Here's An Emblem For What's Wrong With Education In The Reform Era

It's also an emblem for how so little has changed from Bloomberg to de Blasio at the NYCDOE:

Tom Porton is used to drama: Since arriving at James Monroe High School as an English teacher 45 years ago, he has taught and staged plays. Outside, in the Bronx River neighborhood where the school is, there was plenty of drama in the 1980s, when AIDS and crack ravaged the area. His response then was to establish a group of peer educators who worked with Montefiore Medical Center to teach teenagers about H.I.V. prevention. His efforts earned him awards, including recognition from the City Council and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and led to his induction into the National Teachers Hall of Fame.

Now he is at the center of drama: Last month he clashed with Brendan Lyons, the school’s principal, who disapproved of his distributing H.I.V./AIDS education fliers that listed nonsexual ways of “Making Love Without Doin’ It” (including advice to “read a book together”). This month, he said the principal eliminated his early-morning civic leadership class, which engaged students in activities such as feeding the homeless, saying it was not part of the Common Core curriculum. Mr. Porton was already skeptical of that curriculum, saying it shortchanged students by focusing on chapters of novels and nonfiction essays rather than entire works of literature.

So, next month Mr. Porton — a 67-year-old educator whom students praised as a lifesaver and life-changer — is walking away from teaching. He handed in his retirement papers on Friday.

Education in the Reform Era, in the Danielson Era, in the Endless Testing Era has no place for a teacher like this.

What, a curriculum that engages students in activities like helping to feed homeless people?

No, by God, that's not education!

Writing argumentative essays about this, that's education!

The principal who has successively pushed Tom Porton out sounds like a doozy:

Mr. Lyons — who repeatedly replied “no comment” to questions during a telephone conversation — arrived at the school at the start of the academic year. A previous tenure at a Manhattan high school was marked by his replacing paper hall passes with toilet plungers, which students used to wreak havoc on property and one another.

In December, on World AIDS Day, Mr. Porton handed out his flier, as he had for almost 25 years. Mr. Lyons sent him an email saying the flier was “inappropriate,” and asked that he collect those already distributed. Though Mr. Lyons said he would discuss the matter later with him, Mr. Porton said that conversation never took place.

H.I.V. and AIDS may have faded from the public mind, but they remain a danger in places like the South Bronx, especially among young blacks and Latinos. Mr. Porton said the school has failed to meet Department of Education mandates to educate students about the diseases, making his work all the more necessary.

Mr. Lyons, who would not say if the school met the mandates, never explained his objections to Mr. Porton. At the start of this semester, Mr. Porton said, the principal eliminated the 40-student leadership class because he said it was not part of the standard curriculum, even though the class met before the formal start of the school day. Because of that, combined with Mr. Porton’s disappointment over the standardized test frenzy that rules in many schools, he chose to leave.

And what kind of teacher was Tom Porton?

This kind:

Reaction among students and former students, many of whom learned of Mr. Porton’s retirement on Facebook, was immediate and full of outrage.

“How can anyone think what he does is inappropriate?” said Janelle Roundtree, a former peer educator who graduated from Monroe in 1995 and went on to Howard University. “He changed Monroe. He was in the forefront of so many things. The school is losing out on this one.”

David Gonzalez (no relation to this writer), a musician, poet and performer who graduated in 1973, was so grateful to Mr. Porton that he nominated him for the Kennedy Center’s Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Award, which he received in 2011.

“Tom has been the consistent heart of that building since I was at Monroe in the ’70s,” said Mr. Gonzalez, who still wonders how the teacher managed to get tickets to Broadway shows. “He was always looking for the heart and soul of the individual. I would never have had the confidence to do what I do without him. He changed my life forever.”

The truth is, there is no place in public education these days for a teacher like Tom Porton.

Teachers who teach to the test, who teach by the Danielson rubric, who teach the crap they want her/him to teach and nothing but that - those are the kinds of teachers wanted these days.

As Porton says in the Times article, the powers that be pay lip service to the social and emotional needs of children, but all that really matters these days is the test scores.

This is just another outrage in a long line of NYCDOE outrages.

The principal, Lyons, ought to be the one leaving (see here for the mess he made at Graphics.)

