Like Putin's voice from Trump's mouth

Dennis Haysbert - Not to be confused with a woman or Vladimir Putin

You know the Allstate series of commercials where two people are talking, then one person shifts into extolling the benefits of Allstate's insurance coverage? In that instant, the person's voice is dubbed by the semi-famous rich bass of Dennis Haysbert. 

I get the same sense every time I hear Donald Trump or someone on his staff talk about Russia. The style, tone, and word choice is jarring compared to what he says about pretty much every other topic.

This is Trump's most recent statement on Russia's hacking and the Obama administration's response:

I think we ought to get on with our lives,” he said. “I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I’m not sure we have the kind, the security we need.

Here's his tweet from December 15th on the subject:

If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2016

Compare to his response to the terror attack in Berlin a few weeks ago:

Today there were terror attacks in Turkey, Switzerland and Germany - and it is only getting worse. The civilized world must change thinking!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2016

Or his response to the Chinese government taking a US Navy drone:

China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters - rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprecedented act.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2016

Seems like every time the subject of Russia or Vladimir Putin comes up, I hear a different person speaking out of the same mouth.

Odd, isn't it? 

Annotating the news: Is there an answer for Obamacare opposition besides 'tribalism'?

From the NYT - "Hospitals in Safety Net Brace for Health Care Law's Repeal"

Before the health law, the hospital had to absorb the cost of caring for many uninsured patients like Mr. Colston. Now, with President-elect Donald J. Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress vowing to dismantle the law, Temple and other hospitals serving the poor are bracing for harsh financial consequences that could have a serious effect on the care they provide.

Hospital financing is a complicated beast but the bottom line is the hospital will be reduced to providing legally required triage care with only rare exceptions, no? Status quo ante Obamacare, so to speak. The upshot is that many more people will suffer and some will die prematurely.

Since the election, hospitals have been among the loudest voices against wholesale repeal of the health law. In a letter to Mr. Trump and congressional leaders this month, the two biggest hospital trade groups warned of “an unprecedented public health crisis” and said hospitals stood to lose $165 billion through 2026 if more than 20 million people lose the insurance they gained under the law. They predicted widespread layoffs, cuts in outpatient care and services for the mentally ill, and even hospital closings.

Twenty million people is a little under the size of the New York City metropolitan area. Imagine what it would be like if that population were limited to emergency room care only for everyone under 65.

***

Republicans have opposed Obamacare since it was proposed (by Obama, not years before when it borrowed heavily from the conservative Heritage Foundation's plan). I've followed the debate for years and still struggle to understand the logic of opposition beyond 1) Obama 2) government and 3) small tax increase on wealthy.

(Another version 1) tribalism 2) tribalism and 3) greed)

Sure, one can critique Obamacare's flaws from the left (not Medicare for all!) and right (mandate!), but those who are in wholesale opposition confound me. What was supposed to be done with nearly 16% of the population uninsured before Obamacare? Wasn't the increasing numbers of uninsured (and corresponding cost increases for insuring everyone else) going to capsize the market?

I get the politics of it, but don't understand the inhumanity. Again, from the NYT:

Paul Fabian, who received a double lung transplant at Temple last year after getting a subsidized private insurance policy from the Affordable Care Act marketplace, would not have qualified (for state-provided coverage before Obamacare) at all. Mr. Fabian, who suffered from emphysema and chronic lung failure, said he sold his truck to afford his $262 monthly premiums. 

“If you walk into the E.R. they have to help you,” Mr. Fabian, 61, said. “But if you have a condition like I had (chronic lung failure), what’s the hospital’s obligation?”

If the response is anger, you've already lost

Some thoughts on anger and working with kids

***

I think a lot about what should be a new teacher's first priority. The first year is overwhelming, the first few weeks especially so, and folks can only process a little at a time. When we're learning something new, we can barely do one thing at a time.

So what should that be?

Depends on the person, of course, but as a general rule, focus on maintaining emotional constancy.

To translate that from teacher-ese: check your anger.

***

Anger often comes from being surprised. You weren't expecting the kid to interrupt you or say that smart-aleck remark, or use profanity, so you're caught off guard. 

Your face becomes flush, your voice raises in volume, the edge sharpens on the tone.

You cease to see the child as a child. You take seriously what a 12-year-old says to you. It's personal.

You say something in an effort to gain control. This, of course, is the first true mistake because you chose to play the game. From here, all of the outcomes are bad. 

With some games -- three-card monte on an NYC sidewalk, poker at the high-stakes table in Vegas come to mind -- the best option is not to play. 

Losing your temper makes matters worse every single time.

***

I occasionally get asked about how to deal with a student who shows frustrating behavior, then emotionally escalates. 

What works may strike you as counter-intuitive, but here it is: give the kid time and space, then having the conversation. It's rare that one can talk a child out of being upset. Rather, what happens is that the adult joins the child in being upset and this further escalates the child.   

