Day 411

As we move gradually back into the real world, we have to examine our priorities as individuals and as a nation.

The Nation is as divided as it was over 200 years ago and it appears that race is once again the reason but not the singular one, as that economics. And that was the same argument placed during the Civil War, if Black Slaves were freed who will do the work and maintain the economy. The free labor provided by enslaving Black individuals was a large reason that our nation grew economically during what was defined as largely – Agrarian. When you have a GDP that is fueled by Rice, Tea, Tobacco and those comprise the largest exports it is a worry when the Government decides to move a decimal, change a numeral or ultimately change the already complex accounting measures to reduce profits of the Owner/Farmer or Business. And we were once a nation of small businesses and to some extent still are as many of our most wealthy have long stopped building industry, running the family corporation or local entity that was a fixture in the many towns and cities that aligned the shipping ports and rivers that built America. We have long stopped being a nation of industry and we ship and build most of our larger contributions outside America and that includes our still single largest export – food – to the tune of $133 billion; this includes animal feed and beverages, everything goes better with Coke! Other exports include crude oil, automotive and airplane parts, fully assembled cars, and pharmaceutical drugs. Note that last one… we are the leader when it came to drug research and manufacturing. So get the shot.

The idea of Immigrants who largely contribute to the food production industry become legal migrants, recognized as citizens and residents of America, their role in this industry would change the dynamic and the bottom line when it comes to accounting. And with that, the same argument made about Slaves could be made with regards to these indentured ones. And for the record America enslaved and sold Indigenous ones as well. So yes Race is a dynamic that comprises much of the issues that dominate the dialog in America and in some odd way when the Supreme Court said corporations are people, the reality is that true as without people there would be none. It is an oxymoron and irony that people enslaved or enrolled on payrolls have made Corporate America. And with that the largest landowners in America are Corporations and in turn, still pay workers less than a living wage and their CEOs are making 300 times the average wage of those who actually do the heavy lifting. Add to that the irony is that most corporations are publically held, meaning that the people own the paper that makes the company viable and allows it to run, to borrow money, and to pay the exorbitant salaries and perks to the largely white men who sit behind the desk and continues to do what the Plantation Farm owner did hundreds of years ago, balance the books.

100 days in the Presidency and we have found a President who truly seems to speak to the people. He recognizes the needs and demands of being a leader in a world that has few. That economics and social services can work hand in hand in building America, the bottom up and the middle spread will hold up the top, a notion vested in history and lost in the past from a notion cryptically passed on a cocktail napkin that claimed it was economically more feasible to build it from the top down, where the rich literally piss their wealth on down in a trickle. Can a trickle of water satiate you in a drought? And that has been the American Economy for decades, and the lack of health care, affordable housing, cost of higher education and earning a liveable wage explains why the keeper of the books now located on a street in New York have tried to push the myth of inflation as the reason it must be this way. For if wages were higher then the cost of everything would go up. Really? So you make a million a year and the cost of milk affects your bottom line? Bullshit. That dated concept has kept us all barely floating and the rising tide? That is Climate Change.

What I learned from President Biden’s speech was that Republicans hate Taxes, Education, Lving Wages, Unions and love Child Poverty, Poor Health Care, and Guns being used to kill women. The love Cops who kill people and appreciate voting restrictions. Did they applaud anything? The faces on the stooges placed there by I assume the Kingpin of the Mafia, Mitch McConnell, was highly entertaining, as even their masks could not hide their looks of disdain and disgust. As for Mitt Romney when he woke up from his long winter nap I am sure he did not miss the one thing he does support, building a better family protection act. Mormons are big on family.

The Census came out Monday and the regions that grew were the South and the Sun Belt. A pattern well established by the reality that these right-to-work States have built an economy on low wages, racial segregation, oppression of women and the LGBTQ community, focus on conservative Religion, and of course shitty education. All of which are fed by low taxes and in turn a really shitty infrastructure that really comes to a head when a natural disaster hits, and then they turn hands out to the Feds they reject the other 364 days to help out. I lived in Tennessee and to think I became Conservative by relocating there is absurd, no I got worse, more Liberal and I did not just turn to the left, I left. But I could. So newcomers could switch sides or they may not. Georgia may be the tip of that iceberg. People who find support will find those like them and from that less afraid to step up and speak out. In the same vein that Trump enabled the white supremacists to step out of their dark shadows and walk not only into the light but into the Capital will be like all viruses that are not Covid, killed by the light and the breeze that diversity in unity brings. But no we will never have a fully integrated world but we can do more and do better in attaining that goal.

I also read an article about Iowa, and like Kansas a decade ago, a State that turned right, and with that, the dynamic changed, but why? Well, that is easy a loss of work, and yes, the ugly face of racism comes to light, but when all things are equal, in that sense, the white dude earns a decent wage, a black dude the same, that they can afford a car, send their kids to school and well yes live in different neighborhoods and have their own communities in which to attend Church and shop that is okay, as long as they clean, well run and like the Chinatowns or our Gay hoods, like the Castro, or the Mission District, where we all love to visit, to eat/drink and be merry, but we go home without incident. We like our segregation, and we like it to be safe, clean, and good for all. It is not in our DNA. It is in our culture, and that crosses the globe like likes like. We will never end racism, Xenophobia, misogyny, or any other of the “isms” that live among us, but we can dilute it through education, employment, and opportunity. We confuse racism with prejudice, and those are not the same. Racism is hate, where prejudice is bias, that comes from experience and/or learned behaviors and attitudes, and again with exposure and with that comes understanding and awareness, so start small and build big. All buildings start from the ground up. Ever seen one built from the top down? Yeah, me neither.

Welcome to 1950

I have long thought that MAGA was a code phrase for let’s take America back to the Fifties where women and the coloreds knew their place and by coloreds we mean black and that eliminates all the confusion about who is not white or oriental that is not just a rug. Ah the good old days!

Well they have never left. We had some moment where it was just close to the finishing line and perceptions are often enough to accept that all our attempts at equality have been met, I mean we elected that black guy with the funny name as President. That has to mean something. Yes and we promptly followed him with perhaps the weirdest human being possible.

The Devos cohort is rolling back the Ed policies of the Obama Administration that is about school discipline and that ship has sailed bitch and despite the fact that the old discipline policies were inherently racist the current ones are not much better as school violence has reached new heights with no one knowing what to do to resolve the crisis in the classroom. And yes it is a crisis. There is a huge correlation between bullying and exposure to violence and many of the problems that result.  Then we have the rising tide of income inequity contributes to this as poverty also begets violence. It is like nothing I have ever witnessed in nearly 60 years on the planet since I moved to Nashville and the next 9 months is a countdown to getting away from it. Maybe that is what they mean when they describe Nashville as an “it” city.

I do find some common ground between the North and the South and the push to gentrify means a further push to segregate and isolate those faces of color and of language to their own communities.  So while I love a trip down Nolensville as it offers a variety of food and shopping, much of it is conducted in their own language which often means less interaction and opportunity for all residents to experience another culture.

The schools were the meeting place, the land that enabled everyone to gather and mingle and learn together. Not just curriculum but traditions, exposure to others not like oneself and the opportunity to experience a new tradition and history that comes from the rituals that schools provide.   And today’s underfunded under appreciated and largely out of their depth as schools are working past the point of intent.  Welcome to our America.

Stanton Peele Ph.D.
Psychology Today

How Are African Americans Doing? I: Violence and Segregation
Black Americans’ status has declined for 50 years as whites isolate themselves

Posted Oct 09, 2017

While Americans of all stripes pay lip service to a racially egalitarian society, on every key measure — violence, economics, education, health — African Americans’ status in society has deteriorated over the last fifty years. For their part, white Americans’ response has been to do everything possible to avoid contact with average black Americans. This is equally true for liberals and conservatives, although liberals are more likely to obfuscate both African Americans’ status and their own isolation from blacks, along with poorer whites whom they regard as prejudiced.

Violence

When the Las Vegas shooter killed 58 people, journalists rushed to assert that mass violence is a white (“privileged white”) phenomenon:

“These shooters are almost exclusively coming from a single socio-economic class and racial group,” wrote actor Cole Sprouse in a widely shared Twitter thread. We must now address “what part of whiteness influences this kind of Petri dish for gun violence and killing.”

This wasn’t just a social media phenomenon. The Huffington Post published Sprouse’s tweets as a “Powerful Take on Whiteness and Mass Shootings.” An article in Elle called the link between white men and mass shootings “a general rule” and proposed that “our refusal to confront toxic white male violence is why this problem will metastasize.” The progressive news site ThinkProgress said that “when we talk about mass shootings, we are talking about white men.” Newsweek wondered if “white men commit mass shootings out of a sense of entitlement.” A CNN opinion piece bemoaned the fact that “America has silently accepted the rage of white men.”

In a narrow sense, these stories are correct: The plurality of mass killers are white. But the notion that white men of privilege are disproportionately represented among mass shooters—indeed, that they make up “nearly all” of them—is a myth.

The above was written by Daniel Engber in Slate. It is remarkable how widespread the view he cites is; it’s even more remarkable that a liberal publication would publish his data-based refutation of this view. For, Engber shows (using the data base compiled by Mother Jones Magazine), while 56 percent of mass murderers (defined by the CDC as involving three or more victims) are white, this underrepresents the presence of whites in the general population, from which the rate of mass murderers is calculated, while Asians and African Americans are overrepresented:

According to this data set, then, Asians and black Americans are overrepresented among mass shooters by about the same proportion (a bit more than one-fourth) that whites are underrepresented. This means the population rate of mass shootings by whites is 0.021 per 100,000 people, while the corresponding rate of mass shootings by blacks is 1.7 times higher, at 0.037.

Engber then writes (extremely provocatively) that the reason we are impressed by African Americans only being 25 percent more likely to shoot many people at once is because they are so much more likely to kill individuals than whites are—630 percent more likely—with most of those victims being black:

This disparity [25% more mass shootings], which could be thought of as the statistical non-whiteness of mass shootings, is much smaller in magnitude than the one for killings nationwide. Overall murder rates among black Americans are 6.3 times higher than they are for whites, according to a report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Another report suggests white offenders made up just 45.3 percent of everyone who committed homicides between 1980 and 2008.* In other words, white Americans may be somewhat underrepresented among mass shooters, but they’re even more underrepresented among all killers. In that limited sense, it would be fair to say that whites are responsible for more public massacres than you might expect. . . . [But] I think it makes more sense to ask why those classified as non-white might be disproportionately represented among killers, from mass shooters down the line.

That’s a tough question that we liberals don’t like to pose, perhaps even to acknowledge. What does it say that American inner cities are highly violent places? The ten most violent cities in the U.S., with the percentage of African Americans in each city in parentheses, are: 1. Baltimore (64%), 2. Detroit (83%), 3. New Orleans (60%), 4. Kansas City (28%), 5. Cleveland (53%), 6. Memphis (63%), 7. Newark (52%), 8. St. Louis (49%), 9. Chicago (33%), 10. Milwaukee (40%).

It’s fair to say that all of these cities, as well has having large black populations, are deeply segregated. Many whites, obviously, have left cities because of their fear of black Americans, while remaining neighborhoods are highly segregated. The Wall Street Journal rated the 16 most segregated cities in the United States (including nearby suburbs). Eight of the ten cities with the highest murder rates are in the top 11 in terms of segregation: Detroit (#1), Chicago (#2), Memphis (#4), Cleveland (#5), New Orleans (#6), Baltimore (#8), St. Louis (#9), Memphis (#11).
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Segregation/Schools

While we Northerners booed Southerners for segregated schools, the last half century has proved beyond doubt that whites will do whatever they can to avoid living near, or sending their children to school with, substantial numbers of blacks. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was the landmark Supreme Court decision to end school desegregation. Now more than 60 years later, school segregation is rapidly increasing, including the most virulent form, called Apartheid, in which 99 percent of the students in a school are students of color.

