Category: Opinions on Politics

Posted on in Education, Opinions on Politics

Politicians Give Public “Confession” on American “Sins” in Capitol

This week, the “A Man of Prayer” event  was hosted in Washington, D.C. For some, the title of the event says it all: surely the event, at the very least, is celebrating religion(s) of some sort and attendees are probably religious. If one takes a look at speakers and attendees, she would recognize the names/faces of several senators and congressman, if not by name then by their honorific title. This, in and of itself, doesn’t say much, though some may find their participation as a little less innocuous than others. The fact that the event was held in the U.S. Capitol raises a red flag but maybe not one of a pronounced Crayola marker.

But if you dig a little deeper by watching speeches of some of the event’s speakers, reading the outlined event’s purpose, and knowing the event was streamed live to churches across the country, you may immediately Google “separation of church and state” to ensure that the Establishment Clause was not made unlawful in the few hours since you last checked the news. Of course the issue is not that politicians are religious or that they say as much. After all, they too have the right to freedom of religion and speech. The issue here is that politicians are using their positions to push the agenda of their particular religion. Randy Weber, a Texan congressman demonstrates this in a disturbing “speech,” which is nothing less than a confession on behalf the United States that outlines all of our country’s perceived “sins,” such as not requiring the bible as part of public school students’ curriculum and gay marriage. His confession states that he believes he tried to prevent those “sins” but have failed God, his God, a Christian God. Weber states:

“Lord thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, here in the halls of congress in our nation’s capital, Lord may your will be done….Lord, I’m confessing several of the sins our nation has been embolden to embark upon…we have endeavored to try to kick your word out of public schools. Father, we have endeavored to take the bible out of classrooms, the Ten Commandments off the walls. Father, forgive us…” 

There is not a single mention or allusion to figures, literature, or laws of other religions. He could have mentioned Judaism’s King David or Islam’s prophet Muhammad or Hindu’s Veda, for example. The use of Christian verbiage and the exclusion of all non-Christian verbiage makes it clear that he is does not have an intersectional perspective. It does not bare in mind all religions or any other one religion, for that matter; just the one. So when he says, “…here in the halls of congress in our nation’s capital, Lord may your will be done…”

Furthermore, Speaker of the House of Representative Paul Ryan gave a religious-infused speech that, much like Rep. Weber’s confession, was laden with Christian components, such as scriptures from the New Testament, which, like Rep. Weber, disregards and outcasts other religions practiced in this country. The speech was then, as required, posted  on Ryan’s government website. One highlight includes the following:

“But in these days after Easter, we reflect on the power of resurrection…on the ultimate truth that our lives are transformed by our belief in God.”

It’s blatant that these politicians use their political positions as a vehicle to work on behalf of practitioners of their own religion. To do so is to simultaneously impose their specific religious beliefs on those who do not believe in that religion. Put simply, these politicians are not representing the people, as they said they would. They’re representing a particular religious group of people and working to apply those beliefs to all people, regardless of religion.

How is this constitutional? What I really care about is why haven’t they been penalized in some way, if not fired? I do not understand how someone in their role as politicians can use federal government space to publicly broadcast a specific religion’s beliefs is not a clear and direct violation of the Establishment Clause.

In any other professional setting, acts like this, one that goes against and is in violation of the fundamental responsibility of the employee, people are fired or reprimanded in some way. And while politicians have the right to practice whatever faith they believe in and represent their constituents, the law requires they not impose their religion on another. What politicians at the “A Man of Prayer” event demonstrated is akin to a Christian being hired by a Jewish, secular, or Muslim organization to fulfill the requirements of that organizations beliefs but instead the Christian persistent to apply Christian beliefs in an environment that explicitly asked him to do otherwise. The employee’s goal for the job does not match the employers. This contention can be resolved by letting the Christian employee go or by said employee to fulfill the wishes of his employers. Politicians, in fact, have secular role. It is a politician’s job to separate religion and government. Here, we have politicians doing just the opposite. Laws should be passed and advocated for based on logic and not simply because a religious text says it should be passed.

Why do we allow politicians to carry out the needs of one religious group, as if there are not laws in place that prohibit this?

The upside is that not all politicians disregard their right to respect the multitude of religions in this country. Joe Biden had an exemplary response during a 2012 VP debate.

I hope that all schools, public, private, religious, and others, are using this as a current example of how the a government officials can abuse their position for their own benefit.

Posted on in Education, Opinions on Politics

Students Public Speaking in Front of Community

I was thinking of different ways to both introduce students to members of their community, so that their is more community engagement, and public speaking. The idea that stood out the most is one that placed emphasis on involvement from all members of a school community.

Students, starting at a young age, would present in front of their teacher(s), classmates, members of the school’s parent/family community, and members of the school’s external business and working class communites. But it wouldn’t stop there. Students would then conduct both Question-and-Answer and Roundtable style discussions on the presentation topic. This would provide students an opportunity to engage in a more deeper conversation about their presentation topic, while it simutaneously lets them know that other people want to engage in that conversation as well. 
To be clear, the non-teaching community members would not be critiquing students nor would they provide public speaking or academic feedback. The non-teaching community members role would be to help instill a since of engagement and provide students with different perspectives through the comments they make and questions they ask. At some point, the roles would reverse. There would be a chance for the more traditional scenario of ublic speaking in schools: non-teaching members of the commnuity would present something to students. The teaching community would be their to provide feedback after the presentation but also to facilitate the presentation. 

Some might think that allowing people, who are not trained to provide constructive criticism to children, would do more harm than good. Afterall, the community grocery owner or accountant may only think in numbers or may not know how to be more sensitive to young children’s feelings when providing qualitative feedback.

This is a valid concern and one possible solution would be to have a trained public speaking teacher work with each participating community member who is not a part of the professional teaching community. they’d go over best practices and responses to students, tone, face expression and a brief interview to determine their overall fit for such an activity. 

I know. This sounds like a lot of time and money spent on training. It’s an idea I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of weeks that I’m trying now putting to paper/post. 

But, one thing is for sure: we need to start students engaging and caring about quality public speaking at a young age and continue the engagment throughout their academic careers. One key attribute is tapping into the wide community net that surrounds the school community. This makes room for different perspectives and the exchange of ideas that goes into talking to someone outside of the school community. Another key attribute is high quality teacher training. Though it may be expensive, if  we want our students to be strong, confident speakers, we as a community need to invest time and money. Period.

The idea behind all of this is to have both students and members of the overall community interact, challenge and learn from each other, while giving students the platform to express themselves. Hopefully, along the way, students pickup on softskills, in addtion to their ability to spot faulty and sound arguments, as well as thinking about some worthwhile feedback, questions and comments they received throughout the years. 

More to come.

Posted on in Education, Opinions on Politics

LA Charter Teachers Try to Unionize

In an article featured in the Wall Street Journal, Alliance Teachers’ continue their fight to become unionized.

Summary

Alliance College-Ready Public schools are trying to start a campaign that will lead the charter network’s teachers to be apart of the Los Angeles’ largest teachers unions. The network says the lack of a union is prominent reason why 95% of the network’s students go off to college. While Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers union, says that Alliance (and all charter school teachers) should be offered, among other thing, the right to more transparency (charters operate like private institutions).

My Initial Thoughts

The network misses the point. While it’s great that 95% of students go off to college, their teachers, a huge creditor to to this success, are saying that there thoughts, ideas and voices are NOT being heard and the culture is NOT one where they can comfortably express grievances without fearing their job is on the line.

My Biggest Issue with Alliance Teachers Joining the United Teachers Los Angeles

Unions acknowledge the fact that teachers have needs but a 369 page contract is too much and would defeat the purpose of Al Shankners’ vision of charter schools. At the same time, a teacher’s desire to try new content, make insightful curriculum or internal policy suggestions should not be muffled by non-educators who are on the school’s board of directors.

My Opinion

The charter network should work with teachers, UTLA and other independent charter specialists to create a new, independent charter that would find a solution that tries to meet the teachers’ needs and maintain the school’s success rate. It won’t be easy, but, at the very least, it takes the teachers seriously without having to compromise the network’s most effective policies.

 

Posted on in Education, Opinions on Politics

A Brief Note on Dana Goldstein’s The Teacher Wars

In Dana Goldstein’s The Teacher Wars, there is an undertone that can be found throughout the book, which makes it’s first appearance in the introduction: “I suspected that the key to understanding the American view of teachers lay with our history and perhaps had something to do with the tension between our sky-high hopes for public education as the vehicle of meritocracy and our perennial unwillingness to fully invest in our public sector, teachers and schools included.”

I strongly agree that this sentiment and read the book through, in part for it’s history, to figure out why we blame teachers so much on a failed system that has more to do with society and corrupt educational institutions as a whole, than teachers themselves. I believe the answer lies in her suggested list of changes in the book’s epilogue. She outlines serval insightful actions that she believes will improve our country’s public education system, among them is the subsection titled “End[ing] Outdated Union Protections.” In short, she advocates for the removal of unsuccessful union policies.

Generally speaking, the public perceives teachers’ unions as entities that only care for teachers’ protections, without regard for the students they teach. Policies such as LIFO, weak tenure qualifications, strong policies against revoking tenure and years-long appeal processes to oust ineffective teachers, certainly put a teacher’s wants/needs above the cost of their students. Unions should be able to protect teachers from irrational and unfair firings and abuses but policies, such as sitting in one of New York City’s infamous Rubber Rooms for three years, is a gross abuse unions. I don’t think that eliminating unions altogether, as most charters schools opt to do, is the answer– educating children is far too complex and has a lot of gray area to do that. But, and I think Dana Goldstein would agree, teachers unions are weighed down with policies that harm the education system. Unions need reform so that policies that are counterproductive to students’ learning.

Posted on in Opinions on Politics

UFT, Shame on You

Who is penalized when $250,000,000, which is supposed to be aiding in NYC public school Students’ education, is lost? Who is penalized when that $250,000,000 can increase to as much as $450,000,000 in lost money to help schools who need it most? Th children, of course. No person or group of people is ever so at a disadvantage than the students.

The sad thing is is that they did not have anything to do with the negotiations on teacher evaluations that fell through. While I could understand why not them, but not even a random selection of their parents. Instead,all that money was left in the hands of opposing politicians, and you know what that mean. A complete fail.

Last week, Mike Bloomberg and the UFT did not reach a deal on a new way of evaluating teachers. Bloomeberg says that the UFT added last minute provisions that essentially ignored the whole point of the change in evaluations. The union wanted to have the agreement for the evaluations expire in two years, 2015. Mayor Bloomberg points out that it takes two years for a teacher to be removed from the system, which, if the union’s method were to be put in place, it would be useless.

Surprisingly, I agree with the mayor on this one. The new evaluation system needs to be tested over a number of years, not just a couple. That third year would give us some more fruitful understanding of the effectiveness of the agreement because it goes beyond the two year boundary that protects a teacher. A two year agreement would only show teachers who were warned this year and let go in 2015 but no other. But in order to illustrate a new evaluation system, we’d need at least two years (2015 and 2016) worth of complete feedback compare the two years and its effect on the system as a whole. With the union’s plan, we’d only have one. Teachers who would be given a warning in 2014 have until 2016 to get their act together, but they would be working under a new system. Under the unions provision, there would be two agreements in two years and thats not fair, stable, effective, and in favor of the students.

The union says that they dod not think that this provision was something to hoot and holler about. But, I think they know what they are doing. At the end of the day, the union’s role is to protect the teachers from losing their jobs. They are by law and a sense of obligation, on the side of the teacher, not of the student.

To read more on this issue:

http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/175547/teacher-rating-system-deal-a-bust–city-school-budget-to-lose–250m

Posted on in Opinions on Politics, Reading

On Economics in Public High Schools

Bank

While I understand the debate of which literary works should and shoud not be taught in public schools is imporant, in this day and age, I think there should be emphasis on economics.

As an English major and Creative Writing minor, I’m all about litearture and reading. But Between the temporary scare of the fiscal cliff and the very slow recovery from the increase in in unemployment, the economy has our constant attention, or, at least it should. The main reason why 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession occurred is because, well, no one (myself included), knew anything. We left it up to the big guys, who proved to be very small, sleazy, or both (with the exception of a few). My own neighbor, a 45 year old woman who reads an insane about of gossip magazine, hadn’t a clue of what a surplus or a deficit was. I mean, she knew in the sense that it could apply to her monthly bills, but hadn’t the technical terms to call it.

Daniel Hamermesh, an economist and professor at the University of Texas, titled his book “Economics is Everywhere.” Oh how true this is; we just aren’t educated enough on the subject area to realize it. Parents seem to be over worried that children are getting too much fantasy and not enough practical application of their studies. With economics, we could tie it to every day actions that a student can easily relate to. The purchasing of lunch is an example of something supplied because it was demanded by the student. Or, the changes in a bag of Doritos in a year is something that a student could notice but doesn’t realize the economic reasoning behind the fluctuation in prices. Or, that money is a medium of exchange. At some point in my distant past, I would have considered Yu-Gi-Oh cards a medium of exchange, at least for 90s kids. I could get anything I wanted with an Exodus, which would be the equivalent of a million dollars (think children like exaggeration). The idea that when supply goes down so prices raise the roof was evident to north eastern families as an effect of Hurricane Sandy. I pointed this out to my brother when we had to wake up at three o’clock in the morning, buy two batteries (not packs but single batteries) for $4 for our flashlight, then wait on line for three hours to see if we could get gas at a station we heard would get electricity (that never happened).

Basic economics is fairly practical and forever so constant that we should learn it pre-college. I stress this because not everyone goes to college, but most people, or at least more people go to high school than college (duh), so there’d be a wider audience. It should be a mandatory course not just optional, like English or basic algebra. I have a friend who did not take economics at all in high school (she doesn’t remember why), and another friend who too it because it was optional (it was that or Government). I say, no more choices. We need to better prepare Americans on what is going on.

Had friend number one taken economics and she were pointed to the unemployment rate and decrease in funding in higher education, then she might have thought twice about picking a school with such high tuition costs.

So when the next economic scare comes around (in late February) we would know or have some idea of what the journalist on CNN is talking about. There are a lot of people who get caught up in the hype and haven’t a shoe of what the fuss is about, let’s not make out children one of them.

This post was inspired by Daniel Hamermesh’s “Economics is Everywhere,” and Michael Lewis’ “Boomerang”, my current reads for the week.