Others have commented on the police response in Uvalde, but I have not. I have been waiting for facts, but there have been so few up to this point. We know a few things. First, we know that the shooter went in through a back door, we know parents begged officers to go in, and we know they did not go in for over an hour. We should probably take each of those points one at a time because each has been a huge part of this story. It was initially reported that the shooter went through a door that had been propped open by a rock. As it turned out, she closed the door and naturally assumed it was locked to those outside. Apparently, it wasn’t.

As an aside, I went through this exercise with our daughter. We had her mentally track how many doors students could legally enter at her school and settled on four. We then asked her how many total points of entry there were and settled on fourteen. Keep in mind that there are around 130,000 documented schools in the United States. That’s not counting universities and community colleges. Could you imagine the expense and manpower it would take to guard each of those doors (even just the legal ones) and to secure the rest?

Let’s pretend that your junior highs and high schools have two points of entry and exit and all the rest are successfully locked down. Let’s go with what Ted Cruz suggested and have one point of entry at the elementary schools. Mind you, this would violate fire code and present other possible dangers, but can you imagine the manpower we are talking to have an armed guard at each of those doors? We are talking about over 200,000 people.

The second fact we know is that parents begged to save their children and cops refused. Did they do the right thing? I obviously wasn’t there, haven’t had any combat training, and certainly haven’t game played through any hostage negotiations. Would there have been more dead had the police breached the school and engaged the shooter sooner? Would they have saved more lives doing that? We will never know on both counts.

What is true in this light is how absurd an idea it is to arm teachers. I can count far too many reasons why this is an absolutely horrible idea. Let’s assume that the teacher is trained to fire their weapon as those on the right have suggested. That alleviates only one concern. The second concern would be storage of the weapon. Do you want them to store it on their person or keep it secured somewhere in their classroom? What happens if they or that location is compromised?

Then we move onto the actual gaming of the mass shooter scenario. They may be trained to shoot, but are they trained in that specific scenario? What does SWAT do when they see an armed intruder AND armed teachers? What happens if a teacher has a mental breakdown and become the shooter themselves? Even in the best of cases we encountered a situation where trained police felt powerless to do anything. Whether they were negligent or justified is important but also very telling when you consider what you are asking untrained teachers to do.

There is always a non-zero chance the worst will occur and there always will be a non-zero chance no matter what we do. We start with the most obvious thing and move are way down from there. Restricting the gun is the most obvious thing. Door control, armed teachers, and armed soldiers sounds lovely but ultimately ineffective without doing the obvious thing.

Yesterday, during a political stunt being held by Greg Abbott, Beto O’Rourke showed up, interrupted the scripted event and said what the rest of us are thinking, that these recently murdered children’s blood is on his hands.   Before he was politely escorted out, Beto got in a few shots including, “The time to stop the next shooting is right now and you are doing nothing.”

John Lewis would have been proud.  In a lifetime of activism Lewis always spoke of getting into “good trouble” protesting injustice and inequality.  He was arrested and beaten several times during his protests for civil rights in the ’60s, and always coached those coming behind to continue getting into “good trouble” using non-violent presence and words.  Beto did that yesterday, and I have to say it was remarkably effective.  The stage was packed with rightwing blowhards including radio talk show host Dan Patrick, felony indicted for 7 years Ken Paxton, Cancun Ted Cruz and others and they were caught completely flatfooted as O’Rourke gave Abbott a piece of his mind.  The mayor of Uvalde, who was participating in this political stunt, called Beto a “sick son of a bitch” for “politicizing” this political event.  Observers of Abbott have noted that when caught lying, bullshitting, and politicizing, Abbott starts talking really fast and stuttering.  Let’s just say he did both after being called out for his lying, bullshitting, and politicizing.

I’ve never been a big fan of O’Rourke, especially when he blundered by running for president at the precisely wrong time in 2016.  He squandered his political strength with that mistep; however, you can watch him maturing live on television, and he is becoming a forminable figure in Texas politics. If nothing else you can say one thing about him…he’s a hell of a lot better and stronger than the clown sitting in the governor’s mansion today.

Sometimes you can be surprised where you find good writing. Bill James is the preeminent baseball statistician from the last 50 years. However, what makes him unique is not necessarily how good his statistics are, but in how artfully he uses them to craft a narrative. I still remember his foreword in the first edition of the Fielding Bible.

He simply described watching video of Adam Everett and Derek Jeter play shortstop. He instinctively knew that he was watching the best and the worst defensive shortstops in the game. Without seeing the numbers he couldn’t tell you which one was which, but the eyeball test didn’t fail. They were polar opposites of each other.

The same thing is happening in Texas in the governor’s race. You can approach these things with snark, sarcasm, and all of the disdain you can muster. I imagine many people will. What I’m prepared to say beyond a shadow of a doubt is that one of these candidates is the kind of human being we should all aspire to be. The other is just not a very good person. I’m not sure of any other way to put it.

The juxtaposition can be seen most clearly in what is happening with a North Texas family. Greg Abbott has them under investigation because they have a transgender teen. Beto O’Rourke visited them on Mother’s Day and even cooked dinner for them.

To be perfectly fair, it is reasonable to ask whether O’Rourke would have visited them in a year when he wasn’t running for statewide office. I’m guessing he wouldn’t have. Would he have helped them cook dinner if the cameras weren’t there taking pictures? Again, I’m guessing the answer is no.

Then again, we could ask the same of Abbott. Would he be investigating a family for child abuse if this weren’t an election year? Would he threaten Texas families with charges and family separation if the movers and shakers in his party weren’t applying that pressure? My guess is also no.

So, here we are. We are left with the most vivid example of the difference between the two parties. One party wants to help make the world a better place and safer for all of its citizens. One party does not. One party wants to reach into homes and into people’s bodies to impose its will. One party does not. At this point it doesn’t make much sense to point out who is who and which is which. Everyone must answer that for themselves. What we can’t do is assert that they are all the same. Clearly they are not. One of these must win and one of these must be driven from polite society. I’ll leave the which is which up to you.

For those that don’t know, this is teacher appreciation week. Don’t worry. I’m not fishing for compliments or gifts or anything like that. I simply bring this up to point out an obvious point that our beloved governor seems to have missed. He set up a task force.

It seems he doesn’t understand why there is a teacher shortage. We’ve talked in these spaces before about how the task force was set up at first. The first iteration had only two teachers with one housed at their district’s administrative office. Talk about missing the pulse of the people. You don’t have to be an educator or an expert in education to see the problem there.

The other problem is manifest in the week they chose to make teacher appreciation week. They’ve done this before and it never donned on anyone to somehow switch this up. In addition to being teacher appreciation week, it is also the week where we give the Biology, Algebra, and U.S. History state exams. It’s also the same week where most of the AP exams are given.

We appreciate you so much. Why don’t you wear jeans this week. We’ll have some nice breakfast burritos for you in the faculty lounge. Oh, also remember that if you do something wrong while proctoring the STAAR test we will be sure to pull your teacher’s license. Don’t forget your parting gift on the right.

Do we really need to ask why people are leaving the profession or refusing to enter it in the first place? I know some of you can’t get past the paywall but the headline here says it all. For those that don’t want to go down the rabbit hole, it says that a federal audit revealed that HISD under spent by 300 million dollars over a five year period.

Some guestimates conclude that HISD could raise their teacher salaries $10,000 a year across the board without batting an eye. These things usually filter their way down to neighboring school districts. No one wants to be left in the dust when the district next door suddenly boosts pay. However, it would be a big mistake if the task force concludes that we just need more money. Make no mistake, I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but the idea of this particular week being teacher appreciation week is kind of a clue.

I had a lull in the middle of my career where I could have gone in other directions. Some here know that well. Ultimately, teaching was my first and best destiny. It just took awhile to find a place where I was comfortable and belonged. We often drop young teachers in the toughest places to teach with the most difficult situations to overcome. We offer very little support and then wonder why so many leave. It shouldn’t take blue ribbon committees and millions of dollars to figure this out. Just about any teacher can tell you this if you stop long enough to listen.

The race for the nominations of the two major parties are moving closer and closer. Normally, when the midterm elections end then the two sides come out swinging at each other. Governors, prominent senators, and cults of personality collide on stage and on the roads of Iowa and New Hampshire. One often wonders why those particular states get such a prominent position, but we can set that down for the moment.

