Bye Arne

Arne Duncan is resigning as Secretary of Education.  I shed no tears.  His appointment and Obama’s support of him is the most confusing aspect of the Obama administration.  Duncan thought like a Republican and almost singlehandedly ended the debate about school reform from a policy-making perspective.

George Bush took the Texas accountability model to Washington and we got No Child Left Behind as a new moniker for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.  This was Republican legislation.  It was disastrous.  It included labeling schools, high stakes testing, etc. etc.  No one in Texas was surprised with what we got at the federal level.  My hope in 2008 was that Obama would fix NCLB.

He didn’t.  I was at first excited by Duncan’s nomination.  He was a school superintendent, after all.  Surely he knew better than to believe in NCLB. But Obama had named an anti-union school reformer to the position of Secretary of Education.  Obama might as well have named George Bush.  Duncan not only supported most of NCLB, he exacerbated the worst of the legislative philosophy with Race to the Top.  Make no mistake, Arne Duncan was a friend to reformers and not to educators or public education.  He drank the Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and ALEC Kool-Aide without a single burp.

Duncan’s appointment left no debate of substance at the federal level.  If Republicans backed the accountability components of NCLB and the newly elected Democratic President appointed a pro-reformer Secretary of Education, where was the debate?  There was none of substance.  Suddenly, Democrats and Republicans seemed to agree on only one issue:  education.  They agreed on standardized tests, they agreed on labeling schools, they agreed on new teacher evaluation systems to bust unions, they agreed on a national curriculum, etc., etc.  It was embarrassing.  The Obama administration sold out, or at least he was bum fuddled by his old Chicago bud Arne Duncan. 

Obama should have named Diane Ravitch as Secretary of Education.  We would have a very different public education system now, a much better system.

No, I won’t miss Arne Duncan any more than I miss George Bush.  Both waged unnecessary war on public education.  They won, kids and teachers lost.

Rational Thoughts on Gun Control, Climate Change and Abortion

More horrific shootings, more debate about abortion, more debate about climate change and energy sources.  Are we all crazy?  Are only half of us crazy?  Are we stupid or are we misled?  Why is consensus around these issues so difficult to achieve?

I believe the answer is really fairly simple.  Many of us base our positions on what we know to be true, what we know has been observed and documented and scientifically validated.  Others of us base our positions on what we perceive to be true, what we want to be true, what we believe to be true regardless of the evidence to the contrary.  When a rational position abuts a perceptual position sparks fly on both sides, tempers flare, anger is evoked.  And when that happens, even the rational become irrational. 

I have a set of beliefs.  I have perceptions.  And yet I choose to make decisions that impact others based on rational thought, not perceptual beliefs.  I do not perceive it to be moral for me to insist that my beliefs, my perceptions, should be followed by all.  ISIS believes that.  If one does not believe like a member of ISIS believes then ISIS feels free to rape, imprison, and/or behead that person.  That is the epitome of immoral human behavior in my book.  I may be frustrated by those who believe differently than I do, but I have never been frustrated by someone’s rational perspective that is grounded in research and logic and arrives at a position different from mine.  Perhaps because I have never encountered such a person.

Before I proceed let me offer a warning to the perceivers out there reading this:  Rational thought may really upset you.  I would hope that if so, you recognize your response and initiate some research and thinking on your own.  I would also say if you are rational and disagree with me that is great!  Bring it on!  Share your knowledge and logic so that I can learn from you.

I shall start with the simplest issue:  climate change.  Is our climate changing?  Absolutely and the evidence is overwhelming.  Is our current climate change part of a historical cycle of climate change observed over millennia on earth?  Absolutely NOT and the evidence is overwhelming.  Is our current climate change due to human fossil fuel emissions and the deforestation of rain forests?  Absolutely and the evidence is over-whelming.  Is a continuation of global warming in our best interest on this planet?  Absolutely NOT and the evidence is overwhelming.  Regardless of what political action one wishes to follow, it is abundantly clear that our current global warming has been triggered by human behavior.  The only arguments against such a position come from the perceivers who do not want this to be true, and from the economic forces that will suffer if we actually change our habits.  There is no other rational position.  To argue with a climate denier is just like Copernicus trying to convince the early Christians that earth orbited the sun and not vice-versa.  One will be labeled a heretic and tortured.

