Lieberman is Poster Boy for Dysfunctional Politicians

In the recent debate between Ned Lamont and Lieberman, only Lamont talked about education with any conviction. We should be thankful for that. Education suffers the same fate in Washington that ecological issues, social security, and healthcare do. Far too much sloganeering, sugar-coated platitudes, and disingenuous concern plague all these important discussions.

The Main Stream Media (MSM) is catching up and finally giving us some straight talk. This should be a belated education for Lieberman and the legion of Democrats and Republicans who play blind, deaf and dumb with their constituencies.

Joe Conaston's Lieberman Misses Point of Opponents
tells us a lot about being dysfunctional to a constituency (click title link for the entire piece).

After 18 years in the Senate, his fervent insistence that he is a lifelong devotee of “progressive causes” and his endorsement by major liberal organizations only seem to mask his accommodation with Washington’s conservative status quo.

Mr. Lieberman dutifully recites his opposition to “tax cuts for the rich” and “privatizing Social Security,” and his support of “universal health insurance” and “affordable health care.” When he utters those phrases, unfortunately, they ring hollow to many rank-and-file Democrats.

Actually, the syndrome afflicting him is found among entrenched veterans of both parties, especially those who appear more concerned with connections and contributions than values or ideals.

Lieberman's Real Problem by Harold Meyerson (Washington Post) is equally blunt.

No great mystery enshrouds the challenge to Lieberman, nor is the campaign of his challenger, Ned Lamont, a jihad of crazed nit-pickers. Lieberman has simply and rightly been caught up in the fundamental dynamics of Politics 2006, in which Democrats are doing their damnedest to unseat all the president's enablers in this year's elections. As well, Lieberman's broader politics are at odds with those of his fellow Northeastern Democrats. He is not being opposed because he doesn't reflect the views of his Democratic constituents 100 percent of the time. He is being opposed because he leads causes many of them find repugnant.

Education and dialogues about education have suffered dangerously under Bush and his enablers and the voters know this. They know it on a host of issues. Voters are hurting.

But so are schools and our children. If you care about anything other than money, vote differently on August 8 and in November. Don't send messages to the Statehouse or Washington - send new, competent representatives.

It's in your hands.

Free Software: A Graphical Math Calculator, Ump

From the site:

Ump is a graphical, easy to use math program, which works with complex numbers, matrices, functions and much more.
Ump is released under the terms of Gnu GPL.

Peter Tork Keeps Getting Rave Reviews

I wrote a short review of Peter's one man concert that benefitted Joshua's Trust. I received yet another very nice reply that confirms how well liked Peter's latest venture is.

I'll try to get a sample of Colleen's review. Citilife's link is here.

The Political Spin on the Boy/Girl "Crisis"

A college professor [identified as amike] of 34 years experience wrote the following observations. I cite them because in reading the literature there is a weary, predictable redundancy in complaints about what entering freshmen know and don't know.

The pretention of academics is simply overbearing when it comes to pointing out their perceived deficiencies of youth. These observations are more interesting because of the gender context.

Unspoken in any of these discussions is a factoid about college that a guidance counselor tipped me off to. Today's college graduates are taking longer to graduate by two years. These days a typical graduate will spend six years getting what used to be a four-year degree. This comes as a shock to me and other parents as well.

But here's the gender divide observations. See what you think.

I've been in the ed biz for 34 years now, and I am really curious to see how this chain develops. Those of on the faculty side of the desk are stuck (this is not a complaint) with what comes in the door on the first day of class. I haven't tried to tally the changes over the last 30 years, save the students of the millennium generation (is that what we're supposed to call them?) are a tad more docile than the students I first taught during the tail end of the Viet Nam war. Here's a couple of observations, and I'm wondering if they tally with any other faculty who may drop by to comment here. First...let me say that I teach undergraduates exclusively, in History and American Studies, and about 60/40 per cent general education requirement students (the havetas) and 40 per cent majors (the wantas)

Observations without proof:

* Men do less well in the required courses than women do. They're less willing to devote time to things they're made to study, and more vocally resentful of the idea of required courses.

