Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:45:08 +0000

As you can see by the dog-eared condition of the Grant household’s copy of World War Z, we’re ready for the movie.

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 01:38:56 +0000

Old senator thinks students should go back to coffee and NoDoz for their all-nighters. Question of the day: Is he being useless?

From Talking Points Memo:

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Sunday that colleges need to crack down on “academic doping,” or the use of stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin as a study aid.

“There are better ways to pull an all-nighter and stay up. There’s coffee, there’s things like NoDoz,” he told CBS affiliate WCBS in New York. “For somebody to call up and say ‘well, my doctor prescribed it at home, send me pills, here’s the prescription number…’ that’s not good enough…If a student gets 100 or 200 Adderall pills, even if they are legitimately entitled, they may lend a bunch to their friends.”

The senior senator from New York said that up to 35 percent of all college students report using stimulants like Adderall or Ritalin and recommended a number of policy changes for students prescribed these stimulants, including required follow-up diagnostics, more detailed medical histories and mental health evaluations with qualified health practitioners to verify the diagnoses.

Read more.

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 01:35:44 +0000

Today I’m posting an excerpt from my novel, Chain Gang Elementary, that deals with issues of race and testing.

Chain Gang Elementary storyline: After a murder at Bonaire Elementary, Richard and Anna Lee Gray seek a good school for their son Nick in a safe neighborhood. Their search leads them to Malliford, a “school of excellence.” When redistricting sends scores of minority students to Malliford, iron-willed Principal Estelle Rutherford declares war on kids to raise test scores and save her reputation. Dissident parents revolt, electing Richard to head the Parent-Teacher Organization, and tensions explode.

From Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen:

Two days before the holiday break, just when PTO President Richard Gray thought he was going to have some peace, parent gadfly Stan McCallister chased him down in Malliford Elementary School’s front hall. Looking like a scruffy, crazed Hobbit, Stan breathlessly informed him of the latest outrage. “You hear about the ethnic cleansing?”

“Beg pardon?”

“It’s called ‘psychopharmacological therapy.’”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Two parents complained to Sasha Bramblett (one of the four black PTO board members Richard had recruited) and said the school counselor and psychologist threatened them. If they don’t put their boys on Ritalin, they’ll stick them in Special Ed, or ship them off to Wildwood, where the kids with behavior problems go.”

Richard tried to absorb this. He had wondered what counselor Cassandra Hardwick and psychologist Donzella James were up to lately, since were both clueless and hyperactive, an exceptionally dangerous combination in government employees. Had the pep talk by Miz Rutherford, the school’s principal, involved pep pills?

“Donzella James reported a mother to Family Services for neglect because she took her son off Ritalin,” Stan said. “Two of the boys are in Ms. Vandenburg’s class. The other is in Radcliffe’s. Somehow they let a black kid slip in,” Stan said sarcastically. “Obviously, they’re tracking—”

“Are all the kids you’re talking about black?”

“Yup. Since our counselor and psychologist are African-American, I guess they think that makes it all right. It doesn’t. People think Ritalin is a miracle drug, but it’s speed, and speed kills. This school is coercing parents to drug their children. It’s evil.” His eyes smoldered.

“I’ll look into it.” Richard felt a sickening weight settle in his belly. Yet another call to battle, and he didn’t know how to proceed. After all, such matters were confidential. He couldn’t just confront two staff members over something he’d heard third-hand. Or was it fourth?

“Happy holidays,” said Stan, backing away. “I hope Santa is good to you.”

“There is no Santa,” Richard said. “I saw him die.”

“Shush, Mr. Gray,” hissed Mrs. Leland as she walked by. “You are so bad.”

***

The Ritalin policy was a nasty piece of business, a significant evil. The overriding issue was control, and the matter was not open for discussion. Mrs. Baines, the school’s vice principal, had suggested in her semi-diplomatic way that Richard mind his own business when he asked about it on the first day of winter term.

“Aren’t there better things for the PTO to do than investigate the school it serves?” she asked.

Richard smiled thinly. “We serve the children, not the school.”

“A distinction without a difference, Mr. Gray.”

She had no idea how obvious the difference was to Richard, or how deeply he meant what he’d said, but he saw no point in arguing.

Her attempt to stiff-arm him did nothing to quell his curiosity, however. He spoke to his son’s teacher, Avon Little, that afternoon, saying, “I heard some disturbing news.”

