March 2008 Archives

The ultra top-secret TSTA staff blog, Gravity and Waggery, has been revealed to me, and I must say I have to agree with the latest post on Speaker of the House Craddick.

As Richard writes in his post the subject of Junior Tuesday:

TSTA endorsed candidates who support Tom Craddick and candidates who don't because our endorsements were based on the candidates' votes on education issues. I wrote this in response to the question I seemed to be getting most often from just about everyone who is answering the political pundits' favorite question about Texas House races: Was Tom Craddick the reason candidates won or lost on election night?

I see something different - something probably far too simple for the political pundits and professional class of political operatives - that Tom Craddick was essentially irrelevant on election night.

I had the same thoughts. Are we crazy? naive? As far as I could tell, long-time incumbents had the advantage last Tuesday, and as Richard explains, those who didn't usually had a problem: Haggerty faced a lack of Democratic crossover. Macias lost by about the same edge he won last time. Latham's seat flipped again against a popular mayor.

And, of course, Van Arsdale lives in Sen. Dan Patrick's district, and woe be to anyone who crosses a Senator who is a conservative talk show host who owns his own radio station. That's a bloc vote out there.

As for me, I remember the video street survey that the Star-Telegram did, passing around pictures of David Dewhurst, Rick Perry and Tom Craddick. Did anyone on the street know them? Nope. They might know their money, of course, but most did not know them.

And Pat Hardy? Dodged a bullet, I think. I don't know that Pat would say that. I guess I would quote my own story, but you have to pay to read me. Here is the Star-Telegram's story. Almost 100,000 votes in that race. In the Republican primary. Those numbers are comparable to the 2000 Republican primary, which was GWB's first run at president. 

Katie Ford is the new editor of Texas School Business.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing what she can do. Katie was my section editor at the Austin Business Journal in part of my past. She's been TSB's managing editor since 2005.

I'm not into the fairy tale-sugar gumdrop-dollop of sweetness sort of press Texas School Business has become and probably has been for the last 54 years. I mean, this is a publication managed by the best "happy news" types of the TSPRA. 

Then again, I do like to try out the questions on Cy-Fair's "Are you smarter than a Cy-Fair third grader?" So far, I've done pretty well on the questions.

Dallas Alliance AFT held a press conference on Friday morning to discuss the union's dissatisfaction with the way House Bill 1 reconstitutes schools.

Of course, a lot of blame was thrown around: the kids who don't care; the parents who don't get involved; the Legislature that won't fix it; and Craddick Craddick Craddick.

Craddick is a way, I think of saying that the current Republican administration has one thought: Public schools are bad, and the only way to fix them is vouchers.

And I guess I could stp right there. If I only say those two things, you'd figure I'm about to write one more rehash about how No Child Left Behind is bad. Or good.

Aimee Bolender describes the sanctions under HB 1 as "backdoor vouchers." It's just one more way to strip schools from the public school system without guaranteeing solutions.

 

Actually, the phone is not ringing. It's closer to 5 a.m., and I just walked into the house after spending the evening at the television station, posting election stuff.

I don't know if you were tracking results. On Debate Night, I spent a lot of time being obnoxious on Jenny's blog. Tonight was a lot more serious. I had a lot more races. I had candidates to call.  I really hadn't been by the station to set anything up with them.

Above: Clinton and Obama talk about the fact I didn't get any sleep on Tuesday night. In this picture, Barack is suggesting I get a real big raise. Hillary is more concerned with national defense.

But how could you see Barack Obama drawing crowds in the thousands to Town Lake and Reunion Arena and every other venue in the state and still see him lose the state?

The simple answer that I was told was that Hispanics showed up and African-Americans did not. I haven't seen the numbers out of the races to confirm that. Although we wondered aloud in the newsroom tonight, Candra and I, how you can get the stars any more aligned to motivate African-Americans. You've got an eloquent African-American man with a populist message and a huge following and plenty of publicity... and you don't go vote?

I have to say, from the beginning, I've always thought that we had a farce of a campaign down here in Texas. I had conversations with a number of Dem operatives here ...

While all the local media were salivating over the huge rallies and thousands of people, I was thinking that these two candidates just didn't act serious enough. Now, I'm going to have a counter view on this theory of mine, but my theory was that we had the candidates here, but they just weren't saying much about Texas.

They talked... but never in specifics. They reached out to me, but not with a great deal of creativity. They sent surrogates and actors, but they didn't seem ready to dig into any real thought about the particulars of what is going on in Texas.

I guess I thought this was best illustrated by a luncheon I attended hosted by Obama. He sent a surrogate -- an economist -- to talk Obama talk. And so the first question out of the shoot is from a local Realtor. He wants to know what Obama's plan was for Texas on the foreclosure market, and specifically the fact that while the rest of the country is going bust, Austin is still generating a housing market.

So while Hillary is proposing a freeze on loans, and Obama is talking about a big bailout pool aimed at those in trouble, there is nothing in either plan that addresses an Austin. And I guess it just struck me that this economist -- and I hate to generalize him to be the entire campaign -- just wasn't prepared for variables like Texas.

Here is Salon's take on the Clinton ad.




On the other hand, my reaction would be, "Was it an iPhone?"

Jason over at Mental Floss just posted a post in honor of National Grammar Day, which I think could only make the conservative faction of our SBOE happy. In fact, I'm pretty sure there are a number of SBOE members who would like to see every day be Grammar Day.

So, uh, a shout out to those guys!

I just got a note from Alexander about a shout out to my blog, and I have to say I panicked. I was trying to grab some lunch before I go down to the television station to start blogging about the election... and I haven't put content up in ... hours.

That doesn't mean that I don't have anything to say. On the contrary, it has been meetings practically every day, from Spellings on Friday to The Council on Monday. And we have SBEC on Friday, where it appears they're going to argue whether we need standards at all for teacher training.

Because, of course, teaching is not a skill; it's just a gift like, say, a Yalie in your classroom for two years as a generous public gift or Obama's oratory abilities as he exhorts us to get to the caucuses on Tuesday night. (What is the plural of caucuses? Cauci?)

But let me talk about the teacher incentive pay article in EdWeek. I don't want to miss that one because it is our study that is referenced in the story.

Finally, here are the most specifics -- and the most compelling speech -- I've seen from Obama on education. Education just never seemed to hit the radar in this campaign. In fact, the only mail I've gotten in my mailbox from Hillary has dealt with health care. In sentences, not paragraphs. What was I supposed to get out of that?

Look how Obama carries that audience. It's mesmerizing. What superintendent wouldn't love to get a reception like this from parents? You feel like you could follow this guy off a cliff. And, whoa, the man gets that Bill Cosby lick in there, too.

I know other blogs have pointed out Obama thinks NCLB narrows the curriculum... but you don't hear Obama saying he wants to repeal the Act. I'm not sure how pre-testing would work, but I do think the time for formative/diagnostic assessment has come... That is, if we can ever get the classroom technology revolution to sync with the accountability revolution.

 

 

I have to say I am developing quite a girl crush on Edwonkette. Don't tell the State Board of Education members. We might have to edit some textbooks.


Look at this entry she just posted on private funding. How does she do it? How does she possibly know just how crazy the Gates money in Texas makes me? Does she know I sit around at 2 a.m., just listening to exhausting and pointless Council presentations (still not)  online weeks later, and wonder why we're spending hundreds of thousands in Bill Gates' (private) money to produce these Comparison of Strategic Plans.doc and competing gap analyses solely for political reasons?

Could it be... be still my beating heart... that other states are having some of the same thoughts we do that it just might not be a good idea to let Gates run rampant in our public schools just because they wrote us a big fat check for a bunch of boutique programs that cripple schools by re-segregating kids.. and have no concrete plan in place for how to validate or replicate the success of these campuses? Could it be that some of us might be having a few questions about this beauteous bonanza?

And just when I'm completely amazed with Eduwonkette's insight, she pulls out a spreadsheet. That really is a girl after my own heart.

