Bad, bad teacher

The problem with education, according to most of the education-reform articles I'm reading, is the following:

1) bad teachers
2) strong unions who protect those bad teachers

The solution most often proposed seems to be charter schools that don't need to answer to the teachers union. Megan McArdle (via 11d) wants to be able to fire all the teachers. (Rhode Island, evidently, is a big fan of hers.)

Am I missing something? In my entire experience in the Madison public school system, we have yet to run into a bad teacher. Most of the time, we have amazing rock-star teachers. The kind of teachers who change your life. Is Madison an anomaly? Is the rest of the country dealing with bad teachers?

Seriously, I can't talk about our teachers without getting rather emotional. They go above-and-beyond their job description on a daily basis. Last weekend, one of our amazing teachers spent her entire Saturday taking our school's spelling bee champion to the district competition because our school winner couldn't get there on her own. Almost all of our teachers do this stuff ALL THE TIME.

Our school serves a low income population, (67% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch) so perhaps we attract a more dedicated professional. (Although conventional wisdom in the media often spouts that poor schools like ours get dumped with the so-called bad-teachers.)

I don't see the bad-teacher problem. Am I missing something?

My favorite school-board blogger, Ed Hughes had a great post about teachers today. And the NYTimes had a scary article about how we measure a good teacher.

I'm worried that the conservative education "reform" movement (and I include our President in that group) is creating a problem that doesn't exist in order to promote the solution they'd like to see: the privatization of education.

Am I living in a bubble? Is Madison that far from the norm? Do you all really have bad teachers? (And if you do, may I recommend that you move to Madison - our teachers are pretty damn amazing.)

Anyone still out there?

Wow, haven't posted anything for two years. I blame Facebook and Twitter and an increased desire to keep my kids' lives more private.

Recent events in my hometown of Madison have prompted me to start up again, at least for the short term. I think my Facebook friends are probably getting a bit annoyed by all my political posts. And there is truly only so much one can put in 140 characters on Twitter.

But I honestly probably would have kept my thoughts to Twitter if it weren't for the dinner conversation tonight. We took our "little" out to dinner. I missed the last two weeks with her due to my knee surgery, so it was our first time to catch-up on recent events.

She didn't know.

She didn't know that the Governor and the President both have bills on their desks that will take away:
1) her health insurance
2) her housing
3) her chance at a scholarship to a local university

My friends and I have been out protesting on a daily basis. We don't like this bill. But to tell the truth - we don't personally lose out on all that much if it is passed. Yes, I have many public sector friends who will take a 10% pay cut and yes, that is very hard. But most won't lose their house. They will still have health care and enough to eat.

She won't.

I did my best at explaining the various provisions of the bill and telling her about the 14 Wisconsin Senators who fled town to make sure that it didn't get passed until we could all learn everything we could about the bill. I told her that I didn't like the bill and that I'd been spending a lot of time up at the Capitol to protest the bill.

As I walked her up to her door to drop her off after dinner, she turned to me and said in a very quiet voice, "Kristen, do you think you could take me with you the next time you go protest? I'd like to do that too."

So on Saturday, I will proudly march in Madison again. This time, with the reason I'm marching right beside me.

I feel like Walker and his colleagues think that poverty is something that only happens to lazy, stupid, inept people. It is probably very easy to cut programs when you think they are going to support slackers and deadbeats. But I'm here to tell him that some of the most intelligent, kind, amazing people I know live below the poverty level. And we aren't going to stop marching!

Presidential visit!

Obama is coming to Madison! As much as I wanted him to visit our school, I couldn't be happier with his choice of schools at which to speak. My previous "little sister" went to Wright, and I'm so glad he chose to go there.

I'm interested in what he has to say. I haven't decided yet what I think of Arne Duncan and the Obama approach to education. My first impression is that their policies will work great in a vacuum (charter schools, "race to the top" funding criteria, national standards etc.) but I'd like to hear how such things will work in a school like Wright, with its 86% poverty level. (or my school, with its 66% level.)

Mostly, I want to hear the President not only *say* that education is important, but put some federal dollars behind his words. States and counties are struggling to get tax dollars to support education. There has got to be a better way.

Books and more books

I made it out to the Wisconsin Book Festival last night.

I went to hear Lorrie Moore speak. I just finished "Gate at the Stairs" and really liked it. We timed it so that we would arrive just as she came on stage, and not have to listen to some guy I'd never heard of before who was speaking before her on some strange book that he'd written about chickens.

I was underwhelmed by Ms. Moore. She wasn't feeling well, and she spent most of her time making sure that we understood that she wrote FICTION, dammit. If we were not sophisticated enough to realize that a novel was an art and it WASN'T TRUE than we just didn't deserve to read her books.

