Archives for the month of: April, 2022
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Putin’s Personal Warlord

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2022 //
30

Several European media outlets have written about Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen warlord who has sent his militia to Ukraine. He has cultivated a reputation for ruthlessness and for slavish devotion to Putin. The members of his militia pride themselves on their brutality.

According to witness statements collected by Ukrainian investigators and journalists, Kadyrovites in black and green uniforms have been behind some of the worst atrocities and human rights violations in towns such as Bucha, including against children….

“The Kadyrovites have very little to do with Chechen values,” says Christopher Swift, a national security lawyer and specialist on Russia and the Caucasus. “They’re a bizarre amalgam of very conservative Islamic ideas out of the Middle East and slavish devotion to the Putin regime.”

During the Russia-Chechen wars, his father Ahmad first fought the Soviets, then switched sides and became Putin’s favorite. After the Russians demolished Chechnya’s cities and gained control, Ahmad was elected president of the pacified Chechnya in 2003. He was assassinated a year later.

The younger Kadyrov, who had been a militia leader, immediately adopted Putin as a sort of father figure, and took over as president as soon as he turned 30 in 2007.

His governing skills were threadbare, but his militia – the Kadyrovtsy – specialised in killing and terrorising unarmed civilians, serving as his extrajudicial praetorian guard.

He keeps control over Chechnya with an iron fist, aided by what he himself has estimated as $3.8bn in annual subsidies from Moscow.

The U.K. Express ridiculed the warlord by posting a claim that he wore £1200 Prada boots into battle. The Express also wrote that the Chechens were poor fighters, lost hundreds of men, and departed for Chechnya. (None of these allegations have been verified).

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is being assisted by the Chechnyan military as it enters its fourth week. President Ramzan Kadyrov – a long-time ally of Putin’s – offered his support at the conflict’s outset. But despite facing violent incursions from the two nations, Ukraine appears to have humiliated the invaders several times and are said to be shattering the myth of the hardman Chechen dictator famed for persecuting homosexuals.

Categories Cruelty, International

Insane Lie About the Schools Goes Viral

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2022 //
28

Republicans will say anything crazy and insulting about public schools as a way to radicalize parents against them. The worst example: the repeated claim that schools are installing litter boxes in bathrooms for children who identify as cats or dogs.

No one knows for sure where this started–could have been Moms for Liberty or the National Parents Union or some other money-grubbing rightwing extremists.

The AP reported:

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska state lawmaker apologized on Monday after he publicly cited a persistent but debunked rumor alleging that schools are placing litter boxes in school bathrooms to accommodate children who self-identify as cats.

Sen. Bruce Bostelman, a conservative Republican, repeated the false claim during a public, televised debate on a bill intended to help school children who have behavioral problems. His comments quickly went viral, with one Twitter video garnering more than 300,000 views as of Monday afternoon, and drew an onslaught of online criticism and ridicule.

Bostelman initially said he was “shocked” when he heard stories that children were dressing as cats and dogs while at school, with claims that schools were accommodating them with litter boxes.

“They meow and they bark and they interact with their teachers in this fashion,” Bostelman said during legislative debate. “And now schools are wanting to put litter boxes in the schools for these children to use. How is this sanitary?”

The rumor has persisted in a private Facebook group, “Protect Nebraska Children,” and also surfaced last month in an Iowa school district, forcing the superintendent to write to parents that it was “simply and emphatically not true…”

The false claim that children who identify as cats are using litter boxes in school bathrooms has spread across the internet since at least December, when a member of the public brought it up at a school board meeting for Midland Public Schools northwest of Detroit.

The claim was debunked by the district’s superintendent, who issued a statement that said there had “never been litter boxes within MPS schools.”

Still, the baseless rumor has spread across the country, and become fuel for political candidates, amid the culture wars and legislative action involving gender identification in schools.

Hours after his remarks, Bostelman backtracked and acknowledged that the story wasn’t true. He said he checked into the claims with state Sen. Lynne Walz, a Democrat who leads the Legislature’s Education Committee, and confirmed there were no such incidents.…

The furor over public school restrooms comes as a growing number of conservative states seek laws to ban transgender students from using bathrooms that match their gender identity.

People who believe this nonsense should actually visit a public school, talk to the principal, talk to teachers and students before they spread it and make fools of themselves.

Categories Fake, Ignorance, Lies

Arizona: Judge Tosses Voter Approval of Measure to Raise Education Funding

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2022 //
4

Education advocates put a measure on the ballot in Arizona to raise taxes on the highest-income taxpayers to increase education funding. Voters passed the measure. But a judge struck it down because it exceeded the state constitution’s limit on taxation. This report comes from the Center on Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University.

AZ JUDGE INVALIDATES PROPOSITION THAT WOULD HAVE BOOSTED FUNDING FOR EDUCATION

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah has ended the nearly two-year controversy swirling around the constitutionality of Proposition 208, a measure recently adopted by the voters, by ruling last month that the measure is invalid. The Proposition would have boosted the income-tax rate for high income earners by 3.5%, with the money directed primarily to salary increases for teachers and school support personnel. But the judge ruled last month in Fann v. State, that the money the Proposition would raise would exceed the amount permitted by the state’s constitutional spending limit.

The Arizona Supreme Court had indicated that allocation of funds for education under Prop. 208 would likely contravene the Education Expenditure Clause of the state constitution, a constitutional cap that was adopted in 1980. The case had been remanded to the trial court to calculate whether, as most observers anticipated, the amount raised by the proposition would, in fact, exceed the cap.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Budget Cuts, Funding

Providence Finally Has a Real Superintendent

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2022 //
11

Javier Montańez has been acting superintendent of the Providence public schools all year, while State Superintendent Angelica Infante-Green searched and searched and finally decided to make him the real superintendent of the troubled school district.

Providence finally has a chance to have genuine experienced leadership at the helm, if Infante-Green allows him to run the district, writes Boston Globe columnist Dan MacGowan.

Providence has been under state control for two years, with nothing happening, in part due to the COVID.

But let’s face it, the maximum leader Infante-Green has less experience than the new superintendent. She was a TFA teacher for two years, then moved into the New York State Education Department bureaucracy. She has never been a principal or a superintendent. Montańez has been both.

Kids don’t look up to superintendents the way they do to sports stars like LeBron James or Steph Curry, but Montañez is a true role model. As a teenager, Montañez was homeless and sleeping under a tree in Roger Williams Park, and now he’s running a district filled with thousands of students facing similar obstacles to those he overcame in his life.

Teachers don’t usually look up to superintendents, either. But in Montañez, they’ve got someone who truly understands what they’re going through. He has both taught and been a principal in Providence, so he has the ability to connect with the city’s 2,000 educators in a way no school chief has in many years.

Now comes the hard part.

Montañez has a life’s worth of credibility and a career’s worth of goodwill to be the transformational figure that Providence schools desperately need, especially when we’re more than two years into a state takeover that hasn’t produced any significant results up to this point...

For the past year, he’s been the ideal cheerleader for the district while also proving that he can run the operations of a large school system. He has excelled at both. He’s in his element when he’s talking to students about their future or joking around with them in the hallways, and he’s proven that he can make sure the buses run fine, the buildings aren’t in complete disarray, and the students are safe.

His challenge now is to begin articulating and then executing a vision for getting Providence schools to a place where the majority of kids are proficient in math and English. It’s a tall task. As it stands now, only 6.8 percent of students in Grades 3 through 8 were proficient in math and 14.1 percent were proficient in reading.

Is it worth mentioning at this point that “proficient” is not the right benchmark? “Proficient” does not mean “grade level” or “above grade level” or “passing.” It means “excelling.” I am not sure what percent of Providence students should be excellent, but editorialists should use “basic” as “grade level,” not “proficient.”

The biggest problem the new superintendent will have is that the Governor and the State Superintendent are used to micromanaging the district, and neither of them has the experience that the superintendent has. Also, they are both big fans of privatization, and he will have to protect the public schools.

He will have to use his credibility to insist on his leadership.

Categories Education Reform

Kentucky: Governor Vetoes Charter Funding Bill

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2022 //
25

Kentucky authorized charter schools in 2017 but never approved a funding mechanism.

The Legislature passed a charter funding bill, and Governor Andy Beshear vetoed it.

Beshear struck down House Bill 9, sponsored by House Majority Whip Chad McCoy, on Thursday. The legislation would provide federal, state and local money for charter schools, which have been legal since 2017 but have lacked a permanent funding mechanism, on proportionate per-pupil bases.

“I’m against charter schools,” Beshear said before signing his HB 9 veto. “They are wrong for our commonwealth. They take taxpayer dollars away from the already underfunded public schools in the commonwealth, and our taxpayer dollars should not be redirected to for-profit entities that run charter schools.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Kentucky

NEA: End Federal Funding for Corporate Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2022 //
9

The National Education Association issued an appeal for educators and other concerned citizens: Raise your voice to stop the federal funding of corporate charter schools!

Now is your chance to be heard.

NEA writes:

Email the U.S. Department of Education to advocate for the end of corporate charter schools and support accountability and transparency for all schools taking our tax dollars.

  • All schools that receive public funds should be held to the same excellence, equity, and transparency standards as district-run public schools. The original intent of charter schools was to provide a space for educators to be more flexible and innovative.

Instead, big business boards and billionaires turned it into a money-making machine that benefits only themselves. The growth of these corporate charters has undermined local public schools and communities—taking taxpayer money with no oversight or any overall increase in student learning and growth.

The U.S. Department of Education is taking these very real issues seriously and is proposing an end to the support of corporate charter schools. We applaud this effort, but there will be loud voices paid by the billionaires running these schools to speak out against this positive step.

That’s why we need your voice. You can speak out in support of the Department of Education’s proposal to ban for-profit schools from applying for grants and receiving funds to open charters, and demand that charter schools be held to the same standards as traditional public schools.

You may use the sample message provided, but we encourage you to share your personal stories and examples. Tell the U.S. Department of Education how important it is to you personally that for-profit charter schools be held to the same accountability and transparency rules as public schools.

What is the federal comment period and what can I do to help?

The Department of Education is seeking comments from the public about the proposed standards. When you send your letter through this form, it will be added to the federal register as part of the official request for comments and be made public. Written comments on this final rule should be received on or before April 13, 2022.

You can help by writing a personalized letter detailing stories and examples. The more personal the better!

Open the link to see the sample letter and instructions about contacting the Department of Education.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit

Billy Townsend: Ron DeSantis And His Corrupt Friend Are a Gift to Trump

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2022 //
13

Billy Townsend remembers Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s servile devotion to Trump while he was president. Now DeSantis is positioning himself to run for President against the old fool in 2024. But Ron D. has a serious liability: his continued friendship with a corrupt lobbyist for the charter industry.

DeSantis…banished Ralph Arza in 2018 from the sight of his campaign with much public dudgeon, for a pretty good reason: Ralph is a convicted criminal witness tamperer kicked out of the Legislature for making drunken, threatening, racial-slur filled phone calls. Ralph also happens to be director of governmental affairs for the Florida Charter School Alliance (FCSA) and chief political hit man for the Florida charter school industry…

Since DeSantis appointed Richard Corcoran, Ralph has been acting as the de facto second in command at the collapsing DeSantis Florida Department of Education, which has been run by disgraced, outgoing Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran. Corcoran once told me face-to-face he considers Ralph a “friend.”

Ralph is also a crucial figure in the ongoing DoE/Jefferson/MGT consultant bid-rigging scandal. Four of Ralph’s relatives worked for the Academica-owned charter school that Sen. Manny Diaz and Richard Corcoran forced on Jefferson County before it quit. And Ralph was present for no good reason during a potentially corrupt official meeting last fall, first reported by the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald. Full rundown of Ralph’s still not fully explained role in it here.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit

Billy Townsend: Florida Pol Blames Community for Failure of His Employer’s Charter School

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2022 //
2

Billy Townsend is an acerbic critic of Florida charter scandals and the state commissioner Richard Corcoran, whose wife runs a charter school. He never runs out of material.

In this post, he tells the story of a politician, Manny Diaz, who works for a charter chain, blaming a struggling community for the failure of his employer’s charter school, which was launched with much razzle-dazzle.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, Florida, For-Profit, Lies

Congratulations, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson!

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2022 //
39

With the support of three renegade Republicans (Romney of Utah, Collins of Maine, and Murkowski of Alaska), Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed as a new Justice of the Supreme Court.

Her qualifications were beyond dispute. She is one of the most qualified members of the Court. she received the highest possible rating from the American Bar Association (Trump’s last appointee, Justice Barrett, did not).

She won’t change the 6-3 balance on the deeply divided Court, but she will bring a fresh perspective, a great intellect, a deep respect for the Constitution, and a judicial temperament that enabled four days of withering and unfair attacks by ambitious Republican Senators who we’re competing for the QAnon sector of the GOP base.

A great choice! Justice prevailed.

Categories Justice

The Horrors of Bucha

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2022 //
160

As the Russian military regroups and moves to attack Ukrainian cities in the East, it is withdrawing from towns it controlled for more than a month. The evidence of sadism, torture, and war crimes against civilians shocks the conscience of everyone but the man who started the war, Vladimir Putin. He and he alone has the power to stop the killing.

By now, we have all seen the trrrible carnage on the television news. But the revelations keep coming. Sometimes words shock even more than pictures.

This was reported in today’s Washington Post.

BUCHA, Ukraine — The name of this city is already synonymous with the month-long carnage that Russian soldiers perpetrated here.
But the scale of the killings and the depravity with which they were committed is only just becoming apparent as police, local officials and regular citizens start the grim task of clearing Bucha of the hundreds of corpses decomposing on streets and in parks, apartment buildings and other locations.

ISome of the cruelest violence took place at a glass factory on the edge of town.
On the gravel near a loading dock lay the body of Dmytro Chaplyhin, 21, whose abdomen was bruised black and blue, his hands marked with what looked like cigarette burns. He ultimately was killed by a gunshot to the chest, concluded team leader Ruslan Kravchenko. His body then was turned into a weapon, tied to a tripwire connected to a mine.

“Every day we get about 10 to 20 calls for bodies like this,” Kravchenko said.

Hundreds of corpses litter the streets of Bucha, some of them beheaded.

Categories Accountability, International
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