MESSING WITH OUR HIGHER EDUCATION

 

By Ruth  A. Sheets

You have probably heard that the Trump Regime is asking nine U.S. universities to sign an agreement pledging to uphold the regime’s higher education priorities, or risk losing out on a range of grants and other financial assistance for the university’s research and other programs, and it is likely those are just the first.  That is a kind of blackmail and totally unacceptable. 

So far, 5 universities have said “”NO,” but 4 still have not responded.  I just learned Vanderbilt, my alma mater,  is one of those universities being “offered” this compact and has not responded.

The major stipulations are not items any government should be demanding of any educational institution at any level.

According to Wikipedia, Key Demands of the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education include:

• Capping international undergraduate students at 15% of the total student body.

• Freezing tuition rates for five years. (the only one that could be good)

• Adopting policies that prevent the belittling of conservative ideas and ensure First Amendment rights are upheld on campus.

• Implementing admissions practices that do not consider sex, ethnicity, race, nationality, political views, or other similar factors.

View source at wikipedia.org …

I had heard, but not been able to confirm that Vanderbilt was talking about ditching their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in student acceptance.  I received an email from Chancellor Daniel Diermeier this evening.  Here is the final paragraph of that email.

Vanderbilt believes deeply in the power of constructive dialogue, particularly among people of differing views and perspectives. This is often how the greatest progress is made.  We look forward to continuing the conversation—on our campus and with leaders in government and higher education—as we work toward our shared goal of restoring public trust in higher education and ensuring that America’s universities remain the best in the world.  

It sounds to me as though compliance is in the offing.  The following is my response to the email.  
 

Hello Vanderbilt Administration” 

I noticed in this email that students were only mentioned at the very end along with parents and alumni as commenters.  It seems to me that there should be some students involved in the compact discussion.  I am sure you are aware that this is not a compact at all, but a desire of those who have no idea what they are doing, to force colleges and Universities to do the bidding of those who have no clue but want power over and compliance in advance from those institutions. 

I am sure you know this, so I don’t understand this talk about sharing different points of view.  When, in a democracy, one side wants to take over the universities, media, education in general and pretty much everything else, that is not differing points of view, that is “Truth” in the face of autocracy which is made up of lies, cheating, fraud, and dismissal of the thoughts, needs, and beliefs of others.  In this case, for this regime pumping out something as appalling as this “compact” the only folks worth listening to are rich, white, pseudochristian, “straight” men.  To the regime, the rest of us are irrelevant, worthy of only being bossed around by and made subservient to those rich white etc. men.  If you are not sure of that, this Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies and marches should have let you know. 

 I admit I will be very disappointed, perhaps even quite angry if Vanderbilt submits to this undemocratic, unamerican nonsense by Trump and his project 2025ers, all done for their own gains and the gains of their billionaire sponsors, and election buyers. 

Signed, Ruth Sheets, Vanderbilt 1975 & 1988         

 I don’t know if this will have an impact, I’m guessing not because it seems only the Administration and a few department heads will be making the decision.  I hope enough students, parents, and alums have told them we do not want compliance; We want defiance!

GOVERNOR DeSANTIS, SCARED OF BLACK HISTORY?

By Ruth A. Sheets

Ron DeSantis, what’s with this waging a campaign in Florida to get rid of Black history classes in schools?  I understand you have no problem with Italian culture classes (perhaps to raise up your heritage and your right to whiteness), French and Japanese culture classes too (Japanese I suppose to prove you’re not racist), but not Black history which is the heritage of a large number of people living and working in your own state.  Well, Ron, I know just why you have a fear of white kids and adults learning about Black history and I will lay some of it out for you.  However it can be stated in one sentence that will need only a little clarification.  The cruelties done by white people in this country against Black Americans are horrific beyond comprehension and the ancestors of many of the white folks in good ole Florida participated as did the ancestors of white folks all over this nation.

“What are some of those horrific cruelties,” you ask. Well, this is a challenge because the cruelties were and are so many and RATHER widespread.  Do I mention the most heinous or the most common, physical or emotional or some of each?     

Governor DeSantis, I know you don’t want to know these things because you are scared of what such knowledge might do to you even though your family was only present for some of the cruelty even if they were not directly involved, something only you and they would know.  It’s too bad you can’t imagine what such awareness could do for you, a white Christian man.  Maybe it would help if you try for a fraction of a moment to imagine the following were happening to you or people you love.  OMG!  I just realized, conservative white people in power have a hard time with empathy, even in its most basic form.  Well then, pretend it is a movie and you are one of the Black actors and see what you think.  I probably need to begin with perhaps the most difficult first.   

Africans in the 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th centuries did not choose to come to America.  They did not even pay for steerage tickets as your immigrant ancestors and most Italian immigrants did.  They were captured and sold as commodities.  That word was SOLD.  Their treatment on shipboard was so horrendous, even your movie wouldn’t be able to show it believably.  Then they were auctioned off the way one might auction off a painting or piece of furniture, men, women, and children, the survivors of the voyage and later the children of those survivors.

Life for those enslaved people was not sweet and pastoral as you probably were told in school; it was beyond inhumane yet the owners claimed to be Christians, followers of a man who was not violent, hateful, or a user of fellow human beings.  How did they justify it, they claimed they were training savages, rescuing them from a terrible life in the jungles of Africa.  They lied to themselves, and kept it up for 250 years until a war finally ended it.

The war, however, didn’t end the suffering of those Africans who over time had become Americans by virtue of their being here and the 13^th and 14^th Amendments to our Constitution.  Southern white folks just couldn’t bear those “less-than-human” former enslaved persons being free, so worked their hardest to push as many as possible back into some form of slavery by trumped-up charges to prison:  farms, mines, road-building and more, where slave labor was and is still permitted.

Then, there’s the lynching that targeted any Black person who dared to challenge a white person, talk to a white woman, or expected the rights of citizenship which were guaranteed to them in the 14^th Amendment.  More than 3,500 murders have been documented mostly throughout the South, but even in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois, states whose troops had fought to free the enslaved people.  Oh, by the way, neither Federal nor state governments intervened to stop the violence and white officials often participated.

Then there’s the massacres of Black people while their communities were destroyed by white people who were angry that Black people might have anything white people didn’t approve of them having:  Wilmington, NC, East St. Louis and Chicago, IL, Greenwood in Tulsa, OK, Rosewood in Florida your own state.  The ancestors of at least some of your current supporters participated in the violence.

Over the years, Black Americans have worked to claim their rights, but white people constantly stood and stand in the way.  African-Americans were/are forced to pay outrageous rents by landlords for shacks and slum housing; share-cropped where the white landowners regularly cheated them of their share of the earnings; were redlined into narrow, poor districts and were kept there by curfews and violence, often killed or injured if they happened to be caught in the white area of town.  They couldn’t try on clothing in stores but were welcome to buy the clothes.  They couldn’t eat at lunch counters and in most restaurants and had to pick up food in the back and take it out (maybe the model for the modern take-out restaurants).  You probably also know the inhumane bathroom, water fountain, and bus ridership rules all over the former Confederacy. 

If a factory was to be built, and it was guaranteed to pollute the air or water, it was built in the Black section of town, and still is and the workers were paid wages that barely supported them and their families.  Segregation was everywhere and even permitted by law by the Supreme Court in 1896.

Ever since 1870 when Black men got the right to vote through Amendment to the Constitution, white people have been working to keep them from voting:  poll taxes, fake literacy tests, gerrymandering, voting places too far for people to get to, ID requirements with unnecessary but costly IDs, voter roll purges, and a lot more.   

During the time of enslavement, police targeted Black people even in states where slavery had been illegal for decades claiming they could be runaway slaves.  The police in many places expanded that targeting and have harassed, brutalized, and murdered Black men at far higher rates than any other group and continue to do so while the police tell us how “I was scared for my life.”  Police are rarely held accountable even when their actions have been recorded.  Juries nearly always give the police who do the killing a free pass, well, unless the officers are themselves Black as in Memphis. 

