My website is dianeravitch.com. I write about two interconnected topics: education and democracy. I am a historian of education.
Diane Ravitch’s Blog by Diane Ravitch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at dianeravitch.net.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane Here is a take on education on the industrial model, or as preparation for the workforce and economy from “The Conversation.”
Education isn’t a commodity for labor
August 31, 2017 9.09pm Author: Steven Fesmire
Visiting Professor of Philosophy, Middlebury College
SNIPS
“For many, the mission of K-12 and higher education is, in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s infamous words, ‘to develop human resources to meet the state’s workforce needs.’”
“Whatever one may think of Walker’s politics, his general outlook is no outlier. It typifies the view that education is mostly a way to fuel industry with skilled labor – and it’s in tension with the goal of preparing students for ‘any and every relation to which [they] may be called.’”
“Rather than educating whole persons for lifelong growth, this ‘industrial model’ treats education as just another sector of the economy. In this view, education’s job is to manufacture skilled labor, and it’s expected to do so in a way that’s maximally efficient. Knowledge is seen as a market commodity, teachers and professors are delivery vehicles for knowledge content and students are either consumers or manufactured products.”
“Educational institutions that follow the industrial model are seen as marketplaces for acquiring and delivering content. And when tuition is involved, that’s simply the fair price for accessing that content.”
“What does society lose?
“When described in this way, it seems a cold, inhuman approach to education. Nevertheless, both major U.S. political parties seem to have embraced the industrial model. The parties may substantively disagree on the particulars of how to provide education, but (in the main) noneconomic values are too often not on the radar. . . . ” (more)
https://theconversation.com/education-isnt-a-commodity-for-labor-79606?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20August%2031%202017%20-%2082076669&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20August%2031%202017%20-%2082076669+CID_bce8f630e021c4202b04bf4705c27600&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=Education%20isnt%20a%20commodity%20for%20labor
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“For many, the mission of K-12 and higher education is, in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s infamous words, ‘to develop human resources to meet the state’s workforce needs.’”
This chillingly sounds like a Stalinist Communist’s words.
“When described in this way, it seems a cold, inhuman approach to education. Nevertheless, both major U.S. political parties seem to have embraced the industrial model. The parties may substantively disagree on the particulars of how to provide education, but (in the main) noneconomic values are too often not on the radar. . . . ”
Corporate capitalism, heavily responsible for accelerated catastrophic climate disaster (read Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate), long ago corrupted BOTH major parties which now espouse neoliberalism, which worships ‘the market’ and has destroyed the middle class and treats everything, including people and planet, as a commodity.
Public schools are just one of the casualties in this relentless war of greed. As long as Corporate/Wall St./War St. Democrats maintain their greedy fealty to neoliberalism, with “leaders” such as Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein, Corey “Big Pharma” Booker, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Deval Patrick, Kamala Harris, both Clintons, Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, and other such corporate/privatizing “Democrats”, and marginalize Bernie Sanders and his progressive supporters (as they did in the 2016 Democrat primaries), they will deservedly continue to lose elections and further alienate their party from working class and poor Americans.
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Your connection of Walker’s words to Stalin is excellent and I can’t disagree with your conclusion.
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Thanks, GregB. As educators and supporters of public schools, we MUST only support candidates who truly, by their ACTIONS, not easy rhetoric, oppose privatizing education and support what is best for students, if we ever hope to retake democracy from the oligarchy the U.S. has become under BOTH Corporate parties.
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Trump’s lawyers are claiming that Comey is a liar! That’s a good one.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/09/01/thats-all-trumps-lawyers-have/?utm_term=.6656e072df6c
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Ed Ciaccio Yes. Many things are wrong with the present reductionist-capitalist view of things; but the most dangerous is the forgetfulness of democracy.
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We no longer have a democracy. The U.S. is an oligarchy, and has been long before the 2010 Citizens United decision by the pro-corporate Supreme Court Five.
As one of my favorite bumper stickers states: “We don’t have a democracy. We have an auction.”
The latest issue of the NYSUT newspaper has an article by a research physician decrying the cutting of funds for research programs and the sad fact that college students, crushed by onerous student debts, are choosing more lucrative fields such as finance instead of pursuing interests such as medical research or teaching, because they need higher incomes to pay off their student loans.
This is NOT accidental. The whole design of neoliberal capitalism is to commodify everyone and everything so that only the market matters. Such a political/economic system is fatal to democracy.
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Ed Ciaccio That’s pretty much what said. It’s the forgetfulness of democracy that is the most dangerous thing. After that, the only question is whether it’s conscious and deliberate, as with many (not all) of the wealthy; or whether it’s been the experience of, and so “ingrained” in the thinking of, so many that they have just drifted into capitalism-as-all (neo-liberalism) and now wouldn’t recognize democracy AS DIFFERENT if it bit them on the face.
In one sense, it’s a problem for education as a field itself because (in way too many cases) education has lost its vibrant connection with its democratic roots–which need to be “revolutionized” again in every generation. So in our present environment, what’s really “clue” to the arrogance and its correlate: contempt for democracy is the attempt to get at the curriculum and the rule-making in education so that the openness that is endemic to democracy (free speech, etc.) is replaced by a political and/or religious ideology of either corporate and/or oligarchic control based, in the end, on a vacuous self-service.
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A Pennsylvania state legislator isn’t all in with Reform: http://www.pottsmerc.com/opinion/20170901/guest-column-too-much-testing-not-enough-results-for-pa-students
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This article was placed on Drudge Report, and there is an incredible amount of anti-public school and anti-public school teacher venom in the comments. It was eye opening to me to see how some — too many — people view the profession. Pretty scary.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/01/public-school-teachers-behind-violent-antifa-group/
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I never go to this site but did so on your recommendation. I don’t know whether to curse or thank you now that I’ve read it. 😉
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I doubt many of my friends here have ever heard of Joachim “Jogi” Löw, but he is the coach of the German national soccer team, arguably one of the best coaches in the history of the game. He’s also an incredibly positive role model. This past Friday, Germany played the Czech Republic in a World Cup qualifier in Prague. A handful of “fans” from Dresden, about 150 miles from Prague, which is well known as one of the cities that harbors a small but intense group of right-wing extremists, made some Nazi gestures, bringing shame on the nation. In a press conference yesterday, Löw wasted no time to express his disgust:
“I can’t turn directly to sporting questions without commenting on what happened in Prague,” Loew said at the start of a press conference ahead of Monday’s qualifier against Norway in Stuttgart, victory in which could secure Germany’s place in Russia next year.
“I’m full of anger and I’m very much shaken to see that some so-called fans use football, and an international match, for their deplorable demonstrations. They bring shame on our country,” Loew said, hailing his players’ decision to not applaud the block where away fans were gathered at the end of the match, as is customary.
“I am favourable to very severe sanctions against these troublemakers. We don’t want them, we’re not their national team, and they’re not our fans.
“Given our history, it’s very important for us to represent our country in a dignified fashion and its values of tolerance, respect and openness to the world. These troublemakers demean this image.”
Note to our Dear Leader and his apologists: this is how one addresses neo-Nazi and fascist extremism.
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GregB Thanks for the soccer thing, especially the memorable adjective: “deplorable.”
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“Deplorable” in this case is the translator’s choice. It could also have been translated as “overly embarrassing.” But the sentiment is the same. For our German speakers and readers, here is the original:
„Ich will nicht zur Tagesordnung übergehen. Ich bin nicht bestürzt oder traurig, ich bin voller Wut. Dass sogenannte Fans mit ihren oberpeinlichen Auftritten Schande über unser Land bringen. Jeder, der von den nicht ins Stadion darf, ist ein Gewinn. Jedesmal, wenn wir ins Ausland gehen, ist es für uns eine wichtige Sache, dass wir unser Land würdig vertreten. Dass wir für ein tolerantes und weltoffenes Deutschland stehen. Diese Chaoten beschädigen unser Land. Ich bin dafür, dass wir dagegen mit absoluter Härte einstehen. Diese Chaoten wollen wir nicht, und wir sind nicht deren Nationalmannschaft . Das sind auch nicht unsere Fans. Das ist unterste Schublade und zutiefst verachtenswert.“
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GregB Thanks for the clarification. Thumbs-up to the translator.
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Diane, have you listened to this week’s This American Life with an interesting story about Betsy DeVos?
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/
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Thanks for posting this. Missed this one.
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http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2017/09/05/garrison-keillor-when-a-red-state-gets-the-blues/
(c) Garrison Keillor, distributed by The Washington Post News Service with Bloomberg News.
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Thanks. Keeloe makes a good point.
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Article in October’s Atlantic cites Diane’s book and is very well reasoned, imo: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-war-on-public-schools/537903/#article-comments
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Thank you! Great for sharing with non-education policy junkies.
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Diane This just in from Education Week:
Senate Panel Rejects Trump Teacher-Funding Cut, School Choice Proposals
Lawmakers in the Senate overseeing education spending dealt a big blow to the Trump administration’s K-12 budget asks in a spending bill approved Wednesday.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2017/09/senate_panel_rejects_trump_cut.html?cmp=soceml-twfdbltz-ewnow
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Thanks, CBK.
Too bad they added $25 million for the charter sector, which has proven to be a lair for thieves and fraud.
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Wait’ll you listen to Betsy’s remarks today on watering down Title IX’s sexual assault protections: “If everything is harassment, then nothing is.” Oy! Her speech writer might be the most overpaid hack in DC.
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Hi Diane—were you aware of this “rethinking high school” program that is airing tonight at 8 EST on all the major networks? http://www.charlotteobserver.com/entertainment/music-news-reviews/article171706992.html
Looks like the usual “ed is in crisis” “21st century” crap….
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Diane A new book by John Nichols: “Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse: A Field Guide to the Most Dangerous People in America.” (new department heads, for instance).
Nichols talked about his book this morning on http://www.BookTV.org (at Politics and Prose Bookstore in DC).
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Thank you for posting, CBK. There’s nothing new in this for us political junkies, but I wish my friends and neighbors who complain about politics and never pay attention would watch this.
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GregB Yes–I found the talk informing, but also that it made my present thinking more clear.
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How about that cuckoo clock who tried to hijack the party?
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GregB Arghhh. I watched that BookTV talk “live” and must have tuned in after your referred-to comment. I would have remembered it, I’m sure. I have the full version at the top of my to-do list however, especially since reading your question.
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It is interesting to see your reply to not only Greg B but to my comment – Why you might wonder? And I know you really don’t care, but just the same– you are a few months behind – did you just awaken in your bubble? From July to Sept. it took you that long – well, since you were so kind to GregB to lower yourself that one time, I guess I’ll do the same for you.
“I’ll make an exception to ignoring you this one time:”
To answers Greg’s question, since you regurgitated it – I can disagree with DaVos’ and her direction in ed policy and at the same time I do not have “unconditional support” of Trump.
“Fallacious arguments do not change anything, you attack us. That sir is called ad hominem.” Noone is attacking you – a pathetic retort – ad hominem on your part.
Did you have unconditional support for Hillary, or Obama and their policies? Hillary really didn’t have a program since she believed it was owed to her.
Observable reality – yours et al, that is like, for example, those living in a padded room wrapped in a white jacket assuming their world is reality as they observe it, or an individual with dementia. As I said once before here, it is amazing all the armchair psychiatrists that, as they disregard their professional ethics requirement not to lend their opinions unless they actually interview the person and have his/her ok to discuss them publically, lend the salivating mad dogs meat for their pleasure to soothe their loss. Thus, I guess all the name calling in a way is a medicinal approach to the pain, like opiods, of the blunt force trauma of Hillary’s disaster and the enmity towards Trump – the outsider. I await all those psychiatrists to describe Hillary’s inability to see herself as the fault = nah it will not happen even after the daily dribble of clips from her new book finger pointing to all who caused her loss.
“You CHOOSE TO WRITE IN a ‘place’ where some of the brightest American have a conversation, and want us to ‘unknow’ what we know about how he is wrecking everything we stand for…every thing we built.”
Wow, didn’t know there was an IQ level necessary to have a conversation here. You probably would conjure up a snarky remark on my IQ, I would expect nothing more. No wonder the left wing Dem libs do not understand that they continue to lose elections because they belittle the “forgotten men and women” in this country – all us beat up pickup truck drivers with those nasty stickers, rifles in the back window, NRA card carrying Bible toting deplorables – — I am sure you could add more – you are so eloquent and erudite.
What are you building that you pat yourself on the back for -that has policies that lack a foundation of growth and economic success * years and we got less than 2% growth GDP – the first time in our history – Trump is at least beginning to turn that around – he knows how to build.
Stay the same, do not consider alternative facts, avoid oppositional opinions which may cause growth — I don’t want you to “unknow” anything, nor do I want you to change anything – why do you accuse me of that – one cannot change a closed, locked mind – fear of your Obama and Clinton crumbling world’s infrastructure with Trump in the office?
LIAR – now there was a president who snookered the entire country with his repeated LIES on health care – the number one LIAR on the planet – oh, I could throw in Clintons – especially Bill – you know he never did have sex with that girl – forgo the blue dress’ stain – LIARS – CONSUMATE LIARS.
Back in June Diane zipped this reply –
June 2, 2017 at 9:25 am:
“Jscheidell, you seem to be a reasonable person. How you can support this ignorant buffoon is puzzling. He and his family are grifters, with no ethics, no dignity, no sense of honor or duty. Greed is on their family crest.” A close inspection of the Clinton crest is what she must have been looking at that moment – greed – ethics, lack of dignity, the Dem leadership are getting tired of the Mrs constant daily comedy show – I wonder how anyone could support this circus of clowns
Obama – DACA – Who gave tens of thousands of these “hopeful young strivers” false hope in order to satisfy cheap political objectives? That was you, Mr. Obama. You used these kids like pawns because you hoped they’d be future votes for the Democrat Party. He was the ultimate swindler to this nation and those kids – That is cruel –
the LIAR promised all those DACA kids a pie in the sky wonderful world here – another LIE just to bring in more voters for the Dems
Obama was an ideologue. He’s an anti-colonial ideologue who wants to diminish the wealth and power of America. I think with the Clintons we’re dealing with something different. We’re dealing with Bonnie and Clyde, a kind of criminal racket that these two people run, and they’ve been on the make since the Arkansas days, continuing through the White House, then Hillary renting out American foreign policy and our uranium – now there is a Ruskie relationship.. The reason she likes the progressive ideology is it delivers power right back to her. In other words, if she lived in a country of limited government where the federal government had limited power, how could she acquire all this money and power for herself? So she likes the progressive ideology since it serves her racketeering objectives.
LIARS – The Democrats keep saying they’re the party of the little guy and the ordinary man and the party of Latinos and immigrants and blacks. The Democratic Party is actually the party of slavery, of segregation, of Jim Crow, of the Ku Klux Klan, of lynching, of forced sterilization, sympathy for fascism in the 1930s.
The Democrats are the ones who interned the Japanese-Americans after World War II. So unbelievably, this Democratic Party has been implicated in the most sordid and heinous acts of history, and yet in a move of unbelievable Jiu-Jitsu what they do is they take all their crimes and blame them on the south or blame them on the Republicans or blame them on America, as if America did this or America did that, but America didn’t do it. The Democrats did.
Now, it is a fact that it was a Democratic delegate to the Democratic National Convention, Nathan Bedford Forrest, who founded the Ku Klux Klan. It is also a fact that the Klan had a massive revival in the early twentieth century due to a progressive Democratic president, Woodrow Wilson, screening a pro-Ku Klux Klan movie in the White House.
It is also a fact — and here I’m quoting the progressive historian Eric Foner — that for 30 years the Ku Klux Klan was the domestic terrorist arm of the Democratic Party in this country.
SLS, I think you should follow a famous singers advice on DACA – take one DACA in to your home and supply them all of there needs – Go Cher!
Trump won the White House on such promises of getting rid of the unconstitutional DACA issue, and it stands to reason that he would try to follow through on them now that he’s in office. Obama said in 2012 if Republicans didn’t like his policies then they should go out there and “win an election,” not try to undermine the policies they don’t like. That’s exactly what the GOP did, first in 2014 and again in 2016, taking control of both Congress and the White House.
The winners have every right to pursue their own policy preferences and undo Obama-era measures – a lot of them on executive orders because he could not get them passed in his congress. Obama called Trump’s decision to rescind DACA “contrary to our spirit, and to common sense.” Ending the program, he said, “isn’t required legally. It’s a political decision, and a moral question.”
Obama is right that it’s a political decision, just like creating the program in 2012 was a political decision. He’s wrong that it’s a moral question. It’s a legal question; no matter what one thinks of the DACA policy itself, the creation of such a program by presidential fiat was a blatant overreach of his powers.
A lot of your policy preferences are seen as moral questions. Whatever policies Democrats enact are not merely politically desirable but morally necessary, and opposing them is morally wrong. That goes for pretty much every other Obama policy, from his draconian climate regulations to every last detail of the Affordable Care Act. If Republicans try to roll back any of it, they’re being morally callous—dooming the planet to climate change or killing thousands of Americans by denying them health care. Even opposing the Obama administration’s quixotic Iran nuclear deal was a grave sin that would lead to “some form of war” in the Middle East.
What enlightened American would actually disapprove of Obamacare or the Paris Climate Accord, let alone a program like DACA? Who, besides racists and xenophobes, would ever want to restrict immigration or, God forbid, build a wall to enforce our southern border?
Many Democrats think their fellow countrymen are indeed nothing more than racists and xenophobes for opposing those policies.
We can debate the best way to provide universal health coverage, but not whether the government ought to provide such coverage. We can debate the extent to which the Environmental Protection Agency should dictate economic activity in order to combat climate change, but not whether the government should be combating climate change. And so on with every issue—including DACA, over which reasonable people apparently cannot disagree.
Climate change – I have given my statements on climate change a few times here to not only Ed but to Diane as well – enough said there.
Your distain for those who elected Trump didn’t like being told they aren’t allowed to disagree with the prevailing consensus of the morally political and media elite. They voted their distaste against the destruction of the Clinton Obama legacies. Loud and clear.
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jscheidell Sigh . . . .
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Could we please limit the talk on this blog to how to better public schools and how to diminish or dissolve programs ( i.e. Charters and vouchers) that undermine the work and determination of those who work for and support public schools.
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Diane,
I found this commentary on target –
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, WE MUST PROTECT CHILDHOOD: A CALL TO ACTION FROM DENISHA JONES
Posted by Susan Ochshorn, on September 7th, 2017
Denisha Jones, an assistant professor of early childhood education at Trinity Washington University, has been active in the fight to stop the corporate takeover of public education since 2011. A board member of Defending the Early Years, the Badass Teachers Association, and United Opt Out National, she is also pursuing a law degree. This former kindergarten and preschool teacher, who is fiercely committed to social justice, equity, and the best interests of all children, is determined to take back the narrative and engage future teachers in the hard, but critical, work of advocacy and activism.
This essay, published with Jones’s permission, was adapted from the Thomas H. Wright lecture she delivered at Sarah Lawrence College this past summer, based on an article in the forthcoming double issue of the Global Education Review.
I cut and pasted due to length, hope I captured the essence…
“… failure is essential for success. “Failure is instructive,” John Dewey once said, “The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.”
We know that protecting children from the experience of failure is not good for their development. Failure can be a tool for learning how to get it right Our attempts to stop the spread of the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) have failed.
Before we examine our failures more closely, I want to quickly review what I mean by GERM so that we are all on the same page. Pasi Sahlberg notes that the movement emerged in the 1980s and consists of five global features: standardization; focus on core subjects; the search for low-risk ways to reach learning goals; use of corporate management models; and test-based accountability policies. Although none of these elements have been adopted in Finland, where he does most of his research, they have invaded public education in the U.S. and in other countries.
Here, education activists typically refer to GERM as the privatization of public education, driven by neoliberalism, which favors free-market capitalism. Under this scenario, there are no public schools: public services are turned over to the private sector. Healthcare, prisons, even water, are now being put in the hands of corporations, whose sole desire is to make a profit. When profit is the goal, the needs of human beings are discarded, unless they can generate a measurable return on investment.
We can see how GERM has infected U.S. education policy and reforms. The Common Core drives standardization and aligns with a narrow focus on math and literacy. The use of scripted learning programs, behavior training programs, and online learning is evidence of the search for low-risk ways to reach learning goals. While charter schools claim to be nonprofit, most are managed by companies with CEOs and CFOs who apply corporate models to education.
Teach for America and other fast-track teacher preparation programs also use a corporate model, developing education leaders who get their feet wet teaching before moving on to become policymakers or head up charter schools.
Pearson’s PARCC and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium are drowning public education in test-based accountability. Systems that punish and reward schools and teachers based on student achievement on standardized tests are the norm today.
While the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) includes language that protects the right of parents to opt out—a movement that has been growing in recent years—it also maintains the requirement that 95 percent of students participate. Test-based accountability is here to stay and rapidly evolving into competency-based and personalized learning, in which assessments occur all day every day as students are glued to computer screens.
We have failed to stop the expansion of choice, which threatens the existence of public schools through the proliferation of charters and vouchers. In the U.S., most school-age children are educated in traditional public schools, but we can expect to see this trend reversed under the administration of Betsy DeVos. We have failed to stop the assault on public education through school closures in communities of color.
And then there’s the inexorable push down of developmentally inappropriate standards onto young children. The Common Core, adopted by most states, imposes expectations on young children that are out of step with their development, not to mention the research. Empirical data confirm that kindergarten is the new first grade, and preschool the new kindergarten.
On top of this, we have failed to stop racist school discipline practices that suspended 42% of black boys from preschool in the 2011-2012 academic year. This failure stems from our inability to address the systemic and institutional racism that is prominent in public education but often masked by teachers with good intentions who lack an understanding of culture, bias, and systems of oppression.
We must acknowledge these failures so we can understand the limits of our collective efforts and decide how we can refocus our energies toward a future that will lead to more successful outcomes. We need to change the narrative. Attacking the push for accountability and tougher standards has proven to be a losing strategy. Our insistence that these measures harm student development and learning has branded us unwilling to be held accountable for ensuring that all students can achieve.The more we resist test-based accountability and inappropriate reforms, the more we are seen by the corporations, policymakers, and privateers as resistant to innovation.
We must make the protection of childhood a nonpartisan issue. We need to revise our message. The assault on public education is not just a conservative attack by Republicans against progressive education. Democrats are also aligned with many aspects of GERM, including choice, privatization, and test-based accountability.
We can learn from other special-interest groups, such as the American Association of Retired Persons. Their policy agenda involves advocating on issues that are important to their members, but they maintain a nonpartisan focus that allows them to experience success instead of failure. Using this strategy, they were able to substantially reduce the poverty rate for elders.
We must continue to emphasize why it is so important to protect childhood. Why should others care? We need to be clear that protecting childhood is a matter of national security. It may seem far-fetched to invoke such rhetoric, but the truth is the future of the United States of America depends on our children.
We cannot produce capable citizens, leaders who can take on global problems, if we allow childhood to become an experimental playground for corporations and social engineers. Solving the global climate crisis, responding to overpopulation, eradicating world hunger, and curing disease are tough issues that require competent individuals to work collectively to generate new solutions.
It’s important to learn from our failures and develop a new strategy that promotes the vision of early childhood education we seek. We have much to learn from our international neighbors. Although we do not have the same society and history as Finland and other Nordic nations, we need to study their best practices, which meet the needs of the whole child.
We should also look to Italy. The Reggio Emilia philosophy emerged after the devastation of World War II out of a desire to rebuild a society free from oppression. This effort resulted in a world-renowned approach to educating young children that posits the image of the child as capable and strengthens the role of teachers, parents, and the environment in working collectively to support the growth and development of young children.
Most critical to our efforts is a steadfast commitment to protecting childhood for all children. If our work only benefits white middle-class children, then we will have have failed at an even greater task. As we rush to save public education, we must ask ourselves what exactly are we saving. An institution that denied black people an equal education for years, one that, when finally forced to integrate, fired black teachers who were pivotal in helping black children succeed. One that labeled black children as having special needs, or suspended and expelled them from school. I don’t know about you, but that is not an institution I want to save.
I do not believe that teachers and education, alone, can solve the problems of poverty, racism, and oppression. But we can insure that in our classrooms, all children receive the best possible care. This means understanding how bias affects your views and behavior. A process that begins by recognizing your implicit bias—subtle, often subconscious, stereotypes that guide our expectations and interactions with people. They have real consequences for how we treat children who do not look like us.”
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Does anyone out there have a factual opinion about the New Tech Network?
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-tech-network-schools-continue-to-outperform-national-high-school-graduation-rates-300517345.html
The fact that Bob Wise has good things to say about it makes me suspicious.
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Greg,
I don’t know this chain. I do know that Bob Wise teamed up with Jeb Bush to produce a pamphlet called “Digital Learning NOW!” Which hyped tech as the answer to everything, especially if it was unregulated. Underwritten by the tech industry.
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Can someone find me a good article that counters this Petrillian propaganda?
https://edexcellence.net/articles/the-case-for-letting-school-districts-be-school-districts?utm_source=Fordham+Updates&utm_campaign=f5c3db034f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_09_13&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d9e8246adf-f5c3db034f-71494877&mc_cid=f5c3db034f&mc_e
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Cunningham on Eva (aka hagiography of a Reformer by a Reformer): http://educationpost.org/dont-get-angry-get-eva/
(Btw, second straight Reform article with “sclerotic” in it; must have been used at the latest Reformer Reunion.)
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I had to chuckle about the other reformers on the list from the article, Rhee was always in it for herself, and still is, knowing she can wheel and deal with those in power. And Arne Duncan was, along with the administration he was part of ( and those preceding it were no better as far as education was concerned) more of s detriment with the RTTT program.
I just will never understand how schools and districts have their hands tied because of state and federal regulations whereas charters are allowed to do things differently.
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“I just will never understand how schools and districts have their hands tied because of state and federal regulations whereas charters are allowed to do things differently.”
It’s quite simple: the rules for the charters were written by charter backers. When legislators need campaign contributions and charter pockets are full, that’s how the sausage gets made.
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Thanks Christine, my statement was more rhetorical though. Campaign politics and politics in general seems to be a damned if you do and damned if you don’t game. Most likely, many candidates and elected officials, figure that being funded by a charter organization is less of a bad thing because they can claim they are doing good things for the children. Of course when they vote, especially in Florida, to allow more charter schools, they are taking money away from public schools.
I would like to visit those charters run by Eva and talk to the students. I would ask them what is better about the school and why they believe they are doing better. Then I would like to take those results and go back to the public schools which these students had attended and ask them, why certain things weren’t done, and then follow those answers with questions all the way to the top.
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Why don’t you do that, Stephen? Talk to the students in Eva’s schools and ask them what they like about them.
Let us know how it goes.
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I’d love to Diane, but it’s a little tricky to do here from Orlando and I’ve got to go back to teach on Monday. I’ll see if there is a way electronically but your never sure of who you might actually be contacting. Do you happen to know what schools Eva runs?
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All her schools are called Success Academy charters.
I doubt that she would let you in. But it would be interesting for you or anyone else to try. Just walk around the halls, stick your head into classrooms, and talk to students.
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I believe one of the teachers at my school taught at one of these schools in Harlem. On Wikipedia (although not the best source, but) she comes across as a very angry person. I don’t understand how she went to the high school in NYC that she did, and that she criticized greatly, and yet she was able to get into Univ. of Penn. Also most all of her focus is on the big stuff, it doesn’t seem she knows much about teaching or what actually happens in the class room. Having done some research about Success Academy, it appears to be more of a factory than anything else.
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What’s most frustrating about places like (I assume) Success Academy is the cherry-picking…and they’re attempts to cloak it.
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Argh. Change “they’re” to “their.”
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Diane This belongs in our “what’s out there that’s bad” file. The Brooklyn Book Festival is being highlighted on C-SPAN’s BookTV. Here is the blurb for their “After Words” section:
“David Osborne, Reinventing America’s Schools: Creating a 21st Century Education System
“Progressive Policy Institute senior fellow David Osborne examines the charter school movement and offers his outlook for the future of public education. He argues that regardless of what we call schools, every public school should be treated like a charter school – ‘with autonomy, performance accountability, parental choice, and diversity of school design.’ He is interviewed by Chester Finn, senior fellow and president emeritus of the Fordham Institute.”
Also listed FYI:
Book TV will be LIVE from the Brooklyn Book Festival in New York City with author discussions from the Brooklyn Law School. This year’s programs include:
• MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, A Colony in a Nation, in conversation with Heather McGhee, president of Demos
• Supreme Court discussion featuring law professor Sheryll Cashin, Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy
• Free speech discussion featuring author and New Yorker staff writer Jelani Cobb
• Big data discussion featuring National Book Award-nominated author Cathy O’Neil, Weapons of Math Destruction
• Immigration discussion featuring Russian-American journalist and National Book Award-nominated author Masha Gessen
BookTV runs all weekend, 24-7 but all programming is also on the website: http://www.BookTV.org
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And The Boston Foundation has invited him to speak on Monday in Boston. Interestingly, I can’t find any links on their website or Facebook page.
https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07eeicns8ma9e82a82&oseq=&c=6bb248a0-afbe-11e3-94d0-d4ae5292c426&ch=6bb751b0-afbe-11e3-94d0-d4ae5292c426
This comes when TBF has just received $50 million to aid in its deconstruction of our public schools.
https://www.tbf.org/news-and-events/news/2017/september/record-gift-from-ca-associates
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Christine Langhoff I’ll watch it, but not without wincing.
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Trump’s U.N. speech in short: “Axis of Evil Redux”
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GregB I actually like some of what Trump says. I wonder who wrote it? And I applaud him for staying on script–but that’s it. The rest, if it’s good, you can be sure: he either doesn’t mean it, doesn’t understand what it means, or is just flat-out lying.
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We’ll have to agree to disagree. Been perusing the German press comments and if they are indicative of other countries, this was a disaster. He threatened war on four fronts. He has put the life of every American in the world, tourist, resident or military dependent, in further danger. He contradicted himself within the same speech over and over again: America First, every nation should put their nation first, is the beginning of the end of diplomacy and multilateral cooperation and completely is at odds with his tepid called for international cooperation. Another nail in the coffin of post WWII international relations. The spirits of Truman and Marshall groan and weep.
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GregB Well–I am more of a dialectician, especially about such highly complex issues. For instance, I would ask, do you see anything good in Trump’s speech? I know that, for instance, detractors of anyone X, especially on the international scene, will hate everything that X-person says and does, just like Obama detractors did here in the US and elsewhere. Doesn’t matter what he said or did, good or bad or in-between,–to them it’s all bad and they proceed to pan it. It’s a kind of “rhetorical extremism” and it negates anything good that may have been said or done, regardless of WHO said or did it. That’s a dangerous pattern to follow regardless of where you are coming from
.
I’m no Trump fan (that’s an understatement, as you should know if you’ve read any of my relevant posts.) But just how many missiles flying over our allies, and threatening us in the not-too-distant-future, are we going to take before someone speaks from a position of power and says “North Korea is on a suicide mission”? Personally, I found that statement comforting, as well has his statement about our imbalance of financial support for the UN would all be worth it if its goals could be furthered.
Do I think Trump has any heart in anything he says that doesn’t get him financial gain, vindictive control, or short-term kudos? NO.
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LOL, Catherine. Isn’t it disconcerting when you think that charlatan has a made a point!
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Susan Lee Schwartz Yes, indeed. Really squirmy.
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CBK, I know it is very rare that we are ever not in (complete) agreement. On the two points you mention, I would answer: the fact that NK is shooting over Japan is, to me, evidence of a failure or absence of diplomacy; and the “imbalance” is more complex than just paying dues on time. The U.N is not perfect, but it’s all we’ve got. I am currently reading a history of the Marshall Plan and it confirms my belief that the more simple something in international relations sounds means that it is more complex than we mere mortals can imagine. And the reality of the complexity has nothing to do with popular talking points. I respect your views, especially coming from you, I just disagree with them in this case.
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I caught the summaries of Trump’s speech. Greg is right. He called for an end to multilateralism. Every nation for itself. Really, he questioned by implication the need for a UN or NATO. He wants an end to the world order, an end to agreements on climate change and arms control.
I watched him threaten to totally destroy North Korea. It won’t go down without sending nuclear bombs to Japan, South Korea, maybe the West Coast of US.
Trump is a madman. His speechwriter Stephen Miller is a 31-year-old menace to society.
They should all be locked up under close supervision.
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dianeravitch I watched MOST of the speech, and (with unrepentant respect to you) what you say above is an excellent exercise in cherry-picking. I caution you to watch or read the text and language that surrounds what was summarized–reflects a completely different point of view.
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I think that threatening to totally destroy another nation is not a good place to be. There would be collateral damage==like S. Korea and Japan.
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What is most disturbing to me our Dear Leader’s reduction of his argument to one making their Dear Leader the embodiment of an entire nation (as he also did with Iran, btw). Here are some numbers to consider:
Populations:
S. Korea – 51.5 million
N. Korea – 25.5 million
Japan – 127 million
US military and dependents in:
S. Korea – 23,300
Japan – 40,000
US citizens living in:
S. Korea – 137,000
Japan – 51,000
The effects of nuclear war will add uncountable deaths, and irreversible short term and generational changes in climate, land use, and genetics, just to name three that come to mind immediately.
Meanwhile, we have a deranged president, an absent State Department, and a U.N. ambassador with no relevant diplomatic record or ability. But hey, Scott Brown has been nominated ambassador to New Zealand, so there’s that.
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dianeravitch Yes . . . again, Trump addressed these points in his speech.
But regardless of Trump’s presence and his scariness (I get it), I have thought for a very long time (long before Trump came on the scene) that there is a “horizon” issue at stake here in relating to Kim. I think you’ll recognize the difference of horizons, for example, between Kim and Obama. To someone like Kim or any other tinpot dictator, the horizon depicted by the high ideals of an intelligent person like Obama look like just so much WEAKNESS. If that’s the case, then Kim will just keep on doing what he is doing until he actually drops a bomb or REALLY feels threatened. And again, what he’s doing is no small thing–he’s actually sending missiles over Japan. Imagine if that were Los Angeles or San Diego? I shudder to think. I’m sure the entire country of Japan is “totally freaked out.”
The analogy here, lesser intense and not life-threatening, but still analogous, is our own Republican Congress and State legislatures. “The People,” rather than remaining involved in what seems to many Congresspeople like stupidity, carelessness, and WEAKNESS, need to make it an existential issue–in this case, to threaten Congresspeople with their jobs in order to get them to do what is right for their constituents.
I don’t like it either–but neither Obama nor Trump invented the North Korea situation, though some Americans in the past most probably had a hand in it.
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dianeravitch BTW, and as an addendum to my earlier note: of course, we cannot trust anything he said or says, regardless of whether it’s good or bad, and regardless of who wrote it. So let’s get that out of the way.
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The U.S. already has 1,900 nuclear weapons stockpiled 20-miles from Seattle.
The SWFPAC and the eight Ohio-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) homeported at the adjacent Bangor Submarine Base are located only 20 miles (32 kilometers) from downtown Seattle
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/where-the-nukes-are-20-miles-from-downtown-seattle/
If Trump and his generals decide to hit North Korea with nuclear weapons, they won’t send ballistic missiles from U.S. based underground silos. They will launch them using cruise missiles from ballistic missile submarines close to North Korea’s shoreline. The strike will be so fast, NK might not have time to do anything. From launch to target will be less than 10 minutes from launch.
But will the Trump administration warn China and Russia first so they won’t strike back with their nuclear weapons? A warning before the strike comes with a risk that Russia and/or China will warn NK and that will give them time to launch first.
The risk of a global nuclear war is high, because if the U.S. warns China and Russia before the strike and those two countries reply like Nixon did to Russia in the late 1960s that would mean a nuclear war and Trump could very well ignore the warning from Russia and/or China not to use nukes on NK because that would mean war.
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Lloyd Lofthouse What bothers me (besides all you say in your note about Russia and China) is that, as in times-past, and probably now, there are people HERE in the US who, for many reasons, WANT war.
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The U.S. is not a healthy country. Too many people have horrible lifestyles and they don’t feed their bodies the healthy food and nutrition needed for a healthy mind.
