At a meeting in New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders said the following:
“I’m not in favor of privately run charter schools. If we are going to have a strong democracy and be competitive globally, we need the best educated people in the world. I believe in public education; I went to public schools my whole life, so I think rather than give tax breaks to billionaires, I think we invest in teachers and we invest in public education. I really do.” – Bernie Sanders (Quote begins at 1:48:32)
That is: go to one hour and forty-eight minutes on the video to hear his quote.
Will Hillary Clinton pledge to oppose the privatization and destruction of our nation’s public schools?
It’s about time that Bernie stated this as his position. Great.
Bernie is being a bit dramatic and ironic with his statement, “If we are going to have a strong democracy and be competitive globally…”. Preventing choice and competition is not democratic nor competitive. It’s bureaucratic and socialistic. We can all agree that outlawing charters is not a solution, rather we need more direct conversation, publicizing, and authenticity in school politics and administration.
Jesse, no high performing nation in the world has charters run by private corporations. We could sink to the level of Chile
And must add to this that every other industrialized nation in the world has single payer universal health care. So glad Bernie believes in both…and that his Democratic Socialism is grounded in humanism…not, as Jesse states, in drama.
Actually, if you want to see bureaucracy in action, just try to enroll your child in the all-“choice” district of New Orleans. If you have multiple kids, you can have two or three or four times the fun. Mercedes Schneider wrote an incredibly long, detailed and mind-boggling piece about it a while ago. I think there’s probably a link to it somewhere on Diane’s archives. If I get energetic enough, I’ll try to find it for you.
BTW, if you charter cheerleaders were really interested in “direct conversation” you would have thought of that before you started pushing charters on communities that don’t want them by fiat. You were the ones who declared war – don’t go crying now that you’ve gotten it.
Jesse… you need to spend a year in a school following corporate “ed reforms” and let it be the typical charter school. Open your eyes. Democracy should be a humanistic endeavor for all not a “profit endeavor” for a few to the detriment of the many… all while preaching “the gospel” that the endeavors of “the few” are really to “help” the many. Anyone who believes this needs a “brain refresh”!
Are corporations compatible with democracy?
Should schools receiving public tax dollars have democratically elected governance?
Do “competition” and “free market” ideologies benefit an entire society or just a few?
If an industry in a “free market” becomes dominated by one or two major players, should “too big to fail” be broken up by government?
Should workers have a voice in how a company is run and be rewarded fairly for hard work?
Democratic socialism povokes a knee jerk reaction from conservatives and is branded Marxism or communism. People should listen to Bernie.
I didn’t see anything in that statement about “outlawing” charters. But perhaps he might seek to quash the race to pull in the federal big bucks and make lots of money for individuals who don’t need it by running fascistic schools where obeying orders and scoring well on tests are paramount. (I think he would be appalled at seeing videos of that type of school.) He is a man of integrity, and has a habit of looking into things and listening to average people. I trust that he could start a more meaningful dialogue in this country about public education. Use of PUBLIC money for PRIVATE profiteering in charters needs to end. It is also wrong to run prisons for profit and wage perpetual war for profit, but it has made some people very rich, so we are doing it. Education needs to stay off of that path, but it’s where it’s going. We need to resist.
Jesse,
“. . . authenticity in school politics and administration.”
Please explain that statement. TIA, Duane
“We can all agree that outlawing charters. . . ”
What does that straw man have to do with the price of tea in China?
Jesse wrote “Preventing choice and competition is not democratic nor competitive. It’s bureaucratic and socialistic. ”
What do we need competitions for? And who would be the judges? How would they decide on who gets the gold medal?
What’s wrong with socialistic?
What’s democratic about the creation of charter schools? Here, in Memphis, charters are created by taking over public schools, despite the objections of students, parents, teachers.
In other places, charter operators simply move into an existing school building, like cuckoos.
Jesse ” We can all agree that outlawing charters is not a solution, …”
I don’t agree. Not in this country, where once a company gets a school, it would want to expand indefinitely to own more and more schools so that they could gain more and more power to crush the competition by influencing politicians and politics.
Let’s face it, people don’t want fair competition that would make things better for all. No, people want to win, and want to win big to get into the 1% or 0.1%.
A good “competition” is what you see among restaurants in France. There are thousands of them just in Paris alone, and you can safely walk into any of them to get great food, happy servers. Their race is not for winning, their race is like a “race for a cure”.
Máté: Great metaphor
“The Cuckoo’s Nest”
Birds of a charter
Flock together
Lay their eggs in public school
Feed from mother
Of another
In a land where cuckoo’s rule
Poet “The Cuckoo’s Nest”
Now that you expanded, better metaphor than I originally thought.🙂
Hillary would have to be willing to forego funding from Eli Broad.
That will never happen…at least privately “Will the Real Hillary Clinton Please Stand Up?” http://goo.gl/xPHbEZ
This and more is why we need to elect Bernie as our next president!
Wow. It’s great that a candidate for president has taken this stand!
Yet, Karen you’re still supporting Hillary. Why?
What??? Can’t be that a friend can be supporting a compromised woman candidate over a straight forward humanist candidate who works for the people and not Wall Street. Liz Warren today make a strong statement of support for Bernie.
Did everyone read today that the two Clintons made over $25 M in one year from only giving talks? Wall Street, and Broad, continue to make it clear that their cash is filling Billary pockets.
Yet another reason to support Bernie.
Go Bernie go!
Anyone wanting to learn more, get involved, or volunteer from home can find lots of resources here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/
I don’t find this at all surprising. And it’s great to hear him say it aloud. Don’t hold your breath waiting for any unequivocal opposition to charters from HRC or the GOP.
#Bernie Sanders 2016
I admire the honesty and sincerity of this man. I agree with most of his stances, particularly his support of the 99% and the overturning of Citizens United.
I believe Hillary has already expressed support of private charter schools.
Bernie is the man.
He may need to update his website:
“Speaking of public funding of privately run organizations, where does Bernie stand on charter schools?
Bernie does not oppose charter schools — that is, schools that are privately managed but funded by taxes. Indeed, Bernie voted for the Charter School Expansion Act of 1998. Nonetheless, Bernie believes that these institutions must be “held to the same standards of transparency as public schools” to ensure accountability for these privately managed organizations. It is worth noting that while charter schools are privately managed, they do not charge tuition to students and are considered public schools.”
http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-education/
Have people noticed the post from Daniel, with the quote from Bernie’s web site about his position on charters, and the fact that he voted for the charter expansion act of 1998?
Someone needs to point out the contradiction to Bernie, and ask him which is his real position?
The quote above is truncated. That same section of his website also says:
“Bernie’s stance on charter schools is similar to that of both the AFT and the NEA, which do not oppose charter schools, but seek to ensure that they are run in ways that benefit the students. The NEA, for example, shares Bernie’s concern that these schools must be run transparently to increase accountability: “As taxpayer-funded schools, charter schools must operate in a manner that is transparent and accountable to the families and communities they serve.”
Just to be more clear.
Please, someone refresh my memory. What president signed the Charter School Expansion Act of 1998 into law?
Go Bernie (before we all go broke).
I don’t think that’s an official Bernie website, but rather a volunteer effort to pull together his various comments on issues, very well done. But you are 100% correct to point out this seeming contradiction. I’m a Bernie supporter, but I am disappointed by his relative silence on K-12 education, and I don’t think this brief answer really amounts to much.
Btw, the question, if I heard it correctly, seems to be coming from someone who went to a charter school and mentions how funding got cut from it, etc. I wonder what she thought of his answer.
Also worth looking at:
the AFT questionnaire, with his answer:
Q: What are your views on private school vouchers, tuition tax credits, and charter school accountability and transparency?
BS: I am strongly opposed to any voucher system that would re-direct public education dollars to private schools, including through the use of tax credits. In addition, I believe charter schools should be held to the same standards of transparency as public schools, and that these standards should also apply to the non-profit and for-profit entities that organize charter schools.
which is linked to from this, also informative:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/08/21/activist-teachers-challenge-sen-bernie-sanders-on-corporate-school-reform/
Finally and yeah. Go Bernie.
Thank you for this information, Diane. I am sure Bernie would be pleased to hear from “real” teachers.
Maybe TFAers should complain to Bernie.
Sanders still has to win the nomination from the Democratic Party before he can run for president. If he runs as an independent against Hillary, that will help Trump, Rubio or Cruz become president as long as the far right empire of evil only runs one candidate and Trump doesn’t run as an independent after the GOP spurns and cheats him out of the nomination at the convention.
Now that would be a crazy making election to break every rule in the book.
Hillary runs as a Democrat
Sanders runs as an Independent
Rubio or Cruz runs as the GOP candidate
Trump runs as an independent
Then the candidate for the Green Party wins.
Sanders has already said he won’t run as an independent. If Hillary gets the nomination, he will support her.
He knows if he runs against her, the GOP will have th e advantage as he cuts into the demo numbers. But he is going to win the nomination… his voice is resonating with a middle class that is being decimated, and they are very, very mad!
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/05/opinion/angling-for-the-hopping-mad.html?emc=edit_ty_20160105&nl=opinion&nlid=50637717&_r=0
Maybe Hillary will ask Sanders to be her VP.
Maybe Sanders will ask H. Clinton to be V-P.
Wishful thinking. As long as Hillary leads in the polls and at the Democratic convention, she isn’t going to run on the ticket as the VP. She would have to have brain damage to do that. It isn’t in her nature.
In response to those who label HRC as a “charter school supporter”., please read the following:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/11/08/hillary-clinton-most-charter-schools-dont-take-the-hardest-to-teach-kids-or-if-they-do-they-dont-keep-them/
In fact though, both HRC and Bernie have taken stands and votes on both sides of the issue in their careers, and on other “deform” issues. I wish we could talk to them to try to clarify their positions on education issues, and help educate them about it. The media interviewers and debate moderators never seem to ask them about education.
Diane, have you been able to speak to either or both Hillary and/or Bernie about education?
Hillary walked back her very minor – and completely accurate – criticism of charter schools almost before the words were out of her mouth. She knows where her bread is buttered and she won’t make that mistake again.
But I do appreciate your pointing out the contradiction on Bernie’s website. I don’t think we can take one statement from Bernie as the truth of his position any more than we can take one statement from Hillary. I think his recent comments are heartening, but, like you said, we need to hear him explain the contradiction.
He talks ab out Income inequality. It is his them!e
YET An hour and 48 minutes into his talk he gives a few words about charters?
It show how little he knows about the underlying cause of income inequality in this nation !n ten years Income equality will beyond the reach of masses of our citizen.
Education is the key to learning the skill that enable thinking , which enable the ability to hold a job, or even to get a decent one.
I wrote to his campaign,recently, not that anyone there seems to really how many voting teachers are out there, looking got hear on candidate actually show some grasp of what is happening”
I said:
“Bernie MUST NOT be confused about what went wrong with public education — the best teachers are gone, and current teachers are not permitted to practice as the professional.
“The end of public education means the end of income equality for the masses of the people, and it all boils down to the removal of the AUTONOMY of the professional teacher practitioner from the classroom, simply by removing their civil rights— a hidden scandal!
“The path to INCOME EQUALITY which IS BERNIE’S MAJOR THEME begins in public schools where PROFESSIONAL TEACHERS, determine WHAT LEARNING REALLY LOOKS LIKE in that room, and have the autonomy to create lessons that MOTIVATE children to do the hard work — to put in the effort that learning requires.
“BY REMOVING the voice of the real professionals, schools fail as easily as hospitals would if emptied of real physicians If doctors were mandated by top-down management to use failing practices, and then blamed for failures, you would have the catastrophic collapse of the institutions of health care.Teachers want to hear BERNIE SAY THAT HE KNOWS HOW & WHY the professional teacher-practitioners have been removed from the nations school:
“When schools fail, the legislatures take control with nary an educator on board. The end of LOCAL CONTROL of schools is ocurring at a pace that is astonishing; (
“We teachers want to know that he grasps what happened, what is ongoing now and what needs to be done. The victims of the PURPOSEFUL destruction of our public schools are our children who will not be children for long, but who will never achieve income equality! Schools are the only road to income equality.
