A Letter to Jason Song

So, Jason Song has become my bete noire due to a series of articles he has written, in the LA Times. I wrote a letter to the editor that was ignored and then wrote him directly. To my amazement he responded.

My Letter:

Dear Jason,


I have been following your series of articles closely, and the negative comments that seem to accompany them on the LA Times website. I follow them closely because I am a teacher in the LAUSD.


For years I have heard phrases like “Education in Crisis” and “Reform”. Quite frankly, it has made me depressed. I have excelled in everything I have done. I graduated on the President’s list, when I completed my credentialing process my portfolio was recognized as exemplary. I was always quickly promoted, did very well on testing, and have had the numbers to back it up.


However, in teaching, I have felt like a failure. The constant bombardment of OpEd pieces, journalist such as yourself, and even the administration that I work for just keep hitting us with the fact that we are “failing our kids”. I work my butt off, as do the vast majority of teachers I know, so I finally decided to find this failure.


For nearly a year I have been googling news stories on “Educational Reform” and “Failure”. I then back track the articles references until I get back to the original source or study.


I have read them all. They all say the same thing. For nearly 40 years, every single measurement of student improvement has gotten better. Graduation rates have increased. The percentage of people with college degrees has gone up. Performance in every area in every age group has gone up. The gap between different demographics has decreased, and the gains made by minority groups has been greater than that of whites. Internationally, we have improved in math and science, both quantitatively and in ranking.


You like to beat this “reform drum” pretty hard, Jason. What reform do you want? Where do you think we are failing? You have fashioned yourself as a muck-raker, but your seem to have the Teacher’s Union squarely in your sites.


What is your agenda?


If you would like to have lunch sometime and discuss, I would be interested in hearing your opinion.


Sincerely,

Joseph Matthews.


PS And yes, I have the studies and numbers on my computer. None of this is anecdotal.

His response:

Other than writing factual stories, I don’t have an agenda. If you’d like to meet and talk about your experiences, I’d be happy to do that, I’m sure you’re a good teacher, but any conversation about what I want would e a short one.

Best
Jason

My response back:

Well, I have to admit, I have a bit of a one sided relationship with you. Reading your articles and the bashing of teachers that goes on in the comments has driven me to research into the studies of academic progress and the reform movement as a whole. I have dozens of studies and a fresh box of books from Amazon.com, I am reading, because of you.

I have always worked my butt off, but teaching and teachers seemed to be mired in this assumption of failure. That we aren't doing anything right and every meeting I attend its "reform, reform, reform". So I went looking for this "crisis". I just can't find it. Not statistically. Tons of anecdotal stuff, sure, lots of Op-ed crap that tends to track itself back to conservative Washington think tanks. But no smoking gun study that says "Aha! Here is the problem." I am looking and I just can't find it.

Your series of articles really does seem slanted. The language, in most cases, 'colors' the UTLA very poorly. I am not a sycophant, and I realize all organizations are flawed, but you really seem to be grinding an axe.

Your phrasing make it seem as if things like due process and the assumption of innocence are some shady backroom perks and not rights enshrined in the constitution. Furthermore, by definition, what is a Union but a protector of seniority? I know, in theory, it is collective bargaining, but at its heart isn't the purpose of Unions to prevent ownership/management from dumping senior (read more costly) employees in favor of younger (and cheaper) employees? Don't workers have a right to job stability and the hopes to raise a family and earn a wage that will allow them access to the "American Dream" of being a home owner and sending children to college?

Studies in three different states have shown that the number one factor in children improving is having a teacher over 5 years of experience. National studies indicate that nearly 50% of all new teachers leave the field in 5 years! The only crisis in teaching is the retention of teachers, not getting rid of them.

I am sure you have uncovered some instances of abuse or wrongdoing. Large institutions make mistakes. However, you seem to have taken the stance that the cure to what ails education is streamlining the firing processes and that the Union is, as a direct effect, operating to hinder improving education by systemically resisting calls to make it easier to fire teachers. Implying that teacher's union are the problem with education. Don't you realize how much that sucks?

