The American Prospect invited a number of people to propose someone for President Obama’s cabinet in his second term. The basic idea was that this would be a “dream team,” so we could choose anyone we wanted. I was asked to recommend a new Secretary of Education.
Read here and devise your own “dream team” for President Obama.
Some people have wondered what happened to the much ballyhooed film “Won’t Back Down.”
Recall that it was featured on NBC’s “Education Nation,” which is the showcase for the corporate reform movement; one of its stars was interviewed on “Ellen”; it had an elegant opening party at the New York Public Library; Michelle Rhee hosted showings at the two national political conventions.
Should have been a big hit, right? Wrong.
It opened in 2,5000 theaters and disappeared within a month. Hardly anyone wanted to see it.
But it lives! The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is showing it around the country to business organizations, to convince them that the local public schools are awful and that they must support charter schools. Think of it: Schools where children learn to obey or get kicked out.
Here are the events planned for this week in Birmingham, Alabama, where businesses are still looking for the best way to train their workforce:
“Greetings,
On behalf of the Birmingham Business Alliance, I would like to thank each of for agreeing to participate in our panel discussion next week in conjunction with our “Breaking the Monopoly of Mediocrity in Education” tour. As we continue to work towards providing all students in the state of Alabama with quality education options and creating a dynamic workforce, it is important to have dialogue with those who are not only advocates for better education but, who are also actively working to bring about change. Attached you will find the final agenda as well as talking points for each panel. Within each panel, if there is an issue that you feel should be addressed, please don’t hesitate to send your suggestion. A more detailed email will be sent on Tuesday of next week and will address any concerns or changes that are brought to my attention by panel participants. Again, we are excited to have each of you participate in this interactive forum. Please feel free to forward the invitation and registration link to any of your contacts or distribution list who would be interested in attending.
Thank you and we look forward to your participation.
L. Waymond Jackson, Jr.
Director – Education and Workforce Development
birminghambusinessalliance
THE CHAMBER FOR REGIONAL PROSPERITY
505 20th Street North, Suite 200
Birmingham, AL 35203
(205) 241-8117 (office)
(205) 324-2560 (fax)
www.birminghambusinessalliance.com<http://www.birminghambusinessalliance.com/>
On January 24th and 25th please join the Birmingham Business Alliance, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and the Institute for a Competitive Workforce as we kick-off their national tour “Breaking the Monopoly of Mediocrity in Education.” The tour will focus on the various methods of education reform, business community involvement and engaging the community to become catalyst for change in education and workforce development. Most recently, this tour has visited cities such as Memphis, Indiana, and Phoenix to name a few.
Day one consists of a screening of the movie “Won’t Back Down” featuring Academy Award Nominee, Viola Davis (The Help), immediately followed by a networking reception and opportunity to discuss the education reform issues addressed in the film.
Day two features a panel discussion comprised of area business and education leaders sharing ideas regarding education reform and how best to align the workforce needs of industry with K-12 , post-secondary, and higher education. Topics to be discussed include, The Importance of Pre-K and Early Childhood Education, and How to Achieve a Ready to Work and Engaged Workforce.
Registration for this event is free and due to limited seating we encourage you to register before the event. For a complete listing of panel participants please view the attached agenda; to register click on the link below. Also, included in your “free” registration on Thursday, January 24th are popcorn, drinks, and hors d’ oeuvres and breakfast and lunch are included on Friday, January 25th. Thanks and we look forward to seeing you next week.
Jem Muldoon has decided that it is time to speak and act. It is time to do what is right, not what is expedient. She wrote to tell me she has become an activist for education and will not follow orders that conflict with her knowledge and ethics. Hem is trying to find meaning and purpose at a time when public policy requires educators to do what they know is wrong.
She says, we are the ones we have been waiting for.
So she started a blog.
Here she explains how computer adaptive testing conflicts with genuine learning and is not even good testing. The kids quickly figure out how to game the system and turn it into a test of their ability to outwit the program. And here is no feedback about what they need to know.
Ah, those private companies sure know how to do it right, don’t they?
In New York City, the city’s biggest provider of tutoring services is under investigation for inflated bills and other little financial issues. Since 2006, the company has collected $87 million from the city.
The tutoring company was founded in 2005 by a 22-year-old college graduate. The firm has been investigated and sanctioned for previous financial misbehavior but the city Department of Education, controlled by Mayor Bloomberg, awarded it a new contract last November. The City Comptroller refuses to honor the contract.
David Lentini writes, after reading Dr. Martin Luther King’s words on the purpose of education:
Thank you and your reader, Diane, for sharing these quotes. I’ve often complained that the most critical element in our debates and arguments over education policy–the very definition of “education”–has been ignored almost completely. Instead we seem to treat education as something that teachers “do”. And we seem to treat what teachers “do” as a matter of technique, not substance. So, for modern Americans the meaning of “education” has degenerated into a pointless argument over pedagogy.
I call these pedagogical arguments pointless precisely because we won’t discuss what we want an educated American to look like. Sadly, most people I’ve talked to about this issue get stuck on such simplistic slogans as “job-ready” or “college-ready”, as if they have any idea what those terms mean. I’ve rarely heard anyone mention education in terms of preparing ourselves to participate in a democracy or have a good chance of living a full and happy life. Perhaps that’s not surprising, since most Americans historically have rejected education in favor of received wisdom.
Dr. King’s vision of education is soundly in the Western tradition of inquiry and discussion. His words echo the arguments of the classic thinkers and the original humanists of the Renaissance, and his fears can be found in the speeches of educators like Robert M. Hutchins and Mortimer Adler, and other social critics like Christopher Lasch, Erich Fromm, and more recently Chris Hedges. We should use their works as a guide to build a curriculum for a modern democracy. Only then can we debate the most efficient means for education.
In today’s post, EduShyster travels to Minneapolis to explain how one very young man, after a brief stint in Teach for America, managed to buy a school board seat.
Teach for America, as explained in earlier posts, managed to collect nearly $1 billion in contributions, gifts, and grants in a five year period. It is a good gig.
EduShyster says that it is very effective to buy school board seats.
She contrasts this strategy to the failed attempt to buy the entire Bridgeport, Ct., school board.
The victory in Minneapolis cost only $37,000.
The loss in Bridgeport cost the corporate reformers over half a million.
You can see where this is leading.
There are a number of people who say they are promoting “the civil rights issue of our time” even as they advocate for schools that just happen to be segregated and that have no unions to represent their employees.
Jonathan Pelto reminds us what Martin Luther King Jr. said and did by providing the audio and video clips of his final days.
He died helping black sanitation workers in Memphis organize a union.
Please take the time to watch and listen.
And if you are a teacher, show it to your students and call it “informational text” so it relates to the Common Core.
Reader Mike Dixon commented on a post about Martin Luther King Jr.‘s definition of the purpose of education:
A cynical person might suspect that corporate education reform is intended to promote exactly what MLK warned about.
Thanks to a reader of the blog for sharing this statement by Dr. King on a matter of concern to us all.
Here is a portion:
“We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.”
And this:
“We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living.
“If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, brethren! Be careful, teachers!”
EduShyster tries to imagine how Martin Luther King, Jr., would react to today’s corporate reform movement in education.
Would he agree with the corporate reformers that poverty is an excuse for bad teachers?
Would he agree that segregation doesn’t matter?
Would he agree that unions are an obstacle to high achievement?
Would he demand privatization as the way to close the achievement gap?
Would he throw in his lot with hedge fund managers and billionaires?
See how EduShyster answers those questions.
Diane Ravitch's blog 