No candidate has done this yet. TIME IS RUNNING OUT.
Just this week, national studies revealed how our nation’s graduates were victims of this destruction — deprived of the ONLY ROAD that leads to INCOME EQUALITY — an education that actually enables the acquisition of real thinking skills.”
“It show how little he knows about the underlying cause of income inequality in this nation !” I think you’re wrong, although I agree with the need to allow teachers to be professionals who teach kids to think.
He knows that income inequality begins with birth, that America is less and less upwardly mobile, and that we are less upwardly mobile than a number of other countries, at this point.
Technology replacing humans and the movement of jobs overseas have decimated employment. Education is not the path to upward mobility that it once was.
Bernie knows that greed and corruption are making things even worse, that kids who feel hopeless about paying for college don’t see much point in studying hard – which he has explicitly stated in a number of speeches, and that college debt is a national scandal.
Perhaps you need to broaden your own understanding, and look at a bigger picture. Re-professionalizing teachers, although it would be great, would not be nearly enough to address these problems.
Also, I do not understand things like, “I wrote to his campaign,recently, not that anyone there seems to really how many voting teachers are out there, looking got hear on candidate actually show some grasp of what is happening”” and I doubt that Bernie’s campaign could totally decipher that, either, although we might have gotten the major drift.
to your point, that YOU do not understand my comment that “I wrote to his campaign,recently, not that anyone there seems to really how many voting teachers are out there, looking got hear on candidate actually show some grasp of what is happening”
For six months, I have sent emails to his campaign, to his senate office, and even to his brother, wife, and high school friend, to contact Bernie so that I can connect him to Diane, or any of the people who can give I’m the details that we all know.
These email have contained links to this blog, and other places which detail the debacle and the tragedy that HAS BEEN ENGINEERED.
They contained clear explanations of WHY THE SCHOOLS ARE GOING DOWN FAST, and why it is urgent to face this destruction the road to opportunity.
I DID NOT RECEIVE A SINGLE REPLY.
A shame, because you do not get any more ‘grassrootier’ then a gal from Brooklyn who went to school with Bernie!
Replying again: read that sentence again. It doesn’t make sense as a sentence in English, basically.
anyone there seems to really how
looking got hear on candidate actually show
It’s the autocorrect… and there is no way to edit a pos once it is up…
You sound like you are taking the failure to respond to you (by his campaign) personally. As a person who used to do some freelance writing, I know that it is far more likely to be ignored than to get even a polite rejection these days. (Times have changed. I’ve had the same experience with job apps. It seems that the professionalism that once called for a response either way has gone by the wayside.) You must be only one of thousands who are writing repeated, personal messages, and the campaign is running on a much lower budget than Hillary’s. Please don’t ding his campaign for not giving you a personal response.
I have no interest in being applauded or admired by anyone,not even Bernie.
I don’t care if he ever contacts me, as long as he gets my message TO TALK TO TEACHERS IN A WAY THAT THEY WILL UNDERSTAND THAT HE KNOWS THE REALITY.
Last night I got a call from Labor for Berne… I think getting got the workers of this land, is crucial…. but he needs the teachers, not just the teachers union leaders, to endorse him… Many teachers are female…and too many who speak to me, want a woman president more than they want to fix education… which HILLARY WILL NOT DO.
Don’t psycho-anlayze my intentions– just a teacher,–because my only desire is to HEAR HIM ADDRESS THE ISSUES.
It is time here in America that EDUCATION be addressed in depth and for real by a top leader. I am tired of hearing about ‘schools.’ as our democracy goes DOWN, and the very people who once showed our future voting public, what our nation was all about… ARE GONE
I believe that Bernie, like everyone, is unaware of the SPEED of the legislative takeover and that he– like most people– does NOT realize the endemic corruption that has decimated the INSTITUTION, nor the wealth that is behind a real CONSPIRACY.
I want him, at the very least, TO KNOW ENOUGH FACTS… to begin a conversation about WHAT IT TAKES FOR KIDS TO LEARN, because the conversation for too long is about bad teachers, and teaching and testing and well CC crap.
I am stunned by the facts at his finger -tips in that speech about Wall St.. He is BRILLIANT… But he offers only a few words… an hour into a speech – about education?
I just want to see him win, and it WOULD HELP if he spent the same time and energy, the same passion TALKING about education, or the destruction of public education as he does about the banks , the tax loopholes and other talking points in his stump speeches.
Teachers I know (and because of my activism and writing at Oped, I know more than a few) hardly know where he stands, and too many are only too happy to back Hillary (in the pockets of the Education Industrial Complex, , who has the support of Randi (the traitor).
He has very little time to get their attention and there are millions of teachers … and they all VOTE! That is why I spent so much time trying to tell him the REALITY.
I want someone like Carol Burris, or Anthony Cody or Mercedes or Diane to inform a policy statement IF HE GETS THE NOMINATION… but he has to seek out expert voices.
That is ALL I ever wanted. I don’t need a phone call from him or his people. I just want to see that he has GRASPED THE MESSAGE
But, to be clear, if a passionate supporter, a real GRASSROOTS gal from Brooklyn who was in the same class where teacher Larry Storch taught us about The American, revolution and the Constitution, cannot get through to him — then WHO are the grassroots?
Moreover, if a genuine, respected educator, makes a tremendous effort to HELP, and his HANDLERS ignore it, and cannot respond with “we got your message, thanks,”— then it does not bode well.
Each day, I get a least 5 messages from his campaign ( I am a founding member, one of the folks who run local meetings and go flying and get petitions signed, and send $$$), so they do know I am here. Each day, they ask for more money.
I have advice to give… valuable advice..
maybe next time he will manage to give an entire speech about the demise of public schools… Hillary knows how to reach teachers… and she is a traitor who will do nothing to stop the destruction.
I fell for the “wolf in sheep’s clothing with Obama, and I don’t want to do it again.
Bernis is the real thing. If you examines record, he does not flip-flop on issues. He is whole appears to be. And, if you listen to his Wall st speech, his ability to know the facts, to have information in that silver haired head, is stunning. Smart but no crazy like Cruz.
He is alone out there. There are good reasons that people see him as omen like FDR, a real, thinking leader in time of crisis.
That!s it, I was leaning towards Bernie and now he’s got me. Hilary would never come out this clearly for public education.
I’m glad he is on record with this.
Well, Hillary will get two ed votes-one for each union leader.
#feelthebern
And if she comes out with any stand on the issue in response to the one Sanders took, I know I will get email and maybe even phone slammed with robo-calls heralding the “teacher’s candidate”
Hillary will claim to be against charter schools when she thinks it will affect her polls. I’m a huge supporter of Bernie. AFT blew it big time by endorsing HRC.
Agree. AFT seems to have joined the NEA in the game of preaching before the defense of teaching. Last issue in my mailbox decried zero tolerance, but didn’t take a firm position in pointing out that the “choice” schools competing for money and minds often use such policies and practices to avoid the real hard work of teaching. Like NEA in early-reform mode, it feels like admissions of guilt as opposed to a demand for collaboration with the real professionals.
I am not sure that “Will Hillary…. (finally step up late in the game and take this position because she’s sees Sanders gain even more ground)” is even worth asking. If she does, it would reinforce one of the primary criticisms: that her opinion changes based on how it plays in the court of public opinion. Sanders has always said what many people want to hear. The conditions and the debates of distraction in this nation have finally degraded to the point where people want real change, not “hope and change”.
There it is.. the defining comment that truly calls out HRC and the controversial early endorsement by Randi and the AFT. Bernie fully supports public schools.. HRC wants to close half of them. Really feeling the Bern today!
Hats off to Bernie Sanders for making this statement, and to Ms. Ravitch for publicizing this on her blog and for calling on Hillary Clinton to do the same.
Sadly, even in the public schools, many teachers and other workers are in deep trouble, to put it mildly. So are many of the students, especially if you think about this from long experience and from a global perspective.
There is urgent, unfinished work to be done in the public schools and in the communities they serve, not through the imposition of diktats from above but by raising awareness about the real issues that plague not only the schools but those communities and the nation as a whole–and then, hopefully, by finally addressing these things, acting together and in a bottom-up fashion. Even a public acknowledgement of the real problems, far less a public consensus on how to proceed, has been lacking.
This work, which is a difficult but essential one, as it also means facing up to the question of the true purposes of formal education, as well as the importance of the more fundamental, traditional informal education (including even the vital acquisition of the first language and of an ethical framework) has been neglected for at least as long as I have taught in the public schools (almost three decades now) and in all likelihood for much longer.
One has seen instead one destructive distraction after another, with unnecessary stresses, on both sincere teachers and sincere students, piling up on top of one another. This has turned whatever remained of teaching and learning in too many of our schools into the saddest of jokes.
Here in NY City, whatever remained of teacher autonomy when I began teaching in the NY City schools has been eroded, most violently in the past couple of years, strangely enough after Bloomberg left.
The public schools have been accomplishing miracles since they were first instituted. We should all understand and acknowledge that. Yet which of us would recommend to our children that they take teaching in the schools as a career? And which of us would dare to put our children or grandchildren into a randomly chosen public school in this great city? Too many parents have little choice in this. Yet their children have just that one shot at getting the formal education that has become essential, just for survival. Of course, the informal education that I referred to remains as vital as ever, and this is where parents cannot expect schools to replace their own responsibilities and labor.
That said, the use of charters to bust unions, turn the screws on workers, making them even more voiceless and powerless than they currently are, and to open the doors to channel yet more funds into the full hands of those who see everything as a business opportunity, is quite clear.
And this, as Paul once said long ago, is a bipartisan assault–witness Andrew Cuomo’s actions here in NY State and (even worse) Rahm Emanuel’s in Chicago. Of course, the Republicans are in the lead in this as in other assaults on workers’ rights and the politics of division.
The assaults on the public schools, the public libraries, the post office and more should be seen for what they are at core — an attempt to reverse whatever is left of the progress made by workers, through long and hard struggles, up to Reagan’s time in this country. Similar assaults are underway all across the globe.
Has any candidate running for president understood this and spoken out boldly against the unnecessary and destructive privatization of the public schools?
Bernie Sanders has, as Ms. Ravitch reports in her blog (below).
I attended Sanders’ speech, focused on taking on the big banks and Wall Street, on Tuesday in Manhattan, and followed him, as part of large crowd, as he walked from the Town Hall, on 43rd near 6th, to Bryant Park (42nd and 6th), where he was interviewed by a reporter from ABC News and by others.
It was an uplifting experience. There is some hope left in this country. But that hope cannot be realized by Sanders alone, as he fully understands and has stated. It is up to the rest of us to come together to realize that hope. The election of Sanders to the presidency will greatly aid us in that.
Arjun
I think the quote is a little sketchy, frankly. I’m sure he said it but like the Clinton quote on closing schools I’d have to see some clarification from him directly on that issue- a specific response to a direct question. It’s just very thin to base anything on a single comment.
It saddens me that we’re always reading tea leaves and frantically trying to determine intent with national politicians and public schools. Begging them to say something, anything, so we might possibly make some kind of informed choice in an election is just not a good place to be- it’s not a position of strength.
I completely understand the lack of trust- we want assurances that they support public schools (or something that can be construed as an assurance) particularly after the Obama Administration- but parsing these comments is to me more an indication of how little credibility these candidates have than anything that might actually predict how they would approach public school issues.
I think it should be a given that public employees working in government support public schools. I don’t think we should have to beg them, or try to curry their favor, or plead with them to say something positive about existing public schools.
I hope that becoming more familiar with Sanders’ history will alleviate your skepticism. He is a person of integrity who has followed a path of true public service.
“It saddens me that we’re always reading tea leaves and frantically trying to determine intent with national politicians ”
Find out more about him and you will be gladdened. He does not “owe” major corporations. He knows how destructive they are. I can tell he is not yet extremely-well-versed yet in what is happening in public ed – as few people are (and that includes many teachers I know) – but once he is, he will do the right thing, because that’s who he is and has been his entire life.
I don’t know one other teacher who follows this blog, let alone a politician, so there are few people getting the big picture that Diane Ravitch is providing with this wonderful service. When he does get it, you can trust him. He’s the real deal. He’s about making it a better country for more people, and about justice.