Such schools educate one-third of black students in New York City and half of the black students in Chicago; nationwide, according to a report from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, they educated more than 15 percent of African-American kids and 14 percent of Latinos in 2012. Even in places where racial segregation isn’t quite so absolute, the physical divide between white kids and kids of color in public schools—and charter schools—keeps growing. (my italics)

We’ve gotten used to explaining the segregation we see in our schools by pointing to the segregation we see in our neighborhoods. It seems pretty simple: Kids who don’t live in the same place aren’t likely to go to the same school.

But that explanation has it backwards. In many cities across the U.S., public schools were the first and nearly always the most effective of the tools white residents had to police the boundaries of their neighborhoods. Often, it was school segregation that created neighborhood segregation, not the other way around. (my italics)

In other words, white people move rather than sending their kids to school with a large proportion of blacks that they move. Remarkably, in the North, neighborhoods (and schools) were much more integrated, with a minority of students being black, earlier in the last century. There was a tipping point at which whites refused to continue to send their kids to school that were predominantly black, or nearly so.

But before that, Baltimore was like many other other multiracial cities: Black people and white people were often each other’s neighbors, living side by side in one historian calls a “salt and pepper” pattern. For example, on one working-class West Baltimore block, the 1900 Census counted a white grocer and his family living next door to an African-American waiter and his family; down the street, an Irish marble-polisher lived between a white butter dealer and a black musician. As historian Karen Olson notes in The Baltimore Book, at the turn of the 20th century, “although African Americans constituted 10 percent or more of the total population in three-fourths of the city’s 20 wards, no single ward was more than one-third black.”

But that all changed, as neighborhoods segregated in order to preserve primarily one-race schools. Today, pioneering in the South, but extending throughout the country, new school systems are being set up to keep the races separated (see Whites Only: School Segregation Is Back, From Birmingham to San Francisco):

A middle-class Birmingham suburb called Gardendale wants to leave the Jefferson County school system. Gardendale, which is mostly white, says race has nothing to do with its push for secession: It simply wants to control its schools. . . . “The intent is to create a local school system where they will have control over who comes in and that they will minimize the number of blacks who come in”. . . . Local control has become a popular rallying cry in municipalities across the nation—including liberal states like New York and California—that want to form their own school districts.

But, critics assert, what people want to control is the racial composition of schools.

Charter schools (which have been trumpeted by liberals and conservatives alike) have accelerated this process, for example in Washington:

D.C. charter schools, which serve over 40 percent of the city’s student population, are more segregated than D.C.’s other public schools. In 2012, over two-thirds of charter schools. . . were “apartheid schools” (defined as having less than 1 percent white enrollment), whereas only 50 percent of public schools had such completely segregated populations. Voucher schools, another model that DeVos favors, often heightened this problem, according to the report, concentrating in affluent, white communities and underserving black families, who could often not afford to pay fees required beyond the vouchers themselves.

New York—an extremely liberal, diverse city—is intensely segregated by race: “Despite its polychromatic diversity, New York City has one of most deeply segregated school systems in the nation.” Indeed, New York intentionally created a system where children could move outside of their local districts to attend school. While of course (as in D.C.) neighborhoods are deeply segregated, this flexible enrollment exacerbated school segregation. It did this by separating children according to their academic abilities. While this seems like an open-minded, liberal policy, it has the effect of ruling blacks (and Latinos, but not Asians) out of the best schools:

Getting into the best schools, where almost all students graduate and are ready to attend college, often requires top scores on the state’s annual math and English tests and a high grade point average.

Those admitted to these most successful schools remain disproportionately middle class and white or Asian, according to an in-depth analysis of acceptance data and graduation rates conducted for The New York Times by Measure of America, an arm of the Social Science Research Council. At the same time, low-income black or Hispanic children . . . are routinely shunted into schools with graduation rates 20 or more percentage points lower.

In particular, New York’s selective schools (e.g., Bronx School of Science, Stuyvesant) require admission tests. Blacks and Latinos rarely get into these schools. But whites don’t dominate these elite public schools either—Asians do (thus challenging easy ideas of bias and prejudice).

NY’s most selective schools’ racial composition:

Asians (57%)
Whites (27%)
Blacks (7%)
Hispanics (8%)

So, you see, in terms of the related topics of residential segregation and education, America may be as bad as—or worse than—ever. It is certainly not improving.

 

Myths, not Greek ones

I have long said that there is one thing the South does better than most is reconstruct the truths or facts to fit their version of the same.  One of us might say that defines the South the ability to lie while talking better than most.

There is a current exhibit at the Frist that has just become a Museum so in turn that means it has a permanent collection, of what I am not sure, but they have an exhibit now with photos taken by the local rag, The Tennessean, regarding the desegregation of Nashville in the 1960s.  And they have just honored the first children who integrated the public schools here 50 years ago.   Irony that those smalll feet took big steps and today the same schools are at risk of being closed or at least merged with equally small and failing schools as a way to save money.  History is a good as the story teller and is as preserved by those willing to fund them.   And in the South all of that is controlled by White Men   White men are in every story ever told.

I have read the book Making the Unequal Metropolis about the schools and this past year the eponymous marking of Brown vs the Board of Education, the death of  Linda Brown this past month and in turn the 50th year marking Martin Luther King’s assassination means that the reckoning regarding Civil Rights has come full circle and that circle means we are back to to the beginning but which beginning.

There was a point prior to the move to desegregate when despite it all there was as a strong vital Black community. There were thriving Black Universities, neighborhoods and businesses but with that there were dilapidated schools, libraries and other institutions that were negligent when it came to parity.   A few things have changed, the libraries and access to public institutions are equitable but the schools are still junk buckets.  But that is consistent and the access to the decent ones is based on merit but that playing field is full of holes.

Society across the board is a pecking system and we are more than aware of it as the rise of the #MeToo/TimesUp movement has brought to lite.  Then we have Black Lives Matter and the issues that it addresses regarding how specifically Black men are perceived by law enforcement. The loathing of Immigrants and the targeting of Muslims as a particular group whose religion is seen as dangerous.  And the issues regarding equal pay and discrepancies regarding how those are compensated in many fields.   There is the fight for 15 and the current state size walkouts by Teachers over wages and benefits and funding for education that transcends an awakening.

We have pecking orders inside our own cohorts and women are no less guilty of this when it comes to everything from Motherhood to the workplace. Watch a Real Housewife show to see how that plays out.   We list and define and divide everything by using the most extrinsic of factors from skin color to job title to where one lives.  We are a nasty group us humans we are only animals and we are struggling to be the fittest who survive.

I read the article below today and I felt it accurately describes the truth about Nashville then and now.  Oddly the reality is that it is easier to deny the truth than make a law.  The laws that were set into place are ones that the right wings flaunt as reasons to deny Government overreach and in turn elect a crazy man as President rather than acknowledge their own racism and rage about those who are not like you.  So you place blame and accuse the Government of repression while amassing guns, taking opioids and defending the wealthy as they are the ones you believe will rescue you from your own self loathing.

Mythology has a long history from the creation of Gods to the legends of heroes and of nations. They are stories that provide a backdrop, a perspective and of course the ability in which to align oneself, find identity and bonding.  That is what we are seeing across the Globe with the concept of the Nativist that has emerged to somehow defend or define who has this shared history and deserve to bestow upon those they deem worthy.   I find that fascinating as the entire world is composed of raiders and this is a place made up of mutts.  The reality is to find the oldest DNA in existence and in turn link that to every member of every citizen across the world, and that would be one hell of a CSI episode.

As I compose this I am watching the tributes to Dr. Martin Luther King and the issues that began over 50 years earlier still go on today.  I wonder what would be the situation of this issue had he not been assassinated?  That would be difficult to know as when we rely upon people to do the right thing they elect to do the right for themselves and anyone who is benefit or is duly punished is often a result of that action depending upon the scale and scope of that choice.    And as CBS finished that story about the activities in Memphis it was followed by the story of the Clark shooting in Sacramento.  Two lives, guns and deaths it was the choice of who had said guns and bullets and how they elected to use them.   Ah the myths created to defend said action led men to act upon them.

And with this I live a couple hour drive north of Memphis.  And while I spend most of my days trying to understand and reconcile my issues that surround poverty and the affects of racism, Memphis is no better than it was that day when Dr. King spoke about the wages of jobs which also included those prophetic words that marked his last speech.     Ah yes the myths of lives and deaths and history intertwine on a daily basis. How we recall them and how embedded they are into the culture creates the culture which choose to embrace or reject as it fits their needs. 

Nashville and the Myth of Peaceful Integration

The truth is messier, and more frightening, than the story we tell ourselves
Betsy Phillips The Nashville Scene
Apr 3, 2018 9 AM

The Frist Art Museum has a new exhibit of pictures from The Tennessean and the Nashville Banner of the Civil Rights Era in Nashville. Because of my day job, I’ve gotten to see some of the pictures the Frist is displaying, some of which never ran in the papers.

That got me thinking of the ways in which the local media shaped Nashville’s perception and therefore our memory of the integration era.

In my research on the bombings from that era, I came across what I think is the moment when the story The Tennessean told Nashville began to diverge from the whole truth — August 28, 1957.

This was right as the first black school children to go to formerly all-white public schools were registering for the first grade. Segregationists had been exerting enormous pressure on the families — both black and white — of first graders who would attend those integrated schools.

The Tennessean did report that black families had received threats that their children would be beaten or have acid tossed on them (which makes the throwing of bottles on the first day of school doubly terrifying).

But John Kasper, the leader of the racist segregationists, made a more explicit threat. The Murfreesboro Daily News Journal ran two stories about it, one on August 28 and the other on August 29.

Kasper told a crowd of his supporters in Nashville, “We’re going to talk to the niggers and tell them if they want to avoid the shotgun, dynamite and rope they had better get out of the white schools.”

That’s a pretty clear death threat, given with the support of a large, angry crowd.

Neither The Tennessean nor the Banner ran that quote. And without that quote, the tribulations of the black families seem like they’re caused by individuals working independently, not because of a concerted effort directed by Kasper and put into motion by his followers.

It also left the black families who would integrate our schools without a vital piece of information they might have wanted to know.

But I still can’t blame The Tennessean completely. It was kind of a relief to see that someone in a position to do something recognized that we were sitting on a powder keg, metaphorically, and tried to do something to keep folks calm.

As I’ve said before, integration wasn’t peaceful here, we just got very lucky no one was killed. The pictures at the Frist make that clear.

If you care about Nashville’s history — the truth of it — it’s worth going and looking at those photos and, in some cases, wondering why you’ve never seen them before.

The Blender

As we move towards more integrated classes to offset costs under the idea that is also to integrate classes more with students of color, different learning types and disabilities we must of course give it a new special name.

It is called “Blended Learning” It is just another way of integration where Brown failed.

Blended learning: The great new thing or the great new hype?
The Washington Post
 By Valerie Strauss
June 21

  If you haven’t heard the claim that blended learning is the present and future of education, you haven’t been listening. It is one of the central features of modern school reform, with proponents proclaiming that it helps personalize education, cuts costs and allows students to be more productive. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But is it?

 Here’s a look at the hype, the harm and the hope of blended learning, by Phil McRae is an executive staff officer with the Alberta Teachers’ Association and adjunct professor within the faculty of education at the University of Alberta, where he earned his PhD. This article was printed in the Summer 2015 edition of the ATA Magazine.

 By Phil McRae Blended learning, where students’ face-to-face education is blended with Internet resources or online courses, has been gaining considerable attention in education reform circles. It has become entangled with the ambiguous notion of personalized learning and is being positioned as the new way to individualize learning in competency-based education systems.

Michael Horn, co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, and a key proponent of blended learning, claims that it is the “new model that is student-centric, highly personalized for each learner, and more productive, as it delivers dramatically better results at the same or lower cost” (Horn and Staker 2011, 13).

To what extent is this a new model of learning in a digital age? How are private corporations employing old rhetoric to advance new avenues into public education? Most importantly, is blended learning becoming yet another overhyped myth on the crowded road of technology-as-education-reform panacea?

ORIGINS OF A MYTH

 Students blending the use of technology with face-to-face instruction as a means of collaborating and extending their learning experiences is not unusual, revolutionary or foreign to the average Canadian classroom. As a concept, blended learning is now almost two decades old, having been imported into K–12 education in the late 1990s from corporate education, business training firms and the post-secondary education sector.

Although the precise origin is unclear, it has been suggested that an Atlanta-based computer training business coined the term in 1999 (Friesen 2012), as it announced the release of a new generation of online courses for adults that were to be blended with live instruction.

Many blended learning practices already fit well with a vast array of hybrid face-to-face and digital experiences that students encounter in K–12 schools, including distributed learning, distance learning, or e-learning. Dr. Norm Friesen, a key academic in this area, suggests that blended learning “designates the range of possibilities presented by combining Internet and digital media with established classroom forms that require the physical co-presence of teacher and students” (Friesen 2012).

 As this broad definition illustrates, it would be difficult to find any use of technology in education that does not easily fit into this boundary. Despite this fluidity of meaning, different models of blended learning have taken shape. In particular, Staker and Horn (2012) have attempted to classify blended learning environments into four models: rotation, flex, self-blend and enriched virtual.

These four combinations range from those that are more connected to people and brick-and-mortar buildings (rotation, flex) to contexts in which the students are primarily self-directed through online courses or platforms that “deliver” the curriculum (self-blend and enriched virtual).

In the more self-directed models, teachers or non-certificated facilitators are conditional and only scheduled for support as deemed necessary. Although many models have been implemented over the last 20 years, there is scant evidence of the success of blended learning.

Out of 46 robust research studies conducted between 1996 and 2008, only five have focused on results for students in K–12 settings (Murphy et al. 2014). As a recent article in Education Week illustrates, when looking for strong evidence of success around this strategy for K–12 students, very little “definitive evidence” or few significant results can be directly attributed to blended learning (Sparks 2015).

HYPE

 The current hype around blended learning models, especially in the United States, is that they bring to life personalized learning for each and every child.

 Personalized learning, as promoted under a new canopy of blended learning, is neither a pedagogic theory nor a coherent set of learning approaches, regardless of the proposed models. In fact, personalized learning is an idea struggling for an identity (McRae 2014, 2010). A description of personalization that’s tightly linked to technology-mediated individualization “anywhere, anytime” is premised on archaic ideas of teaching machines imagined early in the 20th century (McRae 2013).

 Some blended learning rhetoric suggests that personalization is to be achieved through individualized self-paced computer programs (known as adaptive learning systems), combined with small-group instruction for students who have the most pressing academic needs. For those looking to specifically advance blended learning in times of severe economic constraints, a certificated teacher is optional. Software companies selling their adaptive learning products boldly state that the “best personalized learning programs will give students millions of potential pathways to follow through curricula and end up with the desired result — true comprehension” (Green 2013).

This is part of the myth of blended learning and is marketed using superficial math and reading software programs (adaptive learning systems) that make dubious claims of driving up scores on high-stakes tests. Corporate attempts to “standardize personalization” in this way are both ironic and absurd.

 These adaptive learning systems (the new teaching machines) do not build more resilient, creative, entrepreneurial or empathetic citizens through their individualized, standardized, linear and mechanical software algorithms. On the contrary, they diminish the many opportunities for human relationships to flourish, which is a hallmark of high-quality learning environments.

One of the blended learning examples that has received perhaps the greatest attention is the “flipped classroom.” It is so named because it inverts classroom instruction during the day, so that students watch online video of lectures at home at their own pace, perhaps communicating with peers and teachers via online discussions in the evening, and spend their days doing homework in the classroom.

Think of the popular media hype and mythical cure for math challenges sold to the public by the Khan Academy. There is nothing revolutionary or deeply engaging about pure lecture as a pedagogy, yet apparently adding hours of digitally distributed video each evening to a child’s life makes it so.

 In fact, research suggests that the use of this type of lecture recorded technology, as a primary approach to learning, can result in students falling behind in the curriculum (Gosper et al. 2008).

 Many myths, when viewed up close, provide deep reflections of ourselves and society. Technologies in particular have amplified our North American desires for choice, flexibility and individualization, so it’s easy to be seduced by a vision of blended learning environments delivering only what we want, when and how we want it customized.

 The marketing mantra from corporations as diverse as media conglomerates to banks is that of services at any time, in any place or at any pace. Many governments have in turn adopted this in an eagerness to reduce costs with businesslike customization and streamlined workforce productivity, all with the expectation that a flexible and blended education system will be more efficient and (cost) effective.

 In the mythical space of blended learning, class sizes apparently no longer matter and new staffing patterns begin to emerge. The amount of time students spend in schools becomes irrelevant as brick-and-mortar structures fade away. However, this myth disregards the overwhelming parental desire and societal expectation that children and youth will gather together to learn in highly relational settings with knowledgeable and mindful professionals (teachers) who understand both the art and science of learning.

 As John F. Kennedy (1962) so eloquently stated: “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived, and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”The U.S. Department of Education (2013) has clearly articulated a commitment to making blended learning come to life through nebulous ideas of competency-based systems and personalized learning. “Transitioning away from seat time, in favor of a structure that creates flexibility, allows students to progress as they demonstrate mastery of academic content, regardless of time, place, or pace of learning.

By enabling students to master skills at their own pace, competency-based learning systems help to save both time and money … make better use of technology, support new staffing patterns that utilize teacher skills and interests differently .… Each of these presents an opportunity to achieve greater efficiency and increase productivity.” The cost efficiency and effectiveness rhetoric must be given special attention as part of the myth of blended learning in competency based systems.

HARM

Schools and classrooms across North America are being subjected to economic volatility and severe constraints by reduced public education funding. Blended learning can be positioned as the vehicle to bring in third-party education providers to wipe out the expectations of small class sizes and certificated teachers in traditional classrooms. This idea is gaining momentum through a variety of U.S. virtual and charter schools that are radically reducing the numbers of teachers and executing increased class sizes under the banner of blended learning.