Alas, life in the de Blasio NYCDOE is pretty much the same as life in the Bloomberg NYCDOE - incompetent administrators get moved around to destroy more and more schools while excellent teachers, inspirational teachers, are pushed out.

Cuomo Directive For "Evidence-Based Curriculum" Puts Grants For NYC Substance Abuse Groups In Jeopardy

More "good" from our governor:

For 30 years, Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center has counseled teenagers in the Bronx and Manhattan on avoiding the trappings of drugs.

 

In Harlem, Our Children’s Foundation has served countless children over the last 47 years through tutoring, dance classes and other activities in a free after-school program, shielding them from drug dealers.

 

Similarly, in Chinatown, Project Reach has done its part to keep youths off the streets since 1971 — like the other groups, a beneficiary of state funds.

 

But the programs — and at least a dozen similar ones across New York City — are now imperiled after they failed to make it past a state agency’s new grant-award process that several nonprofit leaders described as cumbersome and confusing. The agency, the New York Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, known as Oasas, is recommending that several longtime groups be defunded, Susan Craig, a spokeswoman for the agency, said.

 

The losses may force some of the programs to close. Mount Sinai had been receiving more than $700,000 annually for its two sites, and Our Children’s Foundation had been getting $914,000 a year, according to Oasas. Project Reach had been awarded $331,000, the group’s director said.  

The new grant-award process arose from a directive by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, for all state agencies to assess contracts to make sure they were competitively bid and, in the case of Oasas, were providing “evidence-based” curriculum approved by the agency, Ms. Craig said.

The new Cuomo bidding process and the scoring for it was non-transparent, opaque and nonsensical:

A lack of transparency and what several nonprofit leaders described as an unfair bidding process drove Felecia Pullen, who heads Substance Abuse Free Environment in Harlem, to pull together the groups that lost financing to compare notes.

 

Representatives of the nonprofits grew emotional at the thought of closing after decades or of leaving children without services. They complained of being blindsided by the new bidding process, and not understanding how their groups were scored.

 

Mount Sinai, one of the larger operations to lose the money, submitted identical applications for two different sites and received two different scores, Michael Nembhard, a social worker at the adolescent health center, said.

 

He said the group had a debriefing with Oasas to find out what had happened. “They really didn’t know what happened,” Mr. Nembhard said. “We basically didn’t learn anything from the debriefing.”

Two identical applications for different sites for the same operation got different scores - that makes sense.

No, actually it doesn't.

This new Cuomo bidding process sounds a lot like the new Cuomo teacher evaluation, doesn't it?

But wait - it gets even better.

Turns out the Cuomo bidding process privileged operations that worked with youth during school hours and passed over operations that work with youth after school hours - because kids with substance abuse problems are always in school, you know?

Ms. Pullen said it appeared to her that Oasas favored larger operations, and was trying to deliver services to youths during school hours, not after school. “Youths who are into drugs are not in school on a regular basis,” said Ms. Pullen, who is a former addict. “They have walked away from groups that have been entrenched in the community.”

Indeed, some of the grants, according to a list obtained by The New York Times from someone who disagreed with the state’s choices, were awarded to the city’s Education Department and the education departments of the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn.

The real problem here is, the operations that are being harmed by the new Cuomo process do some real good:

Jailene Batista, 17, said she learned about the program through a counselor at Queens Satellite High School. She said she did not know what she would do if the program closed, adding that her afternoons had consisted of being outside and watching fights before she entered the program. “Now that I’ve been in this program, I lost a lot of friends, but it’s probably for the better,” she said.

 

The youths appeared to make new friends within the program, and some of the parents in the program said they had also grown close, sharing parenting tips and leaning on each other.

 

Deborah Garnes, 47, said the program helped her be a better parent to her 18-year-old daughter, one of her eight children. She said she learned “every child is different; the discipline is different.”

 

Ms. Garnes said her daughter had been smoking marijuana and cigarettes, but quit both after participating in the program.

 

Mr. Blake said former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo had inspired him to create V.I.P. He recalled that Mr. Cuomo used to talk about how working in his father’s grocery store in Jamaica, Queens, kept him out of trouble.

 

V.I.P. provides its participants with internships in the neighborhood. Mr. Blake said it was ironic that the program would be shuttering under Mr. Cuomo’s son.