“Always some of that floating around. Go on.”

“The school is making parents medicate their children.”

“Hmm … Mr. Gray, they got some big idea about raisin’ test scores. We went ‘round on that. I wish I could paddle some of these boys sometimes, but pumpin’ ’em full of drugs is wrong. There’s folks tryin’ to turn this school into that Cuckoo’s Nest you talk about. And I know some parents don’t want their kids takin’ drugs. That’s their right. Miz Hardwick and James don’t think so, and they got the backing of you-know-who. I been fightin’ ’em on it. I got three reprimands already this year. This keeps up, they won’t let me in the building. I’ll be teachin’ on those benches you built.”

Richard chuckled drily. “What about the test scores?”

“There’s a meetin’ in the cafeteria tomorrow at one. Just sayin’.”

Richard left wondering how he could attend the mysterious meeting.

The answer came in the form of a demand the next day. Polly, the school secretary, called Richard at 7:30 a.m. to say teachers were out of coffee and Cindi Lou was out of town: “They need caffeine. Can you get it here this morning?”

He’d always cursed the teachers’ dependence on the PTO for coffee, which cost $700 a year. Now he saw an opportunity. “I’m working right now,” he said. “I can bring it by after lunch.”

“Is that the best you can do?”

Richard was certain she was conferring with the principal because he could hear scuba breathing in the background. “Yes.”

“All right. Have a nice day,” she grumbled.

When he showed up at 1:00 p.m., Polly gave him a scathing look.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You don’t have to get up. I’ll take it to the cafeteria myself.”

“I wasn’t worrying and I wasn’t getting up. What brand?”

“Chock full o’Nuts.”

“Ha! Figures. Can’t resist an editorial comment, can you?”

He carried the plastic sack containing six bags of coffee to the cafetorium. Both sets of doors were closed. He peered through a small glass pane and saw a meeting in progress. Mrs. Baines, Miz Rutherford, and the school counselor sat on chairs in front of the stage. Psychologist Donzella James stood. He opened the door and tiptoed in. Fifty dark-hued boys sat at tables near the stage. Nearly half Mrs. Little’s class was there, including all those he tutored.

“Why don’t you just let us take the tests like everybody else?” one kid demanded.

“Ain’t no big deal. Not like it’s a grade,” interjected an older boy.

“We already got a ton of homework every night,” said a third. “I ain’t even gettin’ it done. They won’t let us take PE. And they make us sit at the convict table.”

Richard figured the boy was talking about what Nick called “working lunches.” The kids sentenced to them got only a peanut butter sandwich and an apple—without regard to allergies or braces.

Miz Rutherford stood up and shouted, “Young man, DO NOT call it that!”

Right then, Richard could imagine her wearing mirrored shades, holding a bullwhip as shackled students did homework at the big table. What we have heah is a failure to educate.

“Not as bad as last year, when they put me on the chain gang,” grumbled a sixth-grader.

“There was no such thing!” the principal fumed. “That was a lie perpetrated by the media!”

She was losing control—and certainly wasn’t intimidating them. Fascinating.

“How come we got to score seventy on the practice tests or we won’t get PE? I like PE!”

As more voices rose in protest, Donzella James looked up and spotted the interloper. From forty feet away, Richard saw the flaring whites of her eyes. She looked like she’d grabbed a bare electric wire.

“Shush!” said Miz Rutherford, who then noticed the psychologist’s discomfiture and followed her gaze. Her eyes grew wide, too. She instinctively straightened her dress, as if she’d been caught in a compromising act—like trying to screw fifty black and Hispanic boys.

“May I help you?” barked Donzella.

Richard walked toward the coffee urn, which sat on a metal table next to the wall outside the kitchen. “Don’t mind me. Just delivering the teachers’ coffee. I heard they were passing out this morning.” The boys broke out in riotous laughter. “Now that you mention it, I’d like to find out more about the chain gang.”

Miz Rutherford and Mrs. Baines looked like they’d eaten nails.

“Leave,” the principal said.

Richard set the coffee by the urn. “I wonder if their parents know what’s going on.”

“This doesn’t concern you.”

“I get that a lot. But I represent parents, and there have been complaints, mind you.”

He pivoted on his heel and walked out.

Five minutes after he returned home, the phone rang.

