Blue Serials (2/28/16)

February 27, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I Guess #OklaEd Parents & Educators Have Been… Vocal This Past Week

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Be prepared, informed, polite, and concise. Well, concise is optional – they work for YOU, after all. It may not always feel like it, but at this level, your voice DOES make a difference.

We may not fix everything or win the day, but we’ll be in the coversation, by golly gum.

You may have heard this week that most of us teach at atheist schools…

On Instilling Humanity – Mindy Dennison, Founder and Majority Stockholder of This Teacher Sings – I have such mixed feelings when someone says something I’m trying to say, but does it SO much better. Mostly, though, I’m just glad they can.

Welcome to Atheist School – The Unbearable Blueness of Cereal. You’ve probably seen this email exchange on Facebook this past week. Out of the abundance of the talking points provided by the fiscal overlords the mouth speaketh – the problem is, people are actually listening and questioning right now.

A Few Other Things You Shouldn’t Miss From This Past Week (or so)…

Five Signs It’s Time To Break Up With Your Legislator – Rob Miller, President and Chief Operating Officer of A View From The Edge – “Do you recall the way he would look you in the eye and promise that if you put your faith in him, he would never let you down? He wouldn’t be like all those “other” politicians you had encountered before. This time, it would be different. He would be faithful to you and only you…” I shouldn’t enjoy it so much when Rob is this pithy and sharp. But I do, darn it – I so totally do. Pith with him on the Twitters at @edgeblogger and feel it hurt so good with me. #oklaed

I’m Angry – Jennifer Williams, Assistant Superintendent of Outreach and Co-Diversity Manager for JennWillTeach is, um… angry. I’d try to calm her down, but I’m having trouble disagreeing with her about any of it. Just don’t tell Jay – he might feel bullied. Follow @JennWillTeach on the Twitters and experience the wild, wonderful range of Jenn. #oklaed

I’m Not O.K. – Meghan Loyd, Executive Director of Content Development and Public Relations at For The Love, is in a bit of a righteous snit as well. While the voices of outrage are quite diverse, you don’t have to read very deeply to see a common thread of mother-unicorn defensiveness – NOT on behalf of contract hours or copy limits, but for the students we love who don’t fit the state-approved ideal. Sorry you think they suck, legis – but that’s why we make them come to school. Stop hurting them. #oklaed

Equity, Where Art Thou? – Scott Haselwood, Primary Founder and Endowed Chairman of Teaching From Here, is always about the shovel-ready, practical steps we can take RIGHT NOW to better serve our kids. This doesn’t change just because the political storms are, um… storming. This is the guy at the table who lets everyone else vent their spleens, then turns the conversation towards the “To Do” column. Thank God for that voice. Lend a shovel to @TeachFromHere on the Twitters – it will make you a better person. #oklaed

Two Experiments in Haiku…

Before Twitter, there was… Haiku. I’m so annoyed I didn’t think of this first…

Because Twitter Has Haiku DNA Strands – The As-Of-Yet Unnamed Chief Content Specialist and Social Media Coordinator of Keep The Wheat calls out the chaff in her sophmore post – with style. I hope she decides to keep writing – I’m in love already and want to learn more about poetic DNA. #oklaed

Haiku You Doin? – Rick Cobb, Head Engineer and Mail Room Supervisor Because He Loves The Shiny Tubes of OKEducationTruths, offers his own summary of current events via ancient Japanese poetry. I’m disproportionately amused by this one. Follow @okeducation on the Twitters and be amused (and, um, enlightened and stuff also) as well. #oklaed

And Two Times Literature or Poetry Saved Lives (or at least made them WAY more meaningful)…

On Poetry and Zen – Dan Tricarico, Managing Owner and Co-Solitary Creator of The Zen Teacher, explains how poetry saved his life. Poetry helps us be mindful, and both poetry and mindfulness give us permission to focus on the moment. Be mindful of @thezenteacher on the Twitters and share your poetry. And of course I’m serious.

