mr. clapper yo clap

Friday afternoon, as I was sitting in a seminar pondering how I might write an editorial based upon my research, I failed to realize that Bob Herbert had a piece in that morning’s Times describing the need for new school buildings.

The only thing I might have added would have been a paragraph or two outlining the ways in which new schools could be used to re-make portions of the educational landscape and the inequality that characterizes American education. Why not guarantee federal funds to districts that want to use school construction to integrate communities or who want to erect multi-use buildings that can provide both education and jobs? Hard to imagine what such a bill would look like or how you’d close loopholes, but it seems like a decent way to address the issue of infrastructure, which as we all know, is forever crumbling.

So a new budget has been announced. Two curious paragraphs from the Inquirer’s coverage of this development:

There’s also a cut of about 0.5 percent in individual schools’ discretionary budgets.Asked if principals had been notified of the cut, which amounts to a savings of about $1.2 million, Masch said: “I hope so.”
Michael Lerner, president of the principals’ union, said his members had not heard a word.”They have neither been notified nor consulted on the budget cuts,” said Lerner.

Second snip, which will undoubtedly show up in the casework of a special education attorney:

Masch said the district was able to reduce costs by dismantling some “self-contained” classrooms and putting those children into regular education classrooms with teachers able to teach students at multiple levels.

I liked these two paragraphs from A.O. Scott’s review of Precious and The Blind Side:

Both movies tell stories that suggest a way out of poverty, brutality and domestic calamity for certain lucky individuals while saying very little about how those conditions might be changed. For all their differences, they ultimately occupy a common ground that is both optimistic and, at the same time, curiously defeatist. Both locate the problems facing their main characters in the failure of families — of mothers in particular — and find solutions in better families, substitute mothers (Ms. Rain and Leigh Anne), whose selflessness and loyalty exorcise the biological monsters who have been left behind. The fact that “The Blind Side” is based on a true story lends credibility to this sentimental idea.

Snipping a bunch to get to this line:

We believe she (Precious) will be all right because we would rather believe that than confront the failures of institutions, programs and collective will that leave so many other Preciouses unrescued.

One more reason why The Wire rules.

So I found this article a few days ago, a brief essay by Gordon Wood describing the “choices” made by historians about writing analytic vs. narrative histories. And it got under my skin a bit…he writes:

“Instead, most (new historians) have purposefully chosen not to tell stories; that is, they have chosen not to write narrative history.”

While I have great respect for Professor Wood’s work, he’s not really being fair here. There are many graduate students and scholars who would love the opportunity to chose to write narrative history. But those sorts of books will not get you tenure at many, if not most, places. The initial choices made by “new” historians are those that will best serve them if they want to remain university based historians. He’s also fails to acknowledge the historians who can do both — write a book within an analytic framework that still offers a compelling narrative. Two recent books, Lisa Levenstein’s A Movement without Marches and Hilary Moss’s Schooling Citizens, manage this quite well. And both books are written beautifully.

Either way, why isn’t there at least a paragraph on the ways in which scholarship is evaluated in the university? And why isn’t there a paragraph asking why senior historians, who have tenure, don’t chose to write larger narratives? Or why those that do are not always successful?

quote from Superintendent Ackerman, cited on the KYW1060 site:

“And I think we need to support them more in what they do really well, not ask them, one size fits all, so you’re an EMO, and you have to all do the same thing. I think that we build on their strengths and expertise. And as I’ve been talking to some of the EMOs, they really, really like that. They sort of cut for themselves an area or a sphere of expertise. And I think we should open it up for all schools.”

Arlene Ackerman, reflecting on her first year in Philadelphia, seems ready to take on teachers and principals, playing the “tougher standards” card in this article.

What struck me was her description of the school construction process:

One example is the way new facilities have been built, she said. In the past, school advocates got new buildings or renovations based on meetings and promises from administrators. She wants a master facilities-planning process, with some kind of formula to determine which schools get built, and when.

“People don’t go to the superintendent, have a meeting, and get promised a school when there are schools that have been waiting for years and decades to get needed renovations,” Ackerman said.

Now I don’t doubt that there are political subplots to which schools get built and repaired and which ones don’t, but a bit more evidence here would be helpful. This suggestion plays into conspiracy theories–some of which are undoubtedly true–but a simple follow-up question asking for an example would have helped.

to read this essay with a group of teachers, to discuss its relevance/irrelevance.

Favorite quote:

A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Academic credentials do not guarantee this.

Crawford, Matthew B. . “The Case for Working with Your Hands ” New York Times, May 24 2009, 36-41.

Teaching about adolescent literacy, I often encounter students who will cheerfully declare that they hate math or science. Occasionally, though, I get a student who will shamefully declare how little they like reading.

This sort of split extends all sorts of places and certainly the gap between the humanities and the natural sciences seems to be growing. I like this idea, though, as a way of giving students a chance to genuinely connect across disciplines.

Great article from the McClatchy folks on No Child Left Behind.

Every American should be forced to watch HBO’s Alive Day once a week until the war comes to an end.

I watched it with a group of high school students and was hard pressed to hold it together enough to process it.