All the Presidential polls were wrong. Clinton appeared to be headed for a big victory until FBI Director James Comey informed Congress that he had discovered a new trove of emails. He decided there was no problem on the Sunday before the election. I can’t help but think that she was never able to revive the momentum after Comey’s intervention. And so we have a President-elect who has never held public office, has no governmental experience, has made statements that are racist, misogynist, andxenophobic. His party will control Congress. He will select at least one and possibly two or three Supreme Court justices.
On the subject of education, he has shown little interest. He held one press conference at a for-profit charter school in Ohio and promised $20 billion in federal funds for charters and vouchers, transferred from existing programs. He has shown no interest in public education.
But there is a piece of good news in the midst of a dark night for public education.
Voters in Massachusetts overwhelmingly defeated Question 2, by a margin of about 62%-38%. Question 2 would have permitted the addition of 12 charter schools every year into the indefinite future.
A vibrant coalition of parents, educators, and students withstood a barrage of dark money and won. They organized, mobilized, knocked on doors, rallied, and they won. More than 200 school committees passed resolutions against Question 2. None supported it.
The bottom line that unified opponents of the measure was that charters would drain funding from the public schools.
Proponents spent at least $22 million, most of it from out of state donors. Big givers were billionaires and hedge fund managers.
This was the first contest over charter schools in which the key issues became public: the billionaire funding from out of state; the deceptive advertising that flooded the airwaves; the opponents’ recognition that the charter movement was an assault on public schools, an effort to privatize them.
On a sad night for the nation, it is heartening to see that the people defended their public schools…and won.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A nightmare comes true.
Let’s hope, Diane, that the people will also defend their neighbors be they black, brown, Jewish, Muslim, from the Trump mobs mentality.
Very depressing.
Thanks, Diane, for being a voice of reason and wisdom during this grueling campaign. And, now you will be needed more than ever.
The vast majority of those Trump supporters are common everyday folk who are not violent, misogynist, racist, etc. . . . They have just told the country that they are tired of the same ol same ol of Washington insider politics. I’m not worried about mobs of trumpsters harming anyone.
The main problem as I see it, and it has been building since Unca Ronnie and that is “American Exceptionalism” as it is extolled in/by movies, tv, politicians, sporting events, the Pentagon, daily life inundated with “Pledges, flags and the National Anthem”. Trump tapped into that inner angst against the supposed failings of the government to ensure that “American Exceptionalism”.
That so many were fooled so easily by THE Trumpster is sad but at the same time many were bound and determined to not see more of same ol same ol play out with who, Clinton, they perceived to be in the pockets of the oligarchs, even though THE Trumpster might be considered one of them.
Duane,
IMO, this is exactly right. While Trump appealed to racists and misogynists, they were a small percentage of his supporters. The majority are disaffected white, rural, less educated people who have been hurt by globalization and blame government.
If we blame this on racism, I think we will continue to lose. I’m hopeful that Chuck Schumer and other democratic leaders will be able to point out specific policies that republicans will support that act against their best interests.
These things depress me greatly though:
– We have to live with their social and foreign affairs policies
– Their sources of news will continue to feed them disinformation
– The midterm elections are stacked against dems making any progress
– Republican governors and gerrymandering will continue to result in a federal government that doesn’t match the majority of the electorate.
They are not just “rural” and “less educated”. I know many a suburban and urban college educated professionals who voted for THE trump.
Duane: On second thought about my “no” comment: Do you think that it was the intelligent thing to do, that is: not ignorant, to vote for Trump with his constant display of that same ignorance that I say belongs to those voters? . . . not to mention that they are voting against their own interests. I’m certainly not interested in putting people down. It’s not my way or their way, but whether it truly is a display of national ignorance. I think it is.
Catherine,
Saying it’s a “display of national ignorance” (which encompasses many different aspects of life here in the USA) is very different than disparagingly calling the Trump voters ignorant and stupid. I agree with “display of national ignorance” (the question then being what can be done about it) but not with your name calling (which you acknowledge as not being interested in doing). I understand heat of the moment comments, we all have/do/write them.
I deride/condemn those “displays of national ignorance” as a function of the discourse/meme/talk of “American (Amurikan?) Exceptionalism”.
Duane: It’s still a democracy (for now) and (again) the elephant in the room is not Trump but the lack of a political education of “the people.” They stupidly voted-in a mirror reflection of their own ignorance. God forbid that it’s their moral comportment too (misogyny, racism, name your biased pathology).
But at this point, I am really not worried about offending someone by calling them stupid and ignorant. It’s only stating a prima facie fact, and they’re not listening anyway: don’t you see–reasonable discourse took a huge hit on this one. They’ve given license to the heretofore closeted bullies out there. Some in the Trump crowd shouted some very bad things last night.
Duane,
Sure. I’m still coming to grips with this. I’ll be very interested to learn more about the demographics.
Small consolation: Looks like HRC won the popular vote, which should give dems a rationalization for blocking republicans the way they were blocked for the last 6 years.
John,
At this point the demographics don’t mean much to me. Perhaps they will for future politicians and historians, but it is what it is and we will survive a la Gloria Gaynor:
For Trump or against HIllary? Of course Missouri isn’t exactly a hot bed of liberal leanings.
Quite correct that the Show Me State isn’t a hotbed of liberal leanings. The “educated” (and that’s in quotes because I do not like using it as I know many “uneducated” folk that are very intelligent) folk that I know were mainly voting against Clinton. Even many of those “highly educated” folk succumb to the “Amurikan Exceptionalism” meme which THE trumpster exploited and made it easier for them to vote for him and not her.
Why do you insist on “educated” being a synonym for “intelligent”? My life has brought me into contact with many people who have not had the educational advantages that I have or the associated trappings of some success (however limited). I can’t tell you the number of times that people have reported back to me that someone from a very different demographic was surprised at how nice I was. It is amazing how much people from different walks of life can find in common when they sit down together. I will agree that there are plenty of a******s out there, and those who exude a sense of entitlement are my least favorite people. There are people from all walks that seem to think the world owes them something, and sometimes maybe it does, but if they rub it in my face…
“It is amazing how much people from different walks of life can find in common when they sit down together.”
Exactly!
I dawned on me a few years ago that finding commonalities, we’re all human after all, is a far better strategy for “improving” societies than an “those others” process of pointing out differences.
And a big LIKE to your last sentence!
Let’s stop with this nonsense that very few of Trump’s white voters were racist and a majority just wanted to stick it to the status quo. If that was the case, they would not have handily re-elected every one of those status quo republican senators.
This was the triumph of Hillary hate. The non-racists were so swayed by the people on both the left and right telling them how corrupt Hillary was that they decided anyone – despite his ugly comments and deeds – was better than she was. They couldn’t bring themselves to vote for her. If you didn’t – then you got exactly what you hoped. The people who voted for anyone but Hillary are the ones who should sleep well this week, content with their win.
The anyone but Hillary voters won.
“The anyone but Hillary voters won.”
My thoughts exactly.
“They couldn’t bring themselves to vote for her. If you didn’t – then you got exactly what you hoped. The people who voted for anyone but Hillary are the ones who should sleep well this week, content with their win.”
Wrong, NYCpsp. My candidate did not win. I don’t see THE trumpster’s win as being “exactly what you hoped”. Your characterization is just some more of the Dimocrap’s blame everyone else for their failure to understand the American electorate and the Dims, specifically the DNC, for “knowing better” than everyone else what America supposedly needs. Got their heads handed to them, didn’t they?
Duane: It’s in character that you would gloat?
Where have I gloated? Please point out what you consider my gloating as I can’t figure it out.
I’m as disappointed as anyone that THE trumpster is the new president elect. And I would have been just as disappointed if Clinton had won. That’s not gloating.
Duane,
I and perhaps others do not share your view that Clinton is a horrible person. I am very depressed by the outcome of the election. Your comments are smug, and you are gloating in the superiority of being above it all, too good for the rest of us. You didn’t cast a vote, and since your state went for Trump, your vote didn’t matter. But let the rest of us feel sad without needling us. I think Hillary is a good woman who was far better qualified than Trump–by miles–and that we will regret this election for many years to come because of the Supreme Court, and other unanticipated surprises. Maybe Trump will “lock her up” as he promised his crowds.
“You didn’t cast a vote, and since your state went for Trump, your vote didn’t matter.”
I didn’t vote but my vote didn’t count. I think there is a typo in that thought.
No, Diane I am not “gloating in the superiority of being above it all, too good for the rest of us”. You’ve got that completely wrong. Your definition of gloating must be quite different than mine.
My responses have to been to statements by others which I consider to be either false or misleading or even “loser whining”. Please show me where I have directed any gloating at anyone.
If that is smugness, so be it, and consider me guilty.
I am sitting shiva, and you arrive to tell me that the person who died was a bad person. Have some respect and let us mourn without your smug comments.
If I may post what I consider an intelligent (but then again I’m partial to the writer) response to the elections.
Fear. Fear is what I have waking up today. Fear for my rights as a woman, fear for the rights of minorities, immigrants, the disabled, the LGBT community, for the greater good of America. A fear that we are setting the clock back on decades of progress.
A fear of the people who elected this man, who think that bigotry and hate is not only ok but encouraged. That self-interest is more important than that of millions of Americans, than making our country a place of equal opportunity and acceptance.
It was never a fight of democrat vs republican, of policy. This was a fight of morals, a fight for human rights. It’s a sad day waking up knowing that so many Americans believe this is our moral standard, that this is who we are as a country.
I take solace in knowing I’m not alone, there are millions feeling this hurt today. And to you, my fellow Hillary supporters I end this note: This is our time. This is the time that America needs us most to stand up for what we believe in. To fight for our rights. The next 4 years are going to be a battle but we have the heart and tenacity to overcome.
Hope. Hope is how we move forward. Stronger together, we will prevail!
Originally posted on fb by Darcy Swacker, my bestest and most favorite daughter.
Duane–your comments sounded gloating or, as Diane says, smug. And I think your “that’s it” judgments about both camps (“nothing”) are, at the very least, uninformed.
I believe, Diane, that one of the definitions I read for gloat is to rub it in. We are telling you Duane, that you are poking an open wound. It doesn’t matter whether you think you are. It’s kind of like someone repeatedly telling someone it was obvious that their marriage would never work after a painful divorce. I imagine the correct response to such comments might be something along the lines of “Stuff it!”
Thank you, 2Old2Teach.
Too much gloating from diehard Bernie fans. It reflects poorly on him that his followers are now pleased with Trump victory. They should have listened to Bernie.
You’re welcome. My Bernie sticker is still on my car. I supported his decision to back Hillary. I think he was right about her potential. I hoped to help him gain a power base in the Senate. What have we done to him!?
If you didn’t vote for Hillary you made a choice. Your choice was that it would not matter whether Trump won.