You Are In Here: How Infinite Jest Pretty Much Changed My Life – Peter Anderson, Writing Staff and Transportation Director of Mr. Anderson Reads and Writes, shares a very personal, raw account of how a book, a father, and a moment changed his life. You know how a story can be so specific and yet its impact so universal? Yeah, that’s this x100. It’s not even zany.

Keep Going. Keep Calling. Keep Teaching. Keep Learning.

Keep loving your kids and demanding better from them. Even the ones who you’re SO done with by this time of year. And that one girl who’s never there. And the kid who only goes by his initials – you know who I mean. Love them anyway, Harder, even.

They may not have much else, so pour even after you’re empty.

As to the backlash, well…

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(Oh calm down, Jay. It’s a #@$%ing metaphor.)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Challenge (Episode IV – A New Home)

February 27, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Most Recent Update to This Page: 3/6/16

I realize you may not read ALL of these. But pick a few. And when you come across a part you particularly like, quote it or talk about it in the Comments section below. This is the ‘Mutual Support’ / Community part of this ‘social media’ thing – don’t just be a consumer; be a contributor.

When I first compiled some of these for a Blue Serials weekly wrap up a few weekends ago, I hadn’t realized they’d keep coming. More importantly, a number of them – before and after I began compiling – are just really, really good.

For awhile I just added them after the fact, but I should have known better. They deserve their own home – one easier to update and continue.

Here’s How It All Started…

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 – Anthony Purcell on Random Teacher Thoughts started something he maybe didn’t quite mean to when he issued an edu-blogger challenge built around a simple series of five questions. His timing couldn’t have been better – to be honest, I think we all really needed it this week. #oklaed

Here (in no particular order) are some of the responses so far. I’M POSITIVE I’VE MISSED A FEW GOOD ONES – please email me or call me out on the Twitters as you discover them and I’ll add them here. There’s not one of these that doesn’t make me feel better about teaching in this sorry state – no matter WHERE each one was written.

5 4 3 2 1 – Meghan Loyd, For The Love

5, 4, 3, 2, 1… And We’re Off! – Scott Haselwoood, Teaching From Here

Challenge Answered… – Lisa Witcher, One Good Thing

Five – Rebecka Peterson, Epsilon-Delta

5-4-3-2-1 or 1-2-3-4-5, or whatever… – Cory Williams, An Early Model Millenial

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Challenge – Rick Cobb, OKEducationTruths

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Challenge – Kimberly Blodgett, KimBlodgett

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 – Kelly Husted, OklaEdFam

1… 2… 3… 4… 5… called out – T.M. Lunday, middleschoolstationconductor

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – A Bloggers Challenge – Erin Barnes, Educating Me

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 – Jason James, Thoughts on Oklahoma Education

Anthony’s Challenge – Eric Johnson, ‘YourKids’ Teacher

Purcell’s Challenge – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 – Zuzuz Petals, Keep The Wheat

1, 2, 3, 4, 5! – Jen Doty, Teaching CI Mandarin

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Blogger Challenge – Lady Mellot, Choosing the Road Not Taken

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 #OklaEd Blog Challenge – Jennifer Lea, The Tempered Teacher

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (Guest Blogger: Matt Cone) – Matt Cone, who doesn’t have a blog, but if he did, I’d SO TOTALLY marry it every day.

Five Questions – Peter Anderson, Mr. Anderson Reads & Writes

1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 – Marvel’s Agents of Ed

5 Questions – Katlyn Bennett, Reader, Teacher… Writer?

Challenging Thoughts & Culture – Andrew Kauffman, Curiosity, Exploration, Wonder

5, 4, 3, 2, One-derful! – Kas Nelson, A Principal’s Place

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Blogging Challenge – The Evolving Educator

Challenge: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 – Excellence in Mediocrity

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 – Jeremy Stewart, Mr. Stewart’s Blog

Make It Count! – One Principal’s Musings

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 – Response to Purcell’s Edu-Blogger Challenge – The Unbearable Blueness of Cereal, Blue Cereal Education

If You Tapped Someone In Challenge and They Haven’t Responded, Tap Them Again.

If you didn’t, or you weren’t, tap someone anyway AND accept the challenge yourself. If you have a blog, post it and tag me at @BlueCerealEduc or on the Facebooking. If you don’t, you’re welcome to Guest Post here.

Welcome to Atheist School!

February 26, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

There’s been an interesting exchange making the rounds on Facebook the past few days, and I contacted the original author for permission to share it. The decision to change the name to ‘B.C.’ was mine, and based only on the venom being slung towards #OklaEd bloggers lately. (I’d hate for Jay to go after her family and kids without at least going to the trouble to hunt down the original all by his shocked-and-outraged-little-self.)

It begins simply enough…

From: B.C.
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 3:18 PM
To: Travis Dunlap
Subject: HB2949
Representative Dunlap,
As a parent with children in Bartlesville Public Schools I am very concerned by HB 2949. If this bill passes it would result in a $2.2 million dollar hit to BPS. Please vote NO to school vouchers and HB2949.
Thank you,
B.C.
Bartlesville, OK

Elected representatives don’t get anonymity. That’s not how being in elected office works.

On Feb 24, 2016, at 10:11 AM, Travis Dunlap <[email protected]> wrote:
Thank you for writing B.C.,
I really appreciate hearing from constituents (especially parents!). I would like to provide you with my personal cell phone to be stored in your contacts for use at your discretion. My cell phone number is (xxx) xxx-xxxx.

To his credit, he shared his actual number. You want it, YOU email him and ask for it.

I want to quickly note that the figure you reference is based on an assumption of over 100,000 students participating and taking an unspecified categorization of the ESA funding formula (there are three categorizations: 10%, 60% and 90% of what is spent on the student in a public state using the state aid formula). The estimate also assumes that revenues stay the same over a 14 year period.
A 2.2 million dollar hit for BPS in next year’s budget is simply not a reality in this bill.
Sincerely,
Travis Dunlap

Fair enough, so far. Numbers and impact and such are always subject to dispute. Plus, he sounds all… facty and stuff. That’s kinda rare ‘round these parts – so kudos to Mr. Dunlap on THAT, even if he’s partly just spewing party-talking-point babble.

From: B.C.
Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2016 11:22 AM
To: Travis Dunlap
Subject: Re: HB2949
Thank you for getting back with me on this topic. The more I research this bill and read what it allows the more I dislike it. The main issue is the hit, of any size, that our public schools would take. I do not think my public tax dollars should be used to fund private institutions. There is not enough accountability within private schools.
I also do not think that my tax dollars should go towards funding the religious education of others. Many private schools are religious in nature and I am not supportive of my tax dollars being used to further their religious agendas. How would you feel if part of your paycheck was taken and used to send kids to an atheist based private school? Are you OK with your money being spent to teach kids that God doesn’t exist? How about a Muslim school? Would you be OK with your money funding tuition for kids to attend a school and read and study the Koran?
As a former Catholic school student I know how much religion is worked into the curriculum. I am Methodist. I am pro-choice. I truly believe that we should love everyone no matter what their sexual orientation. I do not want my money going to a school that tells young women they cannot make decisions for their own health and well-being. I do not want my money going to a school that teaches that some people are better than others and should have more rights than others based on their sexual orientation. Can you guarantee me that my tax dollars will not be supporting religious schools that teach children views that are opposite to what I believe? If you cannot, then this bill forces me to write a blank check to institutions that I fundamentally disagree with.
This bill is welfare for private schools at the expense of our public school systems. If parents want their kids to attend private schools, whether it is for religious or academic or any other reason, they should pay for it themselves. I should not have to foot the bill, especially when it takes money away from the schools my own children attend.
Thank you ,
B.C.

So… our friend B.C. got a bit more detailed on this one. VERY well-spoken!

Here’s where it gets interesting, if not exactly surprising…

From: Travis Dunlap <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: HB2949
Date: February 24, 2016 at 1:26:56 PM CST
To: B.C.
Hello again,
You communicate all of this very well. Thank you for your dialogue. I only want to point out that I hear many parents who choose alternative education express the same frustration when they see what their tax dollars support at public school (which are atheist-based). I believe we will continue to serve widening range of student needs in our public education. ESA’s are the best way to serve the public as a whole. They have typically increased quality at all education institutions when they have been implemented in other states.
Look at the research referenced at edchoice.org for an introduction to this kind of material.
Thank you once again for your dialogue. It has been very kind.
Sincerely,
Travis Dunlap

Wow.

“Atheist-based”?

It grabs you enough that you might easily miss the nonsense about vouchers improving school quality in other states. I also liked the slightly patronizing tone of “go look at this neat site to get started with knowing what you’re talking about!” It’s so… Amway.

Bit I digress.

“Atheist-based”?

Now, it’s entirely possible that Mr. Dunlap simply doesn’t know the difference between non-sectarian, secular, and outright atheist. I’ve often run into these dilemmas when dealing with state legislators – are they boldly and cynically lying, or genuinely that clueless about the issues over which they hold such power and authority?

I try to find third options – I really do – but so far they’ve eluded me.

Either way, Representative Dunlap is expressing a mindset quite common among state leadership. We heard it in Sen. Brecheen’s rants over Common Core and our failure to enforce Old Testament law across the state (he wanted supporters chased down with swords, if memory serves). We saw it in Rep. Fisher’s demands that history be sanitized and Xianized or they’d yank AP funding, and we felt it in his shock and hurt when his efforts fell short because – in his words – they’d been misrepresented as a threat to *sniff* yank *gurgle* AP *sob* funding!

Damn #OklaEd bloggers and their socialist grawlixes!

Senators Bennett and Dahm and others annually submit legislation to push their version of Xianity into more of the school day, and when in January we begin rounding up Muslims and placing them in internment camps (no doubt with names like “Religious Freedom Expansion Retreats”), it will bring nothing but joy to Republican leadership and their ilk.

But back to those “atheist-based” schools and the huge danger they seem to pose.

It’s been awhile since I’ve been a committed evangelical, but I don’t recall Biblical Christianity being so fragile.

The constant terror that the One True Faith will be subverted and destroyed by a little high school science, or where we place the Ten Commandments, or moments of introspection regarding our historical sins and national shortcomings – it’s like they have Jesus confused with Tinkerbell, and must devote all their legislative energies to demanding we clap harder and faster before she’s lost forever!

The proverbial “wall of separation” may serve to protect people from religion. In modern usage, it often serves to protect non-majority faiths from government restriction or public abuse. But they’re not the groups with the MOST to lose when the state takes on a new and improved role as Higher Truth Police.

The worst thing you can do to Christianity isn’t to ban it, or fight it, or mock it, or persecute it. Surely they’ve read enough of their Bibles and know a FEW of the many historical examples of REAL faith flourishing under the worst possible conditions.

The worst thing you can do to Christianity is legislate it – to finance it when it does what you want, and defund it when it doesn’t. The worst thing you can do is wrap it up with politics and money and the power of the state polluting and obscuring the Still Small Voice of personal communication with the Eternal. Ask Catholics in the Middle Ages, or Puritans in colonial times, or anyone living under truly radical Islam today.

I don’t teach at an atheistic school, Mr. Dunlap, and I’m not trying to protect my kids from religion – yours, their parents’, or anyone else’s.

I’m trying to protect them – and their journeys of faith, whatever form they may take – from you and your ilk.

No wonder they hate us.

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RELATED POST: The Blaine Game, Part One (Information)

RELATED ARTICLE: Official’s Email Creates Dispute (from the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise)

RELATED POST: On Instilling Humanity (from This Teacher Sings)

RELATED INFORMATION: Vouchers / ESAs

I Don’t Want To Be A Liberal…

February 25, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 12 Comments

I Don’t Want To Be A Liberal…

I first became a Republican because my parents were Democrats, and I didn’t want to be like them.

In retrospect, that wasn’t entirely fair, but I was a rather pompous teen (not warm and fuzzy like I am now). Faux angst and barely noticeable rebellion were an essential part of my pretending to grow up.

I was raised in an orthodox little church, around good people who may not have had the most flexible worldviews. I was pretty sure I had it figured out, and that my primary role in this world was to help other people figure it out (my way) as well.

That others seemed so resistant was their issue, not mine.

I was in retail when I first heard Rush Limbaugh on the radio – during the glory days, before the pills and when he’d only had a few wives – and although I didn’t like him, I understood and appreciated far more of what he was saying than I’d care to admit now. It resonated with some core part of me.

I became a teacher after it became clear the band wasn’t going to make us rich and famous after all, and I lacked… passion for managing a small business. I chose history because I was tired of all the “revisionism” propagated by New Agey professors with corduroy jackets and bad hair. I would teach “real” history – despite not actually knowing what that might be, having failed those classes in college on my initial run.

Turns out history – being largely about people doing things with or to other people – is a bit more complicated than I’d hoped. There IS no ‘neutral’ or ‘complete’ version, nor CAN there be. There are only better and worse efforts towards understanding limited pieces of it.

After a few years of actually learning things, my Republicanism began leaning Libertarian – at least mostly, in theory, if somehow a bunch of other stuff could be made right first.

See, I don’t believe big government programs are a solution to anything. I don’t believe punishing progress and rewarding helplessness produces progress. I don’t think we can simultaneously prop up bad decision-making AND reduce the number of bad decisions being made.

I’ve lived the life of a privileged straight white Protestant-ish male, but the few important lessons I’ve managed to learn and the most meaningful changes I’ve ever made came about through painful consequences for piss-poor choices. I’ve suffered for my own stupidity, and grown as a result.

I don’t cringe at the idea of taking care of people because I don’t like them; I cringe because I try to love them and want what’s best for them – and depending on me forever isn’t it.

I pay an insane amount of taxes due to the nature of my consulting work. It kills me to see the way it’s loaded up on pallets and handed over to corrupt despots overseas, burned through by unnecessary wars, wasted by the billions on projects benefitting only those re-elected as a result, and otherwise abused and misused by those who could care less because – and this is key – it’s not their money.

I’m pro-life to the extreme. I’m not crazy about Obamacare. I’m frustrated by the correlation between kids on free-and-reduced breakfast and those who can’t seem to throw away their own trash, spreading it instead all over the table, chairs, and floors before they meander off to first hour way too late for it to matter.

I loathe rap and hip-hop. I found pre-2008 Ann Coulter hilarious (although I never took her seriously). My mind accepts tattoos and body modifications as expressions of self, but emotionally it’s a daily struggle not to look down on each and every desperate, clichéd inking or piercing as trashy and trite. I simply cannot understand the appeal of Pearl Jam or Muse.

But here’s the problem…

I don’t believe that everyone has the equal opportunity in practice that we pride ourselves on in theory. The proverbial playing field need not be entirely level in order for meritocracy to be meaningful, but we should at least all be playing the same game with similar rules or it’s all a lie – a cynical joke.

I don’t believe we can poke and prod and abuse and betray large segments of our own population for generations, then – when they lash out – jump back in postures of bewildered, innocent hurt, wondering why we can’t all just get along and let the past (meaning everything we were doing until just moments ago and will continue doing as soon as things calm down) be the past.

I don’t believe as citizens and voters and people of faith that we can so conveniently distance ourselves from the words and actions of those chosen to quite literally “represent” us – to speak for us, make laws for us, and lead us – whenever it salves our consciences to do so. If I’m to hold the left accountable for moral decay or socialist tendencies, then I MUST hold the right accountable for hate-stirring, fear-mongering, and economic abuse on behalf of their fiscal overlords.

See, my Muslim students are NOT a “cancer,” as those on the right would have you believe. (Yeah, yeah – YOU didn’t say that; but you keep electing those who do – so you DID say that.) They’re my kids, and they’re trying to find their place in this world, the different communities of which they’re a part, and to figure out who they are and what it all means – just like every other kid. Maybe more thoughtfully than most.

My Hispanic students aren’t rapists and drug-dealers, as those on the right have repeatedly proclaimed. (Yeah, yeah – YOU don’t believe that; but you keep supporting those who do – so you DO believe it.) Some of them are brilliant, and some of them are motivated. Others aren’t as enthused by this particular value system, nor have we always given them reason to be. We can’t better promote the American Dream by making them scapegoats for our smallness of mind and weakness of will.

My girls aren’t tramps and whores, as those on the right would label anyone not locked into a chastity belt. (Yeah, yeah – YOU’D never think that; but you keep appointing those who do – so you DO think that.) They won’t be helped by ignorance regarding their bodies’ functions or boys’ lusts, and they won’t become classier ladies just because we indulge our fetish for shaming them or locking them up. I’m still idealistic enough to believe that knowledge is power, and that shining sunlight on a subject actually leads to better choices. It sanitizes rather than corrupts.

My poor kids aren’t dirty and stupid and don’t deserve what they’re getting out of this life. (Yeah, yeah – YOU’RE shocked at the suggestion; but you keep choosing those who suggest it, so you’re NOT all that shocked.) It’s because of the very ideals you proclaim that I rant and rage so vigorously about them deserving better.

I’m not looking to give anyone a free ride, but I would like to do a better job distributing maps and have a more open conversation about destinations.

You can’t punish the weak into greatness, and we sure as hell can’t starve them into prosperity. I can’t fathom our obsession with “raising the bar” when it remains so detached from “helping them actually jump higher.”

And so time after time I find myself arguing on the side of those with whom I have so little desire to be associated. The conversations I have with ‘my people’ are more likely to turn rancorous than talks with ‘those people’ – and while I’m always up for a good scrap, I don’t like the tension inherent in betraying the herd.

I don’t want to be a liberal, but I can’t love my kids and believe in my job and be a conservative any longer. I can no longer stretch enough to keep one foot in the camp of the clean and the chosen when my heart is with the bozos and the rejected.

I just hope I can pull off the tie-dyed-and-ponytailed look, and I guess I can try ONE Beyoncé download. But mess with my Ron Paul stickers and I’ll throw kale at you.

Let’s Talk About Choice

February 23, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 4 Comments

There’s been a real emphasis recently on parent choice in regard to public schooling. Apparently, parents know better than anyone what’s best for their child and what sort of education is most appropriate for their individual needs.

Of the many pro-voucher arguments out there, this seems to be the one state leadership has decided on as their primary talking point. I must confess, I’m a bit bewildered when they became such fans.

When parents began opting out of standardized testing because they didn’t think it was best for their children, state leaders didn’t seem too excited about parent choice. Many were annoyed, others apathetic. The overall tone seemed to indicate that these stupid parents were just causing trouble – probably because they’d been led astray by radical bloggers and corrupt superintendents. I certainly don’t recall many legislators applauding for these wise parents and their use of choice.

When parents protested that their third grade children were being brutalized by high-stakes reading tests, facing retention and large scarlet ‘F’s on their chests as a result, state leaders absolutely loathed parent choice. A feisty group of elected representatives finally managed to change the rules enough that parents at least have SOME voice in whether it would be ‘best for their child’ to move on to fourth grade, and Governor Fallin VETOED it – because what do parents know about standards and accountability and children?

The veto was overridden, but at the cost of a ‘sunset provision’ on parental involvement – meaning the same people crying for ‘parent choice’ for their chosen sliver of the population are still itching to eliminate it for the rest.

My son would have benefited greatly from getting out of the six-hour day, the old-school academic core-you-to-death structure in which he was bound, but state law said no. Every child, regardless of ability, interest, background, or potential, has to have X-number of required butt-in-seat hours and be crammed full of the same tired basics that state leadership has mandated as sacred and holy for all kids, for all time.

I wanted desperately to give him something more practical, outdoors, or vo-tech heavy MUCH earlier in his schooling, but I didn’t have that choice. NO parent has that choice. The state knows what’s best, and we don’t – that’s why they make the laws and set the harsh penalties if I don’t force my kid through them, no matter how bad for him or her it might be.

The anti-vaxxers have gained a little leeway in Oklahoma, but by and large have very little choice whether or not their child will be immunized before heading off to school. Why don’t we give these parents choice? Freedom to do what’s best for their kids, who might have different needs?

Seat-belt laws are about as anti-choice as it gets. They are the ultimate statement of belief that too many parents don’t have the first god-given CLUE what’s best for their kids. They’re too stupid to even buckle them in without the threat of fiscal penalty. Parent choice? Are you kidding?

I hesitate to even bring up the demonization of smokers – tell THOSE parents they have the right to decide what’s best for their kids or their community when they light up. You’ll get either a sardonic chuckle or a pop in the nose for being a smart-ass. (Sorry to blur that there issue, Jay.)

Nor do they have much real choice what their kids are allowed to eat at school. The state mandates the most awful fat-free gluten-free flavor-free color-free slop, boosting the sales of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos far above anything legislation could have mandated had they so desired. Sure, you can send lunch with them, as long as you have the sort of lifestyle allowing you to pack it each morning, and as long as it doesn’t have to be hot, or cold, or mixed, or preserved in any way throughout the day.

Even PTSA Pizza Day now means special everything-free crust and no toppings of any kind because Michelle Obama and Jason Nelson think kids are fat. None of this screams parent choice (although it’s a wonderful example of unintended consequences – the kids eat far worse than they did before because we’ve made the standard options so unpalatable).

Spanking my child is only a choice if I keep it a dirty little secret.

Deciding that my 8-year old or sleeping infant is fine in the car for five minutes on a nice day with the doors locked but windows cracked while I run into CVS to grab their prescription isn’t parent choice anymore – it’s a call to the police and DHS.

Same for sending them to play in the park across the street without Zuckerberg-level security. I know it’s safe, the neighborhood knows it’s safe, all available statistics say it’s safe, but the need for us to remain in perpetual panic and fear so as to be more easily controlled says parents simply don’t GET that kind of CHOICE.

What’s left?

Oh, yes – the vouchers.

IF I’m an involved enough parent to understand the process and go through the paperwork, and IF I can afford the thousands of extra out-of-pocket dollars required to actually GO to a private school, vouchers or no, and IF my child can meet the requirements of the institutions at which these ESA Gift-Cards are useable, and IF I have the time and fiscal resources to get them there and back every day, and IF I can pay for any necessary materials, supplies, instruments, uniforms, or whatever else may be required, and IF my child is a perfect fit academically and, er… “culturally” with the school, THEN I have CHOICE.

Equity and access on paper while upper class white folks are the only ones with real options in practice? Shocking. What a strange new problem to encounter.

As a bonus, the more times “choice” is bandied about in the rhetoric, the easier it is to “blame the victim” when they don’t qualify to be “choosers.”

Once again we have edu-slation claiming to serve all the little children, when the only thing it’s really designed to serve is more state-sanctioned ‘white flight’. That sort of misdirection and shameless hypocrisy is why so many of us seem to be in a perpetual snit. We’re trying to wake up Citizen Doe before the fire reaches her bedroom, but she’s fast asleep dreaming of the Gay Muslims trying to take her guns from the bathroom stall next door.

If common education weren’t being methodically dismantled to begin with, I wouldn’t personally be fussing nearly as much as my smarter, better-looking peers in #OklaEd. You wanna cull the supposed cream and hide them away at Word of Faith of Hope of Grace until they’re old enough to join Hydra leadership? Live it up. It’s still wrong, and it’s not good for either group of children, but whatever.

I don’t mind choice as such. But if we feel the slightest obligation to mean anything we say in the political realm anymore, and choice is your thing, then let’s provide choices – lots of them – to ALL parents, and ALL kids, in both public and private scenarios. Let’s set loose that “free market of ideas” of which conservatives used to be so proud, and support it until the playing field at least looks level – even if it means risking possible success by a few kids NOT on our ‘chosen’ list.

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