Thoughts On The Run

The people who complained about the President giving the okay to kill bin Laden are probably the same ones who would have complained if he was taken alive and put on trial.

If you are a republican, Bristol Palin had corrective jaw surgery; if you are a democrat, she had plastic surgery; and if you are an independent, you do not care.

Maria Shriver found a way to kick out a republican from the house.

Hockey in May makes about as much sense as baseball in November.


Newt Gingerich dumps his wife when she has cancer and still some think he would make a good president.


President Clinton watched Al Qaida grow; President Bush watched it hide; President Obama watched it killed.


College towns like Chico, California have a lot more to offer than suburbs like Hemet, California no matter if the economy is thriving or struggling.


One teacher can have a positive impact on an entire class of students but one school board can ruin the lives of thousands by laying off teachers.


If no child is left behind, how do we know which ones are ahead?


Fantasy football; that should be how we refer to the NFL.


RIP Wouter Weylandt; I am a very lucky person.


Charles Barkley is the best sports analyst on television; the funniest too.


Everyone should have as much fun at work as Conan has at his.

Merit Pay Will Hurt Education

I recently watched a CNN special report on public education in which an hour was spent examining all that is wrong in our nation's public schools and concluded with what they felt were alternatives to the current solutions being used. As a teacher, the solution that struck me the most was the use of merit pay.

Many experts believe merit pay is needed when it comes to determining a teacher's salary and claim it will reward the good teachers while weeding out the bad ones. I do not believe this to be the case.

In a school district like mine, you can have teachers who teach anywhere from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Personally, over the course of my 28 year career, I have spent time teaching all grade levels and can tell you no two are the same. There is no equitable way to determine whether or not a kindergarten teacher of twenty years is doing a better job than a colleague of the same experience who teaches high school history. No two children are alike, no two grade levels are alike, and no two subjects are either.

Merit pay will only place a greater emphasis on test scores which we all know have driven our education system off the tracks. What do you do with a teacher who teaches a subject that is not tested by the state? Do you drop performing arts and other elective classes? Do you get rid of physical education? Do we just teach reading, writing, and arithmetic?

It is not that difficult to evaluate any teacher who is assigned to teach a single subject. They have the opportunity to master their craft and you can evaluate them on student progress, classroom management, and creative lesson plans. However, when that teacher is assigned to teach a period in another subject area because they hold more than one teaching credential, they now have double the prep time compared to their colleagues who merely teach one subject all day long. Performance is bound to suffer.

There have been years when I did not know what my teaching assignment was when the first bell of the year rang. One year, I ended up teaching seven different courses over a six period day. Figure that one out. Just last year, a week before the start of school, I was informed I would be teaching high school Behavior Health full time. A few days later, my principal, who I had yet to meet, called to tell me my schedule was changed to two periods of PE in the morning followed by three periods of Behavior Health. Then, when I reported to work, no one informed me my schedule had been changed again to four classes of Behavior Health followed by an afternoon class of PE. Three weeks into the school year, I was notified less than one hour before class, my schedule was being changed yet again. I was now losing my Behavior Health classes and being given four new classes of Geography.

If the same people assigned to evaluate my performance are unable to come up with a master schedule by the first day of school, how can they be relied upon to provide accurate teacher evaluations?

Some teachers hold a single subject credential and can only teach one thing. This allows them to master a subject and teach it year after year. Many work at their trade and continually shake things up in an effort to provide a quality education for their students. Still, others relish knowing they can go on cruise control and do what they have always done.

Other teachers, like myself, are credentialed in several areas. As a result, we get moved around a lot to fill in where needed, much like a utility baseball player who one day plays first base, the next, he is in the outfield, and then that is followed up by playing third base. Baseball teams need utility ball players but these players do not make as much money or receive as much recognition as their colleagues who master one position.

Schools are no different. They need utility teachers who can do a little bit of everything but are never given the chance to master any one thing. Without them, schools could not function.

In 2007, I was teaching middle school PE where my management skills allowed me to effectively teach classes of more than sixty students. When a new middle school opened up in

2008, I was moved and assigned seventh grade Social Studies, the subject I first started teaching in 1984. In 2009, I volunteered to teach elementary PE because I was looking for a challenge I had never done before. However, my district closed the school I was at when the year ended and I was then moved in 2010 to teach high school Behavior Health and later Geography. When that school year ended, my district dropped the Geography and Behavior Health requirement so I was then assigned to teach PE full time.

Five years and five different teaching assignments. Is it fair that my pay be tied to student progress over that time? Should I be rewarded for the multiple assignments I took on or punished because as a result, I did not have time to take on additional duties beyond the teaching day?

If the person assigned to evaluate me likes me, I may end up among the highest paid teachers in the district. However, if they don't, or if they go by the book and base it on strictly student performance, I may be working a second job to pay for my kids college tuition. Is it really fair to place my financial state in the hands of someone who may not like me or who may be upset because I do not blindly follow No Child Left Behind? While it may be easy to chart the progress of students on a year to year basis, you can not do the same with the teacher whose assignment continually changes. And before you say I am the exception, you may want to check and see how many teachers there are out there like me. You would be surprised.

Too often, our "best" teachers are given the "best" students and the "best" classes to teach. Any principal who dares to change their teaching assignments will have to face the wrath of that teacher, their Union, and scores of parents.

Other teachers are rewarded with choice assignments because they coach or over see other extra curricular programs that are not mandated or required by contract. The rest are left to fend for what we call the table scraps and as a result, some years are good and some not so good.

Merit pay for teachers will never work in making our public schools better. It will only drive away teachers who want to know in advance what they stand to earn so they can financially plan for their family's needs rather than having to sweat out an evaluation from an administrator who may be unable to make a master schedule while earning more money than the teacher affected by it.

NCLB About To Be Left Behind

Reports this week surfaced that President Obama was prepared to end No Child Left Behind, the landmark education legislation from his predecessor, George W. Bush. While it is clear NCLB has led to many children being left behind and our public schools dependent of following its strict guidelines in order to receive federal funding, what is unclear is what is next for education.

President Obama should be applauded for attempting to improve our failing education system but if anyone thinks the next great educational reform will result in much change, they are wrong.

To begin with, no matter what plan the President puts forth, Republicans will balk at it. Why would they give up on their plan for Obama's? "But this will be another chance for the two parties to come together in the name of bipartisanship and put forth a better education system than is currently in place," you say. Actually, this is more likely to lead to another game of political chicken. If you really think the Republican Party would not shut down our public schools before signing off on a new education act then you really have not followed what goes on in Washington D.C.

With the 2012 election campaign in full swing, the president has fired a volley to all who want his job. He is telling them, "Let's hear your plan" and it better go beyond the Republicans desire for more charter schools (private schools at the tax payers expense).

With the economy still in tatters and Obama's poll numbers in decline, the president will put forth a plan that reminds voters that despite the sagging economy, he is still the candidate who has the best interest of all in mind. Let Republicans and Tea Party members argue about school prayer, tenure, and the dangerous agendas of special interest groups taking over our schools. These are mere smoke screens meant to make voters forget there is no real education plan being presented by Republican candidates.

When the president puts forth his plan for education, it will be a plan and not an attempt to force our schools to capitulate and teach all our children in an overly managed, under budgeted, and formulated manner; something the Republicans can claim credit for today. However, by the time our representatives in congress fight over what to include and toss, it will neither resemble the President's plan or lay down the real ground work necessary to improve the futures of our children. And in the end, it will be our children who lose out.

It's Time For A New School System

Few can argue against the idea of not allowing our schools to leave children behind and thus giving up on their value to society. Indeed, it is a noble idea to think our education system is currently capable of meeting the needs of every school aged child in our country, making it nearly impossible to leave behind the skills and talents of every American student. However, before establishing the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, it would have been wise if our leaders had seen to it to put in place the necessary money, man power, and construction of an educational system capable of such a task.


How many publicly controlled organizations meet all of the needs of the people they serve? Does our health care system do this? What about law enforcement? How many of our elected officials meet the needs of all of their constituents? Expecting schools to do this is not fair, especially since more schools are being expected to do what was once, and still should be, the job of parents.


Aren’t parents suppose to meet the needs of their children before schools do? It’s called responsibility, something too many Americans have become too good at not accepting. NCLB gives adults, and teens for that matter, permission to bring children into this world and then wash their hands of their parental responsibilities while also allowing them to blame our schools when their kids turn out a mess. Thanks to NCLB, schools have now become increasingly more convenient excuses for what is all too often parental failure.


If NCLB is such a wonderful concept, why not broaden it to include a college education at public expense for everyone? After all, a high school education does a person little good these days so why not really go the distance to ensure success for everyone? And after a guaranteed college education, maybe our government can ensure job placement within our field of study while also tossing in housing, health care, and the freedom to do as we please without risk of consequence.


No Child Left Behind looks like a good idea but when broadened to a No Life Left Behind, it amounts to nothing more than an attempt to guarantee an equal life rather than an equal opportunity while in the process, allowing us to avoid responsibility. It almost sounds like a sociopolitical system that ends in “ism.”


Rather than assigning schools blame, our government would be better off setting them up for success so that our children can succeed. They should invest more money into classrooms and less on stealth bombers so that teachers can be hired and class sizes can be reduced. They should provide greater incentives for the wealthy to donate money to public schools instead of private universities. They would require housing developers to build new schools to help ease our urban sprawl rather than burden the tax payers. And they should require parents to be more directly involved in the education of their children rather than encourage the current curb side drop off and pick system in place.


Once all of this is in place, it becomes quite reasonable to expect our schools to meet the needs of all our children. However, the success of public schools requires public support and not merely public expectation. If we really do not want to leave any child behind, then it is time for total buy in to a new education system rather than trying to maintain the over burdened one we currently have.