Awaiting the Axe

Cuts are coming....what would you let the education budget writers take?

 

 

A lot of ink has gone to describing the budget crunch that the Texas Legislature faced last year as it planned the next biennium. Many state services faced major cuts, as the Legislature and Governor Perry opted not to use any of the "Rainy Day Fund" to make up some of the funding shortfall.

Public school funding dipped by 6 percent for the 2011-2012 school year and is expected to drop by 8 percent for 2012-2013, according to NPR. (Just in case you remember that NPR can trend liberal, conservative outlets such as the Dallas Morning News have reported the same numbers) While some districts were able to get by with cutting some fringe benefits and simply not filling some open positions, instead of cutting their work force, the Leander school district (an Austin suburb) had to lay off 50 classroom teachers as part of a $20 million cut. In poorer districts, parents are being asked to pay for bus transportation and athletics. In the Pasadena district, 180 teachers were cut for this year. People who had filled such support positions as bus drivers, school crossing guards and inclusion aides have been let go in large numbers.

So here's the question: what will be cut next? More teachers? More support staff?

Or will we actually take a hard look at the structure of our education model?

Linus Wright, superintendent of the Dallas ISD from 1978 to 1987, recently suggested a series of changes to the existing system. One idea involved having students graduate after 11th grade and, instead, fund a year of preschool before pre-kindergarten, letting kids enter at the age of 3.

No senior year, you say? Did you know that Texas students didn't have a 12th grade until 1941? Because of the lingering effects of the Great Depression, too many high school grads were wandering around without any jobs or anything to do, so the state added a year of education. It would be interesting to see what would have happened had the United States entered World War II with Great Britain, in 1940, and given those kids the opportunity to enlist -- would students still graduate at 17?

Cutting teachers means increased class sizes. Yes, there are plenty of teachers doing truly awful things that land them in jail -- and in the news headlines -- and there are plenty of lazy teachers who hide behind union protections and "due process" to hold onto their jobs much longer than they should. But the silent majority of teachers work hard, dedicated to the success of each student.

It may be time to consider opening several different educational pathways to success. The cookie cutter-approach of having every student follow the same basic set of experiences, including classroom instruction through kindergarten and all 12 grades, doesn't work for everyone, as the success of such online schools as Yorktown Education suggests. For those who want a public or charter model, there is a growing number of alternatives as well.

It's also time to start thinking about the unspoken sacred cow of the public education system -- athletics. (Full disclosure: in addition to teaching English, I coach volleyball, basketball and track and field). But are multimillion-dollar stadiums an effective use of taxpayer money? Gasoline is currently $3.49 a gallon -- at what price point will it no longer make sense for schools like Texas High School in Texarkana to travel all over Northeast Texas to play its district opponents?

Here's a thought -- what would happen if school districts leased their athletic facilities to private organizations to operate their team sports for them? Parents would pay a fee to enroll their children in the sport(s) of their choice, and the districts could make money from the leases. Teachers who coach now could sign on with the private organizations. Instead of paying coaching stipends to classroom teachers, districts could get a full academic day from each teacher, and coaches could then augment their income by coaching through these private organizations.

But what about losing free athletic participation? In many districts, there is a fee structure in place for athletes anyway. Instead of supporting athletics, schools could benefit from it. Teams would be associated with the organizations, instead of the schools.

But what about pep rallies? In Europe, sports are run through clubs -- not through schools. The students still find ways to build school spirit, even without cheerleaders.

It's time to start thinking about the way we structure education in the United States. Simply letting more teachers go and letting infrastructure decay for another year, hoping that the next two-year cycle brings rosier sales tax revenues, is irresponsible thinking. It's almost like...waiting until the next election cycle to deal with the coming Social Security calamity. Oh, wait.....


Image Credits: By b.gliwa (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

CSI for your Kindle...

Deadly Choices by Jennie Spallone

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I enjoy most of the crime investigation shows -- the CSI's (especially New York, although hearing David Caruso's witty one-liners keeps the other characters in the Miami version from making me through rocks at the television) and Law & Order (SVU when Munch is there, or Criminal Intent). The story arcs get fairly predictable as far as timing -- although the most predictable is on House, where you can count on the furrowed eyes and the epiphany at :48 past the hour -- and although you know when the twists are coming, you don't know what they will be.



Jennie Spallone's "Deadly Choices" was quite a bit like reading one of these shows. Beth Reilly, a medical librarian-turned-paramedic trainee, is in the ambulance with her partner, Angie, who developed a nasty coke habit in Vietnam but has successfully managed to cover it up and earn some medals for bravery as a paramedic. Angie snorts once too many times, though, and ends up running over a pregnant, homeless girl. Because she doesn't want to risk the damage of reporting an accident that happened while she was driving high, she wants to flee the scene.



Beth notices that the woman is about to give birth, though, and so she delivers the baby while Angie fumes in the ambulance. They take the baby with them, and Beth convinces her friend, Sue, to hide the baby amongst her other seven foster children. Sue agrees, even though all of us know that she shouldn't, because she could lose her foster parent license and send all seven of the others to terrible homes.



Beth's fire captain is the uber-prototypical sexist firehouse lug who hates having one woman in his house -- let alone two. If throwing used sanitary napkins at the women in his house doesn't make him evil enough, he has a stock of illegal porn in his desk and has a habit of snooping through his people's lockers. He finds Angie's diary, where she happened to record the accident, and uses it in a blackmail attempt on Beth. Fortunately for Beth, though, he dies after trying to attack her at her home, during this attempt.



The twists and turns of this book are surprisingly bracing. At times, it veers from "CSI" quality down the road of such shows as "Rizzoli & Isles," in which shadowy clues become ironclad evidence in a matter of seconds, and the character development relies more on stereotype rather than the detail that would make characters like Sue and Reverend Luke intriguing, rather than confusing.



On the whole, though, I enjoyed the brisk read, and it is a story that will definitely make you think about the choices that people make when they think they don't have any choices at all.



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Next Week's Episode on "Criminal Minds"?

As a teacher, it is frustrating to read about professional colleagues of mine who use their position to bully or abuse others. Whether it's a teacher who just enjoys having authority over others, or to make them feel inferior, it's just wrong.

But when I read about sociopathic predators that do such awful things to children that the writers of Criminal Minds haven't even touched yet, things like the unspeakable acts that Mark Berndt and Martin Bernard are alleged to have done to their students at Los Angeles' Miramonte Elementary School, according to the L.A. Times, I wonder what has gone wrong with us as a species. The details are available on that link from the paper; be warned that they are extremely graphic and troubling.

And the parents at Miramonte are up in arms, as they should be. How did behavior like this go on IN THE CLASSROOM without anyone noticing? Their colleagues didn't notice that they were demented? Their supervisors didn't notice any red flags in their behavior? After all, it appears now that a teacher's aide at the school also sent love letters to a student. What on earth was going on?

How should a school district respond in a situation like this?

Well, the L.A. Unified School District is replacing the entire staff at Miramonte. Teachers, counselors, administrators. All replaced by "teachers and other workers on a rehiring list" (again, from the L.A. Times). We're talking about over 150 people. They'll still get their pay and benefits (as they should, since they haven't been implicated in anything), as will these new staff members who were waiting to be rehired.

How is replacing an entire staff going to improve the situation, though? Want to put administrators who should have noticed this on leave, pending the investigation? Fine by me. Want to hold them accountable for not noticing the sexual predators on their staff? Again, fine by me. Good administrators know their teachers, know their weaknesses, know their strengths.

But the first-grade teacher who got hired two years ago, who didn't really know these two men? Should she be sent home? Should she have this cloud hanging over her? Should her personnel file have this temporary leave in it?

Should all of the other children in the school, who have bonded with their own classroom teachers, who have built relationships of trust with them, now have to learn from people who got RIFed and were sitting at home waiting for another spot to open up? A whole school full of RIF castaways? How effective will that instruction be?

It is extremely important for the investigation of Mr. Berndt and Mr. Bernard, and any others at the school who were also carrying out monstrous acts of abuse, to be thorough and complete. If they are convicted, they should be locked away from society until they are carried out of prison in a box. Their victims deserve nothing less.

But what about the other students? What about their teachers? This decision answers no questions, brings no closure. Instead, it sends the more than 1,500 students of Miramonte Elementary School into a whirlwind of doubts, questions, and potentially worthless instruction -- a whirlwind that their parents may need months to help them escape.

Fans of the brisk thriller...give Mike Meyer's latest a look.

COVERT DREAMS by Mike Meyer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The idea that governmental agencies are at work manipulating the minds of those who have done terrible deeds in their name has appeared often in thriller lit, starting perhaps most famously with "The Manchurian Candidate," although the idea of using chemical manipulation to shift from one persona to the other goes all the way back to Jekyll and Hyde, or perhaps even to "A Midsummer Night's Dream."



The notion remains an intriguing one, which is what made Mike Meyer's "Covert Dreams" a fun choice to review. The pacing of his story is quick, making the book a nice read for a long airplane ride or a rainy afternoon. The characters remain a bit less dynamic, even the central ones (B.J. and Steven), and the masterminds behind the plot don't seem all that interested in their work either. The story of B.J. and Dabbie is the most compelling, and Meyer's refusal to make this a typical Hollywood resolution (that's all I can say without spoiling things for you) reminds me of the twist at the end of "Arlington Road."



There's a lot to like here -- the plot moves swiftly, and I flipped furiously, wanting to know what happened. When Meyer adds the emotional and motivational depth that one finds in the best books by Ted Bell or Robert Ludlum, he will stand alongside them in the thriller genre.



