Three Dog Night (and Day)

We added a third dog to our pack. Gilgamesh had been wanting an English bulldog, and yesterday we decided to add a new puppy to our family. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my privilege to introduce to you, Colonel Enkidu:



and a video:

John Kennedy Toole: The Omega Point

I spent the afternoon watching a fantastic documentary about the author of one of my favorite books: A Confederacy of Dunces. The film is entitled John Kennedy Toole: The Omega Point. Through interviews with Toole's friends and colleagues, as well as footage from interviews/performances from Toole's mother, it paints a background for Toole's creative yet disappointing life. I learned many interesting things, such as the book was written in Puerto Rico, and that only a couple of people attended Toole's funeral because of the shame his suicide brought his family. He's buried close to my house. The film also has some philosophical aspects, as you can see from the "Omega Point" in the title. One of the best has to do with a mysterious third manuscript that was found in Toole's car when he died. It was in the Biloxi police headquarters but got washed out into the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricane Betsy.

Thankfully, film maker Joe Sanford has the film online for free: http://www.jktoole.com/viewthefilm.html

Finally, Sanford ends with the following quotation, one of the best I've heard about New Orleans:

"The older I get, the more I realize, that living here isn't a conscious choice anyway. It's the first joyful step on an elegantly worn staircase to oblivion."

Rewarding Quality Teachers in Louisiana

“Shouldn’t we reward the truly excellent teachers and incentivize others to achieve excellence?”
Bobby Jindal speaking about his education reforms.

I'm married to a public school teacher. Or as Editor B noted, I am married to a public school widow. I won't see her much until June. While Therese hasn't taught me anything during 21 years of marriage, people who know about these things say she is excellent at the craft. This includes former students, parents, fellow teachers and school administrators. She has a Masters degree and more than 10 years of classroom experience, and more important these days, her students score well on standardized tests. So by any standard she would be considered one of these "excellent teachers" of which Governor Jindal speaks. Last year she earned $43,000 in one of Louisiana's highest performing charter schools. Governor Jindal wants to use her charter school as a model, and thereby get school boards and government out of "public" education, and turn over control of charter schools to private companies. This is where he always brings up that excellent teachers are rewarded in these types of systems.

Schools that are not chartered in New Orleans are often governed by the Recovery School District. There the average salary for someone with her education and years of experience is $49,000. It's slightly higher for non-chartered schools in Baton Rouge. So in my wife's case, the "reward" of which the governor speaks does not have to do with salaries. Perhaps Therese's "reward" pertains to longer school years and more work, both of which are par for the course with charter schools.

I should add charters are definitely rewarding for some people. Private education companies are making a fortune from taxpayer money. Also, the person at Therese's school whom they used to call the principal is now the school's C.E.O. with a salary jump from $60,000 (before charter) to more than $200,000. That's what I would call a reward.

Doubloon Death Clock

During Mardi Gras, various parading krewes throw plastic coins called "doubloons." They often have images on them, typically the year of the parade and its theme. I've been collecting them since we moved to New Orleans. We store them in a large glass container. I have a theory that when the container is full of doubloons, that's the year that I will die. It's like sand in an hourglass but with a New Orleans twist. Here's the container after this Mardi Gras:

Goat Kicking To Improve College GPA & Retention

My university, like many, struggles to retain Freshmen students. It's a major problem, and with Congress looking to tie government funding for education to graduation rates, it's more serious every year. Many students don't continue to their second year due to a variety of reasons, with academic and financial issues being the top two. The powers that be have convinced themselves that Saturday life-skills lessons are the answer. Our own collected data in fact shows that students who show up to these Saturday meetings outperform the students who skip these sessions. But I'm cynical, and think that there's something else going on here. So here's my alternative plan, and it's not good news for goats and their human advocates.

I would email all Freshmen students and tell them to meet me the first Saturday of every month at 7AM. We'll then kick a goat for two hours. I can guarantee you the Freshmen students who read their emails and made the effort to show up will have a much higher GPA than the the students who missed the goat kicking, and more of the goat kickers will thankfully be around at graduation. In fact, I'd bet that the goat kickers will earn 10 times the incomes of the students who missed this valuable pedagogical tool.

46

I just turned 46. That's the atomic number of palladium. The "discoverer" named it after the asteroid Pallas. That asteroid was named after the Greek god Pallas. According to myth, Athena killed Pallas who was the husband of Styx. Styx is a band that Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force thinks "rocks". Carl is my hero. And to be honest I don't believe that my 46-47 epoch will bring me any more happiness than my 45-46 epoch. I'll fight to keep my kids and students focussed on their education, fight to teach them to reject materialism, and try to install a investigative curiosity. I'll win some of these battles and lose some. My two main goals are to 1. finish a major book I've been working on with Eerdmans called Over, Under and Through the Bible, and to film the pilot episode of the soon to be famous TV reality show The Theologians Starring Mark Gstohl. So obviously if I have a blog post entitled "47" I'll be famous and I'll not have to type it, I'll just dictate it or outsource it or whatever Ashton Kutcher does. Happy birthday to moi.

Attacking New Orleans Teachers: A Math Problem for Bobby Jindal and the Media

So Governor Bobby Jindal has decided to make education reform the flagship of his second term. It's a smart political move. It plays well nationally. It's very pro-business for the companies making fortunes off of the charter school movement. It gives the impression that Jindal cares about youth and the intellectual future of this country. It perpetuates the myth that anyone can escape poverty through education and hard work. And if the grades don't improve, he has the teachers' union as a scapegoat.

What bothers me though about Jindal is his not-at-all-subtle attack on teachers. Consider his rhetoric. In rolling out his plan he made the following two statements about teachers:

1. "Short of selling drugs in the workplace or beating up one of the business's clients, they can never be fired."

2. "We are going to create a system that pays teachers for doing a good job instead of for the length of time they have been breathing."

Ugh. First teachers are easily fired. In fact, every teacher in New Orleans was fired after the flood. And my principal friends tell me all one needs to do is document the poor performance in yearly evaluation forms and the contract will be terminated. And notice in his business model he calls students "clients." Second, my wife is a public school teacher and I find this idea about her pay being based on simply living to be very offensive. My outrage is influenced by that fact that my kids and I all suffer due to the incredible work load placed on her shoulders. Ask anyone married to a public school teacher. Some of us call ourselves "teacher widows" and "teacher widowers." It's a major sacrifice. I look forward to June when I can have a wife again.

Besides the rhetoric, there is this myth being perpetuated in Louisiana education circles that we can all "vote with our feet." If we don't like the school in which our child is enrolled, we can switch schools. But entry into the best schools is extremely difficult if not impossible. For starters, you would need to have a parent with access to resources such as time, networking, and diligence. Louisiana Association of Educators Executive Director Michael Walker-Jones stated that many parents don't have these and other resources to make informed decisions about navigating these systems. This statement offended Jindal who argues that all parents want what's best for their kids and will be working on a level playing field in school choice.

So who is correct? I have a simple solution that a journalist could solve in about an hour. Let's take the two best performing charter schools in New Orleans, Ben Franklin and Lusher, and look at the average income for the parents of their students. Let's look at the demographics. Do these students come from houses where they have two parents? Perhaps one of these parents has time to volunteer at the school? Do they have a computer and an internet connection in their home?

Then lets compare these numbers to two of the lowest performing public schools in the city. I don't want to name names here, so choose any two RSD schools, or some of the lower performing BESE run charters. I think it's a reasonable hypothesis here that you will see a drastically lower income, far more single parents, no time to volunteer and fewer computers with internet in the home. I'm pretty sure that you will see a direct correlation between school quality and parental income.

But if the results are similar between these two sets then Jindal is correct and we all should be offended. I'm offended too, but for reasons that differ from Jindal's.

CRASH!

One week ago I, like many, thought that LSU would win the BCS Championship game and that the New Orleans Saints would win their first ever road playoff game. Neither happened. Time to pack up my Saints shrine and put it in the attic until next August.

Can You Teach Teaching? A Letter to John White & Bobby Jindal Fans

Can you teach teaching?

Yes you can. Ask my wife. She earned Bachelors degrees in Studio Art and Art History. Neither of these focussed on how to be an effective teacher. Therese decided she wanted to follow in the footsteps of many in her family and become an elementary school teacher. In California they decided that there was value in learning how to teach. So Therese enrolled in an intensive year long program set up for people who had already earned their Bachelor's degrees. She worked very hard to become a qualified teacher. To this day she relies on the pedagogical theories and resources she obtained in those classes. Since then, Therese went on to get her Masters degree, and Therese will tell you, those classes made her a much better teacher. So in fact there is value in teacher education programs.

Today the Louisiana state education board will fulfill the wishes of Governor Bobby Jindal and elect John White as the new superintendent of Louisiana schools. He will be the boss of 50,000 teachers. Thing is though, John White never took the time to learn how to teach, nor do his policies suggest that he sees a need for a formal education in how to teach. White joined Teach for America after getting a bachelor's degree in English, and subsequently taught English in New Jersey schools for three years. He then took various jobs leading Teach for America offices, and wound up implementing Michael Bloomberg's controversial education reforms for five years in New York. As that "reform" was imploding, White got out of town and came to New Orleans where he has been running the Recovery School District for the past few months.

So why is this young man doing so well in the upper echelons of Louisiana education circles? It's because Bobby Jindal and the pro-charter school movement share the same ideals as Bloomberg and other Republican education reform folks. Their idea is this:

Public education is broken and can't be fixed by throwing money at it. The main problem is principals can't fire lazy teachers because of an outdated tenure/union system. So you close failing schools (their term for schools with low standardized test scores) and let private companies start opening charter schools. You call principals CEOs and quadruple their salaries. You get rid of more expensive experienced teachers who are burned out anyway and hire younger enthusiastic teach for America workers because youth and enthusiasm trump experience and higher salaries. You get school workers to do more work for less money so profits go up. The parents win because now they can vote with their feet: if you don't like the school your child is at, put them in a school that you like. Through competition and open capitalism we all win. Hooray!

Instead, I value teachers with experience and in-depth training in the legitimate academic discipline of teacher education. I also think the teachers I know are some of the hardest working people you'll ever meet. I believe the current charter system in New Orleans works well for parents with resources but those who suffer the most are those with learning disabilities and parents without resources because all of the assets go to high performing schools and they won't take students who might hurt their test scores. I also value collective bargaining, and think the education problem can in fact be solved by throwing money at it. But I live in "charter everything" Louisiana, so I'm certainly a minority. But ask an experienced teacher, and I'll wager they support my observations.

Christmas Photo

Here is our latest family photo. It was taken Christmas Day at noon on the shores of Lake Ponchartrain: