Nobody Knows Anything

Philip Pullman (author of the His Dark Materials trilogy) is not a fan of the UK’s school testing regime:

The award-winning children’s author Philip Pullman today launches a broadside against the government’s “brutal” school testing regime, warning that it is creating a generation of children who hate reading and “feel nothing but hostility for literature”.

Writing in Guardian Education, the author of the acclaimed His Dark Materials trilogy attacks a lack of focus on enjoyment in the teaching of reading and writing. Drilling to meet the demands of tests makes children’s writing “empty, conventional and worthless”, he says.

You go, boy.

I have seen Sleeping Beauty approximately 3,294,923 times since last Thursday, when I bought it for Sophia at Costco.

It has not grown on me.

Sophia, of course, loves it. So much so that we’ve watched it twice so far before lunch today. I thought nothing could overcome Dora the Explorer in her heart, but apparently Aurora has done so.

I wish Sophia could have picked a better movie. This one is awful. No, seriously. On just about every level it’s awful. The story is atrocious, from the evil fairy casting what’s probably the weirdest curse in the world to the three fairies hiding the baby in the forest to Prince Philip fighting to get to the Princess…

And the Princess herself. Oh. My. God. The titular character of this flick is as vapid and useless as a box of packing peanuts. In the opening scene her father’s giving her away in marriage to his friend’s kid so that they can unite their kingdoms. Then the three fairies whisk her off to the forest, where apparently she should have starved because the three fairies are completely hopeless at cooking or sewing (as we see in a scene sixteen years later). Then she talks to a strange man in the forest and doesn’t give him her name…but tells him to come to her house in the forest that night. She falls into Maleficient’s evil trance, pricks her finger, falls asleep.

(Every time I read this story to Sophia I stop and ask, “Why do the fairies give Prince Philip the sword and shield? Why don’t they do a little more to help Aurora out directly?”)

But let’s look beyond the story and the characters—and look at the movie itself. The animation in this flick is just terrible. This is not Golden Age quality. In many scenes the background is completely static, with only figure in the foreground animated. Maybe it’s a stylistic choice…but it still looks cheap.

And the songs. Yuck.

Have I mentioned how much I dislike the Princess?

I’ll have to watch this about 8 billion more times though. Or until The Lion King comes out. And boy, won’t you love to read what I have to say about The Lion King (a movie I loathed when it came out, but Sophia is fascinated by Simba and Nala, so we’ll probably have to get it).

“I knew we were in Looking Glass Land when I started rooting for the CIA.”
     – Tena, in the Comments section of “CIA wants White House investigation” on the Daily Kos.

Our Los Angeles house is finally gone. We got the check in the mail and everything (note to anybody receiving a rather large escrow check: you have to actually sign it, instead of using a For Deposit stamp, and they’re going to keep the money for seven business days, no matter how many managers you talk to, so get a money wire), so we are officially done with LA.

I’m still missing it though.

Yes, I know I can always go back down there, except the barriers are slightly higher: if we drive down I need a co-pilot (to attend to the radio, to the kids’ snacks, etc.), and flying down requires much advance planning (otherwise it’s $200 a person).

Forthwith, some things I really miss about LA:

• Our friends. I know finding friends takes time. It’s harder when your choice of friends is somewhat constrained by having kids—you basically look for other parents. Tamar, with Dan and Damian; Michele; Maureen, with Mark and the kids; Fernando; Neida and Augusto; Brent, Therese, Ellie; Al; and Harry…
• Sophia’s preschool. Don’t get me wrong, I like the preschool she goes to here. I loved the preschool she went to down there—the Neighborhood School in Sherman Oaks. She came home covered in paint and dirt. And it was in the afternoon, which was wonderful because I got to spend time with her in the morning, when we were both at our best—now her school gets the best of her in the mornings and we’re all exhausted in the afternoon. Grumble. And what’s up with the fact there hasn’t been one invitation to a birthday party from her new school yet? By the end of September last year Sophia had been invited to two or three. (The whole birthday thing got a little crazy, actually, but it’s how all the parents met one another!)
• The cost of living. Everything seems to cost 150% more here in Silicon Valley than it did in LA: housing, babysitters, plumbers. This adds up.
• Living near a great zoo. We lived about fifteen minutes from the LA Zoo. Needed something to do with the kids? Zoo. Since moving up north we’ve been to San Jose’s Happy Hollow (fun park with rides, stupid zoo, but the membership I bought gets us discounts at many other places), the San Francisco Zoo (an hour each way, making it a whole day’s excursion), and the Oakland Zoo (ditto).
• Proximity to Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm. Especially for the decade coming up, when we’re going to hear, “You moved me away from where?” a lot. Of course, moving away has also saved us from tithing a portion of our income to the Mouse by rote.
• Cafe Bizou, Sherman Oaks. An amazingly great restaurant just down the hill from our house. We went there so often with baby Sophia that they inquired about her whenever we didn’t take her with. The club sandwich. The tagallini. The ahi tuna salad. <weeps>
• Osteria Nonni, Atwater Village. Go there. Get the lemon chicken. Savor. I’m not even a huge fan of Italian food—I think we’ve been to one Italian restaurant since moving up here. After Osteria Nonni, why bother?
• Sweet Lady Jane, Los Angeles. There are great bakeries within walking distance of our house here. Better than SLJ, actually. But going to SLJ was such an adventure.
• Aroma Cafe, Studio City. Oh my God. It’s full of pastries. Really damn good pastries. Nearby is Caioti Pizza, also excellent.
• Movie theaters. I know there are a ton of new movie theaters iin this area too, but the ones in LA are just better. Maybe they put more effort into them because so many industry people will see them.
• Live Steamers. The Live Steamers are railroad enthusiasts who operate model trains on Sundays. Model trains you can ride. Sophia, train enthusiast, loved riding these trains. You go through a tunnel, you go over a bridge, you go past little dioramas of Western towns…it’s good stuff.
• Movie-town chat. Everyone’s tangentially related to the movie biz down there. It’s in the air, on the streets, and in every cafe. Everyone’s doing a deal, writing a script, yelling into their cell phone about points. The equivalent up here is computer industry talk. Not as sexy.
• UCLA Extension. Classes on everything for a reasonable price, with the classes held close to our house. Why didn’t I take Latin while I could? I took writing classes, most of which were very good.
• The Last Grenadier. This was one of the first things Darin mentioned. The Last Grenadier is a games shop in Burbank that has everything the gamer needs. Sophia liked the big bins of multi-sided dice.

I’m sure I missed a ton of stuff. I’ll probably keep adding to this list.

And now a few things I know I don’t miss about LA:

• The freeways. They ain’t got nothing like 280, “The world’s most beautiful freeway,” down there. They’re all like 101. I don’t drive 101 around here.
• The heat. Or at least the perception of heat. Darin found a website that compared temperatures for LA and the Silicon Valley and found they were comparable. I don’t believe it. It’s hotter down there.
• The Republicans. Down there, Tom McClintock is a viable candidate and people will vote for Arnold. WTF? Glad to be back up here for that reason alone.

Anybody know what’s happened to Iraqi blogger Riverbend?

Update: Never mind, she’s back. Her site was replaced by a photo of a building, maybe an apartment building, with flowerboxes on the windows for a while.

I’ve had a herniated disk for years. I have an extra vertebrae at the base of my spine, and it’s herniated. Periodically it’s acted up; usually exercising has helped. (Especially doing those damn crunches. Annoying, but necessary.)

I’ve been so good about going to the gym—4 or 5 times a week for the past two months.

Until the past few days. I don’t know what I did, but it hurts.

A lot.

From about the middle of my back to halfway down my butt is simply burning. Any movement involving that area (which would be most of the movements I do—sitting, standing, walking, etc.) sends me into waves of pain.

I’m at the point where I don’t know what I’m going to do with the kids today, because running around after them at the park or at the museum is a no-op. I guess I will just let them run free in the house and possibly watch too much TV because I am immobile.

The thought of picking up my twenty-five-pound love muffin (aka, Simon) to put him in the car and then take him out of the car is, shall we say, unappealing. Doing it any more than necessary—beyond picking Sophia up at preschool—seems like craziness to me.

Via August J. Pollack I discover what is undoubtedly referred to in other circles as “Uncontrovertible proof that everything can be modernized and set in high school.”

Now, probably you watch MTV and you were already aware of this. I only have two words for you: Get TiVo. Save yourself.

Update: I evidently forgot to include the link of the article I was writing about! I have now included it. Hee hee. Oops.

Some of the school districts around here are called “basic aid” districts, meaning they get so much money from property taxes that they receive only “basic aid” from the state for their schools.

About 5 percent of the state’s 1,048 school districts are “basic-aid,” a designation that provides them with only minimal state funding because their property tax revenue is particularly high according to a complex state formula.

Sometimes it’s because of high residential real-estate values, as is the case with Palo Alto, Hillsborough, Saratoga and Los Gatos. Elsewhere, school districts such as Santa Clara are basic aid because of their large share of commercial or industrial property.

One of Gray Davis’s proposals for closing our budget shortfall was to take the excess funding from these districts and then return money to them. Homey didn’t play that; the plan was scrapped.

So these are well-funded districts, okay? But the state’s budget woes are affecting everyone, even the basic aid districts. So public schools are asking parents to contribute a little to their kids’ education.

With the school year under way, bake sales and box-top drives seem like a quaint vestige of the past. Today, public school parents are being pressed for cash — as much as $600 a child.

For some, the aggressive fundraising is turning what had been a goodwill gesture during boom times into something that feels more like an annual obligation.

The entreaties often frame the issue in simple terms, embroidered with guilt. Their theme: If you don’t contribute, your child’s education will suffer.

In Mountain View, elementary school parents this year have been asked to donate $200 a child. Los Gatos parents were asked for “one dollar a day,” or $365. Parents of Los Altos high school students last year were asked for $350 a student. This year, it’s $500.

I get to look forward to being hit up for contributions not only by the private schools I attended, but by my kids’ public schools? Neat.

“We cannot give $200 right now,” said Robin Kuborssy, whose daughter is a fourth-grader at Landels Elementary in Mountain View. Her husband recently quit his job to pursue a college degree.

“If you don’t give something, they call you on the phone,” said Kuborssy, who worries about how failing to contribute the $200 might affect her daughter at school. “I do feel like I need to do something.”

So she may contribute $50 and volunteer to work at fundraising efforts.

…who worries about how failing to contribute the $200 might affect her daughter at school…

There’s a technical term that means “hitting someone up for money with implied threats.” I’m sure I can come up with it if I think about it long enough…

I definitely had fears about what effect contributing money meant when I was in a private school in San Francisco. Lots of families could (and did) donate a whole bunch of money to the school. Mine contributed my full tuition and considered itself quits (understandably). Does the amount of money affect the school’s appraisal of a student? I don’t know. It’s not like the money’s coming in anonymously; they know who gave what.

Of course, above and beyond that, there are lots of districts filled with families who can’t come up with hundreds of dollars to give to their public school. So their schools will just be slashed even more.

We don’t have equal public education in this country.

What I dislike most about getting the parents to donate money is, of course, that it’s not exactly going to convince Sacramento to change what they’re doing about school funding.

I don’t particularly like fast food. I have nothing against eating out (obviously), but I’ve never been one for fast food.

I remember the day I discovered the drive-thru—I think I’d been working at Apple for a couple of years already. I was thirsty and discovered you could get a drink without leaving your car! Pretty cool.

When I take the kids out for lunch, usually we go to a “fast casual” place like Bakers Square or Mimi’s Cafe or something. I’ve taken them to McDonald’s four times that I can remember, all within the past few months: 1)in May, on our drive up the coast from LA when we were moving; 2)in June, when I took the kids down to LA for a few days; 3)in July, when I was exhausted and just had to find some place quick to take them; and 4)a few days ago, we got some Happy Meals for them and a salad for me and went to the Y to eat.

What amazes me isi how passionate Sophia is about McDonald’s. I don’t know why. It scares me, actually.

Last week, she was sleepy and saying she wasn’t hungry…until she saw where I was heading, and then she was perky and eager and very, very hungry. And then on Friday after school she started complaining that she was hungry and wanted chicken and fries, so I began wondering where we could go…and she said, “I saw a place back there. It has a big M.”

Okay, frightened now.

Is it the toys? The colors? I’m pretty sure it’s not the food—I would hope Sophia knows from decent chicken by now.

Clearly, I am never taking them to McDonald’s again. This is no great hardship for me. It’s just weird to have to decide to do that.

Sydney Schanberg has a good little article in the Village Voice:

The president’s No Child Left Behind law requires every public school system to administer rigorous annual testing of students, starting in the third grade, in such subjects as English and math. If the test scores of any segment of a school’s population耀uch as Latinos struggling with English or disabled students in special-ed classes妖o not meet the proficiency levels set by the law, the entire school is listed as “failing” and students can choose to transfer to a school in the district that is doing well. In other words, averaging the test scores of the entire student body might produce a successful result, but the scores of the struggling segment will still, under the law, brand the school as “failing.” In addition to placing new financial and space demands on successful schools, the law’s requirements will also lay serious new money burdens on the ones with troubles, for such things as additional teacher training and additional classes. If the White House shortchanges the program, who is going to foot the bill?

Foot the bill? There was never any intention of footing the bill. (Funny how those “no more unfunded mandates!” people suddenly become very fond of unfunded mandates once they’re in charge.) The entire mission of “No Child Left Behind” is to eventually label every single school in this nation as “failing”—it’s a backdoor way of forcing vouchers or privatization or whatever the hell they want this time.

There are serious, systemic problems with our current educational system. There are serious, systemic problems with our approaches to fixing that system. No Child Left Behind is stealth euthanasia. And don’t think they didn’t know that when they proposed it. Of course, BushCo had to dress it up in other clothing, because if they actually announced to the American public, “You know what? Fuck your kids, ours are going to private schools anyhow,” I don’t think the proposal would have gotten as far.

Update: This is a good article from the Washington Post about what a sneaky, underhanded disaster No Child Left Behind really is.

It’s hard to tell whether this law is more a product of arrogance or ignorance, but either way it’s shaping up to be a spectacular train wreck of a collision between bureaucracy and reality.

The main thrust of the bill is that it requires all schoolchildren to be “proficient” in reading, math and science by the year 2014. Hard to argue with that, until you learn that proficiency has been arbitrarily defined as the current 40th percentile of the nation.

In other words, in 2014 every child will score better than 40 percent of the nation today, or roughly 19 million children. We will be essentially trying to get every child in the nation to be “above average,” and should probably change our name to something like the United States of Lake Wobegon.