Your blaming us is ridiculous because we chose to make sure Trump didn’t win. You chose to tell everyone that it didn’t make a difference which candidate won.
You think trump is no worse than Hillary and many people who agree with you worked hard to convince voters of that.
It was not important to you to do everything you could to stop the election of Trump because it made no difference to you whether Trump or Hillary won. YOU DID NOT CARE.
That makes you very different than us Hillary voters
“If you didn’t vote for Hillary you made a choice. Your choice was that it would not matter whether Trump won.”
Baloney, clear and simple.I voted for neither. There is no way I could vote for either one, and live a clear conscience. Of course, in a way it does not matter to me who rules the country…
“You think trump is no worse than Hillary and many people who agree with you worked hard to convince voters of that.”
More sandwich meat. Both Trump and Clinton “earned” the dislike/distrust of over SIXTY percent of the voters by their OWN behavior.
I have stated (on this site) that no one, for example, needed to invent evil about Trump. He was too busy handing out ammo every time he opened his mouth.
Clinton deserved the high dislike/distrust numbers, too, without anyone having to add imaginary reasons to that.
The problem with that attitude is that by disparaging Hillary fellow Democrats/progressives inadvertently encouraged support for tRrump. A vote for tRump led to many straight ticket votes that hurt a lot of down ticket Democrats and, yes, even progressives. That is probably not a concern to you as a Republican, but I for one was not interested in seeing a Court controlled by the right wing of the right wing. We have too much to lose and Republicans have delivered nothing to benefit 90% of the population since before Reagan. Much to our shame, the Democrats have not done much better even considering the time in which Congress has been almost non- functional. It used to be that the two parties could work together and compromise. That is no longer true since the Republican party has been taken over by extremists.
From a different view, I see extremists on the opposite side as well, in Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
There always has been a group of both sides that Communicate and tries to work things out with appropriate compromises.
And we, the voters, keep wanting change-and expect that while sending the SAME people back, time and again!
I don’t recognize the current iteration of Republicans. Apparently, neither did John Boehner who finally gave up on trying to get his own caucus to work with their Democratic counterparts. Pelosi and Reid understand looking for common ground and trying to lead their own caucuses toward useful, across the aisle compromise. There might have been quite a bit of public theater, but in the end, behind closed doors deals were hashed out. That process has broken down.
“You have to vote for it before you can read it…”
Pelosi
Yep, great way to teach across.
“None of their points will be placed on any agenda I have control over…”
Reed
Yep, I see compromise everywhere…
Please forgive me if this news brings me no joy whatsoever. It is, at least in the short term, the definition of a Pyrrhic victory.
All true. Trump as president is a nightmare. A really bad dream. Who thought this bully, this con man, this bigot, this inciter of hatred…could be elected president.
I am scared because i honestly have no idea what will happen.
As Trump paints the WH in gold leaf, Mike Pence & Paul Ryan will be privatizing social security, medicare, public ed…and who knows what. I have this vague feeling we’re reliving the Wiemar Republic.
Utter nonsense. Apart from that, I follows e except after c. Weimar Republic.
That’s exactly what I thought in 1980!
As a Republican, I am as worried as you are about our future. There is no reason for me to rejoice.
The stock market futures dropped 800 points and trading was suspended. Global markets are in free fall. For most of us, that’s our savings and pensions.
The equity in our homes has crashed as well. Wonder what Midas will say to the country to correct the course and pull us together?
“Pull us together” . . . Actually, when before, if and when Trump lost, we were worried about a peaceful transfer of power. The twist is that, now, we can worry about a peaceful transfer of power if and when he wins.
The Market will come back. None of the things they feared will come about.
Did anyone really think that Republicans would cross over and vote for Clinton they all held their nose and voted for Trump.
They get their tax cuts, Inheritance tax gone , Tax holiday for all those profits held overseas , rate cuts on the wealthy . Corporate tax cuts. they get their deregulation , they get the court for over a generation..
They may get national right to work if democrats don’t block them.
On immigration there will not be a wall. He will issue green cards with no path to citizenship for those who are here, possibly even their future children. He will combine that with a policy that provides extreme penalties for employers who hire future undocumented Immigrants.. The Republicans will be thrilled to have a disenfranchised semi subservient labor force whose stay is in the employers hands . Same with H1Bs he loves them and wants more.
On trade their will be a lot of talk but little of consequence will happen .TPP will be rejected . But any changes to NAFTA or with China will be bluster. He doesn’t want to manufacture his stuff here “Americans get paid too much ”
This was all too predictable you take Romney’s vote you add those disaffected democrats who have been crushed in the last 20 years by trade. There goes Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania.
The heart of the FDR Democratic party . He didn’t win the majority of those Democrats he won just enough to turn swing states blue.
No body who was not voting for Trump already cared about the emails there was no security threat . None of those hollering lock her up were those newly disaffected Democrats who swung this election , they were the deplorables who had always been there.
The wiki leaks were devastating because they revealed all those things that people don’t like about Washington politics.No quid pro quo just the confirmation of whose interests were going to be represented when push came to shove . Sure we would have loved to be a fly on the wall in Trumps office. Did the Clinton’s deny any of this no because they were real..
Bernie Sanders lost the Democratic nomination in states that were never going to vote democratic for years to come. He lost these state because he lost 90% of the Black vote in these States . That is not explainable by any explanation given by the pun-dents . We on the Left don’t want to discuss this . Go to chapter 6 of Cornell West’s “Race Matters” for that explanation.
It was fully predictable that the Black vote was not going to come out in numbers like they did for Obama , to make up that deficit the youth vote had to come out in numbers that they never have before .Who was motivating that youth vote last spring?
The hubris of Obama to keep pushing the TPP. Totally tone deaf. He
could have taken it off the table completely. As have I said before, attributed it to Hillary and Bernie .Those rust belt states that at 2am are now red would all have been blue.
Will the Democrats obstruct the Republicans, highly unlikely god help us.
Thanks Joel for writing the analysis. Michael Moore didn’t cover as much territory in Trumpland but, he told the Democrats why the Brexit states had a gravely disillusioned population. With Social Security, public education, healthcare and foreign trade, Democrats had an opportunity to clearly delineate the difference between a party of corporate owners and a party of the people. ACA, the Democratic legacy legislation, helped an estimated 13 million people. The insurance premiums of the rest of Americans went up. Whether causation existed or not, people saw themselves, falling even farther behind. And, as Obama pointed out , people turn to religion and guns, when times are tough. The drug epidemic and human trafficking issues were captured by the Republicans, to mask their heartlessness. Other than right wing media, the single most influential person, for Trump’s win was his highly visible and adept, female media spokesperson.
Linda: Yes–her and Giuliani. And the thing about her is she is a sophist of the worst kind. She would be just as adept at diverting and twisting truth had she been paid by the other side. With her and the election, reasonable discourse took a fatal hit.
Agreed, Catherine.
Obama’s approval ratings are very high. If anything, he represented the status quo, the Wall Street influence on policy that revisionists are now claiming voters were rejecting. And yet those same voters don’t seem to mind at all about all that when it comes to Obama? Or all the Republican senators they handily re-elected? Poppycock!
Voters rejected Hillary because of the ugly portrait that the right was able to paint – Hillary as corrupt. The right tried that with Obama but they didn’t have the help of the left and the Hillary-hating media. But they had the help of both with Hillary and their ugly characterizations stuck.
Trump’s win reflects only one thing – the triumph of the anyone but Hillary vote. Those of you in that group won this election and you should all be content.
NYC, I think you are right–it’s a victory for propaganda. And it has a basic framework that apples to public education: That is, starve the beast (make it seem inadequate, and call it corrupt, for years); then turn around and say: to the voters: look, it’s sick (corrupt, whatever). And so the electorate, who is too busy to understand the double-speak for what it is, says, yes, you are right, it’s sick. So let’s change it. It’s a victory for propaganda. They have hated Hillary for years. But of course, that’s not all. There are many layers to what just happened.
Rudy,
Unless you voted for Hillary, you should be rejoicing. No buyer’s remorse.
Why should I rejoice? Explain that to me, please. I see two people, neither of whom is trusted by the majority of the people. Both of whom I consider dangerous for my adopted country.
Where is the joy in that???
If your candidate wins that means you prevented the frightening future you were so certain would happen if Hillary won. You should be happy you helped bring about the future Trump wants instead of the far more scary future you were certain Hillary would bring. Or perhaps just a little more scary. Aren’t you glad you made sure that Trump happened instead of Hillary? No doubt your children will thank you for saving them from Hillary.
I will not. If you didn’t vote for Hillary you own this election and all it brings.
Republicans were supportive of Trump putting party over country, if nothing else by cowardice and complacency. The only prominent Republican I can think of that repudiated Trump from the beginning and held strong was Mitt Romney. Even evangelicals and college educated women supported Trump in spite of obvious un-Christian misogyny. It seems hypocritical if not darkly comedic for Republicans to now be wringing their hands over Trump’s victory.
I have never supported trump. Spoken, written and argued against him from day 1.
I do believe that a business person would make better president than a politician – but not this business man.
Illinois has just the hedge fund mogul for you. He has done so much for the running of Illinois that I’m sure you would appreciate his expertise. Not that our politicians, Republican or Democrat, have been shining examples of stewardship over the past few decades. Somehow the only ones who seem to come out ahead are the elected officials and their particular set of wealthy cronies.
That’s just the beginning. We’ve shot ourselves in the foot, now the bleeding starts and won’t end for a very long time.
Greg Palast posted a note that the voting machines in inner cities were rigged and crashed to disenfranchise minority voters. Has anyone heard if this is true? It was on Democracy Now site about an hour ago. All travel sites to Canada are down as well.
Rigged? The rigging occurred with the Russians and Wikileaks, and the FBI, and again, the long-term Republican propaganda machine that has had Hillary in their sites for a very long time. But I haven’t heard anything about the machines. False hope?
We actually voted by paper ballot, just drew a line from one balck box across to another. No electronic machines were available. I wonder if they were thinking that it would be difficult to “hack.” this was in the posh suburbs of Chicago.
Catherine Blanche King
The rigging occurred when the Democrats sold out the interests of working class Americans of all races. Leaving this Nation in a downward economic spiral, that saw incomes dropping across vast segments of the middle and working class.
Yes they are clueless as to the ramifications of the choice they just made but they were driven there. The 5% percent who up to this election were Democrats who voted for Obama a Black man twice. So “listen Liberal ” you just got your butts kicked because you abandoned the base for a pot of gold from Wall Street.
And yes I voted for Hillary. But I am fed up. They didn’t lose this election because they were too liberal. They lost it because they have turned into Modersate business Republicans .
“Given the choice between a Republican and a Democrat pretending to be a Republican te people will chose the real thing every time”
Harry S Truman
Trump is on let me go puke .
Trump is already double-speaking. I’m a pretty positive person generally, but I can find no hope in any of it. He thinks global warming is a ploy made up by the Chinese.
Thump is an asshole (sorry ) but that is not the issue . It is time to give the American people a choice .Right vs Left , They thought they had a choice in 2008 they forgot the color of the man they were voting for and they voted for “hope and change “. That is not who he was and we are paying for it tonight. Let us not forget he came in with a supper majority . in both houses .
Lets go to the email
Over 350 billion bailed out Citigroup and they picked the first Obama cabinet.
“In an earlier email, dated October 6, a month before the election, Froman provided Podesta with “Lists” attaching three documents: a list of women for top administration jobs, a list of non-white candidates, and a sample outline of 31 cabinet-level positions and who would fill them.
The lists will continue to grow,” Froman wrote to Podesta, “but these are the names to date that seem to be coming up as recommended by various sources for senior levels jobs.”
The cabinet list ended up more or less as advised.”
https://www.rt.com/usa/362836-emails-citigroup-obama-cabinet/
Guess what? Voters STILL like Obama. It doesn’t matter that his list came from Citigroup. If he could have run for a 3rd term he would have been re-elected.
What matters is that the public is not convinced Obama is corrupt like Hillary. They learned that “truth” from the right wing propagandists. But they would have been more skeptical if the left hadn’t kept insisting it was true.
The triumph of Roger Ailes who played the left like a fiddle. Boy is he laughing at the Hillary-haters on the left now. And he says thank you.
Thanks Diane. It’s small consolation, but it is some.
I’m not convinced the “Comey intervention” will be viewed as all that significant in retrospect, however.
This vote feels more like a US replay of the Brexit vote. Not so much a vote along party lines as it is what David Axelrod just called a “primal scream” against inside the Beltway career politicians.
Could be right.
I feel disoriented with the world right now.
All the Republicans in Congress should have been voted out but they weren’t.
I guess people wanted change, even if it means driving off a cliff
Diane: Like you, the talking heads are trying to figure out the logic and order of what is happening. But the thing is, it makes no sense, and will make no sense, because it’s not rooted in sense, logic, and order. It’s rooted in shallow-minded ignorance and stupidity, pure and simple. How else can people be persuaded to vote against their own self-interest? The Republican slobber machine, at work for over 30 years, got Hillary.
Diane,
I think most people have no idea what they want. And they got exactly that.
Catherine Blanche King
Don’t blame this on the Republicans . I have stated this many times their actions have always bordered on treason always been an appeal to hate . But I am going to go to that 2011 Lufgren article once again till it sinks in . Democrats have been too clever by half. Progressives will only recover by thinking bold and going bold even if they lose a cycle or two . Here is lofgren this is 2011 you didn’t have to be a genius. He says everything that we do about Republican tactics about there 40 year assault on the institutions of Government to discredit them. but then there is this.
“The reader may think that I am attributing Svengali-like powers to GOP operatives able to manipulate a zombie base to do their bidding. It is more complicated than that. Historical circumstances produced the raw material: the deindustrialization and financialization of America since about 1970 has spawned an increasingly downscale white middle class – without job security (or even without jobs), with pensions and health benefits evaporating and with their principal asset deflating in the collapse of the housing bubble. Their fears are not imaginary; their standard of living is shrinking.
What do the Democrats offer these people? Essentially nothing. Democratic Leadership Council-style “centrist” Democrats were among the biggest promoters of disastrous trade deals in the 1990s that outsourced jobs abroad: NAFTA, World Trade Organization, permanent most-favored-nation status for China. At the same time, the identity politics/lifestyle wing of the Democratic Party was seen as a too illegal immigrant-friendly by downscaled and outsourced whites.[3]
While Democrats temporized, or even dismissed the fears of the white working class as racist or nativist, Republicans went to work. To be sure, the business wing of the Republican Party consists of the most energetic outsourcers, wage cutters and hirers of sub-minimum wage immigrant labor to be found anywhere on the globe. But the faux-populist wing of the party, knowing the mental compartmentalization that occurs in most low-information voters, played on the fears of that same white working class to focus their anger on scapegoats that do no damage to corporations’ bottom lines: instead of raising the minimum wage, let’s build a wall on the Southern border (then hire a defense contractor to incompetently manage it). Instead of predatory bankers, it’s evil Muslims. Or evil gays. Or evil abortionists.”
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/3079:goodbye-to-all-that-reflections-of-a-gop-operative-who-left-the-cult
Joel: Who said the Democrats were blameless? And still, Congressional gridlock is why their approval rate was at 13 percent for so long. They even blocked their own legislation because Obama approved it. Screw that it was for the benefit of the American people–who quietly watched and were disgusted. But the voters in their faux wisdom only saw “Washington’s broken” and failed to distinguish the reasons or the major blame for it. Along comes a woman who cannot claim perfection and so she cannot be president.
Also, in a more personal vein, this blog is about education–I think many voters did an “in your face” to those who actually received one. They have a love-hate relationship with their own intelligence, such as it is, and with educated people–by their own estimation, what they themselves are not. I have people in my family like that. If you have a college degree, by definition, you think yours doesn’t stink. It’s part jealousy, part admiration, and part self-protection. They want you to do well, but not TOO well. It’s anti-intellectualism and It’s the biggest myth going. The whole attitude is self-defeating, and impenetrable to the forces of reasonable argument. Trump sealed the deal by demonizing the press–unless they start fawning Trump, the Tyrant-King.
There = their
Catherine stated “It’s rooted in shallow-minded ignorance and stupidity, pure and simple.”
And the attitude in that statement is what those voters voted against. The Trump voters are not ignorant and stupid just because they voted against what your “higher intellectual capabilities” desired. It is exactly that “we know better than you stupid rubes” attitude that THE Trump exploited to get those “stupid folks'” votes.
To Duane: No.
Duane,
Trump voters aren’t stupid. The non-racist ones made the rational choice not to vote for one of the most corrupt democrats in history. After all, they knew it was true since so many voices on the left confirmed it.
And those of us warning you of how dangerous that one note portrayal was were simply “unhinged”.
If you didn’t vote for Hillary you obviously thought trumps election was no worse than hers. I can’t blame all those Trump voters who took your word for it.
I wrote a while ago to my friends that it was a collective temper tantrum. The immature truly rule us now.
Much like David Duke in Louisiana in the 90s, Trump under polled. By as much as 26% in Utah alone! In the 90s for Duke it was about 6%. That’s why the 4% average for Clinton scared the hell out of me. Wish I was wrong.
Rudy Guiliani as attorney general. God knows what will happen to health care and education.
I filled out a Survey Monkey poll today and listed health care and education as my two most important issues. So I guess I really lost big today.
I’ve been writing a lot lately about how we need to get the appropriations process back on track in order to get back to a governing process. Now I hope the few Dems who remain will have the gumption to hold the appropriations process hostage just like the Repugs have since Gingrich became speaker. We need some gridlock initiated by the left.
This feels like a death in the family…but much bigger.
It’s Republican-forced (and Tea Party) gridlock that has, in good part, caused the vacuum that Trump rose in. And, under the banner of “Congressional” or “beltway,” Hillary and the Democrats got caught up in the generalization and took the blame for it. Stupidity all around. The Republicans are going to get what they wished for. I will have no sympathy.
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This was the first commentary that made me cry tonight.
Diane, please delete my previous message and this. Couldn’t figure out how to embed Van Jones’ commentary tonight.
The Comey Investigation swung this election.
Giving that a pass – saying it had no influence – enables them to do it again and again.
Republicans in the Senate were re-elected. They had no difficulties winning as part of that very status quo people claim voters were rejecting. Nope. Voters rejected Hillary because they were certain she was the most corrupt ever. I hope Democrats understand this before their next “corrupt” candidate comes along and they let their hatred get the better of their good sense.
Maybe the democrats could come up with someone as finely cast as Donald Trump.
I’m sorry, Diane, but it’s hard to see Massachusetts victory as anything more than one small battle in a war we lost. Now all those people who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for someone who would at least not spearhead the loss of all their rights will pay. Hillary didn’t lose, we did. To all the media who helped orchestrate this debacle, grow some balls. You made a reality TV show out of this election with Donald Trump as the star. I don’t know quite what to say about those of you who claimed to be liberals and yet voted to negate all the progress that has been made in the past fifty years. I am reminded of a quote KTA introduced to us from Mark Twain: “By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.” I suspect that most of those who chose the “righteous ” path have little to lose. I may regret these words some day. My apologies ahead of time if that day ever comes. I don’t think it will.
“I suspect that most of those who chose the “righteous ” path have little to lose.”
Are you suggesting that those who didn’t vote for either Clinton and/or THE Trump are to blame for this election debacle?
No, I’m suggesting that a good number of them had little to lose. There’s plenty of “fault” to go around.
As one of “those” folks, I’ve got enough to lose, it ain’t much but were I to lose it, well, more likely than not I’ll be dead at that point.
If you did not vote for Clinton you made a statement that it didn’t matter whether Clinton or Trump won.
Duane, so many people believed you. That is why Hillary lost.
You told us all it didn’t matter. Own it.
NYCpsp,
I’m not sure if I said “it didn’t matter”. Please show me where I said that.
I did state this country will survive THE trumpster, just as it has other presidents that I considered atrocious. And those two thoughts are not the same thing.
Man, I wish so many people would believe what I write and then act upon it. I doubt it though. But thanks for the kudos!!
Congratulations, MA! Again, back to the purpose of this blog &–remember–town by town, city by city, state by state…think globally, act locally, & keep doing so. Sad about Congress, at this point, in that respect…states, too, but hoping some (actually, all) school board elections will turn out well (Indiana-? How is Glenda Ritz doing?).
Have more comments (especially much criticism of the msm*), but will wait until later today, when all the news is in.
*Funny–listening to some commentary now, & oh, how meek & mild they are in the face of a Trump victory. Actually, this is the first night I’ve watched CNN for months (still can’t bring myself to watch MSNBC, especially the vapid Chris Matthews).
In order to console all conscientious educators, please remember that things happen for a reason which is beyond people’s logical mind.
On Earth, water occupies 2/3 of total surface area because water is flexible in all states from liquid, iceberg, and vapor. Conscientious educators should be adaptable like water’s state in order to nurture all sentient beings regardless of their mindsets.
In short, educators need to detach their emotion from teaching profession under savage leadership because we must remind ourselves that kindness, patience, caring and civility will prevail in the end. People will lead their souls toward Heaven or Hell dependent on their truly compassionate deeds, NOT lip-services. Back2basic
There’s no divine master being intervening here with a rosy outcome, unless you count Comey, but not so rosy. This is very bad and will remain bad for several years.
Comey, after doing his appointed task of disrupting the election, will now be appointed Asst. AG under Guiliani.
“AG Giuliani”
God, the horrific realizations are just hitting me in waves.
unreal…unreal…unreal…I will go biblical- they know not what they do…
In Illinois, people voted in a billionaire governor who had never been elected to any office before, Bruce Rauner, and he refused to sign off on a state budget for a year, so lots of social programs dependent on state funding had to close, such as treatment centers for people with substance abuse problems. I know homeless people who were in programs that got shut down.
Too bad the suffering middle and lower income folks in our nation did not learn that billionaires who only have experience running their own companies are most likely focused on profits, not people. I think they will be soon learning that Trump is about helping his wealthy cronies to avoid paying taxes as he has, not saving the common man from the financial ruin imposed by super-rich employers who are unwilling to pay a living wage to workers, and who outsource to China and Mexico, like Trump does with his clothing line.
Also, in Georgia, the Opportunity School District Amendment failed! 😀😀😀
Excellent, thanks for the info!
The man who American voters apparently believed when he said he’s going to bring jobs back to America claimed that he outsources to other countries because nobody makes this stuff here, when the truth is that nobody makes it for pennies per hour, like the Chinese and Mexicans who are paid slave wages:
Trump ties “Hand Made in China”:
Trump suits “Made in Mexico”:
Amendment One, Governor Deal’s Opportunity School District, lost as well!
So now the dogs caught the car. Same thing happened in Ohio. Weak Democratic candidate with party overconfidence, lack of understanding what people are going through, negative Republican campaign. We were stuck with Kasich and the first thing he did was SB5 attacking teachers. Ohio has been moving backward ever since. Republicans in Ohio have been unable to govern. Sad day for our country.
But, able to enrich the Republican Party coffers.
I’ve been saying on this blog – and elsewhere – for quite some time that public education has lost its civic mission.
It has — with the aid of far too many school boards, superintendents, administrators, and even teachers — focused almost exclusively on “college and careers,” while virtually abandoning its historic purpose of nurturing democratic citizenship.
A democratic society is predicated and contingent on a citizenry that understands and is committed to democratic values. Pericles defined them two millennia ago: openness, popular sovereignty and majority rule, equality, justice, tolerance, and promoting the general welfare. We know them as the essence of the social contract.
Last night, “the People” turned their back on the social contract and its underlying values in order to “Make America Great Again”…..”the People” selected as its leader a bully and a grifter who has ridiculed other religions, made outlandishly racist and sexist remarks, demeaned the impaired, demonstrated time and again his profound ignorance of American history and government – including the Constitution, and, through chicanery, not paid any income taxes in decades.
I’m wondering. Are there those out there who now think it night be time to re-infuse democratic citizenship as the primary purpose of public schooling?
I’m also wondering. Is it way too late?
Perhaps we try to teach a populace that has no interest in learning.
democracy
Gee one would think that someone laid out a vision to assault American education,focused on higher education . While they were at it they were not going allow the media that they owned to attack the enterprise system .
Gee I guess Lewis Powell did just that.
No it is never to late but you are fighting the oligarchy.
If there is one silver lining to this ,after Trump has done much damage to many people . He will be rejected the question is only when and how much damage will he have done . In the long run he can not succeed. If he does than the progressive view has been all wrong .
But he like Reagan before him will blow a whole in the budget to rebuild America. The stimulative effect will boost the economy. The budget conscious Republicans love it . The stimulus will come with attachments a National Right to Work law and the repeal of prevailing wage laws. While the money is flowing the people will be thrilled . Till the sugar fix wears off, then they will be devastated and looking for another answer.
The public works projects will be funded with tolls and consumer fess.
To Democracy who said: “I’m wondering. Are there those out there who now think it night be time to re-infuse democratic citizenship as the primary purpose of public schooling?”
YES/YES/YES. Yesterday, I wrote a note to the National Literacy Association’s adult education blog (excerpted below). The AE system is the other arm of the “political ignorance problem” in the USA. For many years, their focus has been “job skills” with a literacy and “basic education” component. That component includes civics education, but delivered mainly to immigrant adults, and not understood as one of the “basics” to providing adult native-born Americans with a “basic education” through their programs. Those programs go wanting for funding on a regular basis.
So YES. Everyone just assumes that a civics education just comes in the air of living in one, I suppose? Here is some of what I wrote to the NLA, and I will cross post your note to them.
“. . . You mention civics education for immigrant adults. This suggests to me an answer to the question: why do immigrant adults often understand more about how democracy works in their own lives than many who were born into US citizenship? A case in point: the Gold Star father who held out to the camera his copy of the Constitution.
“We want to empower adults? Take a poll and see how immigrants are empowered by their civics education. (I hope you see the irony there in the presence of a White Nationalist movement.) (I reminded them of the work of Paulo Freire who understood the link between literacy and political empowerment.
“This (missing piece of basic education) at least points to what’s missing in the ‘background knowledge’ of many native-born US adult citizens: a political or ‘civics’ education. . . . So here we are again: at the door of the last 50-100 years of K-12 education. In any case, either ‘we’ didn’t teach it, we didn’t teach it well, and/or, ‘they’ didn’t learn it–even the basics of their own political ground, how it differs from other grounds, and why it’s so important to all of us.
“We can assume . . . that SOME adults who missed a good early civics education (by furthering their education and cultural participation) will go on, in spontaneous fashion, to become more politically aware and astute. (A biographical note: I am one of those adults.)
“Some will, some won’t. Some will have opportunities, some won’t. So it’s a matter of whether and how the “won’t” is approached.”
We are presently paying for that omission and will continue to do so for a very long time.
I live in Ohio and Vale Math (above) nailed it. ” Weak Democratic candidate with party overconfidence, lack of understanding what people are going through” The Dems completely discounted the conservative, rural voters (who came out in droves to vote). The area I live in is sick and tired of the way things are going and the demonstrated it at the polls. There was/is a deep distrust of the Clintons and people felt forced to vote against her. Right or wrong, the Democrats need to take a hard look at the voters in the swing states and figure out a way to reach them without being condescending.
Time after time charters and vouchers lose when people vote directly on the issue…That should tell us something about strategies going forward…
Ding ding ding ding ding!! We’ve got a winner! Give that man a Kewpie doll!
The election results mean another 4 years of fightening to keep privatization at bay, you are right a gloomy night.
The results would have meant that no matter who won – there were anti-privatization candidates running, at least not in any major races (plenty of local ones, yes). My only consolation is that since the dreaded Orange One won, maybe people will actually get off their collective behinds and do what would have needed doing no matter who won – write, protest, take a stand and make a scene.
Let’s hope we can still do that.
And just who do you think is going to protect your right to do so?
Congratulations, DNC and your rigged primaries. You and your neoliberal lackeys wanted Hillary, now we’ve got Donald. Go back to your country clubs and your gated communities and drink your expensive wine. The rest of us will pay the price.
Bernie would have beaten Trump handily. Remember that every time you hear Trump’s voice insulting women, the LGBTQ community, Hispanics, blacks, Muslims and everyone else who isn’t a white male heterosexual Christian.
Liz
Absolutely right . We should not be fighting Democrats on issues from education to Trade.
Ronald Reagan put a 1000 bankers behind bars in the savings and Loan crisis . Obama 000000000000000000000000000000.
The prosecution of those bankers came after Reagan.
Thank you. Spot on. Look at the states Bernie won in the primaries. But the DNC refused to listen and even once they got their candidate nominated, they continued to spit in the faces of Bernie supporters. Guess they needed us in the general after all.
(For the record, my third-party vote made no difference whatsoever – Hillary took Illinois by over 65%)
I’m blaming you, Dienne, for THE trumpster’s win. You can blame me and all will be well in the world for having found the culprits (along with MPG-lol).
White male, heterosexual Christians did not all endorse Trump. Mitt Romney comes to mind. Triangulation and racism is not the answer.
Vale: Many Catholics voted for Trump in order to preserve (they think) the anti-abortion movement.
Trump insults Christians with his lifestyle and his abhorrent rants against the vulnerable.
YEP!
Here’s how Franklin Foer at Slate described the current situation:
“Over the course of this campaign [Trump] morphed into a dark, resentful figure. All the personal slights—from his fellow Republicans, from the media—radicalized him. It made him more prone toward embracing a nastier view of the world…his words attracted the far right, which considered him its best ever vehicle for mainstreaming its vile ideals…because of his deep insecurities, he embraced the people who loved him most…The Donald Trump who emerged from this campaign subscribes to an ideology far more radical than anything we’ve seen in recent American history. There was a reason he signed up Steve Bannon to be his campaign guru—a man who believes in aligning the Republican Party with the far right parties of the world.”
“we have a president-elect with authoritarian tendencies assuming a presidency that has never been more powerful. Over the course of the past 20 years, we have invested ever more authority in the executive branch of government—we have given presidents the power to launch war without congressional consent, and we have given them the power to rewrite the crucial details of domestic policy without any legislative stamp of approval… it seemed reasonable to believe that the considerable power of the presidency would be wielded by a person who respected the Constitution and the norms of American government…the people have set in motion a path that threatens our republic as we know it. They have chosen to take the country in the direction of illiberal democracy. They have selected a leader who hates the First Amendment, who has shown a proclivity for imposing religious and ethnic tests on the citizenry, a leader who has benefited from an enemy power’s intervention in our democratic process.”
I hope he’s wrong. But if past is prologue, we have an awful lot to worry about.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/11/what_donald_trump_might_do_with_the_powers_of_the_presidency.html
So true
As of January 20th, Trump will be part of the political establishment that he railed so much against. He has set a lot of high expectations for what he is going to accomplish. If he does not accomplish them, the angst and anger that so many Americans have felt will turn on him. As they say, expectations are oftentimes premeditated resentments.
So he decides he doesn’t want to play president anymore. What then? Pence? Oh, goodie!
More likely, his kids and their spouses will be running the government. Trump doesn’t have the smarts or ability.
I hope they get shouted down just like Hillary did when she deigned to put forth a plan for healthcare. I didn’t vote for tRump and I certainly didn’t vote for his entitled offspring. The United States is not a toy for the rich to play with when they get bored.
Obama 2008 – ” He has set a lot of high expectations for what he is going to accomplish.”
He did not deliver and was voted in a 2nd time. Why should trump be any different?
Rudy, that’s a rather rude comment.
Actually, Obama delivered a lot. He also got obstructed every bit of the way by Republicans, who had the gall to blame Iraq and the bad economy and job losses on Obama.
They know no shame.
Apparently, neither do you.
Baloney. He had a House and Senate that were under the control of Democrats, and ACA came out – and we see how well thought through that turned out to be.
Hindered? Blocked? What do you call “Vote for it before you can read it?” Is that REALLY how government is supposed to work??
Were things blocked by Republicans? Sure – but an awful lot of business got done, as well. And that, too, was no different with Republican presidents and Democrat controlled House/Senate.
When you have a 2-party system this is the kind of thing you can expect. A three party (or more) system can prevent these things
Rudy, the Republicans did everything they could to obstruct ObamaCare, and he got it passed. He THOUGHT that if he gave them a health care plan based on their own ideas and earlier proposals, they would sign on.
They didn’t. Know why?
Because it would show that government actually works. It would show that it serves the people. We need a universal health care system like every other developed nation has.
Your blinders are getting in the way of your vision.
Blinders? How about reality. I have six siblings still living in the Netherlands. Their health care cost is increasing at about the same level – but from ZERO copay to ever increasing copays because there is not enough money available.
It takes a very delicate balancing of population numbers. Too few, not enough money coming in through taxation. Too many, too much money going out in cost.
Taxation can only go so far. People would like to be able to spend at least a little money on things like food, rent, clothing – you know, those necessities of life??
Blinders? Nope. Forty years of having dealt with and lived in the system.
How things were: if you work One (1) hour a week, as long as it is the same hour every week, you qualify for national health care.
How long do YOU (seemingly unhindered by blinders) think a national economy can support that??
Holland is considering a national basic income. Does not matter if you already have a job. Does not matter if you make $1 or $1,000,000 – you get the approx $1,000 they are considering.
And unblindered as you are, how long do you think THAT one will work?? Want to import that one too??
PBS shows Clinton won the popular vote by 0.1%.
Peter Thiel, a Facebook board member and a man, who has stated that women voting, is inconsistent with capitalistic democracy, has been a strong supporter of Trump’s. Is there a reason to believe that the Koch’s, Gates and the Walton’s aren’t, as well?
Too depressed about last nights prez and senate races to feel much like arguing, but in MA, white people told black people that they are not entitled to the same choice and quality education. I find that equally depressing.
John, that’s ridiculous. Black people were as opposed to Question 2 as were whites. The New England chapter of the NAACP opposed Question 2. Time for the charter movement to stop pretending it’s the civil rights movement. It’s not and it never was. It is a privatization movement. Massachusetts defended its excellent public schools against corporate takeover.
let me rephrase: People who have exercised school choice by choosing to live in areas that low income people can’t afford voted to take it away from people who can’t. There’s no denying that.
John ” People who have exercised school choice by choosing to live in areas that low income people can’t afford voted to take it away from people who can’t. ”
John, choice is not a magic word that can be used in every context to rationalize things. In schools, there are many much more important things, like equity. The same in healthcare.
It’s cool that in this country, I can choose the color of my car, but is it important?
My axiom is “school choice is unimportant”.
Máté,
If there were equity, you would be right, but there is not. Right now, the house you can afford largely dictates the quality of the education that you will receive. In that environment, choice matters.
Color might not matter much in the car, but safety and reliability do, and you get a choice on those important things as well.
John “Right now, the house you can afford largely dictates the quality of the education that you will receive. In that environment, choice matters.”
See, you are declaring this again that “choice matters” and there is no argument attached to it. People who live in small, run-down houses have no choice between good and bad education, as they don’t have a choice in houses either. You can tell them
“Hey, we cannot get better furniture and better heating in your house, but now you have a choice in moving into a yellow house from your blue one.
but the choice you provide and seem to feel so strongly about is insignificant. What they need is heating in their own house since winter is coming.
I disagree that the quality of their children’s education is insignificant.
And, failure to be able to solve every problem does not make it OK to live with things that we can change.
Frankly though, I don’t have the energy to argue about it today.
John: “I disagree that the quality of their children’s education is insignificant.”
I disagree with that too. But we are not talking about quality of education, but choice. Choice is not a magical tool that creates quality automatically.
John: “Frankly though, I don’t have the energy to argue about it today.”
Well, I haven’t a single argument so far, only repeated declarations about the universal creative power of choice.
Just to make it clear why the utility of choice needs justification, and is not an automatic, common sense solution for creating good stuff, let me point out that it is obvious that we do not need, want, should have a choice in many things. For example, I hope you’ll never start saying
“Even poor people need to have a choice of mothers and other family members.“
Máté,
I’ve never said that choice is enough.
But you have not explained why taking away quality choices for political reasons is defensible.
John “But you have not explained why taking away quality choices for political reasons is defensible.”
Lemme rephrase what you say so that you feel how out of place what you are saying appears to me
“But you have not explained why taking away quality choices of mothers for political reasons is defensible.”
Note how particularly absurd the usage of the “political reasons” expression is in the context.
If you think, I need choices, you have to convince me, not the other way around by you declaring that choice is good, and asking me to convince you, why it isn’t.
“Do not kill!” is self explanatory, common sense, “Having choices is good for quality” is not common sense, hence needs proof.
As the “choice of mothers” example shows, the proof cannot be a generic one, applicable to all situations, so it needs to be case specific, like specific to education (or to health care provider, etc).
Máté,
You’re arguing with yourself. I didn’t say that having choices is good for quality. I said that taking away quality choices is a detriment to the people it affects, and that’s what happened in MA.
It’s hard to argue with people who won’t look at data and facts. The data shows MA’s charter sector outperforming district schools by a large margin. Facts show that charters don’t negatively affects sending districts unless they fail to adjust their budgets to reflect declining enrollment.
If you can point to a study that shows the charters there underperforming, or point to a study that shows that charters result in higher costs per student in school districts, I’d love to see them. I don’t think they exist.
In the absence of those, I stand by the fact that people who would not be affected by charter expansion kept people who are affected by it and want it from getting it, and did it solely to protect an aging bureaucracy, and patently unjust school funding mechanism, union influence, and the jobs of teachers in schools that parents don’t want for their children, or under the mistaken belief that they were protecting their own children’s interests.
John,
The performance of Mass. charter schools may have been due to the cap. You lost that one, but you won the presidency and Congress.
Diane,
I think you know that I am a dem progressive, supported Bernie, and voted for HRC. I lost all around on Tuesday, as did charter families in MA.
As for the performance possibly being due to the cap, that is a fair question, and anyone who actually cared about whether it was true (as opposed to using it as a rationalization) would conclude that we need to expand carefully and watch the impact.
I think that is a completely transparent rationalization, and I guess one of the few things an ideologue can say when confronted with data that doesn’t support his/her position.
That’s like saying that Medicare works great, but maybe it only works because it’s limited to senior citizens; therefore let’s not expand it to cover more people. It’s a nonsensical argument.
Mate: “Choice” in this context is code for: “choose private” so we (oligarchs) can finally get rid of public schools and their foundational connection with democracy, and reduce everything under the sun to be a tool for predatory capitalism. (Isn’t that all there is?)
It’s “code” because it sounds so good, as you convey in your note, to those who don’t understand it in it’s use as Orwellian “double-speak.” I think you are right about choice when it’s put in your context–I applaud it in that sense; but not when it’s not made into conceptual carrot to draw federal money away from public education. In the meantime, large classrooms, poor teacher preparation, general under-funding are doing their part of making “choosing some place else” look better and better to those very people who only want what’s best for their children. .
Catherine Blanche King,
There are pro-privatization people that support charters, but the people on the ground running them, and the families in them, believe in public education; they just don’t agree with your definition of what it is. In my experience, none of them feel that their schools are privatization. In fact, they view their schools as improving public education.
How “public” is a public school in a wealthy, lily-white suburb that only admits residents and where the median house costs hundreds of thousands? Is that open to anybody?
Charters simply offer low income families the same options that families of greater means exercise every day when they choose where to live based on the quality of schools.
Denying school choice to the predominately low income and minority families that want it is not progressive. It is the same protectionism and hubris that led to the decline of the automotive industry. When you have to resort to legislation to deny someone a quality choice, you are on the losing side of the war even if you win a battle here or there.
What family in an affluent suburb would want a school where children are suspended for not “tracking” the teachers or for not walking in a straight, silent line? John, poor kids don’t get the same quality of education in a charter school that affluent kids in suburbs get. They get a rigid, doctrinaire obey-or-get-out program that is designed for inexperienced teachers to inflict on children of color.
But you no longer need worry about what people on this blog say.
You have your champion, Donald Trump, in the White House. With his power and the money of the 1%, you are in good shape and charters and vouchers will flourish.
You have never been so wrong. My children go to a good, suburban public school and are subject to the same “walk a straight line”, “only speak when the music is off at lunch” crap that poor kids in downtown Atlanta go through. We have 43% free or reduced lunch out here as well. I guess if you do not actually have children in public school right now you can spew off a lot of rhetoric. This PBIS criteria is becoming the norm throughout public education, period.
I’m glad I waited to respond. As a business owner, when I am setting up for a meeting with a new potential customer or vendor, I do a lot of research on who I am meeting with. Diane, I respect the work that you and NPE do, hence why I drove 6 hours to go to Raleigh. You, or whomever else responded in kind, asked if Mr. Trump would actually listen if a meeting was set to take place regarding restoring public education. If I researched you, at this point, and saw what has been posted, I would not even take the meeting.
I respectfully withdraw from this discussion.
Stacey,
My grandson goes to a good public school and children do not have to sit quietly in the lunch room, walk silently in a straight line in the halls, or track their teacher with their eyes at all times. They do not suspend children for minor violations of long lists of behavior rules. Commonsense rules maintain good behavior.
Diane,
How many charter schools have you visited? Do you consider yourself an objective observer of them?
It’s clear that you have no respect for charter parents and their ability to make the right decisions for their children.
If you’re trying to annoy me by saying I’m a Trump fan when you know I’m not, all I can say is that that’s what people with weak arguments do. Yes, I imagine that a Trump presidency will help the charter sector, but the vast majority of charter leaders and families that I know are in mourning over the election. That is the inconvenient truth that you will not acknowledge or let your readers see; most charters are filled with liberal, low-income, minorities who are devastated by this election.
Yes, your victory for the day on Tuesday was to halt the growth of the highest performing charter sector in the country for ideological reasons that have nothing to do with the best interests of the children in them. How nice that you could deliver the second punch to those families on that day (and tell them you’re doing it for their own good to boot).
John: If I may, it’s not that charter schools cannot be good schools at the individual local level. I’m sure there are many that can legitimately make that claim (we’ve been through this here before). The problem goes much deeper into the social and political fabric than that, much of it has been covered here over and over again:
Local control, accountability issues, foundations of capitalist rather than democratic principles where they are split and in opposition rather than being inter-supportive (the tendency is towards opposition); the geographical effects on the poor, neighborhood issues that don’t occur in neighborhood schools; denigration of public schools where no one in their right mind would choose them for their children; the competition for funding and support; and most important in the long run in my view is the curriculum/ content where subtle avoidances are on the side, again, of corporate rather democratic interests and principles.
Thanks to Diane, most of that has been discussed thoroughly on this site at least while I’ve been in attendance. Arguing about quality at the individual level, from school to school, gets us nowhere. Some will be good and some will be bad and some will be in-between. That’s a red herring if I ever saw one.
Catherine Blanche King,
You’re mistaking that I am arguing for individual schools. I am arguing for the best of the sector, nationwide. One that has proven that it gets better results than traditional public schools with low income, special needs, minority, and ELL students.
