I have mixed feelings about whether I should continue devoting so many posts to the multiple transgressions of Trump.
On one hand, this is a blog devoted to education.
On the other, I believe we are in the midst of a historic and unprecedented national crisis. We have elected a man who is angry, bitter, ignorant, vengeful, unstable, and tied to the white-supremacist alt-right and the Kremlin.
He has already turned our country into an international laughing stock.
He has appointed a cabinet composed mostly of incompetent, unqualified, or mean-spirited people at odds with the agency they are supposed to lead.
He refuses to divest himself of his conflicts of interest, and several of his appointees–including Betsy DeVos–have followed his example. He has demonstrated contempt for the norms of ethics and transparency in government.
What is the reason for his admiration for Putin? Putin is the richest man in the world. Does Trump owe him billions?
******
I love my country. I vote in every election. I am patriotic. I hate what Trump is doing to our country.
*********
My question to you:
Should I stick to education or continue to speak out on the issues of national significance, as well as education?
I find it hard to separate the two. Should I?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Please continue to do what you have been doing, cover both vital issues. How is it possible to ignore one of the worst disasters to befall our government. It’s like trying to read a book as a meteor (Trump and gang) crashes through your house. Your attention will necessarily be divided.
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Please continue. I don’t know how we can separate our concerns about education from our fears for our nation. As you say, we are in unique times. I find myself devoting an extraordinary amount of time using social media to comment on what is happening in our country. I also have been participating in-person in local political activism efforts. I retired as a teacher/school leader educator in May 2016, and this is not how I expected to spend my time, but I am thankful that right now I have the time, health, means, and motivation to do it. I truly rely on your insights. Don’t stop!
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I am 100% with you on reporting on both education issues and the state of our union. They are inseparable. We are educators, but we are also citizens and our professional lives are intertwined with how government is run. We are the electors, and it requires a depth of ongoing education for us to do our jobs in influencing those we elect. That requires our best critical thinking skills.
La Ronde.
Please, Diane, continue to post all the issues for we cannot bury our heads and pretend that the Trump administration is not happening, and is not affecting every area of our, and our students, lives.
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Why not two accounts? I want the education expertise you bring to the twitterverse. Another account or venue will allow a proper division and for you to express yourself as eloquently as you do.
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Please do not succumb to the hysterical response of those trying to cover up the tracks of the Democratic Party by stoking up a red scare and witch hunt atmosphere by demonizing Trump and the Republican Party.
Both political parties are to blame for the social crisis teachers, students and working people in general are facing today.
As an ENL teacher, I value your blog for the balanced presentation of issues specifically related to the education crisis.
However, the more the blog turns into an apologist for Democratic Party politics the less useful or credible it becomes.
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Seconded.
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Nelson: Covering up the Democratic tracks? Diane and many other commenters herein have repeatedly critiqued Obama and the Democrats for their horrible educational and political decisions. All that being said, there is no equivalency between the Democrats and the GOP. The GOP has morphed into a far right wing movement party that will bring on another depression.
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That comment has me scratching my head too, Joe.
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Agree with Joe and Greg. Despite flaws in the Dem Party, there is NO equivalency with Repubs like Ryan and McConnell et al who smirk and go along with Trump as he does exactly what they have all worked toward for the Obama years when they stonewalled his governance. Hope Nelson does not teach government with this bias.
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Nelson, agree with your comment. I live in Idaho the reddest of the red states. In order to support my local public schools the education message has to be framed as local control and community. The destruction has come from both parties. We would not be here had it not been for the education policies of the Obama administration. Both parties fed the alt facts of failing schools and offered top-down centralized policies to “fix”. BUT the angry rhetoric and name calling from both sides has to stop as it continues to divide and to distract. Has no one noticed how great the Trump Administration is at distracting? Let’s not play that game. Instead can we focus on a non-partisan plan to save public education? A plan that partners students, parents and teachers? If we don’t the country will go as it’s education that has to be controlled before you control a country.
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Nelson, Mary: Please provide one example where Diane has “tried to cover up the tracks of the Democratic Party. Just one. Please.
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Please separate the current politics from education as much as possible. Thank you.
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It’s your blog, but mostly I come here because I work in education and care about those issues. It stands to reason Trump is going to be related to education for at least the next four years. It’s probably best to focus on that, education as the centerpiece since that’s what seems to be the main purpose here.
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The two are inseparable in my opinion. I believe all the movements are interconnected – education, environment, economics….please continue to be engaged with he current political climate.
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YES…simply and perfectly stated, Sheetal.
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Dear Diane,
Thank you for your cri de coeur (et tete). For the following reasons, I vote for your continuing what you have been doing.
(1) Your blog is often the first place from which I learn about developments of national and international significance not directly related to education.
(2) As you eloquently state, educational issues and other issues are necessarily entangled. For one, “Education is life itself,” saith the bard. For another, I have heard numerous educators — you may be among them — posit that the very fact of T**p’s ascendancy is an *educational problem. This assertion cries out with Euclidean certainty. A well-educated electorate would have rejected this monster the instant he faux-regally descended the stairs in his Tower to declare his candidacy and began spewing his black-bilious lies.
(3) Your service as an assistant secretary of a Cabinet department enables you to provide us with insider information about and insights on all manner of governmental goings-on.
Thank you again, and thank you (all) for reading.
In solidarity and resistance,
Bill
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“Your service as an assistant secretary of a Cabinet department enables you to provide us with insider information about and insights on all manner of governmental goings-on.”
Good comment. Diane has perspectives and insights only gained from her work in government. Keep up the political talk. We all need to learn more.
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Thank you, Carol. You’ve made my morning.
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I agree. Thank you, Bill, for your great reply.
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Well said Bill! And I agree Diane, please keep writing about both. It is critical to use all resources to get truthful, fact based information out to as much of the public as possible through as many outlets as possible.
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BOTH! People who voted for Trump need to see and truly understand the consequences of their vote. Many valued family, friends and colleagues voted for Trump as a vote against Clinton. This was a huge mistake on their part. Several of them are trying to runaway from what’s going on now and don’t want to accept responsibility that they’ve played a role in what’s going on. Do not let them put their heads in the sand! They need to have their eyes opened wide, and should not be allowed to hide and feign ignorance!
PLEASE KEEP POSTED ABOUT BOTH, EDUCATION AND TRUMP!
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I do not see how the two can be separated since so much of what happens in Washington affects what happens in education. Stay the course.
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We were just part of a catastrophic, historic occurrence–a coup by a foreign government. Why should anyone be silent? If people don’t want to read it, they can unsubscribe to your email list.
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Agree with Liz. 100 % … go for it, Diane. thanks,
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Keep doing exactly what you are doing. I agree with those who said that we cannot separate politics from education. What Trump and his administration are doing affects the entire country, and affects our children and their education.
I appreciate the work you do, Diane. Thank you.
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Stick to education. Your vile spewing at this man is not helping our cause. Your voice could have been better used to educate the transition team…. We believe you thought Hillary had it in the bag and you were vying for Sec of Ed job. Get over it and help our kids, parents & teachers. This is a nonpartisan fight and your rhetoric is creating divide in the education fight.
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Emily,
I am 78. I promise I never wanted a post in a Clinton administration. I wanted a president who might listen to reason, who was a graduate of public schools and likely to support them. I knew Trump would be a disaster for public education. He has not disappointed. And he will never listen.
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You are one of the most active 78 year old women I know. I think if you had TRIED to put your feelings aside YOU would have been one of the best people for the job, regardless of your age.
He will never listen? Did you even try? From day 1 after the election I have watched you do nothing but desecrate this man. You, and NPE, went to Clinton direct but worked with Lamar Alexander? Do you think, maybe, if you went directly to him or the transition team from the beginning it would have helped and we would not be stuck where we are now with DeVos? There are a lot of Conservatives that are in this fight, as well, for our children and teachers. NPE has been very disappointing, as you all claim to be nonpartisan but your actions speak differently. When can we all get off the politics and come together for our kids? We had to endure 8 years of Obama, Race to the Top, Arne Duncan, John King, etc….
I am really tired of hearing the political rhetoric. Instead of focusing on how to get him impeached, fake Trump tweet pages, etc., etc., etc. let us ALL, Dem, Repub or Independent, get back to what matters most. My/our children and saving public education.
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Emily: “You are one of the most active 78 year old women I know.” the president of our League of Women Voters is 84 and she has 7 kids and she spends her Saturdays helping her grandson who is autistic. Maybe you should come and see what some of these women are able to accomplish in their days.
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Emily, the best way to help our kids is to get the party in control out of control before they ruin the very fabric of our society. It is foolish to think that we can simply separate education issues and those that affect healthcare, childcare, pensions, social security, Medicare, women’s services, etc. You might want to see a kumbaya non-partisan movement (I would, too), but our social institutions are at risk. Our communities are at risk. We need this commentary.
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LG… and you think the Democratic party is much better? Race to the Top, Arne Duncan, John King… do I need to say more? It has been a disaster on both sides. No, I did not forget Bush and NCLB. Fed Ed needs to GO. I would rather pay way more taxes than take their lousy 14% for education…. and IDEA can go under ADA to protect our kids.
Keep focusing on how to get him impeached rather than coming together to help our children. Yes… that will work wonders.
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Emily, your Trump fervor is obvious…but please consider that with the vast rounding up of Latin families and deporting them, the children who are our ELL will be gone or relegated to be alone and without parents living in Skid Row, and the Black children who are 100% American citizens are headed to fill the for-profit prisons. If they survive, they will be working for $2 an hour, not even minimum wages.
You are short sighted and seem to live in some parallel universe if you think this administration is not a disaster and that this liar of a ‘so called’ president should not be impeached. It is the moment in history when all thinking people must face reality and RESIST. Educators cannot merely protect their salaries and status and look away from this destruction of our nation.
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And here speaks sensationalism and hysteria. Only those who are in the country ILLEGALLY and have been CONVICTED of felonies are deported. The TYPE of felony does not seem to matter.
So no, FAMILIES are not deported. Illegal entry into a country is, FYI, illegal in every country in the world. Many countries will accept refugees from war-torn countries, refugees who are persecuted because of race or religion. NO country accepts economic refugees with open arms.
I’m not sure why there seem to be such problems with understanding the FACTS.
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Exactly, Ellen Lubic.
None of us live in a bubble, and any of us who think they do are seriously deluded.
What affects some of us, affects all of us, eventually, if not immediately.
