Haley snubs President of the United States, ditches banquet

What a sweet scoop from The Times of India, a property of the Times Group family (which includes, among other hot properties, the Pune Mirror, the Bangalore Mirror, the Ahmedabad Mirror, the Mumbai Mirror, and Indiatimes).

South Carolina's Indian-American Republican Governor Nikki Haley criticised President Barack Obama's "failure to handle America", but said "personal plans" kept her and husband Michael from attending Sunday's White House dinner.

Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama host the dinner annually for the governors to coincide with the National Governors Association conference in Washington.

"We were meeting with friends," Haley told reporters Monday, following a press conference organised by the Republican Governors Association (RGA).

Haley said she and her husband "were honoured" to attend the White House dinner last year -- her first as governor -- but wanted to see friends Sunday night.

Haley attended Monday morning's meeting with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, where the president stressed the importance of education policy.

Haley later joined fellow Republican governors, Indian-American Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Bob McDonnell of Virginia, at the RGA press conference to blast Obama's policies and urge the election of a Republican president.

In addition to stressing the Republican message on business and education issues, Haley, who has endorsed Republican Mitt Romney, said Obama was coming in the way of development in her state.

"In South Carolina, we can't even pass our own bills without him getting in the way," she said. "We pass illegal immigration reform, he stops it. We pass voter ID, he stops it. We get Boeing, he stops it."

"I mean, I'd just like to be a governor and be able to take care of my state. The president's trying to handle the entire country, and he's failing," Haley said.

Personal plans. With friends.

Our classy governor, who spent last year's visit to the White House famously checking email and tapping out her memoir on an iPad, traveled to Washington for the annual governors' conference at the White House but ditched the annual governors' banquet, hosted by the President and First Lady of the United States, to visit friends.

Cyberspace sources today suggest that Haley's friends were the sort who write checks to demonstrate their friendship, that she snubbed the President and First Lady of the United States to attend a fundraiser. No corroboration yet, but the quarterly filing to the Federal Election Commission will tell that tale soon enough.

I wonder: Would Haley have similarly insulted former President and First Lady George W. and Laura Bush, and blown off a banquet hosted by them for governors, had she served during their regime? I suspect not; I suspect she'd have figured out a way to drag an extra chair up to the head table so she could be photographed munching quesadillas with Dubya.

Mmm. Cheesy.

And to see this glowingly published in The Times of India is all very exciting. It calls to mind the comments offered by former Senator Fritz Hollings to the Sunday Times of London, referring to former President George W. Bush as "half a bubble off plumb," or the time that former Governor Dick Riley told the Agence-Presse of Paris that former President Ronald Reagan was "ready for the home." It really warms the heart to see sitting South Carolina statesmen ridiculing our chief executive officer in the foreign press.

Of course, only one of these three instances ever occurred. Hollings and Riley, statesmen of the first order, would not have resorted to petty personal jibes at the President of the United States, in the foreign or domestic media.

Our present state regent appears unconstrained by such scruples.

And it clearly wins her favor among the Indian people, who regard her as a "star," as reported by the Indian ambassador to the United States.

The ambassador is coincidentally in South Carolina this week, observing Haley's subjects in their native habitat and expressing her hopes that Haley will lead a trade mission to her parents' native land soon.

India's recently-appointed ambassador to the United States, Nirupama Rao, was visiting the State Ports Authority Tuesday in Charleston as part of a three-day visit to South Carolina.

Rao said that she's looking forward to meeting with Gov. Nikki Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, and she hopes that Haley will consider leading a trade mission to India.

"She's a star there, naturally," said Rao. "I think all of India just adores her, and we are proud of her achievements."

Rao began her three-day visit to the Palmetto State at the SPA offices in downtown Charleston, where she also planned to visit the College of Charleston. The ambassador, who is visiting South Carolina for the first time, is scheduled to meet with Haley on Wednesday in Columbia, where she will also address the Columbia World Affairs Council luncheon.

On Thursday Rao and her entourage will be in the upstate area, touring the BMW auto plant near Greenville.

Where our governor is also regarded a star, no doubt.

Obama tells Haley: Invest in schools, hire more teachers

I suppose this isn't what Governor Nikki Haley wanted to hear from President Barack Obama during the national governors' luncheon at the White House last week.

Obama said at Monday's session that he sympathized with governors whose state budgets have been badly squeezed during the economic downturn. But he said that was no reason to trim resources from schools.

"The fact is that too many states are making cuts in education that I think are simply too big," Obama said. "Nothing more clearly signals what you value as a state than the decisions you make about where to invest. Budgets are about choices."

He reaffirmed his view that decisions about education should be left to states and not the federal government. "I believe education is an issue that is best addressed at the state level," the president said, "and governors are in the best position to have the biggest impact."

Look at that. President of the United States, concerned about the children of South Carolina and the other 49 states. Governor of South Carolina, not so much.

Specifically he called for more teachers in the classroom. He also noted that 21 states require students to stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18.

"I urge others to follow suit of those 21 states," Obama said.

And the President of the United States wants to see more teachers in South Carolina's public schools, to help reduce class size and encourage more high schoolers to finish school. Governor of South Carolina, not so much.

Media accounts don't quote Haley, so we have no idea whether she stayed stuck in her anti-education rut or instead had an epiphany and came back home a changed leader. But we do know, thanks to the Associated Press photographer in the room, that Haley took her lunch alongside fellow Indian-American and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who is quoted widely in press accounts of the event.

What did Jindal say?

"I walked into the meetings today believing we need a conservative in the White House and I left the meetings continuing to believe that," Jindal said.

I guess that means poor South Carolina will remain stuck in its rut.

Imagine South Carolina public schools, governed by educators

What a concept. This column appears in the current edition of Education Week magazine, co-authored by a set of "2011-12 U.S. Department of Education Teaching Ambassador Fellows; participants in the program must be practicing teachers with a minimum of five years' experience and demonstrated leadership."

They describe a world so incredible that it's difficult to visualize, at least here in South Carolina. Educators governing education? People whose passions and preparations are rooted in a desire to educate children, allowed to create and implement the system of education in our state?

Dare to dream.

"Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let's offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility: to teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren't helping kids learn." —President Barack Obama, State of the Union Address, Jan. 24, 2012.

President Obama said in his State of the Union address to Congress what many teachers in America have been yearning to hear from their president: Teachers matter, we change lives, and we do this hard work to make a difference in the lives of students.

He also acknowledged what every good teacher knows: that an accountability system that puts too much emphasis on test scores undermines a well-rounded education. But implicit in his speech was a challenge to America and to teachers to rebuild and strengthen the profession—a challenge that teachers are more than eager to accept.

As 2011-12 U.S. Department of Education teaching ambassador fellows, we have heard from many teachers that the field has lost its luster. In our role as teaching ambassadors, we have met with a wide cross-section of teachers in town halls and smaller discussion groups across the country. In these conversations, we have heard real despondency over the constraints of the No Child Left Behind Act that have caused schools to focus on testing and teacher evaluation in ways that are oppressive and rob our profession of much of the joy of teaching and learning.

We've listened to countless stories about a law that has raised standards without providing support for schools to meet them. And we have cringed when some of our most effective colleagues acknowledged that they can no longer afford to stay in a difficult profession that asks so much of them but barely affords a middle-class lifestyle. "We didn't get into teaching to be millionaires," they say, "but we have to be able to feed our families."

What we like about the president's speech is not that he acknowledges our grievances, though, admittedly, it feels good to be heard. What appeals to us is that President Obama understands that as a country we must do much more than simply tweak a structure that is not working. Educators want to lead the transformation and rebuilding of teaching so that our work improves students' lives and restores pride in our profession.

Teachers welcome this transformation. Neither students nor teachers are served by a structure that treats some teachers like interchangeable cogs in a machine. We long to lead our own profession because when we drive our craft, we will see huge shifts in responsibility, leadership, pay, and respect for us. As National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel describes in the NEA's "action agenda to strengthen teaching," issued in December, "I see this as the essence of a true profession: putting teachers in charge of the quality of their profession."

What would teachers do if they ran the schools? We would raise the bar for membership in our profession, recruiting the best candidates and insisting that teacher-preparation programs become more rigorous and relevant. About 62 percent of all new teachers—almost two-thirds—report they felt unprepared for the realities of their classrooms. As Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has said, "Imagine what our country would do if 62 percent of our doctors felt unprepared to practice medicine—you would have a revolution in our medical schools."

A transformed profession would give teachers much more responsibility and flexibility to make decisions that meet their students' educational needs—allowing access to and training with technology, shifting class sizes, and restructuring the school day so that they have time to collaborate with colleagues and engage in professional learning and problem-solving.

"Educators want to lead the transformation and rebuilding of teaching so that our work improves students' lives and restores pride in our profession."

We would offer teachers a professional salary and career pathways that acknowledge their skill and commitment in one of the most complex, demanding, and important jobs in the world. We would insist on great school leaders, with principals who have high expectations; develop all teachers as lifelong learners; and create positive school cultures where students and teachers succeed.

As President Obama acknowledged, teachers are creative and passionate. But like workers in many other professions, we expect to be held accountable for results. We yearn to help create fair and thorough teacher-evaluation systems and have access to data to make informed decisions about what is working and what isn't, to direct our professional learning, and to help decide who stays in our profession. The president was right when he said, "That is a bargain worth making."

Now more than ever, teachers long to lead their profession so that we finally resolve the important educational challenges in this country. A quarter of our children fail to finish high school on time, and barely four in 10 earn any type of postsecondary degree. For children of color, outcomes are even worse. When we see the statistics—that 7,000 students drop out of school every day—we feel pain for those teens and shame and guilt that we were not able to prevent this tragedy.

On top of that, school districts are getting ready to slam into an awful reality, that before the end of the decade, more than a million baby-boomer teachers—fully a third of America's teachers—will retire or leave the teaching profession. To recruit and retain the best teachers, we need to offer rewarding jobs and competitive salaries.

We were especially pleased to read, in the recently released "Blueprint for an America Built to Last," that the president plans to ask Congress for funding that will "challenge states and districts to work with their teachers and unions to reform the entire teaching profession—from training and licensing to compensation, career ladders, and tenure."

Educators want to take on this work. As highly skilled specialists, we are not afraid of owning our profession. We are not afraid of being held accountable for results when we are given the responsibility and flexibility to craft our profession. We are confident that the president understands what it will take to transform teaching to meet the challenges of the 21st century, and we are eager to join with our colleagues across the country in moving the profession forward.

The authors are 2011-12 U.S. Department of Education Teaching Ambassador Fellows; participants in the program must be practicing teachers with a minimum of five years' experience and demonstrated leadership. Geneviève DeBose, a 5th and 6th grade teacher from the Bronx Charter School for the Arts, in New York City, works on middle school reform in the Office of the Secretary. Claire Jellinek, an 11th and 12th grade social studies teacher from South Valley Academy Charter High School in Albuquerque, N.M., works on issues related to educational technology and international education in the Office of the Secretary. Gregory Mullenholz, a staff-development teacher at Twinbrook Elementary in Rockville, Md., works on teacher-quality issues in the Office of the Secretary. Shakera Walker, a kindergarten teacher in the Young Achievers Science and Math School in Boston, works for the department's early-learning initiatives. Maryann Woods-Murphy, a Spanish teacher at Northern Highlands Regional High School in Bergen County, N.J., works on labor-management issues in the Office of the Secretary. This Commentary also appears on the ed.gov website.

Turnout low for Zais's first public meeting on NCLB waivers

Here's one area where the state Superintendent of Education and the Obama administration apparently agree: Both want to be freed from the restrictions of the Bush administration's "No Child Left Behind." While Congress dawdles over the law's reauthorization, the Obama administration last year rolled out NCLB waiver options for states that wished to apply for them. Coincidentally, Superintendent Mick Zais has shown that he wants federal authorities to have as little influence -- and oversight -- over South Carolina's schools as possible, so an application for waivers from NCLB is one application that Zais is all too happy to send to Washington.

But, perhaps owing to Zais's lack of credibility on matters pertaining to strengthening and improving public schools, and on his responsiveness to public opinion generally, residents of Darlington reportedly reacted the first of Zais's 21 planned "public comment sessions" with a collective yawn. "About a dozen" attended the meeting, according to reporter Robert Sloan.

Good enough, as Zais himself neglected to attend. The superintendent sent instead his deputy, Charmeka Bosket, who previously worked as Governor Mark Sanford's third education advisor and for the state Chamber of Commerce's political action committee.

Interestingly, Bosket represented her superintendent's motives this way:

“We want to stress and emphasize at the stakeholder meetings that we are not trying to opt out of the No Child Left Behind program,” Bosket said. “We will not lose and federal funds by receiving these waivers. What we will gain is more flexibility to better serve our students. We want to stress that this process will not have a negative impact.”

Message: We like No Child Left Behind; we just want federal dollars without federal requirements.

Instead, Bosket explained, Zais has a better idea: Give schools letter grades according to his own grading system.

Under the Zais' plan, schools and districts would be given letter grades -- A, B, C, D or F -- based on their test scores, graduation rates and several other factors. Improvement in each of these areas and other categories would be recognized.

Just as Zais has never taught students in a public school classroom, I've never treated patients in a hospital. How might medical professionals react if I created, out of my own imagination, a plan to give letter grades to hospitals based on factors like how many patients died in them, and how many were cured of their ailments, and how much it cost to treat each patient? What about if I added a wheelchair-wheel-size criterion in my grading formula?

Indeed, I suspect the Zais Letter Grade Plan will go far with average education professionals across South Carolina. Imagine the size of that gradebook.

At least one of the dozen attendees at the Zais (without Zais) "public comment session" in Darlington was an educator. [Note: It is never a good idea to invite educators to attend public hearings on education issues; they tend to ask pertinent, logical questions and expect good, rational answers.] Sloan writes:

One question asked during the meeting came from a Darlington County teacher who asked about the cost of the program and whether teachers would get the necessary resources and instruction materials to implement the new plan. He cited the state’s present suspension on purchasing new textbooks and asked whether that suspension would be lifted.

“Without the proper resources, it will not help our kids,” he said. “We are being asked to do more and more with less and less.”

Bosket agreed with his assessment on the importance of cost and the need for proper materials in the classrooms. She said the suspension on buying text was driven by the poor economy and said that it is not likely the suspension will be lifted until the economy gets better.

My own translation: Yes, it is an expectation of this state and your elected employers that you will do more and more with less and less. This presentation was not designed to change that expectation, and you should not interpret this information as a proposal to lighten your burden. Do your work, and don't ask for more resources until the economy improves, which will allow more revenues to flow into the public treasury, which will allow lawmakers to give more of those revenues back to corporate entities in the form of tax breaks, incentives and loopholes. Only when corporate income tax is eliminated entirely, and then personal income tax eliminated, and then sales tax dramatically reduced, might we consider investing more of available resources in public schools, if public schools still exist then. We, as a state, cannot afford to invest more in the education of one another's children until that time.

Is there evidence to suggest that this translation is wrong?

Thank goodness for federal funds from Obama administration

Students and educators at Lake City High School near Florence have 500,000 reasons to thank the Obama administration's Department of Health and Human Services. Despite state leaders' efforts to keep millions in federal grants and other funds from flowing into the state, one grant has made it through.