She is adored by the NYTimes. They gush:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/books/28book.html

She is not so much adored in Madison. Not much gushing:
http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=26812

Perhaps it is because despite all of her protests otherwise, people think she writes about Madison. (And really, anyone who has lived here for even a month knows that 'Troy' is no fictional city. It's Madison!) And she writes with a bit of disdain. Or truth. Depending on how you see it.

I think she is a brilliant writer and I don't care what she writes about - I'll read it.

But of course, the highlight of the evening turned out to be Michael Perry - the guy I'd never heard of before who wrote a book about chickens. The one I was trying to avoid. He was an amazing speaker. I laughed. I cried. And I can't wait to read his book, Coop, which I now know is about way more than chickens.

Any other book recommendations out there?

Realization

I write a lot about how my kids go to a low-income, diverse school. And I'd be lying if I didn't admit that once in a while, a scary thought sneaks into my head, a "Could they be getting a better education at (insert private school here) or (insert white suburban school here)?" thought.

This year, I am no longer PTA President, which is a very good thing. I love, love, love the school, but one can only run things for so long. And the two men (yes, men) who have replaced me are a thousand times more qualified and competent than I ever was.

They are brilliant and caring and have started doing "listening sessions" in the different neighborhoods of our school. Last night was the one for Spanish-speakers. Tomorrow night is the one for Hmong speakers. Those of us who sadly only speak English, can listen through the translators.

I was holding back tears last night when I heard, for the first time, the thoughts and dreams of our Spanish-speaking parent population. Guess what? Same as mine. We all want to have kids who enjoy school, behave for their teachers and learn to love learning.

The tears almost came when one of the fathers apologized to us through the translator. He wanted to make sure that we understood that if he didn't engage us (the native English speakers) in conversation at school, that it was only because English wasn't his first language and he wasn't always comfortable initiating conversations. He said this after delivering one of the most moving monologues about our school (again, through the translator) that I have ever heard. I really wish I could speak Spanish, because I'm sure something was probably lost in translation.

I was struck with an overwhelming feeling of how absolutely lucky my kids are - and how lucky I am - to be able to interact with families like his. And to go to a school like ours, that has this amazing community of committed teachers and families.

We lost 3-4 more families this year, they all transferred to the higher-income, whiter schools, so I've been feeling a bit blue. It's hard not to take it personally when we lose families. The schools we lose families to don't have any non-English speakers. (Hence, the test scores are higher.)

But I realized last night that wisdom can be found in unexpected places. And I think my kids are the luckiest kids in the world to go to a school with classmates who have origins from all over the world.

And I also realized that I really want to learn Spanish again. I want to be able to speak to the parents without a translator. My four years of high school Spanish aren't cutting it.

I've spent most of the the last few months feeling stressed about losing the families we have lost. But tonight, for one brief moment, I'm feeling sorry for them. They may be surrounded with higher test scores, but I suspect we might have something that matters more than test scores: community. Granted, we are a community of various skin colors, income levels, and languages...but I suspect that people aren't holding back tears at the private school PTA meeting.

Alaska

OK, now I get it: The incredulous looks on knowledgeable faces when I admitted I had never been to Alaska, despite the fact my sister had lived there for over a decade. I get it now. All of you - you were right, I was missing out.

It is perhaps the most beautiful place I've ever been.

The kids were in heaven. It is perhaps a kid-vacation paradise. Tide pools, hiking, fishing, kayaking, mud, mud and more mud.

It made me realize just how sterilized our Lower-48 outdoor play space has become. We are a family who spends a lot of time outdoors - we bike, walk, run, swim, you name it. But much of our outdoor time is spent in a yard or at a park or a beach or on a well-traveled trail. Even canoeing on the lake involves maneuvering around motorboats.

In Alaska, there are vast expanses of wilderness. Here in Wisconsin, I've noticed that kids create their own wild spaces. They all congregate around the largest, farthest, most hidden tree at the park, and build forts and find sticks and rocks and cool leaves. Kids need wilderness. (exhibit A: Michael Chabon's article)

How does one bring more wilderness into an urban/suburban life?

As for us, we are already planning our next trip to Alaska.

Headed to Alaska

On Monday, we head out to Homer, Alaska to visit my favorite sister. She's been out there for over 10 years, but we have never visited. ( I know, I know, I'm the worst sister in the universe.)

In my defense, I've been busy popping out (and raising) these:










Two of them in fact - one XX and one XY.

Taking babies/toddlers/preschoolers to Alaska was just not my idea of fun. Frankly, getting to the grocery store in one piece during the baby/toddler stage was some days more than I could handle.

But now, they look like this:












And we've decided they can probably handle the 12+ hours of travel without kicking the seat in front of them or spitting up all over the person next to them. And so we are off for a big family adventure to lands far away.

Now if I could get the boy to stop repeating "I can see Russia from my house," we should be all set.