And maybe I’m an old-fashioned liberal (or an “aging hippie,” as some of my friends call me), but I still believe in the common good.
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See, Ellen… here is one of the many problems. You assume. I do not have Trump fervor, nor was he my primary pick for this election cycle but guess what? Here we are.
Your #fakenews that you are spewing is exactly why we are sitting here in this divide. Your stating that I live in a “parallel universe” proves what? Absolutely NOTHING. You don’t know me, yet you made plenty of assumptions. If you read any of my posts, LG hit it on the head. Yes, I would like to see a “kumbaya non-partisan movement” (LG’s words.. not mine) but it will never happen with the name calling and the liberal rhetoric you just typed that is just not true.
So you can sit back and feel good about everything you stated… factual or not. I will continue to fight for my kids… and for everyone else’s too because I don’t care if they voted for Trump, Hillary or Dees Nutz.
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Emily, I think we need to take a step back and look at the big picture. Changing the system as you and I (and most likely so many others) would like takes time and effort. Democracy is messy and imperfect. However there has been a lot of social progress over the last century. While we should keep our friends close and our enemies closer, we have a better chance of working with the devil we do know. I don’t know what you propose–a legitimate three party system, a no party system?–but if there’s one thing I know about politics, it’s that effective and positive change takes time. We don’t simply win because we believe in some Pollyanna Utopia where every political entity is always doing the exact right thing. You work with the system in order to shape and improve the system.
Another thing I know from my experience as both an educator and an activist: The people currently in power at the federal level want education to be privatized so that their cronies can enjoy profits on the backs of children. This has been their MO since “A Nation at Risk.” You don’t need Diane’s blog to know this, but it sure helps to have someone like her devoting the time to report on and analyze the nuances and details of the edu-political landscape.
You’d have to be living under a rock to not see the difference between the two major parties. No. I’m not giving the Dems a pass especially for RttT and DFER, but they sure as hell cannot be equated with Trump and his minions.
All that said, your passion is refreshing. Maybe take a look at these systems and try to see how we can improve the situation. The first step is to stop the bleeding in Washington.
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With such Trumpian fervor, both trolls here, Emily and Rudy, use Bannon’s technigue of taking others words way out of context and twisting them to their own mendacious end.
Their endless BS is exposed when they then insist ONLY their words are real, while declaiming ours as “fake news”….this Goebbels technique has become so clear to thinking and educated people that finally things are turning and around the Trump ‘ship of state’ has hit the iceberg which will cause it to go under.
With Flynn and Pudzner now gone…and with the NY Times (that these two ignorant and fascistic trolls also assume is purporting “fake news”) which gave info yesterday on carefully investigated government reports of the Russia/Trump agents close connection in rigging our election, I suggest that both Emily and Rudy should just crawl back under the rock they came from…they are losing their putsch for fascism in America…and no matter how much they insult me, and Diane, and others, they are goners.
RESIST is working.
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Ignore our resident trolls as much as you can, Ellen. They are not worth wasting your time or thought on.
Namaste.
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Wish you were at the same meeting I attended last night. As a member of the central committee of the local Republican Party, I argued against changes in the law that deAls with collective bargaining.
You should try that sometime, ms lubic, arguing a point that is about as popular as poison ivy.
But then, from everything you write, you seem to be unable to look at different sides of argument and realize that some of the stuff your party stands for just might be wrong thinking.
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Rudy. I’m tired of your comments. Why don’t you go to a different blog to vent?
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I, too, am tired. I am tired of people who blow things which are bad enough to begin with, totally out of proportion, so that not even a shred of credibility is left.
Yes, trump is not fit to be president. But he is. Yes, he makes bad decisions.
He has not picked the best people to fill important positions. But those are the people he picked.
No, he did not act unconstitutionally with the travel ban. Three judges have topped (PARTS OF) his travel ban. But none of them on constitutional grounds!
Yes, illegal immigrants are being picked up. No different than under the previous president. Yes, that causes major problems – but that is the risk of being illegal.
So, rather than continuing to bemoan reality, what are YOU going to do to CHANGE things? Rather than write, what PRACTICAL thing are YOU going to do to affect change?
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you ignore the fact that hate groups are on the rise in the U.S. You ignore the fact that we have more acts of anti-semitism (graffiti on colleges ) in my state. Or the incidents of antisemitic hate acted out in schools. Did you not see the Southern Poverty Law Center year report that I posted this morning? You talk about your own interpretation; well I see facts differently where I reside. The hate and racism that has always been there is now fueled buy trump and his cohort. There were always “bullies” in uniform; it just means now that they can hide behind trump who gives them permission to act out on their worst impulses. Obviously you know nothing about the history of this country in regards to racism and the treatment of “the other” (usually immigrants but can be any minority). What on earth do you know about PROPORTION? When there was slaughter of children in Norway it was called political assassination. Did you ever study anything about that? Of course you can excuse every incident that I bring up but that doesn’t make you accurate and it doesn’t promote yur viewpoint over the many U.S. citizens who have values similar to mine.
, totally out of proportion, so that not even a shred of credibility is left.
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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You ARE right. Things are getting worse – and this very list is an example. When the kind of language used here to describe someone who disagrees, we are no better!
A FACT is a FACT is a FACT. We may interpret them differently, but that does not change FACTS.
The FACT is trump is president, whether or not we like it.
The FACT is that he got there through the normal process used – whether we like it or not.
The FACT is that he has no clue what it means to BE a president – but he is.
The FACT is that he wrote a badly worded Executive order.
The FACT is that it is constitutional.
We can try to twist those FACTS, but that does not change the fact that it is a fact…
But there is another FACT. In 2018, there is another election coming up. And the way it looks, it might be an extremely painful one for Republicans unless they reign in trump.
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Rudy,
Watch what they say. Lies, lies, lies.
Trump is not my president. He is yours.
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Whether we like it or not, he is the president of the United States. You live in the United States. You are a citizen of the United States. Ergo he is your president.
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Rudy,
Not my POTUS. Putin elected him. Not my POTUS.
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Rudy: I have to agree with Diane here–Trump is not legitimate on several grounds, and now we are going to find out how deep it’s been piled. How long TAT takes is only going to depend on whether Congressional Republicans can think beyond their political party and into the question of their patriotics.
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CBK, the question is whether Republicans are willing to put country above party/power.
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My worries started when the slogan was uttered at the State Convention, “Anyone but Hillary.” My first question was, “But at what cost?” And from the looks of it, the cost will be too much, unless something happens, and soon. From my, obviously, Republican perspective, I think we have let the need to govern override other, more important values.
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Not legitimate on what grounds? There is no evidence that the Russian contacts have had anything to do with the elections. There is a lot of conjecture, but that’s not proof.
trump had the “luck” to win the electoral votes from some states that had a lot of those to give. That’s how the the system in the U.S. works. He did not invent the Electoral College.
The recount made it clear: In those states he had .03, .03 and .07 % more votes than Clinton. From the beginning, pundits have said that it was Clinton’s election to lose. And she did.
I am not a follower of Fox, Limbaugh or any of those people. My favorite news is NBC and NPR. I read the New York TImes, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. When necessary, I do my research.
The political ads during the elections made nothing but negative impressions. My vote during the Caucus went to Mario. My election vote went to a non-starter (Since I did not vote straight party line, it took a while to get all the little circles colored in).
I am anti abortion for any reason (Excluding rape, incest, life of mother). I am scared of guns (Shot two guns in my life time and ended up hurting myself both times).
There has to be a way in which people can reason together, without personal attacks. I trust people. I respect people. Until they give me a reason not to…
I don’t like trump. But he IS the president. I did not like Obama, either, and was not always excited about Bush.There has to be a way in which people can find compromises with resorting to personal attacks…
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And there is the fake news again… I know it hurts to say it, but if you start slowly, one word at a time, it will come out eventually: Ms. Clinton lost. On her own account.
trump won because Clinton lost. It is really a simple equation…
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I don’t understand your hang up on “Constitutional.” We do have laws that need to be followed even though they are not included in the Constitution. Perhaps Trumpsters will figure out how to craft an executive order that will pass scrutiny. Of course, as we know from enough of our past history, both Democratic, Republican and bi-partisan, legal is not necessarily the same as ethical or moral. Protest should not end just because Trumpsters figure out a way to meet the letter of the law. Again, despite what our past history would indicate, peaceful protest is supposed to be protected.
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Peaceful protest IS protected by law. But the Orde is not about protests. It is a continuation of what the previous president started. Sending illegal immigrants who have a criminal record home IS the issue.
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If it was about sending illegal aliens home, why were all the green card holders and those with permanent residential staus denied reentry (and entry) into the country? Why only Muslim countries from which there were few if any documented potential terrorists? Why were countries from which the 9/11 terrorists came not included? There was plenty of reason for the courts to question the intent of the order.
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The inclusion of green card holders etc was part of both the sloppiness of the Order and the confusion in execution.
Why was Saudi Arabia not included when the previous president created the list?
The seven countries are undeniably the source of many if the terrorists. Which may have been the reason president Obama chose those specific countries.
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you are “fudging” a lot here and trying to blame Obama…. That’s what trump does; every press confenrece “it’s Hillary’s fault” “It’s Obama’s fault”
I get those talking points from “friends” in Boston who don’t know a heck of a lot about what is actually going on.
You never did tell me that SPLC doesn’t have “facts”…. and there facts go a long way back before these times. Have you seen the maps that show lynchings all across the south?
(and into the north; we were never innocent; my sisters told me that KKK met in the “woods” behind our house in the W W II era). I was only 4 or 5 when Roosevelt died but I remember everything I heard.
Why was Saudi Arabia not included when the previous president created the list? The seven countries are undeniably the source of many if the terrorists. Which may have been the reason president Obama chose those specific countries.
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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I did not accuse of president Obama of anything. I stated the FACT that the previous president directed the authorities to find and deport people. I placed no value on that. He did direct.
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“The inclusion of green card holders etc was part of both the sloppiness of the Order”
But Rudy,
“Let me tell you about the travel ban. We had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban.”
“This administration is running like a fine- tuned machine”
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Your point? I’m not too interested in what trump has to say.
He wrote an Executive Order. It was sloppy. It was confusing. Both of those lead to incorrect handling.
My (consistent) point is: The Executive Order was not unconstitutional. And it was not illegal, either. To call it either is a clear creation of “fake news.” So far, 6 (3 separate, 3 from the 9th) have adjudicated – and not a single one of them has judged the order to be unconstitutional.
That fact has nothing to do with whether I think it was right or wrong. That is a personal opinion. Whether it was illegal or unconstitutional is a legal opinion. That opinion has not been supported by the judges.
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so you don’t think there is any place for ethics and morality in public life (when it concerns education of students)?
Values are held in common when it comes to ethics and morality; we also have community standards and in the places where I work and shop and continue my life, I like to believe that there is “good will”… but maybe you have destroyed that whole value?
Rudy, you remind me of the 8th grade special ed student I work with who will portray the acting of Erkel, and pulling up his suspenders , he says “It gets old”… That is the way I react to you and my suspenders are now up. I have work to do and that is improving education in my local city and in my state.
That fact has nothing to do with whether I think it was right or wrong. That is a personal opinion
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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Then argue on moral/ethical grounds and recognize the legality and constitutional are not worth the time.
Is it unethical to hand someone a permission slip to enter the country and send him/her back on arrival? NO!
That’s an obvious conclusion. Unless there is new evidence of an act which is on the list of no-nos.
At the same time, is it ethical to deport people who are in the country illegally, have committed crimes?
NO! That too, is an obvious conclusion. The previous president did the same thing. As a legal immigrant, I have no problem with that.
I have no problem with the idea that illegal entry into the country should not be tolerated and those who do, know the risks.
Are there circumstances where an exception should be made? Sure – and immigration laws allow for that.
But illegal immigration is by definition well, illegal.
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Erkel (and Jean) : “It gets old”…
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Got to watch Trump like a hawk: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/02/07/trumps-claim-that-obama-first-identified-the-seven-countries-in-his-travel-ban/?utm_term=.d7e788df5625
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addendum…ICE has picked up mothers and grandparents and deported them…see the LA Times stories this week. Many Latino/Chicano teachers are so worried not only about their Latino students, but about their own family members in college as Dreamers, and their own elderly relatives who are undocumented. I am in touch with these people every day as are many LA educators here.
Also read Rudy’s COMPLETE link to KTLA News and you see the entire report explains who and how Latinos are being rounded up. The rationalization by the Trumpeters is that “they are all violent gang members”…NOT true. Certainly not many M13, but MOST whose ONLY crime was entering the US without documentation.
Thereafter they were/are working at jobs, paying their taxes, raising their children in safety.
These workers are the largest building block of the California economy in the agriculture and service industries (they are hired by major Agro-busimess and major Hotels and major Restaurants)…without them there would be huge increases in the price of food (fruits and veggies and chicken and fish and wine), and lots of filthy hotel rooms and enough dirty dishes to reach the moon at chain diners, etc. And don’t forget the cheap clothing they make in quasi- legal factories in the barrio districts near San Pedro St. which is our prime Skid Row.
So…Rudy and Emily…want me to find you jobs as ‘pickers’ who follow the crops and often live and defecate in the fields while doing back breaking work for miniscule pay? Or how about cleaning hotel rooms…seems you might both be fit for doing that work for minimum wages?
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Once again, reading the ENTIRE article, you pick what an opponent states, and assume those to be accurate. Staying to to facts does not create the guilt feeling that the (incorrect) image creates.
People with FELONIES are picked up.
This is not like what happened here in my state a few years ago, where about 400 illegal immigrants were picked up and deported. O wait, who was president? That’s right! Obama!
“The Postville raid was a raid at the Agriprocessors Inc. kosher slaughterhouse and meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa, United States, on May 12, 2008, executed by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security together with other agencies. The raid was the largest single raid of a workplace in U.S. history until that date, and resulted in nearly 400 arrests of immigrant workers with false identity papers who were charged with identity theft, document fraud, use of stolen social security numbers, and related offenses. Some 300 workers were convicted on document fraud charges within four days. The majority served a five-month prison sentence before being deported”
Were you as upset about that? Did you even know about this? Did you use the same terminology for president Obama as how you now describe trump?
Being in ANY country without valid documents is illegal pretty much everywhere. What is so difficult to grasp for you?
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Zorba, dear friend…appreciate your supportive words so much. I live and work with so many people of color, and seeing each day the sheer terror rending the Latino/Chicano community is truly heartbreaking…but then, like you, I am a Left leaner and believe that good people who need help, legal or undocumented, should be helped by those of us who have been far more privileged in life mainly due to our skin color and the vagaries of birth.
Like you and like Diane and others of our respected colleagues, I keep on keeping on, and as an old academic and activist war horse, keep on battling…but as I age, I have changed my tolerance toward those I perceive as evil, insensitive, or just plain ignorant, and think their stupid and hurtful comments should not be tolerated and passed by. That is partially how Trump got to be our “so called’ president. The media ignored his stupidity and venomous remarks. I now speak out…but generally have stopped engaging with some who are just plain incorrigible.
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Forgot to add…yes, Namaste.
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Ellen, you are right.. I am a troll… and you are just downright nasty. You make so many assumptions and spew vile hate as well. YOU DON’T KNOW ME. I grew up as the only girl in my county, in NY, to have a paper route and when I got my working papers, cleaned snotty women’s golf shoes at the country club. They tipped me a QUARTER. I have worked for minimum wage before. My mother worked two jobs and raised two children on her own. We were on welfare when my Dad left us, when it was used properly as a bridge back to working, for 8 months when I was a kid. So, really… stop your BS. You are so judgemental which is one of the biggest problems we have with this ridiculous divide at the moment. The last time we came together, as Americans, was 9/11, which I was still in NY for. We don’t need another catastrophe to bring us back together…..
I am extremely active in the state I live in… whether it is writing bills to protect children from the insanity of testing in schools, local opt out movement, etc. Both of my children are in public school, still, as we cannot afford to home school or go private. They have teachers that have been teaching 10-30+ years that still teach the old way and enough of the CC crap to get them by. Even if I had the money to pull them, I would STILL fight for the kids that have parents that drive 30+ minutes each way to work, ESOL, etc.
Let me ask you, Ellen, what do YOU do besides troll this blog and yell at people who want to come together in this fight?
LG.. thank you for your kind, thoughtful and rational response. I wish there was more of that in this insanity at the moment.
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For Emily and Rudy who seem to know everything better than others….and do not hesitate to spew venom and often false info, but do not do so well when anyone stands up to their bullying behaviors.
if you had been a member of this blog since its’ inception you would know exactly what I do. Suggest you go to Diane’s archives and find my articles on LAUSD and my personal work to save our public schools.
Also read a bit on the RESIST movement (I lead a local group of 117 people in resisting the Trump disaster) which I have written about here.
I am now, and have been, a multi degreed university professor of public policy and an educational researcher and writer for over 45 years, am older than Diane and still working full time in my field, register voters, speak at public meetings on ed issues, fight Parent Revolution and those others who bilk our ed system for tax dollars to run private charter schools…enough, the scratches the surface of what I do. You can google me and read more.
I am also a mother and a grandmother and have been in the work force and self supporting since I was 10 years old and without parents to coddle me. I worked my way through primary, secondary, and then one of the nation’s finest public universities, and then law school.
And I am fierce when you both start out here, as you have done, by attacking Diane Ravitch who is brilliant and respected world wide as an educational historian, and who offers us all this venue for sharing information. I am also Teflon as to how you choose to insult me…my academic background and activist public service is well known in my community (see my multi paged professional/volunteer VITA) for over 50 years.
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Congressman Joe Kennedy made a statement. “Let me be very clear, detaining a transgender victim of domestic violence does not make a single person in this country safer.” I will keep those calls going to senators and reps.
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Not sure if anybody ever thought that WOULD be the case…
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you seem to think that you know everything. Accounts in our news papers might differ from your experiences. That means people are telling the facts about their lives and what is happening to the families. Joe Kennedy would not have had to speak out this way if it were only a story in someone’s imagination. You obviously have a very narrow view of what is going on in the world and it is restricted to what you see with your own eyes? Sad that your world is so rigid and narrow that you can’t believe that other people have different kinds of experiences.
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Huh? All I asked for was context…
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Rudy,
Don’t be modest. You are smarter than everyone else on this blog. Surely Mensa has a blog where you can show off your deep knowledge.
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Huh, Huh?? Again, a statement was posted with absolutely no context about Kennedy and transgenders….
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Not by me.
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this is sufficient context for me; and because I see him as a respected leader I know what to do next and that is NOT sit here and argue with Rudy because that is a useless endeavor…
KENNEDY PUSHES FEDS ON IMMIGRATION RAIDS
Feb 16, 2017 Press Release
Demands clarity from DHS and ICE as cities and towns are left in the dark about Trump immigration policy
Washington, D.C. – After the Trump Administration undertook a series of coordinated immigration raids across the country this past weekend, Congressman Joe Kennedy III today demanded that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) release the details of their current immigration enforcement and deportation policies.
Despite claims from the Administration that the raids are “business as usual,” reports of detained DREAMers and collateral arrests suggest a significant shift in policy at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Just last night, a new report indicates ICE officers arrested a victim of domestic violence inside a Texas courthouse moments after she received a protective order against her alleged abuser. Additionally, there have been reports of new immigration guidance circulated at a high level within DHS but not shared with regional ICE officials, local advocates or the general public.
“An immigration policy that operates in the shadows is not just suspicious – it’s dangerous,” said Congressman Kennedy. “By refusing to offer clear guidance about deportation and enforcement policies to cities and towns, the Trump Administration is stoking fear, handicapping law enforcement, and undermining public safety. Meanwhile their raids make clear what their lack of transparency might be trying to hide: this is an Administration operating with complete disregard for the rule of law and, most importantly, for immigrant families and the local communities that welcome — and depend on — the contributions they make.”
In addition to last week’s raids, Kennedy highlighted ongoing concerns with the previously-abandoned Secure Communities program, which President Trump reinstated via executive order earlier this year.
“Reinstating Secure Communities adds an additional layer of confusion and ignores the warnings of countless local leaders, advocates and law enforcement officials who say this program is an indiscriminate dragnet that makes all of our communities less secure,” said Kennedy.
In the past, Kennedy has urged an end to Secure Communities, which was ultimately scrapped by the Obama Administration.
To read the full letter to DHS, please click here.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/undocumented-transgender-woman-filing-domestic-violence-claim-arrested-at-el-paso-courthouse-by-ice-official-says/
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Never claimed it was, Dianne. But I found the story, and again, important facts were “overlooked,…”
The headline sounds so much better when it is about a transgender woman who was filing an abuse complaint being deported than a six time departed illegal immigrant, who had left the country seven times (once on her own), with a record. THAT does not fly as a headline, now, does it??
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you didn’t really ask for anything… you made a personal statement that what Kennedy knew and observed and responded to , you had not personally seen or heard, so Kennedy must be wrong (is the implication because Rudy’s facts don’t verify what Kennedy is stating).
You evidently don’t believe that the SPLC gathers data at all because you hammered me with “FACTS” in capital letters and you did not bother to read their report that is highly factual because that is how they are trained and that is the way that they live — they are definitely gatherers of facts and they spend their lives doing that much as the people like my friends and colleagues have spent our lives helping our students develop independent, critical and creative thinking and reading skills and thinking skills because those are highly valued in the U.S. culture (at least by people who are open to the world around them and not rigidly caught up in some kind of dogma ).
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Did not ask such question. Just wondered where that comment came from…
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An Announcement to All Regular Readers:
I spend way too much time responding to Rudy, the ultimate nitpicker, and Charles, who posts again and again about the glories of religious schools and home-schooling. I leave it to you to answer them. I’m done.
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Even more lost now. I did not live during WWII. But I sure learned a lot about it. And still am learning a lot about it. I did not live during Martin Luther’s time, but sure learned a lot about it.
I did not live during the time Jesus walked the earth, but learned a lot about it.
Just because I did not experience something does not mean it did not happen, so I am at a loss as to what they statement applies to.
My FACTS (Caps again, because I cannot bold text), statement had to do with some utterings about an Executive order being unconstitutional (which it was not), that Flynn was a traitor (Which he isn’t) that Putin helped get trump elected which he didn’t and that Hillary had nothing to do with losing this election (which she did).
Note I referred to statements from Democrats about the last one, and newspaper reporters fro the others, and three different judges for the other.
Not MY opinion, conclusions, but the facts as we currently know them.
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Found the story!!
And here is the rest of the story (Loved Paul harvey!)
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/undocumented-transgender-woman-filing-domestic-violence-claim-arrested-at-el-paso-courthouse-by-ice-official-says/
Note the facts about arrest record, having been deported SIX times before, plus one voluntary return.
Not in the headline, though…
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Southern Poverty Law Center…. https://www.splcenter.org/news/2017/02/15/hate-groups-increase-second-consecutive-year-trump-electrifies-radical-right
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Ms. Lubic, show me ONE SINGLE EMAIL where I used “venom.”
I really don’t care what you do – I care about how you approach people who have a different viewpoint than yours on this list. You may be teacher of the year nation-wide, but from what I read in your responses I know I would not trust you with my children.
The insults you spew at those who disagree with you will show up in how you deal with kids who might question you on issues.
I am not a trump supporter. I am a Republican. I have my own battles to fight with fellow Republicans, and do so on a regular basis. But none of them use the language you use in those conversations.
I would suggest that you pay attention to a smart thought, “Question a man’s judgment, not his motives” – Democratic Senate majority Leader Mike Mansfield.
You make constant personal attacks on those who disagree with you. I have no problem with you disagreeing with my opinion. But the venom coming out of your pen is unwarranted.
As an educator, surely you are familiar with the following (partial) definition, “Bullying can take on many forms. As part of the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire, students are asked if they have been bullied in any of these nine ways:
Verbal bullying including derogatory comments and bad names…”
Show me ONE SINGLE email where I included derogatory comments and bad names. I may be a bit sarcastic from time to time, but have NEVER devalued someones opinion, nor have I ever used bad names for anyone.
I have asked people if they knew how to read – as a response to a post that totally ignored what was written, repeatedly.
You accuse me of using false information. Prove it! I sent you the source showing how your information re LA was skewed. You accepted the word of ONE side of the story, without looking or even accepting the ICE comments: “The numbers are greatly exaggerated…” I do not doubt that SOME people are picked up who should not have – and those are released the moment they can show there was a mistake.
But if you are in the country illegally, you are in the country, well, illegally. And that is still against the law.
I am an immigrant. And proud of it.
I became a citizen. And proudly so.
I am a Republican. And currently ashamed.
I, too, am a bearer of degrees. I too, am a parent and grandparent. 75% of my family works in education. I have worked in the U.S. educational system for the past 20 years.
I taught teachers on a regular basis.
So I am not talking about education and what is happening as an outsider to education.
And yes, I AM anti union, but that has nothing to do with being a Republican. I was anti-union before I moved to this country. I have witnessed the damage unions can cause, and i see it happening here. No matter which industry, unions abuse their power.
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Rudy,
Without unions, working people are screwed. The unions built the middle class.
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The unions also destroyed businesses, Dianne. The unions also destroyed lives of their members because of that.
Local example: Wage demands were made to a local company. They were unrealistic. Negotiations back and forth. Union started talking strike. Company closed out the union members.
By closing them out, the union members qualified for unemployment rather than strike pay. The talks went on. The union leadership refused to take proposals to the members for votes. After 3 years, over 300 people had no job.
Local example: School district across the river. Discussions about pay have been on-going for a year, but due to the fact that the State has not had a budget for almost 2 years, there was a serious funding issue for the District. Teachers demanded an increase in salary. Took a strike vote. Now there is an agreement – but at the cost of jobs. BTW, I never did understand how strikes by teachers are defended by saying, “We are doing it for the kids…” Utter nonsense! No child benefits from strikes (Nor the increase in pay for teachers, for that matter).
Not so local example: Shipyards in Rotterdam were losing work because of South Korea, Japan, China doing the work cheaper. Government was expected to subsidize the yards out of tax funds (Unions invest their dues, but not a single union involved volunteered to invest in said shipyards!!).
Wage demands became too much. Three yards closed – hundreds of people without jobs.
Tell me again why I should be excited about unions…
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Rudy,
I assume there are no unions in The Netherlands.
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Why would you assume that? I made it clear I was against unions before I moved here. I shared an example of Rotterdam. Which used to be in the Netherlands when I left there. Did it move??
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Rudy,
You are a bitter, angry man who has a brain but not a soul. I’m not insulting you. I’m telling you how you come across in print.
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I am neither angry nor bitter. I don’t like unions. If that makes me angry or bitter, I really have a bad life.
I don’t believe in bitterness. Ruins the life of the bitter person. Anger? I am angry sometimes, but at specific things – when I see and hear and read people abusing reality, such as “Flynn is a traitor.” “Clinton lost because of Russia.” “trump wrote an unconstitutional Executive order.”
None of those things are true – but yet, you state them as “Facts.”
That is what makes me angry. When lines like that are spread and people don’t take the time to research the facts. You are bringing to idea of factoids to a new height.
Sometimes I am angry because people deliberately distort what others (not just my notes, but from others as well, especially when it is someone who disagrees with you) write.
You claimed, for example, that I said Hitler did nothing wrong. That is a statement that defies belief. NOTHING I said ever came even close – it is a deliberate distortion. I made it clear beyond any doubt that according to GERMAN law Hitler did nothing wrong. That is an historical fact. The Nuremberg Justices knew that.
That is the kind of thing that angers me, and yes, i will react strongly. Unlike you, though, I have never called you any names or insulted you as a person.
And, interestingly enough, I am not the only one who is upset with such behavior on this list.
I respect you as a person. Reading one of your books, actually. But that does not mean that every word from your mouth/pen is therefor infallible.
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I don’t claim infallibility.
I publicly said I was wrong about testing and choice.
Have you ever admitted you were wrong, Rudy? Mr. Infallible.
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Yep, lots of times – ask my friends, co workers, fellow church members etc. I even admit frequently that there is stuff I do not know.
But I take the time to find answers…
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Perhaps you need to study the development of unions in this country. All we have to do is look around the world and see which countries have well paid work forces whose contribution to the economy is adequately compensated. If employers are so darn benevolent, we would not have the huge wealth gap, because businesses would be putting their money back into their work force. The system here is broke, Rudy, and while unions have been known to do stupid and corrupt things, they are not the ones who are hoarding the wealth of the country. I think the group you may be championing are the smaller companies who get caught in the middle. The tax advantages are not available to them and no one is investing big bucks in their growth. Big business isn’t thinking about them other than to take their business. Big banks aren’t thinking about them. Wall Street ignores them. I know what it is to be part of a small business where valued employees make as much as the owners with none of the risk or the hours required to keep the business afloat. I also know the importance of union protection as organizations get bigger, where employees become faceless and easy to use. Unions are a failure of management. They never would have arisen if workers were fairly treated.
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Ellen, I did not attack you once. It’s funny how you passed over my background. I am not an “elitist” by any measure. I have worked hard for every single thing I have and pushed my way up through a male dominated industry to be one of the top acknowledged females after 29 long hard years. I do not have a college education, only one year of community, as we could not afford it. I am just a Mom who wants my children protected and to be afforded the same public education I had growing up. By the way, Kellyanne Conway was one of 5 and her first job was picking blueberries in the fields in NJ. I know you don’t want to hear that, nor do you care.
Yes… thank God for the 1st Amendment that I can tell Diane how I feel about her, and NPE, and that she allowed my initial post on the blog. The bottom line is I do have a great respect for her, as I stated initially, and felt that efforts to educate, no matter how much everyone hates Trump, would have been better than what has transpired on this blog. It got so ugly that Steven Singer’s wonderful “find of a place where he, and everyone else, could fake Trump tweets” was shameful and ridiculous. That does not help our children, teachers or schools.
I have been here for a very long time, albeit under another name as I have been attacked more than once with phone calls and hate mail to my home. How is THAT for tolerance.
When I see one post like LG’s, I know some of the lurkers, who are too scared to post on this blog because of attacks, will see there are others that are trying to call for unity in this fight… regardless of where they stand politically.
Thank you, Ellen. I may not agree with you politically but thank you, on behalf of my own children and their teachers, for everything you have done in this fight.
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Emily: The largest coalition ever in education was for Chapter I (It was called Title I at that point). There was also a coalition build around P.L. 94-142 … These coalitions are hard to build; both of these coalitions have been broken now and building a new one is going to be difficult. There is a different ideology that persists that says that success is money and it only resides in the corporations. That is a different ball game and a different set of values. Do I subscribe to that , NO. But in order to build a coalition some of the very petty attacks will need to be dropped — the resentments , the jealousy of those who appear in leadership (and especially the hatred towards women that assume any kind of leadership positions). These are deep rooted , like racism, and they stand in the way of our working on the important agenda items. Best place to work on them is the local community, school board, City Council, mayoral elections , state reps. Can we build a new coalition like the Title I or the Special Ed? The future will tell us if we are capable of that.
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When opposing parties treat each other with respect and show a willingness to compromise, all things are possible. But look, and listen – all around that ability is getting more and more rare.
We tend to identify one’s judgments with motives (You don’t want to vote for Hillary, so you must hate her… is but one example, where we seem to have lost the willingness to accept that maybe, just maybe, there are honest, heartfelt, well thought through reasons which have nothing to do with her gender).
It’s like Schlafly’s “All Democrats are abortionists” statement during a Republican convention some years ago. Some of my best friends are Democrats, and are of the same opinion as I am about abortion.
So, again, rather than name calling and unkind language, let’s see what we can agree on, and work from that perspective, accepting the fact that some are Republicans, some are Democrats, others are…
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Emily, HUH?
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Dr. Siu-Runyan… which part did you not understand? I may not have your credentials but I do speak the English language quite well.
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Emily: this is your imagination….. “We believe you thought Hillary had it in the bag and you were vying for Sec of Ed job. ” you are projecting your own opinions onto other people.
I am of the cohort of Dr. Ravitch and my colleagues are 78 and 80 and 84 and we are not out looking to get appointed to anything at this stage of the game. We have been helping kids , parents and teachers all of our lives and if you do not see that or understand what we are doing then I feel badly you have not gotten that perspective or that message.
It is NOT up to us to educate the “transition ” team . I attend League of Women Voters which is non-partisan and we work in my state as a League. That does not mean that I can form a “league” with you on every issue that you desire. And, please don’t accuse the group of us who speak out on the issues as being “dividers” — that is what the republicans did to Obama — blaming him for the racism and saying he caused it (the divisions) when there was obstruction from day 1 in McConnell’s camp (the same night of the inauguration). Yes, it is a serious divide and there are many issues where we probably won’t agree (I don’t even know what state you live in) but i don’t think it helps to attack the leadership of the people attempting to resist policies that we know are harmful to students . The harm is coming from the Ed Commissioner in my state and the Governor ; and that is where the energy should be placed because education is vastly underfunded and we are not able to provide programs and services for all of the students when they siphon off money for charters or vouchers.
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Because federal education policy ties in with the President’s behavior, keep talking about both.
With the previous two Presidents, that wasn’t quite as obvious. But President Obama was sponsored by billionaire Penny Pritzker and very smug about his support for bogus reform. Bush was nominated partly due to his bragging about the nonexistent “Texas Miracle,” resulting in NCLB. So yes, the President’s overall attitude is relevant to education.
You might consider consolidating some of the outrages. Maybe do a digest-style post in the morning or afternoon. Then supplement with truly mind boggling breaking stories as needed.
Also, more success stories from public schools in urban or rural areas would be welcome. Many so-called failing schools are actually successful.
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You should continue to speak on both. They are too closely linked to speak on one alone.
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Continue to with the informative political posts. Take care that the post and commentary is based on accurate information and always take the high ground with criticism and opposing viewpoints. We have to be careful not to become what we dislike the most.
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Please continue your postings. It becomes a matter of historical record that there were people who did not remain silent in the face of these events.
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Please comment on both. The educational and political issues that we face today are deeply disturbing, as well as historically important and relevant. I respect your opinion greatly. Your contribution to the conversation is significant!
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Please try to stay with education as much as possible. Thank you.
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“Both… and…!” Public education and the world within which we are (I hope) learning and teaching. Your own words and insights… and links to others. Your eloquent voice… and other angry, resourceful, varied choirs of diverse voices. Now… more than ever…! Thank you!
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All of these issues are tied together, and in any case educated people don’t behave the way Donald Trump and his coterie do. Posts about Trump are posts about the sad state of public intelligence in our nation, and those are relevant to education.
Keep doing what you’re doing!
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I’d prefer more education focus. For example, if Dept. of Ed is dissolved, what does that mean for us? The raw commentary on Trump is everywhere, you do not need to repeat it.
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Talk on both.
Sent from my iPhone
>
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You are the voice of logic and you speak from a place of truth and honesty. Your blog entries help us all stay in touch with education and history. You are an experienced champion for children of all ages as well as educators of all subjects. Please keep the entries as political and timely as ever. Thank you.
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Public education is a government operation. You cannot discuss one without the other. If the government were to drop out of education, your choice would be already made.
Government needs to be held under a microscope, and not be permitted to operate without direct public scrutiny. Keep hammering away.
“Government is like fire, a dangerous servant, and a terrible master” – George Washington.
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Public education and politics are inseparable. Just as any discussion of education policy necessarily involves finance. Trump presents us a rare opportunity to coalesce around a long list of progressive issues.
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Now it the time for all of us to speak up. I love that your blog speaks to both the educational issues as well as the national crisis that is Trump.
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I completely respect and appreciate your opinion and perspective on matters of education and politics. Keep it coming!
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More on education, please. I have been deleting so many of your posts and was going to stop following you altogether as you had stopped writing about education.
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Dear Diane,
Everything is connected. Classroom teachers, special area teachers all teach under the banner of democracy. Everything Donald Trump is doing has an impact on what we teach, how we teach it, and the future of our democracy. When this election went down, I told my political scientist partner I would donate to investigative reporters who will do the work that needs to be done to unseat this man. You, as it turns out are great a linking your readers to such reporters. Please keep doing it! The fact that Senator Gillibrand did not even have education on a list of concerns on her survey means we need to keep paying attention to taking political action.
Thank you, Gracias, Merci, and in Ju/’hoansi, mi hui a.
Melissa
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Actually, after your paraglide video on the 11th, I’m expecting to see you delve more into athletics and travel, as you seem to have irrepressible energy and ideas.
Seriously, I’m in favor of your sharing your thoughts, wherever they go, but my concern is partly personal (as in ‘for you’) and partly strategic. On the first, I don’t think it’s possible to engage intensively with the insanity that enshrouds us without it taking a physical toll. So be mindful. On the second, the danger in becoming too immersed in Trumpian specifics is that it’s not unimaginable that he might not last a full term, in which case, the underlying education agenda, which, in fact, has very little to do with him, might actually get a ‘bump’, simply because it has been untethered from the clown show, to which our attention has been diverted. In the interval between a cathartic sigh of relief and remembering that the fight continues, much damage could still take place.
One approach might be to link more to sources that you think are insightful and reliable, and save more of your personal analytics more specifically for education, and athletics.
Thanks.
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Thanks, David. What next? Not a marathon, my knees are bad. Hang gliding? Too scary! I will keep thinking.
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It’s your blog. You’re not on anyone’s payroll or bound by any organization’s conditions. It’s your call.
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Education. There are enough people attacking Trump. Let’s talk about ways to improve the system.
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Diane does not attack Trump she continues to SHINE A LIGHT on what he does, because character defines destiny… and he is creating our destiny by his words and actions. We cannot normalize him. Everything he says must be scrutiniized. This isn’t normal https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/isnt-normal
EVERYTHING HE SAYS AFFECTS EDUCATION AND US and he must be scrutinized and challenged. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxd61lQJyPU&t=9s
It is embarrassing at the lest!
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-embarrassment-of-president-trump?mbid=nl_170214_Daily&CNDID=45272181&spMailingID=10432913&spUserID=MTgwNzgwOTcyMzEyS0&spJobID=1101168427&spReportId=MTEwMTE2ODQyNwS2
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There are never enough people “attacking” Trump, who has probably committed treason among a multitude of other indictable offenses. Any educator who does not see the amazing opportunity this whole dangerous situation has brought to bear, as a teachable moment, is not a true educator IMO. Every level of student, from K – 12 on, can be educated on their own level about totalitarian leaders and how they affect society.
I am not the Ellen above who seems not to understand that we can only “improve the (public school) sytem” by improving how our government is run. .I am Ellen Lubic who has written here almost since Diane started her blog.
And I apologize some days ago for quoting the Hatch Act when I meant the Logan Act in regard to Flynn if anyone, particularly friends Duane or FLERP picked up on that.
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Both
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Keep on exposing the Trump lies like when he destroyed the many NJ subcontractors who “Believed Him”…He screwed them all and than had the nerve to say to the news media that he took millions out of Atlantic City. There has never been a white house administration as incompetent as the current Trump one. We need fact checkers like you to keep reporting the truth and not the alternative facts put forth by the brain dead Conway..
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Please continue as you have been. Public Education is inextricably tied to politics, culture, and democracy, and as you say, we are indeed in strange and challenging times. Love what you do – keep on keepin’ on!
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Please continue with the Trump agenda! I have learned so much from what you have shared with us and have become an activists.
Thank you
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You can’t separate the two. Keep up what you are doing.
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At this point, I don’t think it can be separated.
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Hi Diane,
The two are intertwined. ..I know I can trust you as a reliable source. ….people have to be informed. Keep up the good work!
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From a quick review while preparing and having breakfast:
In the first 15 days of February 2016 there were 106 posts about education, 17 about political posts that did not deal with education and 2 “other” like posting a Valentine’s greeting.
In the first 15 days of February 2017 there were 64 posts dealing with education, 68 about the political realm that did not deal with education and 10 other posts.
These are rough categories and in Feb 17, about 50 posts were devoted to DeVos, some I put in the political realm and others I put in the education realm depending upon what was being said.
I know quite a few number of former regular insightful posters who have either quit posting and/or seriously curtailed their activity specifically due to the the number of political postings that have nothing to do with education.
What makes this blog unique is not only the originator (amazing amounts of energy she has!-mil gracias, Diane) but also the many posters who intelligently discuss “a better education for all”. Unfortunately, at the current moment have lost quite a number of those posters due to the non-education related postings (see figures above).
I vote for almost exclusive education related posts as it was before the election season last year.
I can get all the political information anywhere anytime, but I can’t get the type of education news and happenings as was the case here, and hopefully will be again.
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I post my comments here because Señor Swacker, no surprise, has put the question[s] in a bit more of a specific context.
With numbers no less!
😏
Many thanks/mil gracias/domo arigatoo gozaimasu.
I too am in favor of a clear and noticeable tilt toward education issues—I wouldn’t go quite so far as “almost exclusive education related posts”—because a number of commenters have rightfully pointed out that the owner of this blog doesn’t have to do all the heavy lifting by herself. And when it comes to public education and closely related issues, sometimes she is in a class—a most worthy one—by herself…
Again, the current administration has created a vast army, official and unofficial, of those that are separating the reality and rheeality of Trump & Co. There is no need to duplicate the efforts of so many others.
Yet if I may riff off of Señor Swacker’s past admonitions a bit—and he acknowledges the same in the comments above—one cannot neatly divide many of this blog’s recent postings into tight mutually exclusive categories.
Therein lies the conundrum. How to separate reporting on the doings of Betsy DeVos, let’s say, from the doings of her boss—where does one begin and the other end?
So let me propose the following flimsy suggestion regarding proportion. Let’s say that 2 of 3, or 3 of 4, or 4 of 5, postings a day are on a clearly education-related topic. The other is on whatever other subject the owner of this blog cares to bring up. Others may opt for 2 or 4, or 3 of 5— come right up, pick your numbers! And the proportion can occasionally vary. But the idea is to make the choice of topics re blog postings a little more conscious and manageable for the person doing the work. *Remember: unlike Michelle Rhee not so long ago and some many other rheephormsters with paid staffs, the owner of this blog does it herself [with occasional help from others], without remuneration or expectation of same.
Again, there could be days that are exceptions. But for those that think that their favorite political topics will be ignored or forgotten, I remind one and all that there are these new fangled things called the internet and websites and online blogs and blog postings. The latter typically have a feature aka “a thread” which allows those reading the posting to ADD THEIR OWN COMMENTS.
For example, let me include this unrelated but wonderful opinion piece by LATIMES reporter Steve Lopez called “Why this gay, disabled Texan went to Washington tell Trump: ‘Mock me to my face’”—
Link: http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-disabled-trump-20170215-story.html
Read and be inspired.
So with all due respect to so many that post comments here…I just bought up something that was seemingly unrelated to this blog posting but, I think, makes my point that everyone can still get in a word edgewise even when supposedly off topic.
I speak from the heart here but a last reminder: this website wouldn’t exist without a certain person’s selfless devotion to a “better education for all.” But take away the threads, take away the comments of so many different people—and it’s the proverbial forest with trees falling but no one to hear the noise. Let’s not forget the importance of the audience and participation. And that audience will make sure that few important (or hilariously funny if painful) issues don’t get missed.
Deep appreciation and thanks for all those that have chimed in with their thoughts and opinions.
As for my ruminations…
As someone on this blog once pointed out, my moniker is most appropriate.
Krazy. TA. What do I know?
😎
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To answer your last question: More than most! Nah, make that the vast majority!!
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If, in the last 40, years, all teachers had an active blog that continued to show the relationship between (1) their political ground and life, and (2) their field of education, we wouldn’t be in the place we are in today, I am convinced.
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Very good observation! Writing as one who is no longer in professionally in education but very politically aware, I didn’t really understand what was going on in the Bush and Obama administrations until I read Diane’s books. That’s what drew me here. Educators talked among themselves about the destructive policies, but didn’t draw people like me in to speak for them until it was too late. Conversely, I have exposed a lot of people to this blog who are also not in education; who blindly supported President Obama and wouldn’t hear of it that he was destroying public education. Many of them are converts now and also wish they had known more earlier. It goes both ways. Public educators need allies, not a forum to kvetch among themselves. This blog is essential to do that. That’s why I’m a broken record that those who are on this blog need to be vocal with their neighbors, friends and family about the threats to public education.
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You have written what was in my brain!
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Big ditto to Catherine and Greg. Well stated.
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I’m with Catherine. How many of us spent years going in our classrooms and closing our doors because there was nowhere for our voices to be heard? It didn’t matter whether it was education or politics, the teacher voice has been too often absent or ignored.
Having said that, I have missed the educational focus, but I think it would be a mistake to lose the broader political discussion. I have no idea whether post titles have been ambiguous or not, but perhaps those which lean to an educational focus could be clearly titled as such. I would guess that that is already the case; if so, why people just don’t not open a suspect post is beyond me.
It is a bit difficult to focus on pure educational topics right now, but it seems to me the blog has never done so. The blog has developed around what deformsters have been trying to do to public education. The larger political reality of the past election led to divisions among people who had up until then pretty much been able to find enough common ground to carry on a civil discourse. At this point, I really don’t care how people voted although with each passing day I find it harder and harder to understand why anyone would think Trump is good for this country. I do find it troubling that people of similar political persuasion are still cursing at each other over who is to blame for Hillary’s loss and the sorry state of the Democratic party. Every day brings more disturbing news that we had better not ignore.
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Not an easy question taking into account that education is embedded in a wider framework; establishing boundaries is complicate.
But I tend to agree with other people that suggest a bigger porcentage of your comments focused on educational policies and a smaller one in general Trump reality (horror) show.
If you are willing to report every crazy action and speech of him you are ending up doing just that and compromising the main goal of this webpage which is education, I think that if you keep on this wider track, as time goes by, you´ll loose your identity and become a Trump stalker which will lead you to a very depressive routine.
So, if I were in your shoes I´d try to filter the “Trump subject” and focus my energy discussing not just the bad policies, but most important, suggest other ones, mapping different and positive policies that could be adopted, etc. I guess many people support bad policies because they don´t know there are better ones that are both feasible and effective.
In dark times is always better to light a candle than complain about the darkness.
Thanks for creating this open space of discussion and information.
Best
Filomena
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Personally, I think you should limit the Trump administration news. In general there are too many Trump scandals every day, and we can get it from other sources. If you could limit the Trump news unrelated to education to one story per day that would be good for me. Please focus on education issues — & the Trump stories that relate to education like the White House roundtable on education with DeVos. thanks L.
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Comment on all issues you care to
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I agree. The two issues can’t be separated. I hope you’ll continue exposing the dangerous follies of the Trump administration. Thanks for defending our democracy and our public education system!
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Please, please, please! Continue to do what you do. When Diane is asked to limit her speech to education, and not to comment, that is asking her, as a citizen to be silent. Those asking may not mean that- they may be fed up with being inundated with information as to the craziness in this administration and simply be on overload. But if we ask our friends, famil, and colleagues to be silent, we are making tyranny easier for the tyrant and doing his job for him.
We all have a choice what and whether to read (or consume). When it gets to be too much, or if you have other sources, then use them! Go the Diane for the education information! But please don’t ask her to be silent for the rest of us. We need her reasoned voice now more than ever.
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Am retired professional educator of 20 years. Am avid follower of your work for some time. As you pointed out, education is essential to help students become informed citizens who may participate in their government. Keep fighting for the educational rights of students, and any politician who may endanger that right. (Other personal political venting might be put on social media.)
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You already know how I feel, but i will state it gain here, because you asked,
This IS UNPRECEDENTED, and this means that the knowledge of events is crucial.
Moreover, with the media being slanted by the owners, the billionaire class, we must be vigilant.
The newspapers DO NOT OFFER THE REALITY.
Read this, about THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/the-struggle-inside-the-wall-street-journal.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20170214&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=2&nlid=50637717&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0
See my next comment for a comment about the writing of this article.
MY son, ‘the doctor’ reads that each day, and I wonder when i talk to him, why he is so ignorant about Trump and the insanity of his administration.
SITES LIKE THIS, where a brilliant and powerful voice of a person whois connected so widely to what is ongoing across the nation is a GIFT!
“EDUCATION” is SO MUCH MORE than what is happening in the ‘schools.’
If an authoritarian ‘regime’ hijacks the nation, it will be voices like that of Diane Ravitch that offers the Real world, the OBSERVABLE REALITY i.e. TRUTH.
Those of you who are not interested in the ‘politics’ that underlay the ‘policies’ which affect our lives and our schools, can skip those, instead of trying to dictate what Diane should post.
And to you, dear Diane, JUST DO WHAT YOU ARE DOING…providing the REAL information/facts/ stories, and even a bit of humor to help us digest the tragedy that is befalling our democracy.
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I appreciate your PRIMARY focus on education, with a side of “everything else” thrown in, because, as others have noted, it can’t all be separated. That said, I’m feeling a new kind of calm that I haven’t felt for a long, long time. Yes, we’re still in for a long, hard fight but it does feel like the tide is starting to shift to what is just and right. “He” will fight to the end – that, we know – but the evidence is mounting exponentially. It will get messier and uglier, and while we’re fighting for information, other very important work will get lost in the shuffle. But here’s the thing: we will prevail. America IS great! And we won’t let 45 take us down. Keep on fighting, warriors! EDUCATION is paramount.
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Diane, I value your political posts, but am really more focused on the educational posts. There are many outlets for political discourse, but educational issues are generally covered less and not as comprehensively.
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Keep doing what you are doing! Educational issues cannot be discussed in isolation but must be addressed in the context of our daily lives. The politics of education, social justice, and poverty cannot be extricated from each other,
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Speak out on issues of national significance as well as education…Harry Seltzer PS. I am an avid reader of your blogs on a daily basis.
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I have found myself letting off steam about 45 for the sake of my own mental health. Nothing wrong with that, it is your blog. As things begin to settle down and there are fewer daily outrages, the focus will return to education, so just keep doing what you are doing. Your perspectives on non-education issues as a former Washington insider can sometimes be valuable. If anyone does not like or disagrees with the posts about 45, there is a simple remedy-don’t read them.
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What is “45”?
Certainly not the malt liquor.
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Donald is the 45th president of the USA.
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Ah, thanks. Might as well be Colt 45 then. At least one can get a quick buzz off of it.
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I respect your information and opinions on both….as long as your invaluable information on education doesn’t suffer : )
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Education is not isolated from all the current machinations in Washington, all interrelated. e.g. Sessions on equality, FCC blocking discounted broadband and net neutrality, the list is becoming longer. My concern is all the noise will drown out stuff slipped through Congress.
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It’s all interconnected…use your judgment (and bite your tongue) to keep the focus on developments that are most directly related to education/schools…especially keep an eagle eye and an owl’s ear trained on what DeVos is up to inside the DoE. She likes to fly below the radar until ready to pounce.
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PRINTED From AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER BYDavid Leonhardt
Op-Ed Columnist is testimony to why the things we learn HERE, are so valuable!
“For much of American history, newspapers have had a proudly ideological bent. That’s why there are still papers with names like the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Republican-American, in Connecticut.
But journalism changed in the early 20th century. Reporters began to see themselves as professional fact-gatherers rather than as partisan warriors. Publishers realized they were better off appealing to the maximum number of readers, rather than carving out a niche.
So newspapers started striving for non-ideological objectivity (even if, as every reader knows, they don’t always achieve it), and they ceded ideological argument to the opinion pages.
Newspapers in other countries, however, have taken a different approach. Many of them embrace ideology, in both their news and opinion sections.
Rupert Murdoch, an Australian who achieved fame in Britain, comes from this tradition. His media properties tend to advance conservative causes. But after buying
The Wall Street Journal a decade ago, Murdoch vowed to maintain the existing standards of its newsroom.
My column today
examines the anxiety among many Journal staff members who think Murdoch isn’t keeping his word on that score. I think they are right to be worried.
For anyone interested in more journalistic history, I recommend “Discovering the News,” by Michael Schudson,https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/the-struggle-inside-the-wall-street-journal.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20170214&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=2&nlid=50637717&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0
and “Covering America,” by Christopher Daly. http://www.umass.edu/umpress/title/covering-america
The full Opinion report from The Times follows, including Wendy Palen on science in the age of Trump. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/when-canadian-scientists-were-muzzled-by-their-government.html?emc=edit_ty_20170214&nl=opinion-today&nlid=50637717&te=1
David Leonhardt
Op-Ed Columnist
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Do not stop! You have become a fair & invaluable news & thought source. Today especially, everything is connected. Thank you for all of your past work & future efforts.
Sent from my iPhone
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Please keep posting on both national affairs and education. I know when I read you post it’s not full of alternative facts….. we need your voice!
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Diane,
It seems to me education – that is, quality public education rooted in democratic principles and practice – and issues of national significance are interdependent.
So, to embrace the two matters being interdependent and therefor resolve – or rather perhaps dissolve – your dilemma hinges on answering these questions (my answers in parenthesis):
What might we expect our country to get from less education?
(More issues of national significance.)
What might we expect our country to get from more issues of national significance?
(Greater education.)
What might we expect our country to get from greater education?
(Fewer issues of national significance.)
What might we expect our country to get from fewer issues of national significance?
(Less education.)
Now back to the first question.
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This is your blog. You should do what you want. If somebody isn’t interested in one of your posts, regardless of the topic, they can choose to delete the email
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Please keep speaking out. You are doing important work.
Sent from my iPhone
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I’m sure once Betsy Devos gtes her formal marching orders there will be more than enough in education alone to focus on. But as one reader said the national situation and education can’t be separated so might I suggest a Trump Tuesday for posting about the Donald (TOTO, Trump on Tuesday only).
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The two cannot, nor should they, be seperated.
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Keep up the good fight of integrity and justice. Confront injustice at all levels, from the Fed to the County, from the Presidency to the principal. Our public schools deserve nothing less; so, fight, but fight fairly and with integrity. Don’t let the opponents drag you down to their level
There is a proverb that says “answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him. But, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceits”. Translate: 1) answer not according to the character of the fool and use the same mean-spirited rhetoric, lest you are guilty of the same bad examples 2) answer the fool according to the content of their message and refute it, lest they think they are the one who is right.
Thanks Diane for your service to our Nation, schools and students (and teachers)!!!!
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This is a big problem with education today: Too many people feel that it is separate from politics. That is their folly. I, for one, am tired of trying to explain to my fellow teachers that they need to pay attention to what goes on in politics lest they have to suffer for the legislation that affects their daily lives and that of their students.
You have insights as a political scientist that most of us do not. Please continue to offer posts as a citizen and scholar. The other benefit is in the discussion that follows each post. Your community of readers is very well-versed.
The bottom line is those who want to read, will. Those who do not can suffer their own consequences for not listening to your seasoned, credentialed and astute commentary. For those who don’t want it and feel they should stop reading, it is both their choice and their loss.
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Please continue both – educational and political– as we are learning from both.
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Continue exposing injustice wherever it may be.. I have saved all of your blogs
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Oh please continue to do both. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your straight forward reporting on all the issues currently causing such turmoil in our country — good public education will help our children in future situations but we need you now to just share all the news without fluff or alternative facts. I trust you — please continue.
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Please continue as you have–addressing the issues of our day. Yes, education is the main topic, but education is unfortunately tied to this bizarre demagogue.
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Diane, I have almost quit reading your excellent columns on education, which is your area of expertise. PLEASE continue educating all of us and trying to steer the country in the best public education methods possible, and leave the current president some time to learn all the routines all new presidents must learn. Those of us who didn’t vote for the previous president, still hoped for the best and gave him some time to adjust. Even then, when many of his policies & decisions were considered inappropriate and contrary to our beliefs, we didn’t blog negativity, storm the streets, destroy property or try to make it impossible for him to govern. There is much going on in the world we should be paying attention to, and letting our elected president staff his cabinet and get to work on our behalf. Blog away on education only!
With all respect, your long-time reader, Mary K. in Slidell, Louisiana.
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Mary,
I criticized Obama and Duncan and King when I disagreed with them, which was often.
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Mary et al….I am firmly on the side of Diane posting all news and views.
How can you separate Betsy DeVos and Trump education policy from the EPA and actual life saving regulations that keep children from eating and drinking lead filled products? How can you keep hidden Health and Human Services which rules on public housing and Medicaid for most of America’s public school children? How can you assume the SCOTUS selection is unimportant to education with their many court cases that directly affect the lives our students and their parents…and their teachers?
Too often here, I find shockingly ill informed and disinterested teachers in the area of public policy and civics. Teachers who do not even understand our three part system. And of course, there are some few who support Trump. My personal bias is that anyone ignorant of these issues should NOT be in a classroom and influencing young minds, nor getting paid by public funding.
I have been a multi degreed educator for over 45 years (trained at and still teaching at one of the best public universities in the nation) and am still at it (Duane, just validating my opinion).
Diane…please keep this avenue for sharing information open to both politics and education since they are Siamese twins and share the same heart and brain..
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continue to speak out
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I’m ambivalent. I get so much info on Trump through Facebook and other sites that I don’t really need to see it here too. On the other hand, I think that you are a good curator of the mass of political information out there and I appreciate the comments you make about political posts. I also think adding your voice to the chorus of opposition to Trump gives strength to the movement. I think if I were you I would be doing exactly the same thing. I vote for a little less but not none.
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And one last thing, because I believe that the most wonderful thing that happens here is THE CONVERSATION… here is a piece by my favorite satirist, Gail Collins, about conversation, in which she and Benjamin Domenech ( the publisher of The Federalist)
have an illuminating but amusing conversation about what the heck is happening now that THERE ARE “NO MORE RULES!”
and, dear friends, colleagues and readers here at the amazing Ravitch Blog, IF THERE ARE NO MORE RULES, then we get SWEET BETSY DEVOS. Watching what the rule makers and the rule-destroyers do is CRUCIAL.
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I forgot to put in the link to Gail collins and the conversation about Trump, which CONNECTS to EDUCATION, and reminds me of WHY, the way that Diane gives us the big picture o the insanity is crucial!
We cannot let anyone NORMALIZE TRUMP, by saying stick to education.
This is not NORMAL https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/isnt-normal
As Oberman says..we must not let anything he says remain on the floor. HE IS NOT RUNNING FOR OFFICE.
HE IS THE PRESIDENT OF OUR NATION, and everything he does affects our kids!
Never Normalize: Why Trump’s Presidency Is Illegitimate and How to Respond | Portside
http://portside.org/2016-12-31/never-normalize-why-trump’s-presidency-illegitimate-and-how-respond
YOUR voice makes normalization impossible., Diane,
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I taught at Wisconsin in the School of Educations, Department of Educational Policy Studies, a while back. The course I taught was titled: Schools and Society. I made it clear then and will be in a book I’m writing now with the same title, that schools and society cannot be separated. It’s like fish in water.
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Exactly right, Emanuel. Dewey wrote about Schools and Society in 1900. He was right then and right now. The two are inseparable.
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Thanks – and that is why Dewey was first on the reading lists for the “Schools and Society” and “Radical School Reform”
classes I taught at UW-Madison.
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Stay the course. Rather than just discussing education, you ARE education. I was always oriented in the same direction politically, but your posts and the excellent commentary here lit a fire in me. One day, I hope we have the luxury of genteelly debating purely education-oriented topics. Carry on.
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Please count me as, ‘what Kathy said’. To expound on “One day, I hope we have the luxury of genteelly debating purely education-oriented topics”… We have had many such genteel debates over the last few years, & no doubt will have many more.
But despite my enthusiastic participation, I have always felt an unpleasant undertow– the feeling of what does it matter what we say here, when our ability to put these concepts into the classroom is being drained away as we speak by top-down fed&state-ed-dept mandates based on the ideologies of moneyed lobbyists, campaign-coffer-stuffers, & even govrs/legislators w/winked-at conflict of interest! All of it undermining the democratic voice of parents and other taxpayers.
Restraining & undermining democracy is what we have been seeing on the political scene for yrs, now in spades since Jan 21. Public action at grass-roots level on many fronts is the only way to turn it around. Public education cannot exist without it. Your honest, incisive, knowledge-based reactions to every infringement on democracy give me hope and inspiration that we may claw back ground lost in the classroom.
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Diane, I find your posts and links most informative and can make the connection to the common goal of increasing literacy for all. Keep it up Diane Tellefsen
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Since everything affects education, continue commenting on everything. It matters!
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Ok, so it wasn’t my last comment, because this is so important.
Let me show you HOW news about education is connected. Here is an article about that egotist Flynn, called “Flynn Is Exactly What Trump Deserves”
One would imagine that an article about Flynn has nothing to do with EDUCATION… until Frank Bruni who wrote it CONNECTS the insanity that gave us a critter like Flynn, also gave us DeVos:
“Where was the vetting — or, more to the point, the preparation — of Betsy DeVos, our new education secretary, who waltzed into her confirmation hearing and theorized that the greatest pedagogical threat to America’s schoolchildren was toothy, furry and fond of salmon.”
So, Diane, I trust YOU, who once worked up ‘there’ in the administration as ‘ass’t secy of ed’ to chose what we should SEE IS AFOOT.
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A lovely connection. Thank you.
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Please keep posting about both issues. Your insights are valuable.
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Please continue to post on events. As an educator I feel it is important to be well- informed. Thank you.
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As long as education is mostly a government program it’s political. If educators only focus on teaching someone’s going to walk away with the funding.
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Diane, please continue to comment on issues of national significance, centered on education but not neglecting any topic that might affect the fate of our country. In a time of madness ascendant, all voices of reason are needed, loudly and urgently. Carry on…
Sent from my Samsung Phone.
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I think you should do both, until (hopefully) the political situation is improved. You do a great job, and I count on your posts to be well done.
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Diane, please keep up what you’ve been doing. The current overall political context can’t be separated from education. Constructive, meaningful education, as we’ve come to know it in America, can’t exist in the current climate. If your rose garden is dying because the soil is poisoned, would you need to ask whether you should replace the poisoned soil, as opposed to just continuing to dump more fertilizer on the roses?
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I find it hard to separate the two. Should I?
No.
What is happening to education is now happening to the whole country. And it is more obvious to people now that education is in danger in their community.
Thanks for all you do, Patricia Herrmann 1077 Creekside Drive Wheaton, IL 60189
Sent from my iPad
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Diane, if you have the energy, please keep posting on ALL the important issues! Thank you for steering us to clarity, background, and insight in these very unsettling times. I feel that without that, I’m just a little chick in a dark barrel being shaken up.
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I think you should stick to education and not dilute the message by including so much everyday “noise” from the White House. Part of their game is to keep everyone off balance by doing so much at once. There will be enough episodes on the education front to keep you busy. And, anyone who wants every detail on trump is welcome to read the NYT or the Washington Post. Do not fragment the importance of public education!
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Nancy…you obviously do not understand the danger of biased media sources such as media owned by a few billionaires such as is the Washington Post and the WSJ etc.
It is imperative for well informed people to read more widely. Diane’s blog gives us the opportunity to share a vast amount of info from many sources including Common Dreams, Truthdig, Truthout, AlterNet…and other online news and opinions. Without an overall reading, even of National Review and Weekly Standard, we cannot understand and ferret our the truth to be informed citizens and educators so as to have the ability to educate others.
Diane keeps us up to date on much local news about school boards, Common Core, etc., but she also gives us the opportunity to share our info broadly and discuss the merits or demerits of pertinent info. It is all part of the whole of true education.
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I think you should comment on education and how Trump issues relate to education. Many issues overlap and are interconnected so its hard to separate them.
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Please continue to speak to both! There is no wall between the policies of this administration and our and our children’s future. You are one of the best sources of real news in this “fake news” world. Thank you.
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I say keep it up, Diane. The resistance grows!
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I feel both issues cannot be separate. I continue to be horrified about the direction the country is headed. I fear for children on all fronts.
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Keep doing what you are doing Diane!!! Education is too tied to politics to separate the two! Excellent work
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Please, please continue. When I first began reading this blog, teachers felt alone and demoralized by billionaire “reformers” constantly attacking their worth as public education teachers. Your blog gave so many individual teachers connection and strength. Today, your blog continues as a place of support connection, and comfort as we watch similar ( and growing) horrific attacks on individual judges, reporters, and other brave individuals willing to courageously ask questions, and speak out boldly against injustice and dishonesty. Public education and Trump are absolutely connected.
It is in this living room I find sanity and civility in the madness. It is in this living room I find intelligence and real leadership….. first from you, fearless Diane, and then also from the comments of your many courageous readers. With leadership in short supply in Washington, we need every voice of leadership more than ever.
Your words and integrity are valuable at this time in history. Continue to be brave.
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YES !!!!!
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Yes yes and yes-
Sent from my iPhone
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It’s YOUR blog. Write about anything you’d like. I’ll read it. Thanks for all you do.
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I lean on the side of “both”, however please, please keep up the expert analysis on public schools….cannot get enough hard data in today’s environment.
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As you’ve said, we cannot improve education in isolation from broader struggles for equity, justice, and democracy. My vote is to keep focusing on education in detail but to also share writings, ideas, and actions that make the connections. We need to both resist Trump’s authoritarian, racist kleptocracy while advocating for what will improve the lives of all. Keep it up!
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Both, but with a bias toward the threat to privatization of one of the strongest democratic institutions, our public schools. I fear that Trump would love nothing more than to end this tradition so I see the two as interrelated. But… it is easy to get lost in the weeds of the daily shock therapy he is applying to the national discourse – which is his strategy.
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I am surprised that any teacher or supporter of public education could say a kind word about Republicans. The voucher/charter idea was their baby. They have spent 25 years demonizing teachers as the cause of education failure and ducking the fact the poverty is the real issue. Ds signed on to charters out of weakness. It became the “liberal” open-minded thing to do because they were presumably designed to help inner city poor kids. Now years later after charters have spread into nearly all school districts–rich or poor–we see that they are depleting our public school budgets to the point that it has become very damaging in many areas of the country especially where I live in Ohio. And there has been little to no improvement in educational outcomes. Teachers who want to see public education continue need to recognize that we are near a turning point, and that this is political!! So many states are under control of Rs, and they are starving public education of funds. Diane, I appreciate your view on both educational and political subjects. As you said, we are living in historic times. There are many parallels to the build-up to Watergate. Admittedly, it is hard to find the time to read every post so those who don’t want to read the political ones can just look at the headline and hit delete.
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Do both Your voice is needed. Thank you for who you are and what you do
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Diane, just officially announce that your blog has a new direction, one in which both politics and education will be discussed. I t seems that this is the direction you wish to take, and it is your blog, and we are in unprecedented times– and unpresidented times, as well. 😉
I had to make this decision myself, and I chose to primarily center my political statements on Twitter and keep the blog mostly on ed issues. I am comfortable with my decision, and I think you should make the decision that you are comfortable with.
Whatever you decide, you have my support.
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Love your blog by the way and your books as well.
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I think that you should continue blogging about both!
Thank you for all that you do!
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Please continue as you have been. Fascism is a huge threat to our nation – and it is impossible to separate commentary on fascist policies from educational policy. We need more of your brilliant analyses in this area, not less.
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Both. Keep it up!
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EVERYTHING is connected and seeing the NIG PICTURE is important for understanding the issues.
Please CONTINUE what you have been doing, Diane.
We cannot LIVE IN A BUBBLE. Why? Doing so is dangerous and limiting. That is exactly what the deformers and fascists want.
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Please keep speaking out!
I value your perspective on these issues and have already gotten used to looking for your reaction to the daily outrages. It helps with the impossible task of processing all the junk out there.
Thank you!
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Both…the national issues are the educational issues writ large. Maybe cordon them off in two sections? But keep going, because in future years, people will look back at all of us and say: where were you? How did you try to stop this? What did you do about it?
Citizens have learned to be pro-active and I think we have learned from Hitler, the Japanese internment camps and other vile situations.
On another note, citizens at large are FINALLY paying attention to educational issues. It’s a hot topic now.
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Stay on this path, please. We need your voice here.
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It is your baby. Take it in any direction you want to go. I read what I find personally relevant and skip the rest. There is something for everybody. You have an impressive bank of knowledge and resources. Please continue to share them.
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Hi Diane. Thank you for your blog. Please continue to do both. I find Trump and his cabinet very scary. I appreciate that you point out all that is happening. I also appreciate what you write about education. Trump and his people will definitely affect what happens in public education. DeVos is a perfect example. She does not even believe in public education, so please continue to write on both subjects.
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Diane,
The bottom line is that you won’t please all of the people all of the time. To thine own self be true. 🙂
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Amen.
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Keep doing what you’re doing!! They are inter-connected. You can’t separate them.
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You always confirm my biases; therefore, you are a scholar! Continue to do what you are doing!
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I am amused by the comments that mention “an attack on trump” as if they are for the sake of attack. This situation has been brought about by serious wrong-doing on multiple levels. I have not been able to separate the results of this election to my every day life and all I hold important to this democracy. What happens as a result of this administration has everything to do with education and the direction it is going. Continue with both, but maybe choose the top one or two “political” posts of the day. I hope that teachers have some time in their days to emphasize lessons on civics, propaganda, how to distinguish facts vs. fiction, the Constitution….
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You are correct in seeing the fallacy. he WSJ article that Iposted in my comment, today, actually shows how the news is SLANTED so that the reality a TRUMP LIE, is muted:
“Consider The Journal’s coverage of Trump’s false voter-fraud allegations. The stories are mostly solid, noting Trump has no evidence. The headlines often tend toward stenography:
“Trump Seeks Election Fraud Probe”
(INSTEAD OF ELECTION FRAUD IS NON-EXISTANT, and Trump lies”
Trump Takes Aim at ‘Millions’ of Votes”
INSTEAD OF “NO Evidence that Millions of Votes are Fraudulent
Top Adviser Repeats Vote-Fraud Claims”
(ETC!)
“Reporters and editors have become accustomed to the “shaving off the edges” of Trump-related stories, one said, especially in headlines and initial paragraphs. The insubordination shows up in later paragraphs, where reporters include harder-hitting information.”
And this is why Diane, and everyone whose voice is important must SHOUT OUT “LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE.”
Keith Oberman says it best.
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I’m of two minds…I do want you to focus on the specific research and experience that should drive education reform: Big questions! Like, what really creates a sense of capacity and love for life long learning? What is the role of education/teachers within a broader ‘Education Ecosystem?’ How do we access progress and success–let alone define ‘learning’ beyond factoids. How do we create a true profession in education given the admin/union/credential system? Oh I could go on
The other side is the context, the difference between goals, competency, humility, stupidity, policy that drives so much of the education conversation. When we think of this as one of the greatest responsibilities as well as one of the most complex system on the planet, one size fits all practices are stupid…of any stripe. We need a clear sense of the place, purpose, and practices but fully understand that learning is life-long and life-wide and ‘school’ is but a part: family, community, before and after school, relationship with caring adults…of add science centers, the local library, public television etc…
So yes please continue! Your posting are important and the history is important…I pass your site along so continuity matters.
Ryan Education by Design
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I would love to see insightful pieces about how policy changes are currently impacting schools because of the new cabinet. For instance, the raids by ICE- how do those impact teachers and what can educators do? How does the disappearance of the IDEA website predict future moves by the new ed secretary?
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By staying silent you are conceding that was is happening in this country is acceptable! Nothing that had happened in education over the past 10 plus years is in any way acceptable. If that means calling 45 to the table for his egregious choices, so be it. His ignorance is wrapped up to tightly with the educational debacle that it cannot be untangled! Keep calling 45 out for all his foolishness!
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Please continue to do both!
Thanks for your work.
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DITTO. Absolutely.
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Please persist. 😉
This is a civics lesson in real time. Your insights are invaluable, and it is important to go through this unbelievable experience in community.
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