I’ll be back to blogging fulltime in January. We are still prepping our BIG PROMOTION!

Wish us luck!  In the meantime, here is another video about what we are doing. (Don’t worry – we will get better at videos as we keep going. You shoulda seen the first ones!)

Here’s the video for December:

http://www.TheKingslandPlan.com Retired master teacher challenges President Obama and Secretary Duncan to give him a budget and let him straighten out public schools across the country, QUICKLY.

The Billion Dollar Education Reform Challenge

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Are you ready for the November video? Here it is, ready or not!

My hubby is so funny and so talented!

P.S. We are still working on our big push for January when I’ll be back posting every day or so!

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We’re preparing a BIG publicity push for January 2010.

In the meantime, we are practicing making videos (and hoping to get better).

Here’s the video for October:

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Don Kingsland is back with another “dream sequence”:

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Today we have a Guest Post, by my favorite husband, the author of “Set Our Teachers FREE! A Plan To Save Public Education”:

“NO! To More Political Interference In Education”

I’ve been watching and waiting to see what direction Arne Duncan, the new Secretary of Education would take with the $100 BILLION education stimulus dollars he now has at his disposal.

Tuesday, Duncan announced that he wants more mayors involved in running their local school districts – just like Mayor Daley is in charge of Chicago.

Mayoral control of our schools . . . and that’s worked so well in Chicago???

Holy Cow! No! No! No!

Mr. Duncan, who was appointed to his Chicago post by Mayor Daley, had no real previous background in education prior to his appointment. He may have done a good job of straightening out the finances of the district, but education stayed on it’s nose dive.

The dropout rates in the Chicago districts are horrendous and worsening. Parents have staged multiple protests about the quality of education. Numerous episodes of graft and corruption have been reported.

It’s not that I believe Mr. Duncan was responsible for the corruption, but balancing a budget is NOT the same thing as straightening out education.

Now, with the new stimulus monies, we may get some bigger and better buildings but what about students’ learning?

With Mayors running the schools, it’s too easy for emphasis to go on construction, rather than learning. There’s more money in a building boom.

PLUS, while I don’t believe Mayors are necessarily corrupt, they are politicians who want to be re-elected, or promoted.

How many owe favors? Hmmm?

Mr. Duncan says that he will feel he has “failed at his job” if more mayors are not in charge of their school districts by the time he leaves his position. WOW!!!

Unless he was misquoted, and I don’t think he was, I am extremely nervous about the direction he plans to take education.

How many mayors do you think are knowledgeable about improving education?

Are we to be impressed with what has happened in Chicago where, once again, Mayor Daley appointed a NON-educationally-based croney to take Duncan’s place?

Straightening out education needs to be in the hands of people who UNDERSTAND education and how to HELP STUDENTS LEARN!

Political interference in our schools (from the ACLU to others) has been part of the PROBLEM!

Sorry, Mr. Duncan, your mayors MAY give us better-looking school buildings – and probably better football teams – to stimulate the local economy . . .

What about straightening out EDUCATION?

Big beautiful science labs and school campuses may look good, but what use are they when our students are falling to the bottom of the heap in global education results?

Let’s get “the horse before the cart” and start concentrating on STUDENT LEARNING – then we can afford to have some politicos interfering!

C’mon, Dear Reader! What do you think?

Don Kingsland, author
“Set Our Teachers FREE! A Plan To Save Public Education”

The Kingsland Plan

Save Our Schools

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Today, I’m starting a new series on what the administration plans to do to improve public education.

First in this series is a video of a speech Barack Obama made in March 2009:

Nice talk!

In the coming days, I’ll be sharing with you just HOW this administration has been implementing their ideas for improving education.

Keep checking back!

In about two weeks, just as the 2009-2010 school year starts in some areas of the country, I’ll have a BIG announcement for you.

Looking forward to your comments and feedback,

Brennan

The Kingsland Plan

Save Our Schools!

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The Thomas B Fordham Institute has published another video, this time, evaluating the Secretary of Education’s plan for education reform.

Speaking of…school turnarounds from Education Gadfly on Vimeo.

What do you think?

Brennan

The Kingsland Plan

Save Our Schools!

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Summer Education Fun!

Well, we’re two-thirds into July and the heat is blasting in our part of the world. Kids and grandkids have already been on picnics, gone swimming and spent the night with sleep-overs at their friend’s houses. Today, with the weather sweltering outside, I heard the famous summertime phrase for the first time this year. “I’m bored!”

Time to utilize a little creativity and find fun projects for them that they don’t suspect are learning activities. Today, we’re going to learn how to make ice cream and pizza. How can that be a learning activity you ask? Well, how about teaching priorities for a start?

Should we start making ice cream first, or pizza? Let’s see, hum. . .

Ice cream takes longer to make ’cause it has to freeze firm. We’ll make the ice cream first, then we can make the pizza while the ice cream is setting-up. See, simple day-to-day activities can be teaching time – in a fun way!

These simple little actions can teach children so many important lessons without having to stand over them with a ruler. Yes, we can learn to use critical thinking skills to prioritize what comes first. But there are other important lessons that can be learned, such as:

It can be fun to have an activity at home with the family (especially if Mom is not too rigid or critical).

Ice cream (especially really yummy ice cream) doesn’t have to be $6-$8 a gallon.

Homemade pizza costs less (and tastes better) than store-bought pizza. And it’s EASY!

It’s easier to stay home in hot weather than get into the sweltering car to go somewhere.

There are, of course, extra lifelong lessons that children can learn from the above project, like:

1) The science of how salt helps the ice cream get colder faster.

2) Why pizza dough needs to be spread-out evenly to cook best.

3) How cleaning-up while the pizza is baking means less work when everybody’s full.

These are such simple things that we adults take for granted, yet, so many children don’t have parents who will take the time to share these important skills and explain the reasoning behind them. Someway, somehow, we are going to have to find ways to teach ALL young people as many skills as possible.

And now is an important time to reinforce family values and morals BEFORE your children head back to the new, politically-correct and liberalized agenda being promoted by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and this administration.

This time spent with your children is your main chance to prepare them to see that learning can be fun and useful to their lives BEFORE they head back to the “dumbed down” politically motivated agenda they get under our current liberal system.

And just a suggestion: If you have religious, moral, or spiritual views, now is the time to reinforce them BEFORE they go back to school. This is YOUR opportunity to tell your children WHAT your standards are and to warn them about some of the distortions they will be facing when they head back to school. If I were a parent in California again, I know I would be communicating with my child to prepare them for the propaganda that has been initiated in the new, grossly mislabeled “Safe Schools” program.

Before I get back up on my soapbox, let me just add one lesson we’re going to put into effect here today: playing in the hose can be almost as much fun as getting into the swimming pool.

Grammy Brennan

The Kingsland Plan

Save Our Schools!

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