English teachers, rejoice! The Oxford Comma is still with us!

Yesterday, there was a bit of a kerfuffle over the apparent decision by the University of Oxford to eliminate the Oxford comma (the one used at the end of a series) for good. Relax, keepers of the Queen's English. It's still part of their official style guide. Why is the Oxford comma so important? Here's an explanation from NPR's Monkey See blog, where a bachelorette is making a tough choice:

Without the serial comma, she might say: "The best available men are the two tall guys, George and Pete." There, you really don't know whether George and Pete are the tall guys, or whether there are two tall guys in addition to George and Pete. You literally don't know how many men you're talking about, and while that level of confusion as to elementary facts seems like something that might actuallyhappen on The Bachelorette, it is unfortunate in other settings. If, on the other hand, you use the serial comma, then you would write that sentence only if you meant that George and Pete were the tall guys, and if you didn't, you'd say, "I met two tall guys, George, and Pete."

Today in Irony: NBC's Chris Hansen

According to the National Enquirer (hey, they were right about John Edwards), To Catch A Predator's Chris Hansen got caught cheating on his wife - on camera, no less. No word if Hansen was just "trying to talk her out of making a bad decision," or if wine coolers were involved.

Next year's Pixar flick: Brave

Took the kids to see Cars 2 today. Not the best Pixar movie ever (I'm torn between Ratatouille and TS3), but it's filled with luscious landscapes, incredible attention to detail, and enough Larry the Cable Guy to last the rest of my life. We saw plenty of trailers beforehand, including The Smurfs (oy), another Alvin and the Chipmunks (why?), and The Muppets (hooray!).

What we didn't get to see, however, was the trailer for next year's Pixar film, Brave, the first to feature a female protagonist. Here it is.

New Wilco, September 27!

The Whole Love drops in less than three months, Wilco's first CD on their own label. Listen to a taste of what's to come below.

Wilco - I Might by weallwantsome1

Springsteen's Eulogy for The Big Man

There couldn't have been a dry eye in the house for this. What a loss. What a friendship.

Why U.S. Teachers Work the Most But U.S. Students Stay Average - Business - The Atlantic Wire

Teachers work ONLY nine months a year?!? Not! Here are the numbers to prove it.

Good news: My first book blurb!

Goofy news: Bedford/St. Martin's goofed up my location. I will be letting them know about this.

Clarence Clemons suffers stroke

Prayers for the Big Man.

RIP: Jim Northrup

Detroit Tiger Jim Northrup has died at age 71. Somewhere in my archives, there's an autographed 8 x 10 of the 1968 World Series hero. A class act.

Thanks, Mainstream Media!

Lessee. . . unrest in Syria, Yemen, and Libya; five U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, the most in one attack in two years; the most powerful nation's debt is perilously close to its ceiling, yet what are we seeing in the headlines?

Palin's Revolutionary War history ineptitude, and Weiner's, well, you know. One headline on MSNBC.com reads "Why do guys take crotch shots, anyway?" Not exactly Pulitzer material.

There's no such thing as a free lunch, or a school miracle

Thank you, Diane Ravitch, for pointing out one obvious problem about measuring a school's (or teacher's) performance based on test scores and graduation rates: you can always manipulate the data. About a Colorado school praised by President Obama in his State of the Union address, Ravitch notes:

True, Randolph (originally a middle school, to which a high school was added) had a high graduation rate, but its ACT scores were far below the state average, indicating that students are not well prepared for college. In its middle school, only 21 percent were proficient or advanced in math, placing Randolph in the fifth percentile in the state (meaning that 95 percent of schools performed better). Only 10 percent met the state science standards. In writing and reading, the school was in the first percentile.

So, where should we start our educational reform (besides following the Finnish model)? Simple. In our homes:

Families are children’s most important educators. Our society must invest in parental education, prenatal care and preschool. Of course, schools must improve; every one should have a stable, experienced staff, adequate resources and a balanced curriculum including the arts, foreign languages, history and science.

If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our educational problems would be solved. And that would be a miracle.

If you are the LEAST bit interested in the future of America's schools, read Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Buy a few copies for your school board. Assign it to them as summer reading.

What's working in Education: Longer classes and the Flexible Finns

The difference between a traditional
and block schedule at the Calhoun School.

While politicians who've never taught one day are determining the future of your children's education (I'm talking to you, Arne Duncan), there are some educators quietly going about the business of true reform.

In NYC, students at the private Calhoun School take classes in a block schedule. One class meets for over two hours, allowing students and teachers to cover material in greater depth:

Instead of the traditional schedule of eight 45-minute classes each day, with courses broken into two semesters, high school students at Calhoun intensively study three to five subjects in each of five terms, or modules, that are 32 to 36 days long. Classes are in blocks of 65 or 130 minutes each day. Every day, students have 45 minutes of “community time,” an intentionally unstructured period for the students to hang out.

Block schedules aren't perfect, as anyone who's taught in one can tell you. Absences - student or teacher - make catching up on missed assignments difficult, and there's also the problem of taking a boring, 50-minute class and making it less so in 130 minutes.

If we really want to reform schools, we need to look at the Finns. Finland's top priority is getting the absolute best candidates into college education programs. National testing is a thing of the past. So is mandatory college-prep after age 16 (students may transfer to an academic or vocational school then). 

In this interview on HuffPo, Finland's educational leaders are asked what makes the best public school system. Their answer:

The education system must be equitable, accessible, and flexible. Global competitiveness requires that all people develop competencies for life and work, not just some people. This means that a successful education system should help young people to discover their talents and build their lives based on them. Reading, mathematical, and scientific literacy will remain important, but their role as 'core subjects' in competitive education systems will be challenged by creativity, networking skills, and imagination.

An equitable education system makes sure that all students will perform well. It will provide early support to those who need more help in their learning than others. It will also emphasize caring and well-being in school (through healthy nutrition, medical, dental and psychological health), rights of students in school, and shared responsibilities in education and upbringing of children with parents.

Accessibility means that the education system provides good schooling for all, regardless of where people live or what they do. The education system that can offer unified and comprehensive basic education, rather than diversified provision of schooling (through private or non-public schools), will have better opportunities to respond to the changing needs of the competitive and complex world.

Yeah, that sounds about right. 

BEWARE! Education RANT ahead!

Ah, June. A time when students' thoughts turn to getting out of school for three months, and teachers contemplate how they'll recuperate. A time when certain high school staffers finally discover that some seniors have been blowing off required classes for the past twelve weeks and might not graduate. These staffers then ask the students' teachers the mind-blowing question, "Is there anything we can do to get _________ to pass?"