Monthly Archives: August 2013

FRUSTRATION OVER INDUSTRY OF MEDIOCRITY

23 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by in EDUCATION MATTERS

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Locked in a cycle of self-induced frustration over the abysmal condition of public school education, I find myself returning again to the subject for another old fashion self “whippin.”  Pray, don’t let me get huffy about it!

In August, 2011, a Wallace piece appeared on the Times Dispatch Op Ed, Educational Mediocrity Hurts Blacks. Based on reporting by Jesse Washington, AP Correspondent, regarding black economic reversals suffered from the Great Recession, this column carried an education metric further. Bemoaning the weaknesses of inner-city classrooms, lack of quality education, with predictable grades, I cringed at the continued cultivation of a majestic jobs and economic divide. Students, who receive and achieve quality educations, will become adept – those who don’t – won’t.

Enter a newer, darker – even sinister – cloud to an already weakened educational scene. It appears new, but weaker prepared teachers, are contributing to negation of student achievements. Stunningly, the National Council on Teaching Quality addresses this head-on.

It is not our desire to ladle up drippings of pessimism on all current teacher-prep institutions; but something’s afoot. This troubling study grapples with a needed do-over for many U.S. Schools of Education. Critical intensity now invites academic communities to reference these Education Schools as an “industry of mediocrity.”

Kate Walsh, president, National Council on Teacher Quality, urges that aspiring teachers – and school districts that hire them – ensure accurate information about quality and due diligence. Tragically, the NCTO report astounds; it finds hard evidence new teacher performance is not only deficient; it’s a direct product of inferior training from schools of Education across the country.

Worse, secondary high school students can be victimized from mediocre teacher preparation, generating lower levels of academic accomplishment – especially in vulnerable urban areas. Poorly prepared teachers could be taking a toll on secondary student achievement -becoming  possible perpetrators in classroom failure.

Bumpily, landing in high school classrooms, new teachers often appear insecure, maybe unsure.  Lacking both accumulative subject expertise and professional classroom management skills, diminish them.  What is it with these well over “608 institutions that collectively account for 72% of the Education graduates in the nation?” Could this become an educational train wreck?

W.S.J.’s Stephanie Banchero reports that Education institutions “churn out teachers ill-prepared to work in elementary and high school classrooms” – an alarming discovery from the National Council on Teaching Quality’s review. The reporter sniffs that rigorous assessment of current curriculum is required – that selected teacher programs need scrutinizing. Meaningful evaluation of syllabi must be instituted. Textbooks, plus other teaching materials, should be up for careful review.

Strikingly, experienced master teachers echo that new teachers arrive unprepared.  Magically, they’re expected to challenge school culture, which accommodates degenerate behavior. Troubled systems, unwilling to confront weak home discipline, can present an insurmountable challenge for fresh teachers.

“What I really needed – what most teachers need – more hands-on experience working in classrooms during our college days,” Megan Stewart volunteered to the WSJ. Having completed a second teaching year in a low-income Chicago public school, Stewart implies her Education background did not help her – especially when she desired to devise student-testing data for customized solutions.

More troubling, the Teacher Quality report contends student applicants, seeking entrance are not up to the grade. Only 25% of the institutions really “restrict” admissions for applicants – from the top 50 per cent of their class. Yes, I write: top 50%.  Other doors are wide open for unrestricted general acceptance.

Contemplating teacher training three decades ago at age 45, I studied under Dr. Bruce Cobb, University of Richmond School of Education. It wasn’t long before tutorial requirements demanded real classroom presence – Henrico High School in Richmond. That county’s educational leaders, Drs. William E. Ware, Jr. and Carol Cloninger, insisted on that. Explicit, cutting-edge teacher training was rigorous in that urban, minority high school environment – no pabulum there.

Former colleague, Dr. Catherine Fisher, now Program Chair, Graduate Education, University of Richmond, recently shared, “we have been fortunate to have strong student candidates (here) who have gone on to be named school teacher of the year…we are a small shop and are able to have tremendous personal interaction with every candidate.”

The report concludes:  “just over one-third of high-school programs properly prepare teachers to teach the Common Core standard”….about 75% are not preparing graduates to teach reading to youngsters.

When will something positive development from these institutions?  Maybe my question deserves  another self-whippin.

 

Raymond B. Wallace, Jr. a former CEO, former trustee of Virginia Retirement System, and retired Advancement U.S History teacher in Richmond, can be reached at: rbwallace01@verizon.net.

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DEBT-DENIALISTS BRING MIDDLE CLASS WOES

18 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by in ECONOMIC CHALLENGES

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Virginia Beach –

Ocean waves break naturally on the beach at 78th Street. Temperatures are moderate – so far…one can walk in sand without the fear of burn.

A grotesque, sad drowning of a 14 year old boy happened in front of us last Saturday; it remains seared in tragic memory. Restaurants are moderately busy; waiting lines, if existent, are short – and convenient. Vacationer numbers seem down. “A slow season”, murmured a restaurateur to me, in passing…and so it is.

“Scary Economics, 2013”, published in The Farmville Herald, and Jefferson Policy Review, brought reactions hardly benign. Enjoined by a commonality of disgust, depression, and hunkering down for economic survival, readers grappled: “In 2008, I was doing the best I’ve ever done – now I am barely hanging on. We now have one half the employees, and our contribution for health benefits has increase $140.00 a month.”

John Moss wrote, “All the happy talk is not supported by the fundamentals. The middle class has little discretionary income; job growth and job quality are both flat. The chattering heads are trying to talk us into recovery – cheer leading is not the solution.” But, in addressing the true challenge, a slow walking bedevils, yet it may keep a story-line down.

A beleaguered middle class’ thirst for economic hope remains unquenched. For many, it diminishes one’s faith in government, negating even rudimentary confidence in Washington to face stark economic realities. Most economists agree the U.S. economy cannot successfully elevate without a growth of 3 to 3.5 per cent minimum. Currently we’re hanging around 1.8 – 2 %. Now, the Second Quarter, 2013, just reported a 1.7 growth. “Taint funny, McGhee”, said Molly, admonishing Fibber in the old radio days.

Take the housing market. Retails sales and housing starts marked low points in releases of recent weeks. Failing to meet projections for June by growing only 0.4% – less than May’s (downwardly revised) rate of 0.5%, the forecast of 0.8% may be a stretch. Weaknesses appear in building material and garden supply sales (-2.2%).

Housing starts hit its lowest point in a year. Median estimates called for at least 160,000 more units than were booked, with building permits dropping 7.5%. Worse, construction for single-

family homes declined 0.8%. Hope is consumer sentiment might change – from 83.9% this past June, to 84 in July. Tell that to a damaged middle class, who has the daily bitter draught to drink.

Then there’s growth of a “debt-denial” industry.

From middle class agony – to national debt realities, the circumstances seem jaw-dropping. At first, there was encouragement in the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) revised numbers – the national debt looked less menacing than earlier feared. But a closer examination of America’s debt shows a much different – and alarming – reality.

In mid-May, the CBO said the federal deficit in fiscal 2013, which ends in September, would be 642 billion – down from the one trillion-plus of the previous four years. Generously, the President recently assured, “for the next 10 years it’s going to be in a sustainable place.” Not so fast, says Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow, at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

The money that the federal government owes to domestic and foreign investors – is almost 90 percent higher than at the onset of the financial crisis in 2008. Public debt is now 75 percent of GDP, the highest level since 1950 – and that excludes debt the government owes to Social Security, and other accounts. Good luck with that.

The CBO projects the public debt is scheduled to grow to 19 trillion by 2023, or 73.6 percent of projected GDP – up from 36 percent as recently as the end of 2007…and not an official acknowledgment in sight.

Since World War II, the main drivers of each recovery have been federal spending, technical innovation, residential housing and / or consumer spending. History will not judge the treatment of the middle class, and the “debt-denialists” kindly….nor should they.

Raymond B. Wallace, Jr. is a former CEO, classroom History teacher, and Trustee of the Virginia Retirement System (VRS). He can be reached at rbwallace01@verizon.net.

ESSEX MEMORIES – PART 1

11 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by in SOCIAL HISTORIES

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It was over 35 years ago when Mrs. E.A. deBordenave, during Historic Garden Week, oversaw the brochure for the Tour of Historic Tappahannock, April 23, 1975.

The brochure’s description of tour location number 6 read: “Built in 1939 by Mr. and Mrs. Raymond B. Wallace, this shingled house has had several rooms added by the present owner, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Lewis. It is a charming home with many attractions, such as books, pictures, old furniture, and many objects of Interest for the Civil War buff.”

I lived there – on Duke Street for almost five years. Gordon Lewis and my mother, Martha Latane Wallace, were devoted first cousins. On a cold, Sunday afternoon in December, we heard about “Pearl Harbor” for the first time in that Duke Street home. No one knew what it was, or that the event would eventually take us away from there forever – all so long ago.

This is where my affinity for the town of Tappahannock was nourished. It was a wholesome, safe, friendly comfort zone, where I began in the late 1930’s. Then there was Allen Douglas Latane, my grandfather, the personification of a loyalty and love for a place called Essex County, Virginia.

I was a small child when the significance of the Latane name was introduced to me in curious fashion. It was the engraving of the Burial of Latane painting that hung over my grandparents’s mantle at the Customs House, in a state of disrepair, faded, and silver-fish damaged, along with other blemishes. I am reminded that Dr. Charles Bryan, a good friend, and retired leader of the Virginia Historical Society, wrote me about the Captain William Latane burial: “It was one of the Civil War’s most poignant, not to mention, iconic, moments.”

My first memory of this Essex County citizen, Allen Douglas Latane, was his role as Clerk of the Essex County Court, Commonwealth of Virginia. Unlike some of his reserved Latane cousins, he was the most winsome and congenial of that family. His professional history included decades of publishing the Rappahannock Times, and continuing to write a front-page column for that newspaper after selling it to George Clanton. He loved writing, singing in the St. John’s Episcopal Church choir, bird hunting, listening to Eddie Cantor and baseball on radio. Add playing golf to his list of pleasures, which reminds me of the following story:

“Preacher, Clerk Interrupted Twice in Game”

“The Rev. M.F. Roberts, pastor of Beale Memorial Baptist Church, and A.D. Latane, Clerk of Essex County Court, were playing golf Saturday afternoon only to have it interrupted twice in the interest of romance and matrimony. Sheriff S.S. Newbill came on the course to tell the clerk that a young couple, John Schools, 18, and Miss Pansy Lee, 17, was anxious to obtain a marriage license. The Clerk’s office is supposed to be closed on Saturday afternoons, but not wishing to stop the young couple from their proposed plans Mr. Latane went back to his office. There he found the couple’s parents, complying with the State law governing marriage of minors. The license was duly issued.

The golf game was resumed. Two holes had been played, when the course was again invaded, this time by the young couple themselves and their attendants. They were searching for the parson to perform the marriage ceremony.

It was agreeable to all parties concerned for the marriage to solemnized right then and there. A grove of locust trees on the course was selected as the most appropriate place, and because the trees afforded some shelter from a blistering sun. The marriage ceremony was performed, the couple went on their way with a blessing, and the golf game continued without further interruption.”

About Mr. Latane’s writing – in obituary, the Richmond Times Dispatch reported: “that in addition to his newspaper writing, Mr. Latane wrote and published several books of sentimental poetry.”  I think he was simply rural and romantically southern that way.

His obituary of friend and brother-in-law, James Meriwether Lewis, born at “Mansfield” in Essex County, was typical: “He (Lewis) was loved and revered by men and women in all walks of life…he took upon his shoulders the burden of sharing with others their sorrows and troubles.” My older brother, Allen, had memories of visiting Cousin Jim’s office in the rear of the Lewis home looking out on the Rappahannock River.

And then there’s the corner….the north east location of Prince Street and Water Lane. Becoming famous for its congregation of Tappahannock citizens: Dr. Chas Andrew Warner;  the affable “Chummy” Ware; Preston Derieux; sometimes Dr. Shepard; certainly Sheriff Smith Newbill;  Attorney Fleet Dillard might be there;  later – after World War II, – Attorney Gordon Lewis. Always chatting it up with rumors, jokes, current events, some with strong views, resulting in solid conversations.

The favorites for little folk (me) were Sheriff Newbill, and “Chummy” Ware. Ware was always kidding – he knew how to nicely tease us. Later, he introduced the passer-by to a revolution: the Polaroid Land Camera. He’d take your picture on the spot. Yet, the Sheriff was my favorite. Distant cousin, Alex F. Dillard, reminded me of Sydney Newbill’s childhood experience….seems his mother in Dunsville was using scissors to sew. Playfully, he ran into her, putting his eye out. Standing there, as sheriff, he would get my attention by simply showing me how easy it was to extract a glass eye. I’d never seen anything like that before. He and Ware were first rate entertainment.

Our Essex childhoods were magically free. The only exceptions were not being allowed near the busy construction of the DAW Theater (Doar-Atkinson-Wallace) and not having access to the lower steep stairs below the first basement level of the Latane’s Customs House.

Roaming, playing up and down Water Lane, particularly in the magnificent frontage of great Aunt Virgie and Uncle Covey Anderton’s home just across the street, was magical. During the week, Aunt Virgie would go out on her dock and catch fish for Uncle Covey’s lunch. This existence seemed simply nirvana – not a bad start to life.

Raymond B. Wallace, Jr., a former CEO and retired History teacher, served as a Trustee of the Virginia Retirement System for eleven years. Contact him at (rbwallace01@verizon.net).