How to fix education

There are many things that could be done to fix this economy, many that will not be done, and many that won’t even be considered. Educational reform will certainly be considered, but in all likelihood, nothing positive will be done. This is because, as I have mentioned in previous essays, people really don’t care about the state of education, they just know that, like supporting our troops, they have to give it lipservice. So, while it is absolutely certain that we will see a change in education in the next few years, it is likely to take a similar shape to most government reform we’ve seen of recent: more rules and regulations, goals and rubrics, standards and practices, more acronyms and alphabet soup, that will amount to nothing more than trying to squeeze a mile of copper wire out of a penny. However, if we were to take seriously the need to improve our educational system, there are four essential changes that must be made: 1) more funding, 2) pay teachers more, 3) differentiate and provide consequences, and 4) institute best practices.
As for funding, the solution is simple: schools need more of it. It is simply impossible in the modern age to run a school on peanuts. Schools need computers, retrofitting, repairs, basic maintenance, projectors, additional rooms, tables, chairs, etc. Now, if one were to visit newer schools, perhaps this would not be such a complaint, but as usual in our society, new schools are built where the richest and most prosperous people live, while the old, urban schools with their rotting innards make sure that the poorest among us are sent yet another message that they are not as worthwhile as the wealthy classes.
The funding also needs to take another form or path to get to schools. As it is now, funding is akin to a patchwork quilt, coming from the number of individual students, grants, applications for federal and state money, etc. Funding also fluctuates based on the prosperity or decline of the state budget, blind to the needs of individual schools. The simple truth is that until we fund schools adequately, and in a rational manner, they are going to be second rate at best.
Of course, what good is a nice, well funded school without good teachers. In the end, not much, but at current salary and compensation levels, the people that are truly brilliant, motivated, and inspired are not likely to become teachers, and on the off chance they do, it is not likely they are going to stay there very long. Teachers, at least in Oregon, are required to have their master’s degree, a level of education that few else are required to reach (less than 7% of our society). Yet when they finally get out of school to put their training to use, they are paid less than almost any other professional with a similar level of education ($38,900), and are afforded a meager, grinding road of advancement that is based not on excellence, or achievement, or adherence to professional development, but simply time (the salary increases about $1,000 per year).
Why would any driven, ambitious person ever want to become a teacher? They wouldn’t, and it is partially the fault of the unionization of the teaching profession (note: I am not, by any means, anti-union). Let’s look at the results: as a principal, I can’t fire bad teachers (union), nor can I pay more to great teachers (union). As a teacher, I have no financially motivated reason to do the best possible job I can do—that has to come from pride in one’s work, professionalism, enjoyment, and care for one’s students. But even assuming said teacher has all of these, he or she never gets any kind of accolade other than the proverbial pat on the back for their work. Moreover, since not every school or student body is equal, after awhile experienced teachers tend to seek out the best situation for themselves and their families, as any rational person would do, especially considering there is no financial compensation to stay at a poor school with a tough student body. So in the end the best teachers that still want to teach end up at the wealthiest schools. For some reason, we expect teachers out of the goodness in their hearts, to always do the right thing, which, aside from other public servants, such as police officers and firemen, is something we don’t ask of any other profession—not even doctors. So, we can continue to pay teachers crap salaries with little to no room for financial advancement based on performance, but as in all things, you get what you pay for, and I’m not going to lie—there are a lot of unmotivated, middling, crap teachers getting middling, crap salaries teaching our future generation.
We also need to differentiate. By this I mean, we need to provide pathways other than high school diploma and off you go to college, because not everyone wants to go to college, and not everyone is an academic all-star—and that’s ok. The world needs janitors, public works officials, hairdressers, servers, construction workers, mechanics, electricians, and plumbers too, and they probably don’t all need to learn a foreign language, how to write poetry, and pre-calculus.
Hand in hand with this is the need for real consequences in school. As it is now, students simply advance through elementary and middle school until they reach high school, and it is only in their junior and senior year that it finally sets in for them that not going to class or doing any work is not going to earn them a diploma. Rather than advancing to high school and being put on the same track to college as we would with an honor roll student, this student should be siphoned off somewhere in the system, perhaps as early as 6th grade. This may not seem to be the most fair or equitable system, but, to quote my and everyone else’s parents: life’s not fair, and students should not be made immune to that lesson. By providing different tracks for students, we provide consequences for poor academic achievement, and at the same time, ensure that every American child has the opportunity, at the very least, to learn a valuable trade in which they can earn a decent wage.
I suppose all of the above could be said to be instituting best practices, but let’s go pragmatic here. For instance, why the hell do we start high school kids at 7:30 in the morning when studies have shown that teenagers don’t function at that hour? The answer that you will get if you ask a principal or district official is buses, which is absolutely absurd. More absurd is that most of the entire academic system in the United States is tied to the agrarian practice of letting students have summers off so that they can work the family farm. There are many other little nuances I could get into about the way schools are run, but the point is that if we are going to expect teachers to institute best practices to help their students, and we expect students to make their best effort in school, then why the hell aren’t we going to expect school districts and principals to do the same, by making the school schedule and logistics surrounding that schedule, as efficient to the educational agenda as possible? Until our schools align themselves with what is known about how students best learn and adopt a more rational schedule, education can never fully reach its potential.
Being a teacher, I will disclose that yes, selfishly, these changes would make my life better, but that doesn’t necessarily make my suggestions invalid. District officials, superintendents, and principals may look at them and say that they are impractical, and with the current system we have, I would completely agree; however, as I have often said, the changes our society needs across the board cannot be waffled or pussyfooted around if we want to see actual results. Small reforms here and there are not going to solve the monumental problems we face as a nation, and education is no different: you get what you pay for—until our society is willing to pay for a quality education, it is going to get what it pays for, and right now it is squeezed, poor, and myopic. And as a person that sees himself as ambitious, motivated, perhaps even mildly intelligent, I can tell you this: if changes aren’t made in the next 10 years or so, I can’t see myself teaching.

