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A Teachable Moment: Character In An Anti-Teacher Climate

It’s a question on a lot of parents’ minds these days: How do we teach character?

New York Times columnist David Brooks was in Cleveland on Monday to talk about his new book, “The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement.” During the audience Q-and-A, the self-described conservative was asked how he would design high school curriculum to include the teaching of character.

Brooks shared a memory of his own teachers: “I don’t remember what they taught me, but I remember how they behaved.” Many in the audience nodded and murmured in agreement.

Like most people, I could easily rattle off the names of several teachers who changed my life by the way they lived theirs. I’ll spare you that walk down my memory lane.

Instead, I want to quote another self-described conservative who had a lot to say about character. His recent e-mail to me echoed the sentiments expressed by many readers who object to various states’ legislative attacks against public school teachers, including those in Ohio. These letters and e-mails are not from teachers, but from those who love them.

This particular reader is a business analyst. He made it clear that, while our dads held similar blue-collar jobs, he and I grew up to disagree on many issues. He’s not a fan.

But he does share my high regard for the men and women paid by taxpayers to teach America’s children. He’s been married to one of those dedicated public servants in Cleveland for nearly 14 years.

“We spend tons of money on supplies for the kids,” he wrote. “I have begged her to leave Cleveland and she refuses to because it is her calling. I should be so lucky.”

To insulate this man and his wife from the current blood sport of teacher-bashing, I won’t name them. He did give me permission to share the recent letter of apology he wrote to his wife:

Dear Honey,

I’m sorry.

I am a conservative husband, belong to the Tea Party and I voted for John Kasich. I have been married to a Cleveland teacher for almost 14 years and my vote let her down.

I apologize:

For letting people tease you about having the summer off and not asking them to thank you for the tough days ahead that begin in early August. I know for a fact you work more hours in those 10 months than many people do in 12. All those hours are earned.

For complaining that my Sunday is limited with you because you must work.

For making you think you have to ask permission to buy a student socks, gloves and hats.

For not understanding that you walk through a metal detector for work.

For leaving dirty dishes in the sink [when you awoke] for your 4 a.m. work session. I should know you have to prepare.

For thinking you took advantage of the taxpayers. Our governor continues to live off the taxpayer dole, not you.

For counting the time and money you spend to buy school supplies.

For not saying “thank you” enough for making the world and me better.

I love you.

In this husband’s apology, we learn a lot about the remarkable teacher who is his wife. Her students sure are lucky. Every day that she shows up with such optimism is another day her students get a chance to believe in a better version of themselves.

Thankfully, this teacher is not an anomaly. Despite recent attacks on their pay, motives and even their supposed lifestyle, the majority of public school teachers across the country continue to bring their talent and high ideals to some of our most troubled districts.

Consider the take-home message for America’s schoolchildren:

Conservative politicians emboldened by brand-new legislative majorities insist that children are our most precious resource, but then pass bills guaranteed to undermine the teachers entrusted with our children’s future.

Nevertheless, those same public school teachers under attack continue to report for duty every day.

We know that children watch, and learn. And what they are sure to understand is that, unlike those politicians, their teachers refuse to give up on them.

Talk about a lesson in character.

By: Connie Schultz, Syndicated Columnist, The Plain Dealer and Creators Syndicated, Published March 16, 2011, Cleveland.com

March 19, 2011 Posted by | Class Warfare, Education, Politics, Professionals, State Legislatures, States, Teachers, Teaparty | , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Mad Scientists In The Lab Of Democracy…Experimentation Going Awry

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said that states are the “laboratories of democracy.” Oft repeated over time, the aphorism has helped impart legitimacy to the rough and tumble of state lawmaking. We’ve heard “laboratory” and we’ve imagined staid scientists in white coats rigorously testing forward-thinking theories of societal advancement. It’s certainly a reassuring picture – but there is a darker side of the metaphor. States are indeed laboratories. The problem is that today, those laboratories are increasingly run by mad scientists.

We’re not talking about the usual Dr. Frankensteins trying to bring alive new corporate giveaways through harebrained cuts to social services (though there are those, too). We’re talking about true legislative sadists looking to go medieval on America. Behold just five of the most telling examples:

The Anti-Life Pro-Life Act: After anti-abortion Republicans in Congress tried to narrow the legal definition of rape, Nebraska Republican State Sen. Mark Christensen took the assault on women’s rights one step further with a bill to legitimize the murder of abortion providers by classifying such homicides as “justified.”

The Let Them Eat Corporate Tax Cuts Act: As poverty rates and hunger have risen, so too have corporate profits. The Georgia legislature’s response? Intensify the inequity with a bill to create a regressive sales tax on food that would then finance a brand new corporate tax cut.

The Demoralize the Workforce Act: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker didn’t just threaten to deploy the National Guard against state workers unless they accept big pay and pension cuts. Apparently, that was too Kent State and not enough Ludlow Massacre for him. So he pressed to statutorily bar those workers from ever again collectively bargaining.

The Child Labor Act: Missouri State Sen. Jane Cunningham’s proposal to eliminate child labor laws would allow corporations to employ any kid under 14 and would terminate restrictions on the number of hours that kid can be forced to work. The legislation is proof that when Tea Party ideologues refer to “the ’50s,” some of them aren’t referring to the 1950s – they are referring to the 1850s.

The Endorsing Your Own Demise Act: Between trying to legalize hunting with hand-thrown spears and pressing to eliminate education requirements for those seeking the office of State Superintendent of Schools, Montana’s Republican lawmakers are also considering legislation to officially endorse catastrophic global climate change. That’s right, in the face of a Harvard study showing that climate change could destroy Montana’s water supplies, agriculture industries and forests, State Rep. Joe Read’s bill would declare that “global warming is beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana.”

If you don’t live in one of these states, it’s easy to tell yourself that these bills don’t affect you. But history suggests that what happens in one “laboratory” is quite often replicated in others – and ultimately, in the nation’s capital. That’s why we should all hope saner minds cut short these experiments before they get even more out of control.

March 18, 2011 Posted by | Abortion, Climate Change, Collective Bargaining, Democracy, Education, Ideologues, Politics, State Legislatures, States, Unions, Womens Rights | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

On (and On and On) Wisconsin, As Judge Stays New Union Law

Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin, including Gov. Scott Walker, have yet another decision to make in the wake of a state trial judge’s ruling Friday that temporarily blocked enforcement of Wisconsin’s controversial new public union law. And none of their paths are certain to bring them back to where they want to be.

Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi created the headache for Walker and company when she ruled that Wisconsin’s “open meetings” law required more public notice of a legislative vote than was given by Republican lawmakers on the evening of March 9th. That was the night GOP lawmakers took their surprise vote, in the absence of their still-in-hiding Democratic counterparts, and passed the divisive measure which undercuts collective bargaining rights in the state.

Gov. Walker subsequently signed the law and it was scheduled to be published — a requirement for implementation — on March 25th. But because the measure was enacted in violation of the 30-year-old transparency law, Judge Sumi ruled, it could not yet go into effect. The Wisconsin State Journal quoted her as saying: “This was something that would and did catch the public unaware… what ended up being a closed session of a body in propelling legislation forward.”

Her procedural decision had nothing to do with the legal or political merits of the fight over collective bargaining rights. But it will likely affect those merits anyway, in whole or in part. Here’s part of what the state statute says about how other state statutes are to be lawfully enacted:

“Public notice of every meeting of a governmental body shall be given at least 24 hours prior to the commencement of such meeting unless for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical, in which case shorter notice may be given, but in no case may the notice be provided less than 2 hours in advance of the meeting.”

After a brief hearing on the matter, Judge Sumi said Friday in court: “It seems to me the public policy behind effective enforcement of the open meeting  law is so strong that it does outweigh the interest, at least at this time, which may exist in favor of sustaining the validity of the (law).”

So the GOP in Wisconsin now has a few options. The GOP can go back to the start of the legislative process and seek to enact the measure in more traditional circumstances. This could mean more Democratic walkouts. It could mean more protests at the State House in Madison. It could mean some sort of political compromise. Or it could mean the passage of an exact but newer version of the new collective bargaining law. And there’s no point in betting on which option is more likely because no reasonable person would lay odds on any of it given Wisconsin’s recent political history.

The GOP can slug it out in court and hope that a majority of the justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court have a different view of the open meetings law (and what happened on March 9th) than did Judge Sumi. The problem with that option is that it requires the state’s appellate judiciary to undercut the open meetings law not just in these circumstances — which everyone concedes were unusual — but in more conventional scenarios as well. No one (yet) is claiming the law itself is unconstitutional or otherwise beyond the power of state legislators. The state supreme court could require a do-over at the Statehouse while promising its ruling has nothing to do with the politics of the law.

Or, the GOP can pursue both paths at the same time and hope for success in either one. The problem with that scenario is that it would require politicians to spend more time and energy in pitched legislative battle over an issue — new collective-bargaining legislation, properly noticed — which may subsequently be rendered moot by an appellate ruling that recognizes the legitimacy of the existing collective-bargaining law. I suspect few politicians in Wisconsin would want to go through the ordeal again even if they were assured that it would mean something in the end. But to ask them to do so when the existing law may ultimately be revived may be a bit much.

There are other lawsuits pending against the legislation. Judge Sumi herself is involved in another one of those. What emerged from political chaos looks now to be heading toward a period of legal chaos.

By: Andrew Cohen, The Atlantic, March 18, 2011

March 18, 2011 Posted by | Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Politics, Republicans, State Legislatures, States, Unions | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Tea Party Extremism Run Amok

The success of the Tea Party movement and legitimate concern over the size of the deficit raise a serious question: What does it mean to promote small government?

The pious commitment to keeping big government out of people’s lives—or championing local control—was a common theme among Republican candidates last election season, particularly among those who professed sympathies for the Tea Party element. But local control and small government sound remarkably like pure lawlessness, as Dana Milbank brilliantly reports in Wednesday’s Washington Post.

Milbank—often amusing, always readable—with this most recent and very well-reported column, an absolute must-read, chronicles some of the anti-federal-authority efforts by state legislators:

When Louis Brandeis called state legislatures “laboratories of democracy,” he couldn’t have imagined the curious formulas the Tea Party chemists would be mixing in 2011, including: a bill just passed by the Utah legislature requiring the state to recognize gold and silver as legal tender; a Montana bill declaring global warming “beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana”; a plan in Georgia to abolish driver’s licenses because licensing violates the “inalienable right” to drive; legislation in South Dakota that would require every adult to buy a gun; and the Kentucky legislature’s effort to create a “sanctuary state” for coal, safe from environmental laws.

U.S. News’s own Robert Schlesinger also recently questioned the mental stability of some of these local lawmakers.

Setting aside the pure absurdity of some of those ideas, the philosophical underpinnings are pretty disturbing. Where did these local officials get the idea that any community standard—be it a proven ability to make a left turn (if not parallel park) or to avoid poisoning the environment for generations who might come after us—is some egregious infringement on their own rights?

If the anti-big-government, local-control camp wants to prove its sincerity, it can help out right here in the District of Columbia. Still the last place in the country where citizens are denied the right to full representation in Congress, the nation’s capital is again experiencing attempts by members of Congress to make decisions about school vouchers and other matters. The same lawmakers who say they want the federal government to have less control over people’s lives are using Washington as Congress’s personal lab rat. If they really believe in local control, the lawmakers will let the city of Washington alone.

By: Susan Milligan, U.S. News and World Report, March 16, 2011

March 18, 2011 Posted by | Deficits, Democracy, Liberty, Politics, Republicans, State Legislatures, Teaparty | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Gunning Down Immigrants — And Other Democratic Experiments

Here in Washington, the immigration debate is in stalemate. But in Kansas, there has been a breakthrough.

This striking achievement came about this week during a meeting of the state House Appropriations Committee on efforts in Kansas to shoot feral swine from helicopters. Republican state Rep. Virgil Peck suddenly had an idea. “Looks like shooting these immigrating feral hogs works,” he commented, according to a recording posted by the Lawrence Journal-World. “Maybe we have found a [solution] to our illegal immigration problem.”

Brilliant! Shooting immigrants from helicopter gunships! Why didn’t they think of that in Congress?

There are a few logistical problems with Peck’s idea, including the fact that Kansas isn’t a border state. But maybe Oklahoma and Texas will grant overflight rights for immigrant-hunting sorties.

Peck, the Republican caucus chairman for the state House, later suggested his brainstorm was a joke, although he also defended himself: “I was just speaking like a southeast Kansas person.”

Kansans may be surprised to learn that the immigrant-shooting idea was offered in their names, but they wouldn’t be the only Americans getting unwelcome news from their state legislators now that many Tea Party types have come to power.

When Louis Brandeis called state legislatures “laboratories of democracy,” he couldn’t have imagined the curious formulas the Tea Party chemists would be mixing in 2011, including: a bill just passed by the Utah legislature requiring the state to recognize gold and silver as legal tender; a Montana bill declaring global warming “beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana”; a plan in Georgia to abolish driver’s licenses because licensing violates the “inalienable right” to drive; legislation in South Dakota that would require every adult to buy a gun; and the Kentucky legislature’s effort to create a “sanctuary state” for coal, safe from environmental laws.

In Washington, the whims of the Tea Party lawmakers have been tempered, by President Obama and Senate Democrats, but also by House Republican leaders who don’t want the party to look crazy. Yet these checks often do not exist in state capitols. Though many of the proposals will never become law, the proliferation of exotic policies gives Americans a sense of what Tea Party rule might look like.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to strip public-sector unions of their power has gained national attention, as have various states’ efforts to imitate Arizona’s immigration crackdown. Arizona, meanwhile, moved on to an attempt to assert its authority to nullify federal law; the last time that was tried, we had the Civil War.

Less well known is what’s going on in Montana. Legislators there have introduced several bills that would nullify federal law, including health-care reform, the Endangered Species Act, gun laws and food-safety laws. Under one legislative proposal, FBI agents couldn’t operate in the state without the permission of county sheriffs. Legislators are also looking into a proposed resolution calling on Congress to end membership in the United Nations.

A “birther” bill, similar to proposals in various other states, would require presidential candidates — they’re talking about you, Obama — to furnish proof of citizenship that is satisfactory to state authorities. Montana has also joined the push in many states to restore the gold standard, and a Montana House committee approved legislation invalidating municipal laws against anti-gay discrimination.

Then there’s House Bill 278, authorizing armed citizens’ militias known as “home guards.” With the home guards mobilized, Montana would no longer have to fear a Canadian invasion. And while Montana repels the barbarians from Alberta, New Hampshire is contemplating a state “defense force” to protect it from the marauding Quebecois.

Some of the proposals are ominous: South Dakota would call it justifiable homicide if a killer is trying to stop harm to an unborn child.

Some are petty: Wyoming, following Oklahoma, wants to ban sharia law, even though that state’s 200-odd Muslims couldn’t pose much of a sharia threat.

Some are mean-spirited: Iowa would allow business owners to refuse goods and services to those in gay marriages.

Some are fairly harmless: Arizona took actions to make the Colt Single Action Army Revolver the official state firearm and to create a Tea Party license plate.

And some are just silly: A Georgia bill would require only “pre-1965” silver and gold coins for payment of state debts.

Even if the Tea Party gets its way in the legislature, it won’t be easy to stop residents of Georgia from using their greenbacks — at first. But compliance will undoubtedly increase once the state calls in those helicopter gunships from Kansas.

By: Dana Milbank, The Washington Post, March 15, 2011

March 16, 2011 Posted by | Birthers, Immigration, Politics, State Legislatures, States, Teaparty | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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