Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION

CURMUDGUCATION:

Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION

HYH: Tax Credits for Dummies

26by Peter Greene / 5h

I get hugely behind in my podcast listening-- I'm far better at absorbing information through my eyes than my ears, and listening to a full podcast requires a level of attentiveness that I can't always muster. That's unfortunate for me, because every time I finally get around to listening to casts, I end up wishing I'd listened sooner. Tops on my list of podcast catch-ups is Have You Heard, a cast

YESTERDAY

Instead

35by Peter Greene / 15h

You order your steak dinner, and soon it arrives-- but when you cut into the steak, you discover that rather than medium rare, it is well done without a trace of pink or moisture. "Chris," you say, because your waitperson's name is Chris, "I'd like to send this back and get a steak done the way I ordered. After all, that's what I paid for." Chris replies, "No, we don't fix meals around here. We've

APR 06

Schools Are Symptoms

59by Peter Greene / 1d

Schools have always been a visible symptom of whatever has ailed United States society as a whole. When we explicitly valued mostly only white men, we only educated white boys. When we were resistant to waves of immigrants, we ran parallel school systems for them. And as long as we have been mired in racism that is steeped all the way down into our systems, our schools have displayed the symptoms

APR 05

Rahm's Insane Plan

100+by Peter Greene / 2d

Just a reminder that it's not just Republicans who have insane ideas about education. Rahm Emanuel, former Obamabro and current mayor of at least some parts of Chicago has unleashed this genius idea, as covered by CBS today: “We live in a period of time where you earn what you learn,” Emanuel said. “The school system of K through 12 is not applicable to the world and the economy and the world that

APR 04

Scott Walker's Next Move To Crush Teachers

4Kby Peter Greene / 4d

When it comes to a full frontal assault on public education and the people who provide it, no governor takes a back seat to Wisconsin's Scott Walker. Walker's most famous for his 2011 move to strip public unions of their power to negotiate much of anything, a move that he made one of the foundations of his failed run for President. Act 10 gave school districts the directive to unilaterally shift p

APR 03

Charterizing from Within

100+by Peter Greene / 4d

The next big threat to public education, the next big arm of the corporate privatizing octopus, is Competency-Based Education , formerly known as Outcome Based Education, sometimes known as Proficiency Based Learning, and often dressed up in a nice suit as Personalized Learning. Probably not going to end well It takes a whole subdivision of the public school advocacy movement to keep track of the

APR 02

MN: Vergara III: The Attack on Tenure Continues

24by Peter Greene / 5d

You probably remember the Vergara lawsuit, the California suit that was intended to destroy teacher tenure. You may even remember that a sequel was filed in New York . The Vergara suit was simply beaten. The New York suit turned into a circus, starting with competition to see who could be out in front of the suit-- Campbell Brown or Mona Davids .Then Andy Cuomo floated his own plan for kicking tea

Supreme Court Rules on IEPs

100+by Peter Greene / 6d

The Supreme Court has ruled on the case of Endrew F. vs. Douglas County School District , a case that gave the Supremes a chance to rule on just how much education is "enough. " The case was brought by the parents of Endrew F., an autistic student whose education was, according to his parents, not nearly enough. But Douglas County Schools (Colorado) took the position that they had provided "de min

Don't They Understand...?

300+by Peter Greene / 6d

The attempts to do away with teacher tenure. The work to break the teacher unions, resulting in lower pay and less job protection. The initiatives for driving down teacher pensions. The legislative moves to take away sick and bereavement leave. The continued scapegoating of teachers. Lots of teachers look at all that and ask-- Don't they understand that this is making teaching less attractive? Don

ICYMI: April Is No Fool Edition (4/2)

13by Peter Greene / 6d

Keep reading. Keep sharing. I keep meeting people who say things like, "Boy, I wish I could blog about this stuff, but I just don't have the time/confidence/typing skills/etc." But you can take the things that you read and which make sense to you, and you can pass them on. Share what should be shared. Spread the word. We can all do that. Here's just some of what was worth sharing this week. The Pa

CURMUDGUCATION:

Which Religious Schools Are Allowed to Participate in the Arizona Voucher Program? Not All | Diane Ravitch's blog

Which Religious Schools Are Allowed to Participate in the Arizona Voucher Program? Not All | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Which Religious Schools Are Allowed to Participate in the Arizona Voucher Program? Not All

A reader posted a comment yesterday asking why I had a problem with religious schools receiving public funding. Aren’t there good religious schools. I pointed out that most of the religious schools that are funded by vouchers are not very good schools. The very good religious schools don’t have many seats available. The ones that do have seats available and need the money tend to be a certain type of Christian school that teaches creationism and uses textbooks that do not teach modern science, math, or history.

Then another comment arrived, this one from a man who is writing a book about education in Arizona.

I post this quote from a work in progress for the nice lady who wrote about Diane’s piece and asked whether there are good religious schools. Diane used a quote from me in the blog today.

Here are the Organizations already providing “scholarships” on the “tax credit” dime here in AZ. I am a proud Catholic School Graduate and I have grandchildren in Catholic Schools in New Hampshire.

Those choices were my parents and my children’s RELIGIOUS choice. They wanted their children indoctrinated into the Catholic Faith.

Catholic schools have their history in anti-Catholic sentiments going back to the KNOW NOTHING PARTY and anti-immigrant attitudes in the 1840s. There was a time when it was a “mortal sin” for Catholics to attend public school if a Catholic School was available..

We in AZ live in a state that allows a “Christian Scholarship” fund that doesn’t include any Catholic, or for that matter Mormon schools, that is a RED FLAG.

I ask the following.

How is it that the Senate president of the Arizona State Senate, can simultaneously be the executive director of a $17,064,168 organization, The Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization Inc., while having Which Religious Schools Are Allowed to Participate in the Arizona Voucher Program? Not All | Diane Ravitch's blog:

How Students Are Hurt By Replacing School Librarians and Libraries with Computers

How Students Are Hurt By Replacing School Librarians and Libraries with Computers:

How Students Are Hurt By Replacing School Librarians and Libraries with Computers

There are many ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.

~Jacqueline Kennedy

Happy School Library Month to school librarians across the country! We have always known librarians and libraries provide vital support to students and teachers in our public schools. But for years school districts have let go of qualified librarians and they have closed school libraries.

This is often attributed to the growing presence of online learning. In Jacksonville, cuts to school libraries have been fierce with the idea that digital is better and schools must “evolve.”

But there is little research to show that competency-based education (digital learning) or more computer use helps students do well in school. A research study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2015, indicates that students do better with less screen time not more. The report suggests that when it comes to technology “too many false hopes” have been raised. With so little, if any, research to indicate tech is better, why throw out what we know works?

Adding to this, a new report explains to us what happens when students lose their librarians and libraries. Without decent library services in their public schools, students How Students Are Hurt By Replacing School Librarians and Libraries with Computers:

Reporters, It’s Time To Investigate DeVos’ Department Of Education

Reporters, It’s Time To Investigate DeVos’ Department Of Education:

Reporters, It’s Time To Investigate DeVos’ Department Of Education

In the lead-up to billionaire Republican megadonor and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ confirmation, numerous media outlets published deep-dive investigations into DeVos’ background, significant political contributions, potential conflicts of interest, far-right ideology, and negative influence on Michigan policies.

But since she formally took over at the Department of Education, the investigative work seems to have mostly dropped off; coverage of DeVos has focused more on her public gaffes than the inner workings of the agency she now runs. It certainly doesn't help that DeVos and her department have struggled with media transparency. As education media writer Alexander Russo wrote, "DeVos takes press questions at events only occasionally, has yet to grant a formal interview with a major national education reporter, and heads a department that only intermittently provides answers in a timely manner – through a spokesperson whose name reporters are forbidden to use. The agency has even struggled to put out her weekly schedule in advance of public events."

It's time for investigative journalists to dig deeper and shine light on DeVos' priorities, such as early staffing decisions at the Education Department. There's certainly plenty to explore -- many of the temporary staffers in the Education Department are veterans of the right-wing think tank echo chamber on "education reform," and some have anti-LGBTQ and anti-black track records. Like DeVos, almost none have spent significant time as educators. 

As ProPublica reported, the Trump administration has installed hundreds of officials across federal agencies including the Education Department (known as “beachhead” teams). Though the positions are designed to be temporary, many are expected to transition into permanent roles, and may have “taken on considerable influence in the absence of high-level political appointees” who need to first be vetted and confirmed by the Senate:

Unlike appointees exposed to the scrutiny of the Senate, members of these so-called “beachhead teams” have operated largely in the shadows, with the White House declining to publicly reveal their identities.

[...]

Much about the role of the beachhead teams at various federal agencies is unclear. But close observers of the early weeks of the Trump administration believe they have taken on considerable influence in the absence of high-level political appointees.

The beachhead team members are temporary employees serving for stints of four to eight months, but many are expected to move into permanent jobs.

Several Education Department Officials With Offensive Online Histories May Remain On Staff

A December Politico report highlighted three newly named Education Department staffers who had previously posted offensive comments about women and people of color online. Two of the staffers still appear to work for DeVos’ agency months after the report. Kevin Eck, a special assistant to Secretary DeVos, had to apologize after he tweeted disparagingly in late 2015 about the “all black cast” of NBC’s The Wiz adaptation. Politico also documented several disparaging tweets by Eck about the LGBTQ community, including at least one post that pushed the dangerous “bathroom predator” myth people use to justify barring transgender individuals (students, in particular) from using the appropriate public facilities. According to his LinkedIn profile, Eck still serves in this role at the department.

The Politico article identified another staffer, Derrick Bolen, who “has tweeted numerous statements that could Reporters, It’s Time To Investigate DeVos’ Department Of Education:

The NAACP Will Learn the Pain Associated With Charter Schools

The NAACP Will Learn the Pain Associated With Charter Schools:

The NAACP Will Learn the Pain Associated With Charter Schools

“Before the NAACP came to New Orleans, we never had the opportunity to share,” Kim Ford, communications chair for the New Orleans branch of the NAACP, said exclusively to The Root.

Ford helped organize the national organization’s sixth hearing on quality education, which took place in the Crescent City on April 6.

“We are a frustrated people,” she continued. “We are a damaged people. We will shut it down for everybody.”

That’s exactly what happened.

What was described as a forum to “discuss the impact of charters on underfunded districts, sustainability of public education, increased accountability and transparency,” according to a press release, actually became an unorganized venting session largely decrying the injustices of charter schools, Teach for America and the firing of teachers post-Katrina.

A seven-city tour emerged in the wake of the NAACP board resolution last year that called for a countrywide moratorium on charter school expansions, which received significant pushback (pdf) from pro-charter advocacy groups and school leaders.

With nearly all of New Orleans’ public school students attending charter schools, the NAACP’s visit to the Crescent City posed an opportunity for the historic civil rights organization and other cities to learn about the successes and trade-offs of an all-charter district, possibly too unusual a case from which to draw suggestions. New Orleans is currently the only large school district in the country in which nearly all of its public school students attend charter schools. But the hearing gave New Orleans yet another opportunity to express the pain from an apparently still open wound inflicted in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The NAACP invited five presenters apiece to argue for and against the NAACP resolution. The crowd of approximately 250 attendees, mostly black, overwhelmingly sided with presenters who supported the resolution, which, from the consistent pattern of boos and hisses, translated to being against charter schools. With the exception of invited speakers, current educators from the all-charter district were conspicuously absent.

Still, clear differences arose from the back-and-forth of invited experts.

After citing many confirmed abuses of charter schools post-Katrina, Bill Quigley, professor of law at Loyola University New Orleans, said, “In The NAACP Will Learn the Pain Associated With Charter Schools:

Letters: Distortions plague ESSA plan | Letters | theadvocate.com

Letters: Distortions plague ESSA plan | Letters | theadvocate.com:

Letters: Distortions plague ESSA plan

In regards to the recent Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting whereby Louisiana’s federal education plan (Every Student Succeeds Act) was considered, and, in response to the assertions by some that the request to delay and substantively revise the ESSA Plan was made by failing school districts, we feel we must set the record straight with facts.

The 2016 scores in Louisiana provide that of the 69 school districts run by elected school boards 41 (59 percent) received a letter grade of either A (15) or B (26) with another 21 receiving a letter grade of C. Only seven received a letter grade of D and zero were graded as an F. The recovery school district for Baton Rouge and the recovery school district for Louisiana, administered by the state board, were awarded grades of D and F respectively.

A vast majority of local superintendents representing districts that are labeled A, B and C requested that the submission of the incomplete plan be delayed until September. The notion that the requests came from failing districts is fundamentally untrue. Additionally, more than 90 percent of principals from across the state requested a delay and revision of the state ESSA plan.

What this shows is that the proposed ESSA Plan is universally opposed by school districts from across the entire letter grade spectrum and by the principals who run our schools daily. Moving forward with an incomplete plan is irresponsible. The 61 Superintendents and high number of principals who urged further work on the ESSA plan have decades of education training and experience, yet Louisiana has opted to move forward with a plan crafted by a few people with little, if any, experience in operating a public school or school district. The primary proponents were bureaucrats and lobbyists who have limited real-world education experience.

