106,000 Obamacare! Really?

The political fallout over Obamacare continues as it has been revealed that only 106,000 Americans signed up for health care coverage. This has been seen as a failure by those who opposed the presidents plan. That failure is now being exploited by republicans as they seek to win some elections as key races begin to take shape. The Tea Party is doing what they have set out to do. 

The real answer to healthcare in this country is universal healthcare but In the spirit of fair play, democrats passed the law that they could get passed and now conservatives have demonized it. The shutdown and the demands connected to it only helped sway public opinion against Obamacare and the Tea Party will continue until they venture Into other areas that should be about common sense such as healthcare.

Well it looks like they already have. In their relentless efforts to cast Obama as a socialist the Tea Party has jumped I to the education world. Wow.  I thought we were safe for the time being. Now Obama is a socialist because of the Common Core standards. 

My first experience with learning about the Common Core was in 2007, before Obama was president.  They were born out of the need to teach all of our students the same college and career readiness standards across the country.  You know, so we can compete against other countries that are not comparable in their education systems. In fairness, No Child Left Behind and the accountability movement cannot have teeth if all the states are teaching different standards.  Sure there are struggles with this issue on its own but to use it as a Tea Party issue is rediculous. 

In states were initial assessments were done after implementing the Common Core a backlash occurred. First runs of testing showed lower test scores than expected so fear set in and resistance mounted. These early failures are to be expected seems that this a new endeavor and their will be growing pains. Instead it has become a new opportunity for the Tea Party to yet again bash the Democtrats and President Obama.

So, will the American people bite again?  Can we see real issues for their merits or will we be driven to issues that don't exist?  My misleading title led you to an issue I care about so it can be done.  Like I've said before, keep your eye on the ball people. 

http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/13/news/economy/obamacare-insurance/index.html

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-05/common-core-standards-have-tea-party-seeing-u-s-school-takeover.html

Saving Face

This week the US House of Representatives voted to cut the food stamp program by billions and the squawking about welfare abuse is in the forefront. This reminds me of a time when I was in third grade and the teacher entered our classroom and it was very noisy. She promptly made us all write sentences as a consequence. Now we were not all talking but we all got punished. I often hear this same mentality when it comes to cutting welfare. "They're all gaming the system so we should take it away" seems to be the battle cry. I know there are people who do take advantage of the system but there is a good way to address it. 

The statistics show that very little abuse of the system actually happens, or at least that is caught. We all have a built in bias that if someone is getting something for nothing that there is some game being played. This isn't always true. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening and welfare and food stamp programs help some people stay afloat and prevents children from starving. Now I do agree there needs to be some assurance that people are not using tax payer dollars on drugs, but to assume that everyone on welfare does so is unfair.  It is reasonable to cut any waste but use the saved money for larger purposes. 

Let me offer two thoughts. Here's an idea, cut some money from welfare if you want but use the dollars to investigate and prosecute welfare fraud. Here's an even bigger idea: start a war on poverty. Do we realize how many of the societal ills we argue about can be cured by eliminating poverty?  Use savings to fund programs to help end poverty. The reality is that special interests won't allow that to happen. You see the vote that was just taken was not about how evil welfare is, it's about saving face with the republican base. Republican legislators will now have something to run on the next time around. It is not realistic that welfare will be cut that much or it will pass in a democratic senate. Deals will be made and the program will continue. The tactic of dangling social programs will continue as long as legislators want to keep their unproductive jobs. I've said it before, keep your eye on the ball people. 

http://m.cbsnews.com/storysynopsis.rbml?pageType=politics&url=http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57603776/house-votes-to-cut-$4-billion-a-year-from-food-stamps/&catid=57603776

http://spritzophrenia.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/how-bad-is-welfare-fraud-in-the-usa/

Waiting For A Documentary

This is the start of my 7th year in administration. I spent five years in the classroom before I switched to the "dark side" and I feel I have lost the right to define myself as a teacher. I have accepted this but I will always accept the task of defending this noble profession. If you are one of the many that take on the life of being a teacher, God bless you. If you are a teacher because you needed a job or there wasn't that much math to take for that major, go find something else to do because we don't need you. 

That's not why I am writing today. Davis Guggenheim is the filmmaker that brought us the documentary, Waiting For Superman. I have always been very critical of this film. It plays the blame game with our public schools without considering outside factors that frame the actual problems in education. He slammed the teachers unions, slammed school districts ways of dealing with poor teachers even when those protocols were dictated by state law. Putting your child in a charter school seems to be the only answer. This was the solution given without reporting the fact that charter schools fail at about the same rate at public schools. I saw the film as largely irresponsible and a disservice to hard working teachers. 

CBS recently aired his latest work entitled "Teach".  This seemed to be a better effort to empower people to rally around teachers and the work they do.  Film makers followed four young teachers and chronicled their ups and downs in the struggle to help all of their students succeed. They put a real face on the effort teachers make and the time, frustration, and tears that go into being a real teacher. They even had celebrities show up and give shout outs to their favorite teachers. 

Despite this improved effort Guggenheim still is missing the mark. Teaching and learning is a complex science that requires an artist to pull off. What the film fails to address is the well documented phenomenon of the state requiring more of us but giving us less to do it with. It fails to address the institution of the American family that sends us our clientele. An institution that has changed and in some ways eroded since the last generation. The truth is there is no single point of entry to fix education in America. So the answer at the state and federal level is to regulate. Add more expectations and more rules. 

This tactic only skirts responsibility for those who help this problem continue. Telling you who to blame for a problem is how you win elections. Our kids and our country should not be dependent on politics but we allow it to happen. Maybe that should be the next film for Guggenheim. Make a film about where real decisions are made for schools. A place were a few are ruining the most noble task that local communities take on. 

If you would like to see more on the efforts of Davis Guggenheim and the Gates Foundation, visit www.takepart.org. 

Pill vs. Pot

Recently the state of Illinois has thrown its hat into the medical marihuana ring. Not only that, CNN medical correspondent and doctor, Sanjay Gupta, announced he was wrong about the benefits of medical weed. This has sparked new debate over the issue and I'm sure the potheads will find a way out of their parent's basements to rally around the cause. 

I will not say that cannabis is bad for people. Cancer patients, multiple sclerosis, and HIV/AIDS patients can no doubt benefit from its use to ease the side effects from their treatment. But why are we advocating smokable weed when it comes to a medical issue. People who smoke weed take in more tar and carbon monoxide than cigarette smokers do. We have entire movements trying to ruin big tobacco and there are people promoting smokable marihuana for "health" reasons?  Doesn't make sense to me. 

Their is a pill for everything these days and there is a pill for this. It's called Marinol and it is a much safer way to give these folks what they need. Granted it does take a little longer for the effect to set in but it does the job. 

Now I'm happy to say that I'm a moderate liberal and I'm usually for doing what makes us happy. In this case I think we are headed down a slippery slope to recreational weed. So I say to lawmakers, have the guts and make the move. Don't hide behind the sentiment that you are helping patients when you don't even pay your bills to doctors and pharmacists. The "medical" tag on marijuana doesn't fly when there is a pill that does the same thing. 

http://www.drugs.com/mtm/marinol.html

Baseball Cards

You can learn a lot about a player from his baseball cards.  Baseball cards fueled my passion for the game.  I collected and traded like it was an addiction.  I did the most damage I could do with a paperboy’s earnings and to this day I have a great collection to show for it.  My most sought after player was my favorite player, Mark David McGuire.

Growing up in So Ill it is hard to find an Oakland A’s game on TV.  Baseball cards were a way to keep up with the only team I made an effort to follow.  I can’t pinpoint when I became an Oakland fan but I was dedicated.  I collected every card of every player on the team but I would trade anything away for a Mark McGuire card.  That grew into an effort to try to swing like him, to throw like him and if I could have grown facial hair, I would.  I idolized him and by the time I got to high school and took my freshman health class, I knew he was on the juice. It’s a shame that it was obvious to a 14 year old that had only minimal exposure to a health textbook.

My wildest dreams came true when not only Tony LaRussa came to the Lou but so did my first baseball idol.  I knew he was a product of alleged cheating but I got the chance to find some of my childhood in the games I saw him play at Busch.  I was giddy and hoping for a homerun every time he came to the plate and he delivered.  When he was identified as a cheater, it didn’t break my heart.  That kind of thing was never on the back of his baseball cards.  I had slowly accepted his choices over time and I never turned on him.  I had amassed a great deal of love for him and was loyal.  I stand firm that using steroids and PED’s are cheating and does not belong in professional sports.  My boyhood hero cheated and I have made peace with that.

What’s left is a box of great baseball cards.  I have rookie cards of nearly every player associated with drug use.  Aside from my McGuire cards, Sosa cards, Clemens cards and so on I have memories of how I felt about those players when I followed them.  I remember how excited I was about the game because baseball cards brought me close to them.  I kept these cards because one day I know I will pass on the stories to my kids and hopefully they will be turned on to the game as I was.  I will have to tell about how this era of the game was full of cheaters and those looking for shortcuts but I will also have the pleasure of showing them some other cards from the era.  I have cards for Cal Ripken, Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs and many others who played clean.  I am a Cardinals fan and I know how we feel about Albert Pujols, but I know when he hits his 500^th homerun he will have done it clean.

The hard reality is that some of our heroes aren’t really heroes, they are just regular people who make bad choices.  Natural talent wasn’t enough for my hero.  The thirst for big numbers and success will made him experiment with the rules and the people around him.  His story is one worth telling but not because he was a fallen player but he has to live with his choices.  He put up hall of fame numbers but will be excluded until the writers feel he has suffered enough.  He has to live with the long term effects of a short term decision and that’s a life lesson worth teaching.   

The First Jury - Response to the Zimmerman Trial

The truth is if you have a monster defense team, you walk.  Just ask OJ 10 years ago.  If Zimmerman would have had a standard legal team with the same set of case facts, he would be in prison already.  That is 21st century justice and we know that is true.  What is also 21st century that did not exist when legal frameworks were constructed was the internet.  This case go so much coverage before one witness came to the stand that a jury was selected very early.  

This jury, not one that acquitted Zimmerman, was asked for money.  A legal defense team fund was created for Zimmerman and right out of the gate it raised money.  Ask Clarence Earl Gideon if he would have been a fan of the internet when he was changing the system the old fashioned way. People who knew nothing about the case, except what was reported in the media and other "reliable" news sources could donate money towards the defense of a man they did not know.  By the end of May they were asking for more money saying, "they’ve raised $26,000 in donations in the last two months and over $300,000 so far, but it’s just not enough."  They went on to tell the public that they needed at least $120,000 to properly defend him or $75,000 to give him a fighting chance.  After that plea another $77,000 was raised from large donors.  Visit the web link below to the see how the money has been rolling in.  Better yet, read the comments that were published with the donations.  i would love to see a full list of these "large donors" and see what interests are being promoted.

If we go back to the assumption that money = victory, then the first jury decided this case for George Zimmerman.  The second jury simply did the formalities.  What does this mean for trial law going forward in this country?  I used to believe in the concept of a court of public opinion but now we have juries of public opinion.  I'm not saying it is fair or not but I know how I will play the game God forbid that I am in his situation.  But that wouldn't happen.  I do not believe in concealed carry and I definitely would not be following suspicious people at night.  I do what all good sissies do, look out my window and talk to the police on the phone from afar. 

http://www.hlntv.com/article/2013/05/29/george-zimmerman-defense-needs-more-money

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57587877-504083/george-zimmerman-trial-defense-fund-up-$77k-in-one-week-for-man-accused-of-murdering-trayvon-martin/

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/cops_others/clarence_gideon/index.html

http://www.gzdefensefund.com/donate/

Who's Your Captain Miller?

A couple of weeks ago I lost one of my Captain Millers. My 8th grade English teacher, Mr. Forbes passed away as he was enjoying his retirement. To know what a Captain Miller is, you must be familiar with my favorite movie "Saving Private Ryan".

Tom Hanks played Captain Miller in the 1997 film that helped me put real perspective on my life. I have even done a couple of speaking engagements on the parallels between my life and the film and how I have dealt with being an at-risk kid growing up. The message to the kids and teachers that I've spoke to is to be somebody's Captain Miller. 

To capture his full essence watch the clip linked below. A quick summary of his character is this, he is a leader. A leader who can lead by example and put himself out in front of his men to get them where they need to be. He is smart but stays focused. His men saw him as a mystery because he didn't try to make friends with his men he simply put them where they needed to be to accomplish the mission. In then in the end, because the situation demanded it, he showed his humanity to his men to bring them closer.

As I have stated in an earlier post, for poor kids people are currency. I have been lucky enough to have several people willing to be my wealth over the years and thus my Captain Millers. Mr. Forbes was a Captain Miller because I always felt welcomed and valued in his room. He taught me and connected with me. He is one of the few teachers I made a real connection with. I don't think he knew I had become an educator but I'm sure he would have been a bit shocked to learn that. But really that's what you do for your Captain Millers. At the end of the film his last words to Private Ryan were, "earn this."  That's what you have to do for them every day. True Captain Millers don't want a thank you, they just want to know that the sacrifices they were making along the way made a difference.  

Who are your Captain Millers?  Have you earned their sacrifice today?

http://youtu.be/FF6C8MYdzQk