Reader Joan Grim reports on Tennessee’s plans to improve outcomes by mandating better outcomes.

Forgive a certain lack of tolerance for stupidity, but this is one of the dumbest programs I have heard about lately.

She writes:

“Diane, you are truly an amazing woman- the gift that keeps on giving. We need your voice now more than ever because these people are not going away. The network of right wing lawmakers and lobbyists are still introducing laws to degrade & dismantle the public education system and reduce the teaching profession to a cheap, computer algorithm. Are there other states whose reps & media are promoting the following failure narrative for public teacher prep? Be on the look out for more “reform”

“Here is what’s happening in TN:

“Spotlight on Teacher Prep Programs

”Teacher preparation programs took center stage this week as both House Education Committees heard presentations on the topic coordinated by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) and the State Board of Education.

“The presentation largely focused on the results of a new state report card aimed at providing more accountability for higher education teacher preparation programs.

“When I see this data, we think we can do much better than this, and in fact we must do much better than this,” Mike Krause, the THEC Executive Director, said.

“The report card covers factors such as the percentage of completers with an ACT score of 21 or higher, percentage of racially and ethnically diverse completers, beyond year one retention rate, percentage of completers with a Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (teacher evaluation) score of three or higher, among others, and contends that 50 percent of Tennessee’s teacher preparation programs are in the lowest two performance categories. One trend of concern to THEC is the lack of diversity among Tennessee’s teacher preparation programs, which are primarily composed of white females. Several members raised questions as to how THEC and the State Board of Education are defining diversity.

“We are having conversations with our programs about whether we need to expand our measure of diversity to include things like first generation graduates or other poverty measures. Right now, it really is a racial diversity measure on the report card,” Dr. Sara Morrison, the Executive Director of the State Board of Education, said.

“THEC highlighted the need to increase the presence of male teachers and other races in state classrooms. According to Krause, research shows students perform better when there is diversity in the classroom and perform better when entering the workforce.

“Rep. Eddie Smith (R-Knoxville) asked how Tennessee colleges were responding to the data, which Krause characterized as “overwhelmingly positive.” Krause pointed to UT Martin as an example. Chancellor Keith Carver presented to members on how UT Martin has identified and implemented needed changes in its program in response to the state report card and subsequent meetings with THEC and the State Board of Education. The programs at UT Knoxville and UT Chattanooga were also referenced in the hearing as examples of programs with positive efforts underway.

“Several members asked questions regarding a “teacher warranty program,” and whether such an idea would be feasible in Tennessee. This is the second time this session a mention has been made in a legislative committee regarding a warranty as it relates to teacher preparation programs. While legislation has not yet been filed to this end, it is likely.

“Rep. Jimmy Matlock (R-Lenoir City) voiced frustration that change is not happening fast enough in Tennessee’s teacher preparation programs. He urged greater accountability for programs.

“We seem to be constantly hearing ‘change is coming, there’s a new day awakening,’ but we come back and see [data] like that. I’m not sure how anybody could be optimistic,” Matlock said.

“Teacher preparation is shaping up to be a major topic of legislative interest this session. We will continue to update advocates as the issue progresses.

“2.Bill Filed to Scrap Humanities General Education Requirement

“A bill filed this week, HB1754 by Rep. Tilman Goins, aims to no longer require first-time college students at two-year or four-year higher education institutions to take more than six credit hours of Humanities course work to satisfy the institution’s general education requirements. The legislation also would require first-time college students to complete at least three credit hours of economics course work to satisfy general education requirements. There could be a large fiscal impact in regards to time spent on curricular adjustments, as each campus would have to review their general education requirements for nearly 500 majors, as well as ensuring there are sufficient resources available to provide an appropriate economics course for all students. The University opposes attempts to legislate curricular requirements at its institutions, particularly those that may impact accreditation.”

If only the legislators could pass the requirements they mandate.

Masha Gessen has written extensively about Putin and Russia for the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, and the New York Times, as well as books.

This is one of her best articles. 

Written immediately after the 2016 election, it contains rules for surviving autocracy.

She begins by reminding us that we should not normalize Trump.

“Trump will be only the fourth candidate in history and the second in more than a century to win the presidency after losing the popular vote. He is also probably the first candidate in history to win the presidency despite having been shown repeatedly by the national media to be a chronic liar, sexual predator, serial tax-avoider, and race-baiter who has attracted the likes of the Ku Klux Klan. Most important, Trump is the first candidate in memory who ran not for president but for autocrat—and won.

“I have lived in autocracies most of my life, and have spent much of my career writing about Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I have learned a few rules for surviving in an autocracy and salvaging your sanity and self-respect. It might be worth considering them now:

“Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. He means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization. This will happen often: humans seem to have evolved to practice denial when confronted publicly with the unacceptable. Back in the 1930s, The New York Times assured its readers that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was all posture. More recently, the same newspaper made a telling choice between two statements made by Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov following a police crackdown on protesters in Moscow: “The police acted mildly—I would have liked them to act more harshly” rather than those protesters’ “liver should have been spread all over the pavement.” Perhaps the journalists could not believe their ears. But they should—both in the Russian case, and in the American one. For all the admiration Trump has expressed for Putin, the two men are very different; if anything, there is even more reason to listen to everything Trump has said. He has no political establishment into which to fold himself following the campaign, and therefore no reason to shed his campaign rhetoric. On the contrary: it is now the establishment that is rushing to accommodate him—from the president, who met with him at the White House on Thursday, to the leaders of the Republican Party, who are discarding their long-held scruples to embrace his radical positions.”

Trump is not normal. We must not lose our bearings. He will destroy our values and our institutions unless we change the leadership in the Congrrss. There must be at least one brake on the ruinous delusions of this vain, ignorant and autocratic man.

Trump forgot to mention education.

No wonder. He promised during the campaign to get rid of Common Core. He didn’t. it is as strong as ever. He forgot that promise, and Betsy must hide her past as a supporter of Common Core.

He didn’t brag about getting $20 Billion for School Choice, as promised, because he didn’t.

He didn’t brag about removing protections for kids with disabilities, transgender students, rape victims, or students defrauded by for-profits like Trump University.

Betsy DeVos can’t appear before any audience unless it is a group she funded.

Then there is the problem that he knows nothing at all about education, nor does she.

No bragging rights in this arena.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited newly elected Virginia House of Delegates member Elizabeth Guzman to deliver the Democratic response to Trump’s State of the Union address tonight.

Eluzabeth is a public education warrior.

Virginia leads the way to a brighter day!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/a-little-fire-a-little-spice-guzman-promises-lively-rebuttal-to-state-of-the-union/2018/01/29/a74d8338-0510-11e8-b48c-b07fea957bd5_story.html

I have just arrived in L.A. after a day of travel that started about 20 hours ago.

I will do my best to make sense.

I visited Shanghai in 1986,before the Tianenmen Square student uprising. It was a big, sleepy town in a Third World culture, reeking of Mao worship and completely lacking a work ethic. I remember going into a store, and the employees were asleep on the floor with the lights out.

Shanghai today is high-rise. Loaded with luxury buildings, luxury shops, luxury restaurants. Unlike Vietnam and Cambodia, the main mode of transportation is auto, not motorbikes. People were getting ready for the New Year, so there was a festive air and many decorations. Most of the high rise buildings are ablaze with moving neon graphics, and the city oozes money, entrepreneurship, dynamism, great wealth. Porsche’s, Mercedes, BMWs, and other luxury cars zip around.

From talking to service people, I learned that the public schools are not free. There is a fee for every child.classes are crowded, 40 or more. Private schools have small classes but they are expensive. Medical care is not free. There is no social security. Parents put all their hopes and savings into their child or children’s education. There is enormous pressure to do well, because education is the determinant of one’s life chances.

We had a very smart, well-spoken tour guide. She commutes nearly two hours a day each way to work. She can’t afford to live in the city. She worked at MacDonald’s but was paid only $.50 an hour. Being a guide is good and pays well.

She was knowledgeable about ancient Chinese history. She loves her country and is very proud of it. I asked what she learned about the Cultural Revolution, and she said it was at most a paragraph in a textbook. There was no discussion in school but she had learned from other sources. She knew about the uprising in Tianenmen Square and recalled seeing famous photograph of the young man in front of the line of tanks but she had not learned about these events in school. She could not explain why sites like Twitter, Google, and Facebook are banned but said there are ways to bypass the bans.

We stayed in a very beautiful high-tech hotel on The Bund, a major thoroughfare. Every afternoon, they served tea in a large Art Deco room that seated about 200 people, and a string quartet played western classical music. At night, during cocktails and dinner, there was a six-piece band and a singer. She sang American songs—Broadway tunes, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Billy Joel, Karen Carpenter. She was really good. At the end of each song, we four Americans applauded but no one else did. Almost everyone else was on their cellphone, reading and texting and completely oblivious to the music. I found it rude and alienating.

One morning at breakfast, we saw a family of three—Father, mother, child about 6, all on their own cells. No conversation.

I thought about Marc Tucker’s book, “Surpassing Shanghai.” I thought, I don’t want to surpass Shanghai. I hope we are never like Shanghai. The city is successful, if success is measured by test scores and dollars (but I don’t think the two have any relationship.) The City is booming because an authoritarian government invested in infrastructure and lured business and made profit its goal.

I don’t have any answers. But it was unsettling to think that the economic giant of the 21st century thinks it can and should control communications and thought.