CURMUDGUCATION: The Obligations of Wealth + KY: Charter Salvation? + Involving Introverts + ICYMI: In like a lamb

CURMUDGUCATION: The Obligations of Wealth:

The Obligations of Wealth

This is not the blog piece you think it's going to be.

I am not going to write about how the Waltons or the Gates or the Kochs or the Rich Folks Whose Names I Don't Know should live their lives, spend their money, and generally behave themselves. It's not, mind you, that I don't have some thoughts about it. But those are not the wealthy people I'm going to write about today.

I'm going to write about me.

It's fun to focus righteous rage on Those People and condemn the profligate wealthy and their terrible use of their privilege and power and money. But years ago I needed to face up to something. I live in a rural/small town area, one that once upon a time has a decent industrial base, but has lost much of that over the past fifty years. We're not destitute. But we live among the residual pieces of an earlier wealth, the churches and homes and other fine buildings erected 150 years ago by oil barons and captains of industry. Want a beautiful Victorian home dirt cheap? We've got the places for you-- but you need to bring your own job.

As a teacher with thirty years in, I'm pretty well off. I make above the median pay for the county. Hugely above the per capita income for the county. I own my own home, and while it's neither large or without issues, it's also right up against the river and close to the center of town. I have reliable transportation (no small thing-- in the country homelessness isn't nearly as problematic as transportationlessness), and I'm only six minutes from work. I'm not rich in any absolute sense, and I have plenty of bills to pay with a paycheck that doesn't always stretch as far as would be handy. There are things I'd like to have that I can't afford, a level of security and insulation I'd love to provide my family, but can't. 

So, to be clear, I am not arguing that I am overpaid and that our next teacher contract should roll our pay back. Because it shouldn't. But that's not what I'm talking about.

It is not easy for me to talk about this. It's not easy to talk about possessing privilege. I don'tCURMUDGUCATION: The Obligations of Wealth: 

KY: Charter Salvation?

Kentucky is one of the few states without a charter law. But what they do have is a new governor, and Matt Bevin would love to bring Kentucky into the loving embrace of the charter industry.

Kentucky residents are getting a crash course in the charter biz. That includes all of the usual arguments, including Education Secretary Hal Heiner's call to put adult interests aside and Do It For The Children. Heiner is a long-standing charter booster and real estate developer who actually ran against Bevin in the governor's race; after defeating him, Bevin appointed him ed secretary.

Heiner and Bevin believe that the children of Kentucky need more choices, but Dr. Donna Hargens, superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools, points out that the district offers 18 magnet schools and 52 magnet and optional programs.

Charter proponents have been pitching Indiana as a success story, including the Tindley schools of Indianapolis, and that turns out to underline the problem-- Tindley schools have just turned out to be in the middle of a financial mess, and their visionary leader will step down at the end of the year with some of his personal spending under attack. The school has been accused of having a high suspension rate, and there's also a case to be made that some Tindley charters have been the point of the spear for gentrification of neighborhoods.

But most of all, Indiana is one more place where it's becoming evident that you can't have a charter system without hitting the taxpayers up for more money. Tindley's charter company was itself begging just a few years ago when it took over Arlington High and found the finances insufficient for the job. Indiana is a bigger charter mess than we can get into here, but one thing they have KY: Charter Salvation?

Involving Introverts

I'm never a fan of embracing technology for technology's sake, but I do love a good technological solution to a teaching problem, and I have found some technology is an absolute boon to engaging introverts.

It helps, of course, to understand what the heck an introvert is. Introverts aren't necessarily shy, and don't hate all human contact. But interaction is work. The classic distinguisher for extroverts and introverts-- two people go to a party, where both mingle and talk and have a good time with all the folks in the room, but the extrovert comes out pumped up and ready to go do something else, and the introvert emerges wrung out and ready to settle into his own chair in his own room in his own home by his own self.

Some extroverts really don't get introversion and suffer from the notion that introversion is a problem that needs to be solved. This can be problematic in a classroom; many introverts can tell you a story of some extroverted teacher who decided to force the introvert to come out of her shell, or to get more engaged with the other students in the room.

When I take a test like, say, the Myers-Briggs inventory, I peg the introvert-o-meter. But I've been a performing amateur musician my whole life, and I was a union president. Your introvert students can do everything that your extroverts can; they just may approach it a bit differently.

Years ago I discovered Moodle, an open-source learning platform. One of its features was a discussion board that allowed threaded conversations. It was handy for any number of classroom Involving Introverts

ICYMI: In like a lamb

Let's kick of March with some good readings, both new and old.

Why I'm Not Impressed with Effective Teachers

Timothy Shanahan makes an important distinction between effective teachers and effective teaching.

Shut Up and Sit Down

Joshua Rothman in the New Yorker looks at our dangerous leadership obsession, tracing it up through the current leadership industry which assumes that leadership and power can be decoupled.

21st Century Learning, Inc

From a couple of years ago, here's Tara Ehrcke's look at the business of 21st century learning, and why it is a bunch of hooey and a marketeer's drea.

Marc Tucker and Common Core Fuel Injection

You probably read this, and you definitely should have. Mercedes Schneider hoists Marc Tucker by his own badly constructed metaphorical fuel injector.

The ESSA Negotiated Rulemaking Committee

A breakdown of who, exactly, is on that committee to flesh out the details of ESSA.

A Bill of Rights for School Children

Russ Walsh has a book coming out soon. I've already read it, and I recommend it not just for your own reading, but as a gift for the civilian in your life who hasn't been paying close attention to what's going on in education. This short piece is a sort of preamble to the book. Check it out.