That means many America’s are incapable of rational, logical thought because their thinking process doesn’t work properly.
The U.S. already has the fattest population on the planet.
“Relationship Between Fast Food & the Brain”
Brain Damage
A steady diet of fast food can rob your brain of certain nutrients it needs to function properly. …
Mental Health Disorders
An unhealthy diet interferes with neurotransmitters responsible for happiness and feelings of well-being. …
Cognitive Ability
The human brain contains synapses, which are partly responsible for learning and memory. Eating too many calories can interfere with the brain’s ability to produce healthy, normally functioning synapses, which can have a negative impact on cognition.
http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/relationship-between-fast-food-brain-12203.html
Trump is known to love fast food.
I think it is a safe bet that most of his hard-core supporters also love fast food.
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Lloyd Lofthouse Probably necessary, but certainly not sufficient to account for the problem.
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The vast majority of American adults are overweight or obese, and …
http://www.healthdata.org/…/vast-majority-american-adults-are-overweight-or-obese-and-w...
An estimated 160 million Americans are either obese or overweight. … to childhood obesity, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and many cancers
According to a Gallup poll, fast food is still a staple of the American diet. In comparison with previous years, Americans are slightly reducing their fast food intake but few are failing to eliminate it entirely. A mere 4 percent of people admitted avoiding fast food completely.
28 percent of Americans dine at fast food restaurants at least once per week, while 16 percent visit McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut and equivalent restaurants several times per week. 33 percent of people admitted paying a visit at least once or twice a month.
https://www.statista.com/chart/1349/one-in-five-americans-eat-fast-food-several-times-a-week/
75 Percent of Americans Say They Eat Healthy — Despite Evidence To The Contrary
Hmm. Are Americans confused about what constitutes a healthy diet? Do they say one thing, but do another? Or perhaps it’s a matter of portion size: We may be choosing foods that are healthy in moderation, but are eating too much of them.
…
As a recent poll by The New York Times found, 71 percent of the public thinks granola bars are healthy, while only 28 percent of the hundreds of nutritionists surveyed agreed with that assessment.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/08/03/487640479/75-percent-of-americans-say-they-eat-healthy-despite-evidence-to-the-contrary
For instance, one of the teachers at the high school where I worked was extremely overweight and I heard her once claim that she counted a glass of orange juice as part of her daily fruit and vegetable intake.
When we are addicted to food, it is easy to justify an unhealthy diet into a healthy one. That is called denial.
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Lloyd Lofthouse Yes, but do these points about diet explain fully the intellectual, moral-political, and even spiritual degeneracy of those who actually want war? If so, then fat people cannot be intelligent or make good moral decisions, on principle. Doesn’t wash. Let’s get back to education?
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I am scared to death! THAT is what he wants.
Scaring the people is the business of the secret government!
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Susan Lee Schwartz Yes–and what a diversion WAR would be–away from the Russia investigation.
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And if that happens, I fear our nation will dive over the cliff like the lemmings so many of us have become.
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Who wrote it?
A. Rex Tillerson
B. James Mattis
C. H. R. McMaster
D. John Kelly
E. All of the above (imagine them all gathering in secret to work together on Trump’s script while all crossing their fingers that he won’t go off script)
We might not agree with everything these four have done, think and do, but they are probably the only sane people in the Trump administration.
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Stephen Miller, the 31-year-old jerk who served on Sessions’ staff and announced the Trump policy of keeping immigrants out. He said the Emma Lazarus poem was added later and inoperative. A rightwing zealot.
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dianeravitch Just seeing Miller makes me reach for a bucket–i feel a wretch coming on. But that’s why we need dialectical method–to separate the wheat from the chaff, even when and especially if an idiot speaks truth that is covered in slime.
Again, the slime is this: No one in their right mind, and at this point in our history of Trumpism and zealotry, can believe anything they say, much less depend on it.
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http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/commentary/billionaires-gaining-too-much-influence-on-public-education-opinion-20170917.html
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Diane, this will sadden and anger you as much as it does me: http://www.newsweek.com/neo-nazis-texas-jews-hiding-high-holiday-secret-location-666607
A friend sent this to me earlier today and I just saw it featured on Crooks & Liars.
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GregB,
I am saddened but not surprised. The synagogue where I occasionally worship has security guards at the entrance. High holy day services will be held at the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. Attendees are advised to bring photo ID and no large bags. Bags may be searched.
When my grandchildren attended a Jewish school on the upper West Side, the entrance was protected by a security guard.
In the neighborhood where I live, there is a small mosque; a police car is stationed outside.
Too much extremism. Too much hatred. Too much fear. Sorry to say, Trump feeds the extremists. Any effort to tamp down open expressions of racial or religious bias is dismissed as “political correctness.”
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dianeravitch I was wondering today if and when Trump will realize that his base has become so small, he might find a bigger and better one by turning a different color–chameleon that he has proven himself to be.
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His own polls show him to have a huge base.
After his bellicose speech today, I can’t imagine any change.
Republicans planning a vast tax cut, still trying to repeal ACA. 32 million will lose health insurance.
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An attempt at balance in reporting on the Common Core (how does Petrilli get quoted in every one of these articles?): http://www.idahostatesman.com/entertainment/article174078436.html
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These articles should mention that the Thomas B. Fordham Institute received millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation to promote Common Core. It is not a neutral observer.
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Mainstream Media is on a Reform offensive: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/09/21/school-choice-crucial-african-american-students-success-t-willard-fair-column/665451001/
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A lesser known side of education in China: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/one-three-chinese-children-faces-education-apocalypse-ambitious-experiment-hopes-save
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Platitudes from a Governor who helped bring you CCSS: http://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2017/09/22/americans_agree_high_standards_skills_training_are_keys_to_success_110206.html
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Charter advocate thinks aloud about strategy: http://educationnext.org/charter-movements-tipping-point-strategy-isnt-working-now/
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On why Reform fails? Because of those who resist Reform? The first (and currently) only comment has some pretty bold Reform propaganda: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2017/09/what_weve_forgotten_about_school_reform_courtesy_of_messrs_tyack_cuban_and_payne.html
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A couple years ago while reading David Halberstam’s “The Best and the Brightest,” I found remarkable parallels between the tragic failures of policy in Vietnam and the horribly shortsighted Education Reform policies we’ve seen implemented over the past 15-20 years. Here’s a 2013 article on Vietnam War era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and his misuse of data: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/514591/the-dictatorship-of-data/
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“The use, abuse, and misuse of data by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War is a troubling lesson about the limitations of information as the world hurls toward the big-data era. The underlying data can be of poor quality. It can be biased. It can be misanalyzed or used misleadingly. And even more damning, data can fail to capture what it purports to quantify.”
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“We are more susceptible than we may think to the “dictatorship of data”—that is, to letting the data govern us in ways that may do as much harm as good. The threat is that we will let ourselves be mindlessly bound by the output of our analyses even when we have reasonable grounds for suspecting that something is amiss. Education seems on the skids? Push standardized tests to measure performance and penalize teachers or schools. Want to prevent terrorism? Create layers of watch lists and no-fly lists in order to police the skies. Want to lose weight? Buy an app to count every calorie but eschew actual exercise.”
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My experience working in public schools is that every failed business notion, like data as a god or stack ranking, eventually gets remanded down to our schools as the next great innovation. They think of it as “recycling”. They couldn’t get it to work, but have a chance at making a buck or two off it in schools.
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Diane,
We in California Assembly District 16 need your help! We have a Republican assemblymember who is a smart attorney, and has hoodwinked everyone into liking her, even though she votes like a Republican. She wins, because the Charter schools PAC spends millions. We need to attack the charter school system where Assemblymember Catherine Baker gets her support. We have two excellent Democratic candidates running! We have a good chance. We can’t criticize Baker too much, because too many people like her. We need to attack the charter schools. Please come speak in our area to support public schools, and put down charter schools.
Brodie Hilp, President
San Ramon Valley Democratic Club
Danville in the SF East Bay Area
srvdems. org
925-719-1956
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Diane Chris Hedges gives a dynamite talk on youtube where he mentions you by name and blasts the privatization of education. The reference is circa minute 40, but it’s a dynamite talk all around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycuw9Cvh6W4
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Thanks!
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A future without teachers? Who then would get the blame?
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/our-teacher-free-future
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Who would get the blame once the teachers are gone — THE PARENTS.
That’s the next step, to strip parents of any rights they have to raise their own children. Eva Moskowitz and other corporate charter chains are already doing that.
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LOL! That’s not an illogical jump.
I was thinking maybe the code-makers or the course-writers. Certainly not anyone associated with policies or tests!
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Here’s another win for a Florida Democrat who replaced a Republican and ran on the platform of restoring funding to public schools and ending high stakes testing. (Go to the bottom half of the article).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democrats-flip-two-gop-held-legislature-seat_us_59cba7c4e4b053a9c2f56568?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
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How is Michael Petrilli not considered to be one of the largest megaphones for Ed Reform: http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/is-school-choice-enough
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I didn’t discover I was dyslexic until I was 50 years old(62 now) When I realized what being dyslexic meant a whole new world opened up to me! I have dedicated myself through Billy’s Quest (based on a song I wrote about my experiences. I am working on understanding the history of education in America
I am listening to your book The Death and Life Of The Great American School System.
I am trying to understand why our dyslexic children are not being taught to read.First I am not putting the blame on the teachers that have not been taught the multi-sensory type learning skills needed to teach the 1in5 that’s 20% of our children read!
I am looking for solutions
I would like your thoughts Joshua Katz Tedtalk
Please visit http://MyToolBoxToSuccess.com
FaceBook- Billy’s Quest
instagram- billysquest
“A thirst for knowledge, and the gift of reading are the most important tools we can give our children” (ear and/or eye reading)
Tony Eller
PS
Billy’s Quest for our second year the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans will light up “RED’ in recognition of Dyslexia Awareness Month for our children Sunday October 22,2017 at dusk!
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Here’s a good message about why school librarian, Liz Phipps Soeiro, rejected books gifted to her elementary school by Melania Trump
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-melania-trump-dr-seuss-books-20170928-story.html
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Good for her!
Since Melania’s husband wants to cut school budgets by billions, her gesture is empty.
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On Kentucky’s temporary new school report cards: http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/education/2017/09/28/kentucky-releases-school-report-cards/708947001/
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Great story, nominee for Librarian of the Year!: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/librarian-melania-trump-dr-seuss-books_us_59ce56bee4b09538b507e9d7?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
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A Chicago librarian also rejected the books, on the strange ground that Dr. Seuss’ book included was racist.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-melania-trump-dr-seuss-books-20170928-story.html
Better to say that it is hypocritical to hand out a few library books when Trump wants to cut billions that will close your library and cost you your job.
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Hello Diane, don’t know if you know that here in Durham, NC we are fighting the state of North Carolina to stop the privatization of two of our schools, Lakewood and Glenn Elementary. Here is some information:
http://www.wral.com/durham-school-board-prepared-to-fight-won-t-let-state-take-away-our-schools-/16981246/
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Diane, here is another article from WRAL Raleigh, NC about the six schools that the state wants to take over in NC. As I said, 2 are in Durham, NC
http://www.wral.com/schools-considered-for-alternate-control-whittled-to-6/16967121/
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Diane, FYI, I think this should be shouted from the rooftops: “The Christian Right Wants to ‘Partner’ with Public Schools—Here’s Why That’s Such a Problem: A growing movement of “Christian nationalists” seeks to infiltrate the public schools in order to dismantle them, converting students along the way”
https://www.alternet.org/christian-right-partner-public-school
I think this should be common knowledge, too, but I suspect a lot less folks will care that people like me have become homeless and have had to live in our cars (I never even considered the other option mentioned):
“Adjunct Professors Are So Poorly Paid They’re Sleeping in Cars and Turning to Sex Work: Desperate times have called for increasingly desperate measures”
https://www.alternet.org/economy/adjunct-professors-are-so-poorly-paid-theyre-sleeping-cars-and-turning-sex-work
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LAUSD’s Early Language and Literacy Program. A lot of teachers, especially those at higher performing schools hate this thing. I begged a principal not to do it for 9 days during my Arts Integration time but she said “NO!” https://achieve.lausd.net/Page/10804
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HERE, is just one post that the brilliant teacher and writer, Lenny Isenberg has posted at his blog, a chronicle of the corruption in the school system, LAUSD, and the destruction of the schools. It is ALL about money, and is the metaphor for the process around the nation. http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
Lenny, like Snowden, put his foot in it, when he blew the whistle on the social promotion http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/between-dishonest-social-promotion-of.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/social-promotion–lausds-prime-mover-for-continued-and-predictable-student-failure–do-they-really-w.html
that ensured that ethnic minorities in LA would graduate with second grade skills. Then he exposed the use of fabricated charges: http://www.perdaily.com/2015/01/were-you-terminated-or-forced-to-retire-from-lausd-based-on-fabricated-charges.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/lausd-continues-to-target-teachers.html
.this before Bush gave us the tests (VAM) to prove teachers were incompetent, and rid the PUBLIC EDUCATION of the voice of the GENUINE PROFESSIONALS.
Of course, this PLOY only works when the union looks the other way and colludes to end collective bargaining rights, http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/lausd-and-utla-collude-to-end-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-teachers-part-2.html
and the media sells the lie! Now, the corruption is so ingrained ,that even minority administrators are selling the kids out. http://www.perdaily.com/2015/09/racism-cant-function-without-minority-5th-column.html
The took him out! He then created this blog, which continues his attempt to get justice for the tens of thousands of teachers that are fed to the dogs. He tells the story of how they took the professionals out of the profession so the schools will fail, and today, are turning over this second largest school district in the nation to charters.
If you teach in LAUSD you should read Perdaily.com.
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Gotta love this by Andy Borowitz: “Puerto Rico Issues Travel Ban on Malignant Narcissists”
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/puerto-rico-issues-travel-ban-on-malignant-narcissists
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Here is Stephen Colbert, reprimanding Tillerson for intruding on Colbert’s territory:
Here is Jimmy Kimmel on the same topic:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KcFnf9tmTig
The question seems to be whether T. Rex called him a “moron” or a “f…… moron”
The Washington Post says Tillerson won’t last a year.
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The Washington Post says Tillerson won’t last long. He ran the biggest company in the world and is not accustomed to a moron like Trump undercutting him in public:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-death-spiral-tillerson-makes-nice-but-may-not-last-long-with-trump/2017/10/04/7ad19894-a921-11e7-850e-2bdd1236be5d_story.html
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Did you post this already? “Betsy DeVos Says She Did Math on Trump’s Tax Plan and It Will Save Nation Eleventy Krillion” https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/betsy-devos-says-she-did-math-on-trumps-tax-plan-and-it-will-save-nation-eleventy-krillion
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Oh hell, all of Borowitz’s stuff lately is a hoot, like “Rex Tillerson Says He Remains Fully Committed to Moron’s Agenda”: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report
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Michael Petrilli is always SO concerned about the students: https://edexcellence.net/articles/no-half-of-american-schoolchildren-are-not-low-income
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Here’s an insightful piece at Crooks and Liars: “Hedge Funder Who Secretly Bought $1B In Puerto Rican Debt Is Also A Secret Backer Of Charter Schools”
http://crooksandliars.com/2017/10/hedge-funder-who-secretly-bought-1b-puerto
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I’m only posting this because it is written in the heavily pro-Ed Reform “The 74”. They must consider this an issue worth fighting. Anecdotally, I can say that this article is way off base. Wondering if others have an interest:
https://www.the74million.org/article/analysis-yes-teacher-turnover-matters-but-much-of-what-we-think-we-know-about-it-is-wrong/
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Woman is running for Governor of Pennsylvania on school choice: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2017/10/10/GOP-Pittsburgh-Lawyer-Laura-Ellsworth-announces-run-Pennsylvania-governor/stories/201710100140
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Diane This from Inside Higher Education relates the MOOC disappointments with “personalized learning” and the oligarchic hype of technology and personalized learning people like Gates and Zuckerberg. See article link below, but here is a snip from it:
ALL QUOTE BELOW: (my emphases)
The roots of Udacity’s failure are in the word “product” and their belief that an educational “product” could possibly transform education.
“Audrey Watters has produced a timeline of “teaching machines,” products that have failed to transform education for almost two centuries. Maybe Udacity isn’t strictly a teaching “machine” except the mentality of its designers suggest they view their platform this way. They believed that the platform itself could deliver “education,” rather than recognizing that the education is not a product but a process, one that happens (or not) inside of those being educated. Udacity seems to view learning like a virus. As long as you’re in close enough proximity to an educational product, you will learn.
Even as one fad fades, another has taken its place, “personalized learning.” The term is used in a lot of different contexts and has roots in the progressive education movement (think Maria Montessori), but in the educational product realm, we’re talking about “adaptive software.”
Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are two of its champions, and by champions I mean modern oligarchs who will open their checkbooks to push the policies they prefer.
Does it work? . . . END QUOTE
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/moocs-are-dead-whats-next-uh-oh?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=991649962d-DNU20171012&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-991649962d-198488425&mc_cid=991649962d&mc_eid=f743ca9d07
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Group primal scream in unison on three; one, two…: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/roy-moore-nazi-preschool_us_59de68fee4b0fdad73b190cc?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
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Hello Greg B: . . . Three! But seriously folks (and I know Roy IS serious), it’s another example of reducing EVERYTHING to its political implications, and then taking a side. Enter: implacable polemics.
I doubt Roy (et al) can imagine that preschool can be about preparing children to develop along their own normative lines of development (that would require him having an education himself) and for getting them used to being away from Mom for a few hours in a safe and kid-friendly environment; to experience the the social order in the classroom; and even perhaps the joy of learning what (teachers are prepared to know) they are ready to learn, and not ready to learn, at that age and stage, and to draw out their capacity to learn and to continue to love the experience.
No . . . for Roy et al, those are all evil “liberal” ideas–propaganda for raising democrats for the next generation. Proving once again that an ignorant low-life can only see from a low-life point of view.
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I just can’t take it anymore. It takes everything I have not to respond like Eminem did a few days ago whenever I encounter a cult member of our Dear Leader and his acolytes like Moore. And I’m losing that restraint rapidly.
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GregB I do love civility. But . . . sigh . . . join the club.
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Read what Ralph Nader has to say. I cannot bear to read the ignorant rantings of people who conflate their opinions with reality.
https://www.opednews.com/articles/How-Big-Corporations-Game-by-Ralph-Nader-Corporations_Democracy_Democracy-Decay_Money-171006-611.html
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Andy Borowitz on video, at his best: http://video.newyorker.com/watch/the-new-yorker-festival-andy-borowitz-the-end-of-trump?mbid=nl_Borowitz%20101217&CNDID=51372459
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To quote the old Alka-Seltzer ad: Thanks, I needed that!
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For those what haven’t been following the Arizona state report card thread (where a State Senator who pushed the report card — and presumably all other Ed Reform policies — cried foul when the charter school she’s associated with received an F grade), here’s a fascinating follow-up on where the situation has evolved to: A fascinating follow up to this situation in Arizona: http://tucson.com/news/local/arizona-schools-could-get-a-do-over-on-their-a/article_c458a3a5-ca52-5d42-906f-1c38e465f139.html
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We watch our 2nd grade grandson part time. The school district has decided to go without paper textbooks and have everything on the iPad.
I can’t help him without his textbook, especially in math, so I can see what they are teaching and how they are going about it.
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In your book, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms, 2000 your wrote:
“He [Mortimer Adler] jumped into the fray on Hutchins’s behalf, but with ill effect. Adler convinced other educators that he and Hutchins were trying to impose authoritarian values—if not derived from Aristotle, then from Thomas Aquinas. The pugnacious Adler happily fed the fury of progressives by describing himself as a “Thomist”, even though he was not Catholic. He seemed to relish insulting his audience, as he did when he first arrived at the University of Chicago and told a gathering of eminent social scientists that their methods were flawed.” [p. 304]
It is possible to know why he said that sociologist’s research methods were flawed? I have my own reasons . I just want to see if he and I agree.
I have tried to find it online to no avail.
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I don’t recall the speech. It would take some digging. I wrote that book almost 20 years ago.
I knew Adler. He was very certain he was always right, or so he believed.
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Hmmmm. PBS allowing some criticism of Ed Reform?
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education-reform-keeps-failing-students/
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Eventually, the stink is so great that they have to see the excrement!
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Jeb thinks everything is flourishing in Florida: https://www.the74million.org/article/gov-jeb-bush-what-florida-can-teach-america-about-empowering-families-through-education-freedom/
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Complaints about tone in Kansas: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2017/oct/17/yoder-hears-complaints-negative-tone-dc-toward-tea/
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The tests are guardrails! Protect the tests! (For those who don’t know me, I’m being sarcastic…) . The Reformers are doing their best to co-opt ESSA: https://edreformnow.org/u-s-department-education-failure-enforce-essa-part-3-three-essa-big-four-troubled-lax-state-plan-review-alexander-flying-solo/
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Columnist Bob Mann once again gets it right about the corrosive damage our Dear Leader and his administration is doing to our social, political, and governmental fabric. It particularly significant that this voice rings out in Louisiana, which is ground zero for this intolerance: http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2017/10/how_donald_trump_poisons_ameri.html#incart_river_home
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Greg,
You will enjoy this article about Dear Leader’s nihilism
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/andrew-sullivan-trump-mindless-nihilism.html
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Not sure if “enjoy” is the right word. 😉 But I did love the phrasing of, “stalled in the headwinds of reality.” I will have to use that one in the future.
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Diane,
That was an interesting perspective…
Let me add the following story from Campus Reform I found:
Liberal college students flocked to embrace the idea of President Donald Trump’s tax reform proposal like bears to honey … when they were told that it belonged to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) instead.
Campus Reform visited the campus of Washington, D.C.’s George Washington University and asked students their opinions on Trump’s new tax plan. Needless to say, the students excoriated Trump’s proposal straight out of the gate.
What did students say when told it was Trump’s plan?
“It’s better for the upper class than anyone else.”
“Pretty much horrible for the middle class, especially the lower class.”
“It’s probably not the most efficient nor beneficial to the general populace.”
“Pretty negative.”
What did students say when told Trump’s plan was Sanders’ plan?
“I think that’s great.”
“I think [this] is definitely something we should be doing.”
“Good job, Bernie.”
“It’s a good plan, a positive plan that could help everyone.”
“Definitely better than what Trump is proposing.”
What did students say when they were told the truth?
“I am shocked that I do agree with Trump on certain things.”
“I’m definitely happily surprised that it sounds a lot better than I would have expected.”
“I would have imagined that he would be a little more stupid than that.”
Amazing – the light bulb turned on may ignite further investigation of the policies
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Diane I read an article yesterday about the recurring movement to privatize the Veterans Administration. Each time they raise this spectre, there is an uproar of outrage from several sectors in the country, including veterans, doctors, other non-profits and savvy members of the public. Need I say why with our experience of “business as usual” in education? But we’ve been hearing the privatization tune for several years in other-than-education venues–remember George Bush Junior flying around the country trying to privatize Social Security?–and where too many in Congress are oh-so-willing to dance.
My question to you is this: Is there an arm of your Network organization that explores some kind of collaborative dialogue with other groups who are, in their own venues (like Social Security and the VA), pushing back against privatization as a general movement?
Apparently the argument for privatization (more capitalist double-speak code), among other faulty ideas, is based around the Ann Randian idea of equating the fostering of a humane community and civic life with “socialism,” defined as having some sort of 1950’s buggaboo. Also, if you are not a “winner” in business, then you are a “loser;” and that puts you not only lower on the socio-economic totem pole. In the “winner’s” mind, it also defines you as being of a different species. If you cannot work for me, or if you cannot make your own money, then you are worthless to all.
There is also the idea floating around out there that the whole idea of powerful nation-states is rapidly being supplanted by huge and powerful cartels (what else to call them?) sucking out authentic national democratic ideals and the power that USED to flow from a public that embraced them. Living on the cusp of bankruptcy tends to do that to a person. Also, the rage against any form of regulation is a part of that movement and where self-regulation, in the present context, is a joke of historical proportions.
But there’s power in cross-pollination of varied groups like the Network and VA groups who, in their own venues, understand fully the huge political danger of the whole privatization movement. We still have our voices and the vote (such as it is); and these, aimed at the whole privatization movement, still have great power–to wake up the public that is, at present, acting more like lemmings than “the people” of a democratic nation. Just some thoughts.
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Thanks, CBK. It is a fine idea and a matter of capacity. We currently have 1.5 personnel and many volunteers. If you know of anyone who would like to work on building linkages with other anti-privatization groups, let me know.
To understand the privatization ideology, read Nancy MacLean’s “Democracy in Chains.” The privatization attack begins with the claim that the system is failing, broken, obsolete. Social Security (the VA, public schools) don’t work, we must start over, let business do it.
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dianeravitch I would love to help in the exploration of building inter-group connections. What can I do?
Also, I understand the “starve the beast” idea underpinning the privatization movement, though I haven’t read “democracy in chains” yet. It goes: Drain public education of its resources and good name, then say: Look! it’s horrible! It’s dead and dying anyway, so let’s replace it with [the bells and whistles] of CEO’s and their sterling intentions for the education of our children, blah blah blah.
On that score, below is the latest from the Gates Foundation about “smartly leveraged change.”
For example: Goals/changes 4 and 5 are these:
QUOTED
4. It will do more in support of high-quality charters—with an emphasis on efforts that improve outcomes for special needs students, especially those with mild-to-moderate learning and behavioral disabilities.
It will make more funding available for “innovative” research to accelerate progress for underserved students.
END QUOTE
BTW, THEY put “innovative” in quotations. But par usual, this sounds good if the reader doesn’t know what they probably mean by it. That is: they mean another code-concept: “individualized/personalized learning.”
And most who don’t understand the privatization movement read 4 and 5 above through the interpretive lens of, say, Montessori or the “private schools” of yore where teacher-student ratio is low, all teachers and helpers are required at least to have had formal college classes in child development, and students are given constant and caring support and extra-attention where needed. But now it means some digressing version of “Hay, we all know that students love computers. So just give students computers and let them self-educate,” using a class monitor, of course. But if that doesn’t work, punish or expel.” The more public education suffers its death-throes, the more draconian the charters will become.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/10/19/gates-foundation-announces-new-17b-for-k-12.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2&M=58243024&U=1182129
ALL COPIED BELOW:
Gates Foundation Announces New $1.7B for K-12
By Francisco Vara-Orta
October 19, 2017
Back to Story
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a new investment of $1.7 billion for K-12 education over the next five years, with the bulk of the funding aimed at existing traditional public schools that show progress in improving educational outcomes, the development of new curricula, charter schools focused on students with special needs, and “research and development” for scalable models that could inform best practices.
Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of the foundation, delivered the news in a speech Thursday at the Council of Great City Schools’ annual conference in Cleveland, where he spoke about the foundation’s work in education over the past 17 years, which has drawn both praise and harsh criticism. The preview of the philanthropy’s new priorities in education ended months of speculation following the appointment of new leadership in late 2016 and continued scrutiny of its K-12 priorities.
“If there is one thing I have learned,” Gates said, “it is that no matter how enthusiastic we might be about one approach or another, the decision to go from pilot to wide-scale usage is ultimately and always something that has to be decided by you and others in the field.”
(Education Week receives financial support from the Gates Foundation for coverage of continuous improvement strategies in education, and has received grant funding in the past for coverage of college- and career-ready standards implementation. Education Week retains sole editorial control.)
In outlining the foundation’s work to date, Gates singled out the creation of smaller, more personalized high schools, support for teacher-evaluation models, and funding for the development and implementation of the Common Core State Standards. He also noted academic improvements in New York, Washington, and Los Angeles, among others, from the foundation’s programming. But Gates acknowledged the foundation chose to pivot to other initiatives once it became clearer there were limits to sustaining and scaling up those earlier reforms.
“Schools that track indicators of student progress—like test scores, attendance, suspensions, and grades and credit accumulation – improved high school graduation and college success rates,” Gates said.
Gates listed five key shifts for the foundation over the next few years:
The foundation will no longer directly invest in new initiatives based on teacher evaluations and ratings—something the foundation had spent more than $700 million on by late 2013—but will continue to gather data on the impact of the reforms.
It will focus on “locally-driven solutions” that networks of schools will identify as working well with more potential to improve, with a focus on those that use a “continuous improvement” methodology that relies on data and feedback to incrementally reach set outcomes.
It will help to develop curricula and professional development models aligned to state standards, despite the political fallout that accompanied the adoption of the common core in some states.
It will do more in support of high-quality charters—with an emphasis on efforts that improve outcomes for special needs students, especially those with mild-to-moderate learning and behavioral disabilities.
It will make more funding available for “innovative” research to accelerate progress for underserved students.
About 60 percent of the $1.7 billion will go toward the development of new curricula and networks of schools that work together and use data to identify local problems and solutions. About 25 percent will go toward what Gates termed “big bets” that could revolutionize education through research and development in the next 10-15 years, citing it as an area severely underfunded compared to other sectors in the U.S. economy. The remaining 15 percent will be for charter schools, Gates said.
Gates cited the CORE Districts in California–comprised of eight of the largest school districts in the state–and the LIFT Network in Tennessee, which includes educators from rural and urban districts across the state, as models ripe for funding. The foundation hopes to support about 30 of these networks, and will start initially with “high needs” schools and districts in six to eight states.
“In general, with philanthropic dollars, their percentage on charters is fairly high. We will be a bit different, because of our scale, we feel we need to put the vast majority of our money into these networks of public schools,” Gates said to the loudest applause during the speech.
In a brief question-and-answer session, Gates explained that those eligible could be a large singular district that serves the majority of a region, or a consortium of districts using an intermediary overseeing the funding.
Gates cautioned that people wanting to reform education shouldn’t “fool” themselves that every model is scalable, explaining at one point that, “solutions to these problems will only endure if they are aligned with the unique needs of each student and the district’s broader strategy for change.”
A Change in Approach?
Megan Tompkins-Stange, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan who has extensively researched education philanthropy and profiled the Gates Foundation in her book, Policy Patrons, said she was somewhat surprised that Gates said the foundation should serve more as a “catalyst of good ideas than an inventor of ideas.”
“To me, it says that he and the Gates Foundation leadership has perhaps listened to some of the criticism of their more top-down, outside expert-driven approach to philanthropy in education,” said Tompkins-Stange, who watched the speech online. “I could not have predicted the new approach they would take would heighten the focus on communities having more autonomy.”
Pedro Noguera, a professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose research focuses on how schools are influenced by social and economic conditions, said that the focus on continuous improvement might be welcomed by educators. But like Tompkins-Stange, he echoed that the details of how the money is allocated will dictate if the foundation is pivoting strongly to a softer approach and if there’s simply a new flavor of the month in which to put their dollars.
“Especially in high-need communities, it takes a lot of money and people to sustain change. I continue to hope these are not investments in just one single strand, that if it doesn’t pan out, they move on,” Noguera said. “Hopefully they are learning from past efforts to more smartly leverage change.”
END QUOTED MATERIAL
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CBK, I think your idea and is too good and obvious to ever get anywhere. Please let me try to explain. I work in cancer advocacy and was a part of a coalition of cancer organizations that spearheaded the doubling of National Institutes of Health funding from 1998-2003. At that time, most of the advocates were volunteers or lowly paid. We recognized that we had to come together and we did. Sadly, because of our success, most organizations became much more professionalized, hiring advocacy staff because they saw the results of the NIH story. I write “sadly” because time has shown that the more professionalized these functions become, the more they revert to political silos and the less they tend to work for larger common goals. They are accountable to employers and boards who ask, “what are you doing to promote our silo?” rather than, “what are you doing to further our community goals?” Winning small, mostly symbolic, victories can be quantified; it is easier to say “I did this or that.” Winning big victories means it’s harder to take credit for them and then employers and boards ask, “So what does this do for us?” It’s hard to make the argument of “a rising tide lifts all boats and we’re one of the boats.” In terms of cancer and medical research, we have seen over the past 14 years how NIH funding has not only been stagnant, but declining. Indeed, it would take increase of $9-10 billion this year to get us back to the amount of research activity that took place in 2003 at the National Cancer Institute. While the professionalized interests focus on getting resolutions for their disease commemorative months or days, or while they try to carve out small research programs for this or that disease, they lose sight of the bigger picture, which, if they achieved victories, would actually benefit the populations they serve much more.
A few years ago, inspired by Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s book “Move,” I floated the idea of putting together an “Infrastructure Coalition” that would not only include roads and bridges, but constituencies like cancer centers and medical researchers, public school construction, air traffic controllers, and state and local governments to push a comprehensive infrastructure idea. It fell with thud that killed the few crickets who didn’t care.
I see the same problem with the perfectly logical and reasonable idea you propose. Just to take veterans constituencies as an example. They are focused on their silos—the full range of veterans issues from health care, nursing homes, homelessness, etc.—and have never worked on building they type of coalitions you propose. The same holds true for Social Security advocates. They will get questions from their boards like, “why are you messing with public schools who want to protect themselves? we’ve got our own fish to fry.”
Note Diane’s response: we’ve got few resources but it sounds like a great idea if you can figure it out. She inadvertently sums up the problem: the less professionalized a constituency is, the more likely it is will see the value of big picture efforts and benefits. The more professionalized, the less so.
One final vent: a great example of this is the pink ribbon effort associated with breast cancer and its largest organization. As a representative of a very small cancer, I believe focusing on “body part or type of cancer” in the big picture is ultimately destructive. Proponents of the silo approach (read: professionalized) will claim that they raise awareness. I would argue that they fracture awareness. For my part, I could care less how many people know about this or that cancer, what I want them to know is that 1 out of 2 men and 1 out of 3 women will be diagnosed with some form of cancer in their lifetimes. Once they are diagnosed with a specific type, I want them to seek out the right advocacy organizations to get information about their cancer. But to turn that selfishness—and I believe we have to be somewhat selfish about learning about our disease when we are diagnosed with them—into political advocacy actually creates silos that hinders comprehensive activism.
Lastly, I agree with you wholeheartedly, but I am just a messenger explaining what I see. Much like the misunderstood Machiavelli, I’m just describing the actual situation, not promoting an actual plan.
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I see that we were writing at the same time.
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GregB I appreciate your thoughtful and wonderful reply. I know I probably sound naive.
However, what you express so plainly (and well) are the defugalties and real-politics of group dynamics when those groups are operating under a set of variable but mostly low-level principles.
However, I also think I know you well enough to know that your note is not a pure version of pessimism (as it might sound); and that you know about other aspects of those same group dynamics, and about the evasive power of vision–the kind that most of us (if not all) actually resonate with when we see it. (Aren’t we doing that now with this blog and with Diane’s leadership.)
And so, just because real-politics today and in your experience are, in fact, ACTUALLY real, I think we both know that THAT reality does not define the field of human potential–that’s not naivete–it’s also real. Concretely, groups famously have trouble dealing with change and with power shifts. That doesn’t mean the problems cannot be understood and headed off. That’s also not naivete–it’s also real.
That being said, the other fact is that, for myself and my powers, I have few resources, little “cred,” and even less money. But I’ll put my mind to it.
BTW: If you read it, what did you think of the Gates speech? Would that we could believe him.
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Thanks CBK, not trying to be too pessimistic because I think you are right. The fact that we are having discussions like this is, I think, an indictment of party system, especially the Democratic Party. They should be the ones who bring together these constituencies, but they too, are focused on professionalized small ball and reactive politics. As for the Gates speech, you summed up my views with the sentence after your question. It will take a lot of action and deeds before I believe anything he says on education. Vaccines in Africa? I’m all in with him.
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GregB So HERE’s a huge pie in the sky: Wouldn’t it be something . . . .
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Because she hasn’t done enough already: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2017/10/19/report-unc-president-spellings-lead-north-carolina-education-commission/
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FROM THE HEART OF BILL GATES COUNTRY:
Guest Editorial: Help Us on School Funding, Supreme Court. You’re Our Only Hope
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The only chat show I watch regularly is Graham Norton on BBC. On tonight’s rebroadcast on BBC America, he spent some time with Hilary Clinton. All I could think of was: why have we never seen this incredible woman before? It is amazing how liberating a politician who will never run for office again can be. She is human and she is thoughtful. I feel better about my vote, to which I was brought kicking and screaming. Wouldn’t have been so if I had gotten to know the woman I saw tonight.
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GregB,
Maybe your pre-election views were tainted by Russian trolls. They were everywhere.
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No, my antipathy for Hilary went back to 1994 when I was involved in a small part of health care reform and I realized how she and her acolytes were cynically coopting elderly and disability constituencies. She and her acolytes were promising a progressive agenda for them with the intention of negotiating it away when it came time to deal with Republicans. But it was so incompetent that they never got to the negotiating phase. I was opposed to her ever since and it was only your (and others on this blog) who convinced me to vote for her after I had decided I would never do so. And I will admit, proudly, that when I voted for her, I did so with enthusiasm and was ready to both support her agenda when I agreed with it and oppose it vigorously when I opposed it (as I assumed I would do when it came to education). I do not in any way regret voting for her.
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…your arguments…
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Diane FYI/documentation: From a Teachers College Record book review on New Orleans charter takeover after Hurricane Katrina:
Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space Where the Market Meets Grassroots Resistance
Author(s): Kristen L. Buras/Publisher: Routledge, New York
reviewed by Ciro Viamontes & Miriam D. Ezzani— August 14, 2017
SNIPS: (all copied below/my emphases)
In Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space: Where the market meets grassroots resistance, Kristen Buras reveals details of the remarkable story of the privatization of public schools in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. . . .
The Recovery School District (RSD) effectively represents the interests of the white political establishment and educational entrepreneurs/reformers. The RSD acted with astonishing speed in taking over the public-school system post Katrina. Tacit support of the takeover came from the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), Governor Blanco, Senator Landrieu (Democrat) and the State Legislature, with the assistance of national groups such as the Heritage Foundation, Teach for America (TFA), and the Cowen Institute.
These actions, seen as a response to the catastrophe, incited little if any resistance to the actions of the RSD. Meanwhile, accumulation by dispossession is evidenced by the RSD’s elimination of a school district by taking control of the buildings. This allowed the en masse firing of veteran teachers, predominantly people of color who had evacuated, as their jobs no longer existed. Citing a “teacher shortage” BESE then contracted with Teach for America (TFA) allowing the RSD to replace fired teachers with inexperienced, non-certified, non-union, predominantly white teachers. TFA recruitment efforts focused on teaching in communities of color as an entrepreneurial opportunity. This entrepreneurial spirit spearheaded by the RSD functions to recruit white people to come to New Orleans. Other examples of accumulation by dispossession through RSD actions can be viewed as malicious: a dramatic example is the diversion of funds from the state of Louisiana’s resources for the displaced teachers’ salaries and benefits to the operating budgets of charter schools inheriting the former school district’s buildings.
END QUOTED MATERIAL
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Don’t even know where to start with this one: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-22/trump-s-re-election-edge-is-greatly-exaggerated
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Understand that Ed Reformers are never wrong (their ideas just haven’t been implemented, yet): https://www.cato.org/blog/dont-blame-libertarians-school-choice
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Oral arguments: McCleary, et al. v. State of Washington (Whether the State has met its constitutional duty to fully fund K-12 basic education, as required by McCleary v. State of Washington)
1 hour and 4 minute broadcast.
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Hi Diane,
Not sure if you saw this. If not, it’s definitely worth a read:
http://educationnext.org/changing-support-charter-schools-among-republicans/
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Shameless Reform Advocate on “Backpacks Full of Cash”: http://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2017/10/26/backpack_full_of_hypocrisy_110218.html
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I take these attacks on Backpack as good news.
1.it is getting under the skin of the privatizers
2. Free publicity
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If you’re pleased, I’m pleased, Diane. (I just found this article particularly aggravating.)
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Please see First Lady of NYC Video with BCA students and MNDFL Ed. Instructor (1min below) released TODAY on FLONYC website in support of Mindfulness.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2002647046614345&id=1394539157425140&refsrc=https%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2FNYCFirstLady%2Fvideos%2Fvb.1394539157425140%2F2002647046614345%2F&_rdr
AND then help the school win by voting for the next 3 days on this website.
Winners will be announced in December.
Heartfelt,
Linda
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What we’ve all been waiting for: Mueller Time.
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Watching Fox (not the) News for an extended period tonight for the first time in my life. It’s obvious what the Dear Leader party line is: Manafort was using the campaign to benefit himself. Dear Leader was a victim in this, he was being used. The interview with David Bossie was a big tell. The attacks on the ethics of Mueller will go into hyper drive. And of course, they’re not giving up on Hilary and now will try to tie Obama to their conspiracy theories. The only thing the comforts me is that I don’t believe any of this will affect Mueller. Whether it will affect the judiciary and congressional oversight, however, it a complete unknown.
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Hi Diane – love your Blog – please read a Miami blog- The Salary situation is horrible!!! A 21 year teacher in Miami makes less than $54,000 and is less than 1/2 way up the salary scale, a 14 year teacher makes $2,000 more than a beginning teacher. Any thoughts ?
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Salary vs Cost of Living, Miami is the worst paying city for teachers in the US
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I couldn’t stomach reading this, but from the little I did see, The 74 is trying to re-seize the word “accountability,” once again linking it with civil rights. Article also seems to be lauding NCLB. For those seeking to see the newest Ed Reform tact: https://www.the74million.org/article/bush-institute-intro/
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I’m labelling this one as a nuanced and sophisticated puff piece on Secretary DeVos. While it doesn’t ignore some of her obvious shortcomings, it does seem to deflect all criticisms. I think it’s worth reading: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/01/betsy-devos-secretary-education-profile-2017-215768
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Who is the top leader in the hatred and threats on their lives – Pruitt or DeVos?
Although the Alberta article in Politico on DeVos gives a different outlook on her. At the same time another Trump appointee, EPA’s Pruitt, also confronts some major issues.
Alberta notes her belief “…that tax dollars should follow those students to their new schools
made DeVos into a villain in the eyes of public school advocates, who argue she would deplete their classrooms and drain their resources to educate those who remain. DeVos may have been Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominee—the first in American history to require a tiebreaking confirmation vote cast by the vice president.
I’ll tread on former conversations here regarding the amount of money spent for her protection as she traveled with US Marshals and reflect on Pruitt. Martin West, an associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who served as Mitt Romney’s top education adviser in 2012 pointed out “It’s ironic that she emerged as the Cabinet nominee to draw the strongest and most visceral opposition, given the constraints on the ability of any secretary of education to effect dramatic change in American education.” I disagree and find Pruitt and his family getting the most visceral opposition.
In comparison the issues seemingly are the same in respect to each cutting back the swamp.
“DeVos is currently undertaking an administration-mandated review of the department, from the top down, hunting for inefficiency and excess and she will recommend a “significantly lighter footprint.” This hints at what some career employees fear: that the new secretary wants to eliminate entire offices within the department, which would both lighten her bureaucratic burden and free up resources for lawmakers to potentially redirect toward her ultimate objective: expanding school choice.
“Scott Pruitt, Trump’s EPA administrator, is the top target of the anti-Trump lynch mob. He’s enduring daily attack pieces in the media and threats of violence against him and his family. Compare DeVos to Pruitt.
It’s hard to think of any cabinet member — current or former — who has been subjected to more vitriol and vilification than Pruitt, and he’s been on the job for less than a year.
According to the EPA inspector general’s office, Pruitt has received “four to five times the number of threats” that his predecessor, Gina McCarthy, did. The level of concern for Pruitt’s safety is so deep that agents are being added to his round-the-clock security detail. In a recent Bloomberg News interview, Pruitt said, “The quantity and the volume — as well as the type — of threats are different. What’s really disappointing to me as it’s not just me — it’s family.”
If the left didn’t create threats of violence and assassinations, maybe the Marshalls wouldn’t be needed.
Why are Pruitt and his family in the crosshairs? Steve Milloy, a longtime EPA critic, noted the following – “It’s not surprising that he’s getting even more threats than usual.” And it isn’t just left-wing environmental extremists who are inciting or excusing calls to assassinate a key cabinet member. Under the same directive from Trump he proposed deep cuts to the EPA budget. Thus the swamp creatures may slowly be eliminated with Pruitt’s systematic disassembling of one of the federal government’s most notoriously rogue and punitive agencies. SFGATE, a sister site for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mark Morford suggested the death threats might be from “environmental advocates, or teachers, or peace activists, or lovers of life and humanity and nature, or distraught mothers, worried that Pruitt’s actions will endanger the lives of their children.” Morford concludes that “when you send death threats to the world and all who live on her, the world will, quite naturally, send them right back.” Some Hollywood celebrities are also riding the Pruitt Hate Train; actor Mark Ruffalo routinely posts threatening tweets about the EPA chief. As Hurricane Irma took aim at the Florida coast in September, Ruffalo suggested that hurricane victims “direct some of your rage and loss” at “climate deniers like Scott Pruitt.” This week, Ruffalo said this about extreme weather events: It should come as no surprise that reporters and opinion writers at the New York Times have relentlessly criticized Pruitt as well. Rarely a day goes by that the Gray Lady isn’t blaming Pruitt for some crime against humanity.
Times columnist Paul Krugman warned that while “no one of [Pruitt’s] actions is likely to be treated as front-page news . . . they will kill or cripple large numbers of Americans.” Nicholas Kristof wrote a column entitled “Trump’s Legacy: Damaged Brains.” Kristof refers to chlorpyrifos, a common pesticide, as ““Nerve Gas Pesticide,” throws in a Nazi reference, and blasts Pruitt’s EPA for denying a petition filed by environmental groups during the Obama administration to ban the chemical’s use, which was upheld by a federal appeals court in July. Kristof says the EPA’s decision will result in a legacy of “cancer, infertility and diminished I.Q.s for decades to come.”
Pruitt is on a successful mission to clean house at an agency that was highly politicized under the Obama administration.
the EPA was Obama’s agency to impose unscientific and costly regulations, mostly in the name of climate change. Unapologetically, Pruitt is undoing all of it.
He pushed the president to exit the Paris Climate Accord, scrubbed the EPA’s website of climate-change propaganda, and rescinded two of Obama’s most burdensome environmental policies — the Clean Water Rule and the Clean Power Plan. Pruitt announced last month his agency would end the so-called “sue and settle” practice used by activists to impose regulations against industry.
Pruitt is also ridding the agency’s advisory boards of “individuals that are receiving money from the agency, sometimes going back years and years to the tune of literally tens of millions of dollars . . . that causes questions on the independence and the veracity of the transparency of the recommendations that are coming our way.”
Liberals are really concerned about Pruitt’s attack on big government, and throw in DeVos, and the dismantling of one of their pet agencies. But Pruitt’s work at the EPA might truly be Trump’s biggest — and best — legacy.
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The reason that Pruitt’s predecessor did not get threats is because she did her job as the person in charge of protecting ting the environment. Pruitt, on the other hand, wants to elim8nate environmental protection. Many people object because they want a safe and clean environment, not one choked with pollution. Pruitt wants to destroy the mission of his agency and silence scientists. He will be remembered as an ignorant and malevolent bully. That’s why he needs a huge security detail of 30.
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Pruitt is a pig, and your defense of him says all!
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Remember the good old days when JS made the same impassioned arguments about President Obama, the president who had more credible threats against his life than any in history?
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Pruitt is a tool of the oil and gas industry, who sued the EPA many times. He brought fracking to Oklahoma and now the state has earthquakes. Pigs are nice. Pruitt is worse. A two-headed cow.
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An example of complicated education policy: http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/11/01/561066256/to-fail-or-not-to-fail-the-fierce-debate-over-high-standards
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You are a funny guy Greg!,
Despite a spate of White House security breaches and other attention-grabbing stunts, there has been no change in the number of threats to directed at President Trump during his first five months in office as compared to his predecessor Barack Obama, according to the Secret Service.
On average, agents have been pursuing six to eight threat reports each day, the new Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles told reporters Thursday.
That number that has remained relatively consistent for the past decade, regardless of the officeholder, the retired Marine Corps major general said in his first briefing since his appointment by Trump in April.
A grim stunt organized by actress Kathy Griffin who was photographed holding a fake, severed head in the image of Trump., I wonder if she would be a racist if it was Obama’s head – Griffin’s actions, which drew direct rebukes from Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, has set in motion a formal investigation. The Secret Service will question the actress. Amazing, only investigated – Obama had people like her jailed.
The point of the comments I made were on 2 Cabinet members and their families and the directive given to clean the slimy slithering monsters from the sewers of their departments. The left can’t stomach the destruction of Obama’s government structured to bring down our country –
No wonder you have such a problem, you must still be reeling from your first visit to Hannity. The light must have been blinding.
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Diane,
Another reason might be Pruitt is stopping the funneling of money by the Obama EPA collected from fines in lieu of court which would cost more! “Legislation, called Stop Settlement Slush Fund Act of 2017, has been introduced by Lankford to address the scheme. ‘Congress must permanently end the abuses Obama’s Justice Department exploited to use settlements to funnel money to their liberal friends,’ said House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte…”
For eight years, this went on.When big banks are sued by the government for discrimination or mortgage abuse, they can settle the cases by donating to third-party non-victims. The settlements do not specify how these third-party groups could use the windfall.”
So far, investigators have accounted for $3 billion paid to “non-victim entities.’ … As noted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute Center for Class Action Fairness Director Ted Frank, DOJ officials are essentially going after corporate defenders to ‘to fund their pet projects.’ ‘The underlying problem with the slush funds is we don’t know exactly where the money is going,’ said Frank.” And Erick Erickson has a story similar to this at his website, The Resurgent.
Superficially, progressives are saying that Pruitt is a climate change denier and has no business managing the agency he sued so often.
It’s a scam. With the blessing of the Department of Justice, the EPA had been going after major corporations and telling those corporations that they can pay a massive fine to the federal government or pay a lesser amount to various environmentalist groups. More often than not, to get the EPA off their backs, the companies fork over money to left-wing run environmentalist groups.
Those groups then begin a vicious cycle. They start hounding the corporations that give them money, file complaints with the EPA, then get the EPA to shake down the companies for more money. It’s a never-ending cycle. Your tax dollars end up funding all of these insane, unhinged left-wing radical rioting and protest groups, and environmental groups. And Pruitt — the new nominee to the EPA — has vowed to shut this down.
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Pruitt works for the oil, gas, and mining interests.
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Diane,
2 points –
The EPA under Pruitt isn’t going to kill you or anyone else – maybe just stop some of the stupidity from a few of the regs – from the Washington Examiner: “Pruitt Ends EPA Gym Memberships — Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said Thursday that the days of gym memberships being paid for by the American taxpayer are over. Documents released show EPA employees spent more than $15,000 on gym memberships outside of the free services they were already being given.”
I guess they have the EPA gym, the workout area, but some of them wanted to go bigger than that, and so they did, and they charged it off to the American taxpayer. And this guy says those days are over. You’re already provided gym membership and service here at the EPA, and you’re not getting supplemental and have it paid for. And they’re livid and outraged in the deep state at the EPA.
You want to know how sick and perverted they’re making our college students? This is from Heat Street: “College Students Are Taking Short, Cold Showers to Prevent Climate Change — An offshoot of Indiana University’s student government is urging students to take short, cold showers to save the planet. ‘Living sustainably is one of the easiest things you can do,’ the head of the student association’s newly founded sustainability department told the student newspaper. ‘Turn off your lights, unplug your electric devices, take shorter, cold showers. Maybe some people are deterred by that, but as time progresses these issues are going to become much more pressing and much more internationally important.’”
These kids don’t realize that this stuff has been going on for decades.
Some fanatics have already implemented stupid things like this, shorter cold-water showers, the complaints of climate change have not abated.
All the electric cars people are driving, it’s not changing anything. It isn’t going to save the planet, because hot showers are not destroying the planet, hot water is not destroying the planet.
So, Diane you , Greg et al, can go back to taking hot showers!
But that’s beyond the point. The point is that for 30 or 40 years people have already begun to behave in these ways and drive these so-called clean energy cars. And all during that period of time, the global warming activists continue to tell us that climate change is getting worse. In other words, none of the efforts that anybody have made to reduce carbon footprints is ever given any credit. Nothing anybody has done or is doing is ever credited as helping.
At some point, after 30 years of following all these silly guidelines, you would expect there to be a noticeable reduction in the warming of the planet. Well, there has been that. Does it strike you strange that the global warming crowd, with all of these mandates and all these behavioral tips, doesn’t want to take credit for it? They don’t want to take credit for the fact the planet hasn’t warmed in 15 years? They’re looking for excuses to explain it, rather than take credit for it.
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SusanLS,
It always amazes me when some of the replies from some of the elite, as I have been told you are, in this group ends up in name calling – a last ditch effort to cogent replies.
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jscheidell This is CBK responding to your note to Ms. Schwartz: Perhaps Ms. Schwartz, as an elite, is at least smart enough to know when someone’s ideology is made of triple-strength Teflon. Or in plain talk: The problem is: you don’t LISTEN to cogent replies.
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Diane,
I believe fracking is not the direct cause to Oklahoma’s earthquakes. So I visited the US Geological Service – gov’t
Induced Earthquakes – USGS Earthquake Hazards Program
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/induced/myths.php – 9k –
Induced Earthquakes
Myths and Misconceptions
Fact 1: Fracking is NOT causing most of the induced earthquakes. Wastewater disposal is the primary cause of the recent increase in earthquakes in the central United States.
Wastewater disposal wells typically operate for longer durations and inject much more fluid than hydraulic fracturing, making them more likely to induce earthquakes. Enhanced oil recovery injects fluid into rock layers where oil and gas have already been extracted, while wastewater injection often occurs in never-before-touched rocks. Therefore, wastewater injection can raise pressure levels more than enhanced oil recovery, and thus increases the likelihood of induced earthquakes.
Fact 2: Not all wastewater injection wells induce earthquakes.
Most injection wells are not associated with felt earthquakes. A combination of many factors is necessary for injection to induce felt earthquakes. These include: the injection rate and total volume injected; the presence of faults that are large enough to produce felt earthquakes; stresses that are large enough to produce earthquakes; and the presence of pathways for the fluid pressure to travel from the injection point to faults.
Fact 3: Wastewater is produced at all oil wells, not just hydraulic fracturing sites.
Most wastewater currently disposed of across the nation is generated and produced in the process of oil and gas extraction. As discussed above, saltwater is produced as a byproduct during the extraction process. This wastewater is found at nearly every oil and gas extraction well.
The other main constituent of wastewater is leftover hydraulic fracturing fluid. Once hydraulic fracturing is completed, drilling engineers extract the fluids that are remaining in the well. Some of this recovered hydraulic fracturing fluid is used in subsequent fracking operations, while some of it is disposed of in deep wells.
Fact 4: The content of the wastewater injected in disposal wells is highly variable.
In many locations, wastewater has little or nothing to do with hydraulic fracturing. In Oklahoma, less than 10% of the water injected into wastewater disposal wells is used hydraulic fracturing fluid. Most of the wastewater in Oklahoma is saltwater that comes up along with oil during the extraction process.
In contrast, the fluid disposed of near earthquake sequences that occurred in Youngstown, Ohio, and Guy, Arkansas, consisted largely of spent hydraulic fracturing fluid.
Fact 5: Induced seismicity can occur at significant distances from injection wells and at different depths.
Seismicity can be induced at distances of 10 miles or more away from the injection point and at significantly greater depths than the injection point.
Fact 6: Wells not requiring surface pressure to inject wastewater can still induce earthquakes.
Wells where you can pour fluid down the well without added pressure at the wellhead still increase the fluid pressure within the formation and thus can induce earthquakes.
See also:
FAQ: Induced Earthquakes – select topic Induced Earthquakes
FAQ: Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking)
Myths and Facts on Wastewater Injection, Hydraulic Fracturing, Enhanced Oil Recovery, and Induced Seismicity – by Rubinstein and Mahani
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Diane and Susan,
Paris was never really about climate. It was a wealth-redistribution scheme in which rich nations were expected to shower poor nations with free money.
This, of course, is the real reason for the widespread global outrage at Trump’s climate decision and Pruitt’s work
The pigs have had their enormous trough – stamped “$$$$ courtesy of Uncle Sam” – pulled from beneath their snouts and their instinctive response is to go “Sooooooeeeeee! Soooooeeeeee!”
Dr. Edenhoffer – co chair of the IPCC
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Thank you for sharing all the Alt-Right programming crap that fools the deplorable fools that support con-man, fraud, serial lying, malignant narcissist, psychopath/sociopath, and failed businessman Donald Trump as the first fake president of the United States.
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Lloyd Lofthouse Drat–I cannot find the article, but FYI I read this morning that Mercer has SOLD HIS STAKE IN BREITBART.
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Robert Mercer Sells His Breitbart Stock to Daughters; Denounces …
https://www.thedailybeast.com/robert-mercer-sells-his-breitbart-stocks-to-daughters-denounces-milo – 57k – Cached – Similar pages
1 day ago … Conservative investor Robert Mercer is selling his stakes in the Steve Bannon- led media outlet Brietbart to his daughters for “personal reasons …
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Big deal. Mercer has allowed his daughter Rebekah (who homeschools her children) to make political decisions for the family. So now she will have more money to promote the Mercer brand of bigotry and hatred.
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Diane,
I was just giving a link to the article CBK was looking for.
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ok
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jscheidell It was a different article, but no matter–I’m just glad it’s getting some legs.
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Lloyd,
you are slowing up on the adjectives – you must have finished your afternoon nap or yoga exercise to calm yourself down.
I wish I was a “failed business man” like Trump – and had his money. No wonder the left wants everyone to be equally poor so the Dems can save them from their plight.
Continue to tear down success, some losers meed to learn how to lose – Yo Hillary!
The only fools fooled are those who fail to consider the alternative – and spend their time defending the indefensible Hillary – Are the Dems going to implode after Brazile book?
Uranium One deal, DNC broke during Obama admin, Uncle Bernie snookered, Russian collusion – with the Democrats – nah don’t say it is so!
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For those of us who know the man who was marine, and a very fine teacher, and a brilliant author, your taunts once agin describe who YOU are.
Nap? LOL!
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JS wrote, “You are slowing up on the adjectives – you must have finished your afternoon nap or yoga exercise to calm yourself down.”
Actually, naps are a good thing, and I do take them, but not every day and not today. Some days I have to force myself to attempt to take a nap because when we sleep, our brains are more active than when we are awake and we can solve a lot of problems in our sleep if we program our mind as we fall asleep.
And I’m sure this applies to JS, because I doubt if JS naps – it is so unmanly?)
“As a nation, the United States appears to be becoming more and more sleep deprived. And it may be our busy lifestyle that keeps us from napping. While naps do not necessarily make up for inadequate or poor quality nighttime sleep, a short nap of 20-30 minutes can help to improve mood, alertness and performance.”
https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/napping
“Sleep serves to reenergize the body’s cells, clear waste from the brain, and support learning and memory. It even plays vital roles in regulating mood, appetite and libido.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-happens-in-the-brain-during-sleep1/
I think Trump doesn’t get enough sleep – proof is the many early morning Tweets he sends out as he starts his day being a bully, a troll. threatening people and lying repeatedly. But even if he did get enough sleep and take a daily nap, the fact that he is a malignant narcissist and a psychopath/sociopath means that wouldn’t’ help at all.
I don’t do yoga exercise but I do turn inward for about ten minutes a day. Don’t they call that meditating or mindfulness?
“Although meditation still isn’t exactly mainstream, many people practice it, hoping to stave off stress and stress-related health problems. Mindfulness meditation, in particular, has become more popular in recent years. The practice involves sitting comfortably, focusing on your breathing, and then bringing your mind’s attention to the present without drifting into concerns about the past or future. (Or, as my mom would say, “Don’t rehearse tragedies. Don’t borrow trouble.”)”
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/mindfulness-meditation-may-ease-anxiety-mental-stress-201401086967
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LOL… love your responses. I need to giggle now and then.
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Trump has gone through several bankruptcies (not in his own name but in his partnerships and companies’ names) costing the banks he borrowed money from hundreds of millions of dollars. U.S. banks won’t loan him money anymore. That’s why Trump turned to banks in Germany, China, and money laundering from Russia to keep his family business alive.
Trump also took advantage of what’s known as corporate welfare.
Between his bankruptcies and the corporate welfare, that adds up to about $5 billion.
Banks that lent $300 million to Trump linked to Russian money laundering scam
“Deutsche Bank among western institutions that processed billions of dollars in cash of ‘criminal origin’ through Latvia”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/21/deutsche-bank-that-lent-300m-to-trump-linked-to-russian-money-laundering-scam
No wonder Donald Trump won’t release his tax returns. If he did, it would look like he has been running a scam similar to a Ponzi scheme. The only difference is he borrows money from B to pay A and then borrows money from C to pay B so he stays one or two steps ahead of losing it all.
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Gosh JS, you are a font of information
If you say so, it must be so… and such information must be important to know, for us… who just want to see people coming together, to STOP climate change which is doing this. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/science/trump-zinke-pacific-marine-reserves.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_sc_20171031&nl=science-times&nlid=50637717&ref=headline&te=1
Loss of Federal Protections May Imperil Pacific Reefs, Scientists Warn – The New York Times
Terry Kerby has been piloting deep-sea submarines for four decades, but nothing prepared him for the devastation he observed recently on several underwater mountains called seamounts in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.“It was a biological desert,” he said. Where normally fish and crabs dart about forests of coral and sponges, “all we could can see was a parking lot full of nets and lines, with no life at all. Among the casualties littering the seabed were ten-foot-tall black corals that can live over 4,000 years, among the oldest forms of life on earth.
“Allowing fishing in the few protected seamounts left would be a huge mistake,” said Dr. Roark.” They knew that the seamounts had been fished by trawlers and coral harvesters at some point. “But the extent of the devastation and the huge amount of gear that was abandoned on the bottom were shocking for both of us,” he said. Mr. Kerby and Brendan Roark, a geographer at Texas A&M University, are comparing seamounts that have been fished to those in pristine, protected areas. This month, they surveyed the upper reaches of four seamounts, one of which, Hancock, lies inside Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, which includes the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
The Trump administration is considering rolling back federal protections for 10 national monuments, including two in the central Pacific. The Pacific Remote Islands National Marine Monument and the Rose Atoll National Marine Monument protect the waters around a handful of islands, most uninhabited, to the south of the Hawaii Islands.
The shore reefs of the islands have long been protected from commercial fishing; the monument designations extended that protection to 50 miles from shore in some cases and 200 miles in others.
According to a memo obtained by the Washington Post in September, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has recommended that the designations of the Pacific Remote Islands and the Rose Atoll be amended “to allow commercial fishing.” (A similar recommendation was made for another marine monument, the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, off the coast of New England.)
The memo did not mention the largest marine reserve: Papahānaumokuākea, a string of mostly uninhabited atolls and reefs that have been largely undisturbed since World War II. At about 583,000 square miles, it is the largest protected area on the planet. (Industry officials in Hawaii are pressing for commercial fishing to be allowed there, too.)
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In fact, here is more:
The report into the “financial maze” of Trump’s business dealings found that companies he owns have accrued $650 million in debt. …
According to the Times, a building on the Avenue of the Americas in New York City’s Manhattan borough that is partially owned by Trump has a loan of $950 million that was paid for by a few different entities, including the Bank of China and Goldman Sachs.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nyt-report-trump-owes-money-to-bank-of-china-goldman-sachs/article/2599815
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Lloyd,
It seems SLS was LOL the idea of mine for you taking a nap – in which you later cleared up for her – And thanks for the nap justification – SLS may need to heed that advice – I do take naps – usually after playing raquetball for a couple of hrs in the AM or after a half mile of laps – to the chagrin of my wife! I have a friend who got me involved in tai-chi that I occasionally do as well. Never tried meditation though he does it – he teaches classes in tai-chi and is a health “nut”
Big-name CFOs get paid tons of money to make determinations, When you take out debt — whether by borrowing money from a bank or issuing bonds to the public — there are three clear results: 1) You’ll owe the lender or lenders a fixed amount of money at predetermined dates; 2) your interest expenses are tax deductible; and 3) you’ll give up no control over the actual management of the firm. We tend to look askance at debt, because it enables individuals and companies to live beyond their means. But debt is not inherently bad — it’s simply one method of attracting investment. Debt is, however, fundamentally more risky than equity. A debt-financed company is going to bring in greater rewards for its founder than if the founder decides to share profits among many owners, but a high debt load also increases the chance that a company will fail.
Debt can help you grow your business:
One of the primary ways to grow your business is to take on debt. Many small business owners find themselves at a crossroads when facing rapid growth as they are not able to finance their expansion on their own. At this time, access to debt can be a great boon.
Debt is cheaper than equity:
This is a fundamental concept in a finance class when discussing the cost of capital. One the primary reasons for being in business is to earn a higher rate of return than investing it something else (after building in a risk premium). This means that as a business owner you expect a return on equity that is higher than the cost of debt. More debt allows you to have a lower equity base resulting in a higher after tax profit/equity return rate. This is especially meaningful when you are calculating earnings per share.
Government sponsored debt programs:
Both Canada and the US have numerous government loan programs for small business. This allows small business owners to borrow money, at competitive interest rates. If the business is unsuccessful, often the debt is forgiven or substantially reduced.
Mitigages your risk:
It is rarely a good idea to put all of your proverbial eggs in one basket. Borrowing money can help you mitigate your own risk and reduce your asset exposure in the event that your business venture does not succeed. And although bankruptcy is rarely a good thing, it is sometimes inevitable.
Suggests confidence in your business:
If someone is willing to lend your business money (other than perhaps your adoring family members) it suggests that they believe that your business has potential. Applying for debt can be a fairly rigorous process that requires business plans, projections and an in depth understanding that is an extension of your knowledge and abilities.
Helps you build credibility and maintain discipline:
In the same way that credit cards help you build a credit profile, debt helps you build relationships with financial institutions and other debt holders. Others are more likely to lend to your business when they see that it isn’t the first time. If you continue to make your payments on schedule, it is much easier to expand your credit facilities. Finally since most debt agreements have reporting and financial covenants, it helps you to stay disciplined.
Interest is tax deductible:
The cost of debt is actually less on an after tax basis than the interest rate suggests. If your interest rate is 5% and your business tax rate is 20% then the cost of your debt is actually only 4%.
It goes without saying that there should be careful evaluation of your business circumstances prior to taking on debt. There are many businesses (service based) that have low capital requirements and do not require much in the way of additional funding. And of course debt should not be used to replace fiscal discipline. Caveats aside, debt can be an excellent way to grow your business and improve your return on investment.
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What are you babbling on about? All I saw was a bunch of “crap” designed to mislead from the issue.
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Boring. Unrelated to anything here. You need to get a life.
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LLoyd
Only replied to the note you made regarding the debt of 650 million.
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That wasn’t a reply. It was an attempt to switch the topic to something else. Donald Trump is a fraud, a conman, and a repeatedly failed businessman with a long documented history of being one that goes back to when he was in his twenties. Orange turkey crap is better than Donald Trump.
The only reason that Donald Trump is allegedly wealthy is because he is a serial liar, a bully, a troll, a con man, a misogynist, and a fraud. That does not make him a successful businessman.
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Lloyd, come now. Trump was successful at getting Russian oligarchs to launder money by buying his coops at inflated prices. Until he releases his own tax returns (on the 9th of Never), we will never know. Maybe Mueller will get them.
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Chuckling – What did Trump have to do to get that Russian money? Will we ever know?
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Lloyd nd Diane
What did he do to get the money – ask Hillary/Bill Foundation – how they got the money
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if we ever see Trump’s tax returns, we will learn about the financial ties between Trump and the Putins and Russian oligarchs
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SLS
the question was from Lloyd in reply to Diane – take a deep breath or a nap.
And we all are waiting Mueller – the answer will be from the Clintons
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JS is babbling again. I can’t even call his last comment BS because it makes absolutely no sense. Does anyone know what JS is trying to say here other than him?
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LLOYD WITH ALL YOU DO, I cannot fathom why you even read his commentary, as by now, the things he says defines his behavior. By arguing here with the people who know truth from alternate facts, he demonstrates a great need to have his opinion validated, and a cluelessness as to what this blog is about, and who writes and reads here. Maybe the darkness is chasing him, too. Quien sabe?
I get the feed, to, but as you know, I am busy writing elsewhere… as YOU are.
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SLS
SIGH
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Lloyd Lofthouse With Susan, why do you care? I think “Teflon troll” anyway when I read his posts, which I don’t anymore. CBK
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YOU ask them! There are more important questions that Diane asks.
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Mr. Petrilli wants to avoid “bigger, more damaging changes.” https://edexcellence.net/articles/testing-tweaks-that-every-state-should-consider-during-their-2018-legislative-sessions
(i.e. He wants to save the tests!)
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On Douglas County in Colorado: http://educationnext.org/reflections-on-election-in-douglas-county-colorado/
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“The headlines suggest that the election was all about vouchers. But the deeper story here is that Douglas County is a compelling case study in the collapse of the traditional education reform agenda.”
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Choice movement claims that it’s the answer to bullying: http://educationnext.org/can-school-choice-keep-children-safe-bullying/
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“This is one unkept promise [of] the common assessments,” said Mike Petrilli, president of the Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank that has backed the Common Core standards.
Just one.
https://chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2017/11/14/common-core-tests-were-supposed-to-usher-in-a-new-era-of-comparing-americas-schools-what-happened/
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The Republican Tax Plan Is A Declaration Of War On Learning http://educationopportunitynetwork.org/gop-tax-plan-is-a-declaration-of-war-on-learning/
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A positive (I think) media article: https://www.salon.com/2017/11/27/democrats-be-warned-your-corporate-education-reform-is-not-enough_partner/
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More evidence from reputable studies that technology is not the secret sauce to improve education, but it actually retards and hampers learning.
“Evidence mounts that laptops are terrible for students at lectures
62 comments. Time to reconsider the notebook and pen.”
https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/27/16703904/laptop-learning-lecture
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Ed Reform propaganda at its finest. Reformers claiming Ed Reforms were responsible for the rise of Massachusetts and “The Establishment” is the reason for its current decline. Very aggravating to read: http://www.bostonherald.com/opinion/op_ed/2017/11/chieppo_and_gass_education_establishment_ruining_reform
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The rise of Massachusetts may be attributed to the Education Reform Act of 1993, which injected a huge amount of new funding into the public schools in exchange for agreement to establish content-rich standards and assessments. Added to the $2 Billion was a large investment in early childhood education and tests of new teachers. The Massachusetts curriculum frameworks were exemplary.
What we now know as “Reform” did not exist. Teschers were not evaluated by student test scores. Only 25 charters were authorized for the entire state, and they were negligible as factors in the state’s overall academic performance. Massachusetts also had the considerable advantage of having a strong and growing economy and significantly less poverty than other parts of the nation.
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That’s great info, Diane. Not only does this misinformation/propaganda get into The Boston Herald, but it also passes as important national news on Real Clear Education. Frustrating.
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The 1993 legislation was a response to a lawsuit that had been wending its way to a resolution since 1978, called McDuffy v. Robertson. 16 students from several districts were the plaintiffs, claiming that the state had failed to adequately fund their education. Foreseeing that the court would rule for the plaintiffs, the legislature came up with the overhaul, which was largely based on the Massachusetts Business Alliance’s report entitled “Every Child a Winner” – Massachusetts Department of Education and Massachusetts Business for Education (1991). This was unsurprising, as Republican William Weld was governor at the time.
Money did come into the districts, funded under Chapter 70 state aid for cities and towns which could not raise sufficient property taxes to pay adequately for schools. This was called a Foundation Budget; i.e. the minimum amount of funding need to form a solid foundation for an equitable education.
Standards, titled Curriculum Frameworks, were written, in the initial steps, by teachers within their subject areas, for later adoption. Later, under John Silber’s tenure, teachers were excluded and“curriculum experts” were appointed. (Silber was all about control; the curricula frameworks originally entitled World Languages had to be renamed “Foreign Languages” at his insistence.) The intended purpose was to roll out tests in each subject area to be known as the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). Tests were only ever rolled out for math and English, but students were required to pass the 10th grade tests in order to graduate. Retakes (on rejiggered tests) were later allowed due to high failure rates.
The law had a couple of poison pills. Principals lost the right to belong to a union, and essentially became at-will employees at the mercy of performance based contracts. Teachers, including those who had achieved a permanent license, were required to re-certify every 5 years in each subject area in which they held certification (and to pay a fee to do so). They were required to accumulate graduate or in-service credits to recertify (and to pay the associated costs).
It also was the camel’s nose in the tent for charters; the same crew which was advocating for them in 1993 is back at it again now. It was the beginning of published school profiles based on test results. It allowed for “failing” schools to be taken over by the state. It was the start of an obsession with collecting data.
The original plaintiff was a student in the city of Brockton. Ironically enough, Brockton is currently seeking other towns to join it in a back-to-the-future lawsuit because our schools are underfunded, with special education and health care costs as leading factors. If nothing else, a lawsuit might set a fire under the legislature to act on The Foundation Budget Review Committee’s research, which shows that schools are underfunded by more than $1 billion.
http://brockton.wickedlocal.com/news/20171127/seeking-plaintiffs-brockton-education-equity-lawsuit-chugs-ahead
Chieppo and Gass conveniently omit that the state isn’t doing its part.
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The corruption is endless because the trillions of the cabal that runs this nation is offshore, and they own the legislatures. The first thing to go is education, because they need an ignorant population .
Here is corruption, unrelated to education, about private jet planes.. Fascinating
Click to access High-Flyers-2017-Institute-for-Policy-Studies.pdf
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Just wanted you to know, that I read everything you say… I love your metaphor: “It also was the camel’s nose in the tent for charters;”
Thanks for theintellignet conversation and the information that you share here.!
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Thank you, Susan! That’s very kind of you.
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My goodness, Christine, you know so much. Thanks!
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Great info, guys.
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And now Secretary DeVos blames lagging test scores on lack of choice: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2017/11/betsy_devos_test_scores_stagnant_parental_choice.html
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Oh brother! “We are a nation still at risk. We are a nation at greater risk.” That’s kind of like Jack the Ripper squawking about a serial killer.
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Betsy is our biggest risk.
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Here’s another risky person: https://www.the74million.org/article/jeb-bush-calls-for-new-coalitions-of-the-willing-to-back-education-reform-in-era-of-intense-divisiveness/
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Fordham Institute on Ballou: https://edexcellence.net/articles/has-the-high-school-diploma-lost-all-meaning
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Good overview article in HuffPo today about the DeVos agenda. Worth sharing with those not familiar with the issues as the readers of this blog are: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/school-voucher-evangelical-education-betsy-devos_us_5a021962e4b04e96f0c6093c?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
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Forbes Magazine goes off message!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/12/06/how-america-is-breaking-public-education/#1d9c3a137f18
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OMG, Ohio algebra teacher… THANK YOU!THANK YOU!THANK YOU!THANK YOU!
THIS is the benefit of coming to the TEACHER’S ROOM OF DIANE RAVITCH!
I posted the Forbes article, with a comment which you MUST GO TO SEE, AS IT HAS THE EMBEDDED LINKS that do not appear here.
I am posting my comment, some of which many you have heard before, but which is the ABSOLUTE EVIDENCE FOR WHAT THE FORBES PIECE DESCIBES
I am the poster -‘girl’ for this.
QuickLink: DON’T MISS THIS; How America Is Breaking Public Education; Forbes gets it right! | OpEdNews https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/DON-T-MISS-THIS-How-Ameri-in-Life_Arts-American-Education_American-Schools_Education_Forbes-171208-254.html#comment681757
This article left me speechless. Finally, the absolute truth!
Let the teacher-practitioner TEACH! Teachers know WLLL what learning looks like!
The STATE & the CITY provide learning objectives for all students in all subject and all grades… talented people who grasp the nature of learning and how children learn MUST CHOOSE WHAT TO DO IN THEIR PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
This article IS THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH about what PUBLIC EDUCATION must do to restore the PROFESSIONAL TEACHER-PRACTIONER, THE GRUNT AT THE BOTTOM, in the classroom. Top-down mandates need to end, because their only function according to the PEW RESEARCH, was to support the teacher and the students, BY providing: FOUR THINGS
* a clean, safe site;
*an organization of the school so things run smoothly in the halls, lunchrooms etc.
* the hiring of experienced, educated professionals and support staff to aid their practice,;
* Purchasing and providing the books, materials and technology needed by the teachers;
In 1999, I wrote about the HIDDEN SCANDAL that emptied the schools in America
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
In 1997 I was the NY State English Council’s Educator of Excellence. My seventh grade practice on the East Side of Manhattan, had been studied by Harvard, in the Pew research for AUTHENTIC STANDARDS FOR LEARNING. (notice the absence of the word ‘teaching’!) I taught the entire 7the grade BTW, with a curriculum that I wrote in 1990. I created my classroom practice from scratch in an empty room, devoid of blackboards, let alone books or computers.
Pew chose me as cohort, and I was one of six, of 20,000 teachers studied, whose practice was unique, meeting every principle of learning; my work toured the country with the Pew educator/researchers.
I heard my name on the NYC cross-town bus, and had a book offer to tell teachers how I did it.
BUT ‘they’ came after me. https://greatschoolwars.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/eic-oct_11.pdf with the Gates curriculum crap, and the Pearson tests,! You see, they could not TELL A TEACHER SUCH AS I WAS, to give up her careful developed curricula which spectacularly met all state objectives for reading, writing, critical analysis etc.
I was thrown into a district office while they trashed my room, my research and gave all my materials to other teachers. I had spent 8 years and thousand of dollars to create that successful practice. it was GRAND THEFT!
They attempted to charge me with corporal punishment, but I hired an attorney and for twenty five THOUSAND DOLLARS, WHEN THE COMPLICIT UNION FAILED ME.
OH, I was back in the school, BUT teaching 6 kids a period, in a storeroom!
Then, the principal directed a teacher in another school, to write a letter saying that I had threatened to kill ‘the principal.’
They trashed me like a serf!
I reached out to Randi Weingarten the UFT president, to let her know that the MANHATTAN BUREAU REP of the UFT was allowing me to be train-wrecked. She knew of my unimpeachable reputation — and the millions that I brought to NYC when the Pew team came to FILM AND STUDY ME!
But then she could not have been unaware of the demise of the EXPERIENCED PROFESSIONAL IN NYC!
The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman https://vimeo.com/41994760
My story is the tip of the iceberg For the schools across the 15,880 systems to fail, it was imperative for the oligarchs to fabricate charges and remove the PROFESSIONAL PRACTITIONERS… just imagine if a hospital replaced the surgeons with the trained medics from an ambulance… who do a good job that they are trained to do!
They were LAWLESS– as Montana’s Lorna Stremcha testifies.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIF2kVwW1r0&sns=em
Her book Bravery, Bullies, & Blowhards: Lessons Learned in a Montana Classroom tells the big picture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIF2kVwW1r0&sns=em
She was bullied all right…set up by the principal to be sexually assaulted. something she had to hire an attorney to PROVE.
In this moment of #METOO, this can be grasped!!!
And in LAUSD, the second largest district in America NYC was the first to be demolished by the top-down edicts); they fabricated charges http://www.perdaily.com/2015/01/were-you-terminated-or-forced-to-retire-from-lausd-based-on-fabricated-charges.html
… and rid the schools of tenured (I.e Experienced) teachers; rid the budget of their pensions, and the salaries of the most experienced professionals by the tens of thousands… the story at Perdaily.com !
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Susan Lee Schwartz I read this before when I visited your site, but I’m glad you posted it here, and even if you posted here before. I think it shows (never too many times) how historical the ideological movement that you got caught up in has become.
Just as background, linked below is an interesting article from the New York Review of Books that gives some insights about just HOW long-term historical the ideological movement is, leaving no party-stone un–turned. It names names of recognizable persons and institutions from way back and reveals the sometimes confusing (GOP against GOP) but still solid threads that gets us to today, including about education. Just the first paragraph:
Donald Trump’s Brains
Jacob Heilbrunn, DECEMBER 21, 2017
“Among the many anomalies of Donald Trump’s presidency has been the near invisibility of institutions that for many years served as a bulwark of Republican policymaking. Though many on the right like to quote Ronald Reagan’s assertion from 1981 that ‘government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,’ his administration in fact began its bold work with a comprehensive playbook—the twenty-volume Mandate for Leadership, published by The Heritage Foundation. It contained a variety of proposals for slashing federal income taxes, boosting defense spending, and rolling back business regulations. It was widely seen as a blueprint for the administration, and Reagan gave a copy to each member of his cabinet. A redacted paperback version even became a best seller. “Of a sudden,” Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan declared, ‘the GOP has become a party of ideas.’”
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/12/21/donald-trump-brains/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR%20Trump%20Peres%20May&utm_content=NYR%20Trump%20Peres%20May+CID_584efa14a1859b76989b3d77b6b19a31&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=Donald%20Trumps%20Brains
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Thank you so much Catherine. each time I tell my story, I remember the despair I felt the first time I told it, when I wrote about the scandalous behavior in NYC, which I realized was happening across the nation..
This link is the one I posted years ago, on my own blog on iweb (which is gone!) and thought no one would ever read it.
Now, as you pointed out, it is so much more than my story. http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
It is at the core of what they did to our TEACHER-PRACTITIONERS…. I wish everyone should use that appellation. Bush, Duncan and the big voices like Rhee and Li’l evil Eva, changed the national conversation about LEARNING and made it about evaluating those bad teachers teaching –about which they claimed to be experts.. although everything they did resulted in failure for most of our children.
I wrote these too, on iWeb, but Lenny Isenberg posted them at Perdaily.
“Subverting The National Conversation: A lesson on how it is done! by Susan lee Schwartz with thanks to Kevin Gosztola” –
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/08/subverting-the-national-conversation-a.html
and this one I put up at Oped.
“Learning not Teacher evaluation should be the emphasis of media”
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Learning-not-Teacher-evalu-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-111001-956.html
I have a site which Have not posted on YET. I have been too busy writing here and at Oped, where I have developed an audience ( i have almost half a million views there).
I will never stop talking about the plot and the ploy, the assault on THE SCHOOLS by removing the professionals
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Susan Lee Schwartz I’ve said this here before also, but will repeat: I think a MAJOR problem (that we seem to be finally overcoming here and there), is that most adults remember things from their own public education QUITE DIFFERENTLY from what is going on today; and so communicating the present problems has to get through a kind of parent-experienced dogma from the past.
To many (and still for TOO many), I think, changes are spotty and pretty-much innocuous to their old view of things and their too-easy projection of their old memories onto today’s situation. When they DO “get it,” it must be a shock.
One of the horrible double-speak false appropriations that “reformers” use is “public.” I see it here and there in TV advertising here in California. “Visit our charter public school” blah, blah, blah.
Though we are presently in an ideological sewer, we just have to keep at it. I suggest to anyone reading this note to read that article in my previous note. It takes the reader past or behind Trump to the well-healed and philosophically-rooted political camps that now support and benefit from him and that are oddly in conflict with themselves in the GOP. It’s a first-rate eye-opener.
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Exactly right. I read your links and notes.
Anyone who went to school, thinks that they know what teaching should look like, but it is so easy to fool people who do not know WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE.
That phrase was the daily ‘mantra’ during THE HARVARD research on the PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING , as I attended the staff development in District 2– that All that PEW MONEY PURCHASED.
Rhee and Moskowitz and all the others who sell their ‘magic elixirs (no evidence required)
https://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html can fool parents with pretty bulletin boards, high tech, or ritualized teacher driven drivel like we see at li’l Eva’s Orwellian named. Success Academy.
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Your story is both powerful and courageous, Susan. I salute you.
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Thank you. It is 17 years since I experienced the war on teachers, and I almost stopped telling the story. Then I realized that it is an important one, because of who I was in nYC at that time. If they could take me out, how easy would it be to remove a novice teacher after a few years, and create a never -ending revolving door.
This story and my story and Lorna’s are crucial to know.
Many teachers came to me to tell me that I was not alone.
Read about Jo Scott Coe, the teacher at point blank range!
So many teachers who write here, do not realize that this ploy to remove the professional, in this PLOT to end public education, began 2 decades ago.
Karen Horwitz who wrote ‘white Chalk Crime,’ http://www.whitechalkcrime.com
after the attack that took her out of a Chicago’s school, also created a site where teachers reported the abuse they were experiencing
http://endteacherabuse.org/
Here is a link to blog where a NYC journalist reports about the GOTCHA SQUAD.
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
And Lenny Isenberg called me today. He fought back. It has taken 10 years, and now LAUSD is trying to remove hi s credentials. Lenny is one of the brightest people I know.
Such a loss for the children. His crime… he blew the whistle on social promotion.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/social-promotion–lausds-prime-mover-for-continued-and-predictable-student-failure–do-they-really-w.html
they took him away from his classroom in hand-cuffs http://www.perdaily.com/2010/02/yesterday-i-was-removed-from-class-in-handcuffs.html
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Rebecca Klein of HuffPo on a roll: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/students-disabilities-quality-education_us_5a2ac25be4b0a290f0503905?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
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Primal scream now: https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-not-granting-loan-relief-defrauded-students-inspector-224756542–sector.html
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Teacher in 10 years…GONE!: https://futurism.com/ai-teachers-education-crisis/
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CAN IT BE? The latest from Gates: (My emphases, and notice he uses the term “network.”) This first paragraph below is copied from the whole e-mail below that, from the NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY CENTER:
“Welner also points to four mistakes that the Gates Foundation has repeated in its earlier K-12 reform initiatives: (a) reliance on approaches that are too top-down, (b) excessive faith in choice and markets, (c) similarly excessive faith in technology and data, and (d) insufficient attention to outside-school obstacles to students’ opportunities to learn. The policy memo finds reasons to believe that the new initiative will avoid at least some of these pitfalls, but Welner also sees some red flags.
WHOLE E-MAIL, all copied:
New Initiative from Gates Has the Potential to Avoid Past Mistakes
Key Takeaway: Approach can be fine-tuned to close opportunity gaps in collaboration with authentic community voices.
NEPC Publication: http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/bmgf
Contact: William J. Mathis: (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net
Kevin Welner: (303) 492-8370, kevin.welner@colorado.edu
NEPC Resources on Foundation Involvement in School Reform
BOULDER, CO (December 12, 2017) – In Might the New Gates Education Initiative Close Opportunity Gaps?, Professor Kevin Welner of the University of Colorado Boulder considers the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s newest effort, called “Networks for School Improvement.” Welner, who is Director of the National Education Policy Center, examines how this initiative can learn from the Foundation’s own past initiatives as well as from research evidence more generally.
Bill Gates announced the new investment strategy in mid-October; the Gates Foundation then solicited ideas about how groups of secondary schools can work with intermediary organizations to improve those schools and boost student outcomes. The idea is for the intermediaries and schools to create support networks working toward solutions to common problems.
“These networks have a beneficial potential,” said Professor Welner, “but their benefits will be limited unless past lessons are taken into account.” The policy memo focuses in particular on three foundational lessons from research: the need to create school systems that are supportive of equitable reform, the need to focus on closing opportunity gaps, and the need for reforms to be grounded in the authentic voices of parents, organizers, students and teachers in the impacted communities.
Welner also points to four mistakes that the Gates Foundation has repeated in its earlier K-12 reform initiatives: (a) reliance on approaches that are too top-down, (b) excessive faith in choice and markets, (c) similarly excessive faith in technology and data, and (d) insufficient attention to outside-school obstacles to students’ opportunities to learn. The policy memo finds reasons to believe that the new initiative will avoid at least some of these pitfalls, but Welner also sees some red flags.
“Human progress is not a straight line,” he concludes. “But we can learn from the past and plan for success.”
Find Might the New Gates Education Initiative Close Opportunity Gaps?, by Kevin Welner, on the web at: http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/bmgf
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I’m convinced that there is only one way to stop the billionaire oligarchs and that is to get rid all of them and strip their families of all wealth!
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Come on, Lloyd… aint’ gonna happen. Carlin got it right, such a long time ago.
Too bad he is vulgar, but I think that appropriate adjectives work in this case.
Just be forewarned .
(5) America is one big lie and you are a fool for believing in it. – YouTube
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Never say never.
For instance, when Mao died, his wife was all set to take over China and continue to the insanity of the Cultural Revolution but the people had suffered so much for more than a decade that they were ready to get rid of the reformers and Deng Xiaoping led China back to sanity. The military even supported Deng and all of the leaders of the Cultural Revolution were stripped of power and many ended up in prison or dead
Mao’s wife and others at the top that was called the Gang of Four were arrested, tried, found guilty and sent to prison or faced death sentences. Mao’s wife hung herself in her cell.
Anchee has said the American people haven’t suffered enough yet to get rid of the oligarchs but that day will come and I’ve read is all it takes is 5-percent of the adult population to rise up. That’s about 12-million or more in a population of 320 million.
If the far Alt Right achieves all their agendas, within ten years there will be enough people suffering to surpass that 5 percent.
never say never
One of Hitler’s slogans was that his Third Rich would last 1,000 years, but he only ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945 — 12 years.
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Sigh!
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Not everyone is thrilled with the results of Douglas Co.: http://thehill.com/opinion/education/364974-a-suburban-school-board-just-set-back-educational-opportunity-for-all
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Tough luck for those who want to Destroy Public Education.
Dougco parents won EVERY seat on the school board despite being outspent
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Zephyr Teachout on Andrew Cuomo, the IDC, school privatization and Dan Loeb:
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The U.N. speaks the truth about the current state of the U.S.: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22546&LangID=E
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I have written this before only my numbers say that there are roughly 50 million US citizens in poverty and about 1/2 of these are white. There are a few %age points fewer in poverty but actually more than we had in the mid-1960s. Our population has about doubled since then..Of course we all pay to get some out of poverty barely, with welfare payments. So, poverty really has gotten was since the War of Poverty was declared in the 1960s..
What’s more we do not have but 1/2 of jobs needed to get to full employment. The middle class (those making from $40K to $120K, is shrinking and has been for decades now.With 2/3 to 3/4 of all workers making less than $30k per year, most of us are poor, somewhere around 200 million (and that is only adults 18-64 years old).. .
For some context, that 200 million is more than the population of most countries in the world. In fact Indonesia, the 4th most populated Country is about 284 million. The population of Canada is about 36 million.
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Two books that question testing: http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-books-biblioracle-1224-story.html
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Oakland school district Board of Ed (OUSD) is at it again. After having voted for mid-year cuts to the school sites – 1 abstention, all other in favor – on December 13th, they proceeded to release a supposedly “vanilla” survey stemming from their “engagement” efforts on what is known as the “Blueprint for Quality Schools”, nothing but a thinly vailed effort to close schools something the board has been vying and advocating for years, and for which they enjoyed the incredible influx of campaign moneys in Nov. 2016 elections which re-elected the board without opposition.
This disastrous survey, they worst I have seen in years, come out of the district has all the signs of input of our pro-charter entities Go Public schools, Educate78 and Ed Fund. Here is an analysis of the survey done by a parent:
“…regarding the Blueprint Quality survey:
Once again, we, the members of the OUSD community are asked for our “engagement” in a process, and once again, it is clear that the district is using the community to justify a predetermined outcome to close and consolidate schools. Interestingly, I noticed on social media that one of the first groups to share this survey was Ed78, a leading local reformer and proponent of charter schools.
In fourteen years involved in the district, I have not seen a more blatant attempt to use the community to justify this kind of disruption. Not since the common enrollment survey have I seen something more biased and more slanted, to be used to justify school closure. Here is my opinion of the survey and what it really means:
Questions Q-2 through Q-10
It’s hard to ignore the bias implicit in survey questions pertaining to community schools. These statements aren’t serious, valid survey questions. In this district, it would be tough to find a respondent who would vote against positive attributes such as healthy school environments, trusting relationships, academic support services, and addressing inequity. These questions are designed to steer the respondent into supporting Question 10-creating full service community schools using a minimum enrollment size. Once the respondent answers Question 10 (Gotcha!) , which they will likely support, that data will be captured and repeated in the media forever, thus creating the illusion that the community wants to close schools, because, well, they said so on Question 10, perhaps not even realizing it.
There is no information regarding how the district came up with the proposed minimum school sizes. Question 10 does not address any information regarding “peer analysis”, methodology, etc. How was this peer analysis done? With what data? By whom? An unbiased third party or a reform group?
Question 15
Part 1-Develop child-centered, experiential educational models e.g. Montessori, expeditionary learning, etc.
Experiential learning models are code for charter schools. ELEducation.org is a reform group that opens charter schools and is supported by the usual Gates and Bloomberg. The question does sound good on the survey, though, doesn’t it?
Part 7-Repurpose surplus property for teacher housing, leases to community-based organizations,and admin offices
Not too many respondents will say “no” to teacher housing, but I like how it was lumped together with leases and admin. So if the respondent answers “yes” to teachers, the respondent also answers “yes” to shutting down schools and allowing OUSD admin and charters to share the building. Sound familiar? They’ve already done that to Lakeview Elementary.
Part 9-Consolidate smaller middle school options to allow expansion of other high-demand options.
Sounds just like what they are trying to do to Westlake, a school that seems to be constantly on the edge of colocation by a charter
I appreciate that the Blueprint group is willing to put in time and effort to make some positive changes. However, I will not be filling this survey out. As a longtime parent and supporter of OUSD public schools, I am tired of being used like this as a means to justify unneccessary disruption in our schools in order to justify someone else’s vision of school quality….. “
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I couldn’t agree more. Wow. I wonder how much the district paid a consultant to develop and analyze the absolutely bullshit survey, and how many teachers that money could have paid to teach students instead. I hope Michael Bloomberg paid for that survey, and not our tax dollars.
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Fordham and Petrilli only care about accountability: https://edexcellence.net/articles/good-news-for-students-and-federalism-most-states-step-up-on-accountability-under-essa
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They have a machine where their hearts used to be. I know. I was there.
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Succinct and clear writing like this flips my envy switch: https://theconversation.com/gop-tax-plan-doubles-down-on-policies-that-are-crushing-the-middle-class-89047
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USNews has major pro-charter article: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-bank/articles/2017-12-21/5-facts-about-americas-segregated-charter-schools
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Huge victory in Boston! The school department has just sent out notifications that it will put a hold on disruptive changes to 105 bell schedules set to take effect in 2018-19 school year. Parents’ voices and attendance at some 10 meetings around the city this week turned the tide.
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Congratulations!
It proves that protest and resistance work!
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So, it seemed we won a round, but I got to thinking about how the reformster playbook is all about marketing and disruption. When it all suddenly clicked into place, I posted my illuminative experience to Twitter, including the inculpatory tweets the privatizers posted. Another parent has put it into a more readable format. Here is a link: https://keepingbpspublic.weebly.com/blog/how-marketing-undermines-our-boston-public-schools
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So much of this article will be familiar to the readers of this blog, but it’s well worth reading. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2017-02-13/how-america-lost-faith-expertise
“When I started working in Washington in the 1980s, I quickly learned that random people I met would instruct me in what the government should do about any number of things, particularly my own specialties of arms control and foreign policy. At first I was surprised, but I came to realize that this was understandable and even to some extent desirable. We live in a democracy, and many people have strong opinions about public life. Over time, I found that other policy specialists had similar experiences, with laypeople subjecting them to lengthy disquisitions on taxes, budgets, immigration, the environment, and many other subjects. If you work on public policy, such interactions go with the job, and at their best, they help keep you intellectually honest.
In later years, however, I started hearing the same stories from doctors and lawyers and teachers and many other professionals. These were stories not about patients or clients or students raising informed questions but about them telling the professionals why their professional advice was actually misguided or even wrong. The idea that the expert was giving considered, experienced advice worth taking seriously was simply dismissed.
…There is a great deal of truth in this. Unelected bureaucrats and policy specialists in many spheres exert tremendous influence on the daily lives of Americans. Today, however, this situation exists by default rather than design. And populism actually reinforces this elitism, because the celebration of ignorance cannot launch communications satellites, negotiate the rights of U.S. citizens overseas, or provide effective medications. Faced with a public that has no idea how most things work, experts disengage, choosing to speak mostly to one another. Like anti-vaccine parents, ignorant voters end up punishing society at large for their own mistakes.
Meanwhile, Americans have developed increasingly unrealistic expectations of what their political and economic systems can provide, and this sense of entitlement fuels continual disappointment and anger. When people are told that ending poverty or preventing terrorism or stimulating economic growth is a lot harder than it looks, they roll their eyes. Unable to comprehend all the complexity around them, they choose instead to comprehend almost none of it and then sullenly blame elites for seizing control of their lives.”
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I always read what you write, but do not alway have time to reply. It is a great privilege and a joy to have access to the thoughts of such a bright mind.
On the subject of our changing cultural norms… the November 11 issue of tThe NY Times Magazine had an essay about cultural shits,, and how that has affected conservatives — I loved this quote: “The great error of our nature,” Edmund Burke wrote in 1756, “is not to know where to stop” and ultimately “to lose all we have gained by an insatiable pursuit after more.”
I do not think Burke could have imagined the greed and corruption of the monied elites, or how ignorant people are today… and disrespectful, especially towards women who have knowledge.
But the article is interesting, although I cannot wrap my mind around the hypocrisy of those who call themselves ‘conservatives. My favorite book on the subject of how the conservative movement evolved int the present day collection of hypocrites. is Conservatives With our Conscience by John Dean. YES, that John Dean!
http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/conservatives-without-conscience-an-insider-views-the-gop-s-ominous-politics/
After the first chapter where he deals with the Nixon debacle, this brilliant writer describes how the GOP changed, and in the chapters I love best, he describes how these charlatans can maintain their hypocrisy, and believe the poop they promote as truth. Quoting from psychological studies, he nails these liars. and it was written over a decade ago! Prescient. Listened to the audio version on a road trip… absolutely mesmerizing to hear it in his voice
Here is the link to the NY times article:
When ‘Conservatives’ Turned Into Radicals – The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/magazine/when-conservatives-turned-into-radicals.html?_r=0
“For centuries, conservative politics has considered itself a means of preserving something — a culture, a way of being, an imagined notion of what once was and should be again. For Edmund Burke, the Irish statesman credited with some of conservative thought’s earliest underpinnings, to be a conservative was to avoid the human temptation to progress too far beyond our bounds.”
Burke actually wanted to preserve the cultural legacy of European monarchies!
Conservatives have tried to preserve religious values, class-based social systems, the concept of the “Western democratic order.” They gave the oldest political party in England its name. In America, freed from ties to monarchy or aristocracy, they tried to cast in amber the ideals they believed animated the nation’s founding. Conservatism has told us again and again that what came before us was most likely better than what will follow, and that old ideals are the basis of who we are as a people.
Happy New year Christine. Maybe we will meet some year.
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I have been reading this blog often and thought you might be interested in the book just released: A Charter School Principal Story: An Inside View. I have returned to Canada after working for over a decade in US charter schools in DC and Detroit. I was clearly a square peg in a round whole, but was passionate about bringing quality education to the forefront in a culture that seemed to be kept distant from best practice and educational research. I am currently working at OISE-U of Toronto teaching grad students in education.
Thought I’d see if folks might be interested in reading about and talking about this experience on your blog.
Here are the first three chapters: https://www.sensepublishers.com/media/3352-a-charter-school-principals-story.pdf
Barbara Smith, PhD
University of Toronto- Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
“If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.”
~ John Dewey
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Thank you Bar We are interested in passionate educators who know WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE, and how grass the concept of BEST PRACTICE.
YOU CAN FIND MY RESUME, http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.htm
and my various series on education http://www.opednews.com/author/series/author40790.htmll
as, well as my commentaries http://www.opednews.com/author/comments/author40790.html
at Oped News. You can message me there, if you wish to exchange emails.
THE QUICKLINKS ARE to important VOICES in AMERICA TODAY.
I write the intro, and my comments follow, but I choose the most important issues of our day… I post Diane’s work often. The publisher of Oped, Rob Kall, headlines all my links, becasue I am a ‘trusted writer, there. I am honored. He is a great man.
Her voice is crucial to informing our people about the WAR ON PUBLIC EDUCATION, not just the privatization movement’s accumulation of profit.
Shared knowledge is how a culture survives.
Click to access hirsch.pdf
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Before you take off for Southeast Asia, you might want to read Plut Ultra’s travel blog. He lives and works in Indonesia and he moved there from Hong Kong. He is a native of that region, and I recommend his travel blog. I’m sure he’s been to the country you plan to visit.
https://notesplusultra.com/
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Award winning Ohio history teacher commentary in Cleveland Plain Dealer today: http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2018/01/history_teachers_need_to_offer.html#incart_river_home
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Diane We live in a “fake democracy.” The below is from the Los Angeles Times; but first my comment:
The Press has finally gotten the Orwell Insight: “obfuscating scrim” and “semantic infiltration” are just other language for Orwellian “double-speak.” The Republican Congress is a new version of the same old manipulating advertising company depicted in the series “Mad Men.” And Paul Ryan is its CEO. “The public” really needs to wise up, or Social Security will be gone.
We had a clue about who’s in charge when the Gun Lobby got its way with Congress, despite huge poling numbers against them with gun control. And then with tax reform and internet control. We live in an oligarchy aka: a “fake democracy.”
BEGIN COPY
Don’t try to conceal a cut as ‘reform’ MICHAEL HILTZIK
Just before New Year’s, economist Jared Bernstein published the second in what may be an annual feature: A plea to the media to call out politicians who try to conceal their intention to gut Social Security and Medicare by talking about “reforms” instead of “cuts.”
Bernstein, who served as chief economist for former Vice President Joe Biden, originally raised the alarm about this sort of weaseling a year ago. I seconded the motion then, and do so again now.
One expects politicians to conceal their intentions behind an obfuscating scrim. The problem is that news organizations become complicit in their underhanded efforts to cut social program benefits by employing the benefit-cutters’ terminology.
Just after Christmas, for example, Politico achieved a multi-fecta in an article about disagreements between House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) over Medicaid and Medicare.
Reading from the top down, the article referred to “overhauling” the programs, to “reform,” “welfare and entitlement changes” and “policy modifications.” These are Republican terms for benefit cuts. There’s no excuse for journalists repeating them without defining them. But one has to drill pretty deeply into the Politico piece to find the first mention of benefit “cuts” (to paragraph 12, actually).
Other weasel words often found creeping into what purport to be objective reports about social programs are “reshape,” “revamp,” “modernize” and especially “fix.” As we’ve observed in the past, Republican plans for Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps and other such programs are “fixes” in the same sense that one “fixes” a cat or the Mafia “fixes” an informer.
I’ve mentioned (in another context) the warning delivered in a 1965 speech by the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) about what he called “semantic infiltration” in policy debates: “If the other fellow can get you to use his words, he wins.”
To Bernstein’s list of words to watch out for, we’d add a few suspect debating points that tend to creep into discussions of social programs:
“Entitlements”: Republicans and conservative enemies of Social Security and Medicare seem to have succeeded in turning this term into a dirty word. They use it to imply that recipients of these programs’ benefits don’t get them because they need them, but just because — perhaps in the sense that the wealthy don’t need another tax cut, but believe they’re “entitled” to it (though the GOP probably wouldn’t use that example). The truth is that these programs are indeed “entitlements” in the truest sense — their enrollees have paid for them over their working lives, through the payroll tax, and in the case of Medicare through annual premiums, and therefore are entitled to the benefits they’ve purchased.
Social Security and Medicare are not the same thing: Conservatives often will lump these two programs together as “drivers of the deficit,” as though they play equivalent roles in federal budgeting. Sometimes they’ll be lumped in with other social programs. One will see language such as this, from a CNBC.com article a few weeks ago: “Programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program comprise the bulk of the government’s expenditures every year.”
That’s a bit like saying that Clayton Kershaw and I notched a total of 18 wins last year. The truth is that most of the growth in these programs is concentrated in healthcare, not Social Security. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Social Security’s share of gross domestic product will rise by about 1.5 percentage points over the next three decades, to 6.4%. The share going to Medicare, Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program (if Congress ever gets around to reauthorizing CHIP) will rise by 3.3 percentage points, to 8.8%.
Leaving aside the question of why these outlays shouldn’t be well within the resources of the richest nation in the world, it’s obvious that two distinct trends are at work. Social Security’s finances can be adjusted within the four walls of its benefits and its revenues, which come from the payroll tax, interest on its reserves, and income tax on benefits. The former can be cut and the latter raised.
The healthcare programs are sensitive to a key externality — the cost of healthcare. You can’t reduce the cost of Medicare or Medicaid in any significant way unless you reduce the cost of those services — unless you simply eliminate those services. That makes the policy choices for those programs very different from those for Social Security. The lesson is: Beware of politicians who say “Social Security and Medicare are too expensive, so we have to cut Social Security.”
What’s driving the deficit? The sophistry of the claim that Social Security and Medicare are “the biggest drivers of the national debt,” as was implied in the Politico piece, is underscored by recent events. The article quoted Ryan as stating on CBS a few days before Christmas, “We have to address entitlements, otherwise we can’t really get a handle on our future debt.” That’s a remark that deserves horselaughs, given that the tax cuts Ryan and his GOP colleagues just handed out to corporations and their wealthy donors will create a deficit of $1.4 trillion or more in the next 10 years.
Jared Bernstein acknowledged in his most recent piece that “the policy media has seriously picked up its game in the age of Trump. Both on health care and taxes, more often than not, journalists cut through the phony language and clearly identified who was expected to win and lose from the proposals.”
That’s a positive sign. But “semantic infiltration” is a powerful force. Here’s betting that one year from now, Bernstein and I will have to issue a third annual plea for journalists to beware of politicians’ weaseling.
Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com. END COPY
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Even reform-minded Real Clear Education is questioning the 2016-17 Smarter Balance test results: https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2018/01/04/is_the_smarter_balanced_national_test_broken_110243.html
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Michael Petrilli opines from his ivory tower on “The Five Big Ed Reform Stories of 2018”: https://edexcellence.net/articles/the-five-big-ed-reform-stories-of-2018?utm_source=National+Education+Gadfly+Weekly&utm_campaign=7e154413f1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ef00e8f50e-7e154413f1-71590741&mc_cid=7e154413f1&mc_eid
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The 74 explains why No Child Left Behind got an unfairly bad rap: https://www.the74million.org/article/williams-nclb-sounded-tougher-on-accountability-than-it-actually-was-and-yet-it-was-still-demonized/
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NCLB was based on the non-existent Texas miracle.
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NMSI and AP for All, too.
Actually, all of it is Texas’ fault!
So glad Pastors for Kids is working to fix that. 😉
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Diane,
FYI: Great informative article in the Nation today, “Charter Schools Are Reshaping America’s Education System for the Worse”
https://www.thenation.com/article/charter-schools-are-reshaping-americas-education-system-for-the-worse/
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Diane,
I just read your excellent article on EdSurge about the increasing misuse of technology in schools. I am very concerned by these problems, and I am currently working to try to provide a quality free alternative to expensive products that are over-automating math classes. It also has an architecture that leaves control of student data with districts, it just saves assignments and grades as files that interact with standard LMSes, my site collects nothing from students.
http://freemathapp.org
The software allows for students to record step-by-step math homework, and for teachers to review work of an entire class with work grouped by similar final answer on each problem.
If you would consider taking a look at the demo video on the homepage and sharing it, I would greatly appreciate it. I am currently looking for classes to pilot it.
The tool is completely free for teachers and students. I am just a software developer that wants to provide quality tools for teachers and students.
Thank you for your time,
Jason Altekruse
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On behalf of the Washington BATs, I wondered if you would be able to share information about the Justice for Children Rally we are hosting on 15 Jan in Olympia, WA. I can send you a .jpg of our flyer and the link to the Facebook event is https://www.facebook.com/events/283711025488703/?active_tab=about
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I can be reached at shannon.ergun@hotmail.com. I serve as WEA Caucus BATs Treasurer and as the NEA Caucus BATs Treasurer.
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Check this out…from Florida! Someone actually gets it! Jeb will be furious!
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/school-zone/os-teachers-merit-pay-florida-20180104-story.html
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Words fail me: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trumps-epa-could-expose-child-workers-to-dangerous-pesticides_us_5a565e90e4b0a300f9054405?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
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