Look where attending public schools got Sanders, who came from a lower-income family. He knows what’s what, and how horrible their destruction would be.
I know regular people don’t get to ask the questions, but if I were somehow able to reach one of these people I’d ask them “what do you value about existing public schools?”
If they answered that question honestly and specifically, I think we’d find out all we need to know.
I hate how this is always framed exclusively in terms of charter schools and vouchers. It’s as if public schools are already gone. I think that’s the terms of the debate that ed reform set up- there will be no discussion of a positive agenda for PUBLIC schools. We may only discuss charters and vouchers, and public schools will be treated as sort of the disfavored “default”, notable only by their omission, that no one is particularly interested in or excited about.
As I just wrote in a response to someone else, Sanders comes from a lower-income family and Polish immigrants from not far back, and public schools gave him the opportunity to get him where he is now. He knows that and appreciates it. He knows that in other times and places others do not or have not had that opportunity. He believes in public schools in the best way.
Old Martin appointed pro charter and ed reformers while MD’s gov. to state ed commission including the recently resigned head. Strike! Shillary and Billy-boy well they love the charter school hustle and pandering. Strike! Well Bernie…You knocked it out of the park.
That is what I’ve been waiting for. I have three members in my family that are changing our voter registration from Independent to Democrat so we can vote for Bernie in the Florida primary.
I will be voting in the primary for the first time as I’ve always refused to have to choose between one or the other lamestream party in order to be part of the process. I have changed my mind for this primary as Sanders is the only “democrat” for whom I’d vote.
The more people who vote/caucus whatever in the primaries the greater the chance that Sanders will have.
Retired teacher…you bring up a vital point and I hope people take note since is buried in this drum of words. It is VITAL to vote in the primary, and to encourage others to change their status to Democrat to be able to vote for Bernie Sanders. Thank you for this notice.
And of course, Duane, glad you see the light. Often the primary election can be the most telling in finding the better candidate…or not.
I am asked repeatedly what public policy means, and how it differs from political science….so here is one area that we who teach public policy focus on….VOTE in the primary election.
Also, if the Republican primary gives the nation Ted Cruz as their leader, we are in for an election similar to France where Le Pen showed up so well. The fascistic leaders seem to be grabbing the hopes of our fellow citizens, and it is a dangerous time in America. Anti Semitic language will become de riguer. Just a warning…..
Awesome! I did the same, just not in Florida.
Walton heirs put another billion toward replacing public schools with charter schools:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WALTON_FOUNDATION_CHARTER_SCHOOLS?SITE=DCUSN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
I wonder which cities and states are getting the Walton schools? I guess we’ll find out when they open. I hope they don’t dump the whole billion in one state. That’ll pretty much knock out the unfashionable public schools, but this was never a real competition anyway. There were designated losers right from the start.
Thanks for the link, Chiara!
From the article:
“The new money will be spent in places where the foundation already has ties – creating new schools and developing “pipelines of talent,” said Marc Sternberg, a former high school principal who directs education philanthropy for the Walton Family Foundation.
“People in poverty need high-performing schools,” Sternberg said. “Our goal is that all families … have better schools. To be the rising tide to lift all boats.””
First, Will someone fill us in on Marc Sternberg and his principalship at Bronx Lab School?
Second, considering that 40% of WalMart full time employees qualify and are encouraged to apply for by said company food and other government aide, who the f#$K is Sternberg trying to kid about “rising tide”????
Duane, I think you’ve got to have, or be in, a boat first.
I think Hillary will SAY she opposes charter schools, or anything else to get elected. The difference with Senator Sanders is that I believe he actually means it.
Sadly, true, as far as I’m concerned.
“justateacher
January 7, 2016 at 9:22 am
As I just wrote in a response to someone else, Sanders comes from a lower-income family and Polish immigrants from not far back, and public schools gave him the opportunity to get him where he is now. He knows that and appreciates it. He knows that in other times and places others do not or have not had that opportunity. He believes in public schools in the best way.”
Thanks. I always vote and I’ll probably vote for Sanders in the primary, but I won’t base it on “support for public schools” partly because schools are (mostly) state law. I read his bio and I’ve been a Democrat a long time so I’m familiar with his record in the Senate.
Are you familiar with the phrase “Kremlinology”? It originally meant outsiders trying to suss out the politics and policy of the Kremlin. They had to look for clues because it was such a closed system (and the political actors all lied constantly) so it was impossible to determine what was actually going on there. Later it was used to describe “outsiders” trying to determine what was going on in any complex or opaque system.
I’m not comparing US politics to the Soviet Union, but it seems they are so distant from us and there is so little trust that we’re reduced to this role of parsing their every proclamation for “clues” on how they might govern. I think I just resent the fact that I have to guess, and even then who knows what they’ll do when they get in there?
I don’t think it’s as hard as you make out to figure out what politicians will do after they are elected (or re-elected), if you listen carefully to what they are saying and doing during their campaigns, taking into account that they are at times pandering insincerely to get votes. Such panders can usually be seen through, if you take into account the whole of the candidate’s political history and his/her basic stances and alignments. I realize, of course, that most of us do not have the time to do extensive research on each candidate. But they often reveal quite openly what they are about, either out of honest conviction or because they have, first and foremost, to appease their main supporters and contributors, whom they will naturally continue to appease when elected.
To take some examples:
a) Andrew Cuomo, twice-elected Democratic governor of NY Sate, made clear his desire to “go after the unions” on quite a few occasions. This was reported in the NY Post, a right-wing newspaper owned, for a while now, by Rupert Murdoch. Sure enough, after being elected, this is exactly what he did. Unfortunately, the unions and even the Working Families Family (during his second campaign) thought they had deals with him and did not oppose his nomination, even endorsing him in the primaries — where he got an unexpected challenge, during his second campaign, from two unknown law professors who got a surprisingly large share of the primary vote despite everything..
b) Barack Obama, during his first campaign, made several remarks, which were very disturbing to me, about the public schools and their teachers. When I talked to local union folk about this, I was told, “Don’t worry. Randi just needs to sit down with him for half an hour and tell him how it really is.” Well-we all know how that worked out. Putting aside actions, Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, had even publicly praised Michelle Rhee and Fenty in DC and Joel Klein and Michael Bloomberg in NY City for what they had done to improve education in the schools.
c) Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago, and his political history before he became mayor. Need I say more?
I have given only a few examples from the Democratic side, where one might possibly have some doubts as to how the candidate will act. On the Republican side, rarely do we have a case, nowadays, where any such doubts could possibly arise.
Bernie Sanders is not without flaws. But he has shown some integrity and consistency. He will support public schools and other public institutions, as well as public workers–and workers in general–far more than any other candidate on the Democratic side, not to speak of the Republicans.
To maintain that one is a socialist and to speak out boldly against the powers that effectively run this country takes guts and conviction. No one with such a stance will cave in to those powers when it comes to workers. Of course, his ability to stand up to these folk will depend on what the rest of us do, and on whom we elect to local, state and federal government. He can’t work miracles by himself.
Thanks, I haven’t heard that phrase. I learned the hard way (supporting Obama the first time – although what better choice was there?) that you need to look at voting records. Late in life for learning this! https://votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/27110/bernie-sanders?sponsorships=1#.Vo9MXfHf9FW
Thanks for the Votesmart link, justateacher.
— also a teacher (Arjun Janah)
I’m glad to hear him say this. I wish Sanders were stronger on all of the issues related to K-12 public education — perhaps this is a start. I’ve been fantasizing that maybe NPE could arrange a conference call between Sanders and public education advocates around the country (not national teachers’ union leadership, since they’ve already endorsed Hillary, but opt out groups, BATS, Seattle educators and other progressive locals, the Chicago hunger strikers, etc — the folks NPE is in touch with already) — is that possible? I think we need a real champion of public education in the race, and sadly HRC is not it, and won’t be (too many privatization ties).
The Waltons just might spend that billion right here in Arkansas, where most everybody dances to their tune, anyway. Lookit all that Philanthropy…
Chiara’ right. Sanders should speak to the positive truth, the value of public schools; not bury some ambiguous comment about charter schools two hours into a speech. Public education is a priority, not an afterthought.
It bothered me that the only thing I’ve heard from Hillary Clinton is her mild criticism of charter schools, and then her immediate walk-back from her mild criticism of charter schools after the giant ed reform lobby scolded her.
What about public schools? Does she have anything to say there?
It’s insane that we’re having a “debate” that is supposedly about “public schools” but public schools are never mentioned. I think it’s an indication of how completely ed reformers dominate the debate.
THEIR only interest is charters and vouchers, so that’s the focus. I don’t accept that.
The über-rich don’t want to break bread with the likes of you and I, they only want to be with their own kind or their sycophants; people who will never question the assumption that their unearned wealth makes them smarter than everyone else. Their greatest weakness in all this is confirmation bias, ‘the unexamined life…”
Societally, these are the sorts of conditions that brought about the Peasant’s Revolt, Wat Tyler’s Rebellion,the French Revolution, and the Labour Movement. What goes up…
TO JUST A TEACHER…I am replying here on the larger blog, so my words do not ‘crawl’ along the side”
Of course Bernie Sanders knows that income equality begins at birth. But something VITAL HAS CHANGED!
Until the end of the 20th century when the PLAN to end public education was put into play, our public schools, for the most part, provided a real road to the middle class for many disadvantaged people. They needed funding to do repairs, add technology and more staff to reduce class size, but instead they were starved to death, and a press began.
I don’t think even a smart, Senator like Bernie, knows HOW FAST public schools are going down, and that AS A RESULT– income equality will be unreachable by the masses of people who cannot get what was once available to all –a good education in the schools of their community… PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
With all the blabber and blarney about “school failure”, and ‘choice’ there isNO ONE who is actually confronting the FACTS AND THE REALITY of what is happening like we HEAR IT ON THIS SITE!
I think that many teachers “out there” want to hear more than a few words –an hour into a speech– about what HE KNOWS is ongoing,RIGHT NOW, and what has happened!
But the OUTCOME of “THE PLAN” which no candidate discusses, has produced LEGISLATIVE TAKE-OVERS of schools, removing them from local control where parents and local communities actually oversee what is happening. With nary an educator on board, the corrupt legislatures ensure that learning is the last criteria on their mind.
https://dianeravitch.net/?s=legislature
Bernie Sanders NEEDS TO TALK ABOUT the conspiracy, the way Diane has done for years, when she calls it the ‘billionaires boys club’… now the Educational Industrial Complex.
I think that if Bernie gives a PASSIONATE speech with as much information about the machinations of Gates, Broad, Pearson, Walton etc as he did about the Wall Street villains, teachers would get behind him, and THE PEOPLE WOULD KNOW what we here already know.
The charter school debacle in NYC – the largest of the 15,880 school systems in the nation is the direct result of THE PLAN IN THE LEGISLATURES AND CITIES TO defund the schools, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME removing the professional staff. If you have not seen this, then do watch it “GRASSROOTS AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH WAITING FOR SUPERMAN”
I want to know that Bernie knows HOW they took a working school system,and caused chaos, so Eva and pals could define ‘success,’ and steal public money. I want to know that Bernie GETS IT!
I want to hear a candidate — ANY candidate– talk about HOW “THEY” DID IT, and THEN EXPLAIN how funding will be restored and autonomy returned to the professional teacher-practitioner.
I want to hear Bernie talk about:
* the organized plan to invent failure: the testing mania which has led to all manner of unanticipated fraud… schools changing grades and worse, lowering standards so that more kids graduate but few have the necessary skills to actually DO WORK.
* The organized plan to end public education by defunding it, as happened in Kansas, and elsewhere, THIS is something he needs to address.
He talks up a storm about paying for college, but if our people have to pay for a good k to 12 education in a private school, or shell out money for a decent pre-school, then only the scions of the 1% will get the education that leads to well-paying jobs. Income inequality will be THE NORM!
* The organized plan to demonize teachers and replace them with novices who only stay a few years, guarantees that a school will fail. THIS IS THE ROOT OF DESTRUCTION. Less talk and generalizations about ‘failing schools’ and a good hard look at THE PROCESS , where top -down control makes it impossible for teachers LIKE THOSE who write here, to do WHAT THEY KNOW HOW TO DO, what they want to do… make LEARNING HAPPEN.
I have not heard ANY candidate or leader or person — anywhere — discuss the PLOY/ TACTIC/ PROCESS to remove the practitioners so that the institution will collapse.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
THIS is still the hidden cause of failure. I know. I was there in the nineties, in NYC when the principals began a concerted effort to end the tenure of the most experienced professionals… ostensibly as a way to bring down the costs. I actually saw, in the district office, bulletins directed at principals offering guidelines on how to prevail.
I also know why the loss of civil rights in the educational workplace is NOT A TOPIC OF CONVERSATION!
THE top people in POWERFUL unions know very well the part they played in corrupting the grievance process — as the ONLY ADVOCATE FOR THE LAW, which a teacher has. They have stifled any conversation about HOW and WHY it is that TENS OF THOUSANDS OF wonderful TEACHERS were sent packing in a decade…emptying the schools of the PROFESSIONALS and ending their VOICES in the CONVERSATION about what was happening , AND NOW, HOW TO STOP IT even as it continues in the second larges district targeted for destruction
http://citywatchla.com/8box-left/6666-lausd-and-utla-complicity-kills-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-la-s-teachers
How hard is it to grasp what BERNIE NEEDS TO SAY TO TEACHERS…not just about charters, but about THE PLAN ITSELF. one with as little transparency as the plan of the banks and hedge funds to bamboozle the people and steal the national wealth.
The NATIONAL WEALTH IS OUR PEOPLE, what they know and what they can do.
Am Ic lear NOW?
This explains a lot to me. North Carolina has been on this path since about 2006, though I know of excellent teachers who were forced out before that. All the teachers with tenure are being pressured to exit prematurely, most in their early fifties. Promised retirement benefits such as healthcare are revoked.
The playbook is the same: add mandatory meetings, focus all negative attention on more experienced teachers. Test kids and tell everyone the results will be used to determine “teacher effectiveness”. Put teachers on action plans before the results are posted for said teachers. Action plans that look exactly like the AIG school system self-assessment forms, are hard to read, are placed in personnel files, and never looked at again, until it’s looking like the pressure isn’t working. Then ratchet up the heat with mandates like “arrange the student desks so that (teacher) never has her back to the students” and “call five parents everyday, documenting purpose, date, time, with whom you spoke, response, and follow-up plan” and “have lesson plans prominently placed for visitor/evaluator to see whenever s/he walks in” and “post daily objectives prominently and refer to them often.”
Too many new teachers buy the bull that they will get incentive money if they do better than the “older teachers”, so they don’t support their colleagues, don’t learn that what goes around comes around, and can’t learn from history: that by the time this teacher or this school achieves the milestone for bonuses there’s no money left for them.
This election must be seen through the filter of money.
If everyone voted their self-interest we’d probably be a lot better off than we are now. Most of us really value public education, garbage collection, paved streets and working railroad warnings, public transportation, international dialogue if not cooperation, national defense, opportunities for higher education, taxation WITH representation, and someone on the phone to help us with whatever government forms we need to fill out when the time comes.
Exactly, Little House…it is all about money…this is the American system. And many , if not most teachers are not paying attention, so why would anyone think the general public pays attention to more than 10 second sound bites twisting information to curry votes?
Most people have ZERO interest in how public policy is distorted by corporate interference and cash. We are being finished off by an activist SCOTUS and legislators who are purely whores. The latest who I will not mention by name, is the West Coast Congressman who just resigned (which will cost his district a fortune to run a special election) and he now is a lobbyist making the big money. Gebhart and Daschel joined the greed mongers immediately after leaving office…so it is not just Repubs…Dems are cut from the same filthy golden cloth. And then there is Mdm. Clinton who not only worked for Walmart and Broad, but also for Monsanto. None of these people are fit to govern.
I agree that “the ultimate national wealth is our people” or should be…but the people seem too damn tired and distracted to care. These non voters are letting it all happen.
I saw The Big Short last night. it nailed the truth… fRAUD is the name of the game in this nation. Every day American Greed reveals itself.
As to how easy it is to bamboozle people… this article explains why
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Why-Urban-Legends-Get-Told-in-Sci_Tech-People_Study_Threat_Urban-Legends-160108-521.html
Ellen: “These non voters are letting it all happen.”
Another possibility is not to believe, that politicians will make a difference, that the system is inherently democratic, that we have any checks and balances, that the constitution was really meant to protect the people in the 21st or even in its birth century.
How much time do you think we need in the current system to have a constitutional amendment that would say, people have the right to free health care, free education from ages 0 through 100?
How many supporters does Bernie have in Congress so that he can effectively work on this?
I agree Mate, that there are not enough ‘representatives’ in Congress for Bernie to make even a dent in what you and I would want accomplished…1) single payer universal health care…..2) supporting public education with both funding and with reasoned laws re education designed by educators, and funding it all. And of course 3) preserving Social Security and growing it by raising the limit from $118,000 to at least $1 M in ‘general’ income for FICA contributions, rather than ‘earned’ income, thereby requiring the wealthy to pay a fair share to support this insurance system for retired workers.
And that the media and legislators understand and report on Medicare and Social Security as insurance purchased by workers, though mandated (by a popular vote) as in all other industrialized nations….and they stop using the word “entitlements” to describe these insurance programs…and that they STOP inciting acrimony and division between Americans.
Prime factor here is not to continue to redistribute all the wealth only upward. How do we make that turnaround?
‘Checks and balance’ in our moment in history is what we read about and teach about…but it is a phantom of governing that only remains as a memory of our forebears desire for a fair economy. The same goes for anti-trust laws….and instead we get new laws like No Child Left Behind and all its newer permutations. And we get Parent Trigger laws and CC. Does ANYONE feel we are making progress as a society?
This is all intertwined and teachers roles and education policy is an important piece of this pie…but it is not the greatest piece, nor is it the whole pie. And here I get preachy…for it is imperative that all who teach, from k – grad school, understand how this entire economy has become a giant cancer, eating up democracy and killing it….based on the power of only a few. Studying the collapse of Enron is as important to a teacher as studying Paulo Friere. And reading Joseph Stiglitz is as important as reading Diane Ravtich.
I too am deeply jaded about it all, and I am disgusted with how the voting system and the government is so polluted.
Agree with you Mate as usual, as both a citizen, a voter, and a lifetime educator, how little our vote means. If a Latino organization can offer cash for votes as with Voteria, to FIX elections and get their candidates to win school board elections, and if voting machines can be hacked, and with the wealthiest corporations (run by Murdoch, Kochs, Broad, Waltons, Peterson, Anshutz, Wasserman, etc.) now able to feed their unseen lucre into the process by buying endless media time to twist the minds of ignorant voters because of SCOTUS and Citizens United and McCutcheon, HOW can we have hope for this nation?
I imagine you, as I, are often addressed with disdain and called a “Marxist” but then there are moments when a flash of light beams through, and we decide to follow that beam….and then we say things like what our fellows write here….ah so…… maybe someone like Bernie Sanders can win….a stretch from the reality of American politics.
Mate…with all this…can hope spring eternal?
Ellen: “Agree with you Mate as usual, as both a citizen, a voter, and a lifetime educator, how little our vote means.”
Actually, the problem is that our vote means that we support the system that screws us. Perhaps we can send a message if we elect Bernie but don’t cast vote on any of the senators, reps.
As a scientist, I believe the best solution to a problem is simple. Changing the system from inside is impossibly complicated, getting rid of it is simple. (If anybody thinks otherwise, try to describe the process of how Bernie will “work” on keeping his promises.)
And you don’t have to be a Marxist to demand free health care. You just have to be civilized. It’s pretty embarrassing that 170 years after Marx, we are still struggling against the same exact problems as his generations did. But what do we expect if our tool is a 200+ years old constitution?
I do take Marxism over Gateism and Broadism anytime, though. Much more forward.
Hope of course is eternal, but it has to be accompanied with the correct faith. Believing in the current system is difficult at best, and my only hope is that Lloyd’s vision of a bloody change can be avoided. Perhaps it’s time to ask for help from countries where capitalism is reasonably controlled.
Immediate goal: achieve that Gates, Broad get jailed for decades for their crimes against humanity, our kids. No reason for blood. I even let them watch TV, read books there.
I also hope the U.S. can avoid a bloody upheaval, but the trends are all moving in the wrong direction. To avoid streets running red with blood, the U.S. needs a course correction away from the oligarchs.
Most big changes in history were bloody. But there are some relatively good signs, Lloyd: the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe ended without blood, and the social changes in Western and Northern Europe, that resulted in satisfying health care, free K-0-12 education, free (enough) higher ed, were also obtained without blood.
But in those countries people don’t insist on shooting each other by the tens of thousands each year.
“the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe ended without blood”
But Putin seems to have caused a late flow of blood by supporting incursions into Georgia in 2008 and the Ukraine.
During the five-day conflict, 170 servicemen, 14 policemen, and 228 civilians from Georgia were killed and 1,747 wounded. Sixty-seven Russian servicemen were killed, and 283 were wounded, and 365 South Ossetian servicemen and civilians (combined) were killed, according to an official EU fact-finding report about the conflict.
2014: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/27/russian-incursions-ukraine-putin-denies-agreement-on-peace-plan
Then there the Chechen-Russian conflict – more shrinking pains left over from the end of the Soviet era.
At least most of the Eastern Block became free from the Soviet Empire as it collapsed without similar bloodshed.
Ah Lloyd, the Marine notices things like the insanity on the ground in that neck of the woods.
You are right. Similar things are true in the ex Yugoslavia. I also add that since there was no bloodshed when the Soviet occupation and communism ended in Eastern Europe, the communist leaders survived, and they became the biggest capitalists: they simply sold the big, government owned factories, lands to themselves for almost no money. So now the richest people in Hungary are ex communists.
So it seems violence is necessary for an effective solution.
We live in a strange situation in this country where the number of people dying annually from malicious violence (mostly gun-related) in “peacetime” exceeds the numbers that die in most other countries in all but outright, sustained wars–be these civil wars or those in which a country is attacked from outside.
Of course, in such wars, the numbers can climb much higher. We are fortunate to have had no such attack on the homeland here between Pearl Harbor (if we can count the Hawaiian islands as part of the homeland) in the 1940’s and the east-coast Al Qaeda attacks of 9/11/2001.
But while we were understandably shocked by those events. we seem to take those other deaths (greater in number) from homegrown violence with equanimity.
If we add to that number the one from vehicular accidents on the roads (including pedestrian deaths) we have a shockingly high annual number of violent deaths–one that has been equivalent, for many decades, to a chronic war raging within our borders.
If we look abroad next and count the number of people that have been killed by the direct action of our military forces, in places all over the world, without any attack or threat to our homeland, since, say, WW2 ended, then we get a staggering average annual number of violent deaths caused by actions of our government and our countrymen. Indeed, it has been a sustained global epidemic of violence.
So while we are again understandably horrified by the violent acts carried out by demoniacal right-wing zealots such as those from ISIS/ISIL in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon (to which one should add, currently in Syria, all those also being currently carried out by U.S., Russian, European Union, government and other bombs, missiles, shells and bullets), it is strange indeed that we are unmoved by the far greater mayhem that continues to be inflicted both within this country and abroad by our own countrymen, led by a President whose tears while recalling the children who were shot and killed in a New Jersey school appeared, at least to me, to be genuine.
Perhaps someone can explain this to me.
How eloquent and impassioned and true.
Thank you for taking the time. I would like to put our conversation ,especially you respond up as a diary entry at Oped.. Stieglitz. At the at site we all know that what you say is the way it is.
The new world order is replacing our own government with the barons who have usurped the world for themselves, and are transferring all wealth and power to themselves.
Right now, the Supreme Court, in tis role as the ‘undoer’ of all the laws that the people once counted on for protection, is looking to destroy unions. Any illusion that the Judicial Branch is not the tool of the NWO (NWO) disappears as the go even farther to reduce justice and fairness to the working people of this nation. We need a Bernie Sanders on the Supreme Court.