“Mr. Gray, I just wanted to clear up any misunderstanding about our Achievement Rally today,” said Mrs. Baines. “I’m afraid you have allowed yourself to get some misconceptions about what we’re doing.”

He knew Miz Rutherford was standing beside the vice principal. Even over the phone line, he could feel a disturbance in the Force. “Ain’t no misconceptions. Y’all putting black kids back on the chain gang,” he drawled. “What’s to misconceive ‘bout that?”

“That’s the kind of talk that concerns us. We’re simply pumping them up for tests next month.”

“The Standard Hightower Intellachievement Tests?”

“Yes.”

“Do all kids have to take a—”

“Yes!” she interjected. “And please don’t use the acronym.”

“Pretty accurate description, doncha think? What were they thinking when they called—”

“I really don’t know, Mr. Gray.”

“Kids have fun with it. Spell it out, you know. S-H-”

“We don’t allow it to be shortened. There’s a memo from central office on that.”

“That, I’d like to see. How to take a—”

“Mr. Gray. Please.”

“So what’s this about missing PE and getting seventies?”

“We’re just encouraging them to be all that they can be.”

“You want them to join the Army?”

“No! We’re trying to … upgrade test scores. You know we face challenges this year. With coaching and preparation and a winning attitude, we can turn this thing around.”

“Why doesn’t everyone get the pep talk?”

“We’re trying to focus our efforts on at-risk students.”

“Forgive me for my bluntness, but I saw the crowd you were pumping up. I think you’ve got some racial motivations here. You shouldn’t have singled out black kids. Everyone—”

“It was the counselor’s and psychologist’s idea. They’re—”

“They’re what?”

“They are what they are, Mr. Gray.”

“And because they’re black, that makes everything OK?”

“You said it, I didn’t.”

“I didn’t say it, I asked it, and it doesn’t make it all right.”

It was just as Stan suspected. Richard could see Miz Rutherford, still in the mirrored shades, calling her two minions into the office and telling them, “You all have simply got to improve your people’s test scores,” as she chewed on a piece of straw.

“It’s demeaning,” he said. “It should stop.”

“Perhaps you should realize it isn’t your concern.”

“Your call implies it is. Otherwise, you’d just ignore me.”

“We just know you have a habit of causing trouble—”

“’Scuse me? Would you like to try saying that again?”

“We know you have contacts in the media, and we … we need you to understand it’s a positive thing.”

“I understand you think it’s a positive thing.”

“You can be so difficult, Mr. Gray.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Baines.”

* * *

To read more about the infamous Standard Hightower Achievement Test, click here.
To learn more about the Chain Gang Elementary and the reviews it’s been receiving, click here.
To see the Chain Gang blog, click here.

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 22:24:55 +0000

When people know an author, they often try to guess who his characters “really are.” Chain Gang Elementary is no exception. I hear it all the time from people around DeKalb County and Atlanta, who figured I plucked the characters for my troubled school from my troubled community. Well, not so much, really. (Although I did include a quote from a PTA leader just about everyone around here knows.)

I just wrote this, responding to a friend on facebook, who was trying to figure out who was who:

“So many people have tried … and failed! In truth, Malliford Elementary School is everywhere and nowhere. There have been sightings of “Chain Gang” characters in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Alabama, as well.

I write plot-based fiction; that means I’m writing about things that happen–in the book, at least. That means certain things have to happen. Therefore I build (I jokingly say “hire”) my characters to make those things happen. They END up being a certain way, rather than START OUT a certain way, but some of them mature in five minutes of thinking. There is an exception: Miz Rutherford. I decided from the beginning she’d be a cross between Nurse Ratched from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEXT and Milburn Drysdale’s wife from THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES.

There is nothing new under the sun.”

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:12:18 +0000

In her most recent post, Maureen Downey poses the question in her Get Schooled blog: Tracking students by abilities–good or bad?

There are politics–and market forces–to tracking. How do you keep high-achieving students (and their volunteer parents) in a public system without tracking?

Money quote:

“A recognition of the negative effects of tracking on students caused it to fall out favor in the last 25 years. Research found tracking led to inferior educations for many students consigned to the lower levels — disproportionately, low-income and minority children. Lower tracks featured more drill and repetition and less content, and teachers fell into strategies of maintaining order rather than teaching.”

To me, the problem is raising the quality of the “lower” tracks without diminishing opportunities for high achievers, and the discipline problems that plague lower-track classrooms are largely a result of poverty and/or parenting. Politicians would rather attack public schools than help their constituents do a better job of raising kids.

What do you think?

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:51:09 +0000

From Associated Press:

For the first time, America’s racial and ethnic minorities now make up about half of the under-5 age group, the government said Thursday. It’s a historic shift that shows how young people are at the forefront of sweeping changes by race and class.

The new census estimates, a snapshot of the U.S. population as of July 2012, comes a year after the Census Bureau reported that whites had fallen to a minority among babies. Fueled by immigration and high rates of birth, particularly among Hispanics, racial and ethnic minorities are now growing more rapidly in numbers than whites.

Read more.

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:37:47 +0000

This one’s local, from Atlanta. We’ve been following it for a while. Here’s the latest update, from Neighbor Newspapers:

Former E.Rivers Elementary School PTA member Maryam Arjomand took a negotiated plea last week and was sentenced to 10 years to serve 90 days in jail.

Last year, she was arrested and charged with a felony count of theft by taking, for stealing at least $85,000 from the school’s PTA Foundation.

“We believe it may have been up to $100,000, maybe more. A lot of it was cash donations and things we can’t account for,” said Tiffany Harlow, Zone 2 community prosecutor.

Read more.

Here’s the previous post.

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:43:23 +0000

From Newsroom America:

(Newsroom America) — Nouel Alba, 37, of Bronx, New York, has pleaded guilty to engaging in a fraudulent fundraising scheme related to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting tragedy and lying to FBI agents investigating her conduct.

According to court documents, shortly after the shooting that claimed 26 lives at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown on December 14, 2012, Alba used Facebook, e-mail, text messages, and telephone calls to falsely claim to be the aunt of a child killed in the shooting.

She supplied fictitious details about the aftermath of the shooting in order to solicit donations on the pretext that she was collecting for a “funeral fund” on behalf of the child’s family and the families of other shooting victims.

As part of the scheme, Alba also e-mailed Sandy Hook Elementary School PTA officers and then touted her fictional personal relationship with the PTA to support her false claim and induce donors to send her money. At Alba’s instruction, donor-victims sent money to her PayPal account.

Read more.

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 11:00:35 +0000

Chain Gang Elementary is on sale now! The Kindle version is only $2.99 — that’s $3 off the regular price!

In recognition of all the testing scandals going on, I offer you this brief excerpt from my novel, Chain Gang Elementary. As you’ll see, Malliford Elementary has its own testing issues, which, in the ened, will lead to a scandal with a unique twist. To learn more about this remarkable book, click here.

From Chapter Seventeen:

Due to federal mandate, learning was put on hold in February. The Better Schools initiative—or BS, as teachers called it—required high-stakes, curriculum-based testing. For reasons known only to bureaucrats, the state examined students on their cumulative grade-level learning with three months still to go in the school year. The state’s Department of Education had adopted the unfortunately but aptly named Standard Hightower Intellachievement Test to measure progress. Its acronym was never used, for obvious reasons. County educators referred to it as DESI (Don’t Even Say It), and some irreverent teachers called it DUMP.

Though often ridiculed, the test was no laughing matter. Pride, money, stars, and housing prices rode on the results. Teachers in schools with improved test scores received bonuses; schools with declining scores faced sanctions. In the past, Malliford Elementary had nothing to fear. But now the influx of underachievers from Chantilly Arms threatened to lower scores and put the school on the state’s Needs Improvement list (often called the S**T list, for obvious reasons). This would be an unmitigated disaster, but it could get even worse. After a school languished for three years on the Needs Improvement list, its teachers were taken out behind the trailers and shot. At least that’s how Mrs. Leland explained it to PTO President Richard Gray.

With its status as a good school on the line, the stakes were terribly high. Since December, Mrs. Baines, Malliford’s vice principal, did little besides what she called “testprep.” No one took DESI more seriously than reigning Teacher of the Year Sarah Vandenburg, who gave her second-graders practice exams the first day of school and tested them weekly thereafter—and let them watch TV, until she got caught.

Despite the newly challenging demographics, Malliford Principal Estelle Rutherford demanded that test scores rise. She also suggested heads would roll if they didn’t. She’d already picked heads, having established scapegoats like Avon Little by filling their rooms with Underintellachievers.

