Possible Venue Change and Suggested Discussion Outline

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THE PROVERBIAL TEAT ON THE WHALE

Our author, Dana Goldstein, made an amazing admission buried on p. 208 of The Teacher Wars that teacher quality accounts for only approximately 7% of the achievement and employment gaps in America, with the remaining 93% driven by out-of-school factors according to “the most celebrated value-added study ever conducted.”

Published in the American Economic Review in 2014, the study by Professors Chetty, Friedman and Rockoff examined 20 years of data for more than one million children and their teachers from third grade to adulthood.

This did NOT surprise the participants at our Nov 18 meeting.

Tucker Gurney (retired U/Utah Biology Prof) recounted the year she spent working for the Red Cross on Chicago’s notorious South Side after graduating from the U/Chicago in 1962 before starting her PhD.

The conditions she described were similar to those that John Karls often reminds us were typical of the 178 “I Have A Dream”® Progams in 51 American inner-cities in the 1990’s that provided individual tutors and mentors for an entire inner-city school class (or housing-project class cohort) as it progressed from third grade through high school graduation with a guarantee of college tuition:

(1) 99% of “Dreamers” living in single-adult households;
(2) 95% of total Dreamers living in single-adult households headed by a druggie; and
(3) 75%-80% of total Dreamers living in a single-adult household headed by a druggie who hands all receipts over to the pusher so the children have to steal just in order to eat.

It was not surprising that inner-city children knew by the age of 5 that they were NOT eligible for their dreams. And that their only realistic career objectives were pusher or pimp, or girl friend of a pusher or pimp graduating to whore.

What was surprising is that the IHAD Programs were able to achieve 90% of their Dreamers graduating from high school and going to college -- DESPITE THE FACT that the classes just ahead and just behind the Dreamer class typically had SINGLE-DIGIT high-school graduation rates.

Although The Teacher Wars provided a wealth of information about the Teat On The Whale (teacher effectiveness), it reminded us of how the IHAD Program had showed America The Promised Land by treating inner-city education as a SOCIOLOGY problem rather than an EDUCATION problem.

And how Bill and Melinda Gates and their foundation had caused America to turn away from The Promised Land and, for a decade, to worship the False Idol of breaking up inner-city schools into smaller units.

And after admitting the failure of that approach, causing America to Wander In The Wilderness for another decade worshipping the False Idol of School Choice which was evaluated in a national study in 2009 conducted by Stanford University and FINANCED BY THE PRO-CHARTER WALTON FAMILY FOUNDATION AND THE MICHAEL AND SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION of 2,403 charter schools (about half of all charter schools and 70% of all charter-school students) -- which found that 37% of the charter schools had learning gains that were SIGNIFICANTLY BELOW those of local public schools, 46% had gains that were no different, and ONLY 17 PER CENT had growth that was significantly better (this despite “cherry picking” the best applicants and expelling poor-performing students!!!).

It is also a shame that during 2008-2011, the top 21 National and California politicians and 43 news-media superstars refused to permit $84 billion of private funding to be used to provide IHAD or IHAD-style programs for 10 million inner-city children (details are available in the third & fourth sections of this Bulletin Board).

But after our unsuccessful attempt to enlist the help of Pope Francis (please see our 6/17/2015 e-mail campaign described in the first section of this Bulletin Board), we did NOT have any other ideas at our Nov 18 meeting for what could be done.
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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Possible Venue Change and Suggested Discussion Outline

Post by johnkarls »

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---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: The Approximately 150 Recipients of Our Weekly E-mail
Subject: Meeting THIS WEDNESDAY Evening Nov 11th - The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession
Date: Sat, November 7, 2015
Time:
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Dear Friends,

Our next meeting is THIS WEDNESDAY evening Nov 11. Please join us for socializing from 6:15 pm > 7:00 pm or, if you prefer, come only from 7:00 pm > 8:55 pm for our formal discussion.

NB: LOCATION TBD.

