Join Educate our State for Camp Educate: A summer day camp for adults who care about the future of our great state

I haven't written in a while, but I though that I would appeal to you because our public education system is on the verge of collapse and we all have a vested stake in the future of our Great State.  Think of it this way. With a budget that hinges on the likelihood that voters will approve one of two tax increases this November, how do you suppose we are able fund public education across California in a robust way that ensures our children are well educated, ready for jobs or college, and will be able to lead productive happy lives when they exit school at whatever point they choose? 

The existing budget for public schools across our State hangs by a unraveling thread. The presidential election in November is important, not only for what hangs in the balance for whom will be elected leader of our great nation, but we the people of California have a choice to make.  And hanging in the balance of that choice are California's children - who get no vote - and we, the adults will be making a selection for them.  We will all go to the polls in November and cast our votes, and I urge you to pledge to vote in ways that support public education. 

Regardless the predicted outcome, you do not have to rest with simply showing up to vote.  You can take action today, and that action can work to multiply the power of the movement toward a better California; one where the voters look out for the future generations as opposed to their own, limited self interest.  Join Educate our State.  Like us on facebook.  Sign up for the Cause.

And, if you feel like you would be willing to go the extra mile - come meet us in person and learn how to become an active agent for change.  While, the current budget in Sacramento and across large portions of the State is hostile to public education, toward public school children, and endangering the very talent pools that will be the future employees of the great companies that comprise California's fiscal backbone, we do not have to sit idly or complacently by.  

I am a Board member for Educate our State and I encourage you to consider joining us in two weeks for Camp Educate (18 Aug 2012). Like minded people from around the region are gathering to discuss the issues, connect in person, and work together to develop strategies for working toward positive aims shooting to rebuilding support for and actively take part in the fight to improve schools and the educational experience for all California's children.  I would be happy to discuss this effort in person at any time. Give me a call or let me know a good number, date and time to call you to discuss and I will do my best to fill you in on the details and answer any questions you have.

Better yet, skip all these steps and sign up for Camp Educate. Think of this as Summer Day Camp for adults who care about the future of our Great State.  

The steps you take over this one day event and the next few months are critical.  Don't fall into the usual disempowering trap of thinking that your voice won't make a difference.  In fact, by acting now, with us, you may well be able to change the future for the better .  As Margaret Mead is famous for saying, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."  I hope you make the choice to become a part of our State wide movement.  California's Children need you.

I look forward to speaking with you about these issues, Camp Educate, or whatever else you would like to talk about at any time.

School Vouchers Are A Trojan Horse

A friend sent around an article suggesting that Mitt Romney is trying to ride in on a white horse as the knight anointed to save our public schools and reverse the fiscal malaise facing them.  I got off on a rant, and here's my response to the article.

Any time some one suggests we hand every one a coupon or voucher so that they can "spend" their education dollars wherever they want, this essentially is code for keeping the rich rich and the poor poor.  Just ask yourself, if you are a single parent, working two jobs just to cover the rent, and you have two kids that you need to send to school, will any voucher that you receive give you enough capital to send your kid to the "best" school? Nope.   What's the likelihood that any kind of voucher program is slashed until it's ground down to zero? Perhaps an exploration of what is happening to food stamp vouchers is instructive as well.

The reason why the wealthy love this voucher idea is that it gives them their tax money back, and they throw as much of their "hard earned" cash at the private school of their choice, and basically screw all the kids who come from poor families and cannot afford the tuition at Exeter or Choate Rosemary Hall or other some such school.  Basically, the voucher "liberates" allocated tax dollars and removes legally prescribed funds from all schools and puts it at schools who don't need the funding in the first place.  After all, the wealthy will use their funds, extracted from the public trust, and put is where they believe they will get the higher ROI; which is where they are already putting their money anyway. 

Here's a good example.  How much does it cost to send a child to French American these days?  If all those parents sucked their tax money out of the SFUSD, and then put those funds somewhere, would they be inclined to select a public school or stick with French American? Of course, they would run with the vouchers to French American thankful that they got the extra capital they didn't need in the first place to prop up their school?  Who wins? The kid already going to French American, who by default can already afford it. Who loses? The public school system kids as those funds diverted to whatever private school would no longer be used to support our beloved SFUSD schools, as those who can will "spend it" elsewhere.

This is why I always say, there's a dramatic difference between an equal opportunity for an education and an equal opportunity for an EQUAL education....but I digress.

The GOP folks are only in it for themselves, and their plans lay that plain.  One day, I would love to find a fiscally responsible person who is also socially minded and vice versa in the same person...No wait, that's Obama.

It's Time for the People To Lead & Tell Our Elected Legislators to "Stop Clowning Around" with public school funding

In advance of tonight's School Site Council (SSC) and tomorrow's PTA meetings where many of us will be discussing the grim fiscal situation facing our wonderful school, we stand together lucky in that we are able to raise funds to support the values and programs we have grown to enjoy over the years.  Unfortunately, even as schools in the SFUSD are suffering, across the State we have a serious, potentially lethal fiscal problem to solve.

I encourage you to view this short video created by the folks at Educate our State. It's hard hitting and to the point.  It also issues a call to action.  Parents especially have been disengaged from the broader State-wide public school budget conversation.  We can no longer wait for our elected "leaders" to take the necessary steps to secure proper and adequate funding for all public schools across all grade levels (and public higher education as well).  It's time for us to stand up and lead our elected "leaders" because their politically generated circus has only resulted in harmful budget moves the effects of which you are most certainly fully aware (just how many furlough days are acceptable?).

Do me a favor. Watch this video. Take the steps to contact our legislators - or if you are from more remote districts originally, call your former representatives - and tell them to "Stop Clowning Around," and get serious about fully funding public education.  Remember, there's a serious difference between an equal opportunity for an equal education, and an equal opportunity for an EQUAL education.

Our kids can't wait, and their future children depend on us to act now.  They don't get a vote. But we do, and we can stand for what's right.  Join us and push out this message far and wide.