Look, unions have a checkered past, certainly, again I am not snorting pixie dust here, however look at the history of Unions; Solidarity and its role in ending communism, the impact of Unions in South Africa, the targeting of unions by military regimes in south America. In fact, it is hard to find a common enemy of more unlike folks. Oligarchs, fascists, communists, dictators all hate Unions. In short, the rich and powerful!

In this country's own history, the time of least partisan politics and lowest percentage of wealth concentration occurred when Unions had their memberships representing the largest percentage of the working population.

Union are the voice of the working man and only force pushing back against the billionaires that are trying to turn the whole world in a gated community. It just saddens me when I see journalist toting the party line and running down unions on a fringe issue.

Any rights unions have won are in responses to prior abuses. If principals and administrators had not previously abused their positions, Unions wouldn't have fought for the protections they have.

You just have a tendency to paint the union with a broad stroke and imply that accused teachers are the same as guilty teachers. It’s not cool, Jason.

I have been accused of abuse before, and while I was completely cleared, it is a terrifying experience, and it happens a lot more than you might think. Parents side with vengeful children or have an axe to grind of their own.

I'm just saying, walk a mile in our shoes.

Sincerely,
Joseph Matthews
Teacher and UTLA member

The Human Voice and Beat Boxing

I love beat box. The first time I heard it was the Fat Boys, back in the old school.

Fat Boys Human Beat Box Live

Then the next time I was vocally wowed was by Bobby McFerrin. I can't find his cover of Sunshine of your Love on Video, but hearing a human being scream an Eric Clapton guitar solo is amazing. Here is a cool one of him.

Bobby McFerrin Drive

Now Beat Box has come a long way and actually has spread out it different directions. There is even an online world competition for beat box. Last years was won by a 17 year old white girl from Canada! ha ha. That is awesome to me.

Julie Dales, Beatbox Champion

Now then, some beat boxers are using technology to loop their beats to make more complete sounds. Some can do this live and even incorporate other musicians.

DUBFx and Woodnote

However, some do the whole band with a band!

Naturally 7

And Finally, some purists might not refer to this as beatbox, however, I think you can clearly see the influence. Furthermore, when did you ever think you would listen to Toto's Africa and think, "Whoa that is cool"? This group is Slovakian and not native english speakers either.

Choir does Africa

Hope you enjoyed these!

The Illusion of Superiority

This fantastic little short illustrates a phenomenon we have all experienced, however I never knew how to express it.

I warn you the short is done in an odd way, but just hang with it for a few minutes and listen closely.

Very Good.

The Illusion of Superiority

Now then, I find this second short, very interesting when the two are considered together. What do you think?

Are we in control of our decisions?

It strikes me as a stunning situation, that we have a world of full of people that are not only incompetent and unable to recognize their incompetence, but are also unable to make decisions.

Scary.

What a beautiful day!

So I hopped on the scale and was down a few pounds.

At school, we ran a few scenes and the kids were really finally getting it. The players are becoming really funny!

We then went to the mask making class and my kids masks came out great! They will be a terrific addition to our production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Then Phil Lumbang, the artist I found online, and gave all the kids signed and numbered prints and gave the kids a great lesson in art. My principal came in and was super impressed and wants him to do some murals at the school.

Then my principal informed me that one of the art teachers was at another school and remembered our bulletin board for our play and connected with a teacher there that is doing the same thing. He was able to get a bus and is going to bring his cast to our school next Thursday. We are going to perform for them, and then they are going to perform for us, then we will have a big round table discussion of the play.

THEN!!!!! My realtor called me and we got a real offer on the house so we can start the short sale dance and likely dodge the foreclosure!

WOOOOOOOOT!

Whuttaday!

American Idol, Logic, and Math

The surprise flowing around the inter-webs, that Adam Lambert lost American Idol, reveals to me that Americans are very bad problem solvers. For those of you that don’t know, a Bowie-esgue singer with the range of Freddie Mercury, lost to a kid from Arkansas with the range of…oatmeal. Hey, it can come with raisins or cinnamon.

But just a little analysis reveals it should have been no surprise at all.

Top 4 week had Danny Gokey and Kris Allen. Both are nice safely heterosexual white boys from fly over states. Allison Iraheta is a spicy little Latina from Los Angeles who can channel Janis Joplin and Adam Lambert is an openly gay stage performer from San Diego, read Los Angeles to anyone from Gokey’s or Kris’s states. Both Adam and Allison are high flying rocker vocalists from So Cal that had a fondness for unnatural hair color and leather. In the duets we even had Gokey and Kris paired up against Adam and Allison.

