Dora Taylor, a teacher and blogger in Seattle, was teaching a class about the the history of architecture from Egypt to the Roman Empire when a light went on in her head.
She asked herself: Is there a connection between education and the war in Syria?
Why do we always have billions to go to war but when it comes to reducing child poverty, there is no money, we are flat broke?
There is no money for reducing child poverty? No money for Head Start? No money for medical care? No money for job training of adults? No money?
Not enough, I’d agree with. No money?
57,000 kids just lost Head Start because of the sequester.
I think you know what the writer is saying, you just like being contrarian.
Dienne, many people who post here strongly (and I think sometimes fairly) criticize generalizations or exaggerations or mis-representations made about public schools.
I think the assertions that there is “no money for reducing poverty” or “no money for public schools” are examples of series mis-representations.
Should we spend more $ on high quality early childhood programs? Absolutely. Should we make them available to every youngster from a low income or limited English speaking family? Absolutely.
Should we spent more on some social programs? Yes. Should we create a program similar to CCC or WPA so that every person seeking a job has one, and is helping improve the country? Yes.
But the assertions mentioned above are the kind that others here rightly criticize.
You have captured my perspective. Ms Taylor’s view of the Fall of the Roman Empire is a bit idiosyncratic as well. One might argue that as Rome became a welfare state, it became unmanageable so they left it to its own devices and moved to Byzantium and started anew.
If you happened to live in Rome in the year 170, you could be forgiven for thinking that the empire was eternal. For almost two hundred years, across a vast region that stretched from the Scottish borderlands to the sands of Arabia, people had enjoyed the Pax Romana. The brutish banditry and lawlessness of previous times had become almost unknown. Trade and the arts flourished, and bellies were full. One couldn’t imagine that such a system, the like of which the world had never before seen, would fall apart practically overnight. Then, in 180, Marcus Aurelius died and was succeeded by his son, the weak, cruel, debauched, and possibly insane Commodus. It was the beginning of the end.
If I were writing a history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, I would begin with the story of a distressed Roman family farmer, in the second century AD, with no choice but to sell the land that had been in his family for centuries to one of the handful of wealthy landowners at the top of the latifundia system that developed in the first two centuries of the first millennium. (This system was the forerunner of the medieval system of large feudal estates worked by serfs and ruled by a baron.) Rome had been built by the strength of its legions of sturdy boys from small family farms who fought for the earth that their fathers and mothers plowed. By the second century, that system of small family farms was gone. From one end of the empire to the other, the land was owned by a wealthy few, and the formerly free peasantry had been reduced to serfdom. Who could blame anyone for not wanting to take up arms to defend the system that oppressed them?By the time the latifundia system developed, Rome was already dead. It just didn’t know it yet.
Robert D. Shepherd
Thank you for providing this revealing insight to ancient Rome.
Hmmm, not difficult to make the leap from latifundia serfdom of yesteryear to our current lack of minimum wage and our system of corporate welfare (examples Walmart, McDonalds, Target) today.
Will we only see it in hindsight?
And the Roman welfare state lasted for a long, long time. The daily bread ration was a fixture for centuries.
But there are so many of these answers to the question of why Rome fell. Certainly the empire was overextended. And certainly people weren’t pleased when the dole stopped coming.
I remember a popular science book that opened with the question, “Why are there so many ants on the sidewalk?” And the answers were,
People drop stuff on the sidewalk, and ants eat that stuff.
Sidewalks make for excellent tracks on which to lay down those pheromone trails that ants follow.
And my favorite,
Ants are everywhere. You just happen to be able to see them on the sidewalk.
Causation is often multiple, though Pareto’s principle often applies.
“and moved to Byzantium and started anew.” I can hear a big sigh of resignation there, Bernie! : )
Oh please, the comments were for rhetorical effect, an exaggeration meant to impress the urgency of the needs vs. the paucity of the response.
Professor Shor, perhaps for you, it’s rhetoric. For some of us, it’s the kind of exaggeration that is unfortunately part of some anti school improvement rhetoric in this country.
“Anti school improvement”? Maybe you should take some of your own advice.
Show me improvement in student achievement because of the NCLB Act or the RttT initiative. And I don’t want to hear about an increase in state test scores as with TN. The state tests are becoming useless for analysis as teachers rush to teach to the test and prep and coach kids to take the test.
I just met a new teacher at our school last week that admitted the testing coordinator at their former school (which was a charter school) allowed exclusive previewing rights to a state-mandated test, of which this person said they tried to complete, and said that it was a very difficult test.
Maybe you could explain to me in terms of NAEP outcomes how the NCLB Act has ‘improved’ education.
Good luck.
ME – I have written a number of things critical of NCLB.
And Joe – keep it apples to apples – which means no charter school discussion.
I could fill up this website with evidence that charters are not getting the job done nor are vouchers.
ME – I could fill this website with examples of public schools – district & charter – that are helping young people in a vast array of ways, some measured by tests, some in other ways. If you are interested in an example of “other ways,” please see the comment posted earlier today in response to Diane’s posting from the Carolina teacher.
Thanks
I don’t need a full website to show how great the charter school my kids attend is doing. Average ACT score for last year’s seniors was 27.4; professors at quite selective colleges attesting to how much better prepared students from this charter are compared to most traditional public schools; school alumni – college freshmen – coming back every year for homecoming and saying that college for them is easier than for most of their peers because of the much better preparation of the alumni students.
This charter isn’t an outstanding school because of its legal status. It’s what they do: lots of reading of first-rate books and essays; Socratic discussions in the humanities courses; significant amounts of composition on serious themes with close review done by their teachers; no grade inflation and expectations for respectful behavior toward teachers, staff, and other students.
I realize many charters are no better, and even worse, than most traditional public schools. But my kids don’t attend all charters, or the “average” charter – they attend an excellent one, which most of this blog’s readers want to close down. You know – it’s “for the children.”
What’s the name of this school and in what city?
Mr. Nathan,
Why don’t you take your rhetoric elsewhere? You would clearly prefer to perpetuate the lies and destruction, as you reap the benefits and fill your pockets.
I guess you are doing a reverse Tikkun Olam. Some of us still have healing and repairing the world in our soul and being. Along with this comes a very strong sense of right and wrong.
I notice that you were not raised with the same values.
MD
Your comment is rude, discourteous, presumptious and deserves a reprimand from our host.
I await your equal disgust and defense when a reader insults, demeans and belittles veteran, unionized, experienced educators, the kind that see and work with children everyday, not the the kind who interned
and dabbled for a few years. Diane is perfectly capable of policing her blog.
Linda:
I will do precisely that when I see it. I do recall making a similar comment to that which I made to MD when someone impugned our hosts motives.
Will you do the same to Madame Defarge?
Sorry for lengthy response:
As to how I was raised…my mother was the first Head Start director in Kansas. One of my earliest memories is going with her to a parent meeting for Head Start in Wichita, Kansas where police were present because of death threats to her and threats to blowup the Head Start school. That’s because she insisted that Head Start would be open to white, Hispanic and African American youngsters.
Since bombings and assassinations were taking place in other parts of the country at the time, those threats were taken seriously. Many times I answered our phone only to hear someone hissing about how my mother was a “n-lover” or “that they were coming to get us.”
Like some others on this list serve, I was active in a variety of civil rights marches and other activities while a teenager. I definitely regard the work we do as as next steps in the civil rights movement. So do many others of various races, with whom I work.
It’s encouraging to see a number of African American, Hispanic, Native American and Asian American groups that want to, and do work with us.
Part of my background is training from community organizer Saul Alinsky. He was far more useful than any of the academic degrees I’ve earned (BA, MA and PhD) in helping me understand
Of course not all people of any race agree. And I’ve made mistakes, from which I’ve tried to learn.
Freedom of speech is a deep value for many of us here – including those who passionately disagree.
Mr. Nathan,
I question the direction you have chosen given your life changing and valuable experience with your mom’s pioneer work with Head Start in Kansas. It is the underlying motive of the charter school and ed deform movement that prompted me to write my perhaps scathing words to you.
The profit and manipulation factors in these so called “industries” have been spoken about time and again on this blog. The various contributors to these industries have been cited for actions based on self serving and corporate interests. I looked carefully at the website for the Center for School Change. This is your website, as you are the director of this endeavor, which is affiliated with Ed Visions Schools.
Gates, Target, Walton Foundation, Rockefeller, Best Buy are just a few of the contributors to the charter school of which you are the director.
When accepting funding from these sources, for what you purport to be genuine social causes, you are joining forces with those very same contributors.
These contributors are forging ahead, pouring millions of dollars into a pointed effort to destroy public education, unions, collective bargaining, social security, and medicare. They have a grip on wealth distribution in the United State resulting in income inequality and have corrupted the electoral and campaign process. In short, this is the same group that is in the process of destroying our democracy.
If, by some chance, you are unaware of, for example, the Gates and Walton Foundations
involvement in the above mentioned initiatives, please look around you and make a strong effort to connect the dots to see the injustices that they have created.
Don’t forget questioning how he was raised. With what values do you think he was raised? You did not specify them in your original post.
Please get your facts accurate. I am not and never have been the director of a charter public school. Our organization has and does work with both district and charter public schools.
Here’s a link to work we did with the Cincinnati Public Schools that helped increase overall hs grad rates by more than 25 points and eliminated the hs graduation gap between white and African American students:
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/11150746.html
This column praises the work of teachers, students, community groups and the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers. A similar column ran in Education Week. This work was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
We have done a leadership Academy involving both district and charter educators. No one was forced to participate. St. Paul and Minneapolis district leaders, as well as charters have participated. It’s been funded in part by Walton, in part by the Mn Dept of Education.
We use Walton funds in part to visit outstanding district & charter public schools in Chicago. Susan Klonsky, known to some of you in Chicago, helped make arrangements for this trip.
We have used Target funds to district & charter public schools to help them host dinners with parents where the families receive free books to take home and read with the kids.
My error, I stand corrected. The Center for School Change is not a charter school but a charter school resourse center. To further clarify, I quote the Center for School Change website:
“Nathan has helped write several major laws, including Post Secondary Options and the nation’s first charter public school law”.
Funding for the Center has come from Cargill, Gates, Annenberg, Blandin, General Mills, St. Paul, St. Paul Companies, Peters, Minneapolis, TCF, Joyce, Bradley and Rockefeller Foundations, the U.S. Department of Education, the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota Initiative Funds, Best Buy, Pohlad, and Wallin Foundation.
Thanks, Madame. But your explanation of what the Center does is incomplete. all of which can be found on the website http://www.centerforschoolchange.org
* we help district & charter public schools develop closer working relationships with colleges and universities
* We help district & charter public schools develop closer working relationships with community groups
* We have worked with high school students to produce 18 you-tube videos featuring district & charter students who are taking Dual (HIgh school/college) credit courses. They are in 7 languages: Arabic, Dakota, English, Hmong, Karen, Somali & Spanish.
* We have produced a student written booklet about the value of students taking Dual Credit courses
* I write a weekly column that appears in a number of suburban & rural newspapers, and on some websites
* We have run a leadership academy involving district & charter educators
* We provide information to people who want to start charter public schools. I’ve been working in and with new district public schools for more than 40 years. So several union presidents have asked me to meet with teachers who want to create new district options (not charters). We’ve done that.
* We provide assistance to the National Governors Association
* We have a variety of publications, some of which include information about outstanding district & charter public schools, some of which are focused on one or the other. One of them is a free list of 50 ways families can help schools.
“We provide assistance to the National Governors Association”…the same trade group that makes the claim of the CCS being state led? The group that lies and says teachers were involved in developing the national stanards?
We don’t trust them or our governors, so can you provide some assistance by telling this political group to stop lying to the public and to stop misrepresenting our profession.
Thanks.
I certainly hope Joe Nathan stays. It is hard to have a meaningful discussion of a better education for all in an echo chamber.
TE, the fact that you and Joe Nathan and Harlan and others are here is proof that no one gets kicked off unless they are rude, insulting, use expletives that I won’t print, or insult me or my family.
I understand that disagreement is officially too orated. I just think it is unfortunate that some who post in the comments desire to silence heterodox points of view.
TE, no heterodox views are silenced here, as you know full well. If people disagree, that is not an attempt to silence. If you are in a minority, you are not silenced. You must understand that many people–especially teachers–are being harmed by the current movement to privatize education and turn it into a for-profit sector. Many find this offensive. I find it offensive. But I would never censor anyone who disagreed.
I interpret poster Madame DeFarge’s post as personally insult Joe Nathan and an attempt to drive him off of the blog. Do you see it differently?
Planning to stick around. I learn a lot. And some people respond here or in private emails that some of what is posted is useful to them too.
I also agree that the host is willing to have different viewpoints expressed, within the conditions she describes.
However, the late Paul Wellstone, a great friend and colleague, would not have described someone with whom he disagreed, as a “useful idiot.”
But as a person deeply involved in civil rights, Head Start, alternative school, open education, and charter public school work for more than 42 years, I’ve heard a lot worse.
Joe:
I am glad you are hanging in here. It is always useful to hear from those with first hand experience.
Every single teacher who posts here has first hand experience. We are still in the classroom. We have hung in there for years and years. You’re welcome.
Thanks to Linda, Bernie and others for sharing perspectives.
Linda:
You are correct, I should have more explicitly acknowledged all of those who bring their real world experience to the discussion and not just Joe – though in fairness, he was the one whose position and views were being maligned.
And our views are maligned everyday in newspapers, news reports, “think” tanks, blogs, Ed deformer circles, hedgucator propaganda, etc…this is our only refuge from the constant daily abuse.
Thank you for responding.
I’ve read Joe Nathan’s articles and comments on various blogs and online publications. He supports school choice, which enrages most readers of this blog. But he’s a down-the-line liberal on most everything else.
To call him a liar, and to claim that he is motivated by financial motives, and that he has no sense of right and wrong, is way, way over the line.
I rarely read this blog anymore, because such comments are standard fare here. There is no honest disagreement with the K-12 establishment; toe the company line, or it’s obvious that you are a corrupt sellout. A better approach to persuading others is that used by the late Sen. Paul Wellstone. At his memorial service, a Republican congressman told how Wellstone viewed his political opponents not as enemies, but as potential converts. Even staunch conservatives liked Wellstone personally.
Rodgers12: Liberals started the charter movement. Then it got hijacked by the rightwing. Its champions today are ALEC and governors who hate unions and hate public education (Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, Tom Corbett, Rick Scott, also Jeb Bush). Liberals are being used. Lenin allegedly called them “useful idiots” or “useful innocents.” How to explain that the most fervent supporters of charters are also fervent supporters of for-profit virtual schools that get bad results, produce inferior education, but make lots of money?
Not sure what if anything about Ember Reichgott Junge is in your new book. A progressive Democrat who has often written about why she opposes vouchers. Ember remains one of the nation’s charter public school leaders. Ember was chief author of the nation’s first charter law. She is regularly asked to speak throughout the country.
Here is a link to info about a book she wrote re the charter movement which included statements from local and Minnesota state union leaders about their evolving views toward the charter movement.
http://www.amazon.com/Ember-Reichgott-Junge/e/B00818H1SM
For example, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers has been frustrated by district’s failure to embrace and promote the kind of teacher led district schools that the Boston Pilot Schools represent. MFT went to the legislature with strong support from many working in charters, and convinced legislators to approve new efforts to create options with districts.
Only 1 teacher/family led “site governed” school has been opened, a French Immersion school. So the MFT has applied to and received dollars from the AFT to become an authorizer of charters. The state has approved this and the “Guild” that MFT established has authorized several charters. 3 members of their board are either current or former presidents of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers or the Minnesota Federation of Teachers:
http://www.guildschools.org/who_we_are/
At a recent meeting of union presidents from all over the country, these union leaders explained why they have started authorizing charters.
This country misses the late US Senator Paul Wellstone. and Sheila Wellstone so much. He tried unsuccessfully to warn the late Senator Kennedy about the problems with what became NCLB. Paul also was a community organizer, constantly looking to build connections among people who might agree on some key things while disagreeing about others. He was a dear friend who stayed in our home sometimes when he campaigned.
He was very passionate, sometimes quoting Wendell Phillips, the abolitionist who was asked why he was so “fiery” – He responded, “I am on fire, understand, because there is so much ice to melt.”
http://progressive.org/node/1439
Senator Wellstone did not find it useful or necessary to describe people with whom he disagreed as “idiots”, “liars” etc etc.
He was the target of many such comments, as when the first President Bush, who whom he disagreed about Iraq, referred to him as “that little chickenshit.”
I, for one, would hate to see Joe not visit this blog. He’s a bright guy, and this is a conversation and sometimes a debate that we’re having. These varying perspectives are important.
Diane, I also oppose for-profit charters, because the incentive, and therefore the usual practice, will be to maximize profits by minimizing teacher compensation. We need to pay K-12 teachers better in the early stages of their careers to attract and retain high quality talent.
I have personal familiarity with the history of charters, because I live in the state that initiated the charter movement. Minnesota bans for-profit charters, and teachers comprise a majority of school board members at all charter schools I’ve heard of. There’s no perfection anywhere: some charters here have had integrity problems, as have some traditional public schools. The state DOE quickly closes down the bad charters; I know that’s not true in some other states.
My biggest concern about many of the conservatives who support charters is that they view charters as a way to lower overall K-12 costs, not as a way to improve education. I emphatically part company with such conservatives. I seriously considered sending my own kids to the neighborhood public high school because of its excellent AP courses. But I opted for the charter because I like its emphasis on reading entire books or long selections from first-rate authors, as well as the emphasis on developing writing skills, and its much smaller size which is best for my son. I’d love to pay the great teachers there much better, but that’s impossible because charter schools receive less funding here overall than do traditional public schools.
Rodgers12, Is the Gulen school that took over Cityview in Minneapolis also run by teachers? Or is it run by a board of Turkish men, and no teachers?
Did anyone complain when the new Gulen school kicked out 40 autistic kids?
See https://dianeravitch.net/2012/07/28/minneapolis-charter-doesnt-want-special-needs-students/
Is it mere coincidence that nearly 90% of the nation’s charter schools are non-union, prefer entry-level teachers, and have no problem with high teacher turnover?
That keeps the costs low and avoids any pension obligations. Is that the path to better education?
I don’t think so.
Diane,
You need to re-read the article you linked to. The charter school in question was authorized by the Minneapolis School Board (MSB), which is elected by the voters of Minneapolis. The MSB, as authorizer, by Minnesota law is responsible for overseeing its activities. The kids in that charter are legally classified as Minneapolis Public School students. The point is that this charter is NOT an independent charter school, legally separate from the MSB.
I’m not familiar with that school, but let’s assume the worst, that it’s poorly managed by people who don’t have the best interests of the students at heart. How does that tar ALL charters? The two charters my kids have attended are authorized and overseen by a non-profit group that no one has ever alleged to be corrupt in any way. Those charters have to abide by all public school laws, and the teachers at both schools chose to have teachers comprise the majority of board members, as state law requires if the majority of teachers at a charter so desire.
I don’t like what I read about charters in most other states. I want ALL public school teachers, traditional and charter, to be well compensated and treated as professionals. But will you acknowledge that there are good charters as well as bad, and that the same adjectives apply to traditional public schools?
And TE and Harlan also, often, have extraordinarily interesting things to say. I would enjoy, I think, having a beer and a rousing debate with any of these people. I hope that the feeling is shared. And from each of them I have learned. I am grateful to Diane Ravitch for not turning her blog into yet another vehicle for propagandizing and for not requiring that everyone toe some party line. We see enough of that from the reformers, who don’t believe in vetting their standards and their tests but sure do believe in vetting any potential dissent on their websites.
Robert Shepherd and Others,
I agree. I would miss the vituperative and judgemental classicist John Harlan Underhill and even the ever vexing questions-have-become-a-brand Teaching Economist, who both further inversely corroborate all the things I stand for, know, and believe.
(Harlan, I TOLD you that you had a fan club . . . Harlan, are you there? Are you listening? Come in Harlan . . . Do you read me?)
Joseph Nathan is interesting, but he has NOT lived the walk, walked the walk, and stumbled in the walk. He did teach, but before NCLB and RttT.
I am not into attacking others. It is so anathema to me. But I do enjoy striking back when hit with bad energy or otherhwise. . . .
I am uncertain at this point about Madame DeFarge’s comment, but I do thank her dearly for provoking this lively and empowering discussion. She indeed is the femme fatale, the provocatrice of opposing views, no?
America has become a bland, boring, vanilla dairy, artificial vanilla flavoring, Wonder Bread sort of place to live, and texting and mindless surfing have further watered down the critical thinking capacity of the masses.
To have, therefore, this blog as a forum for lively debate and heated passions is a gift.
So to the reformers who wish to hijack public education: I will continue to hate you and fight you all in the most intelligent, informed, and empirical, truth-telling manner as I am capable of . . . .
A recent Brown University study puts the currently committed and sunk costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at between 4 and 6 trillion. In 2010, there were 49,306,000 preK-12 public schoolchildren in the U.S., according to the Dept. of Ed.
So, the committed and sunk costs of the wars, to date, is equal to between $81,126 and $121,689 per child.
GO ROBERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Get ’em!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great comment.
The answer, of course, is that propping up U.S. corporate hegemony doesn’t come on the cheap.
Halliburton’s bank account is getting low. Time to go to war again.
Exactly what I have been saying, Dee Dee!
And “no boots on the ground” and a time limit on all of this?We’ve all heard that before–Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.
Guess the military-industrial complex is envious of the education-industrial complex.
Yet there is money for TFA, charters and Common Core. There is always money when it benefits big business and the well-connected.
The events in Syria are horrific and unfortunately GW’s lies and mishandling of Iraq have now given us pause. Who’s to say that a new leader in that country will be any better? And this is why many Americans are weary of getting involved.
GW’s lies have made us very wary of doing anything anymore, even in the face of such atrocities. After 9/11 he could have asked anything of us…anything to reduce our dependence on foreign energy, BUT he told us to go shopping. He had most of us, and the world, behind him to go into Afghanistan and get Osama bin-Laden…But then he had to go and make up lies to get us to go into Iraq…yes Hussein was horrible and evil and may or may not have had wmds, but it had nothing to do with 9/11! And now, after 12 years of a war we should never have been in, we are hesitant to go into Syria where we know atrocities are happening. Thanks GW…what a legacy
What would going into Syria do to stop the atrocities? One of the (ever-shifting) rationales for going into Iraq was because of humanitarian concerns over what Saddam was doing to his own people. Not only did we not stop the atrocities, we made them much worse. As with both Afghanistan and Iraq, the “rebel” forces are just as atrocious as the current leadership (which we installed and propped up in the first place).
I could possibly support a mission in Syria as peacekeepers long enough to allow for the evacuation of non-combatants, but any sort of military engagement, whether missiles, drones, special ops, boots on the ground or whatever, is only going to make matters worse. And even a peacekeeping mission should be under the umbrella of and led by the UN, not the U.S.
On PBS News Hour just now the President shifted from punishing Assad to defending American security as justification for a military strike (unless I misheard him).
Great metaphorical analysis by George Lakoff on Huffington Post today: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/obama-reframes-syria-meta_b_3879335.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications
Metaphors currently in use… Red Line, Send-A-Signal, Actions Speak Louder than Words, Mission Creep, Limited War, Surgical Strike, Slippery Slope, and more. Lakoff identifies President Obama’s framing of his policy as an example of the Strict Father morality that’s normally associated with conservative politics and militarism (as compared to the Nurturant Family morality usually associated with liberal politics and diplomacy).
Interesting that President Obama, Secretary Duncan, Michelle Rhee, and other “reformers” have gravitated toward the “Strict Father” approach to improving education. The outspoken opponents of “ed reform” are decidedly in the “Nurturant Family” camp. Lakoff explains how the crosscurrents of opinion and strange political bedfellows on Syria partly derive from how various Democrats and Republicans are applying different metaphors than they normally might. You can see the same “bipartisan” crosscurrents at play in the “ed reform” debates.
Thanks, Randal, for reporting on the President’s shifting rationales for Syria. It seems that every President must have a war of his own. I will not be surprised if it spawns a new wave of anti-American terrorism. We will pay a price for this unnecessary bellicosity.
Certainly I would not present myself as a foreign policy expert, and I don’t know what we should do about Syria. However, I know some people with relatives there. They have been asking how to convince the President to take action to stop Asad from killing his country-men.
Historical parallels rarely are exact. I do know that many Jews pleaded with Roosevelt and the Defense Dept to bomb trains that were taking people to death camps. Of course, we already were at war with Hitler. We’re not currently at war with Syria (except apparently for some assistance we are providing to rebels.
It appears that US intervention in Bosnia helped stop murder. I know that some people opposed our efforts. But that seems to have stopped killing and helped the various communities carve out something that was better before we intervened.
Again, I don’t know what we should do. But I appreciate Obama trying to figure out some way to stop the murder of Syrians. And yes, I’m sure some companies will make money from the materials that are used if we bomb Assad’s compound or other military targets.
I guess for me the question is what should we do? Nothing? Or ….?
I’m sure his speech Tuesday night will contain an “all-of-the-above” list of reasons to attack.
Joe Nathan:
“I guess for me the question is what should we do? Nothing? Or ….?”
That’s three questions. If you’re implying that the only alternative to a military strike is to do nothing, you aren’t alone. But that’s a false choice, which is one of the most common logical fallacies. The President uses it often. In fact, we can and should be taking a variety of actions, publicly and behind the scenes, to try to stop the hostilities and call Assad to account. Launching cruise missiles isn’t the sole alternative to “doing nothing.”
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld were men of action. (But so were Moe, Larry, and Curly). They also had no clue as to the possible negative consequences of invading Iraq in 2003. Those consequences still reverberating. The New York Times reports 804 people killed in Iraq in terrorist attacks in August alone, 5,000 so far this year. All that on top of the carnage and chaos that followed the invasion, all thanks to Cheney, Rumsfeld, and company, with support from John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and countless other Americans. We couldn’t afford it. We didn’t know what we were doing. But we went ahead anyway. Now we’re both paying for, and ignoring, the consequences of what we did.
Right now, Secretary Kerry and President Obama are assuming that they can mount a “surgical strike” that will “send a message” but won’t harm civilians. They assume that if we decide to “punish” Assad and his regime, he will act rationally and be suitably deterred. They assume that their preferred scenario will play out just as imagined. Don’t count on it.
I hope Congress does take action–to vote the resolution down. Then we can get back to the difficult work of real diplomacy (as opposed to the “do-what-I-say-or-I-will-kill-you” variety) and real humanitarian efforts (like aiding displaced Syrians in Jordan and elsewhere).
Situations like this remind me of why I believe questions really are more important than answers, whether it comes to education policy or deciding to go to war.
By the way, during World War II it was called the Department of War, not the Defense Department.
No I did not imply that the only alternative to force was doing nothing. I asked what others thought we should do. You described what you thought.
thanks
School gal, I agree with everything you wrote about Syria. It is an enormous quandry and quagmire.
Thanks Diane…great link. For more info on American empire, read Noam Chomsky’s book Hegemony.
And ‘schoolgal’…many Americans are growing to understand that the insurgents whom Obama is urging we help, are indeed Al-Qaeda. Similar to when we armed the Taliban in Afghanistan in 1978, and then they used their American weapons to kill American troops in this decade. We seem to not be able to allow other countries to work things out without our interference as with the murder of Allende, the ruin of Mossadege, both elected in their own countries….etc.
How many of us signed on with the military/industrial complex to police the world forever?
Eisenhower warned us to stay out of arms races and their profiteers.
No money for schools and children living in poverty because there is little profit involved.
Endless profit in war armaments which in America exceed all other nations combined.
Unfortunately most Americans (sic) are completely unaware of not only those historical facts but the many other over the years. Read Chalmers Johnson’s “Blowback Series” of books on the American Empire. Also William Blum’s “Killing Hope”.
Too bad the boomer generation didn’t heed the wise words of “Make Love Not War”.
I agree. Most Americans will pay a deep price for their lack of awareness of most everything.
There is deep irony in all this.
Bernie,
A deep irony because . . . . . . ?
Thank you Ellen Lubic.
This sort of thing has been a real head scratcher for me for years.
I have watched my science dept. budget for equipment and supplies decrease dramatically, watched as the school supply budget for paper, markers, chalk, etc. disappeared over the years. I have recently experienced pay cuts and furlough days. I have seen the county budged for training (NSTA conferences, meetings, AP training, etc.) dwindle to a pittance. Class sizes are ever on the rise, and support personnel (ones who support the students and families) are disappearing from the building.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, the county office and state department are crawling with an ever increasing number of consultants. We now have “smart boards:…and I use the term loosely.. (but no back up bulbs for when the projectors blow, go figure). We must administer an ever expanding array of corporate made and scored tests. We have new data bases to keep up with our evaluations, student “data” (just because it is a number…), our professional development, our grade books and a few others I cannot remember right now. Districts buy all manner of products and programs related to testing and “school improvement”. All these things cost money. Lots of money.
It seems to this “boots on the ground” teacher, that we have plenty money for “school reform” but no money for schools.
Well why wouldn’t you want to use a “smart board” as they are known to increase student learning by 17%.
At least according to Marzano’s “research” (sic).
I am most assuredly at least 17% more annoyed by both the buggy software that runs the board and by the endless parade of super duper, highly effective, guaranteed to lift every boat, Marzano boosterism.
😉
Very often when I try to bring up these sorts of connections, I get a sputtering response to the effect that national defense only makes up 7% of the federal budget, that we spend more on education than we do on defense, and blah, blah, blah. Does anyone have a good website to counter such “points”? I know it’s false, but it’s hard to find specific data. Thanks.
Spend more on education than we do our military? At the federal level? I thought our military budget at the federal level made up 40% of the budget? I know we spend more on our military than the following handful of countries combined.
I believe it is the next 14 countries combined
I know you’re right, I’m just trying to find a good source. The thing about national defense is that it’s spread out over and hidden in so many different budgets that the “national defense” budget itself is only about 7%. I’d like to find a source that aggregates all the spending that could reasonably be considered national defense/military/security/etc.
How about this:
“more than 50% of our federal tax money is now going to the military”
From the video The Story of Stuff. (http://www.storyofstuff.org)
Source:
Total Outlays (Federal Funds): $2,387 billion; MILITARY: 51% and $1,228 billion; NON-MILITARY: 49 % and $1,159 billion from “Where your Income Tax Money Really Goes: US Federal Budget 2008 Fiscal Year Pie Chart,” War Resisters League: http://www. warresisters.org/piechart.htm
Or perhaps this article:
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258
Says defense is 20% and education 2% of federal $.
Don’t look for talking points. If you want to know what the federal government spends its money on, look at the federal budget. If you want ballpark numbers on total education spending, try the NCES and the Census Bureau. My recollection is that the Pentagon budget is around $600 billion, and that total education spending is around the same (I couldn’t tell you whether the education spending figure is limited to government expenditures, but the NCES probably can). Add in the NSA budget and Homeland Security, I think you’ll end up north of a trillion. But don’t take my word for it. And again, as a public service announcement, please don’t just look for some web site to cut-and-paste talking points from. You’re as smart as anyone, and you have nearly the same access to the best information available.
2012 Federal budget, outlays by agency
Department of Defense: 672.9 billion
Department of Education: 71.9 billion
Department of Homeland Security: 55.4 billion
National Intelligence Program: 52.6 billion
Net Interest: 246 billion
It would be more enlightening to add up total government spending at all levels rather than looking only at Federal spending. Total spending on K-12 is something more than 640 billion dollars annually.
Right, that’s what I was referring to. K-12 is a state and local expense. Blowing stuff up is a federal expense.
I believe Marzano found that you needed experienced teachers (5-7 yrs) and at least 3 years of interactive whiteboard use ( with training ) to see improvement. The technology is wonderful but it must be maintained and admin never seems to budget for maintenance or continued training.
Marzano’s study is a study in how to be bought off by monied interests, in his case Promethean.
See http://edinsanity.com/2009/06/02/marzano_part1/ for a peer review of Marzano’s “study”.
I want to be frank here and, please, I am not trying to be bias or prejudice in any way. Just a point of view the way I see corporate takeovers of schools, towns, etc. We can put millions into ineer cities and still see nothing in return. How that money is spent is very important and this is obvious. Big business will not state it, but I feel they are tired of what they see as takers in the poor inner cities, people on welfare, foodstamps, tuition grants, free child care, etc. And this has been going on for many years and generations of families. I see the charter schools as a product of this idea. Charter schools talk about strict discipline or dismissal. The line is being drawn, either behave and try the work or you are out.
Also it is an attack on unions and their power. Unions and employers are at war with each other. In Germany they learned to work together, but not here. I eventually see a global wage that is much lower than we have here and no unions. thanks for letting me ramble.
Big business, which has no problem with government handouts in the form of bailouts, tax cuts, subsidies, etc., is all up in arms about poor people wanting tuition grants. Now that’s rich.
Please stop believing Reagan’s “welfare queen” mythology. While I’m sure it happens, welfare fraud is quite rare and it’s difficult even to qualify for assistance these days and what you get in assistance is hardly enough to exist on. Here’s the thing – most of the poor are working. They still need government assistance because the big business you worship doesn’t pay them enough to live on (Wal-Mart, for instance, gives their potential employees food stamp applications along with their employment applications). These same big businesses are sucking up government largesse and doing everything they can to divert resources away from the poor and middle class. I hope you never lose your job or get sick or injured – you’ll find out what I’m talking about the hard way.
“Now that’s rich.”
Rich in irony and hubris.
When I was in school, there was a label given to anyone desiring to improve conditions on the home-front amidst world crisis events that were happening… it was called isolationism. While there were always debates in college about the “economics of war”, have we gotten to a point where our nation MUST be involved in war in order to sustain an ever-larger military and all the ECONOMIES associated with it??? Like the author, I too have wondered about the sudden ability of our govt to cough up major funds to wage war on Syria when I see the incredible ravages of poverty every day among the children I teach yet the govt cries “no money” and keeps cutting and cutting. I understand the horror of a chemical attack by a president on his own people – hard to fathom. But I also understand that we have a huge and ever-increasing poverty rate here in America such that a great many of our young people will never have a chance at ever leading a healthy, productive and happy life if our nation does not start to focus on REALLY meeting their basic needs NOW. The question to ask our president is definitely how he can find money to wage war in Syria when a city like Philly was not even sure it could open its public schools as it was operating on such a skeleton crew of staff (and lets not even address the lack of supplies etc). Just thinking… if you only find money for causes that profit certain groups, this is a DANGEROUS FORM OF ISOLATIONISM that isolates a wealthy few in a wealth bubble and come “H … E L L or high-water” for everybody else.
There was much dissent in the United States, but that was eliminated.
By 2023, the national database of student responses and test scores was up and running and linked to the central server of standards-based lesson plans from the Approved Curriculum Consortium and Ministry of Truth, and the kids were all hooked up devices to measure, in real time, their affective responses–their grit, tenacity, and perseverance–as they bubbled their bubbles and did their Sit Up, Roll Over Great Grates during the daily 2-minute hates. The system of prole training worked beautifully, and the drones almost never had to be used. Well, not almost never, but that unpleasantness was subject, of course, to erasure.
http://www.amazon.com/War-Racket-Smedley-Darlington-Butler/dp/1478349840
Thanks for posting this. I’d never heard of this guy, or the “Business Plot” allegations. Really interesting. Hell of a name, too.
His book, and his career, are both extraordinary and extraordinarily amusing. This is a wonderful read, and it’s quite short. General Smedley Butler was quite the character.
I was asking a rhetorical question of Joe Nathan, to suggest that he might wish to broaden his prespective on how money is spent in 2013 United States.
We outspend all other nations on our “defense and security” budget. Below is an article discussing just this issue. We spend the largest percentage of our budget on war and fighting related items. Of course, there is no money left for education, health care, infrastructure, safety nets. We mock the French, but their quality of life is one that Americans cannot even create in their fantasies. Americans do not have a reference point for it.
The citizen has no value to our government, other than to pay taxes. Thank you Dora Taylor, for your informative and thoughtful writing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/07/everything-chuck-hagel-needs-to-know-about-the-defense-budget-in-charts/
Madame DeFarge:
You earlier wrote:
Mr. Nathan,
Why don’t you take your rhetoric elsewhere? You would clearly prefer to perpetuate the lies and destruction, as you reap the benefits and fill your pockets.
I guess you are doing a reverse Tikkun Olam. Some of us still have healing and repairing the world in our soul and being. Along with this comes a very strong sense of right and wrong.
I notice that you were not raised with the same values.
I assume your last comment was sarcasm because I see no rhetorical questions, simply a string of insults.
What was insulting? Did you read all of MdF’s comments or have you cherry picked?
Did you teach during NCLB and RttT? You MUST have, I assume.