First Guest Post - Kissfan

My first guest here at OPTC is the most excellent Kissfan from Truespeak, one of my very favorite bloggers. He and his wife Mrs. Kissfan are both teachers, which makes them heroes in my book.

Here's his story:

A Bystander No More

In 1992 my wife and I moved to Texas where she had taken her first teaching job with the Aldine Independent School District (A.I.S.D.). A.I.S.D. covers the northeastern corner of Houston and includes the suburb of Humble (the “H” is silent). The first year that we lived there, she taught sixth grade math at Aldine Middle School. By the next year, she had transferred to Teague Middle School where she taught seventh grade math. I, not yet finished with my teaching degree, worked as a substitute teacher for the district where I was used primarily as a long-term sub. One of the first things we did as Texans was register to vote. And in November of 1992, we both proudly cast our votes for William Jefferson Clinton. All-in-all, it was a pretty good year.

But the longer we stayed, the more discouraged we became. Not by life in the big city, mind you, but with what we saw taking place in the school systems. My wife attended school at Mankato State University (now called Minnesota State University at Mankato) and I had attended Western Illinois University. What we were experiencing there in Texas went against almost everything we had learned in our teacher training. It was very frustrating, to say the least.

At the time we worked there, Texas students throughout the state were required to take the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) test. It was a statewide assessment that was used to determine whether or not schools were succeeding. (Sound familiar?) As a teacher, all of our lesson plans had to be aligned with a TAAS objective - if it wasn’t on the test, it wasn’t worth teaching. All of our assignments and exams had to include sections written in the TAAS multiple choice format. Pep assemblies were held during school to get students excited about the test and study sessions were held after school to get kids prepared. The students were plied with incentives ranging from food and drinks to throwing pies at teachers and administrators. Administrators were plied with monetary incentives if their districts performed well. Teachers were threatened with their jobs if the students performed poorly. It was the mighty TAAS and nothing else mattered.

However, the teachers were given very little in the way of leverage with the students. For instance, a teacher couldn’t fail more than ten percent of his or her students. (I would hope that this wasn't a statewide rule, but it was at least the rule at these particular schools.) Consequently, only the lowest achieving ten percent of the students in each class failed and any remaining failures were given a D-. If a teacher turned in his or her grades and there was a large number of failures, the grades were returned with a note that the scores were to be adjusted. The students knew that as long as they weren’t the very worst thirty or forty kids in their grade, there was a pretty good chance they were going to be passed. So why work too hard?

Unfortunately, this was our first experience as educators. Needless to say, it wasn’t very encouraging. We had decided that when we were ready to start a family, we would move out of the state. The whole system was educationally unsound.

By 1994, we had decided that we were ready to leave Texas and head back to the Midwest. I had tried to attend school in Texas to complete my teaching degree and was having difficulty getting my credits to transfer. So we decided that I would return to WIU and my wife began looking for jobs in the area. At this same time, Texas was going through an election year. The incumbent governor was Democrat Ann Richards. A fiery woman, no doubt. Her opponent was Republican George W. Bush. He campaigned for the governorship much the same way he would one day campaign for the presidency - dishonestly. I remember one particular incident which can be seen in the movie Bush’s Brain, where Bush and Richards took part in the Texas gubernatorial tradition of dove hunting. On this particular day, Richards didn’t shoot any birds and only fired her weapon ceremoniously for the cameras. Bush, however, downed a bird. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t a dove but a protected killdeer. Initially, he attempted to place the bird in his hunting bag without acknowledging the fact that it was a protected bird. It was only after a reporter noticed the error and made a scene of it did Bush acknowledge what had happened and report the incident to the game warden whereupon he was assessed a fine of $130. (Little did I know that this was the way Bush would run his tenure in the Oval Office - he doesn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing unless he’s caught.)

At this time in my life I wasn’t a hard lined partisan, but there were some serious issues that bothered me about George W. Bush. For starters, his past was mysterious. There were rumors but nothing could be verified and he refused to discuss it. There was also a whispering campaign started about Governor Richards’ sexuality. It all seemed like schoolyard stunts. It was lowball politics at its best.

My wife and I finally moved from Texas in June of 1994 after which I made an effort to follow the Texas campaign as closely as I could. Needless to say, the outcome of the election was disappointing.

So George W. Bush disappeared from my life after that point. I finished my teaching degree, my wife and I bought a house and had two great children. We also continued to support President Clinton although politics was really no more than a passing interest in my life. I watched, I listened, but I didn’t get involved. I was a bystander.

Then came 2000. Much to my dismay, there was George W. Bush again. I remember telling my wife, “There’s no way this guy will get the nomination. There’s too much wrong about him.” Little did I know the depths that he and his campaign would stoop to in order to get the nomination and eventually the highest office in the land. I was sickened. And horror of all horrors - Bush’s signature issue was education. The same education system that we had fled Texas to get away from six years earlier. It was a disaster just waiting to happen. But happen it did.

I was furious. Sure, the public school system in America has had its problems over the years, but that was nothing compared to the problems that were going to be caused by this so-called “No Child Left Behind Act.” And to top it all off, Bush appointed Rod Paige from the Houston Independent School District (a neighbor to A.I.S.D.) as the Secretary of Education. He was a known cheat in Texas. I couldn’t imagine anything worse happening to education in America. (Just before the election, the RAND Corporation released a study showing the inaccuracies in the Texas model that Bush was using as the basis for NCLB. Unfortunately, it was almost completely ignored by a media that was too busy making jokes about Gore’s “woodenness” and his “invention of the internet.”)

At that point I knew I had to become more involved. I couldn’t stand by a watch as America’s education system was about to be flushed down the toilet. But what could I do? I spoke to as many people as I could and expressed my displeasure with what was taking place, but after September 11, 2001, anything critical of George W. Bush was considered unpatriotic and roundly ignored. I felt defeated. Living in a small town that is probably three-quarters Republican, I felt overwhelmed and outnumbered. And my list of grievances with the Bush administration kept growing longer.

By 2004 I had had enough. It was then that I started my own blog, Truespeak. I wrote letters to the editor of my local paper. I attended functions of the local Democratic party. My yard had so many Democratic signs in it that it was a running joke in town. Everybody knew my position. There could be no doubt. I could not be quiet any longer.

As everyone can tell, the election of 2004 was a disappointment to me. But that hasn’t stopped me from being an advocate for my party. I continue to be active and make my voice heard. I am beyond the point where I can be an idle bystander. There is too much at stake. Maybe not for me, but for my children. I want my children to grow up in a better America than I did. I want my children to have all of the opportunities that I did and then some. But with the Bush administration’s disastrous education policies, rising college tuition, and cuts to financial aid, I’m worried that the opportunities may not be there for my children and the children I teach. In George W. Bush’s America, money and opportunity go hand-in-hand. Without money, the opportunities are scarce. But I can’t and won’t be a bystander while that happens. For as long as it takes, I will fight against the corporate takeover of my country. This is supposed to be the land of opportunity and I will be damned if I’m going to let George W. Bush and his schoolyard bullies hoard those opportunities for only the wealthy and well connected.