FORCE OF DIFFUSION

Occasionally, I go off on a tangent; last night was one of those times. I searched the internet for a description of the forces of diffusion. The standard explanation was that the concentration gradient is often called the driving force in diffusion but goes on to explain that it is a not a force but rather mechanistic sense moving atoms or what ever down a concentration gradient. I found this explanation weak, incomplete, and therefore, unsettling. In simplistic terms, the concept is that a solute will move from a region of high concentration to a region of low concentration across a concentration gradient. Scientists label this as Fick’s law. The question of why is not answered. Something called random walk theory enters the conversation. Under the right parameters when we look at particles under a microscope, we see what scientists describe as Brownian motion, which is the random movement away from high concentrations to low or zero concentration in a zigzag pattern resulting from collision of one molecule with other dissimilar molecules in the environment. The concept is simple and well known, which is why I expected to find an explanation of the force or forces involved. What my question relates to is why particles, atoms, molecules, compounds, or what ever, move from high concentration to low concentration. In addition, the movement is specifically in relation to other molecules their own kind. For example, amino acid and sugar molecules diffuse in an aqueous solution in respect to their own concentration gradients. Why, what forces or force is at play? The random walk explanation, which is often given,is especially perplexing in this regard. If a particles, atom or whatever moves down a concentration gradient in a random manner, that means it moves north the same distance as it move south or it moves east the same distance as it move west or moves up or down. I fail to see how this results in the described movement from high to low concentration, in fact how the random walk results in any net movement at all. Even a drunk on a random walk is motivated such as going home from the pub. The only thing I can think as an explanation of the force involved with the specificity it seems to have is that likes repel. In chemistry, a mole of a specific amino acid, or mole of any other atom or compound, has a specific number of atoms, which is Avogadro’s number, which is 6.022 x 1023. Each atom is identical to each other in that context. Atoms and compounds have different internal structure, which creates electrostatic forces in molecules apparently act like magnets; like repel and opposites attract. That repelling force seems to be the force of diffusion, which answers my question. Just as drunk’s motivation to go home may be the driving force that give direction to a drunk’s random walk, the force of like molecules repelling like molecules supply the direction motivation to random molecular movement down a concentration gradient. I am sure this answer is on the internet somewhere, I just could not find it. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

CHARTER SCHOOLS CREATE PUBLIC SCHOOL DISASTER

Parents and teachers interested in education have created a monster. We can label that monster, ‘Charter Schools’. Of course, they did what they did to make things better, but have made things worse. Educational administrators, with the help of politicians, created charter schools to improve our nation’s public school system. Unfortunately, the result is often just the opposite of what charter school founders intended. What should be understandable is that they are publicly funded, which means taxpayers pay the bills for two systems of education at the same time. Does anyone really think that dividing a single resource like that will result in both systems getting better? Understandable, the proponents of charter schools have cleverly created the “charter school” label for their schools to differentiate them from public schools. In addition, in the process of convincing politicians and parents into starting the program and in their efforts to obtain money to fund charter schools, they use greatly inflated hyperbole. Unfortunately, the supporters aim much of their rhetoric at degrading “public schools” to justify their ideas. This has created a situation in which the democratic principle of equal education for everyone is suffering. Of course, everyone including myself will support ideas for better educations. A significant segment of society is an exception to that generality, which is the taxpayer who does not have children and does not want to pay to educate other peoples’ children. This segment includes those who do not want to pay taxes, which isolates this segment of society to one political party; thus, introduces politics to the charter school issue. Part of this pro charter school rhetoric includes the following: . . . school leaders should be given freedom to do whatever it takes to help students achieve and should share what works with the broader public school system so that all students benefit. Clearly, the implication is that public school teachers and administrators do not do have this freedom. The statement makes me wonder in what universe these folks live in. The answer is the universe of denigrated public schools is the one they created. Shifting tax money to charter schools understandably will result in a decrease in public school budget. By making public schools worse, they promote charter schools. This has created a vicious downward spiral of destruction to public school system, poor teacher salaries, unqualified teachers, narrower curriculum, leaky roofs, children who have to do the janitor work—everything. It should not surprise anyone there are big profits for privately owned companies who operate charter schools. The operators cleverly hide this from the public. It is a way for them, with the help of many well-meaning people, to put their hands into the pockets of the taxpayers under the guise of education and they are not shy about doing it. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

EDUCATION AND SURVIVAL OF THE FITTESTS

Common core is a needed in-depth look at education. Society has changed in many ways and education was a major contributing factor that shaped that change. At one time in our history, parents did not know how to read and write or do simple math but also knew their children needed to know these things. The change relates to population growth meaning that as the population grew the more necessary education became. The situation went from knowing that life was easier if they did have this ability to where knowing these things became necessary to survive. In addition to recognizing the need for didactic education, society recognized the need to expand the range of education to college first exemplified by medicine and law, which moved from apprenticeship programs to a didactic program. All of the highly skilled training was sandwiched into the system as vocational education. In most cases, the training of skilled labor was more arduous and required a greater manual skill set than did academia. Recently, meaning within the last 100 years, didactic programs in medicine and veterinary medicine introduced residencies, which are apprenticeship programs. Dentistry was a curiosity being in academia but always centering on practical training. Surgery and dentistry, like carpentry or welding, required both academic as well as manual dexterity. In many ways, the dividing lines between these study areas are artificial. As people made this realization the need for education of all kinds, people became more and more aware that educations cost both time and money. Because they recognized the need, they also became more and more willing to pay the price. In keeping with the growing altruistic nature of our humanization, they adapted the idea of democracy; for example, people were willing to pay to educate children even if they do not have children themselves. By the same token, innate bestial intrinsic played a part; if I earned it, is mine. This innate feeling introduced an important counter barrier to taxation for education. Legislatures codified these thoughts into our system of public education supported by taxation. Religion leaders and politicians introduced the second set of barriers to general education. Their solution was private schools funded by taxpayer dollars, which is counter to public education. This is the basis of the current argument. Parents feel their children should be education the way the want them educated. They all want their children to learn to read and write but also they also want them to be educated as Catholic or Baptist or as Protestants or Jews as well as teaching students to be Democrats or Republicans, depending on the beliefs of the parent. In a democracy, this means teachers should teach neither religion nor politics in public schools; however, it also means local school boards should control educations. The last barrier to good public education is teachers. First, and foremost, they must be respected members of society. The problem is the world becoming more, and more technically complex requiring more and more highly educated with greater and greater sophistication. Teachers need more education to achieve this, which cost more money, which in turn requires the public pay higher salaries, which is counter to the desire to pay less and fewer taxes. All of these things create costs cycles that politicians must face. Also, many teachers feel they are doing a great job and feel insulted when anyone questions the outcomes. Of course, in total to satisfy everyone is an impossible task. Common core was a step in the direction of finding a solution. Trying to look at common core through fresh eyes is the only way it will ever work. If you belonged to anyone of some interest groups, you could find something that Common Core did not answer. I think the principle opposition came from right-wing politicians. Their most publicized, simplistic, and appealing logic is that cutting education costs, cuts taxes, which appeals to many people. The truth is that they want to privatize education because they want the government removed from all activity in society. Again, they have an appealing refrain, which is that we are a society of individuals that have rights. As with some much of right-wing logic, this leads to a self-perpetuating society of social classes that ends with a primitive social structure or a bestial Ayn Rand social structure with massive numbers of people who just do not matter. In evolutionary term, we live according to the Darwinian structure of survival of the fittest. I feel we are better than that. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

AMERICAN STUPIDITY THE RESULT OF EDUCATION

The fact that political ignorance is sweeping our country should not come as a surprise, but it does. I can identify several factors that contributed to this dumbing down of America. In addition, I can easily trace it to its source using the adage made famous by Bernstein and Woodward, “follow the money”. A few rich people joined the church to use the media to turn America into the equivalent of a huge grades school level classroom. This is turning out to be a lethal combination for our Democracy “of the people and by the people”. They have corrupted the minds of the people. Huge media empires and equal huge mega churches with hundreds of thousands of members have coalesced into a massive machine with one message. That message is, “hate the government”. We all hear the message but fail to ask ourselves one simple question, “Who will guide society if we the people don’t?” Of course, the answer is obvious, “They will”. The Koch brothers and your ministers and priests will tell you what is right and what is wrong. We should reject this out of hand by you right as individual human beings to guide your culture and society. Look at how the structure of a “church” formulated. Each church is a culture or society in and of its self. I lived in a primitive village and watched as the Pentecostal church corrupt their Mayan culture over a period of 20 years. This was the second corruption, the first being the Catholic Church hundreds of years earlier. The simplistic nature of the corrupt made it easy to follow. To go to heaven, you must be a good church member. To be a good church member, you must please the minister. To please the minister, the man in the family must donate 10% of your earning as meager as they were and the women must obey the men. Moral guidance boiled down to believing only members of “their” church could go to heaven; of course, everyone else was condemned to hell. The moral punishment was to ostracize those who did not go to that church, which is extremely effective in a small village of 1,000 people when the chairman of the village was the minister. You might say they are primitive Mayans; therefore, they know nothing.This is not so. I just heard a young man in the United States tell me that he really didn’t like George Bush, but his Priest told him to vote for him. The same young man said in Colorado, where he had recently visited, that everyone has guns so nobody steals anything. He had his friends didn’t know what the expression, “shrinking middle class” means. I didn’t bother to ask them why productivity was increasing per workers and wages were falling. They gave me a dumb look when I asked them when they decided to be straight and not gay. They all knew the constitution is a Christian document like the Bible and tells them they can own guns. It says nothing about paying taxes or public schools. One young man told me that if they cannot have guns then the police should not have guns. We have all heard these ridiculous and inaccurate things. I have made a mistake by treating them as education failures, but the truth is they are the result of the success of the church and the Koch Brothers education. If you don’t believe this, let me ask you when is the last time you heard a politician stand up and say he did not believe in God or guns or before the last few years one that thought gays should have equal protection under the law? Better yet, why do you think setting educations standards is a diabolical political act? URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

DUMBING DOWN POLITICS TO THREE "G's

Two weeks is a long time to hold your breath, but it is not nearly long enough when visiting family. What drove home the idea of the length of time I was gone was the long, long list of emails on my computer. Also, I realized from this length of this list, that I was out of touch with the nuances of politics. My wife had wisely forbidden me from talking politics while with friends and relatives. As someone said, actually my baby sister, in Minnesota politics involves three things: God, gays, and guns. From comments made by others, I understood why. In a casual conversation with the people, there seemed to be a lack of understanding current affairs and with what understanding there was there was a dumbing down of issue. Problems in the Middle East was reduced to Muslims are evil people, and we should bomb them into oblivion—plain and simple. For intelligent people, this is shocking. When the topic broadened, it became even more shocking; thus, more surprising. The question I have about all of this is why do they think the way they do? The people reduce politics to these three “G’s”. Not only reduced to these three things but each of the three is used as a pre-define answer or solution to many things. The “God” solution is an example. The Constitution is the greatest document ever written, and they will die to defend it. Except of course the part where it explains that everyone has the right to worship the way he or she wants to as long as it is a Christian God. The more I puzzled over this, the more I realized that this is what the Republican Party preaches. As one of them explained, “I didn’t like Bush, but I had to vote for him because of the church.” In other words, some priest or minister told them that abortion was a mortal sin and Democrats support abortion. Collective gay marriage, the right to choose, etc. under the same rubric and that is many, many votes. It seems beyond their comprehension that the idea of Sharia or religious law is so terrible, but the Biblical law would be any different. In fact, Biblical law is a much crueler law than Islamic religion. It never seems to enter their minds that life is not sacred even at war especially when they talk about “bombing Muslims to oblivion”. They are willing to condemn a new mother to carry and then deliver a deformed child that will die within minutes of being born or a child that that will need constant care throughout life. After all, it is her life not their. The Constitution guarantees individual freedom, which they see the guarantee meaning their individual freedom. It would be better to say, they see it as their individual freedom and to hell with yours. They miss read the 2nd amendment. Organized state militias have the guaranteed right to own and operated guns. They seem unable to comprehend the difference between a gun designed to kill people and a sports gun. I can show them one hundred different weapons, without hesitation, they can tell me the sporting weapons, and the ones designed to kill people. If they saw someone setting a deer-hunting stand with an AK 47 assault rifle across their lap, they would immediately condemn them as being crazy. These same people seem incapable of separating guns into one's individuals could have and telling the difference between an AK47 and a 30-30 rifle if the government were to ban weapons designed to kill people. Even worse, a young man said to me, police should not have guns if we cannot have guns. Obviously, he has zero understanding of the entire point of the gun debate. He fails to understand what organized society is. Is this an education failure or what? As for hating gays, given a chance, I would love to ask them when they choose to be straight. Is this another education failure of is it a cheap vote getting technique to snare in a bunch of non-thinking people for their votes? I wonder if they ever listen to news analysts or read any of my blogs. I am sorry, I do not have to ask that, I already know the answer. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

DNA SEQUENCE STABILITY

I have spent many years of my life dealing with the concept of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). My introduction to the wonders of that molecule happened around 1958. A French chemist discovered DNA in 1869. In 1958, while I still a student in physiological chemistry, a professor was lecturing to our class about cell chemistry, mentioned the relative abundance of nucleic acids in cells. He noted that in light of biological parsimony, that must mean they play a special part in cell chemistry. I cannot explain why that phrase stuck with me all these years, but it did, and it turns out to be the greatest understatement I have ever heard. I am in the process of writing book about the theory of evolution from the perspective of a physiological chemist. While editing a chapter dealing with the first appearance of DNA after the big bang, I was startled to realize the stability of that macromolecule is overwhelming. All chemists know that DNA is stable, so just that little bit of information was not new. What was new was an appreciation of how complex a macromolecule of DNA is and in light of that, how stable it is. There is no other macromolecule like it. Essentially, the sequence of nucleic acids in DNA is the same as it was the day the monomolecular building blocks first polymerized. Somewhere in the primordial environment, deoxyribonucleic acids first formed and randomly polymerized to form the macromolecules we recognize today. Of course, not the same building blocks but the same sequence. In my struggles to determine when that happened on the time scale of evolution, it fell somewhere over 3.5 to 4 million years ago. Some claim prokaryotes formed 3.6 million years ago. Scientists base their estimate on the best estimates of when the first forms of life appeared on earth, which means scientists assume the first DNA appears at the same time, which probably is, not be true, which is only one of the minor concepts I challenge in my book. The biggest challenge has to do with what I just mentioned about the first formation of DNA. It is common for biologists to suggest a plan of some sort embedded in DNA structure or to say something ridiculous like, “Deoxyribonucleic Acid is the blueprint for all inherited characteristics in living things.” This statement was taken from an educational web-site on the internet. How could a macromolecule randomly formed 3.5 million years ago design an organism? Pure nonsense. However, the objective of this post is to point out that a macro-polymer, that forms and reforms over the course of 3.5 to 4 millions years flawlessly maintain that original sequence. My understanding of this relates to the idea of self-healing. A sequence of deoxynucleotides randomly formed as the building block first deterministically formed. One of the characteristics of nucleotides is that they form phosphate bridges—again deterministically—with other nucleotides as well as hydrogen bonds with other nucleotides. DNA is composed of four nucleotides, adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. Essentially these four different deoxyribonucleotides form phosphate bonds with each other to polymerize without preference ad infinitum except they form phosphate bridges only with other deoxyribonucleotides. Every sequence has a complementary sequence that is in reverse order and the base pairing depending on hydrogen bonding of A to T (two bonds) and C to G (three bonds), which is according to the classic A to T and C to G pattern. The term melting temperature or Tm refers the temperature above which the stands disassemble and reflects the relative number of bonds of each type. The usual body temperatures are invariable below that temperature. The background for this, when it happens, is essentially one of the scarcities of monomeric building blocks. In other words, as the building block are produced they become incorporated in the DNA sequence or pair with and existing polymer. Imagine a polymer and it co-polymer. The one that exist first will align newly formed monomeric units in an ordered sequence and position them to form the phosphate bridge. If an error occurs, and a mismatch happens, the phosphate bridge could not easily form “and” the hydrogen pair matching would fail until the mismatch deoxynucleotide could be deterministically removed and the proper matching co-sequence restored. The collective strength of the hydrogen bonds of all the properly matched deoxynucleotides hold the sequence and co-sequence in place while chemical forces remove the mismatched deoxynucleotide. Apparently, this is self-healing that has worked for 6 million of years. On a personalized basis, the DNA you received from your great grandfathers is identical to his. Of course, you have something like 12 sources from which to receive DNA. For the biologists, the challenge is to put this information into perspective in terms of all living things that share-surviving fragments of DNA from the time it first formed. It looks like my book dealing with this question will have about 400 pages if I ever get it written. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

PRIMARY PURPOSE OF INSTITUTIONS IS LOST

A tendency in modern society seems to be a diversion from the primary purpose of our institutions. People organize into religious, educational, social organizations. Although we may not agree with the purpose of this or that organization, in a general sense we recognize the primary purpose of the organizations we form. Until recently, I have been critical of what is taking place in many of the organization but have not stopped to think of what is happening as trend or tendency. Now, knowing what I now know from a long life dealing with human behavior, I think perhaps the tendency is inevitable or innate. For examples, what is the primary purpose of a church, a university, a public school, or out of the medical profession, or what the purpose is of a political party? No one stumbles on that question. However, when we examine what is happening within these “organizations” we see something entirely different from what we all know is the primary purpose. I could go to some widely different organizations; however, I will start with medical care as an example. My hearing started to wane, so as a first step to resolving my problem, I went to a Physical to check out my ears before going to a hearing aid specialist. I know that the cost of hearing aids is ridiculously exorbitant so want to be sure I need that kind of device. At the doctor’s office, a nurse asked me step on a scale and then took by blood pressure. The doctor, a female, entered the room. She introduced herself as the wife of the physician, but asked no questions, took an otoscope and glanced at my ears for less than 10 seconds per ear. Her pronouncement was that there is nothing wrong with my ears. She next turned to the nurse and said; “Set him up for a follow-up appointment in two months.” She was moving toward the door of the room when I stopped her by asking if she was an MD. She seemed insulted but emphatically responded, “Yes.” Then I asked her, “Follow up for what?” She shrugged her shoulders. I angrily said to them to cancel all future visits and remove my name from their client list. Similar nonsense is what had happened on previous visits; one for a visit for taking a blood sample and the next to tell me everything was normal in my blood. In addition to the several hundred dollars cost of the laboratory, the cost for each visit was $30 co-pay and $126 for the visit. The follow-up was to be in six months. I should have asked why a follow-up visit if everything was normal but didn’t. The pattern of visits just did not make sense if the primary purpose of the medical profession is to deliver health care, but it made much sense in terms of making money for the practice. What is the primary purpose of a university? The answer is obvious. Of course, it is education. I worked for years as a professor at two different universities. Over a period of thirty plus year, I watched these universities deteriorate from being teaching institution to research institutions. They grew buildings and faculty to the point where they have many more professors than students and many more laboratories than they have classrooms. I could go into a discussion of politics and political parties as a further example. It should be obvious that the purpose of government is to govern. In stark contrast, the platform of the Republican Party is simple and straight forward, get rid of government; get rid of regulations; and get rid of taxes. I could go on with the purpose of the religion of love and respect, as another example, but run into the Muslim-Christian conflict; kill, kill, kill, and hate, hate, hate. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

ETHNIC SCHOOLS PLUS PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Ethnicity in America has changed, but the change is not over yet. A friend was telling me everyone in the town in Minnesota he was born in spoke German. The radio broadcasts all in German and the newspapers printed in that language as well. The town, where I was born and was raised in Minnesota, was half-Polish/Eastern European and half-Swedish. The ethnic groups spoke their respective languages in their sections of town, but the people conducted all commerce in a mixture of the two languages and English as a last resort. In other words, business was the melting pot. My friend and I are well past the prime of life and see all the current political rhetoric about race and ethnicity being used by special interest groups, usually political, to divide people into isolated pockets or group, which is opposite of the way we grew up. America has turned from being a melting pot into a land of ethnic strife, which has also resulted in something else. Rather than gaining strength from our ethnicity we are using it to tear ourselves apart. Ethnic strife is getting out of hand. This entire debate creates unusual thoughts, some of which seem counter to one anther. For example, I strongly believe that traditions and customs give our country strength and provide a basis for pride in identity succeeding generations. I believe that various ethnic groups should have ethnic schools in the evening or on weekends to teach their children language, custom, holidays, food, and conglomerate of thing that contribute to their society of their parents. The schools should be interesting and sincere. The feelings of the parents are sometimes opposite. The parents come to America, for most of them; they come with great economic difficulty and want their families to assimilate into the “new” culture and country seamlessly. For those parents who fear their children will not learn English and America ways in public schools and from friends are wrong. Public schools are critical for many reasons including this one. I am a dual citizen of the U.S. and country of Belize where the children speak Mayan in the home. They speak Spanish and or Creole with their friends in the village or the schoolyard while attending classes taught in the official language of the country, which is English. Some immigrant parents object to ethnic schools because they want their past obliterated because of political persecution. As mentioned, I grew up in a neighborhood populated by people of Eastern European origin whose parent had never owned a house or property, or anything else but most important they had never cast a ballot. Of course, there is a big difference between culture and politics. I am advocating ethnic schools for they unique knowledge hence the power they have to teach ethnicity. However, it is the knowledge of what was wrong in their home countries that contribute strongly to their strength in their new country. Super patriotic, flag-waving right-wing people fear ethnic schools would be prone to teach their children to anti-Americanism. Also, if there is anything these immigrant parents would not teach in ethnic schools, above all else, it is government insurrection. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

BAN BURKAS AS A TEACHING FAILURE

Someone reposted another “ban the burka” poster on Facebook. For some reason as a teacher, I took this as a personal failure. I have been teaching against this kind of hate inspiring nonsense for a long time but what I say does not seem to register in the minds of at least one of my Facebook friends. The greatest pleasure a teacher can have is to see the look of comprehension in the eyes of a student. The antithesis of this is that the greatest disappointment is to face with the realization that a student failed to understand, which leads me to question why I am such a failure. Am I wrong in what I have been teaching? Have I not been teaching it effective? The other alternative is the possibility that the people (person) are just not receptive to any other idea but the one they have. The first question to ask concerns the objective of the “Ban the burka” campaign in the United States and Canada. I think I have explained that burkas do no harm; therefore, it is not something like “ban drunk driving”, which obviously is intended to prevent damaging even fatal accidents. Some of the detractors claim covering the face hides personal identity. If that were valid then we should ban all of the social media; people can write or do what they please with impunity because we cannot easily identify them. The truth is that wearing burkas does no harm. Some will say wearing burkas is a religious symbol, implying we should not be displayed religious symbols in public, which too, is not only ridiculous but it is against the “freedom to worship” clause in the Constitution. I don’t know if Canada has the same clause in their founding documents. We all recognize that the “freedom to worship” clause separates religious laws from secular or civil law, which is so divisive in other parts of the world but especially in the Middle East. Others point out it is only women who must wear burkas; therefore, it is against their rights, which also is ridiculous but more importantly, it is something within their religion and has to do with religious freedom; it is not the business of others to interfere. The conclusion is that there is no reason to object to wearing burkas. I have repeated this explanation several different ways and in excruciating detail, still there is this post, “Ban Burkas”. Why? I found it hard to believe anyone would have the promotion of hate as a simple, unadorned objective. There is absolutely no reason to believe a mental disease is involved. In fact, the opposite is probably true. The person or persons involve probably have higher IQ than most, which tells me there is an objective to what they do. What can be the objective of “ban the burka” is it does no one harm or is the product of mental disease. The one area I have not mentioned is that what I am teaching is counter to innate or genetic belief. Not matter how when or why, we cannot teach what is counter to our genetic makeup, which is a subject we currently find in the news under an assortment of headings, especially gender or racial identity. It is almost impossible to teach a black person he or she is white, or white person he or she is black. Equally, it is impossible to teach a genetically endowed woman that she is a man or a man he is a woman. The Caitlin Jenner case and the Rachel Dolezal are headlines now. How can it be that we have something like “ban the burkas” genetically endowed? That makes no sense until you put it in the context of religion. Understanding religion is something I have been struggling with for years. I have concluded that humankind taught spirituality and religion since the inception of the mind; Abrahamic religions have been with us for 2000 years. The result is that Religion is innate. Classic geneticists treat this line of reasoning as nonsense. Regardless, the point is that no teacher can alter some people's thinking about their religion. For example, by banning burkas, you cannot teach Muslims that wearing a burka is no different from wearing a kippah (skullcap). The result is posting on Facebook a “ban the Burka” sign even when you know it is nonsense. Religious leaders have taught sectarianism for almost as long as there has been a religion. Once a Muslim you are always a Muslim, Once a Christian you are always a Christian. If you are a Jew or a Catholic, or a Baptist, Sunni, or Shia or whatever your religion taught you to believe something else will jeopardize your chances to live in heaven. In the present context, I have failed to teach some people something different from what religious teachers have buried in their genetics. It is as impossible for them to learn not to hate members of another religion as it is for Caitlin Jenner to learn how to be a man. “Ban the burkas” is a way of expressing what is in their genes. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

DEFUND EDUCATION AS A WAY TO MAKE IT BETTER

Scott Walker’s conservatism is unique because of its boldness. Every pronouncement he makes is a clear statement of what has been driving the right-wing political machine for many years. For example, he tells people of his state his objective is to make educations better and to do so he severely cuts billions from the state education budgets. His objective is to take education out of the hand of government and put it into the hands of private individuals. Only to the greediest conservatives does this seem correct. The bottom line is what Walker will never say; the conservative dream is that if you cannot pay for it, you shouldn’t have it. Is it so hard to see that this is in conflict with the American dream, which is that all children should have an equal opportunity? Still, it seems we and the news media just stand back and shrug our shoulders as if we are not able to understand the consequences of having the Walker’s conservative dreams fulfilled. From time to time, some radical liberal will say the conservative objective is to destroy the representative government that is the government “of the people and by the people.” We rest easy thinking the government is so powerful that that can never happen. There are those hovering in the background who will make it happen. The conservatives say what they say and the moneyed interests, such as the Koch brothers or the Sheldon Adelson, make it happen. It is no coincidence that Koch brothers fund Scott Walker with essentially unlimited funds. They know it is an investment and if successful, they will get their money back. It is the same as a venture capitalist; if they buy a company or the government, they control the assets, and can make that company (congress) do what they want it to do. Thus, the foundation for the further corruption of “we the people government” has been established. I make this statement about the obvious corruption of some congressional representatives who the industry has bought. Scott Walker is only one of some State Governors industry has bought. The relationship with Scott Walker is as clear as it is because he is more radical than the people who are paying him to be radical. The analogy of a snowball rolling down hill seems appropriate. What we see happening now is the fruits of their past labors. A corrupted Supreme Court corrupted by conservatives made the Citizens United Decision, which in turn corrupts of the political system. The point of this blog post is to say that sometimes the conservative objective is difficult to interpret what the real objective is. They tell us their objective is to get rid of government sometimes with the catchy phrase such as make it so small “we can drown it in the bathtub.” By defunding educations, he relies on the drive of parents who know their children need to be educated to send them to private schools. If they cannot afford to do that, there is no alternative. Can anyone but a greedy conservative such as Scott Walker is, believe this is right? How can it be that he is bold enough to stand in front of the people in his state and tell them this? Republican governors across the nation are doing this very thing. What does this say about society? There is no such thing as a conservative teacher; it is an oxymoron. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

TEACHER'S BURDEN

June 12, I posted a screed about changes in medical education on this blog. The thrust of that article was the increasing burden modern science has placed on veterinarians and physicians. Scientific discovery has dumped new information on these professions at such an ever-increasing rate they could no longer cope with the burden. Medical colleges are responding—slowly to be sure—in a surprising way. They are teaching less and less basic science and shifting to teaching more and more clinical application of this new knowledge, which is a shift from the didactic approach of the 20th century to an apprenticeship approach of the 18th and 19th century. I view this as a huge shift in the entire field of medical education. A shift of veterinarian and physician professional, who clients expected to know it all, to nurses who were they are expected to do it all. Myriad specialists with Ph.D. degrees are stepping in to fill the void. What should be obvious is that the same thing that happened in medical educations is happening at all level of education. However, in general education, we do not have this option; regardless of what grades they teach, increasing the body of knowledge is burdening teachers with it all. More and more knowledge is burdening teachers without the option of increasing class time. We seem to have, but one option; technology but it obviously is going to take more. I have no idea of what the answer might be. The founders of this discussion group set their sights on a solution, which is technology in education. Older teachers like me, are reluctant to give up our tired and true methods even though we see what we are doing crumbling around us. The evidence is overwhelming as we see it in the form of more homework than schoolwork, greater demand from industry for trained workers in an expanding number of fields, and obvious failure of our students to succeed in class work shown by dropout rates and graduation rates. There can be no clearer example of our failure than trying to learn how to operate a computer program by reading a technical description written by a product of our school system. English teachers are wrong when they refuse to believe a computer can teach students grammar and spelling, math teacher refuse to allow students to use calculators, and social studies teacher tell students not to watch TV. I am a citizen of a country where the people speak five different languages principally Spanish and English; however, the official language is English. After TV, broadcast first appeared the quality of spoken English in the villages markedly improved. The main programs people watched were soap operas (women) and baseball games (men). As teachers, we have to rethink what we are doing and how we are doing it. Of course, we have to take into consideration our true world situation; we may be in a country where computers not available or are available to very few in society. Nonetheless, having a computer loaded with Microsoft Word and Grammarley programs is better that having an English teacher at your side every time you write anything—I do intend to say anything written on the computer. It is always there. Ask yourself, how much material do you write by hand? Should you be spending inordinate amounts of time teaching penmanship? Recently, an English teacher sent me an 800-word essay she felt was the work of a budding novelist, who happened to be one of her advanced students. I loaded the text into the Grammarley program and that program informed me there were 22 errors in grammar; in other words, there was one error per each 10% of the program. I am not an English teacher. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

MODIFICATION TO MEDICAL EDUCATION IMPERATIVE

I watched an ad on TV urging teachers to learn how to be more efficient in teaching science. Although I watched with bored disinterest, the message did not leave me. That message is knowledge is accumulating so rapidly; we cannot keep up. Like water flooding into a boat, we as educators are becoming overwhelmed and, as a result, are sure to sink unless we do something. The question is, what should we do? As a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, I was aware of the changing ways we were teaching medicine and surgery in my profession but it never registered with me what was happening and why. Administrators classically divide the veterinary curriculum into basic science and clinical science. They framed the curriculum around a strong prerequisite program at the beginning and extended it with a voluntary internship at the end of four formal years. The modern or lecture/apprentice mixture of medical education developed in essentially the 19th and 20th century grew out of what had been strictly an apprentice program that had been in places since ancient times. Obviously, a professor could teach the signs and symptoms of hundreds of diseases in a lecture hall that he or she could never accomplish by exposure to the diseases in question in a clinic setting. Those of us teaching in the basic science or interface between the basic sciences and clinics were acutely aware that we did not have time to teach what most of us felt needed teaching. Knowledge in basic science is expanding exponentially. We urged those teaching prerequisite course to expand their courses and for clinicians to include more basic science in their clinical teaching. There was strong pressure not to increase the number of years in professional school. Of course, jamming more and more material into the eight-hour day has natural limits. The point is basic science knowledge was overwhelming everyone. What happened was internships expanded to a bewildering plethora of residencies, which soon came to include both species specialties as well as of discipline specialties; equine surgeons, poultry medicine, and small ruminant specialists, for example. Also to residencies, there was the classic advanced PhD research degree hovering in the background of residencies. In some disciplines, PhD research degrees replaced residency board certification. At the end of a PhD program, the college administration awards an academic degree. In contrast, at the end of a residency, a board of specialist representing that specialty administers a certification examination. The difference is board certification can be and often is not under the control of academicians. In my discipline of veterinary pathology, the result was that the academician were teaching pathology of dog, cat , horse, cow, pig, sheep, and goat, while the board examination under the control of people working in industry (drug and chemical companies) examination was on the pathology of rat, mice, and Guinea pigs. The obvious problem of students who desired to become diagnostic pathologist did not want the burden of doing, writing about, and the defending a complicated research project. It should be obvious that residencies were an attempt to respond to the great expansion of basic science knowledge. It should also be obvious residency program concept has overwhelmed. Examining new and proposed curriculum clearly indicates a new direction to meet the challenge of expanding basic science is taking place. Colleges of veterinary medicine and medical colleges are teaching their students to be the equivalent of highly trained nurses, the doers, and not the thinkers, which creates an obvious void. The professions are rounding out their ranks with non-veterinarian or physician with holders of Ph.D. degrees in myriad disciplines such as genetics, pharmacology, pathology, microbiology, virology, and on and on. New curricula reflect this by a great diminution of time devoted to basic science and an equally expanded expansion of clinical courses based on the classic apprenticeship approach to medical education of the early centuries. The curious thing is Deans and educational administrators vehemently deny what they are doing. Apparently, they do this to protect the high station held in the public for medical professional. I was inclined to do, as a professor, was to tell my students, veterinary medicine is in the mind of the veterinarian and not in the eye of those who can see what they do. Students subject to this; they want of fix broken legs and diagnose disease, and neuter animals, and that entire lexicon of special skills veterinarian commonly exhibit. At the end of a long career, it is hard to admit I was wrong, but I was. It is time for the profession to agree; there is just too much knowledge for one person to comprehend, and educational administrators have to modify our education system to acknowledge this development. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

DR. DICK DILLMAN,EULOGIZED

Dr. Dick Dillman, long time retired professor of veterinary pathology died Sunday June 7th, 2015. The more I think about it, I am sure I will feel the loss more as a professional colleague than as a personal friend, although there was friendship as well. It wasn’t until November of 1983 that I first met the man. However, while I was at the University of Minnesota, I knew him by name as a pathologist working in the Veterinary diagnostic laboratory in Iowa. He often said to me, “Reading your CV is like reading my own.” We were three months different in age. We graduated from high school the same year, joined the Navy, and went to Korea during that war, returned to go to college only because the GI Bill of Right made it affordable. After undergraduate college, we both went to veterinary college followed by very short but unhappy experiences in private practice and returned to graduate school to study pathology. We both became assistant professors; he in Iowa and me in clinical pathology in Minnesota. After many years, we both left our respective jobs and ended up at North Carolina State University. We had something else in common; even though we had Ph.D. degrees in veterinary pathology, the American College of Veterinary Pathologists considered neither of us pathologists. Unlike me, Dick was sensitive to the resulting criticism from almost every other veterinary pathologist for not having jumped through their nonsensical hurdle of a test. We finished graduate school just as board certification was first happening, which meant we would have to spend several years studying rodent pathology and eventually take a certification examination. We both were interested and had experience in farm and companion animals but mainly with farm animals; in contrast, pathologists engaged in industrial research, which deals extensively with rodents and laboratory animals, wrote the test. The irony is that if a clinician had a problem with a diagnosis they came to Dick for the answer, not to board certified pathologists. Dick’s outstanding quality was his teaching ability. He handled and actually taught all of basic pathology to the sophomore veterinary students, a task shunned by certified pathologists instead of doing research. His years of experience gave him a fundamental and comprehensive sense of his disciple also to a sincere interest in knowing each student. He topped his teaching ability with his quick wit; we all knew his bald head was a solar collector for a sex machine, and that left-handed people are smarter that right-handed people. He engaged students during his lectures, which meant he did not stand in front of the class and read notes. Without question, he was the best teacher I had ever encountered not only from the point of view of subject knowledge but because of his rapport with students. Dick had come to NCSU before the veterinary college was born at that institution. He served as the “pre-vet” advisor; as such, he was acquainted with literally every student who entered the college. He has a great and living legacy in his students most of us do not have. I will miss him at lunch every Tuesday. The lunch is an event that has happened for the last or two or three years with the founding dean and a few other “shadows of the past” that were instrumental in forming the college. I should point out that this is relatively recent. Dick and our fellow colleagues have been going to lunch since 1984—that is a long time, but is all changed now. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

VETERINARY EDUCATION

The editors of latest spring/summer edition of the University of Minnesota “Profiles” filled this edition with notices of awards, abbreviated biographies, and obituaries of some of my veterinary contemporaries. I became a professor of pathology after graduating in 1961. I spent my life avoiding administrative positions as much as I could; thus, I spent my professional life responding to the judgment of others. Of course, I objected when it seemed appropriate to do so. I watched as veterinary education curriculums around the country slowly shift from teaching veterinarians to be professionals to teaching the how to be highly educated veterinary technicians. The new curriculum at the U of M is a classic example demonstrating that change; college curriculum committees replaced lectures with clinic time, which students applauded. As the expansion of basic knowledge accelerated, a shift took place from teaching the understanding disease to the mechanics of the treatment of disease, which was exactly the opposite of what in my opinion should have happened. Now the college is “currently in the midst of strategic planning and developing our objectives for the next five years.” I do have an opinion. The notice said, “The College of Veterinary Medicine is currently in the midst of strategic planning and developing our objectives for the next five years. It’s an exciting opportunity for us to reassess where we have been and set the course for our direction in the future. We’re focusing on the areas of research, education, service, and operational excellence. As a friend of the College, we value your input.” I observed the shift from teaching all veterinarians general clinics to fragmentation into to myriad residency species and discipline specialties, which increased the demand for more research in each specialty. More importantly, I watched, over a span of 30 or 40 years, as there was a complicated political shift in education funding in response to tax cuts from an incessant public demand to cut taxes. This change was slow and gradual. It is like landscape amnesia: most people cannot appreciate what has gradually taken place, for example, snow no longer covering a mountain. Although not immediately apparent, tax cuts resulted in severe cuts to university funding and increased demand for more overhead costs income from research grants. Commodity groups and industries welcomed and promoted this shift. College administration cut funding in much needed and appropriate basic research and the teaching needs of university professors. In its stead professors invested time, space, and talent in patentable research and providing free diagnostic services to commodity groups rather than teaching. College administrators hired researchers and not teachers. Also, this resulted in poultry groups and area practitioners directly controlling the administration of the college of veterinary medicine. Professors should never engage in "for profit" research with dwindling state funds appropriated for education nor should it function as a huge diagnostic laboratory. However, that is what they to garner the funds and to please the powerful state branch of the AVMA. Rather than fight the trends of the times, perhaps the college should join them. Shift the teaching of virology, microbiology, genetics, immunology, physiological chemistry and all other sciences to PhD’s and teach veterinarians to be what they want to be; vaccinator, repairer of broken limbs, injector of antibiotics and let others figure out the mechanisms of disease. The students always told me what they wanted to learn is to do what they saw URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

NEVADA DRIVEN BY GREED

The Washington Post carries some bad news from time to time, but they yesterday published they worst story I have read in a long time. They titled the story as, The ultimate in school choice or school as a commodity. The legislature in Nevada passed a law saying that in the coming year, “any parent in Nevada can pull a child from the state’s public schools and take tax dollars with them”, the ultimate in voucher programs Republicans from around the country are advancing this program. The chief executive of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice has been working for this for years, and it finally happened. Of course, the name ‘Friedman’ in his title refers to the free marketer Milton Friedman, who happens to be the economic equivalent of political philosopher Ayn Rand; if you are rich great, if you are poor screw you—you just do not count. People who are interested in education know laws like this have nothing to do with education but have everything to do with tax dollars. Show me a Republican who is willing to pay to educate someone else’s children and I will show you a pig that flies; however, that is exactly the principle on which our ancestor built America. Every child in our country is given an equal opportunity to do well. That dream died in the Nevada legislature. Freidman presented the idea in 1955, and it died, as it should have. He presented the idea as the “ultimate expression of free choice for families”. Everyone but greed-driven Republican, joined by some economically depressed Democrats, recognized this law for what it is. Republicans designed the legislation to cut the costs of public school, which in turn means tax cuts. They argue the tax dollars go with the student as a voucher, so the tax is still collected. The truth is children of rich families move leaving the poor children in poorly funded deteriorating school. Also, from the social point of view, the private schools use the money for such nonsense as teaching religion, which Republicans designed to ally churches with their party, which gets us to the debate about Common Core. Church-affiliated school demand the constitutional guaranteed freedom to teach what they want but even the best teachers object to meeting “government” standards of excellence even when they know intelligent high school graduates that do not know how to read, write and do arithmetic but can cite a flawless summary of the principles of Christian religion, which means they can pass grades if they know religion, but academics do not count. Church schools object, to the government telling them what to do. They demand their constitutional guaranteed right of free speech. Of course, a tax cut mantra is always popular as a vote getter because it is one or more steps removed from the consequence. The consequence, in this case, is a poorly educated class of children. In the Republican mindset, this is OK as long as it is not “my children”, just as Ayn Rand feels it is ok to starve if you are of low IQ, crippled or otherwise handicapped as long as it is not her. The only way someone would vote for this type of legislation is if driven by greed. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

TAX-WAGE AND TAX-EDUCATION DOWNWARD SPIRAL

Morning Joe (MSNBC) this morning was a perfect synopsis of the entire Republican presidential campaign. Of course, the Morning Joe show was still a miniature rendition of the Fox News, which means you cannot take what they say at face value. The Galleria of guests was Republican presidential candidate George Pataki and radical right wing news commentator Nicole Wallace. Joe Scarborough was there along with Mika Brzezinski gushing all over every word Joe uttered. The focus of the attack was on a tax increase Connecticut has on the horizon. Their message was a winning one; cut taxes and everyone will live happily ever after. The “below the fold” message was that they are not talking about cutting taxes on the people but cutting taxes on businesses to zero. Of course, all the people hear is the part about cutting taxes. The logic is by raising taxes in Connecticut, it will drive big companies out of the state, which means big companies will take their jobs to where taxes are lower or none existent. The host and guest threw around the names of several big specific companies, with the note that these companies can and will move to states where the taxes are already zero. In other words, they want Connecticut to join that group. The guests threw around suggestions such as not to raises taxes but lower them on corporations to 12%. Of course, Joe threw in that Pensacola, Florida has a zero tax rate. There is a reason I refer to people like this as pothole Republicans. In other words, they did not mention the consequences to the state. The expectation is that companies will move into the low tax state bring massive numbers of jobs with them. Also, the people will expect to lower taxes on themselves as well. Lowering corporate taxes will create a bed of roses, when in truth it will create a disaster. If you are a Republican, on what do you blame income disparity? State after state has bought into this and has lowered taxes to attract businesses where they can increase profits. As we saw on Morning Joe, this puts pressure on other states to lower their taxes, which creates the exact cycle big business wants, which is Reaganomics; all the money moves to the top. Corporate wealth has skyrocketed because the increase in profits has gone into their pockets and not into increasing wages or into upgrading the community; we end up with minimum wage jobs and potholes in our streets. All we have to do is look around at the very thing they say they want to fix by making it worse—income disparity—somehow that makes sense in the GOP mind. Nicole Wallace was especially repugnant when she commented on public schools. Her line of reasoning is that public schools are bad because they have bad teachers, and they have bad teachers because of teacher’s unions. She did not say it, but somehow in her twisted mind, she connects low taxes to bad unions. We all know that if the people cut taxes state and city governments cannot support schools, which includes teachers. Our public schools have leaky roofs for the same reason our college tuition is high. All I could do this morning was shake my head in disbelief as I listened to her and the others on Morning Joe. By asking for tax cuts, they sincerely believe wages will go up, and public schools will become better. Obviously, like the Reaganomics wage-profit cycle, the tax-education cycle is another downward spiral. Of course, the tragedy is that many voters believe this as well. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

EVALUATING TEACHERS

Educators from around this country and from around the world realize the United States has been falling behind in the education our children. It soon became apparent that even within the United States with a wide distribution of wealth some school districts were much worse than others were. The level of education did not correlate with the level of spending and in some case was an inverse correlation. We, as a nation, pride ourselves in the concept that local school districts controlled by parents in various school districts control not only how our children are educated but also what schools teach. Clearly, the disparity between districts is a reflection of the “one shoe does not fit all feet” concept. The diverse nature of our country and our colonial era made some form of diversity was mandatory. Now, we find children in many school districts are so poorly taught as to be considered uneducated. However, technology has changes us from our colonial days. We are no longer range from a log cabin/sod house rural farm to people living in a busy worldwide commercial port city. With one click of a switch, we can watch TV or turn on a computer and be in intimate communication with billions. The uneducated are there for all of us to see, and we do see them. In the 2002 Census of Governments, the United States Census Bureau numbered the school systems in the United States is divided into 13,506-school districts and 178-state-dependent school systems. This fragmentation is not counting the additional fragmentation caused by homeschooling. The government approach to solving this crucial problem was to design a program called Common Core. The program suggests basic standards students should achieve at certain levels in their education and provides a system of testing tied to government funding to see if they achieve his standards. Some teachers are angry over this program. Specifically, they focused attention on what they call “high-stakes testing.” They rightly perceived that educational administrators could use test results to evaluate teachers. As a teacher, I have used tests mainly to evaluate students to find who was intelligent and who needed help, and where they need help. Also, I could evaluate my teaching. I assumed student evaluation was the major purpose of the Common Core testing. A friend pointed out the test results are not readily available for a long time, which detracts from their value for this purpose. During my deliberations over what this means, I realized that the purpose of common core was to evaluate teachers and may even be the main purpose. Which begs the question, how else can an administrator evaluate teachers. There isn’t a parent alive who wants their children in a class taught by an ineffective teacher. If you ask if a teacher is good, of course, they will tell you they are. Also, asking children will give you the wrong answer. Teachers can be the best personalities but still be bad teachers, in fact, more often than not this is the case; this is the “teacher of the year phenomenon”. Also, teaching unions have ruined their reputations by protecting bad teachers. The result of this entire self-reinforcing downward spiral is that we have accumulated many bad teachers in our school systems. We dump in millions of dollars, and our children remain poorly educated. Of course, a bad teacher does not want administrators evaluating them, and many good teachers join them in this objection. Therefore, the question remains, how do you evaluate teachers? Teaching is good job, but because it is low paying, there is always a demand for new teachers. However, teaching is an innate talent or calling like being an artist; not everyone is capable of doing it even if he or she wants to do it. Intelligence is important but cannot stand by itself. The drive is required, but political or religious motivations are not enough either. Just wanting a job is never enough. Neither is brilliance alone enough. Einstein was a genius but a rotten teacher. All mothers are nurturing but not necessarily good teachers. Thus, we have the dilemma. How do we evaluate a teacher? Sec. Arne Duncan, the United States Secretary of the Department of Education found out what many if not most good teachers know, but will not admit it. The only way to evaluate a teacher is to evaluate their students. The starting point is to set goals then evaluate how well the teacher did in helping the students achieving that goal. Of course, test evaluation is extremely complex. Some students some learn faster than other students, some are more intelligent than others are, and they all of them have different backgrounds; family, educational, ethnic, etc. Of courses, teachers hate it. I liken it to body cameras on police; some want them, and others do not. Can you guess which ones are which, the bad and the good police? Here is a short story to help me make my point about evaluating teachers. Because of the cost of fighting the past war, the Emperor decided he could only afford one of his four teachers. Of course, he wanted to keep the best. He asked an advisor; perhaps he called him the secretary of education, who said it would be easy; just ask them how many teeth the emperor’s horse had in this mouth. He asked the question. The teachers were upset and angry over the high-pressure testing of their knowledge. The first teachers replied 32. The emperor rolled his eyes. She second teacher decided to answer 28. Again, the emperor rolled his eyes. The third one, who was widely held to be the wisest one of the four, decided the answer must be 30. The fourth one, who we will name Socrates, moved toward the door. The emperor yelled at him, “Where are you going? The test is not over.” Socrates responded, “I am going out to counting them.” URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

BUDGET CUTS TO EDUCATION

People seem to want to live the impossible dream. Like a small child making an absurd wish, they seem uninhibited when they publicly express one or another incongruous thought. Because they are adults, they should know what they want is impossible but that realization makes no difference. People seriously express ideas publically; ideas that should embarrass them for their lack of maturity but does not. Absurd wishes are the most obvious in political debate. I try to reason out why people do this but get nowhere. Take, for example, the widespread budget-cutting taking place in Republican controlled states. Consider this against the background of all of the troubles we, as a society, had solving all the problems associated with public schools. This extends back to the being of human history. Why, when, and where did the idea for public schools originate? How did we get public school? How do we finance schools? How did segregation come about and why and the reverse, how and why did the current trend of desegregation happen? Why are we concerned about remote rural students and what do we do about it? What do we do about religion and other cultural issues in schools? It has not been easy, but we have accomplished much. Now, some people seem to want to revisit these debates but some seem unaware of all of this history. They discard all consideration to one, which is to save money. We have all heard it, “you worked hard for it so you deserve to keep it”. Politicians have decimated schools by severely cutting school budgets in a number of states with the aim of cutting taxes; however, their argument makes no sense. They justify cutting school budgets by cutting taxes but subsidize industry with even more money than they cut from school budgets. The budgets cuts have been devastating to education. As a result, school boards, made up of parent and neighbors, have cut teachers’ salaries and allowed school buildings to deteriorate. Parents see this and accept increases in property taxes to maintain schools, which means parents are actually increasing taxes to pay for industry profits. Politicians are the ones who force this to happen, which mean the people in those states should agree with them taking this tax shift. This is the cores of Reaganomics, which has driven us to this low point in the history of education. Is there any question about Reagan being the worst president we have ever had? Is there anything reasonable about what is happening? Do people dream they can educate children with no costs? It reminds me of the farmer who was raising calves and decided to experiment to find out if he did not feed them, he could make more money. He came close to succeeding but, unfortunately, the calves died just before they were ready to sell. We all know if we did not have schools, it would cost less. Really, all it would cost is our future as a country. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

HIGH STAKES TESTING IS TO FIND BAD TEACHERS

I have one simple question. How does an educational administrator know which teachers is a good teacher and which one is a bad teacher? Once pressured to answer that question, it becomes obvious is a simple question; it is the answer that is difficult. The first and most obvious problem is to define what you mean by the expression ‘good teacher’ with the provision that the definition will change with the age of the student. In addition, the definition has to be expanded from K-12 to include the graduate school, meaning teaching Ph.D. students. Remember that the abbreviation refers to “doctor of philosophy” using the term meaning “love of wisdom” in addition it is the highest degree awarded as and as such implies wisdom and not just unprocessed knowledge. Is there one answer that fits all situations? I think there is. A program referred to as Common Core has received much less than reasoned criticism. It is interesting to learn that many if not most critics are now active teachers including some of what I consider the best teacher in the nation, which represents a shift from first the radical political operatives whose interest in objecting to Common Core was in condemning anything connected with President Obama for anything and everything. This focus soon switched to the Republican Party with an eye on cutting taxes, which resulted in the impoverishment of some public schools while enriching public schools in “good” neighborhoods. Including the GOP resulted in an extensive effort by conservatives to convince people Common Core was an effort by the “big suppressive federal government” to take over local schools from neighborhood school boards. Th GOP attracted local activists, church groups, and racial bigots. Although the target of the attacks is to cut taxes, this effort resulted in such asinine laws as outlawing Sharia Law, establishing state religions, funding of charter schools, and other things that help private business groups. Recently, the focus of dissent aimed at Common Core switched to the idea that the testing is oppressive and hurting children. The detractors do this with rhetoric and selection of words like ‘oppressive high stress’ testing, ‘harmful’ testing, producing ‘useless’ test results, and worst of all ‘teaching tests’. Some of the good teachers in our nation joined in this dissent because they saw this as being harmful to students, etc. However, bad teachers saw testing as a threat; they recognize educational administrators could look at student test results and answer the question; “Who are the good teachers and who are the bad teachers?” This approach both asks and answers the main question; the question asked by administrators, who is and who is not a good teacher, is answered by finding out which children learned the most. All of a sudden, the testing removes the one big objection to teacher evaluation; a teacher can be popular but be a bad teacher. The irony is that there has been there is often an inverse relationship between these two factors. Stop and think about it and these arguments give us both the strength and weakness of Common Core. By examining why each group is critical, we find revealing. Not having the test result immediately available to improve their teaching concerns good teachers, which is one of the few objections to Common Core to which I agree. Good teachers know they are good teachers and see testing as a way to become even better. Test results direct teaching to individual student’s needs and interests; however, without a test being results immediately available they serve no purpose. The mindset of good teachers is not that of an educational administrator and like everyone else they object to being told what they already know or allow their insecurity to dominate inherent self-deprecating suspicions about not doing a good job—a sure sign a good teacher. For poor teachers know they are poor teachers, just as good teachers know they are good teachers. Poor teachers fear testing will reveal their inadequacies; therefore, they find ways to cheat as we recently found out in Georgia. Administrators should fire them, so they depend on unions to defend them; unfortunately, union leaders often do, in fact, defend bad teachers; thus, destroying the reputation of unions. In addition, union leaders defense of bad teachers reduces the quality of public schools especially in neighborhoods where teachers are hard to find because of low wages and working condition. This emphasis creates and perpetuates a vicious cycle Common Core aims at breaking. The objection by teachers has gained force at the expense of the program as a major benefit to education, which is counter to the objective of destroying the program. Unfortunately, this means good teachers are working to damage what they cherish the most. The non-teaching forces object to Common Core efforts to improve educational standards seem persistent and would fail without the creditability of good teacher support. Not only in a small substandard neighborhood but also in wide swaths of the country, all as being substandard, for example, in the anti-science evangelical south recognize. In fact, the impact of local influence on what students learn is often so blatant it is a standing joke, especially in the old Plantation South. My conclusion is that Common Core has its most value in evaluating teachers, which is why most people object to the program. I have no inside information but suspect that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and support staff had the evaluation of teachers in mind. Contrary to what detractors claim, these people are highly educated individuals who have worked very hard doing their jobs. Many of them have extensive experience in education administration. They know the best way to find out which teachers are good and which are not is through student testing despite all the disparaging adjectives. They know to say they were testing children to evaluate teachers would kill the program. Still, if you are one of those who object to Common Core, ask yourself the question, how do you think we should evaluate teacher? I have been asking myself that question for many years and keep coming up with the same answer as Secretary Arne Duncan; test the children. By the way, the high stakes test is ‘high stakes’ but only for bad teachers. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

COMMON CORE IS BODY CAMERA FOR TEACHERS

It is a difficult task to look at social ills and figure out what is happening and why. The interacting array forces can be confusing because they are. For example, I see Scott Walker, the union busting Governor of Wisconsin s a viable candidate to become president of the United States. What is incredible is when we consider we are a country of 330 million people of which by far most are working people; people who should be union members. The United States is a capitalistic society meaning we have to great economic forces held in balance by one another; those forces are labor and management. Working conditions, wages, work palace safety, the environment, etc. are all on the table. All of these things benefit workers, some benefit both management, and labor but all of them cost management money hence cut profits. When I look around, I find that the upper 1% of the population is holding the nation's wealth while poverty is expanding. Both of these extremes are cutting into the middle class. I look at the number of politicians who endorse the Ayn Rand political philosophy. Of course, that number consists of those who openly endorse her while most seem ashamed to let their affiliation, apparently because it would make their greed public. They often hide under a misleading name or political party label. Names such as Willie Nelson, Eric Canter, Paul Ryan, and Allen Greenspan speak to the diverse nature of the people involved. The Koch brothers give huge sums of money to universities in exchange for that university teaching her philosophy. If you are healthy, have an average or above average IQ, and are employed then the benefits of society are for you, but if you are crippled, even if wounded in a war, ill, or below average IQ, or elderly without a pension, you simply do not count—human garbage. This type of thinking is what drives Republican Party politics. There is no such thing as compassionate conservatism, which is tantamount to saying there is no such thing as compassionate management. In other words, profits come before people. In contrast, for workers the opposite it true; people come before profits. Unions grew out of one workers concern for their fellow workers. Both traits seem to have originated with humankind. All my life I have been content to be a worker. When it comes to workers uniting to form unions, I cannot even imagine a world without that happening, but, on the other hand, I cannot imagine a world without management. Recently, the government unintentionally ignited a firestorm over a thing called Common Core, which is a list of suggested level of learning students across the nation to achieve a way to measure the achievement of these goals, which is where politician Scott Walker entered into the discussion of education. The first step in understanding why the Wisconsin Governor’s sudden interest in Common Core is to realize he is an Ayn Rand disciple funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, which means he hates unions, and he hates public schools or any other government program. To elect him president would be equivalent to having David and Charles Koch setting in the White House on the lap of Ayn Rand. It is easy to find teachers, some of them the best of teachers we have, fighting against Common Core. They feel the associated testing is unnecessary and is unduly stressing their students. Teachers, like police and firefighters, are members of what we refer to as public service unions. Leaders of these unions are part of a collective bargaining system in which they negotiate wages and working conditions with government officials. Of course, we are the government and the money for their wages, etc. comes from the taxpayers or us. The next step is to realize public schools are often not doing their jobs. Comparative testing with countries from around the world shows we are rather low in ranking. His hurts our pride but especially our good teacher’s pride. However, government officials recognize this tendency for low ranking is not just international but is regional in the United States, which of course we can easily tie to the creation of Common Core. The scapegoat for much of this is teachers’ unions, and rightfully so. We all recognize teachers unions often protect poor teachers. The aha moment for Walker is when he realized he could use parents and family unrest with public school unions protecting bad teachers to destroy these public service unions, thus render them ineffective and cut teachers wages to the bone. The way to do this is to cut funding for public schools and to force privatization. What a perfect “conservative” road to a tax saving by busting unions has become!!! The irony is that people such as me seem to be unable to correct the situation. How do I fight for Common Core at the same time, work to support of unions whose members are working to destroy the Common Core program. I would be working alongside parents and teachers as well as working with other people who are voting for union busting government officials such as Scott Walker. Can we reduce the debate to something as simple as work to support Arne Duncan and Common Core to improve schools and education in general while working against Scott Walker’s efforts to destroy unions? A big part of fixing the situation is to fix unions. A big part of fixing public school education is to destroy the influence bad teachers are having on unions. That effort should focus on testing students, as Common Core provides for to determine if their teachers are doing a good job, which is exactly what both good and bad teachers do not want. Just as it is with the police, teachers do not want body cameras or someone looking over their shoulders while they are doing their jobs. However, we all know there are bad teachers out there. How do we find them? In my opinion, the best way to sort out the good from the bad is to test students. Again, we can ask teachers if they are good or bad and they are more than willing to tell you but that is like reading an autobiography to learn the truth. As for Scott Walker, we will always have bad politicians; however, to solve that problem we have the voting box. It is just unfortunate that Walker and the Koch brothers have found this huge loophole through which to drive their brand of bad government. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated