The blog has its own poet, who signs as “Some DAM Poet—Devalue Added Model.” Here is his or her poem for Imagine charters in Ohio:
“”Imagine” (sincere apologies to John Lennon)
Imagine no regulation
It’s easy if you try
No tax below us
Above us only $ky
Imagine all the charters
Living for today
Imagine there’s no oversight
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to sweat or lie for
And no inspections, too
Imagine all the charters
Living life in peace
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the charters will cheat as one
Imagine no prosecutions
I wonder if you can
No need for lawyers and trials
A brotherhood of scams
Imagine all the charters
Ruling all the world
You, you may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the charters will rule as one
Diane Ravitch's blog 
DAM poet:
You give the lie to all who say teachers come from the intellectual, creative bottom of the barrel!
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cross posted at
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Some-DAM-Poet-on-Charters-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_Poetry-141021-99.html#comment516858
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I think the stones’ sympathy for the devil might have worked better. you don’t have to change many lyrics…
.Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long, long year
Stole many a kid’s soul to waste….
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling (Usa)
Is the nature of my game
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
(Woo woo)
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I’ll lay your soul to waste, mm yeah
(Woo woo, woo woo)
Read more: Rolling Stones – Sympathy For The Devil Lyrics | MetroLyrics
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G-D! I love the people who come to this teacher’s room.
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Thanks for the inspiration joe.
“Sympathy For The Devil”
Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man long since disgraced
I’ve been around for a long, long year
Stole many a child’s soul and faith
And I was ’round when Barack O’
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure Billy Gates
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
I stuck around Chicago-land
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the schools and the CTU
Parents all screamed in vain
I stacked and yanked
Held a point guard’s rank
Helped the charters rage
Teachers walked the plank
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah
I watched with glee
While young Miss Hell Rhee
Held a masquerade
For her test score grades
I shouted out,
“Who’s killin’ Public Schools?”
When after all
It is Bill and me
Let me please introduce myself
I’m a man long since disgraced
And I laid traps for Pre-K kids
Taking tests until they screeched No way
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah, get down, baby
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s confusing you
Is just the nature of my game
And every kid is just a data point
And all us reformers saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Arne-D
Cause I’m in need of some restraint
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Be sure to use my Common Core
Or I’ll lay your schools to waste
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, um yeah
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game,
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Alternate lyric:
I watched with glee
While young Miss Hell Rhee
Taught for just ten days
Using making tape
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I updated the lyrics here to make it flow a little better.
Mocking the ‘reformers” is a never ending job, but someone has to do it, right?
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Corruption in charters is aided and abetted by U.S. Department of Education, directly and indirectly. Here are investments available in 2014 from USDE, and note that much of this money was authorized in the No Child Left Behind Act. The USDE 2014 Funding for Charter School Programs (ESEA, Title V, Part B, Subpart 1)
Total available for 2014 = $248.1
Grant programs available to support new and existing high-quality charter schools and the dissemination of their successful efforts.
1. State Education Agency (SEA) Grants and Non-SEA Grants: (ESEA,Title V, Part B, Subpart 1) $153.9 Million. These Grants are awarded on a competitive basis to SEAs, who in turn, make subgrants to charter schools. But…..when SEAs do not apply for, or they are denied funding, individual charter schools can apply directly to the USDE. Funding is used to help cover charter school start-up costs.
2. Replication & Expansion Grant. $60.1 Million. Grants are awarded on a competitive basis to non-profit charter management organizations (CMOs) that have demonstrated success, including improved academic achievement.
3. National Leadership Activities Grant (ESEA,Title V, Part B, Subpart 1) $11 Million. Competitive grants fund projects of national significance to improve charter school quality, as well as money to disseminate information about the projects.
4. State Charter School Facilities Incentive Grant (ESEA,Title V, Part B, Subpart 1) $11 Million. Competitive grants to states to help cover charter school facilities costs.
5. Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities Program (ESEA, Title V, Part B, Subpart 2) $11.9 Million. Competitive grants to public and non-profit entities that enhance the ability of public charter schools to raise private capital to acquire, construct, renovate, or lease academic facilities.
In October of this year, USDE announced grants to 27 charter organizations in 12 states worth $39.7 million.
Replication and Expansion Grants.
Here is the grant sure to insult New Yorkers: the fabulous Success Academy Charter Schools, for $2,234,500. The biggest overall winner is KIPP for $13,789,074 worth of expansion.
The biggest winner by state is California at $26,780,502 followed by Tennessee, at $3,112,402
Planning, Program Design, and Implementation Grants.
The biggest winner at $308,270 is the Chesapeake Lighthouse Foundation, operator of Gulen charters with scandal documented at http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/2010/07/chesapeake-science-point-charter-school.html
The big winner by state is Washington, with four new charters funded at $1,122,606, about $250.000 per school. Next is Oregon, with three new schools, $692,427 total, Illinois with three, including expansion of the Nobel network already in 12 states and saturating greater Chicago. Total for Illinois-based operations $575,705.