Share the link with your most conservative relatives.  Ask them to help as high quality education for all isn't a political concern. Securing proper and adequate funding is not only what's right for the future of our great state, but the first step in rectifying & turning around the extremely harmful trends/sentiment/political actions that are effectively destroying our once great public schools. 

Thank you

If you are not a member already, It's time to joing the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

I've been a member of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition for a great long time. They handle a great many of the very cool improvements across the city related to making the city safer for all manner of cyclists, and are on a mission to make it safe for every one ages 8 to 80 to ride a bike across the whole city. If you are not a member, please join up. I know you won't regret it.

Take the Sting Out of Education Funding Cuts - Make it go viral request email template

This is the text of the email I just drafted & sent off to the entire parent population at our school. You should feel free to borrow any and all of it to push out to your people as well. The aim is to make the video go viral.

Please do comment below when you use the material. Then come back to let us know how the email worked.

Dear All,


Most of you are gravely familiar with the dismal situation facing our public schools caused by a serious decline in funding over the last several years: hence the reason for the - insert annual fundraiser here - (Thanks to all the volunteers we had a record breaking year). After I termed out as your PTA president, I was recruited to serve on the Board for Educate our State. I'm grateful for all of this organization's efforts to boost the awareness that this budget as designed, indeed, is set to do school systems across the whole state irreparable harm.


To further the awareness campaign, Educate our State leaders have crafted a new video which I encourage you to share with all your friends, family, state legislators, and Governor Brown if you are comfortable doing so. We are trying to use social media outlets to make the video go viral. Please spread the video as far and wide as possible.


Beyond sharing the video, we would love every parent at - insert your school here- to take the time to stress to our representatives that the budget is broken and needs fixing by sending a letter, writing an email and generally demanding that our elected officials do their Constitutionally mandated duties by fully funding education to make our schools competitive to ensure there is a bright instead of dim future for the Great State of California. If you hit the link, it only takes about two minutes to do so.


Think of it this way: How likely is it that we should expect our school's Principal - insert your principal's name here and budget over-site body here- in particular to budget for next year on the extremely slim possibility that a November Ballot Measure that proposes to increase taxes will pass? The sad state of the situation is that the existing budget is broken, and the tax measure only would serve to keep it flat; if it passes at all. In my view, riding on a flat tire is not only foolish, but will make matters worse. I say fix it! And, I hope you will join me in amplifying the parent voice in this battle for a) our children, b) the children that come after them, and c) for the very well being of our whole State.

This Budget Blows: But We Can Do Something About it

Having served a couple of years a while back as the McKinley Elementary PTA president was a rewarding and eye opening experience. While the fund raising skills of the McKinley community remain strong and lever forward every year toward new heights, unfortunately, the budget malady affecting our wonderful school metastasizes across the SFUSD and our State in what seems to me to be a clear message from the good people of California: public schools don't matter & are no longer worth funding. 

If you look at the Governor's proposed budget, Mr. Brown is effectively holding a shotgun to the heads of our children in the form of a tax increasing ballot measure. If Mr. Brown's measure doesn't pass in November, the trigger means even more drastic cuts to the already threadbare budget from which they are asking our Principal and School Site Council to eek out whatever quality they can.  To get a feel for why this is a problem, just ask yourself one short question: How likely is it that in this politically charged climate that the people of California will vote to increases their taxes in November?

Although our State used to be at the top of the rankings, by many measures about a rough thirty years ago, we are now at or near the bottom and lowering the bar for what would be considered a dismal and declining set of priorities that put us on a pace to beat Mississipi and other low ranking States to even lower rankings (and sinking) in a number of areas.  This is not a partisan issue.  This is an issue that, should we demand it, could be solved in very short order by making some very difficult budgetary decisions that restore the necessary funding that, lo so many years ago, brought us to the top of the educational heap to put us back in the spotlight as a role model for how a State can educate its children.  It's a matter of making our priorities known and demanding better from our government "leaders."

While the rest of the country is distracted by endless debates about what's wrong with government, we the people of the Great State of California, the good city of San Francisco, and humble members of a wonderful McKinley school community must stand up and lead those who claim to lead our government before they blow it for our children and the children that come thereafter. On Thursday morning, 15 March, before school starts, many of us will brave whatever weather comes our way, and blow bubbles on the corner of 14th and Castro (starting at 7:30 AM), as a symbol of our grave and serious dissatisfaction of the fiscal calamity facing our school.  With no irony and complete intent, this action is taking place on a day when many of our great teachers may be issued pink slips, effectively firing them for yet another year in a row, and in solidarity with schools across the State, we are standing up for children, for public education, and for what used to be a shining example for the world of what was right with public schooling and shouting as loudly as possible in the hopes that some legislative Horton hear's our voices, loudly, clearly, and with irrevocable courage, comes to the aid our our children and the other fiscally foundering schools across this state and rectifies the intractable mess that our current budgetary malaise is. 

Our message is simple - "this budget blows!" We demand better. The Future of California depends on it.

If not us, who? If not now, when?

Come join us, Thursday morning, on the corner of 14th and Castro, at 7:30 AM before the opening bell. This may well be twenty minutes that change the tide and the invert the damage done.  

Regards, and I hope to see you all on Thursday Morning.

Aaron

Press Release: Camp Educate, November 11-13, 2011 Produced by Educate our State

Press Release

Fed Up parents “camp out” for better schools

San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA – September 21, 2011–  Outraged with a system that is failing their kids, parents are “camping out” and training themselves to better advocate for California public schools.
Now that their kids have headed back to school, the grassroots, parent-led group, Educate our State, plans to send their parents to camp. "Camp Educate" is a two day training session to help ordinary parent leaders become extraordinary parent advocates for our state's public school system. 

"We're tired of waiting for politicians and education reformers to solve our schools problems," says Crystal Brown, co-founder of Educate Our State. "The time has come for parents to unite from one end of the state to the other and demand high-quality public education for all of our children."

Already plagued by some of the lowest education funding levels and student achievement levels in the country, California faces additional massive funding cuts this spring unless the state’s economy turns around in the next two months.  The two-year-old non-profit plans its first inaugural “Camp Educate” in Los Angeles, November 11- 13 to show parents how to build a grassroots movement to demand high quality education for every child in California.

