Mean Green Republicans: Saturday Political Soap Box 294

 Look, I know that this isn't straight green. The color is actually described as apple green.

The 118th Congress, the least productive Congress in modern times, did not like their original pins. You see, they were navy blue, and by golly, I guess any shade of blue is official property of the Democratic Party. Well, they can't have that! So, the House Republicans dropped another 40K so they could all change over to a different color.

True, even though it's not a lot of money in the scheme of things, it is endemic to the misplaced values of the Crazy Conference.

Every action or proposed action the House Republicans take is about grievance and preserving power for the wealthy, corporations, and Christian Nationalists.

They have little genuine legislative power at the national level, thanks to a Democratic Senate and President. But they can threaten to shut down the government (hurting countless people), stop forward progress on any genuinely beneficial legislation, block support of the Ukrainians in their battle against a Russian dictator (Speaker Mike Johnson is practically handing the keys to Putin and saying, "Here, Puty, take 'er out for a test drive!"), and hold endless hearings about Hunter Biden while Marjorie Taylor Greene holds up dick pics.

Yes, their childish antics can be entertaining. But they're also destroying any ability to get anything done.

Not so in states with Republican Governors and Republican-controlled legislatures. They have run roughshod over voting rights, and the lgbtq+ community, directing tax cuts to the wealthy and increasing the tax burden of the poor and middle class, supporting book bans, undermining public education, blocking Medicaid expansion, and so many other mean and frankly anit-Christian actions.

Currently, some of these Republican states have sounded off about summer feeding programs for children. The Governor of Mississippi wants to discontinue it because it fosters dependence on a "welfare state." This is the same state that has NO state minimum wage, only the federal minimum of $7.25. Guess they don't want to foster dependence on an employer either.

Georgia is in the same boat. Only Governor Kemp tries to hand out cookies to teachers to bribe them to his side. Maybe they won't notice all the stuff he's taking away from them, including support for summer feeding.

Republicans. They just can't help being mean, green, antidemocratic machines.

But, what the hey! They do have spiffy pins!

A Very Berry Remake

 

Previously: having lost my second teaching job, having met little success as a circulation manager and radio ad salesman/ad writer, I had the epiphany that I would not be able to earn money from my creative abilities and that I would return to college to improve a more business-oriented background.

The time is circa 1982.  One of the closest colleges to Cartersville was Berry College near Rome, Georgia. It had an excellent reputation and a gorgeous campus on 27,000 acres, making it the largest school in the United States (by land area, not by the number of students). In addition, it had an extensive student work program, which I would need.

There was a program you could take that combined business, math, and computer science courses. I forget what they called it - business systems analyst? Sad that I've forgotten, but I have.

I don't remember much about the computer science courses. COBOL? Is that a computer language? Stuff like that.  

Math was a challenge. I had taken no math at the University of Michigan. I was not a great math student in high school. Nevertheless, I was going to give it my best shot.  

I started with College Algebra. I had never worked so hard in a class in my whole life. Even though I only got a B, it was the grade I was most proud of in my academic career.

The next class was Precalculus. But I had limited time, and my algebra grade gave me the big head, so I decided to skip Calculus.

I got my posterior handed to me. I should have quit the class, but I was stubborn. By the time of the final, I was utterly lost. Instead of solving the exam problems, I wrote a dissertation on how calculus was actually magic. I got my only academic fail.  

Business classes, however, went swimmingly. Economics, business writing, business statistics, marketing, business theory - all went well. But the course where I barely had to think and still shined was ... accounting. I don't know why it came so easily to me, but it did.

The final exam in one of the accounting classes was to do a business tax return from start to finish. After it was graded, the professor told me I was the first student to do the return absolutely perfectly.

My student job was at the library. I managed a system that lent and received books across the nation's entire library system. This was done via computer, and once again, I have forgotten the system's name. I loved it. Searching the library for requested books, mailing them, and receiving and processing requests that our students made, I could have been very happy with doing that, and other library work for a living. But, alas, Berry had no Library Science program.

The academic walls were closing in. If I was going to get any value from my academic sojourn, I would have to go in one direction... accounting. Not because I loved it, but because it was easy for me and the quickest way I could make a decent living for myself and my family.

Ultimately, my two years at Berry did not result in an additional degree. They only had Bachelor's degrees, and I would have to go a while longer, taking physical education courses and other strange things to get that second Bachelor's. The result is I have over six years of college and only a Bachelor's degree in Education to show for it.

Nevertheless, I had the equivalent of a business and accounting major, and by the spring of '84, I was ready to go out and make my mark in the accounting world.

And that's when losing my work soul really began.

Wandering Wednesday is Back, Baby!

Is a part of me still in Ireland?  You better believe it!

It's back! One of my most popular blog features!  Wednesday Wanderings!

Ok, that's not entirely true.  It actually ranks quite low in views compared to some of my other kinds of posts.  Stuff with BenJerMan - that gets a lot of views.  As irritating as it may be to some, my political stuff gets a lot of views.  Things where I shut up and mostly show pictures do quite well.  Well, Wednesday Wanderings are more popular than my poetry.  That's something, right?

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My work status for the next two weeks is on call.  Get that, my work buddies?  Let me know if something comes in.  And then give me time to sober up, get dressed and get in.

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Speaking of sober, I fell in love with a drink in Ireland.  Guinness? Whiskey?  Ale?  Nope. Orange Soda!  Turns out of the ten most popular soft drinks in Ireland, three are orange sodas!  And, if you get one with your meal, they're more likely to put ice in your glass!  Viva la ice! I know, my love of ice makes me hopelessly American. But that's okay.  I'd rather explain to Europeans why I like ice than try to explain how America elected a dim-witted racist narcissist like Trump.

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Funny thing on the way to worrying about Trump - turns out that the stealing of Obama's Supreme Court nomination may be almost as destructive as the orange democracy-wrecking ball.  Expect many decisions that benefit corporations and the wealthy, and decisions that narrow and restrict democracy and access to it, that promote and encourage those who would discriminate.

This means when Progressives take control of the Presidency and Congress (which I believe they will), their initiatives will be reversed by a profoundly reactionary court.  We could actually pass Medicare for all, only to have it taken away by a Supreme Court that just hates to see everyone have access.  We could try to combat global warming only to have those initiatives over-turned.  And on and on it will go.

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We're gearing up the college application process for Benjamin.  Isn't that just crazy?

The cost of college is so high, I have no idea how anyone does it.  He should have Zell Miller level Hope Scholarship (covering tuition), but room and board are higher for one year than my college was for all four years, tuition and room and board COMBINED!

Student loans are like putting a massive yoke around their necks, dragging them down for the rest of their lives.  I don't know why Americans are willing to accept that.

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We're watching The Handmaid's Tale.  We at first had to catch up, settling in after our Ireland trip.  We're now caught up and can't stand the wait each Wednesday for a new episode.  The parallels to what's been happening in our country to what's happening on that show are eerie and spine-tingling. It's like a scary vision of the future where Mike Pence is President.

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For those who want me to end on an up note, here's another picture of Ireland.

Better yet, heeeere's Benjamin!

Wanderingly yours,

T. M. Strait

Benjamin's Whirlwind College Tour!

 Benjamin's Great Georgia College Tour!  Here he stands at the gate to the University of Georgia!

We had earlier in the year seen Augusta University, Georgia Southern, and Valdosta State, and were now completing our tour by seeing three colleges in three days!

Benjamin was very impressed with the University of Georgia, with its beauty and green spaces, the accessible library, and large student union.  He was also impressed that there was easy access to both a comic book shop and a gaming store.

Here he is competing in a trivia contest at Georgia State University, the very large school (50,000 plus) in downtown Atlanta.  And yes, he won!  It was millennials vs. baby boomers, and he actually knew the answer to more of the baby boomer questions than he did the millennial questions.

Benjamin walking the outskirts of Georgia college in Milledgeville.  Georgia College combined the best features of a larger college with those of a smaller college.  Big enough to have many of the amenities Benjamin was looking for, and the coursework he wants to specialize in (a combination of psychology with computer science), but small enough to feel special and get better connected to the professors.

Like UGA, Georgia College has a decorated mascot statue in the downtown area.  

No trip to Milledgeville is complete without a trip to one of Georgia's finest restaurants, The Brick.  It's great menu of mostly Italian treats, understands the value and great taste of over-cheesing!  Alison loves their four cheese grilled sandwich.  I had a chicken parm grinder, and Benjamin a cannibal calzone, containing about a half-a-dozen different kinds of meat!

Now that the whirlwind tour is over, Benjamin has narrowed down to three schools he will submit applications to - Georgia Southern, UGA, and Georgia College.  

If all three accept him, which one would he choose?  I don't know.  That's a decision for another day.  Our focus now is on retaking the ACT, in the hopes of bumping up his first score of 25.

Even though we have saved and planned, the costs of a college education is now overwhelming.  One semester costs more than what I and my parents paid for four years at the University of Michigan.  It easily costs ten times more now.  And we're not making ten times more than what my parents made.

Without the Hope scholarship, there is no hope of going to college.  I don't want to strap Benjamin or our family with huge student loans.  We want to minimize that as much as possible.

That so many families accept the reality of large student loans, often at usurious interest rates (which will be increasingly true under DeVos and Trump), saddens me deeply.  There is another way, if we only had the political courage to take that route.

Feel the Bern!

Those Who Teach

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom: Enlighten by your Holy Spirit those who teach and those who learn, that, rejoicing in the knowledge of your truth, they may worship you and serve you from generation to generation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.

- The Book of Common Prayer                                

Those who teach and those who learn.

What they do is a blessing and a gift.   Teaching through love, kindness, and understanding, is so much more effective than teaching through fear, hate, and intimidation.  And most of our teachers understand that.  Knowledge and truth are spread quicker and surer when there is empathy and caring. 

Teaching the Gospel message rings truer when done through the filter of loving one's neighbor.  The same is true of any subject.

Being able to teach in an atmosphere of love is vital. Teaching in an armed camp makes that very difficult.  Teachers should not have to be armed with weaponry, they should be armed with knowledge and wisdom.  They should be provided with basic school supplies, not bullets.

Worship and service to Christ can live and grow and light up the generations.  Teach by example.  Teach by love.  Becoming the hands and feet of Christ inspires it in others. 

Bless the teachers among us.  Whether it is Sunday School or biology, math or preschool, social studies or the language arts, athletics or band, science or choir - they all sing to the human spirit, increase our knowledge of the world, our caring for each other, our love of learning and our love of the Lord.

As the Saturday Night Live comedy skit shows, the solution to the clanging of cowbell dominating a song is not more cowbell.  That just makes it harder to hear the song you want to hear.

So it is with guns.  The solution to guns is never more guns.  That will lead to more noise and threats, more fear and jumpiness, more gun violence.  Our schools and churches and concerts are not going to be made safer by turning them into police state style armed camps.  The solution lies in banning military-style weaponry.  Country after country shows the same statistic - the fewer guns, the greater the reduction in the amount of gun violence.  The more guns, the greater the number of gun-related deaths.

Teach our children well.  Those who teach and those who learn should be able to do us in an atmosphere of love and peace.  Not with a holstered gun, or a rifle strapped to their backs.

Bless teachers and students everywhere, young and old alike. 

               

Never Too Late to Learn

No matter how much you think you know, you can still know more.  No matter your age or experience, no matter your intelligence or expertise, there is always something you may have overlooked.

Even though I've enjoyed history and geography all my life, it's only been recently that I've discovered how big a continent Africa really is, seeing maps that demonstrated that the US, China, Western and Eastern Europe all could be contained within its mass!  Even though I'm not bad enough to be on Worst Cooks in America, when watching the show, I'm always surprised by a kitchen utensil that I was unfamiliar with, like who knew there was a mandoline, and that it was a cutting tool and not a musical instrument?  Even though I'm a CPA who has done taxes every year for the last two decades, there are always unique situations I've never run across, where I learn rules and regulations I hadn't considered before (some estimates put the tax codes, including annotations, at around 70,000 pages, and whatever the Republicans did in their recent tax bill, I don't think they made that any shorter).

But what shocked me most recently was in my beloved hobby career, writing. 

I was at a Writer's Guild meeting, with the latest copy of my novel, proud as punch at my self-publishing efforts.  A friend sitting next to me opened it up, and I was ready to be swimming in praise.  Instead, she pointed to the first paragraph (only a whopping two words) and asked, "Why is it there?"

"Why is what where?" I asked.  She was pointing to the left of the two words, just about five spaces to the left.  I was vastly puzzled, but the meeting went on and I wasn't able to figure it out.

Until about a week later, when I realized that what she was wondering was why I indented the first paragraph.  At first, I thought, why in the world would I do that?  Then I looked at some other books that I had, and I discovered that many of them (but not all) did not indent the first paragraph in a series of paragraphs. Paragraphs following the first would be indented, but when a new chapter would start, the first paragraph would not be indented.

It's not like I come to this blindly.  I am an avid reader and have read thousands of books in my life.  I love to hang at libraries and bookstores, and I surround myself with books at home.  How could I not know this?  How did something so basic escape my attention?

My only excuse is that when I read, I'm reading for pleasure and information, not for observing formatting and manuscript presentation.  Reexamining a variety of books from different publishing time periods, I find that it's not universal, but it is more common than not.  Many don't indent the first paragraph of a chapter.  Some don't indent the first paragraph following a space break of paragraphs, even in the middle of chapters, I guess to delineate another scene or a new chain of ideas.  One thing that is done often is to make the first letter of the unindented paragraph extra big. 

This is an example of that.  Yeah, I can tell you won't see that often in a self-published book. That is a pain to do, especially in the word processing program I use.

When writing on the blog, I don't indent any paragraphs.  I don't know if that's right or wrong, but it seems to be fairly common.  It's also how I send my newspaper columns, and they reformat it to their newspaper standards.

Every day, there is more to know.  But don't fear knowledge.  Learning things that are new to you means that you are still growing, open to expanding your world.  No one should be afraid of admitting that you have knowledge gaps, and are able to accommodate and improve.  No one can know everything.

In fact, what you should be afraid of is the person who thinks they already know everything and refuses to learn or change.  Those who already feel like they're the smartest person in the room, and don't need to listen to new information or anything that could cause them to change and adapt.

It's good to know that you are smart.  It's an important trait, though, of being smart to realize that you don't know everything and are capable of learning more.  It's the difference between being smart, and being, like, really smart.

The School Bells are Ringing

The school bells are ringing!

Well, not quite like they were a couple generations ago, with an actual school bell tower clanging a clarion call that school was about to begin, as school children trudged ten miles through snowstorms to get there (or, as more likely in our area, ten miles of alligator-laden and bug-infested swamp). Now it's hallway bells for class changes -time to move from one part of the day to another.

Think public schools aren't important?  Catch any local paper or local newscast right about now.  News about the schools dominate.  The students and teachers are coming back!  News about exciting events, sports challenges coming up, academic accomplishments about to be spun, new staff to interview, new Kindergartners ready to start their educational journey, new facilities.  Every nook and cranny of every detail becomes something the whole community is inspired to hear about.

Communities, particularly our rural districts, focus a large part of their spirit, drive and hopes on their local schools.  The school's rhythm and cycle becomes their rhythm and cycle.  Football season, with players and cheerleaders and band and A/V Club and boosters, kick off the start of school year.  But that is just the beginning.  There is Homecoming and basketball, One Act and Literary, Future Farmers and Future Business Leaders, concerts and dances, academic and athletic awards, proms and graduation.  Public schools represent the very heart of the community strength and spirit.

Now, imagine, if you will, if instead you had a patchwork of charter schools, religion-based schools and the home schooled.  Some of these, I am sure, might be fairly good  But there would be little unity.  Many charter schools are driven not by the community or the students, but the private financial interests of those who own them. It's just the nature of unfettered capitalism - the interest is not in service, but in maximizing profits.  At a minimum, charter schools need to be regulated as heavily as public schools, if not more so, in order for them to serve the interests of the students. However, as Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos indicated in her nomination hearings, she is reluctant to regulate charter schools with the same vigor as we do public schools.

Religious schools and home schooling often have as their goal indoctrination in one faith and philosophy to the exclusion of all others.  They can do many things well, but they often fail in teaching respect for our diversity, and in developing critical thinking skills.

They are not community-centered.  That is lost.  It's just not a large part of their purpose or agenda.

We live in a nation of freedom and choices.  As vital as public schools are, people are free to make other educational choices.  But they should not do so at taxpayer expense.  That money needs to be devoted to providing and improving public education.

People tend to forget the reason public education was originally created for.  It wasn't to prepare for a specific career.  It wasn't to warehouse children while their parents worked. It was to provide a civic education, the basic critical thinking skills to become informed citizens, able to contribute to a participatory democracy.

It's much more than just voting.  It's also taking pride in and participating in your local community.

And I'd hate for us to lose that.

Peak Season Wednesday Wanderings

It's not quite half-way yet, but it will be soon.  Tomorrow will be Day 54 of a 108 day tax season.  It has been a long and wearing season, mostly because I have hopes of further cutting back on accounting profession hours after the season is over.  I don't like to think of it as retirement as much as opening hours up to pursue the kinds of things I have wanted to do all my life.  Some will be remunerative.  Some will not.

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Out local Congressman, Buddy Carter, is having a town hall meeting today.  Unfortunately, it's at 2:30, and this is very problematic given that it is tax season.  I'm not sure I have any coherent questions anyways.  It takes a lot of preparation for me to speak extemporaneously in public, and I haven't had much time to prepare for that. It would be real nice to see - it would be fun to see a liberal version of my Crowley story, Winston's Last Town Hall.

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The most upsetting thing about this area is that people like Buddy Carter wind up running unopposed. Many of them don't have a primary opponent, much less a Democratic opponent.  People should not just be able to waltz into power.  The fact that this gulag style of politics doesn't bother people here is very disturbing to me.

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Public schools are the core of Democracy.  Their major purpose is to help create an informed citizenry.  Maybe the importance of competitive elections would be more valued if Civics was restored to the center of the public school curriculum.

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I am going to be The Diary of Anne Frank again!  Much of the cast from last year is back, including the young and talented Emily Beck as Anne Frank.  This year I am pleased to announce that my son, Benjamin, will play Peter!  I am so proud and happy to be in a play with him again!

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This isn't much today, is it?  I want to thank all of those who have regularly read The Strait Line, and/or my columns, Amazon ebooks, and the novel History of the Trap.  I know it's not easy, because I am thematically all over the map, but I appreciate your interest and enthusiasm.  It's what helps keep me going.

Wanderingly Yours,

T. M. Strait

Warriors for a Great Cause

This is my father, Eugene Everett Strait.  Many of you who follow my blog, or are from Bridgeport, know how much I respect and admire him.  He passed away at 91 on September 22, 2013, but his influence, his love, his caring, will live with me forever.

My father dedicated much of his life to public education.  He was an excellent teacher, skilled in math, and teaching it not just to college prep students, but also to low achievers who had little interest or motivation to do well.  And yet, his techniques and caring turned many of those students around, achieving at levels no one thought possible.

He was a proponent of team teaching, and Bridgeport High School was built to accommodate that. Honestly, the technique didn't always work as well in real life as it did on paper.  But he wasn't so stubborn and full of himself that he kept advocating a flawed system.  He learned to adapt and adjust wherever needed.  Because he knew his ego wasn't as important as the successful education of his students.

He was Principal of  Bridgeport High School for many years, and was recognized as an education leader in the state.  He loved public schools and he helped make them work.

This is my sister, Carol Easlick, with her arm around her lifelong best friend, Peggy Kwater.


My sister wanted to be a teacher.  She graduated at a time when teaching jobs were difficult to come by.  She found positions with private companies first, and it seemed like public education would not be in her life.  Her husband was a brilliant teacher and coach, her father an outstanding school administrator, but she seemed destined to stand outside of her chosen profession.

But living near the state capitol, Lansing, she finally got an opportunity to participate in Education. She worked for the State Secretary of Education, and over time, became the legislative assistant, helping research and prepare laws and regulations, coordinating between the legislative and executive branch.  In other words, she got the kind of job that I can only dream about getting.

She worked on both sides of the aisles, and had both Republican and Democratic friends and allies. She struggled hard, under both Governor Granholm and Governor Snyder, to help make public education better.

It became harder and more frustrating as one of the political parties became more ideological, and more and more invested into a dislike of public education, some actively trying to dismantle and weaken it.  It became particularly difficult when the legislature was awash with outside money influencing them to put in charter schools, run by private interests that would not be subject to the same regulations and rules as public schools.

My sister has retired from the fight, but I am as proud as I can be of the contributions she made.  Like my father, she dedicated much of her life to the betterment of public schools.

And now we have selected a US Secretary of Education who is dedicated to the destruction of public education, someone who was in large part responsible for the decline and collapse of the educational system that existed in the state I grew up in, Michigan.  She has bought her way in, just as she did with the Michigan legislature, and she plans wreaking the same destruction on the nation as she did in Michigan.

Betsy DeVos is a betrayal to my father and sister, and to everyone who has worked hard for public education -  the very backbone of American democracy.

But I promise you this.  It won't happen without  fight.  Dad and Carol, you have been warriors for a great cause.  And now it is time for me to take up the cause of public education.  It is time for me to do my part.

Because, like both of you, I believe that public education is worth the fight.  And I am ready to fight.

A Tale of Two Fathers: Saturday Political Soap Box 152

How did we wind up with such a huge partisan divide?

Some of it as old as the advent of agriculture, where the use of land to produce larger amounts of food enabled some to not have to spend all their time in basic survival, and instead collect in cities. Rural interests versus urban interests is a division that has often split our politics.

But there our other factors as well.  How we are raised, and our experiences in growing up, play a large role too.

After the election, I was deeply upset about how many people wound up voting for someone who was clearly unfit for public office, a fraud and charlatan, a self-centered man who deliberately appealed to the worst in us.

About a month after the election, I had a meeting about some investment concerns with somebody whom I deeply respected.  It was clear that we were on opposite spectrums on the issues of the day. Could this be simply be explained by a rural vs. urban perspective?

I knew his father, and I respected him as well.  Then I thought about the life experiences he had as opposed to my own with my father.  And I realized there was something more going on.

My father started out supporting and managing a large family farm in Michigan.  He was very successful at it, using modern techniques and science to out yield many similarly sized farms.  He wanted to go to college, and even though his family responsibilities caused it to take ten years, he saw it through.  He even got a summer job working at Kellogg's, the cereal company in Battle Creek, in order to earn money towards his schooling.  He did so well that they offered him a management position to stay.  He did not take it.  There was something else he wanted to do.  He wanted to be a teacher.

My father, who could have chosen to be anything, chose a lifetime of service in education, an exemplary record of contributions in the public sector.  He was a phenomenal teacher, especially in motivating the underachieving and marginal student.   He later became a school administrator, one of the best in the state, leading for a while a state organization of administrators.  He was a forerunner in the use of computers in schools, and was beloved by students, parents and teachers.

I had before me a perfect example of how  public service could work, of what it meant to be a great civil servant.  Further, I could see the private forces working against him and the schools; the corporations that wanted favors, the wealthy and influential who wanted special privileges for their own children, the different religious groups who wanted their brand of theology imposed on the schools.

My father was an excellent, moral, hard-working man, who happened to believe in the public sector and gave his life to improving the lives of students and community.

My friend's father chose a different course.  Just as caring and hard-working, his father devoted himself to work in the private sector, work designed to help many private business people do better. He approaches his job with the highest of ethics and principle, and believes in the efforts of those private endeavors.  He saw the good they were doing, the contributions to their community, and the people they employed.

He also saw those efforts stymied by government regulation.  He often dealt with government bureaucrats, who were sometimes indifferent and uncaring.  He saw a world of roadblocks designed to interfere with private interest's ability to benefit themselves, their family, their employees, and their community.

Because of my father, and also my own experiences, I grew up respecting public servants, and a bit wary of some in the private sector.  Because of my friend's experiences, he is wary of those in the public sector.

Both fathers are great and honorable men.  Both served their community well, one in the public sector and one in the private arena.  It led us to different conclusions as to what works,  But coming to realize this, and where it contributes to our divide, I have a better hope that we can bridge it.  For that is the way forward; public and private, rural and urban, wealthy and poor,  working together for the betterment of all.

We need checks and balances.  We need a mixed economy - pure ideologies of one kind or another do not work.  We want to do what's best for everyone, solutions that allow both individuality and community to thrive.

I believe that, ultimately, that's what our fathers want.

I believe, that when we take the time to think about it, that's what we all want.

Georgia Amendment 1 is Not the Answer : Saturday Political Soap Box 142

When did conservatives decide that State government should intervene in local governments and take control?  Did I get lost somewhere?  Was the equation federal government bad plus local government bad equals state government good?  Did I fall asleep during conservative class and miss something?

That is the dilemma we are faced with in Georgia Ballot Amendment 1.  It sounds innocent enough.

"Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow the state to intervene in chronically failing public schools in order to improve student performance?"

Well, who wouldn't want to improve failing schools?

But, of course, as with most cleverly worded ballot amendments, that isn't really what it's all about. It's about the state coming and taking over school districts, and running them as they see fit.  It will totally abrogate local control, and run the school system from a bureaucracy at the state capitol.

Is that what you want?  For your locally elected school board and local school administrators to be overruled and controlled by bureaucrats in Atlanta?  Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't that something conservatives are dead set against? Yet, this is what the very pointedly conservative one party state government is proposing.  Why?

To answer that, I need to ask my liberal friends a question, particularly those who sometimes find themselves supporting such things as charter schools.  When did liberals decide that handing a public function over to private entrepreneurs was a good thing?

Because in addition to creating a huge new state bureaucracy, in addition to stripping cherished local control, it would also hand schools over to private contractors.  A tiny fraction of these contractors may have some degree of altruism to them, but the vast majority will be in it because they think they can get rich doing it.  Their primary interest won't be the students.  It will be how can we collect the most money at the least amount of  cost? Students will receive fewer resources, teachers will be paid less, extra-curriculars will be minimized.  And unless it is a completely private school, which I don't think is what's being proposed, you still won't be able to impose one  religious doctrine on the whole student body.

The whole idea that this will somehow save taxpayers money is an utterly absurd fantasy.  You are adding a new layer of government bureaucracy.  That can't be cheap.  And if anyone thinks private contractors will be less expensive, think again.  Thy're going to want to make enough money to enrich themselves.  They will inflate prices and sacrifice services.

They tried this in the state that I grew up in, the state of Michigan.  It has failed miserably.  State control of local districts has caused substantially more harm than good.  They have a law that allows the state to abrogate both local city governments and school districts.  Instead of stopping the decline of Detroit City Schools, it has accelerated their ruin and led to even greater corruption.  The intervention and control of the city of Flint has led directly to the water contamination crisis, and will wind up costing the state a hundred times more than what it saved, not to mention the irreversible damaging effect to the health of Flint's children.

