Category Archives: politics

the education issue: assessment

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Ronni Bennett’s Time Goes By is one of the few weblogs that I have time to frequently read. Recently, she wrote:

So here is what I propose: that each blogger reading this today – whatever else you write about on your blog – take on one issue or a small aspect of one issue, follow it in the mainstream press, on alternative media and political sites online, on other blogs as it is debated and once a week, write about what you’ve learned on that issue. Make yourself an expert on it, do some research, give us the facts, tell us what the candidates are saying, how it’s being spun by their surrogates – and your opinions too, if you are so inclined.

Education is one area in which I have abiding interest, based on twenty years of experience that includes classroom teaching, training teachers, and developing and implementing statewide policies, including the state’s Learning Standards.. And, I have opinions. Very strong opinions. Especially about student assessment.
Everyone knows that what’s on the test determines what gets taught. And, in general, not enough effort is put into developing engaging ways for “how” it all gets taught. Everyone knows that, in terms of students developing a love of learning and then learning well, the current “teaching to the test” approach is an overwhelming failure. Student learning needs to be assessed so that we know if they’re learning how to apply what they’ve learned, or not.
This piece on the website of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching presents a different approach:


In the ambitious New Standards Project, a national initiative that regularly brought teachers together from around the country to learn techniques for integrating instruction and assessment, participating teachers learned to literally merge these two activities in such a way that they were indistinguishable. Lauren Resnick of the University of Pittsburgh, one of the visionaries behind the project, noted that rather than bemoan the inclination to teach to the test, we should take advantage of it. We should make exercises so compelling, and so powerful as exemplars of a domain, that honing one’s ability to solve them represents generalizable learning and achievement. Viewed in this light, teaching to the test is no longer vaguely disreputable because the skills and knowledge are themselves general and are the very things we wish students to acquire.

So, I begin to look at where the presumed presidential candidates stand on issues of education, specifically assessment. And here’s what I found:
from here:

McCain focuses his statements on education on school choice –that is, if a school fails a student, then the student should have the freedom to move to a different school. McCain believes that many schools are failing, and No Child Left Behind helps to illustrate the problem. Obama believes that public education was broken before NCLB –and that NCLB was intended to fix the problem, but was poorly conceived, never properly funded, and was poorly implemented.

Hmm. I believe that, while “school choice” does work to the advantage of some students, what most students need is access to a system of 21st Century public education that does what it’s supposed to do — prepare students to think about what they’re learning and to want to continue learning so that they can live fulfilled, productive and positive lives. Duh. Is that what’s happening? I don’t think so.
OK. So, what are the education platforms regarding assessment of the two presumed candidates?

from here

McCain’s education platform is built on merit pay for teachers and school vouchers for families who would like to trade in their students’ failing schools for private schools. According to McCain, families whose children are stuck in failing schools should have choices and opportunities that are not limited by entrenched bureaucracy or unions.

Pretty flimsy platform, it seems to me.
from here:


Standardized testing is stuck in the crossfire in the debate over accountability, and Obama has stepped up to take aim. He says that too often standardized tests fail to provide valuable or timely feedback. Meanwhile, “creativity has been drained from classrooms, as too many teachers are forced to teach to fill-in-the-bubble tests,” Obama says. While we do need some form of assessment, he says those tests should be measuring what is valuable for students to learn. “I will provide funds for states to implement a broader range of assessments that can evaluate higher-order skills, including students’ abilities to use technology, conduct research, engage in scientific investigation, solve problems, present and defend their ideas,” says Obama.

Thanks Barack. I couldn’t have said it better.

turn water into gasoline?

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When I bought my non-hybrid 2008 Ford Escape, I just couldn’t resist all the bells and whistles I got on this demo model. I had thought about a hybrid. But the wait was long and my old Subaru would consistently refuse to start, and no one, including the dealer, could figure out how to fix the problem.
Anyway, here I am with a car that averages 22 miles a gallon at a time when gas prices are spiraling and the only place I don’t have to drive to get to is the mailbox.
So, I get on the Net and google “turn gas engine into hybrid.”
And, guess what! There is a way to do that. And, supposedly, it’s not a big deal. Many sites advocate just doing it yourself with stuff you can buy at the hardware store, but that just seems like a dangerous way to do it. Suppose you ruin the engine you have.
The smart thing to do, it seems to me, is buy something already manufactured to do the job. The best site I found about using water to turn a gas engine into a hybrid is “fuelfromh2o.”
This is how they explain the process:

The process is as follows, you start with water and an electrolyte NaHCo3 [Sodium Bicarbonate]. You add DC current, the H2o breaks down into H2 & O [we just call it HHO]. We introduce it into the engine by use of the engines vacuum. The HHO combines with the gasoline and air in the combustion chamber and is burnt. Once burnt, it converts back to H20 [water]. Its now going to absorb the inner heat from the engine normally at 350 – 400*F and turn into super heated steam. Then its pushed out during the exhaust stroke and out the tail pipe. There it condenses back into to water vapor and eventually collects back into water. So you start with water and end with water.

So what are our results, first and foremost a really odorless exhaust. Lowered Co2 emissions, NO2 emissions go almost to 0, In short the exhaust emissions drop off the scale as you know them and you produce water vapor from your vehicles tailpipe. Why vapor instead of water??? Because the hydrocarbon fuel [gasoline] produces enough heat during combustion to keep the burnt HHO in a water vapor state, so it will totally condense into water outside of the exhaust system [eliminating any internal corrosion].


OK, I think. If it’s that easy, why isn’t everyone running out to buy what they call an “HHO Generator?”
Well, one reason, is that it’s not that cheap. Another, I suppose, is that most people, like me, don’t want to fool around and try to install something like this themselves. The smart thing would be to have someone do it who knows what he/she is doing.
I go to their list of distributors. There aren’t any near enough to make it possible for me to go there to have a HHO generator installed.
It does seem like such a good idea! Why isn’t the reality more widespread?
As the fuelfromh2o site says:

This technology has been around since the middle 1800’s. YEAH THATS RIGHT!!! Back before the take off of the industrial revolution and the real use of oil and coal to power our factories and vehicles. But oil and coal was easier technology and easily found and CHEAP. GUESS WHAT “NOT ANY MORE”! So if you could gain performance, better fuel efficiency, smaller bills at the gas pump. WOULD YOU DO IT??? Whether you purchase our HHO units or go to a competitor’s store or website and purchase theirs. Just as long as you the consumer realize that you have been methodically led into a money pit concerning energy and fuel.

SO NOW, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT???

I would love to do something. Anyone have any suggestions??

Rachel Rachel

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Nope, not Rachel Ray. She’s sort of the antithesis of the Rachel who has really impressed me recently.
Rachel Maddow, who has her own program on Air America, and has been on MSNBC’s Countdown as a political analyst, recently has stood in for usual host, Keith Olbermann (who, by the way is the one man with whom I’d like to be stranded on a deserted island.)
Maddow has the presence and the personality of a true news media star. She’s brilliant, articulate, appealing, confident, and down-to-earth. She’s also openly gay, and the way she presents herself visually reflects that fact in a very professional way. She has developed her own female — but not particularly feminine — style, and it works.
I suppose, if I had to be stranded on a deserted island with a lesbian, I’d just as soon it be Rachel Maddow.

T. Boome, T. Boome, yada da yada da yada da….

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The title of this post is an ineffectual parody of the Crew Cuts “Sh-boom.”
The point is that I’m singing the praises of T. Boone Pickens, whose ad I caught during some television show. I think maybe it was during Countdown tonight. I wrote down his website url, and I’m blown away. Well I probably would actually be blown away if I ever made it out to his wind farm.
PIckens has been an oil man all of his life, and he has come up with a plan to create a renewable energy network so that this country can break its dependence on foreign oil. It’s all there in his Pickens Plan, which includes the following statements:

America uses a lot of oil. Every day 85 million barrels of oil are produced around the world. And 21 million of those are used here in the United States.
That’s 25% of the world’s oil demand. Used by just 4% of the world’s population.
Can’t we just produce more oil?
World oil production peaked in 2005. Despite growing demand and an unprecedented increase in prices, oil production has fallen over the last three years. Oil is getting more expensive to produce, harder to find and there just isn’t enough of it to keep up with demand.
The simple truth is that cheap and easy oil is gone.
What’s the good news?
The United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind power.
Studies from around the world show that the Great Plains states are home to the greatest wind energy potential in the world — by far.
The Department of Energy reports that 20% of America’s electricity can come from wind. North Dakota alone has the potential to provide power for more than a quarter of the country.
Today’s wind turbines stand up to 410 feet tall, with blades that stretch 148 feet in length. The blades collect the wind’s kinetic energy. In one year, a 3-megawatt wind turbine produces as much energy as 12,000 barrels of imported oil.
Wind power currently accounts for 48 billion kWh of electricity a year in the United States — enough to serve more than 4.5 million households. That is still only about 1% of current demand, but the potential of wind is much greater.

