Category Archives: Random Access

Random Access, the op-ed.

Let Them Eat Dirt

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Want to know everything that is wrong with schools today?

Kids aren’t allowed to eat dirt.

About a century ago in news biz terms, on the Fifth of May of this year, Miguel Rodriguez, an assistant school principal at Live Oak High School in Santa Clara, CA, punished five sophomores for wearing the American flag on their t-shirts. He deemed their shirts conspicuously “incendiary” mostly because other students were wearing the red, white, and green of the Mexican flag that day.

Incendiary?

A lot longer ago than the Santa Clara wardrobe malfunction, the assistant principal of our local high school did the same thing to our daughter. We had taken our kids on their first trip to Key West shortly after we bought this house in South Puffin. The Half Shell Raw Bar is one of the favorite tourist stops there. It inhabits a building that was once a Key West shrimp packing building in the historic seaport.

The Half Shell sells t-shirts.

You know the story. “Our ‘rents went on vacation and all I got was this stupid shirt.”

[Image] Number One daughter really liked her shirt with its nubile, bikini-clad waitress, platter of oysters, and slogan. Particularly the slogan.

Naturally, her Assistant Principal went after that shirt with tar and bonfire. Number One daughter wasn’t even allowed to turn it inside out. That insidious, salacious message was still there, still capable of corrupting those innocent 1980s high schoolers. She had to call home, get a ride home, and change clothes. The school banned her from classes until she did.

Banned.

The holiday of Cinco de Mayo, the 5th of May, is not, as Assistant Principal Rodriguez and many other people apparently think, Mexico’s Independence Day. South of the Border, Independence Day is September 16. Here’s the history: Mexico was a debtor nation when, in 1861, then-Mexican President Benito Juarez stopped paying the interest on the loans. France held a lot of the notes, so they sent in their debt collectors in the form of the French army to force payment of this debt. The regional holiday of Puebla commemorates the victory of the Mexican militia over the French army at The Battle of Puebla in 1862.

So Live Oak High School wanted to punish five kids for not celebrating a battle over a loan default.

Never occurred to Assistant Principal Rodriguez (a professional educator) that the right principle would have been to let the kids duke it out, send them to separate corners, and use the whole experience as a teaching moment, eh?

Back to kids eating dirt.

The United States maintains a fiction that we want well educated kids. We bandy about buzz words like “experiential learning,” “critical thinking,” and “expanding horizons” while we isolate the kids from the ebb and flow of playground confrontation, intelligent decision making, or anything that might impact their self esteem. And gawd help us if we expose them to germs.

Ofttimes kids learn better when we let them be kids. That includes having the odd playground discussion over political values and eating a bit of dirt in the playground along the way.

Yet Another New Tax

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Some time ago, the Vermont Tax Department notified the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts that it owes $190,000 for taxes on tickets from the past three years of ticket sales. That past due tax notice would be forgiven by a new bill just passed in Montpelier but the bill ensures collection going forward.

The Vermont House and Senate negotiating committee and the governor all signed off on “Challenges for Change” late last week. The bill includes a 6% sales tax on tickets to cultural institutions and performing arts events presented by non-profit cultural organizations like the All Arts Council or the Flynn. Organizations with admission revenue over $50,000 must collect this tax starting next year.

“The committee did it in the dark of the night at the end of the session,” State Senator Randy Brock (R-Franklin County) told me about the section of the bill meant to clarify the question of admissions taxes.

“The Senate took no testimony” on this, so it went forward unvetted. he said. That leaves the legislature with some unanswered questions.

The controversial efficiency bill has a lot to like. “Challenges for Change” is (relatively) small. It appears to save some money. It changes the way government does business. It is the first law ever passed that concentrates on outcomes.

Unfortunately, it is not the first time the legislature has snuck a new tax into an otherwise good bill.

Let the finger pointing begin.

“What we didn’t anticipate was that the bill would take away our ability to do things we could do before there was a Challenges bill,” Tom Evslin told the Times Argus. “That may be the largest problem.” Mr. Evslin is Vermont’s Chief Recovery Officer and the Douglas Administration’s Technology chief.

Gubernatorial candidate Peter Shumlin (D-Windham County) responded that the administration “might not understand the bill as well as they need to.”

Sorry, Mr. Shumlin. I think we understand the bill just fine.

The legislature took a pretty nice concept — the Challenges Bill specifies the broad areas for savings and identifies those outcomes state agencies and programs must achieve — and mucked it up with “oh my God, you can’t do that” restrictions. Then the legislature added new “revenue sources” like the tax on your concert tickets.

The downside to the new admission tax is two-fold. (1) Ticket prices at larger venues and events will rise which means ticket buyers will pay more. (2) Rather than cutting spending in times of reduced revenue, the House and Senate conference committee opted to create yet another new tax.

I live in the real world. I’ve had to tighten my belt, Mr. Shumlin. Part of the reason I had to tighten my belt is that you raised my taxes. Again.

Hat Shopping

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There has been some Internet blather about the U.S. “carpet bombing” Afghanistan.

Heh. In addition to fuel-air explosives, smart bombs, and about 8,800 M1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks, the United States currently maintains 5,113 nuclear warheads. The United States was the first to develop nuclear weapons and is the only country to have used them in warfare–the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought World War II to a close.

If the U.S. carpet bombed Afghanistan, there would be darned few men, women, children, poppies, or blades of grass left standing.

Let us switch hats for a moment. Regular readers know I usually wear the comfortable straw hat favored by Librarians at the beach. Today, let us pretend we are wearing the bicycle helmet of the Liberal Left so we can play “Let’s Pretend” with no worrisome consequences of political incorrectness.

Today we shall imagine that history has swapped our homelands.

Sunni is the largest branch of Islam but since the 16th century the Twelver Shi’i have become the dominant Shi’a sect and one that rules in several countries. The Shi’a led a precarious until the 16th century when the Safavid dynasty established Shi’a as the state religion of Persia. That gave the Twelver Shi’a support, protection, and state money. They built major theological centers in Esfahan, Meshed, Najaf, and Qom and looked to other worlds for expansion.

The iman Hassan as-Salat made the perilous journey to the New World in the mid-1700s and settled with his brethern and his 24 wives in the fertile lands of Virginia. Hassan as-Salat and his followers largely drove the Christian settlers into seclusion and, in 1776, declared America a Muslim state and cut its ties to King George.

At about the same time, George Washington gathered a group of rebels together and sailed the other direction. They settled in the Persian lands known today as the states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Egypt, the Emirates, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Yemen, where they fought an arduous guerilla war and formed the United States of Southwest Asia, at that time the only democracy in the world.

American Muslim voters elected Mahmoud Imadinnerjacket President of the Islamic Republic of America in 1995. He reports to the Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hoseyni Khamenei. Voters in the United States of Southwest Asia elected General Colin Patton as President of the U.S.S.A. in 2008. General Patton had planned an executed a stunning attack on American infrastructure in 2001 when he burned the World Mosque Center to the ground.

The seven building World Mosque Center complex was located in the heart of New York City’s downtown financial district. Its 13.4 million square feet included over two million set aside for worship and religious studies. Although not Mecca, it was the second most popular pilgrimage destination in the Islamic world. Mecca itself, located in the state of Saudi Arabia’s Makkah township in the United States of Southwest Asia remains the most popular Islamic pilgrimage. The U.S.S.A. granted unfettered passage and automatic visas to all Muslims to cross to Mecca at any time.

President Imadinnerjacket has the entire American arsenal at his fingertips with which to retaliate.

Will he send in the tanks to root out General Patton and to burn Patton’s statue in a public square? Or will he send the B52s to melt all of the United States of Southwest Asia into a puddle of glowing glass?

I’m pretty sure we know the answer to that.

Me? I’m off to buy a new hat before they all get incinerated.

Chewing the Fat

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It is simply too nice outside to rant.