The comment of BESE member Garvey that the accountability system that he presided over for years and continues to control is a lie, is, frankly, shocking. Of note, BESE recently ignored its own accountability system by renewing a charter school, despite repeated F letter grades. The rationale for ignoring the school’s F was that the accountability system under-rewarded the success of the school. But, when it comes to traditional public schools BESE asserts that it has been over-rewarding schools and school districts. The hypocrisy is hard to explain.

The Louisiana School Boards Association will continue to speak for the 700,000 public school students, their parents/voters, and the education professionals tasked with navigating whatever maze of obstacles special interests place in the way of public education. Ultimately, meeting the needs of the parents/voters within each local school district is the goal of each elected school board member. If overcoming the politics and bureaucracy that BESE and the Louisiana Department of Education represent is the task, so be it.

Scott Richard

executive director, LSBA

Baton Rouge

Letters: Distortions plague ESSA plan | Letters | theadvocate.com:

Why Keith Olbermann is thinking about a ‘President Betsy DeVos’ - MarketWatch

Why Keith Olbermann is thinking about a ‘President Betsy DeVos’ - MarketWatch:

Why Keith Olbermann is thinking about a ‘President Betsy DeVos’

Keith Olbermann, in a video segment for GQ that was as much a spoken-word performance (built around varied intonations of the interrogative phrase “new election”) as a political commentary before it veered into constitutional-law-lecturer territory, made sport of the fact that the presidential line of succession would, after the resignation or removal of just 14 government officials, make a commander-in-chief of a cabinet member whose confirmation hearing was at times indistinguishable from its “Saturday Night Live” parody:

‘President Betsy DeVos, who’s 15th [in the line of presidential succession] — President Betsy DeVos.’

Keith Olbermann

Olbermann, who makes no bones of his partisanship in general nor his antipathy for President Trump in particular (his GQ commentary series is called “The Resistance”), repeatedly makes the point that calling a snap election, as familiar as the practice might be for observers of parliamentary democracies, is a a beyond-heavy lift under the U.S. political system.

Giving imagination rein, though, the former ESPN and MSNBC presenter argues that if worse came to worst in the ongoing investigations into the interference of Russian state actors in November’s presidential election, and collusion knowingly existed between the Russians and the Trump team, all Republicans would be complicit. Their collective offense, in Olbermann’s stated view: Having failed to derail the Trump insurgency, they accommodated themselves to it and even benefited from it.

Lamenting how the Constitution itself is vague on the untimely demise of a presidency (behind much of the presumed practice following a president’s death, incapacitation or removal by other means is “just the custom,” according to Olbermann, including the “Tyler precedent,” under which a vice president, as necessary, becomes not just a caretaker president but a fully fledged one, and serves out the elected president’s term), Olbermann allows that the 25th Amendment sought to codify the procedure. It set in stone, for one thing, how the vice presidency is filled, should a sitting vice president ascend to the presidency. The line of succession, after the vice president, was left to Congress to determine, resulting in a situation wherein, as Olbermann all but shouts in his “Resistance” video, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos stands, after the vice president, 15th in line.

Cabinet secretaries are ordered in a first-in-first-out manner such that the heads of the most recently added departments are at the rear of the line of succession. Following Vice President Mike Pence in order of succession to the presidency, according to USConstitution.net, then, are Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan; the president pro tempore of the Senate, Orrin Hatch; and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — after whom the following are next in line:

• Secretary of the Treasury: Steven Mnuchin

• Secretary of defense: James Mattis

• Attorney general: Jeff Sessions

• Secretary of the interior: Ryan Zinke

• Secretary of agriculture: Sonny Purdue

• Secretary of commerce: Wilbur Ross

• Secretary of labor: Unconfirmed (Alexander Acosta nominated after Andrew Puzder’s nomination was withdrawn)

• Secretary of Health and Human Services: Tom Price

• Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Ben Carson

• Secretary of transportation: Elaine Chao

• Secretary of energy: Rick Perry

• Secretary of education: Betsy DeVos

• Secretary of Veterans Affairs: David Shulkin

• Secretary of Homeland Security: John Kelly

Why Keith Olbermann is thinking about a ‘President Betsy DeVos’ - MarketWatch:

Schools Matter: State Money Without State Tests for Memphis Private Schools?