 As Michael Horn states when asked to give expert advice on blended learning models, “budget cuts and teacher shortages are an opportunity, not a threat” (Horn et al. 2014). As school jurisdictions across the United States turn to online learning and blended models as a way to reallocate resources, the private providers are also advocating for “eradicating rules that restrict class size and student-teacher ratios” (Horn and Staker 2011, 13). To achieve this means lifting the rules around teacher certification so that schools can replace teachers at will with para-professionals or non-certificated individual learning specialists.

 As Christensen and Horn (2008) suggest, “Computer-based learning on a large scale is also less expensive than the current labor intensive system and could solve the financial dilemmas facing public schools” (13).

 To enable this in an education system, several policies must be enshrined by governments that would allow private schools, virtual cyber-charter schools or educational technology companies direct access to students outside of a protected public system. The first is to open up multiple pathways of learning, which are more flexible in terms of time and space, and designed around technology solutions that only the company can deliver.

 The Software & Information Industry Association, the principal trade association for the software and digital content industries in America, is a clear backer of redefining and expanding the role of the teacher, and advocates that “teacher contracts and other regulatory constraints may also need to be addressed to provide the flexibility in a teacher’s role needed to make this dramatic shift in instruction” (Wolf 2010, 15).

 On the surface, this flexibility sounds promising, as teachers and school leaders certainly recognize that the industrial model of command and control does not fit with our hyper-connected world. Yet the flexibility of any-time, any-place learning is manifesting itself in the United States around adaptive learning software programs or mandatory online learning courses that are being delivered by private companies. New course access legislation (as found in Wisconsin, Texas, Utah, Florida, Michigan and Minnesota) now allows anyone to teach online courses to students regardless of jurisdiction, certification or geographic location (Dwinal 2015).

In other words, every course, for every student, anywhere, anytime — and now — taught by anyone. Half the teachers, but sold as twice the fun? In the case of K12 Inc., the United States’ largest private for-profit provider of online education for grades K–12, student-teacher ratios are as high as one teacher to 275 students (Aaronson and O’Connor 2012).

 As a former president and CEO at McGraw-Hill Education affirmed: “With this new method and capability, all of a sudden you could see a teacher handling many more students … the productivity could double or triple” (Olster 2013). The harsh reality, however, is that private online schooling is not about new blended learning models, flexibility or choice, it is about profit through the constant cycle of enrollment and withdrawal of students known as the “churn rate” (Gibson and Clements 2013).

In contrast, our current publicly funded and publicly delivered online schools across Alberta reinforce the important role of certificated teachers as compassionate and empathetic architects of learning who work relentlessly to reduce the drop-out rates and increase student engagement in virtual learning environments. Rocketship Education, one of the many rapidly growing charter schools out of the United States, has adopted a rotation model of blended learning known as the Rocketship Hybrid School Model for kindergarten to Grade 5 students.

 It combines online learning on campus with traditional classroom-based activities in order to save $500,000 per charter school per year in teacher salary costs (Danner 2010).To accomplish this, Rocketship Education has cut half its teachers, changed its scope of practice and hired low-paid adults to supervise and monitor students in computer labs.

The new staffing patterns within this rotation blended learning model place the schools in a one to 100-plus student/teacher ratio, with one or two low-wage computer lab monitors. These support personnel are endowed with titles like “individual learning specialists,” “coaches” or “facilitators” (Public Broadcasting Service 2012).

Without certificated teachers present, there is a need to gather data on student performance, so the children spend a great deal of time in a computer lab with an adaptive learning program monitoring their every interaction. John Danner, former CEO of Rocketship Charter Schools and a former board member of DreamBox Learning Inc., promotes increased screen time during the day for children. He thinks that as the quality of software improves, “‘Rocketeers’ could spend as much as 50 percent of the school day with computers” (Strauss 2013).

 How many hours of development, in the minds and bodies of children and youth, are we willing to sacrifice for more individualized computer-human interactions under the guise of blended learning?

 If blended learning through the rotation model is to be defined by reducing the number of certificated teachers in schools and placing students in computer labs to spend half of their day in front of math and reading software programs, then education in the 21st century is indeed heading down an antiquated and very dangerous path. This is not historically the way blended learning has come alive in Alberta classrooms, nor should it be our preferred future.

HOPE

 The growth of digital media and the Internet has led to an explosion of resources and opportunities for teachers, students and learning communities. A constant shift is occurring with different mobile apps, blogs, video podcasts, social media tools, e-learning courses, or learning management systems in schools that all promise to help teachers create and organize student work, provide (real-time) feedback or communicate more efficiently.

With the proliferation of digital tools in our lives, many K–12 students now experience learning through a blend of face-to-face and digital or online media and are able to access new ideas and resources where student attitudes and engagement towards their education can be positively supported.

 If blended learning is to lead to positive outcomes for students, then it must be highly relational, active and inquiry oriented (both online and offline), and commit to empowering students with digital tools. If done right, blended learning can be used to support more equitable access to learning resources and discipline-specific expertise.

It may also engage students (and teachers) in a variety of online and offline learning activities that differentiate instruction and bring greater diversity to the learning context. Improving communication between teachers, students and parents and extending relationships across boundaries and time may also be an outcome of blended learning.

 It may also hold value by employing certain technologies that help teachers and students to formatively assess learning.

To make this truly hopeful, school-based technology infrastructure must be robust and up-to-date, with equitable access, and the necessary resources (human and technology) must be made available to pedagogically support the blending.

 It is not tenable if Internet connectivity is unreliable or limited, or if there exists inequitable access to bandwidth or technology infrastructure in the school and home. Finally, if technical glitches are pervasive, or if dependable technical support is not available for students and teachers, then it is unlikely that blended learning will be a sustainable concept.

