Dear Secretary of State Clinton,
I am sure you remember the slogan during your challenger’s campaign, the “fierce urgency of now.” It has been exactly 30 months since the inauguration of President Obama, and we still have a public school system in chaos and shambles. In addition, we have not completed the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and test scores in math and English-Language Arts continue to be the major factor in judging effective schools.
However, I know you believe that public education must be so much more than a two-subject curricular dance. All schools for America’s children must have a balanced curriculum, including history, science, world languages, the visual and performing arts with a talented faculty.
America’s children are suffering more today with the precipitous decline in public funding for education than anytime in my public school career, yet we can find ways to fund two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and intervene in Libya with our NATO Alliance. I hypothesize that you are the Superwoman that children conscripted to public schools have been waiting for.
The press has made it clear you do not want to serve a second term as Secretary of State if Pres. Obama wins a second term in 2012. A few days ago Reuters sources indicated you are interested in becoming head of the World Bank, but your spokesperson flatly denies the claim. I have another proposal.
You are the only person that can make public education the priority it deserves for all children in this country. Your experiences as First Lady, Senator, Presidential contender, and SOS have earned you my utmost respect and admiration. History shows us you did great work in Arkansas as First Lady fighting for effective prenatal, early childhood, and parent education programs. These three issues must become the foundational bedrock of America’s educational system. I think you understand this better than any of the past Secretaries of Education.
In 1999 speaking to the National Education Association you said, “First and foremost, we have to expect every single child to succeed and we have to hold every one of them to high academic standards. There should be no exceptions, no excuses, to our solemn commitment that every child learn; every child deserves to be challenged, to have their imagination sparked. That is not just the task in our schools; it has to start in our homes with parents and family members who value education.”
You might at first blush consider this position a step down, however if you step up to the challenges in public education today by proposing to your boss that you take the reigns of leadership at the Department of Education in 2012, you can go down in history as the greatest of all American heroes, the Superwoman we do not have to wait for any longer. Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan has done some good work as leader of America’s system of public education, yet we are not moving with a “fierce urgency of now.”
Public-funded, corporate-run charter schools are making up a growing proportion of America’s schools. For the record 61 percent of New Orleans Public School students attend charters, along with 38 percent of District of Columbia public schools, 36 percent of Detroit public schools, and 32 percent of Kansas City public schools. If the trend continues it is possible most of America’s children will be educated by private, in some cases, for-profit businesses.
I urge you to consider the fact that ultimately the Charter School choice movement is not good for America’s democracy. Of course, nor are the 40,000 students in San Jose scoring below grade level in math and language arts that sit in our traditional public schools classrooms.
What a legacy you will leave for America when you have transformed pubic education for all its children and you have raised the stature of the teacher as a professional forever more. Yes, Secretary of Education Hilary Rodham Clinton, the Superwoman we no longer have to wait for; finally the “fierce urgency of now” has meaning.
Sincerely,
Joseph Steven Di Salvo
President
Santa Clara County Office of Education
public schools are not performing. that is where charter school comes in. education is a local issue. education issues should be addressed in school boards.
JoJo, do you need a civics lesson??
We have a Secretary of Education, darling!
MISSION STATEMENT FOR STATE DEPARTMENT
Create a more secure, democratic, and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community.
American diplomacy in the 21st century is based on fundamental beliefs: our freedom is best protected by ensuring that others are free; our prosperity depends on the prosperity of others; and our security relies on a global effort to secure the rights of all. The history of the American people is the chronicle of our efforts to live up to our ideals. In this moment in history, we recognize that the United States has an immense responsibility to use its power constructively to advance security, democracy, and prosperity around the globe. We will pursue these interests and remain faithful to our beliefs.
Globalization is compressing distances and creating new opportunities for economic growth. It is expanding the exchange of ideas, providing an impetus for political freedoms. Millions of the world’s poor, however, have not yet benefited from globalization, increasing their risk of alienation. Furthermore, transnational threats have emerged from globalization, enabling the creation of deadly global terror networks, spurring crime that reaches beyond borders, and spreading disease via the most mobile population in history. The spread of unconventional weapon technology risks giving tyrants and terrorists unprecedented power to harm the United States, our allies, and our friends. At the same time, famines and civil conflicts have erupted in countries steeped in poverty or constrained by autocratic rulers, creating waves of refugees and swelling the ranks of internally displaced populations. Traditional conflicts between and within states harm the innocent, with regional instabilities transmitting shock waves throughout our interconnected world.
In the coming years, the principal aims of the Department of State and USAID are clear. These aims are anchored in the President’s National Security Strategy and its three underlying and interdependent components – diplomacy, development, and defense
> It has been exactly 30 months since the inauguration of President Obama, and we still have a public school system in chaos and shambles.
Really?
Could you look around and tell me who’s in charge?
