Why Davis and Van de Putte

Either now during early voting or on Tuesday, November 4^th Texans who are registered to vote and can prove who they are via a required photo ID may cast their votes in state and federal elections.  You may have already studied the issues and selected a candidate to support, or perhaps you are a party loyalist.  Or not.  Regardless, I am an educator.  The outcomes of this election are critical for the future of Texas efforts to educate our children.  And I am very concerned.

There are two major candidates for both Governor and Lt. Governor.  Now that I am retired and can speak my mind I want to review where the candidates stand through the eye of a professional educator and from the position of supporting public schools.

Greg Abbott, Republican candidate for governor, proposes more of the same educational policies we have experienced since Governor George Bush.  What he calls “transparency” means reporting test outcomes publicly.  What he calls “accountability” means more tests.  He is correct to say that early childhood education is critical to a student’s future success.  His formula to achieve such, however, is way, way off.  He proposes more data collection for Pre-Kindergarten programs.  What he calls “data collection” can only mean some form of standardized assessment.  For Pre-K?  For 3 and 4 year-olds?  Amazing.  He wants districts to set benchmarks and report the data to TEA.  He recognizes that a child’s family background and income is the most decisive factor influencing a child’s future success, but opts to improve that success by more assessment.  He does not say that he supports programs to help lift children out of poverty, nor does he support an increase in funding for programs like CHIPS and CPS.  He supports more assessment.  He does not tell us that the state only funds Pre-Kindergarten for a half-day, even if a district provides a full-day program.  He is not arguing to increase the funding to support full day Pre-Kindergarten.  In other words, Abbott wants more of the same, more assessment to confirm that we are behind while he opposes every known strategy to help us improve.  He wants schools to do even more under a hotter light with no more resources.  Assessment does not help kids improve any more than weighing the cow makes it heavier.  Abbott, as I see him, is clearly on the wrong track and launching from the same old anti-public education platform.  Should he be elected he will continue to harm education in Texas and keep us in the lower quadrant of success and spending.

Dan Patrick, Republican candidate for Lt. Governor, is perhaps even a greater opponent of public education.  The scariest component of Patrick’s position is that it is based on his personal anti-government belief system, not what we know about teaching kids.  One wonders how a person could be opposed to government run programs and claim to know what is best for the largest program we have.  He is the senator who waged war on a curriculum program developed by teachers and curriculum experts called CSCOPE.  How and why a man in the radio talk show business is qualified to judge curriculum, lessons, assessments, etc., is totally beyond me.  He waged this war because he believed that some lessons were anti-American and possibly brain-washing.  Poppycock and balderdash.  He waged the war to grand stand and promote his own particular value structures which I see as anti-American:  if one cannot critically evaluate our freedoms and beliefs one is not truly free.  Patrick denied children the right to learn that lesson.  I find the man very scary.  I find him more enamored of a microphone than facts and more supportive of anti-intellectualism than education.  His election will likely make things even worse for education in Texas because Dan Patrick does not know what he does not know.

As a state we must abandon the high stakes testing culture.  I do not support abandoning assessment, I support abandoning high stakes assessment that judges kids, teachers, schools and districts based on a set of standardized tests.  As a state we must accept the notion that poverty is a direct link to student success and not only fund educational programs to help promote success despite poverty, but also support programs that alleviate poverty.  We must recognize that only by spending more money on education, and spending it in an equitable way can we improve education.  It is totally unreasonable to retard the education of poor kids because they do not live in property wealthy school districts.  No sanctions improve student learning.  No assessment improves student learning.  Only support and commitment improves student learning.

Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte, the Democratic candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor respectively, support more spending for education, they opposed the $5.4 billion dollar cuts in education in the last legislative session, they support funding full day Pre-K, and they intend to reduce high stakes standardized tests.  Makes sense to me.  They bring an idea to Texas education that has been lacking from state policy decisions:  they are in support of public education.  They are not interested in blaming schools or school people, they are interested in helping.  They are less interested in weighing the cow and more interested in providing good pasture.  What a concept!

I oppose a vote for either Abbott or Patrick.  I encourage you to vote for Davis and Van de Putte for a real change in public education.  That is, a real change for the better for the first time in years rather than changing the standards of what we have been doing for years.  If standards, assessment, charter schools, test scores, accountability, etc. worked we would have achieved success by now.  We have been at it for 20 years since 1995 and the wealthy continue to outperform the poor everywhere we look. 

Please consider voting for Wendy Davis for Governor and Leticia Van de Putte for Lt. Governor, especially if you are an educator.  If every teacher, every administrator, every school board member in Texas voted this way Davis would win and we would dramatically improve education in Texas. 

And, my opinion cannot be bought.  This is what I believe to be true.

Thanks.

Melanie Bailey vs. Red Sanders

Melanie Bailey is a senior at Devils Lake High School in North Dakota.  She advanced to the championship race in the Eastern Dakota conference cross-country event.  At the 2 mile mark of the 2.4 mile course she saw an injured runner.

Danielle Lenoue, a senior from Fargo South High School had torn her miniscus and her patella tendon.  Collapsing in pain, Danielle sat beside the course holding her knee and sobbing.  Other runners ran by her on the way to the finish line less than a half-mile ahead.  Not Melanie.

