Nationals: Honor Nurses, Teachers Same as Military

During the third inning of each Washington Nationals home game, team public address announcers pause the loud music and crowd promotions to honor United States military personnel. In what has become a park tradition, the crowd stands and applauds the two dozen or more past and present service members, who are displayed onto the big video board in the outfield. "Proud to be an American" or "American Soldier" plays over the speakers. The service members are usually standing in the sections behind home plate, near the Lexus Presidents Club. This is not unique to the Nationals. Other sports clubs honor military veterans and active service members before, during and after games.

The team has a substantial "Military Initiative" comprised of the seats they give away for each game, a specific Military Appreciation Night, Walter Reed visits, a partnership with USO, a wounded warrior amputee softball team and more. The team also has the DC Public High School Baseball Initiative, Youth Baseball and Softball Clinics, MLB Initiatives and the NatMobile for general outreach. (Some of those web pages are out of date, although I'm pretty sure they are all still happening.)

May 16th is Military Appreciation Night at Nationals Park. The lineup is quite impressive.

But, what if the Nationals honored nurses, or emergency personnel, or teachers the same way? I'm not saying get rid of the military initiative or stop playing "American Soldier" during the 3rd inning. But, we can find time to honor some other very important and critical professionals. This is certainly possible. I would say, imperative.

Where would we be without teachers? I think teachers are undervalued when thimes are good and over targeted when times aren't so good. They play what very well may be one of the most influential roles in American society. Whether you attend public or private schools, you interact with teachers daily for at least 12 of your most formative years. Home school students interact with teachers, too: their parents, relatives, neighbors and other members of the community. 

People keep telling me that there is a shortage of nurses in the U.S. I don't know if that's true. But, I do know that nurses keep the health care system running on the ground. They administer in-person care and execute the day-to-day care of patients morning, noon and night. Before you see the doctor, you see the nurse. While you're seeing the doctor, you see the nurse. After your doctor has diagnosed you and moved on to the next patient, you see the nurse. I hope we aren't facing a shortage.

Firefighters, emergency medical technicians and first responders do the early dirty work of human repair and recovery. Victims of fire, crime or accidents may never see the emergency responders who come to their aid because they're often in shock, have endured trauma or are whisked away from a scene during the chaos. Fighting fires, working as an EMT and maintaining certified status of a first responder are mostly thankless jobs. Sometimes you are in the spotlight after a catastrophe or notable act of bravery, but honestly, most of the day-to-day work goes unnoticed by the masses.

What do you think Nationals? Would you be up for having a teacher throw out the first pitch this summer? Invite educators from all over the Washington metro area to sit in the home plate seats for a night? Host nurses from Washington Hospital Center to a standing ovation between innings? Or let DCFD firefighters sing the national anthem and God Bless America during a game? Think about it. Show some good will and imagination. Keep the military initiative. And recognize that there are deserving others, too. Right here in DC.

Sorry Bancroft, 44 Chooses Sidwell

We never had much hope anyway. The next first family will send the two young ones to Sidwell Friends, the elite private school of Tenleytown and Bethesda. The debate over public vs private schools wasn't really a debate. Just a competition of sorts among the region's best known private schools. In the end Georgetown Day and Sidwell Friends were named the top two and for various reasons Friends won out.

Here in Mount Pleasant, that's old hat. We had our own Presidential daughter to brag about back in 2005, when Jenna Bush taught for a year at Elsie Stokes Charter School. So, I guess that pretty much took our very own Bancroft Elementary (pictured left) out of the running.

As for Sidwell, seems like a fine choice. Let me note that the middle and upper schools are located on an amazing campus on Wisconsin Ave. The middle school is housed in a ridiculous state of the art LEED certified structure. Its the only LEED Platinum school in the world. Yes, the world. I took a tour of the place two months ago and was blown away. During peak hours, the building produces enough energy to put electricity back onto the grid. Just amazing. They spared no expense renovating the old building while creating a world class unique learning and working environment for the students. The Obama family surely took this into consideration. They are also taking into consideration the staggering $58,000 combined annual tuition for both daughters. That's a big hit in the wallet, but somehow I doubt they'll be cutting back on Christmas gifts or anything else to compensate.

And yes, its a slow news day.

Phelps Raising the Bar for DC Education

Recently, I had the distinct pleasure of touring the District's newest and most unique high school, Phelps Architecture, Construction and Engineering Career High School. Think of it as vocational technology 2.0. Its more than that though. During the year in which DC has taken some very public criticism (88% can't read, presidential debaters mentioned the troubled system) Phelps has opened and demonstrates all that is going right for the District of Columbia Public Schools.