Schools Matter: State Money Without State Tests for Memphis Private Schools?:

State Money Without State Tests for Memphis Private Schools?

The plan to culturally sterilize all of Memphis's poor black kids in lockdown, segregated corporate charter schools has run into stiff opposition from parents and some Memphis school board members in recent years.

Most of the federal Race to the Top money for such a venture has dried up, along with the cash from the Gates Foundation.  The Waltons are still pumping money into the paternalistic Teach for America in Memphis, as well as other corporate white missionary preparation programs, but much of the enthusiasm for turning Memphis into Corporate Teacher Town has waned.

One can imagine the half-empty craft beer joints and coffee boutiques, as the edupreneurial leeches who rushed into Memphis over the past decade are now moving on to other urban areas to seize onto less anemic hosts.

With the charter balloon now coming back to earth, the future of the "Broken Windows" KIPP schooling model in Memphis is up for grabs, which means the private and church schools in Memphis have now entered into the multi-billion dollar contest to lay claim to state education funds once dedicated to public schools.  

A school voucher bill has been introduced by scurrilous members of the Tennessee Taliban, aka the General Assembly, that is aimed to privatize ONLY Memphis, and it has been sailing through legislative committees until this week, when it hit a real snag.  It seems that the more desperate private schools in Memphis are eager to get the state cash for their share of the poorSchools Matter: State Money Without State Tests for Memphis Private Schools?: 

 

Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys through "No Excuses" Teaching

Michael Brown shooting: New video in 'Stranger Fruit' complicates case - NonDoc

Michael Brown shooting: New video in 'Stranger Fruit' complicates case - NonDoc:

Michael Brown shooting: New video in ‘Stranger Fruit’ complicates case

(Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of film reviews and cultural observations from 2017’s South by Southwest festival.)

AUSTIN — Stranger Fruit is an imperfect documentary that still managed to exhibit the most explosive footage during the SXSW festival last month.

Director Jason Pollock provides a missing piece of surveillance footage that, he claims, shows Michael Brown wasn’t robbing a convenience store of cigars, which was the allegation that led police to question Brown and, after a struggle, ended in bloodshed.

Moments after Pollock premiered Stranger Fruit, The New York Times picked up on his new revelation in Michael Brown’s story. Pollock’s thesis was largely culled from a police report he read during two years of his own research. A line in that report alluded to a video from the morning before the shooting. That clue led Pollock to the new surveillance video.

A case that lit a city on fire

There is a mystery around the Michael Brown shooting that seems to resonate beyond the number of interviews, autopsies, forensics reports and facts, and what some argue was a “document dump” on jurors at the grand jury hearing.

That mystery is what compelled Pollock, a protégé of Michael Moore, to leave his job starting a small media company in Los Angeles and come back to Missouri (he had previously mentored inner-city youth there). Pollock researched the case for two years.

The case of Michael Brown’s shooting has been covered exhaustively. To refresh your memory, Brown, 18, was reported to have robbed a convenience store on Aug. 9, 2014, in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson. This was the news on the police dispatch that compelled officer Darren Wilson, 28, to pull up on the side of the road and question Brown and his friend, Dorian Johnson.

Brown had recently graduated from Normandy High, a problem school with a four-year graduation rate of 61.5 percent. He was about to head off to college.

On Aug. 15, 2014, in a move questioned by the Justice Department at the time, the Ferguson Police Department released the initial video in the case. It shows Brown take two boxes of cigarillos from the counter of said store and Michael Brown shooting: New video in 'Stranger Fruit' complicates case - NonDoc:

CURMUDGUCATION: HYH: Tax Credits for Dummies

CURMUDGUCATION: HYH: Tax Credits for Dummies:

HYH: Tax Credits for Dummies

I get hugely behind in my podcast listening-- I'm far better at absorbing information through my eyes than my ears, and listening to a full podcast requires a level of attentiveness that I can't always muster. That's unfortunate for me, because every time I finally get around to listening to casts, I end up wishing I'd listened sooner.

Tops on my list of podcast catch-ups is Have You Heard, a cast now in its second season and featuring the team of Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider. Both are long-time knowledgeable observers of the education; Berkshire is one of the best interviewers in the civilized world, and Schneider knows more about the history of education than just about anybody. They share a gentleness and decency that allows them to talk to the most difficult of subjects (check out their conversation with She Who Will Not Be Named)



Their most recent episode is a hugely illuminating look at the world of tax credit scholarships-- one more approach to vouchers that not only allow reformsters to circumvent the law and do some money laundering, but can even result in profit in the bargain.

