Meeting Notice – Handout – Current Events – Presentation
All support documents in PDF
Third Saturday Seminar 2015-2016
Return of the Elders, Unleash your Wisdom
Session 03
“Saving Texas Public Schools”
A discussion with: Gayle Fallon
Saturday, 21 November 2015 (Third Saturday)
9:30AM til Noon
Room B-102, Lone Star College – Montgomery
3200 College Park Drive – Conroe, TX – 77384 – 936.273.7000
Our American system of education is not what we (think we) remember. There is tremendous divergence in the quality of the product. Some Texas school districts have or are being closed for non-compliance. The economics of a district generally have a direct relationship to the quality of its schools.
Compare the Montgomery County/The Woodlands schools with neighboring districts, for instance, Spring. (Spring has recently hired a new administration and the feeling is positive) In urban Areas there has been significant growth of privately operated “Charter Schools” which are paid by the State for the number of students they enroll. These schools can be choosy about who they admit. Parents in urban areas who can afford it will send their children to private schools. Many teachers are unhappy and there is frequent turnover and early retirements.
Is it too many tests? Low starting salaries for teachers? Laws that cap property tax rates? Incompetent administrations? Political differences between the State government, the taxpayers, the education professionals and parents?
“Free” Public Education was instituted before we were even a nation. It was recognized that ALL citizens needed to be well-educated because if they were not, a free, democratic republic could not be maintained. Educated citizens were necessary, not only to sustain a healthy economy, society and governance, but to stay a free people. If you have been paying any attention to the recent and ongoing political “debates” with each candidate sounding like Santa Claus or a budding dictator and the interviewers plying their “gotcha” questions, then, you may have some idea of my concern.
Gayle Fallon recently retired as President of the Houston Federation of Teachers (HFT) after 34 years. Many of us have seen her interviewed on local television regarding education matters. She is still politically active and still concerned about education. She graduated from American University in ’66 with a BA in Political Science and earned a M.Ed. at Sam Houston State University in‘81, graduating Summa Cum Laude . Before coming to Houston in ’68, she worked for the NSA as a Vietnamese Language Specialist/Intelligence Research Analyst. She has taught and done curriculum design in Aldine and North Forest ISDs before joining HFT in 1980.
She has made presentations to the Third Saturday Seminar twice before:
“The Coming Year in Texas Education”, September 18th, 2010
“The Politics of Education in Texas”, April 8th 2006 (with Rob Eissler)
For those who like to read ahead for context:
Too Much Testing (Save Texas Schools)
With more time testing and less time learning, Texas students are being short-changed. With testing activity now taking from 28 to 45 days each school year, testing is out of control. What can we do?
Save Texas Schools asks our legislature to continue looking at high-stakes testing that is draining both time and resources from the education of Texas children.
House Bill 5 and High School Graduation Requirements (slide show)
Texas Education Agency
Texas School Rankings
CHILDREN AT RISK has released the 10th annual School Rankings across the state of Texas. Their School Rankings strive to serve as an accessible guide for parents, educators, and community members on the performance of local schools and to spark important community dialogue on the quality of public education in Texas.
CHILDREN AT RISK has released the 10th annual School and District Rankings statewide:
As usual we will start out with Current Events (Distractions)
There are two things that come strongly to mind, the pending election and of course the ISIS inspired or directed attack on six venues in Paris killing 128 and wounding 300.
Here are five videos that we might find useful to the two subjects, the first two are amusing as well as informative about the debates. We’ll watch them in class. The next three should give insight into the world of ISIS and the origins and motivations. We have always been challenged by criminal gangs and cartels. But their agendas are power and money. ISIS is trying to dip back into the 7th Century and recreate a caliphate as they believe used to exist and dominate large parts of the known world and purify them.
The Daily Show is back (with Trevor Noah!)
The Democratic Debate: Not Enough Crazy S**t Going On – 11/16/15
During the second Democratic presidential debate, Bernie Sanders compares himself to Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Hillary Clinton invokes 9/11 to defend her financial backers. (6:56)
What the Actual Fact? – Crunching the Numbers in the Democratic Debate – 11/16/15
After the latest Democratic debate, Desi Lydic examines Hillary Clinton’s claim to have mostly small donors and Bernie Sanders’s statistic on childhood poverty. (4:03)
A world again in turmoil! (actually it has never stopped)
France and Russia are now going to take turns pounding ISIS held cities from the air! Our politicians are saying that we can’t allow any Syrian refugees into our country because there is a possibility a few might be terrorists! ISIS has insulted the world just as al-Qaida did in 2001. Terrorist attacks, even serious ones are not an existential threat to any country with its head on straight. Remember? The IRA bombings in Britain including one inside the Tower of London, the train bombings in Spain, the al Qaida attack on the London underground, the Sarin Gas Attacks by Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo religious cult. Each country was horrified, fearful, but they mourned, but immediately cleaned up the mess, and pursued the attackers while their country returned to serving its citizens and doing its business. Unlike the US after the 9-ll when attack our politicians and war profiteers used it as an excuse to panic the country into massive paranoia, trashing our Bill of Rights and starting a war with two countries in the Middle East which was guaranteed to drain our coffers and our spiritual energy, just as Osama bin Laden intended and expected, because he understood the Western psyche far better than we understood the Middle Eastern.
There will be reams and reams of writing about the Paris Tragedy, what caused it, how to prevent another, etc., etc. There may be some wisdom to be found, but if it is it will generally be ignored. Because now all the institutions and agencies that feel they have been embarrassed by the latest attack will want to appear decisive and strong!
But, until we all begin to understand the underlying causes of all the craziness in the Middle East since the formation of Saudi Arabia in the 18th Century (and it’s Wahhabi puritanical by-product) and the end of WWI and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the discovery of oil in Saudi in 1938 and well as the illegitimate, repressive governments that formed throughout the middle east, many supported by Western interests, we can never hope to put the World back on a track which will make it safe for humanity.
In the meantime, most of the countries that have experienced terrorist incidents already have in place procedures to minimize the threat. Paris has reminded us that no country can totally avoid criminal or terrorist attacks. Stuff will happen. But the damage can be minimized by effectively managing the situation and not panicking.
The following three short articles/videos have come to my attention in the last few days. They all offer some valid insights into to the root causes of what we now, today, recognize as ISIS or DEASH (to Arabs).
The increased violence of the French and Russian air and missile strikes on ISIS may reduce them to no longer being a threat in the present. BUT, If the world cannot stop the humiliation, marginalization, unemployment of the people of the Middle East resulting from it’s relationships with the West, how long do we think the state of non-conflict can last?
Insights into ISIS from Democracynow.Org
Abdel Bari Atwan: Inside How the U.S. & Saudi Arabia Aided Growth of the Islamic State
We speak to Abdel Bari Atwan about how the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Saudi funding of jihadist movements helped the Islamic State grow. (~11 min)
Lydia Wilson: What I Discovered from Interviewing Imprisoned Islamic State Fighters
Oxford researcher Lydia Wilson discusses interviewing members of ISIS held prisoner at a police station of Kirkuk, Iraq. “They are children of the occupation …” (~6 mins)
Insights from PBS.org
How should the West battle the shifting strategy of IS?
November 16, 2015 at 6:00 PM ET (13:12 minutes)
The attacks in Paris have raised concern about the threat posed by the Islamic State around the world, and how to counter it. Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff talk with William McCants, author of “The ISIS Apocalypse,” Juliette Kayyem, former assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Hassan Hassan of Chatham House and Richard Barrett, a former British intelligence official.
Third Saturday Seminars – Spring 2016
6 Sessions
To refer to an ancient Chinese saying, “our world is in interesting times” and individual citizens are assaulted with a blinding array of propaganda from every conceivable source. The Third Saturday Seminar is about demystification of what is going on around us. Time will also be spent on current events. Meets 1/16, 2/20, 3/12, 4/16 (2nd Sat), 5/21 and 6/18. Meets on Montgomery Campus in B102.
15216 S 1/16-6/18 9:30 a.m.-Noon B102 Gibby
LSC-Montgomery
3200 College Park Drive, Conroe, TX 77384
936.273.7446
ALL- Montgomery Links:
Academy for Lifelong Learning: LSC-Montgomery
Steven Gorman
Program Manager, Academy for Lifelong Learning,
LSC-Montgomery
936.273.7259
steven.gorman@lonestar.edu
Save the Date:
Spring 2016 ALL Open House
Saturday, January 9, 2016 11:00AM-1:00PM
LSC-Montgomery
Building B-150 Atrium
3200 College Park Drive, Conroe, TX 77384
For more information, call 936.273.7446
Registration
How do I register for a class? You can fill out a registration form and submit it:
· In person: LSC-Montgomery (3200 College Park Dr., Conroe, TX 77384), Continuing Education/ALL Office Building E (Room 205)
· Phone: 936.273.7446
· Fax: 936.273.7262
Reminder for ALL members:
Please let us know if you change your address, phone number, or email. Call 936.273.7446 or email: MCALL@LoneStar.edu.
“Some part of our being knows this (the universe) is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us; We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” Carl Sagan
See you Saturday, 21 November 2015 at 9:30am, Room B-102
Curt Gibby
Director