Here is the letter I emailed to Tom Friedman, NY Times columnist.

Hello Mr. Friedman,

 I enjoy reading and hearing you.

 In your appearance on Sunday on Meet the Press, you paint a tough picture of our schools. You’re right. I’m a former teacher, current school attorney, and parent of children who attended public schools.  It is obvious to me that focus on the wrong half of the class–the bottom. With No Child Left Behind and the special education programs, our focus is NOT on improving American’s competitiveness–and not on the top half of our classes. Or to use the popular mantra, alas, our focus is on equity, not excellence. We are NOT doing both.  Maybe it’s just too hard?

 In terms of special education, my area of expertise, we spend 20-40% of school budgets on this program and lots of time and effort and bureaucracy–without evidence that all that effort and resources work effectively to improve results. Should you wish more information, please visit my website, www.schoollawpro.com. 

 If we add your column in today’s NY TIMES, a call to truth telling. Let us finally tell the truth and the whole truth where our money, passion, and effort is going in our public schools.  We need to change direction–fast!

http://pajamasmedia.com/spengler/2011/09/05/a-moron-with-a-computer-is-still-a-moron/?singlepage=true

All I can add is that I remember how relieved I was when the schools my children attended–in an upscale community–did NOT use calculators in classrooms. Yeah! It’s only gotten worse since then, in my view.

We need to teach basics, not pretend that technology can substitute for them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/technology/technology-in-schools-faces-questions-on-value.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

Frankly, I’m tired of all these great ‘ideas’ for our schools–that don’t work.  And they cost lost of money, that could better be spent on what actually works–a good teacher, students, and plenty of time on task. That’s what it takes.  It’s not rocket science, and let’s not pretend it is.  And let’s stop diverting our efforts from what works.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/opinion/blow-an-ode-to-teachers.html

Another great article for the start of the school year. It’s time for us to honor teachers–not malign them. Let’s get with that program. It’ll do wonders for our schools.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/nyregion/before-the-first-school-bell-teachers-in-bronx-make-house-calls.html

Wonderful story. Yes, it’s all about building relationships and getting parents involved with their children’s school. How obvious–to visit parents at home before school starts–and how unusual and hard it is to do. Congratulations on this effort. I’m glad it’s among the ‘most e-mailed’ NYTimes stories. It deserves to be.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-houghton/special-ed-parenting_b_935096.html

A good post. Accronyms don’t work. Schools and parents need to speak in plain language… and, for schools, that’s the law.

Happy new school year!

How sad to read that Steve Jobs had to retire as CEO of Apple for medical reasons…. So sad.

I’m not a techie. I don’t Twitter and have no Facebook page. I don’t really know what a tweet is.  But, I do know pzazz when I see it. I do know passion and excitement.

This winter and spring, I lived in downtown Palo Alto and walked on University Avenue often–morning, noon, and night. The only consistent, all-the-time exciting place there is the Apple Store.  It’s amazing. i went in several times–as if I was a tourist in a strange land.  It’s always full of people buzzing around talking a language I don’t understand.  But,  there always are kids (and some grownups) in blue Tshirts to translate and help and welcome. It’s brilliant. It’s fun. Even I bought an iPhone..

I’ll miss you, Steve Jobs, and the brilliance of those stores. Thanks for the adventure.  My best wishes for better health.

California test results need an *–to indicate that the scores are not valid–and do not reflect what they purport to reflect.  A troubling situation, indeed.

http://toped.svefoundation.org/2011/08/16/cst-results-need-an/

Here’s the next wave–California is one of two states, apparently, that developed modified tests for students with disabilities (SWD), the California Modified Test (CMT). These tests, by definition, fundamentally alter the California Standardized Tests.  Simply stated, they lower the standard.  And generally speaking, students do better on the modified test than the standard test.

While federal law allows states to test some SWD on modified tests, the limit on these students was 2%–that is, of all students tested on modified tests, only 2% could be counted in state results toward AYP (adequate yearly progress). Apparently, in California the percent counted is upward of 4.4%.  By doing this, the state scores have gone up.

An easy fix for this runaway use of the CMT is for California to count only 2% of these results and inform schools that  for all the rest of the students, they are marked ‘not participating’ which lowers the state’s AYP and the district’s AYP rating. In fact, if fewer than 95% of students are tested, then the scores for the district do not count.  Following that (legal) path will end the runaway use of CMTs, I suspect.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/education/08educ.html?_r=1&hp

It’s funny. I think of my stepfather often. “If something sounds too good to be true, it’s probably not.”  So here we had a ridiculous goal–all children proficient by 2014.  That’s three years from now!  We could never reach it–unless we continued to lower and lower the standards, which, in fact, we did.

As a lawyer, I was never worried about the goal for my school districts–because I believed that when the time came, that goal would become elusive. Today it did.

Hopefully, we can now work for higher, not lower standards, and reasonable expectations for each students. Having one size fit all did not work.

I recently came upon several articles by Joseph W. Guald (founder of the Hyde Schools). His thesis is that parenting is the key to America’s future. One of his pieces is called, “Fix parents, not kids. ”  We can’t be more direct than that!  We continue to ignore the parents’ role to our peril.

http://www.strugglingteens.com/news/lettertoeditor/fix_parents050415.html

See also his, “Parenting:  The Key to America’s Future, ” in Education Week, December 1, 2010.

I agree with him. All the reform efforts underway are not going to make it if parents don’t step up to the plate to mentor and educate their children.

Who else is writing this stuff and this truth?  Please send it along.