Training sessions will include such topics as: using social media tools to build and grow the movement, developing organizing skills and techniques to engage parents and community members, and creating local networks of like-minded parents looking for change.

Educate Our State has partnered with the New Organizing Institute (NOI), a dynamic training and education organization whose mission is to inspire democracy in action through engagement organizing. NOI-trained Educate Our State leaders and other parent advocates will facilitate Camp Educate’s training and information sessions.

“No matter what your politics are, public education is the civil rights issue of our era,” says event co- organizer Teri Levy, adding that participants should sign up before October 1st. “Come to Camp Educate if you want to make a difference for every child in California.”

www.educateourstate.org
###

Educational Myths & Assorted Rambling Solutions

One of my pet peeves is the continued propagation of myths about education and the enterprise that provides educational opportunities that misguide us toward solutions that, while well meaning, are based on false assumptions. The danger here is that truth is a slave to perception; not vice versa.

Even more precarious is designing solutions for problems defined by these perceptions. Most of all, when people from outside the industry start suggesting they have the answer that will solve all educational problems & ills with panacea-laced language, and they base those solutions on false assumptions, they risk harming the entire enterprise, in no short order.  When all is said and done, we should be wary of those who claim to be experts and suggest unequivocally that their solutions is the right pill to swallow, after all, it's not the known unknowns, but the unknown unknowns that come back to bite.

Thus, the point of this post is to aggregate the myths as they occur, to cast aside the illusion that any one person can remedy the situation that it took a whole society to create. In the end, the fix for modern public education from pre-K to graduate school will require full society engagement, not the lone superman who will come to solve the ills only to succumb to whatever Kryptonite sours the solution.

• Myth 1 - You need a college diploma to be successful. Sure, the research says in general, using the law of averages (and a few correlation coefficients), that if you only hold a high school diploma your earning potential is substantially lower than those holding college diplomas of many stripes, but there are numerous examples of extremely successful individuals who are absent degrees, and doing quite well (even if you cast aside Zuckerberg, Gates, and Jobs ).  What we really need is a much more inclusive, embracing & holistic definition of "success" that moves beyond the simple measures of fame and fortune/net worth as iconic and indicative of what matters in our society as proof of a successful life lived.  In fact, we may even need to take it a step further - that the only real, legitimate measure of success would involve and equation that is absent the fame and fortune variables.

• Myth 2 - All schools today [can] produce functional citizens educated to a minimum base line.  As the tag line for this blog indicated, there is a serious difference between an equal opportunity for an education and an equal opportunity for an equal education.  The key words to this phrase are "opportunity" & "equal."  Expecting an education is very different than earning an education, and an education doesn't necessarily require a school-based experience, although it's customary to assume the existing industrial model is the right treatment for all people.  The opportunities for quality educational experiences vary greatly, with typically disadvantaged populations egregiously and continuously receiving the extremely short end of the resource stick.  While all students may have an opportunity to earn an education, it may not be an equal opportunity; which the race to the top clearly highlights by the criteria by which they allocate resources.
  
  The critical assumption here is that if you introduce a child to school, then that simple exposure will result at the far end with an educated, fully functional adult as if there was nothing going on between input to output. This is simply not the case. The throughputs matter, and the student is a vital ingredient to success in the production of a quality education.  In other words, what is done pedagogically to a students is subservient to what that student does her or himself.  For this reason, I always advise new professionals in the field to avoid positions that ascribe any kind of responsibility for ensuring student learning in the job description because it leaves out a critical component of the learning paradigm, the student.  Invariably, the bottom line responsibility for quality education rests with the student rather than the teacher, and many times over happens despite the teaching.  In fact, many recall cases where our schools and their functionaries do harm to the students, and the students learn despite (in spite of) these disadvantages.
  
  Beyond reinventing the means by which we finance traditional education operations such that they are sustainable, supporting high quality operations across the board (to ensure an equal opportunity for an equal education), and not subject to the whims of political favor and the wild swings in our economy, what we need is an expanded definition of what constitutes "school," what qualifies as high quality pedagogy, and full involvement in the whole of society in the occupation of "teaching."

• Myth 3 - A diploma earned will convert to a job obtained.  The common assumption is that there are some diplomas that provide professional educations that should lead to certain occupations - say, the JD is to lawyers as the MD is to physicians.  However, all diplomas yield no promise of related employment (e.g. the number of MBAs who are not working in business administration, or MFAs working in coffee houses).  Over the course of the last few decades, many have been led down the primrose path with the assumption that any brand of education will lead to certain and diploma related employment.  Prospective students should be wary of false promises of jobs at the far end of degree receipt.  In fact, prospective students should be skeptical, and ask specifically about what the curriculum will or should provide, not what might come after the program is concluded.  What we need is a redirection for what qualifies and serves as a measure of successful completion of a degree program from what happens after the "education" is "obtained" (as in job landed) toward what happens to the student during the program (the transformation of the individual as measured at the beginning by setting a baseline, and measured against their progress at the far end).  Because all students learn differently, any new (or old) measure of successful learning must be customized and tailored to a person, and should be balanced around what the "educators" expect to occur during whatever curriculum (hopefully balanced around clearly defined learning outcomes) they believe to be valuable at whatever school they build.

• Myth 4 - All student success can be measured by standardized tests.  I'm not the first to say this, but "there is nothing more inherently unequal than the equal treatment of unequals."  Most of us are unable to remember the days before there was widespread standardized testing across all schools.  The results of the standardized testing experiment should be readily apparent at this time.   Balance that with the current suggestion that schools were better in the days of yore versus today, and we should ask are you satisfied with the result?  If you agree that all students learn differently, why should we subject them to the same test at the same age?  Perhaps more inciting, the very suggestion that tests should be standardized carries with it a subliminal message that we don't trust our highly educated teachers to know and understand their pupils such that they can customize tests based on their intimate knowledge of the children they are teaching.  In the days ahead, where conversations about our near possible ability to customize drugs to a person's own DNA, why can't we customize tests to the individual child? The assumption that tests must be standardized as if we had no ability to do otherwise, is wholly false.  What we need is to push out the multi-billion dollar standardized testing industry to allow for non-standardized teaching and testing so that customized education occurs at levels closest to the students that meets the learning styles of all. Granted, this is an expensive approach, but we should all find the mediocrity that our current system produces unacceptable.  If we saved the money we poured into the testing industry and spent it educating our children, we might get a better quality result.

What Happens When Educational Reform Needs Reform?

I hate the word "reform." It really doesn't go to the heart of what education in America needs - a complete overhaul of the basic architecture as what we have built upon was laid in the mid-nineteenth century.  The 21st century is substantially different.

The reality is that technology is there; education and learning can be completely customizable.  However, the barbaric or if you would like to call it industrial, or militaristic infrastructure for educational operations won't allow full blown customization as it views children as scrap metal to be molded rather than thinking individuals that should be cut lose from the restrictions of our institutionalize infrastructure.  Well, that, and individualized education will be highly expensive.

Even so, it seems crazy to me that we are at the cusp of considering personalized designer drugs bent around a person's DNA, but we can't talk about individualized and customized education woven around a person's learning styles.  One seems less expensive than the other, but which one might save more lives?

Part of the trouble with fixing education is that "educational reform" itself needs reformation. The bigger question is, if we were to build out say, a completely LEED Platinum Certified equivalent of a new architecture for education across the board, what would it look like?  That's not simply reform of what we have. I'm calling for a complete transformation of how we go about education in America.  The time has come before the entire educational operation sags and breaks under the heavy bureaucratic malaise that has gotten us where we are today.  Reform, as a practice, needs reform.

Assignment Processes Which Are Inherently Unfair Prove That We Have Disparity Among Our Schools

I read this guest post over at Rachael Norton's blog, and had to respond. I'm parking my response here as it's awaiting moderation, and I don't know it will be published. Time will tell.

This question goes direct to the very troubling concern that we, even though it has been an ambition for a great long while, have proof and ongoing longitudinal evidence that there is a serious difference between an equal opportunity for an education, and an equal opportunity for an EQUAL education.

I used to say that the good thing about the SFUSD assignment process was that, although it was arbitrary and unfair, at least it was arbitrary and unfair to every one. With this post and comments, I may have been off. Gaming the system is a natural side effect of the whole process - as parents we are notorious for at least trying to look out for our own children and doing what it takes to get them the education they need. But my experience - having received none of my top choices in either of the two iterations of the assignments process, and having had to badger the counselors at the SFUSD with weekly in person visits until about mid-to late August before getting in to our neighborhood school - if it's reflective of the process it takes to get your kid into the closest school, the process is most certainly broken.

I'm not certain that PTA sharing or partnering will work the way this post suggests as I know that many PTAs are just struggling trying to get any kind of involvement out of it's membership and just focusing on your own school's operation is a giant time and money sink as it sits. If I was pushed to partner with another school, I'm not certain I would have the energy for it, nor would I know the community well enough to determine the best way to engage them (just ask leaders of the Second District how hard it is to get system wide participation in any of their events). Parental/Guardian energy is a limited resource, and if you are a single parent, raising two/three kids, where do you find the time to pump into offsetting the poor investments of the SFUSD, particularly if you have to work two jobs just to put food on the table? You are lucky if you have some kind of energy to invest in the PTA functions of your own schools.

What we need is a complete mind-shift of the entire population that looks at schools not as babysitting functional units for our society, but as investment vehicles for our future. This would require an overhaul of how we finance the whole operation, and a doubling and tripling down on the investments, and a individual, customizable approach to improving all the schools in the entire system and spreading out the wealth unequally - yes, I said unequally - as we known that there is nothing more inherently unfair than the equal treatment of unequals. This means that those schools that are already well off and hitting all the performance measure would get the least amount of resources, and the under performing schools would get all the money and energy that would bring them up. Those high performing schools have a culture of parental involvement that would off set the diminished resources, and the would be better spent as investments in the lower performing schools.

Moreover, we have to break the shackles of standardization so that we unleash the creativity so that people can experiment within the schools to bring the curriculum in to the new century. The schools today are operating as if it were still 1982, it seems. And in this new Millennium, our children will demand it. When do we see the promise of charter schools realized as it was the original intent for experimentation to happen in them, and then the best practices replicated in the mainstream operation, no? It seems as if the charter school operations get all the resources for inventiveness, but there is no reciprocity where they sink energy into improving the mainline schools at all.

There are no easy, cheap answers, but Idealistic Mama is right on one point in particular, among many, that the fundamental flaw with the assignment system is that all schools are not equal, and we have a long way to go to make it right. Until every neighborhood school is desirable and parents in the hood fight to attend, we won't see this arbitrary and unfair system shift.

It's Time To Double Down on Public Education

Those of you who have not been paying attention to the really awful budget situation in the Great State of California, may not know that even the best case scenario means a nasty multi-million dollar cut to public education.

When the children of California become caught in a nasty political squeeze play that has shaped the American political landscape over the last decade, you know that politics has sunk to a new low. No more politics as usual. We can't afford the political gamesmanship & our great State's future depends on fully & adequately, and dare I say it, even lavishly funding our public schools.

Let's show our elected officials the honorable way out and let them know that we won't sit quietly by while they mortgage the future of California for personal gain. It's time for the people to lead and the politicians to follow. All our children are all our children and they should bleed no further. Stop the hemorrhaging.

When cuts to education pull the already bottoming out budgets to below sustainable levels, the effect is a gutting of the schools by carving into infrastructure eviscerating the whole operation. In our city, for example, none of the Elementary schools have a vice principal - as if, there was no need for a lieutenant in charge of the many facets that Vice Principals used to stand watch over. Music, language arts, drama, and even science - yes science - have been relegated to enrichment programs as if they were afterthoughts to the required and mandatory curriculum dictated by standardized tests. Don't even get me started about how unbalanced a standardized, fixed, test-driven curriculum is and why it is a fundamentally flawed way to treat all children - as if they were automatons and learn in a uni-dimensional fashion.

Indeed, our State is in a financial pickle. But if you believe the hype that we are broke as a community, you are buying into the propaganda shoveled in heaping piles by those on the right that believe our money is better off in their pockets. Now is not the time to slash and burn California's and for that matter America's schools. Now is the time to invest in the children. Instead of decimating OUR schools, I say double down on public education, shoot we can even use the money raised by tripling down on public education.

Think about it. How much does it cost to incarcerate an individual? While it is not possible to calculate the good value a fantastically educated child can drive, but we most certainly know that uneducated individuals are a fiscal and social drain on every aspect of the very fabric of our society. Wouldn't you rather invest in the children at the front end and hopefully divert as many children into viable careers by educating them in positive ways?

We can't afford to settle on any thing less as a Nation, as if we abandon the investments in all our children, we abandon our own selves as a society. The status quo, and the initiatives driven from the right are not my values, and don't yield the America I believe in. And if you believe in all our children, you would support superior schools from the ground up as a means of investing in our future. In the long run, doubling, even tripling down on public education will save us money, and the ROI will be enormous; almost incalculable - priceless you might add.

Reindeer, 2.5 Doz. Hell's Angels, and a Mitt full of Chinese Badminton Players

Thanksgiving's traditional morning run yesterday was on the chilly side, but bright and sunny. Typically, I've been counting homeless folk on this day as a very informal measure of how we are doing on the home front in comparison to all the other social endeavors such as the multi-billion a day habits we have in Iraq and Afghanistan. This year the count promised to be rather different, but in the end, finished off with a modest number of homeless folk counted.

On the panhandle, I spotted my first two folk, one cozied up next to his shopping cart, reclining on a mess of cushions basking in the sun near the DMV. The other was underneath the DMV building overhang. And, those of you familiar with our park, know that I wasn't even in the park technically at that time. On normal, non-holiday weekends, you can see anywhere from 3 to about a dozen homeless encamped in various locations on the panhandle. Thanksgiving morning I couldn't find any. I thought, perhaps, this year would be the year where there was a noticeable drop in homeless folk out and about.

I got well past the panhandle, following my traditional Thanksgiving set of trails in the customary counter clockwise direction. No homeless folks on the usual benches or under their typical trees, sleeping. The first sign of real life in the park was about a half to full dozen Chinese badminton players hitting birdies about, getting exercise near the chess playing area. Unusual, I thought to my self, but not unheard of. I've seen a similar group in a similar location at a similar time in other parts of the year. Could be a club or bunch of neighbors gathered for the usual morning repast of badminton exercise. Looked like fun.

The next signs of life I saw in the park were about dozen or two of Chinese line dancers in formation across the street from the rhododendron grove. They seemed to be enjoying themselves being led by an older gentleman booming 1980s synth-pop tunes and doing some kind of hustle, but with nary a smile among them. Perhaps that comes with dancing for exercise versus the plastic nature of competitions like Dancing with the Starts.

Looping back toward the Academy of Science, of all things, I noticed a new paddock on the North side of the building. Inside the paddock were harnessed up reindeer - two. Good looking animals, seemingly well cared for. They looked like the same ones they usually have out at the zoo this time of year. No doubt, here for the season or children to get educated about what real reindeer are all about.

Even so, no homelessness baring my first two sighted well before the actual park. As I looped around I made it to the meadow near the Sharon Building just past the tennis courts with two sets of doubles drama unfolding, and there, low and behold, were five homeless folks, and what looked like a flock of aging yuppies (blue jeens and sweatshirts on almost all of them) looking like they were up to the good work of helping the nearly non-existent homeless. I kept running. In years past, I've seen about two dozen homeless in this same location.

As I exited the park, I saw the usual pack of about 5 homeless on the steps to the McDonald's sipping on cheep coffee, munching on various sausage muffins. As I ran down Haight Street, I counted a handful more homeless, meandering about with shopping carts or backpacks, looking disheveled and unshaven. Not a lot of women, in the bunch, mind you.

As I continued to the mid-Height area, I caught my first glimpse of the usual set of Hell's Angles milling about in front of the usual cafe sipping lattes and generally seeming like in a good mood. I counted well past 24 Harley-Davidsons parked wheel to wheel. So, I'm guessing there was something like 30 or so folks with more incoming as you could hear the thunder rolling up Haight once I got past the flock of Angels.

Surprisingly, there were zero homeless to report in the Buena Vista park, although I could see what looked like a tent from the trail I was on. No verifiable persons inside as I usually just go for the obvious. In all, counted 1.5 doz homeless. Down from years past, and substantially less than big burly men driving very expensive motorcycles all with Hell's Angels emblazoned on their backs.

Have a great remainder to your Holiday folks.

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An open letter to SFUSD Superintendent Carlos Garcia

Dear Superintendent Garcia,

I was going to copy your Associate, but I seem to have misplaced his card and I would appreciate it if you could forward this email to him. While I had a chance to talk with him at the tail end of the meeting, I had to leave to go over to Everett for the session there before talking with you.

First, thank you for taking your time to meet with the Second District PTA. It's always nice to interact with people leading the SFUSD. As I am the PTA president of McKinley Elementary, many of our families are deeply concerned about the new feeder program, and I had some follow up questions.

1 - I like that there will be 4 million dollars coming from the SIG to infuse into Everett. When you have the plan outlined as to what that money will be used for, I'm sure that the various families entering Everett would like to have a look at it (the sooner the better). We want to see what kinds of improvements are planned as many of our children will matriculate through Everett.

2 - What is the plan to sustain the changes implemented over the next four years once that money evaporates? In five years, the heavy fiscal burden will shift, but to where? It would be important for people with children now in Kindergarten to know that they will not be taxed or asked to make up the short fall in some way. How will the four years of four million dollars be supplemented with another sustainable revenue source so that Everett will not be heavily dependent upon the PTA for raising the million dollars a year to continue whatever programs are in place at that time?

