If I could wave a magic wand, there are several crucial areas in public education in which attention needs to be focused.
There’s too much emphasis – and money – put on athletics and not enough on academics. I’m not saying don’t have a football team or a baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis or golf team. What I am saying and have been saying for more than three decades is that if we had the emphasis on academics that we have on athletics, our graduation rate would be higher and most students would attending and graduate from technical schools and colleges and universities.
There’s also too many administrators in many schools. This cuts into available money that should be reserved for higher teacher pay.
It wasn't that long ago when Big Chief tablets and No. 2 pencils were high-tech education tools. Those days are gone forever. We have to think big, not just on getting by or keeping the status quo of the present education system.
Why not think big and figure out a way to provide every student from middle school and above a personal laptop computer. There are co-op programs sponsored by major computer firms. Forward-thinking state officials and progressive school districts should be working to figure out way to put computers in the hands of every student, not just those fortunate enough to be able to afford them.
The favorite item on my personal to-do list would be to start a long-term, grassroots campaign to slash the high school dropout rate, and to dramatically increase the number of students pursuing advanced training or educational opportunities after high school.
I developed this program when I was the communications manager for the Department of Higher Education. The reason it wasn't adopted is that it is a long-term program. Long-term programs do not offer easy fixes for complex problems. Long-term projects are not attractive to politicians because they don't provide instantaneous gratification results they can point to when seeking re-election or a higher office.
The program -- Education is not an option. It’s a way for life. – combines efforts from government, schools, citizens and businesses into a cooperative venture that constantly promotes to students how important getting an education is during a person’s life.
It uses real-life examples on the local level through cooperation by businesses to show students the difference in earnings from those without a high school diploma, and with higher education degrees or completion of technical courses after high school.
Establishing this low-cost program, which relies heavily on volunteers in each and every school district in the state will be the first bill I introduce and I fully expect it to pass quickly and with a minimum of opposition.
Think for a minute: Who can be against a program designed for and focused on increasing high school graduation rates and promoting continued education for our children?
Monday, July 27, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Michael Jackson: A failure … in life
I was never a Michael Jackson fan. Jackson Five fan, assuredly, but didn’t quite get the whole “Michael Jackson” latter-day crazydom schtick.
“Billie Jean” is a great song; haven’t seen many music videos that topped “Thriller.” But Jackson’s death, like his latter life, was a circus just waiting on the arrival of the clown car.
How far have we plunged into Media Hell when up to six television channels at a time were carrying special documentary-type coverage of “Michael is Dead! Day Six!”? Michael Jackson was not a genius at anything in life that truly matters. He was, however, a great singer, an explosive, inventive dancer and one of the best entertainers ever.
What else, pray tell? What else was he or what else did he do to deserve the hero status that came with his death?
In a word, Michael Jackson was a freakoid. He butchered his body for the sake of … (you fill in the blank). He started off life as a black youth with a bright bouquet of talent and, through the miracles of modern chemistry and surgery techniques, turned himself into a hatcheted, white hag. He was an accused pedophile who paid off one family who claimed he had abused their son, and was acquitted by a jury in another case that was reminiscent of the O.J. Simpson verdict.
It doesn’t matter if he’s innocent or guilty. He’s famous!
This is not the substance from which legends and folk heroes are made, folks. This is “Nightmare on Elm Street” reality.
Jackson has not been and never should be a role model. He’s to be pitied, on some small scale, because even with success and wealth, he could not figure out what he should do to find true happiness. His lifestyle was a conglomeration of bizarre behavior, off-the-scale indulgences and inability to face the realities of the “normal” world in which we all must live on some scale.
He was a lost boy who was more than 50 years old. That should be no celebration for that fact. That is cause for pity and profound sorrow.
And now that he’s gone, those people supposedly closest to him are fighting over the pieces of his life like a pack of ravenous wolves.
I don’t know if the Michael Jackson of 2009 deserved better.
But I believe the Michael Jackson who wowed us Baby Boomers with his youthful song-filled blessings in the early days assuredly did.
“Billie Jean” is a great song; haven’t seen many music videos that topped “Thriller.” But Jackson’s death, like his latter life, was a circus just waiting on the arrival of the clown car.
How far have we plunged into Media Hell when up to six television channels at a time were carrying special documentary-type coverage of “Michael is Dead! Day Six!”? Michael Jackson was not a genius at anything in life that truly matters. He was, however, a great singer, an explosive, inventive dancer and one of the best entertainers ever.
What else, pray tell? What else was he or what else did he do to deserve the hero status that came with his death?
In a word, Michael Jackson was a freakoid. He butchered his body for the sake of … (you fill in the blank). He started off life as a black youth with a bright bouquet of talent and, through the miracles of modern chemistry and surgery techniques, turned himself into a hatcheted, white hag. He was an accused pedophile who paid off one family who claimed he had abused their son, and was acquitted by a jury in another case that was reminiscent of the O.J. Simpson verdict.
It doesn’t matter if he’s innocent or guilty. He’s famous!
This is not the substance from which legends and folk heroes are made, folks. This is “Nightmare on Elm Street” reality.
Jackson has not been and never should be a role model. He’s to be pitied, on some small scale, because even with success and wealth, he could not figure out what he should do to find true happiness. His lifestyle was a conglomeration of bizarre behavior, off-the-scale indulgences and inability to face the realities of the “normal” world in which we all must live on some scale.
He was a lost boy who was more than 50 years old. That should be no celebration for that fact. That is cause for pity and profound sorrow.
And now that he’s gone, those people supposedly closest to him are fighting over the pieces of his life like a pack of ravenous wolves.
I don’t know if the Michael Jackson of 2009 deserved better.
But I believe the Michael Jackson who wowed us Baby Boomers with his youthful song-filled blessings in the early days assuredly did.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Some stories not reported
During the 10 years it was my pleasure to hold the title of publisher of the Marshall News Messenger, I learned a lot about the power a community newspaper has … and, hopefully, how to use that power to create an atmosphere of positive change within the area the paper serves.
Emails and phone calls from old friends and acquaintances have flooded my brainpan with memory deposits.
I remember:
-- The time a man called and threatened to beat me up because we ran a photo of his dog being operated on down at John Allred’s Veterinary Place (or whatever one of those things where vets work are called). The story was part of a series spotlighting high school students who worked after school.
The man said his friends were making fun of him. “How’d they know it was your dog?” Well, the man said, “I told them.”
He was serious about the “beating me up” part and was stopped just short of the News Messenger door by Marshall police officers. He was carrying a baseball bat. “How’d you guys know I was coming down here?” he asked. I’m sure I grinned when I said, “I told them.”
-- A local businessman pulled his weekly ad over an editorial I computered. Two days after the paper came out without his ad, he showed up by office door with a piece of paper and asked me to sign it. It authorized me to never, ever, under any circumstances, allow him to drop his ad again.
Seems leaving the ad out of the Messenger had cost him more than $10,000 in sales that week.
I signed the paper and tried hard not to gloat.
-- A local political activist took umbrage at a column about something or other and cancelled her subscription. We had a policy then that anyone who quit the paper because of anything I had written had to talk to me before we initiated the cancellation request. The woman refused to talk to me.
I went home, put on my tux (yes, I owned one to wear to Marshall’s Debutante Ball once a year), put that day’s edition of the paper on a faux silver tray and deliver it to her house. She opened the door, sent me to Hell with a look, and said: “I’ll keep taking the paper. Now get off my porch.”
-- A late night phone call woke me up and the caller informed me that “Every day the News Messenger lies. Every single day!”
After fumbling words around a bit, the man said that the courthouse drawing on the front page
of the paper has “a Texas and American” flag flying over the dome. “There ain’t no flags up
there. You’re lying.”
Oh, they’re up there. Been up there for years, I said, before I hung up.
Oh, almost forgot: I asked him what he had been drinking. He said it was “None of your
$%^*& business.” I checked the police log the next day and apparently he didn’t get picked up
going up to check on the flags that weren’t there.
-- We had a sheriff back in the ‘80s that was, well, volatile. There was a report he had shot a tire on his wife’s car after a family disturbance. I didn’t feel comfortable sending our police reporter over to talk to him so I just asked him pointblank in the courthouse hallway (lots and lots of witnesses), if had, indeed, shot a tire on his wife’s car.
“That’s a #&%* lie,” he said, giving me a look that would freeze steel. “I shot two of them, the front ones.”
Politicians that tell the truth are few and far between.
Emails and phone calls from old friends and acquaintances have flooded my brainpan with memory deposits.
I remember:
-- The time a man called and threatened to beat me up because we ran a photo of his dog being operated on down at John Allred’s Veterinary Place (or whatever one of those things where vets work are called). The story was part of a series spotlighting high school students who worked after school.
The man said his friends were making fun of him. “How’d they know it was your dog?” Well, the man said, “I told them.”
He was serious about the “beating me up” part and was stopped just short of the News Messenger door by Marshall police officers. He was carrying a baseball bat. “How’d you guys know I was coming down here?” he asked. I’m sure I grinned when I said, “I told them.”
-- A local businessman pulled his weekly ad over an editorial I computered. Two days after the paper came out without his ad, he showed up by office door with a piece of paper and asked me to sign it. It authorized me to never, ever, under any circumstances, allow him to drop his ad again.
Seems leaving the ad out of the Messenger had cost him more than $10,000 in sales that week.
I signed the paper and tried hard not to gloat.
-- A local political activist took umbrage at a column about something or other and cancelled her subscription. We had a policy then that anyone who quit the paper because of anything I had written had to talk to me before we initiated the cancellation request. The woman refused to talk to me.
I went home, put on my tux (yes, I owned one to wear to Marshall’s Debutante Ball once a year), put that day’s edition of the paper on a faux silver tray and deliver it to her house. She opened the door, sent me to Hell with a look, and said: “I’ll keep taking the paper. Now get off my porch.”
-- A late night phone call woke me up and the caller informed me that “Every day the News Messenger lies. Every single day!”
After fumbling words around a bit, the man said that the courthouse drawing on the front page
of the paper has “a Texas and American” flag flying over the dome. “There ain’t no flags up
there. You’re lying.”
Oh, they’re up there. Been up there for years, I said, before I hung up.
Oh, almost forgot: I asked him what he had been drinking. He said it was “None of your
$%^*& business.” I checked the police log the next day and apparently he didn’t get picked up
going up to check on the flags that weren’t there.
-- We had a sheriff back in the ‘80s that was, well, volatile. There was a report he had shot a tire on his wife’s car after a family disturbance. I didn’t feel comfortable sending our police reporter over to talk to him so I just asked him pointblank in the courthouse hallway (lots and lots of witnesses), if had, indeed, shot a tire on his wife’s car.
“That’s a #&%* lie,” he said, giving me a look that would freeze steel. “I shot two of them, the front ones.”
Politicians that tell the truth are few and far between.
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