Supposedly 65ish million votes were cast in week 4. Divided 4 ways this would indicate an average of 16.25 million votes each. We know that Danny, Allison, and Adam were in the bottom 3. Kris was “Safe” and therefore already must have had well over 16.25 million votes in hand. Allison is eliminated. Meaning she had less than 16.25 million votes.

Undistributed votes is the key here. Where can we expect her <16 million votes to go? Clearly the bulk of Allison's votes would have gone to Adam, with X amount of people not voting anymore out of disgust. However, I think that people that actually pay a dollar to vote in this silly show, in the quarter finals no less, probably feel some sort of ownership at this point and would keep voting. In light of the fact that each week saw the vote total go up, I don’t think that many pay voters actually stop.

Top 3 week sees approximately 85 million votes cast for an average of 28 million votes each! Wow. This is 12 million more than each averaged the week before. Certainly, with the bulk of Allison’s votes with him, Adam should have been well in front, yet we are informed that the spread between 1st and 2nd place was less than 1 million votes? Gokey is voted off. The similarities between Gokey and Kris mean that Kris should be getting a lion’s share of his votes.

So what do we know going into the finals? Over 99 million votes are cast. Kris does a great job and the final song really plays to his Hokey strengths. So I imagine any new-to-the-season voters are going to break slighty to the sweet southern boy. We know that Kris was the top voter in the Top 4. We know that even with Allison’s likely votes with him, Adam was unable to get a gap greater than 1 million out of 85 million votes, and that Kris was likely going to pick up the bulk of Gokey’s votes.

Why is Kris Allen’s victory so shocking? Quite frankly, an Adam victory would have defied all logic.

Although I will throw this bone to the conspiracy nuts. One of my students, A Jehovah's witness, informed me her mother voted 50 times for Kris Allen...to ensure a gay person wouldn't win it. I wonder how many others did the same?

Our Government and a brilliant poem!

Very interesting short film on

Our Goverment

and a bit of GENIUS!

A Bad Rap for Teachers

A recent series of articles in the LA Times, by Jason Song, has put teachers and the teacher’s union in a terrible light. Several issues seem to have been muddled together in this series of articles; district employees that have committed criminal acts, incompetent teachers being kept on staff, and how firing those teachers will somehow help resolve the budget crisis.

The LAUSD has planned to lay off between 2300 to 5000 teachers to deal with the budget crisis. That is somewhere between 6.5% and 14% of the teachers. The 160 “housed” employees, referred to in the articles, represent just 0.4% of the staff. The housed teachers, while a concern, don’t really have an impact on overall staffing or the budget crises. Furthermore, one of the most egregious abuse cases in the article was a teacher’s aide not a teacher. However, no distinction is made between the two.

The premise that the education system is full of incompetence is just not borne out statistically. Data indicates that student performance has improved for 37 years in the vast majority of the areas measured. Is every teacher great? No. The biggest reason some teachers are not very good is no training program can prepare teachers for the job. The act of managing 20-40 children while teaching them is very difficult. National studies show that nearly 50% of all teachers leave the profession in the first 5 years. The crisis facing many schools is not getting rid of teachers, it is keeping teachers! When a teacher begins working for the LAUSD they go through a three year probationary period where their contract renewal is not guaranteed. When the probationary period ends there is no blanket protection from being fired, teachers are merely allowed due process and may only be fired for cause. With no protection from being fired for 3 years and upwards of 50% of new teachers leaving the field within 5 years, how are the teacher’s union and the teachers that have stayed in the classroom at fault?

Is the LA Times really suggesting that the state’s budget crisis is being made worse because accused teachers are presumed innocent and have a right to due process? Sometimes children lie to get back at teachers, and sometimes parents have an axe to grind. Sorting out the true bad apples from teachers falsely accused is a difficult job. However, no one is intentionally allowing criminals and child abusers to gain access to children, and the inference that the teacher’s union somehow condones or knowingly protects abusive teachers is outrageous.