The only thing I can agree with Sec. Duncan on is the need to increase the number of days in the school year. Let’s get honest this has not been done because there is an entire industry build on tourism, camps, and lessons that some people can afford to purchase. IN some districts this has been addressed by adding intersessions. The interesting thing about the intercessions is that they allow teachers to teach like they used to-using creativity. Teachers love them and so do the kids. Follow ups on this type of project based learning shows BETTER retenion.

It is interesting to note ” Republicans were among the first U.S. politicians to propose significant federal aid for education. But by the 20th century, the party had shifted its position to a general skepticism that at times gave way to limited support. Even at the times when backing limited aid, though, the party retained its stipulation that in administering the aid, the federal government must in no way interfere with state and local control of schools. ” These were the days I was a republican.

Then in 1985, after Reagan’s first Secretary of Education, Terrel Bell, resigned, conservative William J. Bennett took his place. Bennett announced that he would use the post as a “bully pulpit” to push conservative policies and values. Bennett argued for a Western Civilization-based core curriculum and against multicultural programs. Suddenly the influx of religion-I am Catholic-and it was clear it was HIS religious views! The first Bush advocated institutional competition among schools and adequate training for entering the job market. President Bush also renewed the call for a tuition tax credit. Ok it seemed like we were back in the realm of reality…

Then the elections of 1994. Republicans gained control of Congress, and quickly set out to slash funds from various education programs, arguing that the government’s deficit necessitates cutbacks. Republican Representative Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America” further targeted education and job training for budget reductions as Congress and the Clinton administration fought over balancing the budget. Now the far religious right seemed to be in firm control. Education regained a bit of funding under Clinton but was left in the dust as he focused on saving his own job. Enter the second Bush (Did I mention I liked his father better) and real person in charge his VP. No Child Left Behind fully entrenched the governent into the education process taking away any sense of local control and basically assumes that all children were alike everywhere! The party of limited governent became the party Of BIG HUGE GOVERNENT and BIG BROTHER. This for me was the last bullet I was going to bite and left the party. Okay there was the Patroit Act and failure to grant civil rights that also pushed me out of the party.So here I am a girl who lives in the town that gave us Gerald R Ford now a Democrat. I never thought I would see the day that the Republican party was all about more government!

Now we have a newly elected Sec of Education who agains wants to increase the role of the Federal Government. Sec Duncan…wake up!!!!! Everything you are suggesting has been done under the Republicans and failed.

Here’s a new approach-Let’s get rid of all the huge administrations in public schools. Let’s run them more like the private schools who do not have all the layers. Have a few teachers do double duty as the curriculum experts, bump their pay and get rid of the overpaid leaders who sit in offices, hold meetings, go to conferences and issue orders from on high. Teachers are not Mommies-we are professionals. We need discipline restored to the schools. Since more testing and more restrictions has not worked-how about letting the teachers take a crack at fixing things???

This past year was a mixed bag of both personal and professional challenges. One of the goals I set for myself this past school year was to set up a personal learning network, and find out what other educators were doing around the country and the world. This past year I was happy to be team leader for the MI Champions project in my school. I was honored to have a student article and a profile published in the MACUlL journal. I was thrilled to be able to present at the MACUL conference in Detroit, and got to meet in person several people I knew through MACUL SPACE. I had several articles published in England through Ictopus, and kept a professional blog on Edublog and Macul Space. I enjoyed meeting with Mark R in early August and he allowed me to use a great new tool called Curriculum Crafter. I managed to get a simple webpage on the GRPS website so the Shared Time Program has a presence there. I won the MEMIC grant and was able to buy two GPS devices for geo caching. I even sat on the unions executive board, since we are 2 years without a contract. My classroom wiki at http://computerkiddoswiki.pbworks.com grew as a resource and at last count had over 30,000 guests and was viewed from more countries than I care to count.. This past year I blogged, I twittered, kept a group calendar on Learnport, and have even attended professional development in Second Life.

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One of the most exciting developments was meeting Prof Nyhoff from Calvin College. He visited my school and yesterday I had the opportunity to take my 7th graders to Calvin. The kids got to see how computers were used at the college level, play in VR, meet the professor who wrote the book on Learning Alice Programming, saw a “Super Computer”, meet with the Art department to see Digital Photography, and Set design. Hats off to Prof Nyhoff who is working to reform education, increase students interest in Computer Programming and is building bridges from the college environment to the K-12 world.

This past school year my 2nd grade students created a collaborative wiki using a virtual Flat Stanley, my 7th graders created a Treasure Island wiki, and my 8th graders began blogging. We build virtual bridges and then models using gumdrops and tooth picks. Students at various grade levels programmed in Squeak, Scratch, Alice, Logo, and HTML. We created animated features, used the computer in digital photograph, drew in Google Sketch up and Anim8or, created podcasts, photostories, scrapblogds, and voice threads . We researched, we collaborated, and we published. I spent way to many after school hours donating time to create “the yearbook” In giving the students zero hours before school and giving up my lunch hours for study hall, left me drained at the end of the day. Teaching 8-9 classes of 45 minutes each is likely enough. Finding balance is a new goal yet to be achieved. I would like to try using a green screen next and would like a Bluetooth tablet or interactive whitebard. However I remain determined to not let the lack of resources limit the opportunities for my students. It is such a wonder to have so many free web based tools.