* Women do better on collaborative work then men do. They're more group oriented in the ways they interact. They're more willing to assist each other and more subtle about making sure the members of the group pull their weight.

* Women are more willing to make use of academic resources available to them: tutors, the learning center, and faculty office hours. Men, especially men who have diagnosed learning disorders (such as dyslexia) are far less likely to avail themselves of the assistance available to them by law. They feel, somehow, that asking for help is a sign of weakness, and they'll take a lower grade rather than show that particular sign.

* Among the average students (we get those, and I rather like working with those) men are more likely to ask questions related to technical issues (how long, does it have to be typed) and women are more likely to ask clarification questions...what do you mean by. . .

* Neither sex handles the written language well. They handle it worse, if anything, than students did thirty years ago. Neither seems to think that grammar matters, or that clothing what they think in powerful language is important.

* Women are more vocal than they were twenty years ago. Neither sex is as vocal as it was thirty years ago. Neither sex is as willing to contradict faculty positions or risk being wrong as the best students were when I began my career. Some of my colleagues breathe a sigh of relief about this. I rather miss the fracases into which some class sessions developed.

All in all, I wish my students worried less about what I thought and more about what they thought. I can see why Americans have been so passive regarding power structures in general and government in particular. Perhaps the one thing good which might develop out of the current national situation is the reawakening of youthful anger.

Mike

Science Lab Safety

Students should always keep in mind that wearing a lab coat and safety glasses are important equipment in keeping themselves safe.

Arresting Teens, Heavy-handed Discipline

I was watching C-Span the other night. It was a show about a recently published book called Tiger Force. During the Vietnam War, Tiger Force was a special ops military unit that was off the books. And for a period of years it was out of control as well with unit members performing heinous war crimes in Vietnam.

The authors concluded that the behavior was a direct result of negligent and unethical supervision by the superior officers. One of the comments about a soldier, a California surfer, who was intimidated into killing a prisoner in cold blood remains in my head screaming for resolution. The authors went on to say that once he had committed that murder the rest of the horrible things he would do followed with an easy discompassion. Once a certain line is crossed there's little more to regret.

In just the past few weeks I have read numerous stories from many states about police intervening in teenage high school activities. Today the police are no longer the friendly neighborhood watchmen of the past. With the ratcheting up of tensions thanks to the political commercialization of terrorism, police no longer exercise patience, understanding, nor do they dismiss teenaged behavior with a stern warning.

More disconcertingly, school officials in far too many CT school districts seem to play the police card casually as though teenagers are somehow hardened criminals deserving a rough time.

I offer the following links to some very disturbing incidents that bring into question the quality of educational administration.

Read here and here to get a flavor of what's going on.

I have no doubt that there are times where police involvement is absolutely necessary but it seems to me that society needs to begin thinking about staffing community relations specialists who can act as para-professional police authorities who are less likely to over-react to teens and children misbehaving.

And it would be nice if school administrators used better judgment as well.

Hurray! Microsoft to Support Open Document Formats

This is very good news indeed. Far too many school districts are in love with spending taxpayer money needlessly on vendor-specific products usually to the detriment of the community.

Now, even districts who think they're using superior vendor products because it costs money will no longer be able to force teachers, parents, and students to go out and buy that product just to be able to keep themselves from looking poor.

Here's the news announcement;

Microsoft to Support OpenDocument by Nate Mook, BetaNews, July 6, 2006, 2:19 AM

Although it was reported in May that the OpenDocument Foundation was working on a compatibility plug-in, Microsoft's decision to spearhead the effort is quite an about-face for the Redmond company. OpenDocument has become a thorn in Microsoft's side, with a number of governments looking to move to standardized document formats.

