Memphis “Revolting” Against ASD

9 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

1. Jon Awbrey says:

   October 30, 2014 at 9:08 am

   It’s pretty clear that the entire purpose of the corporate raiders and their sell-out minions among politicians is to destroy every shred of community and cooperation in the “markets” they target in order to replace it with the brands of counter-productive competitiveness and corruption they find it so easy to capitalize on.

   LikeLike

   Reply
2. Chiara says:

   October 30, 2014 at 9:23 am

   “This represents a change in attitude from just a month ago, as in September Chalkbeat indicated a much more congenial level of cooperation (termed co-opetition) between the districts (when referring to the iZone and the ASD).”

   It’s never a good sign when you have to invent a new word. I can’t even pronounce “co-opetition”. It means…what? Cooperative competition? Competitive cooperation?

   What was wrong with “privatization”? That’s accurate and descriptive.

   LikeLike

   Reply
   • KrazyTA says:

     October 30, 2014 at 10:44 am

     Chiara: quite so.

     For example, you pointed out that the charterites/privatizers have taken a perfectly good word, “choice,” and bandy it about sans their unspoken three additions: “choice but no voice.”

     Then there’s “achievement” and “performance” (from the psychometric world of standardized testing) used as equivalents of “learning.”

     One of the classics is “public charter schools” are just like “public schools” [except when they’re allegedly better, which is frequently in their eyes] except for 150 exemptions from regulations governing real public schools in Ohio and student/teacher/parent rights and the infamous charter midyear dump on public schools and padded rooms and selective enrollment procedures and counseling/pushing out and strenuous efforts to resist transparency in spending public monies [nepotism and kickbacks, anybody?] and the beat goes on…

     It’s oh so frequently the same out-of-tune song: the unrealistic and rosy rhetoric [rheetoric?] of EduExcellence rather than its substance.

     Today, tomorrow, and forever, sticking like super glue to their bedrock Marxist principles:

     “The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” [Groucho—need I say more?]

     And in the upside down world of self-styled “education reform” the leading educrats and edubullies can still “win” even when they “lose”! Take John Deasy,former LAUSD Supt. [Please! a la Henny Youngman] and then compare his agonizing, er, “defeat” to that of Ms. Patrena Shankling, the fine substitute teacher he fired without cause or reason.

     [start quote]

     (The district on Monday also updated details of Deasy’s separation agreement. He’ll receive about $61,000 for unused vacation days in addition to about $70,000 in severance to be available as needed through year’s end.)

     [end quote]

     Link: http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-lausd-cortines-20141021-story.html

     😡

     And don’t anybody prattle and rattle on that it’s all about the Benjamins. It’s “for the kids”! Honest… just like “Dr.” Steve Perry is “America’s Most Trusted Educator”! It must be true; it’s in big letters on his website, and if folks as straight shooting and honest about, say, their academic achievements as “Dr.” John Deasy and “Dr.” Steve Perry and “Dr.” Terence Carter say corporate ed reform is good for us—

     It must be true.

     Rheeally!

     😒

     But not really…

     😎

     LikeLike

     Reply
     • Chiara says:

       October 30, 2014 at 1:19 pm

       OI think they ran into a problem, because they were insisting public schools needed competition, while at the same time insisting it wasn’t a competition, and everyone would win!

       So they had to invent this ridiculous word, rather than resolve that contradiction. It’s easier! 🙂

       LikeLike

   • SomeDAM Poet (Devalue Added Model) says:

     October 31, 2014 at 8:32 am

     Whoever came up with the word “co-opetition’ was too clever by half.

     Sounds just like “cooptation”, which is actually an accurate description for what is happening.

     These people have invented and redefined so many words, we need a “glossary of reform”.

     My favorite is “value added model” to describe something that basically gives a random result. I guess if you are Winmau (dart game manufacturers), that comprises “added value”

     The whole “reform” movement is actually so absurd it’s hard to believe it’s actually happening. I mean, a guy who knows nothing about education, never graduated from college and would not know “value” (in anything) if it hit him in the head (Bill Gates) is telling some of the most highly educated people in the country how to educate our children. If that isn’t absurd, I don’t know what is.

     If it did not have such serious ramifications, it would be comical.

     LikeLike

     Reply
3. Chiara says:

   October 30, 2014 at 9:30 am

   And the hits just keep coming:

   “The Obama administration on Thursday watered down its threatened crackdown on for-profit colleges, loosening tough sanctions under heavy political pressure from the industry and members of Congress from both parties.”

   Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/obama-for-profit-colleges-crackdown-112340.html#ixzz3HdOaW4y9

   Maybe we could move off the burning issue of teacher tenure for just a moment and someone in DC could address the ethical collapse in every level of government and the complete capture of every agency and regulatory body?

   Nah. No one wants to talk about that. That makes everyone… uncomfortable.

   Let’s throw out collectively-bargained contracts instead! There’s bipartisan agreement there!

   LikeLike

   Reply
4. Daniel Spaniel says:

   October 30, 2014 at 9:35 am

   The Democrats and Republicans are in full agreement: Stealing from the poor and giving to the rich is A-OK!

   LikeLike

   Reply
   • Chiara says:

     October 30, 2014 at 9:44 am

     I wasn’t sure it had reached state AG’s yet, but it has! Next they’ll start buying county prosecutors, I guess:

     “Attorneys general are now the object of aggressive pursuit by lobbyists and lawyers who use campaign contributions, personal appeals at lavish corporate-sponsored conferences and other means to push them to drop investigations, change policies, negotiate favorable settlements or pressure federal regulators, an investigation by The New York Times has found.”

     Meanwhile, they’re absolutely hammering low-level criminal defendants and dunning poor and working class people with endless fines.

     They should all resign in shame and embarrassment, but it doesn’t even create a ripple.

     LikeLike

     Reply
5. Andrea Nichols says:

   October 31, 2014 at 3:47 pm

   It was a pleasure for me to see some parents and teachers of some of the new set of schools to be taken over by the state and handed out to charter organizations with no apparent consideration of the fact that these are community, PUBLIC schools and the public should have some say in what is being done to their schools. Our community, Memphis, has been inundated with charter schools and no specifics have been made public about any of them living up to their promise to significantly raise the achievement levels of the enrolled students. Additionally, little if anything is being said about how charter schools are skimming from the ADA funds to pay exhporbitant salaries to company executives who contribute nothing to the education of students, aside from the use of a name. These inner city and minority community families and their children deserve to be respected as something other than a funding stream for charters and their ilk. And don’t we already know that whether it is education or any other commodity or service, that which is of high quality does NOT begin with the poor, but rather with the wealthy where no charter schools are clamoring to take over.

   LikeLike

   Reply