Who’s the President?
Who’s the Secretary of Education?
Who’s the governor?
Who’s controls the legislature?
Who runs the state board of education?
Who runs the County Office of Education?
Aren’t all the teachers certified?
Don’t the teachers union presidents have a seat at the table?
Doesn’t fifty-five percent of the state budget go to education?
Doesn’t the State Education Code prescribe in thousands of pages of explicit detail everything that needs to be done to wisely administer and operate a world class education system?
Didn’t any of the TRILLION DOLLARS of stimulus money trickle down to help education and save teachers jobs?
Did George Bush screw things up THAT badly?
Joseph Di Salvo,
I seem to recall a column of yours from a couple years back proclaiming Obama appointee Arne Duncan as the Saviour of the public school system. I’m not so sure we should trust your judgment now that that recommendation has been exposed as an utter failure. And my jaw drops when I consider the level of arrogance that allows a person to completely disregard his mistakes and stubbornly cling to his flawed ideology rather than coldly and objectively examine the reasons why he turned out to be so wrong.
But then again, you’re a liberal so why should I be surprised?
And wasn’t one of the main themes of ‘Waiting For Superman’ that there IS no Superman and that it’s futile and self-defeating to think that the key to great public education depends on placing just the right people in just the right positions in faroff cities like Washington DC and Sacramento and that as long as we insist on looking ‘out there’ for answers our kids’ educations will continue to suffer?
You and your likeminded cohorts’ continuing efforts in public education will undoubtedly lead to more expensive public education. But they will almost certainly not result in BETTER education. You THINK the two are equivalent but you are wrong.
John,
I was actually lobbing for Congressman Honda or Linda Darling-Hammond from Stanford. I knew very little about Duncan at that time of Pres. Obama’s selection.
You are right about it takes a lot more than one person to get us out of the educational hole we have dug for our children. You do not have to agree with me, however I present what I think would be beneficial for America and its children: prenatal, preschool, and parent education programs that Secretary Clinton has championed for years.
Joseph Di Salvo
Lobbing?
I think you meant “lobbying.”
The first sentence of the second paragraph is hopelessly crafted.
I think you are a good example of the dumbing down of America.
Hillary Clinton would succeed at any endeavor. She is a smart, poised, strong, brilliant woman who has made a significant contribution to our country and the entire world.
She is completely the opposite of Sarah Palin who is not smart, has zero class, no intellect and could not run a garage sale.
> Hillary Clinton would succeed at any endeavor. She is a smart, poised, strong, brilliant woman who has made a significant contribution to our country and the entire world.
Well, she may succeed at everything she can remember.
She does seem to have memory problems, though.
She still can’t seem to remember how she made a hundred thousand bucks on trading cattle futures, how the Rose law firm billing records with her fingerprints on them ended up in the family living quarters of the White House, or who hired Craig Livingstone.
As I recall, Craig Livingstone was a cattle futures trader who delivered insider trading tips to the family living quarters.
In order to disguise the tips, he wrapped them in old Rose Law Firm billing records.
No one hired Livingstone. He was just canvassing door-to-door and making cold calls in Washington, D.C. and knocked on the White House door. Call it good old American get up and go.
See, there’s an innocent explanation for everything where the Clinton’s are concerned.
> Hillary Clinton would succeed at any endeavor. She is a smart, poised, strong, brilliant woman who has made a significant contribution to our country and the entire world.
Victoria, honey:
Get a grip. Bill Clinton doesn’t even like Hillary that much.
“First and foremost, we have to expect every single child to succeed and we have to hold every one of them to high academic standards. There should be no exceptions, no excuses, to our solemn commitment that every child learn; every child deserves to be challenged, to have their imagination sparked. That is not just the task in our schools; it has to start in our homes with parents and family members who value education.”
I’m not sure who is more deserving of a seat on a short school bus, the person who uttered this idiocy or the person who in it would find inspiration. Ms. Clinton’s words have no place in a rational discussion of the abilities of human beings: expecting anything of “every single child” is absurd—an expectation never met in any classroom, never demonstrated on any playground, contrary to what science knows about human beings, and damn dangerous when uttered by anyone involved in government.
“Hold every one of them… No exceptions, no excuses”… these edicts, directed at this country’s children and parents, sound as if delivered from a pulpit. When did America elect Hillary Clinton its national preacher? Tell me, what penance will the Reverend Clinton assign the parents of a slow-witted kid who can’t meet even mediocre academic standards? Ten Hail Hillarys? What about the average kid who’s great with words but poor at math? How much guilt will she inflict on him for his sins?
Mr. DiSalvo, what moral or constitutional right do you or Ms. Clinton have for practicing your faith on the taxpayer’s dime? The beliefs you inflict on the educational system are different from those found in church in only one respect: those spouted in church can’t be disproved. Your lofty egalitarian crap, on the other hand, can and has been disproved, so convincingly that I am at a loss to distinguish what it is you (and the rest of your flock) do from common fraud. How many billions are educators raking in every year “trying” to close an achievement gap that is IMPOSSIBLE to legitimately close?