Doctors, hospitals, and other medical entities treat Black people with far less respect than they do other patients:  they don’t prescribe appropriate medications in appropriate amounts; listen poorly to patients’ descriptions of their illness; do not respond as quickly when a Black patient calls for help while in the hospital; follow inaccurate protocols assuming Black people have thicker skin and feel pain less.  Black infant and maternal death rates are higher than for any other group and seem to be rising, particularly in red states, you know the ones like yours that want to force Black women to stay pregnant putting them at significant risk of death.    

This little bit of history I have presented here is a taste of what the African-American history class you want to ban would help students consider.  The fragile little white kids of Florida wouldn’t be forced to take it, so your hype about this is disingenuous, in fact, fodder to feed the part of your base you keep stoking to be hateful and fearful of people of color, in this case, Black Americans.  That is so un-Christian in case you don’t know it.  Lying about a course you have not studied or even read the syllabus for should be beneath a  leader, but lately, Republicans have scooped up some of the most hateful, fearful, human beings and put them on the stage to whip up more hate and fear to turn it into anger against the people you have decided you don’t like or have power you think is undeserved. 

The other side of the African-American history of this country includes the men who built the Capitol in Washington, DC and most likely in the other states too, laid a lot of the rail lines and roads, carved woodwork and built furniture, wrote and published poetry, taught in schools and colleges, painted and sculpted, sang, composed,  and performed incredible music, made fashionable gowns as well as everyday clothing from sheering the sheep to processing the cotton by hand, made delicious food from whatever ingredients they could grow or find.  In short, they were masters of nearly every craft and skill in our country throughout history.

Black Americans fought in our war for Independence in an integrated army and navy.  They also fought in all the rest of our many wars, usually in segregated units that did the construction, clean-up, burials, and cooking for the troops.  Or, they were sent into the thickest of the fighting.  Black troops won the highest honor bestowed by France for their bravery and persistence in saving the French people during WWI.  In our volunteer military forces, Black soldiers, sailors, Marines, and Coast Guards make up a higher proportion of the troops than their percentage in our society as a whole.  

Governor DeSantis, Black Americans do not deserve your scorn.  They don’t deserve your dismissal either.  African-Americans deserve respect and courses that deeply look at their history and contributions.  The action you and your Education official have taken is racist and very childish.  The adult thing to do now would be for you both to apologize to Black Floridians and approve the course, although I don’t see why you should have any say in which AP courses a district offers.  Is that just another of your invasions into areas you should not have entered, right along with your insults of the LGBTQ+ communities.  I am guessing you don’t care.  I can’t help but think you lost your humanity somewhere.  It would truly be a good idea for you to go looking for it.  The apology for your bad behavior related to the African-American History course and getting out of a decision about an AP class would be a good start.

Here are a few books that could help you learn about the immense strength and persistence of the African-American community.  I am sure if you had any Black assistants, they could recommend more.  Even if you were to read them, I doubt they would change your perception of Black Americans, but it might awaken a tiny spark in your conscience.

Under the Skin, the Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and the Health of Our Nation  by Linda Villarosa

At the Hands of Persons Unknown by Phillip Dray 

The East St. Louis Massacre, The Greatest Outrage of the Century, 1917  by Ida B. Wells-Barnett

WHEN LIES ARE WHAT’S TAUGHT

by Ruth Sheets

Teachers are amazing.  Every day during the school year and often for summer school too, they get up, travel some distance (it varies), arrive at school, try to catch up on communications that came to them overnight, and set up their classrooms for the day.  That’s all before the students arrive.  Once that happens, the race is on to give students their very best, sharing information, facilitating discussion, evaluating understanding and progress for their many students, maintaining some level of order, and making the students’ learning experience valuable.  Then, for secondary and some elementary teachers, the process begins again when the next class comes in, then the next and the next to the end of the day. 

Most teachers are competent and knowledgeable about their subject(s), and invested in their own learning.  In most districts, to earn tenure, teachers must have a Master’s degree in education or their subject area before 5 years have passed.  Teachers are watched, evaluated, thrown into challenging situations for which they are not fully prepared, supplied with inadequate resources, working in rooms that are too hot, too cold, too small for the number of students.  They work with students who have inadequate access to technology, but are evaluated as to student success despite the obstacles.  These mostly well-trained, creative, caring, kid-loving professionals are now the target of scared uninformed, mostly white parents and politicians.  These folks in more than a few of our states are now expecting teachers to regularly lie by commission and omission.

Over the past year, Republicans have taken aim at our public education system, well, more than usual.  Teachers have weathered such attacks in the past by doing their jobs even better.  Many teachers left the profession, though, because they decided that they no longer wanted to accept the stress and abuse.  We are now seeing that the people in the field are those seriously committed to our kids, their learning, and their future.

The problem now, Republican school boards and politicians are doubling down on techniques used all over the world by authoritarian governments to make education everywhere in their realms uniformly dedicated to the business of indoctrinating children to just what the government wants kids to know.  That is not the way in a democracy but it does not seem to matter to the perpetrators of the attacks on our schools and libraries

In this iteration of going after our schools, The Trump cult has passed laws in several states that forbid teachers from telling the truth about a lot of subjects to their students.  They can’t share the “1619 Project” on racism in America or teach the Holocaust without presenting “the other side” or mention LGBTQ rights or talk about racism and slavery as anything but a personal choice by practitioners.  No controversial topics are to be discussed.  In some places, evolution (a fact) and climate change (also a fact) are not to be included in the curriculum or even discussed.  No sex education either just in case same-sex relations are mentioned or inspire questions by students.

The goal is to keep white children from feeling guilty or uncomfortable or as if they might want to positively change things.  These fragile white kids, their parents, and just about anyone else can now report any teacher who covers any of the above topics, and the financial penalties can be substantial.  Yay!  vigilantism!  Thanks, Texas, for getting things started with that! 

In our own state, Pennsylvania, there is a bill pending that would allow anyone in the state to report a teacher who has discussed any difficult topic.  In other states, mostly in the former Confederacy, there are proposals to live stream classrooms so anyone can watch and report.  Tennessee, Oklahoma, Florida, and South Dakota right now are among the worst, but Texas, Mississippi, New Hampshire, and others are following right behind.  In at least one state, teachers must report to the parent if a child asks a “challenging question,” whatever that is. 

The reporter I first heard fully discuss this had to do the “balance” thing and equated the above with colleges prohibiting abusive speech and bullying toward other students.  Sorry, but it’s not the same, not even close

The legalized lying about what teachers are teaching and forbidden to teach is so egregious every citizen of this country should be screaming.  The process is reminiscent of the Communist and Fascist crushing of speech that doesn’t fully support their propaganda, going on now in Russia, China, and other countries, and which consumed the Nazis throughout Europe, Franco’s rule in Spain, and the many Communist regimes in the last century.    

I partially blame the Supreme Court for magnifying this anti-democratic insanity.  I believe the approved lying got traction with the Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in 2013.  The decision was based on the lie that the former Confederate states and a few others no longer should need to check in with the Department of Justice to make voting rules changes; they had learned their lesson and would no longer discriminate.  This allowed states to target voters and put into place all kinds of voter suppression policies, lying that they were necessary to stop fraud (practically non-existent).  This action by the Court led to disenfranchisement of people of color, students, and poor citizens who couldn’t get past all the new obstacles quickly placed in their way.  When people can’t vote, a whole lot of people who shouldn’t be in office get elected.

The media was a major force in permitting or even promoting the lying.  You’ve got to present “both sides” of every issue even if there are not 2 legitimate sides.  The media knew, for example, that Donald Trump as candidate and president lied a good part of the time (more than 30,000 times in public in his 4 years in office).  The best the media could do was say or imply that what he said might not be exactly fair or was an exaggeration.  They were lies!!  The word “lie” is rarely used even now.  Reporters will sometimes say falsehood or incorrect.  The word should have been “lie.”  It could have helped people who were only listening in passing to know that Trump is a serial liar, but the opportunity to stop it passed. 

How does this impact our public education system?  Well, it has normalized lying among many Republican and conservative groups.  Claim teachers are brainwashing their kids, it must be happening.  Claim the 1619 Project is filled with lies and they don’t even have to read it.  Ban books that promote sex or being gay or Black supremacy, they don’t have to read the books before lying about them either.  

Let’s face it, the reality is, a lot of white people are scared that somehow the increases in the number of people of color living in our nation will take away their white privilege that they don’t even admit they have.  They don’t want their privileged kids to be confronted by the fact that white people have committed all kinds of atrocities throughout history.  They want their sheltered kids to think that they have earned all the privilege they have and that it is those horrible others who are trying to take it away.  Those others include African-Americans, Latinx, Native Americans, Asian-Americans, LGBTQ persons, Muslims, historians, teachers, writers, and anyone who is not them and wants those white kids to learn about people other than whites.

Teachers have always been targets for whatever flavor of lying and mythmaking Americans are indulging in at the time:  Remember the Alamo, the honorable nature of the Confederacy and the good treatment of slaves, the necessity of interning Japanese-Americans and invading Iraq, and so much more, sometimes out of ignorance and sometimes because teaching the “lies/myths” was ordered (as propaganda).

We know better now but my guess is this current limiting of what teachers can say and what students can discuss will expand before common sense takes over, if it does.  We have lived a pandemic and are still in it and many of those same scared legislators and parents have ignored medical advice and have preferred lies about ineffective drugs and the suggestion that mask mandates infringe on their freedom.  Clearly the truth is just too hard for some adults to manage even if it is easier to digest and will keep them healthier and alive. 

I can’t help but wonder if any of those white legislators and parents have even considered the trauma their kids’ classmates of color have experienced from the bullying, false history, segregation, harassment by police, poverty, and more.  Nah! 

With these new restrictions on education, will students of color and LGBTQ students ever feel safe enough to share their feelings with their white classmates and if that sharing happens unbidden, will the teacher be blamed, prosecuted?  What happens to the students then?

Let’s face it, little white kids are not fragile.  They can read the books the former Confederacy wants to ban and expand their understanding.  They can hear about LGBTQ persons without suddenly becoming gay, but learning about it could save their life when they are trying to figure out who they are. 

It seems to me in this case, parents are the problem.  They worry their sons and daughters may get to know and appreciate the challenges faced by our nation and want to ask their parents what they have done to make things better.  Perhaps the parents have nothing to contribute and they don’t like it.

Clearly, we can’t count on the current Supreme Court, but we should be able to count on the non-right-wing media to keep what is happening in the states in people’s faces.  Political candidates who truly support democracy need to find clever, honest ways to get the word out to citizens about how voters are being used to keep others down by Republicans who are OK with taking away their rights in power.

Above all, teachers, don’t quit. That is just what Republicans are hoping for.  If you quit, they can break our schools and our unions, then dump anyone in classrooms feeding kids the BS that right-wing lies are really truth.  Already there is a teacher shortage and all kinds of inexperienced people are being allowed to be unsupervised in classrooms with vulnerable kids.  Hey, who cares what the kids are being fed as long as they are in person in school.  Parents have to work, you know. 

It is really hard when lying becomes the law of the land or at least in certain states.  We need teachers to find creative ways around these appalling laws/lies and we need to find ways to keep any of the bills now in state legislatures from passing.  We also need to fight these laws with everything we have – are you listening media?  We owe this to our kids, all our kids, even the “fragile” white ones.

WHO ARE YOU PROTECTING?

By Ruth A. Sheets

A recent move in conservative Republican legislatures trying to control education is the so-called “Woke laws.”  Florida Republican, mostly white legislators, and similar elected bodies in Republican states, want to have complete control over what teachers teach and they do not want teachers to teach about the difficult parts of American history, you know, those parts where white men committed atrocities against people of color.  Supposedly, their reason is that learning about it will negatively impact their kids, causing all kinds of mental illness.   

It is always distressing to me as a retired teacher that so many white men and some white women are scared of the truth.  They will make up all kinds of conspiracy theories and ridiculous explanations for why they go along with really stupid ideas, and can't acknowledge that our shared history has not always been pretty or flattering to white America.  Power corrupts people and it also makes them scared of people they don't know and whom they have been programmed to think are going to infringe on their entitlements even though they won't say the word entitlement in public or even aloud to themselves. 

The Republicans in the Florida Legislature are terrified because there is no future for them and their outdated ideas.  Climate change (global warming) is closing in on Florida.  People of color are gaining rights even if they have to take them.  Immigrants don't want to be treated like dirt or as only worthy of earning slave wages.  Women are ignoring male supremacy, despite male laws for forced-birth.  Police are being called out on their violence and murder of unarmed civilians, and so much more.  Instead of working to positively address these critical issues, what conservative white folks in power are doing is grabbing onto a nonsense word like "woke" to do what they think will stir up people like them to fight, distracting them from paying attention to the real problems. 

"Woke," as conservatives have come to see it means whatever programs and actions Liberals and progressives are for.  What are liberals/progressives for?  They want people to become aware of injustices done to fellow Americans and to stop anyone who claims power they don't deserve from doing more harm than has already been done.  Liberals and progressives generally believe people want equity in all areas of life. 

The scared legislators must believe their children are pathetic, weak souls who can't bear to hear the truth. Their kids could learn the truth and to work through it and make it so such awful events won't happen again.  Good teachers help kids do that.  If those white legislators actually took time to think about it, they would see that what they are really saying is that the children of color who had to endure those moments of history:  massacres, lynchings, trails of tears, internment, etc. and survived are far stronger than their own children.  I believe they are selling their kids short, probably just as they themselves were sold short when growing up, not being taught and learning our full history. 

All teachers who care about their students, even the pathetic white ones, should teach the truth no matter what the Florida or other Republican legislatures say.  Otherwise, they are betraying their students who deserve to know the truth. 

Hey white legislators, white students will not suddenly become depressed incompetents because of learning the truth.  Besides, it might empower them to work for a better nation and world.  Oh wait, that's the problem isn’t it, what you white legislators don't want.  You are comfortable with things just as they are or rather were back in some nebulous past when White ruled absolutely.  Too bad Florida, that world, if it ever really existed is gone and most of us want to be sure it never returns. 

You conservative legislators would do better for your kids to think about their real future and stopping global warming and planning for greener jobs.  I know, that is harder than promoting hate and fear, but the results will be far better for your kids, and actually, for you too.

Leave teachers to do their jobs.  Give them the resources and support they need, then stay out of it unless you plan to help:  volunteer tutoring with struggling students in your child’s school, checking with teachers to see what they actually need, then getting it for them, learning about the more challenging parts of US history so you can work to see there is more equity in our society, etc.  Banning books, dictating curricula based on your own personal biases and fears, and passing “anti-woke” laws are a waste of your time and ours and help no one, not even your children.

OPEN LETTER TO REPUBLICAN TEXAS LEGISLATORS (AND OTHERS OF LIKE MIND)

by Ruth A. Sheets

The new wrinkle to the Texas legislature’s anti-American actions is forcing teachers to teach alternative points of view related to history, in at least one case, the Holocaust.

OMG!  An alternative to the Holocaust???  Don't you foolish ignorant legislators and school district officials know that we, the allies were the alternative to the Holocaust and we didn't do all that well.  We refused to let Jewish and other asylum-seekers from Germany enter the US.  We did nothing to end the death camps even when we knew about them.  Then, we imprisoned 120,000 people of Japanese descent, mostly American citizens in the most horrific conditions in places in this country no one else would live, just because they were Japanese.  Then we forced them to fight for us, their country that had imprisoned them on pain of even longer imprisonment.  Then, we used and abused service members of color through segregation and other humiliations.  

So, tell me Texas legislators, what is it you would have teachers include in their curriculum of lies?   Which points of false history will you have fed to your young white kids?  The truth might be too painful for their little psyches! 

I get it Republicans are totally enamored with lying and cheating these days to get what you want, so what will you white-wash so your poor sheltered privileged little white kids won't have to read or hear about atrocities done by white people, in Europe or here?  Are your kids so fragile they can't learn the truth and discuss it? 

How do you think your kids are going to respond when they learn that you all have worked hard to deny voting rights to American citizens of color?  How are they going to like knowing you chose to gerrymander districts so Black and Brown votes would be absorbed by the fewer white voters now living in Texas?  What about the warped history and possibly science curricula? 

I am guessing you are trying hard to keep them from learning to think critically so they won't notice.  I suspect they are smarter than you think.  They will find out, you know, even if you don't admit what you have done. 

From your first bill in this recent session to the present including your anti-abortion actions, the legislation you are passing is singularly racist and misogynistic and has nothing to do with truth, justice or what should be the American way.  Neither is any of it about faith or concern for your kids.  It is about control of women and people of color, often through fear and intimidation, your fear of them and thus your intimidation of them

I am interested to see how else you will try to white-wash education for your state’s children.  You've been at it for a while, since Texas began so I suspect you will come up with more ideas and excuses.  After all, the white-washing convinced you to run for office believing you should deny people's rights.  I guess you can pass it down through your family as it was passed to you.  That is how racism and misogyny as well as homophobia and xenophobia continue. 

Scared white people are afraid of losing the unbelievable privilege you of course, claim you don’t actually have.  Like little kids, you will wrap a blanket of vile legislation around yourselves so you won’t have to encounter the “monsters” you fear are under the bed while the monsters you should fear are within yourselves.  

However, you must know, despite what you want teachers to teach, it won't brainwash your kids as white as you would like.  This is still a democracy and your kids have access to the internet and excellent strong teachers who care enough about your kids to teach the truth even if they have to hide it in the garbage you Republicans want taught.    

In some other state legislatures, the white men and some women are licking their lips ready to pass all the same stuff Texas has passed.  However a lot of the people of this country are horrified that such evil is nearly unchecked.  An entire political party has dismissed any morals or ethics it has ever held in favor of fear mongering and passing hateful legislation that helps no one but themselves.  Shame on Texas Republicans and any other states that follow your example.

PANDEMIC TEACHING

by Ruth A. Sheets

I am a teacher and have been for more than a quarter of a century.  The 2020-2021 school year has been the most difficult for me since I started teaching.  Of course, it is primarily due to the pandemic. 

We teachers have been meeting with our students by zoom for nearly a year.  That in itself is not the problem, it is that we and our supervisors are trying to pretend that this year is no different from all other years.  It is.  Nothing like this pandemic has happened to us in a bit over a century.  We were not prepared for it either as individuals or as school communities, and that is definitely evident. 

We should be using the issues of the pandemic and the challenges as teachable moments and base our reading, math, science, and social studies instruction on that.  We should take this opportunity to focus on problem-solving what the country should look like when the pandemic has been tamed.  There will be a new normal.  Having students read and respond to materials relevant to that potential new normal would help them feel as though they have a part in creating what is to come.  

We should have been using the technology available to us to help students connect with others in very positive ways and let them help each other explore the challenges of COVID-19, systemic racism, global warming, poverty, and the other issues that have been brought into full relief since the start of the pandemic.  The internet is working, so students can explore and report back.  Even young children can participate – C is for COVID, V is for virus.  I bet there is a whole alphabet for the words of this special time.  

In addition, we need to stop calling this a lost year and complaining that students have gained nothing since March 2020.  By trying to pretend teaching and learning are just the same but online is doing a great disservice to our teachers and students as well as our families.  Our children are not failures.  They are amazing young people who are learning to face some adversity and figuring out how to deal with it.  That is astonishing and we should be acknowledging them for it rather than beating them down with ridiculous expectations of learning the usual curriculum at the same pace as pre-pandemic times.  That makes no sense and can be a factor in sending our precious kids into depression and other emotional pain.  I have even heard educators state that we should not refer to the pandemic at all.  Talk about burying one’s head in the sand!

With the stress of learning to survive and eventually, perhaps to thrive in this weird world of Zoom, hybrid, whatever, educators are still expected to administer the weeks-long batteries of standardized tests, if not this spring, than definitely in the fall.  For what purpose will this be done, so the corporations that make the tests won’t lose money, so we can prove our kids didn’t master all the stuff in the curriculum while also trying to manage life in COVID Land?

This should be a time of experimentation.  We should be looking at ways to catch our students’ attention, deeply involve them in what is happening and help them develop the social-emotional intelligence that will give them the ability to function as active informed citizens.  Perhaps the books and online resources we go to should show young people (or animal characters) dealing with tough situations and making it through.  They could be encouraged to write about their experiences of this year.  I suspect their descriptions will look quite different from those of adults during this time.

Colleagues are giving out “F’s” like candy to accentuate that our kids really are failures if they don’t come to Zoom every day and don’t hand in activities they know don’t relate in any way to and ignore what they are experiencing.  This is just one more way our society demonstrates its lack of true care for and appreciation of our precious children. 

One thing I know for certain, we can do better. 

EVERYBODY OPEN THE SCHOOLS! WHAT?

by Ruth A. Sheets

So, the command has come down from on high.  All schools will open this fall.  And, if they don’t, funds will be CUT from the districts that don’t follow this command (who dare to care about the safety of their students, teachers, and staff)

There are a couple of things to note about that pronouncement.  First, Donald Trump has no right to interfere with the schools’ funding.  His ignorance and arrogance know no bounds. Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, knows nothing about education, medicine, or anything else besides money, so her demands are irrelevant and should be dismissed as the hogwash they are.

Once past that nonsense, the problem remains.  What must happen when it is time for students to begin classes this fall? 

I am a teacher and worry about the decisions our school districts must make as to how school will be conducted this year during a pandemic that is not yet under control.  In the spring, we were caught off guard by the out-of-control COVID19 so were not nearly prepared to operate online classes.  Some teachers managed to get lessons going and there were the online reading and math programs, but many of our students didn’t have computer access until the beginning of June while some are still waiting.  Some have computers or rather one computer for 2 or more children.  

A big challenge was making sure the students could figure out how to take full advantage of the resources available.  Some never caught on.  Some of us teachers didn’t get online either.  All over the country teachers and students are trying to figure out how to get complex concepts down in this new, certainly not mastered format. 

Then, there are the children with special needs.  Computer time often does not work for them.  They need the hands-on connection with teachers to learn the required skills.  What happens when they are at home for months without that trained teacher’s attention?    

Over the years, teachers have been called lazy, useless, a waste of good money, and a host of other pejoratives.  I guess one good thing coming from this lock down is that teachers are a bit more appreciated, at least in some quarters.  We may still be seen as glorified free babysitters, but they now realize they need us. 

That need is what is causing Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos to toss out their demands and threats.  Their economy will not be able to reignite without babysitters (child care) for the workers they need.  A killer virus stalks and they whine that the workers don’t have people to watch their kids. 

Trump and DeVos are not interested in the problems the schools have opening every year with obtaining sufficient supplies, properly maintaining old buildings, etc.  They are OK with attempting to destroy the public school system in favor of publicly funded privately operated charter schools which are generally better funded, not more successful.  They just want their economy’s babysitters and their charges back in school.  They don’t actually care about the quality of education the children get or they wouldn’t push vouchers and more charter schools.  Neither program has proven superior to traditional public schools, they just suck taxpayer money into the pockets of rich folks who “say” they can do it better, or rather, cheaper.  They can’t!  The Trumpers just want babysitters.  Now! 

The Trump DeVos team does not care about what students are truly getting from what the government offers because they don’t expect or even want those kids to compete with the privileged white kids in private schools and the wealthiest public school districts.   They want babysitters, and McDonalds workers, hotel housekeepers, farm laborers.  Those are the jobs they want for American workers and they are hoping the public schools (and charters) will provide them.  That way we don’t need immigrants, right?

