MJ’s death has back-burnered the brave people of Iran. I think the media is comfortable with that. It helps them avoid scrutinizing Obama’s actions and inactions. It helps them to avoid talking about an unfamiliar topic. It makes them feel good about the idol from the days of their adolescence…

If you can’t beat ‘em, then join ‘em.

This is a pretty interesting montage of photos from Iran set to one of Jackson’s songs.

Plenty of great advice on freedom-theme blogging just came my way.

At the last minute, I got and accepted an invite to a Web2.0-for-freemarketers conference hosted by a group http://americansforprosperity.org/illinois

We had an absolutely wonderful and diverse group of people. One thing I noticed immediately was the large number of women in the group. I thought the political blogosphere was populated mostly by men. I was obviously wrong.

Close to half the room were women. Granted, most of them did not have a blog yet, but all wanted to start one. I am really looking forward to the viewpoint of the better half of our planet!

We had Joe the Plumber, fair and engaging as always.

Steve Moore from WSJ who originally hails from our own not-now-but-maybe-soon-great-state. His presentation about the state of our economy was eye-opening in the extreme. I hope to see his illustrations soon.

The workshops were great, but the best thing was the networking. We took enough time to go around the room to introduce ourselves. Let’s all thank our host Erik Telford from www.rightonline.com for giving us the space and time to meet each other.

It was a pleasure to meet the wonderful ladies and gentlemen active in education politics and policy.

More to come soon. I have yet to go through all the wonderful contacts that clicked today.

See you soon!

Thank you to every person who challenged or supported me. This is how the people skills are formed – by working with you. With your help I can contribute to our common welfare for years to come.

It’s a pleasure to have had Morton Grove Champion’s coverage during the election. With Pioneer Press going down, the newspaper might not stay around. John Ruberry at Marathon Pundit points out, declining ads from fewer dealerships will hurt them another extra bit.

I hope its tradition will go on. 

The municipal election was a tough fight. I hope the Caucus Party will stay around to keep the Action Party on its toes. There’s some talk about them quitting in disappointment. It can’t be true, can it?

The details of the historic shift in power are here: Action Party controlling power again

Blogivists was down for many weeks. It finally came up on May 15th with a short note http://blogivists.com/2009/05/15/server-problems/

I’m up again!

From reading my earlier posts you might notice I’m NOT a fan of ISAT (Illinois School Assessment Test). ISAT is seriously deficient in two areas. 

1) It is designed to be nice to the Chicago Public School system.  Thus, the test is pretty easy and many suburban schools handily meet its requirements, especially if they are not a destination for English Language Learners.

This encourages parents to think highly of their schools and compare this relative measurements among neighboring districts. The real problem is that the system diverts their focus away from the absolute decline of achievements of their children and their schools.

2) The results are disseminated to the parents in fuzzy relative terms. Thus parents learn that children in their school exceed (or meet or fail to meet)  ”the proficiency level on the ISAT”. It does not report the school’s actual average ISAT score for the tested grades. Please note that the high school report cards do report bluntly the actual average ACT scores for each school.

Another secret of the ISAT is that the “proficiency level” on the Math portion has been drastically lowered in 2006. It used to be that a 66% score on the Math portion was “meeting proficiency”. Now a 33% score “meets proficiency”. The administrators, teachers and students in Chicago Public School can take a breather. My personal opinion is that otherwise the whole CPS system would fail under NCLB and be forced into handing out vouchers for kids to go to Catholic and charter schools! Meanwhile the suburban schools glide along.

Finally, check out this study on the ISAT:

http://peoria.k12.il.us/msmith/isu_cohort/soc465/reading_packet/07%20-%20Rau%2C%20et.%20al%2C%20Dark%20Engine%20of%20Illinois%20Education.pdf

It was written in 2001, thus just before NCLB. It does a good job of predicting the negative effects of this super-important test in which our Illinois govt can change the rules anytime.

What is my idea for this? In short, it is to redo or restart the Illinois test so that it matches the standards of NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress). That would certainly be tangibly embarrassing to most of our schools in the first several years. I believe it’s worth the embarrassment for the long-term success of our kids.

Why do people keep wondering why “the kids today” can do less than the kids of 30 years ago?

No, they are not locked out of bathrooms or denied lunch. If a school did such a horrible thing, we would rightfully tear down its walls. This one is a sneaker – we think the school is doing a good job, but it’s really putting up a veneer of competence.

How much more transparent can it get?

U of C study says ISATs set 8th-grade math bar too low 

http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/1251850,school-report-cards-univerity-chicago-103108.article

The study is great, by the way: 

http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/content/publications.php?pub_id=126

It’s written well and easy to understand. Basically the point is that middle-school ISAT is a “low-skill” test where it’s easy to drill for it. High school classes and ACT are “high-skill” tests that you cannot drill for. The student must study well in class and at home to gain complex learning and thinking skills.

Surprisingly enough, the Chicago Public School system is going all out on drilling. Maybe it is not surprising at all. The scores are flat.

I’m grateful to live in a great suburban school district. The ISAT scores “exceed expectations” by far. What does it really mean? How important are those scores anyway?

Note to all: The best way to meet your extended neighbors is to run for your local school board.

When someone opens his/her front door at 10am, what can you best say other than “Hi, I am your neighbor and I am running for our school board”?

What happens then it up to you and your new conversation partner. This is one of the world’s most wonderful opportunities to connect with people who value your neighborhood just like you do. It’s worth missing the TV and the shopping and the errands. We have many reasons for loving where we live, and stepping into your neighbors shoes for a minute is half the fun.

The other half is getting their votes and support.  www.learnthinkdo.com

Just found this book from 1964:

“The School Board Crisis” a Chicago case study. By Joseph Pois.

It seems like a relic from another day and age. However … things are not as simple as they seem. A younger nephew of my friend said once, when we were discussing Joseph Stalin of the USSR – “It’s all been so long ago, why are we bothering with this?

What can I say? It’s not easy going against the highschool and even collegiate cultural brainwashing that postulates history is best left for the old men to study when they retire.

Back to the book. This story of Chicago Board of Ed from 1944 to 1950 reads like it was penned yesterday. President of the Board was abrogating powers from the Superintendent. Superintendent published his textbook and convinced the board to approve its purchase for the whole district. Board members were hiring “family and friends” and infighting like there’s no tomorrow.

It’s written by a retired businessman, written to enjoy reading, and makes perfect sense in the world of today.

Cheers, y’all

Borrow or rent on Netflix, Blockbuster or in your library!

Recently I found a member of the Niles Township Young Republicans. There’s no such group in the township anymore. He was one of 40 members at the time. They are now all over the official crossover age of 40. The organization is dead.

I asked ‘What did you do back then?’ ‘We spent most time fighting’… ‘Fighting who?’ ‘Fighting amongst ourselves!’ Well, that says it all. Maybe the GOP even then felt so powerless that they enjoyed infighting more than doing anything useful. Even though GOP claims that it was a real force back then.

The lifeless Old Boys who serve as Republican senior status symbols need to go. They so far seem to be more interested in ‘peaceful cooperation’ with the Democratic Chicago machine. It’s so bad that Illinois Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan called them out as ‘Blagojevich enablers’. Madigan is a pretty straight guy, fighting Blagojevich every step of the way – holding the line so his daughter Lisa can run for governorship in 2010 with clean slate.

House Speaker Madigan calls out Blagojevich enablers McKenna and Cross. http://www.championnews.net/article.php?sid=1482

Merry Christmas!