A modest proposal

OK, so I have one idea (well, several actually, but you probably don’t have time for all of them right now) on how we can jumpstart our economy…but before I unveil my brand new baby, let me at least tell you how I got there—but be warned, if you’re a capitalist stooge, you probably won’t like this because the tenor of it, in a word, rhymes with schmocialism.
So, in any case, now that the ideologically sensitive aren’t reading anymore, let’s begin. This morning, as I was working out (yes, yes, insert your fat jokes here), I saw a Hertz Car Sales commercial, and I realized that rental car agencies buy new cars almost every year. Brand new cars, every year. And primarily American made. And then they sell them, as they themselves admit, for about 30% lower than they bought them for…and I had a bit of a revelation: we make a crap load of cars. A shit load even. And cars, new cars, are expensive. And they hold their value about as well about as well as an old man can hold his bladder. Simply put, the entire automobile industry is incredibly wasteful, and has built itself into a disposable consumer market. People are fooled into buying new cars because of the cleverness of financing terms—sure the car’s value may be $35,000, but I only have to pay $389 a month.
The problem is that ultimately, this kind of industry asks a tremendous investment on the part of the consumer…not only that, but it’s not all that efficient, because instead of repairing cars using interchangeable parts, every car is different, every car is unique, and because there is less incentive for companies simply to make parts when they don’t add up to a whole, cars are more often totaled or replaced than repaired.
Of course, the automobile industry is not the only one that is wasteful, and this brings up the central thesis of this essay: we cannot continue to consume products at such a tumultuous level, because at some point, the ever expanding markets that capitalism relies on reach their limits; at some point we cannot continue to buy more cars, razors, etc. In the end, that type of consumerism is simply not an efficient use of our resources, raw, refined, or human; because rather than racing to build a product that is only going to be disposed of shortly thereafter, we could be using those resources to better our society in another, more enlightened way.
As of now, I don’t have many ideas on how we can move from a consumer society to a sustained, enlightened society, but I know where it can start—with housing. Why not have the government buy up houses that have been foreclosed and allow people to apply to live in them, giving priority to the lower classes and those that work for the public good (firefighters, police, teachers, etc.), but also based on merit, intelligence, and congruency to the particular arrangement? The houses could be leased on say, a 25 year loan, for $400-500 a month. At $400 a month, adjusted for 3% inflation, the lessee would owe just under $5000 a year. Over a 25 year span (and you have to stay all 25 years), this would mean that the lessee would pay about $125,000 into the system. During their tenure, they would be responsible for all house repairs, and when they are through, they keep the $125,000 they paid into the system, minus what it takes for the government to renovate the house to make it ready for the next tenant, or could buy the house at the market value minus what they’d paid into it.
Granted, the numbers might be slightly different depending on how exactly the arrangement was reached (sorry, I didn't major in math), but the principal concept works. The benefits of such a program would be tremendous. First of all, it would head off some of the vagrancy that now plagues our society. Teachers, police officers, firemen, and others that qualified for the program would remain in their communities for the 25 years, forming community organizations, building parks, participating in local government, solving problems, and generally bettering the community in which they live. In addition, because the rent would be so low, these individuals (which, would obviously have to have extremely stable jobs) would provide a stable consumer base for their community and for society at large. Moreover, the government’s involvement in the housing market would also stabilize prices, and perhaps help us avoid the ridiculous ballooning and consequent deflating of the real estate market that acted as the primary cause of our current crisis.
I guess the point I am trying to make is that we have to start looking to compensate people in ways that don’t involve money. Money, itself, is a fantastic invention that allows for efficient trade and investment, but it is also a tremendous barrier to progress. After all, nothing stops us from building schools, public transportation, hospitals, roads, bridges, etc., but money. We possess the resources, human and physical, to complete the task, and yet the need to pay for the labor and resources prevents progress from taking place. I am not here suggesting that we should institute slavery, or simply take resources from those who hold them, but it does beg a question: how long are we going to let our current system obscure the improvement of the human condition?

Who we really are...