Now we come to COVID19.  The current president can’t even wear a mask without practically having a heart attack.  He can’t even repeat what scientists know, that masks do help keep the virus from spreading.  He still hangs with the line said once or twice back in February before people knew much about how the virus works.   That was five months ago and Americans have watched family members, friends, front-line workers and others die, 140,000 of us so far.  We have seen stories of people on ventilators.  about 30% die even with ventilator assistance.  No one really knows yet how many children get the virus and whether or not they pass it.  We do know that people over 60 and people of color are at significant risk for becoming infected.  We also know that at this point there are few places in the U.S. where cases of COVID19 are not on the rise.

This does not seem to me and to most Americans, (particularly parents) as a good time to reopen in-person school sessions.  But it looks great to the Trump-DeVos team.  They are so anxious to get parents back to work, they would sacrifice teachers, staff, students, and families, and for what, so Trump can claim a thriving economy?  That sounds pretty messed up to me.         

I love my students and want to be with them more than anything, but I work in a school district where most of our students live in poverty or near poverty.  Many have serious health problems and their families are also at risk.  How will opening in-person schools serve the people here? 

A challenge for me is that as a blind person it has been hard for me to gain access to the online services other teachers are able to bring to their students.  Disabled teachers, like disabled students are generally not considered when schedule changes happen.  Being back in school with my kids would be better for me, but not for everyone else.  So, I use the US Post Office to get materials and books to my students, 7 mailings since March.  How long will that form of connection to my students last if Donald Trump gets his way and takes down the US Post Office?  Who knows? 

So, let’s see, The Trump crew wants schools reopened so he can get the parents back to work and they’ll have their free babysitters.  His team cares nothing for the safety of the school communities.  He wants to put everyone at risk so he can claim a great jobs report and strong economy, IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC THAT IS NOT UNDER CONTROL!  Then, there’s the Post Office . . . .    

I am not totally sure what the answer is.   I suspect it will vary from district to district, from state to state and may involve a number of different models.  What I do know is that teachers need to be in the discussions from the beginning as do families and other members of the community like doctors, nurses, and other health care persons.  COVID19 is no joke as some like to believe.  People are dying or have permanent physical impairments due to the virus.  Unless a whole range of safety measures are put in place, I don't see how schools can open  no matter how much I and the other teachers would like to be back physically with our kids.  I also don't see the money flowing from Congress toward districts to help us with those safety measures. 

It is truly a tragedy that Trump & Co. had no clue and could not get a handle on what was needed for dealing with COVID19.  We will all be paying for that lack of vision for years to come.  I just don’t want our children, families, teachers, and staff to pay for it unnecessarily with our lives.

A NEW DEMOCRACY, POSSIBLE?

by Ruth A. Sheets



Furious, that’s the word that comes to my mind when I think about the way our democracy is being torn away from us.  We only occasionally hear the ripping sound, like when the Supreme Court says corporations are persons and THEY can put as much money into elections as they want because money is speech.  What!!



Another ripping sound comes when Black people are abused and murdered by police, often, followed by attempts to “prove” the victims were really criminals and deserved what they got, well, maybe not death, but the officer “feared for his life,” you know.  “I thought the guy had a gun,” while shooting the person in the back or choking him to death.



There are more rips that are not as noticeable individually, but are accumulating.  I just finished reading a disturbing book, Supreme Inequality, the Supreme Court’s 50-Year Battle for a More Unjust America by Adam Cohen.   The author identifies step by step the ways the court has removed rights from the American people and handed them over to corporations, police departments, rich white men, and conservatives, none of whom care what losing those rights means to the people.  There is a “war” against folks who are poor, working class, old, young, women, disabled, Democrats, and the rest.  Because it was done a snip at a time with a pause here and there when a stitch of a right or two were preserved, most people didn’t notice.  Well, African-Americans, poor people (particularly women and children), and some workers noticed and complained, but weren’t heard.  



The whole mess started with Richard Nixon, you remember him, the Watergate guy.  Well, it turns out he did a whole lot more than cover up a break-in.  He sabotaged the Supreme Court, threatening justices until they resigned even though they hadn’t done any of what he and his crooked cronies were accusing them of.  That gave Nixon the chance to appoint 4 justices in a very short time.  That turned the Court to super-conservative, a condition it still suffers from with the help of Senate Republicans all along. 



The series of chief justices along with their minions have systematically  done a lot of damage to nearly every group but the rich white men and their corporations. Here are some examples.  See if you remember losing that right.



- In the area of education, Brown v. Board of Education has nearly been overturned.  Districts do not have to integrate, pay for kids’ transportation to school if they don’t want to, and teachers don’t have to join the union or pay any fees yet are required to still get any benefits the union gains for the members.



- Voting is only sort of a right.  States can purge voting rolls if someone hasn’t voted in an election.  Voter I.D. is OK no matter how hard it is to obtain for poor, disabled, and older people.  Gerrymandering is also OK if the state’s legislature wants to do it.  Voting places can be limited no matter how hard it is for a voter to get there.  Then voting districts with a history of discrimination, particularly against African-Americans , no longer have to report any changes they make in their voting requirements for accountability -– and they don’t.



- Corporations can get away with doing all kinds of illegal activities because they can’t be penalized more than a few times the amount awarded to their victim.  As mentioned previously, corporations can spend as much money in elections as they choose and if they hide their payments in non-profits that then dole the money out, no one has to know.  Corporations can force arbitration on employees with complaints, even harassment, no matter what the inconvenience or cost for the employee, and they can tuck such requirements in the fine print which the employee may not even notice is in the contract.  Then, arbitrators nearly always side with the corporation because it is the corporations that arrange to hire the arbitrators and will not hire them again if they don’t rule in their favor (nice little racket huh!).  If this were not enough, the Court has said that the only class actions that can be brought against corporations require the participants’ cases to all be identical (which, of course, is impossible).  All Republicans and some Democrats in Congress must go along with all of this because it is the corporations and their wealthy patrons that pay for their campaigns.  Corporations do not care about workers except how they can use those workers to bring in more profits and please the stockholders, which of course, does not include the workers who are rarely able to afford any of the stocks.      



- The criminal justice system has been allowed to run amuck:  public defenders can be drunk, high, or simply incompetent or inexperienced and be considered satisfactory to defend their clients.  This has led to most poor persons taking a plea deal even if they are not guilty; police can use investigative techniques that invade people’s privacy and deny them of their rights; the Court rarely rules in favor of the accused, unless they are rich and white.  Violence in prisons by guards has been ruled the fault of the prisoner. 



Yes, our democracy is being torn away chunk by chunk, and the vast majority of Americans are not aware of or  in favor of the Court’s decisions, but the conservative justices clearly don’t care, neither do Republicans in Congress.  They want to go back to some nebulous time pre the 1930s when government only took care of rich white men and everyone else scrambled to get whatever they could while being abused by the rich white men.  That is the wish of a young child who wants whatever he wants and does not yet know that sharing is the way life prospers for everyone.



Since only white wealthy men matter now to the Court, it is hard to imagine how this scenario is going to change unless, the pandemic combined with Black Lives Matter force our nation to create a new democracy.  What could that look like?  I am not sure, but I hope



- poor people will no longer be seen as criminals or lazy or both.  They would be given a living wage or stipend to allow them to care for their kids and have decent shelter.  Minimum wage would be $15 an hour to start.

- police departments would be totally reorganized in ways that will put “serve and protect” at the center of everything they do.  Their numbers would reflect the communities they serve, and they would be held accountable for their actions, and there would be far fewer of them.  All police unions would be reorganized to be true unions, not enforcement and protection agencies.

- Automatic voter registration would happen the day a citizen turns 18.  Vote by mail would be available to anyone who wants it with no excuse necessary.  Voter roles would rarely be purged, and then only with independent oversight.

- Corporations would be held accountable for injuries on the job, destruction of the environment, bad products and actions designed to harm the public and the punishments would be designed to see that the actions don’t happen again.  The Occupational Health and Safety Agency would be fully funded and have the expectation that they will actually investigate complaints, and they will be responsible to clean up their pollution.

