Lily Eskelsen Garcia reacts to the election: We never give up on our kids!
Her determination is reminiscent of what Winston Churchill said in 1941, when the days were dark indeed and the future appeared bleak:
“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Does anyone know of a special education advocate in or around Columbus North Carolina? It is near Asheville North Carolina I need help with an IE P meeting for my special needs son my name is Talli please contact me at 404-938-9710 I need it fast today’s date is November 6, 2014 thank you
LikeLike
I still don’t know who Lily really is or will become.
But I did feel warmed and inspired by her rhetoric in the video from your link, Diane.
It cannot hurt to feel hopeful while always being very cautious and very vigilante.
LikeLike
After all, I need some kind of realistic hope.
My social security might be eliminated, reduced severely, or means tested. . . . . . . . I might not have any significant medicare by the time I am 65. Social security is going to be privatized and subject to fees and fluctuations in the unfettered and bucking bronco “free and open” market.
My pension may be taken away or severely reduced as a result of pricey PR lies told to NY taxpayers that the pension is underfunded.
Global warming will affect water levels and increase air pollution.
Water will become a commodity as fracking poisons the aquifers.
Storage of waste product from fracking will cause increased incidents of earthquakes, as it has in Oklahoma.
The middle class will feed the pool of increasing poverty, as more middle class people slip into poverty, quickly down the slippery slope of non-trickle down economy.
Billionaires will increase, middle class will decrease to look like Chile and Columbia, and poverty will explode.
Gang violence will increase.
Court systems and police forces will increasingly become corrupt and politicized by extremist Darwinian right wing politics. They will both increasingly not protect people, but protect and uphold the agenda of the rich.
The list goes on and on and on. . . . .
I need some hope. … somebody, someone, some people . . . ..
Please . . . .
LikeLike
Robert, I take great hope from the defeat in PA– & the margin was not narrow– of Tom Corbett by Tom Wolf for gov. It may show where the rubber meets the road. PA has been on a downward trend for ed– at least in Philly– for decades. And decades. Think Rizzo! He was gov in the ’70’s. In PA, you have a gov, like Cuomo in NY, who completely ignored polls, public outcry, etc, & continued on his merry way slashing ed budgets & promoting charters (which had already been in Philly– even virtual charters– for quite a while). Perhaps what put Wolf over the top was that Corbett, caving to some right-wingnut-philosophy, was failing to properly capitalize on– while failing to curb environmental harms of– the huge new natural gas resource represented by the Marcellus shale. His successful competitor, Wolf, pointed out that proper use of the resource should be amply sufficient to put PA public ed in very good shape including in Philly. And he won.
OK, you’re in NYS. & maybe you don’t believe in capitalizing on NYS’s part of the Marcellus shale?. Nevertheless, you’ve got state which houses Wall St, the nation’s financial center, which has been achieving new highs throughout this recession without sharing a penny with slashed-budget ed districts upstate. OK, I grew up there, & I get that we’ve been very red, & were the birthplace of John Birchers. It’s a tough row to hoe. But it won’t be long before even the upstaters are ready to acknowledge that the conservative mantra has bought them absolutely nada. All it takes is for them to recognize that Democrats are selling them the same bill of goods.
Stay strong!!
LikeLike
Robert,
Perhaps, the following analysis will provide you with some hope.////
Like a failure and breakup of a relationship and the fast finding of a new relationship, the electorate rebounded to the Republicans. What we know about ‘rebound relationships’ is that they do not last very long The ‘rebound relationship’ with the Republican Party will sour when The Republican can’t deliver what they promise and the Democrats come to their senses and articulate a positive clear platform that speaks to the economy, ecology, education and social needs of those voters who rebounded to the Republicans or who stayed home.
There will be voters who find a comfortable home in the Republican Party. But the majority of ‘rebound’ voters will not find happiness in their rebound relationship. It is to those people and the current Democratic base who must remain home or come home.
LikeLike
Virginia, I’ll take it! Your post is like a vitamin boost.
LikeLike
John A . . .
A fascinating and attractive analogy. . . . . rebounding rarely works or has any traction. . . . .
So I am not so crazy, I gather.
LikeLike
“The ‘rebound relationship’ with the Republican Party will sour when The Republican can’t deliver what they promise and the Democrats come to their senses and articulate a positive clear platform that speaks to the economy, ecology, education and social needs of those voters who rebounded to the Republicans or who stayed home.”
Don’t hold your breath waiting for that last part to happen. Democrats have shown no interest in supporting their base (or “base”) – they’re far more interested in chasing the money.
LikeLike
After this election, I feel like I am trapped in one big fat Roz Chaste cartoon . . . . . .
LikeLike
I would feel a lot more warm about Garcia’s speech if the NEA had actively supported those candidates who were explicitly supportive of pubic education!! The only bright spot I’ve seen on the pro-public-ed horizon is the defeat of Corbett in PA, an NFT state….
LikeLike
I would also feel more inspired if the NEA and AFT would actually DO something instead of just talk. Where is lobbying against these destructive policies? Where are the rallies? Where are the SPECIFIC discussions about specific policies that are hurting kids, teachers, and schools? Where is the push-back against the horrific levels of testing? Where are the media campaigns to let parents know that they can opt out of the testing? In my state, teachers cannot do many of these things, and we need these organizations to push back, and yet they just sit on their hands, talking the good talk, but never backing it up with ACTION.
LikeLike
The NEA funded Knowyourcharter.com, for the state of Ohio.
It shows the abusive effect of charters, on taxpayers and students.
Newspapers, in covering the subject, fail to report the NEA is middle class workers who live and pay taxes in our community. Whereas, Fordham is funded by multinational corporations like Walmart. (And, oddly, according to the Fordham site, the Ohio Federation of Teachers.)
LikeLike
George Carlin said that you have to detach yourself from all of these things. You just can’t care about it. You have to see yourself as a spectator with no vested interest. Read books, concentrate on your family (and your students) and ignore the bigger picture. There is nothing you can do about it. I believe Voltaire said “Tend to your own garden.” Worry about your own garden (and classroom) and forget everything else. I didn’t vote, and I feel great about it! I won’t play that silly game anymore. I hope this brings you peace. Concentrate on your classroom and your home. Enjoy teaching and ignore the rest! If you follow this advice, you will find peace (and happiness) as well.
LikeLike
I have a very open mind, but don’t you think that’s rather simplistic, if followed strictly?
LikeLike
Actually, George Carlin is one of my few heroes. I often wonder if the authorities found a way to get rid of him, given his sentiments on the American way . . . . .
LikeLike
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
– Edmund Burke
LikeLike
I’ll take it! I am grateful for that.
Do we know each other, NY Teacher?
LikeLike
I don’t think so. I teach upstate. By the way, I have started a teacher protest group: “New York Teachers Against Testing”. Let me know if you are interested. Starting at the local level but hoping to expand. We need to be heard outside of the cozy confines of this blog. Our best chance to stop Andrew “One Test To Rule Them All” Cuomo is if the opt out movement hits the point of critical mass. If and when it does, the scores will be disabled, unusable. Litigation is our other best hope.
LikeLike
NYTeacher – I would be interested in how to contact your group. I am no longer there, but maintain many contacts, including a sister now in admin upstate. How to contact?
LikeLike
Can you give me your email?
LikeLike
mike,
My district is in totoal upheaval. I am working outside of my certification. I was thinking earlier today along the lines of Robert Rendo. My pension is underfunded. Who knows if Social Security will be there for my cohort? If I lose my job, I will be in need of Obamacare. What will happen if they get rid of Medicare? I have worked my entire life with the hopes of building a secure retirement. I continue to vote out of habit rather than support for any particular candidate. I am not giving any more money to Democrats unless I can find one who supports public education. I have no faith in either the AFT or the NEA. I am tired of their meaningless platitudes.
LikeLike
Folks, just a reminder: we Boomers are mostly still working & mostly still a major voting element. We are the reason it has not been popular to promote getting rid of Medicare, let alone privatizing Social Security. Don’t listen to the conservatives, don’t lose hope!– just delaying retirement for one year funds Social Security for many decades to come!! We are becoming Seniors– those ‘conservative’ folks who go out & vote when everyone else stays home.
LikeLike
Virginia,
Middle class boomers are apparently voting against their own financial interests. Anecdotally, the retired teachers I know, are unmoved or willfully unaware that their pensions rely on continued support from teachers paying into the system, which doesn’t occur with charter school teachers and rapid turnover of public school teachers.
Part of the blame falls on the elected pension boards who fail to rally teachers to the cause.
LikeLike
Thanks Virginia!
LikeLike
Mike, by George Carlin, do you mean the guy who was the comedian with the “seven dirty words” bit? Regardless, I’m not going to be able to follow the philosophy you espouse, at least not anytime soon. I think I’d rather go down swinging AND voting…I’m happier that way, but that’s me. Personally, I believe we’re leaving our kids a crap-dump of a world. And just focusing on my home and my own classroom as you suggest isn’t going to change some of the things affecting my home and classroom. The kids in my life are GREAT and they deserve much more than just piles of standardized testing (“Let them eat data!”) How about fighting for them to get a more affordable college education for starters? Or, for those little elementary kids, just to get more recess time and joy in their school lives? NY Teacher, Robert Rendo, Mike, Flerp, Teaching Economist etc… etc…. My name on this blog is the same as my name in “real life”…..google it, facebook it. (Though I’m NOT that cool guy who owns the charter fishing boat in Rhode Island nor the pilot, sorry) I’d love to buy any or all of you lunch some time. Thanks for writing on here, whatever you say. I least you are making the EFFORT. At least you are honest and REAL.
LikeLike
Yeah, I wish those pesky Abolitionists, Suffragettes and labor leaders would all have just tended their own gardens. Think how much happier we’d all be with blacks still in chains, women barefoot and pregnant and our menfolk working 14 hours a day, six days a week under dangerous conditions.
LikeLike
That’s the philosophy of the faculty at my school. The new administration is killing the school because there is no support of teachers and students, and parents are noticing and pulling their kids to charter schools. I was telling teachers yesterday that we need to fight this and save the school, and they had every reason in the book as to why they won’t fight against the destruction. It’s really demoralizing to see that the majority of the faculty is just going to sit there and let the school go down.
LikeLike
Threatened out West,
As has been explained by commenters at this site, most people want to be ruled by a benevolent dictator. Most teachers would sacrifice their lives for students but, won’t stand up for them, against those men clawing for profits, eager to throw teacher-cherished children, under the bus.
If your colleagues think John Arnold, Pete Peterson, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates and the duplicitous Eli Broad, will be benevolent, they are engaging in wishful thinking. They need only contrast the schools the moguls choose for their own children with those they design for publicly-educated students.
LikeLike
For parents and educators education was the first priority but for millions of others, immigration and Ebola grip people with fear and took precedent. Granting amnesty to all illegals is very problematic. To bring/welcome Ebola cases into the States is frightening to most.
LikeLike
Have you gotten your flu shot yet?
LikeLike
Dienne, juxtaposition of the flu with Ebola suggests to me you haven’t grasped the seriousness of Ebola; there is no cure. When cold weather sets in it is airborne.
LikeLike
And add to my list of doom and gloom the fact that I could catch e-bola.
I tell you: the USA has become one big Hallmark card. . . . . . Lot’s of crowded and colorful imagery communicating a big expanse of empty nothingness . . . . All to raise mediocrity as our highest level of expression (Cohn, 1997) in a greeting card that will be tossed and forgotten.
However, I am regaining some hope from other posters in this piece by Diane.
Imagine if Lily turns out to be halfway decent.
