Ellen Lubic, faithful reader, education activist in Los Angeles, and professor of public policy, urges fellow activists to reach out to Republican senators in trying to block Betsy DeVos’ nomination to be Secretary of Education. In every state, the overwhelming majority of students attend public schools. If one or both of your senators is a Republican, please call them, visit their district offices, ask your friends to reach out as well.
Ellen Lubic writes:
It is imperative for Democrats to nurture Republicans of good will and conscience to join in the protests against the Trump nominees for his Cabinet.
We MUST learn and adopt new lessons from Mitch McConnell how to stall legislation and have a bloodless revolution in DC against the leadership of Trump (who I cannot call Prez T….so it is just plain ‘Trump’) for at least the next four years.
This is a new world of Dems bending to create a cohesive coalition with potentially reasonable Repubs like Olympia Snow, Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, McCain (who has reached across the aisle many times in his long career), and even Lamar Alexander (who is Diane’s old boss and mentor from 1991). These legislators have already expressed their angst at the Trump takeover, and they have great influence with their Congressional colleagues.
Write to THESE Repubs about all this.
It in NOT time for progressive Dems to draw lines in the sand. In this NOT SO BRAVE new world, those of us with long memories must push for Congressional cooperation to defeat as much of Trump’s horror choices and revisionist Constitutional behaviors as we can.
And educators MUST broaden our view from only ed issues, and scream out against all oligarchic edicts that hurt all of our society.
Ellen Lubic
elubic@aol.com
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks Diane for publishing this…
In California, we have an opportunity to raise a loud voice to influence the leadership in DC by contacting, both by writing and calling, Kevin McCarthy. Although an avid Repub, he listens carefully to fellow Californians who have the leverage of the ballot box, and he has shown that he can and will work ‘across the aisle’.
Thank you for that handy info, Ellen. Also, I am glad you mentioned Senator Alexander. I enjoyed watching him oppose Arne Duncan, and think he’s public education’s key to D.C. It’s an imperfect fit, of course. Needs some WD-40.
Here is what I originally sent to Diane urging that Dems/teachers/citizens/voters seek out SPECIFIC Republican legislators who are NOT comfortable with Trump, to influence them.
Please read more carefully than some below who chose to put other words in my computer/mouth to call all that I say “Bullshit”. No where did I only direct this to DeVos, nor did I say contact ALL Repubs. I particularly mentioned names of a few possibly open minded Repubs…since Dem Senators only need (4) FOUR Repubs in the Senate as allies to keep Trump and his choices of legislators and laws, in check.
Quote…..
“It is imperative for Dems to nurture Repubs of good will and conscience to join in the protests against the Trump nominees for his Cabinet.
We MUST learn and adopt new lessons from Mitch McConnell how to stall legislation and have a bloodless revolution in DC against the leadership of Trump (who I cannot call Prez T….so it is just plain ‘Trump’) for at least the next four years.
(The two paragraphs below were edited out by Diane, who has every right to do this editing)
“It is folly for the DNC to be led by Keith Ellison (see Middle East Forum yesterday re Ellison cancelling his talk before a radical Islamic group this week), and for Bernie and PDA to thumb their noses at Centrist Dems as well as at Repubs. For the greater good, we MUST broaden our base to stall the coming profiteering legislation for the .1% (as with the Trump tax reform plan).”
“Therefore, I URGE all Dems to notify their legislators to vote for Perez to lead the DNC (and he is supported/endorsed by large unions). He has an excellent legislative record, and does NOT carry the extreme baggage (as with Nation of Islam) that Ellison does. To have a Muslim (Ellison) lead the DNC just to make a liberal point, at this point in time is totally self defeating. So, Tim Perez for DNC Chair.”
This is a new world of Dems bending to create a cohesive coalition with potentially reasonable Repubs like Olympia Snow, Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, McCain (who has reached across the aisle many times in his long career), and even Lamar Alexander (who is Diane’s old boss and mentor from 1991). These legislators have already expressed their angst at the Trump takeover, and they have great influence with their Congressional colleagues.
Write to THESE Repubs about all this.
