Michael McGill is superintendent of schools in Scarsdale, Ne York, one of the nation’s most affluent districts. It has an excellent school system. Its students go to fine colleges. Yet even Scarsdale must submit to the half-brained testing and evaluation strategies dreamed up by non-educators and educators with minimal experience.
McGill is an articulate and wise leader. Here are his thoughts on the current situation, where he sees signs of hope as more people resist the testing mania:
He writes:
****************
My niece Amy is teaching middle school math in Queens, and for the last few weeks, her classes have been spending their time answering practice questions for the upcoming state test. It’ll be new this year, based on the national standards. The higher-ups say there’ll be a lot more failures. Amy worries about how that’ll help her kids, who struggle to start with.
She was pretty positive about the Common Core at the start. It was supposed to involve less content and more depth, and as she says, “Nobody will ever need to know a lot of the stuff we’ve always taught them.” As it’s turned out, though, she’s still expected to cover everything she did before and also prep her students for the exam.
And so it goes.
Standardized testing isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. A lean curriculum core is better than one that’s overflowing. But twelve years after parents in my own community had their children boycott New York’s eighth grade exams, the scene is depressingly familiar. The more test-driven the classroom and the higher the stakes of the test, the more:
• teachers cover everything that might be tested and neglect material that won’t be.
• They’re reluctant to take the time to explain in depth, explore or pursue student interests.
• They focus on test-taking strategies, memorization, drill and practice questions.
• Scores, not real learning, become the main objective of instruction.
• The test evaluates what can be crammed into students’ heads, not deep understanding.
These problems aren’t limited to places where the results are bad. Children in my own community do well on standardized tests, for example. Our school board says we should offer a deep, rich education and let the results take care of themselves. For close to two decades, I’ve criticized the misuses of standardized testing. But teachers and administrators are still wary.
If scores decline – when scores decline – as a result of the changes in the tests this year, what will the community do? What will happen when one elementary school’s results aren’t as good as another’s? Now that scores are going to be fed into a teacher rating formula, can anyone completely trust the school board or the superintendent’s assurances? Who thinks parents won’t compare one teacher against others?
So even when students succeed and leaders downplay standardized testing, teachers feel pressure to approach the exams strategically and to spend excessive time prepping for them. Principals don’t direct them to spend hours that way, but “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is tempting. Kids should have some familiarity with the tests; who’s going to stop the teacher who does a little – or a lot – more than familiarize them?
Still, as a New York commissioner of education once asked me – what’s the big problem? Why not get the highest scores in the galaxy and then take pride in them?
One reason is that the testing and accountability strategy doesn’t pay off in its own terms. Scores are better in a number of states – typical of what happens when teachers teach to the test in a high-stakes environment. But gains on the nation’s only independent measure of student learning – the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) – were greater in the years before the high-stakes testing movement than they have been since.
More important, the strategy reflects such a narrow vision of what education is. And also, time is blood. We have 180-some days to try to prepare kids for a future that’s being transformed daily by globalization and technology. Today’s distorted emphasis on testing is part of an education for the 1950’s. It just makes the job harder.
Teachers should be giving their pupils a personalized education, nurturing their creativity and desire to learn. Students need more opportunities to pursue their interests, initiate more of their own learning, work in collaboratively in teams, create and invent. They should be able to wrestle with complex questions that have meaning in the real world. This kind of teaching and learning take time.
Instead – even in schools that try to realize this vision of education – kids lose multiple days to test prep, administration and grading. The cost might be more acceptable if the benefit were worth it.
But the exams are imperfect and imprecise measures of limited knowledge, and their results are marginally useful. Disembodied numbers come back from the state weeks after the tests are given. Nobody can know precisely what questions a student missed because of test security concerns. Sometimes, the scores seem to fall into meaningful patterns, but often they don’t.
For an approach that’s supposed to be highly rational, this one isn’t.
Why, then, after all these years, are we still heading down this arid road? It’s not that the state education officials or the politicians and corporate leaders who support the approach haven’t heard about the problems. Many of us working educators can tell stories about the long, frustrating and ultimately pointless discussions we’ve had with elected and appointed officials and representatives of the business community.
One reason, to be sure, is financial. Testing is big business: There’s plenty of money to be made, supplying the schools with the tools of the trade – to paraphrase the now-obscure Country Joe McDonald and the Fish.