There is also an undeniable racial aspect to the law in Michigan.  Virtually all of the communities affected have been majority African-American areas.  I don't know.  I hate to say it, but maybe some conservatives don't mind the law because they think it's about THEM and not US.  They don't mind taking away THEIR local control.  THEY'RE not responsible enough anyway, and not deserving of tax dollars (never mind the irony that it is actually costing the taxpayers more).

So I have to ask Georgians, conservatives and liberals and everything in between, is this really the way you want to go?

I hope your answer is no.  That still leaves the question on the table - what do we do about those schools that are clearly falling behind and not achieving their best?

Although there is no one magic answer, there are things we can do.  Since I have probably used up all my column space for this week, I will need to address this in a future column.  Meanwhile, please research and see what you think.

There are ways to improve.  But Georgia Amendment 1 is not one of them.

Sauer Summer Jobs!

Ah. yes!  The glories of your first jobs!  Transitioning from being a carefree teen, to one who slowly grasps the idea of beginning to pull his own economic weight.

I was a shy, introverted kid, one who was incapable of finding his own job, or as mother would say, going out and "pounding the pavement." Luckily my Dad,  school principal and community leader, was able to make the connections for me.  I started by my Junior year working at Dixie Tool & Dye, assisting with shipping.  I started at around 90 cents an hour and worked my way up to the glorious sum of $1.10 per hour.  I though I was doing fairly well, even if I was a tad slow, and that I was liked.  When I left for college, a neighbor friend two years younger than me took the job over, and he quickly doubled, than tripled the wage.  A titan of industry I was not.

After I returned from my Freshman year in college, my father was able to help me secure a job at the local pickle factory.  They made and packaged pickles, sweet relish, hot peppers and sauerkraut.  In fact, sauerkraut was so big in my hometown, we had an annual Sauerkraut Festival.  The central event at this celebration was the crowning of a Sauerkraut Queen.  It was a highly sought after honor.  One year, my sister, a grade younger than me, competed for the title.  She tried valiantly, but fell short.  What a colorful addition to her resume that would have been, to be able to proudly state that she was the 1973 Bridgeport Sauerkraut Queen!

I worked night shifts, long stretches that sometimes ran twelve hours.  I cleaned out the bottom of sweet relish vats, praying that the forklifts bringing in fresh pickles would remember that I was down there before they dumped their briny load on top of my head.  I cleaned out odd corners of the warehouse, where trust me - you haven't truly lived until you uncover a broken jar of pickles that have been laying there for months or years.  The hottest food my family ever used was black pepper, so I was unprepared for the night that it was my job to take the jars of hot peppers off the line whose lids did not seal right.  Even through gloves, my hands quickly stung with an inner heat I had never experienced before.  That next day the pain was so great, I had to sleep with both my hands soaking in warm water.  This created a different set of problems I'd rather not go into.

I started at the agricultural minimum wage of $1.30, but over a couple of summers, I was able to work my way up to the magnificent sum of $2.10 an hour.  I was well liked enough that I was offered a supervisory job if only I stayed on with them instead of completing my schooling.  I passed.  Besides not being my chosen career path, that factory, like many factories from the 70s, no longer exists.

As low as those wages were, I set aside the substantial portion of them to help with college.  And help I could, as combined tuition with room and board was only around $2,000.  My father was highly committed to education, so he and I did it together.  This was made easier by the fact that I did not own my own car until my Senior year of college, obtained largely through a summer job that paid closer to $8 an hour at a GM plant, helping to cover the staggering amount of the $3300 it took to buy a new Honda Civic.

And now my youngest son, Benjamin, is  approaching the age that he will work in the summers, and as is family tradition, that it will help earn towards college and not towards a car.  However, the frightening prospect is that even though wages may be as much four times higher now, college tuition with  room and board is easily ten to twelve times higher.  $2,000 may not even cover books. It's virtually impossible now for even the hardest working student to work his way through college.

And that is truly a sauer development.

Lights, Camera, Action! On The Life of a Middle Schooler

Some of the cast and crew holding up a poster of their magnificent achievement, The Life of a Middle Schooler.

We can test them again and again and again, and it means little or nothing.

We can set them free and let them pursue their dreams, and it means everything,

Camden Jewell and Chandler Watson had a dream.  They wanted to do a movie.  A movie that would be done completely by middle schoolers.  A movie that would be about what it was like to be a middle schooler.

They couldn't just do it.  They needed a sponsor.  They needed a teacher to volunteer to sponsor their club.  So many teachers having to give so much of their time to keep up with the pressure of standardized tests, and with the demand of so many other extra curriculars, who could they find who would willingly give up their time for such an enterprise?  Well, they found one.  Ms. Lisa Martin gave generously of her time and resources, and let the middle schoolers follow their dreams.  Over two dozen students did everything.  They wrote it.  They produced and directed it.  They acted it.  They edited it.

They spent many months putting it together, most of the school year.  And I saw the results yesterday afternoon.  A forty five minute movie that was clever, imaginative and fun.  It told an interesting, compelling story that was well written, directed and edited.  The actors came across with clear, distinct personalities, and the non-verbals were very good.  The story was entertaining and funny, but it also contained a serious message about bullying.

My son Benjamin played the second lead.  He was the primary character's best friend, and he was the comic relief.  He played his part with verve and emotion, and just the right amount of smart-alecky sass.  He was at times a scene-stealing ham, a trait that I have no idea whom he picked up from.

I laughed at much of what he and the other students were doing, but I also was kind of teary.  I was overwhelmed at the magic these students were doing, and of seeing my son do something I could only dream about doing when I was young.

This is what inspires learning.  This is what gets you ready for life.  No standardized test in existence can motivate you to learn and grow as a person as much as students being allowed to achieve their own dreams.  Let them put together a movie.  Let them build a robot.  Let them design a car.  Let them write and perform music. Let them run a store.  If learning will help you DO things, you learn so much more than trying to learn for a test designed by people who care so much more about how much money than make off the test than the they do about the students taking it.

So here's to the dream weavers, each and everyone, and to the teachers and parents and community members who help them dream.

Bravo, Film Club!  The Life of a Middle Schooler is a great film, and if you ever get the opportunity to see it, you should.  It's fun and fresh, and an important statement about what's really important in the world of education.

Literary is the New Forensics

The great Literary team of Pierce County High School, finishing first in their region, besting eight other schools.

Back a long time ago, in a state far way from here, we also had Literary.  But we didn't call it that.  We called it Forensics,

And no, it is not related to it's more familiar definition,  It's not about CSIs and criminal investigations conducted in a scientific manner.  Gus Grissom of CSU, or Leroy Gibbs in NCIS,  It is rooted in the Greek, referring to forum, and is about speaking contests the Greeks organized in order to develop public speaking skills.  Because they believed that good public peaking was key to a well developed democracy.

I attended a high school where Forensics was a strong and vibrant program.  I competed in it all four years I was in high school, going to the State Tournament twice.  We had an excellent coach, and he helped us perform our best.  I did something called Declaration the first year, which was a category for Freshman to give an oral presentation on a short speech of their own, advocating a cause or "declaring" an important point or issue.  The other years I competed in Humorous Interpretation.  That may seem not as sophisticated a skill as some of the other contests, but it served me well in learning how to charm audiences and stay interesting, and helped prepare me for my lifelong participation in community theater.

Sometimes, it feels like a lot of school is focused on athletics.  There is a lot of hoopla and community support centered around the achievements of athletic teams, particularly on high school football.  This can be a very good thing.  Community bonding is an important part of teaching student to take pride in where they live, and develop a sense of civic pride and responsibility.  The Straits come from a long line of non-athletes, having little coordination and zero natural ability, and my youngest son, Benjamin, is no exception.  But his participation in Middle School Pep Band has given him a way to plug into the sport experience in school, and become a part of  it all.  That may be on e of the great parts of athletic events in public schools, particularly football, as it allows for so many ways for those who are not on the athletic field to feel like they are part of it.

Study after study has shown the tremendous, disproportionate value of extra curriculars in public schools.  Those who participate in them do better in school, and in life.  They learn more, engage more, take more pride in themselves, and their community, their country, and the entire planet. I know for myself, I struggle to remember much form any particular classroom, but I remember well those Forensics contests, the plays and musicals, the Student Council, the feel and spirit of the sporting events.

And yet.

And yet there are those who look at cutting school budgets, and the first place they look at is the non-athletic extra-curriculars, as if they were the most unnecessary and disposable part of going to school, instead of the very core of it.  The first and foremost responsibility of public education is not to be a tech school training for a specific job, or a place to warehouse kids to keep them off the streets.   The major function of public schools in civic, to teach young people to be knowledgeable, functioning participants in the greatest experiment in democracy in the history of mankind. When we shove aside these extra-curriculars, we are shoving aside democracy itself.  Whether it's called Forensics or Literary, the idea of developing better and more confident public speakers, is not just a fun little aside to occupy the students,  It represents the very core of why we have public schools,

Congratulations to the Pierce County High School Literary team and their extraordinary achievement in Region, and thank you to The Blackshear Times for making it a front page story,  It is a great relief considering some of the recent headlines, necessary as they may have been, to know that ultimately, it really is about our students and what they are achieving.