That's Professor Hillary Clinton if you please.

Courtesy of the New York Daily News:  

Hillary Clinton is testing the waters on a return to academia. 

The former U.S. Secretary of State and presidential nominee is in talks with Columbia University to take on a formal role at the Ivy League — and potentially house her archives there, multiple sources told the Daily News. 

One option under discussion is an esteemed “University Professor” role that would allow Clinton to lecture across a range of schools and departments without the requirement of a strict course load, one source said. 

A former law professor, Clinton could maintain the vaunted but vague role indefinitely or decide at a later date she wants to settle at Columbia's celebrated law school or maybe the School of International and Public Affairs, the source said.

"It's all fluid. It could be a number of things. No decisions have been made, but there are talks,” a different source with knowledge of Clinton's thinking told The News.

"Professor Hillary Clinton," yeah I could see that. 

A lot of former government officials have already taken a similar path into academia, and she certainly has a wealth of knowledge to share.

I actually think that her husband, who President Obama once named "The Explainer-in-Chief," might be better suited to such a profession, but Hillary would be far more than competent.

I think I would personally enjoy taking a class from a woman with her vast experience, and I can only imagine how empowering it would be for young college age women to hear about her life and the lessons she has learned.

Republicans add using Bibles as textbooks in our public schools to their party platform.

Courtesy of The Frisky:

As if this year’s Republican convention couldn’t get any worse, it has somehow managed to top itself already, which, frankly, is saying a lot when you consider the fact that they’re literally nominating Donald-fucking-Trump. The GOP platform committee passed an amendment mandating that the Bible be allowed to be taught in schools as a historical document, according to NBC and Reuters reporters in Cleveland Monday. NBC’s Ginger Gibson tweeted, “Teaching the Bible in public schools remains in Republican platform.” 

This addition to the party platform ignores the whole “freedom of religion” and “separation of church and state” laws conservatives bring up when it comes to having the freedom to discriminate against gay people, and then conveniently forget when it comes to letting gay people marry or women choose to not be mothers. Additionally, it could burden sensible teachers in public, secular schools who would paradoxically have to teach our Constitutional rights regarding religion, but simultaneously teach Judeo-Christian-centric curriculum to impressionable youth who have the right to come to their own intellectual conclusions about religion.

Personally I don't need another reason to vote against every Republican running for office this year, but if you are even a remotely intelligent person and nee one.....well this should be more than enough.

After 21 years on the job Alabama's one time teacher of the year quits after being told she is unqualified.

Ann Marie Corgill

Courtesy of the Independent:  

A veteran Teacher of the Year in Alabama has resigned after 21 years in the classroom after local authorities told her she is unqualified to educate fifth graders. 

Ann Marie Corgill was told by the Alabama Department of Education that her qualifications were not up to scratch, despite being 2015 National Teacher of the Year and 2014-2015 Alabama Teacher of the Year finalist. She is also the author of teaching book called “Of Primary Importance”. 

Ms Corgill said she was tired of having to prove herself and did not want to pay more fees, and sent Birmingham City Schools a letter of resignation. In the letter, first obtained by Al.com, she wrote: 

“After 21 years of teaching in grades 1-6, I have no answers as to why this is a problem now, so instead of paying more fees, taking more tests and proving once again that I am qualified to teach, I am resigning.”

You know what, I don't even know enough curse words to express my anger over this.

What in the hell are we doing?

How can we have broken public education so completely that even gifted, experienced teachers can no longer function adequately in our classrooms?

This, THIS, is what the conservatives have been working towards all along.

They want to drive good teachers away, undermine public education until it is crippled, and then declare that the Department of Education has failed, and do away with it completely.

Despite the bullshit rhetoric about "fixing" education, this was the driving force behind No Child Left Behind. And the damage it caused, and the damage still being caused by those trying to modify it, is cheating our kids out of their rights as citizens to a free, and comprehensive, education.

Teaching is not a cookie cutter profession. These are not factory workers going through the same mundane tasks over an over for a paycheck.

They are intelligent, imaginative individuals, with skills and dedication who do best when they are allowed to experiment and think outside of the box.

That is how they keep the children engaged, and how they keep things fresh and non-repetitive for themselves.

The best teachers I have seen are the ones that rarely provide instruction the same way twice. They think of new and exciting ways to keep the material interesting and sometimes even entertaining.

Yet that diversity is exactly what is being punished in American classrooms today.

And you know what? That is fucked up.

Republican Congressman suggests that we don't need funding for education because "Socrates trained Plato on a rock." Well you can't argue with logic like that.

Rep. Dave Brat.

Courtesy of Think Progress:

During a House Education and Workforce Committee proceeding on Wednesday to reauthorize the nation’s elementary and secondary education law, Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) said, “Socrates trained Plato in on a rock and then Plato trained in Aristotle roughly speaking on a rock. So, huge funding is not necessary to achieve the greatest minds and the greatest intellects in history.” 

He began his remarks by saying, “The greatest thinkers in Western civ were not products of education policy,” before mentioning Socrates and Plato. He later went on to say that he thinks the answer to improving education in this country “would be to get private sector folks into every one of our schools, get the CEOs in the schools and move beyond this just narrow policy debate and really have a revolution.”

Well first off you don't "train" students, you train dogs.

Secondly if Plato and Aristotle had not been highly intelligent students then their education would have been less impressive, and in fact Aristotle taught many students whose names we do not remember because apparently Aristotle's lessons did not impact them the same way that they did Plato.

In fact Aristotle was quoted as saying he did not so much teach as serve as a midwife to the truth that was already within his students. As any educator will tell you that is not a valid methodology for educating large numbers of students in the classroom.

And third the idea of privatizing education. and inviting business people and laymen to teach students. demonstrates a real lack of respect and understanding of what teachers do.

Being an educator is a calling, and if you do not possess that burning desire you will fail. Period.

There are some with an innate ability to reach their students, but without the education to teach them properly these people would still fail at their jobs.

Look I have been in a lot of classrooms, in a lot of different capacities, and I can tell you that some instructors lose the class before they even finish writing their name on a chalkboard. While others can captivate their audience even while teaching the toughest and least entertaining material.

I would ask this Brat fellow how he would suggest we teach computer science on a rock? Or chemistry? Or any other of a hundred incredibly complex subjects which require hands on materials and up to date textbooks?

Personally I would ignore this idiot, if it were not for the fact that he and his fellow moronic Republican colleagues were not in a position to truly screw up education in this country.

Oh and by the way, just in case you were wondering, Brat himself has both a Masters and PhD.

And somehow I doubt he received either of those while sitting on a rock.

Are we putting religious tolerance above the rights of America's children?

Courtesy of Alternet:  

The appropriate balance between freedom and harm can be hard to strike, particularly when it comes to religious freedom. In an attempt to find this balance, religious conservatives have been granted exemptions from a wide range of civil rights laws and social obligations. In the last two decades, one of the exemptions they have secured in many states is the right to opt out of school attendance for their children. 

Led by a group called Home School Legal Defense Association, a network of institutions and activists have sprung up to advocate the rights of parents to educate their children—or not—as they please. Now the largest generation of home-schooled children are coming of age, and some are telling horror stories that suggest parent privilege may have gone too far. 

A recent testimonial posted at Homeschoolers Anonymous opens like this: 

"It was not so much homeschooling that traumatized me as much as my mother’s mental illness. This was hidden by homeschooling, and the pain that damaged me came from the constant exposure to her psychiatric illness. I feel like someone roasted me over a fire, leaving me with burns to rest the remainder of my life, and I didn’t even know at the time what fire was. "

As with nutritional or sanitary neglect, lack of education can create lifelong hardships for those it affects. Ask any adult who has taken a college course while working full-time. Then imagine tackling years of remedial elementary, middle and high school courses while supporting yourself—and possibly a family—with a job so menial it doesn’t require a high school education. This outcome may not be the homeschool norm, but on websites like Homeschoolers Anonymous, homeschool alumni are reporting experiences of educational neglect in alarming numbers. 

Homeschooling families often portray themselves as a persecuted minority, but compared to homeschooled victims of neglect and abuse, responsible homeschooling parents are a formidable army. Represented by groups like the HSLDA, which has lawyers, publicists and media personalities at its command, these groups can easily paper the walls of a legislator’s office with letters listing their demands. But for young children who are having their futures stolen, these groups offer no solutions. 

Boiled down, most arguments for unregulated homeschooling amount to the same thing: “We must ignore the problems of abused homeschooled children to maintain the sovereignty of parents.” 

At the heart of this claim is religious homeschoolers’ insistence that God has elevated parents above any earthly authority. This is an attempt to resurrect an Old Testament-era legal theory, which afforded children no more right to life, liberty and self-direction than a sheep or a goat. It’s true thatbiblical fathers could do anything—including selling off their sons and daughters—but outside of homeschooling circles, few Americans would argue for a return to that kind of absolute parental license. 

In America, children are not possessions for parents to use or destroy. Rather, children are recognized as dependent beings whose bodies and futures are held in trust by their parents. Educational neglect is an abdication of a parent’s legal obligation of good stewardship. By failing to educate, parents potentially squander a child’s entire lifetime of future earnings and achievements. It’s difficult to imagine a more brazen theft. 

Having been burned by this debate before, I think it is important right off the back to differentiate between those who homeschool due to poor schools in their districts, or children with specialized needs, and those who homeschool for purely religious reasons, or as a method of controlling the lives of their children.

I have to say that as a person working in the mental health community, that there are many children with special needs who do not receive a diagnosis until they reach school age, and are evaluated by educational experts.

Therefore a child with learning disabilities may not receive that very important early intervention, and be left to sensibilities of a parent, with no background in education, who may see their child's lack of progress as a behavioral problem which needs to be addressed through punitive measures rather than educational strategies.

And that does not even consider the number of abusive, or mentally ill, parents who keep their children out of the public school system in order to protect themselves from prosecution or the risk of having their victims removed from their homes. 

I believe that I have already once shared the story of the little girls who lived behind me when I was a pre-teen, and who were kept home from school and raped repeatedly by their father, a deacon at a local church. When they made the mistake of confessing that to me that one day while out playing the family packed up and moved away the very next day.

I never saw or heard from them again.

As a professional I have seen numerous cases of abuse in the homes of religious homeschoolers that went unreported until somebody called the state and the children were removed from the home. Once the children were convinced they were safe the stories they would tell have left scars on my heart that will never fade.

Once again this is not ALL homeschooling families, nor is it ALL religious homeschooling families. Not by a long shot.

But it DOES happen, and all that it would take to minimize how often is to make sure that the homeschooling environment was regulated, and that the children are taken for regular doctor visits and possibly screenings for any potential learning difficulty or psychological concerns.

That may seem intrusive to some parents, but the fact is that often parents are NOT able to identify what is best for their children due to their own prejudices or the fact that they are too close to the problem.

To be blunt it is most often in the child's best interests for the role of parent and teacher to remain separate, and for the parent to remain involved, but not in charge, of a child's education.

And in my opinion, there is NEVER a time that religion should be considered before the best interests of the child. NEVER.

"Creation Science 101" by Roy Zimmerman

Somebody sent this to me yesterday in the comments after my post about the textbooks in Texas, and I thought it was just too great not to share.

Mark your calendar kids! Tomorrow is the big day where Sarah Palin replaces the "Jersey Shore" reality series as the most embarrassing thing in the state. Well they DID survive Hurricane Sandy.

Source

Okay I swear that is the creepiest poster ever!

Both Lonegan and Levin look like creepers just waiting for Palin's jacket to lose a button or for her to bend over to pick something up. Gross.

Currently Lonegan is 14 points behind Corey Booker and if he really thinks that some radical Right Wing talk radio guy and a disgraced political albatross are going to help him move up, then he is even more ignorant than his critics believe him to be.

Speaking of the disgraced albatross she has also had her ghostwriter put up this bizarre Facebook post:

Friends, please see the article linked below. Consider this school teacher's assignment which mandates that kids undertake the task of deciding the fate of characters in an exercise that can obviously be considered a numbing lesson in “death panels.” Unbelievable. 

We’ll be in NJ this Saturday to rally for Steve Lonegan for the U.S. Senate to thank his supporters for pushing back against Obamacare and to halt D.C.-inspired nonsense like this. 

We should hope that influential adults could teach the next generation that it is never ethical, it is never right, for our government to take steps towards the destruction of the sanctity of innocent life. And the way to do that is for our culture to condemn and reject the insensitive callus that grows in a society by this kind of thinking. The teacher could hopefully explain how Orwellian and wrong this thinking is. And she'd go on to declare our right to LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit if happiness, upon which American exceptionalism was built. I challenge her to do so.

Wait, the school is supposedly teaching the children a lesson that "obviously" numbs them to the idea of non-existent "death panels?" WTF?

She links to an article by Fox News radio host Todd Starnes, in which he takes a high school social studies exercise, examining ethics, and turns it into some kind of Machiavellian manipulation.

Here is what the exercise entails.

The lesson involves 10 people who are in desperate need of kidney dialysis. For Fox News Only For Fox News Only “Unless they receive this procedure, they will die,” the lesson states. 

But there’s a problem. The local hospital only has enough machines to support six patients. 

“That means four people are not going to live,” the assignment states. “You must decide from the information below which six will survive.”

The choices for who, would, or who would not receive the dialysis included a doctor, lawyer, housewife, teacher, cop, Lutheran minister, ex-convict, a prostitute, college student and a disabled person.

The worksheet also included their ethnicity, their marital status, their age, and whether or not they had any children.

I don't know about all of you but I engaged in similar exercises while in high school and in college. They were a part of my philosophy classes, and they were the impetus for some rather interesting conversations among the students, who were also asked to explain and discuss their decisions. And by the way this was back in the late seventies and early eighties, way, WAY before there was any talk of "death panels" and back when Sarah Palin was still a frumpy high school kid with bad hair and low self esteem.

Now the Todd Starnes article links to another Right Wing rag which contacted the principal of St. Joseph Ogden High School in St. Joseph, IL and received this in response:

“The assignment you are referring to is not a “Death Panel” assignment. The assignment is one in the sociology unit of our Introduction To Social Studies class. The purpose of the assignment is to educate students about social values and how people in our society unfortunately create biases based off of professions, race, gender, etc. The teacher’s goal is to educate students in the fact that these social value biases exist, and that hopefully students will see things from a different perspective after the activity is completed. The teacher’s purpose in the element of the assignment you are referring to is to get students emotionally involved to participate in the classroom discussion, and to open their minds to the fact that they themselves have their own social biases. The assignment has nothing to do with a “Death Panel.” 

We encourage parents to contact their son/daughter’s teachers if they have any concerns about an assignment in the classroom. That line of communication typically clears up any potential misunderstanding.”  

However apparently that very reasonable and measured response was not good enough for the Whack-a-Doodle from Wasilla, who simply could NOT let an opportunity to talk about "death panels" slip by without vomiting forth some response.

Oh yeah, I think she is going to do wonders for Steve Lonegan's chances in New Jersey. Just like that iceberg helped the Titanic quickly make it to its destination.

Kansas group claims science is religion and sues to keep it from being taught in public schools. Wait, what?

Courtesy of Right Wing Watch:  

A Kansas-based group that “promotes the religious rights of parents, children, and taxpayers” is challenging the state’s science standards because they include the teaching of evolution, which the group claims is a religion and therefore should be excluded from science class. 

As the AP reports, Citizens for Objective Public Education (COPE) claims that public schools “promote a ‘non-theistic religious worldview’ by allowing only ‘materialistic’ or ‘atheistic’ explanations to scientific questions.” The group argues that by teaching evolution “the state would be ‘indoctrinating’ impressionable students in violation of the First Amendment.” 

COPE’s challenge [PDF] states that the teaching of evolution “amounts to an excessive government entanglement with religion” and violates the rights of Christian parents. 

Indeed, COPE’s stated mission is to create “religious[ly] neutral” schools that do not promote “pantheistic and materialistic religions, including Atheism and Religious (‘Secular’) Humanism” - a category under which it includes “Darwinian evolution.” 

I am not even sure where to begin.

Well first let me say that I sort of saw this coming decades ago when I first heard the argument proffered that "evolution was just a theory, which scientists believed to be true." I knew then that it was a blatant attempt to bring the teaching of evolution into the same realm shared by religion, as simply a matter of faith, because essentially it was the ONLY way that religion could challenge it.

Over the years I have watched Creationist polish their argument and even some of these debates between scientists like Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss with young earth Creationists like Kent Hovind and William Lane Graig, which can be found all over YouTube, are attempts to position themselves in the same rarefied air that only scientists should really occupy. 

Personally I am all for this Kansas case actually going to trial, during which those who want to teach Intelligent Design (The camouflaged version of Creationism.) in public schools can explain exactly WHAT they want to teach and what evidence they will use to teach it, and the scientific community can do the same.

I am also interested in how this group defines "religion" and how they would make the case that the teaching of science fits within it. And does that definition apply to ALL science taught in schools, including botany and astronomy, or does it only apply to those scientific disciplines which might negatively impact their ability to explain the world to children using fairy tales?

Kentucky's Governor is my favorite politician of the day.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

On Wednesday, a Kentucky review committee voted down the state’s plan to incorporate new federal science education guidelines into its curriculum. But Kentucky’s governor is making sure the committee doesn’t get the last word on science education in his state. 

Gov. Steve Beshear (D) said Wednesday that he plans to implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) “under his own authority,” despite the Kentucky legislature’s Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee’s 5-1 decision that the standards are deficient. The governor’s announcement will ensure the standards will move forward for the time being — they could still be killed by Kentucky’s general assembly when it returns in January, but the governor would then have the option to veto that decision. 

Kentucky’s path to implement the NGSS — which are voluntary guidelines that, if adopted by states, provide standards for science education that include the teaching of climate science and evolution — has been a rocky one. The state Board of Education approved the standards this June, but since then, the state’s Tea Party along with religious and family-based groups have lobbied hard against the adoption of the rules — lobbying that Robert Bevins, president of Kentuckians for Science Education, a group that supports the NGSS, said resulted in the subcommittee’s vote against the standards.

You know it is things like this that give me hope, and make me wish that EVERY state had themselves a Democrat in the Governor's mansion. It would be a much better country in my opinion.

Kids deserve to be taught real science, NOT superstitious claptrap, or oil company propaganda. 

The impact of standardized testing in public schools.

This is exactly how it feels to constantly have the threat of losing your job, or having your funding pulled, resting on the performance of a child who for various reasons may not be capable of meeting the testing standards.

Oh, and don't forget kids, school should be fun.

Sometimes I really love my kid.

This was posted by my daughter on Facebook late last night.

You know when her mother was making her go to church youth groups three times a week, homeschooling her with Creationist centered "learning" materials, and exposing her to people who told her that her father was an agent of Satan, I really used to worry about how my daughter would turn out in the end.

For my part I never told her that those people were nuts or made her choose between MY views on religion vs her mother's. I simply waited, believing that with my genes there had to come a day when she would cry bullshit.

And when that day came all I did was give her access to the information and told her that it was her journey and that I would meet her at the end.

It took awhile but eventually I looked over my shoulder and there she was walking a path very similar to my own. Which is very nice, because sometimes it can be so very, very lonely.

Perhaps somebody could bring this to Bristol Palin's attention. Not that I think it will help.

Here is the text for those who have trouble reading the above:

Minnesota Judge Has 200 Blunt Words for Divorcing Parents 

By Judge Michael Haas 2001 

“Your children have come into this world because of the two of you. Perhaps you two made lousy choices as to whom you decided to be the other parent. If so, that is your problem and your fault. 

No matter what you think of the other party—or what your family thinks of the other party—these children are one-half of each of your. Remember that, because every time you tell your child what an “idiot” his father is, or what a “fool” his mother is, or how bad the absent parent is, or what terrible things that person has done, you are telling the child half of him is bad. 

That is an unforgivable thing to do to a child. That is not love. That is possession. If you do that to your children, you will destroy them as surely as if you had cut them into pieces, because that is what you are doing to their emotions. 

I sincerely hope that you do not do that to your children. Think more about your children and less about yourselves, and make yours a selfless kind of love, not foolish or selfish, or your children will suffer.”

"What has that got to do with me? It's all Levi's fault!"

By the way from everything that I have ever heard, Levi NEVER runs Bristol down in front of his son. According to Sherry, "Levi has never talked bad about Bristol. Not even to me."

In fact he has ALWAYS been careful to say nice things about her, and even in his book he never said ANYTHING derogatory.

And he certainly had every reason to do so.

It is sad to see that Bristol is so vindictive that she literally launched an entire reality show whose sole purpose was to run down the father of her son.  It really does not get much more immature than that.

No matter WHAT Levi might have done to hurt her feelings in the past, what she has done in retaliation is inexcusable.