This, obviously, isn't easy. It's hard to keep a class going while a student says or does things that break all sorts of rules. If a student is highly escalated and jeopardizes the physical or emotional safety of others, you may need to get help. 

You may need to do that while your face is flush and you struggle to keep an even tone. You may have to ignore insults about your looks, gender, race, voice, or clothes.

This is hard and takes a toll. Beyond making sure you get enough rest and you've got a few good listeners in your life, I don't have much in the way of solutions.

Two things are highly likely to happen in the aftermath: 

1) The student will eventually become calm. No one stays mad forever.

2) He or she will feel awful about what was said. As terrible as you feel, it's exponentially worse for the student because it's humiliating to lose self-control in front of others. Even if the student doesn't show it, he or she feels it. 

What do to about the other kids: Even if other kids are giggling or laughing, it's a nervous response more than anything. At that moment, the other kids are craving to see that an adult is in charge and isn't fazed by what's happening.

***

A lot of writing on classroom management is focused on tactics or pedagogy. Use such and such routine or plan a better lesson. Routines and planning are critical to making a classroom function. However, given the limited capacities of people, focusing on keeping a cool head should be the first priority. 

Everything else flows from that.

'Ye shall know them by their fruits'

Like a lot of teenagers, I read Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. The books influenced me at the time, though, as I matured, I saw more and more of the flaws in Rand's philosophy.

Not everyone has these epiphanies, as our Speaker of the House demonstrates. He gives copies of Rand's books as Christmas presents and asks his interns to read them. 

***
Carl Paladino of Buffalo founded a real estate development company in 1973. It owns and/or manages many different types of real estate -- apartments, commercial, hotels, parking garages, and convenience stores. Paladino is worth about $150 million. His parents were Italian immigrants, so it seem safe to classify Paladino as a self-made man.

He's also former GOP candidate for governor of New York and Donald Trump's 2016 campaign chair for New York. He currently sits on Buffalo's school board.

***
From Atlas Shrugged:

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is MADE—before it can be looted or mooched—made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced."

Paladino, in a recent interview with a Buffalo alternative weekly:

Artvoice: What would you most like to happen in 2017? 

Carl Paladino: Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford. He dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to Valerie Jarret, who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady cell mate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her. 

Artvoice: What would you most like to see go in 2017? 

Carl Paladino: Michelle Obama. I’d like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla

***
There's a lot to mine from this. At some point, I'd like to delve deeper into how Paladino justified his remarks ("Yeah, I'm not politically correct.") and what being against political correctness has come to mean. 

For now, I'll simply note that Paladino is living monument for Ayn Rand's philosophy that advocates, among other things, for earned wealth as a signal of talent, intelligence, and accomplishment. 

Make of that what you will. 

Bad Things Happen to Bad People

In terms of "you reap what you sow," I'm not sold that good actions lead to good outcomes. (Separately, I believe that good actions are their own reward, but that's another post.)

Lived experience tells me that bad actions lead to their logical consequences. 

In time, though. The length of time can be brutal for the cause of justice. 

But you get what's coming to you - in spades. Take Bernie Madoff. He made a ton of money ripping off investors in a ponzi scheme. He's now spending the rest of the his life in prison. His name is synonymous with fraud. His son committed suicide. 

There are so many things money doesn't cure. 

***



Mitch McConnell, the senator from Kentucky and majority leader, doesn't seem to be motivated by money, at least not greed at the level where it causes one's downfall. 

I suppose his drug of choice is power, though like many opiates, varieties abound. 

From The Huffington Post:

“All these guys are ruthless, but he just takes it to another level,” said Jim Manley, a former top aide to McConnell’s foe, outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “I defy you to find anything the guy stands for, except for partisanship. He’s ruthless in that he has no core positions.”

This approach, so far, has its benefits.

Two months after McConnell tamped down talk of going public about Russian hackers hurting Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Trump won. Life has since been quite good for the Kentucky Republican: His wife, Elaine Chao, was picked as Trump’s transportation secretary, and McConnell retained his post as Senate majority leader, meaning he will shape the nation’s legislative agenda for the next four years.

McConnell's ruthlessness has been around for a while.

There was the also time in 1990 when McConnell smeared his Senate challenger, Harvey Sloane ― a wealthy New Englander who walked away from a life of privilege to become a doctor for the poor in Kentucky ― by casting him as a prescription fraudster. They were in a tight race, so McConnell leaked to the press that Sloane had used an expired Drug Enforcement Administration registration number to prescribe himself sleeping pills to help with pain from hip replacement surgery. The state’s medical licensure board chided Sloane for doing so, but said no formal sanctions were warranted. But McConnell still moved forward with brutal ads featuring images of vials and pills, and a narrator describing Sloane’s penchant for prescribing “powerful depressants” for himself as “double the safe dose without a legal permit.”

***

McConnell has not yet met his comeuppance. It's conceivable that he dies before that happens. 