If the purpose of public education is education of the public, we should be encouraging the growth of these schools, not stopping them.
If traditional public schools were getting the better results, I’d support shutting down the charters, as I suppose getting rid of online charters, underperforming charter authorizers, etc.
If your argument is that trading local control for parental choice is too important a principal to give up in exchange for better outcomes for students, I disagree. There is nothing magic about local school boards and there are plenty of ways to control charter schools without them.
John, when the charter sector begins demanding accountability and transparency for itself, then we will listen to you.
No more lawsuits to block audits!
Diane,
I simply don’t believe it when you say that. You are not a supporter of charter schools with high levels of accountability and transparency.
MA schools have high levels of both, yet unions want them shut down because they are a threat. Unions don’t want accountable and transparent charter schools either.
You could have a great platform for helping to improve charters and charter laws, but you lose that when you say that all traditional public schools are good and all charters bad and when you don’t distinguish between charters or charter laws in different states.
I am re-posting this reply to John–please forgive if it shows up more than once. It seems to have disappeared.
John: Two things: First, you say: “One that has proven that it gets better results than traditional public schools with low income, special needs, minority, and ELL students. If the purpose of public education is education of the public, we should be encouraging the growth of these schools, not stopping them.”
If that’s the case, e.g., “low income . . , students” then we should be funding public schools more rather than less, and rather than breaking away funding for charter or corporate-owned schools. (They made it rain, and then they say, shit it’s raining.) What you are explaining here is exactly why the problem is so serious, and worse, implicit is a hidden but concerted effort to starve the beast, so to speak, (public education), first, by de-funding, limiting resources, allowing for over-loaded classrooms, and teacher-blaming, so that, second, no parent in their right mind would “choose” public education for children.
If there are such problems with public schools, why don’t we fix them? Instead, we condition them for failure, and then complain that: “They’re failing!” Why do you think that is? Do you think that, when oligarchs step in and attract other investors, it’s because they want to educate all those “low income” etc., students regardless of the cost? And what do you think investors think about public schools–my guess is that it’s their major competition for oers
So we can go to totally charter and leave no qualified public option. Then corporate “culture” sans transparency, accountability, and regulations, can impose whatever limits they want on those poor, special needs, minority, ELL students or whatever flavor of bias those in charge happen to harbor–and now they aren’t regulated by an outer public source, and they are schooled in persuasion, brilliant at double-speak, and really good at rationalizations when they need them.
Second, you say: “If your argument is that trading local control for parental choice is too important a principal to give up in exchange for better outcomes for students, I disagree. There is nothing magic about local school boards and there are plenty of ways to control charter schools without them.”
No, nothing magic–there is no need to make such an exchange–if public schools were adequately funded, supported, and resourced in the first place. But I hope you see the irony of denying choice, a say in things, political power, to those who have some skin in the game–that is, whose children attend charter schools. “Plenty of ways”? Corporate investors? People who know nothing about education as such but know lots about “bottom lines”? and whose biases reside under little or no scrutiny by laws and regulations? You are so interested in choice. Why would you want to rob parents of that choice? I’ll tell you why corporations wouldn’t want it–it’s because parents might make decisions that conflict with corporate interests.
And there lies the central problem–unhinging from democratic principles and the unlimited pesky questioning that are central to democratic education, and that are antithetical to corporate ideology.
Catherine, quoting John “One that has proven that it gets better results than traditional public schools with low income, special needs, minority, and ELL students. ”
This is the second favorite thing reformers do: when they talk about results, they mean test scores.
The other favorite thing they want us to for granted is that choice is always very important.
There are public schools turning out results as good as if not better than the best of the charter schools, and they are governed by the public whose taxes support them. Why not replicate them? We don’t need another sector sucking resources out of public schools. We have a hard enough time supporting one set of schools. What on earth would make you think that the solution would be to create another system of schools?
When a school is run by a privately selected board, is not accountable in any way to the public, is not transparent about its finances, it is not a public school.
The NAACP resolution was exactly right: No new charters until charters are as financially transparent and accountable as public schools; stop segregating high performing students from their peers; stop excluding students that public schools are supposed to educate; and stop diverting money from public schools.
http://www.naacp.org/latest/statement-regarding-naacps-resolution-moratorium-charter-schools/
Why should the public allow public money to be diverted away from schools that are required to enroll all students so as to support privately managed schools that are free to accept or suspend or expel any student they want?
Question 2 in Mass and Amendment 1 in Georgia answered that question.
But Diane didn’t you know that…”Facts show that charters don’t negatively affects sending districts unless they fail to adjust their budgets to reflect declining enrollment.” As John says, eliminate a counselor or cut a music program, why even close the library (a la Chicago). Just adjust your budget. Too bad buildings and their associated infrastructure costs don’t shrink.
John says: “There are pro-privatization people that support charters, but the people on the ground running them, and the families in them, believe in public education; they just don’t agree with your definition of what it is.”
I know. But it’s not “my definition.” It’s what happens at the foundational level where education is related to its, in this case, democratic principles. (And BTW, resorting to relativism is a common ploy to avoid the issue.)
And John says: “In my experience, none of them feel that their schools are privatization. In fact, they view their schools as improving public education.”
I know; perhaps they need to think a little more about it? And my guess is that many of the people who own them, or have stock in them, also “feel” that way; while they draw support, money, and resources away from public schools; and public authority and accountability away from their own school, while the owners turn education away from its democratic principles and into another capitalist enterprise.
Catherine,
As long as you talk about people who “own” charter schools, people who “have stock in them”, and “capitalist enterprise”, you are not talking about the majority of charter schools in this country, and not talking about any in MA.
Charter schools and traditional public schools are not opposites, and frankly, union teachers and elected school Boards do not ensure quality nor democratic representation any more than charters do. Both are filled with public school children and are entrusted with their education by community families. My experience (with few exceptions) is that both are filled with dedicated educators that care about their students.
Two forces control what happens in a charter school: parents and state governments. If parents don’t choose the school, it simply closes because it has no revenue. State governments can apply whatever legislation they want to charters and do. In NY, we have to meet all curriculum, testing, and safety laws and policies. A school board, elected by a very small plurality (frequently with outsized participation of school employees) simply isn’t a paragon of democracy when compared to public school parents deciding which school to send their children to (as long as both traditional and charter options are readily available).
Not looking to or expecting to change any minds here, but it is disappointing to hear the privatization meme applied indiscriminately as it is a canard, especially in MA, and just shows ignorance about who is running charter schools, who attends them, and what motivates all of them. It is either a fundamental misunderstanding or a purposeful mischaracterization.
The part of charter schools that most people here are vehemently against (the back room privatizers scheming to extract money from students and end unions) simply doesn’t exist in MA, nor in most states with high performing charter sectors. What MA voters voted to keep from expanding were schools filled with dedicated students, families, and educators, and volunteer board members, not some faceless “corporate” entity.
Absurd claim.
Question 2 passed in these towns: Weston, Wellesley, Lincoln, Dover, Sherborne, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Cohasset, Orleans, Chatham, Nantucket, Gosnold, Chilmark and Aquinnah. It was voted down overwhelmingly in the cities where charters are already eating away at school budgets.
It seems that these extremely affluent towns bought into DFER’s arguments, which you echo here, that white folks needed to vote to deprive Black and Brown voters of local control of their schools, in order to save their schools.
http://www.wbur.org/edify/2016/11/08/live-results-massachusetts-question-2
Absurd assumption, John.
Pence worries me more than THE trump. (I think I finally got the moniker correct)
Nah, not quite the correct moniker. I think I’ll go with “THE trumpster”. Didn’t think I’d need to come up with a new moniker but then again I also didn’t think Unca Ronnie stood a chance of being president either.
A reasonable fear since tRump will probably get tired of playing with his new toy, and Pence will either be President or directing from behind the scenes.
“On the subject of education, he has shown little interest.”
Maybe he won’t have the energy to deal with it since he’lll be busy with cutting taxes for his billionaire business buddies and dying his hair.
Unfortunately, cutting taxes for the wealthy isn’t exactly going to help education. Maybe we can get him to concentrate on his hair.
Here’s what is especially disappointing, and scary too, as reported by Molly Ball at The Atlantic:
“the Trump coalition was centered on white voters without a college education. Exit polls posted on CNN.com showed him crushing Clinton among those voters by enormous margins almost everywhere, particularly in the South. Trump beat Clinton among non-college whites by 18 percentage points in New Hampshire, 21 in Colorado, 22 in Arizona, 24 points in Wisconsin, 31 points in Michigan, and 35 points in Missouri. The margin swelled to enormous margins in Southern states: 34 points in Florida, 40 points in North Carolina, fully 64 points in Georgia. Even in states where Clinton ran well overall, like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Washington, Trump’s margins among blue-collar whites were enormous…The national exit poll, as of 3 a.m., showed Trump beating Clinton among non-college whites by a stunning 39 percentage points—even larger than Ronald Reagan’s margin against Walter Mondale during his landslide victory in 1984.”
The Yam just led a national campaign based largely on racism, and it paid off. He was supported enthusiastically by the KK and white nationalists. His supporters are going to expect him to deliver.
“His supporters are going to expect him to deliver.”
And he’ll quickly find out that he won’t be able to deliver what they want. All the rethuglican presidents have used the far right xtian based voters all these years since Nixon’s Southern Strategy and what have they, the voters gotten out of it?
Much in the same way that the dimocraps have used and abused the labor base/unions and progressives that used to be so important for them. What have those groups gotten out of it?
To answer both my queries: Nothing.
Democracy, Interesting stats. I looked all over the Atlantic website and could not find the article by Molly Ball which says this. Could you please provide a link to it? TIA
Homeless, here’s the link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/how-trump-won/507053/
The Guardian reported this: “Two facts are simultaneously possible – that the poorest voters chose Clinton and that the poorest white voters chose Trump… Trump has one very clear group supporting him: white voters who don’t have a college degree.”
In other words, race was a BIG factor.
I find it interesting – and highly hypocritical – that “81 percent of white evangelical Christians still voted for Trump…” despite the sexual assault allegations, his comments about Mexicans, and his overt racism. I guess religion is only skin deep.
I’ll say this again–for so many Catholics and many evangelicals, it’s about abortion and what they see as the march of Godlessness in anything they deem “liberal,” and “secular,” by their specific definitions of those terms. But abortion “trumps” all other issues because it’s life and death, and has a direct relationship with Biblical teachings, the Commandment: Thou shalt not kill.” And in this case, it’s the horrible idea of killing children. Again, think Pense. Many of these folks have religious totalitarianism in their hearts; but many don’t and really struggled with the conflict they saw as between that deal-breaker issue (abortion) and the lesser evils (as they saw it) in Trump who, like them, is also a redeemable sinner.
During the presidential campaign, neither candidate took a clear stand on public education. Had Hillary Clinton come out and repudiate Obama’s harmful education policies, and state that she would strengthen and properly finance our public schools for all of our children, it’s very possible that she would have won the a White House.
As she remained quiet on this issue, her silence inexorably linked her to the status quo…to Obama, to the policies of ESSA, to the failures of Duncan and King, to the privatization movement.
In the end, Mrs Clinton’s silence may have equated her to the billionaires, the hedge fund managers, and to Wall Street.
By not taking a stand to support public education, she more closely aligned herself to the establishment, rather than to the citizens who attend public school, and their families, and teachers.
If Mrs Clinton truly cared about the well being of public education, it was an opportunity lost…if her heart was on the side of the reformers, then she received what she deserved.
The American people rejected the Republican establishment earler this year during their debates…to think that the pendulum would not swing equally against the democratic establishment would be shortsighted at best, and dangerously naive at worse.
Food for thought re: devious strategy in a story of people’s desperate emotion of needs and gratitude to repay their own lives at any cost.
Here are all real stories that I have witnessed in my teen age.
1) The thug leader and his gang members set up a stage to rob and rape a rich girl. The leader appeared like a savior to beat his own entire gang members to save the girl. Yes, the girl wanted to marry him. Her family rejected the thug. So, she went out with him and she had no other choice, but to become a high class prostitute for his brothel house.
In the same vein, Trump and his puppet master set up a stage to lure all desperate people who deeply believe in “the righteousness in religion and in economy against immigrants”. Desperate people fall into their devious trap easily. All conscientious educators reject puppet master. Desperate people, regardless of their status and education, all will be sold out to live in fear under the unstable NATIONAL economy and security which is contracted out by puppet master.
2) Communist strategists played the role of southern soldiers to rape girls, to injure innocent men and then the real communist soldiers appeared to save girl and innocent men. After all are done, communists began to recruit all relatives and neighbors of victims to be their spies = their moles.
Please DO NOT expect the STREET-WISE, fraud, pervert, and bully with puppet master’s support becomes the SMART, WISE, considerate, thoughtful and civilized hero. Each suffering day will SLOWLY pass us by. Ignorance cannot be an excuse, but all actions will have its own merits and consequences.
There are natural disasters that will be the answer for being ignorant. People are their own GOD, so we should believe in kindness, humanity, civility and most of all patience and forgiveness in a context of a profound humanitarian concept.
In short, people need to learn and to trust their own goodness so that they can ask themselves whether they would do certain BAD things within their own goodness, and their daily living-lifestyle. They will reflect and figure out the devious strategy in CON ARTISTS. = hyenas cannot become lions and sheep cannot become leader. Of course they can ACT like ones. Back2basic.
NOTHING IS FREE IN BUSINESS, Especially, foreign contracts will have its stiffened price.
The fight to save our children, teachers and public education is “supposed” to be a bipartisan fight. That being said, as you were courting Hillary, I asked Carol why NPE was not working with the Republicans. I have her email response about working with Lamar Alexander. My response? “He is not running for President.”
I am a mom with a 2nd grader and a 5th grader still in public school. I have a dog in this fight. I help admin an Opt Out group in our state and I helped write a bill, “The Student/Teacher Protection Act. SB355. I am as active as I can be in this fight locally. Our teachers here do not have a union like NY, therefore, no personal voice. This is a Right to Work state. I grew up in NY and received a great public school education. I am fighting for my children, children without a voice and their teachers so they can do the same.
I came to NPE in Raleigh in April. I was appalled at the slights towards Conservatives by, not only people speaking in the forums, but by the featured speakers. Most seemed to have a Democratic agenda, not caring what they were saying, who they were offending, nor considering that they may have the “other side” in their audience. The majority of the weekend I was disheartened, to say the least.
Here we are. I am not sorry you did not get your choice for the next President. What I am deeply concerned about is that you continue to venomously trash Mr. Trump. Are you really in this for our children and to save our teachers and our schools? Was there a personal agenda? Can you cast your venom aside to educate this billionaire, who has never (nor has any of his family) seen the inside of a public school, to educate him and his team on what we can do to save and turn around our schools? If you cannot, can you pick a friendly Conservative face to carry the message?
I really admire all of you for what you have done since I got involved almost three years ago. Please, I am begging you, cast politics to the side to save our children… to save MY children and the teachers that love, nurture and mentor them every day.
Stacey,
NPE is nonpartisan. Our Action Fund supports candidates who support public schools and the teaching profession. I wish you would help us identify Republican elected officials who share our values. We would happily support Republicans who are not advocating for charters, vouchers, and union-busting. Where are they?
Stacey: “Can you cast your venom aside to educate this billionaire, who has never (nor has any of his family) seen the inside of a public school, to educate him and his team on what we can do to save and turn around our schools? ”
In my opinion, the question is not whether we are willing to talk to him, but whether he is willing to listen.
The animosity towards Trump had very good reasons, and was not born in the heat of the elections. No, he just didn’t strike us (or most anybody else) as a good listener, a willing learner. And this opinion has absolutely nothing to do with him being conservative or not. Obama is not conservative, but he still turned out to be deaf to the public education sound-frequency.
In general, I do not understand why people started to categorize those who defend public education “liberals” and “progressives”. In fact, we are the one defending an old, traditional institution.
So please let’s not change the real issue—namely, the defense of public education—to an unrelated one about political partisanship.
Mate: Please correct me if I am wrong here, but it seems to me that “conservative” and “Republican” parted company some time ago and that, now, “republican” is code for and, in fact, ix indistinguishable from “oligarchy” or “puppets of” same. I do agree that if the goal is the education of children in a democracy (and so to teach to a good knowledge of those foundations).
However, the assault on reasonable discourse has been so extreme, so much Carl-Rovian propagandizing, and manipulation and absconding of language, it’s difficult to think it can still occur–though we still need to recognize and even praise it when it does occur.
The peaceful transfer of power by the Democrats, led by Hilary and Obama, is a case in point. These are trustworthy people in whom that trust and their honor are manifest as we speak and as that transition occurs today and on into January. Maybe some of it can rub off on (holding my nose) mr. trump. Tra la.
Catherine “Please correct me if I am wrong here, but it seems to me that “conservative” and “Republican” parted company some time ago”
No, Catherine, you are correct. I don’t think Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly or Ann Coulter or Trump are conservatives. They are priests of the billionaires’ economy.
I apologize for the double post. I thought the post from my phone did not post originally, as I was with my children before they went to bed.
And how are those conservative values serving education in NC? From all reports your legislators and governor are hellbent on destroying public education. I can appreciate conservative religious values and even admire those I have seen who truly live their faith in a spirit of love and compassion. I find it hard to find that spirit in the government that is dismantling the public schools and destroying the teaching profession. I find nothing “for the children” in your state’s policies. I do understand your being offended by facile dismissal of your moral values. We had another poster from NC a year or so ago of a more conservative bent; a music teacher, I think. She disappeared after awhile. I hope she was not driven away by snark from the left. She was an important contributor.
I find tRump to be a vile slimeball. He makes my skin crawl. He does not share your values; his life is a mockery of them. I have absolutely no faith in his ability to lead this country. For the first time, I am truly ashamed to be an American, but I am an American and I’ll be damned if I will let Donald and his minions destroy it. That sounds really melodramatic and I hope I will have reason to be embarrassed by it in the near future.
Let’s return to our own issue of public education. I want to propose that we need to address some structural issues WITHOUT moving toward the ideas of charters, common core, VAM, closing “failing schools ” that the past 20 years have proven do NOT work.
I believe that an intelligent, well educated society is essential for our democracy to work. Reflecting on this election makes me realize that our election process has been and is driven by emotion, not by intellect or reasoning. Jimmy Carter was the last President I remember who won the election with more complex appeals and respect for the intelligence of the voters.
Public education is not hopelessly broken as the “reformers” claim but does need some structural readjustments. There is no more important issue for our nation or the world than educating our children. We have always shortchanged public education by letting the budget drive the process. We give our children (Our Future) the cheapest public education that we can get away with. And now Mr. Trump has harvested the results of that philosophy.
To altate1122 who says: “We give our children (Our Future) the cheapest public education that we can get away with. And now Mr. Trump has harvested the results of that philosophy.” And in another note, “the future” is referred to.
Though true, in this context, “our future” is a bit vague.
The blogger democracy puts some meat on that term: “I’m wondering. Are there those out there who now think it night be time to re-infuse democratic citizenship as the primary purpose of public schooling?: You don’t have to go far to find references to it in many schools’ and institutions’ mission statements, goals, and objectives, and some still do teach to it, But “mission drift” is definitely an active disease in our democracy: democracy says, what it means to be a citizen in a democracy “is not currently the focus of public schooling. It’s “college and careers” and STEM.”
All of everything else that is good in education rests on–depends on–its political foundations, and that foundation as democratic, and as hard-fought for, is what is being systematically overlooked, ignored, and in some cases, actively erased.
And I think the oligarchs are on attack in colleges and higher education too–they think the “liberal establishment” is “too liberal,” that it’s a waste of money, and that we are off course because professors keep teaching history and philosophy and that it’s okay to raise pesky questions about corporate interests and the political intentions of those who live offstage and behind the corporate curtain. Creative thought and democracy was, indeed, “on the ballot.”
And so we get Trump who thinks from his “good brain” horizon, that he knows best and that we are all just after him. He cannot imagine that his horizon of thought may not be the only measure of all things. He’ll do the bidding of those who hate democracy just fine.
Scary language. If I don’t have a college degree, I’m not able to make a reasoned decision on who to vote for…
Really?
In my immediate surrounding, many of the people I know who voted for trump ARE college educated.
Did they go to the wrong colleges?
“Wrong colleges”? But can you say that nothing’s missing and that all is right with a Trump presidency; and can you say why, in the main, colleges foster thoughtful and often liberal-minded people?
On “Morning Joe’ this morning, Joe was saying (paraphrasing) that just maybe Trump can get along with people like Mitch McConnell; where Obama never wanted to build an after-hours relationship with Republicans in Congress. Whereas Nika was saying that it was too soon to think about such things, and that “People are still crying” all over the country.
Joe is seeing the good-old-boy network reinstated and feeling quite comfortable about it; while Nika is recognizing the pain of those who have been so awfully disappointed.
Neither seemed to realize the re-tribalizing of the Republican Congress around white-male group bias, nor the fact that Obama couldn’t build a relationship with the white group (like Trump will), not because he didn’t want to, but because they would have none of it. It’s a typical blame-the-victim-for-the-problem scenario:
We are X-type people and don’t collaborate or become friends with Y-type people, on principle. Obama is a Y-person. Therefore, no collaboration or friendship will occur regardless of our missions. The further “therefore” that Joe is so easy to overlook is this: Therefore, Y-type people are unfriendly and don’t collaborate well. Trump will be more “friendly” and collaborative than Obama because Trump is a white male and likes to “make deals” and bully spineless, people whose only embrace of diversity can be found in their intellectual, moral, and political principles. And wake-up Nika–you’re white, but not male.
Wrong colleges? Somewhere, somehow, some “got it” and some didn’t. Some got trained, and some got educated in the classical sense, including the cleaning-up of our various and inherited group biases. And those who didn’t are more likely not to “get it” if they don’t attend college.
And that is why democrats are considered “elitist.” We know what is good for you better than you know what is good for you…
Since you do not know the people mentioned, your saying that they were not really educated… really?
i do not know why they voted the way they did. Maybe they realized that change does not come by putting the same ‘kind’ of people back in office.
Obama promised change – and what happened? And don’t tell me that the republicans made it impossible…
democrats in elected office have the same focal point: the next election.
Rudy–it’s prima facie–something like knowing that smoking, or driving while intoxicated, or being conned, is bad for the persons involved. They can engage or be conned; But something is missing and others can know it. If that’s “elitist’ then so be it.
Continuing my previous post:
We need to invest more in educating our teachers, pay them a professionals’ salary, and give them the freedom to teach. We also need to find a way to effectively reduce class size and give teachers the opportunity to engage each student and stimulate their interest in their own education.
Our future depends on it.
@ altate:
I posted this comment earlier. About education.
I’ve been saying on this blog – and elsewhere – for quite some time that public education has lost its civic mission.
It has — with the aid of far too many school boards, superintendents, administrators, and even teachers — focused almost exclusively on “college and careers,” while virtually abandoning its historic purpose of nurturing democratic citizenship.
A democratic society is predicated and contingent on a citizenry that understands and is committed to democratic values. Pericles defined them two millennia ago: openness, popular sovereignty and majority rule, equality, justice, tolerance, and promoting the general welfare. We know them as the essence of the social contract.
Last night, “the People” turned their back on the social contract and its underlying values in order to “Make America Great Again”…..”the People” selected as its leader a bully and a grifter who has ridiculed other religions, made outlandishly racist and sexist remarks, demeaned the impaired, demonstrated time and again his profound ignorance of American history and government – including the Constitution, and, through chicanery, not paid any income taxes in decades.
I’m wondering. Are there those out there who now think it night be time to re-infuse democratic citizenship as the primary purpose of public schooling?
I’m also wondering. Is it way too late?
The Constitution and the essence of a democratic republic do not just pass through history unmolested. There are always people – or “factions” as Federalist 10 refers to them – that would prefer to undo them. One of them just got elected president.
Each generation must relearn and recommit to the core values and principles contained in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. They have to become reacquainted with democratic citizenship, and not just the feel-good kind that emanates from national tragedies like 9/11.
That is not currently the focus of public schooling. It’s “college and careers” and STEM.
And it’s past time for a change.
@2old2teach …
Wow. You have made a lot of assumptions about my post. One, I live in GA now, not NC. Two, you have no idea what my moral or religious values are. I think it is ludicrous that, just because I live in the South or proclaim I am a Conservative, religion comes into play here. I refuse to stereotype or get into the name calling. I just won’t participate in any of it. Three, I am born and bred New York. No one “runs me off”.
Thank you @altate1122. Let’s get back to public education. As to your question Diane, yes. I have worked with many Republicans in this state. Many House and Senate Republicans only voted yes to OSD to give their constituents a voice and a vote but personally voted no. Our bill, SB355, got passed because of the Republicans fighting for our children, teachers and schools but the Governor vetoed it based on his OSD agenda. I do not consider him a true Conservative or Republican… just another politician who is playing the system for his own benefit. He has made millions on many different “Deals” since he has taken office. If you take the time to look, his daughter-in-law owns the finance company that would have been involved in school takeovers. It blows my mind that his wife, who taught for 15 years, can stand on the sidelines and condone any of this.
Senator Johnny Isakson, who just got re-elected, wrote pages of Opt Out legislation in S1177. I had made numerous phone calls to both of his local and D.C. offices when the two bills were merged, as we were left with 3-5 mere sentences after all was said and done. While I was told by one office that “they were fine with what was left” I was told by another that “his hands were tied”. Why not reach out to him? He obviously cares about public education. I can also reach out to Senator Michael Williams, who co-sponsored our bill and led Mr. Trump’s campaign in the state, to see if he can contact Mr. Trump for us.
I guess my question is this…. if you were to get a meeting with Mr. Trump and had the opportunity to present the case for true reform and educate him, would you? Can you stop spewing the venom that is fueling fires all across the country? Can we come together as Americans who truly love our children and do what is best for them and their teachers?
I would meet with Trump anytime, anywhere.
In Texas, the Pastors for Texas Children have stopped vouchers by working with a bipartisan coalition of rural Republicans and urban Dems.
In Georgia, OSD was stopped in a huge bipartisan effort. We had Dems speaking at Tea Party and Republican meetings and vice versa. Actually, more times than not, party was not even brought up while getting the word out, much less an issue. No one knew, asked, nor cared what affiliation you were at places I was in attendance of… panels, speeches, forums, meetings or living room get togethers.
What about Senator Isakson? Would he be a viable ear? He has written Opt Out legislation previously. I will contact Senator Williams next week or the week after regarding Mr. Trump. I have no idea if my effort will be viable or realistic, but I am not willing to just sit here and do nothing. I want to be part of the solution… not the problem.
My mistake, Stacy. I apologize. I spent far too much time yesterday reading posts. You’re right. I read Raleigh and conservative and bang there’s my narrative. What did you mean by “conservative”? I was not at this years NPE conference, so I don’t even have that frame of reference. Nobody has been throwing money at public schools; in fact, those in poorer communities have been particularly hard hit. You have worked hard in your public schools and supported opt out efforts and you actively support your teachers who have no union protection. You do not sound politically conservative, but I see now that you took offense at the Trump bashing. I’m sorry, but the man has done nothing to garner my trust and apparently that of the majority of his own party hierarchy. He has had very little enthusiastic support. Since the evangelical Christians found something in him to support, especially after he picked Pence, I defaulted to assuming you were a conservative Christian (which they have in New York, too!). In any case, I apologize. There is something to be said for career politicians who are able to put aside their (justified) opposition to a man who has done his best to not just defeat but destroy them and call for a peaceful transition and offer support, putting the continuation of the democratic process above their own needs.. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama showed incredible class in defeat. From his own words, I suspect Trump would not have done the same.
Stacey says we have to “cast politics to the side to save our children.”
But public education IS political. And it has been, for quite some time. Stacey acknowledges that in her comment above. So, which is it?
It isn’t possible to engage in the politics of public education while simultaneously casting politics aside.
As to Donald Trump, what a “nightmare role” model for kids in school, or for anyone.
Here’s how David Remnick put it at the New Yorker:
“The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism…On January 20, 2017, we will bid farewell to the first African-American President—a man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit—and witness the inauguration of a con who did little to spurn endorsement by forces of xenophobia and white supremacy. It is impossible to react to this moment with anything less than revulsion and profound anxiety…There are miseries to come: an increasingly reactionary Supreme Court; an emboldened right-wing Congress; a President whose disdain for women and minorities, civil liberties and scientific fact, to say nothing of simple decency, has been repeatedly demonstrated. Trump is vulgarity unbounded…”
It is – I think – important to remember that Trump was the instrumental figure in the Birther movement, which was racist to the core. Amy Davidson put it this way:
“two and a half years after Obama released his birth certificate, Donald Trump began pushing the case that the birth certificate was not a birth certificate. In part, this was because instead of saying ‘birth certificate’ on top, it said ‘certification of live birth’ and it was a printout of a computer record, rather than something bearing the scrawl of an obstetrician. That is what Hawaiian birth certificates look like; this was, unambiguously, a Hawaiian state birth certificate…It is worth noting that for there to have been any sort of discrepancy between the certification and the certificate, multiple Hawaiian officials would have to have been involved in a fraud. (So would the editors of the two Hawaiian newspapers in which Obama’s birth was announced, in 1961, a move that would have required not only conspiring journalists but ones equipped with psychic powers or a time machine—and probably both.) Then again, polls in 2011 showed that a certain number of birthers accepted that Obama was born in Hawaii; they just didn’t believe that Hawaii was part of the United States.”
So this is what we and public education are dealing with, and it’s something that is robustly antithetical to the core values of American democracy.
Honestly, I think you fight that kind of anti-democratic dogma at any and every opportunity.
Here is a link to The Catholic Register breaking down the Catholic support of Trump.
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/election-2016-breakdown-of-the-catholic-vote
Partial narrative from that link:
QUOTE
“WASHINGTON — Catholics voted once again for the winning presidential candidate in Tuesday’s election, as they have done in recent elections.
“Catholics continue to be the only major religious voting block that can shift from one election to the next,” Mark Gray of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University stated on Wednesday.
“This is what makes the Catholic vote such an important swing vote. Presidential candidates who win the Catholic vote almost always win the presidency,” he added.”
END QUOTE
Thank you Catherine Blanche King for a partial narrative from that link:
[start quote]
“This is what makes the Catholic vote such an important swing vote. Presidential candidates who win the Catholic vote almost always win the presidency,” he added.”
[end quote]
It is to reinforce my belief that there is no short cut to cultivate a BLIND FAITH, or to transform a crab grass into flower. IN THE SAME VEIN, please be well prepare to educate the 2015-2016 wave of new immigrants who are brought up with COMPLETELY different BLIND FAITH = no trust in humanity (loving, caring and respectful), but there is only “mine” against “yours” style.
Whenever people have a frame of mind-set in HUMANITY, there will be a hope to unite and to work toward a goal to attain a harmonious society.
Whenever people struggles to achieve their OWN selfish desires with OURS against THEIRS regarding benefit in education, there will only be lip services, or empty promises without a unity.
Traditional Public Education is the true foundation in democracy for all learners regardless of their cultural and parental backgrounds.
Teachers are well trained and certified. Children are educated in a whole child education concept in appropriate and transparent curriculum which is well designed from STEM, Liberal Arts, Civic course, Physical Education, and Special Education with Nurse and Counselors.
Charter movement, voucher, and the PRIVATIZATION gear to LOOT tax payers fund for a common good in Public Education.
Please remember to remind us and others that:
1) “Greedy” corporate are CON ARTISTS who will not have the slightest DECENCY and will not give away FREE MONEY.
2) Greedy corporate’s DONATIONS will come with a stiffened PRICE that costs public fund 100, or 1000 times multiple of its original donated amount. Back2basic.
On top of my comment above, there’s this, and it ain’t pretty….so cast politics aside…..uh, no.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a50567/how-trump-won/
to “democracy”: Thanks for this article. The propaganda machine has been at work for a very long time, at least since Hillary said she was the victim of a right wing conspiracy. She was. History is interesting, though. . . .