Today's Children Tomorrow's Future (R) (www.usa-positive-expectations.com): Education Reform – FTFRTFT – STOP the VITRIOLITY (first things first right the first time)

Links to the point per NYT Staff and by Richard Whitmire

“From the perspective of most teachers, poverty explains education problems. A valid point. Reformers insist that school quality, especially effective teaching, can make a sizable dent in the learning inequities we see across the lines of race and income. Also a valid point.

Mostly, however, the two sides no longer engage about their differences. They just glare and shout. Abortion has nothing (level of Vitriolity) on education, except bumper stickers. And I can only assume those are in production.”

The Point of the Post-

By doing first things first we get both sides in agreement, just this question of what is first- removes issues from the table. They get to decide together what is first thing first and the time line will dictate there is much to do much earlier and even the science is in support. Kindergartens can be the first measure of success and being 100% ready then is actually easier than waiting until third grade. There is no reason to wait.

Move the issue to 100% ready for kindergarten and even the business will support it because it creates savings that can be used to pay back the bridge loan to fund earlier delivery. Business has been using high quality is free to avoid exceptions for 50 years to provide the cash to innovate from savings. High Quality however is defined as meeting requirements so the districts need to set them.

These links should get us started. http://www.usa-positive-expectations.com/support-files/introstory1.pdf

Not being ready is such a big miss that the simple solution tobe created by the district to create 98% avoidance is brief http://www.usa-positive-expectations.com/support-files/adaptedknowledge.pdf

There is not much choice on two or more fronts. 1. Business has to engage because everyone else is out of new money for this delivery andthey need education to educate for the 21st century and they need tax relief from the cost protection from the uneducated. Business has cash but it also has many unused assets that can be leveraged into NEW MONEY. Leverage is actually better than cash, because it sets up many valid constraint questions. 2. School, Government, Citizens and business know poverty and education proficiency is linked, everyone know that it is best to start early if we know we have a problem. 3. Education wants and needs to individualize and there is no better way to start than with the individual needs of a 3 then 4 year old pre-k when they want to do nothing but learn. This will help mom, as a “paid mentor” guarantees readiness to the district requirement as the first thing first innovation.

The Article-

The Battle Over School Reform Has Turned Dangerously Vitriolic

By Staff

By Richard Whitmire

For years, education politics were noteworthy mostly for their earnestness. Today, that’s mostly gone.

Who is to blame for the problems within our education system?

Less than a year ago, as I was finishing a book on Michelle Rhee, the combative former chancellor of schools in Washington, D.C., the time arrived to set up a website for the book. The website designer asked if I wanted to include reader comments. It was a sensible suggestion, but I said, no, thanks.

While reporting the book, I had monitored the comment sections in other publications as reporters wrote about hot-button education topics, including Rhee. These commentators were nasty; I’m talking abortion-debate-level nastiness.

How did that happen? For years, education politics were noteworthy mostly for their earnestness. Sure, there were flareups between “reformers” and teachers unions, but generally the tone of the discourse was civil and there was genuine curiosity in understanding opposing views. Today, that’s mostly gone.

As an author writing about the polarizing Rhee, one might expect I would experience this vitriol. But I’m hardly alone. Time contributor Amanda Ripley is a relative newcomer to education issues. “I spent my career writing about everything from abortion to terrorism to prisons, but none of these things compared to education,” Ripley told me. “The nastiest emails I’ve ever gotten have been about education.”

Last year, Ripley wrote a lengthy Atlantic piece about the research Teach for America conducted on which teachers turn out to be the most effective in the classroom. Interesting stuff.
But few readers within the education world cared. What mattered was whether Teach for America, a group disliked by many older teachers (they resent the popular image of freshly minted teachers from elite colleges parachuting in to save classrooms), was portrayed in a flattering light.

“In the education bubble, these education stories are read for one purpose, to see whether they support or defy your own narrative’” said Ripley. “You’re either with us or against us. What bothered me was that some of these people, who have significant influence on the lives of our kids, seem to have lost all curiosity about this complex subject. That’s ironic, given they work in a field that should value curiosity.”

How did the topic of education become one of the most polarized debates in American politics? The foundation was set in 2001 with George W. Bush‘s signature education law, No Child Left Behind. The Bush line that resonated – the “soft bigotry of low expectations” – made it clear who, exactly, possessed those low expectations: teachers.

From the perspective of many teachers, the law simultaneously targeted them as culprits and made their lives miserable with layers of standardized testing.

As a candidate for President, Barack Obama briefly made the teachers hopeful with the appointment of education insider Linda Darling-Hammond as his campaign education adviser. The teachers unions, knowing she would work within the system to make it better, embraced her.

But reformers saw her as a threat. She had dared to criticize Teach for America, the holy grail of reformers who think the current system needs shaking up with radical improvements. She had to be stopped.

What ensued were months of battles on blogs and Op-Ed pages for the heart and soul of Obama’s education agenda. In the end, Darling-Hammond was denied the throne of the federal Education Department. But the bloodletting will not be forgotten or forgiven.

Briefly, the unions took comfort in Arne Duncan‘s appointment as education secretary. Duncan seemed safe enough, but his agenda of offering states carrots to do things the teachers unions abhor, such as opening up more charter schools and imposing real teacher evaluations, set the unions on edge.

Yet Duncan was a mere middle-of-the-roader compared with Joel Klein in New York or Rhee in Washington. Rhee blazed through reforms: real teacher evaluations that used student test scores and a performance pay system that attempted to reward better teachers. Most controversial was her willingness to fire teachers she deemed to be ineffective. War was declared.

Meanwhile, billionaire reformers – Bill Gates, Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg – were seen as aggressively applying business principles, such as accountability, to schools. Conspiracy theories abounded.

From the perspective of most teachers, poverty explains education problems. A valid point. Reformers insist that school quality, especially effective teaching, can make a sizable dent in the learning inequities we see across the lines of race and income. Also a valid point.

Mostly, however, the two sides no longer engage about their differences. They just glare and shout. Abortion has nothing on education, except bumper stickers. And I can only assume those are in production.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/06/30/2011-06-30_education_is_the_new_abortion_the_battle_over_school_reform_has_turned_dangerous.html