MARCH into Education Reform – Day 1
Wow! It’s already March 2010!
The 2009-2010 school year will be FINISHED in a couple of months! And what kind of positive changes have happened so far?
Well . . . One could argue that additional emphasis has been placed on education reform because of the administration’s “Race To The Top” and the Billions of dollars that go along with the administration’s determination to change public schools.
Whether you agree with the agenda proposed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan or not – at least a greater awareness of current public school failings is a good thing.
But what has really been done to fix things?
- Are dropout rates any lower?
- Have students improved in global competitions?
- Are our public school students getting an adequate education to prepare them for global competition?
The answers are all NO! NO! NO!
The situation has not improved in our public schools. In fact, they have really gotten worse!
While politicians and educational “Mucky-Lucks” argue over how to straighten out schools, down here in the real world, things continue to deteriorate.
Another school year is almost over, and now President Obama says he wants to adapt NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND! YEEK!
Marching Into Education Reform
All during this month I want to share with you all the information I have learned during my investigations.
While I took a leave of absence to prepare our publicity program, I continued educating myself on the various agendas being proposed to “fix” our public schools.
All this month I’m going to share what I discovered with you.
As we simultaneously rev-up our publicity program, I’ll be sharing our latest videos with you as well. Hopefully we’ll improve in video content and quality as the month proceeds.
You be the judge!
In the meantime, let me re-share the early video we did to offer Obama et al an opportunity to straighten out ALL our schools quickly and easily. Needless to say, they never bothered to accept or reject.
Contact with our local politicians, including Congressmen and Senators has also been fruitless.
So now we are going to the people who really count: parents, teachers and taxpayers.
Here’s one of our first efforts at video. More, and hopefully more informative and entertaining ones to follow in the coming days.
The Billion Dollar Education Reform Challenge
See ya’ tomorrow!
Brennan
Against Mayors Controlling Education
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!
The Kingsland Plan for Fixing Public Education
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:
Education Reform: The TEAM Concept
Don Kingsland is back with another “dream sequence”:
Politicians Should NOT Be Running Education!
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”
Barack Obama on Education Reform
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
Another Look at Arne Duncan’s Education Plan
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
Summer Education Fun!
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
Education DOES NOT NEED More Teachers For Fewer Students!
Everyone is always talking about more money, and smaller class sizes, being the answer to fixing problems in education!
This week’s Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s “Fun Fact Friday” video disputes that claim.
Fun Fact Friday! – Student/Teacher Ratio from Education Gadfly on Vimeo.
Kind of interesting, isn’t it?
And would you care to guess what the student-to-teacher ratio is in India (rapidly turning out the most advanced workforce in history)?
Would you believe 40.1 to 1? And in urban areas, it’s 80 to 1!
Now I’m not saying we need to increase class sizes to the level that India has, but it seems we should be putting more emphasis on students LEARNING in those classes, rather than one-to-one “face time” with their teacher.
As Don Kingsland says in “Set Our Teachers FREE!”, we need more emphasis on teaching students to be MOTIVATED to learn, rather than wasting time in school OR seeing it as a social experiment.
I’m not trying to brag, but I received a TOP NOTCH education at the private Catholic schools I attended as a child and young adult. I always scored in the top 99 percentile on every national test and received a total of twelve FULL scholarships as a result of what I learned.
The only reason I mention this is to emphasize every class I attended in elementary and high school had a MINIMUM of 40 to 50 students to every teacher.
It’s NOT the size of the class that matters (no matter what the NEA may say). It’s what happens DURING those classes!
Brennan
Education in July 2009
Summer Vacation
Can you believe it is already July 2009?
Summer vacation is alive & well. With school out for the summer, this is the perfect time to catch your breath and read a few good books. May I recommend a VERY GOOD book? Now is the perfect time to read “Set Our Teachers FREE!”.
Besides the interesting stories and experiences of a Master Teacher with 50+ years of experience ~~ the book outlines a COMPLETE PLAN for revamping public education to achieve EXCELLENCE in our public schools.
Another school year has ended and schools continue to fail miserably, in spite of all the talk about education reform (and some extremely dubious Federal appointments).
Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan wants to put mayors in control of school districts because that is the system he came from. Unfortunately, all that does is insure cronyism, as it has in Chicago under Mayor Daley.
While the financial status of the Chicago schools may have been resolved, the educational levels continue to nose-dive.
We need a program that will help STUDENTS, not politicians! So I recommend becoming more informed about the options.
I happen to know the author of “Set Our Teachers FREE!” quite well. Don Kingsland is my darling husband. I have had the privilege of meeting many, many of his past students who simply exuded enthusiasm about how he had “turned their lives around” and “changed their lives for the better“. Many of these students confided in me that they were “on their way to trouble” when Mr. Kingsland helped them see a better future for themselves. (It’s so funny to see all of these young adults address Don as Mr. Kingsland, when they are so grown-up and successful in their own lives.)
If you want a good read for the summer that can actually empower you to make changes for the better in our public schools, get a copy of “Set Our Teachers FREE!” today!
Have a GREAT DAY!
Brennan
P.S. You can check some of the categories on this site for excerpts from the book.