Sunny, it is. Warm. A couple of interesting clouds in the blue sky. A little breezy, but just enough to keep some of the boats at the dock and to dry one’s sweat. That’s almost the same report from North Puffin where it is actually just 74°, South Puffin where it is 80°, and Arizona where Limousine Liberals think illegals should be werry werry afwaid and it is only about 70°.

I wonder why Limousine Liberals are worried about sick birds in Arizona but you never know.

A thunderstorm threatens North Puffin but that should burn off this afternoon. The chance of rain in both South Puffin and Arizona is somewhere south of zero.

The Burlington Waterfront hosted the final Green Mountain Chew Chew (“Vermont’s Favorite Family Feeding Frenzy”) last June with chicken kabob pitas, grilled cajun chicken bites, Lion’s Club pork backribs with cannonball sauce, Lovemaker crepes, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, and more. Each Chew Chew food purveyor (restaurants and farms, mostly) served three food items at their booths. No one duplicated another vendor’s menu. Each booth had one new item each year so the menu stayed fresh but retained many of the festival favorites. Organizer Rick Norcross booked two tents full of performers so music flowed almost constantly throughout the event. Depot Token Booths sold brass Chew Chew food tokens priced at 9 for $5. The menu samples ranged from one to four tokens each. More than 400 foodies grossed about $3,500,000 in the 24 weekend run.

Downtown St. Albans hosted the annual Vermont Maple Festival this weekend with pancake breakfasts, a maple buffet dinner, dancing, music, arts and crafts, performances by some of Vermont’s best bands, Vermont specialty foods, carnival rides, the “best maple syrup on the planet” and the biggest parade in Vermont. The parade stretches for miles with over 100 bands, clowns, dancers, unique floats, horses and tractors, musicians, neat cars, the odd politician or two, and the ever-popular pooper scooper following right behind the politicians. Vermont foods included Woodstock Granola, Vikki Machia’s special fudge, cheeses, Vermont peanut butter, and Richard’s sauces.

The Tempe (Arizona) Town Lake Beach Park hosted the annual St. Katherine “Taste of Greece” Festival this weekend with Greek dancing, music, specialty, and import booths, performances by costumed Greek dancers, Greek wine tasting, carnival rides, and the “best Greek food in Phoenix!” A lamb turned on a spit over coals as men flipped souvlaki. They had Greek spiced meatballs, fried and served with tzatziki sauce. How about Greek fried calamari, lightly floured, and served with lemon and red sauce. Or over-sugar yourself on Baklava, Pantespani, Karythopita, Kourabiethes cookies, and more.


Like most outdoor festivals, all three events have similar planning committees, hosts of volunteers, and cultural goodies to attract (and keep) the crowd. And like most outdoor festivals, all three events have similar problems: high costs for food, sinking budgets for entertainment, and weather worries.

The weatherman has frozen, snowed, baked, sleeted, and rained sunshine on the Maple Festival over the years. 13 inches of snow fell on St. Albans two days before the 2010 event. The perfect storm of increased production costs and crippling rain delivered a crippling 2008 loss to the Chew Chew. Only Phoenix seems immune to snow and rain although the winds practically blew visitors out of the park this year.

The food was good — visitors stood in line — but too expensive at the Maple and Greek festivals and the music stage stood silent too much of the time at both.

Cost is a real issue. The Chew Chew started out in 1984 offering little samples for a single token. Now the food costs one to four tokens per plate. The Greeks use tickets in Tempe; unfortunately, each one costs $2 and most food items range from one to four tickets. A family of four can put together a pretty nice sampler afternoon in Burlington for $25. Can do that for $100 in Tempe. The prices are pretty similar in St. Albans where you spend actual cash rather than scrip at each booth.

Tempe and St. Albans have just one stage each, so keeping the music going is a challenge but a challenge worth meeting. Food festival-goers come for the food. The music aids digestion and keeps them on the grounds longer so they can eat more.

