Sometimes what I see in a movie theater causes me to want to write. What I read that runs counter to what I have learned from personal experience can evoke a written response. What I have written in my first historical novel and literary works that I have had my eighth grade English students read may provide factual basis for arguments I wish to make. Such was the case with this post’s letters.
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In 1963 civil rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered in Jackson, Mississippi. That event is noted briefly in “The Help,” a movie about the exploitation of black house maids by racist white middle and upper-class housewives living in Mississippi’s capital.
People of my generation were in their late twenties or early thirties during that pivotal year in our nation’s history. It was no coincidence that most of the folks that watched the film in the local theater the Sunday my wife and I attended had gray and white hair.
I am concerned that younger people, having little or no knowledge of the civil rights struggle of the late 1950’s and the 1960’s, will never see the connection between the white ruling class’s hatred and persecution of blacks at that time and what we are presently experiencing. I speak of the vilification, exploitation, and legislative punishment of our middle and lower economic and social classes by large corporate interests and their legislative lackeys – the Republican Party and certain corporate-bought Democrats.
To squeeze every advantage out of the powerless and near powerless, those controlling the levers of autocratic power must make themselves (and others sympathetic to their agenda) believe that their victims are undeserving of civilized consideration.
This has been a practice the origins of which began before the writing of history.
I urge all folks here in Florence whose hearts are not calcified to view this
remarkable film. There have been times in our history when status-quo injustices are quite suddenly no longer tolerated. Necessary change happens when enough of our citizens, their hearts pierced by inequities, demand it.
Printed August 20, 2011, in the Siuslaw News
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I was especially incensed with the film and book Waiting for Superman. Back in May I devoted almost an entire Florence Area Democratic Club meeting to a discussion of the Republican Party’s attack on public education and advocacy of charter schools. Here is the announcement of that meeting.
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The Florence Area Democratic Club will meet Saturday, May 7, at 11 a.m. in the Siuslaw Public Library’s conference room. Members will receive and analyze information about proposed changes in public education promoted by advocates of charter schools, standardized tests to evaluate teachers, merit pay, and the firing of “bad” teachers. Such proposals were popularized by the recent documentary “Waiting for Superman” and are supported by President Obama’s “Race to the Top” education funding program.
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The discussion was a disaster. I had planned to have the members discuss too many categories. I hadn’t anticipated that their limited personal experience with public education would restrict them substantially in what they had to offer. I made the mistake initially of asking them to tell briefly what they thought about public schools. Oh, they had their opinions. Their opinions kept coming non-stop. One person would say something that caused another person to want to veer off the track of discussion that I wanted followed. They went all over the place – seven yards wide and one inch deep. The overall result was a miss-mosh of blather. None of the categories I had hoped to examine received a cogent airing.
I had written for myself a detailed outline of the points I wanted to present. A week after the meeting I emailed my outline of all the points to the members. I suspect that the length of the outline persuaded most to decline to read it.
According to Diane Ravitch – an assistant Secretary of Education under President Bill Clinton, a research professor of education at New York University, and a historian of education – this was the message of Waiting for Superman, the book and film.
American public education is a failed enterprise. Its problem isn’t money. Schools already spend too much.
There are major obstacles.
Teachers unions – – contracts define specifically everything
that can happen in a school
Teacher tenure – hard to get rid of poor teachers
Nobody’s job or career is heavily dependent on school performance.
Current school personnel are generally not interested in making large-scale changes in what they do.
Failing public schools follow the same strategies year after year.
Test scores are low because there are so many bad teachers, whose jobs are protected by powerful unions.
Students drop out because the schools fail them. They could accomplish practically anything if they were saved from bad teachers.
They would get higher test scores if schools could fire more bad teachers and pay more to good ones.
Extend the school day and the school year.
The only hope for many children is escape from public schools to charter schools.
Here were the discussion topics I had hoped would broaden the club members’ perspectives.
What is an excellent teacher?
How well can a principal evaluate a teacher?
What should be done about “bad” teachers?
Should student performance, school performance, and teacher effectiveness be measured primarily by standardized test results?
Should teachers be paid based on merit rather than by a salary schedule?
Are “poor” teachers the prime reason why certain schools don’t meet expected standards?
Here was Ravitch’s criticism of the book/film.
Film does not present the successful side of public education
No successful public school teacher or principal or superintendent appears
There is no mention of any successful public schools
There is no mention of union activities to mentor struggling teachers and how unions counsel such teachers out of the profession
There is a constant drumbeat on the theme of public school failure
Film gives misleading statistics – misuse of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) information
Facts about charter schools:
CREDO study evaluated student progress on math tests in half of the nation’s 5,000 charter schools.
17% were superior to a matched traditional public school.
37% were worse.
Remaining 46% had gains no different from public schools.
Guggenheim, the film’s producer, paid no attention to charter schools run by incompetent leaders or corporations concerned mainly about making money.
Charter chains were mired in unsavory real estate deals.
Charter school students were getting lower scores than neighborhood public schools.
Charter principals were indicted for embezzlement.
Charters blurred the line between church and state.
Charter leaders were paid $300,000-$400,000 a year to oversee small numbers of schools and students.
Successful charter schools featured in the film are heavily subsidized by philanthropists.
The film claimed that teachers are the most important factor in determining student achievement.
Can overcome disadvantages of poverty, homelessness, joblessness, poor nutrition, absent parents, etc.
Consensus of high-quality analyses:
Teachers account statistically for around 10-20% of achievement outcomes.
Teachers are the most important factor within schools.
About 60% of achievement is explained by nonschool factors:
students’ backgrounds, families, income.
The film skirts the issue of poverty and other handicaps.
Shows only families that are intact and dedicated to helping their children succeed
No reference to the many charter schools that enroll disproportionately small numbers of children who are English-language learners or have disabilities
Poverty is the “single biggest correlate with low academic achievement.
Children who grow up in poverty get less medical care, worse nutrition, less exposure to knowledge and vocabulary, and are more likely to be exposed to childhood diseases, violence, drugs, and abuse.
They are more likely to have relatives who are incarcerated.
They are more likely to live in economic insecurity, not knowing if there is enough money for a winter coat or food or housing.
This affects their academic performance. They tend to have lower attendance and to be sick more than children whose parents are well- off.
The film
claims that public schools can’t get rid of bad teachers.
claims only 1 in 2,500 teachers loses his or her teaching certificate
doesn’t mention that 50% of those who enter teaching leave within 5 years, mostly because of
1) poor working conditions
2) lack of adequate resources
3) stress of dealing with difficult children and disrespectful parents
Some teachers “fire themselves’; others are fired before they get tenure.
The film is a “powerful weapon on behalf of those championing the ‘free market’ and privatization. The charter schools and testing reform movement was started by “right- wing think tanks like the Heritage foundation” for the purpose of destroying public education and teachers’ unions.
II believe that President Obama’s “Race to the Top” program is not an improvement of George W. Bush’s “Leave No Child Behind.” It Invited states to compete for $4.3 billion. To qualify to compete, states had to agree to evaluate teachers by student test scores, award bonuses to teachers based on student scores, permit more privately managed charter schools, “turn around” low-performing schools by such methods as firing the staffs and closing the schools
Emphasis is upon testing, accountability, and choice
It is ill-advised
It goes even beyond No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in its reliance on test scores as the ultimate measure of educational quality.
It asserts that teachers alone – not students or families or economic status – are wholly responsible for whether test scores go up or down
Teachers rightfully feel scapegoated for conditions that are often beyond their control. They see these measures as an attack on their profession.
Drilling children on how to take tests
discourages innovation and creativity,
punishes divergent thinking,
prioritizes skills over knowledge
Endless hours devoted to test preparation deaden students’ interest in school.
Curriculum will be narrowed even more than NCLB because of the link between wages and scores.
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By September I was ready to express in print my disdain for Waiting for Suoerman and the political motives behind charter schools.
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Tom Brokaw (Opinion, Sept. 23) needs to delve first into the specifics of reactionary public education “reform” before espousing his celebrity opinion.
Epitomized by the recent documentary, Waiting for Superman, opponents of public education – principally the Republican Party and large corporate interests -- have emphasized superior student achievement test results in specific foreign countries. They have blamed American school teachers, administrators, and teachers unions for our nation’s unfavorable ranking. They advocate certain “reform” measures that would simultaneously destroy faculty unity and individual job security and impede student academic development. They have promoted charter schools to benefit private enterprise interests.
They say that the damage done to students by poverty can be overcome by “great” teachers. Simple? Simplistic!
A student is prepared to learn when he is well-fed, well-rested, and fully supported by two parents engaged in his educational development. These critics do not connect the decline of student achievement scores with the increased difficulty middle-class families experience trying to remain economically functional. They say nothing about the loss of decent-paying jobs and unremitting unemployment. They do not mention that more than 20 percent of our nation’s children live in poverty!
Finland is currently ranked number one in student achievement. Finland’s teaching force is completely unionized. Finland rarely tests its students, its national curriculum is broad-based (not restricted to the basic skills of reading and math), and fewer than 5 percent of its children live in poverty.
Printed September 27, 2011, in the Register-Guard
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In the fall I announced to the club members the publication of my first historical novel, Crossing the River, a narrative of the experiences of combatants in the Battles of Lexington and Concord, events that began the American Revolution. I saw correlation of elements in the book with our nation’s current governance.
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When General Thomas Gage sent 700 elite redcoat soldiers off to Concord, Massachusetts, April 19, 1775, to seize and destroy illegally stockpiled gunpowder and weaponry, he was utilizing force to attempt to quash provincial disobedience. At stake was the issue of who should govern, who should have the power to determine how the people of the province were to exist.
Massachusetts was an English colony, a possession, a capital asset. The land and its people were profit-making resources. The King and Parliament were willing to wage war to preserve their power to dictate.
Periodically, oppressed people, unconscionably exploited, attempt to take away that power. Dictators fall, revolutions occur, corrupt political parties are voted out of office, corporate behemoths are broken up or vigorously regulated.
Our century’s Lexington and Concord time has arrived. We, the people, must wrest the power to govern away from our greedy capitalists and their bought politicians, who profess to own us. Like King George III, our rulers are determined to maximize their power to exploit. We must be vigilant; we must be vociferous; we must support courageous demonstrations like Occupy Wall Street. We must neither permit ourselves to be deluded by dishonest characterizations and deliberate falsehoods nor be fearful nor be divided in purpose by social, racial, ethnic, or religious wedge issues. We must win back the Constitutional levers of governance designed for us by our forebearers and then utilize them to generate the blessings that a free, empathetic nation bestows.
Printed October 7, 2011, in the Yuba City Appeal Democrat
October 8, 2011, in the Siuslaw News and Seattle Times
October 13, 2011, in the Eugene Weekly
October 15, 2011, in The World
October 19, 2011, in the Coast Lake News
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And, again …
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In my historical novel Crossing the River, a distraught Massachusetts mother, reacting to the maiming and killing of militiamen and British soldiers April 19, 1775, exclaims: “The ambition-driven wickedness of callous men!”
Today?
David and Charles Koch, Rupert Murdock, the Walton family, Thomas J. Donohue, Karl Rove, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Ben Nelson, Scott Walker, John Kasich, Rush Limbaugh, the Fox News lineup.
Universal, single-payer health care? Hell no. Preserve the planet? No. Shut down our out-of-control war machine? No. Assist the indigent, the elderly, the disabled? No. Adjust our system of capitalism so that ordinary people may earn incomes more commensurate with the value of what they produce? No.
I wonder which side my former Orinda CA English students -- those 13 and 14-year old, bright-faced innocents whose sensibilities were aroused reading The Pearl, To Kill a Mockingbird, Black Boy, Flowers for Algernon, and The Diary of Anne Frank -- take?
Are we that stupid, are we that selfish, are we that malleable that we would allow greedy capitalists and bought, dissembling politicians destroy our children’s future? Hear the “occupy” protesters, speaking for me, shout emphatically, “No!”
Printed October 24, 2011, in the Register-Guard
Note: The RG editor took out the “Donohue,” “Nelson,” “Walker,” and “Kasich” names in the third paragraph and changed the wording of the first line in the last paragraph.
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