I am always in awe of the intentions of our founders, way back then, and against such odds, to create our Constitution. They worked to prevent the very thing that is occurring right now. Who could have predicted legislators who go from Congress right into the corporate world, to help them undo our rights, and transfer our wealth to them.
Who could have anticipated the consequences of the information technology, — a transformational era that began with tv, that ubiquitous window onto EVERYTHING.
Who could have predicted the demise of newspapers, and journalism and how corporate ‘persons’ are using the media to lie to the people.
We are seeing ,Ellen, the Supreme Court and the Legislature undo what democracy and fairness we had, and we are witnessing the NWO who own the media convince our people that lies are truth. Orwell saw it coming in Animal Farm, and 1984 is now.
The captains & the kings http://mokurenawakened.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/foreword-from-captains-and-the-kings-by-taylor-caldwell/ have total access to the data & the technology that allows them to preach anarchy —disguised as ‘free speech,” and to spread their lies across the nation to a citizenry that remembers nothing… like the animals in “Animal Farm”, who no longer knew or remembered the original contract that was posted in the barn after the revolution; they did not know that the on ether now hung there was written by the pigs!
That is why schools are at the crux of the problems… the Saudis know…they get them young. Our youth needs to know what happened way back before there were unions.
Our people have no memory of the years when the union movement began, and what the sweatshops were like.
I know THIS — without the unions, the people of this nation will be so much fodder for these plutocrats. How will they ever know, if the schools never present real history to our citizens when they re kids. I am truly grateful for the collective bargaining of the uFT and for the COLA and all the benefits they bargained for…. but all of those things do not exist for Pi Lian TU, one of the tens of thousands of dedicated tenured teachers who were fired when the administration assaulted their reputation and competence with allegations that were easily proven false.
I was there. I know what happened. I see it now in LA. The lawlessness could not have been so easily brought to LA if it had not worked so well in NYC. That is why the film GRASSROOTS AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH WAITING FOR SUPERMAN is so important for anyone who has not seen it!
Because I know the union was complicit an culpable in the devastation of the civil rights of teachers, people assume I am anti-union . NOTHING IS FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH!
I want the union to stand up an DO THEIR DUTY TO protect teachers from false allegations and outright persecution. The courts are too expensive for us.
http://blog.ebosswatch.com/2013/05/one-womans-legal-fight-against-workplace-bullying/
I want to see the old entrenched traitors in the unions be voted out, and NEW BLOOD who will stand up and say ENOUGH, take the leadership role.
I want to see teacher organizations GROW BIG & POWERFUL because we teachers cannot fight alone!
This success has led to the tactics used on teachers in the other 15,800 districts.
Knowing the way things begin, offer the solutions to what needs to happen.
When the powers that run the show discovered that these tactics worked, then teachers lost EVERYTHING. THIS IS THE CRUX, AND THE TACTIC that silenced the very voices that could have prevented a travesty such as the Common Core.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
I believe in my heart, that the role the UFT played and is playing still ( if you read what is happening to Francesco Portellos, and so many others by sitting back and letting the grievance procedure be corrupted is responsible for the plight of teachers, and the failure of the schools.
There can be no progress to ensure that an American WHO IS A TEACHER, CANNOT BE harassed and fired without access to the law unless the unions step up, or teachers organize and bring CLASS-ACTION suits.
I do not pretend to know the answer. I tell it as I see it, from my own little perch in the woodlands where I live. I know that things are not fair, but that is the way it has always been. I know you will enjoy this little New Yorker piece, “How We Learn Fairness.”
http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/how-we-learn-fairness?mbid=nl_160108_Daily&CNDID=36080825&spMailingID=8414638&spUserID=OTYzODM3NDkwNDkS1&spJobID=840899630&spReportId=ODQwODk5NjMwS0
Susan, Zinn said this about the constitution 30 years ago,
“The proper question, I believe, is not how good a documentis or was the Constitution but, What effect does it have on the quality of our lives? And the answer to that, it seems to me, is, Very little. The Constitution makes promises it cannot by itself keep, and therefore deludes us into complacency about the rights we have. It is conspicuously silent on certain other rights that all human beings deserve. And it pretends to set limits on governmental powers, when in fact those limits are easily ignored.”
and then
“But, like other historic documents, the Constitution is of minor importance compared with the actions that citizens take, especially when those actions are joined in social movements.”
Stiglitz. Zinn, I do love the people who write there. Great point, it’s up the people, but never before was there a propaganda machine like television, and then the internet.
Loved your intelligent analysis,
Given the odds against us, all we can do is try. Bernie Sanders, a flawed human like the rest of us, has succeeded, to an unexpected degree, despite the media blackout and despite the corporate powers, to change the terms and assumptions of the public (as opposed to academic) political discourse, raising and widening it even as those like Trump are lowering and narrowing it.
It would behoove us to do all we can to support him in this endeavor, both out of self interest, if we are students, workers, retirees, parents, caretakers, elderly, disabled, indigent, immigrants, etc., and for the common good of this and succeeding generations in this country.
That said, one should realize that unless there is also a “Bernie Wave” in the federal legislatures, along with an outpouring of grassroots support and activism, the “political revolution” that Bernie is calling for will not come to pass, even if he is elected.
The more one can do to spread awareness, especially about distinguishing between economic myths and facts, and to elect honest, broadminded individuals to political office, the better it will be for most of us.
We can only do what we can do.😉
Well, humble teacher, we are on the same page, as Ellen and others who do their best,
I do what I can, in between living with my husband of 54 years, texting with grandkids, editing my photos an putting up a site.
That said, Mate, the least I can do is to tell others what I know…which is ALL I ever did as a teacher.
That said, I sent in an email, the following link
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/32391-why-republicans-vote-for-bernie
— because it is a fact-filled, very interesting Truth-Out post about Bernie, with a link to his Georgetown speech. Also, I pasted-in an edited copy – skipping the opening,– but LISTING the important facts and analysis from the article; I bold- faced a few important points.
I sent it out to ALL MY contacts, and family across the nation, not a small number.
The typical response was like this one from a friend in Maryland: “Thanks for this Susan…the Georgetown speech is really great..I’m passing it on… and that’s wild about highschool* :)”
* Alert. The high school remark was because my introduction to her to the link included a link to Diane’s delightful post of my high school yearbook with photos of Bernie and I.
https://dianeravitch.net/2015/11/23/bernie-sanders-high-school-yearbook-photo-with-our-reader-susan-schwartz/
Referring to Bernie, I wrote to my Maryland friend ”
“Ya know… it is entirely possible that I will possibly get to go to the inauguration LOL ( as a founding member of his campaign — and this (click here”)
So , mates, here is the whole email. Send it to people whom YOU know, who live in places where the local media TRUMPETS entertainment politics, and may t be to busy to comb the internet for info on Bernie! LOL.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hi guys and gals,
.
Thought you might like this, or at least want to know a bit more than you hear in the news. I am not suggesting that you change your political views…. just see what is afoot out there….I copied and pasted and rearranged the info of the article so the important facts come first…but the link is there to TruthOut.
But this is soooo interesting…. knocks me out, as do the tens of thousands who turn out to hear him speak!
It is possible!!!
Regards,
Susan Lee
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
WHY REPUBLICANS VOTE FOR BERNIE.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/32391-why-republicans-vote-for-bernie
“Why is Bernie Sanders, a socialist, so popular with people who should hate “socialism?” The answer is pretty simple. While Americans disagree on social issues like gay marriage and abortion, they’re actually pretty unified on the bread and butter economic issues that Bernie has made the core of his campaign.”
“So why is that?”
FACTS!
“A recent poll by the Progressive Change Institute, shows that Americans overwhelmingly agree with Bernie on key issues like education, health care and the economy.”
“Like Bernie, 75 percent of Americans poll support fair trade that “protects workers, the environment and jobs.”
“71 percent support giving all students access to a debt-free college education.
71 percent support a massive infrastructure spending program aimed at rebuilding our broken roads and bridges, and putting people back to work.
“70 percent support expanding Social Security.
“59 percent support raising taxes on the wealthy so that millionaires pay the same amount in taxes as they did during the Reagan administration.
“58 percent support breaking up the big banks.
“55 percent support a financial transaction or Robin Hood tax.
“51 percent support single payer health care, and so and so on.
“Pretty impressive, right?”
“That’s the really ‘ radical’ part of Bernie’s 2016 campaign, and what’s what maybe, just maybe, might make him the 45th President of the United States.”
“And here’s the thing – supporting Social Security, free college, breaking up the big banks, aren’t “progressive” policies, they’re just common sense, and 60 years ago they would have put Bernie Sanders smack dab in the mainstream of my father’s Republican Party . This is why Ann Coulter is so scared of Bernie becoming the Democratic nominee. She knows that he speaks to the populist, small “d” democratic values that everyday Americans care about, regardless of their political affiliation.”
“That’s the really radical part of Bernie’s 2016 campaign, and what’s what maybe, just maybe, might make him the 45th President of the United States.”
“Despite its reputation as a place filled with liberal hippies, Vermont, like most of rural northern New England, is home to a lot of conservatives. Anyone running for statewide office there needs to win these conservatives’ votes, and Bernie is great at doing that.Back in 2000 when Louise and I were living in Vermont, it wasn’t all that uncommon to see his signs on the same lawn as signs that said “W for President.”Seriously, I’m not kidding.”
“And as NPR’s “Morning Edition” found out last year, some of Bernie’s biggest fans are in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, the poorest and most conservative part of the state. It’s people from the Northeast Kingdom who’ve overwhelmingly elected Bernie to almost 20 years in Congress and two straight terms as senator, and it’s people like them in the rest of the country who will probably send Bernie to the White House if he gets the Democratic nomination for president”.
All aboard the Just Revolution train. Don’t miss it.
Sanders speaking at the MTA bargaining summit back in October of last year on public education
Among other things he says this: “I believe in public education and I believe that public education is one o f the strongest democratic institutions in our country, that we’ve got to fight against the privatization of public education..and I intend to do that”
Thanks so much. That’s specific and it answers the question I would ask him.
Presidential politics depresses me. It’s a billion dollar industry at this point- probably more than that. I just think it’s reached the point where it’s excessive and gross.
I do respect Bernie Sanders and more than that, outside his professional life, he seems like a genuinely decent person. I really like how respectfully he treats his opponents.
He also talks about making public colleges free. I linked it to that part (84 min, 24s)
By the way, the quote about charter schools is at 108 min 34 sec
He really is saying the civilized things about other stuff, like free universal healthcare or $15 min wage.
His conclusion is “How does it make sense that we, as the richest nation in the world, we cannot ….”
Another reason I’m supporting Bernie Sanders!
I truly do hope that Bernie’s run somehow pulls the country more to the left, but the fact is that he is simply unelectable.
There will come a day when there isn’t such a thing as a swing state in national elections: eventually Texas and Florida will be permanently blue. But that isn’t the case now, and the necessity of the swing states demands that the Dem candidate pay obeisance to the center.
I guess there are those who feel that a Republican candidate would nominate Supreme Court justices like Sonia Sotomayor or Elena Kagan, or that the make-up of the Supreme Court (and federal courts) doesn’t matter. I’m not one of those people. Feel the $2500 pantsuits.
To be clear, though, do not touch the pantsuit.
Sanders isn’t electable says who? Not the numerous polls that have pitted Sanders and Clinton against various possible Republican contenders and have found Sanders does better. Sanders has far more cross-over appeal than Clinton despite the media’s desperate attempts to portray him as some wild-eyed far-left SOCIALIST!!! Hillary appeals to the establishment, period. Few Republicans are going to cross over and vote for her, even though she is, for most practical purposes, a Republican herself. And she’s alienated most independents and left-wing members of her own party who won’t vote for her even if she is the nominee because we (yes, I’m one of them) feel no obligation to ensure a Democrat in office. Bernie appeals to people in (and around) both parties who are sick and tired of the established neo-liberal order. I especially fear for a Trump-Clinton match-up because a lot of people will see Trump as at least something different, not more of the same. At least if it’s Clinton vs. Rubio or some other establishment Republican the choices are between two different flavors of the same old. But it would be better to have Sanders vs. any of the above.
the fact is that he is simply unelectable.”
What “fact” are you referring to?
