Books!

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bandarqI've spent the better part of the last couple of weeks unpacking boxes and putting things on shelves. I've concluded that my family owns mostly books. We have ratty, hand-me-down furniture, old furniture, and damaged furniture; we have prints and children's art but no real art, unless it was painted by an uncle or my step-mother; we have really faded carpets we bought at Target about ten years ago. Our television is about twenty years old and it's enormous. Quite simply, we don't buy nice things for ourselves. I have more clothes from Kohl's than from Nordstrom's or anywhere else. Besides food and utilities, we spend our money on education, travel, and books.

The kids themselves have hundreds of books. When we go places, our kids, like everyone else's kids, ask for everything, and we usually say no, because they don't really need that tchotchke thing they'll forget about in an hour and also because my salary has been frozen for four of the last five years and therefore I have no disposable income. But books I always buy. I buy nice books at the UConn Coop and I buy ridiculous books at Stop and Shop. Elsa has a thing for Disney Princess books that make me roll my eyes, but I still let her buy them. Cormac has graduated to really expensive, hard bound nonfiction like the Guinness Book of World Records or Ripley’s Believe It Or Not books, but he's at least old enough to know I can’t buy those every time we go to Stop and Shop. So he keeps a running list that he hauls out at holiday season and around his birthday.

Honestly, though. Each kid has two book shelves in his or her room, and then four big shelves at the bottom of a large book case in the living room of our new house. And Cormac has a Kindle, too! Amy and I have two floor-to-ceiling book cases in the living room, another two in this odd foyer-like space, and a smaller one near the front door. There's a system of shelves that comprises the entire wall of one room in the new office (which doubles as a playroom!), and then we have a wall of shelving in our bedroom, along with another floor-to-ceiling shelf and two smaller ones. And all those shelves are packed to capacity, even though a bunch of older books are packed away in boxes in the garage, and over the last two years we have given away literally hundreds of books. Truckloads, I kid you not. (And this doesn't even include all the books in my office).

We have one whole large book case full of just books in Spanish (Amy's) and another of books translated into English from Spanish (mine), and at least one long shelf of books in Italian (also Amy's). I have one whole book case just dedicated to African and African-American authors. Nineteenth-century American authors. Twentieth-century American authors. Modernist poets. Contemporary poets. Modern novelists. Composition theory. Literary criticism. Religion and mysticism. Erotica. Anthologies. Collections of short stories. Books on baseball. Travel books. Protest literature.

It's like a disease.

Here's an indication of how bad it's gotten generationally. Cormac had his eighth birthday this past September. I told people that he didn't need things but to get him gift certificates to the movies or to a restaurant where we could go with the friend who gave the gift. So most people complied with this request but a couple gave Cormac gift certificates to Target or Toys R Us, and a couple just gave him cash. So one day I took him to the abomination that is the dreaded Buckland Hills Shopping area, but when we went to Toys R Us and Target, Cormac couldn't find anything he wanted. He settled for some art supplies at Target, but was hard pressed to locate toys he really cared for. But we took that cash and went to Barnes and Noble and he was in heaven.

Some day I hope to live in a house with a really cool library or office where there's ample space for books upon books, and of course I don't want to ever have to move from this place. I want lots of shelves, good natural light, a nice big wooden desk, and a good chair. (In my most indulgent fantasies I also throw in a fireplace, a small porch with French doors, and a wet bar, but that's probably asking too much).

The Credibility Gap

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I'm in DC this week lobbying for the National Writing Project, and I'll blog on this next week.  Meanwhile, I'm posting an op-ed I submitted to the Courant that they chose not to run.

 

Governor Malloy talks a lot about the Achievement Gap in Connecticut.  His education reform plan, Senate Bill 24, is intended to close the Gap that exists between rich and poor, white and non-white, urban and suburban students.  Setting aside for the moment that the most recent Brookings Institute Report suggests that the Achievement Gap is smaller than reported and, in fact, may have shrunk slightly over the last decade, there is undoubtedly an Achievement Gap.  It might not be the widening chasm that it gets portrayed to be, but no doubt it exists, it is large, and it is persistent.  Teachers more than anyone want to shrink the Gap.

When Governor Malloy began his Town Hall tour to promote his reform agenda, he certainly must have known he was going to encounter criticism, but I don’t think he had any idea just how much resistance and rancor he was going to get from teachers.  And in all honesty, he seems genuinely perplexed by this resistance.  At the recent event in Windham, he kept repeating how incredulous he was, how he just couldn’t understand why the teachers were so upset, why they were focusing on the small part of the bill that dealt with tenure and not with the larger share of the bill that dealt with other issues like preschool funding or cost sharing.

Personally, I don’t doubt his genuine belief that his proposals are in good faith and can achieve their goals.  And in all fairness, the Governor’s anjuran certainly has many elements that should (and could) get the support of the teachers.  The reason why the Governor is not getting the teachers’ support, however, is because the Governor suffers from a Credibility Gap.

And just as the Achievement Gap is intimately tied to the Income Gap, so the Credibility Gap is tied to the Trust Gap.  Teachers don’t trust Governor Malloy because he has largely excluded them and, on occasion, insulted them publicly.

The Governor likes to point out that the two unions, the Connecticut Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, were involved with the development of the new teacher evaluation formula.  That’s true, but it’s insufficient.  Look at the roster of the Board of Directors for the Governor's Connecticut Council for Education Reform:  insurance executives, bank presidents, the President of United Illuminating, and the CEO of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association.  About the closest we get to an educator is Yale President Richard Levin or Roxanne Coady, who owns RJ Julia Bookstore.  Even Commissioner of Education Stefan Pryor was never a teacher.

I am not suggesting that these individuals are incompetent or have malicious intent or hate teachers.  Quite to the contrary.  I am certain these folks are highly competent individuals.  They have families and children, and they probably have teachers among their families and friends.  Much was made of the fact that both of Stefan Pryor’s parents were teachers.  And that’s great.

But these folks are not qualified to reform education, and the teachers know it even if the Governor doesn’t.  Their presence as the driving force behind the Governor’s education reform kegiatan is the source of the distrust that leads to the Credibility Gap.

As a point of contrast, let’s imagine what the response would be if the Governor proposed legislation to reform banking or insurance and he formed an advisory group that included AFT-Connecticut President Sharon Palmer or CEA Executive Director Mary Loftus Levine.  It would be unthinkable. 

As Director of the Connecticut Writing Project at the University of Connecticut, I am involved in budgeting state, federal, corporate, private, and discretionary funds, but I would never presume to be qualified to sit on a committee to reform the finance industry.  My brother is a pediatric nephrologist and the grandparents who raised me were a dietician and a police officer, but I would never assume myself qualified to discuss pediatrics, kidney disease, nutrition, or criminal justice.

If the Governor is really serious about reforming education, and I think he is, he needs to start listening to teachers.  Close the Credibility Gap and we might all be able to start working together to close the Achievement Gap.

Mcteachers

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bandarq terpercayaDid you see that Windham teachers and PTO members raised funds for their school by working at the Mansfield McDonald’s?  It was called McTeacher’s Night.  A principal, several classroom teachers, and members of the PTO flipped burgers, scooped fries, and manned the drive-through window for two hours at the end of the day, with some of the proceeds going to the school.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I think it’s great that the local chain owner wanted to do something to help Windham teachers raise funds for their school, but honestly, is this what we’ve come to?  McTeachers?  Is this even a profession any longer?

I was on the phone tonight with a representative from the Parthenon Group, a private consulting firm hired by the National Writing Project to survey site leaders for information about the future of the organization, particularly the future of funding in the wake of the loss of direct federal funding.  The guy I spoke with was nice, but he got a little snarky with me when I told him that I was uncomfortable with the direction the National Writing Project seemed to be forced into.  Increasingly, the national office is looking at private sources of funding, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (which seems pretty close to The Parthenon Group, several of whose members have worked for the Gates Foundation and other charter-friendly education groups), and even Wal-Mart.  And I told him that I have deep reservations about this direction.

My objection is not so much that I disagree with the vision or values of the Gates Foundation or the Walton Family Trust, which I may, but that I object to the fact that these organizations are being put in a position to define the mission of the Writing Project or other professional organizations for teachers.  No longer are we as an organization in a position where we can define what we do, ask the federal government to provide funding, and then prove the efficacy of our work.  Now, with private donors as well as with current competitive grant funding structures at the state and federal levels, it is the funding agent who gets to define the work we are to do, after which we customize a anjuran to conform to their demands, and only then can we receive funds.  This is, to say the least, troubling.

We have seen this sort of thing many times over the decades—notably after Sputnik and after the publication of A Nation At Risk—where the federal government has taken it upon itself to reform public education from the top down, but this time seems worse.  This time around, we’re seeing even greater involvement from the private sector, and we’re seeing much more effort from the private sector to exert control.  Even though, as I wrote last week, financial firms and the president of New Alliance Bank simply aren’t qualified to reform education.  (By contrast, when the Aetna Insurance Company endowed a chair of writing at UConn back in the 1980s, there was no attempt by them to tell the university what to do with the money, other than to trust the faculty to fund programs that promoted writing and the teaching of writing.  The teachers and professors were the experts on that, and so were entrusted to use their expertise).

In a March 20 opinion column in the Willimantic Chronicle, Eastern Connecticut State University Professor Emeritus James Lacey offers an alternative anjuran to corporate reform and privatization.  Professor Lacey urges us to “[turn] the system upside down.”  He suggests that we abandon systems with “a top-down hierarchy” and replace them with “a democratic, bottom-up approach” that values the experience and expertise of teachers, first and foremost, with input from parents and students.

Interestingly, the original charter school act of 1996 made frequent mention of  community interest and both teacher and parent approval.  Many at the time hoped, in fact, that applications to establish charters would come from coalitions of teachers and community members.  And some did.  But that’s not what we’re seeing now.  Now, we’re seeing hedge fund management firms and large corporations pouring millions of dollars into the establishment of charters.  This is anything but democratic, public, or community based innovation.  This is, what, investment?  Speculation?

What we have more and more now is a corporate model where competition rules and democracy takes a back seat. Where 34 literacy programs competed for Title II SEED grant funds, and only three received them.  Where students have to participate in a lottery to go to a school with adequate funding (and if you’re in New York, this might be merely different floors of the same school building!).  And where programs and schools have to hold bake sales, auctions, and cabarets in order to acquire funds that are not ensnared by someone else’s agenda.

Is this the choice we have been pushed into?  On the one hand, degrade ourselves with begging and performing song and dance routines, flipping burgers on second shift, or capitulate to the demands of the wealthy corporations that have the money but might not share our educational beliefs?  And on top of that to possibly offer up our academic freedom by relinquishing tenure?  Ugh.

What I Did For My Summer ‘Vacation'

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            As soon as finals ended the first order of business was the annual Recognition Night for Connecticut Student Writers magazine.  This year was successful, with a little more than 1,000 submissions, 150 students published or honored, and about 450 students, parents, and teachers in attendance at Jorgensen.  Next year will be the 25^th anniversary of the magazine.  Wally Lamb has agreed to be the keynote speaker, and we are still waiting to hear if we have received a grant from Pitney-Bowes to help fund the event.  Mark May 14 on your calendars!

            From there we dove right into the Orientation for the 30^th Invitational Summer Institute.  We had a great bunch of teachers representing third grade through college—and we even had a science teacher.  Three of my former undergraduate students attended, and two more former undergrads of mine attended the CWP-Fairfield’s Summer Institute, which is very rewarding to me.

            No rest for the weary as a few days later we held an anniversary celebration for the CWP-Storrs, attended by 75 Teacher-Consultants, UConn faculty and grad students, local children’s authors, and a handful of teacher-friendly elected officials, including Susan Johnson, Greg Haddad, and Mae Flexer.  Got a nice proclamation from Governor Malloy (had mixed feelings about that), a nice certificate from the legislature, a nice certificate from Senator Blumenthal, a letter from Representative Rosa DeLauro and another one from UConn President Susan Herbst.  Representative Chris Murphy’s education aide Linda Forman actually flew up from DC to attend.  She also accompanied me on a site visit to EO Smith High School to observe the Writing Center we helped establish there, and to observe Denise Abercrombie’s creative writing students.

            At that point I switched hats and departed for Florence, Italy, where I organized and ran an international literature conference for the members of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society, Ralph Waldo Emerson Society, and the Edgar Allan Poe Studies Association.  We had great weather, great food, and 110 scholars from 19 different countries, including Brazil, Israel, India, Japan, Russia, and Taiwan.  I even got to spend some time with friends and family while I was there.  And I was elected to be the next president of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society, which sounds prestigious but I think will be less work than organizing an international conference.

            Returned to the states just in time to run the Summer Institute, which went extremely well.  My son and daughter attended four weeks of summer day camp while my wife took her own vacation, thanks to points on our credit card and the generosity of friends who let her stay with them.  I ran around like a mad man playing single parent.

            The Summer Institute ended July 20, and on July 23 I was driving a 19 foot U-Haul with faulty steering as we moved for the second time in ten months.  Our new home is exactly 1.5 miles from the place we were renting.  We have a two year lease, maybe an option to buy, poor cell phone service but a lovely wooded yard, and the kids get to stay in the same school district.

Once that was done, we were off to Maine to spend one week in a somewhat rustic cabin on a lake with two other educator couples and our collective brood of children—eight kids ranging from four to 14.  Lots of swimming, bickering like siblings, and trips to Hannaford’s.  Seems like every day ended with marshmallows over the fire pit, and then lots of alcohol after the kids were asleep.  Between camp and occupational therapy, both of our kids are now swimming and biking independently, just in time for me to strap four bicycles onto the back of Amy’s car and pray they didn’t fall into the highway and cause a multi-car pile-up.

            Back in Connecticut, it was just the mad rush to be prepared for the start of the school year.  The CWP was awarded two SEED grants, one for Teacher Leadership and one for Professional Development in a High-Need School.  We were honored with a literacy award by the New England Reading Association, and I have a new course to teach, one for freshmen and sophomores interested in becoming high school English teachers.  Plenty of preparatory work to go around.

            And then, on the first day of school for my kids, they were put on the wrong bus and I drove around town trying to locate them.  Elsa thought it was a big adventure.  And so the new year begins.