The school is a traditional high school in the sense that students still compete a core curriculum with English, of course, mathematics, art, music and all the other requirements of graduating DCPS. However, during their sophomore year, students begin tailoring the remainder of their high school career into one of three tracks; architecture, construction or engineering. The learning spaces and resources are unbelievable. A construction equipment simulation room (cost = $80,000+) gives students a chance to work the controls of actual vehicles and observe physical forces at work. Everything is geared towards teachable moments: water, electrical and data wires and piping were intentionally left exposed, color coded and are used to make the building a teaching tool, the courtyard is surrounded by brick walls with patterns that will be taught in class, and the walls and flooring in hallways are tiled with patterns and materials straight from the textbooks.

The Phelps building is in the Langdon Park, a part of Kingman Park in Northeast. The address is 704 26th Street NE, about two blocks from Springarn High and less than a mile from Eastern High School. This year there are only freshman attending the school, but the principal and DCPS are looking forward to fully populating the school over the next three years. They have a wish list of items related to the building arts such as magazines, journals and other trade publications. Contact the school if you'd like to help them out. I was very impressed with the facilities and program; a move in the right direction for DC schools.

88% of DC's Eighth Graders Can't Read?

That was the crawl across my screen as I browsed the CNN website last night looking for some actual news. I wasn't aware of any studies or recent test results that used that figure. Moreover, school has just begun here and it seemed like an awfully negative statistic to be throwing around if the information was dated. But it turned out to be a slightly twisted headline. CNN "ripped the headline" from an interview with Michele Rhee. The interview was focused on the major reforms to the District of Columbia Public Schools the chancellor is in the process of making. So far I support all her work to consolidate schools and labor as well as add accountability and attract and keep quality teachers and staff.

The Rhee quote is actually "...for our eighth graders, only 12% of them are proficient in reading according to the NAEP exam." NAEP is the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In my opinion, that is a troubling statement, but I'd never summarize it with a sentence (or headline) stating that 88% of DC eighth graders can't read. But I know headlines create traffic.

Education Week recently produced a fairly balanced view of Chancellor Rhee's first year in the position with reaction from teachers, education experts and others. Its a lengthy article, but good. Here's the CNN interview:

DC Schools are Good! DC Schools are Bad!

Full Disclosure: I believe No Child Left Behind and its provisions are nonsensical and destructive to progressive educational trends in this country and the District of Columbia. The Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and Highly Qualified Teacher requirements are the bane of most teachers' existence and baffle real educators all over the country. NCLB was passed by the 107th Congress (a banner session for destructive federal legislation; PATRIOT Act, Homeland Security Act, Use of Force in Against Iraq etc.) and has continued to actually leave students and teachers behind. Its executed by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.

Just a quick aside here: Secretary Spellings doesn't have an education degree, she majored in political science. She doesn't have a teaching certificate (but she substitute taught once in Texas!). She has never been an administrator at a school or sat on a school board. Her children attend parochial schools (as in not public). However, she administers a program that measures highly qualified teachers in America's public schools. Qualified teachers. She's never been a teacher. Ok. Watch Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) school the Secretary on her credentials. Aside over.

Ok, on to the original post topic. From the Washington Post on Saturday, "Modest Gains in D.C. Schools" and in the Washington Examiner Weekend Edition, "Two-Thirds of D.C. Public Schools Fail." Theses two papers took the same information and came up with two totally different stories and (mis)leading headlines. Not so strange, it happens all the time and I love comparing the Post, the Washington Times and the Examiner. There's a civics lesson on media bias almost every day with these three.

The Post story focuses on some of the statistics dealing with the number of schools that rated well on the D.C. imposed standards as well as the AYP standards of NCLB. The article conducted a comparative analysis with last years numbers that showed some gains for DC schools on the macro level. For the record, neighborhood schools Bancroft, Capital City and Elsie Stokes each made AYP in reading but not math, and both Bell Multicultural and Lincoln failed to meet AYP in either math or reading.

The Examiner article focuses on the release of the data (just before the start of school). NCLB allows for parents to move their children to other local schools if their school isn't keeping up with federal standards. Apparently some parents wanted the numbers earlier to evaluate potential relocation.

Oh yes, on a related note, there is an election tomorrow, yes, TOMORROW for the school board. Jeff Smith resigned earlier this year and left a void for School District One, which is comprised of political Wards 1 and 2. Vote at your usual local polling station.