Yesterday I posted a tribute to teachers by John Ewing, on the assumption that this was Teacher Appreciation Werk. My error. President Obama renamed it Charter Appreciation Week.
A comment from reader Chiara:
“The Obama Administration turned Teacher Appreciation Week into Charter Teacher Appreciation Week:
“This week, we honor the educators working in public charter schools across our Nation who, each day, give of themselves to provide children a fair shot at the American dream, and we recommit to the basic promise that all our daughters and sons — regardless of background or circumstance — should be able to make of their lives what they will. ” [The President’s Proclamation]
“It’s appalling how completely in the tank they are. They really require some kind of intervention in DC, some input from someone who isn’t employed inside the ed reform echo chamber.
“I guess “testing season” is over and now that they’ve collected the data from public school students we won’t hear a word about public schools until it’s time to test again.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Peter Greene took a look at what Obama had to say to charters and to teachers: http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-pair-of-presidential-proclamations.html
LikeLike
Excellent article, and spot on.
And Peter’s comment about Obama honoring the charter school teachers “for being dedicated professionals who made ‘this calling’ their life’s work (even though are loaded with TFA folks and others who have no intention of making teaching their lives’ work)” is also spot on.
LikeLike
Testing season is NOT over. “Progress Monitoring” is at its peak and EOGs start in a couple weeks.
But I prefer to actually use teacher appreciation week to be positive. I know I appreciated that when I was a teacher.
LikeLike
An echo chamber is expected when Gates funds Aspen’s “Senior Congressional Education Staff Network” and David Koch and Madelyn Albright sit on Aspen’s Board.
Today, Huffpo published Mercedes Schneider’s evidence of a conspiracy to protect Gates, Broad and Walton from exposure for their privatizing of public education.
LikeLike
Linda, do you have a link to the Schneider article?
LikeLike
I believe you are referring to this—
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mercedes-schneider/media-matters-reporting-o_b_9817638.html?utm_hp_ref=education&ir=Education
Originally published on her blog 4-30-2016. Link to her blog is at bottom of above piece. If for some reason the link doesn’t work, go to HuffPost and under “All Sections” go to the left under “All News” and click on “Education.” You will find her posting on the left, about midway down the page.
😎
LikeLike
Thanks, Too Sane TA
LikeLike
I am appalled that President Obama appropriated Teacher Appreciation Week for charter teachers! I feel as though he slapped my face and that of every educator in the public schools. Thank goodness for the support we are receiving this week from our families.
LikeLike
It is about equally insulting as declaring President’s Day, White President’s Day. It always stings to be excluded, but I doubt Obama would get the irony. His proclamation is not too surprising considering he has spent two terms ignoring the needs and accomplishments of public schools and public educators. His list of accomplishments in his two terms includes test and punish, charter expansion, and that is about it. He could also be credited with the new ESSA law which is pretty much a corporate slush fund.
LikeLike
Well, he did also manage, with the stroke of a pen, to increase the customer base of private insurance companies by millions — a veritable marketing miracle.
Do they give a Nobel Prize for that? or a MacArthur Genius award? or a Milton Friedman Award? or perhaps a Chetty Prize?
LikeLike
Privatization. That’s supposed to be a “good” thing, right? Supposed to save governments money? It is to laugh, except I’m not really laughing.
It’s not just the money we are now required (by law, on pain of paying fines) to shovel to private insurance companies, it’s not just the public money being shoveled into charter schools (at the expense of public schools), it’s also the prison-industrial complex.
“Today, for-profit companies are responsible for approximately 6 percent of state prisoners, 16 percent of federal prisoners, and inmates in local jails in Texas, Louisiana, and a handful of other states. While supporters of private prisons tout the idea that governments can save money through privatization, the evidence is mixed at best—in fact, private prisons may in some instances cost more than governmental ones. These private prisons have also been linked to numerous cases of violence and atrocious conditions.”
https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration/privatization-criminal-justice/private-prisons
I
LikeLike
I suppose there’s urgency in thanking teachers at charter schools now since so many of them won’t be teachers anymore at this time next year.
LikeLike
🙂
LikeLike
Painfully funny.
😎
LikeLike
Bwahahaha! Sad, but so true, Liam. 😦
LikeLike
Thumb in the eye from the President, continues the work of Duncan to forget those who work in truly public schools.
LikeLike
OK, maybe I was a little harsh, now that I think about it. Sorry, Karen. Sorry, Diane.
LikeLike
Dang! Wrong reply button again! I’ll type the above again and hopefully hit the right button this time.
LikeLike
As the public revolts against privatization and corporate handouts, it’s hard to grasp the logic of our otherwise great President Obama in cheerleading the handover of public schools to privately run, many corporate owned, charters. This policy is not about encouraging mom-and-pops that we are familiar with on the westside. It’s about converting public education to private corporate contracts. I’m so disappointed.
LikeLike
“…otherwise great President Obama….”???
Privatization and neoliberalism are what he does. Education is just one example.
LikeLike
Karen…you may have overlooked Poet’s comment on how much Obama has, “with a stroke of his pen”, enriched the insurance industry. I do not think Obama is “great” but neither are most of the leaders of any party IMO. Most enter politics with a modest income, and leave hugely wealthy. You should read up on their being allowed to do insider trading and how they quietly line their own pockets, for which you and I would be sent to jail. And certainly focus on their exhorbitant ‘takes’ from the lobbyists representing all of the worst players in society.
Back to our Poet….ObamaCare, instead of single payer universal health care/Health Care for All, forces everyone, every single person, to pay into the corrupt insurance and pharma and medical cartels. We are guaranteed worse and less health care, and for the miniscule educated middle class, our insurance rates have sky rocketed in our dotage.
Half of my yearly income is now turned over to the insurance, Pharma, and medical vultures 9and I am fairly healthy). I am sure this is true of many of our educator friends who blog here and are of my generation. Our so called “BENEFITS” of Medicare and Social Security and some people with small pensions) we EARNED and paid for, and WE CONTINUE TO PAY at least $2500 a year for minor coverage of Parts A,B, D, as we are being insulted and told we do not deserve these “benefits. Then we are robbed by insurance companies for two to four times that amount for secondary coverage costing over $5K to $10 K a year. I, as a retired educator, am paying three times more in retirement for my health INSURANCE and meds than when I worked full time as a researcher and adjunct professor for over 50 years.
You are still young (I see anyone under 50 as young), and the young in America seem not to understand the damage that Dems like Obama and the Clintons have done to us. It is not only the big bad Repubs who are greedy crooks. But enough young people do have a handle of the real workings of government to have dedicated themselves to Bernie Sanders.
Ah, so, you may say BOO HOO, poor teachers…but I say…..
DO NOT get old in America unless you are rich…and this lesson, dear pal Karen, is also maybe to consider moving to Canada while you are still young. If you are a one income household as many of us are, you are in trouble, and the ten phone calls a day from millionaire politicians demanding your ‘easy money’ be put in their pockets is ‘the unkindest cut of all’ in this oligarchy we call home.
LikeLike
Mom and pop charters “we” are so familiar with on the West Side?!? What mom? What pop? What we? What great president? What?!?
LikeLike
OK, maybe I was a little harsh, now that I think about it. Sorry, Karen. Sorry, Diane.
LikeLike
The actual title: “Presidential Proclamation — National Charter Schools Week, 2016.”
As Chiara has pointed out a number of times, it’s as if public schools don’t actually exist.
Out of sight, out of mind.
😎
LikeLike
This is from one of the marketing teams:
“Charter schools are independent, public, and tuition-free schools that are given the freedom to be more innovative while being held accountable for advancing student achievement. Since 2010, many research studies have found that students in charter schools do better in school than their traditional school peers. For example, one study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University found that charter schools do a better job teaching low income students, minority students, and students who are still learning English than traditional schools. Separate studies by the Center on Reinventing Public Education and Mathematica Policy Research have found that charter school students are more likely to graduate from high school, go on to college, stay in college and have higher earnings in early adulthood.”
Flatly untrue statement if we’re talking about Ohio charter schools.
Blanket statement, blatantly misleading on a national level, yet the entire federal government apparatus cheerleads marketing like this and joins right in.
How are they credible on public schools? Why should I listen to them on anything?
http://info.publiccharters.org/the-national-alliance-honors-10-charter-public-school-champions?ecid=ACsprvsEO-AzfOhKFrDk4bv2SOoTARwmm0fOspwZ5BzipNpkzdvm087-K99sosW5z-b89MU9TZ2P&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=29199267&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-80jgzGSnxWAqlK22vgYhi6EpNN7aUqO3BtVh_AKaqaDLO7aTyRD_lXn0eF8AJci94-WXdbvtO3DW51KFSNBffljqV0qQ&_hsmi=29199267
LikeLike
Here is a short and sweet sentence and its implication:
“”It is a recurring theme.””
From the link and article written by Vivian Yee, on April 30, 2016 in NYT
“”From Albany to Prison: Ex-Lawmakers on Life Behind Bars””
In this article, I spot the important implication of the RECURRING THEME.
[start paragraph]
“I don’t have that thing where I’m a criminal, so I’m smiling,” said Mr. González, who spent much of a four-hour interview at his Bronx apartment outlining, in baroque detail, all the ways he said he had been railroaded by prosecutors, the judge and even his own lawyer. (Before he left prison, he said, his fellow inmates told him, “You’re safer here with the homies. The billionaires will put out a contract on you. They don’t like you, ’cause you tell it like it is.”
[end paragraph]
Sorry, I must go due to emergency. I will continue on this topic of “”whoever build you up, they can struck you down”” Back2basic
LikeLike
I think this post is presenting some erroneous information. While I am complete sympathy with the sentiment of the post, there are in fact two distinct “proclamations” at Whitehouse.gov.
One is for what appears to be a garden-variety teacher appreciation day/week:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/04/29/presidential-proclamation-national-teacher-appreciation-day-and-national
The other is specific to “charter appreciation”:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/04/29/presidential-proclamation-national-charter-schools-week-2016
I guess this just confirms that the two are indeed separate and mostly unequal.
LikeLike
Sometimes it’s hard to tell in blog posts, but I took Diane’s statement to be sarcasm
“My error. President Obama renamed it Charter Appreciation Week.”
LikeLike
BernieSanders.com reports today (quoting the prior day’s Politico report)- Clinton has overwhelmingly used the Victory Fund, which was described as benefitting state parties and down ballot candidates, for her own campaign. The Sanders e-mail message further describes, the machinations, as a method for wealthy donors to give more to HRC than the maximum allowed.
Coupling this information with Mercedes Schneider’s report, today, in Huffpo, about media shielding Gates, Waltons and Broad, from exposure for their school privatizing, it generates more anger at the oligarchy.
LikeLike
That is why Mercedes’ research is so important. She connects the dots, and follows the money trail. The oligarch puppet masters want to pull the strings from behind the curtain. They prefer sneak attacks on democracy from the shadows.
LikeLike
Lame, ignorant and insulting.
LikeLike
What they deserve and what they are going to get is Trump . I have voted for these dirt bags for 45 Years at some point “enough is enough” The elites of the democratic party have so strayed from the constituency of FDR ,that Trump is able to run to the left of them on several issues . We need a total catharsis every last one.
I have come to the point where I truly believe that the republicans run off the wall candidates so that we keep holding our noses and voting for dismal democrats who give us republican policy .We accept it because democrats have done it.
I will be voting Green straight down the line Trump could only be degrees worse than Obama/Clinton
LikeLike
There were actually 2 proclamations released on April 29th from the White House. One for our traditional Teacher Apreciation Week/Day AND another for Charters.
LikeLike
Debbie, how do these two separate proclamations sound if they were given on the same day Michelle Obama?
I want to take a moment on this beautiful Sunday morning on May 8, to honor all the mothers out there and wish them a Happy Mother’s Day.
This year, I asked Barack to dedicate this beautiful Sunday, May 8, to all the witches out there for the unrelenting work in scaring little and not so little children, giving them nightmares, causing sleepless nights for their parents and grand parents.
Would mothers feel really touched by the first one?
LikeLike
Not sure about the first, but I bet Michelle Rhee would be touched by the second.
LikeLike
Phooey to the administration! We are out there everyday and testing and IEP season is upon us……God, get me to the end of June!
LikeLike
I’ve been teaching in various elementary grade level positions for the past 20 years. Teacher appreciation has never come from the federal or state level. It’s a local community gift.
LikeLike
Are you kidding me?! Step into reality and spend a day in my shoes…let’s see how quickly you will appreciate all I do as a Public School Teacher. I spend more of my money and more of my time educating the children in my class than any semi-private school teacher or organization ever would. Each child in my class is treated as my own child-they do not go without anything because they don’t deserve to. My own children sacrifice special time and occasions with their mom so my students don’t go without less than their peers in more affluent neighborhoods. I teach love, respect, perseverance, and pride with minimal resources. I don’t ask to be “appreciated” but my deeds and my students will not ever deserve to not be acknowledged as anything less than extraordinary. Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to all my fellow Public School Teachers who put everything on the line to serve their community…you all rock!!!!! Thanks for all you do!!!!
LikeLike
In D.C., they’re celebrating U.S. Education Department/Plutocrat Appreciation Decade.
Huffpo has a report about Department official, James Runcie, ” Education Dept. Secretly Reappoints Top Official Accused of Harming Students”.
A big old shout out goes to the Democratic senators (all but one) who confirmed the continued top management at Ed. I’m curious how many Democratic staffers are part of the Gates-funded Aspen’s ” Senior Congressional Education Staff Network”?
LikeLike
Good grief. 😦 I consider him to be a Nazi at this point, this is fascism pure and simple. Just when I decide his administration is done shocking me . . . unbelievable.
LikeLike
Here is then Göbbels
“U.S. Secretary of Education John King said Monday that Tennessee must look to other indicators to evaluate its academic performance this year after canceling its new standardized assessment last week for most students.
King, who was the keynote speaker at the Education Writers Association national conference in Boston, said the state can look to statistics such as graduation rates and absenteeism to fill the void due to the cancellation of testing in grades 3-8 this year.”
http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/tn/2016/05/02/u-s-secretary-of-education-without-tnready-scores-tennessee-should-look-elsewhere-for-accountability
LikeLike
I reckon Obama is simply packing his parachute.
LikeLike
Leave Barack Obama alone! Be a teacher and do your research. TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK IS ACTUALLY AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT WEEK!!
http://www.nea.org/grants/teacherday.html
LikeLike