There is a timeless quandary: What is more important to a child's, heredity or environment?
When it comes to children and their achievement in education, how does this question apply? We are learning, but as of yet we don't fully understand. But one thinks the News must know, look how assertive they are on all things related to public schools.
The Detroit News has launched out again against both the Detroit Federation of Teachers and the Michigan Education Association in a hamfisted manner. To the members of the MEA it asserts, "Don't let propaganda and fear prevent Michigan from winning." Nov. 12, 2009. To the Federation it demands, "Make student performance not teacher protectionism the top priority" Sept.23, 2009.
The News picked up on the phrase: Teacher quality is the No. 1 predictor of student achievement.
That is a non-holistic and incomplete statement of fact concerning how students achieve and why. But it is a neat silver bullet for winning an argument or nailing down another plank in an anti-public school effort. Common sense tells the astute observer there's much more to student outcomes that whatever "teacher quality" is, as defined by the originator of that, or yet another survey or academic study. Is it heredity, the "bell curve" or environment "unionized schools"? If the study comes from one of so many harshly critical think thanks such as the Heartland Institute, then consider the source.
Both of these incidents of hectoring come from the same chum bucket. As of today, there are published 38 of the 50 News requirements to "Fix Michigan" displayed in the paper. Approximately 13 of these demands are related to public education, in some form, and there are 12 more suggestions to go.
It's obvious that the Detroit News is expecting the teachers to solve the basic and gargantuan problems of our time.
If only the teachers would tow under, and follow the will of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the tax limitation teabaggers, and the intrepid corporatist/insurance endowed Mackinac Center for Public Policy, then progress could all be made.
The News, for years holed up in its headquarters with its window lights, architectural arches bricked in for security following the riots of 1967. One feels that has deeply influenced its own cynical quasi-Libertarian mindset.
It's easy to understand why there is disillusionment and angst in the News' editorial suite...but not excusable.
Let the News walk a weekday, 6 blocks, in a pupil's shoes.
Think of ones self as an innocent young girl walking to the neighborhood school past all those empty and sometimes burnt out, abandoned houses and structures. Buildings filled at times with rapists, druggies or squatters. What frame of mind would she have when she arrived at the classroom door? What fears or dread would haunt her as she contemplates returning home, latch key to her house, passing once again that gauntlet of neglect and criminal possibilities tolerated by Detroiters?
It has been reported that in some cases, even the Catholic church owns these kinds of properties. There aren't a few dozens of these structural hazards scattered about, there are hundreds and hundreds.
Time and again, the News has gone ballistic over picayune issues they conjure up to wedge their demands against teachers and work to take away the basis of commitment by the erstwhile supportive public.
In this time of national crisis, in this epoch of monumental manufacturing and industrial outsourcing to other states and third world countries, the News editors cannot bring themselves to step back and take a harsh and mind-boggling look at "real Detroit"-a dead and dying city in so many respects. One or two of the signal Detroit moments, historically of note in this regard, were: the exit of Hudson's from downtown and the summary closing of over two dozen Detroit area parish churches by the Catholic Bishops.
It's with great self-satisfaction that the Detroit News finds a "slam dunk" criticism in the offering of stimulus money in the form of $600 million in federal taxpayer monies, the state may acquire by compiling with the official guidelines for the Race to the Top's. "It is one of President Barack Obama's most innovative tools to spur states," chortles the News without in depth reflection.
Remember the News doesn't actually like stimulus spending, and says so. Several Michigan jurisdictions are loudly announcing they won't apply for stimulus cash or take it, if offered. At least one GOP Governor refuses all stimulus money to his state, irregardless of need.
So why is the News so hot to trot with the nascent U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, and his "new" trends? Duncan is that bureaucrat from what the wild right calls the "gangster" machine-run Chicago. In this case, if it suits the News' long range purposes, go with it. So it is with partisan politics. When a circumstance hits on an opponent, all prior principles are naught compared to the "kill." .
There are good and fundamental reasons to reject the U.S. Department of Education's current proposals, just as there were with the "Leave No Child Behind", that fiasco was cobbled together by G.W. Bush and Sen. Ted Kennedy: LNCB continues to create more disillusionment and harm than good. Just ask Rep. Pete Hoekstra.
There are innumerable devils in the fine print details. At this point, seed money for this program is only about a year's worth. Just like several federal title programs, LNCB mandates, and other items the feds propose, the states and locals provide the ultimate costs and bear the burden of implementation and/or are threatened with huge penalties.
Nolan and crew don't see the fine line details and don't really care about the bottomlines either. "Race to the Top's a anti-teacher union zinger, let's push it.
In these financially troubled times as in all others, haste to radically change makes waste and further delays in real classroom outcomes and in the lives of children, captives/hostages to our failed thinking and our decaying infrastructure.
Every day, thank God, your next door neighbor, your fellow club member, member of the church down the block, leaves home to re-enter her or his classroom to do a precious job. Her/His ambition is to provide for the every need of her/His students, to keep them safe, on task, and learning in her room, sheltered for the day from the gunshots her/his students hear throughout the night and the carnage they see on local TV news nearly every night of the year.
Her/His task is oft overwhelming and without proper support and encouragement. If she/he wants to begin a day with a bright outlook, going in to school, she'll/he’ll not pick up the News until she/he needs to change the lining in her/his bird cage at the end of a long day.
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