I.love.her. I'm not ashamed of it.

Actually, just for the record, I want to say to Dr. McLeroy that I am not in love with Eduwonkette. I was sitting here trying to think what ELAR literary device I used (Irony? I don't know. Alanis Morrissette got me all confused on that one.), but it escapes me.

Anyway, let's play a game. This diagram charts the rather tangled interconnections among the various think tanks in DC. I think you'll recognize some names here.

I think you know where I'm going with this. What about Texas? I bet, if you put on your thinking caps and send me some hints, I can make a chart like this, too! I'm looking forward to it, as I probably don't know half as much as I think I know until you tell me!

In the meantime, I promise a real cool ed policy story with a bunch of insider baseball tomorrow, along with a Photoshopped movie poster. How much cooler can it get?

Okay, it's a few months after the fact, and I didn't shoot this myself... I just searched for Texas education videos. And there it was, the Texas TOY Ceremony over at the Sheraton around Thanksgiving of last year.

I actually stopped by this luncheon on my way back from Johnston one Saturday. It was inspiring to see the kindness and enthusiasm and optimism of the teachers. I think this should be required attendance for the entire SBOE and every senior administrator at the agency. And, truth be told, all of us who get a little grouchy when the House Pub Ed hearing lasts more than 4 hours. This is one reason why we do it.

It appears the McKinney cheerleading scandal will be immortalized in a cable movie.

Two things bummed me out:

First, it's been a whole FIFTEEN YEARS since the Wanda Holloway Channelview scandal. How old does that make me? How old does that make Holly Hunter, for Pete's sake? Has the daughter in question hit menopause yet?

(Although I must say Holly Hunter has aged a lot more gracefully than Priscilla Presley.)

And, second, I couldn't come up with a good spoof off the top of my head, like a movie about a smackdown during an Academic Decathlon Super Quiz or big claymation hand-to-hand combat scene over a yearbook theme or such. It just doesn't have the same ring to it. Bummer.

Yes, it's just one of those days... From Mr.Rogers to Gray Rape and Teacher-Student Sex.

I'm looking at two particular Broadsheet pieces in Salon.

First is this clip:

 I find the comments on this one more interesting than the predictable outraged feminist rant.

Yeah, it's a terrible thing that rape happens and it is rape, but women and men who avoid getting drunk at parties probably don't put themselves in the high-risk category for possible rape or accusations of rape. (And, yeah, it probably should apply to men as well as women.) As one letter writer wrote, it's the same reason most of us learn to park in well-lit garages. You aren't at fault when you get attacked, but you can minimize the risk. Duh.

But the comments on this piece get even more interesting, include some thoughts on how poor communication skills often create misunderstanding between the genders; how certain rape studies have colored our subsequent coverage of the issue; and the different interpretations between men and women looking at the same conclusions.

If you're interested, here's the original Los Angeles Times op-ed piece by Heather McDonald. (As for the crisis hotline situation, I found in college that most of the calls I took were either student depression or some guy with a fetish for feet. No lie.) I don't know if I agree with everything she says, but here is the latest DOJ report on acquaintance rape on college campuses.

Salon's Broadsheet also goes after a report on teacher-boy sex that aired on ABC News this week.That was the topic of criticism on Broadsheet, but here's the ABC News overview story.

(Side note: I have now watched, ripped, uploaded and posted a video. I have the competency of an 8-year-old girl.)  

The reporter makes the point I would: Why are we worried about fingerprinting? If we really wanted to address the issue, wouldn't we combine such a massive effort with some type of psychological testing? Another "duh" from me. The possibility that a teacher is going to make a poor decision of such magnitude is not going to be revealed by a fingerprint registry, although I have given credit to TEA for noting that, at least, a registry guarantees a person's criminal record will travel with her from school district to school district... via a centralized DPS database.

Obviously, the difference equated between male and female teachers on this issue could certainly lead me down another rabbit trail. I know it's wrong to say it -- I don't excuse it -- but the younger the victim, the creepier it gets for me.