The release of OpenOffice.org 2.0 finally provided a viable and free alternative to Microsoft's ubiquitous Office suite, as well as bringing OpenDocument into the limelight. ODF is backed by the OASIS standards body and was certified by the International Standards Organization (ISO). The state of Massachusetts turned up the heat last September, announcing plans to switch to ODF and OpenOffice.org by January 1, 2007.

Microsoft responded to the public pressure by developing its own Open XML formats, which it has submitted to European standards body Ecma for certification. The company has long said it would not support OpenDocument, claiming a lack of interest from customers and noting the necessity for backwards compatibility with older Microsoft Office versions.

However, Microsoft is now acknowledging the importance of interoperability and says it wants to make choice an option for its customers.

"We believe that Open XML meets the needs of millions of organizations for a new approach to file formats, so we are sharing it with the industry by submitting it, with others, to become a worldwide standard," said Microsoft XML architect Jean Paoli. "Yet it is very important that customers have the freedom to choose from a range of technologies to meet their diverse needs."

By providing a downloadable add-in that enables customers to import OpenDocument files and export to the format, Microsoft is also making Office 2007 a possibility for businesses and governments like Massachusetts that do opt to switch to ODF. But the translation will not be seamless, the company concedes.

The OpenOffice suite of tools can be downloaded free from here.

Uncle Sam: Pre-Teen Predator?

A disturbing article from the Associated Press indicates that the latest issue of Cobblestone magazine is little more than a military propaganda piece. This goes hand-in-hand with other military recruitment efforts aimed at children too young to realize they're irrevocably signing up to perform military service.

Why these practices of targeting immature and unwitting children to be persuaded to make life choices before they are old enough to make those choices is inexplicable and irresponsible on the government's part.

From: Preteen Mag Accused of Military Pitching, by the Associated Press, Published: July 3, 2006, New York Times

Most controversial has been a set of classroom guides that accompany the magazine, which suggest teachers invite a soldier, Army recruiter or veteran to speak to their classes and ask students whether they might want to join the Army someday.

One of the teaching guides -- written by Mary Lawson, a teacher in Saint Cloud., Fla. -- suggests having students write essays pretending they are going to join the Army: ''Have them decide which career they feel they would qualify for and write a paper to persuade a recruiter why that should be the career.''

This magazine's editors can claim responsibility all they like but the fact of the matter is that the government should have a much more restrictive policy about who they're recruiting. The editors fail to explain why military recruitment is suddenly such a compelling topic for young teens.

Nor do they bother to mention new recruitment programs aimed at younger and younger adolescents.

Nor is this as innocent as it may seem. Insidious is our vocabulary word of the day.

Cheap Thrills

Use the link to play an ant game. Using the cursor click a morsel of food into the ant's sandbox.

Just something to do on a hot summer day.

Region 19 Needs a Federal Lobbyist

No wonder we're not being served in Washington. We aren't greasing the wheels enough. As a liberal I'm for lowering the cost of government and returning the money to the taxpayers. But as you can see from this New York Times piece, municipalities are helping themselves to slovenly excessive helpings of tax dollars. All kinds of subsidies, public works pork-barrel projects, and political schenanighans are being paid for with our hard-earned money.

It looks to be an easy game to play, -cough- political payoffs -cough- I mean, passing the hat around the community to pay off a lobbying firm appears to work quite effectively. In schools we teach that elected government officials are expected to fulfill these duties as part of their official duties, but that's all wrong.

It's pointless to complain. Based on the interactive media chart, Simmons looks to be running a quite an operation in his hometown area. Gee, I thought he was looking out for our interests as well. We aren't on the list though. Do we drop off the money in an unmarked brown paper bag?

Maybe then we'll receive some of those tax dollars back.

Student Testing a National Scam? I'm Shocked!

A nicely written editorial in the New York Times reinforces an ugly truth about schools - they cheat on test results. They fudge, dodge, cheat, and do whatever they can to avoid responsibility. Sounds a lot like the Bush administration.

We get lectured every other day about this stuff so we're all deaf to it. For the historical record, here's a dose of truth. I'm bolding the elephant in the living room.