Next easiest is gun control.  Somehow the perceivers have been able to cast this issue in terms of civil rights, particularly the Second Amendment.  This is not a civil rights issue at all.  We have already agreed that owning a gun is not for everyone.  If we believed that everyone should own a gun as part of our civil liberties we would issue guns to everyone.  We do not give guns to 3 year-olds or blind people or paraplegics.  No, we know not everyone should have a gun and that ends the debate about limiting the 2^nd amendment.  We already do so.  Now the debate becomes more rational.  Is there a correlation between the number of weapons owned by a given population and the number of deaths and injuries attributed to weapons, i.e., high gun ownership equals high death count; low gun ownership equals low death count?  Absolutely and the evidence is overwhelming.  Is there evidence that strict controls that limit who can own a weapon results in fewer deaths and injuries?  Absolutely and the evidence is overwhelming.  Amazing to me is that the people who own guns and enjoy hunting or skeet shooting are the very people who would most likely be approved as gun owners.  The angry and the dysfunctional do not scream for protection from the Second Amendment, they simply get guns and kill people.  I also find it interesting that there are very stiff requirements concerning owning and operating a car and the automakers are not screaming that limiting who can own a car or drive a car is a violation of their rights.  No, they set about making cars as safe as possible.  Arguing that gun ownership should not carry some limitations is not rational.  I think prior to purchase and use of a firearm one must take a course, pass a test and carry a license to own and operate the firearm much as we require for driving an automobile.  I think gun owners should be required to carry insurance that would pay in the event that their firearm destroyed property, injured or killed someone much as we require for driving cars.  There are really no rational arguments against such policies except for those who claim gun ownership is somehow an unlimited civil liberty, which it is not.

Most difficult is the abortion issue.  I see this as most difficult because so many of our laws are grounded in the Judeo-Christian belief system:  thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet, and thou shalt not kill.  Given that, it seems to me to be irrational to say we should not enact our religious belief systems as we already have.  The issue revolves around whose belief system do we enact, whose interpretation do we follow?  Just like ISIS, there are some so committed to the notion that human life begins at conception that they are willing to destroy property, kill, or even shut down the government based on their perceived beliefs.  My thinking goes like this:  There are many prohibitions in the Bible, but it seems we are really good at simply ignoring many of them if it suits us.  Or, to put it another way, if secular reason provides better answers than dogma.  That is why divorce is legal and polygamy is not.  So, what is a rational, non-religious based position regarding abortion?  For me it is that a woman, alive, here, grown, sentient should have more control of her body than a zygote.  Or an embryo, or a fetus.  More, I am disturbed that religious groups insist that their view of this be enacted into law, and if not, they are willing to shut down the government to have their way.  There is no such thing as religious belief serving as rationale.  By definition, beliefs are not rational.  I have several suggestions about how to end this conflict.

First, is to make it clear that a mother has rights that a zygote, embryo or fetus does not have.  This is logical.  A pre-birth growth in the uterus of a woman cannot be reasonably argued to have more rights than an adult human being.  Especially when there is a minority of believers in this country who perceive that conception determines the initiation of human beings.  Let’s say that human rights begin at birth and move on.  Elsewise we are stuck in the ludicrous position of prosecuting women who miscarry.

Second, we must re-think the establishment clause in the first amendment.  Current interpretation is that the government cannot recognize, support, promote any religious belief system over another.  Those who have very strong belief systems hate this because they very much want their own belief system to be the law of the land.  It is because of such a desire and the experiences of our founding fathers that we have such a stringent anti-support of religion clause in our constitution.  That bad news for religious fundamentalists is that the US of A was not established to be a Christian nation.  In fact, it was established to avoid at all costs any effort to allow a belief system to lay claim to our policies and laws.  To my way of thinking, anyone who would promote shutting down our government to ensure that their beliefs are enacted are committing not only an anti-American act, they could easily be declared terrorists.

Along with this recognition, we should be able to withdraw the separation of church and state benefits if the church crosses the line to influence the government.  It is one thing for a pastor to say to his or her congregation that he or she opposes abortion, same-sex marriage, etc.  It is entirely a different thing if a church solicits donations, forms political action committees, holds conferences, etc., for the sole purpose of changing government policy to align with their belief systems.  Should a pastor say to a congregation, “vote for this guy, no that guy; support this legislation, not that legislation; donate money to this cause or this organization, and/or the government is by our definition corrupt because they do not think as we think,” then that church has violated the separation of church and state as outlined in the establishment clause.  As such, they should lose their tax exempt status.  Period.  It is irrational to say there must be a separation of church and state, the government will not intervene in belief systems, but it is OK for belief systems to lobby and interact with the government for their own purposes.  If they do so, tax them.  As in all other conflicts I believe this to be a rational position.

One caveat:  I do not uniformly oppose action based on purely perception and beliefs.  In fact, to have a family, provide for that family, seek a comfortable retirement and perhaps accrue wealth, I should never have become an educator.  I did so irrationally and have never regretted it.  I acted on my belief that there is nothing more noble, nothing more likely to positively influence the future than to work in public education with folks of like mind, good hearts, and the children of my community.

Most amazing to me in calm rational moments is the number of people around me who believe they love this country and are really good Americans while simultaneously arguing that their own religious belief systems should be the law of the land, their willingness to attack the government that is in fact the essence of our country, and their absolute opposition to diversity in belief systems, race, gender, sexual preference, etc.  Many of these people believe that the most “American” thing they can do is insist that everyone think like they think.  So sad that such a perception is the antithesis of the true nature of a free nation with protected civil rights and majority rule.  I see myself as a deep, loyal American patriot.  My sense of what makes this nation great is very different from such folks described above.  I pray for them.  I pray for me when I am with them.

I think such prayers are rational.