Karen Wolfe, a parent in Los Angeles, tries
to understand why liberals and progressives find themselves
opposed to Common Core and lumped together with the Tea
Party, with whom they otherwise have no agreement. While the Tea
Party opposes the Common Core because they fear a federal takeover
of public education, liberals and progressives have different
reasons to oppose the Common Core. Karen Wolfe writes:
Ideologically speaking, it is baffling that any liberal
would adopt the education reform agenda with its call to deregulate
schools as a public good, and destabilize labor unions which have
historically been huge supporters of the Democratic party.
(Although one only has to consider neo-liberalism to understand the
call to privatize.) But, in education, for
liberal politicians, money trumps ideology. Politicians simply
cannot resist the money — or at least the possibility of preventing
the billionaires from filling the campaign coffers of their
opponents. When billionaires like Eli Broad pretend to be
Democrats, it’s a very effective way of infiltrating the Democratic
inner sanctum, long a champion of public education. (I say
“pretend” after a Common Cause complaint to the Fair Political
Practices Commission revealed that Eli Broad and other billionaires
had secretly funded opposition to Governor Brown’s tax proposition
while publicly supporting it.) Ideology only
explains a small part of the opposition to Common Core.
If liberals oppose Common Core for any ideological
reason, it’s probably less about an ideology than a distaste for
lining the pockets of giant corporations. It’s more likely that the
overwhelmingly negative reaction to Common Core isn’t ideological
at all. Many critics feel like the major
purpose of Common Core is to make teaching measurable. Even if one
is convinced that that goal is a reasonable one to cure what ails
our schools — and many of us are not — some
things are not easy to quantify. Think of the best teacher you ever
had. It’s doubtful that you conjure images of Scan-Tron
tests. Let me say for the record, if it need saying,
that I have no sympathy for the Tea Party. I want more government
support to alleviate social and economic problems. I want the
federal government to return to its role as a guarantor of equity,
not a force to compel states to enact policies that are harmful to
children and to public education. I want more funding for programs
that benefit needy children. I think their obsessive hatred for
everything associated with President Obama is absurd. I disagree
with President Obama about education, but I voted for him, and I
support him in other areas, especially if he is serious about
inequality, which is the cancer of our society. I oppose the Common
Core in its present form because I fear that it was designed to
make public education look bad, that it was designed as part of a
larger plan to measure every child and every teacher, and that it
was designed to enrich big corporations like Pearson and the dozens
of other entrepreneurs now sucking public money out of the schools.
Until teachers in every state have a chance to revise the Common
Core and make it developmentally appropriate, I will continue to
oppose it. Until the Common Core is decoupled from the Common Core
testing, I will continue to oppose it. The passing marks on the
federally-funded tests were set far too high for most students, and
we will see massive failure rates among our neediest students if
the cut scores are not readjusted to align with the reality of how
children learn and what they know and should know. The Common Core
will die a natural or unnatural death at the hands of parents,
teachers, school boards, and citizens if it is not open to
criticism and revision. As more states test the Common Core, the
opposition will grow bolder, as it has in New York. Given how toxic
it is now, it may be dead already. Politicians, who usually don’t
give a fig about education, now are distancing themselves from the
Common Core.
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“In the US, there is basically one party – the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations on the same policies. By and large, I am opposed to those policies. As is most of the population.”
~Noam Chomsky
As big business turns to public education to replace mountains of cash the sub-prime debaucle no longer provides….. To paraphrase Ralph Nader, the only difference between Republicans and Democrats are the speed with which their knees hit the floor at the feet of Wall Street….
So TRUE! TY for your post.
Ralph was right about that! I hope you’ll read my whole piece linked above.
Hey Karen, I live in Los Angeles. I agree with you 100%. With LAUSD District 1 special election June 3rd, you and other parents should get involved with Sherlett Hendy Newbill Campaign. hendynewbill (dot) com
At a panel discussion last evening in Denver about the common core, two brave teachers from a title I school spoke. One thing is very clear. Inequity, inequity, inequity. The technology gap must be addressed, both from the hardware standpoint as well as the student exposure standpoint. It is very very clear that older inner city schools with high poverty and high second language learners do not and will not have the same advantages as the brand spanking new or recently refurbished mostly charter schools in this district. The attack on teachers and the experiments on student will continue unabated if this inequity is not addressed. It would seem to me that at the very least there should be a two-tiered system: one for schools with access to technology for all, one for students who have to share the little technology available. (It is fair to say the familiarity and comfort with technology would go hand in hand as well). And none of this addresses the inherent testing inequities of poverty and second language learning.
Keep the proles divided between the “conservatives” and “liberals”. Divide and conquer, an age old technique to keep the proles against each other and not against the oligarchs who steal the most benefits from society.
Karen Wolfe’s comment that Eli Broad “pretends to be a Democrat” misses the point… What’s more accurate is that Democrats pretend to be progressive… As an earlier commenter noted there is no difference between the political parties when it comes to business… and I’m convinced that the only reason for the common core is to facilitate standardized testing, as your earlier post on scientific standards revealed…
wgersen: I am in agreement with your last line.
And guess who provides astounding affirmation of our shared position? None other than an extremely knowledgeable long time insider of the self-styled “education reform” movement.
From a recent posting by Dr. Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute:
[start quote]
And that brings us back to the Common Core. If the standards are better than those that many states had in place, swell. If more common reading and math standards make things easier for material developers and kids who move across states, that’s fine. But I don’t think that stuff amounts to all that much.
