In Between the madness, remember this? What we teach in public schools matters

Beyond Close Reading!
Beyond high-stakes testing!
Beyond their Ed Reform scams!
What matters!
In between the madness of appointing Betsy DeVos the United States Secretary of Education. Someone with no experience working in public schools, or even having attended them. Between America's madness of endless high-stakes testing, and school choice scams. Remember this one important point teachers and parents? What we teach in our public schools matters!

Cesar Chavez said: “We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community - and this nation.”

At our CCSU Literacy Center we held our 15 Annual Black History Month Read-A-Thon as part of NCTE's African Read-In this past Monday. We hold Read-A-Thons every month. In March, it's Women's History. In October, we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, in November we celebrate Native Americans. In December, we celebrate our Immigrant Roots, Come April we celebrate poetry, and in May we celebrate our veterans and peace.
At Read-A-Thons:
We wear pajamas,
We wear sports gear,
We wear crazy hats,
We wear costumes,
We wear dance outfits,
We bring our pillows,
We bring our stuff animals,
We bring our little brothers and sisters,
We even bring our big brothers and sisters.

No one reads in chairs,
We read on the floor,
We read under tables,
We read on sleeping bags,
We read on beach towels,
We read with flashlights,
We read with buddies,
We read in the hallway,
We read on the stairs,
We read,
We read and we read.

Our Read-A-Thons, promote reading stamina via 90 minutes of continuous reading and talking about reading. They promote reading for pleasure via student choice. Kids pick what they want to read.
Something beautiful and powerful always take place at our Read-A-Thons. Something not written into any of our objectives. Something bigger than close reading!
We come to know each other,
We come to respect each other,
And we come to value each other.

I wonder if in this rush to measure and test close reading, we miss the real power of history?
I wonder if we are turning children away from reading for pleasure?
I wonder if with close reading history becomes a chore?
I wonder if we might be missing the real potential of history?
History  as the power to bring us together!
You know the power to cherish and preserve the ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens our America that Cesar advised us to teach?
Harmony, respect, and dignity aren't written in our Read-A-Thon objectives, but they are everywhere.
Reading feeds our souls, and our young people's souls are so very hungry for real reading America,
Jesse The Walking Turner

If you are wondering what song this Walking Man was listening to on his walk over the Avon Mountain this windy day...its the version of "Teach Your Children Well" by Play For Change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5AuFDHdrrg

Another meaningless ranking falling short of jusitce

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http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/the-states-with-the-best-and-worst-schools/ar-AAm3g5w?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp - page=1

Above is a link to a Wall Street Journal 24/7 article discussing the 2017 Quality Counts Report from Ed Week.

Coretta Scott King said: "Poverty can produce a most deadly kind of violence. In this society violence against poor people and minority groups is routine. I remind you that starving a child is violence; suppressing a culture is violence; neglecting schoolchildren is violence; discrimination against a working man is violence; ghetto house is violence; ignoring medical needs is violence; contempt for equality is violence; even a lack of will power to help humanity is a sick and sinister form of violence."

These rankings always focus on quantitative observable and measurable outcomes, and almost always pass over the research showing "out of school factors" such as how "poverty" impacts public education.  They seldom address what Coretta called society's violence against poor people. They view poverty as some intangible outcome, some mythical possibility, something out there that needs mentioning, but too big to ever address directly.  They mention it, and run from it. They retreat to rankings as if they prove some form of objective American innocence. America we may wash our hands in objective rankings, but this blood of generations of ignored poverty will not wash off.  
Dr. Paul Thomas in his reply to rankings rightly reminds us about those out of school factors: "that 60-80+% of those measurable outcomes; and thus, outcome-based data of educational quality are more likely a reflection of social conditions than school-based quality. "

When this 24/7 Wall Street article mentions poverty it uses the words "MAY NOT". "By contrast, “children living in low-income areas [may not] have the resources to help them get off to a good start.”
What is this "MAY NOT," but another cover up.  

My Momma, taught me sometimes a man has to jump up and testify. Allow me to jump us and testify on this "May Not" bull.
Having been a child who experienced poverty, hunger, and even homelessness, let me set the record straight:
No one learns in school on a hungry stomach,
No one pays attention when there is no heat at home,
No one learns when the electricity has been cut off at home,
No one learns when you have no home to go to after school,
No one learns without the medicine they need to heal and live.
Only Bureaucrats, Policy Makers, Politicians, Billionaires, and those who have never known poverty use the words "May NOT".
A truth to power from the Walking Man nothing destroys learning like poverty.