 

“I really feel terrible for the children,” Mr. Blake said. “Watching them over the years has been absolutely rewarding.” He added, “This program has survived four governors.”

More mindless destruction from the sociopath in Albany - and to what end?

Caring For Students Beyond Their Academic Needs

I was observed for the fourth and final time this week.

This one was announced and I had two days of preparation time to get ready for it.

While I was trying to put together a dog/pony show lesson that would satisfy the Danielson rubric-wielding administrator looking for evidence of "rigor," "assessment" and "differentiation," I had to take some time out to do what it is I'm supposed to do and help students.

One student needed help amending her financial aid form - she had drastically underestimated her parents' income because she was using various income documents that were, to be frank, a mess to comprehend.

Amending a FAFSA form shouldn't take that long but making sense of what mom made, what dad made and putting that onto the form so that it added up to their joint married income did - about forty minutes in total.

Then another student needed some help editing an appeal letter to a college she was rejected from.  That took a few minutes, not too long, but when you're supposed to be getting ready for an observation in the high stakes era of "I and bye!" (as in "ineffective"), time matters.

I had a scholarship recommendation to write for a student that was due Friday - this one was my fault, the student had asked before break but I had forgotten to write it and now had to get it done on deadline (which I did.)

Finally another student wanted to talk about some things going on at home that she's been struggling with. I had given her a book I had about "sensitive people" (I keep a library of social and emotional books in my classroom that I lend or give to students I think may be helped from reading them) and she wanted to talk about how one of the chapters had resonated for her.

This is the kind of thing I enjoy about being a teacher - the opportunity to use my talents, skills and experience to help students in various ways, from financial aid help to college counseling work to social/emotional counseling.

None of that work showed up in my observation, of course.

The only thing that matters in an observation these days is the academic stuff - is the material "rigorous," are the assessments comprehensive and ongoing, am I "differentiating" the learning for both higher performing and lower performing students - that sort of thing.

The observation came and went and I'm sure it went fine - I put on the kind of dog/pony show that administrators want to see.

But wouldn't it be nice if some of the other stuff I do that I think is just as valuable as my classroom teaching skill, made it into the observation?

How about "Amended FAFSA form for student despite needing to get lesson plan for dog/pony show done and emailed to administrator"?

How about "Helped a student with family drama going on by listening to her and trying to find some self-help material that student could read on her own to guide her through"?

How about "Cares about students and is willing to help them in whatever way he can"?

Quite frankly, I don't really need acknowledgement for this stuff, because I do it freely and without expectation of that.

In other words, I do not want a pat on the back or a medal for doing what I think is part of my job.

But in this "Era Of The Bad Teacher," it would be nice if evaluations took into account more than just "rigor," "assessment" and the like, because had I not put on a dog/pony show the way the administrator wanted, all that other stuff I did this week to help students wouldn't have saved me from being "ineffective."

Regents Want $125 Million Extra in 2014-2015 For Common Core PD Money

Buried in the request for a 6% hike in state money for education for the 2014-2015 year is this doozy:

Teaching is the Core: Core Instruction Development Fund 

The Core Instruction Development Fund will represent a $125 million investment in 2014-15, and it will grow to $200 million for 2015-16 and 2016-17. This categorical program is intended to facilitate the state’s seven-year (2010-2017) transition to the Common Core standards. The professional development fund will fund the capacity-building work of districts with a willingness, along with their bargaining units, to commit to systemic change - including significantly more professional development and collaborative planning time in the school day/year. This includes activities to encourage and facilitate parent learning about the Common Core, recognizing that support at home can be a critical resource for student success.

Available funds will be allocated to districts via a formula that recognizes district fiscal capacity. Districts will apply for the available funds by submitting plans for the work that will be undertaken with the funds. Focus School Districts (those with priority and/or focus schools) will receive additional technical assistance in their application process in order to ensure that their plans contain the elements for success.

Allowable professional development costs would include:

 Costs incurred as teachers engage in professional development activities;

 Summer academies;

 Extra periods/after school programming to provide cooperative practice, planning and embedded coaching time;

 Substitute time; or

 Other approved uses of time.

 Local share of costs for professional development services provided by qualified BOCES;

 Costs of payments to approved professional development vendors for large group sessions or smaller group coaching;

 Teacher materials and curricular guides not reimbursed through other programs or provided free; or

 Other reasonable uses to be approved upon application.