Editorial, New York Times, The School Testing Dodge, published: July 2, 2006.

Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), a research institute run jointly by Stanford and the University of California, showed that in many states students who performed brilliantly on state tests scored dismally on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is currently the strongest, most well-respected test in the country.

The study analyzed state-level testing practices from 1992 to 2005. It found that many states were dumbing down their tests or shifting the proficiency targets in math and reading, creating a fraudulent appearance of progress and making it impossible to tell how well students were actually performing.

Not all states have tried to evade the truth. The tests in Massachusetts, for example, yield performance results that are reasonably close to the federal standard. Not so for states like Oklahoma, where the score gap between state and federal tests has averaged 48 points in reading and 60 points in math, according to the PACE report. The states that want to mislead the government — and their own residents — use a variety of dodges, including setting passing scores low, using weak tests and switching tests from year to year to prevent unflattering comparisons over time. These strategies become transparent when the same students who perform so well on state tests do poorly on the more rigorous federal exam. Most alarming of all, the PACE study finds that the gap between student reading performance on the state and federal tests has actually grown wider over time — which suggests that claims of reading progress in many states are in fact phony.

John Kerry on Net Neutrality

From [in part];

Stopping the Big Giveaway - by John Kerry

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest blog for SavetheInternet.com by Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.):

I voted against this lousy bill for two reasons: because net neutrality and internet build-out are crucial to building a more modern and fair Information Society, and both were pushed aside by the Republicans.

Everyone says they don’t want the new world we’re living in to be marked by the digital divide — the term is so clichéd it’s turned to mush — but yesterday was a test of who is willing to ask corporate America to do anything to fix it, and the Commerce Committee failed miserably. Why are United States Senators afraid to say that companies should be expected to foster growth by building out their broadband networks to increase access?

Free and open access to the internet is something all Americans should enjoy, regardless of what financial means they’re born into or where they live. It is profoundly disappointing that the Senate is going let a handful of companies hold internet access hostage by legalizing the cherry-picking of cable service providers and new entrants. That is a dynamic that would leave some communities with inferior service, higher cable rates, and even the loss of service. Not to mention inadequate internet service — in the age of the information.

This bill was passed in committee over our objections. Now we need to fight to either fix it or kill it in the full Senate. Senator Wyden has already drawn a line in the sand — putting a “hold” on the bill, which prevents it from going forward for now. But there will be a day of reckoning on this legislation soon, make no mistake about it, and we need you to get engaged — pressure your Senators, follow the issue, demand net neutrality and build-out.

Enough said.

School 2.0; Confront the Boy's Education Crisis

We're being lied to again. It matters very little. In the reign of terror that the Bush administration has been, few people care. Politicians believe that Americans will believe anything because we so often do.

For instance, the other day Joe Lieberman accused Ned Lamont of being a Republican! Could Lewis Carroll have written anything more absurd? Yet, we are daily bombarded with news that 40 years ago would have been described as nothing less than a bad acid trip requiring psychiatric observation. Today, this is typical Fox/MSM news - nothing shocks, nothing is obscene, humiliation is the order of the day.

The other day I posted a study indicating that there was no 'boy crisis' and another indicating what wonderful [by government standards] graduation rates students have today. The pieces smelled funny.

A few months ago the LA Times [as posted here earlier] reported that graduation rates, drop-out rates, and post-secondary statistics were very dubious. First, bad statistics mean trouble for school administrators so excuses like, "the dog ate the data" are not unusual to disguise troubled school practices. Secondly, fudging this data to look better has become a national education priority to artificially prop up the NCLB elixar being shopped by the federal Department of Education.

Let's re-examine whether or not there's an anti-boy bias in education. Click on the title link to read more. Here's a discussion point or two;

The Problem with Boys by Tom Chiarella
Esquire Magazine, July 2006, Volume 146, Issue 1

There's something equally forbidden about arguing the ongoing boys crisis. It's a loser. It doesn't sell. It doesn't translate as much more than a hobbyhorse for conservative think tanks.

