Paul Thomas of Furman University in South Carolina has assembled a selection of readings that present Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as an active radical, eager to shake up the existing order, a man who fought poverty, war, and injustice, not a dispenser of inspiring bromides.
Archives for the month of: January, 2016
On the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., many politicians will praise his legacy even as they act in ways that betray his ideals.
Yohuru Williams, a professor of history at Fairfield University in Connecticut, reminds us that Dr. King was a strong advocate of labor unions because he understood that they protect the rights of working people by demanding fair pay and safe working conditions.
I was a small speck in the crowd when Dr. King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington in 1963. Most of the chartered buses that brought hundreds of thousands of supporters to hear Dr. King that day were sponsored by labor unions. The theme of the day was “Jobs and Justice.”
Williams writes:
“Teachers, then and now, invoked the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and the words of Martin Luther King to support a deeper investment in America’s public schools including more robust budgets for instruction, greater interventions for English language learners, and fair compensation. Their appeals for politicians to live up to the spirit of the movement fail to move political leaders like Rahm Emmanuel and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder whose positions on high stakes testing, teachers unions, and insistence on school closures represent the most egregious form of historical amnesia concerning the continuing relevance of Dr. King’s message.”
As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to decide a case intended to cripple labor unions, we know that Dr. King’s prophetic warnings will be weighed too. Will working people have a chance to get middle-class jobs, or will they be stripped of any job protections, left to work at the whim of faceless corporations and heartless politicians?
Let it not be forgotten why Dr. King was in Memphis when he was murdered. He was there to advocate for the right of sanitation workers to form a union.
The Los Angeles Times has a love affair with the privatization of public schools; it is wild about the idea of outsourcing control of students and funding to private management. Just a few days ago, the LAUSD surprised everyone by voting 7-0 to reject billionaire Eli Broad’s plan to take control of half the students in the district by putting them in charters. It sounded a little fishy because even the board’s charter faction voted against Eli’s power grab.
Now we see the game is still on. Eli’s front-group called Great Schools Now is staffing up.
Today the Los Angeles Times published an editorial in support of the Broad plan that was breathtaking for its audacity. It echoed the charter lobby’s contention that any resistance to their drive for power was divisive. The editorial proposed that the district’s new superintendent should ask for a place at the charter lobby’s table so she could help shape their plans for a takeover. Say what?
What arrogance! What happened to the democratic process? Has Eli already purchased the district? Is Superintendent Michelle King his employee?
Here are some good comments by public school activists in LA.
Karen Wolfe warns King to stay away and reminds Eli that he is a citizen with one vote only. He should go to board meetings like everyone else with an idea.
She writes:
“In its ongoing effort to convince the city that a huge public entity should be handed over to a private group of titans, the LA Times now suggests inviting the public official to the table to give the effort some credibility. This is the superintendent, who was appointed by the democratically elected board, to lead the public entity the titans seek to control.
“As Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis has said, “You can’t have a seat at the table when you’re on the menu.”
Ellen Lubic wrote the following article:
Another Coffin Nail in Public Education…if Eli Broad Can Get Away With It
As we continue to see, the highly biased LA Times is under the thrall of Eli Broad and his cohorts to take over public education in Los Angeles and convert it to free market profiteering. Almost daily, the Times runs what is loosely called journalism, lauding charter schools, and defaming public schools, They add a disclosure announcement at the end of these articles admitting they are paid for by Broad and the non profits like United Way where he calls all the shots.
Here is the operant paragraph of Sunday’s editorial from the LA Times, which is paid for by Eli Broad and his claque of pretenders (see their full disclosure which appears repeatedly with most of the education issues on which they report). It is all about the new Broad-concieved 501c3 Great Public Schools Now, a permutation of Eli’s leaked plan to take over all of LAUSD.
“A better move would be to call on Great Public Schools Now to provide a place at the table for the district’s new superintendent, Michelle King, to participate in the planning process. If the new nonprofit organization hopes to overcome resistance in the community, it needs to be more open about its planning and it needs to open the process to public discussion — after all, whether charter schools or not, these are all public schools.”
“The Times receives funding for its digital initiative, Education Matters, from the California Endowment, the Wasserman Foundation and the Baxter Family Foundation. The California Community Foundation and United Way of Greater Los Angeles administer grants from the Broad Foundation to support this effort. Under terms of the grants, The Times retains complete control over editorial content.”
What a pile of manure…the only way these charter schools are public, is that We the People, we the public, we the taxpayers, are forced to pay for them…with NO oversight by the public, the government, or the school system. This is an amazing scam concocted by the Bonfire of the Vanities guys to use public funding for public schools while transferring students to privatized charter schools, all for their own profit. Rupert Murdoch and Eli Broad have openly written about this, and they and their billionaire buddies are gathered in their kingdoms, cackling at their success in fooling the public.
Now we read in their controlled corporate media, the LA Times, that Broad and Company wants the new Superintendent of LAUSD, Michelle King, to sit at their golden table as a participant with his hit squad, to charterize and privatize the rest of LAUSD…or at least for now, up to 50% more charters which take away from public education. Their fantasy seems to be that Michelle King will now work for them and be a subject to Myrna Castrejon…and of course Eli Broad.
It is shocking to see that Broad lawyers and PR firms now use as their mouthpiece, this hard core, non educator, lobbyist for CCSA who spent her time twisting arms in Sacramento who now thinks she is on the same level as the new Superintendent of LAUSD.
As to Myrna Castrejon, a political hit woman who works for charter schools, here is her Times dossier.
“The organization driving a controversial effort to vastly expand charter schools in Los Angeles has selected one of the state’s most visible charter school advocates as its first executive director.
Myrna Castrejon, 50, is leaving her position as a lobbyist and strategist for the California Charter Schools Association to lead Great Public Schools Now, a nonprofit organization established to carry out the charter expansion strategy, which was first developed by billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad and his foundation.
In her new position, Castrejon will become the face of an initiative that is stoking tumult among educators and push-back from the Los Angeles Unified School District. An early proposal called for raising $490 million to enroll half of the district’s students in charter schools over the next eight years.
Castrejon, senior vice president of government affairs for the charter association, begins her new role Feb. 22. She said a key priority will be reaching out to leaders of the nation’s second largest school district who, just two days ago, publicly opposed the plan developed by the Broad Foundation.
L.A. Unified Supt. Michelle King on Thursday echoed concerns raised by the school board, saying she does not support any initiatives that propose to “take over” the district by encouraging students to enroll in charters.”
How many of the California legislators are under the influence of Broad and his endless cash? We know for a fact that the former mayor of LA, Anthony Villaraigosa, who is now preparing to run for Governor, is prime among these sellouts to the big money. He is so close to Eli and John Deasy, he can taste them.
Have we lost all control of American society and democracy to Broad his band of oligarchs? How can they form a new 501c3 and think it will be the vehicle to infiltrate the school district and usurp it totally, from Superintendent to BoE to every classroom and every piece of LAUSD real estate?
The arrogance and sheer chutzpah of this power grab is mind boggling.
The real public living in the community better wake up to this irreversible loss of public schools and must take to the streets to preserve what is left. California already has more charter schools than any other state in the Union, and Los Angeles has the most of any city in the nation. Yet university reports show that the preponderance of these charters do no better than public schools in educating students, and a large group does far worse…all the while making big bucks using ill prepared teachers who flee their charges quickly.
Charles Kerchner, a scholar at the Claremont Graduate School in California, has some interesting reflections on the LAUSD vote against the Eli Broad plan to take over half the students in the district.
He writes to contradict the reformers’ claims that they are above politics. Quoting a paper by pro-reform Paul Hill of the University of Washington and an associate, Kershnernotes that reformers are just as political as unions and others who push back. Although they don’t like to admit it, reformers are an interest group. (I add: their power derives not from numbers but from money.)
He writes:
“The rhetoric of school reform treats portfolio creators as free of political interests in contrast to rapacious teacher unions and self-protecting school administrators. Because they, and the schools they create, are free from politics, they can innovate and adapt rapidly, outpacing the sluggish pace of incremental reforms within traditional school districts…..
“The foundations, philanthropists, and civic elites that Hill and Jochim call “the reformers” want something. They want dominance over public education. They want to rebrand the word public as something other than the delivery of schooling by a government agency called a school district.
“In order to do this, they need to take away resources controlled by that system: jobs held by teachers, access to school building and property, control over the means of training and hiring.
“Placing school reform in this context invites bare-knuckle politics. And that’s what has resulted.
“It’s not about who has the best idea; it’s about who can gather and sustain the most power. As the authors note at the end of the paper, politics is the strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes time and involves setbacks.
“So, when someone comes to your town with the promise that they can change your failed urban schools, do it quickly, and make an end run around urban politics, don’t believe them.”
This post was written by Lakia Wilson, a guidance counselor at Spain Elementary School in Detroit.
She describes the horrifying physical conditions in the school, experienced daily by 500 students and the staff.
The predominant smell in the school is mold and mildew.
“The gym is closed because half of the floor is buckled and the other half suffered so much rainwater damage from the dripping ceiling that it became covered with toxic black mold. Instead of professionally addressing the problem, a black tarp simply was placed over the entire area like a Band-Aid. That area of the school has been condemned.
“The once beautiful pool sits empty because no one has come to fix it. The playground is off-limits because a geyser of searing hot steam explodes out of the ground. What do our kids do for exercise with no gym, playground or pool? They walk or run in the halls. Seriously. Our pre-K through eighth graders move like mall walkers.
Exposed wires hang from missing ceiling tiles. Watermarks from leaks abound. Kids either sit in freezing classrooms with their coats on or strip off layers because of stifling heat.”
Blame it on the kids? No. Blame it on the parents? No. Blame it on the teachers? No.
No, this falls into Governor Rick Snyder’s lap. Detroit is under state control.
Governor Snyder, tell your Emergency Manager to fix the schools so they are in tip-top shape. You will be judged by what you do–or fail to do–for the children.
This is an important article about Uber and the new “sharing economy.” It is great for the entrepreneurs, whose companies are valued in the billions. But not good at all for the workers, who don’t earn minimum wage and have no health insurance or any benefits. The article was written by Strphen Greenhouse, who covered labor issues for the Néw York Times for many years.
“AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT in recent American history, one corporation has stood out as the “it” company, the symbol of the new and the cool—think of IBM, then Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon—now it seems to be Uber’s moment. In just six years, Uber has gone from start-up to upstart to juggernaut, pushing its way into 250 cities and 53 countries. Boasting 1.1 million drivers worldwide and 400,000 in the United States, Uber is one of the fastest-growing start-ups in history, with an eye-popping valuation of $62.5 billion, more than that of General Motors. Uber has probably done more to transform—its executives would say “disrupt”—urban transportation around the world than any other company in the last half-century. Its investors include such heavyweights as Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and Jeff Bezos.
“Uber has also become the foremost symbol of the on-demand economy, with a super-convenient app that consumers love because it often gets them a car faster than it takes to find a taxi. The company sees and depicts itself as offering a cool, new, flexible employment model that is being copied by other companies, including Lyft, Handy (housecleaning), Caviar (food delivery), Postmates (on-demand delivery), Washio (dry cleaning), and Luxe (parking your car).
“To many, however, Uber has become the foremost symbol of something else—something unlawful. Many labor advocates view Uber as the leading practitioner of illegal worker misclassification because it insists that its 400,000 U.S. drivers are independent contractors rather than employees. Uber says its drivers—it calls them “partners”—are their own bosses who have the flexibility to drive whatever hours they want and even drive for competitors like Lyft and Sidecar.
“Indeed, with its clout, cachet, and big-name backers, Uber has sought to redefine what an employee is. No way, it says, should its drivers be considered employees, asserting that its relationship with them is attenuated—even though the company hires and fires the drivers, sets their fares, takes a 20 percent commission from fares, gives drivers weekly ratings, and orders them not to ask for tips. For Uber, there are manifold advantages to treating its drivers as independent contractors. Not only does it avoid being covered by minimum wage, overtime, and anti-discrimination laws, but it sidesteps having to make contributions for Social Security, Medicare, workers’ compensation, and unemployment insurance. It also escapes the employer obligations of the Affordable Care Act. By some estimates, all this cuts Uber’s compensation costs by more than 20 percent per driver.
“Uber’s aggressive expansion and unusual employment model—almost all driver interactions with the “boss” are through Uber’s smartphone app—have raised questions about what a 21st-century company’s responsibilities are to workers in—whatever you want to call it—the gig economy, the on-demand economy, the crowdsourcing economy, the sharing economy, or perhaps the unsharing economy. (I’m flummoxed why anyone, except for public relations reasons, would call Uber and Lyft part of a sharing economy when they are in essence little different from a taxi or any other livery service that picks up riders and charges a fare.)
“Uber’s critics say the company is shrewdly seeking to evade all of an employer’s traditional legal responsibilities and obligations, while enjoying all the benefits of being an employer—including taking a hefty percentage of what its workers earn. But many champions of Uber argue that the nation’s employment laws have grown obsolete and need to be updated because, in their view, Uber’s employment model is so different from, so much looser and less structured than, the models at traditional companies like General Motors and Procter & Gamble. In response, labor advocates often argue that the nation’s employment laws are not outmoded and that the problem is that many people simply fail to recognize that Uber has a fairly traditional employer-employee relationship (with its newfangled app and boasts of being a master disrupter confusing matters).”
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Susan Ochshorn of the ECE Workshop describes a new article in the Teachers College Record on the absurdity of the Obama-Duncan “cradle-to-career” policies. Jeanne Marie Ioria and Clifton Tanabe present a thesis: “School readiness, a state we so avidly seek, has created a chain (in all senses of the word) between our youngest students and the labor force, reinforcing the idea of children as commodities.”
Now, they say, this market-driven, utilitarian philosophy has moved into the upper grades and higher education, with predictable results:
As a result, this process is tilted away from the more traditional aims of self-actualization, appreciation, and happiness. It is in the ability to check off a box of measurable outcomes, assurance of accountability in education across the levels, evidence that monies supporting public education are well-spent creating people ready to contribute and perpetuate the status quo.
The concept of “readiness” now dominates early childhood education and justifies harmful policies:
Curriculum, standards, teacher education programs, interventions, parent education, assessment, state-funded 4-year-old programs, and privatization are just the beginning of policies and practices created and implemented all in the name of readiness…kindergarten readiness is plagued with a list of academic skills like identifying rhyming words and the alphabet. Companies like LeapFrog offer lists of readiness skills to educate the public as well as products to achieve this readiness. A Kindergarten Readiness App is available for download to your iPhone or iPad, ensuring development of early literacy and math skills.
The authors note that employers say that high school and college graduates are not well prepared for the jobs that are available but when asked about the skills they want, they speak of creativity, critical thinking skills, problem-solving, and other “soft” skills that are currently out of vogue.
Susan Ochshorn says that early childhood education is “ground zero for democracy,” the best time to teach children to engage with others through play and imaginative activities.
A reader who consistently supports charter schools sent s link to an article on Campbell Brown’s website and flung down the gauntlet: Here is proof that Newark charter schools made impressive gains! I dare you to refute it!
I turned to Jersey Jazzman, the expert on New Jersey charter data, and he wrote this devastating critique of Richard Whitmire’s praise for Newark charters.
He writes:
Bruce Baker and I looked at Newark’s test scores — both charters and NPS — over the period of “reform” in the city’s schools. We found no evidence that Newark has seen any positive changes that couldn’t be explained by overall, statewide trends (I’ll have a similar analysis of graduation rates out soon).
In addition, the data in the post under review was available only to the author, not to the public. Please read Jersey Jazzman’s post for a clear understanding of charters in New Jersey and the politicization of research about them.
Tom Cahill describes the five famous billionaires who are intent on dismantling public education, especially public education for African American children.
He writes that “The charter school movement is particularly insidious, as it’s essentially a form of institutionalized racism veiled in altruism.”
They call themselves “reformers,” but in fact they are destroying a vital democratic institution.
The process, he says, begins with Common Core standards that disregard all individual or local differences. That is followed by high-stakes testing that fails most students.
Finally, schools are labeled as “failing” due to the lopsided evaluation process, and privately-run charters are forced onto inner-city populations, paving the way for the privatization of public education in predominantly black and latino communities. (Actually, the “failing schools” narrative was launched prior to Common Core. Arne Duncan started closing public schools in Chicago when he was Superintendent. NCLB prescribed school-closings as an antidote to low scores. Low test scores, wherever they came from, were used as weapons to replace public schools with charter schools. Common Core just speeded up the demolition strategy.)
The five white billionaires he points to are: Mark Zuckerberg; the Walton family; Carl Icahn; Bill Gates; and Rupert Murdoch.
The list of billionaires who want to privatize the public schools should include Eli Broad, John Arnold, Michael Dell, the Koch brothers, and Michael Bloomberg. I may have missed a few billionaires, but you get the picture. The free market worked for them; why should schools operate in a free market? Why pay attention to the mounds of research showing that charter schools do not get higher test scores when they enroll the same children? Why care that minority children are enrolled in charter schools with harsh and punitive discipline policies that would not be allowed in public schools? Why care if there is no evidence that charter schools and Teach for America do not “close the achievement gap” and have no discernible impact on reducing poverty?
A friend sent me a clever survey which will tell you which candidate is closest to your views. Of course, you probably know who you support for President, but you might find it interesting to take this test.
Check it out. http://www.isidewith.com/political-quiz?from=wXWx3eKKP
Diane Ravitch's blog 