- unions would be free to organize and work for better wages and working conditions.  Everyone who benefits from the work of the union will contribute to its cost. 

- Trained arbitrators would be provided by the state to resolve conflicts and have no direct connection with corporations that use their services.  There would also be independent oversight

- programs in every industry would be established to enable Black workers to progress and develop skills on the job toward leadership positions.

- At least 2 new members of the Supreme Court would be added to counter the 2 conservative justices inappropriately added to the Court by Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell.  They Court has forgotten their task is to serve the Constitution and the American people, not just their rich privileged friends.  Limiting the time of justices on the Court would help too. 

- Public schools would be well-funded and the buildings would be equally cared for no matter where they were located.  Teacher salaries would be appropriate to their education and experience based on equivalent incomes and degree of education in their area. 

- Corporations and individuals as well as Congress would be forced to deal with global warming and its impacts particularly on Black and other minority communities.



There is so much more to be considered, but I want the Black Lives Matter team and other interested parties to put their proposals forward so we all can begin moving together in the right direction.  Staying on the course we now walk is leading us to disaster.  As a patriotic American, I want better for our nation and the world.

OPEN LETTER TO REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS

by Ruth A. Sheets

Dear 2020 era Republicans,

Wow!  There seem to be no depths to which many of you will not go these days.  Even in the midst of a pandemic, you worry more about coddling huge corporations than taking care of the PPE (protective gear) needs of front-line workers.  You cover for every misstep Mr. Trump makes as he fumbles his way through challenges that he neither understands nor really cares about.  You in the Senate of the United States continue to approve nominees from partisan operatives to stack our courts with people you are pretty sure will be unfair to most of the people of this country, you know, the ones that are not rich, white, straight “Christian” males.  You are OK with the Senate being neutered by Mr. McConnell for his own purposes, possibly yours too, that isn’t entirely clear yet.

As you Republicans all well know, Mr. Trump is not fit to hold the office of president, but you just love him because you can manipulate him into doing the damage to this nation you have wanted to do for a long time.  Among the damage:

-destroy the post office even though it is provided for in the Constitution, to benefit rich corporations who will donate to your future campaigns
-Destroy public lands on behalf of hugely wealthy  donors
-force through judgeships for people who are neither qualified nor ethically suited to be a judge of anything
-slow and impede the response to COVID19 at the expense of many lives.  Your president is OK with it since they are mostly old people and people of color who are dying, and in blue states too, win-win-win!
-You give most of the money in stimulus to the huge corporations who, by rights, should be able to fend for themselves with all the other corporate welfare you have blessed them with over the years.
-You are trying to reinstate the “Patriot Act” which was wrong when it was passed by the frightened white guys in Congress who couldn’t think of anything else but to take away people’s rights and supports in a time of crisis, unfortunately shaming and lying colleagues into going along with you.
-You allow our Justice Department to become Mr. Trump’s lapdogs, instating and dismissing cases at the president’s whim
-You dismiss climate change (global warming) as a hoax, which of course you know it isn’t, and that it’s serious.  What does that make you, hypocrites?
-You are OK with gerrymandering, voter suppression in its many forms, and forcing voters to go in crowds to vote and risk their lives or give up the vote.

I could go on because there is so much I didn’t get to, but alas, you wouldn't read it anyway.  You all are deeply under the spell of a man who thinks and acts like an 8-year-old school yard bully and you all know that about him.  He is moving into the beginnings of dementia.  You all know that too and still cling to him because Republicans, you know, are ethically bankrupt.  You knew Mr. Trump committed the crimes he was impeached for, and more.  To prove you knew, you made it so there could be no witnesses in his trial.  That says nothing about Mr. Trump's innocence, only your guilt.

As a teacher, during Teacher Appreciation Week, I am alas, saddened to see the lack of critical thinking employed by Republicans for the past 70 years or so, from McCarthy to Trump-McConnell.  Thank goodness there have been a few bright lights among your party’s members, but ah, , too few.  I can’t help but wonder if we teachers are just not teaching critical thinking sufficient for people to make better decisions or if something else is at play.

And then, there are the ethics.  I can’t help but wonder if you are all OK with the lying and cheating that many of your party are using to obtain and maintain office:  gerrymandering, voter suppression, purging the voting roles.  You know the purpose of all these things is to deny voting rights to your fellow citizens.  You do it under the guise of protection from voter fraud, but in recent years, nearly all the voter fraud in the extremely rare cases where there was any, was done by Republican voters.

I can only hope you all will do better in the future for the sake of all of us, but the nearly certain thing, change is really hard, especially if you are getting the changes to our country you want for your own benefit.  You might start to think a bit about why you want so many to have fewer rights than you have, why you continue to blame poor people for their poverty, why you think rich people deserve more than everyone else and keep pumping money into their pockets.  Why do you despise young people so much (except your own kids, of course) that you dismiss their demands for a strong positive response to climate change (global warming), voting rights, poverty, human rights, sensible gun control, and their other issues.

Your party hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory this past quarter century.  Don’t you think it’s about time you stage your own rebellion and occasionally, put the needs of others who perhaps don’t look, think, or believe like you, ahead of your party’s destructive agenda?  Sadly, I don’t see that happening.

If you were ready to rebel at all, you would be telling McConnell, “no more nominee approvals until the nation is back on its feet, and no more incompetents approved.”  You’d tell Mr. Trump to listen to the experts, and he himself is not an expert on this.  You’d be 100% behind laws to insure every American citizen has the right and ability to vote unimpeded in every election.  You’d see the pain Americans are experiencing now and you’d be standing with them doing everything in your power to get those frontline workers everything they need to care for themselves and the people they encounter.

I know, I hear you laughing or, some of you, tossing a curse in my direction.  Oh well, another fault of us teachers.  We haven’t taught you to take and learn from a critique. 

CHANGE OF FUTURE

by Ruth A. Sheets

We need a very different future than was on the drawing board before COVID19 hit.  Our representatives and fellow Americans need to take a variety of actions to change the trajectory of this nation and the world.  COVID19 has clearly pointed out problems our leaders have chosen to ignore in the past.  The time of ignorance is now gone and we must step up to meet the challenges facing us.

The following are some actions we can take to reshape the future in ways that will benefit everyone.

1. Global warming will move front and center in our thinking and every action.
a. we must become less of a super consumer society and more a reduce, reuse, and recycle kind of folks, with recycling plants all over the place.
b. Everyone will need solar panels and electric vehicles should become the standard.
c. Burning coal, except at limited levels will be outlawed,
d. Massive funding of renewable energy sources will take place, like the “man on the moon” efforts of the 1960s.

2. The flora and fauna that share our planet will have a more prominent place in our thinking and planning.  –

3. Our oceans must stop being our dumping place and our places for drilling and destruction.

4. Health care in this nation should be universal and supervised by the government.  No one should be making money on the suffering of others beyond salaries and general expenses.

5. Education should be funded at levels sufficient to provide children and young adults with the knowledge they will need to effectively maintain a career, participate actively in the life of the community in which they live, and be active informed citizens in the society.

6. The United States Postal Service, which is called for in the Constitution should be appropriately funded and should be able to perform basic banking  activities, particularly for lower income persons who may not be able to afford a bank.

7. Our prison system needs to be revamped so rehabilitation and treatment are the goals rather than just hiding away people of color in private for profit institutions.  No prison should be run by any entity but the local, state, or federal government who sentenced the prisoners.

8. Immigration will be addressed.  We need the general public to understand that refugees would not
be leaving their homes unless circumstances forced them to do so.
a. There should be a path to citizenship for all who were brought to or came to this country as children and it should not cost them a fortune.
b. The detention/concentration camps for immigrants will be closed and those imprisoned in them will be quickly and properly processed, most allowed to stay here.
c. Anyone who is a parent of US citizen children should have a path to citizenship too so they can stay and provide for those children.
d. In short, deportations need to stop.
e. Bans on citizens of other nations unless we are specifically at war with that nation or face a pandemic must stop permanently and not be allowed to be manipulated by a president or political party for its own edification.

