“Future Parent and possibly Teacher…15 years from now” e-mailed a series of questions. Here are some brief responses:

“Where do you see us standing in terms of education quality 15 years from now?”

It’ll be better at some schools, worse at others, and roughly the same at still others. There will still be the traditional models of school that we have today, there’ll be experimental models, and there’ll be many more alternatives in terms of charter schools, study centers, and online programs. I can’t say whether education quality will improve on average. It’ll be interesting to see how the public systems react to increased competition.

“Would you advise between public, private, or competent homeschooling?”

Not if I don’t have additional information. There are some public schools to which I’d rather send my kid than certain private schools. There are some private schools to which I’d rather send my kid than certain public schools.

But then I supposed that with that modifier “competent” in front of “homeschooling,” that’s the answer I’m supposed to pick, isn’t it? The most commonly heard objection to homeschooling is that it doesn’t get kids to socialize with other kids. That may be true, but there are plenty of other opportunities to socialize with kids of similar age (sports, arts, clubs, volunteering, religious activities) if you take advantage of them.

“Do you believe it’s likely the school system will see a turn towards improved education over this timeframe?”

Some parts will, some parts won’t. Some places will, some places won’t.

“And lastly, a twofur. What are some of the worst changes that have been made to the system…”

I’ll limit myself to those changes that’ve been made since I started teaching.

1. Grade recovery, a.k.a. learning recovery. In Duval County, we allow students who earn a quarterly grade of D or F to attempt to raise that grade as high as a C. In theory, it’s not a bad idea; why not give students another opportunity to learn the material and show that they’ve learned it? In practice, I think the net effect has been negative. Too many kids attempt to game the system by screwing around one quarter and making up for it the next, and more often than not, it doesn’t work out the way they hope.

2. The abolition of the unexcused absence. Technically, they’re still on the books, but if you skip my class you are entitled to make up everything you missed for full credit. Unsurprisingly, the number of absences seems to have increased.

3. The 90-minute A/B block schedule. I don’t have research in front of me, but I’d bet good money that there are plenty of studies out there that show that generally, kids learn skills and content better by having shorter classes more often (say 50-60 minutes every day) instead of longer classes less often (90 minutes, alternating days).

4. Excessive standardized testing. I’m a big believer in standardized testing, but at some point, diminishing marginal returns kick in. It feels like we’re overdoing it.

5. Excessive Advanced Placement. Thanks to the obsession with the Newsweek and WaPo rankings, our district decided to shove as many kids as would fit into AP classes, regardless of preparation. The results have been ugly and expensive.

There are others, but those are the first that spring to mind.

“…and what are some “core” attributes of successful teaching or of an educational system?”

See the list above? Start with not-those.

I think it comes down to the “three R’s.” The better a school system is at teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic (and I mean arithmetic, not mathematics), and the better it is at reinforcing and further developing those skills throughout elementary, middle, and high school, then the better it will be at teaching the students everything else. So check to see how far a school system will let kids go without those basic skills. The further kids can go without those skills, the worse the school system is.

I woke up this morning to learn that someone thought that this April Fools’ Day, it would be just hilarious to create a fake Facebook account for my “slightly younger” brother and send me a friend request and message. I haven’t spoken to Vic in almost seven years, so naturally my heart leapt and I accepted the request. It took me a few minutes to catch on, but there were three mistakes on “his” profile. To be more precise, there were two actual mistakes and an imprecisely listed alma mater (Vic graduated from UNH-Manchester, not the main campus at Durham).

Actual mistake number one, which I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t catch sooner, was the profile pic. It was cropped from a photograph of my brothers, my sisters, and me from many, many years ago. So I was sitting at my desk, staring at the screen for a good five, ten minutes wondering why Vic was using such an old picture before I realized that the picture was of me, not him. We’d agreed to shave our heads for that winter (don’t ask), but he didn’t go through with it until after the picture was taken… and then it was only because my other siblings held him down while I shaved half of his head. Anyone could have found that picture online because it was featured prominently on the original version of this website and is buried in the public access files somewhere.

Actual mistake number two was the name on the Facebook account: Victor Emmanuel Viscariello. That’s not his name anymore.

Vic was named after the first king of a united, modern Italy. I got the lineage name “Vincent” because I was firstborn by twelve minutes. We used to say that if we’d been triplets, #3 would’ve had to have a middle name that started with an “F” to keep the pattern going (VDV, VEV, VFV, etc.). Anyhow, about ten years ago, Vic went on this authenticity kick and started pronouncing his name “vis-car-ee-ell-oh,” which, as I’ve stated before in this august journal, is wrong. In 2005, he went a step further and changed his name to the more Italianized “Vittorio Emanuele Viscariello.” That’s the name that he’d use on Facebook.

I thought he was kidding about the name change until he showed me the court order and his new license. I joked about it at first, pointing out that Vittorio Emanuele II was a fat Sardinian who didn’t have the good sense to avoid marrying his own cousin, and that if Vic were going to change his name he should change it away from Vittorio, not to it. Then Vic said at least “Vittorio” had had relations with a woman named “Rosa” (one of Emanuele’s mistresses, who shared a name with a girl I liked, but Vic dated, in high school, and yes, we used history to insult each other). This led to a somewhat heated discussion that lasted until dawn and touched on a number of disagreements that went all the way back to our birth. That morning was the last time I saw him in person, and the first time the gaps in our teeth matched.

I won’t delve into our arguments here except to say that yes, paying his college girlfriend to fake a positive pregnancy test crossed the line, especially considering the debt Vic racked up getting back into school after he’d dropped out to work full time– but that was just payback for him tricking me into waiting 20 hours at Hartsfield airport for an old pen pal from Italy, not realizing he had already picked her up at JIA and they were hanging out, doing God-knows-what. Long story short, I think he was just mad because I was born first and got the better name.

Anyhow, whoever pulled this prank really had me going, and I guess I’d see the humor in it if I weren’t heartbroken over not talking to my slightly younger brother for the better part of a decade. I just can’t wait to figure out who it was (and before Doc chimes in, yes, I know it wasn’t you) so I can “congratulate” him.

…

I might actually deserve this; I played a similar trick on Mole back in college, changing my userid to that of his high school girlfriend. That didn’t go over too well.

I have a new favorite quote about teaching. It comes from Glenn Reynolds of blogging and law-professoring fame:

It is not compassionate to allow your students to learn less than they should.

–Instapundit.com, March 25, 2012.

There may be some quibbling over the precise meaning of “should,” especially given the practice of shoving kids into the wrong classes, but this is one to live by.

So today I was reading this blog post about the recent rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. (The blog post is a comment on this op-ed from ynetnews.com.) A comment on the blog post struck me enough that I had to pass it along. The comment comes from someone with the handle “Prologue.” Here goes:

When people are frightened they need someone to hate, but they rarely hate what they fear. That takes too much guts. People hate what it’s safe to hate. That’s why Europeans publicly take on the U.S. and Israel. They get to feel morally upright for speaking “truth to power” and there’s absolutely no risk whatsoever. There will be no retaliation.

One might disagree with the politics of the post, or the comment thread, or the websites in question, and no less an authority than Yoda would question the wisdom of hatred, but it’s worth asking the question: in troubled times, do we direct our anger and our vitriol at those who most deserve it, or at those who will tolerate it?

An anonymous reader e-mailed, “Your thoughts on Libertarianism and the growing movement especially amongst young people?”

I’ve written several posts that address libertarian ideas in some fashion. I’m not going to list them all here, but you’re welcome to dig around for them. I recommend starting by entering “libertarian” or “libertarianism” in the search box.

Libertarians running for office need to get better at developing policy and promoting it. That’s counterintuitive to many libertarians; after all, the whole point of the movement is to have less government policy. They’re running for office in order to not do big things. But if your intention is to dismantle government policy, you need to be able to explain to the voters not just why, but how you’re going to do it– so you want to cut the Department of Education or the Department of Labor? Fine. How? Executive order? Congressional law? Will there be a transition phase? Explain it.

Also, libertarians need to do a better job of explaining what would replace government policy. I know what you’re thinking: “The point is to replace it with nothing!” Well, no, it isn’t. The point is to replace public (government) control of a policy area with private control of a policy area; i.e., individuals, families, businesses, other organizations interacting as they see fit. Libertarian candidates have to do a better job explaining why this replacement won’t lead to chaos and disaster.

Now, let me address the Libertarian Party (LP). In my humble but correct opinion, it faces a major obstacle, insurmountable for the foreseeable future: the Duverger effect. Long story short, it means we’re stuck with a two party system because almost all elections in the US are designed to have a single winner. Strong third parties don’t last because they are likely to weaken the similar major party, resulting in victory for the less similar major party. If we had proportional representation (i.e., your party wins 10% of the votes, you control 10% of the legislature), then third parties like the LP could grow. But considering that the two major parties write the election laws, we are unlikely to see any shift towards proportional representation, and thus LP candidates are unlikely to win elections.

But a failure to win elections does not translate to a failure to influence policy. Look at the Progressives a century ago: the Progressive Party won few electoral victories, but eventually there were many progressive thinkers and politicians in both the Democratic and Republican Parties, enacting progressive policies. If libertarianism is going to continue to spread, then young libertarians have to be as persistent and patient as those progressives were.

Young libertarians also have to internalize a very simple truth: the world is run by those who show up. Libertarians have to participate in politics– as much as it might be against their nature– because if they don’t, they leave room for their opponents to step in. I think their best hope for policy success lies in dragging both Democrats and Republicans in their direction, though I think they currently fit one of the two parties far better than the other (hint: it’s the party that has seen two recent candidates also run for President as Libertarians).

I know that working with or within the two major parties is distasteful to most LP members, but look: neither Ron Paul nor Gary Johnson is going to win the White House, period. It’s going to be Obama or one of the non-libertarian GOP guys. When that happens, the libertarians will have to get over it fast, so they can keep pushing libertarian causes and campaigning for– or being— libertarian candidates, whether in the LP or in the two major parties.