If America truly wants to lift our poorest public schools? America needs to lift our poorest communities.
Good Jobs matter,
Full stomachs matter,
A living wage matters,
Health care for all matters,
Affordable housing matters,
Quality Early Childhood Education Matters,
Sick leave matters,
Facing up to institutional racism matters,
Ending the School to Prison Pipeline matters,
A pathway to citizenship matters,
Pensions matter,
Unions matter,
Libraries matter,
Hospitals matter,
Free Mental Health Care matters,
Real Super markets and affordable public transportation matters.

What doesn't matter is America's rankings,
What doesn't matter is more tax breaks for billionaires. 
What never mattered is 40 years of trickle down economics that never made it to our poorest cities and rural communities.
What would matter? Is ending this constant failure of our 50 states to make the eradication of poverty their number one priority.

Poverty always matters,
Any nation that does not do all it can do to end poverty is committing a crime against their most vulnerable citizens.
The world's richest nation cannot claim to hold any moral mantle of justice, when it has failed to lift the poor for generations.
It is simple America, our greatest sin has always been our failure to lift up our most needy children, parents, and families.
Our greatest threat is not on our borders, but our indifference to our poorest brothers and sisters growing in our own hearts. 
Our silence and apathy is our greatest sin,
Jesse The Walking Turner



If you like to listen to the song inspiring my walk this morning its Phil Collins "Another Day In Paradise" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiUQE5bJKFU

Dear Mr. President, American History begins with a deep study of the people's struggle

Dear Mr. President, it seems that you now believe the press is the enemy, and you need to block them? Clearly your history teachers missed the mark in your education.

 
Mr. President, America has heroes I fear you have never studied. Heroes like Cesar Chavez, an American labor leader who honorably served his nation in the United States Navy, and as civil rights activist. With Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association. He is just one of America's heroes I fear you failed to study. Cesar inspired the hopeless. He lifted the hopeless. He inspired the hopeless to look up, to get off their knees, and to rise up. He inspired them to understand that democracy begins with a love of action. Like many others he inspired a hope of action. You might call him a people's hero.

My hope is that you start to look outside your CEO Box,

I hope you can look beyond billionaire views of the world.

Beyond power as might,
Beyond power as winning,

Understand Justice as right.

My hope is you can begin a deep study of:

A Manifest Destiny of pain, lies, and 500 years of suffering,

Inhuman cruelty Slavery,

American Immigration,

The Women's Suffrage Movement",

The American Labor Movement,

Jim Crow,
The Civil Rights Movement",
Voting Rights, the endless struggle for the ballot.
A study beyond the history of "Privilege".
A study of heroes beyond presidents, generals, robber barons, and rooted in sincere deep self-reflections.

I suggest you begin with a study of Howard Zinn.
Zinn said: "I can understand pessimism, but I don’t believe in it. It’s not simply a matter of faith, but of historical evidence. Not overwhelming evidence, just enough to give hope, because for hope we don’t need certainty, only possibility. Which (despite all those confident statements that “history shows …” and “history proves …”) is all history can offer us." It is time for you to study the possibilities of the hopes that history offers the people.

Dear Mr. President, it is not about you,
It is not about any individual,
It is not about me,
It is not about conservatives or liberals,
It is bigger than any political party,
It is bigger than winning, or losing,
It is about keeping hope in the people’s hearts.
It's about us, not some of us, but all of us.

It is about the "First Amendment" and the role of a free press,
It is about a people's imperfect aspirations,
A people willing to be self-critical,
A people yearning to be free,
A people yearning for justice, 
A people understanding they have always falling far from that moral arch of justice.
But, always strive for justice for all.
A people who understand that justice for some is our sin.
A people who understand that justice and liberty for all is our only salvation. 
Anything short is our national sin.

Mr. President, it is not about winning,
It is not about being the richest nation,
The most powerful nation,
Or the nation that strikes fear in all other nations.

On the contrary, it is about being the nation honoring and striving for that perfect dream.
A nation inspired by an aspiration written not in our Constitution, but our Declaration of Independence: 
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Mr. President, it is not about fear,
Fear cannot take us there,
It is about hope,
The hope you have thus far failed to deliver.  
   
The people. should be ask why,
Freedom of Speech,
Freedom of Religion,
The Right to Assemble Peacefully,
And a Free Press,
Came first?

Harry Truman said: “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”

Mr. President,
Our voices are meant for rising,

Our feet are meant for marching.
The Fools of Oppression have forgotten we are a people with a history of heroes whose foot prints were large.
Foot prints that left behind a love of democracy as action.

Mr. President, 

We reject your bullying of the press,
We reject your finger pointing,
We reject your leaks for Hilary were fine, but for me are treason,
We reject your apathy of the hopelessness.
We reject your the press is the enemy.

It's simple Mr. President,
We the people reject your mantras of fear.
We the people shall not be moved, like a tree by water,

Jesse The Walking Man Turner

If you like to listen to the song that inspireed this Walking Man on his walk today? Its We Shall Not Be Move by Mary Mary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYQGXllbHH4