Archives for the month of: April, 2017
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Kelvin Smythe: When Pooh and Christopher Robin Went Searching for a 21st Century Education

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2017 //
9

Kelvin Smythe is an educator and blogger in New Zealand who left the education system when the ideas of the New Right took over. He has since been a critic and an activist.

A friend Down Under sent me one of his recent writings, in which Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet and Christopher Robin go searching for a 21st Century Education.

But first a bit about Smythe. He wrote this about his views:

Kelvin Smythe makes a plea for teachers to see behind the commodification of education, the managerialism, the data gathering, the claims of new knowledge, the fads, the array of electronics to what teaching is really about – key interactions between teacher, child, and what is being learnt. He knows that many of his concerns about education, his aspirations for education, his style of writing about them will be dismissed as out-of-date. His claim, though, is that these key interactions are the essence of what teaching should be, and are timeless.

In the story he tells about Pooh and friends, there is this beginning:

Just as they came to the Six Pine Trees, Pooh looked around to see that nobody else was listening, and said in a very solemn voice: ‘Piglet, I have decided something.’

‘What have you decided Pooh?’

‘I have decided to catch a 21st Century Education.’

Piglet asked, ‘But what does a 21st Century Education look like? Then continued thoughtfully: ‘Before looking for something, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it.’

Smith then observes:

We are, it seems, getting ourselves tied in knots about something called 21st century education – before looking for it, as Piglet suggests, it might be wise to find out what we are looking for.

This could be done in respect to how it might differ from what went before, how it might be the same as what went before, how it might be worse than went before, who is supposed to benefit from it, who is calling for it, does it exist, should it exist, what are its aims and, being education, how much is career- or self-serving bollocks.

I intend this posting to be a search for something called a 21st century education.

As part of that I declare my prior understandings about the concept – a concept because there has never been any discussion about something called 20th century education, it was never conceptualised in that way, so why for 21st century education?

The formation and high usage of the concept label suggests powerful forces at work – forces, I suggest, taking control of the present to control the future.

Those active in promoting the concept of 21stcentury education are mostly from political, technology, and business groupings, also some academics: the immediate future they envisage as an extension and intensification of their perception of society and education as they see it now. And in the immediate future, as well as the longer term one, they see computers at the heart of 21st century education, which is fair enough as long as the role of computers is kept in proportion as befits a tool, a gargantuanly important one, but still a tool….

Smythe goes on to write about the dominant philosophy behind the 21st century education hullaballoo.

School education is being pressured to inappropriate purposes by groups who claim a hold on the future and from that hold generate techno-panic to gain advantage in the present.

Another prior understanding is that the inappropriate use of computers for learning has contributed to the decline in primary school education (though well behind the contribution of national standards and the terrible education
autocracy of the education review office).

For all the talk of personalising learning, of building learning around the child, of individualising learning, the mandating question for 21st century education seems to be: how can we build the digital into learning instead of how can we best do the learning? And even further: how can we build schools for digital learning instead of what is best for children’s learning environment? Large open spaces are not the best environment for children’s learning, meaning that in combination with the heavy use of computers to make large open spaces ‘work’, a distinct problem is developing. Computers and large open spaces are being promoted by 21st century advocates as the two key ideas to carry us forward to the education for the 21st century.

I think you will find this an interesting read and will spot the commonalities that we face, in the U.S., Australia, Great Britain, and New Zealand. It is the phenomenon that Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg calls GERM (the Global Education Reform Movement). Its proponents say that it is sweeping the world, and that the train has left the station. But please notice that educators and children are not on the train. They are on the tracks.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reform, For-Profit, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International, Real Education, Technology, Computers

Sara Stevenson: What Do State Tests Really Cost?

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2017 //
35

Sara Stevenson, librarian at the O. Henry Middle School in Austin, says that Texans should calculate the true cost of state testing.

It is not just the purchase price of the tests. It is also the cost of the time of teachers and others, like herself, who monitor testing.

Instead of teaching or in Sara’s case, tending the library, their time is spent as test supervisors.

Republican Representative Jeff Leach has proposed that the state do a true financial audit to measure the real cost of testing.

Sara says this is a great idea.

Of course, the audit will not take into account the time that students lose when they should be getting instruction, nor will it measure the distortion of education by focus on testing as the be-all and end-all of schooling.

In other words, what exactly are we paying for — and how much are we spending annually? It’s shocking that no one before Leach has ever asked this question.

For instance, as a school librarian with 25 years of experience and a masters’ degree, I make $50,000 annually, or roughly $32 per hour — not counting the time I work outside of school hours. Texans are paying me $128 each time I monitor a STAAR test for four hours. During several days each year of STAAR testing, the Texas Education Agency threatens to strip us of our Texas teaching certificates if we read or do any other task while monitoring these tests. Once, I jokingly asked if it was OK for me to daydream — and I was told no. Just try to stop me! I’m writing this op-ed in my head.

Last legislative session, Pearson lost its testing contract to Education Testing Service in part because of the negative publicity Pearson garnered from advertising STAAR scoring jobs on Craigslist for $8 an hour. Maybe the state should pay outside test monitors $8 an hour and allow teachers the time to plan, grade or benefit from professional development.

Will the lobbyists for the testing industry defeat the bill?

Do elected officials really want to know what the state is spending on testing?

This is a test of what they want to know.

Categories Accountability, Testing, Texas

More Florida Mischief

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2017 //
13

When the Florida House of Representatives passed the legislation to award $200 million to charter operators who opened in competition with low-performing schools, they also passed two other bills that are ugly.

One would require districts to share their property taxes with charter schools.

The other would make adjustments to the state’s idiotic “Best and Brightest” bonus plan for new teachers, which gives a large cash bonus to new teachers who had high SAT scores many years ago.

House members also approved its version of a measure (SB 376) that could lead to local school districts sharing construction dollars raised from local property taxes with charter schools. That bill was approved on a 76-38 vote.

And by a 79-38 vote, the House supported legislation (HB 7069) that would overhaul the Best and Brightest bonus program for teachers.

The proposal would lower the scores teachers would need on college-entrance exams to access the award, expand the number of tests that could be used to qualify for the bonuses and give principals an opportunity to earn additional pay by having large numbers of teachers at their schools who receive the awards.

But opponents said the changes did not go far enough.

“This was a bad idea last year,” said Rep. Joe Geller, D-Aventura. “It’s a worse idea this year.”

Watch Florida for the worst possible ideas in political manipulation of schools and teachers.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, Privatization, Testing

Florida: “Schools of Hope” Designed to Attract No-Excuses Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2017 //
5

The Florida Speaker of the House said that the legislation recently passed was designed to attract national charter chains to take over low-performing public schools, such no-excuses charter schools as KIPP, SEED, and Uncommon Schools.

But according to this article in Politico, the chains thus far are not interested. KIPP has only one school in Florida, the most charter-friendly state in the nation (some might say that California is the most charter-friendly state).

Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran wants nonprofits that have operated high-performing charter schools in other states to replicate their success here.

To that end, he’s made them an offer: $200 million to cover facilities costs, personnel and specialized educational offerings, plus a wish list of statutory and regulatory changes designed to help them prosper.

But it appears they’re not interested.

Several of the organizations the Land O’Lakes Republican has mentioned by name or that have appeared in front of House education committees — networks that operate charter schools in New York City, Boston, the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Phoenix, among other locales — told POLITICO Florida they have no plans to open schools in the Sunshine State.

Others said the scenario Corcoran has proposed is not consistent with their models. The House’s plan would incentivize operators to open charters in neighborhoods where traditional public schools are struggling, potentially drawing out some or all of the students. An operator could also take over operations of a struggling school or convert it to a charter school, which are options that already exist under state law but would be enhanced by the proposal.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, Privatization

Florida: Jeb’s Corporate Raiders Attack Public Schools Again

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2017 //
11

Florida has more than 600 charter schools. They open and close like day-lilies. Many operate for profit. The charter industry cannot rest so long as a public school remains undisturbed by the forces of disruption and greed.

A new law has been proposed law to open more opportunities for the industry. It is cynically named “Schools of Hope.” But hope is for the entrepreneurs, not the children.

The Florida House of Representatives passed the law two days ago on a party-line vote. One Democrat called the legislation “Most Children Left Behind”

Behind the new law stands Betsy DeVos’s mentor, Jeb Bush. Jeb will push privatization so long as there remains a public school in Florida, regardless of results.

This letter came from Fund Education Now, a parent group.

Homepage

Status: HB 5105 “Charter School Turnaround Heist/Schools of Hope” passed in the House along strict party lines. No companion in Senate except Sen. Bean’s SB776, which is scheduled to be heard for the first time in committee on Monday, 4/17/17. Please take the time to read and understand the dangerous lie behind HB 5105 and why the Senate must stop it.

Take action now: Urge the Senate to reject Charter ”Schools of Hope” Turnaround language – No on SB776, block inclusion in Budget & “Train Bill”

Politics behind HB 5105:

Thirteen people filled out testimony cards in the House to speak on “Schools of Hope”/HB 5105; the sole proponent was a lobbyist from Jeb’s Foundation for Florida’s Future
Florida legislators chronically move cut scores while ignoring the more important measure of actual learning gains, a practice that deliberately throws schools in and out of A, B, C, D, or F status every year.

Case in point: the controversial “proficiency” language found in HB 773 which, if passed, alters the FSA cut scores again causing the pass rate to fall from 54% to somewhere between 27% and 39%, rapidly increasing the number of “D” and “F” schools, clearly benefiting “Schools of Hope.”

By allowing a “Schools of Hope” to open anywhere in a 5 mile radius from a “D” or “F” public school, legislators are ensuring that entire districts, even affluent areas, will qualify, triggering rapid charter growth.
Codifies a longstanding resentment that for-profit charter developers feel toward public school districts that charters aren’t being allowed to replicate fast enough.

Laws are passed every session to increase unmitigated charter growth.

Right now districts have multiple statutory options to aid in transforming a D or F school, only one of which is the transfer to a for-profit charter operator. Charter lobbyists and folks such as HB 5105 sponsor Manny Diaz, complain that districts don’t pick this option enough.

HB 5105 sweetens the charter pot by forcing districts to select the “transfer to for-profit charter operator” option and eliminating the district managed option entirely.

Send your letters now: Tell the Senate to reject the “Schools of Hope”/Charter Schools Turnaround Heist!

“Schools of Hope” do not ensure success for struggling students:

Students exiting their so-called “D/F” school become part of a large diaspora will be impossible to track to review outcomes, making it unlikely that the success or failure of “Schools of Hope” will ever be known.

The 77,000 students who currently attend D/F-graded public schools (2% of Florida’s 2.75 million public school students) are under zero obligation to attend the “School of Hope” situated within 5 miles of their current school.

“Schools of Hope” are under no obligation to provide transportation

Students who attend their so-called D/F school will be dispersed into the community, free to use the Opportunity Scholarships, Corporate Tax Credit/Private School Vouchers or the state’s liberal open enrollment policy that crosses all districts as well as the “School of Hope.”

Once the for profit charter “School of Hope” accepts the student(s) from the so-called D/F school, which could be as few as 1, they are free to host a lottery for the rest of the community

All the rhetoric about saving kids from so-called “failure factories” is a ruse. Under the “Schools of Hope,” nothing is guaranteed except the exponential growth of charter schools and the deliberate defunding of public district schools.

Triggers multiple ways for districts to lose schools and students, giving voters and parents no voice:

Gives for-profit charter developers access to a $200 million capital slush fund if they are willing to open a so-called “school of hope” within a five mile radius of any “D” or “F” public school, which opens entire districts to charter development.

Immediate transfer of D and F public schools into private, for-profit hands. Districts already have multiple statutory options to aid in transforming a D or F school, only one of which is the transfer to a for-profit charter operator.

Loss of public assets nearly $1 billion per year

Bill takes away district right to manage its own school

Establishes system of “Success” Charter schools that could be designated an independent district with its own taxing authority

Eliminates District managed option
Compresses the time-frame for schools that receive a D or F grade to be handed over to for-profit charter operator

Removes options from school boards for turn-around solutions

Picture of loss:

115 public district schools could be handed over immediately to corporate charter developers

450 additional public schools vulnerable to this charter school heist

77,000 students in those 115 public district schools under immediate takeover threat means the transfer of $555 million dollars to for profit charters per year based on UFTE of $7,420.58.

$200 million capital slush fund per year offered to for-profit charter chains willing to open a so-called “school of hope” within a five mile radius of any D or F public school.

For-profit Charter Chains not interested in struggling students:

Florida charters have demonstrated a chronic disinterest in this population.

Legislators are consumed with labeling children and schools with D or F, but unwilling to walk through the doors to see the remarkable work being done despite chronic underfunding

Charter Chains and legislators disregard the fact that struggling D or F schools face the deep effects of generational poverty that requires greater investment and support not “failure” labels and ridicule.

Charter chains know that struggling students cost more and are “not attractive” to a ‘for-profit” model

Legislators ignore District Success:

A prime example of this is Orange County’s successful Evans High Community School, which is a collaborative effort between the district, UCF and other agencies.

This level of student investment – at least $1M more per year per school – is something no for-profit corporation is willing to justify to its board

Florida has a history of constantly moving cut scores while ignoring the more important measure of actual learning gains, a practice that deliberately throws schools in and out of A, B, C, D, or F status every year.

“Schools of Hope” is based on a lie:

Florida’s A-F Accountability/school grades are based on a false premise since school grades almost always reflect zip code status

Florida’s constantly moving cut scores vs. the more important measure of actual learning gains throws schools in and out of A, B, C, D, or F status every year rendering the grades meaningless

Alters statute to include both D and F schools, exponentially driving up the numbers of schools available for take over

Florida Charter Schools have not lived up to their promises

State has spent $760 million on the building and operation of charter schools since 2000.

Majority of state funding for the construction and renovation of schools goes to charter schools.

U.S. Department of Education found no evidence to support the claims that charter schools ‘save children from “failing schools.”

Research shows that restarting a former public school as a charter school had no significant impact on math or reading test scores, high graduation or college enrollment

In 2016, Florida charter schools closures were the highest in the nation

HB 5105 “Schools of Hope” enticements offered to for-profit charter chains:

Gives for profit operators a $200 million slush fund,

Provides for-profit charter developers with a state tax-payer sponsored revolving loan program

Transfers federal funds meant for district schools to private entities

Forces districts to turn over public school buildings AND requires the school district to maintain them.

Exempts for-profit charter developers from school building codes, taxes, fees and assessments and state procurement laws.

Exempts for-profit charter developers from the current charter law and requirements that they close if they fail.

Exempts for-profit charter developers from the class size limits in our constitution.

Exempts for-profit charter developers from teacher certification requirements

Rescinds district-managed option for turning around struggling schools

Stretching the truth – calling Charter Chains “public”

Parents at Charter Schools have little recourse and must address complaints to a corporate school board whose members may not even live in the state.

For-profit Charter schools are run by corporate operators, are allowed to profit from publicly bonded real estate deals and are governed by separate school boards – all enriched by public dollars.

The 501c3 front door provides cover for a private, exceptionally lucrative for-profit back door charter operators that are exempt from transparency because they are private corporations

Legislators benefit from charter school growth. HB 5105 sponsor, Rep. Diaz, earns his living working for the unaccredited Doral College, which is owned by mega charter school developer Academica, the group that just won the state’s first district charter school takeover located in Jefferson County, The ink isn’t dry on the deal to serve 600 students and already Academica is petitioning the Florida Legislature for an additional $5 Million.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit

Gary Rubinstein: “College or Die”

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2017 //
10

Gary Rubinstein has become a master at unmasking “miracle” claims, you know, the schools where 100% of the students in a poor neighborhood (formerly served by a public school) graduate or 100% go to college or some equally implausible miracle. None of these claims ever turn out to be true. Gary explains again and again that the “miracle” is made possible by attrition of the kids who were not on track to graduate.

He recently discovered a charter school in Indianapolis whose motto is “College or Die.”

The principal of this school just was put in charge of charter schools in Memphis.

Watch Gary analyze the data from the school in Indianapolis. How many went to college? How many “died”?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Hoax, Indianapolis, Memphis, Privatization

Washington State: Where Billionaires Get Richer, and Schools Get Shafted

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2017 //
31

This is an astonishing article about the battle for fair funding of public education in Washington State, where billionaires pay a lower tax rate than working stiffs. The article appeared almost two years ago, but it remains relevant today.

“Despite its image as the cutting-edge land of Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, Starbucks, and many other corporate icons, the state ranks near last place nationally in education categories such as per-pupil funding, class size, and college attendance.”

A valiant lawyer, Thomas Ahearne, took on the case more than a decade ago and found Stephanie McCleary, a mother with two young children, who was willing to step up and be the public face of the struggle. The state’s courts have ruled in favor of McCleary, but the legislature has failed to raise taxes on the wealthiest or to come up with a plan to fund the schools equitably.

Bill Gates, the most famous billionaire in Washington State, has exerted his energy to push through charter schools, not to fund all schools better. As compared to tax reform, charter schools are a bargain.

“Washington has long cited a paucity of tax revenues for such failings. Yet, at the same time, it gives away more money in corporate tax breaks than any other state aside from New York, which has nearly three times the population. It is the result of what some call a “war between the states” to lure companies with treasury-draining giveaways — a trend so strong that this state’s governor likened it in an interview to corporate “extortion.” politicians would rather give corporate tax breaks than fund the schools in their district. They forget that good public schools attract corporate talent.

Here is a major reason that Washington state is not funding its schools: tax breaks for corporations that threaten to leave the state. Boeing threatened to leave, and the governor and legislature gave Boeing a deal in 2013 that “provided Boeing with $8.7 billion in tax breaks through 2040, the largest ever granted to any company by a state. The deal was meant to ensure that Boeing built its new 777X plane in Washington. In recent months, however, Boeing has transferred 3,500 jobs to other states and plans for at least 2,000 more to be moved, reviving concerns about the tax deal.”

Washington is a blue state with a Democratic Governor, Jay Inslee, but it must take care not to offend the billionaires.

“The billions for Boeing were given as the state struggled with the broader issue of tax inequities. Washington has the nation’s most unequal tax structure, according to a report by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy. The state’s poorest 20 percent of residents pay 16.8 percent of their income in state and local taxes, while the wealthiest 1 percent pays just 2.4 percent.

“We have the most regressive tax system in the United States by a long shot,” Inslee said. That “has exacerbated income inequality, [and] it has been much more difficult to find a source that would adequately fund education,,,.”

“The state’s agricultural, timber, and mining industries paid even less than high-tech – a combined $14.6 million. And the aerospace industry, which includes Boeing, paid $72 million in the Business and Occupation Tax.”

How can a state fund education when its richest industries pay meager taxes?

Almost three years ago, the state’s highest court fined the state $100,000 per day for every day it does not adopt an acceptable plan. The money is accruing in a bank account, and the state has failed to comply.

Meanwhile the billionaires of Washington state enjoy their low taxes, complaining about the public schools, and plugging for a handful of charter schools. This allows them to call themselves “reformers” while they profit from the underfunding of the state’s public schools.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Washington State

David Greene: The Erosion of American Education Has Turned into a DeVostating Mudslide

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2017 //
24

David Greene is a teacher, mentor, coach, the whole 100 yards. He also blogs about education, and in this post he describes what great teaching is, and gives us hope that it may survive even the current tsunami of bad ideas.

David reluctantly saw a video about High Tech High, which he was floored by, because so many “reformers” love it but never replicate it. It is a project-based school of the kind he admires.

He writes:

I learned how to teach when I was in second grade. I have often written and spoken about my second grade teacher, Rita Stafford, who taught us astronomy by allowing us to build a solar system that hung on our classroom ceiling. We learned about civil rights in 1956-7 not only by reading newspapers and learning about Birmingham and Little Rock, but by writing letters to President Eisenhower, as concerned citizens.

We learned to love learning because of her passion and creativity, so often lost in today’s “Reform World.” Learning is best done “in the company of a passionate adult who is rigorously perusing inquiry in the area of their subject matter and is inviting students along as peers in that discourse.”

“We know a good teacher by the sophistication of that teacher’s kid’s work. If a teacher’s work is worth doing, has lasting value…. and learning that is worth learning…he or she is a good teacher.” Ms. Stafford was. So, I hope, was I because of what I did following those models.

She, Mr. Rosenstock and I all want kids behaving like scientists, artists, and historians: not just studying the content, and doing only restrictive work that allows for success on multiple choice tests. What better way is there than though actually doing the work rather than learning about it. What better way is there than project learning or learning through internship programs, especially in high school? After all, “what is adolescence but trying on new roles and sampling identities? We must just give them the chance.”

Categories Teachers and Teaching

How School Choice Segregated the Public Schools of Michigan, Home of the DeVos Family

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2017 //
38

School choice produces segregation: racial segregation, religious segregation, socioeconomic segregation. That is why the idea of school choice originated with Southern governors in the wake of the Brown V. Board of Education decision. They were determined to defend racially separate public schools. Their strategy was school choice. They knew that if students could choose their schools, they could preserve segregation. The federal courts put a halt to that. For more on that, read Mercedes Schneider’s fine book School Choice, which provides a history of this idea in the United States.

But now along comes the Trump administration and Betsy DeVos telling us that school choice is the “civil rights issue of our time.”

This would be a sick joke if it weren’t so serious.

The latest evidence on this front comes from Michigan, where MLive, which is read across the state, reports that racial segregation has intensified as school choice took hold. The story focuses on Holland, Michigan, Betsy DeVos’s home town.

Mike Wilkinson of Bridge magazine writes:

For more than a decade, Holland Public Schools has watched its enrollment fall, prompting the closure – and demolition – of multiple schools.

The decline is not the result of an aging community with fewer, school-age children. Rather, it’s largely a reflection of Michigan’s generous school choice policies. Choice has, consciously or not, left districts like Holland not only scrambling for students, but more racially segregated as its white students leave, often for districts that are less diverse.

“When school choice started, that decline started,” said Brian Davis, superintendent of the Holland district. In 2000, Holland had 15 school buildings; it now has eight. About one-in-three students living within the district are now being educated in another district or charter school. Because state education dollars follow students to their new district or charter, Davis said that Holland’s white flight has shaken the district’s finances.

In the two decades since Michigan adopted school choice, Holland’s white enrollment has plummeted 60 percent, with 2,100 fewer white students. Today, whites comprise 49 percent of school-age children living in the district, but only 38 percent the school population (Hispanics make up 47 percent of Holland schools).

From Holland to metro Detroit, Flint to Jackson, tens of thousands of parents across Michigan are using the state’s schools of choice program to move students out of their resident districts and into ones that are more segregated, a Bridge analysis of state enrollment data shows.

Last week, Bridge showed how “choice” has made several metro Detroit districts less diverse, with white students moving to whiter districts and African-American students increasingly gravitating to almost-entirely-black charter schools.

Since the Brown decision of 1954, America’s public schools have strived, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully, to bring together children from different backgrounds. This is part of the American project, to teach people of every race, religion, and ethnic heritage to live in peace as citizens of the same background.

We have a president and a secretary of education who do not believe in this project. When DeVos referred to Historically Black Colleges and Universities as “schools of choice,” it was not a mistake. She actually believes that segregation is just fine so long as parents choose it. Her only error was thinking that this was a choice, rather than a response to exclusion.

This is why we must all fight the Trump-DeVos agenda. It promotes the worst in us; it embraces segregation and separatism. What has made America great is not segregation but mutuality; not withdrawing to our enclaves, but joining together in a spirit of community that is large enough for all of us. The Trump-DeVos tent is too small. It is their tent. Most of us don’t fit in.

We need another Martin Luther King Jr. to lead us in singing “We Shall Overcome.”

Categories Education Reform, Michigan, Segregation

An Easter and Passover Joke

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2017 //
12

Happy Easter!

Here’s a smile for your holidays.

I think you should spend today reading something other than this blog.

If you are Christian, go to church or do whatever you usually do.

If you are Jewish or Muslim or atheist or anything else, read and enjoy the day.

I would say I’m going fishing, but where I live, it’s not the season. Also, I don’t like fishing.

Actually, we are cooking up a big Easter meal for Mary’s family.

So, scour the blog for things you missed. I will be doing clean-up all day.

Get outside and breathe the spring. Winter is over. Be happy.

Enjoy friends and family.

I will be back tomorrow with some fabulous posts!

pilsbury

 

Categories Humor, Joy
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