Take that $125 million for Common Core PD and spend it on resources for the socio-emotional health of students - things like more counselors, health clinics and after school activities not related to the freaking Common Core.

That's what's needed.

Not more money for Common Core PD.

Social And Emotional Learning - Hey, Maybe Let The Measurements Be?

A pretty good article in the NY Times about the promise of social and emotional learning programs to help children with both academic performance and life skills.

The gist is this:

If you can help children to reframe how they view something that has happened to them, it can have a a positive effect on how they react to the incident and move forward from it:

With the district’s support, Aydlett attended social-emotional learning training. The program was an unlikely choice for Aydlett — a socially awkward man who confesses to being “awful” at ordinary human encounters. But since beginning the emotional-literacy work, Aydlett said, he had become more aware of interpersonal dynamics, and even made going on a vacation with his wife a priority — something he never bothered to do before. (“I didn’t see the point in that kind of connectedness,” he admitted. “But I’ve learned that it’s important.”) On the morning I visited, he stood greeting children at the gate with high-fives, then led me to the classroom of Jennifer Garcia, who teaches second grade. 

As Aydlett and I watched, Garcia walked her class through an exercise in nonverbal cues, asking the children to imagine times when they felt sad or angry or frustrated, and then to freeze in those expressions and postures. As the kids slumped forward in exaggerated positions of woe, Garcia complimented them on small details: a bowed head or hangdog expression. Afterward, Garcia turned to the class. “This is the thinking part of your brain,” she said, holding up her thumb. She pointed to her fingers. “And this is the feeling part of your brain.” Folding her thumb into the center of her palm, she closed her fingers around it. “When we have strong emotions, the thinking part of our brain can’t always control them,” Garcia explained, waggling her fist. “What do we do in those moments?” As the kids called out answers — counting to five, “self-talk,” “dragon breaths” (a kind of deep-breathing exercise) — Garcia nodded. 

Such strategies may seem simplistic, but researchers say they can have a profound effect. When I spoke with Mark Greenberg, who developed a social-emotional curriculum known as Paths (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies), he noted that repeatedly practicing these skills means they gradually become automatic. “The ability to stop and calm down is foundational in those moments.” 

The value of such skills was evident later that day, when I sat in on a fourth-grade class meeting, in which students worked through interpersonal conflicts as a group. Sitting in a circle on the carpet, Anthony, a small boy in a red shirt, began by recounting how he cried during a class exercise and was laughed at by some of the other students. Asked whether he thought the kids were giggling to be mean, or just giggling because they were uncomfortable, Anthony paused. “I think that some people didn’t know what to do, and so they giggled,” he admitted finally — though he was also adamant that a few of the kids were actually laughing at him. “I was really sad about that,” he added.

Though Anthony was still upset, his acknowledgment that not all the kids were snickering — that some may just have been laughing nervously — felt like a surprisingly nuanced insight for a 9-year-old. In the adult world, this kind of reappraisal is known as “reframing.” It’s a valuable skill, coloring how we interpret events and handle their emotional content. Does a casual remark from an acquaintance get cataloged as a criticism and obsessed over? Or is it reconsidered and dismissed as unintentional? 

Depending on our personalities, and how we’re raised, the ability to reframe may or may not come easily. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, notes that while one child may stay rattled by an event for days or weeks, another child may rebound within hours. (Neurotic people tend to recover more slowly.) In theory, at least, social-emotional training can establish neurological pathways that make a child less vulnerable to anxiety and quicker to recover from unhappy experiences. One study found that preschoolers who had even a single year of a social-emotional learning program continued to perform better two years after they left the program; they weren’t as physically aggressive, and they internalized less anxiety and stress than children who hadn’t participated in the program. 

It may also make children smarter. Davidson notes that because social-emotional training develops the prefrontal cortex, it can also enhance academically important skills like impulse control, abstract reasoning, long-term planning and working memory. Though it’s not clear how significant this effect is, a 2011 meta-analysis found that K-12 students who received social-emotional instruction scored an average of 11 percentile points higher on standardized achievement tests. A similar study found a nearly 20 percent decrease in violent or delinquent behavior. 

But as usual in 21st century America, reformers and researchers are wondering just how you measure whether social and emotional learning is effective.

