Happy Memorial Day!

Why has success in urban elementary schools not translated into success at the middle school level?  One theory is that urban schools are doing a relatively good job teaching kids how to read in the early grades--promoting, for example, intensive phonics instruction and basic reading strategies.  But once kids have the basics down, urban schools are not doing a very good job teaching students how to read "deeply."  Instead, urban schools tend to focus on reading strategies--explicitly teaching kids, for example, how to "look for the main idea," how to "ask questions while reading" and so forth.  

There are two potential problems with this strategy: first, if students are focused on reading strategies as opposed to the substance of the text, they may feel bored by what they're reading--and by reading generally.  Second, as a number of commentators over at the Core Knowledge blog have argued, real literacy requires more than just these basic "reading skills."  To make sense of a novel, a newspaper article, or any other complex text, the reader typically requires a modicum of background content knowledge.  (For example, imagine reading "Huck Finn" without knowing that African Americans were, at one point, enslaved in the American South).  But, as we've noted on this blog before, content simply isn't being sufficiently taught in American secondary schools.  

Completely eradicating the "content instruction gap" in American schools may require changes in the secondary school curriculum.  But there is an immediate impact you can make as an individual.  If you're on this site looking for ways in which you can make a real impact, consider donating sets of books that are both engaging and help teach kids about...you know...stuff.  Literacy teachers are always looking for engaging texts for their students, and there are a number of books geared towards young adults that touch on historical or scientific themes.  

And don't worry if you don't have specific titles in mind!  If you want to, say, fund a teacher's purchase of interesting historical fiction, you can just create a gift earmarked for "historical fiction."  The classroom teacher who claims your gift can select the specific titles.

ON DETROIT:
The NAEP results were particularly disheartening for Detroit, one of the four major cities The Generation Project currently serves.  Detroit students' reading scores--like the math scores released in December--were the worst in the 40-year history of the test.  Incredibly, not a single Detroit fourth-grader--in a city of nearly 1 million people--scored at an "advanced" reading level.

Today I'm jam-packing this post with so many topics, your head might explode. (So that was a warning.  If you read the rest of this post your head might explode). In this blog post, I'm touching on politics, sports, gender-based double standards, and music. I'll also make a confession to anyone who has read one of my blog posts.

I'm going to kick it off with politics. This part was inspired by an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher I just watched, so if there are glaring similarities between my points and Maher's, it's because I was inspired by Bill himself. If you're a conservative, I could already see your eyes rolling at the thought of anything Maher's ever said, but hear me out (mostly because I, a liberal, still listen to your side no matter how ridiculous people look dressed up in Revolutionary War costumes).

Now, it's no secret that I'm not a big fan of the Tea Party protesters we've seen rise to fame lately, mostly because I think they have major holes in their arguments. Not tiny holes, I mean BIG holes. Those holes got bigger after I watched Maher's show earlier today.  Tea Party members want fewer taxes and reduction of the national debt, right? Simply put Tea Partiers, you can not have your cake and eat it too. (Trust me, I've watched many sitcoms, it's not realistic). If you want to lower our debt, your taxes will go up. If you want to pay Uncle Sam a little less come tax time, the debt will stay where it's at, or get even bigger. That's just the way it is. Listen, I'd like to be able to take two girls to the next school dance, but much like your wishes, it's not very realistic.

This brings me to my next point. If we want to cut the budget, we should cut defense spending. America spends more than every country in Europe (including Russia), Asia, Australia, and Latin America COMBINED on defense. This leaves me wondering, in defense of what? A terrorist organization that promises attack after attack, yet after 9/11 we've either stopped them or they haven't done anything? I know the counterargument is going to be: well, they haven't done anything because we've spent so much money on defense. Hundreds of billions of dollars on defense still seems like overkill to me, though, especially because most of that money over the past few years hasn't gone to stop terrorism, it's gone to invade countries we have absolutely no business being in (other than oil of course).  

Anyway, if we're spending this much on defense how come we haven't made light-sabres yet? Or jet-packs?

This will be my final point on the Tea Party members. These people might look like the Average Joes on television, but they are just the usual conservative foot soldiers who try to sell others on stuff that won't even benefit them. Meanwhile, the puppet masters reap the political benefits in the shadows (yeah, those same puppet masters who reaped the benefits during the Bush years).

Switching gears now, I want to talk about music. I'm a huge fan of Hip-Hop, I grew up with it here in New York City. Lately, there's been a bit of a renaissance in Hip-Hop. Many would call it just the natural flow of time, with older stars getting...well...older,  while new stars are being made. I am partial to a guy from Cleveland by the name of Kid Cudi. You might know him from his hit "Day N Nite" off his first album "Man On The Moon: The End Of Day". I really like Cudi mostly because he's not afraid to be different from other hip-hop artists. For example, he's not afraid to bare his soul on a song like "Soundtrack 2 My Life". He shows himself to be human and just like you, while many other rappers would rather portray themselves as superhuman. Simply put, I'm a big Kid Cudi fan.

Also, as you all found out in my last post, I'm a massive Green Day fan. Green Day just helped open up their own Broadway play based on their 2004 album "American Idiot". The play is the same title as the album and from what I've heard and read, it's fast, loud, and action-packed. Sounds like Green Day to me. So congrats to Green Day for having your own Broadway play, you continue to give those Gilman folks a reason to hate your guts.

On to sports. Baseball season just got started and I have very high hopes for my defending World Champion New York Yankees. I'm going to keep this short and sweet: we will win the East again. The Rays and Sox aren't nearly as good as us, and as usual I don't even have to mention the rest of the division. We've got the offense. As far as pitching is concerned, the only starter who really scares me is Javier Vasquez.  Yeah, I know he was 4th in the Cy Young Award voting last year, but New York isn't for everybody and Vazquez proved that it wasn't his cup of tea in 2004. Plus, he finished 4th in Cy Young voting in the National League, where the pitcher bats ninth and way more teams rely on small-ball than in the American League. The A.L. is just tougher, go ask Roy Halladay. On a final note, what's up with Andy Pettite's strong start? It's like he's trying to show everyone he's not washed up.

Finally, one long overdue political point that may be a bit blunt: if Scott Brown was a woman and had nude pictures in some magazine years ago, he wouldn't have won that Massachusetts Senate race. It's true that nothing was really showing in Brown's Cosmo photos, but if Brown was a woman the criticism would have been through the roof. It also drives me crazy that the right can use sex appeal way more effectively than the left.

Now my confession.  If you've read my older posts you'd know that I'm a politics nut, a huge Yankees fan, and a massive Green Day fan. Today you find out something new about me. I am (and have always been) a huge wrestling fan. I've loved professional wrestling for as long as I can remember. I was a huge W.C.W. fan in the 90s, even though I was about 5 when the Monday Night Wars got going, and to this day I am still a massive wrestling fan. I love talking watching it, talking about it, and reading about it. Boy, does that feel good.

Finally, if you like what I write here, you should read about my wacky real-life antics on Twitter. Follow me at twitter.com/iMgDuDe25. Signing off folks, I look forward to the next one.