From Psalm 104

5 He laid the foundations of the earth that it never should move at any time. 6 Thou coveredst it with the deep like as with a garment the waters stand in the hills. 7 At thy rebuke they flee at the voice of thy thunder they are afraid. 8 They go up as high as the hills, and down to the valleys beneath even unto the place which thou hast appointed for them. 9 Thou hast set them their bounds which they shall not pass neither turn again to cover the earth. 10 He sendeth the springs into the rivers
which run among the hills. 11 All beasts of the field drink thereof and the wild asses quench their thirst. 12 Beside them shall the fowls of the air have their habitation and sing among the branches. 13 He watereth the hills from above the earth is filled with the fruit of thy works. 14 He bringeth forth grass for the cattle and green herb for the service of men; 15 That he may bring food out of the earth, and wine that maketh glad the heart of man and oil to make him a cheerful countenance, and bread to strengthen man's heart. 16 The trees of the Lord also are full of sap even the cedars of Libanus which he hath planted; 17 Wherein the birds make their nests and the fir-trees are a dwelling for the stork. 18 The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats and so are the stony rocks for the conies. 19 He appointed the moon for certain seasons and the sun knoweth his going down. 20 Thou makest darkness that it may be night wherein all the beasts of the forest do move. 21 The lions roaring after their prey do seek their meat from God. 22 The sun ariseth, and they get them away together and lay them down in their dens. 23 Man goeth forth to his work, and to his labour until the evening.

Charter Schools for Mississippi: An Open Note to My State Representative (part 2)

Senator:

I would be interested to see this 'evidence' you mention. I've already offered you some anecdotal evidence from people who really teach in an (Dallas-Fort Worth) area where there are charter schools, and I am drawing on some of my own experiences in education. I am always open to new empirical reports on the issue. However, I have often been disappointed in the so called 'data' that I've read in the past against charter schools since their samples were usually selective, and the researchers and data analysts often proved to be tendentious in their findings. Nevertheless, I would like to see any new reports on the subject.

However, your analogy of the best public schools in Mississippi as the ones with 'little or no competition' is a 'non sequitur' for me because Mississippi almost has no competition anywhere. I graduated from Clinton High School in 1996 where there is no other competition for 6-12 grades. My wife graduated from a private school in Yazoo City where city children have only two choices--private or public. Neither Clinton, nor Yazoo City, nor Holly Springs (where we live now) are exactly replete with choices, especially when you compare them to other states such as Texas and California. Therefore, in Mississippi and states like it, it is probably equally true that the worst public schools (as well as the best ones) have 'little or no' competition in the local area. Because of the current laws, forcing parents and independent educators to go cap in hand to the local school board, there is an obvious paucity of educational competition in all districts, good or poor.

On another point, I share your concern with the 'fragmentation' of our society, but where do we live? I've lived in Texas, and my mother's side of my family lives in California so I get to visit that state as well. Both states have charter school systems, and neither state could possibly be 1/10th as fragmented as Mississippi (which has never had charter schools) already is, especially Mississippi north of Madison County. Holly Springs is a case in point, where the community is separated not only on racial lines, but along historical pedigree linage verse new residents, education levels and personal wealth, social conservatives verses alternative lifestyles, etc. It would take a book to explore how Holly Springs ever got this way, but I am sure of two things: (1) charter schools had nothing to do with it, and (2) I highly doubt that charter schools could do anything to further aggravate the situation that already exists. Indeed, they might ameliorate the situations in some ways since parents, who could not afford Marshall Academy or even Holy Family (which does have a reduced tuition based on needs), could have another choice if they wanted to. If parents in Holly Springs turned out to be as pleased as punch with their public and private education choices, then they wouldn't have to support a charter school in their neighborhood.

However, the point of this whole discussion should not be whether I think charter schools are a good idea or you think they are a bad idea. That is not right at all. In my opinion, it should not be up to us. The people of Mississippi may be depicted as children in Hollywood movies, but they are adults who can make up their own minds about what is best for their communities. If it were me, I would vote for the bill not so much for the sake of charter schools themselves, but to free Mississippians from their current constraints so that they could best decide what was in the interest of their communities. Sorry...didn't meant to write another essay. ;-) God bless, and good luck.

The ending to the 1981 film Peter and Paul.

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-9).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJerI6ZbZJM&context=C31a8787ADOEgsToPDskJ73cGF21ktiI_p_6PkSGi9

TEC 'church planting': A Tale of a Potemkin village

I was confirmed in the Episcopal church by Bishop Jack Iker who currently leads the Diocese of Fort Worth. In 2008, the Diocese, by a clear majority of over 80%, chose to realign themselves with the General Assembly of the Southern Cone in South America rather than the liberal theological-leaning General Convention of New York City. Legally, the Diocese of Fort Worth had every right to take their churches, congregations, and properties into a different General Convention, but the New York City-led General Convention is trying to sue the Diocese and take away their places of worship and church properties so they can hold the empty churches over the Diocese's head and gloat.

However, the TEC Convention has no legal right to these properties since they never paid a dime to buy or maintain them, and no where in the Constitution of their General Convention does it say that a Diocese can't leave the Convention. Legally, if they were honest, the New York headquarters would have no case in court, but what they have done is set up these 'Potemkin villages' or fake churches to create a fake Diocese, so that their attorneys can claim that they are the real Diocese of Fort Worth and that they have had THEIR PROPERTIES taken from them!

Every Texas appellate court has ruled against this claim, but because of one stupid Texas trial judge, the real Diocese is having to appeal a ruling. Luckily, the Supreme Court of Texas has decided to let the Diocese advance their case to the highest level, forgoing all the lower courts. I am confident that the law is on the Diocese's side, but we must remember that courts are unpredictable places where the law (or justice for that matter) does not always apply. We need to keep the Diocese of Fort Worth and Bishop Iker in our prayers.

Charter Schools for Mississippi: An Open Note to My State Representative

Senator:

If something more robust does not pass the state legislator, then I fear that all we will get is only a continuation of the old system, and that would be unacceptable to me. The charter school bills we have seen in previous sessions (SB 2774, 2293) essentially claimed to only focus on the 'underperforming schools,' but the law (it seems to me) was so weak that almost no charter schools were opened.

I know from first hand how institutionally corrupt schools can hide their lack of student achievement so that they can continue to get their state funding (and thus, under the old laws, not have to worry about another school competing with them for state and local funds). I know how bad schools pad the numbers, and all of us have seen the national news lately about what happened in the Atlanta and Chicago school systems with administrators and teachers changing the students's test scores so that they could keep their funding. Do we want to keep giving these people money?

Now senator, you raise a few good points here and I want to try to address them. First, I'm not sure why the local school district needs to be involved in this issue? Sure, it would be nice to get their advice and input when opening a school, but why should it have to be mandatory? Why should parents and independent educators be forced to apply to the local school board who, much of the time, wants to discourage any competition for state and local funds? I think this should be up to parents and tax payers in a local area, and as far as I can tell, if those people don't want to charter a school, then it won't happen and there is nothing to worry about.

I lived in Texas for several years where they have an aggressive charter school system, and the higher performing public schools are still there, the students are still there, and the schools are doing fine. My sister teaches at a charter school in Grand Prairie, and a close friend of mine teaches in a public high school in Hurst. As far as I can tell, and from what I've heard from them, the charter school system is beneficial to everyone, even if they don't use it. On the one hand, it gives parents who want to get their kids away from the gangs and drugs an alternative, and it offers teachers who are burnt out with the ineffectiveness of their local school districts an alternative venue to reach their community. The competition between schools also makes it easier to reform public schools, to hire the best teachers, to remove ineffective (or corrupt) teachers and administrators, makes innovating the curriculum a more approachable topic in faculty meetings, etc. Also, do not assume that only the 'best' students go to charter schools. My sister's school, for example, takes lots of kids (I think 30% of their enrollment) who have been chased out of their public schools for their special ASP program.

But also, the damage to 'human capital' that you were referencing in your response is not some bit of conjecture we are discussing if this bill passes or not: it is a reality that exists already in our schools. I talk to Mississippi teachers all the time who are frustrated that so many of their students, who have the intelligence and potential to move beyond their social circle, begin to drift by their 8th or 9th grade years in those pivotal years as they begin to be influenced less by their classroom teachers and more by their peers. If a student's fellow coevals have no interest in academic improvement and show a disdain for the classroom and learning, then many of those who were once our most promising students begin to go adrift and are headed to a life of poverty or even crime. Since the charter school (unlike a private school) is open to all families regardless of their income, then this gives those promising students a chance (not a 100% chance, but a chance at least) to be educated with more peers who will possibly share their interest in academic betterment.

As far as this concern about charter schools opening up in school districts other than the worst performing ones, I can only ask, why not?

First of all, it takes so many students to charter a school and to pay a teaching faculty, that you can't really set up a school in a district unless there is a sizable number of parents who really want a charter school in their community. Therefore, if most of the parents in a community are happy with their neighborhood school and aren't interested in an alternative, then a charter school is not going to open there because it would not be financially sustainable. Most of the charter schools in Texas are in lower performing areas, not in the higher achieving school districts. However, occasionally you do find magnet schools in higher performing school districts for parents who wanted their children to specialize in some area, or for parents who wanted their children to attend schools that were more friendly to faith and values (unlike almost every public school system now that panics whenever the ACLU cocks an eyebrow).

Anyway, this new law is one step in providing more freedom for our parents, and I hope you can support it. Bottom line, charter schools did not create our 'existing inequities' or inequalities here in Mississippi. Of course, I cannot turn and say that the public schools created them either, but many of our schools clearly do not help the situation that the students were born into, and they might make them worse.

Sorry...I didn't mean to write an essay on your Facebook, but I am passionate about this issue, and I've waited a long time for a more virile bill that would make some changes to our state education system. I agree with you that the bill is not perfect, but I think it is the best thing I have seen in a long time. While I would never ask my state representative to vote against his conscience, it is my hope that you will find enough in this new bill (and I hope some minor, non-adulterating compromises can be reached where possible) to vote 'Yes' when it comes up for a vote. Thank you, and God bless.

I must really be hungry right now...