Here are results from a Qunnipiac poll taken Dec 22, 2015
American voters back Clinton over Trump 47 – 40 percent.
In other matchups:
Clinton gets 44 percent to Rubio’s 43 percent;
Clinton and Cruz are tied 44 – 44 percent.
Sanders tops Trump 51 – 38 percent.
In other matchups:
Rubio gets 45 percent to Sanders’ 42 percent;
Cruz gets 44 percent to Sanders’ 43 percent.
Clinton has a negative 43 – 51 percent favorability rating. Other favorability ratings are:
Negative 33 – 59 percent for Trump;
40 – 31 percent for Sanders;
37 – 28 percent for Rubio;
35 – 33 percent for Cruz.
/////end of poll results
The margin of error is +-2.9 %, so one can not conclude anything from the matchups of Clinton and Sanders vs Rubio and Cruz. They may be virtual dead heats for both Sanders and Clinton at this point.
It’s hardly inconsequential that Clinton has a negative favorability rating vs a significantly positive one for Sanders.
Never say Never until Never arrives and becomes history.
But, at this time, the overall odds do not favor Sanders. There’s a lot that can happen in the next year that could change that.
We could actually end up seeing Sanders run against Trump—-that would be a three ring circus act between the honest turtle and a loud mouthed lying cockroach.
Atlantic ran a piece: The Front-Runner Fallacy
“The first thing to keep in mind is that a year before the general election, most voters aren’t paying attention yet. Campaign reporters and political junkies—and probably anyone reading this article—are apt to forget this, because we talk about the race incessantly ourselves. But only about 10 to 20 percent of voters are tracking the campaign closely. Normal people tend to tune out the arcane, minute developments that the Twitterati are quick to label game changers. Believe it or not, they have better things to do.”
In addition, Real Clear Politics tracks a lot of presidential polls and even averages them.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/president/
One hears this claim quite commonly, that one should not vote for someone in the primary because they are “unelectable”
It is actually a self-fulfilling prophecy — and quite possibly intended that way.
“unelectable in the general election”
Dienne, and SomeDamPost:
You quote the oft-quoted “matchup” polls to assert that Bernie has a better chance of winning against the Republican candidate than Hillary has.
Sorry to infor you, but the fact is,such “matchup” polls in the primary season, about potential general election candidates are meaningless, and have never been predictive of general election results. Even the pollsters who conduct them would tell you that. Please read the following:
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/15/470117843/be-wary-of-those-hypothetical-match-up-polls
To see the analyses of six political scientists about electability in this race, go to:
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/5/10923304/bernie-sanders-general-election
A Gallup poll that I think is referred to in the article above:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/183713/socialist-presidential-candidates-least-appealing.aspx
I don’t like the title of the following article (and I am sure you won’t like it), but I think the author has some valid points about electability as well. So although you won’t like the title, I would suggest you read it:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/16/why-a-vote-for-bernie-sanders-is-a-vote-for-donald-trump.html
MoveOn.org is currently conducting a poll to identify which Democratic candidate the organization will endorse. Just as the Working Family Party and the nurses union endorsements, for Bernie, were important, your vote in MoveOn’s poll is important.
Yes, Hillary will support charter schools. She would sell her mother and her husband into human trafficking if it guaranteed her political gain. Then, once elected, she would rally against human trafficking just to show that she is against it.
She more than triangulates.
Hill is a paid shill. Once a shill, always a Hill. She gets it from Bill . . . .
Hopefully, the accusations against Bill recently made will damage Hillary’s campaign.
Feel the Bern . . .
Yes..Robert. Bill/Hill/Shils for Broad, Walmart, Monsanto, the
Saudis…and on and on…anyone who fills their coffers.
Glad he said that.
He who?
My overwhelming choice is Bernie. I have posted many times. H:is is not merely talk. The things he says are the things that he has stood for for decades.
AND
one thing especially I admire him for is
CANDOR.
He has stated that he cannot do these things by himself. That he is leading a fight in which everyone who believes in these things needs to stand up and be counted. He will LEAD the fight but
the people with money control our government. The thing we have is the power of the vote. If we make our voices heard long and loud enough they will listen.
Ralph Nader quoted a very modest number in which politicians will listen
IF
people do not just gripe but write, call, make your voice heard to the politicians, Republican and Democratic
and yes, Independents too.
PLEASE, keep this in mind
Do not just complain on t his blog. You are preaching to the choir.
GET INVOLVED.
Research. That has always been the basic tenet of education.
THEN ACT.
Bernie opposes privatization of what should be public services. Period. He opposes for-profit sectors that should be non-profit. Period. And he has felt this way, and acted on it, for decades. Exclamation.
The more he learns about the K-12 privatization movement, the more he will lean in our favor. Guaranteed.
Let me start by saying that I am a parent, who got involved in what was going on with public education off of a radio advertisement in our state claiming that teachers were the problem with public education. When I heard these radio ads, I knew something was wrong, so I started educating myself. I never paid any attention to politics prior to this point, but I was a mom that knew better. It led me to connecting with some social groups on facebook about education, where I was being educated by others as to what was going on around us. I inquired from several people that obviously knew a lot of the politics. I asked where they were getting all of their information. One of the suggested sites I was referred to was Diane Ravitch’s blogs.
This blog helped me understand what was going on and it infuriated me. Then, along comes Bernie. I know Bernie has been out there a long time, but I did not “know” of him until about a year ago. When I heard he was running for President, I was ecstatic. My husband was excited that Hillary was running until Bernie started running. He was saying the same things that you would hear everywhere. Does he have a chance? I explained to him that there was no other way. He is now an avid Bernie supporter. Bernie is the guy that has been fighting all the things that I hear BATs complain about, and privatization that I hear about in this blog. He has never waivered off his platform. He gets it. He’s for the “average Joe.” I have heard countless times that what’s wrong with education is poverty, and that is the #1 issue he is addressing. He believes we should spend more on education than prisons. He resonates with all that is going on in public education.
I am not a teacher, I am a parent. I am also a school nurse. Most of my career has been spent in the hospitals. I was so pleased to hear that the largest nurses’ union endorsed Bernie back in July. When I found out that the NEA and the AFT endorsed Hillary, I couldn’t believe it. But, what I learned locally, is that there are a lot of charter school teachers that are in the local union. I had no idea.
Here is a video of Bernie talking to some teachers. I think he is genuine, compassionate, and has a lot of integrity.
If you don’t know much about Bernie, please educate yourself. The more I learn about him, the better he gets.
This video is notable because Bernie says he will find a Secretary of Education that is more interested in the whole child than teaching to tests. He also said he thinks we need far more staff in schools to support social-emotional obstacles in schools.
But Bernie’s bigger messages of basic economic fairness should be a wake up call to voters even if they aren’t attuned to education. Jobs are a big key to ending dysfunction, along with a living wage, free college tuition, campaign finance reform and ending tax breaks for the very wealthy.
Thanks! Where’s the link to that video of Bernie talking to teachers.
Oh, okay!. I see the video now–after I posted the reply from the email and so got sent to the blog. Thanks!
This is a hort video of Bernie addressing the Massachusetts Teachers’ Association. Couldn’t be stronger on pro-union, anti-privatization, pro-collective bargaining, pro-teacher stance. This is a must-see, via Jennifer Lueck. He does not directly answer the question regarding a cap on charters, but what he says is enough for me. This is our man. He might need to learn more about what truly ails the schools (because it’s not just poverty, lack of funding and high-stakes testing, which he rightfully notes). He does talk about the need to respect, compensate and retain teachers, about their difficult working conditions, and of the need to “hire more teachers rather than fire more”.
Yes, I saw this, by accident… I know he is our guy… what i want to see OFTEN, in the media. talking at length, and in big venues, to the young people who are parents or will e parents. I want to know people are listening to him TALKING in his STUMP SPEECH… about the war on public education with the same energy and passion and length which gives to talking about Banks and tax loopholes!
Absolutely nothing will end our democracy, and create a poverty stricken citizenry then an ignorant population. Jails will fill, violence and crime will rise when people despair and are angry.
It’s THE SCHOOLS, Bernie… the SCHOOLS!
I agree with you, Susan. Stay strong and stay hopeful. — Arjun (Janah).
Thanks..I appreciate it when I get a positive response… it takes much time to write here, and at Oped
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
teachers have to know that they must be heard.
“short video” — not “hort video”. Sorry!
Public schools failed my children. Couldn’t foollow 504 or IEP. Lawyers were sent in and retaliation on my children occurred. They are doing fantastic in a charter school!
Vermont- NO Charters. As to the poster placing Bernie in the same category as Hillary, Rahm, and Barrack (what a wasted vote for sheep in wolf’s clothing. Lost hope after no change in year 2.) There is no comparison. Bernie doesn’t pander.
And now this from Anthony Cody. What a statement it would make if the education groups beyond the union backed Bernie!
http://www.livingindialogue.com/time-for-education-advocates-to-get-behind-bernie-sanders/
Obama is being interviewed right now by Anderson Cooper regarding his gun issues as in his Executive Order…which to rational minds is quite mild and addresses the need for a stringent order in registering ALL gun ownership. As with autos which ALL must be registered.
He makes absolute sense…and his points relate to this discussion because he has just stated that he will not support any presidential candidate who follows the NRA rather than the laws of land. I am with his statement re guns 100%
However, Bernie is still equivacating on guns because he legislates in a state full of NRA members. He MUST come around not only on public schools, which he seems to be doing, and on economic inequality, but also on the multitude of illegal and/or unregistered weapons used to kill young people, students, children.
Words!
If he believes i teaches hw ill fight to end the civil rights abuse that deprives them of any right to refute lies and false evaluations from top-down administrations. He will at least talk about returning the autonomy for the lessons to the teachers, and end Common Core by demanding a study on age-appropriate objectives and outcomes for each grade and subject… NY had them I know. Have them in my basement. I knew what the kids in my class had to be able to do by June, and I knew how to enable that , and how to motivate them to do the work..I THE TEACHER planned and met the state objectives with a curriculum that I chose…whichIk new, an which interested ME…so I could interest them in WHAT I KNEW.
SHOWING CHILDREN WHAT WE KNOW, is all that REAL TEACHERS DO!
Put an educated, talented, INTERESTING and dedicated pedagoge in a room with kids, and THEY WILL LEARN… and love learning to learn!
It worries me dear friend, Susie Lee, that too many “pedagogues” believe that they and their important goals are above all others in the U.S.
We agree on the immense value of public school education, but IMO it is vital to always see the bigger picture which involves how this nation is governed in terms of having a SCOTUS that protects the People and not the corporations, and that we have a Congress which does the same thing…and that means not only fighting for public ed, but also fighting the lobbyists and greedy self serving legislators who go along to get along…as with the gun lobby.
The insanity of the American system which values money over safety, and money over values, and money over morals, and money over the life of others….is what has brought the country to the verge of a full blown oligarchy…and teachers, Susan are only one part of this.
It is dangerous when those who teach the youth, themselves wear blinders, and too many only talk about and only see one piece of the whole…as happens with many here who proudly say “they do not vote in primary elections”. Their view of a singular (personal) democracy that they put forward, only crying repeatedly about their own personal problems, is NO democracy at all.
And frankly, Susie…after almost 50 years of educational research taking me to classrooms in most of the states in this Union, I have not seen that many “educated, talented, INTERESTING pedagogues” in rooms full of kids…and after reading endless theses and dissertations of many of these teachers, I work hard to keep myself directed at fighting the oligarchs in behalf of teachers…rather I fight for students with the hope that teachers as a ‘class’ work harder in their own studies, and serve their students without looking for glory. I think most do…but I have seen enough that don’t to disagree with you.
Love the way you write, Ellen. My friends do call me Susie, but the way.
I have witnessed wonderful teaching, in many places, in NYC.
Perhaps, that was then, and this is now. But I still believe that a teacher, will be able to choose the materials that lead to success when given a set of objectives such as”
LWBA (LEARNER WILL BE ABLE TO) PLUS A VERB SUCH AS…
* understand the concept of ……
* explain why….
* demonstrate proficiency in
* analyze a passage that….
* create a clearly written paragraph
* use lyrical language to…
* add two numbers that..
OBJECTIVES FOR LESSONS
I liked objectives that were clear, and I liked choosing the books, stories, films and activities which engaged my ‘kids.’
I would have liked a principals who paid for the materials I needed instead of promising to repay me if I laid out the money,and then stiffing me.
I would have preferred a principal who supported me because I substantially helped to put the school on the map in NYC, and did not spend so much of the time trying to undermine my work, so I would retire and he could hire a novice on a lower salary… not that 58k was much for a successful and celebrated veteran educator with four degrees.
Yeah, Ellen, I know that teaching has deteriorated in many places. I support an effort to ensure that colleges create serious course study and offer experience in practice, before graduation for an education degree, like Trinity College does or Columbia University, so that any graduate holding a degree in Pedagogy is a true professional.
But the issue at hand is that the CC mandates completely robs a teacher of the autonomy needed to MOTIVATE those children in front of her/him, or to choose appropriate materials to meet the needs of learners.
THIS mandate to do as administration dictates, or face insubordination and other harassments, is at the root of the problem.
My son is a cardiologist. He chooses the treatment. I cannot imagine what would happen to his patients, if the hospital director demanded he use medicines or procedures that were dangerous or useless to treat the issues patients present.
Big Pharma pressures him as it is, and they make huge profits from the medicines he must proscribe, as the insurance companies make huge profits. Privatizing anything ends up enriching the corporate entities..
But on the issue of autonomy the classroom, I stand firm… the teacher needs to decide what will work in that room, and the administrations job is to help her, to offer workshops, and training and professionals to support the novice, rather than dictate and mandate anti-learning strategies and materials that do nothing but enrich the corporations.
I say “Amen” to that, Ms. Schwartz. You’ve got it right.
You are very welcome… but ya know… part o the problem is that there are 15,880 districts and that lone makes it impossible for most teacher to know what works in other places, unless the go to The American Educator…which should deb REQUIRED READIN GFOR ANY AND ALL TEACHERS.
MOST TEACHERS BARELY KNOW WHAT the teacher next door is doing.
This kind of isolation hurts, because so many teachers hold opinions based on a narrow experience. I get what Ellen says, and have heard it many times.
Yet I believe, and have seen it work in my magnet school, that teachers working together, with a principal who supports their team efforts, and a district which offers workshops and staff development to improve practice (but does not offer the late magic elixir promoted by the publishing company whites pain for th superintendents vacation).
Teachers Rock!
I hear all you’re saying (or I read and agree with all you’re writing) Ms. Schwartz. We are singing from the same hymn book, probably because we both spent years teaching, as honestly and diligently as we could, and had similar experiences to a degree, being puzzled, sickened and finally forced to leave from all the fakery and shenanigans coming from above and targeting sincere teachers who won’t go along with the fakery, won’t dance the latest dance.
.
I’dd say we were mates. humble one!
But, you don’t know my experience on the last 8 years of my career., although if you read me here, you have heard it many times, outlining the characters and the corruption.
If I ever have the time, and the courage, I will put up my first blogs on the new SPEAKING AS A TEACHER.
I HAD A BLOG BY THAT name for years, but Apple took Me.com off the net, and that was the end of mysite…although I have all the essays I wrote there, including this one , which I have posted here scores of time.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
Every word is the absolute truth, and the evidence in my files tell a story of lawlessness that took out a star teacher on the East Side of Manhattan, in 1998, in a vicious manner, which she did no deserve; after her distinguished service over 40 years as an educator… no to mention the million$ she (ME) brought to t DISTRICT 2, when PEW & HARVARD, AND THE LRDC said ‘we wanT to study HER!!!!’
Like Dan Ratherr said to my face, “Incredible.”
But then , how I knew Dan, is another story for my site. Ironic, that he ended up facing the politics of shame at the end of a long and distinguished career. Someday, I want to talk to him, and say, “Hey Dan. Do you remember when you said “it was too local” for a 60 Minutes story, and withdrew the associate producer. It is national now…that process, where a teacher has no access to any venue to end the bullying or harassment, or to disprove allegations
Well, it was 1998, and it is now 2016, and I KNOW WHAT WAS HAPPENING NOW. I was clueless back then to the mandate that was to replace the teacher’s autonomy… the CC, which had to be waiting in the wings… waiting until the tenured, experienced VOICES OF THE REAL PRACTITIONERS WERE GONE.
Did you know, now, that in one year LAUSD brought 8000 teachers up on charges… all were fired,
http://citywatchla.com/8box-left/6666-lausd-and-utla-complicity-kills-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-la-s-teachers
and LAUSD SAVED $$$$ at least 40k for each one that hit the road.
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/LAUSD-OR-TARGETED-TEACHERS-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Deception_Evidence_Fired_Innocence-150720-360.html#comment555646
GORRA GO!
Thanks, Ms. Schwartz. I am aware, from the links you included in posts in earlier years, of much of what you went through in your final years. I have also been through much, over my three decades in the schools, especially towards the end. But I will not go into that here.
I am also aware of what is happening nationwide, including in LA, Chicago, New Orleans and so many other places.
Unfortunately, many of our colleagues are not aware of this nationwide assault on teachers (and other public workers), as the media does not report it, at least not from the workers’ viewpoints, and our unions are too often far too compliant and silent, with some exceptions.
You are right that teachers are losing autonomy–what little they had left of it, and that by getting rid of senior teachers and programs, the districts are (unwisely, in most cases) saving much money (which is equally unwisely being spent on foolishness).
In blogs such as Ms. Ravitch’s, we can at least communicate and so become more aware–those of us who have the time, energy and inclination.
It was unfortunate that Rather deemed your 1998 story to be “too local”. You are right that what might have been local is now no longer so–indeed never was. It’s nationwide and even global. The more’s the pity!
our conversations here are important, because others read it.
I DONOT WISH TIS TO CRAWL ALONG THE SIDE, SO PLEASE HUMBLE ONE, GO TO THE LARGER BLOG, WHERE I AM WRITING BECAUSE
You put your finger on something that I noticed here. That so many teachers do not know the big picture because of the media black-out. Like the public in general, they cannot grasp the simple nature of the assault.
My voice is different than many academics and educators who write here, and who brilliantly dissect the latest tactics– VAM CC etc, etc etc. and poke holes in the nonsense, with elegant analysis of what is amiss.
There are polls & there are polls. The Dec. 22, 2015 Quinnipiac Poll shows this:
Bernie Sanders: 51% Donald Trump: 38%
As Dienne said, “Sanders isn’t electable says who?” & Lloyd’s, “Never say never.”
This one–as Bernie himself repeatedly says, IS up to US. He says it’s GOT to be a grassroots movement, a people’s revolution–that is, of the VOTING kind.
We finally have a candidate who’s the real deal, & his campaign has raised the money, made the year-end goal–from US!! $73 million isn’t chicken feed, & the money from people like us keeps rolling in (& please contribute!). People, this is our chance to actually HAVE a choice, not “the lesser of two evils”–voting for the one who will destroy public ed. more slowly (sorry, but Obama wasn’t slow enough–first Arne then John King–?!). Sen. Sanders will help us save public education–the end of Dem “reform.”
Did y’all see All in With Chris Hayes on MSNBC Thursday night? (If not, watch it online.) It live-streamed a late-planned Trump rally in Burlington, VT (you really have to watch it to get the full impact), which, actually, brought good news coverage to Bernie & his campaign workers & supporters (Chris interviewed Sen. Sanders on a split-screen while Trump ranted & kicked people out of his venue.)
This is the opportunity of a lifetime–for the future of our children. Please volunteer for the campaign (berniesanders.com), help register voters, attend events, contribute money and VOTE, because yes, WE can…and WE WILL!
Bernie doesn’t have to come out with a specific plan for new and improved public schools over charters at this time. The point is, he believes that charters are secretive users of our tax dollars with profit going to the top and no accountability for anything–the American free market business model. He absolutely believes that without a strong public education, quality education for all, there is no hope for this country. He also knows that if we were to have a transaction tax on Wall Street trades and end tax loopholes as well as reduce our military budget, ,we would have plenty of money for public schools and other social programs. As a former special education teacher, I know that the best teachers were those who combined curriculum instruction with opportunities for children to question, think out-of-the-box, be exposed to history, civics, the arts, science, and do many hands-on projects. Most charters are teacher-directed, and most public Common Core public schools are also teacher-directed while teaching only to the next Common Core tests. So, Bernie knows this and he knows the great damage charters and Pearson/Gates/Broad, etal, testing and publishing materials are doing to our children. That’s all he has to say for now. Let’s be glad we have his support.
In a comment here, above, I mentioned the email which I sent to everyone I know — offering the Truth-Out article of facts, with its link to Bernie’s Georgetown speech.
I am still getting responses, but I want to show you all , here, what such a SIMPLE thing can do. Below is the response from a republican friend of mine from my photo club. It just goes to show what GRASSROOTS can do, if we just share what we know about Bernie.
You can use that article, and my intro to it…just find it above in this commenary thread, and share it with your contacts of family and friends who really do not know Bernie.
Begin forwarded message:
From: Mike
Subject: Re: Bernie.. interesting… at least to me… had to share it…
Date: January 9, 2016 at 6:38:56 PM EST
To: Susan Lee Schwartz @
I like Bernie…..thanks to you.
Mike
DEAR HUMBLE TEACHER,
You put your finger, mate, on something that I noticed here.
Many teachers who talk here, appear to have arrived in the schools when the damage had been done; they came after the veteran teachers had been rousted and expelled The simple nature of the assault — removal of their civil rights to be heard— happened in the past,. Now, there is VAM , but the voice of the teacher was eradicated for good, when the bullies took over the schools and not a soul came to the rescue of these professional, educated and dedicated civil servants. NO one!
It is MORE THAN A DECADE since the heart-breaking and shocking events that veteran teachers experienced by the thousands and thousands, and thousands.
Ya know, mate, it is not unlike the knowledge about the American Revolution. No one who was THERE back then is NOW HERE to say, “Now, hold on a minute, that’s not true.” Memory fades as people move on, especially these days, when yesterdays big news is overToo many teachers do not know the ‘big picture’— HOW IT BEGAN— the decade before, when the tenured veteran were removed.
The media black-out is partly responsible for perpetuating the savage lies, instead of revealing civil rights violation that ended their life-long careers of real teachers.
But, anyone who hears my story, sees their plot unfold in the absence of one thing, someone to stand for the legal right of the teacher.
The EIC won by throwing out the window, the teachers right to confront allegations and lies, to see and present evidence… to ensure that opinion and allegations do not substitute for truth.
Thus, they set the stage for the school of landscape today, where teachers do as they are told, and new hires who finish probation find that administration is not supportive, and is in fact making a difficult job, even more so.
I feel in my heart of hearts —where the teachers lives— the beginning of this story is very important!
My story is one of many, who were there at the beginning.
I will briefly touch the plot and introduce a few characters who walked onto my classroom floor, in a following comment, but I knew some other stories that clearly demonstrate the TACTICS of the war on veteran teachers , as well.
Nver have these tragedies found their way onto the American screen or the front pages of a newspaper.
On my blog, I will link to some stories, but most are untold.
I knew David Pakter, Walter Porr, Pi Lian Tu, Karen Horwitz, Lenny Isenberg and Lorna Stremcha (whose story I mention often,
In this era where everyone is heard, even wing-nuts in Oregon re-writing the Constitution, teachers have not been able to tell their true tales when they were harassed and bullied into oblivion. (but not for long, —see a legislative initiative in NY state, about to BEGIN, at the end of my next comment.)
our conversations here are important, because others read it.I have been writing this all day, even though I need to put up my first post at my own blog, the one that will replace the one that disappeared when Apple took down the iweb.
It too, was called “Speaking As A Teacher, because it is my best voice. I can speak as a mother, and a grandmother, as a playwright and a photographer, but I spent my life in a classroom. so that speaking as a teacher is what I do.
I have a story to tell, that school landscape in 1990, when I returned to teaching after raising kids to college age.
Here,
I know Humble teacher and others, you know what happened to me , but the real story offers insight to the process that the EIC adopted so well, and I am going to tell it, a looted here, and the rest on my own blog…ASAP
Dear Ms. Schwartz:
I agree with you that we should not just confine our responses to the “reply” section but put them (when we think fit) in the main comments section of this important blog, so that the voices of older teachers (speaking only for myself here) can be heard. We, who have gone through much, know at least some bits and pieces of the background to what we are seeing playing out in the schools today. Those who entered the schools later may not know this.
So I am reproducing, below, the two recent “replies” I had written to your comments.
But as I have strayed away, perhaps, from the main topic of Ms. Ravitch’s post (which was on Sanders comment on charters), I will try not to write too much more here on this topic that is dear to both our hearts–the assault on teacher autonomy and the devaluation of experience and accomplishment. Of course, charters have been made into one more tool of that.
So also, artisans were replaced by factory workers. Some might say that we have been factory workers in the schools for a very long time. They are not wrong, but many of us still had some degree of autonomy and respect (which we still did have to earn) as is needed for any profession–indeed, for any meaningful human activity.
So here, below, are those two replies to your earlier comments, numbered (I) and (II).
— Arjun Janah
==============================================
(I)
I hear all you’re saying (or I read and agree with all you’re writing) Ms. Schwartz. We are singing from the same hymn book, probably because we both spent years teaching, as honestly and diligently as we could, and had similar experiences to a degree, being puzzled, sickened and finally forced to leave from all the fakery and shenanigans coming from above and targeting sincere teachers who won’t go along with the fakery, won’t dance the latest dance.
================================================
(II)
Thanks, Ms. Schwartz. I am aware, from the links you included in posts in earlier years, of much of what you went through in your final years. I have also been through much, over my three decades in the schools, especially towards the end. But I will not go into that here.
I am also aware of what is happening nationwide, including in LA, Chicago, New Orleans and so many other places.
Unfortunately, many of our colleagues are not aware of this nationwide assault on teachers (and other public workers), as the media does not report it, at least not from the workers’ viewpoints, and our unions are often far too compliant and silent–with some exceptions.
You are right that teachers are losing autonomy–what little they had left of it, and that by getting rid of senior teachers and programs, the districts are (unwisely, in most cases) are saving much money (which is equally unwisely being spent on foolishness).
In blogs such as Ms. Ravitch’s, we can at least communicate and so become more aware–those of us who have the time, energy and inclination.
It was unfortunate that Dan Rather deemed your 1998 story to be “too local”. You are right that what might have been local is now no longer so–indeed never was. It’s nationwide and even global. The more’s the pity!
While we have indeed strayed form the topic of Bernie Sanders or charter Schools, out conversational thread is valuable, and should continue, here. I would like to put up this conversation at Oped, as a diary entry, or perhaps, if I ever get my first post up on my new, blog at WordPress, I would like to put it there.. My blog is called SPEAKING AS A TEACHER, BUT I HAVE NOT POSTED ANYTHING.
This is because I have been too busy writing at Oped and here, but that is not the main reason why. Go to the bigger post!
To Humble Teacher Arjuna Janah, in response to his comment and to every teacher who reads here and wants to grasp how much things have changed…the reason why teacher autonomy has been eradicated and replaced by anti-learning mandates.
While Arjun and I have indeed strayed form the topic of Bernie Sanders or charter Schools, our conversational thread is valuable, and should continue, here.
I would like to put up our recent conversation at Oped, as a diary entry, or perhaps, if I ever get my first post up on my new, blog at WordPress, I would like to put it there, because it WILL BE RECOGNIZED BY the veteran teachers who were once the masters of their own PROFESSIONAL practice,as 2 teachers speaking about WHaT LEARNING LOOKED LIKE when they were the ones who decided what would work with the children who were in their CARE!
My blog is called SPEAKING AS A TEACHER, BUT I HAVE NOT POSTED ANYTHING.
This is because I have been too busy writing at Oped and here, but that is not the main reason why.
You see, despite my success at enabling so many children to find their voices, I have had difficulty finding my own. Yes, I speak here and at Oped as a teacher, and I am appreciated for my insight and accuracy, but I want my voice on MY OWN blog to reflect who I am, and to ring true, as it does whenever I speak to a teacher like you, or Lloyd Lofthouse or Robert Rendo.
I need some time to put up the first post, and introduce this conversation which we are having as we speak to each other as teachers do.
At this moment when I have stepped onto a soap-box about restoring the AUTONOMY of teachers, there is a movement afoot to stop the bullying in the workplace, that prevents teachers, REAL teachers from doing what they know must be done.
The CC is partly responsible, for the enormous failure of CHILDREN TO LEARN….notice I did not finish the sentence with ‘failure of the schools.” I leave the details to others, who do it so well, here and at the NPE. I want my voice to be the voice of the authentic ‘real’ teacher.
REAL teachers: by Susan Lee Schwartz
My friend told me a story, today, that defines that term.
“My son, ” she relates, “was told that he would NOT be teaching in the high school any longer, but that he was being moved to second grade. The headmaster explained that there are many teachers who can follow the common core curricula and teach the ‘facts’ in his area, but “you are a REAL teacher” he said, ” You are one of those who instinctively knows how to promote the kind of thinking that a young mind must do. It’s a gift that is sorely needed when children are young.”
I was struck by the term REAL, because I often use the words ‘genuine and authentic,’ to describe real learning. They are the buzz-words of the REAL standards research in which I participated for 2 years.
My friend also remarked at the preference whiter son expressed for the local community college, RCC, where he earned his associate degree before moving on to an Ivy League college. He told her that he learned so much there, because they had ‘real teachers!’ However, when he went to “higher “ed, at an Ivy League college, the teachers presented enormous amounts of information and data to be absorbed –on his own–he had to learn them to pass the exams.
On my site, I will talk about WLLL What LEARNING LOOKS LIKE AND WITTT, WHAT IT TAKES TO TEACH. Those are the acronyms that I use for my files on those topics, which were the meat of the REAL National Standards research. But, Iwill talk about the autonomy that I had, as I reveal my story, in my voice, about that last year when everything changed, and the charlatans and liars inhabited the administration of district 2.
I will begin my conversation at my site,, at last, with something I wrote here, while writing to you and to Ellen — MY BELIEF IN THE AUTONOMY OF THE CLASSROOM PRACTITIONER, WHO MUST BE THE ONE WHO prepares the lessons and writse the curricula to meet objectives.
I believe that THIS is the conversation that is missing.
The dominating word today is “curricula,’ but I think that most people, including many novice and recent hires, do not realize what curricula actually means, and that IT IS TEACHERS WHO WRITE the curricula for their practice, THE LESSON PLANS guided by the stated, age- appropriate objectives, AND recommended materials in school guidelines and manuals.
I explained in an earlier post. the language of writing objectives for kids.. things kids must be Able TO DO…when June rolls around.
I know for a fact, that when schools worked, teachers planned the lessons, because only the grunt on the line, knows what little Johnny, Maria, Jason, Tiffany or Leroy needs to see in order to “get it!”
Only the teacher knows how much practice in COMPARING AND CONTRASTING what is read to PRIOR KNOWLEDGE, which an emergent learner MIST DO, to begin to analyze text and TAKE AWAY MEANING… this is called , of course ‘critical tinting skills, and it cannot be taught from a workbook, or a tablet, or tested by multiple choice tests.
Making meaning is the purpose of writing, so thinking skills, the hardest skills to develop, are crucial
Real teachers have a gift, a talent for talking to kids, for creating an environment which enables learning.
A LOOK AT A REAL TEACHER, NOW SUBBING AS AN ATR IN NY. because this little anecdote illuminates what I said above.
Francesco Portelos, speaking as a teacher today on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/mrportelos1/posts/763933657074724?pnref=story
pointed a finger at the Bulletin Boards that were mandated in his school.
Says he: “BULLETIN BOARDS!!!! Remember when they used to be just some extra space to showcase some nice student work and get creative? Now they’re post-it and rubric covered, checklist reviewed extra work canvases that takes away from teaching and learning? Oh and you have you change them every 3 weeks.
You see, when he was autonomous in his classroom practice, and respected by the administration, he preferred to celebrate the children’s work on bulletin boards.
The CC mandates for a business-like bulletin board that might be appropriate in an office were just wrong for a classroom…AND THAT is a metaphor for the GATES IDEA for what teachers must do.
. I MUST SAY HERE THAT the Standards researchers told me that my bulletin boards, were the INTRINSIC REWARDS for doing hard work and learning that MY STUDENTS LOVED. REWARDS FOR ACHIEVEMENT was a standard… a ‘principle of learning ‘ that MUST be present in ALL CLASSROOMS WHERE LEARNING TAKES PLACE.
MY OH MY! Real standards include motivation. What a revelation. Perhaps that is why this research has VANISHED with NCLB!
Every new teacher should go to Francesco’s facebook home, to see what a ‘fighter for our rights’ looks like and because he often addresses what learning looks like and what is necessary to enable it.:
…and learn his story, at http://www.endteacherabuse.org/Portelos.html
because once upon a time, before the ‘gotcha’ squad in NYC, came after this tenured, brilliant teacher, he had the autonomy to teach as REAL teachers must teach.
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
We will talk more, Arjun, and after some doctors appointments,I will work on editing my first Post for Speaking as a TEACHER about MY story which illustrates the process and the tactics that so many recent teachers are unaware preceded the VAM.
Teachers need to know that the civil rights abuse, worked SO WELL that the reputations of the classroom practitioners was shredded, AND their voices silenced. This was necessary, because Francesco and I, and David Pakter and Pi Lian Tu, and so many REAL TEACHERS would have looked at the core curricula, and said, :”Your’re kidding. I won’t use that crap in place of REAL LEARNING methods, which begin ALWAYS with motivation.
Bye now
PS.. Arjun, IF you message me at my author’s page at OPED News,and give me your email address, I can communicate with you as I do with many who write here.
Diane, When did Bernie say “I oppose charter schools”. I just looked at his web page about education, and see the following quote:
“Bernie does not oppose charter schools — that is, schools that are privately managed but funded by taxes. Indeed, Bernie voted for the Charter School Expansion Act of 1998. ”
from http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-education/#k-12-education
In this set of very substantive and detailed answered to a variety of questions, during the Iowa campaign in December, Sanders does not comment on charter schools, but makes (among other points) a very strong case for trade-unionism, and for the rights of workers to organize, form a union and engage in collective bargaining. He specifically points to Scott Walker’s efforts against these things and explains the motivations of Walker and others. In another place (not in this video), Sanders spoke very strongly about the value of public education, both in the schools and the public colleges, and the need to defend and expand this.
I think it is not charter schools per se that are the problem (with the idea for them having in fact originated within the teachers’ union here in New York in a different era) but the way the charter school concept has been used to undermine public education and what is left of the voice of teachers in the working of that system, which cannot be achieved individually.
It is an unfortunate fact that most of our union leaders have, over the past decades, been increasingly compliant and collaborative, seeming to buy into the wrongheaded ideas of the “reformers” who are anything but, and abandoning the teachers to represent the interests of those like Bloomberg and Bill Gates. Indeed, they even backed Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, even for his second run.
That said, the answer to our problems lies, at least in part, not in dismantling what is left of the unions, but in straightening them and making sure they truly represent the long term interests of teachers, students and parents.
From closely listening to Sanders, I believe he is in our corner more than Hillary is, who is beholden to the same big money interests that are pushing the charter school movement (as it has largely turned into) for reasons having little to do with meaningful educational reform.
Unrelated to my last comment, which is a question to Diane about her initial post to this discussion, I see the discussion branched off in several different ways, and one is about electability, including quoting “matchup” polls. I will post a few links I would recommend reading, that might help shed some light on electability, as well as those “matchup polls”
:http://www.npr.org/2016/03/15/470117843/be-wary-of-those-hypothetical-match-up-polls
Analyses of electability in this election by six political scientists:
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/5/10923304/bernie-sanders-general-election
A different kind of poll, which I think was quoted in the previous link:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/183713/socialist-presidential-candidates-least-appealing.aspx
I don’t like the title of the following article (and suspect some you will not either), but I think the author makes some valid points. So read it even if you don’t like the title:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/16/why-a-vote-for-bernie-sanders-is-a-vote-for-donald-trump.html
Please only comment on these links if you have read them. Thank you.