LikeLike
More likely, you’ll get the flu…
I’m old enough to remember when Nixon was re-elected in ’72. (’68 had been sad enough, with King and Kennedy, the hopes of a generation, murdered.) Though there was an overwhelming foreboding among my friends, we were also ellubient to live in Massachusetts, the only state to vote for George McGovern. Later events bore witness to our perspicacity.
The tide will turn, perhaps slowly, but the connections we make here, the information we share here, everyday, in Diane’s living room help.
Chin up, Robert, we all have your back.
LikeLike
You’re most kind. I feel less alone . . . .
LikeLike
Christine,
Beautifully phrased-“Diane’s living room.”
LikeLike
Robert…here is something that helps me in these dark times… remember that students do remember our words. As veteran teachers who among us has not encountered students years later who surprise us with a comment that we made years ago and tell us what it meant to them? So, reflecting on this, I address the theme of advocacy ALWAYS. So if a student is too scared to ask for a pencil and is found sitting instead of working, this becomes a teachable moment. If a student comes to the assistance of a peer in need, I address the importance of community and advocacy for others. I have kept this theme as a “steady beat” over the years. I don’t think there is one class I teach each day, where I fail to address advocacy (and no… social studies is not my subject). I teach all grades in my school . Don’t forget that students in Providence, Rhode Island started their own union – they understand the power in advocacy. That was a powerful moment and I hope to see more of this around the nation. Recent election results in PA really speaks volumes of the power in ADVOCACY. Now as “we the people” we have to figure out how to advocate together for the good of our nation.
LikeLike
I guess the reason I was feeling optimistic when I replied to Robert last night was that I had just attended Julian Vasquez Heilig’s presentation here in Boston on how the edurats have twisted discrimination into the new “civil rights”.
(https://prezi.com/x_mdms4sgwvh/phrge-keynote-11614/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy)
The event was sponsored by the law school, so the presentation amounted to a primer on the deformation of public schools and was news to many in the audience. By the end of the keynote, which was an excellent summation of how far down this awful road we’ve already gone, I was feeling both furious and a bit overwhelmed by the task ahead in fighting for public schooling.
Just at that point, I heard my name called and turned to find one of my students, who graduated 8 years ago and is now completing a degree in Economics. After he brought me up to date about his classmates and himself, he said, “I think about our class so often. That’s why I came here tonight. Schools are so important.” SCORE!
What we do in the sacred space of our classrooms matters. Not the paperwork for SLO’s or the evaluations, or the fake PD. The kids, us, the holy moments of handing on how much we mean to one another – the edurats cannot take that away from us. They don’t even know it exists.
Thus to the interpretation of Voltaire’s “Il faut cultiver notre jardin”. The quotation is from the end of “Candide”, a satire, which is, interestingly, about the relationship between a teacher, Pangloss, and his naïve, optimist of a student, Candide. I read it in my high school French class, which was taught by the person I later modeled much of my own teaching on. I’ve always believed it was a hortatory to care for and pay attention to those things that are under our own control. Our garden to tend IS our students. We can at least lock the garden gates and try to keep the howling edurats as far from our students as possible while we plant the seeds which will lead to their defeat.
LikeLike
Given that just over 36% of the population voted are we surprised at the results? While this is an obvious oversimplification, I used to tell my students (some of whom could vote) that if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain. It made sense to them.
LikeLike
Lily is sincere and affecting but lacking any specific plans for fighting back, just a general cheerleading statement from which we can take no real direction….The Democratic Party engineered this Republican advance as it has engineered every Republican advance in elections for the past 40 years, by moving to the Right, becoming wedded to billionaires, two parties competing for who can best get Wall St what it wants, abandoning the public sector, the labor unions, the social services needed by most folks, ignoring the popular majority in favor of a single-payer healthcare system–Obama forces in a private sector boondoggle instead…the two parties meet at the center-right pole of politics and vie for the vast donors who finance the astonishing costs of campaigning…no question we have to brainstorm how to launch a progressive party to the left of the Dems, who will ignore folks like Zephyr and Wliz Warren and all the rest of us campaigning for a humane society until we all have an alternative party to vote for en masse. A very hard row to hoe but no other row will get us what we need and deserve.
LikeLike
On the mark, Ira! Nailed . . . .
LikeLike
Thank you, Ira! This is exactly what I have been thinking.
LikeLike
Right on all counts.
LikeLike
USA has given up on teaching remedial reading/math to secondary students who need it. Winston Churchill’s advice to never give up should be taken.
LikeLike
I guess here in NYS it has to get even worse before it gets any better. We are so screwed.
LikeLike
Lilly…unfortunately….Churchill’s advice is what the billionaire reformers and politicians are following….! They will never give in….but apparently they didn’t read the part about “except to convictions of honour and good sense.” Honour and good sense have gone missing from American culture since money and power are now in charge. Our government is a bully, and its people are bystanders doing what they are told to do.
Robert….I feel you pain! Americans have become sheep. We have been indoctrinated from living in a chronic state of fear and insecurity for too long. We have lost trust in government, and feel helpless to change anything. People who perceive themselves as helpless victims do give up and give in. The 99% in the US are as submissive to abusive authority as the black people of the south were for a hundred years after the civil war.
The robber barons have taken over, and we are the peasants who work for them.
Welcome to Medieval America.
LikeLike
Wow, Ken
Remind me to invite you to every wake and funeral to help console the bereaved . . . . . You’re about as reassuring as a pack of lionesses are to an isolated baby gazelle.
But I agree with you on all counts.
Yet slaves overcame slavery in its most literal form, women gained the right to vote, schools had to be integrated, settlers gained their independence from the British monarch (oops. . . the new British monarch is Pearson), marriage and family have been redefined in 2014 America, and pot has been legalized. In the 30s, massive protests and violent demonstrations gave birth to the formation of unions and the right to collectively bargain.
I am not putting any value of good or bad on any of these movements because my assessment of them is not the point. The point is that they actually happened and shifted life as we know it in American culture. That is undeniable.
Yet, the medieval times gave way to the renaissance and humanism (also no picnic in terms of class stratification, but certainly a big shift to at least create a merchant class that catalyzed the seedlings of a middle class).
Nonetheless, Ken, I am reading in between the lines and sense your frustration and anger.
I think I’ll stick to other views offered here that stand to be potentially healthier.
But I offer a gracious thank you for your horrifying and discomforting advice . . . .
Manners are important . . . . .
LikeLike
Americans are sheep. Obedient, submissive to abusive authority, and workaholics. This has resulted from decades of living in fear and insecurity. It is conditioned defeat. Americans will do whatever “authority” tells them to do. Authority is now the wealthy 1%.
LikeLike
Yeah, yeah, yeah. . . .. I get it.
Got it.
Done.
LikeLike
We have to make voting easier. That is my new cause.
LikeLike
Hold elections on Saturdays.
LikeLike
As long as we’re dreaming….Make election day a national holiday as
well as a sales tax-free day (less than 2k purchases). It could be a
PAID holiday only/if proof of voting was submitted to the employer.
No vote-No pay, would increase voting and pressure on restrictive
voting (ALEC dung).
Remember the “W” cure …Go Shopping…
LikeLike
I think our younger generation is going to take the helm and steer us back toward the spirit and practice of democracy…many members of the younger generation are engaging in protests and civil disobediance across the nationI I attended the Climate March in NYC and I was inspired and heartened by the diversity of people participating and, in particular, the young people. Articulate, informed, passionate and with a shaped sense of purpose., they enlivened me and many others. I spoke to 2 college students about Citizens United and the corporate stranglehold on our country and had so many other conversations.
I spend all day with high school students and, just my 2 cents, but I believe they are hungry and yearning for so much more than media hype and consumerism. There is the presence of untapped energy that is fermenting and beginning to coalsce into something meaningful.
LikeLike
Once again, talk is just that…talk. The NEA has been supporting Common Core and evaluating teachers via VAM. By doing this they have supported politicians who are Reformers. I am sorry, but we don’t need “hope” or a “glimmer of light”, we need strong union leaders and so far that’s not what we have. So let’s just wait and see how Lily backs up her words. Until then, let’s not hold our breath and most of all, let’s stop depending on our unions to do the job for us. Their batting average is very low. It’s time for teachers in each and every school to grab that bat and start playing hardball!!
LikeLike
YES, yes, yes!
LikeLike
And School Gal, please add to that hardball the game of getting far more federal tax dollars to fund public schools instead of killing homeownership with local property taxes. The current arrangement is indicative of a democracy at great risk.
Our federal government is fiscally fascist . . . . .
LikeLike
Reformers have correctly assumed that most teachers are either too fearful or too compliant to fight back. Come on NY, are backs are up against the wall and Cuomo is about to close in. History will not look kindly on compliance and fear as the teacher response to the plutocratic invasion of the public schools. Stay fierce and fearless.
LikeLike
Labor force participation is at a 36-year low. It’s 63%. On the positive side, the plutocrats can’t govern people bartering under the radar. (However, plutocrats, always the opportunists, rigged the penal system so that they could get a crack at them). On the negative side, the black market doesn’t provide funds for infrastructure nor, community goods, which is disastrous for future GDP growth.
The low labor participation rate is a function of (1) hopelessness, leading to reliance on family financial support, which is already strained (2) lack of demand for goods and services by average Americans who have declining incomes (falling from $52,000) (3) worker rejection of unfair treatment, subsistence wages, abhorrent labor practices and middle class tax rip-offs.
Without excising the unproductive financial sector, without progressive taxes, without increased middle class spending, and without the enforcement of stronger labor laws, why would we expect the labor participation rate or GDP to increase?
LikeLike
“Democrats have shown no interest in supporting their base….”
Midterms 2014: The Red Wedding for Democrats (Grasping At Straws/naked capitalism)
“The bottom line is that in the Bush “recovery,” nearly all the gains were creamed off by the top 10%; and in the Obama “recovery,” the bottom 90% actually lost ground. That’s “the wrong track” you keep hearing about. Chris Cilizza:
Lost in the coverage of the elation of Republicans was the fact that the electorate is deeply pessimistic about the future of the country. Almost half of all the people who voted Tuesday said life for the next generation of Americans would be “worse than life today.” Nearly eight in 10 people said they were “very” (37 percent) or “somewhat” (40 percent) worried about the direction of the nation’s economy. Two-thirds said the country is “seriously off on the wrong track.”
The LOTE Vote is like Pepsi or Coke…neither is “good” for you.
How about the WALLET vote?
Don’t like the koch bros spin, DON”T buy their products.
Don’t like gates dung, DON’T buy his products.
Don’t like Globalism, DON’T off-shore the demand required for it, Jobs DO follow Demand. Jobs are mostly a result of sales, which are a function of aggregate demand.
Symbolic voting is nice, right up there with symbolic democracy and symbolic
“free” market. Let’s pretend the harvest has NOTHING to do with the planted seeds.
The history driven “dressing” of the Emperor doesn’t stop him from breathing down our
backs any more than the invocations of democracy.
Illusions may provide comfort, but do they stir the “soul”, inspire one, or groups, to action?
Is there such a “thing” as the “technology of culture production”? Is that marketing or
propaganda?
There is no reality so hard as that into which one is conditioned. Some beneficiaries
of the “system” claim a lack of memory exists, (lessons lost), while sportsfans of all
stripes, demonstrate memory at it’s finest (stats, scores, players…). Contradictions
are exposed as the foundation built on illusions, slips away. Until these contradictions
are brought to a head, so that all can see what is going on, we will remain the same.
LikeLike
You’re right. Priorities are in the wrong place. But that is a sign of the dumbing down of America. I do think people will learn more as the suffering and hardships increase. Hardly anyone, including myself, is immune to that.
LikeLike