Thus motivated by the principal’s shrill cheerleading, teachers masked their desperation with pasted-on smiles as testing week drew near. They tried to create a festive air in their classrooms, handing out balloons, promising parties for high-scoring classes, and sending brightly-colored notes home to parents with tips on “how to get your students on the winning team.” Miz R’s “Secret Formula for Success” called for an 8:00 p.m. bedtime and a hearty breakfast on testing days. She also suggested kids watch TV to relax.

Richard considered this last idea a terrible one, and he would have said something to the principal had they been on speaking terms. Instead, he editorialized against it in February’s Duck Call, urging kids to read a book instead, and quoted Stan to piss off the principal even more. Unfortunately, Richard no longer knew how many newsletters actually made it home to parents, since some other teachers now followed Mrs. Vandenburg’s lead and threw them away.

Though appalled at the school’s excessive zeal, Richard did hope Malliford would gain a top-ten ranking on his watch. A home in a five-star school district was worth $30,000 more than one in a four-star zone, according to Barbara. If he was ever going to get out of town, he wanted cash from the deal. This made him one of many “whores for scores,” as Rita so indelicately put it.

* * *

Miz Rutherford devoutly believed a diet of grapes and bottled water for test-takers would help her win that elusive fifth star. She’d been preaching this message for months and needed the PTO’s help to get the word out to parents of test takers.

“It’s scientific,” she’d previously explained to the PTO board. “Grapes assist the brain in the hydration process, which speeds up decision making, as anyone familiar with brain-based learning models understands.” She’d finished off with an imperious glare at Candace and Cindi Lou.

“So kids still get wrong answers, just quicker,” Richard quipped from the podium.

“You’re missing the point,” she said.

Then again, he’d missed every point she’d jabbed at him. Richard turned to the Drug Awareness chairperson and said, “This grape thing explains why people who drink a lot of wine think they’re smart.”

This prompted titters, but the overall mood was sober and serious. Some board members worried about allergic reactions and frequent bathroom breaks brought on by this brain-hosing. However, most believed in trying anything that might improve test scores, so they ignored warnings about poop and pee on first-grade floors from Candace, who glared back at the principal as she spoke.

A motion calling for the PTO “to make necessary arrangements to assure an ample supply of grapes during testing” was quashed by Bessie Harper, mother of all room mothers, when she said the magic words every president longs to hear: “Don’t bother. I’ll take care of it.”

Bessie’s first e-mail to room mothers called for green grapes and half-liter bottles of water. After Mrs. Baines yelped “Wrong grapes! Wrong grapes!” in the hall to Richard, e-mail corrections went out calling for red grapes. A parent wanted to know if purple grapes were acceptable. More checking, another e-mail: “Due to lack of research on purple or black grapes, those varieties should not be used. Parents should send red grapes, seedless of course.”

Richard referred to these in his e-mails as The Grapes of Math.

A question arose: What brand of water was best? Another flurry of e-mails: Miz Rutherford declared Hydrate the brand of choice. Its parent company happened to back The Mentoring Initiative and planned to install soft-drink machines in the school. Richard tried to start a rumor that top schools used Perrier, but his pernicious claim never took hold.

“What if scores go down?” Bessie asked him during the second round of e-mails.

“Then we sell the information to Hydrate’s competitors,” Richard replied. “As a fund-raiser.”

* * *

On February 12, parents and teachers held their collective breath as students began taking DESIs with all the earnest zealousness of a “Duck and Cover” air raid drill. With rankings on the line, every other school and student in the state was their enemy, while sharpened pencils and childish wits were their only friends. One way or another, they would fulfill the BS mandate.

What kind of test-takers were these Mallifordians? Would the world bow down before them, or would they be Underintellachievers, road kill on the superhighway to tomorrow?

Deep in the bowels of Malliford, someone already had an idea how it would turn out.

Come, let us test now, said the spider to the flies.

To purchase Chain Gang Elementary, click here for options. For Grant’s Darwin-Awardish take on education, check out the Chain Gang Blog, and for news about the book, visit Chain Gang Elementary’s facebook page.

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 02:24:07 +0000

Story Cartel: Join over 5,500 book lovers and get notifications about free books and other cool stuff sent straight to your inbox. Here’s the link

Of course, you can also go straight to the Chain Gang Elementary page and sign up to get a review copy of it there.

Or you could just buy a copy. The ebook is only $2.99 right now, anyway.

BTW, my second novel, Brambleman, just won a major award. I’m telling everybody!