It is NOT time for progressive Dems to draw lines in the sand. In this NOT SO BRAVE new world, those of us with long memories must push for Congressional cooperation to defeat as much of Trump’s horror choices and revisionist Constitutional behaviors as we can.”
Unquote….
My friend and respected colleague Susan Schwartz then picked this up for OpEd with her own spin re DeVos and linked to Hillsdale College…a Right Wing radical religious organization.
DeVos is terrible but she cannot set off a nuclear war…the others of Trumps Cabinet are worse. Teachers, as citizens, should be raising voices against it all.
I may not have 50 kindergarten students to influence each day, but as an educational researcher for almost 50 years, who worked in schools in over half the states in our nation, and who has taught public policy in higher ed for over 30 years, I do have some perspective that is NOT BS..
re Keith Ellison…
News from the Middle East Forum
December 22, 2016
http://www.meforum.org/6440/ellison-withdraws-from-mas-icna-convention
re California Leads the Way Against Trump….
California becomes heart of anti-Trump resistance
By Rafael Bernal
California’s political leaders are gearing up to lead progressive resistance to President-elect Donald Trump.
Read the full story at The Hill.
Ellen,
Keith Ellison broke ties with Farrakhan several years ago.
However, Diane, it is only today that he agreed not to speak at the MAS conference in Chicago. MAS is a radical Islamic group that was started by the Muslim Brotherhood. What kind of judgment does Ellison show that he even accepted their invitation to be a speaker?
I am not getting involved in the DNC contest. Until this year, I had no idea who was chair of the DNC. That matters far less than having some good candidates for 2020 to throw out the maniacal group that Trump has assembled.
I am surprised to read this since the DNC pretty much determines the election, from writing the platform to producing the candidate through the caucus system. For other readers who want to know how powerful the DNC and the Chair are, here is the Wiki describing it.
Democratic National Committee – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_National_Committee
The Democratic National Committee … All DNC members are superdelegates to the Democratic National Convention whose role can influence a close primary race.
The same rules apply to the RNC…and all this was established in 1848.
Betsy Devos is a clueless debutante who will not last the term with Trump. How can a woman who has zero education experience, never attended a public school nor has any of her children attended a public school know ANYTHING about what kind of school is good for kids. However the deal breaker will be when people start looking at her work in the state of Michigan and specifically the city of Detroit and Dearborn. If you look at the schools in these cities you will find a mess of a system and private companies earning millions while kids are left out to dry. Look it up.
Not to mention also that clueless Devos never had a job in her life and now she is secretary of education because her husband sold bull crap products via shaddy amway products.
I reached out.
Smiling Senator Rob Portman said he would judge each person on merit. AS far as I can tell he is a loyalist with no spine.
Laura…with all your political and academic insights, and vast info as an educator, please keep pounding him. And of course urge your many colleagues to do the same. Your many years of teaching experience carry weight. We are seeing so many Repubs who swore “never Trump” now fold to the system, but I know there are some who can be ‘Secret Sharer’s’ and vote against DeVos and others of her ilk.
I appreciate this. There are reasonable Republicans (they are not quite extinct).
Please name them. I am truly curious and not being sarcastic. I’m having a hard time coming up with any names. Even Susan Collins has become a duplicitous hypocrite. The days of admirable Republicans like Mark Hatfield are over as far as I can determine. To be bipartisan and honest, I can’t find a lot of Dems to name either.
I will be redundant and say, hopefully reasonable Repubs might include Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Susan Collins and former legislator Olympia Snow, Independent Rand Paul, and even former governors with clout like Jon Huntsman, Dodd of Dodd-Frank. Will continue thinking of others, Greg.
Greg…according to the Hill this AM, I am adding Ben Sasse to the list of approachable Repubs, and they even say Mitch McConnell, but don’t hold your breath with him. They also mention all those above who could join in league with Dems in the Senate to stall Trump’s bad selections of leaders and laws.
DeVos contributed to Mitch McConnell
DeVos’ speeches are starting to trickle out.
There must be hundreds of speeches. She’s been a political operative a VERY long time and the ed reform echo chamber hold lots and lots of meetings and conventions:
“Betsy DeVos, the Michigan billionaire tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to be his education secretary, has some very firm views about government and education, which she articulated in a 2015 speech at the SXSWedu convention in Austin. Take this, for example: “Government really sucks, and it doesn’t matter which party is in power.”
That was one of six “inconvenient truths” that she listed, and on which she elaborated, for the crowd in an address that clearly set out her views of education in the United States: The traditional public school system is a “dead end,” and publicly funded charter, parochial and private schools should be part of an expansive “open system of choice” for families. (You can see more about the speech here and watch the video of the entire speech here.)”
The newest fad in ed reform is training in skilled trades. They all read Hillbilly Elegy (or say they read it) so now they feel qualified to scold “the working class”- they’re branching out.
Skilled trades apprenticeships have been quietly operating with no help or support from ed reformers for the last 100 years. Now that “the working class” are fashionable ed reformers act as if they invented the concept. Duncan once “discovered” a skilled trades high school in Toledo that opened in 1991. They probably weren’t aware they needed to be “discovered”.
Chiara
Those apprenticeship programs at least here in NY had a portion of the classroom education paid for by the state. .
The skilled trades were the first target of the right wing assault long before education was. The Business Roundtable was formed to coordinate that assault . So anytime you want to see an earlier model for the assault on Public education and Union teachers. See the assault on the construction trades stared in the early seventies. Market share at the end of WW2 was 87% for union construction. It is down to an average of 13% and dropping rapidly.
This assault was detailed by G William Domhoff in “Who Rules America’ .But also by KK Kumashiro ,
“When Billionaires Become Educational Experts”
Skilled trades are not what the oligarchs want, cheap labor is. Here in NYC there were 29 deaths in the construction industry. 27 of them on Non Union sites where there is a smaller but growing market share. A big part of that skilled trades training in public schools is aimed at undermining union apprentice training programs..
Olympia Snowe isn’t in the Senate anymore! She left office in 2013.
You are right, Leonie…so who would you suggest we contact, particularly Repub women????
My sad prediction not only will Republicans stand behind all cabinet choices. Far to many Democrats will fail to put up an opposition,to either the cabinet choices or to policy. We have a far right wing party in the Republicans and a center right party called Democrats . If we are ever going to be able to reverse the damage that is about to occur, it will be by giving the American people a real progressive choice .Obama came in with a Supper Majority and both houses. Watch the carnage the Republicans will bring with far less.
A choice that brings “hope and change” not talks about it.
That is not what we are about to see happen. The Democrats have learned nothing by this defeat. They are ready to return to business as usual. It is not politicians who get hurt by losing elections it is the people who vote for them. Be they Parents, educators, workers ,the poor or the elderly .
Oh yes Trump was an aberration , why all the Democrats have to do is return to business as usual and things will correct themselves. Look who they just lost to.
Can you imagine what the electoral map would look like if Republicans had run a human instead of a Morlock. Would the policy be any different.
All ready we have Joe Manchin defecting and Obama is putting up TPP loving Perez as DNC chair .A man who laughed it up with Bill Maher as Labor Secretary.
“If you can not find a job at 5% unemployment you must be a loser.”
Sure Tom that’s why the Federal Reserve was reluctant to raise rates from near zero,right up till last week . That’s why the Labor participation rate of males and females 25-54 is 2% lower than in 2006 and 4% lower than 2000 . Why a record number of people 5.4 million are working part time who would prefer to be working full time.
So if you want to know whether they value the donor class or the working class and there are few Americans who are not working class , you got your answer . With out an opposition party the Republicans will be in power for a long long time.
Sorry Ellen but I think we would be better off showing dismal Democrats where the door is than thinking we can reach Republicans. Time to act like the Tea Party and start Knocking at the doors of Democratic legislators.
Why can’t we do both, Joel? Particularly those of us who are retired or semi retired, but used to going at full pace for a lifetime?
It seems to me that it is vital to aim for the light, and not succumb to the darkness…of which there is plenty. If we do not keep addressing the failures, thieves, and malcontents, and calling them out, then we deserve what we get…but “I’ve got plenty of nothing, and nothing is plenty for me” is anathema to most of us who have been dedicated educators.
I look at colleagues like Duane and Susan Lee who retired to bucolic retreats, but are still writing and educating us in so many ways….and Diane who seems to never sleep but is always leading the charge, as role models for hanging in. And, despite your posted stats and findings about even ‘dim’ Dems, we can try to make a dent in this crappy system.
BTW….Chiara explains the fallacious ‘skilled trade teaching as a new reform idea’… and maybe DeVos really believes what she says (showing how dense she really is)…but many educators have urged for decades that both high schools and community colleges must be funded for jobs training. It is far from a ‘reform’ issue. Thanks Chiara for bringing this up.
“I look at colleagues like Duane and Susan Lee who retired to bucolic retreats, but are still writing and educating us in so many ways….and Diane who seems to never sleep but is always leading the charge,”
Thanks for the kind words, Ellen!
Although, I didn’t retire to here as I came here after being chased out of my first district for questioning and challenging the “data driven” nonsense. It-a 20 year old (now 30) mobile home on 3 acres (now 12 total) was all I could barely afford at the time. It’s been a struggle as a single parent raising the last of three children at that time.
I will continue to fight the edudeformers and privateers and those GAGA Good German teachers and adminimals who continue to implement false and invalid malpractices that harm many students. And this is just one of the venues where I do so.
Duane…if you are interested in discussing all this one to one, please contact me at
joiningforces4ed@aol.com
Joel Herman,
President Trump’s Cabinet picks are likely to be easily confirmed. That’s because of Senate Democrats.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/18/president-trumps-cabinet-picks-are-likely-to-be-easily-confirmed-thats-because-of-senate-democrats/?utm_term=.06e667dfaa93
“That’s because exactly three years ago, the Democratic Senate majority — led by Harry Reid (Nev.) — rammed through controversial rules fundamentally changing the way the Senate does business. They unleashed in November 2013 what’s called the “nuclear option” allowing senators to approve by a simple majority all presidential appointments to the executive branch and the judiciary, with a big exception for Supreme Court justices.
Democrats took the controversial step because they were so frustrated by what they saw as Republican foot-dragging on President Obama’s choices for his administration and federal judgeships. Under the new rules, it takes only a simple majority of senators to confirm such appointments instead of the 60 typically needed to force Senate action.
But now that Trump is in the White House and Republicans control the Senate, Democrats have lost their most powerful weapon to block his appointments. Democrats will have 48 seats in the new Senate.
The architect of the rules change, outgoing Senate Minority Leader Reid (D-Nev.), says he doesn’t regret his decision to go nuclear.”
Please thank Harry Reid and the democrats for this damage.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/marty_kaplan/article/how_to_love_trump#.WF2fmv-Qclc.email
Joel…this is from the great satirist, Marty Kaplan…on how to love Trump.
Joe Donnelly (D) is one of my Indiana Senators and has actually responded personally to my email. My new incoming senator, Todd Young (R), who has not yet taken the oath, but still has an active US House of Rep. e-mail address has not.
I’ve seen this movie before. I do not want to spoil the ending for you .Of course you Senator may have more integrity than my Congressman Steve Israel ,former head of the DCCC. Who retired this year. Would you like to buy a stack of letters.
Booker? Integrity? I think not.
Pipe dream.
Double pipe dream
You guys who moan “pipe dream” seem to subscribe to the old saw that when rape is inevitable…relax, and….
Most of us on the West Coast don’t.
I know from many years of going to the office of my (thank goodness) FORMER Repub Congressman with as many others as we could corral, and letting the media know we will be there, he finally got worn down and stopped running for office.
We now have a Dem former teacher representing us in DC and she is responsive to us. What a relief…but it would NEVER have happened without effort and dedication by young, and mainly OLD, Dems doing sit-ins. This kind of fortitude can work in DC with approaches to some, granted few, Repubs who have shown an inclination to resist the Trump Anschluss.
I am so glad I live in California surrounded by progressive activists so that we have had two Dem women Senators for decades, and now have a new Dem ‘Woman of Color’ Senator (I hope might be the next woman Presidential candidate). We have had mainly Dem governors for most of my long voting life…and we have a predominantly Dem Legislature with a Latino majority, and both houses run by Latino legislators (Rendon and De Leon). We are still a democracy…and we deserve one vote for one person in national elections…and we are now also an ‘of color’ majority state.
Please come visit…and then go home.
Oh stop w that BS. We aren’t rape-relax-and-take-it-er people! Stop. Ridic.
We just realize that we are well past the “contact your senator” moment.
And we are.
Ellen
The Pipe dream is reaching Republican office holders. On long Island, two Congressman are now Republican. One on the East End is basically a Tea Party shill. The other is an IRA terrorist on the Homeland Security Committee.
But I think we have a full time job doing house cleaning in the Democratic Party . The economic policy of Milton Friedman, Neo liberalism and Democrats should not be uttered in the same breath.
But if I am a little ornery today perhaps this story has a bit to do with it.
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/sanders_supporter_charges_senior_michigan_20161222
But as for Southern California a nice place to visit but…
I’m twelve miles inland near the highest point on LI. I figure with Trump. I could have beach front property in a decade or two. So I will stay on LI.
Glad things are going so well in California. By the way, why do you have so many charter schools? And what happened with all those lovely IPads in LA? How many educators are currently in teacher jail? Thanks for the invite. I have visited California twice. Would you be interested in trading your governor for Christie? I, for one, have no energy for chasing windmills.
Abigail Shure
Now I don’t even want to visit my son in Jersey city . We have a deal I will meet them in Manhattan or Brooklyn.
Christie, think positive he may be through. Cuomo and his voucher ploy may be here a while.
Joel…here is the article on Keith Ellison as to his acceptance to speak at the radical Muslim group started by the Muslim Brotherhood.
re Keith Ellison…
News from the Middle East Forum
December 22, 2016
http://www.meforum.org/6440/ellison-withdraws-from-mas-icna-convention
As to my California pep talk, today The Hill reports on California Leading the Way….with our female legislators including Senators Feinstein and Boxer and now Kamala Harris, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among many others.
Yes, I am thankful that in these difficult times, I can focus on this and being a small part in each of these people being elected…and as old timers at this blog know, I have been deeply involved in reporting on, and actively addressing, the problems of LAUSD for the last four years, despite newcomers short-sighted nastiness.
Considering that I just heard the Republican senator Blunt from the Show Me State, today on a local conservative talk radio show and that he was gushing about THETrumpster’s picks for the cabinet as much as a teeny bopper gushed about the Beatles in 64, I don’t think there is any chance of his acting upon my contacting his office a couple of times about DeVos. Ay ay ay!
Duane…all we need are 4 Repubs to keep balance in the Senate and prevent disaster. And to vet Trump’s bucket of Right Winger appointees, and soon his SCOTUS picks.
Despite NYS teacher’s anger, it seems worth trying to lean on only those who have shown great distaste and disgust with Trump…that would be McCain, Lindsey Graham, Lamar Alexander, and a few others. Of course, it makes no sense to go to those who are despicable…but not all are in that category.
We are far from “well past a contact your senator moment”…IMO. I can’t understand people who prefer to sit in a corner sucking their thumbs taking potshots at supposed colleagues who continue to engage as activists.
Couple of things, Ellen. First you wrote: “Of course, it makes no sense to go to those who are despicable…” Is a “despicables” list any different than a “Muslim” list? Who determines who is despicable? What are the criteria? Catching my drift??
and
“We are far from “well past a contact your senator moment”…IMO. I can’t understand people who prefer to sit in a corner sucking their thumbs taking potshots at supposed colleagues who continue to engage as activists.”
Who are those “people who prefer to sit in the corner. . . ?? I’ve not seen any here. Are you talking about the general population at large? Name names, please.
If the DeVos nomination were defeated, who would Trump name in her place? Is Minnie Mouse still available?
In my corner of the universe, I have fifty K/1 kids on my roster and I teach six credits in a community college. Right now I am binge watching Blue Bloods on ION television.
“Abi, Abi, Abi” said in an exasperated teacher voice, “How often do I have to remind you that “binge watching” is bad for your health and karma?!?”
