Dave Chandler

Don't Play on the Playground in Colorado Springs

The real message to children at the elementary school in Colorado Springs reported in the news item below is: You are fragile infants and the adults are going to treat you thusly.

Now, if there were some kids playing tag too aggressively, then mature, in-control adults at this school would have told the students -- first, that kids wishing not to play cannot be chased; second, no student has to play any recess playground game that they don't want to play; third, no fighting while playing tag or any other game; and fourth, those are the rules.

But in the moronic 'zero tolerance' mentality of too many school administrators these days, the easiest thing to do is just issue a decree that 'punishes' everyone.

Truely, maybe if they didn't have recess or playgrounds at all, then the children would be safe all the time ... and we could bubble wrap the corners of the desks, too ...

Actually, it is very sad. Imagine you're an eight year old girl or boy being told that running around and chasing your best pal and laughing and having fun is now against the rules. It makes you wonder more about the psychological well-being of the adminstrators more than about the state of the children's games.

Link: Colorado School Bans Tag on Its Playground | Associated Press

An elementary school has banned tag on its playground after some children complained they were harassed or chased against their will.

"It causes a lot of conflict on the playground," said Cindy Fesgen, assistant principal of the Discovery Canyon Campus school.

Running games are still allowed as long as students don't chase each other, she said.
Fesgen said two parents complained to her about the ban but most parents and children didn't object.

In 2005, two elementary schools in the nearby Falcon School District did away with tag and similar games in favor of alternatives with less physical contact. School officials said the move encouraged more students to play games and helped reduce playground squabbles.

More Squeeze on Colorado Working People

Colorado truck drivers are going to be feeling the pinch in their wallets soon because of the Bush regime's alliance with the mega-transnational corporations aiming to crush the American middle and working classes. And it maybe starting on ... Labor Day.

By next week, there may very well be Mexican trucks hauling Chinese-made products into Colorado. The American trucker will then be an 'endangered species'. Wal-Mart, for example, can then get its cheap Chinese goods imported into a Mexican port, put on Mexican trucks, and then it's straight to distribution centers inside the U.S. That means American longshoreman cut out, Teamsters cut out, middle class prosperity cut out -- but bigger profits for Wal-Mart. Of course, the benefit to you, Bush and the transnational corporations will say, is yet even cheaper priced consumer products.

Lower wages, lower benefits for American truck drivers is sure to follow -- in other words, the steady decline of this nation's middle class. But, hey, it's okay because that plastic trash can you want to buy will be twenty-five cents cheaper, right?

Link: Feds to Allow Mexican Truck Drivers on U.S. Roads | KLAS-TV/CBS (Las Vegas)

Starting this weekend, the U.S. Department of Transportation will allow Mexican trucks and truck drivers to cross the border and haul anywhere in the country. American drivers aren't just concerned about safety; they're also concerned about their bottom line. ...

... Hundreds of trucks pass through from California each and every day. At the first place Mexican drivers would stop once they cross into Nevada, drivers there say this political promise could end up being a disaster.

The lonely life on the open road could be coming to a screeching halt for truck driver Eric Oliver. "It's like a free pass."

Oliver is upset at new rules allowing Mexican truck drivers to carry heavy loads anywhere in the U.S. His main concern is safety. "If you've worked down there, you know, you've seen those trucks that are running down there by the border. Pieces falling off of them and stuff like that. That's just creating hazards for us out here on the road."

It's been seven years on the road for Oliver. He has to get medical check-ups, health screenings and he faces a strict cap on how long he can work.

"We have to get medical done every two years. I don't know what they do down there," said Oliver.

The federal government promises a 37-point inspection for the Mexican trucks, and personal interviews with drivers, but only for the pilot program. After that, it's back to random checks. Oliver is sure questionable trucks and sketchy wheelmen will slip through the cracks.

"You get one of these things rolling around at 80,000 pounds doing 70 miles-an-hour on the freeways here in Nevada, or California at 55 miles-per-hour, one of them has a heart attack and crashes, you're going to have a big mess," said Oliver.

The new rules are a promise made under NAFTA in the early 1990s. That trade agreement was supposed to open the borders to commerce, but now it may cut off Oliver from his future on the road.

"All that's doing to us is cutting us, because the Mexican trucking companies will do it for dollars less. Not pennies less, we're talking dollars less," he said.

Oliver says right now the industry pays $1.35 per mile -- a paycheck that will slip away with more Mexican competition.

"A $1.35 is bare minimum to make a living. That's still -- keep your truck on the road, keep food in your gut and hopefully pay some bills at home."

Mexican drivers will have to understand English and follow all rules for documentation and safety. But inspectors will have to take the driver at his word nearly each and every time.

Link: Some Say Border to Open to Mexican Trucks Saturday | Land Line Magazine

he cross-border program with Mexico is apparently starting sooner rather than later.

According to media reports, officials within the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration told members of the Teamsters union the border would open Saturday, Sept. 1.

Requests from Land Line for confirmation on the Teamster’s claim remained unanswered Thursday afternoon by FMCSA.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association expressed outrage in response to learning the U.S. Department of Transportation plans to begin allowing Mexican trucks to bring cargo into the United States, against the will of the public and their nationally elected representatives.

“We are stunned at the contempt of the Administration toward the rule of law,” said Todd Spencer, executive vice president of OOIDA. “And it’s also a slap in the face of every American, hard-working trucker.

“They are determined to open our highways to Mexico-domiciled trucking companies and truck drivers regardless of the concerns that have been raised by Congress and the American people.”

Link: Union's Aim: Block Trucks From Mexico | Arizona Republic

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has sued to block Mexican trucks from operating freely throughout the United States, something the Bush administration may allow as soon as Saturday.

In federal court in San Francisco, the Teamsters said an emergency injunction is needed. They said government lawyers reported that the Transportation Department will issue the first of 100 permits to Mexican trucking firms Saturday.

Congress blocked the open-border provisions mandated by the North American Free Trade Agreement until the Transportation Department could prove it could adequately enforce safety.

A preliminary Aug. 6 report from the inspector general credited the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration with boosting the number of border inspectors from 13 in 1998 to 254 last year. But it said that the agency lacks reliable data for tracking truckers' convictions.

On Aug. 17, the government posted a Federal Register notice indicating it was going to proceed with allowing Mexican trucks beyond a 25-mile commercial zone along the border. The Teamsters argued the agency lacked valid data and snubbed about 2,300 public comments.

Lessons for Colorado Schools

Here is a follow-up on last week's commentary about the paranoia of school administrators in the nation's schools.

Let's talk again about genuine reform in education that can lead to real learning, not just 'testable' learning.

This past Sunday there were several letters-to-the-editor in the Denver Post in response to a couple of August 19, Perspective articles: "New schools, stronger leaders, more autonomy" and "Break the inertia with drastic measures". One letter in particular caught my attention; it is not online, so here it is:

Denver Post, Sunday, August 26, 2007

Reforming schools is challenging. Multiple innovations directed at the district, the curriculum, the test, the length of the school year, the community, etc., can make a difference. What makes the greatest difference, however, is the quality of teaching in classrooms.

Quality teaching occurs when teachers and principals engage in daily, collaborative, rigorous, professional learning focused on the learning needs of students in their classrooms and schools as part of their work day. Increasing student academic achievement and keeping students in school through graduation requires that teachers and principals work together, learn together and solve problems of practice together. Given the chance, professionals in schools can solve any problem they face if the conditions are right.

The conditions are simple. First, the school day allows for time for professionals to learn and work together to deepen pedagogy, plan instruction, examine student work, address different student learning needs, clarify student learning outcomes, and use the results of frequent classroom assessments to modify instruction. Secondly, everyone assuems collective responsibility for student and teacher success. Thirdly, teachers and principals have the know-how to work together. Collaborative learning is the hallmark of a professional and the major contributor to student results.

Joellen Killion
Deputy Executive Director
National Staff Development Council
Arvada

What? Have you ever heard such gobbldeygook? Go ahead and take a look at the National Staff Development Council web site, this page, for instance, 'Designs and Strategies'. You begin to understand why public education in the United States in in a state of paralysis after you try and decipher what these educrats are actually not talking about.

You also begin to understand from the above letter, along with the implementation of 'No Child Left Behind' and the hundreds and hundreds of state and federally mandated curriculum programs, why teachers are finding all kinds of reasons to leave the profession, as the New York Times article below reports.

What they are not discussing is the apparent success of a school like Cesar Chavez Academy in Pueblo -- it is the topic of David Harsanyi's column Monday in the Denver Post (link and excerpt below). Now, I am all in favor or collective bargaining and support teachers unions ... Harsanyi implies that it is the concept of the union itself that is the problem, I disagree, unions are important to keeping middle class salaries and benefits for teachers in Bush's low wage NAFTA America. However, if the union is fighting teaching innovations like the ones used at a school like Cesar Chavez, then it is wrong and the union needs to get back to workplace issues and get out of the educational philosophy field.

Here is the 'About' page for Cesar Chavez Academy. Note:

The Core Knowledge curriculum, a demanding world knowledge scope and sequence system developed by E.D. Hirsch, will serve as the basis for subject area studies. The Insights curriculum and Investigations Everyday Math, developed by the National Science Foundation and the Educational Development Corporation, will supplement the Core Knowledge curriculum.

Well, there it is.

My support for the basic idea behind 'core knowledge' makes some of my more liberal, politcally correct friends uncomfortable. But I think there is plenty of room for diversity and inclusion inside 'core knowledge'. And, in fact, this curriculum is inclusive and multicultural, as the answers to these 'Frequently Asked Questions' demonstrate.

The broader point is that we are seeing an increasingly stultified educational bureacracy, increasing top-down administration, more and more creativity taken away from teachers -- resulting in more unsatisfactory results, ie., children not acquiring important knowlege and learning skills.

It is time for big changes in our education system in this nation ... and we cannot let the whine of "more money" become the supreme theme under which all other reforms must be subservient.

Link: With Turnover High, Schools Fight for Teachers | New York Times

The retirement of thousands of baby boomer teachers coupled with the departure of younger teachers frustrated by the stress of working in low-performing schools is fueling a crisis in teacher turnover that is costing school districts substantial amounts of money as they scramble to fill their ranks for the fall term. ...

... “The problem is not mainly with retirement,” said Thomas G. Carroll, the president of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. “Our teacher preparation system can accommodate the retirement rate. The problem is that our schools are like a bucket with holes in the bottom, and we keep pouring in teachers.”

The commission has calculated that these days nearly a third of all new teachers leave the profession after just three years, and that after five years almost half are gone — a higher turnover rate than in the past.

All the coming and going of young teachers is tremendously disruptive, especially to schools in poor neighborhoods where teacher turnover is highest and students’ needs are greatest.

According to the most recent Department of Education statistics available, about 269,000 of the nation’s 3.2 million public school teachers, or 8.4 percent, quit the field in the 2003-4 school year. Thirty percent of them retired, and 56 percent said they left to pursue another career or because they were dissatisfied.

The federal No Child Left Behind law requires schools and districts to put a qualified teacher in every classroom. The law has led districts to focus more seriously on staffing its low-performing schools, educators said, but it does not appear to have helped persuade veteran teachers to continue their service in them. ...

Link: Charter School Merits Imitation, Not Resentment | David Harsanyi/Denver Post

When Cesar Chavez Academy opened its doors seven years ago, enrollment was 240. Today the number stands at 1,100.

Other things have changed as well. These students - most of whom are Latino kids from low-income neighborhoods - are now some of the highest achievers in the entire state.

Lawrence Hernandez, founder of the school, says 3,000 students are on the waiting list to attend.

That there's a single kid on that waiting list is a travesty.

The U.S. Department of Education will honor Cesar Chavez Academy for its success in closing the achievement gap among Latino students.

The school was one of six charter schools nationwide to be recognized. It was one of only two picked to be featured in a documentary about successful schools to air nationwide Sept. 18 on PBS.

In Colorado, Cesar Chavez already has a sterling reputation. High marks come from nearly every corner of the educational establishment. Incredibly, this success comes, according to Hernandez, by operating with 40 percent less money per student (after paying for their own building and other expenses) than the typical public school does.

With all this success, one wonders why Cesar Chavez Academy, and similar schools, are constantly struggling to overcome barriers laid in their way by local and state governments. ... MORE

Empty-Headed School Administrators

Here in Colorado school has started again. Of course, we're hearing all the blather from school administrators about how this year will be different -- "those CSAP scores will be up after this school year" (does anyone really believe that anymore?).

In other words, the educrats are going to put even more pressure on the teachers to 'teach-to-the-test' and more pressure on students to understand that FUNDING depends upon how well they take that test.

However, from all I have read in the local newspapers, little if anything is being changed or reformed in the way our children are being taught -- where is the emphasis on teaching/learning instead of testing? Where is the rethinking of the curriculum? Where is the plan to decrease the red tape and paperwork for teachers?

(Here are a few suggestions to start turning things around: no computers in elementary schools, maybe not even in middle schools; repeal most all curriculum mandates from the state and federal legislatures and executive departments; make local school boards responsible to local communities -- expand the size of elected school boards; one year of ESL for new non-Engish speaking students, that's all; repeal No Child Left Behind; end the hours and hours of standardized-testing-for-funding scheme; get private food vendors out of the lunchrooms; core or 'common knowledge' curriculum; empower teachers in the classroom; fewer adminstrators; etc.)

You won't see or hear anything substantively different from all these school district superintendents -- just sports-like cheerleading and ... appeals for more FUNDING and whining about lack of FUNDING.

For me, one of the proofs of the pedagogical vacuousness of the current crop of educational bureaucrats is seen these days in the utter paranoia, the non-thinking, the risk-averse behavior and the nannyism that leads to the situations reported in the two excerpts and links below.

If school administrators are so lacking common sense and so callous that they are almost eager to ruin a child's life because of a child's childishness, then how are they ever going to comprehend the value of learning, the joy of learning, the personal satisfaction and accomplishment of learning for learning's sake that will create successful, well-rounded human beings ready for adulthood?

Well, the answer is that many of these administrators are not very interested in genuinely educating our young -- they are 'accountants' who are trying to protect their education kingdoms. 'Zero tolerence' is just a way to exert petty power and to shove off troublesome students somewhere so that they become a 'warehouseable' statistic. Constant rhetorical resorts to the 'Columbine massacre' are a bureaucratically mindless way to put all difficulties and pranks and infractions in a box that then don't require making any judgements or offending frigthened parents.

Sadly, parents are indeed targets of a campaign of fearmongering. You can hear a radio public service announcement (usually on late night talk shows) from McGruff the Crime Dog (similar to this web video "Watch the Bully") that now equates kids being kids on the playground with 'bullying' ... the symtom diagnosed as one of the causes of the Columbine tragedy. No wonder many parents have come to believe that schools must be places of harshness and incipient danger.

Now, there are surely problems at almost every school, but because teachers have become emasculated in disciplining students in the classroom, administrative nannyism has taken over, to be exercised in a bureaucratic, mindless manner that has taken reason, proportionality and common sense out of the equation. (Nannyism ... from my children's experience at elementary school: no running on the playground; don't share your sandwich with your best friend at lunch; don't pick-up snow; don't walk on the grass, always report anything uncomfortable, etc.)

It is a sad state in which our public education system finds itself these days. But until parents and taxpayers finally say enough is enough and stop passing tax increases that perpetuate this dismal bureaucratic quagmire, not much will change. The only thing educrats seem to understand is how much or how little money there is ... that actually makes it easier to make reform happen if we have the courage to resist the emotional appeals that "it's for the children" ... because it's not for the children, it's for the administrators and politicans.

Link: Arizona School Suspends Boy for Sketching Gun | USA Today

School officials suspended a 13-year-old boy for sketching what looked like a gun, saying the action posed a threat to his classmates.

The boy's parents said the drawing was a harmless doodle and school officials overreacted.

"The school made him feel like he committed a crime. They are doing more damage than good," said the boy's mother, Paula Mosteller.

The drawing did not show blood, bullets, injuries or target any human, the parents said. And the East Valley Tribune reported that the boy said he didn't intend for the picture to be a threat.

Administrators of Payne Junior High in nearby Chandler suspended the boy on Monday for five days but later reduced it to three days.

The boy's father, Ben Mosteller, said that when he went to the school to discuss his son's punishment, school officials mentioned the seriousness of the issue and talked about the massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School, where two teenagers shot and killed 12 students, a teacher and themselves in 1999. Mosteller said he was offended by the reference.

Chandler district spokesman Terry Locke said the crude sketch was "absolutely considered a threat," and that threatening words or pictures are punishable.

Link: Student Suspended For Drawing Gun | KPHO-TV Phoenix

Link: Our Fears Make It Easy to Flout Freedoms | Diane Carman/Denver Post

... Things are not going nearly as well for Caleb Pegues.

Pegues is the Ponderosa High School student who blew up a bottle of toilet- bowl cleaner outside of school during that same fateful week in April on the anniversary of Columbine.

His attorney, Robert Wareham, insists the incident was a silly prank and not the work of a raving sociopath, which should make sense to anybody who once was a 17-year-old boy or has ever lived on the same planet with one.

Still, the whole mindset in post-Virginia Tech/post Columbine America did not allow for the possibility that a teenage boy might engage in juvenile mischief. So Pegues was charged as an adult with several felonies that could send him to prison and require him to pay $50,000 in restitution.

He also was expelled from school.

The district assisted him in enrolling in online classes so that he can earn his high school diploma at home. But that's hardly the same as being a senior at Ponderosa.

Some sympathetic students, parents and faculty members have organized to ask school administrators to reconsider their show-no-mercy attitude.

Cary LaCouture, head tennis coach at the school, has joined the campaign to "Bring Back Caleb."

"I'm standing up for Caleb," he said. "This is a good boy." ...

... So far, the administration isn't budging.

Whei Wong, spokeswoman for Douglas County Schools, said Pegues lost his appeal despite his expressions of remorse and repeated offers to apologize to the school and the community, so the expulsion stands.

It's a real shame.

Rather than trampling over this kid's life, prosecutors and school district officials should take a cue from the judge in the Max Karson case, acknowledge that overreacting to fear is no way to run a high school, a district attorney's office - or a country - and exercise some common sense.

Pegues deserves a chance to prove he's not a monster.

And it wouldn't hurt if those charged with interpreting the rules took this opportunity to prove the same thing.

Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com

Bush Arrogance on Transnational Corporate Trade

With Colorado's U.S. Senator Ken Salazar a big proponent of illegal immigrant amnesty and so-called "guest worker" programs, we all have a reason to get extra nervous when George W. Bush gets together with the leader of Mexico's oligarchy, Felipe Calderon.

Will Salazar be brokering a new deal in the immediate future to once again make Bush's and the national Chamber of Commerce's vision of a low-wage United States a reality?

What is galling, of course, is that yesterday Bush arrogantly ridiculed those who voice concerns over this North American "Security and Prosperity Partnership" and NAFTA. Now, Bush may think that citizens being worried about what he does in closed meetings is "comical" ... but this guy is the biggest liar in the history of the U.S. presidency ... we'd all better be worried.

Despite what Bush may say, as can be seen in the excerpt here from yesterday's press conference, the next two links below demonstrate that serious, genuine efforts are underway to allow Mexican long-haul trucking to move into the United States ... and ... despite the cries of "conspiracy" from the corporatists, a 'superhighway' as part of a North American 'Inland Ports Network' is an actual plan. Look at the web page linked below ... who are you going to believe? Bush or your own eyes?

Finally, a reminder of what this means in the last link -- U.S. manufacturing jobs moving to Mexico, dispossessed Mexican workers coming into our country to be exploited by transnational corporations with low wages and non-existent benefits, and a new Mexican Pacific port to further ease Chinese imports into the U.S.A.

Better call that Senator and let him know what you think.

Link: Bush Participates in Joint Press Availability with Prime Minister Harper of Canada, and President Calderon of Mexico | White House

Question: Thank you. As you three leaders meet here, there are a growing number of people in each of your countries who have expressed concern about the Security and Prosperity Partnership. This is addressed to all three of you. Can you say today that this is not a prelude to a North American union, similar to a European Union? Are there plans to build some kind of superhighway connecting all three countries? And do you believe all of these theories about a possible erosion of national identity stem from a lack of transparency from this partnership?

BUSH: We represent three great nations. We each respect each other's sovereignty. You know, there are some who would like to frighten our fellow citizens into believing that relations between us are harmful for our respective peoples. I just believe they're wrong. I believe it's in our interest to trade; I believe it's in our interest to dialogue; I believe it's in our interest to work out common problems for the good of our people.

And I'm amused by some of the speculation, some of the old -- you can call them political scare tactics. If you've been in politics as long as I have, you get used to that kind of technique where you lay out a conspiracy and then force people to try to prove it doesn't exist. That's just the way some people operate. I'm here representing my nation. I feel strongly that the United States is a force for good, and I feel strongly that by working with our neighbors we can a stronger force for good.

So I appreciate that question. I'm amused by the difference between what actually takes place in the meetings and what some are trying to say takes place. It's quite comical, actually, when you realize the difference between reality and what some people are talking on TV about.

Link: Agency Backs Opening Border to Long-Haul Mexican Trucks | San Diego

A federal transportation agency yesterday defended President Bush's plan to open the border to long-haul Mexican truck traffic in a response to overwhelmingly negative public views of the proposal.

The 27-page defense appearing in the Federal Register advances the controversial cross-border trucking pilot program one step closer to implementation.

Bush has sought to conduct the program as part of his effort to comply with a provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement requiring the United States and Mexico to open their borders to each other's commercial trucks.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which would conduct the program, acknowledged that the vast majority of the more than 2,300 public comments it received were opposed to the proposed one-year experiment. ...

... Opponents – including the Teamsters union, other trucking and safety organizations and dozens of lawmakers – contend that Mexican drivers would pose a hazard on U.S. highways and would displace American truck drivers because they work for lower wages. ...

... The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, a national trade association representing small trucking companies, criticized the administration for proceeding with its plans despite widespread opposition.

“They are determined to open our highways to Mexico-domiciled trucking companies and truck drivers regardless of the concerns that have been raised by Congress and the American people,” said Todd Spencer, the organization's executive vice president.

U.S. officials said they plan to implement the program as soon as they receive a required report from the Department of Transportation's inspector general and address any concerns raised in the report.

Link: North American Inland Ports Network (NAIPN) | NASCO

NAIPN is a working group in North America's SuperCorridor Coalition (NASCO). NAIPN advocates the interests of Inland Ports along the Mid-Continent International Trade and Transportation Corridor (MCITTC) and supports NASCO's mission to strengthen the Secure, Multi-Modal Trade and Transportation System.

THE NETWORK

"An Inland Port is a site located away from traditional land, air and coastal borders with the vision to facilitate and process international trade through strategic investment in multi-modal transportation assets and by promoting value-added services as goods move through the supply chain."
* Center for Transportation Research, The University of Texas at Austin.

Inland Ports are efficient Economic Development engines for their regions. By networking Inland Ports together, NAIPN extends economic benefits throughout the whole Corridor. NAIPN improves the efficiency of International Commerce throughout the Mid-Continent. NAIPN increases trade flow with the Pacific Rim, Russia and Latin America.

NAIPN Members contribute their challenges & resources to NASCO's Special Projects Initiatives so that new business process & technology solutions are developed to improve efficiency at the Inland Ports. ...

HISTORY

NAIPN was founded in 2003 by NASCO members in Canada, US and Mexico to bring together the growing number of Inland Ports along MCITC to provide a forum for the Inland Ports to discuss their opportunities & challenges and to promote the relevancy and economic development & commercial benefits of Inland Ports to Federal & State/Province & Local Governments, investors, trade promotion organizations, manufacturers, suppliers and service providers.

Link: Ford Moving to Mexico | Channel 4 - June 15, 2006

Ford is closing up to 14 factories in the US - but is planning to build a new factory south of the border in Mexico, according to a document leaked to the Michigan press this week.

The factory will build B-sector vehicles - Fiesta-sized - for the US and other markets and a deal is said to have been done with the Mexican government already. This news has prompted an angry reaction in the US, as up to 30,000 Ford workers face redundancy - and particularly in Michigan, once the centre of car manufacturing in the US but with production declining.