However, let's take an early look at the obituary:

- He'll be remembered as one of the architects of an era of brutal partisanship. 

- No major legislation bears his name. Neither liberty nor the public welfare was advanced in his name. 

- His protégés? Mostly K-street lobbyists and political operatives. 

- Finally, he will be remembered for his key role in helping Donald Trump become president. Specifically, he torpedoed making public the extent of the role Russia's psy ops campaign against Hillary Clinton. 

I am reasonably confident that history will not look kindly upon this. 

Opponents, Not Enemies

Since Donald Trump first became a serious candidate for the presidency, I've been thinking about which of the cultural norms are essential for our democracy to function.

This is to differentiate between those that are critical versus ones that a merely important. Sort of like the difference between a functioning heart and functioning legs.

One in particular that isn't often spoken of, especially in these polarized times, is the importance of not making opponents into enemies.

Maintaining this distinction has a lot of positive consequences: ability to shift coalitions on different issues, keeping a civilized political culture, giving room to compromise and make deals.

Perhaps the most important consequence of not demonizing one's opponent is that it supports the norm of conceding electoral defeat. We have a tradition of not only transferring power without bloodshed, but trying to make the transition as smooth as possible. George H.W. Bush put it well in the note he left to Bill Clinton:



"Your success is now our country's success."

Contrast that with the actions of North Carolina's legislature and outgoing governor:

...(A)fter he narrowly lost his re-election bid, (Gov. Pat) McCrory's tune entirely changed. This month the Republican-controlled statehouse passed two pieces of legislation that stripped duties from the governor so that the power of his successor, Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper, would be curtailed. 

Skirting the criticism, McCrory said in a statement Monday the laws were "hardly extreme changes" intended to fix a "broken election process" and "enhance" education policies. But the laws shift power toward Republicans, either by increasing their influence on boards, or taking away key appointments from the Democratic governor-elect. Progressive Democrats have blasted the legislation as a "power grab" that is unconstitutional. Legal challenges are likely to follow.

I don't know enough about NC's constitution or courts to offer an informed opinion about which, if any, of these will stand. (Changing the law so that Republicans chair county election boards every election year with Democrats doomed to chair only on off-years seems especially hard to defend.)

It seems reasonable to say that relations between the incoming governor and legislature are acrimonious even before the new government takes office.

I'd be surprised to hear if Gov. McCrory believes that Gov.-elect Cooper's success is the state's success.

***

Cultural norms evolve more than they outright change. The NC GOP's actions are the latest example of a cancer that's infected how we divy up power in this country. I'm no Pollyanna - a cursory glance of our country's history shows that we've never been governed by angels. 

This also isn't limited to Republicans. I'm a longtime observer and occasional participant in the internecine Democratic battles over charter schools. Those can turn quite nasty.

But it also feels like our current political era is different. Facebook and Twitter have empowered individuals whose voices would otherwise fade into the background. Twitter, especially, seems optimized to allow white supremacists, misogynists, and others of their ilk to harass absent the shaming that would come in polite society.

I remember Paul Krugman, in one of his books (can't remember which one, so I'm going to paraphrase here) describing this age as one of super-empowered individual. 

At the time, that read as an optimist's view of the future. Now, of course, it cuts a lot of ways. 

The Idea That Some Folks Count More Than Others

I've yet to hear a reasonable argument that enacting new requirements for voting accomplishes its defenders stated goal of safeguarding elections from voter fraud. This seems to be the case because voter fraud, statistically speaking, doesn't even qualify as a rounding error. From Monday's NYT:

After all the allegations of rampant voter fraud and claims that millions had voted illegally, the people who supervised the general election last month in states around the nation have been adding up how many credible reports of fraud they actually received. The overwhelming consensus: next to none.

An expert uses the L-word (emphasis mine):

And they underscore what researchers and scholars have said for years: Fraud by voters casting ballots illegally is a minuscule problem, but a potent political weapon. 

“The old notion that somehow there are all these impostors out there, people not eligible to vote that are voting — it’s a lie,” said Thomas E. Mann, a resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. “But it’s what’s being used in the states now to impose increased qualifications and restrictions on voting.”

This is a systemic effort to deny certain citizens their right to vote because they're more likely to vote Democratic. 


A cursory reading of history shows our democratic experiment has a rich history of first denying citizenship, then denying citizens the ballot. Ergo the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments. 

We've changed the laws, but changing the norm -- that all citizens can and should vote -- has taken much longer. It seems clear, too, that we haven't made as much progress as we'd like to think. 

I struggle to think of anything less American than denying Americans the vote. 

When a significant number of voters and officials think otherwise, at what point do our institutions lose the legitimacy of being democratically elected?

How much damage can the norm of "one person, one vote" take? 

If our institutions aren't democratic, what sort of government do we have? 

***

Update -- 12/30/2016

Judge blocks law limiting incoming #NorthCarolina governor's power https://t.co/utHaajxPYV #RoyCooper pic.twitter.com/SMNGW2LqKE

— Reuters Legal (@ReutersLegal) December 30, 2016

To Blog or Not to Blog?

I've struggled with consistently blogging. This is less about me not having things to say and more to do with realizing that it's hard to write authoritatively when I feel less and less sure each day. Even regarding what that I do professionally -- teach in a charter school -- I feel like I have far more questions than answers. 

When reading something things I wrote when I first started teaching, it seemed like then I was far more confident in what solutions were. Perhaps expertise is a paradox -- the more one has, the less sure one becomes. 

The authors of most blogs sound quite confident. I'm pretty sure this is either 1) a pose or 2) foolishness. Check that -- could be both as those two aren't necessarily in conflict with each other.

Anyway, I (re)start with that caveat so I can use this blog going forward as a way to think through topics. 

This is what I've been thinking about:

* The tension between individual bad actors in a society versus the larger number of folks who are susceptible to a culture's negative influence

* The importance of cultural norms

* The cost/benefit of jailing lawbreakers

* Popular ideas of leadership versus leadership in action

* The tension of having a plan versus getting sufficient buy-in to execute the plan

* A habit in our political discourse that leads to some people being valued more than others by institutions committed to serving all equally

* The persistence of belief in the face of evidence refuting that belief

I will have more questions than answers. 

Annotating the news - "What the Alt-Right Really Means"

Occasionally I read an article where the author struggles with conveying reality. I've provided some annotations below. 

From "What the Alt-Right Really Means" by Christopher Caldwell in today's NYT:

Not even those most depressed about Donald J. Trump’s election and what it might portend could have envisioned the scene that took place just before Thanksgiving in a meeting room a few blocks from the White House. The white nationalist Richard B. Spencer was rallying about 200 kindred spirits.

 "White nationalists" are people who believe nonwhite people are less human than white people. If that doesn't qualify as racism, the term has no meaning.

“We are not meant to live in shame and weakness and disgrace,” he said.

 Given your expressed views, you should. 

“We were not meant to beg for moral validation from some of the most despicable creatures to ever populate the planet.” When Mr. Spencer shouted, “Hail, Trump! Hail, our people! Hail, victory!” a scattered half-dozen men stood and raised their arms in Nazi salutes.

We've seen how this play ends. The people who first used the Nazi salute 1)lost and 2) ranked among history's greatest villains.  

Mr. Spencer, however you describe him, calls himself a part of the “alt-right” — a new term for an informal and ill-defined collection of internet-based radicals.

Mr. Spencer is accurately described as a racist. "Alt-right" is not merely a new term -- it is a euphemism for people who believe that nonwhite people are inherently the lesser. "Radicals" is an imprecise term in this context; a more accurate term is racist -- those who believe that a human is inherently lesser based on his or her race.

As such, he poses a complication for the incoming president. Stephen K. Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, whom Mr. Trump has picked as his chief White House strategist, told an interviewer in July that he considered Breitbart a “platform for the alt-right.” Perhaps we should not make too much of this.

No, we should make a lot of this.  

Mr. Bannon may have meant something quite different by the term.

Prove it. He's done nothing to deserve the benefit of the doubt. 

Last summer “alt-right,” though it carried overtones of extremism, was not an outright synonym for ideologies like Mr. Spencer’s. But in late August, Hillary Clinton devoted a speech to the alt-right, calling it simply a new label for an old kind of white supremacy that Mr. Trump was shamelessly exploiting.

 Mrs. Clinton's description of the racists and Mr. Trump's shamelessness is accurate and has been repeatedly proven by word and deed of both. 

Mr. Spencer, 38, directs the National Policy Institute, which sponsored the Washington meeting. Despite its name, the institute has little to say about policy, although it has called for a 50-year moratorium on immigration.

Because it is a racist organization. 

What it mostly does is seek to unite people around the proposition that, as Mr. Spencer put it, “Race is real, race matters, and race is the foundation of identity.”

A racist organization that is seeking to attract more racists. 

 There are many such groups, varying along a spectrum of couth and intellect.

All such groups believe that some people should be considered the lesser based on race. This is an uncouth view in any context and is also the belief of fools. 

Mr. Spencer, who dropped out of a doctoral program at Duke...

Plenty of people who are capable of scoring highly on the GRE are also terrible people.

The eloquent Yale-educated author Jared Taylor, who hosts the American Renaissance website and magazine, was at the conference, too.

Translated into plain English: Mr. Taylor is able to spout his repugnant lies without using the most unsavory slurs. 

The standard for determining eloquence should be higher than that.

Kevin MacDonald, a retired psychology professor whose trilogy on Jewish influence is a touchstone for the movement, also came.

"Trilogy on Jewish influence" = extensive regurgitation of anti-Semitic lies. 

There were cheers from the crowd at the mention of Andrew Anglin, who runs a neo-Nazi website called The Daily Stormer, but he was not there. Neither was Greg Johnson, whose online review Counter-Currents translates right-wing writings from various European languages. Some of these groups sprouted on the internet. Others have been around since before it existed.

Finding groups of white Christians who subscribe to a belief that nonwhite, non-Christian people are inherently inferior does, in fact, date before the development of the Internet. See the Crusades, for instance. Or these guys. 

There is no obvious catchall word for them.

Yes, there is. 

The word “racist” has been stretched to cover an attitude toward biology, a disposition to hate, and a varying set of policy preferences, from stop-and-frisk policing to repatriating illegal immigrants.

1) Race is social construct, not a biological one.
2) Yes, racist implies hatred. Accurately, in this case.
3) Federal judges and numerous academics found stop-and-frisk policing to disproportionately impact nonwhite people while failing to meaningfully achieve legitimate law enforcement goals. The technical term is "structurally racist" but "racist" can also accurately describe the policy.
4) "Repatriating illegal immigrants" is used so broadly here that I'm left with the conclusion that the author is being deliberately obtuse.

While everyone in this set of groups is racist in at least one of these senses, many are not racist in others.

This is an example of the logical fallacy "distinction without a difference." 

Not many of the attendees at the Washington gathering favored the term “white supremacist.” The word implies a claim to superiority — something few insisted on.

They are white supremacists. Literature is extensive on this.  

“White nationalist” is closer to the mark...

Again,"distinction without a difference." 

...most people in this part of the alt-right think whites either ought to have a nation or constitute one already. But they feel that almost all words tend to misdescribe or stigmatize them.

They have views deserving of stigmatization. 

Mr. Trump disavowed the alt-righters once the excesses of Mr. Spencer’s conference went viral. But as a candidate, Mr. Trump called the government corrupt, assailed the Republican establishment, flouted almost every rule of political etiquette, racial and otherwise, and did so in a way that made the alt-righters trust his instincts.

He made racist statements. Racists noted that these were racist statement. They agreed with him. 

“I don’t think that Trump is a rabid white nationalist,” the alt-right blogger Millennial Woes said at a speech in Seattle days after the election.

Just regular ol' white nationalist will do, I suppose.

“I think that he just wants to restore America to what he knew as a young man, as a child. And I think he probably does know at some level that the way to do it is to get more white people here and fewer brown people.”

Racism, in other words. 

Mr. Spencer speaks of Mr. Trump’s campaign as a “body without a head” and considers many of his policies “half-baked.” But for him, that is not the point. “Donald Trump is the first step towards identity politics for European-Americans in the United States,” he said. There is no good evidence that Mr. Trump or Mr. Bannon think in terms like these. 

1) Substantial numbers of white people have voted on race since the founding of the Republic. We even fought a civil war to decide whether black people were humans or property. The rubicon of white identity politics was crossed the first time a settler handed a smallpox-infested blanket to a Native American.

2) There is no evidence Trump or Bannon are racists once one excludes what they have done, written, or said in public. 

***

The rest of the article continues with similar drivel. At one point, the reader learns that many of the men who spend their free time attending conferences where people earnestly give a Nazi salute also have trouble finding a date. 

In reading an article where the author goes to great effort to not call something what it plainly is, it's obvious that for many people, being called racist is worse than the many actual effects of racism. Even people who unabashedly claim racist views don't wish to be called racist.

In normal times, I'd snicker at the irony. But Trump, Bannon, and their ilk are the folks who will be running the country. 

That entrusts them with enormous power. 

Redefining the English language so their views and actions can't be accurately characterized shouldn't be one of them.

A lesson from Hollywood on how to run schools (No, really)

What can educators learns from Hollywood? Reading this interview with director Steven Soderburgh (via Andrew Sullivan), I picked up on some themes:

One thing I do know from making art is that ideology is the enemy of problem-solving. Nobody sits on a film set and says, “No, you can’t use green-screen VFX to solve that because I’m Catholic.” There’s no place for that, and that’s why I’ve stopped being embarrassed about being in the entertainment industry, because I’m surrounded by intelligent people who solve problems quickly and efficiently, primarily because issues of ideology don’t enter into the conversation.

Soderburgh is comparing filmmaking with Congress, but the same point can be made about how we run schools. Compare the ideology and dogmatism infusing many policy discussions versus the ruthless pragmatism exercised by the best teachers. 

I'm of the camp that thinks gifted educators are, at heart, artists who use technical skills and collaboration to create something that is, at best, only partially defined by numbers. Filmmaking is in some ways similar, which is why it's fascinating to read Soderbergh's take on the real assets of competent moviemakers:

And these people excel at problem-solving—that’s 99 percent of the job. I look at Hurricane Katrina, and I think if four days before landfall you gave a movie studio autonomy and a 100th of the billions the government spent on that disaster, and told them, “Lock this place down and get everyone taken care of,” we wouldn’t be using that disaster as an example of what not to do. A big movie involves clothing, feeding, and moving thousands of people around the world on a tight schedule. Problems are solved creatively and efficiently within a budget, or your ass is out of work. 

(Emphasis mine)

Soderbergh exaggerates in regards to prepping for Hurricane Katrina, but his overall point holds up: execution trumps everything. In both making movies and running schools, there's a tight schedule with lots of stuff happening at once. There's a budget. There's a deadline. 

Results are both measured with numbers and also judged as something better described than quantified. Filmmakers value box office, but know it shouldn't be the sole judge of a great movie. (The Shawshank Redemption is one example of this.) Educators know test scores matter and we also want students who will become thoughtful, informed, and kind citizens (note the work schools like KIPP and YES are doing with character education). 

I've worked in district and charter schools and have been asked what's the big difference? From my perspective as teacher, there is a difference, but it has little to do with different types of school governance. Rather, the difference is how diligent the adults are about problem solving. Some school environments facilitate solutions, others build barriers. The best charter and district schools find ways to create the former. Poorly run schools of both stripes do the latter.

This is why some charter schools succeed, some are mediocre, and others are worse than district schools. The governance model simply allows for more experimentation in solving the puzzle of how best to teach children. It doesn't guarantee anything about the abilities of the adults running the school.

All schools -- district and charter -- can learn something from successful filmmakers. Just like a movie, each school tells a story. The process of telling that story will involve numerous problems to be solved. The story will either be told well or poorly. The governance model of the school won't decide that. The adults who are solving the problems will.

Way to go, Matt!

Friend of the blog Matt Rubinstein and company have raised seven figures:

Local education technology company LiveSchool has raised $1.65 million through an equity offering, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

The Nashville Capital Network led the round of funding. 

LiveSchool offers a classroom management app to help teachers manage day-to-day classroom activities, such as tracking student behavior, contacting parents or issuing hall passes.

The charter school where I work has helped LiveSchool pilot this app. (Note: some other schools in our network use student management systems from other companies.) Several other charter schools in Nashville were also involved in the beta testing of LiveSchool. I'm not sure if the company has any client schools in the district, though I'm sure that will eventually come, if it hasn't happened already. 

Apps like this one that improve the flow of record-keeping and paperwork -- particularly in essential but mundane tasks like tracking demerits and hall passes -- make a big difference in managing a school. Student management systems aren't the type of reform that will be debated by the Tennessee legislature, but this is the type of nuts-and-bolts change that makes a difference in teaching kids. When data is more accessible, consistent, and easily visualized, teachers can do their jobs better.

Matt is a smart guy and I hope this money helps the company refine the product and grow. It would be great if Nashville become not only a hub for innovative schools, but innovative educational technology, too. 

Note: neither I nor the network of schools where I work are formally endorsing LiveSchool. Just proud to see a cool business launch in Nashville. 

What happens when entertainment is no longer entertaining?

This week, researchers reported that they can now image brains to diagnose CTE while people are alive. Previously, the only way to know if CTE caused a person depression, dementia, or suicidal tendencies was through an autopsy. Repeated concussions have been linked CTE. 

Ta-Nehisi Coates puts together a damning timeline on the NFL actions regarding concussions. Essentially, league executives have had a reason to suspect for quite some time that players were playing Russian roulette with their post-football lives, yet they told players differently. An excerpt:

2007 - An NFL safety pamphlet notifies players, "Current research with professional athletes has not shown that having more than one or two concussions leads to permanent problems if each injury is managed properly. 

2009 - NFL spokesman Greg Aiello acknowledges, "It's quite obvious from the medical research that's been done that concussions can lead to long-term problems, 

2009 - The NFL begins to put up posters in locker rooms that state, in part, "Concussions and conditions resulting from repeated brain injury can change your life and your family's life forever."
"This is about Roger Goodell, that fraud, covering his own ass," says former defensive lineman Dave Pear.

In 2007, the NFL was still arguing that concussions wouldn't lead to serious problem? Surely they heard of what happened to these former players two years earlier:

2005 - In June, former Pittsburgh Steelers guard Terry Long commits suicide by drinking antifreeze. Neuropathologist Bennet Omalu later examines Long's brain and concludes he suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.
"People with chronic encephalopathy suffer from depression. The major depressive disorder may manifest as suicide attempts. Terry Long committed suicide due to the chronic traumatic encephalopathy due to his long-term play," Dr. Omalu tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "The NFL has been in denial."Steelers neurosurgeon Joseph Maroon says Omalu is employing "fallacious reasoning" saying "I don't think it's plausible at all ... to go back and say that he was depressed from playing in the NFL and that led to his death 14 years later, I think is purely speculative. 

2005 - In July the peer-reviewed journal Neurosurgery prints Omalu's autopsy and brain analysis of "Iron" Mike Webster. Omalu concludes that Webster suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.

I've enjoyed watching football for a long time, but now every time I see even a highlight on "SportsCenter" I just think about how guys are destroying their brains. Sure, they get glory, celebrity, and big paychecks, but ask the widow and children of Junior Seau if that's a tradeoff they'd make again. Even researchers find that it's only a relatively small number of former players affected, say 10 or 20 percent, it's still too much of a sacrifice for something driven primarily by people wanting something to watch on Sunday afternoons.

And I'm a guy who grew up immersed in Southern football culture. I live a mile away from where the Titans play. 

I wonder how many other people are going to start feeling the same way? I mean, with the NFL, we're talking about a $9 billion business and that's without taking into account the massive media industry built around. For that matter, what about the cultural and financial impact of college football?  

When I read Seabiscuit, I learned that the major American spectator sports during the Depression were horse racing and boxing. History shows there's nothing guarantees that football will continue to dominate the modern sports landscape. 

Given all this, it looks like a Major League Soccer franchise would be a bargain investment. 

Outcome-based evaluations for all!

MNPS Superintendent Jesse Register will be evaluated in a new way, per Joey Garrison at The Tennessean:

The Metro school board in the coming months is planning to overhaul the way it evaluates the director of schools’ performance annually to also include student outcomes — a move that is believed to be a first for the district. The change, to be a part of a larger still-undefined rubric, comes as the state is in the middle of its second year of teacher evaluations that factor in students’ test scores and growth.

This is an improvement. I don't wish to see Register lose his job or be humiliated by a poor review. A better evaluation process isn't about the person; it's about a position. This establishes a better practice of governance. As someone who thinks student outcomes matter most, it makes sense that part of an educator's evaluation should include how much their students grow. Though superintendents aren't in the classroom directly influencing students, they make decisions that profoundly influence how well students do over time. 

I'm also pleased to see who is chairing the relevant committee:

“There certainly is accountability at the teacher level and the principal level, and in many ways, this is no different,” said school board member Elissa Kim, who is heading the board’s director’s evaluation committee.

As I argued this summer, I can't think of a better person to chair a committee designing a fair and thorough evaluation. Having someone lead this who is familiar with best practices from districts and nonprofits across the country bodes well for good governance. Garrison describes the changes here:

Kim, who oversees evaluations routinely through her work as executive vice president of recruitment for Teach For America, said the existing criteria includes only “process steps” in which to hold the superintendent accountable: cost management, HR and people management and communications, among a list of several others. 

Register, whose contract with Metro runs through 2015, supports the change in scoring, calling it “appropriate” to take student outcomes into account.

“The old evaluation was heavily process-oriented, and the new approach will be more balanced,” he said. 

I have no idea if revamping the superintendent's review was in the works before the new board took office or if this is a new idea. I'm sure other members besides Kim have played a part in putting this together. For all involved, it's a step in the right direction. 

Tests and dumb tests

"I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars."
-- Barack Obama, 2002

Borrowing Obama's formulation, I don't think most teachers oppose testing. I think many oppose dumb testing. 

Some teachers in Seattle are rebelling against testing -- sort of. They're boycotting giving a second test to their students. (The students in question already take an state-mandated end of course exam in some classes. As best I can tell, this isn't controversial.) Jesse Hagopian, a teacher at Garfield High School (and a Teach for America alumnus**) pinpoints the chief issue:

Students don’t take the MAP seriously because they know their scores don’t factor into their grades or graduation status. They approach it less seriously each time they take it, so their scores decline. Our district uses MAP scores in teacher evaluations, even though the MAP company recommends against using it to evaluate teacher effectiveness and it’s not mandated in our union contract.

That is dumb testing.

The more I read, this story seems less about whether testing is worthwhile and more of a tale of how an inane bureaucracy requires teachers to give a useless test. 

A letter from teachers at a Seattle elementary schools demonstrates why the test in questions is useless:

 ...the current version of the MAP test is aligned with the old state standards and it is clearly an unsuitable vehicle for evaluating students currently being taught the new required Common Core Standards. So not only are the results of little instructional value, but this discrepancy between what is taught and what is measured will yield falsely low scores making the MAP test invalid for the purpose of measuring student growth/teacher effectiveness.

(Emphasis mine.)

The test that's the focus of the boycott is the MAP (Measures of Academic Progress). It's a national test, though I don't know if the testmakers adjust the questions to suit the standards of different states. 

As it happens, I can somewhat empathize with the Seattle teachers. My ninth graders have a similar testing regimen -- a state-mandated end of course test (EOC) and the MAP. The reason I'm OK with the kids also taking the MAP is because the data from it helps me do a better job.

The MAP is something we chose to do as a school. We use it to track student progress throughout the year and make sure my students are on track to reach their desired ACT score. The MAP is taken three times a year on a computer and takes about an hour for most students to take a subject-specific test. Unlike the state-mandated tests, it offers a sophisticated breakdown of student growth and skill level.

It's very useful in terms of knowing where a student is, how quickly they're making progress, and tweaking instruction to meet students. As we switch to Common Core standards -- which are more rigorous -- the data from the MAP will be even more relevant. 

It is, of course, worthless if teachers don't use the data. 

The information I get from it actually saves quite a bit of class and planning time because I don't need to design my own diagnostic test, nor do I have to crunch the raw data. It's helped me teach because we're more accurately diagnosing skill deficits. It's one thing to know a student isn't reading on grade level. It's much more useful to know that, say, a student struggles with differentiating between certain vowel sounds. With that sort of precision, we're able to conduct targeted reading interventions. When students take the MAP again, we track progress. 

In other words, this isn't testing for testing's sake. We use this stuff to help our kids become better readers. It's a simple goal, but not an easy one. Helping kids make strides is complicated. That's why so many kids fall behind in the first place.

The idea of education is also simple, but not easy: everything a school does should help students learn. All tests, whether it's a ten-question vocabulary quiz or a state-mandated exam, are supposed to serve that goal. If the data from a test isn't meaningful, then what's the point in having students take it? 

As with so many things in education, poor execution sabotages a policy's intent. This seems like district leadership kept on adding testing systems without thinking through how it would play out in classrooms. The Seattle debate isn't about testing; it's about dumb testing.

****

** Read Hagopian's entire article. There's a persistent idea that TFA alumni don't have many different opinions about what ed reform should be. There's another one that many TFA alumni don't stay in the classroom. Both are false. 

The Mike Munchak model of school leadership

I've got a radical idea for improving schools. On paper, it won't cost more money. A bunch of schools are already doing it. Also, pretty much every other industry does this some form or fashion. So, as I said, radical by the standards of education policy. Here it is: District superintendents should allow principals to choose their staffs.

We in Nashville are watching an example of how this could work right now. After a crappy season, Titans coach Mike Munchak is "reorganizing" his staff. That is, he's firing some people and hiring others. Several coaches were given no more explanation than "the team is going in a different direction." Among these is longtime special teams coach Alan Lowry, best known as the architect of the most famous play in team history, the Music City Miracle. It's not like Lowry forgot how to coach football this year. But his contract had expired and observers speculate that the special teams unit needed shaking up.

This never gets old.

Tennessean sports columnist David Climer criticized Munchak's moves, but then wrote the following:

While some of Munchak’s decisions may seem odd, let’s be clear: Considering his situation, he must be given complete freedom to adjust his coaching staff in whatever way he sees fit. His job is on the line, so he must be allowed to win or lose with the assistants of his choice. If he thinks he can upgrade his staff, so be it.

(Emphasis mine)

So why does a football coach get the freedom to choose a staff, but many schools refuse to let their principals do the same? 

Back in my Philly days, I asked that question to a colleague. She looked at me as if I'd grown a third eye. "What would happen if a principal came in here and just cleaned house?" she asked, expecting that the answer was self-evident. 

Except that the particular school where I worked had been failing by every possible measure. We had the educational equivalent of a 2-14 season. If ever there was a school that was fit for a Indianapolis Colts-style makeover, this was it.

Of course, school district management being what it is, the district fired the previous administration while staff stayed (unless they decided to leave of their own volition).

This worked wonders in undermining most of the authority any administration would've had. Teachers could do the same thing they'd always done (admittedly a good thing in a few cases, but a recipe for repeating failure in most others). Whether a teacher was competent or not, none of us had reason to treat the new administration as anything other than the next group through the revolving door. I think I talked the principal five times during the entire year.

Now I work in a charter school. If she wants, the principal can fire me. Is that likely to happen? No. There are lots of good reasons why principals, even ones who were new to a school, wouldn't want to fire the staff en masse. The point is that a school leader should get to choose of who works for them. There's quite a difference between saying that something would be a bad idea -- like firing an entire staff -- versus prohibiting someone from doing it. That difference is trust. And if a superintendent doesn't trust a principal, then why is that person allowed to lead a school?

(I can see the eye-rolling from veteran teachers regarding that last point. Bear with me -- I'm talking about how things should be.)

I know that there are some terrible principals out there. (In my stint there, I learned the hard way that the School District of Philadelphia was notorious for hiring them.) The solution for hiring poor principals, though, isn't to make sure that they're powerless to change much of anything. That sort of arrangement can (and does) repel a whole lot of competent candidates. 

As for what to do with bad principals? Hold them as accountable as, say, the typical NFL coach. If the Titans don't go the playoffs next year, everybody expects owner Bud Adams to fire Munchak. The same idea should be applied to principals. If they don't get results, replace them.

Staff turnover is commonplace in other industries, particularly those were leadership is so closely aligned to performance. Indeed, school superintendents are held accountable for results even when they don't influence student achievement nearly as much as principals and teachers.

We understand the principle of giving freedom to lead in exchange for accountability when it applies to sports. Why doesn't it seem to apply to so many of our schools?