Militia Madness?

When it comes to rightwing militia movements, some folks make it a family affair.

Why We Have Learned To Hate Citibank!

The other day, we received a letter from Citibank. Their latest missive read, in part, as follows:

Dear Ms. Wonk,

We are making changes to your account terms.

These changes include an increase in the variable APR for purchases to 23.99% and will take effect December 20, 2009.

This lastest rate increase comes on top of one that was foisted upon us about six months ago. For years, the interest rate had been 16% and then, suddenly, it went to 19.99%.

For no reason at all.

In the ten years that we've had this account, we've never been late with a single payment. We've never exceeded our credit limit. On point of fact, we've paid no credit card interest at all for over four years.

Each month, we pay the balance in full. So... barring some unforeseen disaster, this latest rate increase shouldn't cost us a single nickle.

But it's the principle of the thing.

This Is A Tradgedy

Half of all kids in the United States will be on food stamps at one time or another in their young lives:

Half of American kids will live in households receiving food stamps before age 20, according to a study reported Monday in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Although one in five children rely on food stamps for years, many more live in families who turn to food stamps during a short-term crisis, says author Mark Rank of Washington University in St. Louis. He analyzed 30 years of data from the University of Michigan's Panel Study of Income Dynamics survey.

"This is what children can expect over a period of time, not just during a recession," Rank says. "It shows that the period of childhood, rather than a period of safety and security, is really a time, for a lot of kids, of economic turmoil and risk."

Rank says his study, the first of its kind, may underestimate how many families struggle with grocery bills. Only about 67% of people who are eligible for food stamps actually receive them, the Department of Agriculture says.

Good nutrition in childhood is crucial, doctors say.

Nutritional programs such as food stamps — officially known as the USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — improve children's health and help them do better in school, says James Weill of the advocacy group Food Research and Action Center, who wasn't involved in the new study.

More than 35.8 million Americans used food stamps in July — nearly 6.8 million more than a year earlier, Weill's group says. About half of food stamp recipients are children, Rank says.

"There is a large pool of people who are poor or who are living close to poverty at any given time," Weill says. "People don't like talking about it. They don't tell their neighbors, 'I was on food stamps 10 years ago.' "

Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank, says the study design and survey data are solid. But he says the findings are neither surprising nor troubling.

"That's effectively like saying that at some point in a 20-year period, a parent would be unemployed for a month or so," Rector says.

"There's no evidence that even consistent poverty in the U.S. produces a nutritional risk," he says, noting that rich and poor children tend to have about the same intake of protein, vitamins and minerals.

I guess that this is just one more sign that our society continues to evolve.... and for many, not neccessarily for the better.

Obama Takes An EduTrip

And now President Obama is going to Wisconsin, of all places, to talk-up public education. ABC News has the story:

Tomorrow, on the anniversary of his election, President Barack Obama heads to Madison, Wisconsin to speak at a local middle school. He’ll address education policy, with a focus on the ‘Race to the Top’ initiative. That $4.35 billion dollar program, funded through the Recovery Act, is a national competition among the states, to inspire education reform.

“He’s going to talk about his education reform plan and he’s going to highlight the importance of innovation and excellence in our public education system,” said Melody Barnes, Director of the Domestic Policy Council, on a conference call with reporters, “This competition is not based on politics or ideology or interest group preferences. It’s based on whether or not a state is ready to do what actually works.”

To qualify for the money, states must meet four “assurances”:
-designing and adopting internationally benchmarks and standards
-recruiting, developing, rewarding and retaining effective teachers and principals
-build data systems that measure students’ success
-providing support for turning around low performing schools, in part by expanding the number of charter schools

When the parameters on the funding were first announced, several states were immediately identified as already out of the running because of existing state laws. Among them, California, that state’s legislature quickly acted to change its laws to qualify by allowing teacher pay to be linked to student performance. Barnes said a number of other states, including Illinois, Tennessee, Ohio, Connecticut, Rhode Island have raised their charter caps or defeated proposed cuts to charter school funding, so that they too can compete. Wisconsin’s state legislature will vote on Thursday on legislation similar to that adopted by California, which would allow students performance to impact teacher pay. If the measure does not pass, Wisconsin will not be eligible for Race to the Top dollars.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan told ABC News in July that as in any competition not everyone will win, and thus some states will not receive this funding. He said hopes the competitive spirit will drive reform.