When the left uses terms like “every child” what they are really doing is laying the groundwork for Socialism. You see, competition is the antithesis of Socialism. In a competitive school system, people get grades based on performance. Some perform well, but some fail. Failure is routine in the real world. But in the fantasy world of Socialism, nobody fails. If a child doesn’t have the tools to succeed, then those that do are punished. Scores are equalized, grades are done away with or marginalized into irrelevance, and each child is bombarded with messages that they are all equally talented and successful.
Of course those children then enter the real world and this fantasy is completely shattered hence the long lines of those wanting government sustenance. I suppose it is only fitting that the government who feeds children the absurd concepts of equality should also be the ones who then have to support the failures of said policies. I am just amazed that these people haven’t interjected themselves into the animal kingdom by now. How could we possibly let a lion chase down and eat a deer? Can’t we get all animals to be the same? Can’t ants live in harmony with ant eaters? Why haven’t we abandoned this “survival of the fittest” mentality and moved to a higher plane? Why can’t every living thing be a Vegan?
No wonder the US is becoming the laughing stock of the world. While we hand hold, other countries are busting their asses to compete and surpass us. We are the YouTube equivalent of all those videos titled “Early Celebration Fail” where the winner stops competing, throws their hands in the air and starts celebrating causing them to face plant while everyone else passes them up and crosses the finish line ahead of them.
> Can’t ants live in harmony with ant eaters? Why haven’t we abandoned this “survival of the fittest” mentality and moved to a higher plane? Why can’t every living thing be a Vegan?
I dunno?
Why can’t the government guarantee everyone the right to a heart transplant?
But only if you are a congressperson…
Hillary is the most extraordinery leader ever! nobody matches her hard work and intelligence!Please HILLARY 2012!
> Please HILLARY 2012!
Did Rush Limbaugh put you up to this?
she is a liar just like her Hubby “I did not have sex with that woman”
> In 1999 speaking to the National Education Association you said, “First and foremost, we have to expect every single child to succeed and we have to hold every one of them to high academic standards. There should be no exceptions, no excuses, to our solemn commitment that every child learn; every child deserves to be challenged, to have their imagination sparked. That is not just the task in our schools; it has to start in our homes with parents and family members who value education.”
Joe:
She didn’t mean it.
She sent her kid to private school.
And then to an elite private university.
As far as Hilary is concerned, “public education” is just some government department somewhere that takes care of the public’s bratty kids, and has unions that make beaucoup political contributions to politicians who make speeches stitched together out of vague, hopeful generalities.
DiSalvo would support camps for all pregnant moms, supervised living, and conditioning. Should they wear symbols on their clothes as well, you beard Maoist?
Mr. Lenin:
Lay off DiSalvo!
Where else can you get a life long progressive on your doorstep every week telling you how everything he worked for over the last thirty years resulted in “a public school system in chaos and shambles”.
I love public confessionals. The more blubbery and self-blaming, the better.
There is an interesting video here about the costs of college. The same can be said for government schools.
http://inflation.us/videos.html
Our education system needs to be reformed; it needs more funds too. As a parent, I always try to motivate my daughter doing her studies. However, with motivation knowledge and skills are also required to do well. Our present education system does not always provide the challenges that (India and china provide to their students) can bring out the best from a student. Every American student has the capability to complete their school and hold postsecondary degrees. Our students are extremely good, smart and competent. If they get proper guidance then they can rock the world. They can do better; accelerate innovation by having more challenging Math curriculum to match the exceptional level of intelligence; we need a math program that will increase the expectation of what our young generation can achieve. Students can opt for tutorteddy math curriculum. I have bought it for my daughter; she is in 8th grade. The curriculum is extremely good.
I have the utmost respect for my esteemed board colleague and current board president Joseph DiSalvo. With that said, I am a little confused by this article, in particular this line, ‘I urge you to consider the fact that ultimately the Charter School choice movement is not good for America’s democracy’.
Parents having the choice to send their children to the public school of their, traditional or charter, is not a threat to America’s democracy. Charter schools are not the problem, but instead a part of the solution. The real threat to America’s democracy are the the legions of undereducated students we continue to produce and the school systems that continue to underserve them. The other ‘clear and present danger’ to America’s democracy are the legions of apologists for the status quo. We’ve seen and heard them at our school board meetings and they are more concerned about adult interests than being concerned about student interests. These are the real threats to America’s democracy as relates to public education.
In Santa Clara County, the preponderance of students trapped in low-performing schools are in the schools of the San Jose Unified SD. After this, the balance are in the Alum Rock SD and Franklin-McKinley SD. We need to tell it like is and more importantly DO something about it.
The ‘fierce urgency of now’ requires courageous, clear-thinking people and a laser-focus on doing what is best for students – not bowing to the adult interests that benefit from maintaining the status quo.
Sincerely,
Craig Mann
Member, Santa Clara County Board of Education
> The other ‘clear and present danger’ to America’s democracy are the legions of apologists for the status quo. We’ve seen and heard them at our school board meetings and they are more concerned about adult interests than being concerned about student interests. These are the real threats to America’s democracy as relates to public education.
Good grief!
EVERYONE’S dissing the status quo.
Even the Status Quo is dissing the status quo.
It seems that almost the entire Santa Clara County Office of Education Board is shocked —SHOCKED—that things are so awful.
Correction: added missing word ‘CHOICE’ (see in caps below) to the 1st sentence of the 2nd paragraph in my initial post on this topic.
‘Parents having the choice to send their children to the public school of their CHOICE, traditional or charter, is not a threat to America’s democracy’.
Sincerely,
Craig Mann
Member, Santa Clara County Board of Education
Mr. DiSalvo.
When Pres. Clinton came to office the education slogan was “IT takes A VILLAGE” It has now Evolved into : “THE SYSTEM or ELSE” .Mrs. Clinton may have been misplaced as ’ Secretary of State’. Her role in education might be revolutionary . . The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) may be on the warmer waiting if Obama gets reelected ? There will be no escaping from testing standards , we might change ESEA and still have to deal with California ‘s AYP requirements. Teaching has changed since the 1990’s , and way beck when Mrs. Clinton made her speech it was a vary different world .
Joseph,
You write: “All schools for America’s children must have a balanced curriculum, including history, science, world languages, the visual and performing arts with a talented faculty. America’s children are suffering more today with the precipitous decline in public funding for education than anytime in my public school career.”
I appreciate your request for readers to “chat” here on your ‘blog, so I’m going to ask you for some details about what you call “the precipitous decline in public funding for education.”
I’m going to draw a conclusion from your words that you believe an increase in “public funding for education” would result in more study of “history, science, world languages, the visual and performing arts with a talented faculty.”
And to increase study of those subjects, our schools either would have to reduce the amount of class time spent on English Language Arts and Mathematics OR our schools would have to lengthen the class day to add more study of “history, science, world languages, the visual and performing arts with a talented faculty.”
Which of the two paths do you advocate? Same number of classroom hours per week with the extra subjects supplanting existing curricula or larger number of classroom hours per week with the extra hours going to the subjects you mention?
And, though the County Board has little direct authority to implement local District curriculum decisions, each local Board of Trustees does have authority. Is this really just about money or is it more about backbone to make difficult curriculum decisions and difficult contract decisions and difficult spending decisions? Your answer to the previous paragraph’s questions can drive local discussions, regardless of funding streams.
Also, not everything is about “funding.”
While some teachers live in the neighborhoods they serve, most teachers and administrators commute significant distances to and from their school/work sites. Why does this matter? Exhaustion sets in at end of day when family-rearing educators worry about fighting traffic to get “home” to care for their households. And, when one spends one’s weekends, evenings and breaks in a different community than the community in which one teaches, it’s easier to detach from neighborhood challenges.
Perhaps the County Board can encourage local school districts to develop incentives for educators to live near their school sites. Yes, many teachers may prefer end-of-day anonymity, but how would it impact a community to have a majority of its educators involved as neighbors? Pedagogical theory, funding discussions and community activism might become more relevant to neighborhood chat.
The “where one lives” issue is just one topic to underscore that this isn’t all about money. We need to address leadership and detachment and civic involvement. Society’s leaders have projected today’s demographic challenges for decades. Now the numbers are here. If our educators aren’t living in the communities they serve, others will have to take the lead to reach out to local businesses, churches and neighborhood groups to ask them to support heightened expectations. Who will step up to respond to this challenge of the “fierce urgency of now”?
– Chris Stampolis
Trustee, West Valley/Mission Community College District
My good friend Chris Stampolis brings up several good points, but the ‘where one lives’ point is spot on. My wife is a 30+ year educator. She began as a classroom teacher, became a school counselor, then vice-principal and now principal. In all of these years, she has lived in her school community. We currently live exactly 2.2 miles from her school. This is ever so critical in that she (we are) is part of the school community that she is the instructional leader of. We see her (our) families everday, from the pizza parlor to the dry cleaners to the supermarket. By living in the school community where one works, you have real ‘skin in the game’. Additionally, our children were a part of the same community.
So, if economically possible, I agree, our educators should live in or live as close as possible to the school community they work in. Being a part of the village means so much to our students, their families. When it is your village too as educator, the outcomes are even more personal.
Craig Mann
Member, Santa Clara County Board of Education