct disadvantage, where many spend the rest of their academic lives playing catch-up.

I don't see society and our economy rolling back to the time when one parent can afford to support the family and the other parent, mom or dad, can stay home to work with the children. I would, however, like to see it roll back to a time where people earn a living wage so that they only need to work one job. At least, then, parents will have more time to spend with their children and teach them life skills, early literacy and numbers, to read to them, and help them with their homework.

I truly hope the next President will realize that the problem with education is a problem that originates in the basic structure of society, the family and the economy. I think we blame teachers because they are scapegoats for these much deeper and more difficult problems to solve; problems without one, easily identifiable "go-to" person or group to hold accountable.

NV Council for History Educators Conference on Public Lands Day

What a great day! I attended the Nevada Council for History Educators Conference at the Boulder Dam Hotel in Boulder City, NV. The conference, coordinated by Dr. Linda Karen Miller, was about Boulder City and Hoover Dam: Then and Now: Teaching and Writing Local History. Senator Harry Reid was originally scheduled to speak about his book on the history of Searchlight, NV. However, as we all know, he is busy on Capitol Hill taking care of more important matters relating to our nation's economy.
Former Nevada State Assemblywoman and current Nevada State Assemblyman Lynn Stewart, both representing Boulder City spoke about past history and current issues facing Boulder City.

Former Nevada State Assemblywoman Gene Segerblom

Nevada State Assemblyman Lynn Stewart

Following these two wonderful speakers were National Park Service Ranger Amanda Rowland, who spoke about historical resources around and at the bottom of Lake Mead, and Dr. Fran Campbell, who spoke about the history of African-Americans and the building of Hoover Dam.

Dr. Fran Campbell

National Park Service Ranger Amanda Rowland


Conference attendees from both northern and southern Nevada also toured the Boulder City Museum in the Boulder City Hotel and cruised on Lake Mead to Hoover Dam on board Forever Earth.


Also while on board, Dr. Linda Miller spoke about using the Library of Congress to teach with primary sources. All-in-all, it was an informative and enjoyable conference.

I also enjoyed watching people take advantage of Lake Mead National Recreation Area on Public Lands Day, where the weather was partly cloudy and the temperature was approximately 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Lake Mead is about a 40 minute drive from the center of Las Vegas. Lake Mead's water originates from a combination of snowmelt from more northerly states into the Colorado River, and runoff from rain along the river's entire meandering path through 9 western states.

The runoff is the reason it is so important not to put anything on your plants, lawns or on the ground that you wouldn't want to drink. Any chemical you put on things outside, gets washed into storm drains and eventually flows into the freshwater rivers, lakes and streams that people and animals use for drinking water. This is another reason we shouldn't be using the planet's freshwater - which is less than 1% of all water found on earth - as coolant, especially for nuclear power plants that leave it contaminated for many half-lives or thousands of years. That is not clean energy!

The lake is now 115 feet below it's highest level, as shown by the more lighter-colored "bathtub ring" in the second, third, fourth, and fifth pictures below. There is great concern about the possibility that Lake Mead will be dry in the next few decades. This will directly impact the availability of potable water in the highly populated, arid, desert Southwest and the bountiful farmlands Southern California, further downstream, that produce a percentage of our nation's (and the world's) fruit and vegetables. Here is a great example of something that, when it happens in Vegas, will absolutely not stay in Vegas. It also serves to illustrate how a change in precipitation patterns in one part of our country greatly impacts the entire country and beyond. We desperately need to do something about global warming.

Obama in Las Vegas

Barack Obama was just here in Vegas, so I thought I'd share a few images with you. During his speech, Obama blasted McCain on his two-decade long history of deregulation that has lead our country into its current economic debacle. Obama reminded us that, in 2006, he himself had submitted a bill to prevent mortgage lending practices that encourage fraud and abuse in order to avoid this type of fiasco from occurring. He also questioned McCain's claim that he is a change agent and would go against the good old boy network. Obama wondered how McCain could possibly do that when he had hired seven high-paid lobbyists to work on his campaign and that, as for change, he has been in Washington for over twenty years, voting nearly the same way most of the time. Later on in his speech, Obama reiterated his position on tax breaks for the 95% of Americans who earn less than $250,000, and his intent to ensure that all young Americans can afford a college education through his Dream Act. He also spoke about the dire need for funding education and increasing teacher pay. Finally, he called upon all his supporters to get out, canvas, call potential voters, and register people to vote.

Obama Saying, "Gimme Five"

I thought I'd also include a shot I took of Clint Holmes after his performance and before Barack Obama arrived to give his speech.

Greed vs. Need: The Bailout

The greed!
I, and most other people, know that to get a home loan, in very simple terms, you should have a 20% down payment, or close to that and you'll pay PMI, AND be able to afford a monthly payment of approximately 25% of your net income. Yet, the S&L's (again!!!), banks, other mortgage lenders and their loan employees loaned money to people who could not meet these basic criteria, even to the point of employees fudging numbers to make the loan and increase their profits/commissions. Then there are the well-to-do "flippers" who helped drive up home prices and contributed to the housing bubble, in order to line their own pockets. When they fixed up homes and drove up the prices, they also made most of those homes unaffordable for a large number of people who could have afforded the home at the original price and fixed up that home over time, when they could afford to make upgrades.

Now, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Washington Mutual, etc., etc. etc. have failed, gone bankrupt or have been taken over by the federal government, using citizen's tax dollars. So, now, people's tax dollars are essentially paying for other people's mortgages and the failing/bankrupt businesses and business practices of irresponsible lenders who have pocketed billions in unsavory mortgage loans...until the weight of these bad loans toppled right over onto them. Then, they cry out, "Please help me!?" I'm so disgusted at this!!! All this is thanks to an irresponsible government who just stood by and watched as all this happened, doing nothing to protect its citizens.

Then we have the loansharks...oops, I meant credit card companies. This industry has been deregulated and is out to squeeze every drop of money they can out of the average U.S. citizen. The federal government has, again, just stood by and watched as this has happened, doing nothing to protect its citizens.

The average citizen pays a larger percentage of their income in taxes than do citizens in higher income brackets. The average citizen's ability to use income tax deductions has been removed or reduced and their ability to file bankruptcy has been reduced. The higher income brackets tend to be able to use the remaining tax breaks and can more easily file for bankruptcy under current rules. The entire tax structure favors the weathiest citizens and corporations, some of whom laugh all the to the bank bragging how they didn't even need to pay a penny in income taxes after filing all their deductions and using all their tax breaks! Here, the federal government has actively made this happen, doing nothing to protect the majority of its citizens to gain the favor of and further increase the wealth of its already-wealthiest citizens.

Sounds a lot like business as usual in Washington, D.C. All for the corporations and the rich, the heck with the average citizen. The modus operandi for the past 8 years has been greed, excess, and corruption in government, on Wall Street, in the Banking and Mortgage industry, and in major Corporations (in particular, Big Oil). Shame on those in government who were put in their positions of trust to serve and protect all the citizens of the United States of America, not just the wealthy!

The need?
Well, the need is in the emptied pockets and bank accounts of the average United States citizen who has financed all of this under extreme duress. We're dealing with the loss of our homes, record-high fuel, food, health care, and energy prices, as well as exorbitant, loanshark-like credit card interest rates and unaffordable housing in our largest cities. Many of us can't afford health care. We have the highest rate of unemployment in over a decade. Our jobs are being sent overseas to "fair trade" partners and other countries whose citizens earn far less than do average U.S. citizens who only ask for a reasonable, living wage. The tainted and poisoned products that are produced overseas are then imported into this country, killing people and pets, and endangering the health of all citizens.

