Help NPE Call for Hearings on Abusive Testing!

Click here to download a PDF of a form you can mail to help the Network for Public Education pressure political leaders to hold hearings on the current state of high-stakes testing in American public schools. 

NPE will deliver the letters "to the offices of our friends at the Education Opportunity Network in Washington D.C.. On May 17 - the 60th anniversary of the Brown vs. the Board of Education decision - we will deliver our letters to members of Congress."

Further, they ask "Friends & Allies to take an extra step - print out a copy, slap on a stamp and drop it in a mail box. You might want to make copies and bring them to PTA meetings or pass them out to your friends and family. In this age of email and electronic media, mail in campaigns are not very common. This will make our presentation to Congress that much more effective."

I'm using my very last envelope with a certain logo on it to mail my letter later today and hope you'll do the same. 

Follow Me on Twitter, if You are so Inclined.

Handle of "@JamesBuckyCarte" is what I'm using.

See Some of the Documents That Didn't Get Me Hired at Washington State University

I'm sharing the versions of the cover letter/teaching statement, vita, and Appendix I used to apply to the English Education position at WSU. See my previous post for how well that worked out. Click this link to access my Google Drive public folder. The items are PDF's and are labeled clear enough for you to find them. And if you have to dig through my other, non-application-related documents, well, I put them there for sharing, didn't I?

The Appendix shares letters of recommendation from students and colleagues, sample syllabi, and student evals.  I wanted to upload my writing sample as well, but since it will be published in a few months, I decided against it. Further, the five or six confidential references sent along to the search committee are not included. But I can tell you three women and two men wrote on my behalf, for what it's worth.

Marvel at my ineptitude! Point out any and all spelling errors! Sentence fragments too. Care to brazenly point out split infinitives? Be my guest. Ask yourself, "What the f**k are these people looking for if not someone like Bucky?" Tut-tut as you see how my blatantly-activist, anti-corporate reform stance may have been my undoing! Consider how your opinions of this change when you realize the search committee consisted of absolutely zero people with terminal degrees in English Education! "But some of them had public school teaching experience," you say? I've taught Shakespeare to students from middle school on up. Think that'd qualify me to be on the search committee for a British Literature professor?

Live it up.

A Hell of a Way to Know; A Hell of a Way to Go

Many of you may know I took a Visiting Assistant Professor position at Washington State University over the summer and started that job this year. This Spring, WSU advertised for a tenure track position in my field, and I applied, the only caveat being that I asked the Department Chair and Search Chair to inform me the moment I was considered a candidate no longer.

They didn't follow through. Instead, today I learned that Skype interviews have been scheduled.

I was not asked for an interview.

Thank you, Academic Jobs Wiki.

A phone call to the Search Chair beginning with "Are you familiar with Academic Jobs Wiki?" soon lead to a confession and a quick end to the phone call.

I'll keep you informed of what happens next, how much agency I had in the actions taken, and whatever the fallout for me may be.  In the meantime, I have to go stock up on rice and beans, I guess.