Congratulations are in order for the District of Columbia in securing a place among the finalists for the "Race to the Top" grant competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.   The fact that D.C. made it into the final group along with 18 states is significant.  With a long history of struggles over school reform, coupled with the more recent highly aggressive plans and steps taken by Chancellor Michelle Rhee, the news of D.C.'s inclusion among the finalists may well signal a turning point for a school system that has long held a secure spot at the bottom of any educational list.

At the same time, more vocal critics are emerging with warnings that the Obama Administration's plans for school reform, including the Race to the Top competition, may well have the effect of causing further harm to the children who need school reform the most:  low income urban students in under-performing schools.

In her blog on the Washington Post website, education reporter Valerie Strauss today provided a good summary of the issues.   A distinguished group of civil rights organizations issued a paper on Monday that spells out the major problems with the Race to the Top and the Obama Administration's approach to school reform.    The gist of the report is that by providing massive funding to states on a competitive basis according to the rules established by the U.S. Department of Education, the administration is creating an unequal system of funding that will have a disproportionately harmful effect on African American and Hispanic children in low income neighborhoods.  Other critics have pointed out that the program emphasizes high stakes standardized testing at the expense of genuinely innovative and effective teaching.

Some political forecasts say that Obama's Blueprint for Reform, including the revision of No Child Left Behind, the education law originally passed in the Bush administration, is also stalled in Congress, and that the Obama plan for changes to this law will stagnate.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan clearly disagrees with the critics and has forcefully promoted the Administration's plans to improve public schools.   In speeches and interviews this week, Secretary Duncan has pointed out that significant changes have already occured in the finalist jurisdictions since they had to take certain actions in order to apply for the Race to the Top grants.  President Obama will speak to the Urban League convention this week about the status of his plans for educational reform.

So much has been said and written on the topic of school reform that we might wonder why we're not there yet, after all these years.  Theories abound, fingers are pointed, roundtables and town halls occur, and Johnny still ain't readin' and writin' too good.

Here's all I know as a consumer of the results of K-12 education:  too many students enter college with large gaps in their educational backgrounds.   From basic reading skills to competent writing to simple arithmetic — let alone a robust framework in history and geography and literature and science and social studies — too many students do not have the sound foundation of knowledge and skills necessary to move to the next level.  These gaps cause the students to fail in college, absent a great deal of remediation, and then the colleges are called to task for having poor graduation rates when, in fact, the students may not have been ready to leave high shool.

To fix this problem, colleges are devoting massive amounts of resources to the educational lessons that students should have learned previously.   At a time when higher education is under the gun to control costs, the idea that we have to pay again for what the taxpayers already thought they paid for in K-12 education is maddening.

I must point out that the preparatory gaps are not just a D.C. problem, or an urban school problem, or a low income student problem, or a problem among students with certain demographics.   The preparatory gaps cut across race, social class, urban/suburban and even some public/private lines.

To begin to address some of this preparatory gap, this year a number of school districts — D.C. included — have adopted the Common Core Standards developed by governors and educators.  The leading higher education associations endorsed and welcomed these standards.    The goals of this effort are worthy; whether adoption of the standards will result in more students entering college with better preparation remains to be seen.

Some people ask me why Trinity or any college accepts students who may not be quite ready for the collegiate curriculum.   My answer is very clear:  if we don't educate the students who come to us, who will?  We have a profound obligation to educate every student who comes to us to ensure that she can develop into the intellectual person lurking within her very being.   We should not turn her away, rather, we must find a way to unlock her potential.

As a university founded with a special commitment to women, we know that unlocking the intellectual potential of women has a profound impact on the long-term success of their children and families.  Women continue to be the primary teachers of the young, and the more educated the mother, the higher the child's ultimate level of educational attainment.

Trinity was also founded by a group of Catholic religious women, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, who still have this radical idea about the transformation of individuals through education as a spiritual matter, not simply the secular intellectual side.   More than 200 years ago, the commitment of St. Julie Billiart, the founder of the SNDs, to the Gospel imperative of social justice led her to establish schools for poor girls orphaned by the French Revolution.   That justice imperative galvanized Trinity's founders a century ago to create a college for women who, at that time, had no access to higher education in the nation's capital.   Trinity continues that original idea to be a place of access for women (and now including men in our professional and graduate programs) who might not otherwise have been able to go to college.

There's no "race to the top" money for universities like Trinity who spend considerable time and resources on closing the gap that should never have occurred in the first place.   We serve our students well as a matter of mission while also insisting that our partners at the K-12 level really must do their part to improve collegiate preparation.

So, who wins the Race To The Top, and should we care?  To the extent that this or any federal program makes it possible for more students to learn at higher levels, and, hence to enroll in college with a greater chance of more immediate success, then the students win.   This competition should not be about Delaware or California or Arizona or Pennsylvania or the District of Columbia.   This competition should be about leveling the playing fields so that every student in the race has an equal chance to make it to the top.

Secretary Duncan has said, frequently and rightly, that improving educational opportunities for all children is THE civil rights issue of our time.  I agree wholeheartedly.   If he truly believes that statement, however, then he needs to make sure that in the race to the top, millions of children are not left behind because the process of incentivization only rewards those who know how to run the race.

Exhibit A:  Andrew Breitbart.   Raised in Brentwood, a wealthy neighborhood of Los Angeles where the Hollywood stars and moguls live.   Supposedly educated at Tulane, one of the most elite research universities in the country.   Must have skipped a lot of classes.  One of that small fraternity of right-wing Internet wags who manufacture headlines designed to foment social division and political turmoil.   Truth is optional in this universe.  Sophisticated intellectual frameworks and broad-minded views of human life need not apply.

Breitbart is the source of the Shirley Sherrod controversy.   But the political arsonist knew exactly the tinder he was sparking.  The Obama Administration, terrified lest anyone think that the president might actually favor or promote Black causes, responded to Shirley Sherrod's allegedly racist comments with a speed we have not seen recently.  Would that the administration had responded to the BP oil well explosion as quickly and decisively.   Heedless of any normal rules for treating employees fairly, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack fired Sherrod based apparently on what Andrew Breitbart and other wingers said about her speech.   (Everyone has apologized to Sherrod since this started, but still….)

Problem being that the speech was nothing like the Breitbart report.   And, here's where the ultimate value of the liberal arts education that should be coursing through the veins of these well-educated journalists and politicians alike has failed miserably.

Watch the Sherrod video in its entirety. Anyone who has taken a college course in literature or rhetoric or sociology or anthropology or history or economics or politics or even theology in the last half century would surely understand how to deconstruct the speech.   All of literature is about the stories of human cultures, told through the voices and vocabularies and vernaculars of the poets and storytellers and writers and journalists and essayists of each age.   History is never completely objective; history is the story of the society told in the voices of those who lived in the times, perhaps bleached through generations of research and revision, but nevertheless, the source documents resonate the truth of the original voices.   This is the reason why, in higher education, we insist on research into the original documents, to remove the filters of interpretation that obscure the truth.  You have to read the WHOLE document, watch the WHOLE video, not just the part you like, the part that suits your narrow view of the world.

Shirley Sherrod told her story in a vernacular that was moving and powerful.   She told the truth about her experience as a young girl growing up on a farm in the rural South in the first half of the 20th Century.  She talked lovingly of her father and his dreams for his family — before he was murdered by a white man who was never punished for the crime.   She was honest about her initial skepticism of the white farmer.   (Find me a white person who has truly never had similarly dim views of at least one black person — please!  Let's be real.)  She got over her initial skepticism when she realized that Farmer Spooner, too, was victimized by the power structure — the economic powers.

Sherrod was not afraid to use the labels like "white" and "black" that make so many people cringe, and "rich and poor" and "have and have not."   She had to use the labels to tell the story faithfully.   We can hardly tell the story of the United States without using racial labels, but some revisionists would prefer that we not mention those untidy facts — like slavery, like poverty, like lynchings, like Jim Crow laws, like discrimination, like failing public schools, like what's said behind closed doors.

But Sherrod was not telling a story of victimization, hatred or division.  In fact, her primary message was quite clear:  first, that the primary divisions in American society are economic and social class, not race; and, second, that the Black community must seize the moment to make changes that will ensure a better future for the rising generations.   She was actually quite blunt and powerful in challenging the young people of the Black community to reach higher and insist on excellence.   Her message was one of hope, with a vision for the future of all people of all races coming together to build the community.   Echoes of Martin Luther King, Jr.

You might disagree with her, you might have a different story to tell, but clearly, her voice was honest and authentic.

Students who paid attention in their college years might hear in her words echoes of the literature of poverty and oppression, hope and redemption — echoes that can be found in all great works from Plato to Shakespeare to Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison to John Steinbeck and Edwige Danticat and Khaled Hosseini and Azar Nafisi.   A student of theology would recognize the language of the social justice teachings of the Catholic Church, even the encyclicals of Pope John Paul II, in Sherrod's heartfelt description of her realization that the real problem in our society is the gap between rich and poor.

A truly liberally educated person, upon hearing Sherrod's story, would say, "My goodness, what a tremendous tale of courage, of triumph over hardship, of self-discovery and personal change."   A pseudo journalist interested only in making his own headlines and fomenting hatred would take a snippet from her speech and cry,"Racist."

A liberal education does open the mind of the reader and listener to the possibility that the voice of the speaker or writer will be illuminating and even persuasive, changing the mind of the listener by broadening perspective.

Right-wingers (not conservatives, we'll get to that in a minute) decry the "liberal" tendencies of American higher education.   Why anyone is surprised that the study of the liberal arts makes people more broad-minded escapes me.   In fact, the whole point of a "liberal" education — meaning the study of the liberal arts — is to enlarge the person's intellectual capacity, to "liberate" the mind to pursue knowledge through study and inquiry, to learn how to conduct a disciplined research into any topic, to know and to appreciate the breadth of human experience, to question convention, to invent solutions, to understand the moral parameters of life, to ponder the great philosophical questions not the least of which is why some people like to spread hate.   A "liberal" education is not about partisan politics but a wholistic view of life that is the opposite of narrow-minded ignorance.

To be a "liberal" in political terms has become a bad idea today, so much so that liberals have embraced the term "progressive," which also has problems.   To be a "conservative" in political terms today is to be associated with extremists whose views bear little relation to real conservatism.

Real conservatism prefers limited government, relatively unrestrained capitalism, and respect for traditional institutions.   Real liberalism advocates equal justice and human rights, fostering social change to achieve those goals.   Moderates in the middle reflect values of each ideology, and most Americans are somewhere in the middle.

Unfortunately, the provocateurs of the Internet age eschew any meaningful relationship to true ideology, liberal or conservative, in favor of the mindless pitting of people with different interests against each other.   Sadly, our political leaders give entirely too much credence to these inflammatory extremists, thereby failing to provide the thoughtful leadership on difficult issues that the people truly crave.

President Obama is one of the most thoughtful, intellectual presidents we've ever had.  But he's surrounded by political operatives who repress his ability to exert true leadership on tough topics like race because they are afraid that he will be perceived as "too Black" or "too liberal."   Well, heck.  He needs to be himself.   He needs to liberate himself from those advisors who are making him plain vanilla.  That's not what the voters ordered in 2008, and not what they want now.

Perhaps Obama needs to surround himself again with a buncha good old fashioned liberals — those who really believe in the liberal arts as an organizing framework for understanding human life.   He might do well with a refresher course on voice and vernacular, how to promote and advance the real American story in a way that is compelling and truthful.   Perhaps those of us who do higher education for a living can organize some continuing education for folks at the White House.

Maybe Shirley Sherrod can be a guest lecturer.

Perhaps we can take up a collection for a scholarship for Andrew Breitbart to sit in the back as well — so long as he attends every class this time.

Even better, perhaps Breitbart will endow the lecture series on Justice and Liberal Education to atone for his shameful neglect of his own education.

MUST READ:  E.J. Dionne, "Enough Right-Wing Propaganda"

See:  Frank Rich, "There's a Battle Outside and It's Still Ragin'"

See:  Maureen Dowd's column in today's New York Times

See:  Politico for a good analysis of the finger-pointing that has ensued in the Sherrod case

For more on the Sherrod case see "On Success" at the washingtonpost.com

Follow me on Twitter @TrinPrez

Dawn was just breaking over Long Lake as I packed the car and waved silent goodbye to my favorite little cabin in the woods, and gave thanks again to my friend Joe, the owner, who rents this little bit of heaven to many city-weary folks like me.    A few weeks in the peace and quiet of the North Country does wonders.   Beyond feeling rested and restored, I also have my collection of pictures to remind me of all the good things here through the long months ahead.

I'll keep fond memories of the chipmunks (above) and many different kinds of woodpeckers (bel0w)…

….and of course, those elusive blue jays…

The startled looks on the faces of fawns along the side of the road…

Or the turkeys crossing the road… (why do they do that?)….

Or that cute little fox…

Beautiful vistas of fields and flowers…

The art of checking email while kayaking…

People sometimes ask if I have a picture of me in the kayak…. well, here you are:

Yes, mom, I am wearing a life jacket.

(Mom:  why are you doing anything that requires a life jacket?)

Of course, I will remember the loons…

Back to reality…and Trinity!  We have a big agenda ahead, and I'm ready to roll!

Thanks to all readers who have enjoyed and commented on the Adirondack Chronicles…. I'm glad to know that these little stories and photos have given you some cheer.

Each year when I start out my vacation in the Adirondacks, I am still wearing my "city eyes" and "urban ears."   I see all the deep greens and browns of the forest, but it's a blur, and the lakes all look pretty much the same.  My city eyes are trained not to stare too deeply, to mind my own business.  My urban ears are used to tuning out the constant noise of the city.

As the days unfold in the deep woods, my optics change, wilderness eyes coming into focus:  within a week I can see past the first rows of trees into the darker parts of the forest where the wildlife lives.  I can soon tell the difference between a bump on a log and a painted turtle, a fluttering leaf on a birch that becomes a yellow warbler, a reddish stone that has the eyes of a fox.

My urban ears become attuned to the silence of the forest, at first stunned by the lack of sound, and then hearing sounds that make the silence so beautiful:  a ripple on the water, the dragonfly's wings, a loon calling far out on the lake.   My deep forest ears become so used to listening to this silent symphony that I find the noise in town startling.

I learn to read the signs of the sky and water:  when a passing cloud is a blessed relief from the sun, when it signifies a huge storm coming.  The lake surface tells the stories of bright blue clear days and steel slate stormy skies approaching.

I try to hold onto my wilderness eyes and deep forest ears when I return to Washington, visiting the beautiful places like Blackwater Wildlife Refuge and Nanjemoy Creek in Maryland.  But I know that, in time, my city eyes and urban ears will take over once again, making it necessary for me to plan another return to the North Country for my annual adjustments.

Of course, I also come to know that even the beautiful wildnerness has its dark side.   This little guy is pretty cute, right?

Well, that is, until you see him make off with dinner!

The fresh air does wonders for appetites!

On a hot afternoon on Follensby Clear Pond, the ducks were not about to move from their lounge chairs even for a visitor, whom they simply eyed languidly…

Even the frogs were just laying around…

But this osprey, nesting on top of a tall pine tree, never wavered from her vigilant watch for predators who might steal the chicks in that nest:

Later in the evening, I watched the sun set over Blue Mountain Lake:

A beautiful end to a perfect day in the North Country!

Developing good observational skills is essential for wildlife photography and general enjoyment of the back country.    Observing wildlife requires patience, the ability to recognize shapes and colors, and sometimes, a great deal of luck.   For example, when I first observed the bird above at a distance, it was in shadows and I was fairly far away, and the silhouette of the bird appeared to be that of a common grackle, a plain old bird, I wasn't interested.

Then I realized that the beak was much longer than a grackle, and the overall shape of the shoulders was larger than a back yard bird.

I attached a longer lens to my camera and saw that the bird was actually a beautiful green heron.   I've seen green herons along the Potomac River and in the Everglades, but not previously in the Adirondacks.   I was thrilled to add this "catch" to my collection.   As I watched, I put a teleconverter on my lens for a closer look, and while I was watching the green heron stretched its neck — a sign of alert — and let out a piercing yell.

That photograph made my day!   The heron swiftly took off after that….

Here's an example of a blue jay hiding in the grasses alongside the road:

And I waited long enough to catch him perched on a tree branch:

This frog just wouldn't leap from behind the tall grasses of the marsh:

But these ring-necked ducks were playing along the shores of Tupper Lake without any hiding in the reeds…

This yellow warbler was hard to miss, given that bright belly:

But I almost overlooked this little merganser duckling beating a hasty retreat on Stony Creek:

Trinity alumnae gathering for lunch at the Lake George Club… a sure sign that the height of summer has arrived!  We had a glorious time, as always, thanks to the graciousness of our hostess Barbara Rourke and wonderful leadership of Ginger Ryan.

As we do every year, we gabbed about just about everything…. Memories of Sister Ann Francis and Sister Columba, the Psych Nun (Sister Margaret Finnegan) and roommates of fond memory…

Of all the alumnae gatherings I attend each year, our Lake George luncheon is surely the one with the most laughter, perhaps most raucous, and likely to reveal the most honest opinions on startling topics.  Of course, I can't say what those are…. what goes on at Lake George stays there!

Thanks to all for another great day at the lake!  (Below is the view of Lake George immediately behind our group above!)

Later that afternoon, as I was driving back to Long Lake across the mountains on a wonderful seasonal road called the Blue Ridge Route, I rounded a turn and admired the farm in the valley ahead…and then screeched to a halt.   Could I really be seeing….

Buffalo in the Adirondacks??

Yes!!  Wow.  A small herd of 20-30 head of bison, including a number of calves, gathered around a watering hole on the hottest day of the year so far.

Backwoods entrepreneurship knows no bounds!  Turns out there's a company that is breeding and raising the buffalo for meat and bison-related lore.  Check out the website for the Adirondack Buffalo Company…

But buffalo are not the only exotic animals being raised deep in the woods and mountains of the North Country.  Another important-but-exotic animal raised on various farms is…

… the alpaca, raised for its fleece, which becomes wonderful scarves and hats and sweaters and vests during those long Adirondack winters.  And yes, there's a website and an association for the Adirondack Alpaca Breeders..

And these calves lounging by the side of the road called out to me and said, Hey, we're not exotic, but we want to be part of the Adirondack Chronicles!

What better way to celebrate the 4th of July than with my bald eagle friends!  But this juvenile bald eagle (they're brown mottled until about 5 years old when they develop that distinctive white head and black feathers) didn't want to hang around for long:

He took off for better fishing spots!

There's so much amazing wilderness up here, it's hard to imagine that just about a century ago these beautiful northern lakes and forests were severely stressed and in grave danger of disappearing.  The logging industry at the turn of the 20th century stripped the mountains and valleys of the best old growth pines.  Wealthy urbanites seeking relief from the putrid air of cities (there was no air conditioning back then, remember) fled to the north woods, turning the wilderness into another surburban backyard with great camps and great trashing of the wild lands.   Railroads brought loggers and miners and tourists by the thousands, and sparks from the coal-fired engines led to devastating forest fires that stripped what few trees were left from the land.

It's impossible to contemplate this beautiful place today without thinking of the environmental devastation in the Gulf of Mexico and wondering if the Gulf, too, might recover from the catastrophe of too much civilization distrupting nature.

How did the Adirondacks recover?  The same human forces that destroyed the wilderness stopped the madness — in 1892, the New York State Legislature passed the "Forever Wild" legislation that protected the state-owned lands in the Adirondacks, ordering these forests and lakes to remain "forever wild."  This clause means no clearing of trees downed by storms, no roads, no vehicles in certain parts of the forest preserve, no motors on many of the lakes, no development of the lakeshores.   Quiet lakes are home to many species including the common merganser (above) and osprey (below).

Each year New York adds land to the original Forest Preserve — about half of the six million acres in the Adirondack Park are privately owned by still-active logging companies, mining companies and private homeowners, and those land uses are now heavily regulated.  The remainder of the forest preserve is owned "forever wild" by the state.

As a result of the century of state-mandated protection, the wilderness regenerated itself.   But the new growth, in many places, is different from what existed historically.   In place of the magnificent and huge old growth pines, smaller evergreens and many hardwood trees took root, especially birches and maples.   While the vistas are green from shore-to-shore of the lakes, and across the mountains, much of the forest is new growth in the last century.   What this tells us is that nature can reclaim what too much human interference destroyed.  But even nature will require many more centuries to make it the same as it was…

What does this mean for other endangered places?  While it's not realistic to expect an end to oil drilling, mining, logging or other invasive industries that support modern life, it is certainly possible, and morally necessary, to expect and even demand appropriate environmental protects, including prohibiting these activities in certain parts of the earth where nature must rule without human fingerprints.   Oceans are certainly among the places where human disruption needs careful consideration — especially because of all of the earth's unexplored and wild places, we know the least about life undersea.  Slowing the pace of offshore drilling until we know more about the risks and ways to mitigate risk seems the least we can do to ensure the long-term health of Planet Earth.

Loon parents are hyper-focused on raising their young during the first eleven or so weeks of life.  The chicks take to water almost immediately upon hatching, unlike eagles and osprey who say in the nests until they can fly.  Loons are swimmers, and the babies start swimming immediately.

To keep the chicks warm, and to give them a rest, the parent loons give them a ride… for a few weeks in summer, the sight of a pair of mature loons nurturing their young is common on many backwoods lakes up here.

While the babies are growing, the parents bring them food, usually minnows… see the adult loon above with a minnow heading for the voracious mouth of the chick….

Feeding time at the lake!

Loon babies soon learn to preen on the water, just like mom and dad… here's the basic loon preening action….

and here's the baby imitating dad…

When taking the kids out for the afternoon, the loon parents are contantly on patrol.  One adult usually swims a few yards away from the one with the chicks, head turning side-to-side, always looking out for danger in the form of birds of prey, other predators in the water, and the dreaded humans in boats.

This one let out a famous loon call when a motorboat came too close to the family…

Loon families are usually just one to a lake.  The males are very territorial, often returning to the same nest.  They have just two chicks per season, so seeing them grow to adulthood — in about three months — is important.  Once able to fish and fly on their own, the adults leave the young loons on their own.

Watching loon families tend to the very serious business of raising the young and surviving in the wilderness is one of my favorite parts of an Adirondack vacation!

Many different yellow birds inhabit the wildflowers and bushes alongside roads and lakes in the Adirondacks.

The color of these birds blends into the light green of the dense bushes and reeds — they are really hard to spot and they don't sit in one place for long!

This little guy is called a Wilson's Snipe.  I have no idea who Wilson was, or if his friends played a joke on him by naming the bird this way.   That long beak is important because it helps the snipe get to insects and stuff buried deep inside tree crevasses.  You needed to know that fact today.  No weirder than humans getting food in a drive-through.

Damsel flies are small, delicate and lovely compared to the big, ugly dragonflies.

Speaking of flies…. they are one of the less pleasant aspects of life in the summer Adirondacks, but when they perch on the daisies that are abundant along roads, they are part of the picture…

Oh, stop grousing!  Think of this guy next time you grouse… do you really want to look like this??

Loon families are all over the place this week…. I'll have more on loons in blogs to come.

Clouds are lifting, am hoping to get my kayak onto the water today.  It's been cold and raining, but I see the sun peeking through!  Off to the lake….

Next… more loons and more lakes!  But no more grousing!