Morning Shots

The fan mail is rolling in and paparazzi are following me to work every day despite the great lengths to which I’ve gone to protect my identity. 

Some people are telling me ed school is just a minor annoyance, but once the door to my classroom is closed, the class is mine to do with as I wish. Others tell me pick a school where there are no “math police” who make sure I teach the program du jour. 

Of all the comments, two in particular stand out.  One from a friend who asked if I thought I was making a difference with this little venture into blog space.  The other asked whether I thought I’d be making a difference teaching in a system that prevents effective math teaching in a world infiltrated by NSF, NCTM/ed school dogma and math police.

I don’t know the answer to the first question. But I’m in ed school, where there are no wrong answers.  So here goes.  Will this little blog venture make a difference?  Well, what I do know is that ed schools—without benefit of blogs or internet cafés—have made a huge difference in this country.  A bad one.  Therefore, the more people informed of the debate the better, particularly those on the fence.

This brings up the second question: if the seed pod infiltration is so effective (see my last letter for what this metaphor means) what is the chance for change with only a few enlightened teachers battling the math police?

My answer to the second question is based on the fact that I’ve never had an original idea in my life.  Being part of the baby boomer generation means that whatever so-called original idea is in my head is also in the heads of thousands of other people.  Which means that many

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Every parent of a homeschooled child has a set of reasons why they decided to take the plunge and forever subject themselves to funny looks from strangers. I thought at first my reasons were anything but typical, but now I realize mine are the culmination of what would happen to any child not properly excised from public school at an early age.

That being said, there are some atypical aspects to my story. My “child” is actually my wife’s 15-year-old nephew who I will call Jay. 

Jay is above average intelligence, having scored high, above average or very good on practice IQ tests and on PSAT’s. This may seem at first glance to merely place him the realm of above average with most kids, but he really has no foundational basis for his intelligence and testing abilities.

The public education system will do anything to keep a student “on track” with his peers. And as I learned this year, staying “on track” has little to do with intellectual progress. I believe my nephew’s  primary problem in school was a lack of focus, direction, discipline, challenge, expectations or responsibility (if those things can be summed up into one primary problem!) that collectively allowed him to fall behind his peers academically and intellectually, while maintaining his “proper” grade assignment with his age cohort.

I believe problems in his private life have been leading to problems in his social life. As a teenager this is perfectly natural. However, a 15-year-old’s social life is essentially school, and when Jay’s personal problems started spilling into his academic and intellectual world, no barrier was there to separate the two. He was smart enough to realize no matter what his actions he took, he would ultimately be forgiven and have another chance to make things right, make up work,

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NOTE: This is the last in a series of posts responding to thoughts made by Eduwonk with respect to Florida’s McKay Scholarship Program for special needs children.  Earlier articles by Ladner may be found here, here and here.  -ed.

So, it is 4th and five from the 8-yard line with only seconds to go in the McKay debate. Both teams are exhausted from battling it out for four quarters. Eduwonk has a 6-point lead, but Ladner has the ball. Ladner makes a few last points before the whistle blows:

-Eduwonk’s claims that severe disability kids should be over-represented in McKay, but private schools specializing in high-end disabilities have their cost structures determined by the law-suit/outsourcing system of the status-quo (i.e. they may be built around $100k per year, while the McKay offers only a maximum of $21k per year or so). Given that children with severe disabilities are being served by McKay, just not over-served, this seems like a small problem rather than a horrible flaw.

-Eduwonk cites the special education meltdown in Washington D.C. as some sort of cautionary tale for McKay. I don’t get it. With 2,283 students costing the DCPS $118 million per year, the average tuition scored through the status-quo lawsuit system is a mind-boggling $51,000 per year. In the meantime, the entire state of Florida spent about $97,000,000 to give 15,910 students McKay Scholarships. In other words, Florida gave choice to about seven times as many students while spending 18% less. This doesn’t take into account all the litigation costs that DCPS must be enduring. Far from a cautionary tale against McKay, this is something DCPS should implement pronto to protect their budget from the deadly combination of rent-seeking

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