But here's the deal if you are a boy in this country right now: You're twice as likely as a girl to be diagnosed with an attention-deficit or learning disorder. You're more likely to score worse on standardized reading and writing tests. You're more likely to be held back in school. You're more likely to drop out of school. If you do graduate, you're less likely to go to college. If you do go to college, you will get lower grades and, once again, you will be less likely to graduate. You'll be twice as likely to abuse alcohol, and until you are twenty-four, you are five times as likely to kill your self. You are more than sixteen times as likely to go to prison.

"As long as ten years ago, we started seeing the data that showed boys were slipping behind," says Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, an advocacy group for low-income and minority students. "People were still arguing: We don't have a boys problem, we have a girls problem. It just didn't match what these data say. There's still a lot of resistance among rank-and-file educators."

The growing achievement gap between boys and girls has landed in our laps. Fueled by slim percentages in some cases, the numbers are stacking up over time. We're faced with the accrual of a significant population of boys who aren't well prepared for either school or work. "The problem," says Haycock,"is what this will add up to in twenty years."

...and...

In the classroom, there's ample evidence that certain changes could help boys prosper. They like to do their work in bite-sized chunks. They need differing levels of activity, often tied to some element of competition or short-term goal. They tend to gravitate toward nonfiction in their reading—more facts, shorter pieces. They need physical activity, too, up to four recesses a day, to stay focused.

We also have to think about the way boys put the world together outside the classroom. In England, gaps in achievement have been attributed, in part, to what is known as laddishness. Since boys tend to run in packs, their values are defined by the boys who lead them. There's a sort of antiestablishment disaffection passed from boy to boy, a sense that school doesn't matter. Educators there used that pattern as a means to reinvent it. They used intensely focused mentorship, aimed at the pack leaders, to break down these attitudes, cracking into the structures that keep boys distant from school.

Women forced the issue with girls. Men have to do the same with boys. As it is now, men don't even have the language to discuss what it means to be male. Forget the Right and the Left. I am as skeptical of character training, championed by conservatives as the answer to the crisis, as I am scornful of sensitivity training, which put our classrooms in their current posture. We don't need a new orthodoxy. We need a deeper sense of involvement.

Men have to be willing to care about the way boys are being treated, taught, and cared for in this country and advocate for them. Find the books that boys read—they are out there—and make sure they are in the libraries and under the Christmas trees. If the classrooms don't work, men must be in the schools—at the PTA meetings, at parent-teacher conferences, in front of school boards, in classes teaching or just talking about their jobs. Young men, men without children, must take a stake and volunteer to coach, to counsel, to read to kids. You can't wait for fatherhood to hit you in the face. Men whose children are grown must mentor a new generation of children. Select two boys, the ones who need it, the ones you know are hurting. Take a lesson from Joel Klein and convince two more men to do the same. Two more men: That's your assignment.

Go talk to boys. You don't have to use baby talk with them or buy them things. You just have to listen to them. Ask them who they are. The answers they give may not always make sense, but talk to enough of them and you will surely realize that boys themselves are not the problem. And it sure as hell isn't women or girls.

The problem is men.

Powerful stuff. Read the entire article, it is very worthwhile.

Action Alert: Help Preserve Internet Freedom

Wyden to Block Telecom Bill Without Net Neutrality
June 28th, 2006 by tkarr

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has placed a “hold” on major telecommunications legislation recently approved by the Senate Commerce Committee until clear language is included in the legislation that prevents discrimination in Internet access.

Immediately following the Commerce Committee’s vote against a Net Neutrality amendment, Senator Wyden marched onto the floor of the Senate to demand that the legislation include stronger safeguards against phone and cable company discrimination.

“The major telecommunications legislation reported today by the Senate Commerce Committee is badly flawed,” Wyden told the Senate, according to the transcript of his speech:

“The bill makes a number of major changes in the country’s telecommunications law but there is one provision that is nothing more than a license to discriminate. Without a clear policy preserving the neutrality of the Internet and without tough sanctions against those who would discriminate, the Internet will be forever changed for the worse.”

Click the links to see where you can contact a Senator to advocate for net neutral communications legislation. This is as important as the Bill of Rights. No kidding.

Good News; Only 10% of CT Children Living in Poverty.

Yeah, isn't that great news. The national average of children living in poverty is a whopping 18%.

The good news doesn't end there either. I received a CABE document saying that Connecticut [and you have to be sitting down for this news] passed a new law allowing state funds to be spent to fund NCLB. Can you stand it? That's right, not only are the feds underfunding this steaming pile of legislation but the State of Connecticut has just empowered the feds to further underfund Connecticut schools. Yep, Connecticut already underfunds local school districts but has found money in their magic taxpayer-funded giant wallet to support NCLB.

Now if the State would simply fund the local schools for trivialities like, um, education.

From the Courant;

State's Children Better Off This Year, Study Says, June 27, 2006, By MAYA RAO, Courant Staff Writer

The study reports that 10 percent of children in Connecticut are living in poverty, better than the 11 percent reported last year. The national average is 18 percent.

But 25 percent of Connecticut's children live at income levels that are twice the federal poverty level or less. Even at the higher income level, the families are considered low-income because of Connecticut's high cost of living, Carroll said.

Sue Wilson, a researcher at the Child Health and Development Institute of Farmington, said families in the state generally are not considered self-sufficient until their incomes rise to at least three times the federal poverty level.

"We are a high-income, high-cost state, so the national poverty level is really magnified ... and it falls heavily on families with young children," Wilson said.

I only mention news like this because Joe Lieberman and Rob Simmons contimue to blow smoke up our pant legs about what they've done for Connecticut. With representation like this in Washington, who needs enemies?

And the State legislators need to have their heads examined as well. The teacher's pension fund is being raided, NCLB is being funded but local schools are still begging voters for funding, and tax relief is nowhere in sight.

Hopefully the voters will wake these people up in the coming election.

Beatles Mutation

I don't know who the sacred cowboy is but these tracks are worth a summer vacation listen. File them under musical education. [Click on the link and beware the Blue Meanies]

The Reactionary 'Boy' Crisis?

Just when we thought the education dialogue between government and local school districts couldn't get any more absurd comes this new report that turns everything we worry about on its head. Reading crisis? Math crisis? No.

This generation is smarter and better prepared than their predecessors. I'm not kidding.

Study Casts Doubt On the 'Boy Crisis', Improving Test Scores Cut Into Girls' Lead by Jay Mathews, Washington Post Staff Writer, Monday, June 26, 2006.

According to the report, reading achievement by 9-year-old boys increased 15 points on a 500-point scale between 1971 and 2004, and girls that age increased seven points, remaining five points ahead of boys. Reading achievement for 13-year-olds improved four points for boys and three points for girls, with girls 10 points ahead. Among 17-year-olds, there was almost no change in reading achievement, with girls up one point, boys down one point and girls 14 points ahead.

In mathematics achievement between 1973 and 2004, 9-year-old boys gained 25 points and girls gained 20 points, with boys ending up three points ahead. Thirteen-year-old boys increased 18 points and girls 12 points, with boys three points ahead. Among 17-year-olds, boys lost one point, girls gained four and boys were three points ahead.

The report notes that boys are far more likely to be diagnosed with learning disabilities. Two-thirds of students in special education classes are male. But, it notes, "the number of girls with disabilities has also grown rapidly in recent decades, meaning this is not just a boy issue."

...and...

Some of today's focus on boys might be backlash to legal remedies such as the 1972 Title IX law set up to ensure equality in education for girls, critics say. For several decades, school systems have worked to steer girls into more skilled math and science classes. Now girls in high school appear to be better prepared for college than boys, the report said. But, it adds, both sexes are taking more college-level courses, such as calculus, than ever.

More men are enrolling in college, and the share of men ages 25 to 29 with a college degree, 22 percent, is significantly higher than that of older men. The study did note that women are enrolling and graduating from college at higher rates than men.

The "boy crisis," the report says, has been used by conservative authors who accuse "misguided feminists" of lavishing resources on female students at the expense of males and by liberal authors who say schools are "forcing all children into a teacher-led pedagogical box that is particularly ill-suited to boys' interests and learning styles."

"Yet there is not sufficient evidence -- or the right kind of evidence -- available to draw firm conclusions," the report says. "As a result, there is a sort of free market for theories about why boys are underperforming girls in school, with parents, educators, media, and the public choosing to give credence to the explanations that are the best marketed and that most appeal to their pre-existing preferences."

It occurs to me that legal mandates like Title IX, NCLB, and others are historical artifacts that do more to distort education, parents, and children than they do to remedy whatever perceived social ill they're intended to resolve. Education needs a break from the manufactured issues that currently pollute our understanding of how children learn.

Up by 40 Points, Time for the Full Court Press

My son plays summer league basketball and he and the rest of the EO Smith squad enjoy it for what it is - an opportunity to play together, get some exercise, and hopefully hone some skills as a team.

But last night only five players showed up meaning there were no substitutions available. Usually this is a good thing. The fellows who show up get the minutes they each want. And it's a great opportunity to show what you can do.

But last night Windsor's team showed up with ten players, enough to substitute every player so that the player was fresh every five minutes. Again, no big deal.

But by five minutes into the game Windsor pressed EO and by that time the lead was commanding and would do nothing but increase all game long. The final score was a fifty point differential.

By the end of the game I was curious as to the number of fouls each team had committed because Windsor had run the full court press against EO SMith the entire game even after a comfortable and insurmountable lead.

In my book this is unethical and unconscionable and quite frankly I think the coach should be removed. Here's why.

First, this is poor sportsmanship. No sportsman one plays any game to humiliate or to be humiliated. Period.

Secondly, this is a summer league activity. The gym is hot and the league has certain rules that are intended to prevent injuries. For example, you can't dunk. If you do it's a technical foul that awards the other team four points [if memory serves me correctly] and the ball.

Yet, no such rule is applied to overwhelming the other team by sheer numbers and force. This is not the first time I have watched opposing coaches press a full game against another team that is clearly overwhelmed for one reason or another. And I've seen this happen in very young leagues where small town teams play rabid bigger town teams. Often the kids are not natural athletes but that's beside my immediate argument.

My argument is not about the winning or losing because that is truly inconsequential in a pickup game. And a team that's short of players is not inferior to a team rich in bench strength so better and worse are not the issue either.

And EO Smith players are very well conditioned so that is not the issue - they played, took a humiliating loss, and walked away humbled but it didn't kill them so hopefully they got better.

I talked to one of the referees after the game questioning why with such an obvious mismatch they didn't call the game to control the action a bit more - one team's players playing every minute under continuous duress and the other freely substituting everybody every four minutes with the expressed intent of running the undermanned team ragged.

I was told that a.) "This is just summer league, B.) "Don't worry, we wouldn't foul out anyone from your team, C.) "What do you want me to do call the game differently?", and D.) "I can't let what happens on the sidelines effect my calling of the game."

I was put in a logical and ethical bind myself. Point D is true and self-evident. The ref can't weight bad coaching, undermanned teams and over-manned teams into consideration. They can't.

But my answer (after sleeping on it) to Point C is that I do expect referees to call a game differently in certain circumstances. These games are meaningless. Would Windsor have suffered winning by 40, 30, 20 instead of 50 because a referee slowed the game down a bit allowing a five man team a breather occasionally? I doubt it.

