Paul Horton, a history teacher at the University of Chicago Lab School, wrote the following open letter to President Obama:
July 12, 2013
Dear Mr. President,
I am very concerned about how you decided to go the way that you did with your Education policies. I was recently told by a close friend of the yours that “Arne’s Team looked at all of the options” and decided to go with its current policies because they would get us where we needed to go more quickly than any other set of alternatives.” I was also told, “that not everybody could be in the room.”
The problem was that you did not listen to experience. The blueprint for Arne’s plan for stimulus investment that morphed into the Race to the Top Mandates featured advisers from the Gates and Broad Foundations, analysts from McKinsey consulting, and a couple of dozen superintendents who were connected, like Mr. Duncan, to the Broad Foundation. Most of those who were invited to advise you were committed supporters of heavy private investment in Education who favored high stakes testing tied to teacher evaluations. Most of these advisers also favored the scaling up of measurable data collection as a way to measure progress or lack of progress in American Education.
If you had listened to the leading experts on standardized testing and the achievement gap, you would have learned that your policies were and are bound to fail. Our former colleague here at the U of C, Professor Coleman, was the first to establish this empirically. You should also learn about Campbell’s Law.
On a more personal level, Mr. President, you consulted many of your contacts in Democrats for Education Reform, an organization funded mostly by Democratic leaning Wall Street investment firms. And you were also very impressed by the ideas and passion of a Denver charter school principal and Democratic activist, Michael Johnston.
Michael Johnston has good potential as a politician, but he is not a qualified adviser to the President on Education matters. His record in Education is manufactured to look good. Over forty percent of his miracle Denver charter school class that graduated 100% dropped out before their senior year. This is an advantage that most charter schools have over public schools. Teach For America, where Johnston cut his teeth, typically has a very narrow and skewed view of American Education. State senator Johnston’s efforts on behalf of immigrants and redistribution of education funding are admirable. But many of us have been fighting this battle for decades. Johnston has had every advantage, and he his heart is certainly in the right place..
Many thousands of us have been fighting this battle for thirty and forty years and we remain relatively poor, isolated from the centers of power where big bucks are easy to acquire. Many of us have devoted our entire lives to helping minority students, yet we are treated very badly by this administration.
Thousands of teachers possess the experience, training, and commitment to advise you on Education matters. But you choose to listen to those who went to places like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford who have two years of classroom experience. Commitment, I submit, is a very important word.
The true measure of one’s commitment to Education is one’s willingness to sacrifice one’s will to power and economic potential to be successful in the classroom. TFA kids who go back to grad school after two years in the classroom and buy into corporate education reform are embracing their will to power. Most of these kids tend to have every advantage to begin with, they get an Ivy League education, and they are ambitious young liberals. Rather than staying in the classroom and truly making a difference by developing their teaching skills over twenty or thirty years, can achieve administrative positions in the charter world that have far more economic potential than teaching positions by buying into the mantra of data-driven corporate reform lingo.
You have left thousands of us behind and allowed inexperience access to take charge. You and your administration have encouraged a “Cultural Revolution” in American education. You promoted your basketball buddy and very close friend of your campaign finance manager to be Secretary of Education. From where I stand, Karen Duncan would have been a much better choice for Education Secretary because she has much more experience working with kids in a school setting than her husband. She knows what makes a great teacher from personal experience as an exemplary teacher. She is also much smarter and much funnier than her husband.
Your policies represent a new elitism. You seem to think that: “if we can get these really smart Ivy League educated former TFA people in senior policy, superintendent, and administrative positions, then we can turn this whole thing around.”
This idea is arrogant beyond belief, the equivalent of the “best and the brightest” idea that drove us into the ground in Vietnam, only you have decided to do it in Education. Robert McNamara was brilliant, he had an analytical razor, but he lacked a moral compass and anything resembling empathy for the lives of those who were dying in a “winnable” war. Mr. Duncan has a great deal of empathy, but he his policies are misguided. Indeed, in my humble opinion, his department’s policies are an inarticulate mess. If he were ever asked the right questions under oath in senator Harkin’s committee, we could very well discover that his use of the authority of his office overstepped the legal parameters of the laws circumscribing federal involvement in the formulation of Education policy. Ms. Weiss and Mr. Sheldon III, two of Secretary Duncan’s advisors who worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation prior to serving under Secretary Duncan, articulated what Mr. Gates wanted on his terms in exchange for tacit support for your campaigns. Several Wall Street investing firms also made it clear to you and to Mr. Emanuel that they were willing to support you if your Education policies encouraged private investment in charter schools.
You have bought into a corporate model of Education Reform: you seek to create competition among public and private schools, you encourage the “creative destruction” that your University of Chicago Business School buddies and Judge Posner love, and you seem to be gung-ho about selling off the public commons of American Education that were built with the sweat and blood of American farmers and workers. Do your policies work for young people who need stability in their lives? Creative destruction might benefit some kids (I was a military brat), but it probably does not benefit most.
Your Education policies embrace the management tactics of McKinsey Consulting that call for the firing of twenty to twenty-five percent of the teacher workforce every two years. You have said that Education should not “all be about bubble tests,” but your policies measure progress by bubble tests and they narrow the curriculum when they require standardized testing in some subjects, but not in others.
You campaigned on doing something about income inequality, but you and many of the mayors that you support are actively working to destroy what is left of the American middle class. Your Education policies work actively to destroy teacher unions. Many of your mayors and governors are working to bust teacher, hospital, public employee, firemen’s, and police unions.
What has happened to the Democratic Party when a foundational element of your education policy is to frequently vilify hundreds of thousands of effective and excellent teachers who have committed their lives to the classroom? You listen to people who are very smart and they seem to know it all. They are very polished presenters of themselves. Your policies favor this new class of ambitious young people who lack the commitment to kids to make a real difference where it is needed—in the classroom.
The question that all of you need to take a closer look at is how do we get and keep candidates who would be brilliant in any career into the classroom?
How do you increase the size of the quality teaching pool? The answers are there, and they don’t have anything to do with charter schools.
If Mr. Gates were really serious about Education in this country, he could invest in creating a system like Finland’s. The problem is that he is more interested in selling product than investing in four well qualified and well trained teachers in every classroom.
Progress in Education is not about buildings, it is not about technology: It is about human investment, not the expansion of markets.
President Obama, I have great respect for you. I have taught many of the young people who work for you. Ask your chef what a hard ass teacher I was. Please find the time to talk to committed teachers who have given their entire professional careers to improving Education in this country. This would require you to step outside of your comfort zone inside of Democrats for Education Reform and Teach for America circles. It will also require you to look beyond the mess that Ms. Weiss, Mr. Sheldon III, and Bill Gates have helped to create. It will require you to talk to Karen Duncan about teaching and schools rather than to Arne Duncan.