What data will prove that kids are reacting better to incidents after learning how to reframe than before they had those lessons?

Also, education reformers in general seem loathe to go down the road of social and emotional learning skills because, well, to be honest they're lacking in these skills as well.

Read the following paragraph from the Times article and ask yourself if Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, et al. would score "highly effective" in these skills?

Social-emotional learning programs often rely on strategies from conventional therapy, like the ability to get distance on a feeling, or to unpack the deeper emotions that may be hidden within it. But fostering these skills in a child is a complex undertaking. For a child to master empathy, Jones notes, she first needs to understand her own emotions: to develop a sense of what sadness, anger or disappointment feels like — its intensity and duration, its causes. That awareness is what lays the groundwork for the next step: the ability to intuit how another person might be feeling about a situation based on how you would feel in a similar circumstance. 

And so, because there is difficulty and complexity in measuring the effectiveness of social and emotional learning programs and because many people who are less than skilled at handling their own emotions feel like this stuff is too touchy-feely, social and emotional learning programs can often be dismissed.

I say, maybe let the measurement stuff go a little here.

We overemphasize measurement and data in education, we fetishize statistics and so-called scientific research (ever notice how many "definitive" scientific studies get over turned later by new "definitive" studies?), we make believe like the data used in so many studies is untainted and the results garnered from them are "objective" and "scientific" (think VAM.)

In 12 step programs, there is this idea that it is only in letting go of trying to control everything that a person truly frees himself/herself from his addiction.

It seems counter-intuitive, but the more you try and control something, the worse that something often gets, the more out-of-control things become.

Again, in 12 step programs, the idea is the more you try and control your drinking, your drugging, your overeating, your overspending, or whatever, the more out-of-control things get because control mechanisms ultimately do not work.

Surrender to the problem, let go of the control, accept that you cannot solve the problem yourself and ask for the help of some higher power, force or group to help you.

I don't think we can run education reforms this way, of course, and I'm not saying we shouldn't measure programs for effectiveness, viability, etc.

But I do think we often kill the greater good by automatically thinking, how do we control what it is we're doing here, how do we measure it, how do we track it?

The obsessiveness over measuring and tracking data to test for effectiveness is just a kind of control mechanism that in the end doesn't seem to be working so well.

Maybe that's because the data we're using is funky, the way the studies are funded is problematic, the way we frame everything as "Sure we can measure and solve this!  We're humans!" is a flawed way of thinking about things.

In a couple of centuries from now, people are going to wonder about the 20th/21st centuries' over-reliance and festishization of so-called scientific studies.

One of these cliches these days you hear all the time is "Research shows..."

Ah, but how often later we find that the research that showed what we were told it showed didn't actually show that at all?

I don't have any answers here other than to say, "You know, maybe you scientific observers and researchers aren't as smart as you think you are and maybe you're causing more problems than you're solving with your overreliance on data and your compulsions around measuring everything."

Maybe just once in a while, let the measurements be, track no data and just see how the universe works things out.

It's been my experience that often the universe works things out a helluva lot better than humans, in all their arrogance and hubris, do.

I first learned that by reading the Greeks.

Then learned that lesson in my own life.

Now I watch it unfold daily in education and other important issues of the day as humans apply their "solutions" and so-called wisdom to problems and make things worse.

Science is great and certainly I'm not looking for us to go back to reading bird entrails or anything when it comes to making policy decisions.

But I do want to point out how humans aren't as smart as we think we are and our science isn't as good as we think it is.

After all, both have helped give us the world as it is in 2013.

Here's An Education Reform That Really Would Improve Test Scores

An excellent piece on why social and emotional learning is important not just for school, but also for life:

Developing our children's intellect has been the primary focus of schools, yet according to Tom McSheehy, family therapist, writer, educator and former teacher at Holmes School in Oak Park, key skills that are vital for learning and thriving in life aren't being taught to the extent they need to be. Kids may be learning core academic subjects, but this limited focus is what's keeping schools out of sync with what is needed in the world.

So what's missing?

McSheehy, author of the new book, In Focus: Improving Social and Emotional Intelligence One Day at a Time, says the skills connected to social and emotional intelligence and the skills that help kids learn effectively and efficiently as well as developing resilience, reducing sickness, enhancing relationships and empowering children.

