White House Looks into No Child Left Behind Overhaul

...overhaul? How about throwing it overboard?

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is looking for input on the No Child Left Behind Act. "Act" is a key word: we act like we're doing something about education, when really all we're doing is keeping the bubble test companies and asessment consultants in business.

Care for input, Secretary Duncan? I've got your input right here. Despite the dutiful claims of our state education bureaucracy, I have yet to see any evidence that No Child Left Behind has done one thing to improve what South Dakota kids get out of their K-12 education. From what I've seen firsthand, NCLB creates silly numerical objectives and cuts into time for a broad, liberal education with heaping helpings of history, arts, and even physical exercise.

We need less assessment from 50,000 feet and more teachers on the ground. We need caring individuals working face to face with students, talking with the kids, reading their papers, correcting their calculus, spending less time responding to arbitrary statistical mandates from Washington and more time responding to the unique needs of every child in their care.

More input? Check in with the Clintons: last time I got to visit with them, they both said we should bag No Child Left Behind. Check in with Carl Chew, the Washington teacher who refused to harm his kids by subjecting them to the NCLB tests. And check in with past Madville Times posts on NCLB's failure here, here, here, and here.

Let's Just Do Algebra: Court Rules Teacher Can't Call Creationism "Superstitious Nonsense"

Guess that Establishment Clause cuts both ways: a federal judge in California ruled last week that Capistrano Valley High School AP history teacher James Corbett violated student Chad Farnan's First Amendment rights by calling creationism what it is—"religious, superstitious nonsense"—on class time.

Student Farnan had gone hunting for trouble, recording his teacher and including over 20 "objectionable" statements in the lawsuit. The judge ruled all but the one comment above were just fine under the Constitution. The following comments, ruled Judge James Selna, were just fine Constitutionally:

1. "The Boy Scouts can't have it both ways. If they want to be an exclusive, Christian organization or an exclusive, God-fearing organization, then they can't receive any more support from the state, and shouldn't."
2. "In the industrialized world the people least likely to go to church are the Swedes. The people in the industrialized world most likely to go to church are the Americans. America has the highest crime rate of all industrialized nations, and Sweden has the lowest. The next time somebody tells you religion is connected with morality, you might want to ask them about that."
3. "Well, we know abstinence doesn't work. And we know one other thing, and that is, once people become sexually active, they often don't stop for, like, 40 or 50 years. I mean, generally, when you start you don't, like, have a conversion and try to become re-virginized, you know. It's not going to happen."
4. "Conservatives don't want women to avoid pregnancies – that's interfering with God's work."
5. "When you put on your Jesus glasses, you can't see the truth."

The judge also gave Corbett a pass on saying religion was "invented when the first con man met the first fool," saying Corbett may have been quoting Mark Twain.

But, as kids with an axe to grind and teachers know, if you throw enough spaghetti at the wall, something will stick. And that one comment about creationism stuck.

Now to be honest, I think the judge might have made the right call on the wrong issue. Creationism is superstitious nonsense, based on a fallacious reading of Scripture as a literal, chronological account of physical events. Most of the other comments he made have a reasonable amount of truth to them. His statement about crime rates and religion doesn't say any particular religion is wrong; it only makes a valid sociological point that we ccan't count on religion to fully counter our sinful ways. #4 gets iffy...or, more accurately, it's not iffy enough, overgeneralizing the political motives of conservatives. But it doesn't establish any religion or irreligion.

Where I'd drop the First Amendment hammer would be on quote #5, about the Jesus glasses. Of all the listed statements, that's the only one I see that cuts to the heart of religious doctrine. Plus, it's demonstrably false. My wife wears Jesus glasses, and she sees truth about as well as fallible humans can be expected to see it. Maybe the context of that comment could save it, but on its own, to make a blanket statement (in a public classroom, in front of litigious Orange County students) that following a particular prophet blinds you to truth is Constitutionally problematic.

Creationism is superstitious nonsense (cue Donald James Parker). Religion doesn't stop crime. Some people do get the prescription wrong on their Jesus glasses and see things a little screwy. I admire Mr. Corbett for fighting the (mostly) good fight in California's conservative enclave. But even this secular humanist can tell Mr. Corbett needs to loosen his own worldview glasses and give alternative worldviews some breathing space in the public classroom.