9. Voting at all levels should involve automatic registration upon reaching 18 and mail-in options for anyone who chooses that, particularly during a natural disaster.
a. Voting security will be a priority.
b. voter suppression and gerrymandering will be permanently disallowed.  

10. Congressional procedures must change.
a. No one person in Congress should be able to block all legislation and votes on issues critical to the people of the nation and use extortion as Mr. McConnell has done for the past 5 years.
b. There should be a 60 vote majority in the Senate or a +5 votes to the number of senators in the majority to approve anyone for a lifetime appointment to a court.
c. Lobbyists must be removed from central positions in our government and lobbying should be a volunteer activity in which no favors or gifts can be passed to or from government officials.  Corporations and individuals with huge money pots should not be able to have more governmental influence than less wealthy individuals and groups.

11.  -Women and men will be legally recognized as equals and people will be respected and heard no matter their race, age, gender, LGTB status, political party, or any other factor.
a. Women will have the right to choose what happens to their own bodies
b. All kinds of reproductive health care will be available to all persons on request, including contraception and pregnancy services.  
c. LGTBQ citizens will have the full rights of any citizen without exception.
d. A committee will be assembled to begin addressing issues of reparation for African-Americans related to slavery and the racism that followed.

12. Workers will have basic rights and a living wage through a “workers’ bill of rights which will include paid sick leave, child care, and other needed services and protections.

13. Taxes on the wealthiest will be considerably higher than pre-COVID19, after companies are up and running and workers are back on the job, perhaps, a 2-year window after the crisis is past).

14. We will become more prepared for everything including natural disasters, pandemics, and more through appropriate funding.

15. We need to employ experts to get these actions going and share findings with everyone who can help.

16. We need to set ethical standards for whom we will nominate for public office and hold them to those standards.  The “lesser of two evils” should no longer be an acceptable means for judging a person’s ability to govern.  This one can’t be legislated, but it can be promoted through all media.

17. Dividers among us need to take a back seat for a while so others can succeed in bringing us together to accomplish this work.

This is an ambitious agenda, but we will need an ambitious agenda if we are to have a prosperous nation and a livable world, and we are running out of time to get this going.  This time of “sheltering in place” may give us all time to think about how we will live the next few years, what kind of world we will leave our children and grandchildren, what kind of people we will become through and beyond this crisis.  We have the time, let’s use it wisely.

An Open Letter to the US Department of Education

By Ruth A. Sheets

In this administration’s pursuit of overturning human rights, the Department of Education and Betsy DeVos, you know, the woman who hates public education and wants to tap the public coffers for private schools, particularly all white conservative Christian ones, has championed a set of regulations to disregard the concerns of sexual assault survivors, particularly women and LGBTQ students on school campuses.  Her support comes from the administration and Republicans and Conservatives, you know, the super holy folks.

What is every conservative/Republican so afraid of?  Do you think LGTBQ will rub off and you will catch it?  Or, what is more likely, you hate anyone who is not like you, does not look like you, does not see the world the way you do.  Since you have proclaimed yourselves "true Christians," you think you have Jesus in your pockets.  You don't.  You are just a bunch of scared mostly men who are afraid the world is passing you by and you want to grab onto women, LGBTQ persons, immigrants, and anyone you can blame for the change you fear.  How pathetic!

I’m opposed to the proposed amendment to the rules implementing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 published on Nov. 29, 2018 that threatens all students, including LGBTQ students.  Oh wait, you are scared of students who don't espouse your narrow beliefs too.

Coddling perpetrators would make schools more dangerous for all students, including LGBTQ students, who face high rates of sexual assault and harassment on campuses. Instead of enforcing Title IX and protecting students from assault and discrimination, your department is proposing to undermine basic protections for survivors.  Why is that?  I suspect you want to claim men just can't control themselves around rabid women or LGBTQ persons or that those people just prey on men all the time and men do nothing unsolicited to women, LGBTQ and others.  Men are the poor victims, you say. 

Shame on you.  No matter what you think, women and LGBTQ persons do not want to frame men for sexual assault.  It is a very rare woman or LGBTQ person who would put themselves through the hell of the courts to go after an "innocent" man/boy.  You know that, but, like everything else this administration does, hurting folks and taking away hard-earned rights is what you do and hope no one will stop you.  I hope you are wrong about that.  A majority of us want you all shut down and will continue to work hard to do it.

Oh yes, I almost forgot.  The appalling proposal would also allow religious schools to discriminate against LGBTQ students without notice. In case you are not sure what that means, it means kicking those students out.  Students deserve to know if a school intends to deny them admission or kick them out for being LGBTQ before they apply. Remember, if you can, this is America, not Pakistan,  Saudi Arabia, China, or Russia.  Schools should be transparent about their beliefs and actions, and should get no Federal, state, or local tax money if they discriminate against students because of race, gender, LGBTQ status, age, disability, or any other criteria beyond those necessary to be a successful student.

I hope you consider the lives of Americans before enacting these shameful regulations, although I doubt you will, since your cult leader, Mr. Trump has no empathy for anyone who is not white, male, and rich, and you guys, along with Ms. DeVos, follow him blindly.   

We'll see who you are most loyal to, Mr. Trump or the American people, our Constitution, and human rights. 

WHEN EDUCATION FAILS

By Ruth A. Sheets

As a teacher, I wonder what impact the planning and materials I present will have on the students with whom I work.  I try to offer them different points of view, although I do not share articles, columns, etc. that are clearly lies or conspiracy theories because I don’t want to plant those seeds. 

I know teachers work very hard to cover the materials they are required to serve up, but it seems lately, education, not just public education,  is failing our citizens. 

How is it we were unable to help 35% of our population see that a particular presidential candidate did not know enough to hold that office, that he was not a good businessman, and that the TV program he was on and so admired for was scripted, neither spontaneous nor a true showcase for his talent or lack thereof?

How is it more than 30% of our citizens believed we were being invaded on our southern border by a few thousand desperate, exhausted immigrants, mostly women and children?

How is it a significant percentage of the population approved for the Supreme Court of the United States an over-emotional, disrespectful womanizer?

How is it that many of our elected officials are ignorant of human reproduction, abortion, and related issues and make laws based on their ignorance?

How is it citizens are easily confused by a president who does not know our Constitution and ignores it on a regular basis?  Is it they don’t know it either? 

How is it people who have not visited a college campus since they graduated criticize current students as not open-minded enough when that open-mindedness only goes as far as including ultra-conservative voices?

I suspect it is we the teachers who are failing our children.  When we require only specific answers to complex questions, or just don’t ask complex questions at all, we encourage ignorance.

We claim we expect students to think critically, but when their critical thinking leads them in directions we don’t like, we use our red pencils and teacher voices to shut them down.

OK, this lack of careful thinking cannot be fully placed at our feet.  Administrators choose curricula that avoid challenge, designed to get kids through the standardized tests.

Parents are often overworked and don’t have time to check to see what kind of thinking their children are doing.  They count on the schools to take care of that, right?

State governments have cut education funds, some hoping to drive public education into the hands of private companies who can then control what children are taught, what to think.

A Secretary of Education who has no experience with education was not only nominated by someone ignorant of education but approved by Senators who should have known better and cared more about our children. 

It breaks my heart when supporters or Mr. Trump are interviewed and they can’t even speak rationally about why they support him.  They claim they want to “make America great again,” but beyond keeping immigrants out and improving the economy in some undisclosed manner, they can’t give any kind of meaningful answer.  It’s embarrassing to listen to them.  Where were their teachers?   Where is their critical thinking?   

How can we teachers do better?  What is getting in the way of our giving students the tools they truly need to live as good citizens in a democracy?  We need to have a lot of conversations about this if our democracy is to survive. 

We need to teach about advertising, propaganda, and the many tools used to get us to dismiss our critical thinking.  We need to set our own egos aside so we can hear student questions and comments that might challenge our own thinking.  Then, we must challenge theirs right back. 