On the eve of Barack Obama's historic assent to the office of president of the United States of America, I have a message for our new government and its people. You ask: "even the Senate?" And I answer: especially the Senate...but especially the House.
We realize that our society, and our economy, is in crisis, the problem is that we don't yet fully understand who we are, because it lies in such strident discord, with who we think we are...
We think we are free market capitalists; in reality we are aristocratic protectionists and arms dealers. Our military budget is eight times larger than China's. In 2003, it is estimated that the United States made up about 47% of all of the world's military spending. No part of the military budget can be considered anything but socialism, or fascism if you prefer. Let me repeat that: the military budget is socialist/fascist--it is not part of any free market--in fact, it could be considered an artificial market. After all, we don't need to be in Iraq, and in that sense, our military budget is chosen, as are our wars of recent.
Even in the larger sense, we are socialist, in that we rely on the redistribution of income from all to the rich. Most taxpayer dollars are spent on contracts given to private companies to provide a good or service. Ideally, contracts would be handed out to the lowest bidder, to the most efficient company; in reality, this is a system rife with fraud, backroom deals, and waste. Republicans, of course, are publicly horrified by this system, and it is one of the main reasons they lionize smaller government. However, again, there is a stark contrast between perception and reality, because recently it has been Republican programs and military adventures that have provided the greatest opportunity to abuse the system. Think: Halliburton, Bectel, Blackwater, or the $9 Billion of cash that simply went missing in Iraq.
In the end, who wins the contracts? Aristocratic business owners that have close ties (often campaign contributions) with those in government, both state and federal. So, even though we as a nation believe ourselves to be capitalists, in reality we are more than willing to socialize the costs of the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex, and other construction projects.
What, for some reason, we are unwilling to socialize, are the most basic needs of our citizens, like Healthcare and Education. Why? Because it's not fair, it's socialism, it's wasteful, etc. One can pick out a dozen reasons that people will give you for opposing national health care or providing more money for education, but you could apply any of them to the egregious industries above and the criticism would be just as, if not more, tenable.
The difference is that the economic benefits of providing comprehensive health care or quality education are not immediately or directly observable. Sating our fears, on the other hand, is, and therefore, the need to feed the corpulent appetite of the military, the prison system, or bailing out the banking industry is begrudgingly accepted as inevitable, necessary.
We think we are a charitable, patriotic, and noble nation. In reality, we are selfish, hedonistic, and downright greedy. We say we value our children, we say we value education, but the fact remains that most Americans would rather spend their money at a sporting event or buying $3 latte's everyday than support a tax increase for schools. The fact that our school systems remain tied to an agrarian calender, that their starting and ending times are largely determined by bus scheduling, and that teacher's salaries lag far behind their similarly educated peers, collectively indicate an unwillingness by our society to truly reform education when we can instead pay it lipservice and get on with the tailgating.
The recent mortgage crisis perhaps best represents our collective greed. Everyone was in on it, from Wallstreet to the appraisers to the real estate agents to the investors to the buyers. All of them were willing to say that a house that had undergone zero improvement in infrastructure, was in the same neighborhood, with the same schools, in the same state, with the same weather, was somehow, magically worth $100,000 more than it had been two or three years previous. And now, instead of those "capitalists" eating the cost of their mistake, Wallstreet gets bailed out.
The problem is that in economics, you can't just avoid bad mistakes--you have to pay for them--and a quick fix isn't going to do anything but delay the inevitable. It reminds me of how our school system, concerned more with numbers and making things look pretty, will pass a student on from grade to grade, and finally to graduation, never mind that the student reads at a fifth grade level and can't pass algebra. Ultimately, the school escapes responsibility because, yes, the student did graduate. Unfortunately, it doesn't change the fact that he reads at fifth grade level and can't solve basic math problems.
So yes, we can bail out Wallstreet and stabilize the stock market for awhile, but it doesn't change the fact that we've lost our manufacturing base, the cost of living is as high as its ever been, and our society is buried in individual debt, whether it be a mortgage, student loans, or credit card. And when people are paying off debt, they can't very well buy new goods and services, so inevitably, the economy is going to reflect that unless something changes.
We think that we are a reasonable, middle of the road nation. My guess is that the remaining Republicans in the house and senate are going to try to assert this with an attempt to block any progressive legislation that comes their way. The fact is that we are no more reasonable than we are middle of the road. We are a diverse nation of individuals with a diverse set of positions, past times, and passions. What we need in reality is another p-word: pragmatism. Until we face the fact that we aren't ever going to totally eradicate terrorism until we eradicate poverty, that we aren't ever going to win the war on drugs, that we simply cannot afford to waste public resources on asserting morality or massaging ideologies, we are going to continue on our current downward spiral. Human society must advance toward progress or it inevitably free falls into chaos, barbarism, and violence.
In short, we cannot waffle our way out of our current crises, no more than we can compromise on issues like education and healthcare. Change can be frightening, but without it, our nation's demise is inevitable. And lets face it, at this point, we don't have much to lose.

Oh Ninnies

Since moving to Salem, I’ve become acutely aware of a certain subclass of humans that exist, and in fact, are indigenous to the United States, that, having lived in other places previously, such as San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, Eugene, etc., one simply does not notice. This is not to suggest that this particular group didn’t exist in those places, but that they simply weren’t a large enough part of the population to gain the critical mass necessary for recognition. Truly, in Salem, however, the Ninny is unmistakable: a bulbous sore on the landscape no easier to ignore than a nuclear plant’s sentinel cooling towers. She is ubiquitous.

