MEandering - Old Stuff

Dear Mr. Steinhauser

nospam@example.com (Annie Gabston-Howell) — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 21:45:00 -0600

October 23, 2005

LBUSD motto: Working Together to Raise Standards in Dress, Behavior and Achievement

I really wish they'd change it to something like: Working Together to Improve Education

Dear Mr. Steinhauser

The
Gabston-Howells first noticed Long Beach Unified School District a few
years back when Dr. Carl Cohn was running the show. Our first
experience with Jackie Robinson was unpleasant (daughter #2 landed in
an overflow classroom with no learning taking place and was waiting to
be transferred to some other school) but, once we got through to Carl
Cohn, the problems went away. He listened to what we had to say,
then solved the problem for us immediately.

Because
he did not hesitate to step in and take immediate, effective action, we
didn't notice exactly how bad things were. Our child was assigned
to our school of choice and to teachers who, while not perfect, were
good for her. The children parked in the overflow classroom were
not our concern. Because Dr. Cohn had cared about our child, our unconscious conclusion was that he cared about all children. We didn't
need to worry since LBUSD cared.

Frankly,
we were snowed. Then, as now, overflow classrooms warehoused
children instead of educating them. Then, as now, education in the
classroom took second place to test preparation. Then, as now, the
district put raising standards of dress, behavior and achievement ahead
of raising the standard of education.

It
was only with Dr. Cohn's very effective support that Long Beach Unified
School District's very unscientific 'research' on the impact of forcing
children to wear uniforms made it into the national awareness and
gained the support of a president. With Dr. Cohn's help, LBUSD
snowed a nation.

We were and
remain, very impressed with Dr. Carl Cohn. Even knowing what we know
now, we think he did the best with what he was given and he managed to
make it look as if he'd worked miracles. That kind of ability, had it
been given free rein, might have eventually reversed the hype to truth
ratio in the district.

Unfortunately, we'll never know if that's true. The very impressive Dr. Cohn went away and left you holding the bag.

You,
Mr. Steinhauser, are not nearly as impressive. Every small
problem we've had with the district has become larger when you got
involved. You simply don't have the people skills that Dr. Cohn
has.

That being true,
you can't get away with the stuff that he did. He was able to
muddle along, do a half-acceptable job and have everyone in the world
praise him for it. That won't work for you sir. You don't have
the personality for it. You need to actually accomplish something
if you're to be respected.

Below,
free of charge, are a few suggestions on how to step out of Carl Cohn's
shadow and be a real superintendent of schools.

First, you
need to stop blindly supporting the school uniform claims. You
simply don't have to charisma to make us willing to ignore the truth,
sir. Stop supporting LBUSD policy instead of the law. The
uniforms can't magically make children behave better, make them
smarter, or make them as gentle as little lambs. The respectable
research even goes so far as to say that time spent by teachers in
enforcement of the policy has a negative impact on student learning.

Following Dr. Cohn's lead in the school uniform debate
won't get you any recognition . Standing up and admitting the truth
might. Long Beach Unified was the first school district to claim
uniforms magically make the world a better place, it should be the
first to admit that the magic was done with smoke and mirrors.

The
next thing on the agenda should be: Start listening to parents and
teachers. Under Dr. Cohn, parents and teachers wouldn't be
complaining about bad principals. Not because the principals
would be better but because Carl Cohn would talk to the worst of the
complainers. He'd convince them that he cared. He'd convince the
principals to modify their behavior. The people who are most effective
at speaking up wouldn't feel the need to do so.

He
would never say, as you did, that the bad principals worked for him not
the parents and teachers. He'd never be stupid enough to tell
parents and teachers that they should step back and not complain
because he was satisfied with the principals in question. He was good
with people.

Since you're not
good with people and you did say that the principals work for you, not
the parents or teachers in the district, you need to do something about
improving their work. You need to switch the worst of them around
until they land somewhere that they don't cause as much harm. You need
to make decisions at you level, even when these decisions are in
opposition to what your principals think should be done. You need to be
effective, because you don't have the charisma to protect you when you
aren't.

Third, you need to
change the motto. It's a stupid motto. It only sounds
intelligent when someone with charisma is speaking. Like Dr.
Cohn. You're not Dr. Cohn and people notice when you claim that
the highest goal of a school district is to improve the standard of
dress.

Sincerely,

Annie Gabston-Howell

Sheephood 101

nospam@example.com (Annie Gabston-Howell) — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 21:38:00 -0600

Sheephood 101

September 08, 2005

Sometimes, I am amazed by the stuff that goes on simply
because we allow it to go on. The big
stuff is too scary to think about. The
president hires Michael Brown and people stand on a freeway overpass for days
because FEMA can't figure out how to help. Things on that level are just too much for me to think about
rationally. That kind of thing calls
forth the almost-mindless mental repetition of, "Not in America. This is not
happening in America." I catch myself
obsessing and go drop a dollar in a can or an envelope or I post a link to the
Red Cross and pray someone else will soothe their own gut reaction by giving a bit
more.

The stuff that is too big to deal with either gets in the
way of dealing with the small stuff or makes me more determined to control the
small things before they snowball into something big.

My husband and I have frequently spoken together about the
apparent willingness of the American public to accept any 'explanation' if it comes from
people in authority. He argues that, by
and large, we have become sheep. My
response argues that, although many people have become sheep, many others have
not. I argue that there are enough non-sheep running around to keep the wolves
at bay.

In less metaphoric terms, we both acknowledge that Americans
aren't the free and independent thinkers that we bill ourselves to
be. He and I usually agree to disagree. It's the type of
conversation that loving spouses have when they enjoy talking to each
other, but don't really have anything to say. He's the cynic and I'm
the one with hope for the future. Today, I'm officially
abandoning all hope. Americans are sheep, willing to allow any
violation of the
law so long as an authority figure tells us that the law hasn't been
broken.

Believe it or not, I'm not talking about the big, mind-bending,
heart-wrenching stuff touched on above. Given a while, I may be
able to put my thoughts about that into
some logical order, but I'm nowhere near the ability to do that yet.

Instead today's subject is, as usual, Long Beach Unified
School District. Although it concerns
the experiences of the older kids, it's much the same story, on the school
district's part, as almost all of our other LBUSD stories.

In a nutshell, a school district employee behaved in a
surprisingly incompetent manner and the district, instead of apologizing and
making it better, went out of it's way to compound the problem.

The longer version:
We made a mistake. We bought the
wrong color pants for our son. Not
intentionally, but we're used to seeing 'black or navy blue' and apparently
overlooked Millikan High's 'navy, khaki, or white'.

Mr. Fielder, a teacher, decided that our son needed to be
punished for his parent's incompetence. ( Or maybe he thought the
almost six-foot tall, stubble-sporting ninth-grader has a job and buys
his own clothing? )
He called him, and some other young teens, to the front of his class
and
used them as an example of what not to wear at Millikan.

He informed them that they wouldn't be sent to detention for
being out of uniform because detention hasn't opened for business yet. At some point, he shared the information
that children would lose points from their grade if they dare to arrive at
school without the proper clothing.

My son shared none of his feelings about the incident with
me. His account was delivered
matter-of-factly with no evidence of rancor towards the teacher (My
first, "We really are becoming sheep" moment. My
children have always been taught to be well behaved, but did we teach
him to be
so polite that he is willing to accept public humiliation as
acceptable? Didn't he know that, had he chosen
to--politely, no finger gestures or other tempting responses
allowed--decline to serve as an object lesson, he would have had our
full
support?).

I didn't hear the account with anything close to the lack of
rancor with which it was delivered. I
saw red. I attempted to call
Millikan. After dialing 425-7441 and
listening to the phone ring thirty-two times, I hung up and attempted to reach
Maggie Webster at the district's headquarters.

She, of course, wasn't available--administrators are never
directly available at LBUSD--but a person I presumed to be a secretary
answered the phone, heard my complaint, then offered to transfer me back to
Millikan.

I spoke to another secretarial-type who needed to know the
problem before I could speak to a principal.
She agreed that it wasn't nice of Mr. Fielder to make an example of my
son and was kind enough to explain that the problem wouldn't have occurred if
my son had simply worn the right color clothing. I explained to her (believe it or not, I calmly explained to her)
that it is generally not a good idea to explain to the parent of child who has
been abused, even mildly, that the abuse was the child's fault. She, probably wisely, decided to transfer me
to Mr. Guillermo Jimenez, a vice-principal.

She did not, prior to transferring the call, check that Mr. Jiminez would be available to take the call.
I got voice mail for a person other than Mr. Jimenez. I left a politely-worded but tonally furious
message, then hung up and called Maggie Webster again.

Not available, but the person who took the call was so
polite and reasonable that I almost felt guilty for responding to her offer to
help with an acceptance predicated on her "having more brains than God gave a
grain of rice, unlike everyone else I've spoken to this afternoon." I did volunteer my knowledge that the comment
was offensive and explained that it was directed toward the district, rather than
to her.

I explained what had occurred so far. She explained that I
needed to speak to
someone at Millikan before speaking to Maggie Webster. She even
offered to transfer my call and stay on
the line until I made direct contact with Guillermo Jiminez. I must
admit to a grin at this point. I admire people who deal well with
difficult members of the public. The admiration is there even
when I am the "difficult member of the public" they are dealing with.

After what seemed an inordinately long time on hold, the
connection was made with the elusive Mr. Jiminez. After hearing my story, he agreed that Mr. Fielder had--presuming
my son had told me the truth--not behaved properly. He would investigate.

I informed him that the terrible mistake of buying black
instead of navy blue would be corrected by this weekend and, by Monday, my son
would be dressed in the approved fashion.
I asked for assurances that my son would not be subjected to any
additional unpleasantness at school while waiting.

He informed me in a vague,
go-three-times-around-the-bush-before-beating-it way that, not only
could he not give me the requested assurances, my son couldn't go to
class unless he wore a properly colored uniform.

I asked him to speak in plain English. "Are you saying that my son
cannot go to
school unless he wears navy blue pants instead of the black ones that
will be
all he has until I can take him shopping this weekend?"

He beat the bush without mercy. He felt the need to explain about uniforms and a bunch of other
stuff. He heavily implied that he was,
indeed making that statement, but didn't actually express agreement.

I explained that I didn't need any complicated answer. I needed, I explained, to hear the word YES or the word NO.

This went on for several rounds before he finally managed to clearly state that my son is not allowed to return to school until he has a uniform in
the proper color.

Mr. Guillermo Jiminez suspended my child for wearing black
instead of navy blue. Apparently, the color of my son's pants are so disruptive
to the education of the other children that, if he is allowed to wear them at
school, everyone else's education will suffer.

Or, Mr. Jiminez is so mindlessly dedicated to following orders
that he is willing to ignore the laws stating that children can't be
punished academically or refused an education for failing to wear a
uniform.

Or, Mr. Jiminez is so lackadaisical about his job, that he
hasn't ever bothered to find out what the law has to say on the subject.

I expect LBUSD to hire people who don't bother thinking, who
operate according to what they're told instead of what is right or
just. That's all too common for me to bother writing about when it's only a
first incident at a new school. I'm so
used to this type of thing that, when an administrator at LBUSD tells
me that a
particular teacher is 'good' I automatically translate 'good' as
meaning 'sheep'.

So why is it worth writing about, then? In the conversation about our son's experiences today, my older
daughters expressed surprise. Not at
the teacher's behavior or the vice-principal's response, they expressed
surprise that we didn't know that this sort of thing is normal. They have or have had a number of teachers
who deducted grade points because a student wore the wrong clothing to school. The girls saw this as nothing worth
mentioning.

Since my children don't learn passivity at home, I must
assume that, right along with the reading and writing and 'rithmatic LBUSD is
teaching a course called Sheephood 101.

Links

Gabston-Howell.org
-- My husband isn't too thrilled by the latest LBUSD folly,
either. The link at left goes directly to the page with his
comments regarding today's dust-up. If you type the address
directly into a browser, follow the updates/life updates path to the
article mentioned.

School Uniforms: Prevention or Suppression? by Raymond F. Felch III

School Uniforms: An Empirical Analysis and Observational Study of the Implications in Public Schools. - The
first GOOD explanation that I've seen so far for why, with all the
actual research proving the opposite, schools keep claiming a massive
drop in negative behavior when students wear uniforms. Sixty-one page
.pdf with explanation on page twenty. This paper also makes the claim,
supported by solid research, that uniforms actually decrease reading
scores in tenth grade. Long Beach Unified School District's claim to
have 'proven' the benefits of uniforms is also addressed convincingly.

Liberty Quotes from SchoolUniforms-Not.org - The
first step to sheephood is a small one, easy to take, but difficult to
back away from. Once we teach our children to march in step with
the rest of the herd, can we truely expect them to stop this side of
the cliff's edge?

Text of SB 1269 -- School
Uniform Law This is posted on the by Long Beach Unified. Too bad
that teachers and vice principals don't read the district's website.

LBReport.com -- Surprisingly enough, the school employees at Millikan don't even read their own bad press from years back.

Millikan on the web
-- Millikan High is dedicated to meeting the diverse needs of all
students, so long as they don't set foot on campus while wearing black
pants.

ACLU -- When did defending the Bill of Rights become a bad thing?

National Archives -- Because, if we're going to live here, we should know a bit about our own history.

On Being Reasonable

nospam@example.com (Annie Gabston-Howell) — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 21:50:00 -0600

On Being
Reasonable

08-01-2005

I talked to Mr. Principal today. He
said that my husband and I have been unreasonable in our ongoing quest to have
his school educate our children.

He reminded me that sending a letter
to Mr. Steinhauser had only resulted in the buck being passed down to Ms.
Matthews who then passed it down to our pal the principal.

He seemed to have forgotten that
everything I talked about in the letter to Steinhauser (actually a copy of a
complaint letter to the state) had been mentioned to our pal first. I had paid
him the compliment of expecting him to listen to us and attempt to do the right
thing. Over and over, my husband and I told him about problems and asked him to
do something about them. Our pal never managed to listen well enough--even when
we put it in writing--to understand that we would really like it if our children
learned something during the hours they are required to attend his
school.

After several months, during which we
talked and he failed to listen, Mr. Principal sounded hurt when he accused me of
being unreasonable.

Reasonable behavior is sometimes
overrated. This is something I learned as a tot. It's something I've been
careful not to teach my children.

When I was growing up, for instance,
if I wanted candy, I'd ask for it nicely. Nine times out of ten some adult would
tell me that candy wasn't good for me and offer something healthy.

At this point I had a choice to make.
Be reasonable and take the banana, carrot, tomatoe, apple, etc..., or throw a
righteous fit.

Being reasonable would please the
adult and maybe make them believe I was a good little girl. They'd smile at me
and think really nice thoughts about me.

Being unreasonable would get me candy.

As I grew older, I learned to value
the nice thoughts more. Nowadays, I actually prefer it if people believe I'm a
nice person. As a rule, I think it's better to be nice than to get the
'candy.'

There are times, though, when the
'candy' is something I consider vital.

When the other name for 'candy' is
'FAPE' (free, adequate, public education) I remember what I learned as a child.

I start by asking nicely. There's
always the possibility, when I start out, that this is the one time of the ten
when asking nicely will get me what I need without hurting feelings, being
unpleasant or being Unreasonable.

I'm giving Mr. Principal one more shot
at it. Against my better judgement, I've agreed that my husband and I will meet
with our pal next week. I've even convinced my husband to pretend--during the
meeting, at least--that we've forgotten all the mis-statements and untruths from
our pal that got us here.

I'm being reasonable because being
reasonable works sometimes but I haven't forgotten that throwing a righteous
fit gets candy more often than not.

George Bernard
Shaw The reasonable man adapts himself to the
world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

MEandering - Old Stuff

Dear Mr. Steinhauser

Sheephood 101

Sheephood 101

Links

Gabston-Howell.org
-- My husband isn't too thrilled by the latest LBUSD folly,
either. The link at left goes directly to the page with his
comments regarding today's dust-up. If you type the address
directly into a browser, follow the updates/life updates path to the
article mentioned.

School Uniforms: Prevention or Suppression? by Raymond F. Felch III

On Being Reasonable

On Being
Reasonable

MEandering - Old Stuff

Dear Mr. Steinhauser

Sheephood 101

Sheephood 101

Links

Gabston-Howell.org -- My husband isn't too thrilled by the latest LBUSD folly, either. The link at left goes directly to the page with his comments regarding today's dust-up. If you type the address directly into a browser, follow the updates/life updates path to the article mentioned.

School Uniforms: Prevention or Suppression? by Raymond F. Felch III

On Being Reasonable

On Being Reasonable

Gabston-Howell.org
-- My husband isn't too thrilled by the latest LBUSD folly,
either. The link at left goes directly to the page with his
comments regarding today's dust-up. If you type the address
directly into a browser, follow the updates/life updates path to the
article mentioned.

On Being
Reasonable