The Democratic side has some intrigue. Joe Biden will be 80 before the campaign for the nomination is over. One can’t help but wonder whether he has the energy to do this again. Obviously, the right would like nothing more than to see him step aside. It opens the door to Kamela Harris and other potentially more progressive candidates.

If we assume norms for a moment (I know, I know) we would assume that past presidents will move on into the sunset (or an eight by ten room with bars) then the Republican side has a handful of challengers that would seem to be ready to run. Most of them are governors, so we should probably take a moment to look at the latest.

The headliner just might be Ron DeSantis from Florida. It’s a populous state and he finds himself in the news often enough. We can go with the free version or the pay wall version. It’s the same basic story. Recent data has them third in current COVID cases. Being behind California and Texas is par for the course. They are bigger states. The fact that they are ahead of New York and Illinois is perhaps more telling.

In all fairness, that was the past. Newer data would seem to indicate that they are not the most egregious offenders in the past month. Great. They still have had more than 70,000 people die from COVID-19. That number could become 80,000 by the time campaign season gets here.

Not to be outdone, Greg Abbott in Texas has been at the helm when nearly 90,000 Texans have died from COVID. He will be one of the other major contenders for the nomination. Of course, Abbott is an equal opportunity to killer. If he doesn’t get you with lax regulations and mind-numbingly stupid belligerence then perhaps he will freeze you to death.

Both DeSantis and Abbott have postured their way into the former guy’s good graces. I’m sure the hope there will be that he will step aside (or step inside) and will tab one of them as the heir apparent. Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. In this case, freedom could lead to the loss of more life.

South Dakota governor Kristi Noem should not be forgotten. Her track record is a double edged sword. She set marks for positive COVID cases per capita, but was also part of a response that turned the tide. I’ll just let the charts do the talking.

I’m sure the usual suspects like Lyndsay Graham and Ted Cruz will throw their hat into the ring. Why vote for a senator who may lead thousands of people to their death when you can elect someone that’s actually done it? Let freedom ring all the way to the cemetery.

Greg Abbott is not taking this teacher shortage business lying down. He’s a man of action. Like any other man of action, he is commissioning a committee to tell him why there is a teacher shortage. He recently changed the task force when it shockingly held only two teachers.

The 30 person panel included all kinds of central office administrators whose median salary was $170,000. In fact, it was rumored that one of the two teachers actually had their office in the central administration of their district. However, our crackpot team here could not confirm or deny those rumors. If they indeed add enough teachers to make it equal representation then that’s a good start, but it’s still much ado about nothing.

It is fairly easy for classroom teachers to simply say that they need to be paid more. That seems to be the standard response and without consulting teachers it is likely to be the only real answer you will get. That’s a good response. We could all use more money, but you need to be able to dig deeper.

I’ve seen any number of teachers that have left the profession and have come pretty close myself. I think I speak for many of them when I say money really wasn’t a factor in my decision. Teaching is a difficult job. You are more or less on an island and it took me a long time to find my niche. I’ve found it as a support facilitator. There were a lot of bumps and false starts along the way.

So, I would begin with how we train teachers and how we support them. Classroom management is always the most important thing and it is the one thing we are the worst at teaching new teachers. Schools reward experienced teachers with the more sought after assignments. They give younger teachers the more difficult ones. It’s pretty much sink or swim from there.

The job is just too difficult and it is getting much harder. We are adding paperwork demands and making teachers jump through more hoops. As soon as teachers feel like they have their sea legs under them, we change the landscape and force them to start from scratch. Teachers get less support from home and less support from their school’s administration and central office when dealing with difficult student populations.

Asking a central office administrator why teachers are leaving is somewhat comical. Those are people that escaped the classroom. I have no problem with most of them, but it is fairly straightforward. The further removed you are from the classroom the harder it is for them to remember what it was like.

Add to that the recent politicization of teachers and you get a perfect storm. We are expected to make white children feel better about being white. We are expected to avoid anything that might be controversial. We are expected to inform on students that might be transitioning. There are even whispers of doing all of this with cameras installed in our rooms so that administrators and parents can watch in real time.

Abbott doesn’t want to hear about any of this. So, what is he going to hear? He will hear that teachers want more money. He will be able to posture about how greedy we have become. I’ve seen too many teachers leave teaching and none of them left because of the money. They’ve left for all of those other reasons. Those are the reasons he isn’t likely to hear anything about.