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Thanks Laura. I keep a note page of links to info on charters. At Oped news, opinion must be supported by links… this keeps commentary and argument quite rational… albeit some folks love to argue their dearly-held beliefs. Bullcrap is quickly targeted by the editors, and links to facts are requested.
Thanks. I love to read what you write.
My hope is that some of my readers here will go to OPED when I post a cross-post, and MAKE A COMMENT.
What is missing is the commentary when I post about education.
I get for 80 to 2000 views when I post, mostly links to Diane’s site, but few people comment.
If you and some friends fanned me, or made a comment when I posted or commented, it might show the publisher there to PAY ATTENTION to the debacle of education. He sees the NSA as the enemy of democracy. I see the billionaire’s boy’s club.
That said, I do have fans, including one man who ran for the Utah senate, and who asked me to help him write education policy for a local presidential candidate.
I began to do this, 5 years ago, and have written 5 essays….and I am a trusted writer now.
I
have had over 217,000 views of my posts, which suddenly, gives me a google profile. Ilove the author’s page, becasue I can send folks there.
http://www.opednews.com/author/quicklinks/author40790.html
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While public schools are being starved, teachers are being scapegoated and fired, public schools go without funding, nurses, librarians, libraries, etc…..y’all know the drill. This is truly sickening to see how much our government, with my tax dollars, is proliferating the landscape with thieving charter schools.
I had come to the conclusion that they are all in cahoots, and who “they all” are, is the elites. Did TFA really come from Wendy’s noggin? Or was it a deeper conspiracy at that time? It certainly is a conspiracy now. How in the world to we get the government to stop funding this nightmare? There is no longer a separation of church and state in education. Why do colleges keep churning out teachers when our very own government wants teachers to just go away quietly? Maybe when they are done with this war on women and the middle class, the will privatize the cops, the firemen….eventually the post office is going to close. What will be left as public employees will be our politicians, yes? And they know how to pay themselves quite well.
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Love it! It goes well with the melody!
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Wrote this a while back. Hey Some DAM Poet I say its time to put a collective CC song book together? A youtube performance collection too! C
Imagine there’s no Duncan
It’s easy if you try
No Common Core below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the children
Learning for today…
Imagine there’s no Coleman
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing at all to test for
And no ranking too
Imagine all the children
Learning life in peace…
Imagine no Rheeformsters
I wonder if you can
No need for greed and money
No demoralizing VAM
Imagine all the children
Sharing all the schools…
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Here’s my song:
(Sung to the tune of “If I Had a Hammer”
Our students are testing
They’re testing in the morning
They’re filling in bubbles
‘Lectronically!
There’s less time for teaching
Creativity
Horizons shrink
To the Surface of a bubble
All over this land
Now we’ve all been questioning
What’s this disruption all about
To our teaching
And learning all over this land
Our kids are not data points
They’re not pawns for profits
For companies
That own our politicans
All over this land
Now we’ve got a resolution
From our School Board of Palm Beach
We’re singing it’s praises
All over this land
It’s a resolution of freedom
From toxic testing
It’s a song of love
Between our students and our teachers
And our communities.
(The song starts at 1:20 of the following talk to the School Board of Palm Beach County, FL):
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SomeDAM Poet (Devalue Added Model):
TAGO!
😃
But in all fairness, the self-styled “education reform” movement has its singers and poets too.
For one that expresses, as no other has expressed or can express, the very essence and CC of the leaders and enablers of the putative “new civil rights movement of our time” I give you that man of choice words and even choicer edupreneurship, Mr. Armando Christian Pérez aka rapper Pitbull.
For an introduction to this cage busting achievement gap crushing leading light of the charter/privatization movement, see this blog, 10-16-2013, “NPR Lauds Pitbull’s Charter Money Pit.”
You can learn a bit more about Mr. Pitbull from Jersey Jazzman on his blog for 7-10-2013, “Make Big Money Building Charter Schools: Joe Bruno Shows You How.”
And now for the pièce de résistance. I offer y’all a chance to directly compare SomeDAM Poet of the “better education for all” team with Mr. Pitbull of the $tudent $uccess team. From the debut album (2004) of the latter, M.I.A.M.I. [Money.Is.A.Major.Issue], the first verses (and they repeat elsewhere) of song #10, “We don’t care ‘bout ya”:
We don’t care
We don’t care
We don’t care
We don’t care, we don’t care
We don’t care, we don’t care
We don’t care ’bout ya clique
We don’t care ’bout ya crew
We don’t care ’bout ya bitch
We don’t care what you do
We don’t care about your cars
We don’t care about your chips
We don’t care about shit
Except getting rich
This is what the “thought leaders” of the business plan that masquerades as an education model find soul-stirring and inspirational. Consider just the following: where do y’all think David Coleman, Lord of CCSS and Rhodes Scholar, came up with this immortal [you can leave out the “t” if you like for more accuracy] bit of wisdom:
“As you grow up in this world you realize that people really don’t give a shit about what you feel or what you think… it is rare in a working environment that someone says, ‘Johnson I need a market analysis by Friday but before that I need a compelling account of your childhood.’ That is rare.”
Link: http://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/tag/people-really-dont-give-a-shit-how-you-feel/
Can anyone even doubt the data points here? C’mon, he’s not what you’d call an original thinker, and Mr. Pitbull’s famous album came out in 2004 and Lord Coleman’s statement was made years and years later. No, this is not a slender reed on which to base conjecture and causation, so I will end all doubt with a resounding—
“I reject that mind-set.” [Michelle Rhee]
Now that that’s settled, I look forward to future productions of SomeDAM Poet. While when it comes to Mr. Pitbull, I doubt that any of his musical/poetic tributes can be repeated by the students attending his charter schools…
Go figure.
Or as some might say: poetic justice.
😎
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I can remember singing this one on the bus on our way to a field trip back in 8th grade.
FIXIN’ to TEST RAG
Gimme a T . . .”T” gimme an E . . . “E” gimme an S . . .”S” gimme another T . . .”T”
What’s that spell?
School!
What’s that spell?
School!
What’s that spell?
School!
Yeah come on all of you teachin’ folks
Billy Gates wants your hearts and souls
He got himself a brave new plan
Makin’ him the big money man
So put down your books and pick up a test!
We’re gonna rate ‘em worst to best
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we testing for?
Don’t tell me, I don’t give a damn!
Common Core’s just a testing scam!
And it’s five, six, seven, cashin’ in with Mister Gates!
Ah, they don’t know poems, they don’t know math!
Whoopee! They all better pass
Well come on Pearson you’d better move fast
Your big chance has come at last
Gotta go out and write that test
Only trick items – a white hot mess
You know that kids should never have fun
Let’s test ‘em all to Kingdom come
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we testing for?
Don’t tell me, I don’t give a damn!
Common Core’s just a testing scam!
And it’s five, six, seven, cashin in with Mister Gates!
Ah, they don’t know poems, they don’t know math!
Whoopee! They all better pass
Well come on Wall Street, don’t move slow,
Its school deform lets go, go
There’s plenty good money on the way
By supplying schools with tests today
Just hope and pray that when the students bomb,
They drag all their teachers along.
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we testing for?
Don’t tell me, I don’t give a damn!
Common Core’s just a testing scam!
And it’s five, six, seven, cashin in with Mister Gates!
Ah, they don’t know poems, they don’t know math!
Whoopee! They all better pass
Now Soccer moms throughout the land
Pack your kids off to test again
Come on fathers, don’t hesitate,
Send em off before it’s too late.
Be the first one on your block
To know your kid’s dumb as a rock
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we testing for?
Don’t tell me, I don’t give a damn!
Common Core’s just a testing scam!
And it’s five, six, seven, cashin in with Mister Gates!
Ah, they don’t know poems, they don’t know math!
Whoopee! They all better pass
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The interesting question is what folks would do with the charters that exist to to the best for thier students. Some say that the posters here only object to “bad” charters, but I think that the general opinion here objects to all charter schools.
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zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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Not really an informative post. Could you elaborate?
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I would have thought posters here would be willing to take a position on charter schools. I was mistaken.
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It has come to my attention that homogenization of POVs has been proclaimed for this blog.
Unilaterally. By fiat.
😱
My own comments, reproduced in full [minus an emoji at the end], from over a year ago on this blog, responding to a blog posting entitled “Missouri Punishes Charter for Taking on High Risk Kids”:
[start]
Duane Swacker, Joanna Best, Deb, Jon Awbrey, Dienne, and Zak: IMHO, comments like yours are one of the main reasons why Diane has gotten more than half a million new views in less than a month since the first anniversary of this blog.
Caring, thoughtful, hard-hitting. This is in one of the American traditions I am most proud of: “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.”
I would put a slightly different emphasis on the situation.
First, those who are shutting down this commendable charter consciously put distance between themselves and the people they are [literally] damaging. Why look into the faces of children who are being given a chance, dedicated staff and hopeful parents—when you are going to viciously stab them in the back? The haters [yes, Deb!] are concerned about people—THEMSELVES—so they don the Edubully Armor of Ignorance, cast self-protective spells of Educrat Unaccountability, invoke the mumbo-jumbo of the High Priests of Testing Intimidation, so as to protect THEMSELVES from feeling or experiencing any of the hurt and harm they are inflicting on others.
Second, test scores are not a substitute for sound ethical human judgment. This is in one of the worst traditions of humankind: “We were really forced to do this” [Sarah Potter, spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Second Education; click on the link provided by Diane].
No, you were’t forced to do this.
As some of the students I worked with used to say, “Don’t be a hater.”
And this blog, and its commenters, will continue to remind the Potters of the world that an increasing number of people are holding them responsible for their vile words and actions.
Again, thank you all for your comments.
[end]
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/21/missouri-punishes-charter-for-taking-on-high-risk-kids/
And I would be remiss not to give a tip of the hat to NY Teacher: what you said.
😎
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