Bertis Downs is a parent and public education activist who lives in Athens, Georgia. His daughters attended the public schools in Athens. Bertis is a board member of the Network for Public Education and of People for the American Way.
He posted a speech in Salon that he says will bring about sure victory for the candidate who delivers it.
He begins like this:
Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have decided to start talking about the state of K-12 public education in recent weeks. This is a very positive, if overdue, development, with both of them questioning the efficacy and priority of charter schools in the national dialogue on educating our children; and Sanders recently proposing a new, equity-focused approach to funding education in the United States.
Still, the candidates’ words don’t seem to resonate with many of the largely untapped public education parents and teachers who are in search of a candidate. Neither candidate really has a grasp on the varied and complex issues that have to be addressed when considering the changes and reforms our schools and children truly need. Let’s help their campaigns by outlining the speech that at least one of them ought to give — and soon.
Which campaign wants to lay claim to public schools supporters? Easy. Whoever embraces these ideas first. Just imagine:
Somewhere in New Hampshire:
A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT ON A TRULY CHILD-CENTERED AND EFFECTIVE PUBLIC EDUCATION POLICY
Good morning. I want to spend a few minutes today considering the past, present and future of public education in our country— a topic too long ignored in this election year.
We know several things about public education. We know it is the road out of poverty for many children. We know many or most of our public schools are doing a fine job of educating our children. But we also know our nation still suffers from generations of neglect, discrimination and underfunding that drive unconscionable disparities in how we educate our privileged and our less affluent children. Clearly, education does not exist in a vacuum. We cannot expect schools or teachers alone to solve the immense problems many of our youngest children face in their home lives. Schools are expected to do more and more in an age when we are making it harder for them to do the basic job of educating their students. It seems that teachers have less control over what and how they teach, yet teachers are blamed more than ever for how their students perform on standardized tests. Is it any wonder we have an impending shortage of teachers? Even those who have long dreamed of being teachers may be hesitant to enter the profession as it is currently defined. Is that really what we want? Is that really what our children deserve?…..
We say we want good schools for each child. But the policies we have pursued at the federal and most state levels have not produced that result— not even close. Mine will be the first administration in a long time that not only makes speeches about strengthening and improving our public schools, but actually adopts policies that will strengthen and improve our public schools. To those of you who have said my campaign hasn’t emphasized public education enough: you are right. Admittedly, I am looking at this with new eyes as I consider the education of my own grandchildren. How we educate them, and the millions of peers coming up alongside them, is one of the nation’s greatest responsibilities. I, for one, am ready to do my part.
Read the rest of the speech that is guaranteed to elect the next President of these United States.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s great. Downs always seems like such a nice man.
After watching this from outside for a couple of years as an a non-expert, the phrase that comes to mind is “they hear hoofbeats and look for zebras”, to describe approach of the political (elected) leaders of ed reform.
It’s almost like they ignore the most obvious explanation or cause and effect and chase after anything BUT that.
As an example, from what I’ve been able to gather, the biggest concern in my local school regarding children who aren’t doing well is attendance. This is what I hear from the people who run the place- they think they should focus on getting them to school. They’re not asking for tablets or data systems or a new testing system- they’re asking for something much simpler (not ‘easy” but ‘simple’). That’s short term and then long term would be funding.
I just get no sense that they’re listened to. At all. It’s like two entirely different tracks. Really the LAST thing they need is another mandate or directive or complex program or “disruptive innovation”, in my opinion. They need less chaos, not more.
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Glad to hear your local school gets it. Attendance in many schools is the weakest link in the chain of student success. Reported attendance rates are extremely deceptive as there is usually a core group of chronic absentees. Attendance rates also do not account for in-school suspensions, out-of-school suspensions, individual class absences due to music lessons, counseling, early dismissal, etc. Until it approaches 98% per student (3 – 4 days per year), all bets are off regarding student achievement. In my school it is common for students to miss 5 to 10 days per marking period. They rarely seem sick when they return to school and the indifference to this problem on the part of parents is mind boggling.
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Thank you, Bertis Downs. Have you considered a career as a speechwriter?
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It’s a great speech, but I’m not holding my breath for either Hillary or Bernie to give it. Hillary can’t – look what happened when she made one very modest and completely correct criticism of charter schools. She was wise enough to walk it back very soon after – she knows where her bread is buttered. Bernie might and I’d sure love it if he did, but he’s been almost as reluctant has Hillary to stick his toes in the K-12 waters. Hoping I’m proven wrong though.
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They’ll wait for the general election and swoop in to announce their undying love and devotion to public education.
I don’t mind so much that they’re all “market-based ed reformers” or that they all sound exactly the same, down to the same phrases and words. I mind that the Democrats lie about it every 4 years.
For God’s sake, at least have the courage of your convictions. It’s not like we haven’t figured it out.
There is not a dime’s worth of difference between Obama, Jeb Bush and John Kasich on public schools other than a purely abstract and mostly meaningless debate over the role of the federal government. That is the truth. I suppose high-level ed reform negotiations are important if “federalism” is your big issue, but what about the 99.9% of public school parents who aren’t interested in DC process debates and power struggles?
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Hillary stated in the last debate that she would not privatize the VA. She would work to improve it. I wonder why it is acceptable to privatize education for young people, most of whom will be future voters. I read that we tend to privatize the things we don’t care about. Does this imply we don’t care about our young people or is just certain young people of certain ethnic groups?
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I don’t like such sensationalist and untrue titles.
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That’s par for the course for Salon. The authors don’t generally write their own headlines.
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As you know, I have written many letters to Bernie in an attempt to promote some sort of statement that tells US that he KNOWS, what ALREADY OCCURRED (the under-funding, the top-down administrative war on veteran teachers to reduce the budget and silence the voices of real educators,) what is ONGOING at the moment –the legislative takeover and privatizing of education for the wealthy– AND WHAT MUST BE DONE, NOW!
I sent my missives — in hopes that he would see them — to his HS best- friend, his brother, his wife and to his campaign to say: “YOU NEED TO LET TEACHERS KNOW that you GET-IT… how crucial education is to the future of this nation and how it is under assault by a real conspiracy. (the EIC)”
Click to access eic-oct_11.pdf
The publisher at Oped News, who has interviewed Bernie in the past, sent my message to him, as did Dan Geery (who ran for Utah senator and who knows Berni’es Vermont brother in. Even. BATS contacted his campaign people!
I never got a response.
Some comments from my FIRST letter (July 17th) where I introduce myself and the issues at hand:
“My name is Susan Lee Schwartz.
I was the the NYS English Council’s (NYSEC) choice for the NYS Educator of Excellence in 1998, and the NYC cohort for the real Pew funded, Harvard research on the National Standards. I graduated with Bernie, and I have been trying for months to give him a route to THE MILLIONS of votes OF teachers, but it is impossible to speak with him, which I must, because ( as demonstrated by the letter BELOW,) Bernie is missing the mark on education! He lacks the facts, the WHOLE truth! PLEASE BERNIE, give me, your madison classmate 15 minutes to tell you WHAT IS NEEDED TO CREATE A GENUINE POLICY STATEMENT!
“THIS is the defining issue of our times! Bernie NEEDS TO GET THE FACTS ABOUT EDUCATION STRAIGHT, and if he does, he will win the votes of millions of teachers, and parents.
“BERNIE HAS TO BE THE ONE TO TALK THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE FOR KIDS TO LEARN! The national narrative, today, is not about learning, it is about teaching.
This is A RACE…. as legislatures in state after state take over the schools WITH NARY AN EDUCATOR ON BOARD TO MAKE DECISIONS ON what to give to support LEARNING in an genuine way. This is NOT just about money. This is about the END OOF DEMOCRACY because (as E.D. Hirsch explains) ‘shared knowledge is essential for a democracy’, and this is what happens https://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/05/north-carolina-plans-to-adopt-koch-funded-social-studies-curriculum/ when schools fall into the hands of the very people who are leading the destruction… read it and shiver!
“BERNIE NEEDS INFORMATION. He cannot be the one who does not know the reality of the PROCESS THAT TOOK OUT THE INSTITUTION THAT IS PUBLIC EDUCATION.
AND THEN I SAY: “It is Diane Ravitch who Bernie needs to hear! HAS ANYONE IN YOUR CAMPAIGN ACTUALLY GONE TO HER SITE, where the reality of the war on public education is reported DAILY! She is the best one to explain to Bernie, why REFORM IS A HOAX, and give him A COHERENT APPROACH to policy, so he can talk about this complex subject with real authority. She knows what an emerging intelligence needs — in a school and in a classroom so that kids can LEARN, and teachers can ‘teach’.
This conversation about WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE , is the FIRST conversation THAT MUST take place in this nation. Then, conversations about funding and staffing can occur.
FINALLY I point out : “WE are grassroots! We are the parents and the teachers of the next generations of American citizens!!! PLEASE BERNIE, give me, your madison classmate 15 minutes to tell you what you need in order to create a REAL policy statement.
That was letter one. There were two more!
It makes me sad, because I trust him, and I feel that his campaign managers are FAILING TO BRING THIS ISSUE TO HIM… THEY ARE obsessed with bringing in money and attracting the young folks, but they are blind to the war on our system of education.
OH WELL. I tried!
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I think it’s to the point that nothing gets through – it’s closed circle. This is the Obama Administration “guidance” on testing in schools.
You will not find anything in here about how test scores are used to rank teachers and grade schools. They’ve simply decided to pretend that issue doesn’t exist and had nothing to do with the increase in testing, even though ranking and grading was the absolute centerpiece of the Obama approach to (existing) public schools. There really was nothing else for public schools under Obama- it was ALL data collection and ranking. That has just- poof!”- disappeared.
Click to access 16-0002signedcsso222016ltr.pdf
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CHIARA In my letter to Bernie, I was very clear about the WAR ON TEACHERS!
But, I DO NOT WISH THIS TO CRAWL ALONG THE SIDE, SO Chiara, go see my response in the larger commentary here
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NOW is the time for NPE and others to endorse Bernie.
Anyone thinking of voting for Hillary, other than through default, is nuts. . . . She is NOT pro-public education, not that I personally can afford to be a single issue voter.
Let’s all write to Bernie and convince him to start talking more about public education, which he has already said – and I have been saying this for EIGHT years – needs to be way more financed federally and way less financed through local property taxes, all while retaining complete local, democratic control, and that includes Title 1 and 3 funds.
It’s OUR federal tax dollars that WE pay and that should flow back to US! . . . .
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Sanders and Clinton are now in a nation-wide dead heat.
It appears that the Iowa caucus result is an indication of the nation at large.
‘
The folks who claim that Sanders is “un-electable’ are simply not in tune with what is happening (or they are simply lying because they don’t want Sanders)
From latest Quinnipiac poll
In the Democratic race nationwide, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has 44
percent, with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont at 42 percent, and 11 percent undecided. This
compares to a 61 – 30 percent Clinton lead in a December 22 survey by the independent
Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll.
Sanders and Rubio are the strongest candidates in general election matchups.
IMHO, with regard to “NPE endorsement”, it seems that the most democratic thing to do would be to poll the members and simply report the results. That way the NPE leadership would not even have to choose a candidate to endorse, which is bound to offend some members no matter whom they choose.
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SDM,
Polls are not nearly as meaningful to me as American sentiment and a pain that is so severe that it is helping people to distinguish between politicians who represent too broad an array of interests and politicians who really want to serve the vast majority of ordinary, day to day people . . . .
I see what you are saying, and at the same time, I have put on blinders for once in my life, all to focus on getting Sanders elected.
And I agree about NPE polling its members, but hey, it’s SO not a perfect, risk taking world, and I have to accept that when it comes to parties other than myself . . . . .
Can’t you write a small ditty about this?
🙂
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I think the one thing that polls tell you in this case is that Sanders is not the “outlier’ that many would have us believe.
That he has made such large gains in public awareness about him in such a short time is a minor miracle given how dismissive mainstream media have been. Even after the virtual tie in Iowa, all NPR could say was that the coinflips were not the reason Sanders “lost”.
The people at NPR are either too stupid or too dishonest to admit that the tiny percentage by which Sanders ‘lost” is insignificant “noise”.
The real story, of course, is that he has made it such a close race, but to tell that story would be to admit that NPR was wrong in their assessment of Sanders.(like they have been on Iraq and so many other issues).
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SDP,
I was talking about the people at NPE, not NPR. The folks at NPE are not stupid at all and are allies to you and me.
The people at NPR take Gates’s money, are stupid, and bias their reporting on technology and public education.
Did you do – yikes – a close reading?
But yes, I agree that NPR – National Public Radio – is corrupt and useless. I would never expect NPR to endorse Bernie. In fact, they will be working against him.
Hopefully WBAI in NY will be giving him excellent coverage. . . .
And about that ditty? . . ..
🙂
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Forget NPR….
A new poll from Quinnipiac University shows that Bernie Sanders has virtually erased Hillary Clinton’s national lead with Democratic voters. In the contest for the heart of the party, Sanders has swept Democrats off their feet.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/02/05/bombshell-poll-shows-bernie-sanders-winning-the-hearts-of-democratic-voters.html
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Every individual and group in America that is against the theft of the common goods, against corrupt executive, legislative and judicial branches and, against dominion by oligarchs and multinational corporations, should do everything they can to get Bernie elected.
The Dayton Daily News reported today on the “biggest bribery scheme in Ohio history”.
Public pension money was steered to State Street Bank. The SEC allowed State Street to settle for $12 million with a “get out of jail free card”, “no admission of wrong doing” statement.
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To, CHIARA and my colleagues and friends here who trust my voice:
THIS IS A RESPONSE TO CHIARA, which is too important to crawl down the side as a reply. IN a COMMENT (at this thread) she rightfully complains THAT there is NO MENTION OF VAM in Mr Downs’ policy statement! Her complaint is valid, and sits alongside MY OWN observation that what is ABSENT from all conversations, is the BEGINNING — the first step from 1998 to 2008 — when the assault on our profession began.
Chiara YOU mention the ABSENCE of THE TRUTH ABOUT VAM’S IMPACT?
But my dear, ALSO, MISSING is the truth about the first ASSAULT of the WAR ON TEACHERS— the tactic they used to REMOVE BY ANY MEANS THE tenured TEACHER-PRACTITIONER”* The end of the grievance process, which offered all teachers collective bargaining rights to the first Amendment!
* YES! I use that hyphenated word which I encountered long ago, because I AM the practitioner of a difficult discipline — which I mastered and taught successfully for over 40 years. I AM TEACHER and it is time I had a say in this conversation!
You complain Chiara, and rightfully so, that there is not a hint, in that policy statement, of the PRESENT war on teachers,… the assault in which an OUTRAGEOUS evaluation, a student test– is used as the assessment tool of a PROFESSIONAL.
But they knew what worked in 1988 and 1998 and 2008— Silence the media, sell a lie and POOF, gone girl! Over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND veteran teachers went down in the first, SUCCESSFUL use of the tactic they use TODAY to take YOU out ! False allegations with no valid evidence! A CONSTITUTIONAL SCANDAL that was lost as it was carried out across over FIFTEEN THOUSAND school systems.
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
MY DEAR CHIARA, NOwhere in this nation, OR on this blog OR anywhere EXCEPT ONLINE (or in the books written by THE VICTIMS) is the story OF HOW THEY TOOK US OUT. We ‘REAL’ teachers had to be eliminated!
I have just read “Bravery, Bullies & Blowhards” where in the preface, to my utter astonishment , Lorna’s Stremcha described, to perfection, the behavior which I encountered. I discovered that I could not trust administration! Something vital had been removed… the SUPPORT of these top-honchos could not be counted on… and in fact… they were often openly antagonistic to experienced, successful teachers. It was more than ageism. They were preparing to go to war against the professionals that remained, and tenure made it difficult..
The war on ‘tenure’ began in the media, but in the schoolS administrators made preparations to evict the top teachers, and eradicate their reputations.
Oh yes, THE DESTRUCTION OF A HOSPITAL WOULD result if the doctors were no longer trusted to PRACTICE MEDICINE. The end of a LAW firm would ensue it the experienced litigators were thrown out! There is a reason why EXPERIENCE COUNTS in medicine, law and science. There is a reason why the elders once had a real voice in a society’s success.http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/mander.html
(Look at the epic battle at Viacom! Failure is not an option when billions are at stake, but it is fine when the billions are CHILDREN!)
The reason a teacher’s voice MUST BE HEARD is the same. Experience counts in complex professions… SUCH AS teaching, in which enabling and facilitating young minds to learn is the essential outcomes*.
*I actually have a list of NYC’s official ESSENTIAL OUTCOMES, which enabled me and ALL teachers, to write lessons & curricula. I plan to bring it to the NPE, so you all can see what predated the CC crap.
They ended public education by removing the practitioners… and then yelled “Hey, LOOK the schools are failing, so we are offering the stressed, largely ignorant citizens a new CHOICE — charter schools.”
As I heard on NPR, one brilliant researcher say, “In the PRIVATE sector, people who endanger the operation are removed. RESEARCH SHOWS THAT IN the PUBLIC sector, incompetence is ignored.’
Actually, it is rewarded, and the very superintendents that ENDED LEARNING, in their schools, go on to make wonderful salaries and get magnanimous pensions; they prosper, while the professional teacher is tarred and feathered and fired! I saw that video that Diane posted, of that top-dog King as he slithered through an explanation of how he ignored outright corruption!
YES, IT WAS in the preface of Lorna’s book, where I RECOGNIZED the FIRST assault on the profession! I realized that I had missed it’s beginning, by leaving to raise my sons, and then, by subbing in some good schools, where I was respected and well-known.
But, she had been THERE, and in beautiful detail she explains the unethical tactics by top-down managers as the schools moved to end the voice of the classroom teacher-practitioner payback in 1988! There it is, exactly what was waiting to happen to me in 1990, as I ran headlong into a classroom on the East River, near Gracie Mansion and not far from the Met and Central Park.
How was I to know, that (LONG BEFORE VAM) there was a process to remove teachers who resist the harassment?
BUT YOU, Chiara — and all of you OUT THERE who are teaching now — must begin to recognize the simple tactic — a process which removes access to a legal leg to stand on, when you scream: “Hold on a second THAT IS NOT TRUE! I am a great teacher, and I did not do that!”
VAM is hurtful, but the EXTREME abuse that occurred top mangers behaved with IMPUNITY shows that THE SCHOOL MANAGEMENT MUST BE PART OF THE SOLUTION, AND THAT NO PRINCIPAL OR ADMINISTRATOR CAN run the show without a shred of accountability!
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE ABSENCE OF SUCH POLICY can be found in the story of Lorna Stremcha’s encounter with a MONTANA PRINCIPAL– a man who acted with such impunity, as all such dictators do, and who set her up to be assaulted when his harassment failed to remove her from this school.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/background-information-bravery-bullies-blowhards-lorna-stremcha
I CRIED as I followed her story, because I RECOGNIZED the malevolence at work — because I HAD WITNESSED similar BEHAVIOR, such arrogance and lack of conscience*, when at last, I walked the halls of a school. * My publisher at Oped News, Rob Kall, identifies such people ‘sociopaths’ in his essays on THIS phenomenon of human behavior.
School administrations need to know that they are accountable for their behavior. They can’t use VAM. Period.
Being bullied into silence is chasing the best teachers OUT in a few years.
This has got to stop, and THAT can be accomplished by a president who says: “ON MY WATCH, no teacher will be deprived of the right as an American, to see evidence and refute false allegations. The rule of law WILL return to the schools, all schools!”
THAT IS A POLICY STATEMENT THAT WILL RESONATE WITH TEACHES, BY GOLLY!
THIS BRINGS ME TO THE END OF THIS LONG COMMENT, AND to WHAT I TOLD THE MANAGERS OF BERNIE SANDER’S CAMPAIGN:, WHEN I introduced THEM to the WHOLE story, including the BEGINNING… long before VAM! Yeah! I TOLD BERNIE SANDERS PEOPLE about the war on teachers — which is NOT a subject one actually hears, anywhere, except when I SAY IT!
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As usual, Ms. Schwartz hits the nail on the head with her huntress Diana-like arrow pointing and laser-like targeted precision . . . .
SLAM!
No one is at all done with Bernie Sanders!
Keep pushing, y’all, and get out there and volunteer in about 15 different ways for the Sanders campaign.
Hillary is Bill and Obama in drag. It is WONDERFUL that a WOMAN is running for president, but she is little more than an impersonator of progressive, egalitarian politics. What a fraud. What a shame! Imagine what she could have been but is incapable of being.
Bernie is the real thing . . . .
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AND HERE in my conclusion is what I wrote in the letter to Bernie (actually to his campaign manager:
“The truth — the facts — the 20 year planned assault on the professional teacher-practitioner — the TACTICS WHEN REVEALED, begs the question that DAN RATHER asked me, when he heard the story in 1998: “But, Mrs. Schwartz, How could this be allowed to happen?
THIS IS an uncomfortable question that needs serious attention.Powerful forces are burying this story. But IT IS ACTUALLY out there, at NAPTA. http://endteacherabuse.org/index.html AND in WHITE CHALK CRIME http://www.whitechalkcrime.com/wcc/. It is out there, at Betsy Combier’s sites
:http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
http://parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=7534
“Please, have Bernie, call me because I can explain a civil rights violation that is the scandal of our times, how the veteran teachers were removed, and how in the over 15 THOUSAND systems across American– this is ongoing.”
“BERNIE NEEDS INFORMATION. He cannot be the one who does not know the reality of the PROCESS THAT TOOK US OUT! Take LAUSD — the second largest schools system in the nation — which at this very moment is the swamp where this process drowns teachers.” http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
“What appears nowhere — in ANY article by any reporter for a corporate owned media- is the FACT that for every older teacher that LAUSD is able to get rid of — LAUSD will save approximately $60,000 in combined salary and benefits savings.
IF a top-of-the-salary-scale teacher who is paid over $80,000 a year — is REPLACED with one making $35,000 with significantly less expensive benefits — THE BENEFIT is tidy sum!
THE SCALE OF THIS PROCESS IS REALIZED by this FACT THAT LAUSD has gotten rid of 14,000 of these high seniority teachers WITH FABRICATED CHARGES” http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/LAUSD-OR-TARGETED-TEACHERS-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Deception_Evidence_Fired_Innocence-150720-360.html#comment555646
“Because the public is never given this essential fact that 93% of targeted teachers IN THAT FIRST ASSAULT ON THE PROFESSIONAL TEACHER-PRACTITIONER, are at the top of the salary scale, they have difficulty believing that LAUSD would go after teachers, unless they were BAD or morally reprehensible, as is ECHOED again and again in the corporate press. ELI BROAD OWNS THE LA TIMES. Teachers have no voice, and it costs a fortune to sue.”
“Nowhere, is this incredibly dark motive of corporate America, or their LAUSD administration, ever mentioned.”
“The ultimate agenda is the privatization of public education for corporate profit!”
The agenda of the oligarchs at the top of the food chain is to END our DEMOCRACY– and what better way, then to get them YOUNG and to LIE to them about who we were BACK THEN. (Has anyone read Orwell’s ANIMAL FARM!) Get the them young and then ensure that they do not possess the critical thinking skills that can detect their mendacity.”
“With the professional gone from the classroom, their voices silenced, this ‘reform’ hoax was perpetrated. It was all about money
THIS WAS THE RESULT IN NYC the largest system in the 15,880 systems. They trashed The largest school system the 15,880 so they could replace working public education system with charter schools. Here is “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman” on Vimeo!” *
* (again as I have shown this riveting documentary HERE many times
I end, as in my previous comment here in this commentary thread: “PLEASE BERNIE, give me, your Madison classmate, 15 minutes to tell you what you need to create a real policy statement.”
But I bet you, Chiara, or Robert. or Lloyd, or Ellen Lubic or Laura Chapman or Peter Greene of Carol Burris, or so many of the people who Diane features in her posts, could explain to Bernie whatHE NEEDS TO SAY NOW, , and what he NEEDS TO DO WHEN HE IS PRESIDENT.
Yeah!
THANKS FOR READING!!!
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Well, DFER seems to like themselves some Clinton, complete with that rising tide of mediocrity meme. Makes things pretty clear for the rest of us.
“In over three decades of public service, Hillary Rodham Clinton has been a proven champion for education reform…
Though Arkansas was an extreme case, this crisis in education extended from coast to coast, as the entire nation found itself and its children inadequately prepared to adapt to the challenges of the coming 21st century. The U.S. Department of Education released a stunning report in April 1983, A Nation at Risk, warning that ‘the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.’ Needless to say, it sent shockwaves across the country.
Despite the many political obstacles in their way, the Clintons knew that something had to be done to reform this broken system. When Bill Clinton returned to the governorship in January 1983, he immediately pushed the legislature to approve an educational standards task force, to which he then appointed Hillary Clinton as chair.”
View at Medium.com
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Chiara – I think Mr Downs *is* a nice person! 🙂 [congrats!!; well done Bertis!]
Mr. Rendo – What an interesting notion, for NPE to make a democratic candidate endorsement.
This older women-youth split thing is very deep, very genuine, very complex. Randi Weingarten, and our own Diane Ravitch, are paradigmatic examples of that older-women demographic whom I like to think of as feminist-loyalty-driven. (I’m not presuming to state how Ms Ravitch would vote, but Ms Weingarten is on record with her support, and all are political colleagues at the very least and I believe perhaps even personal friends).
I spent an 8 hour car ride today trying to explain it to my two teen girls – and husband also. I’m just shy of the really deep older-women chiasm I think (age 54 I think? I forget, something like that). To be sure obviously there are some older women who will be voting for Sanders and I’m no-way going to re-hash what I’ve no doubt millions of words have been spilt about in this generational-genderational chiasm. But I just betcha that among even Diane Ravitch loyalists here, probably disproportionately older-women-teacher demographically, there are some closet Hillary supporters, even through the dicey charter-school positions. Don’t forget (I know no one is), that Sanders’ educational stance is pretty icky too. It leaves things easier among this demographic here to allow the emotional-Hillary vote to hold sway [that sounds wrong – there are good, carefully argued and rational rationales for supporting Hillary Clinton too and I’m not trying to say otherwise].
All I’m trying to say – to be sure very badly – is that if push came to shove and someone wanted to cull an “NPE endorsement” things might get a little bloody around here on the stage.
In the inimitable words of the teens: yikes.
[for the record, and the reason I’m not as even-handed as I wish I were able to be in words above, I do myself favor Sanders; I worked for him when I was younger than my teenagers are now! I just can’t overcome my roots for sure. At the same time, I have a lot of sympathy for those who come down on the other side of this divide. While also agreeing with (some bits from) the rabid Hillary-haters too. It’s just really, really complicated….]
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