Wow! This post will knock your socks off, unless you work for the U.S. Department of Education. The post was written by Mark NAISON, one of the co-founders of the BATs. (I don’t know why, but my iPad always converts Mark’s last name into all-caps.)
The Badass Teachers Association held a rally outside the U.S. Department of Education on July 28, and several were invited to meet with staff at the Office of Civil Rights to air their grievances and see if they could find common ground. After some talk, some of which was contentious, Arne Duncan dropped in unexpectedly and joined the conversation, but said he would talk about only two subjects:
“Secretary Duncan after introducing himself, and saying that he could only stay for a few minutes, asked for two things; first if we could articulate our concerns about the Department’s policies on dealing with Special needs students, and secondly, if Shoneice and Asean could step out with him to talk about what was going on in Chicago.
“In response to his first comment, Marla Kilfoyle started speaking about her concerns about Department from her standpoint of the parent of a special needs student as well as a teacher. She said it appeared that Department policies were forcing school districts to disregard individual student IEP’s and exposing special needs students to inappropriate and abusive levels of testing.
“Secretary Duncan deflected her remarks by saying that the Department was concerned that too many children of color were being inappropriately diagnosed as being Special Needs children and that once they were put in that category they were permanently marginalized. He then said “We want to make sure that all students are exposed to a rigorous curriculum.”
“At that point, I interrupted him in a very loud voice and said “ We don’t like the word ‘rigor.” We prefer to talk about creativity and maximizing students potential.”
“Secretary Duncan was somewhat taken aback by my comments. He said “ we might disagree about the language, but what I want is for all students to be able to take advanced placement courses or be exposed to an IB (International Baccalaureat) curriculum.
“At this point, Larry Proffitt interrupted the Secretary and said that in Tennessee, Special Needs students were being abused and humiliated by abusive and inappropriate testing and that their teachers knew this, and were afraid to speak out.
“We were clearly at an impasse here, which the Secretary dealt with by saying he had to leave and asking Shoneice and Asean to step into the hall with him and continue the conversation.”
This is a small part of a fascinating report on the BATs meeting at the DOE. When people ask me why I support them, I say, “They speak truth to power.” Here is the proof. Too many educators are docile and compliant. They are not.
Please read the whole post.
Do you think that Arne Duncan really believes that the greatest need of students with disabilities is access to rigorous AP and IB courses?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hi Gayle,
Did you see this? Duncan is so callous.
Sent from my iPhone
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Arne is a g.d..ignoramus. He has no idea what special needs students are all about. He should spend some time in classrooms with kids being wheeled in in beds and wheel chairs unable to even write for themselves…barely able to communicate at all.
To have such a fool in charge of our national public education policy is a sick farce. It is criminal. I have been against the President being sued by the Repubs over executive orders…but it makes a tempting case for teachers to sue Obama/Duncan over their mishandling of education due to their vast and abiding ignorance. Their intransigence and lack of desire to learn, shows their own apparent poor education skills and their closed minds. Shameful!
Who let him take the kids? Frightening! That was the scariest part.
Can we get a report from our Chicago hero?
I think it was the kid and his mom
This reveals what a crude understanding of education Duncan has. Anyone who’s taught realizes that hurling rigor at kids is not the secret to a good education.
It sounds like Mr. Duncan does not believe in special needs if he wants all students in AP and IB classes.
Mr. Duncan knows nothing about child development, teaching or learning. He has been faking it for many, many years. He is an embarrassment to our country.
I absolutely agree. Every SPED student needs to be in AP or IB classes? What is he taking about? He has absolutely no experience in this field.
Duncan’s interest is in reducing the numbers of SPED kids so he can cut costs. He thinks educational disabilities are a ‘disease’ that can be cured.
Arne is obviously clueless about the different needs among children receiving special education services. He doesn’t seem to distinguish between the severity of different disabilities or the differing needs of the students with these disabilities. It certainly may be possible for some students with more mild disabilities to take AP courses and IB (with the proper supports), but suggesting all students should shows his ignorance. If Arne wants to subject students with more severe disabilities to AP and IB, then he should teach a class of them and video tape it to show us all how it’s done.
I agree. There are some kids with severe intellectual disabilities who will always be low, will never be able to take IB classes (lol), and truly need life skills classes. Special Education is a huge spectrum and one can’t treat all the same.
Spectrum! Yes, that’s the word I was looking for. Indeed, placing a child in an AP class when that child’s disability requires life skills classes would be like expecting a child to jump hurdles despite being bound to a wheelchair.
I fully agree, Mary and Joe. Duncan’s approach is a one-size fits all. And that is at its very center incompatible with what special education is supposed to be all about.
You are so right. I have been forced to teach my severe intellectually disabled students material they never master or comprehend just so they can be prepared to take a test. They are getting less and less life skills teaching because of this. What are they going to do with this unmastered material that they didn’t pass the test that was given? They aren’t going to work in banks, real estate, medicine, government, be CEO’s, etc. I am so done with this ignorance. I want him to shut up and resign.
What about the possibility of the parents filing a class action law suit against the DOE for taking away the Civil Rights of Special Needs kids and name Arne Duncan and President Obama in the suit?
I think this is much more of a civil rights issue than the fake claims made in the Vergara case.
Good point Mary! It makes me wonder in particular about the students with severe-profound disabilities who have to be fed through tubes, are unable to use the restroom or change themselves, let alone take standardized tests. When Arne says “all students,” he needs to acknowledge the spectrum in special education that Mary H. mentioned.
Exactly, Lloyd. It took lawsuits filed by parents of kids with special needs to get the laws in place, and history has already shown that it takes many more to enforce those laws.
It is really alarming to hear what this ignoramus says. Could he be contemplating, like Hitler, a ‘final solution’ for incapacitated kids? I have lost all faith in O/D and agree with Lloyd and others here that it is past time, but must be done, to join in a class action suit against these egregious law makers.
Mark Naison…let’s get going.
Why do I think that it is all staged? We have no info that there was a significant turnout or that there was “any” media coverage. Now Duncan shows up with a group (BATS) that is stroked by the major unions. Still trying to find out the link to BATS and a conservative educational NGO which supports them, but will not issue any policy about these issues.
Any inquiries about this NGO causes BATS to rush to censorship.
With regard to media, here’s what I’ve seen so far.
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1156468
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/m-shannon-hernandez/teachers-occupy-the-doe_b_5629552.html
There have been articles on several news websites such as Huffington Post and videos and photos of the turnout.
Try reading http://www.huffingtonpost.com/m-shannon-hernandez/teachers-occupy-the-doe_b_5629552.html as an example.
BATs have no connection to a conservative NGO. It’s a grassroots group, as you would know if you’d been there from the beginning as I have. The group welcomes all teachers regardless of their position on the political spectrum who align with its stated mission and goals.
As an English teacher who’s concerned with validity and reliability, I’d like to know what you mean by “we” in the second sentence (let’s face it; since BATs isn’t toeing the current “teachers stink/charters are awesome/testing tells us everything we need to know about schools” line, they’re less likely to make major media–and the rally has popped up on CNN) and “conservative educational NGO.” If you can’t (or won’t) name it, then how do you expect to have an answer?
Not stroked by any major union that I know about at this point. And, backed by a conservative educational NGO? News to me. I have been there from the beginning, and never have I ever been conservative. We don’t have any backing. We support ourselves without the need for anyone else to support us.
BATs are not associated with any union. This is how rumors and down right lies keep people misinformed.
BATS pay no dues, answer to no one and was formed because unions appear to be ineffective at this time. Educate yourself!
Joseph, Where do you issue policies?
Joseph…where have been this past year? Most writers here have been active with BATS since it’s inception. Mark Naison is very easy to google and to reach. He has done an amazing job of organizing educators and it beholden only to his membership.
If you are so suspicious and so late to this party, you really should do your homework before commenting.
It sounds like Mr. Duncan thinks that diagnoses of special needs are the real problem facing kids with special needs.
That is the same issue facing Los Angeles Unified. While not all the staff think like Mr. Duncan, there is a significant portion who believe the issue rests with the diagnosis. That if they are diagnosed, especially minorities, then they will always suffer. Having taught in Special Ed, students are assessed by a team of experts before diagnosis and IF by chance it was incorrect, another team the following year can redo it. It is obvious Mr. Duncan has no experience in special needs population.
So not only does Mr. Duncan think he’s an experienced educator, but he’s also apparently an experienced doctor! What an ego!
Duncan surely has all the answers. Perhaps he’d step into a classroom of special needs students who don’t understand English to show us how he can make them IB students in time for a standardized test that will determine his continued employment as U.S. Secy. of Ed.
I am a special ed teacher and his callous disregard for children with disabilities makes me ill!!
Starving children should be given an enriching bowl of soup, and a slotted spoon. This rigor in the eating curriculum will maximize the potential of those poor starving children, and is far more important than you all looking at the spread my kids are enjoying. How can you argue with me making those hungry kids more gritty and rigorous eaters??? Shouldn’t all kids be good at eating? Mine are…don’t you want yours to be also, or is your greedy union opposed to kids eating?
Just curious, but if ALL students take advanced placement classes, don’t those classes become “average” classes rather than “advanced?”
Clearly we’re all living in Lake Wobegone, where all of the children are above-average.
No, they all advance serious $$$ ka-ching to the College Board.
“The BATs speak truth to power,” unless the BATs happen to be the power to whom one is attempting to speak the truth. I have seen countless thoughtful, respectful educators mocked and ridiculed on the BATs site for daring to question or critique the group. If you want to lavish praise on Mark Naison and the other founders or admins, you can speak all the “truth,” you want. I also disagree with the idea that if you don’t do as much grandstanding and self-promotion as the BATs that you are “docile and compliant.” Many of us are actual teachers, unlike either of the BAT co-founders and several admins, who are “badass” by putting the needs of our students ahead of our own egos.