In other words, skills that help kids build mental health.

Children need to know how to manage and express their emotions, calm themselves, focus their attention, express empathy and work collaboratively. Kids also need to learn to persevere when things get difficult or challenging as well as negotiate and resolve differences. McSheehy says these skills can be taught, just like reading and math, and, if incorporated in our schools, will bring about a dramatic change in the success of our children at every level.

McSheehy's own work has helped administrators, teachers, legislators and parents understand the need to incorporate social and emotional learning into school curricula. He highlights current research findings that support this new edge of growth, findings that fully support the necessity of teaching to the entire child by bringing emotion back into the classroom.

Consider these compelling facts:

• Emotion plays a major role in every intellectual process and is a driving force in how children's brains organize themselves.
• Fear and anxiety interfere with learning, whereas safety and security support and facilitate learning.
• Students in schools with social and emotional learning programs score higher on their standardized achievement tests than students in schools without such programs by an average of 11 percentile points.
• Students who are taught social and emotional learning are better behaved, more positive and less anxious than students who aren't taught these skills.
• Social and emotional intelligence is critical to success in schools, jobs, relationships and navigating life challenges. Students who learn to identify, manage and express feelings constructively are more likely to avoid anxiety issues, depression and other mental-health disorders.
• 67% of the skills that corporations look for in new employees are related to social and emotional intelligence. It is no longer enough to just teach the traditional core subjects.
• Children who by the age of 10 can delay gratification, control impulses and modulate emotional expression become healthier, wealthier and more responsible adults. (Based on the research of Terrie Moffit of Duke University and a team of researchers who followed a group of 1,000 children for 32 years.)

Why don't the so-called education reformers promote social and emotional learning as part of their reform program?

Yeah, I've seen the gates Foundation pay SEL some lip service, but their primary focus is on test scores, cameras in the classroom and other sticks and stones that can be used against teachers.

But they never seem to push the reforms that actually are proven to work - like reduction in class sizes or social and emotional learning curricula.

The cynic in me says it's because they're less concerned with helping children learn and more concerned with control of children, teachers and schools.

Boston Teachers Help Students Cope With Marathon Attacks

Wall Street Journal video here.

How does this lesson add value to the children's test scores and how will Bill Gates' MET functionaries figure out how to quantify it?

And where's the complex text the children should be reading and the argumentative essays the children should be writing about the bombing?

As Common Core maestro David Coleman told us, "No one gives a shit what you think or feel..."

Enough making the kids feels safe and loved.

Get back to rigorous, standards-based lessons.

Finally, A Contemporary Hollywood Film About Education That Doesn't Scapegoat Teachers

Usually whenever the clown show that is Morning Joe takes on the education issue, it's a teacher bash festival.

But Adrien Brody, the lead in Tony Kaye's new film about a substitute teacher in NYC called Detachment, brought some reality to the Morning Joe set by explaining teachers do not have the sole responsibility for educating and bringing up children - parents and communities have the responsibility for that too.

I haven't seen this film yet, but I'd like to.

I particularly identified with the teacher character healing his own emotional pain by helping others to heal theirs.

How do you measure that with a value-added score, Governor Cuomo?

How do you assess that with a standardized test, Mayor Bloomberg?

Do you realize that millions of children are coming to school each day heart-sick and hurt from the awful things they see and experience daily in their homes and neighborhoods, President Obama?

Do you think adding dozens of standardized tests to the curriculum from K-12 is going to solve these socio-emotional problems children are facing?

Will these tests help relieve the fear and anger so many children carry around in them?

Do you think holding teachers accountable for scores and taking counselors away from counseling and making them bean counters for graduation is going to help, Chancellor Walcott?

Does replacing a human teacher with a computer help this, Mr. Gates?

The truth is, Bloomberg, Cuomo, Gates, Obama, Rhee, Klein, Walcott, et al. - these are all emotionally-stunted and detached people themselves, so of course they do not value socio-emotional education or learning.

They must be emotionally stunted and detached to promote the heartless, mindless education policies they are pushing on the nation.

But I will tell you, until this society and culture comes to the realization that so many of our problems are spiritual and emotional, not financial, academic or intellectual, we will continue to go down the road to destruction.

We are a nation without a heart and without a soul and all the technological innovation in the world isn't going to solve that.