BECAUSE, DUMB OLD ME, I ALWAYS TRY TO AVOID HOLIDAYS IN THE SEMI-ANNUAL SCHEDULING WITH THE LIBRARY SO OUR RESERVATION MADE 5 MONTHS AGO IS FOR NOV 18 BECAUSE THE 11TH IS VETERANS DAY.

HOWEVER, THERE ARE 8 RSVP’S FOR NOV 11, SO WE WILL STICK WITH THAT DATE AND LOOK FOR ANOTHER VENUE NEAR THE LIBRARY IF THE LIBRARY IS CLOSED (OR THEY CANNOT ACCOMMODATE US).

SO PLEASE RSVP IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY AND ARE PLANNING TO ATTEND, SO THAT WE CAN NOTIFY YOU REGARDING THE VENUE.


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SUGGESTED DISCUSSION OUTLINE

It follows immediately below after this e-mail.


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OUR FOCUS BOOK

The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession by Dana Goldstein ($10.00 paperback + shipping or $11.99 Kindle from Amazon.com - 274 pages sans notes & index).


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BOOK REVIEW EXCERPTS

“[A] lively account of the history of teaching. . . . The Teacher Wars suggests that to improve our schools, we have to help teachers do their job the way higher-achieving nations do: by providing better preservice instruction, offering newcomers more support from well-trained mentors and opening up the ‘black box’ classroom so teachers can observe one another without fear and share ideas. Stressing accountability, with no ideas for improving teaching, Goldstein says, is ‘like the hope that buying a scale will result in losing weight.’ Such books may be sounding the closing bell on an era when the big ideas in school reform came from economists and solutions were sought in spreadsheets of test data.” —New York Times Book Review

“Goldstein presents detailed case studies from different periods that should give pause to any contemporary reformer who claims to know exactly how to fix public schools in America. Her careful historical analysis reveals certain lessons useful to anyone shaping policy, from principals to legislators . . . thorough and nuanced.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Dana Goldstein’s The Teacher Wars is the product of just what the teaching corps needs more of: open-minded, well-informed, sympathetic scrutiny that doesn’t shrink from exposing systemic problems and doesn’t peddle faddish solutions either.” —The Atlantic

“Engaging. . . . Goldstein ably sketches reformers past and present, asserting that the common force behind each new wave of school reforms is evangelical conviction, and that new movements often seem based more on faith than on factual evidence . . . her ability to illuminate each new wave’s ‘hype-disillusionment cycle’ is a welcome treatment of a fraught subject.” —The New Yorker

“A colorful, immensely readable account that helps make sense of the heated debates around teaching and school reform. The Teacher Wars is the kind of smart, timely narrative that parents, educators, and policy makers have sorely needed.” —Frederick M. Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute


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AUTHOR BIO

Dana Goldstein is a journalist, a Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Fellow at The Nation Institute. She is a former associate editor at The Daily Beast and in 2010 won the Spencer Fellowship in education journalism at Columbia University. Her work on politics, education, and women's issues has appeared in national publications including The American Prospect, Slate, TIME, BusinessWeek, The Daily Beast, The New Republic, The Guardian, The Nation, The Washington Post, and In These Times. She is the author of The Teacher Wars, published by Doubleday and a New York Times best seller. She graduated from Brown University, where she studied European intellectual and cultural history with a focus on gender.


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RSVP’s REQUESTED

As noted above, please RSVP if you haven’t done so already so that we can notify you regarding the venue.


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SKYPE PARTICIPATION

Non-Utah-residents (and residents who are out of town) are invited to participate in our meeting via Skype.

If you would like to do so, please press your reply button and type “request participation via Skype” and we will contact you to make appropriate arrangements.


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We hope to see all of you on Nov 11th.

Your friend,

John K.

PS -- To un-subscribe, please press "reply" and type "deletion requested."


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SUGGESTED DISCUSSION OUTLINE
The Teacher Wars: A History Of America’s Most Embattled Profession


A. Any Comments About Our Focus Book


B. Auburn U Adopting All Second Graders At Chicago’s Schmid School

B-1. Please see http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org for the details of how Auburn U alumni and friends have adopted all of the second graders of an inner-city school on Chicago’s South Side.

B-2. So far, this is just a guarantee of a full-ride scholarship.

B-3. But Yours Truly is betting that they will provide a tutor and mentor for each student for the next 10 years, which would then replicate the old “I Have A Dream”® (IHAD) Program of the 1990’s which transformed the typical SINGLE-DIGIT high school graduation rates for 179 IHAD Programs in 51 American cities to more than 90%.


C. On-Line Education Programs = The Next False Idol For Inner-City Education?

C-1. One of our regulars suggested that the so-called Khan Academy, which comprises SOLELY zillions of on-line courses, may become the model replacing conventional inner-city schools.

C-2. The reason why this might be a threat is that the Khan Academy has been bankrolled by the Gates Foundation which --

(C-2-a) caused America to turn away from The Promised Land of IHAD Programs to worship for 10 years the False Idol of breaking up inner-city schools into smaller schools; and

(C-2-b) after admitting the failure of that approach, causing America to spend another 10 years Wandering In The Wilderness worshipping The False Idol of School Choice/Charter Schools which a national study in 2009 conducted by Stanford University and FINANCED BY THE PRO-CHARTER WALTON FAMILY FOUNDATION AND THE MICHAEL AND SUSAN DELL FOUNDATION of 2,403 charter schools (about half of all charter schools and 70% of all charter-school students) found that 37% of the charter schools had learning gains that were SIGNIFICANTLY BELOW those of local public schools, 46% had gains that were no different, and ONLY 17 PER CENT had growth that was significantly better (this despite “cherry picking” the best applicants and expelling poor-performing students!!!).

C-3. Please see http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org for further details, including an SOS distress call from Yours Truly (since he has no spare time for research before Wednesday evening) for any and all Good Samaritans to investigate the Khan Academy from the viewpoint of:

(C-3-a) Why anyone would think that on-line instruction would be effective for any adolescent unless s/he is supervised by a parent, rather than being policed solely by the equivalent of a customer-service chat-line; and

(C-3-b) Why anyone would think that inner-city children who live in a single-adult household headed by a druggie who turns over all receipts to the pusher so that the kids have to steal in order to eat -- would receive adequate supervision so that they actually turn on their computers and pay attention to Khan Academy programs (much less cope with them successfully with only the equivalent of a customer-service chat-line).


D. The Discussion Q&As From The Short Quiz

Q-17 = Did Hillary Clinton serve on the IHAD National Advisory Board until the 1992 Iowa caucuses?

A-17 = Yes.

Q-18 = And did the first President Bush love to explain that the “1,000 Points Of Light” portion of his 1989 Inaugural Address was inspired by IHAD for whose Boston program he raised prodigious amounts of contributions (IHAD-Boston was headed by his nephew Jamie Bush) and ditto for IHAD-Houston where the first President Bush lived?

A-18 = Yes.

Q-19 = If Charles Dickens were still alive, could he write a new book called A Tale Of Two Families in which (A) Hillary Clinton remains true to the IHAD Dream and proposes during her current Campaign for President free tuition at all state colleges and universities, and (B) Jeb Bush betrays the IHAD Dream by retiring as Florida Governor and, for the next decade, working to peddle the Snake Oil education policies of the Billionaires' Club?

A-19 = Yes.

Q-20 = Would Hillary Clinton’s Dream of free tuition at all state colleges and universities provide The Carrot that could transform existing organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters and Boys & Girls Clubs to provide more effective Surrogate Parent mentors and tutors for our inner-city children?

A-20 = What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Q-21 = Since Hillary Clinton has proved how bright and imaginative she is, can she be expected to find a way to induce the existing Surrogate Parent organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters and Boys & Girls Clubs, to concentrate on entire classes of an inner-city school (or entire class cohorts of public housing projects) since the “I Have A Dream”® results demonstrate that much, if not most, of its success came from enclosing an entire class in a protective cocoon in which education was revered rather than disrespected?

A-21 = What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Q-22 = Is there anything we can do to encourage all of the Presidential candidates to embrace Hillary’s proposal so that mainstreaming America’s Permanent Under-Caste can finally become a bi-partisan reality?

A-22 = What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

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