“Who voted for that?”
Who voted for Walton?
Who voted for Gates?
Who voted for Galt an
Ayn Randian fates?
Who voted for testing?
Who voted for tools?
Who voted for nesting
The charters in schools?
Who voted for Duncan?
Who voted for Eva?
Who voted for Coleman?
And Campbell, the diva?
Who voted for billions
For testing online?
Who voted for millions
Of children in line?
Who voted for Races
And waivers and none?
And judges and cases
That nonsense has won?
Who voted for Kings
And for all the Court fools?
Who voted for things
That are wrecking our schools?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Impressive, and with a rhyme pattern.
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They all voted for these things except for Trump who held no office.
And Hillary, while traveling the world, is mum on schools–or at least I haven’t heard one word on charters or common core from her.
So can we start a WRITE IN CAMPAIGN?
I’m in CA so my vote is always counted last and usually doesn’t matter for president race but would love to write in Diane Ravitch across the Nation.
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Excellent!
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I have taught for 29 years. it is during the last 7.5 that I have seen the most change, the most waste, the least respect for teachers, and the least TRUE focus on what is really best for kids.
I live and teach in Delaware.
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Who voted for Markell?
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When we vote for representatives, we have to make sure these people are ethical. Otherwise, democracy gets hijacked like the whole charter cabal is a runaway train of corporate welfare and cronyism. What good are representatives that are bought by corporate interests? We also have to work to vote out those that don’t represent our views. It wouldn’t hurt to overturn Citizens United and stop the unfair gerrymandering and voter ID laws that inhibit democratic participation.
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You got me in the spirit, Poet. I had to get this out before I start reading papers.
Play Catch
I am a ball of yarn, Kitty,
Fido, I’m a rolling sedan.
I’m the rabbit that runs round the barn, Lucky,
Catch me if you can.
I am a ball of string in the sun, child,
A greying smiling public man.
I’m the rabbit that runs not a standardized sum, a teacher not proctor,
Child, catch me if you can.
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DAM, you are brilliant–touche!
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Who voted for Huffman
The ex of Rhee
And ed-butcherman
Of Smokie Tennessee?
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Who voted for the itablet
To teach imath, ienglish?
Who let this pricey Apple applet
Do what only teachers can accomplish?
Who voted for the college board
To be businessmen, nationwide?
Who let this savage horde
Raise tuition to the sky?
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Your verse is a poetic indictment of Apple’s iGreed; the savage Silicone Horde.
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In the immortal words of Joseph Heller’s Catch -22, “”They can do anything you can’t stop them from doing.”
JVK
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This poetry is very passionate, filled with substance and truth…..and elucidates the case very well of the privatizers motivations and the ultimate consequences of their greed and their ignorance about the purposes of education !!!
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brilliant as usual…and so sadly true – I feel I have no say – it is not safe to speak up…things are so entrenched with ed reform thinking…this blog is a safe place for teachers to say what is on their heart…
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Ayn Rand’s Galt saved the US from a genocidal fascist dictatorship by a peaceful strike. I’m always suspicious when people echo-chamber attack that.
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We live in the Age of the New Know-It-Alls. Get used to it.
They’re all over the place. They tell doctors how to doctor, police how to police, and teachers how to teach. They’ve fouled up everything they’ve touched from healthcare to the military to universities to school lunches.
They all share the crazy commonality of telling people what to do … while never following their own advice … never content to do what they know best … only what they imagine best.
Some are wealthy and have this sudden need to drive over to the next lane and think that what they’ve learned … about microchips or copying machines or oil rigs … constitutes suitable qualifications to screw around with schools … and the small humans who live there.
Others have flapped their lips and somehow cajoled a whole lot of important people that they themselves are pretty important people. They are adamant that they know more about schools and faculties and learning and leadership than most seasoned educators who were grown into those positions. They had epiphanies … and others did not.
Their philosophy presupposes that actual educational experience really isn’t necessary. It’s always amazing that these instant experts would never make similar suppositions about running an oil company or managing a baseball team or operating a farm or flying a plane. But schools? Why not! What’s so special? There are thousands of them all across the country. How difficult can it be?
So, they set out to blaze new trails and actually set fire to a whole lot of good stuff. And they think nothing of the fallout that is strewn in their rearview mirror because there is almost always another newly-inspired expert on the backstretch waiting for his turn at this educational wheel of misfortune.
I’m not aware of another time during the last few decades when we had more self-anointed geniuses on display. Why is our generation so special?
We have Arne Duncan … a national dunce who ticked off a reform resistance with his asinine comments about mothers. His actual teaching experience could be penciled on a post-it note. His successor, John King, is another classroom-allergic educrat whose over-load of arrogance while ruing New York State almost single-handedly sparked this national opt-out movement. These two hold the distinction of having done more damage to the institution … in a shorter time … than any other force in American history. And they’re proud of it!
Education seems to attract special flies like Michelle Rhee and David Coleman … each of whom owns and extensive supply of egoism and unfounded conceit. One has been run out of education all together … and the other is running education into the ground.
And then there are politicians turned Socrates like Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich … and most especially Andrew Cuomo who has done the unimaginable by botching a botched reform even more. They share a loathing for teachers … and insist that teaching is on par with minding the neighbor’s children … except, of course, when it comes to their own youngsters … who are almost invariably educated behind expensive ivy walls. It seems they have this knack for over-paying babysitters. Go figure.
Fold in some fat-wallet types like Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Netflix Reed Hastings … and that gooey oil titan of Exxon Mobil, Rex Tillison … and you’ve got a revolting pu pu plater of current Know-It-Alls … each suffering from a mysterious messiah-complex. They think that computers and robots and ouija boards are the educational tools of the 21st century. They all need yo-yos.
The current fop de jeuer is the leader of a group called New Leaders … which seeks to replace school principals with imported geniuses they have plucked from where ever the plucking is good. A hardly needed educational twist headed by a an instant educational super-star whose claim to fame was tutoring 5 year olds when he was eight. That’s a guy who’s never packed his resume, eh? But here he is … with White House access in his past … and mayhem in his future. God bless this land of opportunity.
People listen to their speechy stuff because it’s seasoned with spicy jargon and they can blend in buzzwords like a corner conniver. No one can actually understand their Professor Corey raps so they simply give up and deem them geniuses. And then we are all saddled with yet another Know-It-All all-star.
That’s where we are folks … deep into the Age of the Know-It-Alls … and everyone of them is determined to do their very best for mankind … including ruining it all in spectacular fashion.
I don’t quite know if we’re worthy, but I suspect we’re in for it.
Denis Ian
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“We live in the Age of the New Know-It-Alls. Get used to it.”
I don’t think so. But good stuff. The conclusion, reading the list of people who are pretend-educators: we live in the age of the impostors. These appear small time swindlers compared to those in the poem
http://www.oddee.com/item_96600.aspx
This, of course, is not the first time in history that con artists have a ball, and it always seems to happen for the same reason.
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“The Age of Know-it-alls” aka
“The Age that will Bury Us”, aka “The Age of Economists”– parody of The Age of Aquarius (The 5th Dimension)
When the VAM is in the Random House
And stupid is as stupid does
Then tests will guide the teaching
And Gates will steer because
This is the dawning of the Age
of Economists, the Age of Economists
Economists, Economists
Ed and stats misunderstanding
Ignorance is just astounding
Tons more falsehoods and derisions
Chetty having dreams and visions
Cattle model mathturbation
And the mind’s tergiversation
Will Bury Us, Will Bury Us
When the VAM is in the Random House
And stupid is as stupid does
Then tests will guide the teaching
And Gates will steer because
This is the dawning of the Age
That will bury us, Age that will bury us
Will bury us
Let the sun shine, let the sun shine in
The sun shine in, na na na na na….
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Timeless https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhNrqc6yvTU, but I inadvertently changed your title to the more inclusive “The Age of the Economy”. I guess I did so because I then could naturally list Gates among the impostors and show this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf_rxN8Dqfg
as he is conning hundreds of college presidents into believing, education needs to worship the economy.
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“And then there are politicians turned Socrates like Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich”
These are very special con artists: they rewrite the laws to make their and others’ ed-con-job easier. We can witness this shady process live in articles like this
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/politics/local/story/2016/apr/01/state-attorney-general-says-school-funding-amendment-tn-constitution-has-no-effect-equal-protections/358300/
The article hides what it is about in jargon, but it then has this sentence
“Dunn had his own ideas and wants new language allowing state lawmakers to devote as much – or as little – funding as they wish to public education.”
and now it’s all clear.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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Needs a last stanza.
Who voted for ideas from fools/ Who made the wealthy the gurus/ Who voted them in?
Ain’t it a stink-in sin.
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