Molly Knefel writes in Truthout about the meeting at the Democratic convention with Clinton staffers and the hedge fund managers’ Democrats for Education Reform.
I am fully prepared for any disappointment that Clinton will bring and still hoping for any sign that she will support public schools, public school teachers, and the students who attend public schools.
It is satisfying to see that DFER spokesmen are fearful that Clinton might actually support the “social justice” goals of me, the Network for Public Education, and the millions of parents and teachers who feel betrayed by the so-called “reform” movement.
On other other hand, it is shocking to see Clinton staffers defending George W. Bush’s failed No Child Left Behind legislation. We thought that one had died and been buried, and yet here they are–representatives of the Democratic nominee–praising NCLB and its emphasis on accountability. It is a tired chestnut that NCLB alerted us to achievement gaps. That is utter nonsense. Everyone knew there were achievement gaps between different groups, and NCLB did nothing about them. Nothing. Testing does not close achievement gaps.
I suport Hillary Clinton. I will vote for her. But I will be a tough critic when her staff says dumb things that refute common sense and evidence about the harm that NCLB has done, especially to the most vulnerable children.
It is time for truth: Everything promoted by the corporate reform movement–charter schools, vouchers, evaluating teachers by test scores, closing schools that have low test scores (and high numbers of needy students)–has failed.
Their numbers are small. They represent hedge fund money, but very few people.
Their critics, however, represent millions of parents and educators and people who love their community public schools.
We are many, and they are few.
And, yes, Jonathan Alter, the Network for Public Education will continue to fight for social justice for children, for improving their lives as well as their schools.
There is Hope …
And then there is Wishful Thinking …
I guess Time Will Tell (TWT) ..
Comments like this are so infuriating. Thanks for the seat:
Early in the day, panel moderator Jonathan Alter asked how Clinton differs from Obama on education policy. Ben LaBolt, former National Press Secretary for Obama for America, replied: “The Clinton campaign has said they’re going to have a seat at the table for everyone in the party who works in education. That means reformers will have a seat at the table, that means the unions will have a seat at the table.” The important thing, he quipped, is that “the unions don’t get all the seats at the table — just one of the seats.”
Sad …. but I will keep fighting the good fight.
Fair (proportional) representation would mean charter schools get one seat, union leaders get one seat, NPE gets one seat, and rank and file get the remaining 7 seats.
Particularly offensive is the duplicitous insinuation that the teacher unions have dominated the seats at the table in an effort to distract from the fact that Reformists have owned failure after failure. Why does Jonathan Alter get the opportunity to promote this narrative? The minimal teacher union presence in the 21st century has only been our out of touch leaders validating Reformer propaganda.
2,500,000 charter school students
50,000,000 public school students
And one seat at the table for each?
Must be a form of Common Core math.
Trying to figure out how reformers “work” in education. They primarily seem to meddle uninvited by anyone.
Denise,
The reason it appears that they meddle uninvited is because their funders, the ones who do/will benefit the mo$t, don’t want everyone to know that they are paying for the gate crashers to “bust up the tables”.
“It is a tired chestnut that NCLB alerted us to achievement gaps. That is utter nonsense. Everyone knew there were achievement gaps between different groups, and NCLB did nothing about them. Nothing. Testing does not close achievement gaps.”
Say Hallelujah sister Ravitch!
My NCLB testing analogy:
Congress enacts legislation that requires data be collected regarding numbers and locations of the homeless. Once a year, researchers must go out at night and shine spotlights on them while recording their location as part of the homeless census. Every year, researchers go out with their spotlights, shining them all across the land – from Scarsdale, NY to Oakland, CA – and everywhere in between. And every year their research reveals that the homeless tend to be located in the same places in the same cities with little variation in numbers. After 15 years of collecting data they are left wondering, “why are their still so many homeless people in our cities, we have been shining spotlights on them for over a decade and nothing has changed?”.
I have posted this before but it bears repeating…
From a slim inexpensive volume entitled HOW THE NO CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND ACT IS DAMAGING OUR CHILDREN AND OUR SCHOOLS: MANY CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND (2004, Deborah Meier and George Wood, eds., various contributors).
From a piece by Alfie Kohn, “NCLB and the Effort to Privatize Public Education,” p. 86:
[start]
1. How many schools will NCLB-required testing reveal to be troubled that were not previously identified as such? For the last year or so, I have challenged defenders of the law to to name a single school anywhere in the country whose inadequacy was a secret until yet another wave of standardized test results was released. So far I have had no takers.
[end]
For those immersed in their CCSS math, subtract the current year (2016) from the year of publication of the book (2004). Or is twelve years not enough to figure out that this rheephorm claim of accountability is manufactured out of whole cloth?
😏
And, of course, the rheephormsters are actually talking about a “test score gap” and not an “achievement gap.”
Thank you for your comments.
😎
P.S. And in the ongoing rheevision of history, we will have to “disappear” [think Argentina and los desaparecidos/the disappeared ones] Jonathan Kozol’s 1992 SAVAGE INEQUALITIES: CHILDREN IN AMERICA’S SCHOOLS.
And, of course, the rheephormsters are actually talking about a “test score gap” and not an “achievement gap.”
You would have no trouble correlating the “test score gap” with:
functional family gap
two parent family gap
pre-natal care gap
post natal care gap
living wage gap
books read to them gap
male role model gap
vacation gap
museum gap
theatre gap
lake house gap
medical benefits gap
dental benefits gap
nutrition gap
hygiene gap
general health care gap
white privilege gap
high expectation gap
homework support gap
love the “lake house gap” — that one was a particular drag on my own educational performance.
It is easier to be a “bean counter” than address a complex problem.
But the reformers don’t work in education. They don’t educate. They disrupt and waste valuable time and money.
And Mary…they take other people’s houses. Only a few weeks ago Trump was laughing and saying he loved the 2008 mortgage disaster when so many teachers, and others, lost their homes to the banksters. Trump said he made a fortune buying up their houses ‘om the cheap’ when they were in foreclosure due to that crisis..
With DFERs and with Trump, who seem to be in bed together, so there is hardly room for Putin, it is all about grabbing the cash no matter how immoral it is.
Knefel reports that she was chastised to “be honest”, by a person questioning her identification as “press”. Ann O’Leary, senior advisor to Hillary for America, was present at the Camp Philos meeting at the DNC convention. It must have been a familiar group for an outsider like Knefel to be was questioned. Accountability appears to have been the salient point of the meeting. Too bad that charter school lack of accountability, in Ohio (7th largest state), didn’t get mentioned.
Does money enable groups to meet with Clinton staffers? How does the public get heard?
Here comes the “seat at the table” rhetoric. The only “seats at the table” should be held by those representing the common good for all students and communities. Testing companies, tech companies, Bill Gates, private schools don’t belong at the table. (Charter schools are private schools.) Of course, the broad public interest doesn’t have a lobby, and doesn’t employ an array of consultants and shills.
Corporate reformers should have a seat at the table of the Department of Commerce, not the Department of Education
The public should have a seat at the table of the Federal Reserve, SEC, Commerce… But, that describes a democracy, not an oligarchy.
A seat at the table for those in favor of a “better education for all”…
To serve? To be served? To be served [up]?
Hmmmm…
From Wikipedia:
[start]
“To Serve Man” is episode 89 of the anthology series The Twilight Zone.[1][2][3] It originally aired on March 2, 1962 on CBS.
The story is based on the 1950 short story “To Serve Man”, written by Damon Knight.[4] The title is a play on the verb serve, which has a dual meaning of “to assist” and “to provide as a meal”. The episode is one of the few instances in the series wherein an actor breaks the fourth wall and addresses the viewing audience at the episode’s end. The episode, along with the line “It’s a cookbook!” have become elements in pop culture.
[end]
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man_(The_Twilight_Zone)
Read the entire Wikipedia piece.
And ponder the voice-over at the end by the creator of the tv series, Rod Serling, re becoming “an ingredient in someone’s soup.”
I don’t think that the vast majority of school staff, students and parents would be well “served” if they simply ended up as a garnish topping off the $tudent $ucce$$ that accrues to the heavyweights and leading enforcers of the “new civil rights movement of our time.
That’s the way I see it…
😎
I decline the seat at the table invitation. I want to teach my kids in peace without the interminable corporate reform disruptions. Let the reformers go back to whatever it is they really do and allow me to do what I do best.
So parents who want alternatives to the failing public schools (& many time private schools too) should not be given any seats at the table unless they “fall in line” with the current status quo for failing public schools, who do not help close gaps for struggling learners, but instead chooses to teach down to them under the guise of instructing them at their “current instructional level” (which is too many times multiple years behind their grade level and same age peers!) Maybe if we parents saw that schools and teachers were interested and serious in helping them to close these gaps, then more parents would be staying in public schools. Instead, we are forced to homeschool or send our children to private tutors and teachers, because public schools are failing our children! And the gap widens year, after year, after year, and never closes, and it then deposits these unprepared adults onto the streets outside the doors of the public schools, unprepared for college or career in the majority of instances! And for those that come from demographics that don’t meet the standards of the classic middle class of the 1950’s, schools and teachers turn their backs on these children and their families and do very little if anything to remediate these children. And yet many of you wonder why many families are frustrated and battle endlessly for proper services? You live in a vacuum in your public school bubbles. How about moving outside of your comfort zone and doing something that will help the students that need the most help rather than ignoring them. How about providing them with text to speech or speech to text or BookShare or Learning Ally or audiobooks? You know what you might find? A student that is now more engaged and interested in working on assignments because they can now keep up with the rest of their class! How about raise the bar rather than burying it so far down that you cannot even trip over it!!!
M—Any child that doesn’t get served hurts the common good. But public schools are not generally failing by any measure. Often the teacher and the school are among the most stable, reliable entities in a childs’ life. The table is practically owned by those with pecuniary interests. All charter/vouchers do is degrade/fragment the resources to be used for the community. My friend pays a $1,000 participation fee for her kid to play in the marching band, while the charter industry siphons off millions in the name of choice. Public services are always a democratic compromise of competing interests. Should I get a home security voucher if I don’t want to rely on the police? No, for profit entities have no right to the public education table.
Chuck made all of the right points.
Privatization and corporatization are detrimental to students, taxpayers and, the community. Ohio’s state auditor found that a substantial number of students, in the on-line charters, were not logged on, and, therefore, no education was occurring. KnowYourCharter.com showed that charters siphon money from districts and they underperform academically. Taxpayers shouldn’t be fleeced by charter school debt, which returns 10-18% to Wall Street.
American communities need the economic multiplier effect of local education money, spent locally, to survive. Local citizens have a right to democratically, elect their school boards.
Some should have a seat at the table in a courtroom where they are being indicted for fraud, like Trump and his crooked ‘university’, and his casinos, and his lifetime collusion with the underworld….like private online (K12) and ‘pie in the sky’ colleges who defrauded their students and made them usurious loans…like a DoJ which did not prosecute a single bankster thief who brought down the economy, and ruined teachers and almost everyone.
It is incumbent now for Bernie Sanders and his followers in the Revolution, to lean in and make sure there are equitable seats at Hillary’s table for educators, students, and parents. That would be honorable since she ended her speech tonight saying she and Bernie were partnering.
A new addition to the rheephorm “A” team that makes periodic forays onto the threads of this blog…
Serving up a psychedelic mix of word salad and cognitive dissonance topped off with tasteless throwaway lines concocted to ensure $tudent $ucce$$…
Non Sequitur. Non Sequitur Jr. Now Non Sequitur the Lesser.
Is there even one devotee of Common Core-stye argumentation that understands one shouldn’t parody one’s own POV when at least pretending to engage in serious discussion?
Hint re self-wounding: foreseen long ago by an old dead French guy.
“Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does.” [Françios de la Rochefoucauld]
What oh what would he have said about self-ridicule?
😎
Thanks to Molly and to Diane for a revealing link. It discloses how
“we really need to make sure to end these so-called education wars and put our ideology aside and look at how we problem-solve”
is nothing more than a pitch to continue marking deeply flawed policies and practices as if these are legitimate.
This is same pitch that Peter Cuningham and the 74 have mouthed while also attacking critics (including Diane).
There are, in fact, ideological differences that matter and should not be put aside as they did not matter, and especially when the education “wars” have been initiated by people who are intent on destroying public education with taxpayer funds extracted from public schools. I sm reminded of Trump wanting Mexico to pay for the wall he wants to build.
Molly was judged a security threat, possibly a plant from the “Ravitch” camp. Resurrecting NCLB of all things, then charging critics with not wanting teacher and school accountability for schools until the cycle of poverty is broken. These caricatures are essential for people who think they can “problem-solve.”
NCLB set the stage for the annihilation of public schools, and totally destroyed special education–both for gifted students and for those with challenges. However, I do not believe Arne Duncan did a very good job of promoting public education, either. All we can do now is hope that Democrats will come to their senses regarding their stand on education and educational reform. Let’s hope they pay closer attention to solid research.
Why would they when their bread is buttered on the other side?
I have no confidence that neoliberal reform policies will end with Hillary because those with the money get the positions and policies – and the unions have been corrupted by the same monied set. No, we will see 4 to 8 years of accelerated privatization and destruction of the commons. Talk is cheap – especially from the corporate democrats.
As a teacher I’ve mostly been paying attention to education issues when it comes to reform. Yes, I know how in Florida the public servants’ pensions went. I’m hearing about union bashing. I know the tricks of not taking workers on a full time employees or as independent contractors… I was really miffed to hear about how people in the medical field are being squeezed from insurance companies and the federal government. I’m not sure why we just don’t get rid of the insurance companies and their cut of the medical pie. The last straw was something I heard about how a union sound engineer was hired by a Broadway show and after the contract was signed the person was told that she had to work at a reduced rate or that she wouldn’t be working at all. It sounds like the push for getting people to teach for less. I’m sure the show investors and the big names getting top billing still want a generous pay out. Now if everyone took their fair share proportionately less, that would be more palatable. In my lifetime the big CEO’s have gotten enormous pay raises. If things are so bad that we risk going down the tubes like Greece why isn’t the case made for everyone making sacrifices instead of balancing the budget on just the social institutions, workers, pensioners, and people in need? Oh, let me guess….. Deb
Honestly. as with all things Hillary, you can’t take for granted what she says now, especially when looking over where she’s been. http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Hillary_Clinton_Education.htm
It’s all there:
–She supported Common Core almost from Day 1, when it was still Goals 2000
–she supported mandatory testing of teachers
–she has long been an advocate of “accountability”
— she supported testing
–she voted for NCLB
–she has long supported charter schools
–she has strong ties to the Walton Foundation and the Gates Foundation
To think that she will represent something other than more of the same I think is a reach.
Goals2000 was not Common Core
I supported a lot of those ideas and abandoned when I saw that were failed and hurt people
You can’t assume that a person never changes
Goals 2000 was never the same as Cmmon Core. The goals produced under the Goals 2000 Educate America Act (H.R. 1804, 1994) were produced by groups who worked independently. I did an analysis of all for these to show the structure, overlaps, and contradictions in expectations. By 1998, Marzano and Kendall compiled a database of those standards housed at McRel. Standards were produced for 14 major domains of study, 24 nested branches of study, 259 major standards, and 4100 grade-level K-12 benchmarks. Marzano and Kendall estimated that it could take up to 22 years of schooling to adequately cover all of the content (Marzano, R. J., & Kendall, J. S. (1998). Awash in a sea of standards. Aurora, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning).
Terry McCauliffe is reported to have just told us that Hillary’s recent rejection of TPP was done to triangulate Bernie, and that she will be back on board TPP soon enough. So DFER’s supposedly “running scared” of Hillary’s current take on education reform looks a lot like another TPP gambit.
Diane says she’s ready to be disappointed by Hillary. May I suggest reading MY TURN by Doug Henwood, who provides the devilish details that make up our new nominee’s political history, as a kind of vaccination? If Hillary overcomes this personal history, I will be forgiven by any sane person for having doubted her. (If she looks like a duck…)
Do we have to go delude ourselves about her in order to vote for her? Cognitive dissonance anyone?
I will vote for with eyes wide open.
As Joe E. Brown memorably said at the end of “Some Like It Hot,” nobody’s perfect.
There is a choice before us. For all the reasons I stated, Hillary is the only choice for me.
HRC can’t afford to prevaricate about TPP any longer. Perot was right,
that big NAFTA sucking sound was a big loss of middle class jobs.
Support for TPP, both among the public and the Senate, is probably eroding as the issue gets more exposure. And it will get a lot of exposure during the campaign. It seems unlikely that Hillary would be able to ram the treaty through the Senate, even if she were inclined to. On the other hand, what do I know.
I read that too Steve. “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”
When is Hillary’s senior advisor, Ann O’Leary, scheduled to meet with Network for Public Education? Ann has time to hear Camp Philos reformers, but not the public? The reformers’ vested interest is to profit off of middle class and poor kids, by controlling the politicians. The reformers’ own kids are in private schools that reject their designs.
In contrast, the public wants their schools and their taxes spent to benefit education and the nation’s short and long term prosperity. The question as to whom, Ann O’Leary should listen, would be a no-brainer in a democracy. But, alas the U.S. is an oligarchy.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/07/28/key_and_peele_sportscenter_teacher_parody_new_sketch_imagines_teachers_as.html
Regards,
Nick Penkovsky Please excuse any typos or terseness. This was sent from my iPhone
>
The reformers’ running is hobbled by their efforts to carry their bags of money.
It seems like Hillary’s policy on education is attempting to be more inclusive and balanced with the choice of Kaine as VP. It also seems that DFER who may wish to change “reform” to “excellence” still want to control the narrative. While the idea of collaboration sounds optimistic, it is unlikely as long as “reformers” continue to buy access to complicit legislators to stack the deck against public schools and treat professional teachers with contempt. “Reformers” still cling to the notion that they are in a position of moral superiority. The facts related to corrupt lease holding arrangements, real estate grabs along with every day waste, fraud, cherry picking students and lackluster results tell a different story. The fact that “there was an effort to discuss charters and segregation, there was no mention that twice as many Black charter school students attend “intensely segregated” schools than Black public school students” tell a different story.
As for the idea that public schools can learn from charters is dubious. There are few “laboratories of innovation” in “reform.” The “reform” movement has been dominated by nineteenth century reductionist thinking, and most public schools have evolved far beyond that. It is more likely charters can learn from effective public schools that are led by legitimate professional teachers. There are many fantastic public schools in our nation, but we do not hear about their exciting work because they do not have a PR machine. In fact, releasing public schools from testing bondage would result in more freedom to engage in creative solutions to problems, and put an end to our obsession with scores which harm our most vulnerable students.
The last paragraph of the article is worth repeating. “If Democratic education reformers really do believe they’re fighting for civil rights, they should direct their blame not at teachers unions and economic justice activists, but at the devastating sight of an empty public school building up for sale to the highest bidder.” That is an “accomplishment” of the so called “reform” movement.
Well said, retired teacher!
>The “reform” movement has been dominated by nineteenth century reductionist thinking, and most public schools have evolved far beyond that<
This is their dirty little secret. In charters, they have created learning some of the most restrictive learning environments imaginable. Think about how closely modern charter schools resemble the stereotypical Catholic parochial schools of the 1960s: limited electives, rote learning, strict discipline, select students, and uniforms.
Knefel did a good job of pointing out the sneaky guise of civil rights to mask reformer profit opportunity.
A non vote for Hillary is a vote for Trump. If you want him to control our public schools vote accordingly.
As someone above said, no one is perfect
but some are much worse than others.
If you really care about our children vote for someone who accepts climate change as a fact as almost unanimously our best world scientists say
and
who will promote the things which help our children – and adults – make a better America choose who you vote for VERY carefully.
Agree, Gordon…and as she said tonight..”I believe in science”.
NO!, A vote for anyone other than HRC* is not a vote for the Trumpster.
Henny Pennys abound these days.
*HRC = Her Royal Consort
Duane,
Sorry, but when people don’t vote, one candidate wins. Opt out if you choose as you don’t care who is president.
Thoroughly disagree with your second sentence, Diane.
As it is I don’t understand what you are trying to say in your first sentence. Please explain further.
But advising me to “opt out” (which I would prefer not to taint the name with presidential election politics) is akin to trying to silence me. Needless to say that doesn’t sit well with me at all, especially since you qualified it with “as you don’t care who is president”.
It’s a sad day if you cannot see the absurdity of attempting to, rhetorically speaking, silence my political voice (presidential vote) while claiming to know my thoughts and feelings about the election.
You’re way off base with this comment, Diane.
Duane,
I am not telling you what to do. Even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. You repeatedly express on this blog that it makes no difference who is president, since we survived George W. Bush.
I think it does matter. George W.Bush was a governor. Trump has zero experience. And that is not his worst feature.
But you have said again and again that you don’t care. That is your right. I don’t agree.
The distinction, Diane, and what troubles me with your response, is that I’ve not said that “I don’t care” but that the country has weathered many different presidents and other presidential disasters that I consider at least as bad as to what the Trumpster might be/do. We disagree as to the potential harm caused by him (or HRC as far as I’m concerned).
But by writing that “I don’t care” you are putting words in my mouth. And that is what I object to. Not caring is not the same as disagreeing on the potential negatives and/or that this country WILL weather the storm.
Perhaps this type of little disagreement is why my parents advised to never talk politics or religion. LOL! (Obviously I didn’t agree nor heed their advice.)
Duane,
I can’t think of any president who is as inexperienced and unfit for office as Trump.
Not George W., not Richard Nixon, not Warren G. Harding.
He is a thin-skinned bully who glories in his ignorance and omnipotence.
Diane
I don’t disagree with your analysis. Can’t stand to watch/listen to him (or HRC for that matter).
At the same time I’m not sure that anyone is prepared for the presidency and that it is pretty much a learn as you go position. Which is why I would prefer to see a system, like Mexico’s, where the president is allowed to serve only one 6 year term, no re-election-less overall disruption.
It bothers me how the media in general characterize the Opt Out movement as well as any opposition to corporate reform as right wing. I am aware that many righties oppose the whole federal push for CC but there are also many of the more progressive folks that are opposed, too.
I don’t like being tarred as a righty, because it’s not true.
“Reform,” is backed by deep pocketed special interests that control the narrative. Opt-out parents are considered defiant outliers rather than concerned citizens that feel the need to protect their children from over testing.
retired teacher-
So, “defiant outliers” are right-wingers and “concerned citizens” are more progressive? Therefore the $$ people pushing this reform garbage want to avoid the media characterizing opposition to reform as being based on concern for children.
That makes sense to me, but I still don’t like it!
I don’t think they are running scared at all. This is election time pandering. HRC is very close with Alice Walton, Eli Broad, and Bill Gates, all of whom have lavished her campaign with money. There is zero chance her administration would do anything differently. Obama was also on our side, remember? Then he hired the con man Duncan, shoved common core down our throats, and worked tirelessly on charter school proliferation. Oh, and Tim Kaine is anti union. Come on people, be realistic.
Never underestimate the power of a true epiphany!
Rager,
The key word in your statement is “true”!
One of the most common things I have found repeatedly, when talking with legislators, both at a state and national level, is how very little they know about education. Few have been in a school for more than a photo app since they were a student. It is important that we supply them with the information they need to make more informed decisions-not just letters and e-mails about legislation.And it is important that we follow-up with them on our communications. Granted, most will have staffers read and disseminate the information. But we must still come back with questions and verify that they understand and can respond to the information. This is difficult and time consuming. So my plea is to all of us who have retired and have a bit more time concentrate on “educating” our elected officials about public education and what our children truly need for their futures!
Based on the Aspen Institute’s claims of success in influencing the US Dept. of Ed., the Institute has the ear of Congress. Until a few weeks ago, David Koch’s photo was in the Aspen Board photo array.
Gates funds the Aspen “Senior Congressional Education Staff Network”.
I will bet that if you (D.R.) orchestrated a letter-writing campaign from this blog – that’s letters, as on pieces of paper sent to an actual person, typewritten or hand written and enclosed in an envelope – in which teachers would express their opinions about TFA, charters, evaluation of teachers by standardized tests of students, etc., it would be very powerful. You could provide talking points/suggestions, but individual letters from recognizable professionals might actually have some effect. Worth a try?
Tried that with Obama. You see how it worked out.
Thank you for posting this! I communicated with the American Prospect’s Rachel Cohen yesterday on twitter after she posted the first article about this event http://prospect.org/article/education-reform-democrats-look-ahead-life-after-obama. In the article, she said unions were conspicuously absent, but said nothing about why. I tried to find out who had hosted the event and whether unions were even invited. She wouldn’t answer that particular question. Her article seemed to assert that Hillary Clinton had hosted the event.
But now, reading this article, and the announcement of the event https://edreformnow.org/hfa-senior-policy-advisor-ann-oleary-to-speak-at-camp-philos-at-the-dnc/, it’s obvious they didn’t want any union representation there.
Were the following groups at the meeting? (1) community taxpayers, (2) economists, who calculate economic multiplier effect for local businesses, (3) citizens concerned about the effect of charter school corruption on politicians, and/or
(4) state residents that are appalled by the lack of accountability of charters, in academic performance, fiscally responsible spending and answerability to voters.
Please, all intelligent educators WITH DOUBT, ask your own conscience that
“Would you honestly and affirmatively ABANDON your 30+ years of contribution in your career by GULLIBLE acknowledgement of your own conscience to the enemies?”
You should be flexible enough to live in harmony with your conscience if you have one.
Gullible people live with their own conflicts and adamant ideals. That is why all gullible people, regardless of being intelligent and cautious, will fall into SATAN’s traps of lip service without any substance or real solutions.
IMHO, the equation is very clear. We all abide by the rules that we do not have power to make a decision in the process in SUPREME COURT JUSTICE.
However, WE HAVE OUR VOTES to give us a chance to criticize, to persuade and to make an impact on our inner peace and world peace.
Between a MANIAC behavior person and a civilized person, please tell me who you vote for?
Again, there is no such thing that a person with lack of political experience can suddenly become a DIPLOMATIC AND SKILLFUL leader.
Would you recognize the IMPACT between a high school student and a PhD graduate in writing a research essay at university level (a difference in 15 years of experiences)?
There is nothing to offend the leaders of Green party or Libertarian Party. Back2basic
May,
“You should be flexible enough to live in harmony with your conscience if you have one.”
And one should be strong enough to live in harmony with one’s conscience especially when doing what one’s conscience dictates. When one is “flexible enough” to not stand up to blatant injustices that affect innocents, one is not being courageous but a gutless weakling.
How can people who claim to be part of the civil rights movement be so anti union? The history and establishment of unions is a major part of civil rights. It’s very short sighted to want to support students so that they can earn a living wage, while at the same time attacking the means by which this living wage is protected.
Treating the challenges of education as an isolated cause underlying poverty, rather than as the symptom of a much larger problem, inevitably results in very bad policy!
Unions are by no means perfect, but the private sector runs circles around the corruption that unions commit.
Michael Bloomberg endorsed Hillary; not only did he endorse her, he was given a opportunity to speak at the convention of “the Party of the working man/woman.” Given what he did to the NYC public schools, that probably tells us all we need to know about what Hillary will do regarding education.
Yes, Hillary will be better than Donnie regarding judicial, cabinet and regulatory appointments (though she’s also an aggressive believer in the military doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance, which guarantees further disastrous military adventures overseas), and you may find validity in voting her for that reason (especially if you live in a swing state), but you’re deluding yourself if you think she will not continue the hostile takeover of public education.
In fact, despite her intelligence and perseverance (which could just as easily be described as one of her pathologies), the woman is grossly incompetent, with virtually every major effort she’s led ending in failure. Ask the Libyan people, or southern Europeans who must now deal with the consequences of her “We came, we saw, he died” policy there, how competent they think she is.
Her entire career, virtually without exception (personal branding aside), is based on selling out the interests of her ostensible base for her own political and financial advantage. What evidence do we have that this will change? That she asked Randi Weingarten to help write a Democratic Party platform that is certain to be ignored when convenient?
That’s a good one, which, along with $2.75, will get you a ride on the NYC subway.
So, yes, let’s fight off the Bogey Man, and elect Hillary. But please, please, please, let’s not find ourselves back here six months from now, expressing shock at how many TFA bots are installed at the federal DOE; that betrayal (along with TPP and much else) is baked in.
For teachers and supporters of public education, the only conceivably valid approach would be, “Vote for Hillary (if you live in a contested state, otherwise vote your conscience) on November 8th; begin/resume the struggle against her education, trade and foreign policies on November 9th.”
Emphasis on the second clause.
The idea that Hillary Clinton started a war in Libya is absurd. The Libyan people revolted against the dictator Qaddafi after a similar revolt started in neighboring Tunisia.
President Obama decided to support this revolt with airstrikes. If the US and NATO had not acted, then Qaddafi would have most likely emerged victorious. Instead, he was killed.
Let’s not forget this is the same Qaddafi who ordered the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. He murdered 259 people on the plane and 11 died on the ground in Scotland. Personally, I thought we should have gone to war with Libya then.
In any case, Hillary Clinton did not start this war. It started as a revolt. Revolutions are tricky things. They frequently don’t turn out well. At the same time it is difficult to sit idly by as a dictator crushes a revolt of people who had the courage to stand up to him, especially when effective intervention is relatively inexpensive and likely to be successful in terms of removing the dictator. We spent a lot less money to eliminate Qaddafi than we spent getting rid of Saddam Hussein.
I had a young friend on Pan Am flight 103, which exploded over Scotland because of a bomb planted by Libyan agents. She was a gifted photographer and a student at Syracuse, flying home from Europe. 103 carried a contingent of Syracuse students. Libya eventually admitted culpability.
To Michael Fiorillo:
I hope that readers would appreciate your info.
For the past 15 years, you and all educators who have had democratic rights to refuse to obey American Policy on Education, Foreign Policy, Healthcare Insurance and Banking regulation…without any harm to your family members’ living condition.
All of you, journalists and workers cannot influence or form any movement to deter or to change for better according to the expectation of the mass = public.
IMHO, if you are so concern as you express, then why did not you organize a new party in 15 years ago? It would be tremendously helpful and good timing for this 2016 Presidential election, wouldn’t it be?
I am really sad that there are ONLY 100 more or less days left, why cannot all educators unite to be a strong force to go after DEFEAT the maniac Republican Presidential Nominee? Then after our victory, again with the same a strong force in unity, we can do two steps: first, have the will power to support Senator Bernie to work well with President Hillary Clinton for what is the most priority in Public Education like eliminate public funding to all Charter Schools.
Finally, if you and all educators believe in Senator Bernie and Dr. Jill Stein, please work together to build fund and force to be ready for 4 or 8 years from now to make the impact on American spirit.
Please remember that there is no LIP-SERVICE, NO SHORTCUT AND ONLY HARD WORK to build a solid network of conscientious educators and people who have knowledge and skills
1) to solidify PUBLIC EDUCATION in a whole child education concept.
2) to dismantle all UNQUALIFIED TEACHERS in teaching profession.
3) to validate the permanent national teaching licence for life.
4) to honor teaching tenure and sabbatical after certain period of years in teaching career.
5) All children of teachers will have free tuition fee in all years of learning in higher education.
6) Teaching pension should be sufficient for all teachers to live in their golden age with free healthcare and dental-care.
This will go the same for all politicians, so that there is no bribery from business tycoons can influence politicians.
In short, economy (= job market, food cost), healthcare, dental care, and rental control should the priority for all politician to tackle and to stabilize.
Money, that is spent for defense in war, for prison, for mental illness, for invasion and for weapons, would be wisely used in education and health system.
If you and all concerned educators can successfully advocate for education as the above, your next leader will surely be The POTUS.
Back2basic.
Bloomberg is the living example of plutocrat and plutocracy. I hope he has no part of a possible Clinton administration. He’s anti-union and I don’t need to remind anyone about his record on charter schools and school privatization. He totally lost me during the time when the cranes were falling in NYC. June 2008: Let’s keep this in perspective, implied New York mayor Mike Bloomberg the day two construction workers died in the crane collapse on East 91st Street in Manhattan. Yes, the accident was “unacceptable,” he said. Still, “construction is a dangerous business and you will always have fatalities.”
Governor David Paterson was equally unapologetic. No, no, he told a TV reporter. The pace of building is not too fast.
Both men suggested that the 23 percent building increase in the last five years was not related to the 83 percent rise in construction accidents, accounting for 15 deaths this year alone.
Hey, risks must be taken. Sacrifices must be made. Fourteen-million-dollar condos must go up. http://www.counterpunch.org/2008/06/12/as-cranes-fall-and-people-die/
I do appreciate his stance on gun control, though. This is the USA, we are always voting for the lesser evil so I will vote for Hillary. Trump is beyond the pale.
GE does away with employee ratings system they used for over 40 years!
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ge-does-away-with-employee-ratings-1469541602?mod=e2tw
John King out to cheer for the deform of child care and preschool.
What a complete idiot.
http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2016/07/29/secretary-of-education-john-king-to-visit-denver-tout-colorados-new-mandatory-child-care-rating-system/#.V5uKiNm9LCQ
“What a complete idiot.”
Hasn’t that been the #1 determinant for selection to be the US Secretary of Education for the last 16 years?
21% opted out in NY.
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/education/state-21-percent-opted-out-of-2016-common-core-tests-1.12110995