The gap between the middle-class and the wealthy is the widest it has been since the late 1920's. Unions, who have always worked to protect the average worker and obtain for them a living wage, are ridiculed by politicians and, of course, corporations and business owners. Union power and influence to protect the working-class is also at it lowest point in many decades. Through the 1960's, most average-income households only needed one income to survive. Today, many average-income households require more than two incomes to survive. People are working two, three and four jobs just to make ends meet or are trying to work a full-time job and go to school at night to better themselves and their families.

More of the need...our nation's children.
Now, because their parents are working so much, a significant percentage of our nation's children are raising themselves: teachers are seeing young elementary school children trying to take care of their even younger siblings, including getting them up, dressed, and to and from school. There is no adult at home to watch them, academically prepare them to enter school, teach them manners and to respect themselves and others, or to even check their homework, before or after school. They may see a parent for a few minutes between jobs. Other children are in abusive situations, in homes with domestic violence, or in homes where parents are constantly fighting with each other (many times over finances or due to financial stress) and come to school just to feel safe or to simply have some peace and quiet; these children often don't do well academically because they're so traumatized and upset they can't concentrate. Now, add to this mix the children of legal aliens and the large amount of children of illegal aliens swelling our educational system. Research shows that it takes anyone 5-7 years to acquire academic language, yet our government expects proficiency well before this. Many children in the education system sit in front of televisions and video games a large part of each day, learning questionable behaviors and language, not reading or spending adequate time on homework, or in discussions, or playing cards, or board games with their parents and siblings. Many don't get enough exercise or eat balanced, nutritional meals.

The government needs to fund education, instead of creating educational mandates it doesn't fund, reducing education spending, refusing to pay teachers what they're worth, and then reducing teacher benefits, to boot. Then the government, the press and the general public ignore all of the above and blame teachers for the all the ills of "the broken education system." Sorry, but teachers are NOT scapegoats. Look at the source (see ALL of the above and make ALL of them accountable, too).

We also need a full-scale medical care net under us - the lack of which is morally unconscionable in "the greatest and richest country on earth." People shouldn't have to choose between buying medicine and getting medical care or buying food (some of it poisoned, imported from other countries without adequate health regulations and oversight). Human beings shouldn't go without medical care because they can't afford it, or have to file for medical bankruptcy when they do get health care! Did it ever occur to anyone that there would be more new business start-ups if we all had affordable health care and didn't need to hold down a job just to get medical insurance? When people start new businesses, our economy grows, makes us more competitive in world markets, and leads to more technological innovations.

We need a government that controls its borders, and prosecutes and returns illegal aliens to their home countries. Benefits of citizenship and legal immigration should not be given to illegal aliens: they are criminals, hence the term il-legal (the prefix il- means "not," hence, illegal means not legal)! U.S. citizens who are criminals tend to be in prison, but not illegal aliens. They get free health care, free education, lower in-state college tuition rates even though they are not legal residents (because they are illegal aliens), are free to move about this country, and then send a huge amount of their income out of this country to their native homes and families. Maybe We the People should become illegal aliens (just kidding)! As for the very valid reasons for which many illegal aliens have left their native countries, they should be dealt with by an appropriate combination of diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, and United Nations human rights interventions, instead of leaving our borders as open as sieves.

We need an EPA and FDA (and other agencies) who have not had political appointees gut the basic tenets for which these agencies had been formed: protecting the American people, our environment and wildlife (when you protect the environment and wildlife, you also protect the American people; when you pollute the former, you poison the latter). The authority, policies and employees of these agencies need to be returned to a point at which America and Americans are once again protected, rather than those who have been protected lately: pharmaceutical and chemical industries, as well as corporations. Check out the dvd Food For Thought and look up the story on the courageous whistleblower Fox news reporters who refused to change the facts in their story on Monsanto to satisfy corporate advertisers. Find out why our genetically modified foods aren't labeled, why the corporate-owned press says nothing to warn consumers, and why European Union countries refuse to import these products. Find out about the small farmers being harassed and sued by Monsanto for patent infringment when Monsanto's uncontrolled gmo seeds simply blow into fields and grow, or cross-breed with natural seed products, forever tainting the seed supply, all at no fault of the farmers. Yes, it is Monsanto's responsiblity to control their own seeds and test fields. It would help if their test fields weren't purposefully left open and uncovered, rather than sequestered and covered as they should be as the experiment they are. There are still no independent, long-term studies on the affects of gmo products on human health. Find out what private corporation now owns most of the natural fruit and vegetable seeds in the western hemisphere, and can remove these natural seeds from the market in favor of selling their gmo seeds. Ask yourself if you believe our food supply is secure? Ask yourself what those who ultimately control the food supply will do with all this power over the lives of billions of human beings? Who suffers from the greedy, irresponsible whims and price gouging of monopolies and corporate-run government agencies? The average U.S. citizen, again.

As for bailouts...we need a government that knows it's not supposed to bail out the private sector. Conservative Republicans pushed for a free market economy with little or no regulation or governmental oversight. We the People got the market for which that small, special interest group advocated. Of course, this really served both the interests of the administration and its corporate "friends." So now we have a new form of government welfare for their corporate and financial institution cronies, all paid for by U.S. citizens. It's kind of ironic, though, because the government wouldn't bail out its own, responsible, average working-class citizens who have paid their bills, worked hard, and tried to save some small amounts of money. The government is also ready to spend billions of dollars in Iraq with cost-plus, no-bid contracts, yet can't ensure that all of its own citizens get adequate, affordable health care. It can literally go to bed, share drugs with and freely give subsidies and royalties to Big Oil, yet can't seem to figure our why the oil companies are making record profits while its citizens have to choose between eating and getting to work. Another part of the problem is in anti-trust laws, government oversight and regulation, and all those monopolies, which have become unregulated ultra-monopolies. Whatever happened to healthy competition? Who suffers from the greedy, irresponsible whims and price gouging of monopolies? The average U.S. citizen, again.

What the average United States citizen needs is the restoration of the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and balance among the three branches of government. Our founding fathers must be turning over in their graves at the outrageous abuse of executive privilege and political power during the past eight years! We need our leaders to adhere to the tenets of the Geneva Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, actually follow the rule of law of this country, and run free and clean elections without a single voter disenfranchised, vote stolen, voting machine used that doesn't have a paper trail, or single case of voter fraud. What we need is a government that doesn't use fear-mongering to artificially control the behavior, opinions, attitudes, and votes of its citizens. What we need is a government that actually and effectively comes to the aid of its own citizens in times of disaster.

We need our country's Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates to answer direct, unscripted questions from the public and the press. Your unavailability for true discourse is a huge red flag to us and reflects badly on your ability to lead this nation. If you cannot answer questions, you can't lead, and none of you should be elected. You are supposed to convince us why we should elect you, not create pretty speeches, produce cool sound bytes, remove yourselves from the public and their questions (obviously, you'll do this when you're in office), and bash each other.

We need a press that will stop following these candidates around like puppies waiting for treats until these candidates are willing to answer real questions from the press and the public. If the press stopped covering the canned news and speeches of the candidates, the candidates would quickly feel the vacuum of coverage, and would be forced to engage in active discourse. We need politicians to stop using and manipulating the press. We need our press to stop acting essentially as publicists for the candidates and begin to act in their capacity as advocates for the public, as the Fourth Estate. We also need the press to continue this on all fronts in relation to the honest reporting of facts, even when these facts go against the interests of their corporate policies or corporate advertisers' interests.

We need a free press, as well. A free press plays a huge role in the workings of a democratic republic. Freedom of the press enables American citizens to learn facts, find truthful information, and listen to a variety of opinions in order to make informed, educated opinions and decisions. When the press isn't free, the people usually aren't, either. When journalists and press photographers are arrested, while covering legal demonstrations where police are not wearing their legally required identification badges (so they can't be identified and prosecuted) and are using stun grenades and tear gas on peaceful demonstrators, the American people are not free. When members of the press are investigated, harassed, put on no-fly lists, and purposefully and erroneously branded as "terror suspects," "liars," or are simply fired from their jobs to prevent the truth from reaching the American citizen, the American citizen is not free.

Finally, we, the middle class, as Lou Dobbs of CNN often says, are "the backbone of this country." We have known for a fact that our economy is not strong for quite some time now. It hasn't been working for us for at least eight years. Those of us who haven't already lost our home, and are still trying to hang on to it, certainly don't have any problem remembering how many homes we own. That number would be one, and hopefully we can hold onto it through this uncontrolled, economic fiasco. We certainly don't respond by saying things such as 'I don't know, around 7,' like McCain did when he was asked how many houses he owns. Today, McCain even stated he believes "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." What We the People, who elected these politicians, need is a government that works for us, instead of a government that works for lobbyists, corporations, financial institutions, PACS, and special interest groups. We need our government, corporations and financial institutions to be managed ethically and responsibly, with a clue that they are here to serve us, not the other way around. Here's a clue for all of you: your customers, the average citizens of the United States of America are NOT happy with the status quo. Never underestimate the "little guy" and don't be like those guys at Enron who actually laughed at "screwing" us over. What would happen if We the Needy People bailed out on you, the Corrupt and Greedy!

(P.S. The photo of the dollar bill was actually a bill one of my dogs got a hold of, chewed up and had partially eaten. I would never tear up money, myself.)

Qualifications for President and Vice-President

If teachers are required by our President, the Federal government and our citizens, to be Highly Qualified, have a Master's Degree, pass at least 4 competency exams, and maintain minimum levels of continuing education, why aren't our Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates held to similar high standards? Many teachers run classes of less than 40 students. Our candidates will run a country of millions, yet they are not required to prove they are competent by some standardized method of measurement or educational attainment. I believe candidates should be required to achieve at least a Master's degree from an accredited university in the United States and pass competency tests on subjects including US Constitution, US History, World History, Federal and International Law, Public Policy, Transportation and Infrastructure, Environmental Science, International Affairs and Diplomacy, Conflict Resolution, Macro- and Micro-Economics, Public Speaking, Writing, and Ethics.

Teachers, who make much less money than do most politicians, are required to provide weekly lesson plans, document what they will teach, how much time they will spend on each subject, what strategies and materials they will use so their students will achieve mastery, how they will assess their students' progress, and what state and/or national education standards they are meeting through their instruction. Everything teachers do is required to be student-centered. Perhaps our politicians should also be required to do the same thing. Politicians should be required to provide weekly plans to their constituents, document which problems and issues they will handle for their constituents, how much time they will spend on each problem or issue, what strategies and materials they will use to achieve solutions for their constituents, how they will assess their progress on solving problems and issues for their constituents (political, environmental, economic, etc.), and what state and/or national standards they are meeting through their public service. Everything politicians do should be constituent-centered. Instead, many politicians state outright lies, break laws, and work for lobbyists and corporate interests, rather than their constituents. Then, they turn around and say that teachers are doing a bad job and need even more regulation and accountability.

If teachers were handled in the same way as has been Sarah Palin by the Republicans, then when they're hired, they would be able to hang out with a Master Teacher and watch them teach. They'd also smile, shake hands, wave and give a thumbs up, occaisionally give the same lesson prepared by someone else, and not be responsible to teach their own lessons to their own class, or answer questions from parents or adminstration. This candidate should not be allowed to get away with this! We the People need to stand together and demand accountability of and accessibility to all of our public servants and candidates, as well as minimum standards of education and competency levels of candidates for public service.