So, the man’s got a plan, and he says:
Building new wind generation facilities and better utilizing our natural gas resources can replace more than one-third of our foreign oil imports in 10 years. But it will take leadership.
On January 20th, 2009, a new President will take office.
We’re organizing behind the Pickens Plan now to ensure our voices will be heard by the next administration.
Together we can raise a call for change and set a new course for America’s energy future in the first hundred days of the new presidency — breaking the hammerlock of foreign oil and building a new domestic energy future for America with a focus on sustainability.
You can start changing America’s future today by supporting the Pickens Plan. Join now.

If you go and read some of the comments in the forum, you learn things about Pickens that we liberals might have some problems with. On the other hand, at least he’s trying to organize a well-thought-out effort to convince whoever will be president that investing in building alternative energy sources is necessary for the economic health of this country.
Hmm. I wonder if there is someday going to be a way to convert my little suv’s engine to use natural gas or electricity. Probably not. I’m sure the auto industry wouldn’t want that to be an option. After all, the only other option would be to buy a new hybrid-of-some-sort car. And I won’t be able to afford that.

Hey nonny ding dong, alang alang alang (sh-boom)
Ba-doh, ba-doo ba-doodle-ay
Life could be a dream
Life could be a dream, sweetheart

whacking weeds

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Actually, as much as the weeds around here need whacking, they’re not getting it. They are pretty much out of control. Weeds: plants considered undesirable, unattractive, or troublesome, especially one growing where it is not wanted,
weeds.jpg
It’s not just the weeds around here that are out of my control. I am still living under the tyranny of my mother’s growing dementia and dependence combined with my brother’s demoralizing rules and realities.
Not much freedom for me here, on this Independence Day.
Maybe I should go out and buy my own little weed whacker, vent my frustrations on that army of undesirables that are intruding over every path from the door to the world. Whack! Whack! Take that, you creepy things.
I did murder a whole bunch of Japanese Beetles today as they attempted an orgy on my tomato plant. Whack! Whack!
One can only hold in anger and frustration for so long. Yes, I think I need to go out and whack those weeds, clear a path, clear my head. I know that those weed whackers are pretty loud, loud enough to muffle the yelling I need to get out of my system.
Someday I will be able to celebrate a real personal Independence Day. Until then, I need to go out and get a weed whacker.
On Independence Day back in 2002 I blogged that there should be a “Interdependence Day,” and a commenter sent me to this page, where there is a Global Declaration of Interdependence, as follows:.

Preamble:
In acknowledgment of the many existing documents and efforts that promote peace, sustainability, global interconnectedness, reverence for life and unity, We, The World hereby offers the following Declaration of Interdependence as our guiding set of principles for moving forward into this new millennium. It is inspired by the Earth Charter, the essential values of which have been culled from the many peoples of the Earth.

Declaration/Pledge
We, the people of planet Earth,
In recognition of the interconnectedness of all life
And the importance of the balance of nature,
Hereby acknowledge our interdependence
And affirm our dedication
To life-serving environmental stewardship,
The fulfillment of universal human needs worldwide,
Economic and social well-being,
And a culture of peace and nonviolence,
To insure a sustainable and harmonious world
For present and future generations.

And tonight, as I watched part of New York City’s fireworks, I couldn’t help wondering how all of that money spent on fireworks all over this country could have instead been used for much more important and humanitarian purposes.
But rulers know how to pacify the people using bread and circuses, how to make them forget what the late George Carlin so eloquently reminded us about.

communitainment

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That’s what Bill Moyers, in his speech to the National Conference of Media Reform, indicated that the media is becoming.

