We Take a Small Step to "Justice for All"

Just when I start to lose all hope in our political system, just when I despair that we will ever truly realize our pledge to "justice for all", a ray of hope breaks through, and we take one more step towards real justice.

As I write this,US Senate is getting ready to vote a repeal of the military policy that has required good, patriotic Americans to keep their identities secret. Of course, I am talking about the policy known as "Don't Ask-Don't Tell" (DADT). Under this policy, and even before it, gay and lesbian service men and women lived in fear of being "outed" and discharged, dishonorably, from the service denying them the opportunity to serve, fight, and even die for their country.

Now, they will no longer be denied the rights enjoyed by all other Americans: the right of opportunity to pursue a military career.

We either mean what we say when we say we want "justice for all" or it is all a lie. Either we say that a gay American is as much a citizen as any American, with all the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of any citizen, or we must say that gay Americans are second-class citizens.

There is no other way to see this issue, and finally the Congress, led by the Democrats and President Obama, are answering that we do believe that all Americans are equal before the law and in the eyes of the Constitution.

Thus, this year ends for this American with a ray of hope.

Update: The Senate voted 65-31 to repeal "Don't Ask-Don't Tell"!

Conservatives are Killing Themselves

The conservative response to poverty is to blame poor people for being poor while denying them the means to escape their poverty. Conservatives blame the poor for not getting a job, but fail to realize how their attitude towards spending for the public good insures that the poor will always be with us and that we all will be the poorer for it.

In Oklahoma, one of the most conservative states in the nation, this can clearly be seen in our refusal to improve our public transportation system. In a word, it is horrible. In Oklahoma City buses run highly limited routes with very restrictive hours. How then is a poor person to have reliable, flexible transportation in order to commute to and from work? The poor typically must purchase older model, used cars from “We Carry the Note” dealers at usurious interest rates. These cars come equipped with built-in maintenance problems making them prone to breakdowns that require expensive repairs. Without good transportation, finding and keeping a job is even more of a struggle for those already at society’s margins.

Transportation is only one of a myriad number of problems the poor face in finding and keeping work. Added to the problem of basic transportation are expensive and inadequate early child care, an early childhood education system under-funded and under attack from conservatives, a paucity of after school programs, and a health insurance “system” that forces the working poor to face illness without medical attention resulting in sick or absent workers.

However, when it is proposed that we as a society do something to address these needs such as build the sort of modern public transportation system found in most of the industrialized world, conservatives go into a hissy fit about “class warfare”, “wealth redistribution”, “tax and spend” ignoring the fact that by helping the poor work, we help America work. Often they divert attention from real solutions to the problem of poverty by blaming immigrants, unions, public education, minorities, socialism or whatever is this season’s scapegoat for our social ills. They do so to save their self-centered attitude towards life.

Jesus warned his followers those who try to save their lives will lose them. Conservatives in particular, need to heed his warning. Saving ourselves, looking out only for ourselves and expecting poor Americans to do to the same is the surest way for us to die as a nation

Let the Tax Cuts Die

Back when Bush cut taxes for everyone, a change in the tax code that mainly benefited this nation's wealthy elite, I saw a reduction of $300 or so in my tax bill.

Big whoop!

That's why I am not in the hand wringing mode over the prospect that the Bush era tax cuts are set to expire for everyone in a few weeks if the Republicans and Democrats don't start singing Kum By Ah together over the so-called "compromise" reached between Pres. Obama and congressional Republicans.

I say, let the whole thing die! The cuts have been around too long. All they have done is give us record deficits, benefited those who did not need help, and punished those who did.

Let us remember that the Bush changes basically did away with the reforms Bill Clinton made in the US Tax Code, reforms that were passed without a single Republican vote. All that did was give the US record prosperity,its first budget surplus since 1969, and a real reduction in the number of American's living in poverty.

Bush didn't seem to like that arrangement and shoved the whole thing in reverse. In doing so, he not only spent the surplus, but blew a hole in the budget to the tune of $2.3 trillon.

According to The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Allowing tax cuts to expire for married filers with incomes above $250,000 and single filers with incomes above $200,000— the top 2 percent of U.S. households— will avert $826 billion in added deficits and debt over the next ten years. The savings from allowing the top two marginal tax rates to expire for those high-income households constitute $443 billion of that $826 billion.

If we truly want to reduce the deficit as everyone says, we cannot afford these cuts any long. The federal government can have my measly share of the savings to help save future generations the burden of paying off my debt.

So, let the Bush tax cut debacle die. It should have been strangled in its crib.

When the Majority Cannot Rule

Leonard Pitts
Leonard Pitts has written an exceptional essay explaining the wrong done by Oklahoma's amendment to the state constitution banning the use of Sharia law in court decisions. The implementation of the amendment was blocked by federal judge Vicki Miles LaGrange. Entitled "America Losing It's Mind", Pitts points out

The goal of terrorism, you see, is not to make a nation bleed but to make it fear.

Oklahoma’s nonsensical law suggests our enemies have been successful in that.

Our fear has caused us to act unjustly.

There have been many letters in the local newspaper condemning Judge LaGrange's injunction, which was based on the fact that the amendment clearly is hostile to Muslim citizens in the state. In their defense of the amendment, many writers mention the fact that the amendment was approved by over 70% of those who voted.

Their argument seems to be that if the majority approves of something, that makes it somehow automatically right, that justice is created by majority rule.

This is a lie, the falsity of which has been demonstrated over and over in America. I wish those who feel that the majority makes right could revisit the example provided by the "Little Rock 9", the 9 African-American students who integrated Little Rock Central High School in 1957. I am quite certain that at least 70% or more of the people of Arkansas in those days opposed the idea of public school integration. However, the majority were wrong.
Little Rock Ning being escorted to Little Rock's Central High School in 1957

The people then felt they had good reason for their opposition, but mainly, they were afraid, just as we in Oklahoma seem to be afraid, and fear causes large groups of people to commit large acts of injustice.

I Hope the Republicans Succeed

The Republican Party has taken over nearly all branches of state government in Oklahoma largely because they were able to nationalize the issues in the state races and make this round of local elections a referendum on Pres. Obama and the national Democratic Party.

When Sen. Obama was elected to the White House in 2008, Rush Limbaugh and others on the fringe right loudly voiced their desire to see the president "fail" because they feared that his policies, which they saw as contrary to their ideology, would succeed and be made permanent. They were cynically willing to see ordinary Americans suffer in order to serve a political end.

I am liberal and proud to be so. However, I am not so much of an ideologue that I would wish my fellow Oklahomans anything but the best out of their government, which they voted for in very large numbers. I want their suffering due to the present recession to end, and I am not particularly concerned about who gets the credit. If Republican policies produce a better life for all Oklahomans, then bring them on and make them the law of our land.

What I am concerned about is that this government, and this goes for any government, deal with all its citizen justly. That they do all they can to respect and enhance human dignity, deal rightly with those who are most vulnerable in our society like the very old and very young, and work to make our presence on this planet more sustainable.

I am skeptical of the Oklahoma's Republican Party's ability to do this since it seems to me that they long ago sold their soul to rich and powerful who have little interest in the those who have been marginalized in our culture other than to provide them with a docile labor and consumer population. Their concern is for the short-term bottom line rather than the type of environment that will be inherited 7 generations hence.

But I hope that I am wrong. I wish to see my home state prosper. I wish to know that our choices have created better lives for our children and their children's children. Of course, I am going to be taking an active role in creating this success, and if this means that the Republicans claim justification for their victory, then so be it.

Centennial Must Become A Community Force

We had a staff meeting Tuesday about the problems at our school. One teacher complained that we have a small percentage of students who cause most of the problems, and that if we could somehow rid ourselves of these few, we could do a better job of teaching those who remain.

We were told that the problem would be "addressed." I don't hold out much hope for this. I suspect that little will be done about these students because we have voiced this complaint ad infinitum, and it is always being "addressed." I don't even bother to raise the issue anymore.

I think that we teachers at Centennial need to face the fact that any real solution to the problems of our school must come from us and not from some administrative action.

I think that one solution must involve us reaching out to our community so that the school becomes an important focal point in our part of Oklahoma City. We should be visiting churches, businesses, neighborhoods, and homes to talk about our school and our needs. And we need to be listening to those with whom we visit to find out what their concerns and needs are.

We must gain the trust and support of our community if we ever hope get them involved in the lives of their children.

Teaching in a New Paradigm

Teachers are going to have to come to the realization that we are teaching in a new paradigm. The calls for teachers to be accountable for their students' academic progress, regardless of where the students are in their intellectual abilities, regardless of how much home support the students have, regardless of the socio-economic environment in which the students live, are becoming more and more insistent.

We no longer control the narrative about schools. Our insistence that accountability must be a shared responsibility is being drowned out by those who insist that we show immediate and measurable results for our instruction. Any attempt to call attention to the myriad of other factors involved in the educational process of our students are dismissed as an attempt on our part to avoid responsibility for our actions.

The fact that students, particularly those in urban schools, fail to perform well academically is taken as being self-evident. And where there is failure, there must be blame. And since teachers are the ones who are most responsibile for education, they are responsible for the failure. Or so the current narrative goes.

I do find it curious that when educational and political pundits tell their stories about "failing schools" their examples are nearly always urban schools. Few tell tales about the "failure" of suburban or even rural schools. Inner-city students are the one's "Waiting for Superman" to come save their from being "crippled" by bad schools, burned out teachers, and those horrible teacher unions.

In other words, those students who lives are most crippled by poverty, crime, racism, and other forms of injustice, are the "victims" of public education.

The truth of the matter is that our students are victims of a systemic failure, a failure of our political and economic system to provide for them the means by which they can realize their full human potential. They not only are short-changed in their schools, they also are victimized by inadequate health care, unequal justice in the courts, poor housing, crumbling infrastructure, lack of job opportunities, and all the social ills that attend poverty like drugs, crime and violence.

Our students are burdened by our failure to realize the American promise of "justice for all." Any true solution to the problem of education must occur as a part of our broader attempt to realize true justice, not merely justice of opportunity, but geniune social justice, including justice of enablement and empowerment. If students have little prospect of a meaningful and dignified life after school, then how can we expect them to take advantage of the educational opportunites school provides?

The New Paradigm the United States of America needs to be promoting, the narrative all Americans need to be telling is story a fully nation where "justice for all" is more than a rote mantra said during The Pledge of Allegiance. Our story must be one of justice.

Teachers' Due Process in the Crosshairs

Once again, the Oklahoman is taking on due process rights with another article in the paper about how hard it is to fire bad teachers. Teachers must recognize that the due process system we now enjoy will be greatly altered by this legislature.

We had better be prepared to engage the Republicans who now control nearly all aspects of education at the state level in a discussion on reasonable changes to the present system because if we are not at the table, we will surely be on the menu.

It appears from the article that the only teachers' organization that is trying to get to the table is the AFT. AFT 2309 president Ed Allen is quoted in the article.

Editorial in The Oklahoman About Centennial HS

OCHS
Today's editorial in The Oklahoman is about Centennial HS where I teach. The article upon which it is based is fair and balanced. Megan Rolland did a good job of presenting the complexity of what we face at OCHS.

Unfortunately, the editorial is not fair at all. The writer simply hounds the school for "failing" its students, and suggests that the district should jump in and make major changes right away. Of course, the writer has the luxury of not coming up with any substantive ideas.

Our students need help at Centennial, but we won't fix a broken system by smashing it. We have students who cannot function in a normal school environment. They make learning impossible for their fellow students. They need a different environment where they will thrive. Failing students need to be in required tutoring classes with trained teachers who can meet their individual needs. These needs cannot be met in a class of 25-30 with a teacher who has a workload of around 140 students.

These things take money, and money is the last thing Oklahoma seems to have for its students.

I have bronchitis

Went to the doctor today. The diagnosis is that I have upper reportorial bronchitis. So, I'm on a regime of antibiotics and expectorant. Just in time for the holidays!

Another Day, Same Old Cold

This cold keeps hanging on. Yesterday, we did a lot of stuff in preparation for becoming foster parents. Mainly, we shopped for a new bed. We ended up getting a combo bunk-bed, futon arrangement that I think will do nicely.

I have made an appointment to see the doctor this afternoon.

Oklahoma Centennial High School

OCHS
The Oklahoman ran a article about the school where I teach this Sunday. It's a fair piece. I get quoted quite a bit. I hope that the school gets some attention of the right sort through it.

What we need is a place for those students who are unable to perform in a regular high school environment so those who want to be there can learn.

"Oklahoma Centennial High School: Succeeding in a Place of Failure"

A Taste of Failure

I got the result of my National Board for Teacher Certification entry, I did not pass. My school was 233 and passing was 275. I have two more years to try to get things in order, and I plan to go for it. I am a bit down not, but not out.

(Of course, the fact that I am fighting a cold right now doesn't help matters.)

It's a Great Life, If You Don't Weaken

The Original Flag of the State of Oklahoma
Oscar Ameringer, Oklahoma social activist

(I gave these remarks as a part of the worship service at Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City. Every Sunday, one of the lay people give a brief message as a part of the "Prayers of the People" segment of the service. These were given the Sunday following the election in which Republican took over nearly all functions of the state government in Oklahoma.)

Prayers of the People 11-6-10

Some people, knowing who I am and what I am usually up to, have asked me about the election this week and why I think what happened did happen. My reaction is that our fears of each other won out over our love of justice for all. In other words, we are mighty afraid that someone is getting more than our fair share of the pie, and so we think that there should be no pie at all.

The next question I’m often asked is, “What in the world are we going to do now?” I’m tempted to say, “Well, Oregon is looking very good right now.” But to run now I think is rather weak. And as Oscar once said, “It’s a great life. . . if you don’t weaken.”

Oscar? Oscar who? (You ask rhetorically.) Well, Oscar Ameringer of course, Oklahoma Socialist. And yes, Oscar Ameringer, who nearly became mayor of Oklahoma City, was a real Socialist, unlike the Pseudo-Socialists you meet so often these days.

According to a biography written by my good friend and fellow union member, John Thompson, Oscar Ameringer came to Oklahoma from his native Germany right at the time of its statehood and helped to form one of the largest Socialist movements in American history. Ameringer fought for rights of the disadvantaged. He helped found the Oklahoma Renters Union to promote the rights of sharecroppers, and twenty-five years later his writings inspired the creation of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. In 1910 he led the fight against voting tests that disenfranchised African American voters. The opposition he and most Socialists had to World War I was used as a pretext for the American government to largely destroy the Socialist Party in Oklahoma and the rest of our nation, Ameringer died in 1943 in Oklahoma City.
Ameringer once noted that, “Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.”, a statement that runs as true today as it did then.

Oscar lived in tough times, in many ways tougher than what we face now. And I think his advice to us would run something along these lines:

It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.
Keep on fighting. Keep on speakin’
Let your truth shine like a beacon.
Cause it’s a great life if you

12th grade reading scores show little improvement nationwide

I teach two honors English classes at Oklahoma Centennial. I have students enrolled in those classes who are very reading resistant. They tell me that they don't like to read, will not read, and don't care if not reading lowers their grades.

Mainly, this is a defense mechanism they use because they feel that they don't read very well. I have never felt comfortable doing handyman work around the house, and so I avoid trying to do it if possible. It's the same with those who lack reading skills.

I have found that by making myself do home repairs and improvements, I have gotten better. I need to convince my students that they can accomplish the same with reading.
"High school seniors still have low reading scores" from MSNBC.com

I'm About to Become a Father

At age 58, for the first time in my life, I'm about to become a father, to a teenager. well, foster-parent to be exact. My wife and I are taking the steps to become foster-parents to a 13 year boy who attends Oklahoma Centennial whom I met through his participation in our school chess club.

The boy's home life is completely disfunctional, and when I discovered this, I talked over with my wonderful wife the idea of helping the young man out. I believe that he is the type of person who would do well if he had a stable home life. When I told Cat about the situation, she gave it careful consideration and agreed to take on this new responsibility.

We are traveling uncertain waters here and will need much patience and much love. I never had children, so this will be a very different experience for me.

I would appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

Republicans move to strip teachers of due process

From my friend, Skip Ogle, "[Oklahoma] SB 1 was filed by Senator [John] Ford today. It repeals trial du novo for teachers. Due process then would become a board hearing and that would be it. Career teachers would be treated the same as brand new teachers." We are seeing the first effects of the Republican takeover of Oklahoma state government. Ford represents the Bartleville area. I very much doubt this will be the only attempt to diminish over even end Oklahoma teachers' due process rights.

I've caught my annual cold

Today, the Petri dish we teachers work in caught up with me in the form of a cold. This happens pretty much every year. I'm luck if I only go through it once. It has happened as many as 3 times in a school year.

I don't like missing a class day for any reason. My classes lose momentum when I am out. In chess it would called losing tempo. Not much work, particularly meaningful work, gets done. All too often in our building, a colleague has to cover my classes for me since substitutes for the most part don't like to work at our school since the students become even more unmanageable that otherwise.

Today a student threatened me because I had the audacity to tell him to quit hanging out in the halls and get to class. He threatened to physically attack me, used profanity and walked up to me and yelled in my face.

Little will probably be done. Chances are he is a special ed student and on an IEP. If the public thinks getting rid of bad teachers is difficult, they ought to find out what it is like to rid the school of the students who make workings in urban schools a constant stress for teachers and a place where good students are cheated out of their right to a safe and orderly place in which to learn.

Teacher Stress

This year as been one of the most trying I have experienced in my 17 years of public school teaching. It seems like everyone is getting stressed to the max. Much of this comes from the fact that we are facing a sort of educational time clock on our efforts that comes from the fact that we face the real possibility of having our school closed due to low test scores.

We teach in one of the poorest attendance areas in Oklahoma City. Many of us face daunting tasks of dealing with kids with zero family support, kids who live in high crime areas, kids who face long odds of living successful lives. Each day is a fight to maintain order in our classrooms. Many students show little desire to master the material we try to teach. Yet we will be judged as being ineffective teachers if our students do not perform well on the state tests.

In other words, we could lose of jobs not for what we have done, but for something someone else has done who has little incentive to help us keep our jobs.

No wonder we are stressed.

Why OKC Schools Lack Academic Progress

I wrote this letter to Oklahoma City councilman Skip Kelly after I read an article in the Oklahoman about the frustration the city council expressed over a lack of academic progress in the Oklahoma City public schools.

Dear Councilman Kelly:

I read the article in the paper concerning the frustration the city has with the lack of progress you have seen in the Oklahoma City Public School district. The reasons for this are many and complex, but if you ask most teachers, we will tell you that a big contributing factor is that we have to spend enormous amounts of time and energy managing our students as opposed to educating them. Every day, teachers, and I speak mainly about those teaching middle schools and high schools, have to try to keep their students in line, keep them from disrupting the class, keep them from talking to their friends, keep them from getting into fights, keep them on task, or simply keep them awake, so that we can do our primary job: educate them for their futures.

We have very limited resources to deal with these problems. We can contact parents, who are often absent from their children’s lives, and enlist their help. When this does not bring a change in our students’ behavior, we can assign detention, which few are inclined to serve. Our last resort is to refer the student, commonly known as “writing a referral”, to an administrator who typically can only suspend the student, taking the student out of classes, for a period of time. When I assign detention, frequently I have to fall back on writing a referral because the student does not show up for detention.

The result of all this is that administrators find themselves overwhelmed with student referrals, which they cannot process in a timely manner. Thus teachers must put up with disruptive students in their classes who rob their fellow students of their right to an education in a safe and orderly environment. Thus the education of all students suffer. Thus parents feel they cannot send their students to our schools and opt to leave the district, especially after their children’s elementary school years are finished and the students are ready for middle school and high school.

I can say with a fair amount of confidence that nothing will change in the OKC school district until some type of alternative arrangement can be made for students unable to perform in a traditional academic setting. I feel confident in saying this because this is my 16th year in the Oklahoma City district, and I have yet to see much improvement in student behavior. Year after year, I and my colleagues wear ourselves sick in trying to maintain order in our class so that a modicum of learning can take place.

The city and the district may build all the outstanding buildings they wish, but if the teachers in those buildings have to focus primarily on managing their classes as opposed to educating their students, it will be all for naught.

I appreciate your frustration with our schools. It is more than matched by the frustration of their teachers.News Article: Oklahoma City Council Frustrated With Academics in City Schools