Blue Collar Muse

Vladimir Lenin famously said of Education, “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” Josef Stalin later proclaimed, “Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” What we teach our children and why we teach it to them is important.

Which is why I find this sign, which I pass almost daily, to be fascinating.

First, this text has been displayed since at least October of 2008. But perhaps they are illustrating the difference between “month” and “quarter”.

Second, why would a school emphasize “Fairness” over “Mathematics” or “Economics”? Might it be to produce a populace believing it is “fair” to take from those who have labored to earn more in order to give to those who often choose not to earn at all? Perhaps it is to assist promotion of the idea that the 5% of the population paying 50% of the personal income taxes in this country are still not paying their “fair” share? These seem to be fair questions …

Finally, as this is a school and given the reverse of the sign reads “Student Achievement Comes First”, Napier Elementary’s motto, how successful is this school in accomplishing the goals for which most taxpayers assume their money is being spent - educating our children?

According to The Tennessee Department of Education’s own report on the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) of Napier Elementary in accomplishing the goals of the federal education program No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Napier did not meet a single established benchmark for education. In Math, Reading, Language Arts and Writing Napier Elementary students fail to accomplish the objective goals set for them by Government.

Such performance can be, and often is, influenced by Socio-Economic factors - children from poor and minority backgrounds do not perform as well. However, the Education Consumers Foundation has provided a means to assess Education performance for schools that strips out Socio-Economic factors. In their graph, the lower left quadrant is the least desireable result while the upper right quadrant is the most desirable. Napier Elementary is recognized by name on the graph. They appear to the far left - a result of the Socio-Economic factors previously mentioned - and significantly below the state average for the measure of how well a school actually performs its function of educating children apart from any Socio-Economic influence.

I’m sure there are explanations for such results. I hope plans are being developed to address them. But when a school with such performance publicly trumpets for months to the community they are emphasizing “Fairness” instead of “Education”, I can only ask, “How is that fair to the students entrusted to them and to the taxpayers paying for it all? Don’t we deserve better? And when can we fairly expect to see it delivered?”

Blue Collar Muse

Popularity: 17% [?]

One of the biggest criticisms of Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign was he was long on empty rhetoric and short on specific plans.

That shortcoming seemed to be addressed when Obama included an “Agenda” section on hiis transition website Change.gov. It initially looked to be a great resource for determining Obama’s priorities and emphases would be. Indeed, the furor around his announced “civilian national security force” grew when this very “Agenda” page began to explain what it would mean.

The first change to Change.gov was to that “Youth Service” plan.  Obama altered his originally published intentions with a serious rewrite for America’s students. Now, Patrick Ruffini notes via Twitter that the entire Change.gov “Agenda” section is simply gone, replaced by meaningless drivel.

This probably doesn’t mean Obama has suspended plans to drive the country into the ground. More likely it simply means he has gone back to his original behavior of refusing to comment on the specifics of what his intentions are and how he will accomplish them. But we can hope, if only in our hearts, the changes signal a retreat from plans already laid out which thinking people realize are destructive. That would be change we could believe in.

Blue Collar Muse

Popularity: 52% [?]