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Samson at Sherlock's

During Josh Hamilton's first week as a Ranger, he crushed a mammoth home run against the Seattle Mariners to win the game for us. At that point in time, I hoped that he would be what we so sorely needed: a clutch hitter who would lead us out of the Arlington desert.


Guess what? He did. Along with some amazing pitching, fielding and hitting by others. I didn't know if I would ever see a Ranger World Series, and now I've seen two. In that roller coaster of a Game 6 against St. Louis, after Feliz had blown the save, Hamilton came to the plate, sports hernia and all, and blasted a drive into the right-center field seats. Later, he would tell us that God had spoken to him in the on-deck circle, saying that he would hit a home run.


Well, you know what happened next.

But this isn't about the World Series. It's about priorities. I've been so busy rooting for the Rangers that I forgot something about Josh Hamilton. It turns out that he's not there just to bash home runs for fans like me. He's not there to crash into outfield walls chasing down fly balls for us, and he's not there to score from second on a bunt for us.

Those amazing feats are his art, but they're not his purpose.

So what is his purpose? The same as yours and mine -- to bring glory to the One who made us.
Granted, much of the glory with Josh Hamilton comes from those hustle plays, those epic sprints after balls into the gap, those doubles into the corner and those gargantuan blasts into the night sky.

But sometimes it has to come from somewhere else. Those spaces in his life off the diamond.

And for whatever reason, on Monday night, he headed out for some drinks. When Ian Kinsler showed up to get him home, he said he was done for the night -- but then he went back out and drank some more. For those of us who find Christian stories of redemption to be nine parts treacle and no parts sincerity, this is just another story of hypocrisy. Here's how he explained the other night:

But for those of us who are willing to allow a bit of complexity in our stories of faith, let's look at the truth in what he had to say in his press conference: "I can not take a break from my recovery, my recovery is Christ, my recovery is an everyday process. When I take that one day off it leaves me open for a moment of weakness, it's always been that way." (courtesy of the Dallas Morning News) I don't think that St. Paul or St. Peter said it any better than that.

It's true, as many sportswriters say, that Josh left millions of guaranteed money on the table when he decided to drink. All of the doubts that so many people had about his long-term viability, thanks to the three years he lost to his drug addiction, will come to play in negotiations.

But this testimony that Josh gave, back in 2008, remains true:

And here's the truth: Josh Hamilton may drink again at some point. We don't know what it's like to be tested for drugs three times a week -- and to have to take those tests as long as we want to do what we love. We don't know what stresses are going on in his life. What is also true, though, is that he did what we all must do when we fall -- he immediately recognized what he did, and rather than fall into a spiral of narcotics, he came back to his circle of accountability and began a new clean streak.

So instead of starting a series of Josh Hamilton jokes, or calculating his lost millions, let's hope that today, and tomorrow, and the tomorrows after that, Josh will continue to be the inspiring father, husband, and (God willing) ballplayer that he was made to be. That he will rise up from this in the ways that are so much more important than his ability to crush a baseball.

Like Kinsey Millhone or Hercule Poirot? Try This Story by Earl Staggs

The Missing Sniper by Earl Staggs

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


When I was younger, I devoured the mysteries of Agatha Christie. My favorites were the ones in which Miss Marple gently worked her way to the solution, lifting lie after lie out of the way. I also enjoyed, though, the way that Hercule Poirot saw so quickly through the puzzles around him, flying to a solution so quickly that those around him were bedazzled -- a literary descendant of Poe's Dupin.

If you enjoy Hercule Poirot, you'll enjoy Adam in this short story. The mystery is not difficult to figure out -- you'll likely identify the villain as soon as you meet him -- but the supremely confident Adam, with his constant need for coffee, will remind you of Poirot's constant attention to his mustaches. Adam's semi-emo condescension toward Dillon will remind you of the way Poirot treats Inspector Japp, his friend Hastings, and anyone else he deals with.

My personal taste is more toward the flawed detective -- James Lee Burke is a big favorite of mine right now. But in the tradition of the quasi-first-person mystery, that takes you through some gentle twists and turns to an outcome, "The Missing Sniper" is a fine addition.



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Quick Update -- Common Sense Prevails, Briefly

A quick update on a post from yesterday -- DISD teacher Joseph Drake, who was placed on paid leave for "alleged misconduct" right after emailing a trustee to complain about a school board decision, has been reinstated, according to the Dallas Morning News.

While Onlooker Slowdown would like to take the credit, it is much more likely that the press conference that Rene Honea, president of Alliance-AFT, called to petition DISD to stop bullying teachers did the trick.

Full disclosure -- I am a member of Alliance-AFT as well. It is worth the dues to have protection in case I am sued over something that happens at school, and to have assistance in the event that something like this happens.