Perhaps it would be better to describe the outer manifestations of the Ninny, before we discuss this subject further, in order to establish a visual cue, and thereby gaining some familiarity with our subject. Let us start with the most basic facts: the Ninny is usually a female with a distinct, rounded shape in her midsection; thick, fat legs tapering down covered with some kind of soft, stretchable material (think sweatpants or tights, often tights with stirrups; the latter is markedly worse to behold), to smallish feet dressed in shoes that are slip-on or Velcro. Her spider’s body of a torso is sweatshirted, mumued, or sweatered, and upon this corpulent pedestal sits her head. The face is flushed with red checks swollen from eating sugar cookies, eyes narrow and small, often bespectacled, mouth thin and also narrow, so much so that a smile (if it can move her fat checks) takes the shape of a U, or more often, a small, round black hole. Her hair is short, or if not short it is beehived up toward the sky in a tight perm. This is important to realize—a Ninny will almost never wear her hair down or long. I don’t know why, but I know it has a lot to do with giving up. Of course, this visage, though certainly unattractive, is not particularly alarming, nor does it strike the viewer, initially, as dangerous. Not at least until you understand the psychology of the Ninny.

She is dumb. Not necessarily unintelligent, but dumb; unwilling to direct what intelligence she does possess toward the accomplishment of any decent endeavor. Her mind is weighed down with Walmart sales, her pastor’s dawdling words, and bad music (I’d speak more to this, but not having had the disprivilege (yes, this is not a real word) to ride in the car, or be in the home of such a human, I don’t really know, but I can guarantee you that it’s absolutely god-awful). Even more than this, her mind is ruled by a constant state of irrational, baseless fear. Fear that her children will be kidnapped or involved in a fatal bicycle crash; fear that she will be robbed; fear that the world is large, diverse, and sexual. She is afraid, most of all, of change, and for this reason she is generally a Republican—easily led if the message fits what she wants to hear, stubborn to a fault, believing simply that the solution to all of the world’s problems lies in cutting taxes, owning guns, locking up the bad guys forever and ever, and being a first-class, blue-ribbon bigot. But mind you, regardless of her party, she doesn’t get involved in politics—it’s much too nasty. You see, in a Ninny’s world, everything is fat, sweet, pleasant and planned. She is the kind of person that douses her food and drink with lemon juice, Ketchup (though the Ninny will call it catsup, which is just fucking ridiculous), fake sugar, and ranch dressing. She is the kind of person that has a bumper sticker that says “keep ‘Christ’ in Christmas,” and then proceeds to ensconce her house in gaudy Christmas lighting, decorate the insides with the pagan colors of silver and green, watch every Christmas special, and go to every sale known to the holiday season. She is the kind of person that wears teddy bear sweatshirts, gives and wears bad Christmas sweaters, doesn’t drink much, but will eat as much sugar and imbibe as much coffee as humanly possible—a real fucking snack factory. In a word, she is classless. Think Paula Dean in a bad wardrobe with zero charm. Other words that I’ll just include as abstract Ninnies descriptors: mediocre, trite, boring, provincial, clueless, dated, ignorant, foolish, pre-geriatric, etc…

Did I mention that the Ninny is an absolutely horrific driver? It is almost unbelievable, not to mention dangerous. The Ninny is slow, never knows quite where she is going, and indecisive on the road, primarily stemming from the fact that the Ninny doesn’t really have any confidence in anything she does. She is the ultimate waffler when it comes to making choices, the ultimate mule in sticking with what she believes in.

As it happens, Salem is both the capital of the state of Oregon and the official capital of all Ninny’s. Whereas most people that come to Oregon visit Portland, unquestionably one of the most beautiful cities in the U.S., Ninnies come from all around the Midwest and South to visit Salem. No one knows for sure where the Ninny’s came from originally (see the endnote for more on this), but God knows they’ve found their perfect town in Salem, OR. A town with two Walmarts, two Best Little Roadhouse Restaurants, and Three Fred Meyer’s. A town where there is not one decent gourmet restaurant (not one with any class or originality anyway), not one good grocery store, and a myriad of strip mall like fixtures dotted with greasy take out eateries and bargain stores…

Now, so far I have been saying “she” when referring to the Ninny, but there are male Ninny’s as well, and they are pretty much the same as female Ninny’s. It is just that they are less common…you see, when men hit rock bottom in middle age, they are what I would term the “dipshit.” Look to “Throwingstones” for future news on this alarming group. That is all, for now, on Ninny’s, I hope it has been useful.

(Endnote: most historians now believe that the Ninny actually originated during the period in medieval Europe in which it was common to try and execute women accused of being witches. Becoming a Ninny was a way for the average woman to avoid being accused of witchcraft, being that witches were believed to be mystical holders of the sacred feminine, beautiful, capable of seduction and manipulation with their female charms. Hence the Ninny, the ultimate symbol of anti-beauty and anti-intelligence, was at least safe from being accused of witchcraft. Therein also lies the Ninny’s fondness for Salem, Oregon, as the witch trials famously reached their apex in Salem, Massachusetts.)

Lies and deceit from Republican operatives

First, I apologize for my apathy in the recent weeks in not writing more about the important issues of the day, but hey, I was enjoying the holiday season. I will do my best to write that wrong (hehe, get it!) in the coming months, so please stay tuned...

Anyway, in the last week I have received several panicked emails about what *gasp* the democrats are going to do now that they have the full power of the American government, and *gasp* proof that the left wing press was at it again, not reporting the truth about Iraq. At first I was alarmed, because unlike the ditto-heads (aka assholes) on the right, we on the left do not simply accept what our leaders tell us, and continue to question the direction of government regardless of what party allegience those that run it claim. However, my rage soon turned to a smile, then a laugh, then annoyance, and then back into anger, and here I am now writing to you...because, as usual, it was simply a viral, right wing talking point. You can tell these things as soon as you scroll to the bottom of the page, where the email asks you, now that you're righteously upset, to send it along (pretty fucking arrogant for a moochy email that originated from someone I don't know, but then again, Dick Cheney shot some guy in the face and made the guy apologize for it, so, I guess its par for the course).

Of course, if you have the time and the inclination to do so, you could also research if said article or outrage was ever even published/happened--whether the email is even based on factual information. What is your guess, dear reader, about the legitimacy of these emails...hmmm?

My goodness, you're right! So far, all of these emails I've received have been a complete farce--100%. This includes the last two: the first, alleging that we have actually exterminated all Al Quada forcess in Iraq, and that this documented by the London Times, but not the American Press (found to be false by another of the email's recipients); and the second, which suggested that Nancy Pelosi said this, "we have an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with millions of unemployed minorities." After doing an extensive search for this specific quote on Pelosi's website, other government sites, and on google and a few other search engines, the only place I found this quote was on anti-Obama websites, right wing blogs, and other GOP talking point websites. Now, I must admit, it is possible that I didn't exhaustively search every last corner of the information superhighway, so if you can find something to suggest that Pelosi did actually say this, then I stand corrected and will correct the statement on this blog--but I don't think this is the case.

The reason? I've been through this before. These two recent examples have been preceeded by 10 or 12 before, all making similarly ridiculous claims, and as I said earlier, all proven totally false. It simply took a little research. Several had supposedly been sent out by professors of various illustrious universities, but when I found the professors' homepages, they all had warnings that there was a viral email using their name for credibility that they had not written and completely disavowed. Others have been articles that had been written by respected newspapers/organizations, but when I went to read the article myself on the papers' website, I found the article in question simply did not exist.

The lesson here is that 1) Republicans don't check their sources and/or are willing to misrepresent or blatantly lie if it advances their purpose, and 2) you should always check the sources of articles and information sent your way; moreover, it is absolutely critical that to call the lies out when they occur. It is one of the most effective ways to change minds about the polity in this country, and no one likes to end up with a pie in their face by being fingered for a liar.