"I think there'll be tremendous pressure on states, state legislatures where things aren't happening, by parents saying exactly that: 'Our children deserve a slice of the pie, and we want that pressure,'" Duncan said, “This isn't about winners and losers…This is about challenging the status quo as a country, getting dramatically better and giving every child in this country a chance they desperately need to have a great, great quality education."

The Department of Education will begin accepting applications in the next few weeks, and awarding the money in January. There will be two rounds of funding, so states that do not qualify or win grants in this first round will be able to apply again later in 2010.

“Ultimately, this idea is really simple,” Barnes said, “We want to support strategies that are working and replicate them all over the country. We will subject every application that we get to a rigorous review. And we will only award grants to those that demonstrate real commitment and real results. That’s the President’s ultimate goal.”

The National Education Association, (NEA) must be furious with Mr. Obama as he has said nothing about rolling back the No Child Left Behind Act.

Interestingly, the President also doesn't seem to have anything to say about the need for classroom teachers (and others who work around children) to be priority recipients for the H1N1 (swine flu) vaccination.

Attention Pseudo Conservatives

This just in from our Upstate New York Bureau: when, thanks to the interference of outsiders such as Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, Tim Pawlenty, and Glenn Beck, Republicans fight among themselves, Democrats will take advantage of the opportunity.

And who can really blame them?

Ed's Note to Cut-and-Run former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin: Since you saw fit to pull the rug out from under a duly nominated female Republican Congressional candidate by endorsing a third-party challenger who doesn't even live in the district, thus fatally splitting Republican ranks, please don't whine about "sexism" next time you are criticized by the mainstream media for not knowing (with the exception of Roe v. Wade) the name of a single U.S. Supreme Court Decision with which you disagree.

The Quote Of The Day

"Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success." -Henry Ford

Indeed.

Note To U.S. Dept. Of Ed: Improve Thyself

Heh.

Secretary Arne Duncan of The United States Department of Education says "Colleges of Education must improve for reforms to succeed."

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today called for America’s colleges of education to dramatically change how they prepare the next generation of teachers so that they are ready to prepare their future students for success in college and careers.

Noting that America’s schools will need to hire up to 200,000 first-time teachers annually for the next five years, Duncan said that those new teachers need the knowledge and skill to prepare students for success in the global economy.

“By almost any standard, many if not most of the nation’s 1,450 schools, colleges, and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st century classroom,” Duncan said in a major speech at Teachers College, Columbia University. “America’s university-based teacher preparation programs need revolutionary change--not evolutionary tinkering.”

More than half of the nation’s teachers graduate from a school of education. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that 220,000 students graduate from a teacher college every year. In recent years, several alternative certification programs such as High Tech High, The New Teacher Project, Teach for America, and teacher residency programs have emerged. But those programs produce fewer than 10,000 new teachers annually.

“To keep America competitive, and to make the American dream of equal educational opportunity a reality, we need to recruit, reward, train, learn from, and honor a new generation of talented teachers,” Duncan said. “But the bar must be raised for successful teacher preparation programs because we ask much more of teachers today than even a decade ago.”

Colleges of education need to make dramatic changes to prepare today’s children to compete in the global economy. Teacher-preparation programs should ensure that new teachers will master the content of the subjects they’ll teach and they will have well-supported field-based experiences embedded throughout their preparation programs. Their ultimate goal should be to create a generation of teachers who are focused on improving student achievement and ready to deliver on that goal.

Duncan highlighted emerging efforts to improve teacher education that are being led by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, as well as individual colleges of education.

The Teachers College speech was Duncan’s second major address on the subject of teaching. On Oct. 9, he spoke to students at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, telling them that America needs to recruit an army of new teachers to ensure its long-term economic prosperity.

Earlier this week, Secretary Duncan discussed the importance of teaching with close to 100 teachers and fielded questions from additional teachers across the country in a televised town hall meeting.

Sadly, Duncan doesn't say a single word about the need to improve teacher compensation.

In our capitalist system, if one really wants to attract the highest quality people, one needs to pay them.

Isn't that what we're being told when it comes to compensating Wall Street Bankers?

As for myself, I'd be happy if my pay at least kept up with inflation. (Our district doesn't believe in giving its teachers cost-of-living adjustments. And after 7 years of the same take-home pay, inflation has pretty much destroyed my salary's buying power.)

Let Me Guess

A 15-year-old female student leaves a dance at her Richmond, California high school. She apparently drinks some alcohol. Then gets beaten and gang-raped by a bunch of hoods while other students stand-by and do nothing for two hours.

Wanna take a guess who ends up being sued for a huge amount of money?

Yep. Dollars to donuts that it's going to be the school district that ends-up coughing up the cash for this crime.

When are we finally going to hold criminals financially responsible for their criminality?

We'll never know, but I'd be willing to bet that each one of the four "teenagers" who have been arrested already has a disciplinary record at the high school.

And in California, it's extremely difficult to expel students young thugs for repeated violent or disruptive behaviors.

Unless they pull something like this. But for one victim, it's already too late.

The Return Of The Prodigal Wonk

Your EdWonk lives.

More soon.

Animal Planet: The Monsters Among Us

This creature has confessed to one of most horrific crimes that any person could do: The murder of her own child:

A 23-year-old woman suffocated her son and then buried his body beneath the sand of a playground, police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said Thursday.

Police arrested Tiffany Toribio about 4 a.m., just hours after they said they wanted to speak to her about her missing 3-year-old son, Ty.

Family members had contacted authorities, saying her son matched the description of a boy found Friday at an Albuquerque playground.

Police Chief Ray Schultz said she confessed to killing the boy soon after being apprehended.

"She placed her hand over her son's mouth and nose and suffocated him. She had second thoughts about what she did. She performed CPR on her son, brought him back to life and then decided to go forward with that original act she had started to commit," Schultz said.

"What makes this story especially sad is, when asked the reason why she took Ty's life, Tiffany said that she did not want him to grow up with no one caring about him, the same way that she had grown up where nobody had cared about her."

An emotional Schultz added that Toribio has tried to kill herself since her arrest. She was being held in isolation at a detention facility and kept under observation, he said.

He added, "As you can see, this case has been very emotional for everybody in the department."

Toribio was charged with first-degree murder and an array of other charges, including abuse of a child under 12 that caused death.

The discovery of the body at Alvarado Park on Friday shocked the community, which dubbed the boy "Baby Justice" and "Baby Angel" as they rallied around his case.

Police released a composite image of the boy Tuesday, hoping to garner more leads in the case. They weren't able to release a photo of the boy because his body was so disfigured by the sand's heat.

Schultz said that after killing her son, Toribio dug a hole under gym equipment at the playground, moved the body and buried him in the shallow grave.

"Since that time, she's been walking the streets of the city of Albuquerque," he said.

The boy was wearing Arizona brand clothing, size 3T: nylon black running pants with red stripes, a red shirt with a monster truck on it and black, gray and lime green Skechers sneakers.

Toribio did not comment Thursday morning after her arrest as she was put in a police car.

Schultz said there had been no reports of child abuse filed against Toribio. But he said family members indicated that she did not express the typical love of a mother for her child.

"She did not show the normal relationship that you would see with a mother, son," he said.

This week, police had gone to residences where she had lived previously, but she wasn't there, Schultz said. Police had gone there after family members expressed concern because "they did not like the way Ty was being treated," the police chief said.

There should be a special level of hell reserved for people monsters such as this...

The Carnival Of Education: Week 224

Welcome to the midway of the 224nd edition of The Carnival of Education.

Unless clearly labeled otherwise, all entries this week were submitted by the writers themselves.

Folks interested in hosting a future edition of the C.O.E. should please let us know via this email address: owlshome [at] earthlink [dot] net.

Visit the C.O.E.'s early archives here, later archives there, and our latest entries here.

Special Note: Due to various scheduling conflicts related to full-time classroom teaching, we are presenting this week's midway "in the raw." That is to say, we'll be posting all submissions received via Blog Carnival's submission form without editing and with little or no commentary on our part.

Let the free exchange of thoughts and ideas begin!

Mark Montgomery presents Student-to-Faculty Ratios: A Bogus Statistic You Should Ignore posted at Great College Advice, saying, "In K-12 education, the debate is about class size. In higher ed, the goal is a low "student-to-faculty ratio." This latter statistic is a lousy proxy for educational quality."

ESN presents 15 Best Websites for Free Documentaries posted at Ace Online Schools.

michael mazenko presents To Many Charters in North Denver posted at A Teacher's View.

Larry Ferlazzo presents What Do You Do When You Have A Few Minutes Left In Class? Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... posted at Larry Ferlazzo's Websites Of The Day For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL.

Kelly Sonora presents Usability.Edu: 25 Incredibly Useful Usability Cheat Sheets & Checklists posted at Designer City, USA.

Jason Dyer presents When Video is Made Uncritically posted at The Number Warrior, saying, "What happens when we let students create low quality arguments with high technology?"

Scott McLeod presents It's not 'the tests.' It's us. posted at Dangerously Irrelevant.