This is akin to McKinley's loss and draw down of STAR Funding over the last two years. As STAR funding evaporated, our PTA has had to take up the slack and fund various initiatives that were otherwise covered with STAR funding.This was very disappointing and felt a bit like a bait and switch as the programs & staff in place that drew many families into McKinley were no longer supported by any funding. Fortunately, our McKinley PTA is very healthy and we were able to resuscitate many enrichment programs that families came to expect under star funding. With the Everett situation, it would be critically important to not only know the SFUSD pans for the next four years, but what will you do to continue to support the school beyond that time frame in a fiscally responsible way.

3 - When I was talking with your assistant superintendent (I think that's his title), he mentioned that with the 4 million dollars going into Everett over the next few years, the SFUSD was planning to do some things that will allow District staff to experiment and try out new approaches. What might those be?

4 - Given that the SFUSD is already hosting & fully funding several educational experiments in the form of the various charter schools, what is your plan to infuse any best practices into Everett and other mainline schools across the SFUSD?

What we have is a disconnection between what the promise of charter schools are and the learning that is supposed to move back into the mainstream schools. While the City and it's taxpayers have been supporting the various charter schools, and allowing them to invent new ways of delivering education, there hasn't been any corresponding transference of learning from those best practices back into the mainstream schools that I'm aware of. This seems to be a collapse of the two way street promise of charter schools - in other words, there appears to be learning and growing at the charter schools, but there's no transference back to mainstream schools.

5 - Finally, if we can't learn from existing experiments at charter schools, how do we expect to improve what we have existing? It appears to me that we could save time, energy and resources, by simply replicating charter school best practices at mainline schools. If there is a plan, which I think you wouldn't operate without, then the sooner it is opened for viewing, the less backlash you will see from the public.

The Everett forum on the feeder program, on the same Tuesday evening as our second district reception, was at times caustic and some times sane, but I'm afraid the messages promulgated by the parents & guardians assembled will be dismissed as rants from an ill informed public. We are dependent upon you for disbursal of accurate information and plans, and as with all change, it's better to opt for frequent and informative missives rather than one time forums that come after policies are put in motion.

One other observation from the Everett evening. It appears that there is a special interest based on the feedback I heard from families sending their children through the different immersion programs. They are a loud and vociferous group, and justifiably disturbed on the prospect of having their children funneled from an immersion school of their choosing, into a school with none. Perhaps the SFUSD should reconsider the funnel pattern to allow this special interest to go to the usual schools that they traditionally matriculate with after elementary school. There is an existing, subliminal, quasi-feeder program already in operation which gets those in immersion programs fed to the right immersion middle school.

Perhaps like the groundskeepers at a new campus are wise to let the students trample the grass and then put in sidewalks, perhaps there are more natural patterns for those in immersion programs that should be honored. It may reduce the flak, but my finer point is that we shouldn't let those who are the most loud dictate the direction for the whole operation. It's debatable as to if the immersion program is really not just a native language program for students who experience English as their second language (which if you observe the bulk of the immersion students, might there be an overabundance of native Chinese or Spanish speakers in them, for example? This is not a fact based question, but something I've wondered for a while).

Suffice it to say, at the Everett program on Tuesday evening, there were some heated opinions launched at your staff, but in the mix, were also some cooler heads. I would hate for any reactions to be knee jerk in the wrong direction that offer concessions to any one group for simply the fact that they are the most vocally vociferous.

I would be happy to talk about this email or any aspect of your plan over coffee any time. I work at Powell and Market and could easily meet you at Blue Bottle on the Mint Plaza. If you have time, I will bend my schedule to meet yours.

Regards and best of luck solving this concern as all our children's fate is in your hands.

When You Click On The Porn, Best Not To Do It While The Cameras Are Rolling On The Florida Senate Floor

Found this from my slash/dot rss feed:

Joke From The Internet: "Who's Really Lost?"

A friend forwarded this joke from some where:

Lost

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him,
"Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level.
You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

"She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be an Obama Democrat."
"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information and I'm still lost.

Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You've risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air.
You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem.
You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it's my fault."

A New Promise For American Children: An Open Letter To Those Controlling Budgets For Public Schools

Today's pubic education funding calamity was long in the making by us, and our collective governments (local, state, and national).  Yet, even in light of an overly exuberant push to bail out failing banks & other companies with copious taxpayer dollars, we appear fully ready to accept this crisis in education funding as if it is a done deal.    It doesn't have to end with the assured collapse of our entire set of public education operations from the bottom (elementary schools)  up (Colleges and Universities). Let's all make "A New Promise To America's Children."

When we turn to place blame, the fingers should not point too boldly at any one person.  The crisis for public funding for public goods such as education and other social services has deep historical roots, firmly growing and fertilized by greed.  Why else would it be okay for failed bankers to receive record bonuses while teachers receive pink slips?  This artificial, man-made crisis may have begun with the new era of conservatism foisted on us by Ronald Reagan and his ilk.   When, in 1984, Reagan decided to raise the drinking age and simultaneously shrink the dollars available for financial aid to college students and ushered in the closing of various public asylums, we witnessed a shift in priorities and values that went fully unchanged and off the rails culminating with G.W. Bush's eight years at the helm.  Instead of legislating for justice, the "majority" went whole hog legislating for morality.  The trouble is, morality is subjective.  Justice is not. Egalitarianism can be measured, as evidenced by a persons' actions (how she or he votes for various legislative propositions, for example) juxtaposed with how he or she spends her or his money and time.

Frankly, I'm less disturbed by our government than I am disgusted by the good people of our State.  Our government is us.  We are government.  Those who would sling the poisonous darts of blame at our elected representatives might be better served Michael Jackson's ubiquitous advice and look in the mirror.

It appears that that our short sighted and greedy, self-centered (perhaps full evidence of the maturation of Reagan's "me generation")  approach to living life in our communities is selling our future short.  Essentially, today's disastorous approach to funding public education across the board is working to throw our collective children "under" instead of placing them respectfully on the bus.  Rather than invest in long term prosperity by paying for high quality education for all, the budget for public education is no where near adequate.  Not only is the bus we are tossing our children under rusted, undetectably yellow with age, but we have sold the wheels to China to enable the shipment of the transmission to Iraq to drive unarmored Humvees over IEDs that were not there before we got there.

Fundamentally, when we toss the children under a broken down, rusted, burned out bus and expect them to get out from under it themselves, we know our value system is morally bankrupt.  And, the great experiment to legislate morality has collapsed; our children bearing the full weight of our errors.

What's the answer? Unfortunately, it does not fit into a sound bite suitable to sell advertisements on various talk shows (a la O'Reilly, Beck, Stewart & Colbert) or what passes for "news" (shoved down the masses throats by the likes of Murdoch at Fox).  The answer is not "smaller" government but right-sized government with the proper priorities backed up by values steeped in justice, not simply pushing a morality play to tease the political system for whatever political advantage (which only serves to cleave our Country even further).  Our government is distracted by things like "don't ask, don't tell," while it should be more interested in ensuring our children have the right number of teachers, who go to school in a buildings that are not crumbling down around them.  The answer is not less money for schools and more money for prisons guards or bankers who continue to screw with our economy.  The answer rests in a better investment in high quality education, not the false choice between pink slips or furloughs.  How much did AIG execs earn from their work over the course of 2009?

We all intuitively understand that there is a substantial difference between an equal opportunity for education and an equal opportunity to an equal education.  Today's budget does not reflect even a commitment to a basic level of quality education.  The collective effect of this budget does more than just monetary damage to our public schools. It demoralizes the very people entrusted to energize our children for a prosperous future full of the skills necessary for ensuring a passion for life long learning.

While we could live with a few less banks and bankers, we cannot survive as a society without high quality educational operations (and you don't get something for nothing).  These are drastic times that require dramatic action.  We are not getting any help from a people who would rather unload millions of dollars to stop same-sex marriage instead of investing those dollars sending children to great schools.  Let's together, all make a promise.  I call this "A New Promise to America's Children."

In this promise, we put down our partisan differences.  We work together to fix what is broken, not with an aim to affect curriculum that dictates a particular morality, but toward improving and sustaining our schools rather than closing them down.  We promise to stop spending money buying politicians even despite the recent SCOTUS decision that unleashes capitalists to effectively buy influence ordinary people cannot afford.  Let's promise, instead, to invest in better teaching and more educational enrichment that improves schools instead of bland, standardized tests that squash and kill enthusiasm for education and learning.  Let's promise to commit to greening our facilities so that we bring our infrastructure for public schools into the new millennium, such that children want to be there instead of needing to hold their noses and close their eyes simply so they can use the restrooms.  How many of you would like to go to work in some of the schools that children go to every day? 

Let us promise to not be greedy, but cultivate capitalism with a conscience that supports public education as an investment in their future work force rather than treats students and schools solely commercially; as as if they were only potential future customers.  Let us promise to not throw our next generation of leaders under the broken down bus, minimally, because they will remember how we have treated them when we are aged, needing their care, and dependent upon their good will to maintain our quality of life.

The New Promise to America's Children is about supporting education above entertainment.  We should be about instilling passion for learning, and providing the customized care necessary to meet students where they are at developmentally and functionally delivering the kinds of education they need.   This rarely means standardized testing as treating all as if they were the same is an inherent flaw to that approach.  As Ken Blanchard said long ago, there is nothing more inherently unequal than the equal treatment of unequals.

Good education is costly &  class sizes that work for all; expensive.  Just ask why parents that send their children to private schools are willing to shell out funds larger than the many a university's tuition.  But in America, were many believe the freedom isn't free, we must regroup and extinguish the mindset that brought us to this brink.

In the words of one of the Sherman Six, we must not waste a perfectly good crisis.  We must take this opportunity to reshape our whole approach to public education. At the base is redesigning a sustainable funding pattern that doesn't rise and fall with the whim of politicians and the sinful economic damage caused by greedy people selling such things as credit default swaps (which by the way are still legal financial vehicles) and other unsound economic practices that produce high yield for a few, and large damage for most. 

Let's invert the conversation. Instead of blame, let's discuss what makes public education great.  What should we stop doing? What should we start doing? What should we tweak to improve? What's working really well?  The job of our government leaders are to fund what works, not cut what's already thread bare.  Instead of slicing education from the top down, let's figure out how to build high quality schools and build a budget from there.  We already know what it really costs to deliver what we currently deliver.  Our New Promise to America's Children should involve building a new, improved system from the ashes created by the practice that has led us to this point.  It starts at the grass roots.

We can begin at the school level, and design an operation with a budget that works. Send the bill on up (instead of the top down driven S.O.P), and further that bill to our legislators.  If they are unable to fund great public schools, let's vote the bastards out and find some that can.

• Message to our legislators: what is your new promise to America's children?  If you fail to support improved funding of our public schools, you face a vote against you in the next election.
• Message to the corporate leaders whom we patronize: If your spend on political leaders and lobbyists is more than your investment in public educaiton, expect us to boycott you.
• Message to school leadership: Don't give up the fight.  Your constituents are pissed & we are not going to accept a passive approach to fixing what's wrong with the current situation.  Action is what we demand.  What are you doing today to improve the plight for schools across the board?

Who's with me?

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Whoo Hoo - over 100K page views!

Out of curiousity, I hit my site meter today. Found out I've got over 100K page views.

Total 100,195
Average Per Day 14
Average Per Visit 1.2
Last Hour 1
Today 16
This Week 98

Don't Misunderestimate Me (an original poem by moi)

As our little Miss Muffet
Sat astride her tuffet
snarfing her strudel
sipping Cabernet

I, the decider
Sat down beside her
Asking favors &
Could she come out to play

Wryly, Muffet replied
What I've spied
Is a government that lied
Misunderestimating me all the way

My Two Cents to Our State Senators - Sent on the 4 March Day of Action

Dear...

I work for the California State University system at San Francisco State. I'm also the PTA president of my sons' elementary school.

I'm very disappointed with the existing climate for funding in public education across the board. It appears to me that the good people of California have abandoned public education as a public good. This is clearly demonstrated by the massive cuts to fund education at all levels.

Frankly, it's the responsibility of good governement to fund education to excel, not simply to function as a placeholder (or glorified babysitter) for students. I suggest we invert the budget process as we know exactly how much great schools, colleges and universities cost. We compose the budget at the grass roots level, you fund it. Not the other way round, where you parcel out whatever meager funds and require the schools and colleges to deal with it.

As students, parents, faculty and staff are preparing to raise public awareness of the destructive effects that budget cuts have had on public education, workforce development, and the state economy, I am writing to implore you to support Governor Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal that includes the restoration all monies to public education. This will mean great sacrifice, to perhaps even your salaries. But if you want a talented pool of adults to emerge from our great schools, you have to fund it.

I was at the Town Hall meeting in February, and was encouraged by many of the ideas put out there in terms of how to raise funds for public education. This should also be wrangled for the Community College as well as the CSU and the UC.

Because people suggest strongly that they don't want more taxes is no excuse for the crumbling and dismantling of educational operations across the board. I won't accept it. Living in this great State as well as the United States doesn't come for free. To go from tops in the nation to foisting the budget calamity on the backs of our students is irresponsible and an indicator that the government doesn't have it's priorities properly set. I'm angry, not because I work in the system, but because the current fiscal situation basically risks our future outright.

Your actions speak loudly. Make them count by advancing the cause and voting appropriately otherwise we won't vote for you. Reducing the 2/3rds requirement to make budget decisions seems wise. Fixing the corporate landlord loophole in Prop 13 also wise. Leno's idea of a 1% surcharge on all entertainment dollars also seems wise. How can we have a lower dollar expense than Guam on arts education when we live in the entertainment capital of the globe?

The numbers are ugly and you cannot put lipstick on a pig to make her look snazzy enough to kiss. Any way you slice it, we have to begin to appeal to the good people of our great State, and suggest to them that the burden of responsibility rests with the people. It's your job to lead us, and I'm not shirking my responsibility to hold your feet to the fire.

Simply because a California resident doesn't have kids in a public school or attending one of the outstanding state universities doesn't mean that s/he shouldn't care about the climate for public education across the various systems. In fact, we all should care more because the system churns out creative and inventive adults, that will hopefully result in fantastic employees for the foreseeable future.

Continue in the direction we are headed, and you might as well start investing in more jails. And I know which investment I would rather make. Schools and education improve society: not more prisons. Perhaps now is the time to consider a complete inversion of our budgetary priorities - convert jails to schools, and educate the inmates rather than simply incarcerate them. Then you may find that education is the key remedy to many ills.

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Is the Academic Apocalypse Really A-Comin'?

Don Heller wrote a provocative piece today at his location, indicating that we may be on the verge of an Academic Apocalypse:

I'm sorry to report that, after sitting through part of the hearing this week, it is unlikely that this Joint Committee is going to be able to resolve the problems facing higher education in California.  It is clear that the fiscal constraints facing the state are unlikely to be removed without large-scale changes to the political structures there.  This would include changing laws and initiative petitions that have restricted the ability of the legislature and governors to raise the tax revenues necessary to support a world-class higher education system.  It would likely also require changing the earmarking of parts of the state budget to purposes such as K-12 education and corrections, both of which leave little flexibility for funding higher education when federal mandates such as Medicaid spending are taken into account.

For some reason, I was not able to comment on the blog, but I do have a response. I'm posting it here for posterity:

Don,

Next time you are this close, do ring me up. I would love to connect over coffee, lunch or a beer - or something stronger as the situation warrants.

The grim reality of the situation in California reflects the abandonment of public education as a public good - across the board - by the good people of California. Really, for example, the public schools below the collegiate levels are being forced to talk about suing the state to gain back some funding to adequately support our schools - It's truly sad that, essentially, we have to sue ourselves, and the only people who will win will be the lawyers (no doubt salivating over billable rates and monster fees). As to if the children will win eventually would be pure speculation at this time.

Perhaps we have a redundancy problem - the bureaucratic infrastructure across just the CSU is enormous. The choice between a 10% pay cut spreading the malaise across all campuses last year is symptomatic of people not willing to make hard decisions. We could have closed 1.5 campuses instead of cutting salaries, and saved the money to pay people to do 100% of the job at 100% the salary. Instead, we are doing 100% of the job with 10% less time and money to do it. It's unfair and harmful to the students.

Unfortunately, the legal structure of the state prevents us from actually fixing this situation. Might we actually think of a solution that takes advantage of the situation? What would that be?

I have been suggesting a five tired (not all steps are related) approach:

1. Reduce bureaucratic infrastructure and close the CSU Chancellor's office except necessary functions like IT and CSU Mentor application process. Push out the resources to the campuses and have them serve students directly. If you don't have a skill that can serve students directly, you are put on furlough for the duration.
2. Close the lowest serving campuses and allow those facilities to be rented out or sold off to the highest bidder to generate positive cash flow (for example, CSU Monterey Bay, and moving the Cal Maritime Academy to SDSU).
3. Invert the tenure process where new hires have tenure for the first seven years (essentially protected to build their academic repertoire), and then you stand on your own record. Presently, those who need tenure don't have it, and those who have tenure don't need it. In that way we can carve away the slack in those who are fullly tenured, but are not pulling their weight - essentially doning the least amount of work for the most amount of pay.
4. Allow administrators with the credentials to teach courses that have been typically taught by adjunct guns for hire - in that way, it improves the ability of administrators to serve students beyond their administrative functions.
5. Admit only the number of state subsidized students to the max capacity (whatever the state budget allocation allows), and then charge full market rates (what it really costs to deliver high quality education) for students who are a) out of state students, and b) people who still want to come to the college, but didn't submit their applications early enough, or are not the cream of the application pool. In this way, we could accept the max capacity number of students, and get the proper amount of dollars to fund the courses they take. It seemed odd to me that we would restrict admissions at a time when people really wanted to come back to school to upgrade their skills or change up their careers. There are a large number of people that could have afforded the full rate and would willingly return to school at the full cost. Instead, we cut them out as if there was no room in the classrooms.

Of course, these are radical solutions, which really didn't see the light of day. No one from the CSU Chancellor's office, the University or the State has been asking for my advice. But, radical times require frame breaking change. More of the same only gets you more of the same. And, that's the very definition of lunacy - doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

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