Interesting article in today’s DDN, explains, “Cursive writing no longer required for school districts. Dept. of Education leaves it up to districts whether to teach the skill.”

The writer, Margo Rutledge Kissell, does a nice job of reporting on how area school districts are reacting to this new Dept of Education decision, and says Kettering has not yet decided how to respond.

“This year we still have cursive writing at the second-grade level in Kettering. Whether or not that will change next year will be a decision of my committee and our work,” said Michele Massa, who taught second-graders cursive writing for 10 years before becoming a district elementary curriculum leader for language arts and social studies. She expects her committee will be ready to make a recommendation for the language arts curriculum by next spring. Eventually, it’s up to the school board.

“The Common Core doesn’t say anything about cursive,” Massa noted, “but it does say you have to be able to write opinions and write stories … in addition to keyboarding.”

Massa said she personally believes it’s important kids “know cursive and can recognize it when they see it,” but the committee will decide “if that is the best use of our kids’ time.”

“What is the best use of our kids’ time?” What a great question. It would interesting to know the criteria that Massa’s committee will use to judge whether learning cursive writing is a good use of students’ time.

After working with kids on cursive for ten years, I’d bet Michele Massa loves cursive and sees a lot of value in using school time to help kids develop their cursive handwriting. But, it sound like, now, she is in a jam. Having been promoted to elementary curriculum leader, her first task is to keep Kettering’s test scores on top. The state tests are centered exclusively on the Common Core and the Common Core does not include cursive handwriting. The argument of the “let’s dump cursive” camp of educators seems to be that there will be a payoff in better scores for those districts that find extra time for kids to practice curriculum that is part of the Common Core — such as writing acceptable sentences on a keyboard — and one way to get that extra time is to dump cursive handwriting.

The biggest opportunity for a district to raise test scores is to get the marginal group of students — the 10% or 30% (depending on the district) that are almost competent — pulled over the line into the group whose test scores are minimally acceptable. The reward for moving these marginal students is potentially great. If enough kids are deemed minimally competent, then the district is considered “excellent.”

An argument can be made that state tests have contributed to the dumbing down of America. Eliminating the teaching of cursive handwriting will mean a diminished education for many students who are doing fine with the Core Curriculum but, if given the opportunity, would gain a lifetime benefit from an early experience with the discipline of cursive handwriting.

Interesting article in yesterday’s DDN by William Hershey quotes a political scientist, Herb Asher, blaming gerrymandering for the fact that radicalized legislators now have a lot of power in Congress. But what is the root cause of gerrymandering? The reason there is gerrymandering is because political parties have way too much power and gerrymandering is loved by the bosses of both parties.

Hershey’s article, “Board Begins Redrawing Districts,” points out that, already, the districts for Ohio’s Assembly are so gerrymandered that most are considered “safe” seats. The article reports that “in 70 of 99 House races last year, the margin of victory was 20 points or more.” The closest Ohio House race last year in Montgomery County was in the 36th, hopelessly lopsided with Republican Michael Henne winning 63% to 34%.

Hershey quotes political scientist Herb Asher as explaining that, “The legislators don’t have to compromise, they can be far to the left or as far to the right as they want.”

The 37th District in Kettering, where I live, offers a good illustration. The 37th is strongly Republican. However, my representative to the Ohio House, Jim Butler, supports measures so libertarian and antigovernment as to be out of the 37th District Republican mainstream. It sounds like a joke, for example, to suppose that a “conservative” would advocate: “Let’s cut down the trees and drill for oil and gas in the state parks.”

Our representatives are radicalized — out of the mainstream — because the antidemocratic system of political party dominance empowers representatives not only to disregard the general public, but to disregard the mainstream of their own party as well. Representatives gain their power from the party and their first allegiance is to the party.

Butler was appointed represent the 37th District by the Montgomery County Republican Party. If the party was a small-d robust democratic group, fairly representing mainstream Montgomery County Republicans, then his appointment would have some validity. But the voting council of the Montgomery County Republican Party amounts to a small clique of insiders, as does the voting council of the Montgomery County Democratic Party.

Both parties, amazingly, anoint one of the faithful members of their clique to run for office and then push out other potential candidates from seeking nomination in any primary contest. Last year my proposal to amend the Montgomery County Democratic Party’s constitution to prohibit such antidemocratic action was defeated at the Reorganization Meeting.

In all five Ohio House Districts in Montgomery County, the clique of the ruling council of the local political party effectively chose the current representative — either by appointment, or by giving one-sided support in a contested primary.

• District 36: Republican Mike Henne elected in 2010. The party endorsed him in the primary, rather than Joe Ellis.
• District 37: Republican Jim Butler was appointed by the Montgomery County Republican Party (MCRP) and has not yet participated in a primary or general election.
• District 38: Republican Terry Blair was elected in 2008. The MCRP party endorsed him in the primary rather than Tom Young.
• District 39: Democrat Clayton Luckie was appointed in 2006 and the Democratic Party has endorsed him in all primaries
• District 40: Democrat Roland Winburn was elected in 2008 to an open seat vacated by Fred Strahan. The Democratic Party vigorously supported Winburn in the primary against Victor Harris.

Previous posts that relate to this article include:

1. The Montgomery Democrats Decide to Suppress Democracy — Just Like the Republicans (December 14, 2007)
2. Victor Harris: Surprised That Local Democratic Party Wanted To Suppress Primary Competition (February 25, 2008)
3. How Gerrymandering Defeated An Outstanding Candidate And Sent a Weak Candidate To Columbus (March 5, 2008)
4. How Can The System Known As The United States Be Made To Work To Provide “Liberty and Justice For All”? (February 5, 2009)
5. Mark Owens Says Most Montgomery Dems Approve The Party’s Suppression Of Primary Participation (April 8, 2009)