Let me make clear that I have enormous respect for Senator Warren. I met her in her office in 2015, gave her a copy of my book, Reign of Error, and was greatly impressed by her thoughtfulness and intellect. A few months ago, I attended a fundraiser for her at the home of a mutual friend in Manhattan and was again wowed by her fierce intellect and passionate critique of the status quo.
But I want her now to come out strongly against every aspect of the Trump-DeVos education agenda of privatization, including both charters and vouchers. I want her to support the right of teachers to bargain collectively. I want her to endorse the importance of having well-prepared, credentialed teachers in every classroom.
In this post, Steven Singer criticizes Senator Elizabeth Warren for her unclear signals about K-12 education policy.
When she recently spoke in Oakland, she was introduced by a former charter school teacher who was affiliated with an anti-union, pro-charter group (ironically) called GO Public. Oakland had just gone through a teachers’ strike, prompted in part by the rapid proliferation of charters supported by that same deceptively named organization.
Some defenders on Twitter said that Warren didn’t decide who introduced her.
True. But more worrisome is that her senior policy advisor is a TFA alum with two years of teaching experience.
Teachers don’t want a Michelle Rhee or John White as Secretary of Education. They want someone who supports them, not chastises them as “bad” because they teach the most vulnerable students.
In 2016, Senator Warren supported the “No on 2” campaign to block charter expansion, but she did so while praising charters.
She said at that time:
””In a statement sent out by the campaign organized against the question, Warren, a Cambridge Democrat, praised charter schools in general while expressing concern about the proposed charter expansion’s effect on school districts’ bottom lines.”
If she thought well of charters “in general,” why oppose their expansion?
Please, Senator Warren, make clear that you stand with fully public schools, not privately managed charters funded by the Walton-Gates-Broad combine, and professional teachers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Personnel is policy. The minute Obama hired Duncan and then Duncan hired a bunch of people who all came out of the same ed reform echo chamber the policy was inevitable.
They walked in with it.
If Warren hires ed reformers we will get Bush/Obama/Trump ed policy again. In many cases they’re literally the same people- some have an R after their name, some have a D, but they are indistinguishable other than that.
choice, 2. accountability. They say it themselves. What this means for public school students is they only get the “accountability” piece. Nothing else applies to them.
If that seems joyless and wholly negative and punishing, well, that’s because it is, but we should have known when they told us the agenda, which, again is “choice” and “accountability”. Something positive for public school students wasn’t even contemplated and has never been included.
Actions speak louder than words. Teachers have good reason to mistrust Warren.https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadelaney/?fbclid=IwAR1FL4gLTexpmLKp8pFmVYjlroOold9WhOlQZEU6HD187_edZIfMuaUYEFk
“The minute Obama hired Duncan and then Duncan hired a bunch of people who all came out of the same ed reform echo chamber the policy was inevitable.”
Thank you. Too many educators still worship Obama and think Duncan appointed himself and his ideas were his own and had nothing to do with Obama. smh.
That her senior policy advisor taught for only two years is shocking. Add to it it’s a TFA alum, it gets worse. She seriously couldn’t have recruited someone who started at teacher and worked up to a superintendent of some kind?
Why superintendent and not an experienced teacher? Why an adminimal?
From my experience the vast majority of Supes are just GAGA Good German implementers of education malpractices who have little critical thinking skills but excellent animal herd behavior and self protective instincts. Not what we need for the Secretary of Ed position.
Fair enough. It just seems like a good idea to have the guy at the top have had experience at each level. I’m certain there are more then zero that would meet the proper qualifications.
I agree with Duane. Most of the principals and superintendents I taught under were failed teachers.
Most of the principals that I taught under made teachers’ lives more difficult. Some micromanaged. Some were unable to be leaders but foisted all types of decisions on us with no input from us.
I saw a lot of principals since I served as a traveling music teacher. Only a very few encouraged us and worked to make our working environment, and that of the students, great.
Even fewer superintendents did well. Some were easily manipulated by principals. Some knew ‘what was good educational practice’ and stuffed it down our throats. Very few created the type of learning environment that made the schools beam.
I always felt that the superintendents were largely responsible for the types of atmosphere felt inside the schools. It starts at the top.
Daniel, setting aside Duane’s consistent, continual bigotry, there is a practical reason to answer your question. Congressional staffs are generally made up of young, underpaid staffers with little real life experience. A teacher who worked up to superintendent of some kind would have to take a huge pay cut to live in one of the most expensive metropolitan areas of the country, likely have to give up pension benefits they had accumulated, and have little job security. Why would an experienced teacher with credentials and, for example, 18 years in the classroom give up their careers to work in Congress when their jobs could disappear after the next election cycle? There are senior staffers who make good money, but at the legislative assistant level, you will rarely find them. It’s a classic Catch-22. The general way you get experienced people—but in education, they would not come from classroom experience—is to get a fellow detailed from an executive department who could transition to a senior position. But it would be impossible to find them given the current staff at the Department of Education. Sadly, TFA alums fit the bill—limited experience in a classroom but still able to claim “classroom experience” and willing to take lower pay with the expectation that having both of those items on the resume will propel them to more lucrative consulting and lobbying positions. This is a horrible explanation, but that’s how it works in the real world.
Billionaire Arthur Rock of CA gives TFA a few million to pay the cost of TFA Congressional interns. Whose staff would say no to a “free” staffer?
” setting aside Duane’s consistent, continual bigotry,”
Pointing out reality using accurate strident and biting language isn’t bigotry.
Does what I have to say touch a nerve? Do you feel guilty about implementing malpractices that harm students and don’t want to be reminded of it? Are you a GAGA Good German teacher/adminimal who has implement those malpractices? Something tells me, yes. Were you brought up Catholic to be able to feel so guilty yet turn a blind eye to the atrocities (yes, the standards and testing malpractice regime is an atrocity) you have implemented? (yes I left you an opening that you think will prove my bigotry-it doesn’t)
“that’s how it works in the real world”
YEP, in regards to GAGA Good German ‘educators’, just following orders implementing policies and behaviors that harm innocents, the students, cutting into their very being.
Yes, Duane, as much as I love you, you are the clinical definition of a bigot. You ascribe a perceived characteristic and/or trait to a category of people to denigrate them. I assume you don’t think you are because you think you are describing white people. Your characterizations fall into the same category of formerly common epithets like shiftless nggers, lazy spics, or k*ke. You’re just too obtuse and stubborn to realize it. I remember you once getting quite indignant when I joking ascribed a stereotype that was once ascribed to Missourians. You didn’t like it. But you didn’t learn the lesson.
I agree with you wholeheartedly on the term GAGA. You just take too far into the realm of bigotry. Interestingly, as much as I self identify as a GERMAN American, the former being the the thing that shapes my identity, if you saw me on the street, German is probably the last thing that would come to your narrow mind.
Would you characterize Angela Merkel as a “Good German” in the bigoted way you intend?
Perhaps, GregB really means Bias and not Bigot.
Bias is an unconscious preference for something or against something. Bigotry is intentional and against something, usually mean.
Bias comes from reading a certain newspaper everyday, or from living in a certain place.
Bigotry is hatred for a group of people and can happen anywhere.
No, I mean bigot. Bias can be corrected with education, evidence and actions. Bigotry is immutable. Duane’s steadfast use of the term “Good Germans” in the way he intends it is pure bigotry fed by willful, intractable historical ignorance. If he used the same terms for people of color, gender, or ethnicity, not one of you would accept his irrationalism and you’d have stronger words than those I use.
GregB, are you inferring that there are no “good Germans” or “good Americans”, or … ?
GregB, I agree with you. My partner is German, born here. Her parents came here in the 1920s. She finds it very offensive to be linked to Nazis. She is German. She is not a Nazi or a “good German.” As a Jew, I find this usage very offensive.
Lloyd, my point is that there are no absolutes with respect to humanity. There are good, bad, and everything in between. I’ve gone over this a number of times already and I’m just not in the mood to do so again.
I agree that when it comes to everyone, there are good, bad and everything in between and that’s the way it has always been.
And, for an example of good, there were German’s that resisted Hitler and the Nazis.
“Despite the tremendous cost of opposing Hitler, many Germans did oppose and resist Nazi ideology and Hitler in some-way. Many of these people are lost to history. As soon as Hitler assumed power, he was ruthless in rounding up political opponents and putting them in concentration camps. These are some of the more famous opponents who resisted Hitler and the Nazi ideology.”
https://www.biographyonline.net/people/famous/people-opposed-hitler.html
But there is a risk to publicly standing up to someone like Trump/Hitler, you end up tortured, in prison, and probably dead to shut you up. In fact, this is happening in countries around the world today: Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, Egypt, the Philipines, Turkey, et al.
I think the smartest “good” people are the ones who resist in ways that allow them to survive like “Oskar Schindler (1908 – 1974) An ethnic German who joined the Abwehr and later Nazi party. Sensing an opportunity to make money and bought a factory in occupied Poland. But, he used his connections and his own money to successfully protect over 1,000 Jews who were employed in his factory. This included spending all his money to bribe SS guards to save his workers.”
In Animal Farm, the one animal that survived to retire peacefully and outlive everyone else was the mule. Yet, he never actually supported Napoleon while everyone that publicly stood up to Napoleon was killed.
So the answers to my questions to you are yes, eh!
I have explained many times the historical background of my usage of the term Good German. Those criticizing me appear to ignore those clarifications.
Yes, I too am of German heritage-I remember my grandmother speaking German although she was born in the US-her parents migrated here. For those so offended by my term, so be it. I stand by it and I do not apologize for using an accurate description of what is going on currently.
But allow me to explain again, that by using Good German I a referring to all those who turned a blind eye to and helped implement the atrocities being committed by the Nazis and SS who made up about 15% of the total German population. Those atrocities do not occur without those Good Germans willing to Go Along to Get Along.
It’s sad that those of you here choose to ignore my prior explanations and feel so hurt by my usage by focusing on a false reading of what I have said multiple times. But I guess it’s better to focus the heat on me than on yourselves and self-examining your role in the implementation of educational malpractices.
The same is happening now, albeit an a different level but still what is happening is a holocaust (note small h) of the minds of the most innocent, the children through the standards and testing malpractice regime.
You, GregB, could be one of the “heroes” by standing up and not implementing those malpractices. But, instead, you assuage your conscience by calling me a bigot-What a joke! I guess you don’t have the intestinal fortitude to stand up and do what’s right by the children. And I find that to be quite sad.
Duane, if you went around using some other perjorative term directed at another ethnicity whether you claimed roots or not, your words remain powerful in a way that are bound to offend whether you have explained yourself in the past or not. If those of us who have been on the blog for awhile remember your disclaimer, those who have not may wonder at your, on their face, offensive characterizations. To assign a behavior to one ethnicity that has been demonstrated over and over again by people around the world suggests that perhaps there might be a better way to describe the (range of) behavior that is a response to aggression. After all, come to think of it, bystander behavior/response, in the case of school yard bullying, may be no different and probably has similar roots although, obviously, the potential stakes are different. As another American with strong German roots, I am not proud of how some Germans behaved, although I understand that their response was and is human behavior.
How about those “good Americans” who tolerated slavery, lynchings, and segregation?
And the “good Americans” who watched or participated as mobs burned down Catholic Churches and orphanages during the Draft Riots in New York City, Philadelphia, and other Eastern seaboard cities in the 1860s.
I’m sure there are many tales of the ‘good Americans’. How about the Chinese railroad workers who were no longer needed. I visited an underground place in Portland, Oregon in which the Chinese had to stay underground. The US also forbade any Chinese women from ever coming to the US. We’re really good at how we treat immigrants. Use them up and then discard them like old milk cartons.
……………………………..
The underground town got its start in the late 1800s. At that time, the hard work of building the railroads was mostly finished — the transcontinental railroad linked Portland to the East Coast in 1883. So the country no longer needed the thousands of Chinese workers who had helped build them. They had gone from providing a valuable service to a new nation, to competing with “native sons” for jobs and depressing the wages.
The climate in the U.S., never warm and friendly for them, was becoming downright hostile. Crimes against Chinese people were not prosecuted. The Chinese Exclusion Act and other laws like it were promulgated, prohibiting them from becoming citizens or owning land and blocking further immigration. Residents of West Coast cities such as Tacoma and Sacramento started forming mobs and running them out of town. It wasn’t a full-blown pogrom, but it could easily have become one at any time.
I stand by what I have written.
I agree that using stereotypes about an ethnicity should never be done and is counterproductive to what Duane wanted to say, distracting from his main point, which, to me, is that superintendents are not necessarily instructional leaders. I never noticed them being obedient to tyrants, particularly; my problem with them is that in my experience they usually have so little teaching experience. Most of the principals I worked under had five years or less, and the most recent superintendent had three. This is especially important in talking about the job of Secretary of Education.
Full agreement with Chiara and Daniel. The Singer article shows why there should be no benefit of a doubt. Same with Biden. And why do I have a feeling our national unions will disappoint us again? Btw, I’m not satisfied with Bernie’s education platform, either. But he’s a step ahead of many others (maybe all the others) on this issue.
I know it’s shocking to say considering how long he’s been around but I don’t think Biden understands it at all. He seems to use “magnet schools” and “charter schools” interchangeably.
That’s just alarming.
If Biden doesn’t understand it he will outsource it to “experts” and the “experts” he’s likely to get will be ed reformers, because they so dominate elite policy circles.
Warren at least seems to be able to define “public school”. I know this is a low bar, but why are these people still confused about these basic definitions?
These is exactly the kind of attention Warren’s education policy should get. Bernie has a much better pro-public education policy and I’m supporting him (so far) for just that reason. It is important that Warren clarify her position and the only way to make sure this is done is for many people to call her out.
But despite what may be a flawed position on education, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Elizabeth Warren is not a tool of CAP and doesn’t take her position because she is looking to destroy public education. She is wrong and misguided on this issue just like Bernie was wrong and misguided when he defended white voters who refuse to vote for African-American candidates and claimed such voters were not racist. Just like Bernie was wrong and misguided when he actively campaigned for a DFER Dem against a pro-education Dem in Virginia and when Bernie intentionally turned his back on pro-public education candidate Cynthia Nixon instead of supporting her against the reprehensible Andrew Cuomo. Candidates are allowed to be wrong on an issue without being mischaracterized as corrupt or sell-outs to CAP.
Sen. Warren is good on many issues and I certainly hope constant criticism of her policy choices on public education is forthcoming.
But I hope Warren is not victimized by the same kind of ugly character attacks we saw in 2016, where dishonest critics insist she meet a standard of perfection that the candidate they prefer doesn’t have to meet and in fact, no one could ever meet. And when she doesn’t meet it, they lie and say she was corrupt from the start.
(I have already seen these posts on here by someone named dkmich who claims to be a Bernie supporter and keeps posting that Warren is a Trojan Horse who votes like a Republican — a blatant character attack on a woman who has done so much good for this country. I doubt “dkmich” is a Bernie supporter and I suspect he is a far right troll who wants Trump to win. But we need to marginalize those kind of voices and call them out for the lies they are and shut them down instead of enabling them by pretending any real Bernie supporter would ever post anything so ignorant and dishonest.
I think these are very fair criticisms of Bernie, NYCpsp. I really fail to understand why Democrats are so undependable on this issue.
The reason they are so undependable is because they neither pay a political price for bad policy decisions nor do they benefit politically for doing the right thing. The public education lobby is too diffuse and impotent and the charter/testing lobby has unlimited money to spend. No election for Congress or the presidency or virtually any state or local office has ever been impacted by education. See the results of the last statewide election in Ohio for further proof.
Nodding my head, GregB. Great example with Ohio. I still think there are votes there (from parents rather than teachers), but the results haven’t back this gut feeling up.
I’m still smarting from the last Ohio election. I place most of the blame on David Pepper and state Democratic Party. They are incapable of framing issues, developing a grassroots strategy, recruiting good candidates, and only do window dressing things like issuing lame commemorative proclamations when no one is paying attention. And the few teachers and parents who care get all excited with these meaningless gestures rather force the party to clean house and get competent, passionate people to do the hard work needed to win elections.
What GregB said: The Dems don’t “pay a political price for bad policy decisions.” As long as they know they’ll get your vote, or mine, no matter what they do or say, there’s no incentive to do the right thing. They get corporate money in their left hand while they take our vote with their right hand.
Well said. Elizabeth Warren is no sell-out. Misguided on education, yes, but for the right reasons. She believes in equity for all students, and is not pro-privatization. But she absolutely needs to bring on an education advisor who has deep knowledge of the issues facing public schools. A TFA alum with 2 years teaching experience is wholly inadequate and misguided.
Yes, this is exactly what I think. I support holding her feet to the fire and clearly she is ignorant on the full issues of public education.
Although clearly her education advisor did not stop her from opposing charter expansion in Massachusetts. There WERE other Democrats who supported charter expansion in that case and Warren did not.
I don’t support people lying and mischaracterizing who Warren is because they want a different candidate to win.
It is possible to be critical of a policy choice — as Diane Ravitch’s post rightly is — without making it a character attack that includes innuendo that the candidate is really a tool of CAP.
We should also not be fooled into believing that charters want to work with public schools. They want to supplant them, and they do everything in their power to rig the system in their favor. Warren’s platform is largely progressive. If she supports charters, she should understand she is supporting Gates, DeVos, the Waltons, Wall St. lots of billionaires and dark money.
Warren also said early on, she would appoint a “real teacher” to lead the DOE. Perhaps this TFA alumnus, Josh Delaney, is what she considers a “real teacher.” Lots of real teachers would have a problem with him.
I was out doing errands this morning and saw on the road in front of my car a “Christian for Trump’ bumper sticker.
Why would anyone advertise being ignorant?
I also remember walking in one of the malls a number of months ago and saw a man wearing a tee shirt advertising, “CNN sucks”.
It’s hard to come up with sympathy for people who vote against their own best interests. They are also hurting me. I just saw that the price of avocados was $2 each.
The one thing that truly sets Bernie apart from the rest is the fact that, until very recently, he has refused to seek big money campaign donations. Warren is a great person, a great legislator, and a great candidate, but for my support versus Bernie, she needs to show more explicitly her support for public education and for the Labor Movement, since she’s not recognized as part of the Social Democrats group who have eschewed large corporate donations. Step just a little further to the left, please, Elizabeth. Just a little.
“until very recently”??
Warren still isn’t accepting big money. So why is Bernie?
Thank you, New York Public School Parent,
I chimed in here because Diane Ravitch is my oldest best friend from college days. By and large I don’t follow the nitty gritty of the struggle to save and advance public education in the U.S. which she has been engaged in most of her adult life. I haven’t lived in NYC since 1972 and we split over politics then. I was and remain much further to the left.
We reconciled when I happened to be in NYC the morning after the Obama election and she told me that in her latest book she had “recanted.” We united on her line, which I can’t paraphrase as eloquently as she spoke it: that billionaire boys to whom reforming public education had become a more fashionable hobby than yachting shouldn’t be dictating policy; not on mine that no one who hasn’t spent 5 years teaching in a public school classroom should be allowed to speak on, much less make, education policy. Mine was and remains the sort of line of people my husband calls “solutionists:” we in search of a grand or catchy formula to solve huge complicated problems we haven’t the time nor patience to listen and learn about from those who have been dealing with them.
Confession, if not recantation: I’ve spent 60 years thinking up lines that fit on a bumper sticker, now I guess into a meme, call and response chants for marches and rallies. But Diane learned to tweet before I learned to facebook.
I started clicking on Diane’s blog a few days ago when public school teacher friends began backed off their previous enthusiasm about Warren’s candidacy on facebook. Why? Diane Ravitch questions about her education policy.
Wow! Diane, (hope you are reading this) you have a LOT of clout and with what I imagine is a MOST important constituency in choosing who is most fit to defeat Mr. Trump, and whether she will be the best president US has had since maybe ever. Every time someone adds a comment, your response to the guy opposing Warren comes back to the top. Your ‘make no mistake, I respect Senator Warren. but… ‘ lead, followed by your and many arguments for doubting, reinforces doubting. You call on her to do something or other. I call on you to take the initiative, ask to meet with her and advise her, maybe offer to honorarily chair a committee (of under 80s +) to work on all the nitty gritties you and many have chewed and spit since way before 2008 and since. Signing off.
Thanks Peggy.
I admire Senator Warren.
I want to be able to support her.
I hope she steers clear of the billionaires like those at the SURGE institute.
Click to access Sonya-Mehta-Bio.pdf
https://www.surgeinstitute.org/donor-listing/
Broken record alert: the “Trump-DeVos education agenda of privatization” is almost identical to the Obama-Duncan agenda of privatization (DeVos prefers vouchers, Duncan likes charters – you say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to), which is identical to the neoliberal agenda of privatization. Getting rid of Trump or DeVos does not get rid of privatization.
Worth repeating, imo.
Getting rid of Trump-DeVos means that Democrats and independents can’t APPEAR to be pro-public education because they are critical of DeVos and vouchers.
The candidates will not be able to get away with claiming to support public education while campaigning for DFER Democrats to turn the few remaining states that ed reformers don’t control into what DFER wants.
You make a point that DeVos’ position on vouchers is in many ways (not all) similar to Duncan’s on charters. But that doesn’t mean there are not stark differences that parents with children who are African-American, gay, transgender, disabled, etc. understand.
To my mind, the best President would someone who actually does their homework on this issue and doesn’t just mouth whatever his aide is telling them. We saw how terrible Obama was, and Warren isn’t much better and until last week Bernie was not good either and he hasn’t been asked to do much elaborating on his policies.
It is a cop-out to insist that because one part of the platform is similar to a Republican part, that the entire platform is. There were some similarities between Bernie and Trump’s platforms. And there were significant differences.
If Bernie wins the nomination and a propaganda effort begins to encourage voters to stay home because Bernie is no different than Trump, and staying home would “send a message” and letting Trump win would be a good thing for America, the people promoting such efforts would be wrong. I assume most of them would be far right racist lying Trump supporters, but some of them may just be foolish voters who would have voted for Bernie but were told so frequently how they had to “send a message” to make the Democrats better that they decided to send that message and stay home.
“Getting rid of Trump-DeVos means that Democrats and independents can’t APPEAR to be pro-public education because they are critical of DeVos and vouchers.”
OMG, did you LIVE through the Obama-Duncan years? Did Democrats have any trouble appearing to be pro-public education then? It’s Trump-DeVos who have exposed that lie. The past three years rephormers have been caught with their pants down trying to explain how it is that their supposedly “liberal” policies are so similar to Trump-DeVos educational policies.
During the Obama-Duncan years, progressives like Bernie Sanders remained silent on this issue. And even after Trump was elected, Bernie actively campaigned for a DFER Democrat to turn Virginia into a pro-reform state. I guess having Betsy DeVos didn’t stop him from working hard so that a Democrat could do to Virginia what Andrew Cuomo did to New York.
I guess I have a higher opinion of Bernie because I assumed he didn’t change his mind because DeVos was in power, but he changed his mind because he finally realized it was politically a good idea.
I assume that if HRC had won instead of Trump, Bernie would still have changed his mind and stopped campaigning for DFER candidates. Bernie’s change of heart had nothing to do with DeVos, at least in my mind.
So I disagree with you that we should be grateful for DeVos because without her Bernie would still be campaigning for DFER democrats.
The tide is changing and it already began to change at the end of the Obama term. You don’t need to enforce great pain on vulnerable Americans to turn the tide. America didn’t need to elect a racist Ku Klux Klan President in 1960 or 1968 to “help” the civil rights movement. That kind of thinking just leads to fascism.
The needle will keep moving just like it kept moving and Bernie realized that it was time to stop supporting DFER Democrats. Bernie didn’t need DeVos to learn that and neither do all the other Democrats who have been moving toward a more pro-public education position. DeVos’ term does nothing but hurt children.
Welcome to the new boss, same as the old boss
“her senior policy advisor is a TFA alum with two years of teaching experience”
I was right. I left a comment on Steven Singer’s blog just minutes ago where I said I thought TFA had managed to slip one or more of their programmed scabs on to her staff.
One of the written goals of TFA is a promise to place TFA recruits that finish their two years as scabs in K-12 classroom to positions on the staffs of members of Congress, state legislatures and Governors’ administrations. Those TFA troops, like Hitler’s Brown Shirts and Mao’s Little Red Guard, have all been trained/programmed on how to stealthily subvert and influence candidates and elected reps all across the country.
I have great respect for Warren on a lot of issues, but that this even needs to be discussed is depressing.
Essentially, it means it’s Bernie or getting screwed for another 4-8 years.
And if someone will obey Wall St at the expense of our kids, what are the odds they will do the same on wars, climate change, and everything else?
“..if someone will obey Wall St at the expense of our kids…”
Are you really suggesting that Warren’s position has anything to do with “obeying” Wall Street?
You are one of the far right Trump supporting trolls I mentioned. Your lying and misleading posts should be called out. I realize that pro-Trump trolls like you will be posting these lies and pretending to be Bernie voters often over the next 18 months, but if we point out every time your pro-Trump lies are posted, you will go away or be marginalized as the pro-Trump fascist racist xenophobe you are.
I have seen a slew of these troll posts here whereTrump supporting liars pretend to be Bernie supporters believing that the blatant lies they post about another Democrat will be more believable.
Real Bernie supporters don’t lie like Trump supporters do. You accidentally revealed yourself with your blatant lies. Oops!! I hope you don’t get fired.
“You are one of the far right Trump supporting trolls I mentioned.”
OMG. Yeah, because far-right trolls are really concerned about wars and Wall Street and climate change.
You don’t know a thing about the person to whom you are responding, but you feel free to come on here and insult and try to silence him/her. And then you’re going to be the first to cry foul if you get your feelings hurt. Do you see what you’re doing here?
If you have a concern about the commenter’s use of “obey”, then address that point, but don’t ASSume someone is a Trump supporter just because they don’t toe your officially-sanctioned Democratic line.
77, I support silencing and censoring any trolls and sock puppets once they are revealed.
dienne77
Are you now suggesting that Elizabeth Warren is “obeying wall Street at the expense of our kids” has even a grain of truth in it?
If you are going to defend entirely dishonest attacks on Sen. Warren like this one — blatant lies — then who are you?
That isn’t an “opinion”. That is a lie. It is fine to have an opinion about Warren’s position being wrong. But to defend a lie that a woman who has never “obeyed Wall Street” would take her marching orders from them — a lie whose only purpose is to smear Warren’s character — speaks volumes about you.
In fact, I made a point to call out these kinds of dishonest posters by name to make it absolutely clear that I was not referring to you.
So it amazes me that you would jump in to defend them.
I would be calling out posts that made statements like “Bernie is controlled by left wing radicals who hate America” the same way I called out this one.
I’m shocked you’d defend this post. I thought that Bernie supporters were better than this and that’s why I assumed this lying poster was a troll. I guess you are trying to prove me wrong.
^^FYI, if you knew anything about the Trump-trolls whose campaign in 2016 was so successful, you would understand that they always profess concern for issues they know their target audience is concerned about to fool them into thinking they are coming from the same place when they post their lies.
All of the propaganda posts on Facebook targeted at African-American voters came from trolls pretending to be African-American voters concerned about racism. Then they posted their lies about how both the Dems and Trump were equally racist so no point in voting.
If all a troll has to do to convince someone they are legit is to pretend to care about “wars, Wall Street and climate change” knowing their lies will then be believed by others who also care about those issues, then Houston, we have a problem.
I certainly hope we don’t get fooled again.
The mark of a troll is that they post blatant lies whose only purpose is to attack the character of a Democratic candidate.
This post qualifies. These trolls need to be marginalized, not enabled and defended.
NYCPSP,
You say many intelligent things even if I don’t agree with quite of few of them. I can assure you that having known Dienne for a long time, she is no troll and she is no fan of Trump. Quite the opposite.
I know you feel passionate about your views, but don’t attack the ally! What good does that do?
Robert Rendo, you said: “I can assure you that having known Dienne for a long time, she is no troll and she is no fan of Trump.”
Robert, if you read this carefully, you will see that I was replying to “professorsmartass” who made the false innuendo that Elizabeth Warren’s position on charters — which seems to be the same one that Bernie had up until very recently — was about “obeying Wall Street at the expense of our kids”.
Anyone who says that Sen. Warren would “obey Wall Street at the expense of our kids” is clearly a troll. Her position on charters — even if it is wrong — is not wrong because she is “obeying Wall Street”.
For some reason dienne77 jumped in to defend “professorsmartass”.
Now I don’t know why dienne77 would jump in to defend a poster who would make the ugly innuendo that Sen. Warren would “obey Wall Street at the expense of our kids”. You would think that dienne77 would agree with my criticism, but instead she defends someone who is posting blatant lies implying Warren is simply obeying Wall Street.
If someone posts blatant lies trying to tie Bernie to Wall Street or racists or white supremacists, and dienne77 called out those lies, would I be acting in good faith if I chose to attack dienne77 for rightly calling out the lies someone is posting about Bernie?
professorsmartass posted a lie and I criticized it. But dienne77 jumped in to attack me! What is your theory about why dienne77 would defend professorsmartass posting lies about Sen. Warren obeying Wall Street at the expense of our kids?
I missed any of the comments by the sock-puppet that goes by the name of professorsmartass.
Many Sock Puppet like professorsmartass are alleged trolls but not all sock puppets are trolls.
One thing steve singer seems to have straight…….he is obeying the policy of Morning Joe and Buttigieg worshipping Mika and a lot of the other media……..let’s be sure not to mention the one often running in third place behind the two ancient white guys……….say nothing about Kamala Harris.
Perhaps she has already done something unforgivable towards teachers….no way to know since they avoid mentioning her.
Singer quickly replied that it was an article about Warren….and gave me a link to Sell Your Soul to the Testocracy: Kamala Harris’s Faustian Teacher Raises….Arne Duncan likes her plan said Singer.
the vehemence and use of phrases like “she probably meant” applied equally to two women, considered the most progressive, and with the best poll numbers behind the two relatively well known white men in their 70’s makes me wonder……is protection for Bernie Sanders the motive?
Warren must make a statement on K-12 education.
I am not protecting anyone.
I think ed reform Democrats are REALLY struggling to distinguish themselves from ed reform Republicans. There’s a reason for this- all of their “debates” revolve around how to put in the same policies.
Go read Jeb Bush and show me how he differs from Arne Duncan. Or Betsy DeVos. There’s no substantive difference.
Have you seen the newest ed reform idea? They want to make public schools award credit for private classes paid for by parents. They admit this will lead to those courses no longer being publicly funded (for the students who can’t afford to buy them) but they don’t seem to care.
This is where this is headed. A MUCH diminished public system, one that provides the absolute rock bottom services, supplemented with a low value voucher. It’s blatant rip off of the next generation and will create WILD inequities but the ideological drive to privatize is so strong they simply don’t care.
We’ll profoundly regret eliminating public schools. We’ll look back on this and retrace the steps and realize we made a catastrophic error.
Well stated. It is hard to tell the difference between the left and right with regard to privatization. They both suppress democracy to forward the interests of privatization. They are both woefully naive if they believe an array of splinter schools teaching ‘god knows what’ will do any better.
I think the military will suffer tremendously from such brazen individualism. Public schools teach civics and a distinctly American identity. My school always collectively observed Veteran’s Day, Flag Day as well as showed overt support for the police and fire fighters. Public schools honor service to the country, and its graduates have fought our wars, even our stupid ones. I think the military would have a harder time recruiting from schools that teach students they should put themselves first.
There will be a lot more bone spurs…
Chiara, re: latest ed reform idea. I don’t get it. What kind of courses are offered privately but schools pay for low-income kids to attend, & that would cease if pubschs awarded credit? (Sorry feeling dense)
But Chiara, totally agree w/you & retired teacher on the general issue here. The reason ed-reform Dems struggle to distinguish themselves from ed-reform Reps is because, just like the difference between centrist Reps& neolib Dems, there is none when it comes to privatizing public goods. Education reflects the overall situation: we hamstring publicly-funded enterprise w/unreasonable reqts, micromgt & accountability ppwk, while incentivizing takeover by barely-monitored privates, leaving the public good to deteriorate on the vine, buffeted by the winds of “the free market.”
U.S. Department of Education
👉 How can #EducationFreedom Scholarships expand career training options?
States can design their programs to provide more students with access to authentic career-based experiences that their family’s zoned school might not offer. #CTE Learn more:”
It’s so dishonest how the US Department of Education is selling their voucher program.
They have no idea how these vouchers will work. They’re privately funded. To tell the public they will be used to offer programs to public school students is so misleading it’s basically a lie. And they pump out this propaganda every day. It’s ALL they do. They sure don’t return any value to public school students.
They should be ashamed of themselves for selling this like this. They are WILDLY over-promising.
No one in ed reform has any idea how this national voucher program will play out. None. They are telling the public they do, but they don’t.
“States can design their programs…” Pure conjecture. It’s hogwash. And we’re paying thousands of people to churn this garbage out.
“But I want her now to come out strongly against every aspect of the Trump-DeVos education agenda of privatization, including both charters and vouchers. I want her to support the right of teachers to bargain collectively. I want her to endorse the importance of having well-prepared, credentialed teachers in every classroom.”
While that is definitely all well and good it is not nearly enough. What you have left out in this list is the most nefarious and damaging educational malpractice that we have endured since NCLB–the reliance on the standards and testing malpractice regime.
THE major educational malpractice that harms all students-the standards and testing malpractice regime should be the very first item on our wish list for candidates to support getting rid of. Anything less is damning the students to continued abuse and violence to their being. (Not to mention the waste of resources and time involved in implementing that malpractice regime.)
Duane: AGREE, Step #1! Cut the whole dam ed-reform monster off at the knees. Without annual standardized testing, the Frankenstein assemblages of testable skill-bites that pass for standards– & their “aligned” test-prep matls—will wither& die. States that care about ed will be free to return to the venerable frameworks they were regularly updating until rudely interrupted by CCSS. Those that don’t want to spend $ on stds can adopt the good ones, they’re free online now as they were then. Pubschs will gain some budget flexibility right off the bat w/no need for purchasing/ updating/ maintaining testing sw/hw/bandwidth, & their data-collection reqts will be cut in half. There will be multiple weeks freed to plump the curriculum back up. Public schs may still bleed enrollment to charters/ vouchers [to be addressed in Steps 2 & 3], but at least will not lose families just looking to escape the accountability mess.
Keep the pressure on, Diane!
Senator Warren is a great champion of working and middle class men and women, and she has been THE foremost voice in the country for fixing the endemic corruption in our government. She is compassionate and BRILLIANT, as far from IQ45 as it is possible to be. Success to her!
I have great respect for Senator Warren too. She understands the problems of the working class. She by far has been the most specific about how she would address some of our problems. She is thoughtful, intelligent and well spoken, but this current issue remains a concern.
I await and hope for a statement by Sen Warren expressing her support for public schools under democratic control and her opposition to a dual school system
Time to send her your new book (and all your old ones, too!), Diane, and get on the horn and see if you can get a meeting or phone conversation with her!!!
Yes, & someone please get hold of Warren’s campaign manager or a reader, here, who has had previous contact (& I mean knows her personally; an MA constituent) w/Warren, & bring this up to her (that, just as Bernie’s campaign did, she should be talking to Diane or Carol).
To my mind, Warren is the strongest candidate on banking/ finance/ brokerage/ corporate-tax reform, & that’s the key to what ails us. And Washington Examiner in a Jan article said she would be the strongest pro-union nominee since Truman. Begin fixing those items, & you’ve begun eliminating the incentives for privatized ed.
We were stung by a “hope& change” candidate who turned out to be swayed by neoliberal ed reform. I suspect Obama was simply following faux-progressive policies bought into even by Kennedy back in the day, still strongly supported by NAACP et al during O’s admin—it took another decade of results coming in from earliest ed-reform states to begin turning public opinion. Some will say Obamacare is neoliberal, but I see it as having been the only path of consensus available at the time, & a breakthrough in the way it changed mainstream view of basic healthcare as a right.
I would expect Warren as President to bring her ed policy into line with her overall goals. Nothing about the policies she’s outlined so far says “neoliberal.”
exactly; very well said
IMO, Diane, your call on Warren to make her position now on public education clear would be improved by reminding those who respect you, particularly on policy and best practice on education, of your own journey… And then you recanted. I know it was before Obama was elected, because it was at breakfast the morning after the 2008 election that you told me. That you used the word “recanted” struck me as profoundly self honest and humble. It doubled the weight of your always persuasive writing, but now on the side of fully public schools, exposer of flaws and corruptions of vouchers and charter schools, and champion of public school teachers’ organizing themselves to bargain collectively, winning support of students and parents, fighting for the best and free education 21st century America can provide equally and to all our children
Peggy, thanks for the reminder. The readers of the blog know my journey from the dark side to the right side, although you were the only person with whom I met the day after Obama’s election in 2008, to declare my profound disillusionment. Right wingers often accuse of taking Union gold but you were there. My convictions were never for sale.
xoxo
I’m looking forward to your introducing her at a joint AFT-NEA-PTA convention
I wish.
That Million Dollar Question For Endless Testscore School Reform Years: She certainly seems to be signaling that her support “would be with the hedge fund billionaires backing school privatization. How can she be so strong against these same people when it comes to Wall Street and economic inequality but appear completely ignorant…when it comes to school policy?”
I don’t get the signal you accuse Warren of sending hedge fund guys. Looks like anti-Warren trolling to me, grasping at straws to wet blanket enthusiasm critical thinking left leaning women have for her
It takes so little to remove a wet blanket- Warren could do the right thing- oppose the privatization plot of hedge funders, tech monopolists and discount retailing heirs.
Ms. Ravitch: The claims you made in this post about Sonya Mehta represents are untrue. Rebecca Solnit contacted Mehta to get the story, and this is the result:
In the Bay Area so much heat was arising from the charges that I contacted Mehta to try to shed some light on the situation. This is what she told me: she has never been a lobbyist. She has never been a representative or employee of Great Oakland Public Schools. She was a fellow there in 2014-2015, while working full-time as a teacher, which, she told me, meant she went to a three-hour meeting once a month for several months. She volunteered with the organization later and she supports, she says, “aspects of its work on district budget oversight and parent organizing.”
She also told me she helped unionize the school she taught at, supported the 2019 Oakland teacher’s strike (which was evident in a social media post of hers earlier this year), went to the state capitol with the strikers to advocate for more public school funding, and works for an organization that also supported the strike directly. She’s ardent about Elizabeth Warren and public education and public funding for public education, as she made clear in her short speech. (Solnit, “How Internet Insinuation Becomes Campaign Fact,” Lithub, June 6, 2019)
Before you spread falsehoods and hearsay, especially about candidates for president, I recommend you check your sources first. We’ve been down this road before; are you enjoying the results of that, Ms. Ravitch?
I look forward to reading your published retraction.
Ms D,
This is what I wrote:
This arrived last night from a friend in the Bay Area:
“Most of the Democratic presidential candidates are here in the Bay Area this weekend. Elizabeth Warren held a huge rally in Oakland, and she was introduced by a representative of Great Oakland Public Schools, a billionaire-funded anti-teacher, pro-charter, pro-“reform” operation. I’m pointing this out with some hope that someone has access to set her straight.”
If you recall, Warren pledged to appoint a teacher as Secretary of Education. Someone from TFA?
I retract not one word of this post.
I then posted a piece written by Steven Singer, who said Mehta was a lobbyist. Since I did not write that, I can’t apologize for what Singer wrote. Why don’t you contact him?
Here are undisputed facts. Elizabeth Warren was introduced by someone who taught for five years in a non-union charter school. This same person was a policy fellow with GO Public Schools, the most aggressive lobby for charter schools in Oakland. I’m glad to learn that she now supports unionization. Most charter schools (89%) are non-union.
I look forward to learning whether Elizabeth Warren rejects charter schools, whether they are for-profit or nonprofit.
There is nothing but hurt and pain coming from the lunacy of the Orange Ignoramus.
…………………………………………
Congressional Democrats Demand State Dept. End ‘Disturbing’ Policy Denying Citizenship to Kids of LGBT Couples
June 6, 2019
Two letters sent on Thursday call the policy ‘a thinly veiled attack on LGBTQ Americans whose children are conceived through the use of egg donors and gestational surrogacy.’
Nearly one hundred members of Congress, including five presidential candidates, have added their names to a pair of letters calling on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to immediately reverse a State Department policy that withholds American citizenship from some children of U.S. citizens who are born abroad.
One letter, led by Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Kamala Harris of California and signed by 17 other Democratic members of the chamber, calls the policy “a thinly veiled attack on LGBTQ Americans whose children are conceived through the use of egg donors and gestational surrogacy.”
“Your Department’s reinterpretation of immigration law to deny the constitutional right of citizenship to the children of same-sex couples who are born outside the United States is extraordinary and deeply disturbing,” the letter states. The letter’s 19 signatories urge Pompeo to immediately drop the State Department’s appeal of a court ruling striking down the policy, “and make it clear that every U.S. married couple is entitled to the same rights under the U.S. Constitution, no matter whom they love.”
In addition to Merkley and Harris, the letter was signed by Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Tom Udall (D-NM), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Chris Coons (D-DE), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Bob Casey (D-PA), Tim Kaine (D-VA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR)…
https://www.thedailybeast.com/senate-democrats-demand-state-dept-reverse-disturbing-policy-denying-citizenship-to-kids-of-lgbt-couples?source=email&via=desktop
CORRECTION:
In the first draft of my article, I called Sonya Mehta a “Charter School Lobbyist” in the title. On further examination of the facts, I realize this is unfair. She was a charter school TEACHER. I apologize to Ms. Mehta and truly regret any harm I have done her. I have changed the title to better reflect the facts. However, be advised that the text of the article, itself, has remained almost completely unchanged. Everything in the article is true to the best of my knowledge and backed up with sources that the reader can see by following the links in the text. My concern remains centered on Warren and what exactly her intentions are via education policy.
Thank you, Steven.
Did the organizers of the letter even ask Warren to sign? Did you yourself tell her about your grandchild and ask her to sign? I’m sniffing for the source assigned to keep Ravitch from endorsing Warren.
I haven’t endorsed any candidate and don’t intend to do so for a long while. I won’t endorse any candidate who is not explicitly committed to increasing funding for public schools, opposing privatization of public schools, and supporting the right of teachers to bargain collectively.
Peggy, what letter are you talking about? I must have missed something.
There was no letter.
the letter to Pompeo “signed by nearly 100 members of Congress including 5 presidential candidates’ and “One letter, led by Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Kamala Harris of California and signed by 17 other Democratic members of the chamber, calls the policy “a thinly veiled attack on LGBTQ Americans whose children are conceived through the use of egg donors and gestational surrogacy.”
But when I looked to see if Warren’s name was there, it wasn’t.
This is off topic but shows how far off Hannity is in his condemnation of the Democratic Party. Welcome to the unending lies that Fox is famous for telling. Fox is Trump’s personal propaganda TV and the station from which he gets all of his ‘news’ briefings.
I’d laugh if this wasn’t sick. How many times has the Orange Buffoon called for Hillary, “Lock her up!” at his ego rallies?
………………………
Hannity: “Speaker Pelosi now apparently telling senior Democrats that she’d like to see Trump behind bars. Based on no actual crimes, she wants a political opponent locked up in prison? That happens in banana republics—beyond despicable behavior. And by the way, they would literally turn, in many ways, the USA into a country we no longer recognize.”
Hannity Says It’s ‘Despicable’ to Call for Political Opponents to Be ‘Locked Up’
Contemptor
Published on Jun 6, 2019
“Hannity Says It’s ‘Despicable’ to Call for Political Opponents to Be ‘Locked Up’”
Oh, how fast the brainless lemmings forget who sold t-shirts at his rallies and made a profit off those sales. T-shirts that said, “Lock her Up!”
In April 2017, “Donald Trump told supporters in Colorado on Friday that he is “starting to agree” with the “Lock Her Up” chants frequently directed at Hillary Clinton.”
The Trump Outlet
Buy a “Lock Her Up” – Anti-Hillary Clinton – Men’s T-Shirt for $24.99
https://www.trumpoutlet.com/products/lock-her-up-anti-hillary-clinton-mens-t-shirt?variant=24599792454
Who owns the Trump Outlet?
The Better Business Bureau gave the Trump Outlet an “F” raiting.
https://www.bbb.org/us/va/alexandria/profile/personal-shopper/trump-outlet-0241-236014447
And according to the Washington Post, it all started halfway through 2016 at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July.
“They waved their red, white and blue “Trump” signs. They shook their fists. They screamed and hollered and made the building shake, in that now-familiar three-beat chant: “Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/22/a-brief-history-of-the-lock-her-up-chant-as-it-looks-like-trump-might-not-even-try/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.be90f5108513
This is SO funny. And sad.
I’m glad to have Trump explain to me that the moon is a part of mars. There is nothing quite like a stable genius. [Both Moon and Mars should be capitalized.] Defense? I keep forgetting that we must now defend our country against all the aliens that roam on the moon/mars. The space force, once it is up and running, would become a sixth branch of the military. Why not spend more money to ‘protect’ the US?
……………………………………………………………………..
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon – We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!
99.9K
12:38 PM – Jun 7, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
76.7K people are talking about this
Well, this is a long stretch, I know, but the scientific theory of how our solar system formed lends a slight tad of truth to what the self-anointed stable genius said/tweeted — like one, tiny crosscut piece of paper of Trump’s shredded tax records that the Moon and Mars are somewhat distantly related because they were all built from the same stardust more than a billion years ago.
“…the Moon and Mars are somewhat distantly related because they were all built from the same stardust more than a billion years ago.’
I’m sure Trump knows nothing about that. He Tweets using his ‘great gut, fantastic genes and superior intelligence”. Put all of that together and it equals an empty bucket. Nothing upstairs is still ‘nothing upstairs’ no matter how it is packaged.
Do you know why Donald Trump is a rusty, empty bucket? I hope you don’t mind that I added “rusty”.
Well, let me tell you that answer to my question.
Trump Rusy Bucket bucket has no bottom.
That means Donald Trump must be wearing extra-large adult diapers.