But the equally powerful reason is that many of these people are sincere. They honestly believe they’re saving children. The officials and the business folk know they’re right, and they have a profound disdain for the educators who, presumably, are responsible for the mess the schools are supposed to be in.
They’ve adapted a corporate strategy of metrics and accountability, certain it must work in schools just as well as it (again, presumably) does in business. For unclear reasons, they apply this model selectively. Unlike highly effective businesses, for example, they believe in treating all situations the same, regardless of objective differences: They don’t want to free effective, innovative or otherwise promising divisions from regulation. Still, they can’t be faulted for a lack of single-minded determination.
All things considered, in other words, it’s no wonder that the discredited school people are politically marginal. Or that a New York education chancellor has said the only way the ship will start to turn is if large numbers of parents begin to protest the direction it’s taking.
And in fact, we may be seeing the birth of a grass roots effort to restore balance to the school reform movement. After almost three decades in which states and, subsequently, the federal government have promoted the over-use and the misuse of standardized tests, Texas school boards are pushing back. Teacher protests and parent boycotts have begun to appear across the nation.
Whether these particular shoots will grow and flourish isn’t yet clear. But it’s spring, when signs of life are always hopeful. Sooner or later, the policy makers must come to understand that today’s grim, reductive emphasis on test scores won’t develop the thinking people our nation needs to compete and to lead in the new century. Our birthright is an education that realizes each individual’s human potential; only by honoring that legacy, can we fulfill America’s promise.
Actually, I got the beginnings of my formal education in the 1950s, and it was a progressive paradise compared to what I’m hearing and reading about today.
Thank you, John. I definitely didn’t have that feeling of being put through my paces that pervades education now.
2old2tch: you pointed remark about “being put through my paces” led to this insight based on what happens when runners are literally put through their paces when competing—today’s high-stakes standardized testing is all about ‘putting people in their proper place.’ Literally.
Starting at younger and younger ages, the vast majority will be labeled and sorted as ‘inadequate’ or ‘barely adequate’ and will never catch up. A few children will largely avoid this ‘rank-and-reward/punish’ ritual because they will have attended U of Chicago Lab School or Harpeth Hall or Waldorf School of the Pacific or Cranbrook or Sidwell Friends and be automatically put at the head of the line because they ‘made’ the smart choice of attending the ‘right’ kind of school. In other words, the majority will begin behind the start line and with greater or lesser impediments to running a successful race. A few will be placed [depending on their family and other situations] at the 70-yard or 80-yard or 90-yard line with all sorts of advantages.
The system is rigged. High-stakes standardized testing has to go.
Thank you for your comment.
🙂
Thank you, Mr. McGill. You are one of the few superintendents in Westchester County who is brave enough to tell the truth. My son, a middle schooler in Harrison, NY refused the tests this year. He will again next year.
“Sooner or later, the policy makers must come to understand that today’s grim, reductive emphasis on test scores won’t develop the thinking people our nation needs to compete and to lead in the new century. ”
While I truly believe that superintendents, principals and teachers are working so hard to do their best for our children, I don’t believe the real reformers really want to “develop the thinking people.”
I wish it was only a “conspiracy’ theory, but it would have to be “secret” to be a conspiracy, right? Nothing but facts in this video.
Oh ya, that was good. At 27 minutes, it says in 1992 Marc Tucker wants a computer database for students available to the school, the government, and future employers.
Cradle to grave tracking, yay, what a fun idea.
And it has started. ARRA funding statewide databases that can “talk” to each other….to make it easier for all the kids that move from school to school.
wait i’m confused is one of her points for trying to make the case that common core is some insidious far-left plot to indoctrinate kids? i mean I agree with her on many of the reasons she lays that we should very suspicious of common core, but when she talks about unesco and anti-western far-left propoganda and global citizenship, I don’t really see how that relates. i mean certainly there should not be a universal curriculum but that doesn’t mean teaching for global citizenship is a bad thing, and as long as its not universally imposed what’s wrong with promoting social justice and human rights in a curriculum, especially a social studies curriculum that is often whitewashed, and what does that have to with common core?
Yes, in order to not fall prey to “parochial nationalism,” we should be teaching our children to be good Global Citizens. It appears that this is mutually exclusive to being an American Citizen. Obviously it is important to be being socially aware and compassionate – but are we ready to do that at the expense of our American citizenship and identity?
She refers NOT to a global economy, but a unified global society working towards the fulfillment of the 2015 United Nations Millennium Development Goals, and ultimately the “earth charter initiative.”
What seemed most shocking to me was the intention of the Common Core to teach and assess “affective” domains which I believe are developmental, and differ with every single child at any given moment – not standard in any way. ‘Perseverance” is one of those skills in the standards/assessed. I don’t know what the others are.
It feels like the standards will “mold” the child thinking processes and affective skills, and the assessments will sort them out by success in those areas to prepare them for “college and career.” Are we looking to create and identify the best and brightest and (with the help of the National Database) ensure that the pawns (children) are placed where they will be the most useful to those in power?
But the nagging thoughts in my head are 1) why is it all dependent on data and sharing? 2) why is there the incredible push to do this NOW! If it was so great, wouldn’t we want to make sure it was done well? Changing curriculum and testing at the same exact time, and making teachers and schools liable for the scores? 3) Is it good for children? It seems to ignore parents, children, child development, curiosity, love for learning, play, etc.
Who exactly is this all for??
The parent in me feels that it is a plan to “standardize” our children so they can be effective, global workers on
perseverance is code for the ability to follow directions, stay on task and conform…its a positive term cloaked in a negative ideal….absolutely terrible and I agree that it is designed to mold American children into workers who can’t critically think. I have to say I agree with all your comments on standardization and the irresponsible push of the common core way too fast, but to conflate the common core with working for global citizenship in the truest sense of what that term means I think is a mistake…this speaker’s attempt to work her personal politics into parts of this speech, at least from my vantage point, was thinly veiled… I thought common core only applied to math and English language arts. It would seem to design a curriculum around the goal of teaching kids global citizenship would be reserved for social studies and history and politics classes.
So do you think American citizenship and identity is at odds with the idea of being socially aware and compassionate. Why should the two be in conflict? Speaking as a college student who interacts with other college students who have graduated from America’s school system, If anything the greatest crime of our educational system today is that students are not taught to be globally aware and care about issues of social justice not only in this country but around the world. The ability to critically think has been thrown out the window. While i don’t think the imposition of the common core will solve this problem, i do think it is a problem.
I am hoping that Diane Ravitch’s readers will be sophisticated enough to realize that Karen Bracken, featured on the embedded video, is spokesperson for the Glenn Beck/Tea Party perspective on the Common Core. This is a group of people exercise about Agenda 21 and its emphasis on global citizenship. Karen Bracken and her ilk are exactly the reason that those who oppose the Common Core should #1) be very clear about the reasons why and #2) refuse to make common cause with the far-right wingnuts, even if they want to see the CCSS die,too.
I certainly hope I am not being compared to a “far right wingnut.” And it is exactly that divisive kind of thinking that keeps people sticking to their labels and not speaking about the truth.
It is the FEAR of falling outside of their own party comfort-zone and speaking in the name of truth. Maybe because they know they might become the victim of the same name-calling tactics that are common to leftist wingnuts!
i don’t think anyone was calling you a far right-wing nut, but you have to admit that what this woman says in this video in regards to far-left indoctrination by common core, which come on this policy is the farthest thing from being leftist, is quite suspicious, and now that I understand she’s a tea party person it makes sense. No one’s trying to demonize anyone here. I believe we should oppose the common core, but we should oppose it for the right reasons which she definitely does touch on in this video, but once you start talkin about this being far left propaganda, that becomes a misguided argument.
I agree that it sounds farfetched – sorry for the flare up! We are among friends here:)
But all along I thought Obama was for public school education. Yet his policies – which are backed/pushed through by “influence” from big business, big corporations, people with the means to apparently control the media (otherwise why isn’t this making the news anywhere to the extent that it should be) and are behind ever single aspect of Education Reform – who would have ever thought that was possible? Charters, TFA, Standards, Testing, Textbooks, BOE, election supporters, National PTA, promoted by oil company commercials during sporting events! – follow the money and power. And then some of those same people sit on or support these global organizations and boards; Bill Gates supporting children’s “education” and eugenics??? CCS Standards that fly in the face of “child development,” “differentiation” and “multiple intelligences.” What exactly is the end goal?
I don’t believe it is just a series of documents coincidentally strung together in that video to tell a conspiracy theory story.
I would feel better if we had a unified definition of the term “Global Citizen” and a clear description of how our American constitutional, free-will, capitalist economy and system supports those global social justice and human rights issues. And how what is happening in Education today plays a role in that.
oh no problem…i agree we are among like-minded people here.:)……i think whenever we vote for an American president, we are always voting for the lesser of two evils unless we vote for a third-party candidate…because American presidents are always selected before they are elected. they’re campaigns are funded and driven by the wealthiest among us. obama was very good at fooling people into thinking he was for the common good, public spheres, social justice. but it turns out he’s just a corporate crony and that especially applies in terms of his administrations systematic dismantling of public education as a public good…in respect to all these foundations, these are the wealthiest of the wealthy..the 1% of the 1% among us…what they want to see is wholesale privatization of all aspects of public life…and public schools is just one of their targets. bill gates does not care about children…he does not about what you spoke of..multiple intelligences…child development…all he cares about is standardization..maintenance of the status quo in respect to schools producing American workers who will not question the status quo…that I think is the worst form of indoctrination.
something else you have to understand that if this woman in the video is indeed a tea party woman like the other commenter said, then they hate big government no matter what…they also hate organizations like the UN because they see them as evil outside entities coming in to try to tell Americans how to live their lives..its a purely ideological position with no facts to back it up.
certainly I don’t believe everything she says in this video has to do with conspiracy theories about leftist indoctrination…but there are points in this video where she does sound like a conspiracy theorist. like in the beginning she takes out that social studies textbook and then makes the comment that it mentions about the common good and American having a democratic form of government as if those two things are bad. and she admits that has nothing to with the common core…so why in the world did she have to start her speech like that then? yes our country is a republic…its a democratic republic..is she trying to say that the concepts of democracy and republic are somehow antithetical to each other…which I can’t see how they are. its obvious that she sees our public schools as indoctrinating our kids with “evil leftist ideology” even though that could not be farther from the truth. social studies curriculums in this nation are notorious for whitewashing history and its clear she would be happy to see that continue. whitewashing history is a conservative ideal…it promotes a maintenance of the status quo wherein marginalized groups continue to remain marginalized…i would call that far-right ideology..would she rather our children be indoctrinated with that, cause to me that is the opposite of critical thinking and the opposite of compassion and social justice.
with respect to your last comment its a fact that often our capitalist economy and system does not always support issues of social justice and human rights…what would be your definition of a global citizen?
I think “Global Citizen” is a misnomer. At the end of the day, there is no country of “Global.”
Individuals are the citizen of their own country, but can also be humanitarians.
i don’t think anyone is arguing that an American citizen is not a citizen of America…but an American citizen is also simultaneously a citizen of the global community. certainly there’s no country that is global but I think i that’s taking it a little too literally..it means that the world is increasingly globalized meaning that actions we take in this country affect other parts of the world and vice versa. in that sense being a global citizen means being cognizant of the moral and ethical implications that go along with that.consider the recent garment factory collapse in Bangladesh that so far has killed nearly 400 people. people in American buy the clothes that these marginalized workers make…multinational companies originating in the U.S. buy these cheap goods made by cheap labor working under horrible conditions and rebrand them as jc penny, Wal-Mart, and Benneton…its the pressures that global competition creates and its the worker who is left to suffer. consider the owner of the factory..what he said when he was arrested.. he says he had no choice, either keep the factory running and force his workers to come to a building which had not structural integrity or lose the contract with these multinationals….what is so terrible about this, is that our President and Congress have the power to stop these industrial scandals but they do nothing.
consider this excerpt from an opinion piece in the nation magazine on the tragedy:
“A US trade restriction would require US importing companies to certify that the goods were produced in safe, sound factories. Nothing fancy, but basic terms that any modern society would insist upon for its own people. If a factory is falsely certified, the goods would be blocked from entry and a stiff penalty would fall upon the Walmarts of American commerce, not the bucket-shop operators in very poor countries.
This would reverse the incentives and begin to build a floor of decency under what the trading system allows. President Obama and US multinationals are preparing a new free-trade agreement with Asian nations, but you can be sure there is nothing in it to protect the defenseless workers in Bangladesh and other poor countries. Indeed, US trade agreements, starting with NAFTA, have concentrated on insuring the rights of capital, not labor. We do not know what Obama will propose because his negotiations are being conducted in private consultation with the multinational companies—no labor representatives have yet been allowed to see draft agreements.”
I can’t think of a better example to show that we are indeed global citizens. We the consumers of these products need to be aware.
What an excellent commentary by Mr. McGill. He has covered almost every aspect of the problems with deft accuracy, stepping on no toes in the process.
The difficulty our district faced had a lot to do with the idea of using grades and/or rubrics to convey the changes in educational evaluation. As the district headed towards the rubric drive progress model and away from grades, Ohio has gone from a rubric driven Praxis type of evaluation to giving actual letter grades to the schools and districts.
When I was getting my master’s degree in elementary math education, I was very interested in the IGE school movement. It never caught on in the 80s, but, for me, it offers an answer to fully educating students “where they are” in elementary school. I was told in my orals that I shouldn’t mention my affinity for that when I interviewd for jobs because that wasn’t widely accepted at that time.
There are so many options, and all of them could and can work. There is no one best way, best practice, or best test. Out of the diverse personalities, methods, interactions, skills, and pedogogy very similar results may be obtained. Our differences enrich our lives. We can grow into the 21st century without treating educational professionals like some infestation of termites that need to be exterminated!
“Standardized testing isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. ”
Well, he lost me with that one. It shows a complete ignorance of the many errors involved in the making of educational standards and standardized tests, in the administration of said tests and in the dissemination of the results that render the whole process invalid. Any conclusions drawn are “vain and illusory”.
Michael, I challenge you to read and understand why the process is completely invalid as shown by Noel Wilson in “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700 . After you have read and understood it I doubt that you will insist that “Standardized testing isn’t a bad thing in and of itself”.
“Still, as a New York commissioner of education once asked me – what’s the big problem? Why not get the highest scores in the galaxy and then take pride in them?”
How can one take pride in a process that is completely bogus and whose results/scores are INVALID? The NYCoE knows not of what he speaks!!
What I see in McGill’s writing is a pseudo mea culpa. Well, Mr. Superintendent, what have you done to counter this? Why haven’t spoken out before? Does it only matter when the negative effects of these standardized testing regimes hit your district? No need to answer but I say put your money where your mouth is and order your district to not participate in this educational malpractice that is standardized testing. (“Oh, I can’t do that it’s mandated by law”-Well then resign in protest and help lead the way out of this nonsense.)
I’ve been saying since NCLB was passed that the only time that the testing regime nonsense would be fought by all educators was when it started to effect the suburban affluent districts. I just thought it would have been sooner but the various state departments of education managed to finagle the scores so it wouldn’t negatively effect those districts but the game they have been playing (unfortunately quite harmful to the students) has finally come back around to bite them. Lots of concern now that “worm has turned” (you know the worm screw that is being power driven into the affluent districts as it had to the poor urban and rural districts long ago).
Michael, I challenge you to come back from the “dark side” and work for the forces of justice. Can you do that?
Duane
Whoa, Duane. This sounds like a “come to Jesus” moment where we need to sell all our possessions and give the money to the poor in order to be considered eligible to be among the chosen.
No, not at all.
The fact is that many have played along, and in the case of superintendents making quite a bit of money while doing so, to get along all the while causing harm to students by not challenging the deforms that have been pushed upon us. They went along because they were thinking “Well, it’ll never affect my district (especially the most affluent) in such a horrible way. We’ll ride this ‘reform’ out-it’ll pass.” Well folks like that don’t get a pass from me just like the bastards pushing this crap don’t get a pass. Those at the top of the educational hierarchy have a greater share of the blame. As the only president from the Show Me State once quipped “The buck stops here!”
Now if Mr. McGill wants to lend not only his voice but his actions, as suggested or otherwise, to the defeat of these educational malpractices then I welcome him. If not, well, what’s a little grief from some midwest Spanish teacher, I’m sure he’s heard worse criticism than mine.
And one doesn’t have to live in poverty to understand and fight the current educational malpractices that daily harm the most innocent among us, the children. I have just chosen to more directly confront all those who have played the educational malpractice game (all the while not believing it was/is wise policy) as they are responsible for it. And I choose to not have much empathy for them and their prior actions.
“They’re reluctant to take the time to explain in depth, explore or pursue student interests.”
And there lies the conumdrum, depth and testing work against each other. That is the great paradox of the common core, the catch 22, the chicken or the egg, you can’t have both.
Well said. I feel so shell-shocked right now, I don’t have the energy to think past this week. It’s all about money none of which local neighborhood public schools will ever see.