Please encourage senator Durbin and his committee to completely defund No Child Left Behind. Do you prefer to fund Pearson Education or allow thousands of teachers to be laid off? This is what it is coming down to. Will you allow the middle class to be further eroded? Or will you fight for the jobs of teachers? Will you reward Wall Street investors in Education and Bill Gates, or are you willing to fight for neighborhood schools and arts and humanities programs? Will you use Value Added Measures tied to standardized testing to further discredit teachers? Or will you begin to understand how complex real learning is, learning that can not be measured by “bubble tests.” These are your choices, Mr. President. Please look beyond your current Education advisors if you want to explore complex questions and solutions.
I would welcome the opportunity to discuss these and other issues with you.
All best,
Paul Horton
History Instructor
University High School
The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools
Diane’s correction:
A reader in Colorado sent the following correction to the above:
“Michael Johnston worked for a public school in CO: MESA Mapleton expeditionary school of the arts. Not a charter. Gary Rubinstein points out that Johnston s claim to fame–100% grads accepted to 4 year college —is a bit disingenuous. 77 10th graders morphed to 44 grads.”
Sad to think that if it weren’t for DFER and their ilk, we might have had Linda Darling-Hammond as Sec. of Ed.
Thank you for this amazing letter.
I hate to say it, but it will get worse and the system will implode before they even start listening. This will have to blow up in their faces and be directly tied to their policies for them to stop. It is starting but we will need a revolution of many in many cities.
Now….Obama, Arne and the rest could care less what teachers, parents or students think.
An excellent letter…great points…however it’s on deaf ears…Obama only listens to his
Chicago thug cronies —Rahm Emanuel & Arne Duncan— not to those with educational credentials
and in the “know.” Money is their “god” and like the writer above me, the DC elitists could care less about what teachers, parents and students think…
Education has become a money making free enterprise entity fueled by those wealthy billionaires (Gates, Bloomberg, Rupert Murdoch-the Brit who is guilty of ph call wiretapping) who want to extend their financial
bank accounts and not expand the minds& achievements of public school children with the same opportunities their own children have in schools.
A must read:
Chicago School Closings And The Joyce Foundation: The Obama Connection
http://www.mintpressnews.com/a-closer-look-at-the-joyce-foundation-shows-obamas-ties-to-chicago-school-privatizations/164972/
Thanks for the link. One person replied how incestuous is the whole mess of connections between the corporate/political players. Sickening.
I wrote a letter myself today ~
Dear Newman’s Own Foundation,
I was unpleasantly surprised when I saw that Newman’s Own is a supporter of Excel Bridgeport, an organization dedicated to taking down the existing public school system and replace it with charters.
Charter schools have never shown any superiority to public school education, with either test scores, teacher support or overall student achievement. I just recently purchased a Newman’s product, intending to compare your vodka tomato sauce to Rao’s. Unfortunately, there will be no reason to have a taste test because I I will no longer be purchasing your products.
I’m sure Paul would agree.
Sincerely,
Sue
http://www.excelbridgeport.org/about-excel/our-team/
Good letter, and it is important to point out that Newman’s Own, like everyone else, is confused by the fallacy of “accountability.”
Schools are “failing” because everyone is spinning their wheels to show that the scores are good, but we keep using the wrong instrument to measure the clientele. Years and years of trying to meet mandates, and align and compare standardized testing with other states, has sucked the life out of the system, and ensured its complete destruction to facilitate the takeover.
Let teachers assess a child in September, teach them readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmatic, and assess at the end. Stop with the craziness.
NCLB didn’t work. CCSS won’t work. This whole movement is intended to bring back a new form of bondage – institutionalized ignorance.
And, next et.al.–let everyone NOT forget that these “tests” (and, “standardized,” to boot)–are faulty, filled with errors, NOT “standardized”–neither valid nor reliable–are erroneously scored, be it by computers or humans, and, bottom line, should in NO way be taken as a measure of ANYTHING at all (except as a way to determine the totaled waste taxpayers’ money that SHOULD be going DIRECTLY to students in our public schools).
Paul, this is the most poignant and powerful statements addresses to the President that I have read. I a proud to be a teacher-colleague of yours. And I volunteer to be on that new experienced panel of advisors.
What a courageous and right on the money message Paul Horton gave the President.
He was respectful to reach out to the President beyond the people who are the President’s advisors and his guide posts. Mr. Horton made clear that he believes the President has been misguided and misdirected and that the result of that is the opposite of what President Obama tells the American People. He believes in the President (and by the strong but polite way in which he presented his argument and offered his help he is a supporter of this same President), but all leaders are dependent on the people around them. However, he reminds him that is no excuse for denial and going along with an agenda (set outside of himself) that could mar his legacy forever. To say that this country spawned a strong and supportive Middle Class is an understatement. They have paid the bill and lived up to their promise moving this country in a forward and healthy direction. The poor, working poor,disenfranchised, and immigrants have paid this bill in their backs and their sweat. The wealthy have contributed to the growth and creativity of this bill. None of the above own this country or the citizens or the government. Nor should they ever. But some seem to have the arrogance to think so.
Where this all changed the historians will write the books and reveal the truth. President Obama did promise Change and change is what we are getting. He did not say what that change would be and may not have even known himself. But he does by this time and if he has looked and read outside of what he is given, he could redirect for the sake of the country and most especially the children he says he and Michelle are so very concerned about. When I listen to this President speak I sense his frustration and his concern that much of this is outside of his power or his direction. That he is telling us in coded messages to push back where needed and necessary. Looks like the Senate and the states-persons of the Senate have finally figured it out and are working hard to fine some balance and truth in all of this. Ike sent a coded message when he warned the Public about the Military Defense Complex. Read between the lines and follow the money!
Courage to step outside of the script and courage to open ones eyes and really see the betrayal and the betrayers. Does Duncan think he is anything but a patriot? Probably not, but he can’t be all that comfortable these days as the educated and those that want an education push back the current agenda of exclusion, not inclusion. It is not too late to return to balance and restore Public Education in which we as a country have found our leaders, workers, our very humanity. There is room for other options but it is not allowable to create an education system that wants ownership of our public coffers and our children’s minds. President Obama please, take seriously Paul Horton’s message as it opens a door for you and us.
ronee, I’m a bit surprised at some of your statements–especially since you are a friend of George Buzzetti’s (the man who can show us the complicity of Arne Duncan). For many of us–may I be so bold as to assume most of us–who participate in this dialogue, our respect for Obama fell into a downward spiral when he didn’t put on his “walking shoes” (which he had pledged to do) and head on up to Madison, WI. Perhaps the final straw in the camel’s back occurred when–for the SECOND year in a row (I think–please correct me if I’m wrong about that)–National Teacher’s Day became–National Charter School Day! Did that change take place during the Bush Administration? (I’m no supporter of Bush, BTW, so this is not to defend anything he’d done in his part to destroy
public ed.). I’m in agreement with you that this is, indeed, a courageous and spot-on message, but, as every other one, it will fall on deaf ears and–much worse– an uncaring heart. Unlike you, I hear no “coded” messages, I see no such frustration nor caring and concern. Sorry.