Already, newspapers and magazines (and soon TV programming) are encouraged to sell key words to advertisers – so-called “in-text advertising” – in the online versions of stories. Can you imagine advertisers going for stories with key words such as “health care reform,” “environmental degradation,” “Iraqi casualties,” “contracting fraud,” or “K Street lobbyists.” I don’t think so. So what will happen to news in the future as the already tattered boundaries between journalism and advertising is dispensed with entirely, as content, programming, commerce and online communities are rolled into one profitably attractive package? Last year the investment firm of Piper Jaffrey predicted that much of the business model for new media would be just that kind of hybrid. They called it “communitainment.”

Moyers also said great stuff like:

…this Administration – with the complicity of the dominant media – conducted a political propaganda campaign, using erroneous and misleading intelligence to deceive Americans into supporting an unprovoked attack on another country, leading to a war that instead of being “quick and bloodless” as predicted, continues to this day. (At least we now know that a neo-conservative is an arsonist who sets the house on fire and six years later boasts that no one can put it out.)

and

Democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent while enhancing the power of the state and the privileged interests protected by it.

Democracy without accountability creates the illusion of popular control while offering ordinary Americans cheap tickets to the balcony, too far away to see that the public stage is just a reality TV set.

Nothing more characterizes corporate media today – mainstream and partisan – than disdain towards the fragile nature of modern life and indifference toward the complex social debate required of a free and self-governing people.

This leaves you with a heavy burden – it’s up to you to fight for the freedom that makes all other freedoms possible.

Be vigilant; the fate of the cyber commons is at stake here, the future of “the mobile web” and the benefits of the Internet as open architecture. We’ll lose without you: the only antidote to the power of organized money in Washington is the power of organized people at the netroots.

You can go to the FreePress site and read, listen to, or watch the whole amazing speech.
A couple of years ago, I agreed with Molly Ivins that Bill Moyers should be president. Maybe what he should be is Barack Obama’s Carl Rove.
It’s too bad that there isn’t a Corporation for Public Blogging (like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting). Maybe if there were, b!X would have been able to continue his city-based and well respected journalistic (but not economic) success, the Portland Communique.
Surely there must be some foundation or trillionaire somewhere who might want to give out grants to independent citizen blogger/journalists? I nominate b!X to be first on the list.

I don’t believe in yesterday

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Yesterday was the “National Day of Prayer.”
In acknowledgment of the occasion, I quote here from my favorite scientist/atheist’s weblog, Pharyngula.

I can scarcely believe my country is officially pandering to such willful stupidity — elevating evangelical kooks to positions of prestige, trumpeting the virtues of sectarian religion, and actually crediting the successes of America to the fact that a subset of deluded, demented fools sit on their asses and beg an invisible man to protect us and help us kill people in foreign countries. What a waste, and what an encouragement of further waste.

I feel like just declaring this the official National Day of Derangement and writing it all off, maybe spit in the soup of people who say grace, or flip off any group I catch trying to do a collective exercise in ritual invocation of nonexistent beings, but the Minnesota Atheists have a more productive idea: they are calling this a National Day of Reason and are setting up to demonstrate in the Minnesota capitol in St Paul today. They actually have a prime position, and all the legislators leaving their workplace to join in the National Day of Inanity will have to troop by them. In my dreams, these politicians would feel a little sense of shame at the foolishness of the official events, but in reality, I’m sure they won’t.

>

honk if you love truckers

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Now, I usually don’t have much good to say about big rigs. Out on the interstates, they slow me down going upgrade and whoosh by me going downgrade, while I have my cruise control set to the ultimate speed that won’t get me a ticket.
But I’ve gotta love those truckers who are banding together in a Fuel Protest that has import for all of us.
According to here (which is worth reading in its entirety):

The truckers who organized the protests – by CB radio and internet – have a specific goal: reducing the price of diesel fuel. They are owner-operators, meaning they are also businesspeople, and they can’t break even with current fuel costs. They want the government to release its fuel reserves. They want an investigation into oil company profits and government subsidies of the oil companies. Of the drivers I talked to, all were acutely aware that the government had found, in the course of a weekend, $30 billion to bail out Bear Stearns, while their own businesses are in a tailspin.

[snip]

But the larger message of the truckers’ protest is about pride or, more humbly put, self-respect, which these men channel from their roots. Dan Little tells me, “My granddad said, and he was the smartest man I ever knew, ‘If you don’t stand up for yourself ain’t nobody gonna stand up for you.’” Go to theamericandriver.com, run by JB and his brother in Texas, where you’re greeted by a giant American flag, and you’ll find – among the driving tips, weather info, and drivers’ favorite photos –the entire Constitution and Declaration of Independence. “The last time we faced something as impacting on us,” JB tells me, “There was a revolution.”