Jeannie Anderson presents I Quess I'll Have to Repeated the Course posted at The Writer in Me - Teaching, Writing, Living.

Andrew Bernardin presents The Link Between Bullying and Psychosis posted at The Evolving Mind.

Raymond Ko presents Raising students’ interest by lovely cartoons Raymond's College Life at Tsinghua University, Beijing China 清华大学的校园生活 posted at Raymond's College Life at Tsinghua University, Beijing China 清华大学的校园生活.

Pat presents How Do I Answer the Question? posted at Successful Teaching.

oldandrew presents The Battleground Bookshelf posted at the British-based Scenes From The Battleground.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Save For College Using These Tools and Strategies posted at The Digerati Life, saying, "Thanks!"

Mrs D. presents A Time for Teaching Reflection posted at Footsteps of Aristotle, saying, "Arguments continue over teacher ability and performance in Queensland - could reflection be one way to help?"

IB a Math Teacher presents Very Frustrating posted at 3σ → Left.

woodlassnyc presents New info on LIFs! Just kidding. posted at Under Assault: Teaching in NYC.

Juniza 'Tomy' Pratama presents Multimedia Series X : Easy Learning Cloth Sketching Using Inkscape 0.46 posted at jpratama.info.

John Holland presents Lead from the Start: Creativity: Four Apples = ? posted at Circle Time "Lead From The Start", saying, "There are some rubrics that attempt to judge creativity but in general, much of our appreciation for creativity, like her sister beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Meaghan Montrose presents 5 Ways to Encourage Young Children to Read posted at Colleen Palat.

Travis A. Wittwer presents Is Seniority Best Practice? posted at Stories from School: Practice meets Policy, saying, "Timely"

Carol Richtsmeier presents Yearbook Panic, Brown Bags & Underwear posted at Bellringers.

Clix presents Book Recs posted at Epic Adventures Are Often Uncomfortable, saying, "What "YA" books have YOU loved, and why?"

Sarah Ebner, School Gate presents In defence of faith schools. Ruth Gledhill tells her own story...
posted at School Gate - Times Online - WBLG, saying, "faith schools are a huge - and controversial - topic in the UK...Others may be interested to see how people react to them!"

Sarah Robbins presents Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom, Part 2 posted at Parenting Gifted Kids, saying, "This article offers an overview of some common challenges that gifted children can face in a regular classroom and some simple ways that educators can overcome those challenges. Further posts in this series will cover these individual strategies in greater detail."

SwitchedOnMom presents PIAs Need Not Apply posted at The "More" Child.

Mister Teacher presents Follow me on Tattle posted at Learn Me Good.

teachin' presents Cry me a river. posted at I'm a Dreamer, saying, "Training my kids to ask for help rather than demand it. It's a process."

historyiselementary presents Evaluating Websites...A Must for the Information Age posted at History Is Elementary.

Bob O'Hara presents “In lilac-time, in lilac-time” posted at Higher Education News from the Collegiate Way, saying, "Thoughts on how to make good use of the grounds of your school or college, especially during graduation season."

Patricia Turner presents 50 Best Blogs for Law Librarians posted at Online University Lowdown.

siobhan curious presents Marta, Melanie and Mary: a screenplay epilogue posted at Siobhan Curious, saying, "This is the final scene of a semester-long struggle with these three difficult and enigmatic girls."

Kim presents Nonfiction Monday: Nature's Paintbox posted at Wild About Nature.

Darren presents Rock Star Pay for Teachers? posted at Right on the Left Coast: Views From a Conservative Teacher, saying, "Heck, I don't need rock star pay. I would accept babysitting wages."

Nancy Flanagan presents No Excuses Mambo posted at Teacher in a Strange Land, saying, "I'm not making excuses--but I really hate the phrase "no excuses" when applied to schooling in America."

Mike Holden presents Conference Shut out posted at DoE- Dave on Ed, saying, "Dave Saba blogs about the self-fulfilling prophecy: Many conferences lament the fact there aren't more entrepreneurs in education but always feature same ones."

Clix presents Hopes for next year (yes, already) posted at Epic Adventures Are Often Uncomfortable, saying, "I'm always tired at the end of the year, but it's encouraging to review lesson plans. I get to remember what worked, and think about how I can make improvements for next year."

Mathew Needleman presents L.A. Youth (Teen Newspaper) Needs Help posted at Open Court Resources.com Blog.

The Prodigal Wonk Returns

After a very prolonged absence, we're coming back.

Stay tuned to this same Wonk Channel.