Besides, the referee already was using Point A to disarm my protest, "Who cares?" But with Point B, he already admitted that the game was being called "differently". By calling fewer fouls on both teams the five man team HAD to play the full game but the other team was also commiting fouls that were not being called. In reality this exascerbates the plight of the under-manned team. They have to play and they have to play without hope of getting a call to slow the tempo of the game.

And honestly, I listen to NBA games where the announcer says unapologetically, "the referees are taking control of this game early to keep it from getting out of hand". Are the NBA referees out of line? No.

Someday, I'll read that kid collapse on the court because a rogue summer league basketball coach "is just practicing the fast break" for a full game against an overwhelmed team. I'll remember that a player isn't allowed to dunk because he might get hurt but he can be run ragged by misguided coaches in a hot sweaty gym and nobody raises an eyebrow.

Anyone remember the The Middle Class?

The Washington Post ran an article the other day that talks about a study examining the disappearing middle class neighborhoods in American cities.

We all know New Orleans was and maybe still is America's poorest city but few know Connecticut's big cities are not far behind. Under Bush, we all make believe we need more data to identify "failing schools". Presumably this is a mystery despite over fifty years of knowing full well exactly where these schools are.

Yet our participatory Homerism prevents us from any objectivity here. We are living in the dark ages of belligerent belief systems that can call into question every obvious scientific and sociological truth we hold dear. So America pretends that No Child Left Behind metrics will somehow reveal more desirable truths than the fact that poverty and poverty neighborhoods cheat those children.

The manufactured truth America, white, black and otherwise want to prove is that their child is being shortchanged as though learning to read was a biological truth like growing a head. NCLB trivializes learning, children, and diminishes the professionalism of teachers.

So, out of the blue this article reports that:

"No city in America has gotten more integrated by income in the last 30 years," said Alan Berube, an urban demographer at Brookings who worked on the report.

"It means that if you are not living in one of the well-off areas, you are not going to have access to the same amenities - good schools and safe environment - that you could find 30 years ago," he said.

Let's repeat the important assertion that the Brookings Institute makes. That is if you are not living in one of the well-off areas, you are not going to have access to the same amenities - good schools and safe environment.

If Brookings doesn't need NCLB to establish this fact why is the Department of Education confused? After all, this is OBVIOUS. I mean it. You don't need NCLB or Brookings or some Libertarian think tank to figure this stuff out. This is remedial 7th grade social studies.

That is, except to the current regime.

The Globalization Steamroller has No Brakes

Today the Courant reports that Connecticut teachers who could have had their jobs put in jeopardy by new bureaucratic educational quality metrics are safe.

U.S., State Reach Accord, Feds Approve Local Procedures For Evaluating Educators, June 21, 2006, By ROBERT A. FRAHM, Courant Staff Writer

Earlier this spring, Sternberg said she feared the federal law might require teachers to undergo testing or further training to demonstrate their competence. Now, however, U.S. officials have agreed that they can establish their qualifications in job reviews conducted by local school districts.

Betty Sternburg did a nice job with this as she continues to impress me with the job she's done. She's recently resigned and I will miss her because it may go downhill from here at the State Department of Education.

Of course this crisis in teacher qualifications is wholly manufactured by a Federal Department of Education that's being run like Abu Ghraib prison. The idea is to punish older teachers by creating a bureaucratic double-standard that essentially puts their jobs at risk [you know, to save money].

In Connecticut this is a nasty business. Teachers are required to teach after death to receive their pensions, so harassing twenty and thirty year veteran teachers is about as low as the Federal government can stoop. Actually, they've stooped much lower but I get sick thinking about that part.

A subplot to this story is Margaret Spellings's Magical Mysterty Tours to our global competitors. When she is not acting as Laura Bush's hand maiden, Margaret is learning about -cough- improving education. More and more states are importing inexpensive teacher stand-ins and implementing virtual classes delivered from overseas.

Teachers should be afraid. Be very afraid. Ask anyone who works with computers. When a Washington politician says they want to learn something in India, China, or a third-world competitor they come home with cash sticking out of their shorts and a new plan for outsourcing in their legislation.