Melanie did not know Danielle.  They attended different high schools.  In this event they were competitors.  But Melanie stopped.  A fellow student was crying in pain.  Danielle was suffering and in need.  Melanie got Danielle on her back and carried her the remaining half mile across the finish line.  Melanie did not win the race. 

I do not know who won this event in North Dakota.  The winner did not make headlines.  Melanie and her effort to help a fellow student have made headlines.  Melanie and Danielle will remember this for the rest of their lives.  Melanie played Good Samaritan and won a much more valuable place in history than winning the race.

Red Sanders, the UCLA football coach, at a 1950 Physical Education conference said, “Winning isn’t everything; it is the only thing.”  In 1959 Vince Lombardi would repeat the quotation and for many was attributed with the saying.  But it was Red Sanders who first said it.  Regardless, the belief articulated in the quotation is flawed and Melanie knows that.  The runners who ran by the injured Danielle were driven to win.  Melanie knows there are things much more important in life than winning.  Selflessly serving a needy fellow human being will always be more important than winning an athletic event.

Melanie is wiser than Red and Vince.  She is a human being first a competitor second.  We should look to her as an example of what humans can be.  We will not do so with the student who won that particular race.

If there were a competition between Melanie and Red for most noble, honorable philosophy of living Melanie would win.  Thank you, Melanie.  And thank God.

Ebola Panic

Are you near panic about Ebola?  It is true that the Ebola survival rate is anywhere from 10% to 50%.  That sounds really scary.  But that is the survival rate in West Africa, not the US.  The US has had 8 cases, 5 cures, and one death.  We are in a panic.  Panic is not rational and this round of panic clearly meets that criteria.  And now schools are closing due to this fear.  Wow.  I believe one of the roles of educated people is to inform those who are more prone to emotional response so that their lives improve.  I am not in a panic regarding Ebola.  I am worried about the outbreak and am particularly concerned with those in West Africa who continue to die from this virus.  But I am not in a panic.  Am I stupid?  Do I have my head in the sand?  Perhaps perspective will reduce fear and panic, or not.

Suppose I wanted to contract Ebola.  Short of a trip to West Africa what would I have to do to ensure that I became an Ebola “victim”?  Ebola is not air borne.  I would have to have physical contact with someone already infected, the best candidates being those who are vomiting or experiencing diarrhea.  I would not only have to have contact, I would have to somehow get one of their bodily fluids into my body.  Shaking hands could do it if I touched my mouth or nose or ears after hand-shaking and before washing my hands.  So, I need to get friendly with someone infected with Ebola.  Where would I find such people?  Five citizens have been treated and released.  Three people were in the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.  Now one is dead and the other two moved, one to Bethesda and one to Atlanta.  It would be somewhat difficult for me to get to either of those out of state hospitals, but I could.  However, I suspect I could not get to the floor where they are isolated, much less arrange physical, unprotected contact.  Seems to me I am flat out of luck if I want to catch Ebola in the US.  If you are afraid of contracting the disease I encourage you to relax.  At the current level of this epidemic we appear to be very safe.  Yes, we should take steps to contain, monitor and treat those infected and those exposed, but 8 cases hardly merits panic.

For instance, do you remember the Swine Flu epidemic in 2009?  One in 5 people world-wide contracted swine flu, including yours truly.  H1N1 killed 12,000 people.  However, the survival rate was much higher.  Only .02% died from the bug.  We were concerned, but those in real panic mode were a much smaller group than the current Ebola panickers.  How quickly we forget.

How about enterovirus?  This nasty little bug (EV-D68) has infected hundreds of people in at least 46 states.  And the death toll is rising, well beyond US Ebola cases.  Are you in a panic?  Same strategies that keep one safe from a cold, the flu, Ebola, etc., work with EV-D68.  Wash your hands and avoid the exchange of bodily fluids.

I find other issues more fascinating.  On the average, 12 high school and college football players die each year during a game or practice.  This number represents a much higher percentage than Ebola deaths as the number of high school and college football players is a smaller population than all the rest of us.  I do not hear a panic regarding football, I do not hear about schools closing because they have a football program, I do not hear a demand from communities to stop such a sport that is literally life threatening to participants. 

Harder to explain is the fact that there are about 30,000 deaths in this country each year due to firearms.  I hear no panic regarding this horrendous number.  In fact, I hear passionate almost panicky rhetoric defending the ownership of firearms.  Imagine someone today standing up and defending travel to and from West Africa as their Constitutional right regardless of outcomes.  I can hear it now, “Ebola does not kill people, infected people kill people.”  Yes, we have had a death from Ebola.  One death compared to 30,000 does not merit the panic we are experiencing.

Bottom line for me is that panic by its very nature is irrational.  Fear can be helpful.  Our fear mechanism can give us wisdom and teach us lessons as in the walk down a dark alley late at night.  Fear heightens our senses and informs our behavior.  Fear run amuck is panic.  Ebola merits fear, respect, and precautions.  It does not merit panic.

You are much more likely to be struck by lightning, die from playing football, die from contracting enterovirus, or killed by a firearm today than you are to contract Ebola.  Even if you contracted the disease you are much more likely to survive it than not.  Ignore the panic mongers and seek the facts.  And please, keep schools open!

Relax.