For example, we need to give children choices and teach them how to determine which would be best for them at a given time.  We need to teach history, not as dates and events to be memorized, but as people like themselves making decisions, good and bad, considering the factors the men, women, and children of the past took into account as they chose their actions. 

So, fellow teachers, citizens, we have a lot of work to do.  We can’t take the chance of losing another generation to inadequate thinking and thought thieves.

WHAT HAVE REPUBLICANS DONE FOR US? (revisited)

We all hear Republican candidates claiming they want to “Make America Great again,” and before that "Take America back again."  They seem to want to return our nation to some mythical time when things were better.  I can’t help but wonder, better for whom. 

If we look at what Republicans have done in the past few decades, it is not clear what that mythical time looks like to them.  It certainly is not a place most Americans would like to live in.

I have been trying to think of one thing the Republicans have done for America in, let's say, the past 40 years.  That should be long enough for a party to do something positive for the nation.  It is true they have made the rich richer, given tax breaks to the wealthiest, started a few wars, tortured a lot of prisoners, vastly increased the prison population of the country, ran a completely incompetent "war on drugs," but what was gained by  any but the top 1%?

I have only considered contributions by Republicans to American society since 1980 or so.  Going back further would have been too painful.  Check out these important categories that touch the lives of most Americans and Republican contributions.

Education:  Republican education reformers came up with vouchers which take tax payer money and give it to private and religious schools while neglecting the public schools as much as possible.  Charter schools were introduced, a vehicle for giving public money to private companies and individuals to provide educational services, whether or not those people or companies are competent.  The current Secretary of Education is totally behind these measures and contributes part of her fortune to promote them. 

Health care:  Republicans tore down every attempt to introduce programs that could assure each American of affordable medical services.  They convinced many Americans that “Obamacare/socialized medicine” would be terrible for Americans when what they meant was it would be terrible for the wealthy medical insurance companies who sponsor their campaigns. (It actually  did not.)    Even extending insurance to poor children involved a fight.  They are still working hard to get rid of the Affordable Care Act that provides many millions with coverage they can afford, through sneaky underhanded means, tucked in bills passed at midnight.

Jobs:  Republicans say they create jobs, but they are not too interested in the quality of those jobs and whether or not those jobs provide a living wage.  They work constantly to break unions and to fight raising the minimum wage.  Most Republicans barely blink when a presidential candidate tells poor people that their kids should be hired as janitors so they can learn to “show up on Monday,” as Mitt Romney did in 2012.  The unemployment rate is going down, but wages are barely rising. 

Family Values:  Republicans would have us believe they have a lock on what it means to be family while ignoring their own principles.  It is OK, though since they ask forgiveness after they are caught and are immediately assumed to be repentant.  Some of the most prominent among Republicans speak of the sacredness of marriage while not honoring it very well themselves.  Their hatred of immigrants allows them to break up well established stable families so one or some of the members can be deported.

Women's Rights:  I know this is not really a Republican issue, but since nearly 50% of Republicans are women, it automatically becomes one.  Many of not most Republicans want to prohibit use of all birth control as well as abortion but do not want to provide assistance after the baby is born. "That would foster dependence on social programs."  The Republican  position should accurately be called “Right to Birth,” not “Right to life.”  It is not sufficient that they choose not to use these family planning techniques themselves, they want to dictate what everyone else is allowed to do. Republican state legislatures work very hard to criminalize abortion and the women who choose to have one.  At midnight they pass laws that outlaw abortion before most women are even aware they are pregnant.  They would prefer that abortions never be granted, that is, of course unless their life or their wife's life is at risk.  

Government Programs:  Republicans don’t want to have Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Social Security or other Government programs, yet these are often the only safety nets that stand between citizens, even Republican citizens, and disaster.  Republicans do not create better programs, they just put barriers in front of people who need what currently exists.  Why, In their minds, of course there should be work requirements for those receiving Medicaid, the poorest, most struggling people among us.
  
Civil Rights:  Most bills that have come before Republican Congresses and presidents related to civil rights have been either ignored or watered down to mean essentially nothing.  Police are being militarized and that equipment is often used against people of color.  Segregation in our communities, schools, and other public places is nearly as strong as ever.

Size of Government:  Republicans claim Government is too large, and should be "drowned in a bathtub."  But under every Republican administration, our government grew significantly, particularly in the areas of the military, the war on drugs, homeland security.  Growth is good as long as the right people benefit.

Tax Reform:  Republicans HATE taxes.  They want all the benefits of having decent roads, police, fire, and deportation services, safe bridges, airports, sports stadiums but they don't want to have to pay for, and will work hard to avoid paying for them.  Companies are permitted to take profits off-shore, and for quite a while, companies were given tax breaks for moving abroad.  Any tax breaks go mostly to the wealthiest 1%.  Republicans think that's fair.

Environment:  President Nixon signed the Environmental Protection Agency into law in the early 1970's, but despite the amazing clean-up it has overseen, current Republicans are working very hard to dismantle the regulations that protect our air and water, so even the one really positive thing Republicans have done is being corrupted.  Make as much money as you can and to hell with the destruction caused.  Someone will clean it up later. 

So, what do Republicans have to offer America?  It is certainly not anything to benefit average Americans.  If the past is any indication, unless we can get some Republicans out of office, our nation will continue on this destructive course, and the rich will get richer and the rest of us poorer.

GO TEACHERS !

Teachers have been maligned in many ways over the past 2 decades.  We have been blamed for our students' poverty, their inability to focus, their negative behavior (when they exhibit such), students' lack of progress, and so many other things.  We are given more and more work every year.  Our ability to teach is infringed every day by administrators and politicians who could not do what we do.  And, we are told "You have off every summer, what are you complaining about!" 

Funding for our schools is cut over and over.  Important programs like libraries, music, and art are cut.  Those who do the cutting do not send their children to the schools without these programs.  But, they do institute charter schools in the poorest communities.  charter schools and their private owners are paid top dollar for doing less with more, while public schools must constantly do more with less. 

Adversarial relationships are developed between parents and community members and teachers by conservative media that would love all public schools to be taken over by dogmatic thought-control institutions that can steer our children's minds to a place where they will question nothing. 

We force students to take standardized, "gotcha" tests that don't measure what they know, but the level of stress and frustration they will tolerate while "proving" they are ignorant fools. 

In many states, teacher salaries are insufficient to cover daily expenses while financial guys who don't work nearly as hard are paid millions.  How is this right?

Enough!

We teachers are sick of it.  Sometimes, striking is the only weapon we have when the situation becomes so bad we can no longer function in any meaningful way.  It is interesting the states where teachers face the harshest conditions and lowest salaries are the most conservative?  Hmmm!  These are also the states that have vilified unions, which in most places are the only protection teachers have.  It's time the public learns that unions are the only force in our country that has truly championed workers over time. 

I am 100% behind the teachers all over the country who are walking out for their rights and the rights of their students to have the resources they need to succeed!  This is a start, but we have a long way to go to bring our schools to a place where schools are seen as essential, charter schools are held accountable, teachers are respected as professionals, and students are given more options related to their education.  Schools must have sufficient resources to select and teach a curriculum that emphasizes critical and creative thinking and problem-solving.

This is asking a lot, but it can be done.  In 1957 when the Russian satellite Sputnik was launched, America stepped up and enhanced its educational programs to prepare students for a challenging science-centered future.  We need another similar program to develop well-informed, thoughtful, creative citizens prepared to face a changing world where global warming will impact everything. 

So, pay teachers a professional salary.  Evaluate curricula and select those that are strongest related to truth, critical and creative thinking, and problem-solving in the real world.  Re-instate music, the arts in general, and libraries in the schools.  Incorporate technology in ways that will allow students to broadly explore their world through guided inquiry.  Truly embrace diversity and provide resources to shape each students education to actual needs.  Employ sufficient staff to support the work of the teachers. 

Then, here is the inexpensive part.  Encourage media outlets to promote the teaching profession as exciting, challenging, and essential for the future of our country.