Arne Ducan Praise

As you know I've been looking on the eduction reform that the Obama administration has been doing almost under the cover of the health care plan controversy. We all have been not blinded, but almost, purposely distracted from the reform thats actually causing quite a stir within the teachers unions.

There's no time to waste. He's been handed this portfolio and he's going to make the most of it before anybody catches on to what he's doing and mounts the opposition that in the past has always derailed major change to the status quo. Duncan turned heads when he entered the Ritz-Carlton in Washington early this month in part because he's so tall (6-foot-5), and because he is offering the kind of strong, spirited leadership that the education community doesn't often associate with Washington. He was there to make a presentation about improving student achievement to a meeting of the Strategic Management of Human Capital National Task Force (SMHC). Speaking in rapid-fire fashion and using phrases he surely could utter in his sleep, Duncan talked about our "fundamentally broken system" and the "magnitude of opportunities" that fixing it presents. He urged the assembled conferees, school officials, elected officials, and union leaders, to "move outside our comfort zone," exhorting them that for the first time in recent memory, lack of resources could not hold them back, only the lack of political will.

This is description of Arne Duncan, the secretary of eduction in the Obama administration. In my opinion this is a really positive view on him. Not that his motive is not good its just that there doesn't seem to be any press on how this man is changing our education system.

Giving Credit

Since the gallery is done I feel like I should give some people blogger credit even though they know how appreciative I am already. I'd like to give a shout out to Kyung Chyun for keeping strong through all this and actually completing her art on time, shes the best. Sydney Eaton saved my ass at the last second so I have to give her tons of thanks because she came in at the last second. I'd like to thank Anthony at Fast Frames in Lafayette for letting us have the show

I love Garfunkel and Oats, two hilarious cute girls that play music, can I ask for more?

I HAD THE ART GALLERY

I had the art show this weekend at Fast Frames in Lafayette. There was a lot of stress around the opening of the show because one of the artist pulled out at the last second but my friend Sydney Eaton covered for us and made the show happen which was really cool. We sold one painting! I didn't think that we'd sell anything at all and I was really exited. I learned a lot from this process, mainly that you actually have to micromanage people. I don't want this to come off negative I actually enjoyed learning from this process.

BFD

Classy Mr. Vice President oh so classy.

Union Vs Government

Education in the United States has be declining for the past 60 years is what some could say a known fact. As I look closer into the topic I see that even though there is an extreme lack of funding the system itself does need some reforming. I have this article from newsweek that had some experts on the debate of the teachers union vs the government education.

It's no wonder that people are looking for an entity to blame for school failures. But blaming unions for failing schools is like blaming the middle class for the recession. Our union's mantra is "what is good for kids and what is fair for teachers." If teachers' unions were to blame for failing schools, then places like Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, who have relatively few unionized teachers, would do much better than the states with the most densely unionized teachers—Massachusetts, New York, Maryland. But those are the states whose schools do best.

So there are problems to solve, one of which is poverty. And I would argue that having a strong union, an entity that will look at what is done right and what is wrong and solve things and change things, is the way to go. We need well-prepared and well-supported teachers, early-childhood education, and a focus on graduation. We find these elements in lots of different places, and the differences between the places that work and those that don't is good labor-management relations.

On this side of the argument it makes it sound like schools do better and do worst with teachers union. This seems to be a stupid way of arguing because all shes really saying is that unions don't make a difference in how schools perform. So I don't understand why they are rejecting government reform. The education system and unions are a very hostile place the more I dwell upon it.

Gallery is Up and Ready

So the past few weeks of me working on my community service has been really hectic due to a lot of let downs. At first I had spoken to the Lafayette library about doing a show there and I had gotten conformation that it would work out. I was told to wait for an e-mail from them so I could send them my proposition for what I needed. I waited for a long time and then I called them back and it turns out that the lady I had spoken to was really unorganized and no one knew who I was or who the lady I asked for was. Basically the library deal was off. So I called Fast Frames in down town Lafayette and asked if I could hang some stuff up and they were really cool and let me. As I was collecting everyone's art to go deliver it, one of the artist had a last second drop out. It was lame but I guess he had his reasons so I can't really hold a grudge. However I had someone to fill his place luckily. In the long run I feel like i went about it in an unprepared way but I never thought it would take that much energy to put together. I guess its a trial and error thing to do, I really wasn't happy about how rushed it ended up being, but I learned a lot about organizing people. Moral of the story is that you have to micro manage people from time to time.