When I booked the Main Street Stage for the Maple Festival we did everything possible to avoid dead air. The stage was divided into two performance areas so one band could be setting up while another played. The sound company (I used Tim-Kath) made sure we had good fidelity around most of downtown. And we never had more than 5 minutes of my chatter about the food between sets. People could find the food on their own.

It’s a good model and it makes the Fair food taste better.

Cool.

A Perfect Ten(ure)?

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Perfect?

Tenure /TEN-yur/ n. The status of holding one’s position on a permanent basis without periodic contract renewals or threat of dismissal.

My grandfather, a full professor (Chemistry) at Temple, had tenure. My cousin, a full Professor (Wildlife Ecology) at Perdue, has tenure. My 12th grade English teacher, the one who made me memorize John Donne’s birthday, has tenure. OK, she’s dead, now, but she still has her teaching position.

Vermont and Florida are at-will employment states. Under American law, the legal doctrine simply means the employer can fire your furry butt “for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause at all,” and the employee can quit, strike, or take a permanent sabbatical with no liability. There are a couple of caveats. Tenure, an employment contract, or a collective bargaining agreement all govern the employment relationship and negate at-will laws. According to employeeissues.com, “Virtually all states are employment at-will states.”

Teachers unions love tenure.

I taught in Vermont Colleges for a number of years. I have never sought nor held tenure.

There’s no real point to teacher tenure, especially in primary or secondary schools. These schools aren’t universities where professors like my grandfather and cousin create controversy through groundbreaking research and publication. School teachers teach. They need the same level of protection against bombasts, crying parents, and incompetent bosses that any professional needs. And not a penny more.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) supports California Senate Bill 955. That bill proposes to give school administrators the ability to assign or fire teachers based on their effectiveness and to clean up the firing process itself. No longer will bad teachers get the free ride.

The legislation was quickly blasted by the California Teachers Association and by my friend Lido (“Lee”) Bruhl who thinks it a mere ploy to fire all the senior (translation: “expensive”) teachers. “I do not think a teacher should get sacked just because they’re higher up the pay scale,” he said, “and I don’t think there’s enough difference between how teachers teach for that to be much of a factor.”

Lee was born on another planet. They may not have schools there.

Public school teachers across this country receive step raises every year. Year in, year out, a teacher who does nothing but show up for work most of the 179 days in the average U.S. school year gets a raise. Exactly the same raise as the teacher who works overtime every day, brings work home on nights and weekends, attends conferences, takes extra courses, and (just as an oh, by the way) happens to have classrooms full of happy, productive students who actually learn stuff.

A Los Angeles Unified School District task force has delivered recommendations about teacher effectiveness. It’s a major push toward removing outrageous obstacles to firing bad teachers and creating a robust evaluation system for teachers.

Imagine that. Judging a teacher’s worth by his or her performance on the job. Now there is an unusual concept.

“‘Worth’ is not always easy to judge, Dick, outside of the fantasies of right-wing ‘thinkers’ like you,” Lee said.

Another planet. With neither creativity nor original thought, it is difficult to design a system that measures how well teachers teach. After all, having successful students ought not be part of the equation, now, should it? The creators of the standardized tests we all took for college and graduate-school admissions, academics to a person, all claim their tests are not “objective.” The employee ranking systems now popular with B-School grads uniformly lead to disaster in employee morale and performance. After all, it is possible to have a department full of chowder heads. Do you want to grade them on a curve? Or you could be part of a department of superstars. Do you want to end up on the bottom of that curve?

This ain’t rocket science. The appraisal criteria for a teacher:

  • must be objective;
  • must be based on an analysis of actual job requirements;
  • must be based on individual behaviors (performance) rather than personality;
  • must relate to classroom actions, not what the school board or state is doing,
  • must be measurable;
  • and must be within the control of the teacher.

This ain’t rocket science. Principal communicates the job requirements to the teacher. Teacher sets measurable goals. Principal and teacher meet every now and then to measure performance against the goals.

On the other hand, my next notion may be heresy. If we look at objective measures like today’s test scores, Lee might be right. There may not be enough difference between teachers for classroom performance to be much of a factor.

January 21, 1572