Today, on the west coast

Cranes and forklifts stood still from Seattle to San Diego, and ships were stalled at sea as workers held rallies up and down the coast to blame the war for distracting public attention and money from domestic needs like health care and education.

“We’re loyal to America, and we won’t stand by while our country, our troops and our economy are being destroyed by a war that’s bankrupting us to the tune of $3 trillion,” the president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Bob McEllrath, said in a written statement. “It’s time to stand up, and we’re doing our part today.

Truckers joined the protests by refusing to cross the picket lines.
Also today, there was supposed to be a truckers’ protest convoy in New York City, but

Mike (JB) Schaffner, of www.theamericandriver.com, today announced that New York City has effectively canceled the convoy in Manhattan scheduled for May 1, 2008.

Spokesman Mike (JB) Schaffner said he was disappointed. “We were set to perform a peaceful demonstration to point out the frustration that working class America is feeling,” he said. “First they approved us. Then they changed our permits for no more than 35 vehicles in the convoy. Now they’ve placed so many unreasonable conditions on the event that it makes it nearly impossible. We’re asking the government of the great state of New York to address this, and the reasons why our freedoms to speak and peacefully assemble are being crushed.”

Brian Osborne, owner of B L Osborne Transport, said, “they’ve effectively shut us down all together.”

The trucker convoy that went to Washington on April 28 was more successful, and writer Barbara Ehrenreich chronicles her experience joining the protest on her blog (again, worth reading in its entirety):

We are to park the trucks at the RFK Stadium and walk from there to the Capitol, giving us about a half an hour to mill around on foot in the parking lot first. There’s a bobtail with “Truckin for Jesus” painted on it and, under that, “Truckers and Citizens United.” There are Operation Desert Freedom caps and a POW/MIA flag, as well signs indicting oil companies and “Wall Street speculators.” I chat with members of the mostly African-American contingent of DC dump truck drivers and with Belinda Raymond, a trucker’s wife from Maine, who tells me that people in her area raised $9000 to send a convoy of trucks down here, with the Knights of Columbus accounting for $2500 of that. Whole families have come, and I see a boy carrying a sign saying “What about My Future?” A smartly dressed woman from New Jersey carries a sign asking, “Got Milk? Not Without a Truck.”

Let’s face it. If all truckers went on strike, the economy of this country would grind to a halt as well. Once upon a time, Americans who weren’t going to take it any more dumped a bunch of tea into Boston Harbor.
And the Revolution began.
HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!

a time for every purpose

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It’s hard to stop feeling melancholy, remembering and then recognizing that what’s gone is gone for good.
I play Mary Chapin Carpenter’s album with which blogger friend Dave Rogers kindly gifted me through ITunes. It’s melancholy resonates with mine and fills me. And then the melancholy is gone, at least for now. I can think of something else besides what’s lost.
I can think of something like the elections.
I’ve had mixed feelings about Hillary Clinton for the same reasons that many others do. But I’m slowly becoming more and more convinced that she’s the better democratic candidate.
I was particularly interested in the points made in the Washington Post by Geoff Garin, strategist on the Clinton campaign.

So let me get this straight.
On the one hand, it’s perfectly decent for Obama to argue that only he has the virtue to bring change to Washington and that Clinton lacks the character and the commitment to do so. On the other hand, we are somehow hitting below the belt when we say that Clinton is the candidate best able to withstand the pressures of the presidency and do what’s right for the American people, while leaving the decisions about Obama’s preparedness to the voters.
Who made up those rules? And who would ever think they are fair?

[snip]

The bottom line is that one campaign really has engaged in a mean-spirited, unfair character attack on the other candidate — but it has been Obama’s campaign, not ours. You would be hard-pressed to find significant analogues from our candidate, our senior campaign officials or our advertising to the direct personal statements that the Obama campaign has made about Clinton.
The problem is that the Obama campaign holds itself to a different standard than the one to which it holds us — and sometimes the media do, too.

There are no saints in politics. But there are those who can get the job of fixing this country done more effectively than others.
I originally supported John Edwards. Hillary Clinton is my next choice.