Thank you SoCal teacher! You are absolutely 100% correct. As a teacher for over 30 years, I can say that the BATs do not speak for most of us. They get far too much attention on these pages.
Joseph, you are misinformed. BATs i NOT funded by ANYONE. We cannot and will not be bought- unlike corporate reformers.
I am just stunned by Duncan’s ignorance about students with special needs AND about the availability of AP and IB programs. Does he think those are already available in every school? Or, will he wave his magic DOE wand and make the funding appear for the programs?
Mr Duncan was Never a teacher in Chicago.
He is so misguided, clueless and arrogant to boot!
If every high school student was ready for AP and IB, we wouldn’t need high school.
I don’t believe Secretary Duncan has any idea what Special Ed teachers deal with on a daily basis. From this report it doesn’t appear he is interested in really listening to what they were attempting to say.
Making decisions regarding Special Ed must include teachers, students and parents to best serve the students. Until this occurs, I don’t believe change wii take place.
I would love to be a fly on the wall and listen when Arne Duncan and his wife discuss their children’s needs at their own parent conferences . I am sure the individual learning styles, passions, strengths and weaknesses of his own children are very important to him and his wife, and taken into major consideration in making decisions. But, of course, not good enough for other people’s children.
Teachers have remained silent for far too long! I’m grateful to the BATs. As ESL teacher, I know my students need to learn basic English before they can do advanced work.
He’s smug, I can tell by the fact that the conversation ended with a smile and “we’ll look into it.”
He is bad news. I sounds to me like he’s slightly amused, like when 5th graders get a petition together to have no homework.
I don’t know what the answer is there. Wait it out two years? I don’t think anyone is going to get to him.
But here’s a rewrite on a Smith’s song:
“6 foot 7 and smug. . .
I went to DC and dug
myself into a hole yes I did
and I’m so happy that I
I locked myself in at the D
O—-E
I said I like it here can I stay?”
Do you think that Arne Duncan really believes that the greatest need of students with disabilities is access to rigorous AP and IB courses?
No! Duncan is a fool, and Obama is a fool for hiring him.
Teaching children who have learning disabilities is one challenge to overcome and some of these kids wouldn’t be ready for an AP or IB course even if they were turned over to U.S. Marine Corps drill instructors. Ignoring it and pretending it isn’t there, isn’t going to make it go away—-ever. This reminds me of when President Reagan said there were no homeless people in America and every day when I drove to work, I saw the homeless standing by freeway on ramps with their cardboard signs begging for work and/or food.
But to even suggest that every student should be in rigorous AP and IB courses without first dealing with childhood poverty by implementing a highly effective national early childhood education program starting as young as age two, reveals that there is only one place Arne Duncan should be and that’s the front lines in Afghanistan where he would be better used as a target for the Taliban to practice their ambush skills.
In addition, kids who come to school hungry and live in poverty with dysfunctional parents/guardians in a dysfunctional community that is often riddled with poverty and streets dominated by violent street gang thugs and drugs in addition to human trafficking are not going to catch up and be college and/or career ready through the use of Machiavellian standardized tests that leads to teachers being ranked and yanked because they can’t pull an elephant out of a thimble.
I have worked with severely disabled ESL students. They thought bubbling randomly on standardized tests was fun. They were tested individually and had extra time. Some had scribes. It was totally ludicrous.
Thank you Lloyd for bringing that up,. It reminded me of former Secretary of HEW Joseph Califano’s quote about kids that live with drug addicted parents.
“The human costs are incalculable: broken families; children who are malnourished; babies who are neglected, beaten and sometimes killed by alcohol- and crack-addicted parents; eight year-olds sent out to steal or buy drugs for addicted parents; sick children wallowing in unsanitary conditions; child victims of sodomy, rape and incest; children in such agony and despair that they themselves resort to drugs and alcohol for relief. For some of these children it may be possible to cauterize the bleeding, but the scars of drug- and alcohol-spawned parental abuse and neglect are likely to be permanent.”
No Safe Haven: Children of Substance-Abusing Parents, January 1999. Joseph A. Califano, Jr.
Sure Arne, just give them some AP classes and they’ll be fine. How can someone in his position be so ignorant?
The more I read about what’s going on through the Obama White House with the public schools and children, the more I think that there is something very sinister at work here.
If we consider what Duncan was hired to do, then he isn’t ignorant. He’s doing the job he was hired to do and that has nothing to do with improving public education. Duncan only needs to know what it will take to destroy public education and that depends on how ruthless he is willing to be.
If he knows what he is doing, he will succeed in fooling enough people to get the job done. If he fails, then his masters—for instance, Obama and Bill Gates—will consider him a failure and ignorant. Duncan may then pay the price by vanishing into obscurity to be forgotten.
Then Duncan will be replaced by someone people like Obama and Gates consider to be more ruthless and competent at accomplishing the job it is clear they want done—-a Final Solution to the public schools that today teaches children to be citizens of a democracy and not an oligarchy that will be ruled by a few and not the people elected to Congress by the people.
Too bad we don’t know what goes on in private, behind door planning sessions for the Gates, Obama Final Solution.
The key is his reference to the IB. If that is what he has in mind for all of our students, that is a problem for the future of the U.S. as a sovereign nation with a unique Constitution that enumerates the rights of individuals. The IB comes out of UNESCO, is headquartered in Switzerland, and vows to teach the goals of the U.N. including the Earth Charter. It is the tool of totalitarians to establish a one world government, after all the environment exists everywhere, so any effort to protect the earth would have to ignore borders and national laws and constitutions.
Gorbachev says of the Earth Charter: “We also need a new international environmental legal code rooted in an Earth charter – a covenant similar to the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. … My hope is that this charter will be a kind of Ten Commandments, a ‘Sermon on the Mount,’ that provides a guide for human behavior toward the environment in the next century and beyond.”(
One of the changes that Gorbachev envisions is world government. At the time he founded Green Cross, he said:
“The emerging ‘environmentalization’ of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government.” http://fatima.freehosting.net/Articles/Art4.htm
It is the Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome. Tell the big lie often enough, the Goebbel’s syndrome…and people will believe it. Just ask the Congress.
Oliver Sacks wrote a piece for the New York Review of Books on how we edit and revise our own memories without knowing it to the point where we can create vivid memories of events that we never experienced in real life.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/feb/21/speak-memory/
Sacks provides evidence from his own experiences and research to support this—proving how liars like Arne Duncan and Michelle Rhee may eventually believe the lies they keep telling because they edit their own memoirs to believe what they say is true. This is why people placed in positions of power might become very dangerous to the rest of us.
For instance, I’m sure that the Koch brothers are convinced that Global Warming is a hoax designed to hurt the growth of their wealth explaining why they have funded a massive PR campaign to fool as many people as possible to believe what they think and sabotage any efforts to slow global warming by cleaning the air, water and soil.
Have you ever talked to anyone who believes the Koch fiction. They are so convinced global arming is a hoax that they refuse to even talk about the fact that we can’t survive breathing too much CO2. My usual advice to this fools is to invite them to sit in running gas powered car inside a closed garage with hose leading from the tailpipe into the inside of the car.
I say, well resume our discussion in 24 hours. Don’t get out of that car. Don’t open the garage door. Don’t turn the engine off. And make sure the tank is full when you start this experiment. I wish the Koch brothers would do this once.
Oh, and no mask connected to an oxygen supply during the experiment. Must breathe the CO2 inside the garage.
Don’t cars produce CO not CO2…
Technically, you are right but ….
Causes of carbon monoxide poisoning. Carbon monoxide is produced when fuels such as gas, oil, coal and wood do not burn fully. Burning charcoal, running cars and the smoke from cigarettes also produce carbon monoxide gas. Gas, oil, coal and wood are sources of fuel that causes carbon monoxide.
CO2 is Carbon Dioxide and CO2 comes from volcanoes, automobile exhausts, factories, power plants, and decaying plants and animals.
Many animals and plants that lived 350 million years ago become buried in swamps before they could decay. Gradually, they became oil, natural gas, and coal. When we burn those fuels, we rapidly release their carbon as carbon dioxide.
Therefore, both CO and CO2 are a byproduct of burning fuels like gas, oil, coal and wood.
In addition,as the concentration of carbon dioxide ()CO2) increases, people start to experience carbon dioxide intoxication, which may progress to carbon dioxide poisoning and sometimes death. Elevated blood and tissue levels of carbon dioxide are termed hypercapnia and hypercarbia.
It seems we can’t have one (CO) without the other (CO2), because they come from the same sources and they both can kill us.
In conclusion, it doesn’t matter what’s causing global warming. The issue is CO and CO2 emissions that will eventually lead to death with lots of health problems and suffering along the way to that last wheeze.
True. I was just referring to going into a garage and connecting the hose … is for CO poisoning, not the CO2.
One will kill you faster than the other and they both share the same source. Can one come without the other?
It is unfair to compare hooking up to a tube of CO and Marks interview with Duncan.
CO Is much slower.
Lloyd, respectfully, on this subject you are misinformed.
CO2 is carbon dioxide which is a by-product of nature, not a pollutant. We breathe in oxygen and out C02; plants absorb C02 and produce oxygen. It is a beautiful circle of life.
If you sit in a running car in your garage, you will be overcome by carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is produced from the partial oxidation of carbon-containing compounds; it forms when there is not enough oxygen to produce carbon dioxide.
I do not believe in global warming because it has no scientific basis. It is an ideology that has been foisted on us by Al Gore and the U.N. for the purpose of enslaving humanity. He has a company that sells carbon offsets and is just waiting for the actual legislation to go through that taxes people for their carbon production and limits their use of fossil fuels. He plans to make a killing on other people’s idiocy while he continues to jet around the world as he wishes, buying carbon offsets from himself to salve his conscience (small though it is.)http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/11/02/nyt-admits-gore-making-fortune-global-warming
Please do not label me a Koch lover or aTea Party fanatic. I am neither. I am a union loving Democrat who is often the odd woman out because I am willing to say I do not believe in global warming in a room full of progressives where that view is not well tolerated. I only ask that you actually research it yourself instead of taking the popular view. As usual if you follow the money, you see where the truth got off the track.
If you will actually notice that sea level has not risen significantly, ice sheets have not disappeared, the polar bears are multiplying wildly as the earth warms and cools according to God’s plan. Humans have no effect on global warming. The sun does. It is not a matter of consensus. Science is not done by consensus. It is built with evidence not faulty computer models making predictions that have not come true.
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2014/02/18/5-scientific-reasons-that-global-warming-isnt-happening-n1796423/page/full
I should have provided all the links I used for the sources I used for my reply. I stand by what I left in my second reply to this comment.
I don’t have the time right now to go back and find all the sources for my second comment in this thread but later today I will.
So did Mark tell Arne about the CO2 and CO?i missed that part.
Often a snapshot, Arne meeting with the BATS, does not reveal The Big Picture, but a look at who is behind the scenes pulling the strings and maneuvering the money does.
The reason this discussion of CO2 is exactly what needs to take place regarding Arne Duncan’s push for special education students to have access to IB and AP courses is because the Obama administration is using the whole global warming hoax as an excuse to control our lives. His tight grip on education through the CC and data collection is all a part of the plan. Obama surrounds himself with very extreme individuals who have radical ideas about everything and no allegiance to our Constitution. Not to mention Arne brings up global warming almost every time he is asked to speak.
Science Czar – John Holdren
In his book, Holdren advocates some of the most bizarre and horrifying policy stances imaginable. In the event of a “over-population crises,” Holdren supports “laws requiring compulsory abortion,” government confiscation of new born babies, the “development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin,” and, incredibly, “adding a sterilant to drinking water or stable foods….” as long a livestock would not be affected (as experimentally implemented in India). Holdren wants the government to dictate family size and advocate a “planetary regime,” run by the United Nations. This real life Dr. Frankenstein will be deciding science policy for the United States of America.
Climate Czar – Todd Stern
Stern, a veteran of the Clinton administration, was the U.S. negotiator at the Kyoto conference in 1997 (which called for dramatic climate change regulations based on bogus assumptions.) Had the treaty been implemented, it would have plunged the world into economic chaos.
Since then, new evidence has revealed that the major climate models used to justify the Global Warming alarm was, in fact, not accurate. One would think Stern would address this, but chances are he won’t. Climate change seems to be more about giving the government control over our lives, than about phony climate crises. Indeed, Stern has made it clear that he thinks international agencies, such as the United Nations, should take the lead on forcing climate change down the throats of national governments. Stern has even gone as far as to propose that world powers form an “E8” group, who would meet yearly and dictate environmental policy to the rest of the world. What about national sovereignty? Clearly, Stern feels that’s an outdated concept.
Stern is also the nutcase behind the Cap and Trade proposal which, even an analysis by Obama’s own Treasury Department concluded, would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion dollars—just what we need for today’s economy!
http://www.westernjournalism.com/exclusive-investigative-reports/obama-surrounds-himself-with-the-most-extreme-appointees-in-american-history/
I wanna see DUNCAN grilled and taken aback many times in the meeting. He can’t stay with them in the same room for long.
Grilled? As on a spit over hot coals?
I’d love to see Duncan in a classroom with severely autistic youngsters–the one’s who do not recognize, and are unable to say, their own names. I did a couple of summer stints with this population back in the mid-’80s. It was the hardest job I’ve ever had. I spoke with a lady who is currently working with these students. She and another teacher at her school are fighting over who gets the k-1st vs. 2-3 graders because head-butting is an issue. As we spoke, she had a cracked rib from such an encounter. This is why Duncan’s callous stupidity matters: when I worked with this population, class size was about 10; now it’s 18 and rising. Although, I guess his solution would be to un-identify autistic kids, and throw them in regular classrooms.
After he spends a day in the classroom with the severely autistic youngsters you mention, the next day he goes to a classroom where he has to work with a room full of hard core teenage gang bangers who have killed rival gang bangers, sell drugs and may be involved in extortion and human trafficking. The FBI estimates there are more than 33,000 of these gangs in the U.S. with a total membership of 1.4 million.
Lloyd, I agree.
In a former school, a female gang leader hit the principal.
We had one knock out a teacher. Then on another night as another English teacher was leaving late, she witnessed the killing of one gang member by another gang as the victim walked in front of her while she was waiting at the gate to leave the campus. It was 7:00 PM. The rival gang bangers came out of the dark and shot the victim in the stomach with a shotgun and then shot him again in the head. Then they walked off. They were all teenagers and attended the same school where we taught.
At Venice HS in Santa Monica, a few weeks back a teacher had to wrestle a knife out of the hand of a gang banger who drugs in his back pack. The teacher was put on leave for touching to student.
During my first year as a full-time intern, my master teacher was out one day and a sub was in the room. One of the students with severe anger issues threw a tantrum and started to tear the pages out of his textbook. I attempted to take the book from him but he fought back screaming at me. The sub stood frozen at the front of the room.
This was in a fifth grade class and I’m 6’4″ and weighed about 200 pounds at the time. I’m also a former U.S. Marine. I asked the boy to come with me to the principal’s office. He refused and kept tearing pages out of his book.
I called the office asking for help but all the administrators were off site in a meeting probably at the district. I attempted calling the mother who was a stay at home mom. She wasn’t home. The pages kept being torn out of the book, crumpled and then tossed on the floor as the rest of the fifth grade class watched in shock and the sub stood there looking helpless.
I decided to remove the boy from the class and to do this I had to lift him out of the set and throw him over my shoulder. As I left the room, I told the sub to resume the lesson.
The boy fought me all the way to the office kicking his legs and hitting me about the head with his fits. I wore glasses back then, and he knocked them off.
I left him in the office where the secretary locked him in a conference room.
Later that day, I was called into the principal’s office where he lectured me severely in daring to touch a student and warned me that I might get taken to court—which didn’t happen. At the end of that year because of that one incident, he didn’t recommend that the district hire me for a full time job the next year. I had to substitute teach for the next two years working in six districts and never knowing where I was going to be on a daily basis before another principal in another school in the same district hired me because he liked the job I did as a sub.
From that one event, I learned never to touch students unless it was in self defense even if defending myself meant I’d lost my job. Better to be unemployed than dead or in a hospital fighting for my life from severe injuries.
Your post reminded me of all the times teachers were bitten by students, including me, when I taught children with multiple disabilities (deaf, blind, cognitively impaired, autism, physically impaired, etc.)
I’d like to see Arne go to one of those classrooms, where 8 – 12 year olds have limited language, are often self-abusive and may be still working on learning toileting skills, and see him then reiterate his “what I want is for all students to be able to take advanced placement courses or be exposed to an IB (International Baccalaureate) curriculum.” With any luck, he’ll get to see the children who toss tables when they don’t like what’s for lunch, the ones who regularly eat paper in the classroom and, especially, the kids who play with their feces.
Duncan has no clue about the range and severity of disabilities. This is what happens when you are under the illusion that virtually anyone can be an education leader or teacher and neither formal training in typical and atypical child development, learning and teaching, nor experience, are necessary for making miracles.
I work in and ESE Center school in Florida for students on the 1% level. The are required to be tested on grade level curriculum even though many are on the participatory level – working hand over hand to answer via pictures. I am concerned that yes, the IEPs take a back seat to the required lessons that count towards teacher evaluations. I guess Arne doesn’t have to “get it” because the responsibility is now on the teachers to make students show gains, or else. I wish I could cure my students! What? Will these students move to warehouses of diaper changers and feeders by the hundreds like the kindergarten model we just heard about? The system only seems built to cause failure.
Deb, maybe you could explain to Arne why your students are not in need of AP and IB.
I was in DC yesterday at the rally. Thanks to all for planning the event and speaking to DOE for all of us.
Joseph,
Check your facts before you comment. The BAT event was streaming live via the internet from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm. We do exist!
Arne takes a kernel of truth and throws it in a cauldron of Bull Soup. There was a time when any problem kid (often poor and often a minority) was thrown into the “special” class. When nothing was really expected of this type of kid. And when that kid’s class met in the closet in the Art room.
But, those are days of the past, and have been for some time now (ok, meeting in any of the various school closets still happens every now and then). It’s more difficult to find kids eligible for ESE services now, and much is expected of them (the goal is often to catch up to and then maintain grade level achievement, no matter how unlikely or even inappropriate that goal might be).
Back in the day, some schools or districts made it easy to find students eligible so that they could get more funding from the state, becoming adept at gaming the system (of course, if these schools had been adequately funded in the first place, maybe they wouldn’t have felt the need to do that). Most states, if not all of them have dealt with this already.
Years ago, Florida introduced its Matrix of Services. It was a way of determining how much funding a district would get for a given ESE student. At first, there were many different funding levels. However, this turned out to not work (in terms of saving the state some money), so Florida scrapped most of the levels and made it extremely difficult to get higher than the first level. To get out of the first level, a student would have to have multiple disabilities and most of them would have to be pretty severe. Apparently, even this was not enough.
While keeping the Matrix, Florida went to the Response to Intervention (RtI) model. Fewer students are now found eligible for ESE services (though, oddly, the same amount of students as before require interventions) because this system assumes that there are only so many students with disabilities at any given time. In addition, there has been a push to keep most ESE students in basic ed classes most of the time. The outcome of this is that basic ed teachers now shoulder a good deal of the responsibility of educating students with great needs (ESE eligible or not).
Now, I don’t want anyone to think that I’m against putting ESE kids in basic ed classes (mainstreaming) because I’m not. There are a lot of good things that come out of keeping a student in a basic ed class that are lost by putting them into a self-contained ESE class. However, what I am against is doing this on the cheap. The result has been that ESE teachers are overloaded, basic ed teachers are overloaded, and the higher achieving students are neglected. And that’s before you pile all of the other insane “reforms” on top of it (hey, how about we introduce some high-stakes testing into all of this?)
I understand that there’s not always enough money to do what’s best or to do everything that we would like to do, but there should be enough to avoid this travesty. Federal intrusion in public education has pretty much made everything worse as much of this stems from NCLB. If we’re putting all of our resources into getting these students to some arbitrary destination (AP classes and IB programs) that is galaxies away from where they’re currently at, we won’t be putting any into meeting them where they’re at and helping them progress from there. Apparently “backwards planning” and “teaching with the end in mind” doesn’t just apply to the next chapter test but also to the student’s transcript at graduation (and to devising national standards for that matter).
All kids in IB programs so that they can graduate and not have access to college. Nice.
While I’m here, I’ll go ahead and plug Peter Greene’s “One True Path” post: http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2014/07/one-true-path.html
It stands to reason that if there’s One True Path, then ESE and basic ed students of all types both need to be on it.
As Peter notes, “One True Path” thinking really does infect many of the “reforms” that have been inflicted upon us.
For that matter, The Lego Movie treats this subject rather nicely. Wait, sorry, that’s fiction…
Reblogged this on Exceptional Delaware and commented:
Arne Duncan needs to go. Immediately. If he had one more brain cell, it would be lonely. This quote, “what I want is for all students to be able to take advanced placement courses or be exposed to an IB (International Baccalaureat) curriculum” is enough to make me want to vomit in my mouth. How dare he indicate that special needs kids be subjected to his “rigorous” ideals. This has gone beyond the point of absurdity, and I sincerely hope every single teacher that stands for justice sees that he is gone. For those that support him, you are living in a world of delusion. You’ve drank the Kool-Aid, and become ensnared in this despicable web of lies and corruption.
Jon’slovingfatther: I love your comments! Thanks so much for the one about his lonely brain cell–gave me a MUCH needed laugh!
We all know, however, that none of this is funny–it is tragic. I taught sped students for 35 + years, & the Obama Administration has/is pushing sped services way back to the past, before hard-fighting parents won the battle to get PL 94-142 passed & into effect. As I’ve said time and again, we WILL continue the pushback, not just preserving what was gained in 1974, but getting our kids everything they need and deserve–it is called FAPE (Free, Appropriate PUBLIC Education). Yes, WE can…& we WILL!!!
I think Arne is a paid a-hole who takes the money and runs with the agenda. Period. He is a clown who needs to go; sadly he would be replaced by an a-hole of equal capacity. Until the puppeteers are told their money cannot buy the obliteration of public schools, this is the status quo. Life is short; these clowns take the money and run and care not who is harmed by these farcical policies.
It is apparent that he was avoiding a real, down to earth conversation with BATs. He knows he can’t argue with logical comments, so he creates strict boundaries before conversations have even begun. It’s a tactic to intimidate others so he avoids anything that will make him look foolish. He put himself in control of the meeting before anything was said!
Every student in an IB program or gifted? Seriously? I would love to see the 30%+ refugee students at my school get into IB programs for sure! But realistically, not everyone is academically on that level. Regardless of language, economic status, ethnicity….
Apparently he didn’t limit the conversation enough since he managed to look like a complete idiot quite easily. It was apparent that the man had no understanding of what special education is. How can someone serve as a cabinet member and remain so ignorant of the area for which he is responsible? It is really scary to think that the Cabinet is composed of talking heads who have not a thought beyond what is fed to them.
Duncan doesn’t need to know anything about what it takes to educate any children. He wasn’t put in charge of the DOE to help teachers or improve the public schools. He was put there to close down the public schools and, I think, get rid of the children who are learning disabled in addition to those who are the most difficult to teach. For instance, at-risk kids who live in poverty and/or belong to street gangs.
He is doing the job he was hired to do. What will the future bring? I think the answer to that may be found if we look closely at Hitler’s Final Solution. However, this Final Solution will not focus on exterminating the Jews. It will focus on the most at-risk kids and possibly their parents and extended families.
It doesn’t take much to imagine a future where those bubble tests decide the fate of children and entire families as the Bill Gates, the Obamas, and Duncans of the world rid the gene pool of perceived weaknesses and flaws.
Those who fail the bubble tests will vanish during the hours of darkness when Duncan’s future DOE agents—in Hitler’s Germany they were called the Gestapo and the SS—come in their dark vans, break down the doors of neighbors and cart off entire families while everyone else on the street shakes in fear while watching from their darkened houses.
Those who survive the early days of the purge will become super, tiger parents pressuring their kids to study rigorously for endless hours to pass those bubble tests. Kids will shake in fear and break down sobbing when they aren’t sure of an answer because it might a wrong answer might send them and their families into the camps and oblivion.
The most difficult kids to teach may even be murdered by their own parents who will fear their own deaths if the child is allowed to take their first test in kindergartner that could seal the fate of the entire family.
Wow. Just….wow.
This has got to be the most epic of Hitler analogy ever posted here.
my ability to fit a typo into even the shortest of comments is also pretty epic.
Both my husband and I are teachers. He teaches IB math and I teach special ed. My students have moderate to severe intellectual and physical handicaps and my evaluation is partly based on their FAA scores. Out of 7 students, 5 are mostly nonverbal and 4 must be either changed or helped with toileting and feeding. I was also in DC. What Arne seems to forget is that special Ed is a wide range of abilities as it also includes the gifted. Does he think my special needs students should be given rigor and placed in IB classes? He doesn’t distinguish between the varying disabilities, just lumps them all together. The Florida Alternative Assessment doesn’t measure that I taught a child to pull up their own pants or that they learned a new sign or that they can point to a choice board to tell me what they prefer for snack . Assessments like these are totally inappropriate and my students certainly can’t take a rigorous exam like IB students are expected to take in order in earn the IB diploma. My own two gifted kids earned the IB diploma but it was a week of testing and was quite grueling to say the least. Many IB students are very self motivated, work hard and study. If the student isn’t willing to put time into studying they will not be successful in IB. It doesn’t matter the race or ethnicity but work ethic. It is not meant for every one and it is not appropriate for the population I teach. However, some bright SLD kids can and do succeed in IB programs with accommodations.
You’re exactly right. The range of abilities in spec ed students is very wide. Even within the SLD population alone there is an incredibly wide range of abilities. I find the idea that someone like Arne would think it a good thing to basically say, “You can and should be up here” to someone who can’t possibly get up there no matter how many accommodations he or she has to be cruel.
Here’s where Arne was today.
http://www.toledoblade.com/Education/2014/07/29/Toledo-Public-Schools-show-off-Toledo-Technology-Academy-to-U-S-cabinet-members-1.html
A couple of observations.
1. I sincerely hope this grant money will do what they say.
2. TTA, while a high performing Toledo HS, is only one of the top High Schools in Ohio depending on which evaluation tool they use, OGT scores, Ohio’s Report Card, Perfomance Index, etc…
3. “Board members emphasized that a bottom-up leadership approach and collaboration at the school has been core to its success.” Did you hear that, Arne?
So many evaluation tools.
Too bad BAT or NPE don’t do their own evaluations of schools across the US based on things that really matter in schools, like creativity and recess and music and the arts. Schools would get downgraded for spending time on testing.
I jut did an analysis of a three year old interview with Duncan, which shows how hard it is to get a straight answer out of him:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/atlanta-cheating-scandal-_n_892169.html
Check out this video of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan answering questions in the immediate aftermath of the Atlanta cheating scandal. Notice the answers… or rather NON-answers that Duncan gives to what he is asked by this Atlanta TV reporter (who, by the way, does an awesome job hitting Duncan with tough questions).
For example, she asks a simple “YES” or “NO” question, meaning that, after the question has been asked, the first word out of Duncan’s mouth should be either “YES” or “NO”, followed by more detail and clarification… as in, for example…
“Yes, and let me tell you why… ”
or
“No, that’s not the case, and here’s why… ”
DUNCAN doesn’t do that, instead spewing double-talk.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – –
01:05 – 01:25
REPORTER: “What’s your position on testing? Is there too much emphasis on the standardized testing?”
ARNE DUNCAN: “Well, what you want to do is you want to make sure you’re evaluating students each year, but the way to get good results is through good teaching, and when you cheat… you… again, you do grave, grave harm to children, and so there’s a right way to do it, and the vast majority of folks around the country do it the right way.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
Huh??? WTF??? Where’s the “YES” or “NO”?
If she had asked him, “What’s the key to getting good results on standardized testing? What’s the right way?” … then the answer would be responsive.
The obvious conclusion that people were making back in 2011 (and still are three years later) is that the over-emphasis on standardized testing results and the punishment-rewards (monetary or otherwise) meted out based on these results DID contribute to the fiasco in Atlanta. However, Duncan—following his corporate masters’ marching orders—wants to shut that idea or thought process down.
Check out the next question and Duncan’s non-answer:
————————————————-
01:25 – 01:41
REPORTER: “Some people have been critical all along of No Child Left Behind and the testing portions of this. Umm, how fair is that criticism?”
DUNCAN: “Well, we want to fix the No Child Left Behind Law. That’s a much longer conversation, and we’re working very hard in Congress to do… to do that now.”
————————————————-
Again… W-T-F? His response is that he wants to “fix” NCLB. Well, exactly WHAT about NCLB do you want to “fix”? For Duncan’s answer to be responsive to the question, he must then address criticism of “the testing portions” that the reporters’ question references… the “portions” that create the breeding ground for cheating scandals like the ones in Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere…. and Duncan ain’t doing that.
The reporter is pushing Duncan to admit that all this test-based evaluating/punishing/rewarding is harmful, but he responds with pointless blather about how “we’re working very hard in Congress to do that now.”
Really?… “to do WHAT now”? You meant that politicians and education officials should “fix the testing portions” that are harming education and harming kids?
Again, no answer.
The reporter then questions whether, in urban areas with so many challenging factors teachers have to fight, that demanding “unrealistic” results led to the cheating problem, that when asked to do the impossible, teachers who are threatened with firing for not achieving the impossible, will then be driven to cheat. (which is the conclusion one gets from reading Rachel Aviv’s NEW YORKER article.)
This is another great question, by the way. Kudos to the reporter!
Again, Duncan totally ducks this query. He challenges those doubters who think that the NCLB benchmarks were “unrealistic” that they are the ones in the wrong, that he is “seeing students learn every single year”
This is his version of the Michelle Rhee diversionary response to evidence of cheating: “You must be racist to think that poor, minority kids can’t learn.”
————————————————-
01:41 – 02:14
REPORTER: “But, but the whole idea of unrealistic measurements… something for urban districts, et cetera… Is that – ?”
ARNE DUNCAN: “I don’t think there is anything ‘unrealistic’ about seeing students learn every single year, and you have in many urban areas tremendous progress being made. The sad fact is that I actually think in Atlanta there’s probably tremendous progress being made… fairly… and unfortunately, this, this… scandal is going to cloud that… ummm…. but this does not in any way take away from shouldn’t take away from the hard work, and the accomplishments, and the improved graduation rates that we’re seeing in many urban districts around the country.”
—————————————————-
Let’s move on to the next question, about the idea that Atlanta school district’s monetary incentives helped create the problem. This is the closest he gets to being responsive to the question being asked.
He says that monetary incentives ARE NOT ONLY GOOD for education, but that we should have started doing them long before now.
Oh really?
The only problem with Arne’s claim is…. the overwhelming evidence shows that…
THESE MONETARY INCENTIVES DO NOT WORK.
THESE MONETARY INCENTIVES HAVE NEVER WORKED.
THESE MONETARY INCENTIVES WILL NEVER WORK.
All the decades of evidences show that not only do they not improve education; they actually do grave harm to it.
But hey, Arne thinks we should keep trying anyway, so we’re just going to have to be stuck with more of it. At the end of his spiel, he vomits up the idea that using monetary incentives is “not a hard thing to do”, that you just “have to do it with integrity.”
Really? “Not a hard thing to do”?
Then how come it has NEVER worked, that historically, doing so has an utter and total failure rate?
Duncan thinks we should “spotlight” and “celebrate” good teachers and principals… with monetary rewards (the next question BEL0W).
Duncan’s assumption is that prior to, or without those rewards to push them, teachers will or are holding back their “A Game”, and not giving it their best effort… and that with monetary rewards, they’ll get off their duff and do the job they should have been doing all along.
This comes from a man who has never taught a day in his life, or worked as a principal a day in his life, for if he had, he’d know that this is all total garbage.
————————————————–
02:14 – 03:02
REPORTER: “Should… a lot of this is about money, I think, you know, that both teachers and principals are evaluated by their test scores of their students, and there’s a lot of money involved in this. Should that be decoupled from student learning?”
ARNE DUNCAN: “Well, I think rewarding teacher excellence is important. I think I would argue the opposite, that far too often in our country, we haven’t celebrated great teachers, we haven’t celebrated great principals who are making a huge difference in students’ lives. You just want to make sure that they’re doing it honestly, and again, the vast vast majority of teachers are doing an amazing job, often in very difficult circumstances, in helping students beat the odds every single day.
“I think we need to do a better job of spotlighting that, and incentivizing that, and encouraging that, and learning from that. In education, we’ve been far too reluctant to talk about success. We need to do that. We just need to make sure that we’re doing it with integrity…. not that hard to do.”
———————————————————–
The reporter finishes with a questions about one of the intangible ways that this harms education and society as a whole. She gets personal and talks about how this cheating scandal has taken away her “last heroes”, the teachers, and on and on.
I’m sick and tired of transcribing this words of this vile person (Duncan, not the reporter, whom I admire)… so, if you want to, you can watch her ask this last question, and the entire video here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/atlanta-cheating-scandal-_n_892169.html
Duncan’s simplistic underlying assumption seems to be that low-expectations are the sole cause of low-achievement. Such an assumption makes it easy to vilify and scapegoat teachers because setting expectations is entirely in the teacher’s purview. If kids fail, it’s because teachers have chosen –out of sloth or racism or some other ugly moral or intellectual failing –to keep expectations low and hence cause, single-handedly, kids’ failure. Unfortunately what Duncan doesn’t realize is that most public school teachers start with high expectations before reality forces them to lower them for many kids. Often kids lack the foundational knowledge to do certain work; if so, the only sane choice is to backfill, not heedlessly forge on. I would love to skip a day and a half of teaching my seventh graders the seven continents and oceans and then quizzing them on them –they should already know this stuff ! –but I “lower expectations” and teach this because they can’t go forward to more advanced work until they know it. Expectations need to be in the kids’ zone of proximal development, else confusion, despair and sometimes revolt ensue. And many other factors, besides expectations, determine kids’ achievement: brain health, quality of prior years’ curricula, peer pressure, transmission of verbal capital at home, academic attitudes at home, family dynamics and income, etc. Duncan really needs to upgrade his skill-set and start developing a more sophisticated understanding of education, else his policies will continue to be ham-fisted and destructive.
“. . . zone of proximal development, else confusion, despair. . .”
There you go using big words ensuring that the Dunkster will experience “confusion” but not “despair”.
An idiot with an degree in idiology.
That’s supposed to be in response to Yvonne.
Extremely well said, Ponderosa! This is the problem with non-educators running American education, as they do. From Arne Duncan, through Pear$on, to legislators setting education policy, to principals who have never taught in a classroom — nobody knows much about child development or what it’s like to deal with ACTUAL kids. It seems that the more you know about actual kids, the less entitled you are to have a valued educational opinion.
The point is that Duncan is an IDIOT! We have an appointed idiot in charge of the USDoE.
The point has been made, at this blog, that there is a major Washington goal in play, relative to education. Truthout described the goal today, attributing it to documents exposed by WikiLeaks. In the article, “A Top-Secret Agreement to Carve Up Public Services”, the authors report that two years ago, “a massive scale offensive was launched by Washington, followed by EU member states, in order to make it possible for multinational companies to monopolize financial products and services (and, education, health, transport, etc).” An agreement was plotted which would deny the right to legislate in order to restrain cross-border financial transactions.” For example, “State monopolies that provide pensions(…) would eventually be dismantled. Even insurance against national catastrophe would be excluded from the public sphere.” “…Foreign companies could in no way be treated, ‘discriminatingly.’ ” Extrapolating, Walgreen’s move to Switzerland to avoid taxes, while receiving revenue from U.S. Medicare and Medicaid, could not be remedied by Congress. “It would become impossible for a nation to buy back a public service like a water supply company (or a charter school).”
The completion date for the goal is projected as 2015.
Thanks for the info. A link to the article would help:
“A Top-Secret Agreement to Carve Up Public Services”
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25240-a-top-secret-agreement-to-carve-up-public-services
Yes, Linda, and this is happening in every sector of the economy.
For example, rather than raise gasoline taxes, which would also provide disincentives for unnecessary driving, to maintain the Interstate Highway System, Obama is calling for “public-private partnerships” to maintain the system.
In other words, expect to pay a fortune in tolls on your future family vacations, as the costs of highway maintenance are socialized, and the revenues are directed toward private companies…
And, the national and state parks, if they continue to exist, when privatized, will be too expensive for the 99%. Privatizing public colleges will have the same effect. Only the wealthy will have assets and rights and they will be protected by private security and a mercenary judiciary.
A once great civilization will lose its soul and assets that took hundreds of years to build, because “We the people”, became a lie.
Duncan is no more than an errand boy, carrying out marching orders from multinationals.
As the billionaire, interviewed at Politico, warned his fellow 1%, when the lives of Americans become “too crappy”, there will be upheaval and the oligarch families and those who serve them, won’t have time to escape.
Inventory and control, inventory and control…where have I read about that? Oh, right, that is what Agenda 21 is about. Sustainable development = Agenda 21. But sustainable development is good. Why would I be against that? Because it is a bait and switch brainwashing operation to get people to give up their cars and their concept of property rights and subject themselves to carbon taxes and limits on use of electricity.
Chapter 26 of Agenda 21 is devoted to education. It is all about how to indoctrinate the young towards a collectivist mindset in order to accept these global changes. It is about killing the concept of the “individual.” What is America all about? Individual rights. The Common Core and IB and Arne Duncan and Obama are all working to dismantle our allegiance to our country and our Constitution.
Dawn,
Respectfully, you and I have similar concerns. My response to the threat facing the nation, is aligned with the view of the Campaign for America’s Future.
One of the areas of their focus, now, is Walgreen’s move, on paper, to Switzerland to avoid taxes. Investors in Walgreen’s, exercising their individual rights, want to take from our system without paying their fair share to support it.
My perspective is that when nations fail to recognize some limitations to freedoms, they end up ruled by a despotic few.
I believe in strong borders and high tariffs for imports.
Although I used to think the word progressive stood for something good, I no longer do because it is that movement that is aligned with the U.N. and sustainable development which will end up crushing humanity instead of creating peace and prosperity for all.
Michael,
If you think the House of Representatives will pass an increase in the federal gasoline tax, you are far far more optimistic than I am.
In the end we will probably need a toll system based on weight/miles driven as transportation becomes less dependent on gasoline. You should pay tolls if you are not paying to maintain the system through a fuel tax.
I am happy to pay tolls to state tollway authorities, not to private providers who are basically interested in squeezing as much profit out of the contract while doing as little as possible. Charge me to fund the system and infrastructure. I know bureaucracies can be incredibly inflexible and certainly we have had our share of corruption scandals in Illinois, but public -private partnerships have really proven problematic in a number of instances. We are finding that out with a red-light camera scandal and prohibitive parking costs in Chicago. Serving the public good is no longer the primary mission when public services are turned over to private providers.
2old,
Given the variety of fuels that are likely to be used in the future, I think a charge per mile, adjusted for vehicle weight, is inevitable. It may well just be built into the charges for rental of the vehicle if folks are right that the information revolution will separate access and ownership of goods like automobiles that spend the majority of their lives just sitting.
Dawn,
Do you think we should repeal the commerce clause so that each state can become more prosperous by imposing high import tariffs on goods produced in other states?
Since I love the United States of America and not just the state that I live in, the answer is obviously NO.
I am talking about national borders to protect our national interests. You know that. You just like to pretend you are dense.
Dawn,
What is magical about national borders? If high import tarrifs increase the welfare of those living inside the tarrif walls, shouldn’t high tariffs on interstate trade increase the welfare of citizens in each and every state? All the citizens of the United States that you love will gain.
Or perhaps your premise, that high tariff walls increase the welfare of those behind them, could be very much mistaken.
How can we be confident that the tariffs will be high enough? We should just cut to the chase and ban all imports.
You will be able to identify that sweet spot by noting that people prefer to “buy American made” because it is cheaper. A prosperous country needs trade. We have the apples, you have the mangoes, let’s trade, leads to a more interesting life and healthier economy than isolationism.
Dawn,
But if “our” mangos are cheaper than “their” mangos, why on earth would I give “them” any apples for “their” more expensive mangos?
Ah, so…just as it seems we are all waking up to the real issues of what is happening to and in America, “teaching economist” jumps in to deflect the reality of the conversation.
Well, TE….wrail as you will, teachers are seeing the stark reality of the ALEC longterm plan to take over all public agencies and privatize them for profit. The greatest free market overhaul since the beginning, through Schumpeter, Stigler, von Mises, the Austrians, the Ayn Randees, the glossed over monetrists from U of Chicago (the Obama stronghold), and all the Repubs and most of the Dems…and we who disagree with it all are left with the Tea Partyers as allies, and we face the mindset of those others like TE.
Ellen,
It was not I that brought up gasoline taxes or road tolls. It seemed unfair to blame the president for not raising gas taxes when it is the US House of Representatives that must initiate such a bill.
Poster Fiorillo said nothing at all about ALEC and criticized a policy that I see as inevitable (fee for miles driven) because it is the only solution to maintaining the roads, no matter who is in power.
Response to Ellen about ALEC. The organization should be loudly and frequently condemned. When I receive a mailing from VISA asking me to apply, I return the envelope with a note about my opposition to ALEC. The alternative credit card is Credo, a company that supports progressive causes.
So Arne Duncan knows better than thousands of teachers — any number of us could have been HIS teachers — or his classmates.
His arrogance — or his ignorance — or both — is/are overwhelming.
And his statement that “…what I want is for all students to be able to take advanced placement courses or be exposed to an IB (International Baccalaureate) curriculum.” is disingenuous at best, downright harmful at worst.
What we all really want, I think, is to nurture students’ interest and enthusiasm about learning, so that many will be motivated to take those classes. NCLB and RTTT and the high-stakes testing culture in today’s schools kill that very interest and enthusiasm!
Oh– and though no person who wants to go to college should be denied that opportunity, there are people for whom college is not the best chioce — and we should be supporting them as they pursue their interest in a trade or craft,
I really appreciate BATS and all that they do, but it was probably fruitless to bring up the matter of mayoral control at the DOE, when that is precisely how non-educator Arne Duncan got to be CEO of the Chicago Public Schools and, ultimately, Secretary of Education.
The point is not to change Duncan’s mind (he doesn’t have one to change), but to expose him for what he is.
Am I the only one who objects to the idea that Arne is pushing the International Baccalaureate? Has anyone read UNESCO’s “Earth Charter”? Brainwash central.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/05/26/international-baccalaureate-undermines-us-founding-principles
An international education must go well beyond the provision of information and is involved in the development of attitudes and values which transcend barriers of race, class, religion, gender or politics.—International Baccalaureate Organization Subject Guide (1996). Should we spend taxpayer dollars on a public school curriculum commissioned by the United Nations, made in Europe, and at odds with the principles of the American founding? Through the International Baccalaureate program, that’s already underway.Across the country, public schools (primarily high schools, but also middle and elementary schools) are paying into the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. Now, there are 1,296 IB “World Schools” in the United States, of which 279 offer the Primary Years Programme, 445 offer the Middle Years Programme, and 751 offer the Diploma Programme. But a growing chorus of parents and concerned citizens oppose IB because of its conflict with America’s founding principles.IB was founded in 1968 in Switzerland to provide internationally standardized curricula for the children of diplomats. Since then, its geographic footprint has expanded to thousands of schools worldwide, and its student base now reaches far beyond the children of diplomats. The students study a standardized IB curriculum, taught by IB-trained teachers, and take standardized tests graded either by IB examiners or by IB-monitored teachers. [Check out the best high schools in the nation.]IB isn’t cheap. The application/candidacy fee for a school can total as much as $23,000. Add to that the costs of teacher training (hundreds of dollars per teacher per seminar, not counting expenses), annual school fees ($10,000 for a high school), student fees, test fees, and more—it adds up.What do parents and other taxpayers get for this outlay of funds? A curriculum crafted in Europe, with a decidedly non-American and non-Judeo-Christian outlook on the world. This slant isn’t surprising, given that IB was initially funded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)—which continues to fund certain IB activities—and that UNESCO currently describes IB as a “partner” in its international education initiatives. IB now operates as a non-governmental organization of the UN’s Economic and Social Council.Do you want to hear from the horse’s mouth? An excellent source for evaluating IB is “A Continuum of International Education,” published by the IB Organization in 2002. From this document, we learn that the goal of IB is not merely to impart knowledge or teach thinking skills, but rather to develop “citizens of the world” with “universal human values.”What are these values? Not necessarily the values of the student’s parents or faith, but those embodied in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. That document decrees that “education … shall further the activities of the United Nations …”—presumably including activities not endorsed by the United States, such as the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the Kyoto Protocol.Another controversial IB connection is the Earth Charter, a sweeping blueprint of international rights and responsibilities promoted by Mikhail Gorbachev, among others. The Earth Charter advocates the redistribution of wealth among and within nations (Art. 10.a), population-control policies (Art. 7.e), abolition of “all forms” of discrimination based on sexual orientation (presumably including traditional marriage)(Art. 12.a), and military disarmament (Art. 16.e). The Charter also decrees that all nations “must … support the implementation of the Earth Charter principles with an international legally binding instrument on environment and development.”Until recently, the IB Organization was listed among official Earth Charter endorsers, and former IB Deputy Director Ian Hill affirmed that “the IBO endorses the Earth Charter and suggests many topics that promote it.” As controversy grew about this connection, however, IB announced on its website that it had “with[drawn] its endorsement.” Many observers are skeptical that this about-face constituted a substantive change rather than a politically motivated dodge.
Dawn, I think your view of the International Baccalaureate is incredibly skewed. In fact IB curriculum is much more than content. They focus on educational pedagogy, community service and involvement, and critical thinking. I was an IB student and have taught in the program for 25 years and the one thing that I and my students got was a broader world view as opposed to the Americentric education that most students receive. The Earth Charter is a completely separate issue. You can’t condemn an entire program on the basis of one article, especially from an opinion piece at US News.
Excellent teachable moment Dawn….thanks. This is vital info and hope all writers and readers here study the link you provided.
Thanks. I am waiting for the people on this blog to wake up to the U.N. master plan for the U.S.
People seem to have no problem blaming ALEC and Pearson and Bill Gates but they can’t make that jump to see that the whole “Green Movement” was co-opted or actually engineered and fomented by the elitists who want to rule the world. Since the environment crosses all borders, obviously any regulations with teeth would have to be run internationally.
I understand sustainable development sounds like a good thing but it is ultimately only a ploy to get people to give up the concept of sovereign nations and submit to a one world government (headed by the U.N.) Education is the lynch pin because you can’t get people to give up sovereignty that believe in individual rights.
The Common Core is all about getting us all to submit to a collectivist mindset. What they are calling “grit” is just another word for attitudes and values. You will see that is what we will be testing for next. And compliance will be tracked, response to intervention employed, and all will submit or suffer the consequences. It is all very sick and twisted, which explains why people like Duncan and Obama are attracted to it.
Hmmm, Dawn, is this hole in Siberia part of a one world government conspiracy?
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/01/researchers_warming_responsible_for_siberias_mysterious_hole/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
Have we no responsibility to the earth?
Seems to me that the Koch’s and ALEC care more about oil than people, America, or anything else.
The hole that has appeared in Siberia due to methane melting the permafrost is a fact. The cause for the methane release is conjecture. And even if it were due to rising temperatures, that is most likely due to cycles of sun flares. There is nothing tying that to vehicle miles traveled in New York or even Al Gore’s jet fuel warming the atmosphere.
NO, it isn’t due to sun flares.
Because you say so?
http://www.lunarplanner.com/SolarCycles.html
http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report-climate-change-is-caused-by-nature-not-human-activity-1501621
Calm down. Get a grip.
The reason I take this point so seriously is because the “green movement” which many people on this blog think is a benign policy is actually aimed at enslaving and “eliminating” people. George Soros, Mr. Open Society, let them smoke pot, crush entire countries in a currency war, that guy, is funding lots of environmental crap. Although Jewish himself, he collaborated with the Nazis as a teenager assisting them in finding, robbing and killing Jews in Germany. He has publicly stated that he feels no remorse for this.
If people understand that it is the billionaire boys club that is behind the education deform, why can’t they understand it is the same club that is behind sustainable development which is the environmental deform movement. They both hide behind the same mantra, “It’s what is best for the children.” (Don’t burn so much coal, save the earth for the children, etc.)
Australia’s decision to repeal its levy limiting fossil-fuel pollution makes it the first nation to turn back from a market approach to fighting global warming. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-17/australia-scrapping-pollution-levy-marks-first-u-turn-on-climate.html
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/08/senate-report-billionaires-covertly-funding-far-left-environmental-machine/
It actually sounds like he is just repeating some things he’s heard before. You know, about equaling everyone and making sure special ed students have full access to things and aren’t cast aside. This much we can all agree is a good thing. The problem lies in that he clearly knows nothing about what special ed actually is or entails, thus prompting him to say these overly ridiculous things. Idiot? Yes. Hurtful? Yes. Abusing rhetoric and messages that are supposed to be good? Double yes.
And read this excerpt. It is extremely disturbing Arne’s underlings all believe test scores are the only way to hold “teachers accountable” and without them we would not take “every student seriously”. Very insulting and demeaning. They can’t get past their own group think and their opinion of teachers is so low. Nothing will change under this administration.
After this the director of Community outreach and one of the interns started critiquing our perspective that federal policies were driving the best teachers out of the profession, stifling creativity in the classroom, and leading to a decline in teachers of color. In doing so they started defending school closings and VAM, asking us whether there were any circumstances under which schools should be close and whether there was any method of evaluating teachers that did not rely on student test scores.
At this point, Dr Williams spoke up, saying that in Connecticut, the suppression of community voices in cities like Bridgeport by unelected school boards was being justified by arguments that mayoral control was supported, if not required Race to the Top, and that similar dynamics were at play in Hartford and New London. “Does the US Department of Education support real democracy in education decision making,” Dr. Williams he asked?”
They two officials had no real answer to what Dr Wiliams was saying and deflected attention from his critique by insisting that we needed to hold teachers accountable by student test scores because there was no other way of making sure teachers took every student seriously and helped all of them reach their full potential.
Diane, I think Lloyd’s comment above really merits its own post.
FLERP, anytime I or anyone else compares the rank and stack strategies of the reformistas to Nazis, I get hundreds of Tweets denouncing me. I prefer to use the metaphor of The Hunger Games or the New Meritocracy, where Duncan, Gates, and Pearson create a new class system. Of course, if such a system were based on test scores or brainpower, Duncan wouldn’t make the cut; Gates probably wouldn’t either.
SUCH a different “Diane response” than the ones that first were articulated when your blog came out several years ago. You were feeling it then, but used so much more diplo-lingo. The sentiment has not changed; the style of language has, in some instances.
I LIKE it! Is this the new Diane Ravitch verbiage? At least part time, making peppery cameo appearances in your rhetoric?
Keep up the excellent work. The scholarly approach will always be there, but once in a while, it’s great to hear you quip and lash out.
Ah, to be a fly on the wall in your kitchen . . . .
Me: I just let it all hang out here; it’s cathartic, but I can afford to be way more fact based in my writing sometimes and less editorial . . . One day.
The account of the meeting reinforces to me the problems we who have issues with so many reforms: that we have no game plan beyond our “concerns”; we accept the role being against things,rather than for things. Perception here is what matters. We seem to have no articulated vision against which to voice our concerns. Sorry, Mark, replacing rigor with creativity isn’t a plan.
Here’s an example of what we need and what we need to enter meetings with: we need to articulate what it means so be a professional teacher and what good teachers do and what good teaching looks like. Even what it takes to get there. What do good teacher,expert teachers do? We know what they don’t do: teach to the test. I have a pretty good idea of what good math teaching looks like. VAM doesn’t coexist with that.
Against this, we can take on the evaluation issues, even statements like teachers have to be accountable and things like VAM. We have to define good teaching in order to take on the obstacles. Evaluation as being proposed is an obstacle.
I appreciate teachers who have he courage to speak out. Too few do. But making noise is not winning. We have a great opportunity with midterm elections; Duncan showing up may be partly out of fear of losing teachers’ votes.
However wrongly, teachers and others opposing reforms are tagged as naysayers. But to the outside world we are not presented much of anything to dispel that perception. We have given up the high ground.
Peter, I agree with your overall point, teachers do need an articulated game plan with talking points. However, I disagree rebutting Duncan’s ludicrous remarks is simply making noise. The general public needs to hear the debate that goes on in forums such as this one. Defining good teaching is going to be difficult because of the vast array of student needs and types, not to mention the varying subjects taught. That will be our challenge, making the public aware of the complexity each teacher faces. The reforminess crowd has the advantage of a simplistic, but unified message, and a one size fits all solution.
Marian, I like making noise. It’s just not enough.
Defining good teaching and more is a tremendous challenge. It it is THE challenge. But we, as teachers have to do it before it’s totally done for us.
We have to (loudly) stop the nonsense that is taking away our profession. But we sure better have a well-developed blueprint for what our profession should be.
Taking a quantum leap-
In spite of well-funded media and politicians, opposing the message that public schools are great, teachers prevail and Americans agree public education has been a resounding success. What will change about the Washington plan of multinationals, to privatize all public services? Once the laws protecting privatization are cemented with international treaties, is anyone going to say, the outcome was a result of teachers’ failure to take the rhetorical high ground?
Linda, we may not win by taking the high ground, but if we don’t, we lose.
We’re teachers; it’s what we’re supposed to do. Imagine teaching a course in which all we teach is is what’s wrong with say, some writing, some math.
If we stop some of the things we need to stop – testing, privatization, whatever – we better have a better plan. Or someone else will.
Even Diane Ravitch makes the argument that our schools need work. Just not Bill Gates’ kind.
If you buy into the narrative that our schools are failure factories and need to be fixed, then having a master plan to fix them seems appropriate. Since most people seem to like their own public schools, perhaps the first thing we need to do is look at what we already do well or have done well. I’m in favor of patching the leaks rather than sinking the ship and starting over again.
Anyone who believes the schools are failure factors are fools and if they are unwilling to listen to the history and facts that proves this manufactured myth of failure is wrong, then they aren’t worth talking to.
The improvements necessary in public education are out o the hands of educators and in the hands of politicians. For instance, a national early childhood education program msut be funded through the Congress and state legislatures.
Teacher training is out of the hands of teachers and in the hands of colleges that train teachers. History and facts with evidence from other countries proves that the best teacher training is a year long internship in the classroom with a master teacher—not programs like TFA that spend five weeks training teachers in workshops and then throwing them in mosh pit that an American classroom can often be.
The retention rate for TFA recruits (I refuse to call them teachers) is about 33 percent while teachers who go through year long residencies have a retention rate above 80 percent.
The solution to improve public education is there for everyone to see if they are willing to look close enough but billionaire oligarchs out to make a profit or achieve some political or religious agenda and the current leadership of the Unite States doesn’t seem to care what history and the facts could teach us.
Peter,
I appreciate your reply.
Policy decisions, year after year, case after case, result in greater profits and less accountability and responsibility, for the 1%.
The tech moguls and DFER have a well-funded army ready to implement their profit-driven ideas. Teachers can suggest improvements and make plans. But, where is the receptive audience for them? That audience is not in the state nor national capitols. ALEC-thinking holds sway with state departments of education and politicians.
The Campaign for America’s Future wants us to understand the stakes and a strategy that has a chance. Without the majority’s willingness to understand, all dialog about education will occur in the financial world.
I know you are not convinced. The vital question is whether you reflect the majority or the minority view.
The Common Core is a system designed to inventory and control human capital. This will be done by collecting data and tracking individual students and teachers to ensure compliance. Those who cannot comply or will not comply will be excluded from the planned economy. Arne is not dense. He knows exactly what he is proposing. He is surrounded by Gates Foundation people. He is steeped in the U.N. agenda. UNESCO was founded by Julian Huxley, who was also the president of the British Eugenics Society.
Click to access FrameworkForAMultistateHumanCapitalDevelopmentDataSystem.pdf
Dawn, did you forget the Tri-Lateral Commission?
The Tri-Lateral Commission is alive and well. Zbigniew Brzezinski is advising Obama just like he advised Carter and his daughter trots out the talking points on MSNBC “Morning Joe”.
Brzezinski’s Grand Chessboard is playing out in the Middle East right now.
As much as I would like to go with these folks, I’m going with Goldman Sachs. Or have they bought the Tri-Lateral Commission?
Peter Sutherland is chairman of Goldman Sachs International (1995–current). He is former chairman of BP plc (1997–December 2009). He was appointed chairman of the London School of Economics in 2008. In addition to his chairmanships listed above, he is a member of the Supervisory Board of Allianz and the Advisory Board of Eli Lilly. He is currently UN special representative for migration and development. Before these appointments he was the founding director-general of the World Trade Organization. He had previously served as director-general of GATT since July 1993 and was instrumental in concluding the Uruguay GATT Round Negotiations.
Mr. Sutherland was a Trilateral Commission author of 21st Century Strategies of the Trilateral Countries: In Concert or Conflict (1999, with Robert B. Zoellick and Hisashi Owada) and was elected European chairman of the Commission for three terms (2001-2010)
http://www.trilateral.org/go.cfm?do=Page.View&pid=24
It seems that there is a difference of opinion as to the Bell Curve. Of course, it may have been the result of a racial or cultural bias. The differences in scores are dependent on the question choices to some extent. The background and vocabulary needed to succeed can vary by the individual. I have never thought that the curve should be so steep, but more of a mound than a hill/bell shape. If various tests were developed (and I know that some corporations use tests to screen employees), we would find that each person has individual areas of excellence and incompetency. That is why we are individuals. That is why teachers, educators, schools of education have spent time researching multiple intelligences and multiple ways to teach and learn.
One thing that is apparent with the CCSS tests is, they focus on the linguistic and mathematical learners and ignore all other kinds of learning. At best, the test assumes that only those who are able to excel in those areas are successful in our society now and in the future. And, who gets to call the shots? Who gets to make the decision? More and more, it seems that those who have money get run the show.
The comments that people aren’t widgets seems to stem from the fact that we aren’t all the same in our strengths and weaknesses, and to fail to acknowledge this renders students as being too similar with interests and expectations being likewise too similar.
The question is and always has been: who gets to dictate the destiny of children, adults, culture? Who? The arguments continue whether in politics, religion or education. Wars start and often never end due to the fight for control over these issues.
Some people will stop at nothing to get the final say. The struggle here seems to be with that demand for power. Where do we go from here?
I feel panic in my very being just thinking about the desire of some to further validate and invalidate children based upon their interest in and success with a very limited group of standards that have been decided upon by people with a limited field of interest. What power they must feel, orchestrating destinies of millions of people.
The thing is: where do all these kids wind up when they fail to be linguistic and mathematical?
We aren’t all musical, artistic, athletic, poetic, dramatic, kinesthetic, scientific, linguistic, or mathematical. We aren’t all interested in history or other space. We aren’t all of one faith. We don’t all have equal amounts of nurturing, food, and exposure to books and travel. We are not a homogeneous society. As long as we are to be a growing nation, we should not be pushed into homogeneous thinking.
In my opinion, it is not that the Common Core itself is “bad”. It is fine for those who are interested and able to pursue college educations. But it doesn’t apply to all people for all walks of life. It doesn’t provide opportunity for all those other students to shine or to be confident. If some approximation and application of these standards were truly left to local interpretation, there wouldn’t be such an outpouring of objections. However, since punitive testing is applied to these standards, there isclittlecroom for variety. And, while Duncan claims that poor children are often labeled as learning disabled and mistreated, the solution to that is to directly confront that situation, not create a test that changes every public school into a laboratory for an experiment that has collateral damage that will take years to repair.
If this Common Core is used without the rigidity of testing that ruins the lives of students, teachers, and communities, if this Common Core is a living, growing, changing framework for learning, I see no reason to throw it out. However, as long as it is tied to a punitive test, it will need to be fought.
The Common Core is not allowed to breathe and grow. It is copyrighted by the NGA and the CCSSO and it has been foisted on 45 states through the “flexibility waiver” signed by governors desperate to get out of the NCLB mandates.
The Common Core is also designed to flatten the bell curve, not by bringing low scorers up but by making sure there is “equity” and “fairness” in the system. Nobody gets to excel. Everyone will achieve the exact same metric. LIke widgets. All the same.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Einstein
In Orwell’s 1984 there were “group hates” to unify the proles. Seems that this is happening here with Duncan. He and Bats are marginal sideshows. All of this intellectual blather is a form of self deception in a virtual world. All politics is local. Look at the attendance of this event in Washington. With all of the teachers claiming to be a part of this “movement” across the entire Country, what have you done to contact your local representatives? No revolution in education will occur by teachers lunch room rapping and delusional wizards of teacher web sites named after nocturnal mammals and ghetto slang. I am sure that even Duncan was amused by these Don Quixote’s. Sign me up for the next group hate, while I sip my mint julep.
I agree. The dollars that make up your paycheck are about to become worthless. . . but how many people on this blog have called their reps in congress to demand that they pass the bills that are sitting right now in both houses to re-instate the Glass-Steagall Act? H.R. 3711 and S. 1282
Congressional switchboard – 202-224-3121
There are people right now visiting their reps in their offices in D.C. to tell them they should stay in Washington until they do what they need to do to help our country, no going home for recess when the White House is beating the war drums and when our monetary system is about to bust wide open. We need to support them.
All we have to do is make one phone call to our member in the House and our two senators even if they are spineless people. Make some noise so they know we are paying attention. Put that switchboard # in your contact list. Know it. Use it. Be a citizen!
Oh dear, what have we “not” covered about Duncan and Bats?
Both are the towel boys of Randy and Bill Clinton .
It is only natural that they should come together in a “mud wrestle”.
Only the Kardashians are missing.
Do the Kardashians support the Common Core?
Imagine what the Kardashians would think the common core was. I don’t think their definition would have anything to do with education. They’ve probably never heard of the manufactured crises aimed at public education that’s designed to fool fools like the Kardasians..
“I wanted to be a teacher.”
Kim Kardashian
For real!
If a family creates a business as the Kardashians have, employing people in marketing and production via their clothing lines, television show, magazine sales and, if they spend their money on consumption, further multiplying job creation (million dollar weddings), it is far preferable to what the aggrandizing oligarchs like arnold and peterson are doing. They fund “research” that distorts information. They influence politicians to diminish our democracy. And, in their role in the financial sector, they drag down U.S. GDP.
remind me again what this thread was about. Oh yea, Mark got to talk to Duncan parked outside his building.
Former NASA scientists speak out against the agency’s advocacy for anthropogenic global warming. Watch a 7 minute video. Open your mind.
And I suggest you read the post on one of my Blogs that I wrote because of comments in this thread—this time I included the links to the research I quoted in one of my comments in this thread. I posted it last night, Friday, August 1, 2014.
In addition, the research I used to help me write that Blog post mentioned the fact that carbon emissions that cause air pollution have a measurable impact on a child’s ability to learn.
One pull quote used: “They examined the extent of air pollution from industrial sources near public schools, finding that schools located in areas with the highest air pollution had the lowest attendance rates (a marker for poor health) and the highest proportion of students failing to meet state educational standards.”
Regardless of what anyone believes about the causes of global warming, that isn’t the issue. The same carbon emissions that are blamed for global warming also pollutes the environment we live in.
It would be interesting to find out if most of the children who live in poverty also live in areas with high concentrations of air pollution caused by the same carbon emissions that thousands of scientists from around the world think is contributing to global warming.
I totally agree with your point about pollution and exhaust from cars having an adverse effect on children and their ability to breathe and learn. Not believing in global warming does not preclude my concern for cleaning up the environment
http://newamericamedia.org/2012/11/minorities-poor-breathe-worse-air-pollution-study-finds.php
However, as you yourself predict, that these elites that are controlling this education reform movement could even go so far as to suggest eliminating special education students once they get done inventorying every student. These same people use the “green movement” as an excuse to require carbon taxes and limitations on electricity usage which will if left unchecked harm our economy and actually end up killing people. That is my beef with the global warming hoax.
alleged global warming hoax
There is no definitive evidence that it is a hoax.
Both sides offer theories and one side has a lot more compelling evidence than the other side, and the side with the lack of evidence is funded by the Koch brothers and the oil industry.
Correct. Lloyd.
Deb,
I just found this from Scientific American on the global warming issue.
in a survey of peer reviewed articles there were 9,136 who agreed and one who disagreed.
“I just want to highlight this illuminating infographic by James Powell in which, based on more than 2000 peer-reviewed publications, he counts the number of authors from November, 2012 to December, 2013 who explicitly deny global warming (that is, who propose a fundamentally different reason for temperature rise than anthropogenic CO2). The number is exactly one. In addition Powell also has helpful links to the abstracts and main text bodies of the relevant papers. …
“Isn’t it remarkable that among the legions of scientists working around the world, many with tenured positions, secure reputations and largely nothing to lose, not even a hundred out of ten thousand come forward to deny the phenomenon in the scientific literature?”
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2014/01/10/about-that-consensus-on-global-warming-9136-agree-one-disagrees/
What I think is really interesting is that the Koch brothers who are contributing millions in the corporate war on public education are the same billionaire oligarchs funding the war that’s calling the global warming theory a hoax, and if the oligarchs win both issues, that leads to more wealth, influence and power for them—the rest of us lose.
AND, Lloyd, do you know that the Koch Brothers also fund Earth from Space as well as Home, featured on Nova/PBS? They are against AND for global warming. Hmmm. Interesting types, aren’t they?
That’s the first I heard of that. Do you know what Koch brother funded what. There are four of them. They are all billionaires but only two seem to be seriously in the business of reinventing the democratic process in their own interests.
After the father died, the four brothers battled in court for about a decade to see who would end up with Koch industries. Two of the best know and most infamous brothers won and bought out the other two who we don’t hear much about, but they do donate money to nonprofits.
Lloyd, it is David Koch. The videos are on YouTube and can be downloaded for your viewing pleasure. Both are excellent.
I wonder how much he gave to each side.
I woukd have no idea. I just saw his name in the credits.
It’s possible that some of the donations/grants were made for postive spin. Corporations do it all the time. Oil companies are great at donating to an environmental or wildlife nonprofit and then posting full page ads in magazines like National Geographic.
He might also be interested in the arts. Even Hitler had his interests that were more human and less monster. But history focuses on the monster more than the human.
Former NASA scientists are not funded by the Koch brothers or the oil industry.
And faulty computer models predicting sea level rise and tremendous temperature rise have failed to provide any evidence….only predictions that have not come true.
Even the latest IPCC report admits that long term predictions about the climate are not possible.
If you tell a really big lie often enough and ridicule anyone who refutes it, it becomes accepted “knowledge.” Eventually this big lie will be exposed on a grand scale.
It’s official, Ohio, a Koch/ALEC state racing to the bottom under Gov. Kasich, has become West Virginia. Media report more than 100,000 people in Toledo can’t drink the water due to contamination. Toxins in Lake Erie have been identified as a possible cause..
I think Koch-ALEC shows the relationship better than Koch/ALEC, don’t you think? :o)))
The Koch brothers have to have so many people that hate them, that the army of ex-Seals they have to pay for protection must be a HUGE bill.
And Lloyd, the oligarchs never know when the security team may turn on them.
Linda,
After I posted the comment, that thought did occur. Seals and others from special forces are usually very patriotic. All it takes is one to see what’s really going on.
Talk about off-topic …
Not off topic. The Common Core is the implementation of Chapter 36 in Agenda 21. If they do not brainwash the children, how will they ever accept collectivism and give up their private property and the concept and reality of a sovereign nation? Education is a necessary component for the inventory and control of all resources in the world including “human capital.” Arne Duncan is surrounded by Gates Foundation operatives putting the U.N. agenda in place in the U.S. Wake up, stop the ridicule and open your eyes to what is happening to your country and your children.