The challenges in my personal life were equal to that in my professional one. My husband finally got a job he loved and was plagued by headaches so severe he missed a lot of work and was let go after 6th months. The doctors are still trying to find the source of the headaches and mood swings, and continue to try different medications. My daughter totaled her car, but was fortunate to have only minor injuries. I am still dealing with a root canal, just need to get fitted for the cap. All way to expensive for words. Y car needed a new transmission and still needs more work done. My hopes of returning the school for a PhD are on hold once again. With so many jobless in the state I am happy to have a job. Grand Rapids Pubis now the record for the lowest paid teachers in the KISD. We are also plagued by a group from Muskegon called the EAG who is not shy about their desire to “break” the union. I moved my youngest ADD child to a private school with smaller class size.. We have 2-3 hours of homework each night, and the finding the money for the tuition is difficult-but the school has been working with us. I never lost the weight I wanted too, and there were many days I needed more time, or spent too much time at work and too little time at home. The one constant in the world of technology is that there is always someone who needs help with something. My hair dresser has given up on me-too many cancelled appointments as I ended up dealing with one crisis after another at school. . Right now the dreaded m.exe virus is haunting the systems and so far nothing I have tried as worked. Help arrives on Monday.

So overall I did the best I could at both home and school with the resources I was given. There is much more to look forward to next school year. Maybe I will even lose the weight I want to.

While this is a discussion is ongoing, what has been an unknowable trend has been the large amount of non-educators that seem to be defining what education is and should be. The coming focus and shift to Charter Schools may in the short term show some positive results. But-and here is the rub-who are we leaving behind in the “regular” schools?  Should we peel off the students who have interested, vested parents and create schools just for them?  Without realizing it would we be setting up unequal school systems?

An an educator in a large city district I can assure you there are real problems. Unfortunately, many of the issues urban educators face are issues over which they have very little control. If we really want education to become the great equalizer then we should at the very least look at the real issues teachers in the inner city face.

Student mobility is a HUGE problem. It is not uncommom for students to attend 3-4 different schools during one school year.  This also adds to huge gaps when the child is not in school at all, as they move between homes, parents,and even cities.  A child actually has to be there in order for a teacher to teach them. The loss of a caring teacher to an At Risk student is seen as another rejection. Many of our kids face way to many rejections.

Discipline. My girlfriend teaches Kindergarten and spends at least 50 % of her time explaining school appropriate words and behavior. Most of these 5 year old come to school with vocabularys that would make most of us blush and striking out and hitting someone is natural way to resolve differences.  By the time some of these children reach middle school it is not uncommon for them to have expereinced more fear, loss, and betrayal that most adults experience in a lifetime. 

Materials and Supplies. While Walmart and other run ads  for back to school supplies, most  children in city schools arrive with very little. It is the classroom teachers who out of her own paycheck buys crayons, markers, glue, and even copy paper. While a box of crayon runs around $2.00 just times that by 30 children. Add in socks, backpacks, and stickers and you get the picture that teacher in the inner city is investing a much larger portion of her paycheck in her classroom. A high school friend of mine has taken to buying golf pencils for his classroom because students never have pencils and the ones he buys tend to walk away the last student who borrowed it. Teaching over 100 students a day-he has tried everything to keep enough pencils in the  room so students have something to actually write their assigments with. Golf pencils just don’t seem to walk away as quickly. As city educator make far less than their counterparts in the more affluent subburbs, it becomes harder and harder for teachers to use their salaries to make up the difference.

Paper work- until my own children attended a suburban school I never realized that paper work, reports, data sheets, were not used everywhere. My childrens teachers apparently just keep grade books and grade report cards. They do not have data review sheets, they do not have to track trends. ect. I understand that perhaps more assessment is needed to reteach-but I am hear to tell you-all that paper work- it really good at killing creativity. 

Respect. I have always considered teaching to be a higher calling. Yet as the years have gone by it is very common for  parents to yell at me for giving theur child a B+. There is an entitlement that if I don’t give an A I must justify-justify-justify. The pressure on the poor kid-to have to get A’s in everything. Not to mention the very demeaner of students and parents who challenge. It is okay to vent, yell at and educator-we just stand there and take it.

Note to the new education secretary-education has some very real issues, running away from them and ceate seperate but equal schools is no answer. Blaming the teachers-just not going to work. It is going to take a real discussion with teachers who work with kids to come up with some solutions. There’s a unique idea-how about including us in the discussion.