Get Your Tortillas... from Spearfish!

My wife and I toot the local economy self-sufficiency horn every chance we get. Instead of casting our lot with big corporate service industries who extract our labor and leave us with nothing but meager paychecks and a smaller entrepreneurial class (yes, I'm talkin' to you, call-center boosters), we should focus on promoting small businesses that produce goods and services that they sell to their neighbors right here in South Dakota.

Mitch McKie of Spearfish is doing something like that. His company, Dan Diego Tortillas, makes tortillas for an expanding market of 60+ stores and restaurants. He tells KELO that he sells only to independent "mom-and-pop" operations. He cooperates with other small business owners to share ideas and promote the rural communities where his product sells. And for now, he's keeping his sales radius to 300 miles.

The business model must be working: In business now for less than two years, McKie is buying new equipment to double his production capacity. He's also been recognized as a Dakota Rising Fellow by the South Dakota Rural Enterprise Institute.

Keep up the good work, Mitch... and keep it local!

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Another score for local economy: Robbinsdale Radical's brother Evan runs the Blue Heron Bakery in Olympia, Washington. He's just made a switch to more locally produced flour to get away from a business model that relies on the big carbon footprint of long-distance transportation. I'd order some bread from Evan to celebrate... but that would defeat the point, wouldn't it? :-)

Separating Capital from Cowpoop: Koreans Buy Green Cards by Funding South Dakota Feedlots

I was doing some more reading on Rick Millner's Veblen dairy operations and other atrocious feedlots. I've noted before that South Dakota state government takes a pro-immigration policy to promote our factory dairies. Turns out that pro-immigration policy includes helping wealthy foreigners jump the queue and buy their green cards.

South Dakota's EB-5 program helps foreigners get EB-5 visas, a special kind of employment-based visa. The deal:

1. Invest $500K in a business venture in a "distressed" area.
2. Receive conditional green cards for you and your whole immediate family.
3. Provide evidence that your investment created ten jobs.
4. Receive premanent green cards.

You don't have to work at the feedlot or meatpacking plant or ethanol plant your money supports. You don't even have to live in the same community. You never have to smell the manure lagoons or hear the whine of the ethanol processing equipment that keeps your "neighbors" up at night. You just buy your way into America, go live wherever you want, and send your kids to good American colleges, while thousands of other less-wealthy applicants go through the regular, arduous, sometimes years-long process of winning the same privilege to pursue their dreams in America.

Mr. Millner evidently got his current Veblen operation off the ground with 27 such queue-jumping Korean investors (just curious: anyone up in Veblen see an increase in demand for Korean groceries at the store?). This list also shows the Swiers got a couple Korean investors to buy their green cards by investing in their dairy operation here in Lake County. (Huh—I didn't know Lake County was a "distressed" area.)

The investors don't appear terribly concerned about the long-term profitability or sustainability of the projects they make possible. We should be doubly concerned: the fact that these projects can't snag regular investors without offering the additional carrot of expedited immigration to America should put up red flags about their financial viability. And when the money to run a "farm" comes from someone who doesn't live on the land, who never sees the land, who doesn't care about the land, that tells me we are going to come out on the short and stinky end of the externalities stick.

(One commentator takes the position that such investment-for-immigration is a heck of a deal, alleging that a lot of these economically unviable projects would likely end up drawing government pork. There's always a bright side. Better to have wealthy foreigners than American taxpayers on the hook... I guess.)

The EB-5 program has a "money for nothing" feel to it... and "money for nothing" usually works out badly. If these foreign investors view their $500K as an immigration fee rather than an actual investment, they won't hold the dairies and other businesses as accountable as would investors operating from the proper capitalist motivation. And an immigration policy favoring irresponsible investors denies places in America for folks who can't buy their green card but who are willing to come to America and invest their capital and their lives in the same community.

Nymity:Amity::Anonymity:Enmity?

Hi, I'm Cory.
What's your name?

It's a glorious Sunday! Before you go fishing, take a moment to vote in my new poll (upper left sidebar) on anonymity and blog comments. I've received some useful comments from folks on the new Madville Times comment policy banning anonymity. I'd like to supplement that input with some numbers (yes, you can vote anonymously—irony?).

And as you go fishing, think about this hypothetical: You meet someone. You begin the conversation by putting out your hand and introduce yourself. Instead of shaking your hand, the other person hides her face and doesn't offer a name. What's the impression you get?

Awkward? Disrespectful? Shy? Finnish?

That hypothetical got me to wondering if we can accept anonymity as a template for real neighborly conversation. The Internet is a different medium with different rules and different possibilities... but it's still human interaction. Worthwhile communication still requires some basic human respect... and isn't responding to an introduction with your name and a handshake part of respect?

I've got a dissertation on the blogosphere in the works (expect a call from me, fellow bloggers!), so I've been thinking quite a bit about the impact of anonymity on the sense of community we can build online. The hostility anonymity can unleash is obvious to even casual readers. Yet anonymity can also open the door for unexpected insights. How to choose?

You can Google up a number of suggestions for the opposite of anonymity: identity, accountability, nymity, anonanonymity.... I like nymity for novelty, brevity, and assonance... but identity will likely be the scholarly choice.

You can find plenty of other perspectives on anonymity and its opposites at these sites:

• Katie Rae, "Anonymity in a Crowd of Voices," K-Pinion, 2009.03.31
  
• Bill Larson, "Local Newspaper's New Online Community Has Led to the Worst Behavior," Clarksville Online, 2007.04.10
• Dave Amis, "Net Anonymity: Free Speech or Cheap Words?" Spiked-IT, 2001.02.26
• Steve Yelvington, "Ano-, Pseudo- ... What's the Best -Nymity?" Poynter Online, 2006.01.31
• Homer Wilson Smith, "The Winds of War: Act 91," 1995.09.11

You might also be interested in reading about Robert J. Nash's concept of moral conversation. He offers moral conversation as a template for effective teaching. I'm wondering if it will work (and if I have the moxie to live up to its principles) as a template for blogging and online community building.

Stay tuned: more to come! in the meantime, your thoughts are welcome. Oh, by the way, my name is Cory Allen Heidelberger. What was yours again?

Minnesota Shuts Down Putrid SD-Owned Cattle Concentration Camp

Remember the Excel Dairy, the South-Dakota-owned CAFO that was stinking folks out their homes in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, last year? Well, Minnesota shut the dairy down in January. But even with the cattle gone, air monitors started at the beginning of April indicate the feedlot is still violating air quality standards.

Now the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has given Excel Dairy 30 days (after the roads firm up) to drain their manure lagoons. They've also levied a one-million-dollar fine on the stinkers. Once they clean up, Excel can resume cattle operations, but the new permit is a restricted one-year permit, not the usual five-year permit.

Of course, good corporate neighbor and Excel Dairy owner Rick Millner of Veblen is more interested in litigating ad infinitum than cleaning up his own mess. He told the MPCA "I do not think we can" comply with the new permit, and his lawyer Kevin Stroup says Excel will appeal, appeal, appeal. That fits with Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson's characterization of these corporate malefactors:

In a letter to the agency, Attorney General Lori Swanson said that Excel no longer deserves the privilege of operating a dairy because it has made false statements, ignored state orders, dismissed health concerns, and tried to litigate its way out of trouble by blaming others or claiming exemptions from rules. Swanson called the company's strategy "an affront to the MPCA regulatory authority and the right of the surrounding residents to breathe non-putrefied air" [Tom Meersman, "Ew, That Smell: Thief River Falls Dairy Upsets Neighbors," Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 2009.04.28].

Non-putrified air—is that really asking so much from a corporate farm?

Real neighbor Jeff Brouse, who has to live with the stink of Millner's corporate excrement, expresses the reasonable frustration of a man who just wants his kids to be able to step outside for a breath of fresh air:

“I do not get it. This is a health hazard but yet we do not have any remedies," he said. "The State and the judges keep giving Excel more time even when they blatantly say there will be no fixes, there is no money. No one understands we need to move out of our homes in the middle of the night to protect our children, there is no warning; the wind switches and, bam, we need to get out.

"We should not be forced to lose the right to live in our homes, or be forced to live in a health hazard," Brouse continued. "This decision will cost our neighborhood another year of living in hell for the benefit of a bad actor dairy operation, complete with out of state owners" [staff reports, "TRF's Excel Dairy Gets One-Year Permit," Crookston Daily Times, 2009.05.01].

Gee, we wouldn't have this problem if we just raised cattle (and sheep!) on the good earth and let them eat grass instead of turning farming into an extractive factory process with no respect for land or community.

Let's just hope Millner and his cronies don't bring all the extra cows and manure back to their Veblen cattle concentration camps.

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Be a good neighbor—eat real meat, raised by real farmers and ranchers:

• Braaton Beef, Vale, SD
• Cliff's Homegrown Beef, Gary, SD
• Dakota Harvest Farm, Jefferson, SD
• Fortune Ranch, Interior, SD
• Great Plains Natural Meats, Wall, SD
• (raise your own!) Maveric Heritage Ranch, Dell Rapids, SD
• ...and more at EatWild.com!
  

Collegian Questions Chicoine Monsanto Board Appointment

I'm not the only one wondering about the impact of South Dakota State University President David Chicoine's appointment to the board of ag-industrial giant Monsanto. SDSU Collegian managing editor Amy Poppinga (hey! she worked for the mighty Madison Daily Leader last summer!) reports that some SDSU students and faculty wonder if Chicoine's new corporate obligations will taint SDSU's research and mission:

Chicoine was appointed to the 11-person board as an independent member on April 15. Through that position, SDSU's president will help hire, fire and evaluate Monsanto's management. As an independent board member, he said he will provide objective input.

Still, some students and faculty are concerned his position might create a conflict of interest. Monsanto recently donated $1 million for a plant breeding fellowship at SDSU, and according to a Securities and Exchange Commission report, the seed company has given SDSU $222,000 in research grants thus far in the fiscal year 2009. Between a retainer and benefits package, Chicoine will personally receive about $400,000 for his work with the board this year [Amy Poppinga, "Conflict of Interest?" SDSU Collegian, 2009.04.29].

$400,000 a year, just for coming to board meetings? SDSU pays Dr. Chicoine "just" $300K to be the university's CEO. I don't begrudge a guy for making some extra income—heck, if being a corporate board member pays that well all over, I'll do it! But when your part-time gig pays you more than your main job, you shouldn't be surprised if some of your people wonder where your primary allegiance will be.

(The Rapid City Journal explains that Monsanto is actually paying Chicoine just $195K, plus another $195K in stock options.)

Junior agronomy major Shawn Mohr explained the problem this way:

"He is the face of the university.... What he chooses to do, even in his personal life, may affect the way SDSU is viewed by the general public."

Mohr said SDSU could lose credibility as an independent research institution through Chicoine's affiliation with the seed company.

"We won't become Monsanto-tainted, but our research, to other agricultural companies, producers and counterpart universities, might be seen as Monsanto-tainted," he said.

Concern that Chicoine's appointment would compromise SDSU's status as an independent research facility prompted Mohr and five other members of SDSU's Students' Association, to put forward a resolution opposing the appointment. That resolution failed Monday by one vote.

On concerns the Monsanto might be trying to influence South Dakota's biggest university, Dr. Chicoine responds with the howler of the week:

Despite the university's ties to Monsanto, Chicoine said he was chosen for his background as an agricultural economist, not for his position with the university.

"They didn't choose me because I'm the president of SDSU. I think it was due to my professional background and my experience as an administrator" [Poppinga, 2009.04.29].

Right. I'm sure the "Current Employer" line on Chicoine's résumé never crossed Monsanto's mind.

Chicoine insists Monsanto wouldn't have picked him if there were any conflict of interest; after all, he says, Monsanto wants independent board members who can give objective feedback... which is why Monsanto balances all the big-industry CEOs on its board with representatives from the Sierra Club, Dakota Rural Action, and other groups interested in protecting the environment and small-scale, sustainable, organic agriculture. Again, riiight.

White House 2.0: President Obama Photos on Flickr

Another "Proud to Be an American in the Internet Age" moment: I just found the new official White House Flickr Photostream. These photos, straight from White House photographer Pete Souza, are a remarkable visual document of President Obama at work, at play, and being a good dad. It's also open for comments, just like a regular Flickr account. Very cool... and sometimes darned funny.

Anonymity or Publicity: Take Your Pick

Would you walk into a city commission meeting or Gary's Bakery wearing a mask to chat with your neighbors? Neither would I.

Therefore, new rules of engagement, kids! See the new Madville Times comment policy:

1. Leave your real name with your comment.
2. If I don't recognize your name, and if you don't provide a hyperlink to a profile or other identifying information, I delete the comment.
3. If you have something to say but are unwilling to say it publicly, send your info privately, and we can talk.
4. Don't like it? Get your own blog. It's easy, it's free.

(Still not as concise as the admirable comment policy at this website... but I'm trying.)

Life is full of choices. In civil discourse, you can choose between anonymity and publicity. Attaching your identity to your words is a small price to pay to participate in neighborly public discourse. Think of it as an investment, an investment of added context, meaning, and decency to your words. I've been doing it for four years here at the Madville Times, and I quite enjoy it. I hope you will, too.

All policies are provisionary: we'll try this and see how it works. Onward and upward!

Madison Recount Done: Abraham Won by 11, not 7

Wow: the Madison recount turned up more errors in the count than I expected. Unfortunately for recount requester Myron Downs, the count went even more in favor of his opponent, Nick Abraham. Evidently the recount this morning produced a net of four more votes for Abraham, meaning he beat Downs by 11 votes, not 7, for second place and a seat on the Commission alongside incumbent winner Karen Lembcke.

Well, Nick, you're in! Welcome to power! So when will you be starting that commissioner blog?

Black Hills, White Conquerors, Lakota Values... and the Ferengi?

True freedom-fighters and Lakota traditionalists, feel free to ignore everything I'm about to say. I'm just another White man who lives on land won by lies and force. Any man, Red, White, or otherwise, who tries to take "my" land will be met with every lawyer and shotgun I can afford.

My white conqueror's privilege notwithstanding, Dr. Newquist gets me thinking about the Black Hills and our neighbors the Lakota. Newquist spotlights some remarkable racist commentary from L. Frank Baum, kind and gentle Wizard of Oz author and long-ago editorialist for the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer:

The PIONEER has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past [L. Frank Baum, Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, 1891.01.03, quoted by David Newquist, "The Stolen Black Hills and the Fight to Give Them Back," Northern Valley Beacon, 2009.04.30].

Newquist is putting in perspective a somewhat less genocidal but similarly wrongheaded editorial from this century's descendant of Baum's paper, in which contemporary Aberdonians may read that the Lakota should whore themselves for the money their conquerors say is fair compensation for the stolen Black Hills.

I don't pay as much attention as I ought to Indian issues like the renewed lawsuit over the Black Hills. Neither it seems, does most of the South Dakota media, mainstream or otherwise. I suspect we find it uncomfortable to be reminded that our beautiful state is land won through lies and guns. Some history just doesn't look good on the Chamber of Commerce brochures.

The Supreme Court awarded the Tribes of the Great Sioux Nation a financial settlement in 1980 for what Justice Harry Blackmun called the most "ripe and rank case of dishonest dealings" in American history. Yet the tribes haven't touched the money, which now approaches $900M.

How, in a world where everything revolves around money, can the poorest people in America refuse to accept millions of dollars? Because they consider the land that was stolen from them to be sacred and as they say, "One does not sell their Mother" [Tim Giago, "The Black Hills: A Case of Dishonest Dealings," Huffington Post, 2007.06.03].

It's easy to me to opinionate as a member of the privileged conqueror class. I have my land. My Congress will never pass the Bradley Bill or even consider an idea floated by my good friend Greg, who suggested we give all of West River back to the tribes. (Greg was from Minnesota; I can't recall if he was willing to give back the Twin Cities.) No one looks at me with suspicion whenever I pop into town for groceries or a job interview.

But for what it's worth, I sympathize with the position of the tribal members who oppose this new lawsuit. I do my share of putting principle over pragmatism... and that's with much less at stake than nearly a billion dollars and the soul of my people.

The tribal members hiring the Yankton lawyers to prosecute this latest lawsuit represent the pragmatic view: The tribes will never win possession of the Black Hills. The youth are losing their spiritual connection to the land, so we might as well get our money and put it to good use.

Taking that money would not be a victory. It would be a surrender... perhaps the final surrender in a battle long ago lost. It would be a capitulation to the conquerors' view (my culture's view) that everything is for sale, that land is merely a commodity, that a man's worth is not much greater than his bank account.

The folks who say "The Black Hills are not for sale" are idealists. I admire sincere idealists, especially those who put justice over material gain (and one could argue the material gain of taking a one-time lawsuit settlement would be meager and fleeting).

But then the White man saying this isn't hungry or unemployed.

I have long wondered how we would react if some warlike, technologically advanced race—say, Klingons, or perhaps more appropriately for the analogy, the Ferengi—invaded, conquered, and herded us savage Earthlings into a few isolated, low-value patches of real estate. Suppose a hundred years later the conquerors let us file a lawsuit in their alien courts and actually rule in our favor, offering a few million bars of latinum for our trouble. At the same time, the invaders politely decline to dismantle even a single tourist resort or starship refueling outpost on our Mother Earth. How would we respond?

What really matters? How important is place to our sense of identity? How long and against what odds do you keep up the good fight?

And as Black Elk asks, "How could men get fat by being bad, and starve by being good?"

The renewed lawsuit over the Black Hills calls for soul-searching from all South Dakotans, on the reservations and off.

Herseth Sandlin Beholden to Usurers...

...just like every other South Dakota politician...

Here's one I'm having trouble with: Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin casts the lone Democratic vote against the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights (HR 627), which passed the House 357–70yesterday. Not even a majority of House Republicans voted against this bill. SHS found herself standing with GOP standard bearers Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R.-Va.) as well as Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.), Rep. Ron Paul (R/L-Tex.), and Rep. Jeff Flake (R.-Ariz.). (Interesting: OpenCongress.org reports that Flake is the Representative our gal Stephanie votes least like.)

Says SHS on the logic that no other Democrat in the House bought:

"In a time of economic instability and decreasing credit availability, I think it's essential that we consider the full impact of limiting access to credit," she told reporters before her vote. "People need access to credit while at the same time striking at the deceptive and unfair practices that we know have been going on, and this bill, in my opinion, doesn't strike the right balance" [Ledyard King, "House Tightens Credit Card Rules," that Sioux Falls paper, 2009.05.01].

SHS also noted that she buys the fear tactics of the South Dakota Bankers Association that such regulations will kill their industry and a whole mess of jobs in the South Dakota usury industry. But as I read the bill, things like requiring credit card companies with all their computers and mailing operations to do things like give customers a clear 45-day heads-up on interest rate changes and other contract changes fail to reach my threshold of job-killing tyranny.

I suppose I shouldn't scratch my head too much on this one. King tells us SHS did the same thing last year, and Senator Tim Johnson broke with Dems to vote against a similar measure in March. I will suggest, however, that if our economy hinges on extending credit to folks at 30%, maybe we need a new economy.

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Update 07:35 CDT: For a view from outside the state, see DownWithTyranny:

...the DCCC went on the attack against Republicans, like Don Young (R-AK) who they feel will vote against the bill today. Young is a strange target since he was one of the 84 Republicans to cross the aisle and vote with the Democrats in 2008 on this [Young voted aye yesterday, too —CAH]. (Funny enough, a better target would be Blue Dog Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD) who crossed the aisle in the other direction and voted with the GOP. South Dakota has a huge credit card industry and I suppose the thinking goes that if they steal from the rest of us, it'll trickle down to Herseth Sandlin's constituents-- or at least to her campaign donors. (Yes, she raked in a startling $629,895 from the banksters since being elected to the House in 2004.)

Mmm, that sure helps our state's image.