The episode includes a conversation with Carl Davis of the Institute on Taxation Economic Policy, and Davis provides an explanation that is both easy to follow yet rather alarming. I'm suggesting that you listen to the whole thing, but let me give a short version to whet your appetite. 

In most states, laws known as Blaine Amendments (let Schneider explain that whole business to you) CURMUDGUCATION: HYH: Tax Credits for Dummies:

Keeping retirement weird. My work is not my family. My boss is not my dad. | Fred Klonsky

Keeping retirement weird. My work is not my family. My boss is not my dad. | Fred Klonsky:

Keeping retirement weird. My work is not my family. My boss is not my dad

Noble Charter Network CEO Michael Milkie.

“We’re disappointed that ChiACTS would resort to such tactics in an attempt to disrupt our Noble family,” said Noble Charter Network Superintendent Michael Milkie.

ChiACTS is Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff. They are the charter union affiliated with the Chicago Teachers Union.

When the current union organizing drive at Noble succeeds, it will make the Noble local the largest charter local in the country.

I always laughed when I battled administration, the board and private sector bosses when they talked about us all being one big family.

That usually meant they wanted something.

Like when my kids would say I was the best dad in the whole world.

I knew to start reaching for my wallet.

Listen. I got a family.  And I love ’em and I don’t need another.

The bosses love to create euphemisms to hide the essential relationship betweenKeeping retirement weird. My work is not my family. My boss is not my dad. | Fred Klonsky:

Standardized Testing Creates Captive Markets | gadflyonthewallblog

Standardized Testing Creates Captive Markets | gadflyonthewallblog:

Standardized Testing Creates Captive Markets

It’s easy to do business when the customer is forced to buy.

But is it fair, is it just, or does it create a situation where people are coerced into purchases they wouldn’t make if they had a say in the matter?

For example, school children as young as 8-years-old are forced to take a battery of standardized tests in public schools. Would educators prescribe such assessments if it were up to them? Would parents demand children be treated this way if they were consulted? Or is this just a corporate scam perpetrated by our government for the sole benefit of a particular industry that funnels a portion of the profits to our lawmakers as political donations?

Let’s look at it economically.

Say you sold widgets – you know, those hypothetical doodads we use whenever we want to talk about selling something without importing the emotional baggage of a particular product.

You sell widgets. The best widgets. Grade A, primo, first class widgets.

Your goal in life is to sell the most widgets possible and thus generate the highest profit.

Unfortunately, the demand for widgets is fixed. Whatever they are, people only want so many of them. But if you could increase the demand and thus expand the market, you would likewise boost your profits and better meet your goals.

There are many ways you could do this. You could advertise and try to convince consumers that they need more widgets. You could encourage doctors and world Standardized Testing Creates Captive Markets | gadflyonthewallblog:

 “A customer can have a car painted any color he wants as long as it’s black” Henry Ford

Turtle Learning: APRIL IS SCHOOL LIBRARY MONTH/NATIONALPOETRY MONTH

Turtle Learning: APRIL IS SCHOOL LIBRARY MONTH/NATIONALPOETRY MONTH:

APRIL IS SCHOOL LIBRARY MONTH/NATIONALPOETRY MONTH

ANDY WEIR AUTHOR OF THE MARTIAN GIVES A SHORT AD FOR SCHOOL LIBRARIES

Poppies in East Los Angeles

 Paul Thomas, blogger par excellence, quotes from John Dewey:
What avail is it to win prescribed amounts of information about geography and history, to win ability to read and write, if in the process the individual loses his own soul: loses his appreciation of things worth while, of the values to which these things are relative; if he loses desire to apply what he has learned and, above all, loses the ability to extract meaning from his future experiences as they occur? (Experience and Education, p. 49)

So how do we promote poetry and libraries so we can save our civilization in the age of Trump and complete disregard for anything meaningful in life?

I have always been intimidated by poetry and never thought I could write any.  I only wrote one that I liked - in 8th grade - about the lemon tree in my backyard.  My teacher loved it.  I think I loved my teacher too. She made me feel a whole person -- as most other teachers didn't. 

In honor of this lovely teacher I thought I'd try my 'hand' at a poem today.  And as I thought of this, I looked down at my own hands and realized I was starting to see the Turtle Learning: APRIL IS SCHOOL LIBRARY MONTH/NATIONALPOETRY MONTH: