Cuomo's Dumb Schools Initiative Meets Later In The Week

From State of Politics:

At 1 p.m., the first meeting about the broadband availability enhancement component of the Smart Schools Initiative will be held, Blue Room, second floor, state Capitol.

Seems like Cuomo's "Smart Schools Initiative" could have made Frederick Hess' 10 School Reform Phrases That Should Trigger Your BS Detector list:

Education is filled with jargon, buzzwords, and BS. I've had a lot of fun over the years skewering the inanity that gets bandied about in education research and professional development. Education policy and school reform are rife with their own vapid vocabulary.

It's worth flagging this stuff. Doing so reminds us that fatuous phrases don't make problems go away.  It helps puncture sugarplum visions fueled by hot air. Left unchallenged, pat phrases allow wishful thinking to stand in for messy realities. After all, these fatuous phrases are pervasive. Here are 10 phrases that, when heard, should cause listeners to ask the speaker to explain what he or she means, using words that actually mean something.

"Smart" as applied to "regulation" made it to #8 on the list:

8. "Smart regulation." (You know, as opposed to those championing "dumb regulation." A similar caution also applies to calls for "smart accountability," "smart teacher evaluation," or "smart" anything else. Attaching an adjective doesn't make problems go away.)

Let's add a similar caution to calls for a "Smart Schools Initiative." 

As Hess noted, education is filled with jargon, buzzwords and bullshit.

I would add, education in New York during the Cuomo/Tisch/King Era is REALLY filled with jargon, buzzwords and bullshit.

End Of The Year Meetings

We're having lots of end of the year meetings that make me want to stick a pencil through my eye and have to be taken to the hospital.

I guess sitting at these meetings making it look like I actually give a shit about the nonsense they're talking about is good practice for the weekly PD crap that's coming at us via the new UFT contract.

How about you - are you having a decent end of the year week or enjoying pencil in the eye moments?

Complex Vocabulary And Informational Text Everywhere!

Thanks to the Common Core Federal Standards, students are reading and playing hockey at the same time now.

There's no more time to simply work on your athletic skills or run or play or work out.

Oh, no - we have to multi-task complex text and informational reading and other so-called 21st century Common Core Federal Standards skills along with art, music, gym and recess.

I have noticed that students no longer work on art in art class anymore.

Nope - they write argumentative essays, just like they do in English class, science class, history class and health class.

It's all argumentation all the time in every class.

That's all kids learn now - informational text, complex vocabulary and argumentative essay writing.

And these one size fits all Common Core Federal Standards are going to help students become more creative and entrepreneurial?

Please.

The damage these standards are causing is showing up already in children.

Just wait until they're fully implemented, along with the high stakes "assessments" (i.e., standardized multiple choice tests and essay exams graded by computer programs to those of you not part of the corrupt education/industrial complex.)

A lost generation, that's what we're going to have.

Heckuva job, Barack.

It's hard to believe, but he's been worse than Bush.

This Is NOT The Fault Of Pubic School Teachers

Via Political Wire:

Newsweek recently asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take America's official citizenship test and found 29% couldn't name the vice president, 73% couldn't correctly say why we fought the Cold War, 44% were unable to define the Bill of Rights and 6% couldn't even circle Independence Day on a calendar.

This kind of thing is NOT the fault of teachers.

This kind of thing is the fault of stupid Americans.

Listen, we live in a country where nothing is too stupid, ephemeral or superficial to NOT make the news.

I take the PATH, a train system that is outfitted with NBC TV's. I am subjected to "news" headlines that often are promos for some of the dumbest shit imaginable - reality shows, idiotic sitcoms, melodramas so bad that I cringe watching 15 seconds of them.

And that's just the shit they show on the The Today Show.

That's supposed to be "news" with Al and Matt and whoever the fuck took Couric's place (some woman, I dunno, I don't care who the fuck it is.)

I went to the same high school as Al Roker and the couple of times I have seen him in person I have wanted to say, "Hey, Al, how the fuck do you sleep at night with the horseshit you put on TV? Seriously, do you understand that watching even five minutes of the crap you and Matt and the faceless woman whose name I do not know spew MAKES PEOPLE DUMBER.

Yeah, you make enough to pay for the ex wives and the liposuction, but seriously, there's a place in John Bunyan's hell for you when you're done with this mortal coil.

I can only hope they make you watch reruns of your Weather Channel show for eternity.

Until people turn this bullshit off - the "news" on the cable channels or the networks, the local "news," the conventional wisdom/drivel that passes for "news" on public TV and radio, the garbage in the papers (ALL of the papers - the News, the Post AND the Times) and say "ENOUGH!!!", they will keep feeding us this crap and more and more people will watch or listen or read or view on the Net or see it on Facebook or whatever and fewer and fewer will know what the Bill of Rights is or just how badly they're, in the words of George Carlin, "getting fucked by a system that threw them over 30 fucking years ago!"

But let me repeat - this is NOT the fault of teachers.

This is the fault of emotionally detached humans who would rather veg out with mindless corporate infotainment, corporate sports, corporate wars and other bullshit instead of protecting themselves from the oncoming New Feudal Order.