Last month, Lake City High School and the school’s health clinic known as Health Connections, were notified by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that their grant request for $500,000 was approved.
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Florence District 3 district and Lake City High were the only school among 45 South Carolina selected for the grants, which were issued under the Affordable Health Care Act, Passed in March 2010, the act provides $200 million in funding from 2010-2013 to address important capital improvements and support the expansion of services at hundreds of school-based health centers across the country.

The facilities aren’t all at schools, but all are similar: they provide health screenings, health promotion, and disease prevention activities. At Lake City High, they also provide a place for students and faculty with acute or chronic illnesses to be treated and have medication administered. Health Connections features examine rooms, offices and a handicap-accessible bathroom.

“Because of the high poverty level of our community many of our students have no transportation or funds for appropriate health care that we could provide access to during school hours,” former Florence School District 3 superintendent Beth Wright said in a letter included with the grant proposal.

Congratulations to the students and educators of Florence 3.

Zais focuses on presidential politics rather than schools

I have to believe that May was an extraordinarily slow month for Superintendent of Education Mick Zais.

After initiating a 50-person purge that would play out over the next several weeks; and after scrambling to keep certain federal funds for special education; and after deciding absolutely not to ask for other federal funds to which South Carolina's public schoolchildren are entitled; and after watching the legislature dispatch with a voucher-and-tuition-tax-credit bill for the umpteenth time; and after talking a little more about his desire to privatize student transportation statewide so he wouldn't have 450-plus transportation workers and bus drivers on his payroll, Zais must have found himself without anything to do.

And everyone knows that idle hands are the Devil's workshop.

So our state superintendent, whose constitutional responsibilities have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with presidential politics...

Our state superintendent, who has never spent a day on the payroll of a public school district, or in a public school classroom...

Our state superintendent, who presumably is not now, nor has ever been, a member of the largest professional association for public school educators in America and the world, the National Education Association...

Our state superintendent, who has never before held elective office and, in late May, had occupied his current position for only four months...

...decided that the best thing for him to do on behalf of South Carolina's hundreds of thousands of public school children, their parents and their educators, was to write a letter to the president of the National Education Association and tell that man not to endorse President Barack Obama for a second term of office.

Bugs Bunny said it most politely, folks: What a maroon.

According to the CNBC poll measuring a state's suitability to attract business, South Carolina ranks 46th out of the 50 states in education, which is probably why the state's overall score dropped to 37th in the nation.

Yet Mick Zais's highest priority at some point in late May was to write a letter to a man sitting 500 miles from Columbia, the president of a union that Zais surely hasn't joined, who leads 3.2 million educators across America, and to tell that man, and that union, and those 3.2 million educators, not to tend to their own business at their annual convention this year.

What a spectacular maroon.

South Carolina stands to collect $144 million in federal funds to protect public educators' jobs if only Mick Zais would file for a waiver, just as Texas did, knowing that filing for the waiver takes no effort and is likely guaranteed to have that money in South Carolina by the first day of the school year. Yet Mick Zais, our illustrious superintendent, finds it too taxing to his political ideology to ask Barack Obama's Department of Education for the waiver, while districts across our state cut 2,400 jobs between April and May alone, helping to pump our unemployment rate back to 10 percent.

Instead, he felt it necessary to express his "concern" to the nation's organized educators -- who gave his "concern" the correct amount of attention, none -- about their own relationship with the President and his administration vis a vis America's system of public education and who may have influence over that system from January 2013 to January 2017.

What a shiny, gleaming bright maroon.

Acknowledging that various groups of students in various states take the SAT, and that in some states only college-bound students take that test, South Carolina's students taking the SAT ranked second-worst in the nation in 2010, according to the Commonwealth Foundation. And our governor, apparently no fan of programs to help students prepare for the SAT and presumably improve their scores, took the opportunity to veto state funding for just such a program in her letter to House Speaker Bobby Harrell last Tuesday. And our lawmakers on Wednesday, when given the opportunity to override that veto, let that one stand, depriving our state's high schoolers of one more chance to improve their lot in life, all apparently without a peep from our venerable Superintendent Mick Zais.

Yet our superintendent, who by now may crave the endorphin rush that comes when state media cover every burp or hiccup his digestive tract proffers, presumed it squarely within his bailiwick to release an advisory that, at last report, no other state superintendent of education was arrogant enough to suggest.

One wonders if this has to do with Zais's attitude toward Inez Tenenbaum, the tremendously popular two-term state superintendent of education -- in fact, our last two-term superintendent -- who did begin her career as a classroom teacher and who now serves in the Obama administration as an agency chief. Can it be that Zais is jealous of, or bitter toward, a state superintendent who was widely respected as a powerful advocate for South Carolina's public schools?

Whatever motivated Mick Zais to bloviate beyond the borders of his portfolio and his state, obviously the elected delegates to the NEA's representative assembly didn't bother to sniff at his advice. According to the NEA's website,

CHICAGO—Delegates to the National Education Association’s (NEA) 2011 Representative Assembly (RA) voted overwhelmingly to support President Obama for a second term today, making NEA the first union to recommend the President for next year’s election. In addition, the delegates adopted a policy statement that observers agree will establish a clear course for overhauling teacher evaluation and accountability systems.

“Today our members have stated loud and clear that they will no longer allow the voice of teachers and educators to be silenced and marginalized by people who don’t have a clue what teaching is,” said NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. “This policy statement puts NEA on the record in calling for a comprehensive overhaul for both teacher evaluation and accountability systems.”

The body also heard from Education Support Professional (ESP) of the Year Ernest “Jameel” Williams, a bus driver from North Carolina. Williams spoke passionately about the critical role that support professionals play in the daily lives of students.

He also spoke about the need for all professionals in schools to work together—he compared educators to a football team. “If the blockers don’t block the quarterback, or the tight ends or running backs don’t work together, the team is set up to be defeated because the opposing team senses weakness and that gives it an extra edge. We don’t need to show division in the ranks!”

On the fourth and final day of the 90th RA, delegates will hear from the 2011 Teacher of the Year, Michelle Shearer, from Maryland. RA delegates will also use the last day to say goodbye and convey their appreciation to retiring NEA Executive Director John Wilson. Wilson has led the national organization’s staff for 10 years, and will retire on September 1, 2011.

Did you notice who was mentioned as a speaker at the NEA's convention? A school bus driver from North Carolina.

What message does that communicate? Let's see: In NEA, bus drivers get respect and attention; in South Carolina, their jobs get privatized by Mick Zais and Nikki Haley.

And after the outright stupidity of his letter the NEA president about presidential politics, Zais had the incomparably poor judgment to pout about it to The State newspaper.

Superintendent of Education Mick Zais, a Republican, is expressing disappointment after the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union, voted July 4 to support Pres. Barack Obama's 2012 re-election bid.

In late May, Zais wrote to the organization, saying it was a bad idea to endorse a candidate so early.

“I am deeply concerned that this action sets a terrible example for the students across the country because only one possible candidate will be considered for endorsement by your labor union,” Zais wrote to NEA president Dennis Van Roekel. “This decision, if approved by your membership, effectively slams the door shut to all other presidential candidates before a single one has been duly nominated by a political party or filed necessary legal documents.”

The NEA sent a response letter to Zais, expressing appreciation for his input.

Please tell me these letters exist somewhere on the internet. Educators in South Carolina have a right to see exactly what earns their state superintendent's "disappointment" if emaciated funding for public schools, apathy toward a constitutional obligation to support public schools in our state, underpaid and overworked education professionals losing their jobs, and more children being packed into fewer classrooms doesn't do the job.

We don't have a superintendent of education in South Carolina. We have an unvarnished political operative bent on eliminating the last best chance that poor children in South Carolina have to escape low-skill, low-wage fast-food-and-factory jobs and make something of themselves and their communities.