If the administrators and teachers have parents behind them, the school reformers will have to respond.
They marginalized and discredited teachers early in the process by portraying them as self-interested. It was a smart political tactic, but it falls apart when the parents of children who attend public school are also unhappy with “reform.”
Teachers couldn’t do it by themselves, because reformers set the political framing on their own terms, and media adopted it, whole.
I’m not surprised you were getting beat so badly, and you shouldn’t be either. Tens of millions of dollars will buy a lot of political marketing expertise.
I totally agree with Michael McGill’ criticism of another testing design that cannot improve teaching. Deming said in 1986 testing would not improve services or products. Doctors do not improve patients by taking their temperature multiple times. Systems and people improve by learning and professional development.
The Common Core Standards are necessary expectations for learning that children in the United States will need to meet if they are to work and play in a global economy.
They are not a curriculum. Teachers and school leaders need to work together and verify that their school curriculum aligns and exceeds the CCSS. They need to become expert in the use of formative assessments to adjust instruction. As Michael stated they need to work above and beyond the CCSS. Professional development and not testing students is the only way to help teachers become proficient instructors and collaborative professionals who share responsibility for student success.
Fight the testing expansions. Reduce the testing. Celebrate the common core standards as a step towards a competitive global economy.
Bob Manley (former superintendent of schools and author of Making the Common Core Standards Work, Corwin Press December 2012).
Slowly but surely the mandate for all this testing is being pushed back. Minnesota has just voted against it in their Senate: http://www.startribune.com/politics/blogs/204765211.html We can’t let up the pressure.
One comment that really is troubling in Dr. McGill’s posting: “But gains on the nation’s only independent measure of student learning – the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) – were greater in the years before the high-stakes testing movement than they have been since.” How can the obvious be so overlooked?
Because it isn’t reported. The NYTimes piece that does provide the information you mentioned is right now the most emailed article on their site.
People aren’t responding to the information because they don’t have it.
Can you post the link to the article. Thank you.
I worked for Mike in Scarsdale. He was a great boss. He truly believed in the district motto, NON SIBI. Not for oneself. He was a supporter of every teacher and student initiative that improved each student able to take advantage of it. He was and is a great supporter or Scarsdale’s Senior Options Program (WISE).
He is WISE and should be the Commissioner of NYS Regents.
Michael McGill is certainly right about the “reformers” disdain for teachers, the people who do the work. In fact, I think this whole accountability and testing mania is driven more by a disdain for teachers and a desire to disarm teachers’ unions than any desire to help students. Most of the (private) schools these “reformers” send their children to have little to no standardized testing.
Thanks to Mike McGill for once again standing up to high stakes testing…
How did McGill stand up against high stakes testing? What actions to counteract the educational malpractice has he taken? Anything of substance other than a not so innocent mea culpa like this one?
I agree with you, Duane, as I agree with your 8:10 PM comment.
WHERE are the superintendents in all this? Why is it always the teachers (e.g., the Garfield H.S. 12–& spreading in Seattle! &, much earlier, a small group of CPS teachers who did the same) putting their jobs on the line(& parents, too, of course–like the Angry Texas Moms–but they’re not putting their jobs on the line). What if district superintendents ALL over ACTUALLY started the ball rolling by refusing to have their students tested to death?
Actions speak louder than words (or petitions).
Country Joe & the Fish!!! I love it ! I’m going to have to rewrite the whole song.
“And it’s one, two, three what are we teaching for,
Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn,
Next up is the big exam…”
It’s time to start the revolution 😉
I rewrote the lyrics when Georgie the Least (oops, I mean Dick the Varthprick Cheney) decided to invade Afghanistan, you know the country that the supposed hijackers came from-OH WAIT-you say that 17 of those criminals were from Saudi Arabia, HUH, why’d we invade Afghanistan? (See mineral, especially precious metal, wealth of Afghanistan).
See pipeline from the “stans” also!
Duane, “Why’d we invade Afghanistan?” Didn’t Halliburton make $600 million–you know, Halliburton, as in Dick Cheney’s Halliburton?
Brilliant. Michael McGill needs to testify before Congress. Policy makers really need to understand what he has said so eloquently and thoughtfully here.
Policy makers are in love with the business model and in bed with the billionaire boys club. Are they interested in what’s best for America’s children? Hardly.