The World Around You

How’s this for lazy Friday afternoon news. Four days before the season is to begin, Pat Riley has resigned as head coach of the Miami Heat.

Riley ranks second in NBA history with 1,110 victories, and he led the Los Angeles Lakers to four championships in the 1980s. But the Heat missed the playoffs the past two years, finishing at the bottom of the Atlantic Division at 25-57 last season.

He will be replaced as Miami’s coach by Stan Van Gundy, his top assistant the past several seasons and the younger brother of Houston Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy.

“It’s the first time I feel it’s right in the last three years,” Riley said. “It’s right for me to. It’s time.”

The move is not health-related, Riley said, adding that he made the decision Wednesday.

He will stay on as the Heat’s president.

His legacy? Another Van Gundy! There has to be something more going on here.

It’s wonderful to see that the schools are upholding the First Amendment so fervently,

Huntsville teachers must warn parents about books on student reading lists with controversial content — a move that invites censorship, critics of the order say.

A Sept. 30 order from school officials requires teachers to place an asterisk next to any item on a reading list that has controversial content.

At the bottom of the list, teachers should add the disclaimer: “Parents are advised that this selection contains controversial language, behavior, situations, descriptions or innuendoes.”

The administrative order, which did not require school board approval, resulted from a parent’s complaint to the board. The parent objected to her 12-year-old son reading “Tex,” S.E. Hinton’s award-winning book about adolescents that has references to sex and alcohol.

The parent didn’t want the book banned, but rather asked that parents be warned of such content ahead of time. School Superintendent Ann Roy Moore asked Sandra Shipman, the head of secondary education, to devise a labeling system for reading lists in all high schools and middle schools.

Cheers to the Huntsville Times for finding a teacher who articulates very well why this is a BAD IDEA.

Pam Smith, who teaches English at Grissom High School, doesn’t want to mark her students’ reading lists with parental advisory warnings.

“I am totally against censorship. Saying something is controversial and labeling it just invites censorship,” Smith told The Huntsville Times for a story Thursday. “I don’t teach anything I believe I shouldn’t be teaching.”

Teachers must provide another reading choice for those who object.

Anyone can find something controversial in most any book and innuendo can extend to anything, Smith said.

Exactly, forget the slippery slope argument, how about the fact that this is tying teacher’s hands behind their backs! How are you supposed to make learning interesting or engaging for students if all they can read are items that are not “controversial”.

Life is controversy. We’ve already lost serious ground in this area with regards to textbooks (especially history books) and standardized tests. Students are given only the most basic information in the most bland way possible, so school boards can avoid controversy. Grow a spine! If you can’t handle parents’ criticism of sound educating and stand up for what is right for all students than give up your seat to someone who will.

The Alabama Board of Education discussed their proposed budget for FY 2005 yesterday and the picture is as bleak as everyone has said,

State school board members Thursday recommended a list of deep cuts to next year’s budget, including layoffs for as many as 3,400 teachers statewide, while boosting spending on textbooks and certain programs.

If such a reduction in the fiscal 2005 budget is approved by the Alabama Legislature, each classroom could have an average of 1.5 more students than it does now.

The plan would require Mobile County to locally fund or lose 305 of its 3,732 teachers. In Baldwin County, 108 of its 1,330 teachers would be at risk.

Amid $199 million in projected state education cuts for the next fiscal year, board members said they would like to save: textbooks, the Alabama Reading Initiative, the High Hopes remediation program for high school students and the $5,000 yearly bonus for teachers who are National Board Certified.

“By increasing those (student-teacher) ratios a little for a short time, we are hoping to do the least amount of damage,” said Randy McKinney, the state board member who represents Mobile, Baldwin and Escambia counties. “I think we have to have tools in the classroom, and those tools are textbooks.”

And as the article goes on to acknowledge, that still won’t get to the amount of cuts the Governor has requested in order to meet revenue projections. It is a bleak, bleak outlook and the solution is not going to come rapidly.

UPDATE: The Montgomery Advertiser takes a slightly different take, emphasizing discussions on the merging of school systems and schools,

“We need to take a look at if we have too many school systems and too many schools,” he said. “We should consider consolidating the school systems that can not create a balanced budget.”

School consolidation was just one of seven proposed options to help rescue struggling schools.

Richardson suggested offering only the core subjects, math, science, English and social studies, at schools that are in the worst shape. Electives and athletics would be available only to students who could afford the fees charged for the classes and activities. Charging to ride the bus to and from school also was proposed, along with charging for textbooks.

The superintendent said he was strongly opposed to adopting a fee schedule.

“I have fought fees because those least able to pay get hurt the most,” he said.

Standardized testing could be reduced so that only the tests required by law are offered, Richardson said.

There is no doubt we have too many school systems in this state. The Board of Education needs to learn how to say no to cities that want to form their own school systems. There should be no more than 50 school systems, which would be a reduction and consolidation of the 79 additional systems we currently have. This would be a bold step, but a necessary one.

UPDATE: See Mac write.