Archives for the month of: June, 2020
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Happy Birthday, Saul Bellow!

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2020 //
16

Garrison Keillor writes today in “A Writer’s Almanac” about Saul Bellow:

It’s the birthday of Saul Bellow, (books by this author) born Solomon Bellows in Lachine, Quebec, in 1915, two years after his parents emigrated from Russia. He was born in Canada, but when he was young he was smuggled across the border into Chicago, and so he grew up as an illegal immigrant. His dad was an onion importer and a bootlegger. His mom was religious, and she hoped he would be a rabbi or maybe a concert pianist. But when he was eight years old, he read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and he decided he would become a writer.

He wrote two novels that didn’t sell very well. But then he won a Guggenheim Fellowship and moved to Paris to write. And while he was there, he realized how much he loved Chicago.

So he started a new novel whose opening lines are: “I am an American, Chicago born — Chicago, that somber city — and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way.” That was The Adventures of Augie March (1953),which became his first real success and won the National Book Award. He continued writing plays, nonfiction, and more novels, including Henderson the Rain King (1959), Herzog (1964), and Humboldt’s Gift (1975).

He said, “In expressing love we belong among the undeveloped countries.” And, “You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” And, “I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, ‘To hell with you.'”

Categories Literature

Gates-Funded Fordham Institute Says New Florida Standards Are No Good

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2020 //
12

The rightwing Thomas B. Fordham Institute has rejected Florida’s effort to replace the Common Core standards, which were wholly funded by the Gates Foundation. When the Common Core was released a decade ago, Gates paid millions to Fordham to evaluate them.

Politico Morning Education reports:

GATES FOUNDATION-BACKED INSTITUTE CALLS FLORIDA’S NEW K-12 STANDARDS ‘WEAK’: The Fordham Institute said the state’s Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking standards, which came from a push from Gov. Ron DeSantis to replace Common Core and to set a national example, are in need of “significant and immediate revisions.” The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a supporter of Common Core, backs the institute.

— “As for other states, they should indeed look for model standards, but they won’t find them in Florida,” wrote Fordham Institute President Michael Petrilli and Amber Northern, senior vice president of research. The study also says Florida leaders are unlikely to reexamine the new standards “anytime soon.”

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Reform, Florida, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Watters: Toward a Future Of Humanity, Caring, and Grace

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2020 //
8

Audrey Watters gave a talk at the Academic Technology Institute. I am always interested in her writing because she is truly an original thinker. She sees the future of surveillance, control, and loss of human agency. She is our Cassandra. Some things never change. Some things seem to change despite our efforts. Audrey gives up hope in a desperate time that we can still stop the machines that seek to own us.

Categories Democracy, Education Reform, Freedom, Technology

Audrey Watters: From Grief to Resistance

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2020 //
8

Audrey Watters summarizes the present crisis that grips the nation.

Uncontainable. Inconsolable. Over the past few months, we have all experienced the grotesque failures of the state, and we’ve all lost something to the pandemic — directly or indirectly from the disease. But racism and white supremacy are the scourge that have destroyed so much more, for so much longer. “America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic,” Alexis Madrigal and Robinson Meyer argue. But I don’t think that Americans are giving up on justice. We can’t. People will clench their fists and fight on.

“Black lives matter,” brands have all suddenly proclaimed. But we should know better than to take them seriously, particularly the technology companies who build tools and services that put Black lives at risk. It’s “Black Power-washing,” Chris Gilliard writes, “wherein companies issue essentially meaningless statements about their commitment to Black folks but do little to change their policies, hiring practices, or ultimately their business models, no matter how harmful to Black people these may be.” These companies speak, to borrow from the situationist Raoul Vaneigem, with corpses in their mouths. (And yes, that includes many ed-tech CEOs. Just because I’m silent on Twitter right now as I mourn my son, don’t think I don’t see you showing your whole ass with your “all lives matter” “let’s hear both sides” bullshit.)

Categories Education Industry, Hope, Racism, Technology

Arkansas: Preparing to Sell the Children to Tech Entrepreneurs

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2020 //
13

Cathy Frye is a veteran journalist who worked for the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, then quit when she decided she could no longer stomach being part of the Walton Goubdation machine.

She writes here about the plan to outsource schooling this fall to a tech corporation that is under investigation.

She writes:

I got curious and took a little gander today at the Arkansas Public School Center’s website. And yep, there it was – APSRC’s latest attempt to help its digital “learning” providers by – once again – taking advantage of the pandemic’s effects on public schools.

Pay attention, folks: This partnership – announced today – involves the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, the Arkansas Department of Education and an outfit known as Lincoln Learning Solutions. This partnership will affect how public schools operate during the 2020-2021 school year.

APSRC and the Arkansas Department of Education are endorsing a digital learning provider that is currently under investigation by the Pennsylvania State Auditor General’s Office.

Why an investigation? Because a five-year audit revealed that Lincoln Learning Solutions had received more than $110 million in taxpayer dollars. Now, Arkansas’ parents and schools are about to get sucker-punched in a similar fashion.

You can also be sure that someway, somehow, APSRC Executive Director Scott Smith will also find a way to profit from this. Smith does not believe in MOUs that offer no benefit to his Walton-backed empire – er, I mean, “non-profit” organization.

I dealt with digital-provider “representatives” – not educators but salesmen – for three years. They expected free vendor booths at each APSRC conference. They also expected to be wined and dined on APSRC’s tab. Initially, they got what they wanted via a grant awarded to APSRC’s teaching and learning department. But when the money ran out, they still expected to be wooed and catered to. And Smith didn’t seem to mind, which tells me that APSRC also was making money by supporting these digital providers.

APSRC has been trying for years – well before my time there – to sell this digital-learning crap to Arkansas schools. Problem is, this crap, aside from being crap, has been too pricey even for the better-off districts.

Open the link and read the rest. The Waltons are happy to disrupt public schools at any time.

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization, Technology, Walton Foundation

Pennsylvania: Charter Leader Steps Down After Writing that Floyd Protestors “Disgust” Her

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2020 //
38

The Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools [sic] announced that its executive director had stepped down.

This followed the controversy that erupted after she wrote on her Facebook page that the protests over George Floyd’s brutal killing disgusted her, then removed the post. Too late.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Pennsylvania, Racism

Trump’s Goofiest Lie

By dianeravitch
June 9, 2020 //
76

Trump is desperate to justify his threat to send the military to “dominate” America’s cities. He is also shaken by his declining poll numbers.

So he tweeted that the 75-year-old Buffalo man who was roughly shoved to the ground by police officers and got a bad head wound was actually part of an ANTIFA (“anti-fascist”) group of provocateurs, and he staged his own mishap, perhaps as a publicity stunt.

Unfortunately for Trump, the world saw the video of 40-50 armed men advancing past a frail-looking elderly white man who was pushed to the ground and lay bleeding. Did he have them surrounded? Hardly.

When Republican senators were asked about Trump’s latest conspiracy theory, no one would defend him. Romney said it was embarrassing and unworthy.

The reality is that the injured man, Martin Gugino is a longtime activist, advocating for peace, the environment, and social justice. But no one who knows him thinks he is part of Antifa, Trump’s nemesis.

The New York Times wrote of him:

It is true, his friends admitted: Martin Gugino is an activist, a seasoned peacenik who in a lifetime of protest has taken part in demonstrations against military drones, climate change, nuclear weapons and police brutality.

But Mr. Gugino is also a football fan, they said, a mild-mannered bachelor and a Buffalo native who returned to his hometown some years ago to care for his ailing mother.

The one thing he is not, however, those who knew him said, is what President Trump suggested he was on Twitter Tuesday morning: a wily Antifa provocateur.

Mr. Trump’s tweet — none of it backed by fact — raced across the internet all day even as Mr. Gugino, 75, still lay in the hospital, recovering from the serious head wound he sustained on Thursday night when two Buffalo police officers shoved him to the ground at a demonstration marking the police killing of George Floyd.

A cellphone video of the encounter has now been seen by millions of people and led to charges being filed against the officers on Saturday.

In the video, a tall and lanky Mr. Gugino can be seen in front of the police with what seems to be a cellphone in his hand. Two of the officers shove him and he falls backward, cracking his head against the ground. As blood seeps out of his right ear, several officers walk by him.

The president’s tweet on Tuesday, which appeared to accuse Mr. Gugino of having instigated or even faked the encounter, was not the first time Mr. Trump has sought to blame Antifa — a word that describes a loose collective of anti-fascist activists — for encouraging what has now become nearly two weeks of nationwide demonstrations…

But even by his own standards, Mr. Trump appeared to test the boundaries of credulity by trying to brand a retired septuagenarian computer programmer as a follower of Antifa, whose adherents are, for one thing, generally much younger.

Some Antifa activists, practicing a tactic called Black Bloc, have been known to dress like ninjas and wear masks or balaclavas during protests while shattering windows and scuffling with the police.

Near Buffalo, however, the idea that Mr. Gugino was one of them struck many as absurd.

“Antifa? Oh, heavens no,” said Judy Metzger, 85, a longtime friend who lives near Mr. Gugino in Amherst, a suburb of the city. “Martin is a very gentle, a very pleasant person.”

Born in Buffalo, Mr. Gugino spent most of his working life in Cleveland, where he specialized in creating computer databases, his friends and colleagues said.

He went back to his hometown to care for his mother, and after she died, he lived alone in her home, finding fellowship at the Western New York Peace Center and at other parts of the city’s close-knit left-wing activist community.

His friends describe him as earnest and gentle.

Trump is convinced he’s a terrorist.

Governor Cuomo demanded that Trump apologize for insulting a peaceful demonstrator.

“You think the blood coming out of his head was staged?” Mr. Cuomo asked, sounding incredulous. “How reckless, how irresponsible.”

Trump will never change. He watches rightwing television and consumes conspiracy theories.

I keep wondering: aren’t we all anti-fascists? Who supports fascism?

Categories Lies, Trump

DeVos Insists on Denying Federal CARES Aid to Undocumented Students

By dianeravitch
June 9, 2020 //
20

In another act of gratuitous cruelty, Betsy DeVos insists that undocumented students should get no emergency aid, although Congress did not pass such a restriction.

Politico reports:

DEVOS SEEKS TO ENFORCE RESTRICTIONS ON PANDEMIC RELIEF GRANTS THROUGH REGULATION: The Trump administration will roll out a new regulation this week that restricts which college students may receive emergency grants to cover expenses like food and housing.

— The Education Department says it’s moving to publish, as soon as today, an “interim final rule” that requires colleges to exclude undocumented students and others who don’t qualify for federal student aid from a more than $6 billion emergency cash grant program under the CARES Act, H.R. 748 (116). Such rules typically take effect immediately.

— The new regulation will carry out — now with the force of law — a policy that DeVos first outlined in April. Democrats and college officials have cried foul, arguing that it goes against the intent of the CARES Act, which does not include any explicit restrictions on which students can receive the funding.

— Meanwhile, two states — California and Washington — have brought legal challenges against the guidance. In the face of those lawsuits, the Education Department backed away from the significance of the guidance, promising not to enforce it and downplaying it as “preliminary.”

— It’s not yet clear exactly how DeVos’ new regulation will be worded. But Education Department officials indicated in documents filed with OMB that the administration will move ahead with its contentious position on who can receive relief — limiting funding only to those students who are already eligible for federal financial aid under Title IV of the Higher Education Act.

— Happening today: The expected release of the new regulation this week coincides with a federal judge in San Francisco holding a virtual hearing today on California’s motion for a preliminary injunction blocking DeVos’ guidance. Another judge has set a similar hearing in the Washington state case for Thursday.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Cruelty, Higher Education

Trump Unilaterally Pulls Significant Number of U.S. Troops Out of Germany, to Spite Angela Merkel

By dianeravitch
June 9, 2020 //
77

The editorial board of the Washington Post denounced Trump for abruptly withdrawing one-third of American troops from Germany, in retaliation for Chancellor Merkel’s rejection of his invitation to have a snap summit.

IN A transparent attempt to boost his sagging political fortunes, President Trump proposed to stage a summit meeting of the Group of Seven nations in Washington this month, with Vladimir Putin among the special guests. In a May 30 phone call that reportedly turned testy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel demurred, citing the continuing threat of the covid-19 pandemic as well as the lack of preparation for such a meeting.

One week later, Trump’s riposte to Ms. Merkel surfaced: a vindictive and, for U.S. national security, deeply damaging decision to withdraw nearly a third of the American troops stationed in Germany. The move was made without consultation with the Germans, other NATO allies or even senior U.S. military officers in Europe, who were taken by surprise when the story emerged on Friday.
The pullout, which Mr. Trump arrived at in the absence of any National Security Council deliberation, could substantially weaken U.S. ability to deter Russian aggression in Europe or respond to other foreign crises. However, shortly after speaking with Ms. Merkel, Mr. Trump initiated a phone call with Mr. Putin, who will be thrilled by the president’s unilateral disarmament and exacerbation of a rift with a key ally.

Mr. Trump appears to believe he is punishing Ms. Merkel by removing forces that nominally defend Germany. The sycophant whom the president installed as ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, has been arguing publicly that Germany doesn’t merit U.S. bases when it fails to meet NATO defense spending guidelines. What he and the president fail to understand is that the 34,500 U.S. personnel in Germany — down from 235,000 during the Cold War — primarily bolster U.S. defense. The Ramstein Air Base is vital to operations in the Middle East and Africa, and the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center provides critical care to wounded American soldiers medevaced from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Trump has been impervious to serial attempts over the past three years by his national security advisers and senior military commanders to explain such basics to him. Instead, conceiving U.S. troops as mercenary forces who should be deployed only when host countries offer compensation he regards as adequate, he also has been threatening to pull troops out of South Korea — which would delight another dictator, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

Further, Mr. Trump is reportedly contemplating accelerating a withdrawal of the remaining U.S. forces in Afghanistan, so that it can be carried out in advance of the November election, rather than sometime next year. Never mind that this would likely short-circuit nascent talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and leave the latter in position to restore a theocratic dictatorship.
If the past is any guide, there will now be a scramble within the Pentagon or by Trump-friendly congressional Republicans to reverse or water down the president’s decision — which as of late Monday had still not been formally announced. In the meantime, it should be clearer than ever why former senior military leaders such as Jim Mattis and Colin Powell have taken the lead in publicly repudiating the president. He is, as they have said, a liar who divides the country. He is also, increasingly, a threat to national security.

Categories International, Lies, Stupid, Trump

Jamaal Bowman for Congress in the Bronx!

By dianeravitch
June 9, 2020 //
9

I have known Jamaal Bowman as an enlightened educator and a fighter for social justice. Right now, he is running for Congress against a senior Democrat, Elliot Engel. Engel is a 16-term member of Congress and chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Most people think of Jamaal as a long shot.

But the times are changing. Jamaal has raised nearly $1 million. He was endorsed by AOC. He is young and energetic and passionate.

Michelle Goldberg, a regular columnist for the New York Times, wrote an extraordinary column about Jamaal.

Goldberg wrote:

On March 1, which feels about 20 years ago, NBC News published an essay by a congressional candidate, Jamaal Bowman, about the scars he bore from life in New York under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was then still running for president.

“As a working-class black male educator during the entirety of Bloomberg’s tenure, I got to experience the horrors and the trauma of how his police department treated people like me,” wrote Bowman. He described an inexplicable arrest following a routine traffic stop, and another after he was accused of stealing his own car. He wrote about Eric Garner and Sean Bell, two black men killed by N.Y.P.D. cops, and about the growing police presence in the city schools where Bowman had made his career.

Last March, when the NBC article appeared, Goldberg wrote him off. But the world has changed since the killing of George Floyd.

Now Jamaal Bowman has a shot at winning. He would be a great addition to Congress.

I endorsed Jamaal months ago. He has all the right ingredients to be a strong voice on behalf of his district, on behalf of education, on behalf of the black and brown students he worked so hard to educate as principal of the Cornerstone Academy of Social Action, and on behalf of their families. He would fight for those who have been left behind by poverty, institutional neglect, and racism.

If you live in the Sixteenth Congressional District in the Bronx, please vote for Jamaal Bowman for Congress.

Categories New York, Poverty, Racism
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