Just a quick post to say Happy World Environment Day! Why not take a few minutes to learn more, calculate and reduce your CO2 load, examine your consumerism, or just do some clicking to protect some habitats.

I have always believed that abortion is one of the worst topics to debate because it is one on which people’s feelings are almost entirely immutable, but here I am wandering into this dangerous territory.

My feelings on abortion are very complicated, but the argument I currently favor is stolen almost entirely from Judith Thompson and runs as follows: if you have the option to support the life of another human being, but it requires considerable sacrifices (medical, economic, personal, and professional), are you therefore required to do so? Well it seems like, under this argument, abortion wouldn’t be an especially nice thing to do, but it would not be approximately equivalent to murder. Certainly people of different faiths (and certainly of my own faith, with whom I am currently in crisis) will disagree with this assessment, and I am not sure . Is abortion a sin? I’m pretty sure it is. Does that mean it should be a crime? Absolutely not. I can sense the hate mail coming already.

Since college, when I heard speakers from both Right to Life and Planned Parenthood, it has been my belief that Pro-Choice people were easier to get along with because at the base of our argument is the fact that we don’t want to argue with you. Get an abortion or don’t, it’s your decision. Believe what you want, I understand. Just stay the heck off the law books. The difference, I asserted, was that for Pro-Choice activists this is a social issue. For Pro-Life activists, this is a moral issue.

I’ve changed my mind.

Choice is absolutely a moral issue. All these years, I’ve believed that the “Pro” titles were ridiculous propaganda on the part of everyone involved. Everyone has to be in favor of something, rather than against. No one mentions abortion. Now I see, however, that the titles are so different because the movements are based on entirely different moral principles. For some, the issue is life or death. For me, the issue is choice.

What is feminism, what is liberalism, what is democracy about if not choice? I have the choice to work or not, to raise children or not. I have the choice to speak in public about whatever is on my mind, be it politics, religion, or sexuality. I have the choice to worship whoever or whatever I want, in whatever way I choose. I have the choice to pursue happiness in whatever way I see fit. As my theory of morality has evolved I have come to realize that choice is necessarily at the center of any moral theory.

The 2004 election was decided more than any election prior on the subject of “values.” Liberals see this as cause for concern, which I believe is hogwash. We have values. These are our values. We are the choices we make.

I am sitting in a room with three children. These children are 17 years old. One does not speak English, and when we give her a Gujarati dictionary, she does not seem to know how to hold it, but she smiles pleasantly and looks at her test book studiously as I read her the test questions. Another spends over half an hour painfully struggling to read a one and a half page story in order to answer questions on it. She slides her finger under the words, and frequently looks up in frustration. I nod at her encouragingly and she returns to work. The third is finished in under 15 minutes but he does not appear to have actually read a single one of the questions. Every one of these children is classified with a specific learning disability (and in the case of the first, also as an English language learner). Every one of these children must pass the rigorous three day state test that I am currently proctoring. Otherwise, it means we’ve left them behind.

Behind WHAT?

A brief primer in No Child Left Behind. NCLB was the education plan on which Bush campaigned in 2000. It was based upon the success of a similar plan in Texas, affectionately known as the “Houston Miracle” - which by the way NEVER HAPPENED (for more information see this article). NCLB was the first piece of domestic legislation passed after 9/11, and it was passed with bipartisan support because it sounded so appealing.

While there are certainly many admirable provisions in this law (most of which were never funded, but that’s a cry for another day), the most notable provision is the testing provision. By the year 2015, every child is to be passing a state level test at every grade level. There are gradual benchmarks set up for each year that passes. Currently, schools must maintain pass rates of 85%. That may not sound difficult. However, the schools are required to reach that benchmark in ever subgroup. Subgroups include, but are not limited to: children with disabilities, English language learners, and students with low SES. This means that 85% of ESL students must pass the state tests. 85% of special ed students must pass the state tests.

Now I am not a special educator, nor do I teach ESL. And as I look around the room at this group of students, there is not one of the three of them who I would be willing to leave behind. But as I watch them struggle through this test which is entirely beyond their cognitive capacity, I have to ask myself how this test can possibly be keeping them on track.

The very name “No Child Left Behind” is an artifact of the spin upon which this law was based. Born out of Rod Paige’s own lies and deceit, this law purports to help children by increasing accountability. The underlying assumption is that teachers, by default, are doing something wrong. Personally I find this insulting. More significant than my personal reaction, though, is the inherent lack of logic in this argument. Even if teachers are doing something wrong, increasing the accountability of teachers can only be done by observing, assessing, and educating teachers, not by testing children. How can a child’s test scores accurately assess a teacher’s performance when there are so many other variables which affect the test score? And this assumption that positive results on a three day test once a year will somehow prove that children are being better served is absurd. Good teaching involves working with students to meet their individual needs, based on their goals and abilities. Good teaching is not one size fits all.

This is not a measure designed to help children. This is a measure designed to punish teachers, to punish schools, and ultimately it will punish children. This is a law designed to label schools as “failing” when they are unable to achieve the stated goal with the available resources. Logic would indicate that such schools need more resources. The law would give them less.

The children in the library with me, like all children, deserve more than more tests. They deserve functional career education, character development, civics education, divergent thinking, socialization. The project of public education is developing an educated citizenry, helping to build a population responsible for its own democracy.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid, these days that is what’s being left behind.

I’ve been pondering how one can write an introduction to the world, how I can possibly convey to my audience who it is I am and what it is I have to say.

How did I get here? Looking around at my co-writers (if one can look in this marvelously disconnected cyber-world), I see that I am the only woman. I am the only teacher. Does that make me an expert on women’s issues, or on educational issues? No, I don’t believe so. It does however give me a different perspective on the world, a different body of experiences, and a different personality with which you may identify.

I’m not as liberal as I used to be, nor am I as brave. As I’ve grown older, left school, started my first job, gotten engaged, and met people who I would never have imagined meeting, I’ve begun to question everything I hold dear. I think that’s what makes beliefs so dear in the first place, their ability to be questioned. I don’t claim to have all the answers, or to be an expert on those issues on which I will attempt to reflect from time to time. I can only offer my opinions, my experiences, my viewpoints and my personality.

Perhaps it is a cliche for me, the resident feminist to say that “The personal is political,” but I’m going to say it anyway. I completely believe that every choice we make in our own lives is in its way a deeply political statement. And so, while I cannot promise that I will not from time to time launch into a rant on a national issue, the majority of the stories I have to tell are smaller stories, stories of people I’ve known and things I’ve seen. You may think that makes them less important. I don’t.

And so on these small things, I suppose I am the expert. This is grassroots where it truly begins: from the bottom up, from the individual to the national and back to the individual. Now is not the time to rest, but now is the time to gather wisdom and strength and to begin to grow. I hope you’ll stick around to grow with me.