CONCLUSION

Blended learning is not a new term nor a revolutionary concept for classrooms in this second decade of the 21st century. However, the way it is being (re)interpreted could be hopeful or harmful depending on how it is implemented. It is an increasingly ambiguous and vague notion that is growing in popularity as many groups try to claim the space and establish the models, despite a lack of evidence and research. We should therefore be skeptical around the mythos of blended learning before endorsing or lauding it as the next great reform.

Blended learning has occupied a place in discourses of educational change for well over a decade, but it cannot be co-opted into a movement that displaces the human dimension of learning with an economic imperative to reduce labor costs by cutting the teaching population in half.

Of particular concern in times of severe economic restraint is that high schools may become the testing ground for policymakers looking at ways to redesign by cutting certificated teachers in favor of massive online cohorts of students tutored by “facilitators” or “individual learning specialists.”

 Technologies should be employed to help students become empowered citizens rather than passive consumers. Innovations are needed in education that will help to create a society where people can flourish within culturally rich, informed, democratic, digitally connected and diverse communities.

We should not descend into a culture of individualism through technology where our students are fragmented by continuous partial attention. For the vast majority of students within Alberta’s K–12 public education system, we must achieve a more nuanced balance that combines both digital technologies and the physical presence of a caring, knowledgeable and pedagogically thoughtful teacher. This is not an optional “nice to have,” but a “must have” if children and youth are to build resilience for the future.

 Blended learning may be (re)shaped by privatization myths, with adaptive learning systems as their voice, but in Alberta, our teachers still remain the quintessence of the human enterprise of paying it forward for our next generation. It is time for Alberta teachers to claim the space of blended learning and push back at the myths and questionable rhetoric. —

Where Do You Live

I read two more articles on the subject of race. One I found utterly tragic and oddly racist. It was about the lack of an African American centric curriculum in public schools and which is why many African Americans are resorting to home schooling with  also the notation that white teachers were racist which contributed to the exodus of minorities from public school.  I might be paraphrasing but it was so offensive and utterly without actual substantiation and documentation to any substantial studies (other than the usual numbers which the DOJ have been using to investigate and in turn write their reports that no one reads but give great credence toand then we take a workshop on white privilege, I still cannot believe that one) and cites her odd vague study of African Americans who can afford this type of schooling.

But ultimately I felt bad that this woman feels so compelled to write such a piece of racist bullshit rather than address the real issues or theories as to why so many kids of color are expelled, disciplined and in turn placed in less advanced curriculum or assigned disproportionately to Special Education tracks that I had to comment.    And also she offers no ideas or theories on what actually can be done to resolve that other than home school. None of that,  nor did half the links even work,  and those that did work were just  tangentially connected to her reasoning.  Her study was also quite lacking.   And a significant factor –  the income issue – was not even parsed over as it requires two incomes and a stay at home educator/parent to actually do this,  but who needs details in a smear piece.

If a white person wrote this there would be hell to pay as have many who have pursued home schooling in response to a more ecumenical bend.  They too have been widely disputed or hailed depending on the source as it often fuels much about issues surrounding curriculum. So this piece reminded me too much of the issues surrounding those issue as creationism vs evolution is now replaced with Eurocentric vs Afro American Curriculum.

 This piece simply seems to think that all problems in education are race related.  There has to be more than white people hate black people so that’s why black kids are failing?   As a result of my own chagrin that in turn she does nothing to discuss those other people of color and particularly Native Americans the original occupants of this country and other children with english language differences  and barriers that are badly neglected both academically and curriculum wise,  spoke volumes. But I will not drive readers nor will I  link the article here but you can find it in the Washington Post.

It was truly distressing that there is no mention about any other minority and their role in shaping the American culture and history of the country. The lack of bi-lingual education or that in fact Special Education and Highly Capable are both badly funded and often have their own problems within schools regarding both training and funding.  One only has to peruse the number of blogs dedicated to each and each parental group lamenting their child’s inadequate education needs.  But yes in our never ending discussion about race let’s keep talking in black/white perspectives only.

And of course it brings us to the real issue, like lives and works and wants to be with like. We had an African American Academy here, run and taught by black educators. It was a black superintendent who closed it down. I have no idea why as it was a beautiful building built for that purpose, it was K-8 and had a large contingency of support. I taught there on occasion and tutored there after school. The students were just like the students at other schools no better no worse but it was a disciplinarian issue consistently from what I understood. And that is all I know.

We had a Native American Academy and once the leader/founder of the school died the school did too. We have schools renamed and supposedly focused on the varying communities population needs and they die on the vine. I have no idea why. I quit caring about politics a long time ago in education. It used to be about reading, writing, math and science and the idea that knowledge was free. This was before high stakes testing and shoving people into tracks. That may have some role as does the ever increasing income inequity that crushes families and individuals.

So why do some schools succeed and some fail? Well like all real estate its location, location, location. Where people live and the economic factors that reflect that neighborhood affect the schools. White flight is very much alive and well and living in a town near you.

The Atlantic Monthly has found that income and race disproportionately affect neighborhoods and the demographics within. Shocking, I know. And that Seattle the great migration to the Northwest shows we are guilty as charged. And the immigrants, the Asians which include those of the Indian diaspora are suburb bound and moving to the East side while the city attracts the single and childless and the poor in the zone of poverty that extends further and further out. That is who in our schools the few that feel compelled to show they are not racist but the school in turn is white or they test them out to be in cohorts of those identified as highly capable so they are in a school within a school or they are soon moved to private as our public schools are a mess. We have a significant majority of kids enrolled in private education in this “progressive” city.

**click the link to the story to see the data and maps that demonstrate the cities and their neighborhood demographics

Where the White People Live
How self-segregation and concentrated affluence became normal in America
Alana Semuels Apr 10 2015,
The Atlantic

Last summer, the Michigan town of Grosse Pointe Park erected a farmer’s market in the middle of one of the few remaining streets that allowed cars to pass between the tony suburb and the urban Detroit neighborhoods at its border. It was the latest of many attempts by Grosse Pointe Park residents to close off roads and block traffic between what has become a predominantly white, affluent suburb, and its poorer, urban neighbor.