IMO, let’s start with Jeff Sessions as a despicable legislator who will prove worse than Gonzalez as AG. And off the wall Flynn who is already cavorting with ex Nazis in Europe …and Tillerson who rakes in the biggest bucks of them all. Plus of course DeVos who will have all public schools decimated, and all students in parochial schools funded by taxpayers and taught to rely on god to save them…somewhat like madrassas do.
How many are already working for ALEC?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Outlander-Season-1-Vol-1-DVD-2015-2-Disc-Set-new-fast-shipping-/112241930530?hash=item1a2223f122:g:jDIAAOSwDuJWydje
For one example, I just looked at Texas and felt like I was in free tumbling toward Earth without a parachute.
…..and just as a point of fact: because I used the textual phrase BS (instead of spelling of our) and some exclamation marks, doesn’t mean I’m speaking out of anger.
I was being descriptive. When one comes upon BS, especially unexpectedly, lets say in the middle of the sidewalk they are walking on, they tend to go “oh! BS!”
I’m not angry at you, Ellen, or your proposition. I’m somewhat dumbfounded.
After about a decade of what can and will one day be described as one of the biggest bipartisan attacks on the commons in American history; after F¥<KING LEGIONS (that’s anger) of democrats nationally and in statehouses everywhere traded on the proposition of busting teachers unions and privatizing public education; after some of the most important teachers unions in our country (NYSUT is one of the ones other states turn to, California’s not so much FYI) were made bumbling fools of by almost every major democrat including the president, you are seriously arguing the our focus should be on contacting our senators?
One must know where one is on the space/time continuum.
8 years ago our fight was beyond the standard “write letters, contact your senators, go vote” moment of political engagement. 8 years ago we were in the fight of our lives. Traditional political engagement at this point has proven not to work, it is, in many ways a golden oldie. Politicians will not be out saviors. We must conclude that they are only useful when forced, zombie-like, into a position that supports us. That can only happen through, at this point, very blunt, very loud, deeply sustained and creative direct action. Placing any hope in those traditional pathways is, at bottom, sad.
Ellen, your position furthers an incorrect notion that politicians will be our savior if we could just get the darn mixture right, like a nice cup of hot chocolate.
There are no saviors for us, except ourselves. Deep organizing and resistance is the only path. Zombie politicians will follow if we do that right.
NYS,
I am in agreement. I have no politicians to contact. My district is fast turning into New Orleans. A RIF is planned and the State District Superintendent is attempting to eliminate LIFO. I am on the bad teacher list. Many of the teachers of my acquaintance do not concern themselves with the political landscape.
It is far from my position that “politicians will be our saviors”…rather I am positing that 4 Repub Senators are all that are needed to be Dem Senators allies in keeping Trump candidates for Cabinet, SCOTUS, and other appointments, and his Trumped-up laws, in balance and from being imposed on America.
Why do you keep twisting what I am saying which could be a way to influence better public policy? Do you also disrespect your students and colleagues if they disagree with you?
You use the words “blunt, loud, sustained, direct action”…so what does that mean? Will you march on DC with weapons?
Abigail,
I’m sorry to hear about your circumstance. Sad to say here in NY, in spite of being a deeply blue state, it’s not much better. Cuomo is, as we should all know, a close competitor with Rahm E. for “democrat who hates unions and teachers the most.”
Beyond that, your point about knowing few teachers who are even remotely aware of the political landscape……that’s a muuuuuuch larger issue and problem for our side. Here in NY, those few of is truly engaged (and even many local union people are clueless as to even the most basic things happening against us), note that the victories New York’s organized teachers won in the 1960s-70s helped create a “fat, dumb, and happy” multi-generation cadre of teachers, especially now. And that is quite literal….my building, a high school, is mostly populated with deeply under-read folk whose main goals are heaving out more spawn and planning trips to Disney. The elementary schools, forget it….a hellscape of the dizzyingly poorly educated (but credentialed!) folk. There are exceptions, but not many.
Teachers are no longer a formidable force in detail. I am nearly without hope because of the fact that even if our union leadership somehow magically becomes competent (they wont), the membership simply isn’t up to the task.
It is my unfortunate prediction that public education will not die on any battlefield. It will die simply and swiftly, by being taken as then ranks of teachers slept and went to Disney.
God Im a cynic. Sorry.
I am also in a blue state and I teach elementary school. I view the battle as lost particularly in large urban districts.
….agree.
Or maybe, we will see the full-throated destruction of public education in urban districts FIRST……then it will trickle out to the suburbs and rural areas in time.
In the mean time, the true thrust of privatization, “technology in the classroom” will have done the good word of hollowing it all out pretty well before the management changes.
Exactly!
NYST,
“. . . then it will trickle ON to the suburbs and rural areas in time.”
Just a minor correction to make sure your thought aligns with Raygunomics, that voodoo doll school of economics.
I agree with your thought. When NCLB first came into being, I figured it would take about 5 years or so before the shit hit the fan in the suburban and well to do districts. But the state departments of ed kept on moving the goal posts to prevent the malpractices from happening to those districts because they knew that’s where the real political power was/is situated.
I figured when those districts started being negatively affected then the law would be changed. I underestimated, though, those well to do district’s adminimals’ cojones, if they even have them. They played the game because it was rigged for them to win. Who gives a crap about those poor urban and rural students? Nary a single upper crust adminimal that’s for sure. Now 15 years later with the wolves at their district’s doors a few adminimals are finally piping up because their districts and themselves are starting to look bad according to the “metrics”/coin of the realm.
Taking a break/procrastinating from grading papers (we’re off today) and just caught up with this thread now…..
.From what you wrote, NYSTEACHER: “my building, a high school, is mostly populated with deeply under-read folk whose main goals are heaving out more spawn and planning trips to Disney.”
Wow, that’s kind of rough. I mean I don’t like Disney stuff, either…never wanted to go there. But “heaving out more spawn.”
Things are kind of bleak these days but not that bleak.
Gonna go back to grading papers now…..
Finally I agree with both you and Abigail, NYS teacher when you write “It is my unfortunate prediction that public education will not die on any battlefield. It will die simply and swiftly, by being taken as then ranks of teachers slept and went to Disney.”
For many decades I have worked with Grad Schools of Ed and have seen the level of teacher training descend to meet the quality of teaching candidates (as with PhD candidates using ghost writers for dissertations and paying data collectors for their included info), which then recycles those who teach in higher ed…creating a vicious circle. You have to be old to have this sad vantage point, and to remember golden academics like Madeline Hunter and John Goodlad.
I have written about LAUSD teachers who abdicate and don’t even want to know what is happening. Those who write here are too few in this district where there are 40K teachers. I do however hear from some wonderful teachers who have been caught up in the internecine warfare and are suffering, and that is a tragedy.
I think we are all cynical about all this, but Disneyland is not a viable alternative.
The people who have clout and, should be exerting influence to protect public education, get a 10-18% return on charter school debt. If I was a religious minority on Wall Street, I’d be working to protect a K-12 system that teaches religious tolerance. It’s preferable, IMO, to the DeVos brand of evangelical message and, to the growth of Muslim and other religious schools. A heterogeneous religious education system is fraught with peril for religious minorities.
Germany, in the lead up to WWII, was characterized by intense privatization, business/government entities. When the U.S. Dept. of Ed. began to refer to charter schools as public entities, while understanding that they are no more public than Boeing, it should have sent a chill down the backs of all of us, including Wall Street’s richest 0.1%. The Aspen Institute is heavily involved in education’s change to corporatization and privatization. What is their objective? (David Koch was in the board photo array until this summer.)
I am commencing my 28th year of teaching ESL in large urban communities in New Jersey. I am living the nightmare, not researching it. My district is on the verge of turning into New Orleans. It is in its twentieth year of a state takeover.
I was mugged at the beginning of September a block and a half from my school. My phone was stolen. On Wednesday morning, someone attempted to break into my car. I have to replace the lock cylinder. I ordered the part this morning. I am not residing in an ivory tower seeking letter writing opportunities to senators, who at least in my state exhibit no interest in the students I teach. Senator Booker is on the DFER board. He was instrumental in expanding charter school market share in Newark. Should anyone be interested in the realities of teaching in schools that serve poor children, I have plenty of stories to tell.