In truth, the idea that the Common Core might be a “game-changer” has little to do with the Common Core standards themselves, and everything to do with stuff attached to them, especially the adoption of common tests that make it possible to readily compare schools, programs, districts, and states (of course, the announcement that one state after another is opting out of the two testing consortia is hollowing out this promise).
But the Common Core will only make a dramatic difference if those test results are used to evaluate schools or hire, pay, or fire teachers; or if the effort serves to alter teacher preparation, revamp instructional materials, or compel teachers to change what students read and do. And, of course, advocates have made clear that this is exactly what they have in mind. When they refer to the “Common Core,” they don’t just mean the words on paper–what they really have in mind is this whole complex of changes.
[end quote]
Link: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/the-american-enterprise-institute-common-core-and-good-cop/
Link: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2013/12/common_core_and_the_food_pyramid.html
VAMania anyone?
😎
wgersen, you are probably right. Perhaps I am clinging to the wrong label. But I do remember Democrats like Teddy Kennedy and Tip O’Neill saying things like “We’re Democrats, dammit. Of course we support education!”
Karen,
Teddy Kennedy may have supported education, but his record on important labor/economics legislation was far more mixed than political progressives are willing to acknowledge.
This mixed record goes far beyond NCLB, which he co-sponsored.
Kennedy was instrumental in deregulating both the airline and the trucking industries in the late ’70’s, which opened the door to successful attacks on the living standards of workers in both industries. Those attacks were so successful that the younger tiers of airline pilots, especially on the regional flyers, barely earn a middle class income today. Flight attendants have long since been relegated to sub middle class status.
This isn’t an arcane point, since deregulating education – starting with who gets to become a teacher, a la TFA – is a major project of the privatizers, since a deregulated labor market gives employers far more power and strengthens their ability to achieve their goal of turning teaching into temporary, at-will work.
Ted Kennedy supported NCLB, so I don’t really consider him a friend of education.
The larger point of my article is that the media is wrong to portray opposition to CCSS as soley a Tea Party thing. Many liberals oppose CCSS because its primary purpose is to measure teaching and it scripts teaching. http://www.laprogressive.com/fighting-common-core/
I agree. I am no supporter of the Tea Party, or libertarians, or fundamentalist zealots, or Glenn Beck, or Fox. But I do not like the manner in which the CCSS is being thrust into our public schools. And I don’t support the PARCC testing.
At the same time, I don’t believe Arne Duncan was a good choice to lead the US education policy. First, he doesn’t have knowledge or experience with public education. Second, he pushes the charter and private school movement using public dollars.
People need to work together to fight back against Big Money and its takeover of the wealth if the US. It has been a creeping cancer on our society, fueled by Citizens United allowing wealthy people and corporations, who may not even be US citizens, to control the functions of our society by using propagandized fear mongering to rally all sorts of people behind their causes, tying up money for themselves and making sure that others are shut out.
In Ohio when we fought Senate Bill 5, we showed that it could be done, that we could stand up against the privatizing corporations, that we would not be trampled. That was the beginning. But people do get weary from the tiny inroads made towards allowing indivdual citizens to have a voice. A million people with $10 can stand up to 19 corporations with $1 million. But it has to continue.
Diane Ravitch has really rallied a variety of supporters across all political spectrums to stand up against this continued attack by corporate America.
We can’t give up. I am encouraged by the progress that is being made, by the opt out movement, by the vast group of educators, authors, journalists, teachers, professors, and others who have come out in support of public education, less testing, smaller class sizes, wrap around services, and less stress for teachers and students.
Tyranny can emerge from the left and from the right. But whatever it’s origins, it has the same smell.
I am a Superintendent in Texas and I’m looking for some insight into a connection I just became aware of. The state of Texas has begun the process of revamping principal and teacher evaluations. Recently (in the last few months) the Commissioner of Education reached a compromise with the USDE about NCLB requirements. Part of the compromise required Texas to include test scores in the teacher evaluation tool.
Now I see, taken from the SEDL website ( http://txcc.sedl.org/our_work/), that the states’ work on both the Principal and Teacher Evaluation systems are based on the priorities of the USDE. Unless I’m mistaken, the USDE priorities have been in place for several years. That would make the Commissioner’s “compromise” essentially a lie. He planned all along to implement a system like this. The best remedy to this kind of “in the dark” activity is sunlight.
Can anyone help explain these connections? I realize my explanation is short on details, best I believe the answers could be very enlightening when you consider the following points:
-Texas, especially our governor, has made a point of opposing EVERYTHING Washington
-Texas filed a waiver from NCLB and then pretended the result was the best it could do
– Educators are about to have an evaluation system imposed on them that will for all practical purposes, reestablish High Stakes Testing as a priority in this state by requiring student test scores be a SIGNIFICANT (emphasis TEA) portion of their evaluation
This stuff is not a coincidence, just look at the pattern of reform initiatives in other states. Its only just begun here in Texas.
My email is bendeancarson@gmail.com
THE BELOW INFORMATION IS FROM THE SEDL WEBSITE REFERENCED ABOVE
This project relates to the following USDE Priorities:
Identifying, recruiting, developing, and retaining highly effective teachers and leaders
Identifying and scaling up innovative approaches to teaching and learning that significantly improve student outcomes
Welcome to the club.
The use of VAM is a requirement from the feds for any state to escape the death grip of NCLB. From the frying pan, into the fire.
Brava, Karen Wolfe- it is a pleasure to work with you, and other parents like you who value the public good embedded in the public schools that welcome and teach every child. As a progressive democrat, I support the full and equitable funding of all of our public schools as the only “choice” that should be publicly funded. IDEA should protect the very rare student whose needs cannot be met in the home district to get a free, appropriate program elsewhere.The free market never has, and never will value every child, and is driven only by what is profitable. It has no place in public education. As a lifelong teacher, I value the role of educators in determining what standards, curricula and materials can be chosen for our students based on the needs of those students.
Teachers and parents working together–this is where change is coming from! Thank heavens for this blog where we can share stories and be forewarned in our school districts by connecting the dots.
I have continuously run into progressive minded people who fear opposing Common Core because the Tea Party opposes Common Core. The fact that the Tea Party opposes Common Core is not a reason for a progressive/left/liberal to shy away from opposing it too. When the first stirrings of Tea Party sentiment occurred, I thought the movement could go left or right because there was something in the original protest that could have easily been embraced by the left – opposition to the Iraq war, opposition to the NSA type of surveillance already underway, opposition to an irrational tax code that favored the wealthy. But the movement was bought off by rightwing money, and rather quickly it ceased having genuine grass roots. I too have no sympathy for the Tea Party, and I too favor the role of the federal government in regulating markets, providing for the health and safety of the citizenry, ensuring the protection of our common public spaces and enterprises, building national infrastructure, ensuring that our states remain fundamentally “united” by laws and values, and so on. But I also oppose the federal government when it abuses its power, or arrogates more power to itself than is constitutionally proper, or steps into matters that are fundamentally local in nature. Deciding how the country should respond to the Ukraine crisis is a federal matter. Deciding how and what teachers should teach in their local public schools is a local matter. Education policy is for school committees, local district and building administrators, the educators themselves, and the local unions to which they may belong. State government too has a key role to play in ensuring proper and adequate financing, in requiring licensure, and even, to a degree that is properly limited, in holding districts accountable for educational outcomes. But the federal government oversteps its boundaries, both historically and from a policy perspective, when it intervenes to the degree it has in altering the education landscape. I am no activist for states’ rights, but I do recognize that a constitutional balance does exist between federal and state roles. Marriage, like education, is historically a matter left to state authority, and it should remain there, provided the states act within federal constitutional mandates – such as the equal protection clause. For a federal court to strike down a state law prohibiting gay marriage is not a federal intrusion into state authority. It is our federal constitution at play. The education of our children is uniquely local among our many social institutions, starting with the iconic little red school house. Other than the ridiculous Vergara trial taking place in California right now, there are no real constitutional impairments that occur from local and state control of the institution. The federal government’s interest in having an educated citizenry, and perhaps even its interest in having a citizenry prepared for the challenges of the 21st century, can be accomplished without the massive intrusion that we are seeing now. Indeed, what is saddest about the federal role in education is that the true underlying interests that are represented by our federal DOE and our president (for whom, like you, I voted) are corporate interests, not citizen interests. And so, like the Tea Party with whom I would otherwise never be a bedfellow, I oppose vigorously the role the federal government is playing through overreaching and unwise and politically motivated laws like NCLB and RTTT. There is nothing “core” about the “Common Core,” and even worse there is nothing “common” about it (in the sense that the “common” is something that is shared, public and open). I fundamentally do not trust the federal government in governing education in fifty states and setting goals for education at the district, building or classroom level. I know the analogy is silly, but education right now feels like the Crimea of American public policy.
I disagree that the tea party movement is AstroTurf. It is genuine grass roots. The federal government spends way too much doing to the economy what it is doing to education. The ACA is the most notable example. Where are you on that?
“I oppose the Common Core in its present form because I fear that it was designed to
make public education look bad, that it was designed as part of a larger plan to measure every child and every teacher, and that it was designed to enrich big corporations like Pearson and the dozens of other entrepreneurs now sucking public money out of the schools. Until teachers in every state have a chance to revise the Common Core and make it developmentally appropriate, I will continue to oppose it. Until the Common Core is decoupled from the Common Core testing, I will continue to oppose it. The passing marks on the federally-funded tests were set far too high for most students. . .”
First, I don’t think that we can infer the motive of making the public schools look bad was an intentional design as, at least for me, more likely than not it definitely was designed “as a part of a larger plan to measure every child and every teacher” with one of the main intents being the monetizing of that data.
Still, that and the other concerns that Diane has listed above with the CCSS are secondary and tertiary at best. The primary concern that I have, and that should be the primary concern of all, is the complete epistemological and ontological invalidity of educational standards and standardized testing as proven by Noel Wilson in his never refuted nor rebutted landmark study “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Read and understand Wilson’s work to understand the primary problems with CCSS and the accompanying tests.
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Thank you for the information, Duane. This is deep material, but can be put in simple (simplistic) terms so it will “sell” to the people. The reason Wilson’s work has not been refuted (or attempted to refute) is that like most scholarly articles, no one cares about what they can’t understand. Make his research understandable (especially points 4-6, and the Foucault channeling) and this can make the masses take a posture of unrest and action. The “self-fulfilled prophecy” loop has been used effectively in psychology and counseling. It can be used to help people understand a major purpose of testing (whether the marks be ‘A’ or ‘F’).
I generally agree with the Tea Party, and I think the formulation that the Tea Party ONLY opposes CCSS due to fears of a federal takeover of education are overly-simplistic. Many of the things many libs oppose — standardization and homogenization of education, loss of teacher autonomy and professionalism, over-reliance on standardized testing, Big Data privacy violations, crony-capitalist profiteering on the backs of our kids — also resonate on the right. And not all conservatives believe in vouchers, charters, etc. So while there is much disagreement, I actually think the areas of agreement between progs and Tea Partiers on these issues are currently broader. The real battle is between those — left and right — who believe in centralized and homogenized corporate education vs. those — left and right — who believe school systems are best controlled locally and that teachers are professionals who should be allowed to actually teach.
Agree! I am not a Tea party member, but I do agree with them on many issues. I grow tired of those who stereotype based on a media portrayal of what they believe. You are right that there are MANY points of contention that both progs and tea partiers have in common.
Jack Talbot, you may be right that I oversimplified the Tea Party by easily attributing their opposition to the CCSS as ideological. My starting point in the whole article (linked above Diane’s excerpt) is that the media has incorrectly portrayed this as ideological. But I disagree with you that the common ground on Common Core is opposition to a centralized education. I think if real educators had been involved in the formulation, centralized standards could have worked. They would not have been so homogenized (or, as I say in the article, scripted) nor corporate driven.
Diane, I am finding articles that indicate Gates entered into a contract with UNESCO and Common Core might be the “teacher syllabus”. Do you have any information on this?
Here is an article:
http://townhall.com/columnists/phyllisschlafly/2005/11/28/microsoft_founder_bill_gates_teams_up_with_unesco
Here is a document which claims to be an agreement with UNESCO:
Click to access strategy_microsoft_agreement.pdf
Don’t confuse the Tea party with the Republican party. Republicans have more in common with Democrats then they do with the Tea party. Common Core was a bipartisan attack (bought by crony capitalists) on public education.
If the Democrats don’t distance themselves from Obama’s education policies, NCLB, Race to the Top and Common Core, they will face devastating losses in future elections as the public becomes more informed about what Obama and his Bill Gates partners are doing to the democratically run public schools.
Once the people wake up and realize that their community public schools are also threatened, then the game is all but over.
If the GOP grabs this ring and runs with it as a campaign issue, the Democrats will be dead in the water, lose both houses of Congress and the White House.
A recent Gallup Poll (and previous polls on this issue) show that almost 80% of Americans support their community public schools even though those numbers switch when people think the problems they keep hearing about in failing public schools has nothing to do with their schools but in other schools across the nation.
After all, the thinking goes like this. “We keep hearing about incompetent, lazy teachers and crooked teacher unions but they aren’t the teachers in the schools I went to and the schools my kids and grand kids attend so it must be all the other schools.”
If most Americans learn that they have been fooled for decades, they will be angry and lash out at anyone they think is involved with the fake reformers, and Obama may go down as one of the most unpopular and worst presidents in this country’s history just for what he’s doing to the public schools. He will become the Benedict Arnold or US Presidents. As for Bill Gates and the other billionaire oligarchs, they might have to leave the country for their own safety and the safety of their families. To stay in the US means they will become prisoners under armed guard inside their estates.
The only politicians poised to benefit from this issue are hard progressives in deep blue areas and Tea Party conservatives in deep red areas. Overall, the establishment wings of both parties have been a disaster on these issues.
And that is a real danger because what we end up with in both houses of Congress and the White House are more nut-case radicals from the extremes of each party.
Citizens United just opened wide the doors for corporations to take over everything.
And no way to stop it. No one with enough political clout to step up and say no, enough of this BS. The supreme court is too far to the right and lacks balance.
That is why I feel that the takeover of public education will be the last nail in the coffin. It has been easier to walk over every other person and job except those that are unionized. And they hate the NEA.
I am not all about union rights that are really abuses and excuses for laziness like worker slowdowns causing cost overruns. But I don’t think workers should be servants to Wall St stockholders who hold the financial advantage.
Have you read “The Bully Pulpit” by Doris Kearns Goodwin? If you haven’t, you may want to consider it.
Teddy Roosevelt said there were pros and cons to capitalists and labor unions but both were necessary to keep a balance. And government has a role to play to keep both honest and punish either side when they aren’t. Right now, the government isn’t doing its job. And the media is failing miserably at being the watchdog of democracy. The billionaire oligarchs have dedicated decades to buy off any opposition that might get in the way of their agendas.
If there are no labor unions, then the robber barons will eventually use their wealth and power unchecked to abuse the people who aren’t billionaires.
Loyd, I think we can have some victories. For example, in Washington State, the House of Representatives held a very hard line and would not allow a law that mandated state – Common Core- tests to be used in teacher evaluations. This courageous group of individuals stood-up to Duncan–even though it put the RTT waiver in danger.
Additionally, grassroots democracy prevailed in Seattle and we do not have a corporate backed-board. Wa. State is under a court order to fund education. I am hoping this board has the courage to stand-up and refuse to purchase computer software etc. to support Common Core tests etc. based on cost.
Given the amount of dollars behind Gates, Chamber of Commerce etc. I am sure there would be a media campaign against the board. However, I do believe that truth resonates and we have to be courageous.
I’m also thrilled that we don’t have a corporate backed board in Gate’s home state of Washington. We have our voices and that is enormously powerful. Keep pushing.
Liberals and Tea Partiers can join together to fight CCSS/testing since democrats and republicans have joined together to screw us out of OUR public schools (and tax dollars) to line their own pockets. Politics makes strange bedfellows and now is no time to quibble about who can help who. As a liberal I’ll take whatever help we can get. lets face it united we stand, divided we fall!
Love it, cary444! I completely agree with you.
Three types of people oppose the CC.
1) The tin-foil hat, Reagan-Norquist anti government intrusion crowd. Those who truly believe the most reckless phrase ever uttered by a US president, “Government is the problem, not the solution.” Those who want to shrink the federal government so small that it can be drowned in a bathtub.
2) Knowledgeable veteran educators who are not afraid to see this reform movement for what it is: the corporate take-over of public education by the reining plutocracy. Teachers who have used the critical thinking skills so valued by the Colemanistas, to accurately conclude that 12 years of punitive, standardized test based education was a failure and that simply doubling down on this wrong-headed, counter productive approach to learning and growth is nothing short of crazy.
3) Concerned parents who have observed the insanity of the CC through the ridiculously foolish approach to math instruction and the HW assignments that waste their evening better spent reading stories to their children. The developmentally inappropriate reading selections and twisted demand for young kids to master abstract skills; to try in vain to read the minds of authors. Parents who pay attention to school and lament the lost opportunities in social studies, science, art, and music. The field trips not taken; the first grade classrooms that have exchanged holiday decorations for data walls; the birthdays not celebrated, the cupcakes not eaten.
So, why is there no campaign to get rid of Arne Duncan? Hasn’t he failed?
Fewer capable students are choosing careers in teaching and more students are home schooled. Both are detrimental to the country. And, aren’t both, the result of Duncan’s unfounded denigration and disparagement?
The ideal outcome for a cabinet appointee, is to bring stakeholders together with a shared vision for the betterment of the nation. Even with Gates’ billion dollar expenditure, did Duncan do that? And, did he even achieve the minimum, which was to do no harm? The only group that appears to be better off by Duncan’s tenure, is the corporations like Microsoft and the hedge fund owners. Even, Michelle Malkin has commented on the enrichment of these content-providing mega global corporations.
Pres. Obama, who I voted for, should be aware, by now, that he has been sold a bill of goods, a slickly- packaged promise, from supply siders, of good jobs. The President’s rhetoric shows he understands, good jobs come from increasing the incomes of workers who spend their money, creating demand and therefore jobs, unlike the 1%, whose spending can’t keep pace with the speed of their wealth accumulation. Duncan’s plan, to divert community resources to corporations, further impoverishes local communities.
Which cabinet member deserves to lose his job more than Duncan?
I just created this at petition2congress.
Petition Title is, Dump Duncan
Please sign. It will be forwarded to all Senators, Congressmen, and President Obama as well.
http://www.petition2congress.com/14914/dump-duncan/
Signed, sealed, delivered!
Easy.
Signed it, thanks.
Diane, please post info. about the petition, as an e-mail message from your blog.
There was an effort to “Dump Duncan” a couple of years ago. Since then, there has been the build-up of critical mass and the tipping point may be here.
An erudite and thorough analysis of the reasons Duncan is a failure, was written by Diane, at that time. Since then, national attention has focused on the attack campaigns of Bill Gates and John Arnold. The info. broadened the base who oppose education reform. The issue is now, front and center, before, Pres. Obama.
I don’t object to national standards and I don’t object to the CC (I read only the 5th grade sections on the CA website).
I don’t have any faith in ed reformers. I’ve watched this for a decade, and the rhetoric around CC sounds exactly like the rhetoric around NCLB, where it was oversold, used politically to push an anti-public school agenda, and became 100% about standardized tests.
I KNOW how this ends. It ends with an obsessive focus on test scores and absolutely relentless bashing of public schools which will lead to nothing good happening for public schools.
Which ed reform has led to stronger public schools? Can someone point me to one? Why would this one be any different than those reforms of the last decade? Those were all well-intended, too, and the same group of influential and wealthy people sold those, too.
I taught in California for thirty years (1975 – 2005) and experienced these waves of state ed reforms that came regularly like the tide rising, and none of these fad theories improved anything. What they did was make the teacher’s job more difficult, more challenging—like someone planting more mines in our classrooms. The biggest ed reform during that period was launched in the early 1980s and it was called the Whole Language Approach to teaching reading and writing.
English teachers were forced to stop teaching grammar, mechanics and spelling. The theory was that kids would absorb this like a sponge just by reading thirty minutes or more at home after school. No one asked do kids read at home? The English teachers but our protests fell on deaf and belligerent administrative ears.
A decade later, the state quietly dropped the so-called Whole Language program and urged teachers to start teaching grammar and mechanics again because in those ten years, California slid from near the top of the state comparisons to almost dead last.
What do kids do when they leave school? There are plenty of studies outside of education that tell us the average kid in Ameica spends ten+ hours a day entertaining themselves with video games, listening to music, watching TV, hanging out with friends, etc. but not much time spent reading.
I remember almost every English teacher in the school district where I taught protested—as we often did as each Ed Reform wave arrived—but we were still forced to throw out our grammar books and administration even had students spying on us in our classrooms to make sure we weren’t teaching this stuff.
I discovered this the hard way when I was caught by one of the principal’s student spies teaching stealth grammar the last twenty minutes of class each Friday. We had a heated meeting in his office where I was threatened with job loss and yelled at.
The cliche about politics making strange bedfellows aside, those of us who oppose the hostile takeover of public education don’t have a chance of fending it off unless we make common cause with the widest segment of the population and the electorate, Tea Party or not.
Winston Churchill said that he’d rush to defend the Devil if Hitler tried to invade Hell. Had that been the case, he’d have taken on the Devil after that odd coalition had defeated the Third Reich.
Before I’m chastised for making a Nazi analogy, all I’m trying to say is that without a broad base of support, we cannot drive these predators off. All the more so when our own union leadership not only refuses to defend their members, but cravenly accepts 12 pieces of silver from those who seek to destroy us.
It’s absurd to think that we, politically orphaned as we are, can alone defeat the Oligarchs, the Republican Party and much of the Democratic Party, and keep them from destroying public education, but cannot control the Tea Party, should we join them in some kind of coalition, however tentative and mutually suspicious.
Democracy and public schools should not be Republican values or Democratic values, but AMERICAN values.
When I was growing up, the term “liberal” fell somewhere into the spectrum between “moderate” and “opportunist liar” depending on whom you spoke to. It always carried with it an “establishment” veneer, however. People weren’t “liberal”… political leaders and elected officials were.
Part of the reason was that it was clear that liberal politics was something different from the very real movements and forces in the society that were demanding something far greater. When the civil rights movement demanded racial equality, the liberals came up with affirmative action and measures against “racism”. When the peace movement demanded an end to the war and “interventionism”, the liberals substituted “peace with honor” and a less “adventurist” foreign policy. When there was an outcry against poverty in “the richest country in the world”, the liberals proposed “job training programs” and food stamps. In a phrase, they not only moderated but they also “de-classed” (some might say, “de-clawed”) the demands that were made on them.
Then came the backlash. While what the liberals legislated wasn’t much, it was way over the top for the Right… and this Right was in no way the “populist” Right that we recognize today. This was the established Right… the so-called “Goldwater Republicans”. And it came on with a tactic as American as apple pie: coalition politics.
Ask any 10th grade Civics class to list the 10 things that make America unique and you will get perhaps 20 discrete claims that together make up the American catechism. The Republicans figured out that you can build a political coalition out of “interest groups” which individually oppose ALL of them:
“Equality before the Law? …We’ve always been against that!” (Nixon’s Southern Strategy). “Purple Mountains Majesty? … entire states are against that!” (Reagan’s Western Strategy). “Freedom of the Press? …that’s what cooked our goose in Vietnam!”. “Separation of Church and State? …hell, there’s a whole boatload of people against that!” “Nation of immigrants? …almost everybody is against that!”…. and so on.
I kept waiting for the Liberals to fight back… not for my sake but for their own. “This is downright silly! The REPUBLICANs running against the (afterthought -> add “big”) GOVERNMENT for chrisakes… gimme a break. They were in on ALL of it!”. Instead, not a peep… At the very best, you got a speech at a political convention from a tired Cuomo or Kennedy… and even then in nostalgic rather than fightin’ words: “Ah, for the heady days when we came up with the absolute minimum concessions that we possibly could, claimed credit for all of it and then promised a new ‘social contract’ that would last 1000 years…”
The Right was actually scared shitless for the entire journey. They were dug in deeper than Saddam. They would pop up to whisper a “new idea”: “Affirmative Action is quotas, you know…”, and then pop down to survive the inevitable firestorm that never came.
Finally came the Reagan “landslide” that “changed everything”. The Republicans were claiming (wrongly, it turns out) that they had cracked the code for appealing to Democratic working class constituencies OVER THE HEADS of the Liberals… “we appeal to them as racists or ‘taxpayers’ or christians, you see..”. A friend of mine, listening to this, said at the time, “The idiot liberals have just eliminated their own jobs…”. Turned out to be true.
The demonization of the “liberals” inevitably came next… and the revision of history. “Liberals” were guilty of everything that they had, falsely, claimed credit for. THEY had lost the war in Vietnam (wholesale desertions, mutinies, fraggings, war crimes and general deterioration to the point where entire Army Divisions were “deactivated” , notwithstanding). THEY had committed the “real” war crimes by not being nice to the Army and returning veterans (3 million dead notwithstanding). THEY had lied to various constituencies when they had told them that “government” was a “solution” to their “problems”.
And not a “liberal” to be found… anywhere…
But then, a miracle happened. The “liberals” started to come back, “from below” (an oxymoron if ever there was one). Bumper stickers, disgruntled “activists”, ordinary people… claiming the label without knowing anything about the baggage… becoming “liberal” because that was the worst thing the Right could call them and, if that was the worst, then that was them. They adopted the terms “proud liberal”, etc. in the same way that we were proud to be “commie pinkos” when we were kids… without the slightest idea of what that meant (I am much more accurately one, now).
I kept my mouth shut… It will not do to annotate the symbols of resistance at the very moment when they are being displayed.
The problem, of course, was that the “real” liberals had never gone away. They had merely been in rehab… waiting for the Republicans to commit suicide. And, they were emerging to reclaim their birthright…
I remember hearing this on the floor of the House in the midst of a debate on a Republican sponsored resolution on a “windfall profits” tax on the oil companies: “Finally… finally… finally… after years of pleading and effort, we have gotten the Republican leadership to see the benefits of our approach… we have many more proposals that we hope will eventually win bi-partisan support.”
Congratulations, Congresswoman! You have certainly shown the wisdom of moderate proposals and thankless, persistent, debate no matter how many decades it may take (ignore that gun pointed at your opponents head). But, let me ask you…. If it is shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that oil company profits are not “excessive”, a “windfall”, or “evidence of price-gouging” (it is a relative thing, after all), what then? Does nothing happen? Do you patiently explain to us, “how our system works”. Do we freeze next winter? Or do we win an election for you in 2008 or 2012 or 2016 or…. so that you have the power to “really” do something… maybe “oil stamps”?
But, let me not sound bitter… At least the job market for “Liberals” seems finally to be booming again. There is so much work now to do… it has to be explained to the Right what the people “really” want and what they will settle for. It has to be explained to us what is “prudent”, what is “practical”, and what is in the “common interest”. It is time to reformulate “policy” so that it represents “all” the people. Hell, maybe we can even have the old language again:
Liberal thy name is hypocrisy. What’s new?
Wow! That wasn’t slanted or anything.
Slanted towards what is the question. The truth? Your comment is empty.
I live in a bastion of liberalism and the “liberals” are as consistent as the “conservatives” in supporting one war criminal after the other with Obama being the latest. How many times will they do this before others acknowledge the liberals and conservatives are ideologically connected on all issues of economic import. You’ll notice I did not pose that as a question.
Modern liberalism is occupying the space where the Left should be, confusing and misleading people, steering people away from accurate perceptions and clouding their minds, preventing them from asking the right questions because they think they already have the answers. That is dead wood that needs clearing. If we are willing to kick over the beehive of modern liberalism you will see the true face and the true nature of the ruling class war against the people with crystal clarity. As it is, we can’t even see the enemy now. We are looking out the tent flap watching for the approach of those dreaded right wingers, and the enemy is behind us right in our own tent.
“For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire society…a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
Karen Wolfe position illustrates the frustration of we tea parties with the liberal mind. More government means less prosperity. It’s as simple as that.
True. Less for those who “have” no matter who they swindled,outfoxed or lied to, no matter how selfish they are. Yes that is very true.
Less for everyone. Most businesses are kept honest enough by the marketplace. It’s when government over regulates and supports boondoggles that we get dishonesty and market distortion. The government lies, cheats and steals more than any business.
You’re right, Harlan, it’s time to move to Somalia.
Don’t be ridiculous, Michael. You know that that is NOT what tea parties advocate. Straw man argument.
Really?Than please tell me why the most successful and happiest countries are a mix of socialism and capitalism.While our fair country,which has steadily gone to the right and more capitalist,is now no longer first in anything except incarceration.We could be number 1 again if we adopted the policies that made us great;Unions,a higher tax rate for the wealthy and corporations,a minimum wage that can be lived on.Unfortunately both parties are run by Wall Street money(with only a few not being their pawns)and until we get the corps and their money out of government nothing will change.
There are many reasons to be opposed to the CC$$ for ELA that have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with politics and a LOT to do with how backward, amateurish, pedestrian, hackneyed, and often prescientific they are. They seem to have been hacked together by amateurs based on a cursory review of the lowest-common-denominator groupthink of the state “standards” that preceded them. The defenders of these “standards” always refer to a few generalities–having kids read more complex texts and read them closely for example. But the CC$$ is a 1600-item bullet list that looks like what one would get if one asked a group of real-estate salespeople to put together a list of “stuff to be studied in English class” based on what they vaguely remembered from their own experiences back in the day. The detailed bullet list is indefensible. It’s an embarrassment. It ossifies received misunderstandings and halftruths and puts a halt on real innovation in English language arts curricula and pedagogy.
The progressive movement is as susceptible to the infiltration of corporate greed as any other ideology. This is the concern our founders voiced over the effect of factions.
It is amusing to watch progressives scramble to disassociate themselves from the tTea Party who desires a return to Constitutional principles while at the same time they, themselves try to wrest this one particular thing which they feel belongs to them from the bureaucracy they helped create. One cannot ignore Constitutional principles when promoting the ideologies they support and then cite it when their own version of liberty is being threatened.
However altruistic ones purpose may be negating hard won liberties in order to serve their own purpose creates the very environment which led to Common Core. The ends do not justify the means.
“The Constitution gives Americans the right to pursue happiness; they will have to catch it themselves”–Ben Franklin
This is why it’s so important to build the movement of parents and teachers and former teachers. Parents are just beginning to realize that their children are learning little to nothing in school, are bored to death, and hate going to school. But, people ask me what they can do, and I say, start with Diane Ravitch’s blog. You’ll see you’re not alone and then talk to fellow parents who can go to school board meetings and protest. It’s your right if your children are not getting educated. I’ve mentioned my second-grade grandchild doing two inane math sheets and one one-minute speed reading sheet every day–no comprehension, nothing else going on. Now, it turns out her brother in high-school is going to take all AP classes next year because regular classes in his high school are so boring and he’s learning very little, just getting ready for tests. There needs to be a real push-back by parents and others. Children are like sponges and their young minds need to be soaking up knowledge and analyzing everything and experiencing the arts and so much more–and we’re wasting it with Common Core, and who even knows what they’re doing in charter schools since they’re not accountable, which is insane in and of itself.
Is the LGBT GEO-POLITICAL AGENDA HARMFUL? ABSOLUTELY!
Has the SPLC infiltrated the COMMON CORE EDUCATIONAL CURRICULUM? DEFINITELY!
Can all this POLITICALLY CORRECT BULL$HYT be STOPPED! CERTAINLY!
Is the LGBT MOVEMENT in AMERICA HARMFUL, IMMORAL and IMPRACTICAL? Continue reading and find out!
Harm is a relative term. What might be considered harmful to one person might not to another. There are different kinds of harm: physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, etc. Therefore, harm is a personal thing that is experienced and is a bit subjective. So, when we ask how gay marriage harms anyone, we have to look at more than just one aspect. Marriage has been universally acknowledged throughout history as a legal contract between a man and a woman in which there is emotional and sexual fidelity, along with childrearing. But homosexual marriage would change this. Since marriage is also a moral issue, redefining marriage is redefining morals. Furthermore, marriage is an extremely wide-spread practice within any society and has many legal and moral issues attached to it. So, when marriage is redefined, the society is dramatically affected. Legalizing gay marriage means changing the laws of the land. The ramifications are vast and we are seeing the effects of homosexual legal “rights” affecting housing, education, the work place, medicine, the armed forces, adoption, religion, etc. Are all the changes good? That is hotly debated. But we have to ask, is it morally right to force all of society to adopt the morals of a minority? (See Statistics on the percentage of the population that are homosexual and lesbian) So, how would gay marriage harm anyone? First, let’s define harm. Harm is damage to a person physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, financially, morally, etc. The definition is obviously broad and subjective, and this is problematic. People experience harm in different ways. Here is a list of ways in which gay marriage can bring harm. It can bring huge financial and emotional stress. Homosexuals can sue people who are exercising their religious beliefs. For example, a heterosexual married couple with children who do not want to rent a room in their own family household to homosexuals could be sued for discrimination based on “sexual orientation.” This can incur significant financial and emotional stress upon the family, not to mention the “prior restraint” effect of the fear of being sued which results in a family not renting out a room. The health risks are enormous to themselves and others. The fact is that homosexuals do not live as long as heterosexuals due to the health risks associated with the lifestyle, and billions of dollars are spent annually in health care for them. See Statistics on HIV/AIDS and health related issues But the HIV/AIDS epidemic is not only in the homosexual community. It has crossed over to the heterosexual community. Whether or not you want to say that HIV/AIDS is a homosexual disease, the fact is that it is highly prevalent among the gay and lesbian community due to their great number of sex partners. The collateral damage to the rest of society, as far as health risks, cannot be denied. Gay Marriage means having the morals of the minority forced upon the majority. This can also be said in the reverse. Either way, there is a problem. Normally, morals should not be forced on anyone, though there are exceptions. We force morals on others by preventing them from stealing, raping, murdering, etc. So, it is not automatically wrong to force morals on someone. But the issue then becomes what is morally right and wrong in the first place, and altering morals in a society definitely causes stress. The percentage of homosexuals in society is less than 5%, yet it is being forced upon the other 95% of society in movies, TV, literature, and political periods. See Statistics on the percentage of the population that are homosexual and lesbian. Gay Marriage means a redefinition of sexual morality, and with it other sexually related practices will be affected and this can be harmful. See the article Collateral damage effect as a result the change in sexual morals for a discussion on the increase in pedophilia, pornography, child pornography, prostitution, and sex trafficking that are occurring in the world. These increases are not due to an increase in conservative sexual morals, but a reduction of conservative sexual morals. Gay Marriage reduces the number of children born in society and we need a stable population base to operate properly. Therefore, society can be harmed. Gay Marriage affects people spiritually. Don’t assume that people’s spiritual beliefs are irrelevant. People consider spiritual issues to be extremely important, and the stress imposed on religious people by forcing them to “accept” and/or support homosexual practice and/or intimidate them into silence harms a person’s spiritual and emotional health. It forces government to get involved in changing laws which automatically affect everyone in society. Homosexuality is being force fed to our youth via the education system. Civil unions are being recognized by employers which effect co-workers, money payouts, work time, etc. It exposes adopted children within potential homosexual unions to ridicule from others. Questions If a parent objects to a school teaching pro-homosexuality and pulls his child out of school, and because of it is ridiculed and/or jailed, is he harmed? If a self-employed business owner with strong religious convictions refuses to offer his services to homosexuals and he is sued and goes bankrupt, is he harmed? Examples of such businesses where a person should be free to refuse services could be things like wedding photographers, masseuses, tutoring, etc. If a Catholic orphanage is forced to shut down because it is against its religious moral code to turn children over to homosexual couples, is someone hurt? If a public school teacher voices his disapproval of homosexuality on Facebook on his own time, away from work, in his own home, on his own computer, and is fired from his teaching position, is he harmed? If a group of pro-homosexual activists (Act-UP) disrupt the worship service of a Christian congregation by throwing condoms at the pastor, is the congregation harmed? If Christians are forced into silence because of fear of legal, social, and financial retribution, are they harmed? When morally conservative people who disapprove of homosexuality are labeled as “moral dinosaurs,” “bigots,” “hate mongers,” “right wing fanatics,” “preachers of hatred,” “intolerant,” are they harmed?
SUPERMAN is ALIVE and his earthly name is “MATT SLICK”
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION for the ADVANCEMENT of WHITE PEOPLE thanks MATT SLICK for proving to U.S. once again that GOD’S NOT DEAD!