There were protests about the border, and Grosse Pointe Park later said it would tear down the farmer’s market and re-open the road, but the incident speaks volumes to the segregation that exists in Detroit, and the tensions that can grow as a result.

The fact that these two areas are so close is unique—the border between Grosse Pointe Park and the city of Detroit is the only place in any of America’s biggest cities where a very wealthy, predominantly-white area abuts a very poor, black one, according to research from a new working paper from the University of Minnesota. But the existence of self-segregated wealthy white areas close by low-income minority ones isn’t unique, according to the Minnesota researchers. They have sorted census tracts in 15 of America’s 20 biggest cities into “racially concentrated areas of affluence” and “racially concentrated areas of poverty,” and find that many cities have more areas of segregated affluence than they do poverty.

Racially concentrated areas of affluence, by the researchers’ definition, are census tracts where 90 percent or more of the population is white and the median income is at least four times the federal poverty level, adjusted for the cost of living in each city. Racially concentrated areas of poverty, by contrast, are census tracts where more than 50 percent of the population is non-white, and more than 40 percent live in poverty.

Detroit has 55 racially concentrated areas of affluence and 147 racially concentrated areas of poverty, according to the research, done by Ed Goetz, Tony Damiano, and Jason Hicks. Detroit’s racially concentrated areas of affluence are just 1.1 percent black. Its racially concentrated areas of poverty, by contrast, are 76 percent black.

Cities such as St. Louis, Boston, Baltimore, and Minneapolis have more racially concentrated areas of affluence (RCAAs) than they do racially concentrated areas of poverty (RCAPs). Boston has the most RCAAs of the cities they examined, with 77. St. Louis has 44 RCAAs, and 36 RCAPs. Other cities with a large number of racially concentrated areas of affluence include Philadelphia, with 70, Chicago, with 58, and Minneapolis, with 56.

In Boston, 43.5 percent of the white population lives in census tracts that are 90 percent or more white and have a median income of four times the poverty level. In St. Louis, 54.4 percent of the white population lives in such tracts.

Still, it’s the poor areas, rather than the areas where whites have self-segregated, that get the most attention from policymakers, who have sought to ameliorate concentrated poverty in segregated areas by moving families from black, urban areas to white suburbs. Beginning in 1989, the federal government started dismantling housing projects, spending billions to retool the type of housing available to low-income people in urban cores.

Programs may still integrate schools between white and black areas, as I’ve written about before, and they may move black families to white neighborhoods, as I’ve also detailed. But government programs don’t—and probably shouldn’t—move white families from wealthy areas to somewhere else (although they do provide incentives for home buyers or builders to locate in certain lower-income neighborhoods, thus beginning a process of gentrification).

Public policy has “focused on the concentration of poverty and residential segregation. This has problematized non-white and high-poverty neighborhoods,” said Goetz, the director of the Center for Urban and Rural Affairs at the University of Minnesota, when presenting his findings at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. “It’s shielded the other end of the spectrum from scrutiny—to the point where we think segregation of whites is normal.”

Racially Concentrated Areas of Affluence and Areas of Poverty in Large Metro Areas
Goetz, Damiano, and Hicks/University of Minnesota

Goetz and his team are still researching the effects of this self-segregation of whites, but he thinks that a high number of RCAAs may be a negative factor for cities.

“Some people argue that when whites and affluent people segregate themselves, it can erode empathy, and it can inhibit the pursuit of region-wide remedies,” he told me. “It can inhibit a sense of shared destiny within a metropolitan area.”

This brings to mind a metro area such as Detroit, which emerged from bankruptcy last year, and was characterized by a poor and segregated urban core and wealthy white suburbs that did not contribute to the city’s revenue. The executive of Oakland County, to Detroit’s north, which is one of the whitest areas in the nation, has said publicly he doesn’t feel any incentive to help the city of Detroit.

Goetz and his team also researched the RCAAs’ and RCAPs’ distance to downtown. Areas of affluence are located, on average, 21.1 miles from a metro area’s downtown. In Detroit, racially concentrated areas of affluence are, on average, 24.2 miles from the city’s downtown. In Washington, D.C., racially concentrated areas of affluence are 25.1 miles from downtown; in Chicago, they’re 22.1 miles. Racially concentrated areas of poverty, on the other hand, are on average 6.6 miles from downtown, and in cities such as Baltimore, St. Louis, and Philadelphia, they’re much closer.)

There is less self-segregation of metro areas in the West: San Francisco and Houston have just five racially concentrated areas of affluence each, Seattle has nine, Los Angeles, 11. Seattle has just six racially concentrated areas of poverty and San Francisco has 12. These western cities have larger populations of affluent minorities, and are, in general, more diverse. Only 1.1 percent of affluent households live in RCAAs in San Francisco and only 3.1 percent do in Seattle, but in St. Louis, by contrast, 23.1 percent of affluent households live in a racially concentrated area of affluence. In cities in the North and East, there are also still lingering effects of the housing policies that, for decades, kept non-white families from buying in certain neighborhoods.

The racial makeup of concentrated areas of poverty differs between regions, too: they’re predominantly black in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Washington, predominantly Latino in Houston and Los Angeles, and mixed in Boston, Minneapolis, and San Francisco.

Goetz and his fellow researchers are planning on looking into why these areas form in certain cities and certain places, and whether people pay a housing premium to live in segregated areas of affluence, as opposed to more racially diverse areas of affluence.

Some of their further research has already generated interesting results. They looked into how federal housing dollars are spent in areas of poverty and areas of affluence in the Twin Cities, and found something surprising: The government spends just as many housing dollars in areas of poverty as it does in areas of affluence.

In racially concentrated areas of affluence, federal dollars come in the form of the mortgage-interest deduction. In areas of poverty, they come through vouchers and subsidized housing units. In the Twin Cities, the total federal investment in the form of housing dollars in RCAAs was three times larger than the investment in RCAPs. On a per capita basis, it was about equal.

Federal dollars are now being spent to “subsidize racially concentrated areas of affluence,” Goetz said.