That having been said, we can help ourselves, just as they’ve done in LA, with the school board elections, in Indiana, with the election of Glenda Ritz, and elsewhere, where citizens such as ourselves
have elected officials who can make the difference. THIS is what WE can do–what we MUST do–in our own communities, spread all over the country. Change? WE have to make it happen. Not the “Yes we CAN” of the Obama campaign (unless one is applying it to the 1%ers!), but our very own, “Yes, WE can!”
The emphasis being on the “WE” part.
And–make no mistake–yes, WE WILL!
Dear Retired,
You are so right about my belief in the work of George Buzzetti and his ability to crunch the numbers and reveal the truth. He was the first advocate to bring the Parent Trigger to this blog and to others. His work is undeniably making a difference and in a public way. However, you have no idea how others may work in the shadows and that prejudging is always a mistake. Your passion is commendable but it can lead you to assume and that is flawed.
I also see that you did get the message of Change and at the heart of it the “Yes, WE can! Remembering that it applies to any WE who embraces the belief that things can change or be different or need improvement. It could be a different vision. When you say “And-make no mistake-yes, WE WILL!” I hope you are right.
The difference between us is style. The problem of shouting is that after a while you aren’t heard. Paul Horton is a voice for positive diplomacy with the hope it will reach the President.
He tried through the same channels the President must work.
Further, I don’t believe in total negativity or the exclusion of opinion.
Presumedly we are in agreement on matters of the reality of these times, but not in the your either with me or if you step outside my conclusion you are against me mentality. That is not how you win wars or hearts. Make no mistake, I do think this is a war for a correction to the wrong path I believe this administration has taken with regard to education and other issues. However, these are the people to send the message to and in many creative ways.
We can agree to disagree and I will step out on this and believe you can as well. After all WE are in this together for the sake of the children you miss and the children and their families I am working with each day.
Ronee
“Let us pick up our books and our pens,”“They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution.” -Malala
“I admire Malala’s integrity greatly and understand that she in her personal life makes a very strong argument that every society “ought” to provide education for all. Her luminous example is as persuasive as anything I know of the value of good, universally accessible public education.” -quote from a Conservative in a very Liberal Blog
All in agreement no matter what side of the isle!!!
Your letter was excellent. I am happy that you mentioned Finland and its educational system. I just returned from Finland where I met with educators, families, and children. In Finland, the teachers, who are “in for the long haul”. are respected and have master’s degrees, the educational focus is on learning, not testing or competition, and the system does have to deal with brutal poverty as we do. We pretend that brutal poverty does not exist.
Instead of the current influences, why didn’t President Obama seek the wisdom of Linda Darling-Hammond, Gene Glass, Dick Allington, and David Berliner–or any teacher who has had a career committed to students.
Almost 20 years ago, Dr. Berliner wrote about the manufactured crises. It is a crises that provided a foundation for the attack on the schools which is now destroying them–not just K-12s, but if the Gates Foundation has its way, also higher education.
Bravo!!
“. . . how do we get and keep candidates who would be brilliant in any career into the classroom?”
An elitist thought if I’ve ever seen one, an attitude that shows no real understanding of the many jobs/careers and what it takes to be “brilliant” in them.. It certainly does not follow that if “one would be brilliant in any career” that he/she would be brilliant as a teacher. Number one because there is no such thing as anyone capable of being “brilliant in any career”. Being able to be a teacher for the long haul (over at least ten years to become expert) takes a certain set of skills that many other occupations do not demand.
Paul, you have demeaned the true expert professional teachers and given aide and comfort to the enemies of public education with that statement.
Dont be short sighted and pick on one phrase. By the way I’d like to think that I could be brilliant in any other field I chose to go into after teaching. What’s wrong with that? Can’t brilliant teachers be brilliant? Or are you back dooming…Those who can do, those who cant teach?
David,
You may “like to think” that but it doesn’t mean you would be “brilliant” in any career. That is a very hubristic thought.
As one who worked a number of different jobs/positions in very different industries/sectors of the non-educational world before teaching (and who excelled in some where others had previously failed and failed in others where others excelled) I can assure you that teaching takes a lot of the same and many more different skills than customer service, sales, inventory control, materials management and/or being a master upholsterer. Teaching is by far a lot more complex than most other positions, even though the good ones make it look easy.
And no, my statement was not meant as a “backdoor” cut at teachers, quite the opposite. I contend that very few can really be “brilliant” teachers and that the vast majority of the teachers are at least decent to excellent (even if they lack the spine to stand up to the edudeformers and they choose to “go along to get along”).
But even the concepts of brilliant, excellent, decent, and/or poor as descriptors leave a lot to be desired for their lack of cogent definition in practice.
Duane
Doo-ane!
“Teaching is by far a lot more complex than most other positions, even though the good ones make it look easy.”
I agree. I worked in private sector for 7 years in a wonderful architecture firm in NY. My undergraduate degree is in architecture. The business world is fraught with difficulties and horrible politics like any other occupation.
But teaching is far more complex and complicated because these entities known as “children” are so varied, so diverse, so subject to volatility and variation, and so, well, human.
Dealing with contractors, renovations in banks, ADA installations, and snooty multiple personality face lifted clients who were building 2 million dollar homes was a piece of cake compared to effectively teaching young people at risk and of low income.
Teaching is probably the most complex endeavor, right up there and next to parenting . . . .
Duane Swacker,
Does one part of a whole invalidate the whole, especially when tha part is subject to interpretation to some extent?
I thought the gist of the letter was not bad . . . . I say this knowing full well that I, an effective educator, stand to lose my job within another year simply because of standardized test scores from my kindergarten ESL students. My formal and informal observations (60% of the new APPR evaluation) had sterling scores. My local assessments (20%) exceeded the legal goal set forth and required by the school, so I met that requirement as well. I have an excellent track record with my students, parents, administrators on all levels, and my fellow teachers. I teach a low income ELL population.
The standardized tests, according to NY State’s formulas, still have more “weight” in the scoring process and although they account for only 20% of my overall evaluation (used to determine this veteran NBCT’s employability), they can LITERALLY lower the overall evaluation (if too many children get too low a score on their kindergarten standardized test!) and render me as “ineffective” or “developing”, two red flag zones teachers can be fired for “incompetency” after two such years in a row. Althought the letter of the law states that such a status gives the school district the OPTION to fire a teacher, the state is suing a district in Buffalo, New York, for not mandating such a “guaranteed” firing, citing the district’s “lack of good faith” when complying with the spirit of RTTT. The law gives the discretion to the district; the state seeks to take this discretion away and mandate an automatic firing after two years in a row of bad teacher ratings as defined by RTTT. The first court found in favor of the teachers, citing the letter of the law and that the state’s objectives were “too numerous” and contradictory under the law. The state is, of course, appealing this decision, and the outcome, I believe, has not been determined.
Oy, gevalt!
This is the dysfunction I face in my state and my profession, but I still felt oddly empowered by the letter. That was my point. There are no guarantees.
I’d like to know more of where you were coming from in your response to your letter. I seek to understand your mindset more because I respect it.
Is it me? Is it you?
Robert,
I hope my reply above clarifies my point. Yes, overall the letter is fine and no doubt it will fall on deaf ears (even if he gets a response).
It’s just that I find that the concept of criticizing “the best and the brightest” and then wanting to recruit “the [supposedly] best and the brightest” into the teaching profession seems ingenuous to me. And that’s how I took the “brilliant” statement.
It’s taken me many years to realize that every “job” has its perks and problems, that no one person is more “brilliant” than any other in another position. Each person and position requires certain skill sets, attitudes, tolerance of the mundane, etc. . . , for society to function. At the same time those who lay claim to brilliance perhaps need to put some “backward” sunglasses on so that they may see better (myself included at times-ha ha-as my mom, RIP, used to warn me of “being too full of myself”).
Duane
P.S. The edudeformers will drive out many a decent and good teacher with that insane evaluation system. Boy, am I glad I don’t teach in NY, although it is coming to the Show Me State too soon (I’ve been trying to get people to understand that fact and most won’t/don’ want to hear it-this year could get ugly).
Duane,
It makes sense, all that you’re saying. “Brilliant” is subjective and emotional and has more of a role in critiquing a movie than assessing teachers. . . . Point well taken.
Thank you. I agree!
Duane–
Lighten up, Francis. This letter is certainly on the right track and all he meant by the sentence that disgusts you is to meet the rationale for reformers and TFA where they are. Sometimes you gotta speak the others’ language to get ‘me to listen.
It has been en vogue to bash public school and teachers (showing that somehow one’s child needs more, or something like that) for quite a while.
Be careful of the stereotypes and not live up to them. This letter is a start. Sometimes you have to start with baby steps to prevent escalation.
OK blog friend?
‘Em not ‘me
Dang it, Joanna, you sent me on a goose chase with that line. Never heard of Puscifer or the song. Didn’t thrill me, but then again, I’ve never been a fan of that genre, whatever it is. (Shows my knowledge of modern rock)
Hopefully you can see through my other replies just what I was getting at: That not everyone can do everything “excellently”. Which is what the edudeformers think that teachers should be able to do all the time. And tis a joke that thought if it did not have such horrible consequences (see Robert’s situation) attached to it.
Duane and Joanna, part of the hilarious and horrific consequences of being “brilliant” is that I was chosen this year by the Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent of a $106 million-dollar-a-year budgeted school district to MENTOR other teachers through a special technological program known as “Avatar” and that uses the Danielson framework as a basis. I participated in the training for a whole year this past school year, and we are supposed to mentor late this summer and throughout the new school year as originally planned. Only NBCT were chosen to participate.
All was funded through a grant. My district proudly partnered with Pace Univseristy in New York, and the professors there, former teachers/superintendents in public schools, were unbelieveably erudite, compassionate, and, forgive the word, brilliant, for lack of a better word.
I believe this program to be a very noble and even potentially effective endeavor to develop pedagogy. The footage of my teaching under this program is being showcased to policy makers, teachers, and officials from China. In fact, the sessions were chosen over the taped session modeled by one of the professors of the program because my lesson was considered to be more in depth and interesting. The topic was “Drones” and presented to 7th graders.
But in the same breath, it will be ironic if I receive an unfavorable rating based on all of this junk science and am at the same time slated to mentor new teachers and weak teachers (I have been teaching for 19 years) . . .
This is the new fascism we have to contend with not from the district but from the state and federal governments.
If I lose my job, I lose my job, depsite a track record of achievement from my students as measured in various ways.
I will always be invilved with education no matter what happnes, both as an educator and as an activist, but it is grass roots stories like these that prove the utter economic and cognitive fascism through the devil in the details. . . .
This will be a long protracted fight, but one for generations to come always worth fighting for.
Duane–
Not a song. I’ve moved on to movie lines.
Duane Swacker, David Greene, Robert Rendo and Joanna Best: your exchange of comments and civil retorts is, IMHO, an example of how effective teaching and learning play out in the Real World, not RheealWorld.
It proceeds in fits and starts, clarifies here and obfuscates there, calms the nerves at one moment and raises hackles at another, with the potential of leaving the participants and onlookers grateful for new understandings or throwing their hands up in disgust.
I think y’all began at the point where finding a common reference, well, George Bernard Shaw [or maybe Mark Twain; google please] points us in the right direction: “England and America are two countries separated by a common language.”
School staffs and students and parents and communities aren’t widgets. Many times the same terms describe very different things. Working out the dynamics of finding a common language in the classroom—every classroom, everyday—is part of what makes teaching difficult and challenging and rewarding and not for the faint-of-heart.
From my POV, “All’s well that ends well.” [Shakespeare]
A tip of the TA hat to all of you.
Although in the interests of those who may have been numbed by the Common Bore Suspended-Animation-State Standards, I provide a brief English-to-English translation:
A dangerous journey or perilous undertaking is justified as long as it all works out in the end.
Thank you all making the end worth waiting for.
🙂
Krazy TA,
Thank you for the solidarity. … looking forward to your posts.
It was not my intention to demean anybody. The statement is not intended to exclude anyone and is meant to suggest that all of my current colleagues could be successful in any career. I am sorry that I did not make this any clearer.
Duane, I hope you see this reply to your 10:01 (late to the party,here), but having read this comment & the rebuttals of same from those below, may I seize on Paul’s statement with a paraphrase–How do we get and keep candidates who would be brilliant (and ethical and altruistic) run for public office?
Please note: This is a companion piece to my 6:44 PM response to ronee!) Elections of the right people (such as Elizabeth Warren, Alan Grayson, Patty Murphy and last, but CERTAINLY not least, Wendy Davis) is necessary for the change WE need to occur.
This is an excellent letter. Unfortunately, it will fall onto deaf ears. The president has no use for those of a “lower station” than him, and that is what he considers everybody else that is not part of the elitist groups in DC.
Obama is not going to listen to those “in the trenches.” He is listening to the likes of Bill Gates, Ruport Murdoch, and the worldwide textbook giant Pearson. Bill Gates gave over $150 million in grants to various groups, corporations, and left-leaning think tanks, $150 million can buy a lot of good will, loyalty, and education “reform.”
A question to ask yourself is this…What does Bill Gates know about public education. He sends his kids to a private school where they have all the trappings and fixings to get an above average education. The president sends his girls to a private school as well where they have all the trappings and fixings to get an above average education. Where does that leave the rest of us?
Again, kudos to Paul Horton, I hope he lets us know if he gets a reply or not.
excuse the typo. “Back Dooring.” darn auto spell.
I’m of two minds about which ‘Chicago friends’ Barry may listen to now. There are the “before Valerie” friends and the “after Valerie” friends. But this letter can’t hurt any. The real trick would be to get a one of the O girls’ present teacher at Sidwell Friends to write about what the O girls get in Northwest versus a similar pair of African American girls get in Southeast.
While Obama was duplicitous about many things when campaigning in 2008 – Guantanamo, government transparency, support for Labor, etc. – he never hid the fact that he is a true believer in charter schools.
Unfortunately, progressives and supporters of public education got so caught up in projecting their own desires on to him – something he himself has written about, and that he and his handlers skillfully manipulate – that it was ignored. And, needless to say, the alternative was no better.
If public education is be saved, those who would save it must first recognize that they are basically political orphans: there are few elected officials, in either party, whom we can trust, are unambiguously on our side, and in a position to do much.
Appealing to the Barack Obama’s of the world to do the right thing is a waste of time. His cynicism and duplicity are off the charts, as is that of the political class he represents.
Our daunting job is to change the terms of debate – something this and other blogs are effectively doing – and then mobilize the power of teachers, parents and students first to stop this Death Train, and then to enable true support and reform of the public schools.
We mustn’t delude ourselves into thinking that any politician or political party -or sadly, even our unions- is going to do this unless forced. Only by resisting in every possible way, on every possible front, can we hope to eventually rebuild a political infrastructure that supports the public schools.
Yes!!!
I think the education issue will be a big part of the next set of elections.
It has to be.
It might fall on deaf ears now but surely those with eyes on future elected offices will take the pulse of these political orphans (we political orphans). Votes are votes.
Or us, I guess it would be following a preposition.
🙂
It’s a beautiful letter. I hope the president and his secretary of education listen to it and digest it.
Obama’s track record shows that he has as much of a corporate bent as any other politician. He is no progressive.
But let’s see what happens . . . . It does no harm to have written and sent the letter and make it more public on this blog.
This says it all and so well. Why aren’t you in Mr. Duncan’s place?
Ronee Groff
Please look at the bigger picture, as Obama’s education policy is part of a very destructive and larger whole. This will provide precision clarity with which to define who Obama truly is.
1. The appointment of billionaire friend Penny Pritzker to the post of Secretary of Commerce says it all right there in a nutshell. Please check this out
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/penny_pritzker_barack_obamas_fairy_godmother_20130504/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/19/1210299/-Penny-Pritzker-as-an-example-of-the-criminality-of-our-elites#
http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/05/02/obama-nominating-major-campaign-contributor-penny-pritzker-to-commerce-secretary/
Let’s not forget the $35 million home Pritzker is contributing to and raising money for the Obamas in Hawaii. This residence is for the end of this term, when Obama has stepped down from wiping the floor with the middle class.
2. The grand bargain, Obama’s consistent insistence to revisit the chained cpi. Obama continues to press for cuts to Social Security. Refer to statement made in 2008, while campaigning, that all earned income will be subject to the social security tax to compare with his stance now.
3. Prosecuted more whistleblowers than all previous presidents combined. Broken international laws in zealous pursuit of Edward Snowden.
4. Obamacare, written by and for the insurance companies.
5. Common Core Stsndards mandated curriculum along with rampant testing create a new huge market for programs aligned with CCSS, assessments, bubble sheets, computers etc. This market was created to funnel public funds into corporate pockets. New York City Department of Education paid McGraw Hill 9.6 Billion $ to collect, scan, and post online the state regents this June, to be marked by anonymous teachers. This was a fiasco, yet the money still went to the CEO of McGraw Hill.
The list is too long to cite here.
The president is part of the neo-liberal crowd:
Speaking out of one side of their mouth for the little guy, their nominal constituency, and the other for the plutocracy, their real constituency.
The goal Ronee is to make our country a low wage nation. The defer education policies are one step along that route.
Unfortunately, the American public appears to be pretty much asleep while this is happening,
Dear Madame,
There is nothing you have written that I disagree with. On the other hand I refuse to close a door where someone else is hopeful and reaching out to a slim to none chance to be heard, as Paul Horton has done. You never know what eyes his words will reach or his thoughts conveyed to. When you are this far down the road anything is worth a try.
I have been screaming warnings for forty years and only now do I see a little light. It may well be the last throws of a desperate public but at least some are waking up and some trying. That is what this blog is about. I believe your sincerity and your information as both seem credible and sadly accurate. Yet, I am still happy to see an attempt by someone to make a difference. If nothing else it brightens my day.
Ronee
Dear Ronee,
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I would like to see the glimmer of light that you are seeing as our democracy erodes further each minute.
Please tell us what you see!
Dear Madame,
On the big picture I think I see what you are fearful of and have concern that a revolution may insue. It could happen out of the one last straw theory. Sparks are flying all around us as this blog is being read and some bloggers are writing. Everything from the Urban Shrinkage plan which pushes people out and throws some away. To the obvious pushing back on woman’s issues and rights. The energy and environment neglect and redistribution of global commodities and wealth. The dismantling and retooling and reshaping of systems. The escalation of culture wars. So forth and so on. Everything you mentioned and all that we don’t know. Of course, it is always what we don’t know that matters.
However, wherever things land and however they turn out, and until the robotic age reaches a point where humans are fighting with their own creation, we are still seeing a possible creative surge towards a fear induced nutralizing effort towards Peace and maybe prosperity.
When I say prosperity I mean needs met not wants. A global redistribution of wealth that takes what we have experienced as a kind of utopia to a balanced living environment for greater populations.
Of course, there is then the problem of over population, water and food deficits, environmental changes surging over sea and land. We are resilient and could move out to space or under the sea for survival or we could perish. The strong minds and bodies will survive and others won’t do as well. That is nature, that is life, that is reality. Bleak? Maybe. Hope? Maybe. I believe in the spark that ignites the creative juices of those that light the way. It will always exist, somehow and someway. For the sake of the children and my belief in the children.
Right on comment. I don’t trust Obama.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
Erm … this problem with charter and private schools isn’t about one party or the other. Take a look at what Ohio’s “Governor” Kasich has signed into law here … and the history of how we got where we are …The evolution of the charter school has been on a rapid course, behind the scenes, and is breaking down communities.
http://m.timesreporter.com/timesrep/db_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=mIstboGF&full=true#display
I agree, Deb. The problem is–who are the REAL (blue) Democrats?
Insofar as I can see, I would simply call many aforementioned Demoncrats (along with, you know, the villanthropists). Rather than pontificate even more, here, a good list (of REAL blues) to start:
Elizabeth Warren, Patty Murray. Alan Grayson, Russ Feingold (&, of course, the Wisconsin “Runaways!”), Wendy Davis.
More like them!
Great letter. However the deadly and inescapable fact for us teachers is that urban schools DO seem terrible; it seems there MUST be a fix; the teachers thus far have not provided it; ergo, why pay attention to the teachers? KIPP, TFA and other new players seem to have a fix; ergo, support them. I think this is the logic running through the heads of Duncan, Gates and Obama. For Obama, this is about as deep as he’s likely to go: he has Snowden, Syria, and a few other things to think about.
Michael Johnston has ANY virtuous motives? What a crock! His heart is “in the right place…” Just ask the teachers of DPS about that false attribute! I admire the thoughtful letter to the President, but it is based on beliefs that from the White House down, the problem is just good folks doing bad things due to innocent ignorance. Were it only the case, “educating Obama, Duncan and all his corporate cronies would solve the deepening mess of public education. Their collective actions are done IN SPITE of the avalanche of facts that decry their policies. Its ALL about corporate take overs that are shredding employee rights and incomes. BOTH parties are committed to the ultimate agendas.
We need to take a strong dose of reality. Strip away all the pseudo goals that are mere window dressing for ultimate gpals that are far from the hype they are sold with. It might not be “PC” but it will be the truths that can free us from the grip of ravenous corporates who are about as interested in advancing education or the middle class as a wolf is advancing rights for chickens!
Wolves advancing on the chickens will pause after reading Mr. Horton’s hard ass letter. They won’t know why. They’ve run with the pack for so long that this alternate howl will initially sound strange to their pack-mentality ears. But even they know that we are in an educational wilderness of our own political & corporate making and must find a new way out. Picking up the new scent of articulate educators who no longer will take it lying down!
Diane,
Once again, you have provoked thought appropriately. Provocation is an indispensable element to make change. . . . .
Diane Ravitch: Maitre et Provocatrice! Maitresse de Provocation . . . .
Great post . . . .
“Do you prefer to fund Pearson Education or allow thousands of teachers to be laid off? ”
The billion dollar question in a great post.
Thank you for a wonderful letter. The saddest part of all of this is that Obama chose (and could afford) to send his children to the lab school. He knew that his children were getting a good education even though there is very little testing and unionized teachers!
Why does he think poor and middleclass children need something less?
Listening to President Obama’s speech about Trayvon Martin in which he said regarding young black men,”And is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them?” the thought struck me: How about not closing their schools and undermining their nieighborhoods; how about providing them with an education like the one you want for your children; how about trying to do something about the poverty that they endure? How about standing with the people who helped to elect you with their votes and their belief in you rather than with the 1% who you seem to now identify with in deeds if not in words.
Diana, I couldn’t even listen to his platitudes. Does he not see his own hypocrisy?
i cringed as I read Obama’s speech yesterday. Another speech written to resonate and draw back in certsin segments of the population, a reminder of what Obama could be, so let’s perceive him in that persona anyway. Keep ’em down, we don’ want no trouble here.
Very powerful interview with Chris Hedges
http://truth-out.org/video/item/17674-chris-hedges-america-is-a-tinderbox-part-4
Platform of the Neo-Democratic Party
Speaking out of one side of their mouth for the little guy, their nominal constituency, and the other for the plutocracy, their real constituency.
President Obama’s angry remarks about how he was followed in stores, etc. sure isn’t the same man who in ’04 made his future career by thrilling the democratic party with his, “there isn’t a black America and a white America, there is just the United States of America.” Did he think his sullen attitude and remarks did anything to help race relations? OR maybe he has always harbored what was displayed yesterday. It was yet another disappointing revelation of who he really is. Let’s see; the worst president EVER to persecute whistle blowers, far surpassing “W’s” international crimes with his favored JSOC, kill lists and dungeon, torture sites, the hearty support of the corporate takeover of public education…. I used to love his wise words, that’s gone, too. I no longer care what he says, nor do I care to watch his corporate subservience.
Thank you Sweetpea. I certainly do not believe that Obama has changed. He has merely revealed more of who and what he truly is and who and what he represents. He is the man chosen and elevated by corporate America to destroy our meager safety nets, destroy and privatize public education, extend low wage nation politics, funnel taxpayer money into corporate coffers. Let’s notice how the underpinnings of this nation have changed under his reign.
It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out why he was chosen.
AND this, unfortunately, continues to blind and color the perception of a very important and forgotten swath of our popoulation.
I totally agree with your analysis! What strikes fear in my heart is WHY he is dropping the cleverly constructed facade? Is the game up to such a irredeemable extent that an awakened public can not regain what he and his corporate buddies have perpetrated upon the nation? Seems so, at least to me. He is doubtlessly the best corporate construct that the globalists have perpetrated upon the nation. And his evil deeds that you enumerated are an appalling list of what a wolf in sheep’s clothing can do.
I am reading from a variety of sources that the Fed’s, drunken sailor money mill is risking a day of reckoning that will dwarf the banker’s heist of ’08. Simple math makes that threat terribly real. The many dark acts of the congress and decades of corporate serving presidents may throw our country into a Greece like state of destruction and revolt.
If you are correct, why is he hated by Boehner, McConnell, Rush, Pat Robertson, Anne Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Fox News? Are they pulling a ruse on the American public? Do they support him behind the scenes? I don’t think so.
Another thing that puzzles me. Obama is just as white as he is black. His mom and grandparents raised him and they were white. He seldom saw his father. Why is there so much focus on his father andhis black roots as if there is no other essence to his existence? Why is there this automatic assumption that he has motives that are anti-American? Why has the abhorrence of his every thought and deed pushed some people to assume that everythibg about him is a lie?
I didn’t agree much with George W Bush, but I didn’t and don’t hate him. He seemed a pawn of Cheney and not particularly inquisitive, bright, or deep. Where were these same critics during his terms as President?
We have let certain peoplexand groups set the debate, define the terms, and run America into the hands of privateers. Yet, we smile and continue, being convinced that collective interests are nothing but socialism cloaked in false promises.
To me, the bottom line is: American democracy is doomed when the free market dictates all that is vital to growth of middle class prosperity. America can’t survive as a democracy as long as private fortunes are elevated above human worth and potential. Public schools are essential to providing the future of hope for all. Charter schools may have some interesting ideas when applied to small populations/student bodies. Rather than investing in capital profits, why not invest in human growth potential and contributions from and for all?
I like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Oh, and I do read, a lot, on both sides, and additional sides. I am an Independent. But I will say I could not vote for a ticket with Sarah Palin being a heartbeat from the Presidency.
Just another dog and pony show to make the public think, that while he is doing shocking things, like persecuting truth tellers, enabling and supporting the murderous kill lists of the JSOC and other evil plots, the distraction of the Faux news corporate toadies does NOT make Obama palatable OR sanitizes his draconian policies! Its merely, as Shakespeare opined, “FULL OF SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING!”
Look at his record, NOT his rhetoric and see what he REALLY is!
I’d say simply, look at the do nothing, know nothing, Ayn Randian sellout of Congress before I’d I’dplace the policies on his back. He should line-item veto the shady deals that get attached a d sneak through. Congress has spent 4.5 years doing nithing because they want to impeach him based on false accusations, running from one thing to another and pulling down the country to its knees.
Look I care about schools for all. I don’t detest charter schools. I detest how they are run. I detest subjecting students to endless and inappropriate testing. I detest smoke screens. Private scholls have their places but the real thing to address is poverty, jobs, funding for humans to teach humans, not computer companies to explore replacing yet another facet of being fully human (and flawed) with pseudo techno-perfection.
We are at the bottom of the dried up waterfall that trickke down never provided because while government bureaucracies may not be perfect, they don’t hold a candle to the damage that can be done by corporations who keep it all, refuse to hire, and find ways to replace us all. I don’t wish to be a droid. I think Bill Gates is a human droid that wants to clone himself. We need to fight for humanness ipublic schools
I agree, BUT, I also heartily endorse Diane’s posts that decry the overweening, global designs that encompass the assault on public education. I feel we ALL need to see our particular battle in the totality of what is eroding everything in our country from the middle class to our former, national ethic, that now, WITH OBAMA’S blessings, are perpetrating crimes in the name of “security.” He is hardly just naive or misinformed. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have installed Arne, promoted his plans for corporate takeovers of public education or other equally destructive acts. He well KNOWS the ends of such acts and he is a hearty supporter and enabler. If you still don’t believe it, ponder his endorsement of total invasions of our privacy rights and wonder WHY?
Did anyone consider the possibility that Obama has changed in his attitude about hope and change, wishing that there isn’t a “black and white America”? Why? The man has been lied about and disrespected since before he was elected. He has faced a brick wall even when he has compromised. Obstruction has bewn inplace
Deb, I wish that was the case. We only need to review Penny Pritzker’s history and background, our recently appointed Secretary of Commerce, to see who and what Obama has been all along. I have posted these links before, but repost now because of extreme importance and clarity it offers.
This defines with crystal clarity who Obama is and who and what he represents.
Read about it here:
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/penny_pritzker_barack_obamas_fairy_godmother_20130504/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/19/1210299/-Penny-Pritzker-as-an-example-of-the-criminality-of-our-elites#
http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/05/02/obama-nominating-major-campaign-contributor-penny-pritzker-to-commerce-secretary/
Let’s not forget the $35 million home Pritzker is contributing to and raising money for the Obamas in Hawaii. This residence is for the end of this term, when Obama has stepped down from wiping the floor with the middle class.
This, for anyone who is still in doubt about who our president represents, these links can be a defining moment.
Does it matter why Obama is not what a world of believers wanted him to be? Does it matter if he changed or was always like this?
The point is to see where we are now and where this is heading.
And where were we led by Reagan, Bush/Cheney? Where woukd we have been with McCain/Palin? Much is questionable . Wecneed to preserve public education.
Sorry for typos and android shut down.
Obama has faced obstruction since prior to his election. I find the collPse of 2008 to be suspicious at best. The timing was perfect for the corporatocracy to step in. The volatility of the markets is dependent on “predictions” that can be as orchestrated as any other “deal”.
Do I make “excuses” for Obama’s decisions at every turn? No. Do I blame him for the problems we face? No. I blame corporate greed and efforts to take America back to a society that didn’t really want a thriving middle class, if that included anyone but white males who claimed to have a Protestant work ethic and preteded to have traditional values.
We are just now on the receiving end of what corporate decisions such as were advocated by Bain Capital, the Koch Brothers, and ALEC et al. Other businesses have collapsed due to corporate vultures and Ayn Rand philosophies. Convincing enough people that all of this cha ge is about the “free market” is a smokescreen for selling out America to the highest bidder. There is no sense of actual preservation of community or society. Every man should be “for himself”.
Characterizing Obama as “the other” in every circumstance is evidence of opportunistic propagandizing against all he does. They make him the scapegoat for every ill. They undermine his policies and refuse compromise.
No wonder his hair is white. What would any of us do with the constant barrage of twists and lies that have fallen upon him?
IMO, the turning point pointarrived when the Supreme Court alloeed Citizens United to come into law. It is no more about the citizens than it is about green cheese on the moon.
We have been bought and sold.
Public service jobs have become the whipping post, the easy fall-back for dumping responsibility for America’s problems because they represent the “waste” of tax dollars to many who hate taxation and who feel that taxation is “redistribution” and therefore “socialism”.
If we don’t stand up as millions of people against a few rich pigs, we are doomed as a socuety. I think Obama had a real dream of compromise, but Congress made sure that he would not succeed. In so doing they brought the the country to its knees and by characterizing caring and sharing as evil and socialistic.
I may not agree with all of Obama’s policies, but I admire him for his amazing abikity to remain as cool as he has under pressures and conditions that would have caused mist of us to flip out long ago.
We do have the responsibility to retain public education for ALL and to preserve democracy in doing so. Government by the rich and for the rich is not the America most of us want!
Deb,
I too don’t blame Obama for what is going on. How could anyone? The situation is obviously more complicated that just Obama.
But as someone who has only voted Democrat (and I don’t know if I will ever vote for either major party in the future), please consider the notion that Obama is part and parcel of the corporate greed that is inundating us.
The charterization and privatization of schools are HIS plan. He and his wife were busy full speed ahead in charterizing schools well before he became president . . . .
REALLY read up on his record for labor, commerce, education, and national security, and you will see he is as bad as Bush junior, if not worse.
We need leaders like those in the progressive caucus, like Bernie Sanders to start with.
Obama is not at all of that camp. He was instrumental in lowering the COLA in social security. . . . . He is NOT what you may perceive about him.
Even if he faced obstacles from Congress, Obama has blatantly failed to become the rhetoritician he could have been by speaking up against corporate America in substantive ways and acting upon his words. He has the power – and the attention of the nation – of calling press conferences 24/7 and he has chosen not to because he is ONE of the corporate elitists.
Don’t be fooled. He is the M and M that tastes good, melts into sugary bliss, and then, with the core full of hemlock, poisons you.
Don’t eat any more candy. . . .
Oh, and please don’t condescend to me. I am nit drinking Kool Aid or buying candy.
No condescension meant toward you whatsoever here. Only respect intended. I was using some metaphors.
I’m saying that if you read up on Obama’s track record, you’ll find that he believes in privatization, union busting, revolving doors for teachers, watered down credentialing for teachers, taxing the rich not enough… he is not a progressive. His policies extended NCLB and mushroomed the testing industry.
Ok. NCLB was wrong-minded. I never wanted to be part of RttT either. Our district forced us into it for a paltry $125k, I believe. We didn’t have a choice. Our district didn’t need this money, and our sorry excuses for professional development were a waste of time and money. Almost all of the “older guard” has retired from complete burnout.
The problem, imo, is that we have refused all along to address tge real issue of poverty. Obviously, there are difficulties to overcome in urban and rural pockets tgat typical public schools cannot and will not ever attain.
We keep attacking issues that skirt around the problem.
Americans equate power and money with success. Money talks. Lemmings listen, and that includes superintendents and university presidents.
There has been a lot of available money to actually fix education that has been tossed away on this testing malarcky. Because certain individuals feel that putting money into, God forbid, salaries for people who want to invest in society, not themselves, that they have been “robbed” and won’t stand for this socialistic redistribution any longer.
If the money were spent on truly safe streets by employing enough policemen (instead of getting revenue streams from speeding tickets), on firefighters, on social workers, on job assistance programs, and on equal opportunity for education for everyone, crime and poverty might be reduced. But, no, we claim ALL schools are in peril and, by god, if they spend “my” tax dollsrs on “those kids” then “my kids” deserve the same increases. Therefore they ALL must be tested to death, ALL schools rated and graded. Etc. As o corporate interests took over.
We need JOBS not thousands of previously employed civil servants being shoved out the doir to be shunned.
Blame all this opportunity upon the Supreme Court. 2010 changed everything.
Deb, I agree with everything you are saying.
HOW SAD, HOW CRYSTAL CLEAR THAT THE NATION BOUGHT THE SHOW, HOOK, LINE AND TRULY, SINKER! MAYBE THE DAWNING REALITY OF WHO SITS IN THE WHITE HOUSE WILL ENABLE THE POPULACE TO PROTEST THE INVASIONS OF OUR RIGHTS AND THE CORPORATE TAKE OVER OF OUR COUNTRY!
Excellent. You got it, clear and concise.
Thank you sweetpea
Thanks! I also read and often blog on “greanville post.” Sadly, I had a response from European liberal who is held in great regard. He accused me of being a racist, since I said that I often found Meliss Harris Perry’s rants on MSNBC a product of her mindset that boils every issue down to a race, instead of seeing issues in a nation-wide attack on ALL our liberties! This gentleman then throw JFK’s attempts to take the printing of money from the private bankers of the “Federal Reserve” to the rightful, Constitutional place of the treasury. He also, JUST before he was assassinated, signed a order to get our troops out of Viet Nam. All ignored by this critic who only viewed him through the CIA caused, Bay of Pigs. Then he decried my acknowledgement of President Jimmy Carter’s statement that “We no longer live in a democracy.” Never was a truer, shocking statement made from someone who dares confront the jackals! I only state this episode to warn against our side from shedding praise worthy deeds or statements of the leaders. God knows, they are few and far between, but they reach FAR more than we could!
I showed Carter’s statement around yesterrday. The American public wanted the “strength” of Reagan. Look what we got, and here we are now!
Spiro Agnew said, and I paraphrase, We don’t need a nation of intellectuals. Certainly, it serves the corporate (ie government) interest to eliminate critical thinking skills.
I will look at Greanville Post, and hope to find you there!
I think you’ll find it a “One stop shopping site” for what will never be seen or heard in any of the corporate, boot licking media! I don’t endorse every essayist, but I do
love the access to the realities that shape our country and world! I post my comments on the article quite often, and even have written an “Op ed” for Greanville.
Sweatpea,
I too will book at your blog. You are insightful.
The author writes of creative destruction, the monetarist economist from U. of Chicago, Shumpeter, who used this theory to purport the good that is done with total destruction of an industry so a new and more worthwhile industry would grow, like the phoenix, from the ashes. This is the key that the privatizers use to justify their greed and takeover of the American public education system.
He also talks about Finland, where the teachers are held in high regard and are viewed on the same level as doctors and lawyers, and are paid well…and are all union members. But of course they are mainly all homogenous and with only under 80,000 students in their whole nation. LAUSD has over 600,000 students in LA alone and 109 languages are spoken. There is NO basis of comparison.
Sweetpea is of course right on the money…yes, the money that is the reason for all of the takeover of America by corporate interests. Follow SCOTUS decisions such as Citizens United and Kelo v. New London Connecticut. Education to the corporate billionaires is just one more source for profit now that they (Murdoch, Koch, etc.) have gobbled up the media so as to keep real information away from the public.
Mussolini had it correct it seems that the marriage of Corporations and Government lead to a fascist state.
addendum…we in California this week got the questionable news that our new head of one the largest and best public university systems in this country, or anywhere, the University of California, is the non-academic Chief of the NSA, Janet Napolitano. She even did not accept a raise in the salary, but graciously accepted $570,000 which is over double her government salary, with of course an additional $100 K or so in perks.
Our university has long been a government client in the areas mainly of science, technology, and policy. The secret laboratories have become notorious for development of weapons and technology and with further secret international cooperation with other nation states such as China, and Saudi Arabia which even established a Chair at UCSB, and now they have the NSA leader to guide them even more. Would you say this is worrisome?
Chew on this one for a bit and please give me your thoughts about the first women ever to lead our university system to be the person who worked with Obama on terrorism, water boarding, drones, and other issues of aggression.
Note that Richard Blum, husband of Senator Diane Feinstein, is on the Board of Regents which rushed this choice through without allowing any time for public input. Do you see a picture emerging?
Correction…sorry…Napolitano was not head of NSA…but she worked with them as head of Homeland Security.