STUPID AND CONTAGIOUS

"Oh well. Whatever. Nevermind."-- Nirvana

Now that we're at the end of a school year, I'm thinking back to near the beginning of it, in October, when I attended a Halloween party dressed up as, well, myself -- with a cardboard box over my head.

"What're you supposed to be, Mosher?" someone asked.

"A teacher thinking inside the box," I said.

"Funny," that someone said. And perhaps it was funny, though as usual I simply was trying to make a point in my awkward way.

During this past year I heard Clark County School District officials urge teachers to "think outside the box" 342 times. I know this because I counted them. Also, teachers were told frequently to be "team players" and "on the same page." Good teachers these days, then, must constantly think outside some hypothetical box as they simultaneously play for an imaginary team while being on the same page of a nonexistent text with all other teachers and administrators -- who themselves must think outside imaginary boxes while playing for hypothetical teams on the same pages of nonexistent texts. Which can get confusing. Plus, to complicate matters, those who constantly tell people to be team players are rarely, if ever, team players themselves.

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said: "Whereof we do not know, thereof we should not speak." Which is probably true, but imagine telling that to an administrator on a day the No Child Left Behind EduNazis pay his school a surprise visit; or the morning after a supervisor forgot to drink her Metamucil.

"Test scores are down, teachers," the principal says at a staff meeting. "We need to think outside the box to get scores back up."

"How far outside the box?" one teacher asks.

"As far as it takes," the principal replies.

"Serial killer Edmund Kemper thought outside the box," a second teacher says. "He killed his mother, chopped off her head, then put it on the fireplace mantel and threw darts at it. We could tell students we're gonna throw darts at their dead heads if they don't bring scores up."

"No, parents might complain," says the principal. "Instead, we should tell kids they'll end up flipping burgers or dealing drugs the rest of their lives if scores don't improve."

"That won't work," a third teacher says. "My students flip burgers and deal drugs now. And they're making more money than me."

"Listen, people!" the principal barks. "We need to get on the same page here!"

"Like when America became a nation of mass murderers in Iraq by re-electing George Bush?" a fourth teacher pipes up.

"What's your point?" asks the principal.

"In 2004, the majority of voting Americans were on the same page, but it was the wrong page. Now look at the world."

"That's negative. We need team players here," the principal snarls.

"Team?" the above-mentioned second teacher says. "Charlie Manson had a great team. He'd whisper in little girls' ears, 'I am the god of sex,' and give them drugs. They all passed Charlie's tests!"

Following this meeting about raising test scores by thinking outside a box as team players on the same page, one sad-looking teacher waddles up to me.

"I just wanna put a shotgun in my mouth and blow my brains out like Kurt Cobain," he says. "Moving from Chicago to teach in Vegas was the biggest mistake of my life. How do you survive this crap?"

"Me?" I ask. "I just go home and in my awkward way write a poem about it at the end of the school year"--

SMELLS LIKE TEACHER SPIRIT

the classroom is empty now
hollow and spent
like an ancient tomb
raped by grave robbers
the shell of something living
left behind
and the hatchlings
are loose and loosed
upon the world
scuttling feverishly
(can't you hear the scampering?)
toward the safety of the water
where there is no safety of the water
and in this hollowness we know
that we never taught them enough
because we never knew enough
hence we must scuttle too
from this once living thing
an empty shell
this room
(can't you hear the scampering?)

Chip Mosher is a simple classroom teacher

THE LACK THEREOF

Several things going on in public education lately: This past week my phone constantly has been ringing with calls from individuals, and from one prominent political faction, asking which school board candidates to vote for, or endorse, in the upcoming election. To a local teacher this question is a no-brainer. Hence, that's probably why I was getting these calls from folks who care about the ongoing pathetic plight of teachers in Las Vegas.

This year the no-brainer answer is: Vote for anyone but an incumbent for the Clark County School Board. Of course, you should first study all the other candidates in your school board district to pick the most efficient non-incumbent. One nice thing about this year's election is the Nevada Supreme Court helped dump about 30 percent of the seven-member school board's dead weight by enforcing term limits on Trustees Mary Beth Scow and Ruth Johnson. Thus, two out of three incumbents up for reelection are gone. With this controversial legal decision, you can chalk up at least two points for the effectiveness of term limits.

Scow and Johnson's disastrous tenures, both starting 12 years ago, have been known for low student test scores and graduation rates, but large class sizes. Plus, an insidious form of institutional racism has infested the district throughout that time. Both women, sadly, were part of the school board that, in 2000, tolerated former Superintendent Carlos Garcia's public proclamation that "Niggers come in all colors." On top of all this, the teaching profession here has plummeted from an average-paying, middle-class job to one not providing a decent living wage for teachers. Under Scow and Johnson's leadership (or lack thereof) teachers have been forced to work in a brutal gulag of fear so profound that roughly 5,000 new teachers disappear from the district every five years, a fact to which these two trustees seem oblivious.

One word best describes their legacy: PASSIVE. Neither one has the temperament for the progressive activism needed in educational leaders today. True, in the past few years test scores and graduation rates have risen significantly, but this is due directly to the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. In the five years before that law, and Johnson and Scow were in charge, the school district wallowed academically.

Funny thing about President Bush's little education initiative. It was a needed kick in the ass to public education that got around the incompetence of people like Scow and Johnson, to deliver good teaching practices to all students in all schools. Few people realize, even today, what No Child Left Behind, in its simplicity, has actually accomplished. As most good teachers know, there are basically three types of school principals: academic principals (who promote learning), athletic principals (who promote sports) and dysfunctional principals (those with drug, sex or power-tripping addictions). What No Child Left Behind did was force all principals to follow the academic (learning) model or face punitive consequences. And the results, to date, have been impressive.

Which leads us to the only incumbent trustee running for reelection, Terri Janison. When she first joined the board three years ago, Janison aligned herself with a shady group of business leaders and casino executives known as The Council for a Better Nevada. Its goal was to take over the Clark County School District by putting an out-of-state shill in the position of school superintendent -- to indoctrinate our students with the psychopathic, bottom-line philosophy of its elitist members. Their Trojan Horse was something called empowerment schools -- an idea ripped off from Edmonton, Canada, where public education is extremely well-funded. Unfortunately in Vegas, where public education spending ranks with the lowest in the nation, these empowerment schools simply have become a sadistic weapon used to threaten grossly underpaid teachers -- into more fear. After this shill ploy fell through, however, Janison quickly got into lockstep with the status quo of academic apathy represented by the above-mentioned Scow and Johnson.

In other words, Janison is the quintessential plastic politician, with the intellectual insight of a Stepford housewife. To teachers, she repeatedly has proven her philosophy of education is well-grounded in the principles of ignorance. The proof? Fifty percent of all new teachers continue to flee the school district. And that ugly statistic hasn't changed under Janison's leadership (or lack thereof).Therefore, voters, it truly is time for change. Now, please, start your homework.

Chip Mosher is a simple classroom teacher in Las Vegas.